one.
“Fuck me,” I whispered. “Show me just what a badass you are, Morelli, and fuck me.”
He twisted his fingers even deeper and his smirk was evil enough to burn the sun. “Well, well, well,” he said. “I never thought Elaine Constantine would be a virgin.”
My belly lurched. Actually lurched.
How did he know that? How the fuck could he know that? Was it really so obvious that I was a dumbass little girl who’d never taken a cock before?
Maybe it was. Maybe I really was that crap at the whole damn lot of it.
One thing was for sure – if he hadn’t known for definite, the flush of my cheeks would have told him he was right.
I was a virgin.
A desperate virgin, aching to be touched. To be used. To be fucked hard enough to hurt.
The one thing that would save me from hurting myself was finding someone else to do it for me.
“Do it,” I hissed. “Show me what a bad boy you are and fuck me, Morelli. Fuck me and die for it.”
He would have done it. I know he would. I could see the raw lust in his eyes, fixed on mine as he tugged my panties down my thighs. I’d have lost my virginity against a bathroom wall with my dress hitched up around my waist, and I’d have been grateful for it.
But Lucian Morelli didn’t get the chance.
We were both jolted to our senses by the thump of the bathroom door, and there were footsteps. Men’s footsteps. Getting closer.
“Elaine? Are you in here? Your clutch was on the floor outside; have you lost your fucking mind?”
Lucian was silent, and so was I. Faces just an inch apart, breaths ragged.
“Elaine?! You in here? Seriously, what the fuck are you thinking? Your mom is going to lose her shit. At least take your damn coke with you when you take a piss.”
Oh no.
No.
It was Silas. My cousin, and one of the few I considered almost an ally.
My cousin burst straight into the water closet without a second’s pause, catching me right in the grip of our family’s arch nemesis. Even being pinned by the guy wouldn’t have hidden the fact that I was desperate for him. It was obvious.
Shame piled on top of the rest of my frazzled emotions as Silas lurched backwards, mouth open wide.
Lucian dropped me back to my feet and stared at him, still not even flustered.
“You’ll be dead,” Silas snarled and jabbed a finger at him. “You’ll be fucking dead, Morelli. You’ll never get out of here alive.”
Lucian was smirking as he bent down to the floor to get his mask.
“If I die here tonight, Roosevelt, your whole world will be dead around you within days.” He laughed and lurched towards him with a boom of his hands to illustrate.
Finally, I snapped to my senses. “GO!” I screeched and shunted him from behind. “Just get the fuck out of here!”
Silas didn’t speak, because he knew the monster was telling the truth. As much as he would have hated to admit it – Lucian Morelli was right. If the eldest child of the Morelli family was killed at Tinsley Constantine’s birthday ball, she would be the first one to have her throat slit in the aftermath.
Tinsley and then me.
Again, maybe it would be a blessing in disguise.
Our family had been up against his for decades, billionaires out to kill for the thrill, just so long as we were spilling the blood of the other. My family was better than his at hiding our corruption from the world – smarter and more cultured – but that didn’t matter. We were all bound in the same pit of cruelty and criminality, pursuing wealth and power at any cost.
Drugs, arms, trafficking, fraud . . . it didn’t matter. We were all up to our necks.
It made no difference to anyone but us, of course – the police and the courts were so tightly in our back pockets that they’d have rolled over and shown us their bellies in a flash.
“Get the fuck out of here, Morelli!” Silas snarled again, and Lucian laughed as he pulled his mask back on.
“I was leaving anyway,” the monster told my cousin and slapped his shoulder on the way past. “This place is a joke. Your party is a sorry excuse for one.”
He was right on that score, too. The party really was a joke. False dumbasses singing to the same dumbass tune. Nobody really gave a fuck for anyone else in our