Soulless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 2)

“It’s a power,” he told me after another minute of pure silence. “I’m immune to every pain that people want to dish out to me. I don’t give a shit for anything they might dish out, or how hard some asshole is who pins me. They either kill me or mean nothing.”

“You must wonder what it feels like though.”

I thought he was going to tell me to mind my own fucking business again, but he didn’t. He fixed me with that piercing stare of his and put his mug on the counter.

“I wonder what it feels like. I always have. I enjoy the thrill of watching it take over other people and seeing just how much it tears them apart.”

“I guess I would too,” I said with a shrug, and he pulled a face at me.

“You think you’d be a sadist, do you, if you didn’t know pain?”

I pulled a face right back at him. “No, probably not. I’d probably not be a sick fuck like you, but I’m sure I would be curious. I’m curious about everything.”

Another smirk from him. “Clearly you’re curious. If you weren’t overly curious you’d have the sense to shut your mouth.”

I dared to push him, just a little.

“When did you find out? You must have been young.”

I wasn’t expecting it when he told me. I’m sure my mouth must have been open when he told me just how much of a little boy he was and how his father had pushed his body for the truth. No wonder Lucian Morelli was so twisted, he’d been fucked up from one hell of an early age.

He pulled another face when he registered how my mind was working.

“He didn’t fucking abuse me, Elaine. He was finding out who I was.”

I didn’t agree with him but didn’t voice it. He carried on talking with a scowl.

“You have no idea how much power it gave me, knowing just how immune I was to hurt.”

“I have an idea how much power it gave you,” I told him. “Considering just how much you’ve used it to get your own way and bully people into submission every moment of your life. It’s just a shame you’ve never actually done things with people because they want to, not because you bully them.”

He spat out a counter at that. “That’s not true in the slightest. I’ve done plenty of things with people because they want to.”

I could see him thinking about it, trying to work out when that was, and it made me smile at him.

“Don’t worry, Lucian, you don’t have to justify yourself to me. Bully people all you want. It’s just a shame. I’m sure plenty of people would do things with you just because they wanted to.” I couldn’t resist turning the knife even though he couldn’t feel it.

He still hated me, I could see it all over him. I still hated him, my eyes must have told him right back.

“You don’t have a clue what you’re fucking talking about,” he told me. “Plenty of people have done things with me because they want to.”

I stared straight at him. “Who? Tell me.”

He could have choked me right there and then and wiped me out for good. My heart was racing, thinking he might well do it and preparing myself for the end, but the end didn’t come. His eyes were fierce as he propped himself against the counter, wrapping his hand up in a fresh towel.

“Right from the beginning people have done things with me because they want to,” he said, and then he told me.

Lucian Morelli stood against his kitchen counter, and he told me about Bethany Fryers, the very first girl he punished and how she cried out for him in pleasure as well as in pain. It gave me tingles where it shouldn’t, and my heart was still racing as fast at his descriptions, and that was about more than what he did to her. It was about the dirty sparkle in his eyes as he relived the memories.

He’d had feelings for Bethany Fryers.

Even if he didn’t want to admit feelings for anyone or anything in this world, Lucian Morelli had had feelings for Bethany Fryers.

I found myself wondering what she looked like, and what she sounded like and just what it was about her that drove him so wild. Because she did. She drove him wild. Beneath his evil walls, and his callous ways, and his not giving a shit for anyone, that blonde little girl drove him wild.

“There you go,” he told me when he’d finished recounting her story. “She fucking wanted it.”

I had flutters when I spoke next. “So if you liked her wanting it so much, why did you stop choosing people who wanted to enjoy it?”

His voice turned to spite. “Because I like power. Because I take whatever I fucking want. It’s about my fucking pleasure, I don’t give a shit for anyone else’s.”