The backdrop of the chilly hallway glittered behind him, blue and silver, like midnight. The lines of his body were a work of art in the pale light from the windows. He took a single step, the sound reverberating through the empty mansion.
“I want you to run.” Those icy eyes were as distant as ever, but now there was a glitter behind them. A fevered hunger that roused a shiver down my spine.
“You want me to run?” I repeated.
“Run, run until I catch you. Run to my study upstairs.”
He’d allowed me only glimpses of this side of him, but nothing could have prepared me for the primal desire in his burning gaze.
“What happens when you catch me?” My mouth was dry.
He stepped close and his scent washed over me as he lifted my chin with the side of his finger. “You know what happens when I catch you,” he whispered.
“Why do you want to chase me?” I breathed.
“Because I want to see those little feet try to get away from me before I pin you down and fuck you until you’re crying for me to stop.”
I gasped, a shiver going through my body, setting every nerve ablaze. My pussy throbbed and I squeezed my thighs together, slickness coating my folds. If it hadn’t been for the thick fabric over my sex, I was sure I would have felt it slip down my thighs.
“So I’m going to give you a head start,” he said, stepping aside to clear a path down the hallway. “You know where the study is. If you get there first, what we do is up to you. If I catch you, you’re mine for the night. Understood?”
I nodded, my mouth dry. “What if you hurt me?”
A flash of darkness crossed his face. “I won’t, but if you need me to back off, just say red and I’ll stop.”
I gazed up at him, his icy gaze boring down into me. Then I reached down and slipped off my heels, placing my feet on the cold ground. Lucien watched my every move, his body tensed beneath his dark vest and white shirtsleeves. I ducked my head and bolted, running past him toward the stairwell at the end of the hall.
I heard his footfalls as I reached the top of the stairs. He was gaining on me rapidly. When I reached the top, I whirled and saw him below me, his long legs eating up the distance between us. My heart fluttered against my ribs and I turned back, surveying the hallways on either side. His study was in the middle, accessible from both sides, but I wasn’t sure which hall brought me there sooner.
Lucien was seconds from me when I darted from his grasp, choosing the hall on the left that led away from our room. I was sure I felt his hand graze my skirt as I fled from him, but there was no time to turn and look.
I turned the corner, the hall stretching long and dark before me. Behind me, Lucien’s wingtips clipped against the carpet, drawing closer. So close. What would he do? What was there left to do that we hadn’t already done? I was vaguely aware of the pulsing between my thighs and the desperate desire that coated my pussy. Whatever it was, no matter how much this terrified me, I wanted him to catch me just as much as I wanted to get away. Perhaps more.
There were two doors at the end of the hall and I paused for a half second. Which one? If I entered the wrong room, he could block me in, but if I entered the right room, I won.
A hand closed on the back of my neck and I was spun around and pressed against the wall. A hot mouth slid up my throat and a hard hand squeezed my breast until a shot of pain went through me. My hips bucked involuntarily, pressing up against the thick length of him. He bit down on the base of my neck and ground himself into me so hard I felt his cock twitch.
“You lose,” he breathed.
“Lucien, please,” I begged.
He picked me up and threw me unceremoniously over his shoulder. All the air went out of my lungs as his big hand wrapped around my upper thigh to keep me still. Then we were moving and a door shut behind us and he lifted me down, laying me on my back on his desk.
He bent over me, shoving his thigh between my knees, and pressed his palms to the desk on either side of my head. His eyes were glittering ice and his mouth was a hard line. His throat was flushed, glinting with perspiration, his collar was wet where it met his skin.
“What are you going to do to me?” I whispered.
He slipped his fingers around my neck, his thumb grazing my throat. His touch was tender, as it always was when we were intimate, and for the first time, I saw it reflected in his gaze. Yes, it was just a flicker, a single flame in a wasteland, but it melted me. Whatever he wanted, whatever he intended to do with me, I was his to use as he pleased.
“I want to fuck your ass,” he said softly.
A ripple of shock went through me. “My…what?”
“I’ve had you every other way, now I want you like that,” he said, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
My body quivered and he ran his fingertip lightly down between my breasts, to my waist, and then flipped me onto my stomach. A gasp burst from me, my legs going weak at the mere thought that he wanted such a thing and that if I didn’t use my safeword, he would do it.
And suddenly, I didn’t want to stop him.