A chair that was meant to be used for rest and comfort was bolted to the floor, leather straps dangled from each armrest, and a row of monitor screens sprung to life as if on sensors.
My mouth went dry.
Half an office, half a hospital—the two places grafted together in one of the freakiest rooms I’d ever seen.
Sucking in a breath, my eyes turned hazy as the punch of copper, antiseptic, and wax polish hit my nose.
I backed up again.
“You run, and it will be the last thing you do,” Lucien murmured, grabbing a few empty IV bags and pushing the stainless-steel trolley toward the recliner.
I clutched the doorframe and bit my lip—granting pain to keep me awake and not pass out on the blood-spotted floor. “What...whatisthis place?”
“This is where you become useful,” he replied, voice soft and dangerous.
“What do you expect me to do?” I broke out into a cold sweat.
Whisper prowled around the space, his agitation obvious. His hackles raised and tail whipped side to side.
“I’ll show you.” Beckoning me closer, Lucien added, “I won’t hurt you as long as you do what I say. The blood you’ll be spilling is mine, not yours.”
“Excuse me?”
“Come. Here.” He scowled, typing a few things on the keyboard, bringing up a few programs on the monitors. Once done, he sat in the recliner and spread his legs. His all-black attire made him seem both ancient and angry. “I won’t ask again.”
I stayed where I was, clutching the doorframe. “It’s not that I’m deliberately disobeying you, it’s just that I physicallycan’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No. I can’t.” I swallowed hard. “I-I have this problem where stress isn’t kind to me.”
“The sooner you get it over with, the better.”
“But—”
“Refuse again and your little problem will be the least of your worries.”
Our eyes locked.
His hands balled.
No sign of what we shared last night. No glimmer of the man who’d made me feel so many inexplicable things.
Never looking away from me, he shrugged off his coat, unbuttoned his black shirt, and removed it.
My heart fluttered for an entirely different reason.
Watching him undress actually helped in a weird way. It made everything about this moment awkwardly intimate and highly intense, keeping me hyper-focused onhiminstead of fight or flight.
He smirked, revealing he’d done it on purpose—using the fact that I’d told him I found him beautiful to distract me.
Well played...
Holding up his arms, he flashed the silver cuffs on his wrists. The silver disc remained over his heart, flashing with a few lights as if he was part human, part machine. “I’m not going to wait all day, you know.”
As long as I kept my eyes on his lean muscles—as long as I didn’t think too far ahead of what he wanted me to do—I could breathe.
Moving toward him, I eyed up the leather straps on the armrests of the recliner he sat in. “I’m not shackling you to that chair, I’m telling you right now.”
