by Selina Marie
Surely, he has a maid in this monster mansion. I go to speak out and make myself known but as I walk toward the room something catches my eye across the foyer straight ahead. It looks as though it’s his office, the door is open slightly, so I mean technically it’s not like I’m snooping or anything, and he did bring me here to find my sister’s necklace so…
Right, Emilia, whatever helps you sleep at night.
The dark rich mahogany of the furniture drenches the room in masculine energy. It’s overwhelming, powerful, alpha-y, and I’m not gonna lie, if a room is going to turn you, on it’s this one.
Tall bookshelves filled with books from floor to ceiling cover the walls on the right side of the office. A man who reads is a sexy man—fact. Although, you wouldn’t think he reads by looking at him. I wouldn’t say I’m judging him, it’s just an observation.
The desk is minimal with a large Apple computer, a coaster and a paperweight. The walls are bare, no photos of him, family, or a girlfriend—nothing at all.
If you wanted a peek into this man’s personality the books would be the only indication or hint into his soul. I gravitate toward the novels that plaster the wall, interest and curiosity clawing their way up and wanting to know something about him. Anything at this point will ease some of the mystery that surrounds him.
Before I can take in the bindings of the books, the door slams shut with a loud bang. I spin around startled and fucking caught.
Blue slits glare at me as my pulse speeds up. He clutches one crystal glass filled with an amber liquid in his hand, which immediately causes saliva to flood my mouth. His grip is so tight that I’m surprised the crystal hasn’t shattered in his hands under the pressure. He steps toward me slowly, and suddenly I feel very much like the prey being hunted by the predator. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end in warning. The adrenaline that flows through my veins is not that of fear though, it’s the thrill of the danger; it’s exciting and addictive. I like it. I crave it.
He tilts his head to the side, waiting for me to explain myself. His glare still on me, he takes another step toward me and I take a small step back, feeling the bookshelf against the back of my thighs and ass. My heart rate picks up again realizing I have nowhere to go, nowhere to move. After everything I have been through at home and the past couple days especially, I should feel intimidated, maybe even scared because let’s face it, even though he showed an act of humanity, he is dark and dangerous. I don’t need to know him to know that much. My instincts are strong, and I know I’m in trouble. Good.
What can I even say?... "Oh sorry, yeah I was just attracted to your literary interests".
Still doesn’t explain what I’m doing in his office regardless of the shitty excuses I am making up in my head to cover my ass.
As each second passes he takes another slow, deliberate step toward me, his mouth turned up very slightly at the corner.
Why am I not saying anything? Why do neither of us ever say anything? It’s as though our energy, the tension and the silence—apart from my breathing which is getting closer to panting by the second—is so thick. It’s so much stronger than words. Like we somehow communicate through feeling; our bodies and souls talk.
I can’t think straight. I feel like I’m melting under his ice-cold glare—oh the irony—as he moves closer to me, his feet almost touching my shoes. I audibly swallow, my eyes tethered to his. He is still waiting for an explanation for why I took myself on a tour without permission.
Clearing my throat, I try to think of something to say but my brain has deserted me. My mind and my body are both failing me on so many levels right now.
“I… I saw the books and the door was open so I—" He cuts me off. Weak, Emilia, weak.
“You thought you’d come into my office uninvited?” The venom laced on every word sends shivers all over my body. His eyes rake down my body all the way to my toes and back up to glare into my own. He takes a breath, his smirk deepening as he inhales. I don’t say a word.
“I can be very hospitable, Emilia. All you have to do is ask.” He takes a large mouthful of the amber liquid, whiskey, I’m guessing from the smell. Licking his lips as he watches mine, he moves his free hand closer toward me until his fingers are lingering under my breasts, his thumb brushing just underneath the wire of my bra.
He offers his glass to me, the one he just drank from. I know I shouldn’t take it, but I need the liquid courage right now. I take the glass, desperately wanting this tension to dissipate so I can think clearly, and at the same time willing it to quench the thirst I can feel in another part of my body.
Why do I react to this man like this? I can’t function with a foggy mind where my principles and all sense go out of the fucking window.
My brain short circuits when he dips his fingers into the glass, lifting a cube of ice to his lips, his tongue slipping out of his mouth to lick the corner of the melting cube. His pupils are dark and daring as he watches my lips part, being teased into submission. His eyes shift up to mine locking his ever-darkening crystal gaze onto my own as he slips the ice past his lips and into his mouth. He crunches the cube between his teeth, his jaw snapping down violently, startling me out of the haze I’m in.
I feel like I have been drugged, I feel high. My whole body buzzes with electricity and anticipation, and all I want to do is bring my lips to his and taste the heat on his tongue and the ice that merges with it. My body is on fire; I’m throbbing and so wet.
Just as I am toying with the idea of saying fuck it and slamming my lips onto his, he douses my flames with a healthy dose of his own ice when he throws his head back and laughs a humorless single laugh. Turning his back on me and nodding his head toward the door, he snarls, “Get the fuck out.”
My feet move so fast out of the door, I almost trip. I feel humiliated and like such a fucking idiot. I was practically salivating all over him, ready to do just about anything, and for me that’s a massive deal, astronomical since I still wear my chastity belt loud and proud. Well, maybe not loud, but I have no problem with being a virgin at twenty years old; it’s entirely my choice and I’m cool with that.
I’ve lost a lot of myself at the hands of other people which has been out of my control, but this is mine, to keep or to give away whenever I choose to.
Not sure where to go or if I should just leave and walk home, which I really don’t want to do, I just hover outside the door wracking my brain for something to say. A few minutes later he opens the door, the type of heat in his gaze isn’t one I want to challenge. He looks angry, scary angry.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? But you don’t understand that locket is important to me and—” He cuts me off again stepping closer so that we stand only a few feet apart, his eyes and mouth tense.
“And you thought I stole it from your neck the night that I fucking saved your life?” He is seething, so mad that his body nearly shakes and I kind of get it, but he just doesn’t understand. No one does. I step closer to him; I’m pissed now too.
“You know what I think? I think it’s fucking rich you want me to explain myself when you haven’t even told me your fucking name. You’ve given me nothing so what the fuck am I supposed to do!? You aren’t going to give me answers so I tried to find some myself.” I spit back, my anger returning full force. Who the fuck does he think he is?
He moves into my space, crouching down his nose almost touching mine as he grabs me around the throat, roughly pinning me to the wall.
“Did you have any luck, princess? What did you find? Apart from the fact your pussy is dripping wet desperate for the tip of my tongue to come and lick you up.”
My jaw drops open in shock. I am furious. I don’t think I have ever been this raging mad at another human being or been so incredibly turned on in my life. Those words. Fuck.
Anger stirs around in my belly with something else—I don’t know what—like some kind of lethal cocktail. I want to punch him in his arrogant face for speaking to me like that but… I wan
t more of him speaking to me like that. I want his tongue on me like that because despite me wanting to dick kick him right now, when he had the tip of his tongue flicking around the ice cube, all I was thinking about was the tip of his tongue flicking all over me.
The fire burning through my entire body turns to something else that resembles fear, as his grip around my throat gets a little tighter. I am beginning to realize that there is definitely more to this man than meets the eye. I feel my body reacting to him when he is around. But could that feeling of butterflies be a heady mixture of attraction and desire or is it my instincts telling me to run from the man who saved and protected me? And kidnapped me. Shit.
I realize in this moment that I am so screwed. Not only because my feet are rooted firmly in place flat against the marble, but also because I don’t want to run. I’ve never felt like this before, not an ounce of dread but only danger, the thrilling and exciting kind—the risk of being so close to what might be even more dangerous than anyone I’ve ever encountered, my stepfather included.
“You keep that mouth open for much longer and I can find something to fill it up, sweetheart. I don’t like people touching my shit so have some fucking respect when you are in my home. And do not even think about lying to me because I can see right through those pretty little eyes,” he seethes.
I feel his hot breath skimming across my lips and his voice lowers to a dangerous tone.
“You don’t want to see my bad side so don’t fucking push me. You go where I tell you and that’s. Fucking. It. Understood?” he warns.
Loosening his grip on my neck, his fingers skate down the side of my neck and over my collarbone, sparking up an inferno at the same time as my body shivers, goosebumps covering every bit of skin. The heat radiating off of him and onto to me is so agonisingly blissful I don’t want to move. I glance down, my eyes pausing on the way, there is a massive bulge in his trousers, and I have never been possessed with such a powerful desire to reach out and touch him. I don’t even want to begin questioning which of my countless issues this stems from. The man pretty much just threatened me, and I want to reach out and grab his dick. Fifty shades of fucked up right here.
When I meet his gaze again, his eyes still blue slits staring daggers straight through me waiting for me to obey him and tell him yes, I understand and bend to his will. The desire to challenge him fuels my next move. He thinks he can control me. No one controls me. Adrenaline still courses through my veins, making me brave, and arguably stupid, but I’ll take the former. I am painfully aware that my judgement has not only been clouded but buried six feet under. The reason I am here—to get my sister’s locket back—is not even crossing my mind right now. I can feel bad about it later and I know I will. I am entirely occupied by this man standing in front of me, who I still can’t decide is someone I should be running to or running from.
CHAPTER NINE
Lukas
Everything I already know I feel toward her is clarified the second I find her sneaky ass snooping around in my office. I hate her. Can’t wait two fucking minutes before taking herself on a house tour without my say so. I’d like to think she was taught basic manners, but it seems that isn’t the case. Of course, she had to go into my office, one of the only two rooms that are off limits to everyone but me—the other being my bedroom. Those rooms hold a lot of the secrets I keep, and I’ll be damned if Emilia fucking Blake is the girl to find them and expose me.
I watch her closely as I pin her up against the wall, my body pressed to all the curves of hers, the heat from her skin and the heat from mine mixing in a very dangerous dance. I want to choke her right there, my fingers firm around her throat, and then throw her out but it is too late. Plans have already been set in motion and now it is too fucking late.
She thinks she has a home to go back to, to escape me. She doesn’t. I burnt that shithole to the ground—well, technically Nate did—as soon as I knew what I wanted to do with my little pawn. Now I am hoping it doesn’t bite me in the ass. She is mine now, and the poor girl has no idea of the magnitude of that fact alone.
Her pulse beats out of control, matching mine; I feel it under her delicate pale skin underneath my fingers as they move lower skimming just under the neckline of her shirt. I could have some serious fun with this one. I’m hard as fuck but move back only an inch, still waiting for her to obey me, say yes. Her eyes bleed defiance, and she wears the mask well but when they roam down my body and pause on my dick, they darken with blatant desire and I swear I see her cheeks blush. Cute. There is a broken little girl under her tough girl façade and it’s going to be victorious when I rip her to pieces for what she did. She knows—she has to. And she will pay the price along with her sister, Alexis. Even if I have to drag her back from hell.
There is a minor problem with my plan though, and that is to keep her here, she is going to have to want to be here. I’m sure she has friends she could run to, but she strikes me as the stubborn type so I doubt she would take that option. There is also the fact that she doesn’t know the pile of bricks she called home is now a pile of ash, hopefully along with Robert Redman’s charred remains.
The hardest part is going to be feigning how much I despise the woman and acting like a semi-decent person toward her, she who doesn’t deserve an ounce of careful treatment. But I have no choice, I am not a man who likes his control taken from him. It provokes the anger which bubbles under the surface of my skin. Maybe the compromise will be worth the battle won in the end. I can and will do it for him.
My hands leave her body to rearrange my dick which is impersonating an iron rod under my jeans. My traitorous eyes take in every bump, curve and dip on her body, and I can’t deny how deliciously edible she looks. Her eyes—those fucking blue eyes with little flecks of green and turquoise—dance with mischief and arousal as she watches my hand, still on my dick. The way her fingers are fluttering at her side like she wants to reach out and touch me, makes my breathing heavy and my balls ache. Touch me, I dare you.
Maybe I don’t have to tone down the darker parts of me with this one. Everything in my bones is pointing in the direction that she likes the darkness.
I’m still furious, waiting for her words and desperate to pound her through the wall with my cock, when she swallows and finally speaks.
“What’s your name?” Emilia leans in closer to me just a fraction, my steel capped boots touching her military ones, and her eyes locking onto mine. The pearly blue flecks darker now and I know she’s already wet between her legs. Her question throws me off a little and it’s clear she doesn’t know who I am. Most people know who I am and adrenaline pools in my stomach at the idea that she isn’t one of those people. It means I can have so much more fun with her. If she doesn’t know who I am now, I doubt she’ll connect the dots if I give her a little truth. I’m overthinking this, it is just a name; however it’s one thing she might be able to use, to piece the puzzle together and I don’t want her figuring out who I am and who I’m connected to. Licking my lips, I notice how close our mouths are, only a breath away when I tell Emilia a truth.
“My name is Lukas, Emilia.” I notice her mouth tilt into a small smile, and it’s gone a second later, but I caught it. I can see where this is going when she opens her mouth again and I know the questions are coming. She isn’t going to get any more truth from me today.
Her mouth parts, about to speak when I lift my hand to her lips, holding her bottom lip between my finger and thumb. Her tongue darts out, the wet tip strokes my finger and her eyes flare when she realizes what she did. My pulse speeds up and any luck I had deflating my boner is long gone. My body blazes and I swear if my zipper wasn’t cock blocking me, then she’d be in trouble. Her expression is full of lust, but her eyes are wide, timid and innocent and it takes me off guard. I’m fully aware of the how the vulnerability in her eyes contradicts her "take-no-shit" façade, and I can feel it slowly start to chip at my own façade, but I can’t allow that.
She should be fuck
ing running right now, after what she has been through and especially the way I am with her; most girls would have fled without a second thought. But she is not like most girls, it seems. If only she knew that by not running from me, she is offering herself up as a completely oblivious but willing sacrifice.
Emilia’s full bottom lip is still captured between my fingers, my gaze unable to move anywhere else. It’s like nothing else exists outside of this moment, this little toxic bubble of ours. That isn’t good for either of us. I need to stop before I take her upstairs and fuck her senseless.
I take a step back like a good boy and make a silent pact between my dick and my head that under no circumstances will I sleep with her. She’s already messing with both of my heads and I cannot afford to take that risk. The space between us still pulsates with electricity and I’m already itching to wrap my hands around the delicate skin on her neck. Even her scent is affecting me. She smells like jasmine and fucking heaven, so I inhaled deeply, sucking it up and committing it to memory before I created the much-needed distance between us. I can breathe a little easier now that her intoxicating fragrance isn’t invading my senses.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” I ask referring to the locket, my voice low and a little too croaky for my liking.
I shove my hands into my pockets at the same time her back pocket buzzes repeatedly, and I tip my head down to the floor so she can’t see my grin because I know exactly what it is about.
“You should probably answer that… I heard there was a fire.” Fortunately my voice sounds indifferent instead of humored which is exactly how I feel. I honestly couldn’t care less when her eyes widen as she looks down at her phone.
“Oh shit. That’s uh… I don’t—” Her eyebrows are drawn into a deep frown as she speaks, flustered.
