The Price (House of Sin #5) - Elisabeth Naughton Page 0,29

footsteps, for the door slamming shut in her wake, but the sounds never met my ears. And as I twisted to confirm that she’d gone, I realized she hadn’t moved. Hadn’t even flinched. She was still standing mere inches from me by the side of the bed, staring up at me in the darkness with every bit of challenge and independence she’d ever had before.

“No,” she whispered. “I said I’m not leaving you, and I’m not. You’re suffering.”

She stepped into me, and I froze the second her fingertips brushed my bare stomach. Because holy fuck, her touch made me sick to my stomach. But it also made me hotter than hell in a way I didn’t understand.

I closed my eyes and breathed deep. I wanted to shove her hands away and tell her never to touch me again. At the same time, though, I wanted to beg for her to hold me forever. The conflicting thoughts were making me crazy, hot, fucking hard.

She moved even closer, until—oh mother of God—I felt her lips graze my chest.

My legs grew weak. I swayed and backed up until I hit the nightstand.

“You need me,” she whispered, pressing a soft kiss right above my left pec, right over my heart. “And I need you just as much. It’s been so long, Luc. I’m suffering too. I need to be close to you.”

She kissed me again, but this time, instead of the hot burst of arousal that stiffened my dick, all I felt was nausea. A swirling, rolling, growing nausea, because her meaning had just hit me like a two-by-four straight to the forehead.

Sex. She wants sex.

My breaths quickened as her lips skimmed my throat and her fingertips trailed up my chest and around my nape.

With me.

I stood still while her lips moved up to my jaw, softly kissing and nipping at my skin. As her lithe body skimmed mine and her breasts grazed my chest.

With a man who is every bit the beast she said I was back in Rome.

“Luc...” Her fingers slid into my hair, and her hips pressed against mine.

I closed my eyes, fighting the conflicting feelings warring inside me—between arousal and nausea, pleasure and pain, love and hate. Between the man she thought I was and the monster I was destined to be.

“Vita mia,” she whispered, kissing my cheek, moving closer to my mouth with every graze of her tempting lips. “Ho voglia di te.”

I wasn’t sure if it was her use of Italian or the words she’d spoken—My life... I want you—but for whatever reason, before she could kiss my lips, I grasped her at the wrists and jerked her hands from my body, holding them between us.

She stared up at me in the dark with wide eyes. Wide and just the slightest bit frightened eyes, as if she wasn’t sure who I was anymore or what I would do next. And in the silence, all that self-loathing I’d been fighting came rushing back. Along with whispered words in my ear, growing louder with every second. The same words my father had whispered after I’d been unchained in that ritual room.

“You’ve spent your whole life thinking you’re better than me. Than the other men in this House. But you’re not. You just proved it by fucking that kitten in front of your new wife. By breaking a sacred vow not even a day after you made it. By enjoying every single second of what those kittens did to you.

“You’re weak. You’re a disappointment. You’re nothing, and now everyone knows it.

“Hear me closely, son. I’m done with your shit. You’ll fall in fucking line, or I will destroy you and all that you hold dear, including that pretty wife of yours. And before you go cursing me for being a monster, you’d better face one cold hard reality: You’re every bit the monster I am. I created you. Salvatici blood runs hot through your veins, just as it does mine. And no matter how hard you fight it, you will never be free of it. You are never going to escape your destiny.”

“Luc,” Natalie whispered, staring up at me. “None of what happened was your fault. I want you. I love you. Let me show you how much.”

“You want me?”

She nodded. “Desperately.”

Something inside me snapped. No one should want me. No sane woman could want me after what I’d done. Especially someone who was supposed to love me.

All I saw was red. Red and a blinding rage fueled by whispers and