Relentless (Starcrossed Lovers Trilogy 3)

The pause was magic. Our eyes meeting in that stillness that only the early hours of the morning can give you.

He took my hand from his cock and wrapped it around him, his voice was so deep and pure when it came, when he hugged me.

“Luckily right now, sweetheart, I’m enjoying this too much to move.”

That gave me a weird little pang in my chest. Something like a tickle, because it felt so nice. To be wanted by someone so much that they just wanted to have their bare body next to yours and savor that moment was so weird I never thought I’d feel it. I never thought I’d be good enough.

I reached up and took his face in my hands, just touching his cheeks, feeling him right back.

An I love you just wouldn’t have cut it right then. Even those three magic words just wouldn’t be enough.

Neither of us said anything, just lay there together, holding, breathing. I felt so secure. Protected by the monster.

It was me who broke the silence.

“I can’t believe you gave up being Lucian Morelli for me. It’s just… crazy.”

“I’d happily give up anything for you,” he told me, and his voice was so sincere. “You’re worth everything I could ever give.”

“Clearly, since you’d die for being here.” I gave a little laugh. “Hopefully people won’t hunt down Jason and Penelope and we’ll manage to live a sweet little life in the UK.”

He kissed my forehead before he rolled away. I had to blink as he flicked on the bedside lamp, eyes shocked at the light.

His face was so serious when I managed to focus on him, his stare firm on mine. I could almost hear his brain ticking. I could see his mind at work behind his eyes.

“This is the thing though, baby,” he said. “Do we really want a sweet little life? Do we? Do we want to spend our life glancing over our shoulders worrying people are going to catch up with us and wipe us off the fucking planet every damn day?”

I shrugged. “What choice do we have? We could try to make it great, like Kington Peak. We could get a little place somewhere, where nobody would ever know who we are. It could be okay. I do like gardening, you know?”

He didn’t laugh along with me. His brain was still ticking.

“The choice we have, is that we don’t fucking take it. We make it work however we want to make it work. We be whoever we want to be.”

“I don’t think we can be Lucian and Elaine anytime soon.”

I was laughing. He wasn’t.

He wasn’t laughing at all.

“But what if we were?”

It stopped me laughing in a heartbeat.

My face must have looked puzzled. “But we can’t be. Ever. People would come for us. They hate us already.”

“They’re going to come for us regardless,” he said. “Lucian and Elaine, Jason and Penelope, Evan and fucking Matilda, it doesn’t matter. They’re coming for us.”

His words were bristling with fire. With fight. With the kind of strength that people always associate with a beast like Lucian Morelli.

“So, what do we do?” I asked him.

My heart was racing, only it wasn’t fear it was racing with, it was something else. Respect and awe. Because that’s the master in him that stole my heart. The man who controls and dominates whatever is around him, not just me.

Everything.

Every fucking thing in his path.

He was sitting up on the bed, naked and brilliant. I felt like a meek little lamb lying beside him, staring up at the monster.

His answer was enough to make me tingle. The idea was one I’d never have considered in a million years.

“What we do, is take hold of London and put our mark on it, loud and clear. We work our connections and we use our strengths and we own it. We own our names and our lives for who we are, fuck our families and what they want to do to us. They can keep their bitter shit across the Atlantic and accept who the fuck we are.”

I didn’t even know what to say, I was so shocked.

His smile was proud.

“Who would you rather be, baby? Penelope or Elaine?”

My answer was quick and obvious.

“Elaine.” I managed a proud smile too. “Provided Penelope doesn’t live seventy years longer next to Jason’s side than Elaine lives next to Lucian’s. I like gardening a bit too much for that.”

I was trying to make light of the tension, because I just didn’t know how to process it. I didn’t know how to even begin to digest that we could be Lucian Morelli and Elaine Constantine, walking the London streets together as Lucian Morelli and Elaine Constantine. It just seemed… unreal.

But that’s when I realized just how much power that gave my heart—the idea of us walking the streets together as us. Proud. Because that’s what I’d be. Proud. I’d be so fucking proud of being Elaine Constantine at Lucian Morelli’s side with the whole world there to see it.