Mine.
He thought. Which he had never thought toward another human being.
Just before she started to move again, he forced her to do something he’d never done before. “Just me, Lucy.”
Confusion flickered across her eyes.
“Say that it’s just me. Only me, Lucy. You’re mine.”
She nodded as a long moan erupted from her, and he couldn’t risk it, so he sealed her mouth with a kiss.
And that kiss turned savage as he pumped into her. Him, feasting on her moans. Consuming her in every way. As she clenched tightly around his cock, she shuddered her breaths into his mouth, and she squeezed every last drop out of him until he had nothing left to give. He had nothing. Was nothing. Without her.
It was the most transformative moment of his life, and he clung to it for dear life.
Until he didn’t.
Chapter 7
“Lucy?” A soft voice followed by a knock on her door interrupted her dream of Damien. Lucy rolled over and felt a small ache between her legs. It wasn’t a dream.
Her eyes snapped open.
The voice on the other side of the door spoke up again. “Lucy? Are you alright? I just wanted to check on you. Sorry if I’m overstepping—”
“No. You’re alright. I’m fine.” She pushed herself to an upright position. Hands feeling around the mattress even though she could clearly see that Damien had left. Rightly so. But then why did it feel so wrong?
“Are you hungry? I can have some food brought up to you.”
She was about to answer that she would get dressed and meet Mirabelle downstairs, when she realized that she already had clothes on. Damien must have done that at some point. Herfingers rubbed over her chemise. How could she have been so misinformed about pleasure? She couldn’t admit it, would not admit it, but she hadn’t known her own mind. She only knew what she knew, but she certainly did not know what she didn’t know. And now she knew. And she couldn’t not know it. And oh! Life was a big beautiful mess, wasn’t it?
Her heart was abounding in emotion. Flooded. To perfection. Was that a thing? It should be.
“Lucy?”
Oh. Right. “I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes, Mirabelle. Perhaps we can go for tea?” Tea? How would she go about her day acting normal as if everything in her life hadn’t just shifted? Collapsed? Arisen?
“I’d love that.” Lucy could hear the smile in her friend’s voice, and for a minute the shifting, collapsing, and arising were forgotten.
Eleven minutes later, Lucy strolled into the parlor to find her friend. “Shall we?” It was remarkable how normal a person could act despite their entire world flipping upside down. Last night had been everything more than Lucy could have ever imagined. The pleasure she experienced had not been selfish, as she had been led to believe it was. Rather, it was selfless. No. That wasn’t quite right either, now was it? It was entwined. Where one started and the other ended was unclear. It was a wrapping of selves to become one. To become tethered. And how did one go about unwrapping and untethering? And remarking those boundaries of where one ended and one began?
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Mirabelle asked a few minutes into their walk. The Velvet Box was in sight, and tea was calling her name.
“I’m fine,” Lucy kicked up a little cloud of dust on the dirt road. “How’s everyone from the fire? I didn’t see you afterward.”
Mirabelle heaved out a sigh. “I’m sorry about that. I was tending to a few minor injuries. Everyone seems to be fine, but the jewelry shop needs to be rebuilt. Poor Mr. Linton.”
“Who’s Mr. Linton?”
“The owner of the jewelry shop.”
Lucy scrunched up her face as she asked, “I thought it was called Mr. Duke’s?”
“It is.”
But before Lucy could comment, her eyes snagged on a very familiar face. A hauntingly familiar face. A face that reminded her of the devil she had just slept with. Her heart lurched as she swallowed the rocks in her throat.
And as she watched the familiar face enter The Velvet Box, she hurried her steps because somehow she knew—she just knew—who that woman was meeting.
