Soulless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 2)

That made one hell of a difference to all the years I’d been begging the universe to snuff me out without a fight.

My fingers were fast and light between my legs, teasing me as my breaths quickened. The memories blurred and grew more intense, until I was back next to Stephen Cannon’s body with Lucian on top of me, taking my ass. I shouldn’t be thinking about that. I shouldn’t be thinking about how Lucian had stabbed a man to death who’d been trying to rape me. Because that’s what he’d done. My enemy had saved me. Oh fuck, Lucian Morelli had saved me . . .

My fingers pressed harder to my clit, faster, faster. My breaths were hitching, needy. Lucian. My fingers danced, desperate, and my thoughts were tumbling, more and more. More of the monster. More of his hate and his spite . . . more of what he could do to me . . . because I wanted it. I couldn’t help but want it. I wanted him to be rough with me, and control me, and show me his strength and his power. I wanted him to be the first one to fuck my pussy and make me truly his . . . Lucian. I wanted him to make me truly his . . .

Holy fuck, I wanted Lucian Morelli to truly make me his . . .

And then I wanted to stay that way . . .

I wanted to belong to Lucian Morelli . . .

Please no. Please.

My fingers were circling hard enough that I held my breath and raised my hips from the bed. I tried to slow my breathing but I couldn’t, I was too lost in my thrills. My clit was alive and screaming, my body was desperate for the man who was out to tear me apart, and I couldn’t stop myself coming. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

I came to the fantasy of belonging to Lucian Morelli for all time.

It was the most bad girl thing I’d ever done. I should never have the fantasy of belonging to Lucian Morelli for all time. He was a Morelli, and a piece of shit, and an enemy I should be out to destroy, just as he was out to destroy me. Those pieces of shit were nothing but slime. Underhanded criminals who were out to ruin our family name, and now they might do it. The Morellis might team up with the Power Brothers and take my family down . . . all because of me.

I rolled over in bed and caught my breath, and my mind was the biggest churn it had ever been. I had so many questions and fears and guilty thoughts and needs. This should’ve been a simple case of kidnap and destruction. I thought I’d be bound up and punished and tortured until I was nothing but a dying shell of the woman he wanted to ruin forever. How the holy fuck was I eating pasta and talking about hobbies? How was it me trying to push him into hurting me? Were we in some kind of surreal dimension where I’d been thumped on the head and woken up in cuckoo land?

Jesus, Lucian had been the one person in my life to hear my story. I’d told him that. I’d told him all my secrets, and he’d listened to them all without so much as a smile at my suffering. This really was cuckoo land.

I was still lying on my side under the covers when I pulled my knees up to my chest and tried to settle down to some sleep. I needed to stop my whirring mind, but it wouldn’t slow down, churning, churning. That’s when it started churning over the things I’d told the Morelli heir – all of the nasty nights I’d spent afraid of who was coming and what they were going to do to me. Once again I was back in my own pool of fear, once again craving the drink and drugs to block it out of me. Once again there was no coke and champagne to bail me out.

The night was quiet and cold, what little was left of it. The closed door was an ominous shadow in the corner of the room, and the covers over my head didn’t stop me peering out at it, like I’d learned to do so many times in my past. I started shaking, like always. My mouth turned dry, like always. I gripped my knees tighter to my chest, like always.

As always, it didn’t work. I was just the scared girl shaking in the dark.

I switched the light on, but it didn’t make the slightest difference, just seemed to make the closed door more ominous. It should have been ridiculously ominous given the beast that was down the hall, and how he may actually come for me. Yet it wasn’t. The beast down the hall wasn’t ominous at all. Crazy, but true. The beast down the hall felt like my safety, not my fear, and it was the craziest thing of all time when I threw back my covers and swung my feet down onto the floor. I had no idea what the hell I was thinking as I crept my way across the room and pressed my ear to the closed door.