Soulless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 2)

My legs were still spread open wide when his palm landed hard on my pussy.

It hurt. It hurt enough that I clenched my thighs as tight as they would go and rolled over onto my side, but I was smiling. Somehow, I was smiling.

“You’re one messed up little bitch,” he said, stating the obvious. “Seriously, Elaine, you’re fucked-up in the head.”

I caught my breath enough to speak, pussy still hurting.

“Yeah, well that makes two of us then, doesn’t it?”

It was true. We were two fucked-up pieces of shit not knowing what the fuck we were doing or why.

I had no real idea about the monster above me or who the hell or what the hell he really was. I had no real idea who I was, not with all my shattered pieces jarred together, and I didn’t want to know.

I didn’t want to know anything.

“I should just finish you off right now,” he said, but his voice was different somehow.

Yeah, he should. He really fucking should.

I’d been feeling like I wanted to take my final breath for months now, cycling the thoughts over and over. Lucian Morelli should take it. He should fucking take it.

That’s when he pressed himself back down onto me, his breaths hot in my face.

“I loved pulling the wings from butterflies when I was a boy,” he said. “I’ll enjoy pulling yours from you.”

“I’m not a butterfly,” I told him. “I’m a caterpillar in a cocoon who’s never been free, rotting from the inside.”

“I’m rotten from the inside,” he whispered, then licked his tongue flat and wet up my cheek.

I felt him shuffling, and I knew what was coming. He was going to do it, positioning himself between my legs just right. Holy shit, my clit was still hurting from his slap.

His fingers squirmed against my panties, tugging them to the side. I heard him unbuckle his pants, shuffling some more to pull them down.

Lucian Morelli’s hips were bare against mine. His cock was hot and hard. He was going to do it . . . Lucian Morelli was going to take my virginity . . .

“Yes . . .” I managed to gasp. “Do it . . . be the man who truly makes me his . . .”

“You’re mine, Elaine Constantine,” he snarled. “Believe me, I’ll be the man who truly makes you his. I own every dirty little scrap of your soul.”

I braced myself. I held my breath. My body was ready. Ready. Ready.

Yes . . .

But no.

Just like that, the moment was shattered by the screech of his cell from the other room.

He paused, braced, staring down at me like I was a piece of meat he was ready to butcher.

It was clearly someone important to be calling Lucian Morelli at midnight on his personal cell.

It seems he came to the same conclusion.

“You’d better stay the fuck still for me,” he said and raised himself back up.

He pulled up his pants and headed away. My breaths were ragged as I watched him leave.

Predictably, I didn’t stay still. I got to my feet and inched closer to the doorway, stepping up to the hall. I could hear him pacing around in the other room, barking out one side of a conversation.

What the fuck? Now? It can wait until morning. I mean it, Alto. It can wait until morning . . .

The front door was standing tall before me. I guess it was basic human instinct that wanted me to make a dash for it. I nearly did it. I nearly opened that door and ran.

I heard Lucian curse as he stomped his way back down the hall. He looked frustrated, raging at something that wasn’t a Constantine. Wow. It was a bizarre phenomenon.

“I need to go,” he told me. “Idiots and fools.”

My breath caught as the potential reality truly dawned.

Maybe he really would finish me off before he left. Maybe my final breaths would be nothing beyond a broken neck in the middle of Kington Peak.

As usual with Lucian Morelli, he surprised me.

He led the way upstairs without so much as a look behind him. I was still hovering at the bottom of the staircase when he shot me an aggravated stare.

“One of the most basic fundamentals of being a servant is following the fucking master,” he barked, and for once his rage was spitting in a way that wasn’t at me.

I didn’t bother bitching at him, not this time, just followed him upstairs meekly with barely more than a scowl.

There was no point arguing.

He was holding the door open at the far end of the landing. Inside was a room with a bed and a bedside table and very little else.

I already knew the door had a lock on it when I stepped over the threshold. I already knew this was going to be my prison until he showed up again as he set me in his evil stare one more time.