He pushed my thighs further apart and hitched me higher against the wall, and he wasn’t even slightly concerned. Not even a little scared of my mother. That would make him the only person at this masquerade ball who wasn’t afraid of her. Maybe the only person in the world. Even in that moment, even knowing exactly what I was capable of in this place with security all around us, he didn’t flinch. Didn’t shy away. Didn’t give a shit for what she could do.
Lucian Morelli wasn’t scared of anything. The man was the devil, reigning over hell.
“I walked right through the front door,” he told me, and I didn’t doubt it.
I pasted on my bravado. “If I tell one single person you’re in here, you’ll never make it out alive. You know that, right? You’re a fool if you don’t realize the danger you’re in.”
He answered in a beat. “I’m not the one in danger, sweetheart. You are.”
He was probably right about that. He was the wolf in a pasture of sheep. That’s me, a sheep. I should have been petrified. A sheep in the jaws of Lucian Morelli—oldest son of Bryant Morelli, poised to take over Morelli Holdings one day.
I was torn between screaming for help or accepting the inevitability of this. Because maybe, just maybe, I could finally know what it was like having a real man fight for me.
I spread my legs even wider for the devil between them, and I kissed him. I kissed him, and I hoped he’d make it hurt. I hoped he’d make my first time something that would mark me.
The monster pinned my wrists above my head.
Yes. Do it.
I gave him a half smile. “Do you think you’re such a badass, Morelli?”
He twisted his fingers even deeper. His smile was evil enough to burn the sun. “More of a badass than you,” he said. “I never imagined Elaine Constantine would be a virgin.”
My belly lurched.
How did he know that? How the fuckcouldhe know that? Was it really so obvious that I was a naive little girl who’d never been with a man before? Maybe it was. One thing was for sure—if he hadn’t known before, the flush of my cheeks would have told him he was right.
I was a virgin.
A virgin aching to be touched. To be used. To be fucked hard enough to hurt. The one thing that would save me from hurting myself was finding someone else to do it for me.
“Do it,” I said. “Show me what a cruel man you are and fuck me, Morelli.”
He would have done it. I know he would. I could see the raw lust in his eyes, fixed on mine as he tugged my panties down my thighs. I’d have lost my virginity against a bathroom wall with my dress hitched up around my waist, and I’d have wanted it.
He didn’t get the chance.
We were both jolted to our senses by the thump of the bathroom door, and there were footsteps. Heavy footsteps. Getting closer.
“Elaine? Are you in here? Your mother’s looking for you.”
Lucian was silent, and so was I. Faces just an inch apart, breaths ragged.
“Elaine? You in here? Seriously, what the fuck are you thinking? Your mom is going to lose her shit. At least take your damn clutch with you when you hide in the bathroom.”
Oh no.
No.
It was Silas Roosevelt. My cousin, and one of the few I considered almost a friend.
My cousin burst straight into the water closet without a second’s pause, catching me right in the grip of our family’s nemesis. Even being pinned by the guy wouldn’t have hidden the fact that I was aroused for him. It was obvious. Shame piled on top of the rest of my frazzled emotions as Silas lurched backwards, mouth open wide.
Lucian dropped me back to my feet and stared at him, still not even flustered.
“You’ll be dead,” Silas snarled. “You’ll be fucking dead, Morelli. You’ll wish you never laid a finger on her when Caroline gets ahold of you.”
Lucian fixed his mask into place. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. No one wants word getting out that mommy’s little princess was defiled in a bathroom.”