The Price (House of Sin #5) - Elisabeth Naughton Page 0,48
and drew in a shaky breath. “And what if that doesn’t work? What if it just pushes him further away from me?”
“Then you make him listen.” She let go of my shoulders and closed her hand around mine. “Come here. I got you something.”
Blinking, I followed her to the kitchen door. Cool air whooshed around me as she pulled it open.
Heading down the three steps to the drive, she motioned me to follow and said, “It’s in the trunk. I didn’t want to give it to you right away in case Luc was in the room.”
I wrapped my long cardigan sweater around the T-shirt and leggings I was wearing, wishing I’d grabbed socks, and followed her barefoot across the pavement to the back of the Range Rover. She popped the back door and grabbed a rectangular box, which she turned and held out for me. “Here. It’s just a few things I thought might help.”
I pulled the top off the box and stared wide-eyed at the contents inside, unable to keep my mouth from dropping open.
Felicity laughed. “Don’t freak out.”
I tried not to, but... Of all the things Felicity could have given me, this was not anywhere close to what I’d expected.
The box was filled with sex toys. All new in their own packagings. A couple of things I recognized. Several I did not.
“Um... I’m not sure what to say.”
Felicity chuckled again. “When you said Luc was being pretty vanilla, I thought some of this might help spice things up.”
I recognized a pair of nipple clamps. Luc had used some like that on me in Venice. But the fur-lined handcuffs...
I swallowed hard and tried to push away images I didn’t want to see, especially because Felicity was trying to help here, not make me more jealous.
“Um...” I put the lid back on the box, blocking the items from view. “Thanks, I guess.” But inside my stomach was a swirling mess of anxiety. And even though I tried not to, I couldn’t help but wonder… “It’s cold. We should go back in.”
I didn’t get more than a step away before Felicity caught me by the hand and turned me back to her. “Hold on. You’re not upset, are you?”
“No.”
She stared at me for several seconds, but I couldn’t meet her gaze. I just looked down at the nondescript white box in my hand, hating where my mind was going when she’d done so much for me.
“Shit,” she breathed. “I didn’t even think. No. Absolutely not. Never. Not once.” She squeezed my hand. “Luc and I were never involved.”
Green with jealousy—and hating I was so jealous—I glanced up at her warily. “But your parents set you both up.”
“And they failed miserably.”
“Then how do you know...” I glanced back down at the box, the words sticking in my throat.
“What Luc likes?”
When I reluctantly nodded, she said, “Because Luc and I have been friends a long time. I know Luc isn’t vanilla because he told me back when we were at school together. It’s actually something he struggles with.”
My gaze lifted back to hers. “What do you mean?”
She let go of my hand, sighed, and leaned against the back of the vehicle. “He associates it with his House. With the deviant things they do. But you and I know he’s not like them. Natalie, enjoying a little kinky sex now and then doesn’t make a person a predator. It makes you human.”
I knew that, but hearing her say the words made me see Luc’s actions the last few weeks—the last few days—in a whole new light. I couldn’t deny that the dark Luc, the controlling and domineering Luc who had awakened me in Rome and Venice and who had a way of lighting me on fire with a single look, had been missing since that ritual. Except for the other night.
After our discussion about kids, I’d seen that look in his eyes, the familiar firestorm that told me he was on the edge of control. That he was fighting to keep the hurricane swirling inside him from roaring over me. But I’d wanted him to unleash it on me. Nothing excited me more than knowing he couldn’t control himself when he was near me.
I wanted to be any and everything he needed, because if I wasn’t, we were never going to get back to where we’d been before. We were never going to move forward.
I closed my eyes, hating his family even more. “God, that ritual fucked him up badly.”