Heartless: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance

by Jade West

  He didn’t taste like Lucian Morelli either. He tasted of cheap beer and cigarettes.

  I pushed him away again, third time lucky.

  “Let me go, and get back to the fucking party,” I said, but he sneered at me.

  “I’m not going fucking anywhere except inside that pussy of yours,” he whispered, and I knew it then. I knew it in that moment. I saw it in his eyes.

  Stephen from London wasn’t a nice man.

  Stephen from London was taking my virginity at any price.

  I didn’t want it. I didn’t want Stephen from London to take my virginity. Not even if I should’ve. Not even if I should’ve liked to be claimed, just like I’d been dreaming about ever since I knew what dreams like that really were.

  “No,” I said, but his mouth was back on my neck.

  My hands were weak against him. My stilettos were unsteady.

  “No,” I said again, but he didn’t listen.

  “I mean it,” I said. “Get back to that fucking party and get some other girl.”

  His eyes were darker than ever when they met mine, his breaths were fast, and his dick was hard.

  “I’m Elaine Constantine,” I told him. “Rebecca damn Marsh is a lie.”

  “I don’t give a fuck who you are,” he sneered. “Tonight, your damn pussy is mine.”

  He didn’t know who I was. Holy shit, he didn’t know who I was.

  He didn’t know he was signing his death sentence if anyone in my world found out about this, and my threats wouldn’t make any difference to him. Stephen from London was going to take me.

  “Let me go,” I told him. “Seriously, Stephen, you’re going to be so fucked if you don’t let me go.”

  But that’s one thing about the girl who always lies . . . nobody ever believes her when she tells the truth.

  Another sneer. I’d pushed him too far. I’d pushed him hard enough that he was losing his shit rough enough to hurt me. He slammed me harder into the wall, and this time it hurt. It hurt enough that I should’ve liked it.

  “Shut the fuck up,” he snarled at me. “Believe me, baby, you’ve cost me enough time already. You’d better buckle up. I’ll be claiming the whole damn lot of it back.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want it. I don’t want you.”

  He didn’t listen. He didn’t want to listen.

  “It’s gonna be a long, dirty, slow fucking ride, baby girl,” he said. “Just as well the drummer ain’t back until morning.”

  19

  Lucian

  I was pacing like a madman when the cab finally showed up on the street outside Spirit Club. I was a charging bull when I leapt forward in my seat and told the driver who I was.

  “You get me to that fucking venue,” I snapped at him, and he was already nodding, crapping himself in the driver’s seat.

  Every second felt like a year on that journey. The tracker was in some house down on the west side. Another hovel on top of a hovel.

  The tracker didn’t move a meter the whole journey.

  “Come on,” I snarled at the driver. “Faster.”

  He couldn’t go any faster. There were drunken assholes in the street singing bullshit songs and swaying across the road when we tried to pass them. So, I did it. I used the Morelli title to get me what I wanted, regardless of the cost. I ordered the cab driver to run the assholes down, but he was a statue in his damn seat until I barked at him.

  “Run the drunken cunts down! Now! Or I’ll get you the fuck run down next time you step out in this place!”

  He listened. Good call, asshole. The cab screeched forward, and the morons bailed out of the way. Just the one of them was slow enough to smash off the front bumper and collapse to the floor. I didn’t even glance behind to see if he was moving.

  “Faster!” I snapped again, and the driver was nodding, screeching that cab around the street corners.

  He pulled up outside the house so fast that the brakes slammed on and sent me lurching forward. I didn’t care. I was already scrambling out of there. The cab pulled away from me at full acceleration without waiting for the fare, and I didn’t care about that either. It was a house party, and I was straight up to the front door of the shithole, elbowing my way past fools and storming my way towards my Elaine.

  Because that’s what she was.

  She was my Elaine. My Elaine Constantine.

  I barged my way through the final few partiers, plowing into a mess of a kitchen space, but she wasn’t there. There was a green-haired slut standing where the tracker was pointing me, and one shove of her aside told me all I needed to know.

  Elaine’s clutch bag was on the sideboard amongst the beer bottles.

  My blood froze in my veins.

  I grabbed it and looked inside. Everything was still in there – cell, keys, and cash. Her stash of coke was in the lining, untouched.

  No. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t be fucking gone.

  But she was.

  My Elaine was gone.

  I gripped that clutch tight and charged around that place like a maniac, looking in every single damn space and shadow on the ground floor. I grabbed people and barked out the questions, where is she? Where the fuck is she? until the whole place was on edge, looking at me. I didn’t fucking care. All I cared about was that pretty little bitch.

  I climbed the stairs, leaping over people fondling each other on the landing, shoving some of them aside. If she was up there . . . if she was up there and taking his dick . . . my blood boiled at the thought.

  The first bedroom I burst into had girls giggling on the bed with a wine bottle being slugged between them. The second had couples littered all over it, grunting and fucking. The third bedroom was in darkness, and I pawed for the light. No sign of my pretty bitch, but her pussy boy bestie was in there with his mouth around his loverboy’s dick.

  He recognized me.

  Pussy boy recognized me.

  The Blue Hawk freak rocker let out a groan of a fuck you, fuck off out of here, but I was already on him, shoving him down onto the floor.

  I was on pussy boy in a heartbeat, my face right up to his as I held her clutch up high.

  “Where the fuck is she?”

  He knew who I was talking about. He swallowed hard but he shook his head. “Stay away from her.”

  Turns out pussy boy had bigger balls than I thought.

  “I asked you once, where the fuck is she?” I hissed. “You know what’s coming to you if you don’t open your fucking mouth.”

  He did know. I could see it in his eyes. Still, that didn’t matter. He was a brave little pussy boy after all.

  It was the Blue prick who came for me, reaching out to wrestle me with weedy arms.

  “Stop!” pussy boy yelled to him before he could grab me. “That’s Lucian Morelli; don’t go near him!”

  Blue prick knew who I was well enough to stop in his tracks and back away.

  “Fuck,” he whispered. “Holy fucking fuck . . .”

  “I’m not asking you again,” I told pussy boy. “Where is Elaine Constantine?”

  It was the Blue prick who answered. He answered in no time at all.

  “That little blondie is Elaine Constantine? Whoa, shit. She’s downstairs with Stephen Cannon,” he said, and I turned to him, seething.

  “If she was downstairs, I’d have found her already, idiot. Where the fuck has she gone?”

  “Don’t tell him!” pussy boy yelled, but the Blue prick was staring at him with saucer eyes.

  “That’s Lucian Morelli, of course I’m fucking telling him!” The guy shot his stare back to me, and he was shitting himself. He tossed me some keys from his jeans pocket. “She’s on fifth Avenue, top floor of block twelve.”

  “No!” pussy boy cried, but I elbowed him straight in the face, knocking him out cold.

  Blue prick went to scream, but he was next in line. Another elbow right to the jaw saw him in a heap on the floor, unconscious.

  They were lucky I didn’t break th
eir necks before I left, but I didn’t have the time.

  The bass was still booming and people were still drinking when I charged back down into the kitchen. I tore my way through the drawers until I found what I needed. One hell of a knife slipped straight into my jacket, and then I pushed and shoved my way out of that hovel onto the sidewalk.

  I didn’t have time to order a cab.

  I didn’t have time to risk the cops showing up – even my Lucian Morelli get-out-of-shit-free card would take some time under this much commotion. Time I didn’t have.

  I checked out my cell and looked up Fifth Avenue. A few blocks over. I could make it at a sprint, but it would take minutes at best. I just hoped Elaine Constantine’s pussy had minutes left to spare with a prick like that trying to get his hands on it. Even at a push it would be unlikely. Not if she was spreading her legs for him. And why wouldn’t she be? Why wouldn’t she be spreading her legs for the prick?

  My stomach did a monster of a twist at the thought, and again I didn’t get it. I didn’t fucking get it. Why the fuck would I give a shit about Elaine Constantine spreading her legs for anyone?

  Again, the truth was there waiting. As always, the truth was there waiting.

  I was desperate for the girl. Truly fucking desperate for her.

  She sure as fuck didn’t belong to that loser, and if he’d taken her . . . if he’d taken what was mine . . .

  The knife in my jacket was already crying out for his blood. Just a shame it wasn’t crying out for hers, too. Not anymore. Not until I’d taken every scrap of her soul and made it mine.

  I set off at full speed, her clutch still clasped tight with me. I turned the corner at the bottom of the street, crashing into a couple walking up the other way, clearly ready to hit the party.

  “Have you seen a girl with blonde hair? Beautiful thing, hanging off some brute in rock gear?”

  They shook their heads, and the guy answered. “Nah, sorry, man. Ain’t seen anyone much this way.”

  I was off without so much as a blink, scanning the street signs as I made my way closer. Fifth Avenue. Fifth fucking Avenue. I nearly got myself killed when a car came speeding the other way on Fourth Avenue, but it managed to brake just in time with a blare of the horn.

  “Fucking asshole!” the driver yelled through the window, and I would’ve usually challenged him, just for his insult, but I didn’t. I kept on sprinting.

  My cell was directing me fast and clear, and my legs were carrying me with everything they had. My breaths were ragged, but not just from the sprint, it was from the rage. The challenge. And I hated to admit it. I hated to admit it with every piece of self that I had. But it was fear.

  I was scared to find Elaine Constantine taking another man’s cock.

  When I turned the corner into Fifth Avenue my blood was pounding in my ears. Block Twelve was down at the bottom end, and I was cursing all the way, still gripping that damn clutch under my arm as my damn knife bayed for his blood.

  Block Twelve was a dive. The top floor had lights on in murky orange. I checked the main entrance but the keys didn’t fit the lock, and that’s when I saw it – the glimpse of a metal railing up by the top floor. The entrance doorway was up there.

  I was an animal as I raced around to that staircase. I leaped up the rusty metal steps three at a time, and I could hear her. I could hear my Elaine inside there, and she was crying out.

  Holy fuck, she was crying out. Crying out loud, crying out hard, crying out for help. My Elaine was crying out for help.

  I’d never felt anything like the protective cesspit of rage inside me. It was scorching. Burning. Ready for the kill.

  I didn’t need the key, just barged my way right in, and there she was, up against the wall with that cunt up against her, her dress hitched up high around her waist. He turned to face me with a sneer, but I wasn’t interested in his face, I was interested in hers. There were tears running down her beautiful cheeks, her eyes big and glassy as they saw me there . . . and the rage in me exploded. It exploded in liquid hate.

  “What the–?” the prick began, but he didn’t get the chance to finish.

  In the quickest flash of my life I was up against him, slamming against him hard as my hand reached inside my jacket.

  And in that flicker of a heartbeat the blade went into his guts.

  Take it.

  Take it, cunt.

  Once. Twice. Three times. I twisted that blade and fucked up his insides like the mess of a man he was.

  His mouth opened, and he paled, and he knew it, even as he stumbled away with his hands to his stomach, he knew it. He was dying. He collapsed, and I stared down at him with a sneer of my own. The knife hung limp in my hand, blood splattered everywhere, including over my beautiful Constantine bitch’s dress.

  And that’s when she truly started crying.

  20

  Elaine

  I could hear my tears. Loud sobs from my chest as it heaved and lurched. I could hear them, but I couldn’t feel them. I couldn’t feel anything, just the buzz in my ears as I stared over at the man with the knife in his hand.

  Lucian.

  Lucian Morelli was really there. Really standing there with a bloody knife in his hand, staring at the man he’d just butchered. He’d just butchered Stephen from London. He’d just butchered Stephen from London for me. To save me.

  There was blood on me too, splattered all over my dress. The fabric was still hitched up above my thighs, my panties still torn at the seam where Stephen from London was trying to get inside me.

  He didn’t get inside me. Thank God, he didn’t get inside me.

  Lucian didn’t speak, just stared. His jaw was gritted as he looked over at me, and that’s when it all came crashing in, the vivid colors, and the sounds, and the smells.

  Stephen from London was still gurgling as he took his last breaths. I could see the blood bubbling from his mouth, dripping down the side of his face, and his hands were still trying to clasp the wound in his stomach. He was failing.

  Stephen was dying, and Lucian didn’t show even a flutter of regret. There was nothing in him, nothing but hate.

  I pressed tighter against the wall as he gestured the knife at me, and that’s when I realized just how badly I was shaking.

  “Did he fuck you?”

  “What?” I asked, in barely more than a breath.

  “I said, did he fuck you?”

  I shook my head. “No. He . . . he couldn’t . . . I didn’t let him . . .”

  He didn’t reply to that, just stepped closer to the man on the floor and kicked aside his hands from his wound.

  “What the fuck were you doing here with this sonofabitch?” the Morelli monster snapped at me, and I tried to answer that, but my voice was still stunted.

  “I . . . I . . .”

  The monster was on me in a flash, pressing me tight to the wall, his breaths fierce. This time his voice was a snarl.

  “I said, what the fuck were you doing here with that sonofabitch, Elaine?”

  “I don’t know!” I blurted, and the sobs were so hard they were hurting. “I don’t know . . . I just wanted . . . I just wanted . . .”

  “WHAT?” he barked, right in my face. “WHAT DID YOU WANT?”

  He pointed to Stephen as he gulped his final breath, and I looked over. I looked over at the body, and I couldn’t find any words.

  “You wanted that, did you?” he hissed. “You wanted that worthless piece of shit?”

  He took hold of my neck and shoved me towards the body. I was whimpering, trembling, scared, and I couldn’t speak.

  “I’m asking you again,” he said, and his voice was an evil rasp. Evil and . . .

  Hurt.

  Lucian Morelli was hurt. By me. He was hurt by me. He was hurt by me being here with that man on the floor.

  And I shouldn’t understand it. I shouldn’t want to understand it. But I did.

  I did understand it.

  I was feeling it too. That connection. Tha
t crazy connection between us. A forbidden want that made no sense, that had no place in this world.

  He turned me to face him, and he dropped the knife on the floor, onto the blood-soaked carpet as he took my arms and shook me. He shook me so hard my legs were nothing but jello.

  “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU WANT?” he demanded, and he was scary. His voice was scary, and harsh, and angry, and beautiful. Lucian’s voice was beautiful. So beautiful he set my heart on fire.

  My eyes were on his. Crying. Crying so hard I could barely see.

  “YOU!” I yelled. “I WANTED YOU!”

  He stopped at that. He stopped shaking me and stared, and those dark eyes of his flashed with something raw.

  It took a few long moments before he spoke again.

  “How the fuck would that sonofabitch ever be a substitute for me? He’s NOTHING compared to me.”

  I didn’t have an answer for that because there wasn’t one. Stephen from London could never have been a substitute for the monster in front of me. Lucian Morelli was the leader of my heaven and my hell both at once. His touch was gold and sin, both at once. He was my love and hate, both at once.

  He let go of me, and I sank to my knees with another round of tears.

  I tried to catch my breath, watching Lucian pace up and down alongside the body without even casting it a glance. He didn’t give a fuck about it. Didn’t give a shit about committing murder.

  Of course he didn’t give a shit about committing murder . . . no doubt he’d done it plenty of times before.

  But why here? Why now? How did he even know where I was?

  I closed my eyes and forced myself into some kind of rational thought, just to speak out loud.

  “What the fuck did you want?” I asked him. “What the fuck did you want here?”

  The hate in his stare was still there when it met with mine, and he didn’t answer, just kept on pacing.

  “Tell me,” I said. “What the fuck did you want, Lucian? Why the hell are you here, saving me?”