I couldn’t hear him out there. He was definitely still in his room. Definitely still down the hall, probably deep in slumber since he undoubtedly had a trip into NYC in the morning . . . the early morning . . .
My crazy took on a fresh level of insane when I eased the doorhandle down and peeked my way out onto the landing. It was dark, and empty. Lucian’s door was closed at the end, I could just about see it in the shadows.
I held my breath as I stepped out. I still had his damn shirt on, and it felt floaty against my thighs, still sore from where I’d cut them earlier. I ghosted my way closer to his room with my heart pounding and my nerves on fire, and I should’ve raced back to my shitty bed in the other shitty room, but I didn’t. I pressed myself up against his door and placed my hand on the handle.
Please, God, what the fuck am I doing?
I turned the handle as gently as I could, and I was shaking. I was a wreck. I was insane as I slowly opened the door.
I was fully expecting Lucian to sit stark upright in bed, then come charging after me, dragging me back down the hallway and belting me at the very least before locking me back in my room. But no. He didn’t.
Lucian Morelli was asleep in his bed, fast asleep to the world.
I should’ve stolen his keys and got the hell out of there – driving his car back into the city and condemning him for good, but I didn’t. Hell knows why, but I didn’t.
I felt like a naughty scared girl as I crept up to the side of him. I waited a full minute at least before I dared to ease the covers back just enough to slip myself inside of them. I stayed right on the edge of the mattress, trying not to disturb him, keeping as far away as I could. Still, I couldn’t help myself. His warmth was too inviting. Bizarrely enough, I felt safer next to the monster than I had anywhere else in the whole damn world. Nobody would ever get to me in this place . . . Nobody but the monster himself . . .
It was sad but fucking true that the monster was fast becoming the one man I wanted to get me, only this time it wasn’t about him wiping me out and freeing me from my pitiful misery . . .
This time it was about becoming the monster’s prey in a whole other way . . .
I couldn’t deny it . . . I wanted the monster to love me enough to keep me safe . . .
It was true . . .
Oh my God, it was true . . .
I wanted the monster to love me.26LucianI had never overslept in my life, not like I did that morning. I awoke from my bed with the daylight fast streaming through the window, cursing myself for my fucking stupidity . . . only to find Elaine Constantine in my bed next to me.
My arch enemy bitch was in my bed next to me.
I stared in shock at the figure at my side, curled up tight with her knees to her chest, sleeping as soundly as I had been. My first instinct was to shake her the fuck awake and drag her the fuck out of there, cheeky fucking bitch, but I didn’t. Yet again, I fucking didn’t. I just stared at her like a fucking fool.
Elaine Constantine was in my fucking bed.
In my FUCKING BED.
Nobody was ever in my fucking bed, let alone a fucking Constantine.
Still, I didn’t move. Still, I sat and stared at her like some kind of idiot.
It was when I twisted and reached for my cell on the bedside table that she stirred beside me. It was when she stretched out her arms, still dressed in my shirt, that I realized just how fast asleep she had been. It appears she was going as damn fucking crazy as I was, choosing to sneak into her soon-to-be destroyer’s bed in the middle of the night.
She rolled over, and that’s when she tensed and leaped up in bed. She was terrified in that moment, eyes wide as she registered just how hard I was staring at her.
“I, um . . .” she began. “The room down there was . . .”
“Was what?” I asked, and my voice was a hiss.
“It was, um . . .”
I pointed a finger at her. “We’re not fucking buddies now, Elaine. I’m not your new pussy boy Tristan because you told me some secrets.”
She looked more than put out at that, throwing the covers off and moving to get out of there, but I took hold of her arm before she managed it.