Heartless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 1)

“Are you fucking crazy?” she hissed. “What the fuck? Who the fuck do you think you are?”

She tried to push me away, but I wouldn’t budge.

Her blue eyes were saucers through her mask. “You’d better get the hell away from me! Don’t you know who the fuck I am?” She gave a quick glance down the hall and lowered her voice. “Don’t you know what they’ll do to you if they see you with me?”

The hallway was empty around us, everyone firmly consumed by Tinsley Constantine’s birthday bullshit, so I smirked.

“I know exactly who the fuck you are, Elaine,” I told her and pushed my thigh between hers.

Her eyes widened even more through the glitter of her mask. I wasn’t afraid of her crazy-ass family, but her words confirmed how isolated they kept her. She could mingle in public, but they would cut the dick off any man who dared touch their little princess.

“Then you really are fucking crazy,” she said. “Just touching me could get you killed in seconds. SECONDS!”

I shrugged, still smirking. “But it won’t.”

She gritted her teeth. “I could scream!”

“But you won’t.” I gripped a hand around her neck and pressed my lips to hers.

I guess I really was fucking crazy.

I hated her, the woman in gold. I hated everything about her. Everything about the Constantines. Everything about this pathetic fucking gig in this pathetic fucking compound.

I hated the smell of her. I hated the taste of her. I hated her fucking voice, and her fucking stare, and her whole fucking life.

But still, I wanted her.

Insanity.

My mouth was rough, and my hands were rougher. My thigh pressed hard against her pussy, hitting just the right spot to make her shudder.

She should’ve fought. Screamed. Battled. But no. With a whole round of insanity of her own, at the height of her sister’s birthday party, the foolish woman kissed me back.

Forbidden doesn’t even come close.

She dropped her clutch to the floor, gasping into my kiss, but the way she danced her tongue with mine was a far different experience than I’d have imagined. She was messy and nervous – everything I’d never expect from a billionaire heiress addicted to the social circuit.

Yeah, that tongue of hers was . . . way too damn enthusiastic.

I guess that’s when I realized it. Right there and then. Elaine Constantine wasn’t a woman in her mid-twenties who’d fucked her way through every good-looking dick in the States. Not like the tabloids and the gossip would have you believe. Elaine Constantine was a girl who didn’t know what the hell she was doing. A broken toy, cracked on the inside yet still smiling beautifully through the window of her pristine box.

“We should stop this,” she groaned into the kiss. “This is madness.”

“I never stop for anyone,” I told her and snaked my hand between her thighs.

Her golden silk dress and lace panties underneath were a thin veil over her wet slit. I could feel the heat of her. Delicious. She spread her legs and wrapped her arms around my neck, grinding against my hand like a cat in heat.

“You really are crazy,” she hissed, and she was right.

I was crazy. I’d been crazy since the day I was born.

I forced her along the hall and shoved her into an ornate bathroom. The door made one hell of a slam as I pushed her inside and kept pushing until we were shut in the water closet, but I didn’t care. I hitched her dress up, biting her neck as my fingers circled hard around her clit.

“Take it like a good little bitch, or I’ll make it hurt real fucking bad,” I growled, and I could feel the shock bristling right through her.

Shock and something more. Something deeper.

Her eyes were searching mine as I pawed at her. Seeking.

“Who the fuck are you?” she panted, “Do I know you?”

“I’m your true damn nemesis,” I said and forced two fingers inside her.

She was so tight it made my mouth water.

The bitch moaned for me. “Nobody touches me. Ever. They wouldn’t dare.”

I laughed in her face and dropped the British accent. “I take whoever I want, whenever I want.”

That’s when it must have clicked for her. That’s when she pushed me away hard enough to tug my mask off.

The shock on her face was divine.

“No! NO! It can’t be. You can’t be! My God. My fucking God . . .”

I was still laughing. “Oh, I am, sweetheart. I am. You’d better believe it.”

“Lucian Morelli! What the fuck? You’re Lucian damn Morelli!”

“Pleased to meet you, Elaine Constantine,” I said and twisted my fingers inside her.2ElaineNo. No. NO.

It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t make sense.

Lucian Morelli – LUCIAN MORELLI – had his fingers inside me at my sister’s masked ball.

How in the damn fucking world did I end up with Lucian Morelli’s fingers inside me at my sister’s masked ball?