Heartless - Jade West Page 0,54
his stare was still there when it met with mine, and he didn’t answer, just kept on pacing.
“Tell me,” I said. “What the fuck did you want, Lucian? Why the hell are you here, saving me?”
“I wasn’t here to save you,” he told me. “I was here to save your pussy.”
“That’s why you’re here, is it?” I pushed. “For my pussy?”
I heard his sigh, patronizing me as though I was a stupid little girl.
“Be quiet now, Elaine. Shut the fuck up.”
I didn’t move. Even if I’d wanted to, I didn’t have the strength.
I was quiet when he spoke again.
“I can’t believe you thought he’d be anything like me,” he snapped. “I can’t believe you’d be a dirty little slut with that fucking loser.”
But I wasn’t a slut. I was still a virgin. Still a tiny blonde virgin staring up at the darkest Morelli in the world.
“You just killed a guy from London,” I said, like I wasn’t stating the obvious. “A singer from London. They’ll know you killed him. They would have seen you . . . at the party . . .”
“I bet they gave you awards for your intellect at school, didn’t they?” His sarcasm left me cold.
My gaze was pulled to the body so close to me. I’d never seen a dead body before, let alone seen someone stabbed and taking their last breaths. I let out another sob and put my hands to my face, and that’s when I heard Lucian sighing again.
“Don’t play the fucking innocent, Little Miss Constantine,” he sneered. “Your family has as much blood on its hands as mine does. Don’t pretend you’ve never seen it.”
But I hadn’t. I hadn’t seen it. My family kept it hush hush and always had, paying people to do the dirty work just to keep our evil detached from us.
He must have seen the blankness on my face.
“You have, right?” he pushed. “Surely, you’ve seen the murderous shit your family have been doing for decades?”
I shook my head. “No. I never have.”
He smirked at me, even in that room with the stench of death and blood on the air, he smirked at me.
“Well, well. Now you’ve been fucking enlightened, haven’t you?”
I didn’t want to be enlightened. That kind of enlightenment would never let me sleep soundly again. Deep inside me, even amongst the shadows, and the violations, and the loss I felt in my soul, I still felt like a good little girl. I still felt like a good little girl who didn’t want to see another man die . . .
Hell, that was the reason I was in so much shit with the Power brothers after all . . . I didn’t want to see anyone die . . .
Lucian was busy tapping on his cell when I finally dragged myself together enough to get to my feet. I was shaky on my heels, barely able to bend down steadily enough to grab my clutch. Even that was blood-soaked; stained forever.
It was when I was standing there, eyes open wide and lip still trembling, that Lucian stopped looking at his cell and turned to me. We stood there, in silence, so much unspoken between us that it made my heart thump to a whole other tune.
It was a stupid thing to say, but I couldn’t help it.
“Thank you,” I said in a whisper. “Thank you for saving me.”
My thanks was genuine. Even though it was weak and ridiculous in a room where a man had just killed another, I truly meant it. Lucian Morelli really had saved my flesh from the man pawing at it.
He didn’t respond in words, just tipped his head at me with a bizarre expression on his face. One I couldn’t read.
I was stumbling towards the door when he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back to him. My body responded quicker than my brain, turning into him and pressing up tight. He slammed me into the wall, and even though it was the same spot I’d been fighting another man, I did anything but fight the monster before me. I was desperate for the beast I’d just seen murder another.
We were both covered in blood, but that didn’t matter. His shirt was wet and warm, soaking my dress even more as his body pressed into mine. His breaths were rasps, hot on my lips, and he smelled of blood, but of him, too. Underneath the red iron scent he smelled of him. Musk, and sex, and power.
It was me who