And God, if they’re downstairs right now, I’ve been wasting time here, thinking about Lucien and everything else when I could have been working to free them.I worked through the last week to free girls and yet here they are, potentially right under my feet, and I’ve just been fucking around.I run through what I know of the guard patterns, particularly the guards who walk past the staircase that runs into the basement, and am about to turn and walk back into the house, ready for a new mission, when a hand shoots out of the darkness and clamps down on my arm.
Another appears half a second later and covers my mouth, stifling the scream before it can get past my lips.
I have enough time to start a thought about the irony of being kidnapped while already kidnapped, then I’m spun abruptly and forced back against the stone railing behind me, the cold rock cutting into my back and my breath ripped from my lungs.
Moments later, Lucien himself materializes from the darkness.
There’s no greeting.Just hands wrapped around my waist and his forehead against mine, his lips moving over my own as he claims my mouth and gives me his heat and breath.The kiss is hard and desperate, tongues and teeth and lips and a deep, possessive relief that goes all the way to the pit of my stomach, and I welcome every single piece of it.His fingertips sink into my flesh, no doubt leaving bruises, and I don’t give a single fuck.
Because my God in heaven, Lucien is here.He’s safe.He’s alive.And he’s just as warm and vital as he’s always been, big and solid as smoke come to life.
He breaks the kiss long enough to swear harshly in my ear, then spins me again, taking me into the corner of the balcony–and the shadows, where we’re protected from the light of the moon and the stars.Here he presses me against the wall, his fingers urgent as they brush over my face, feeling my skin like he’s trying to memorize it.
“Brooks,” he breathes, my name like a benediction on his tongue.
Or possibly a curse.
Because suddenly he’s gone, the distance between us cold as an abyss.
And just like that, my anger comes rushing in.
“Where the fuck have you been?”I hiss.“Did you know there was going to be a rescue?Your men were there and they left me behind!Did you bother to–”
His hand slaps down over my mouth again, cutting me off, and then his face is close to my own, brows drawn down over eyes dark as sin.“Keep your fucking voice down!”he mutters.“Christ, girl, have you forgotten where you are?”
I jerk away from him and take a step to the side.“Hard to forget where I am when I’ve been here all day, wondering where the fuckyouwere!”
At this his face suddenly softens, then turns sly.“So you were worried about me?”
Oh my God I’m going to kill him.I just found out he’s alive, and that’s great and everything, but now I’m going to have to murder him.
“Don’t be an ass,” I mutter.I look up to the spot in the corner where I suspect there’s a camera, grab him, and scuttle backward until we’re in the corner where the rail meets the wall.It’s darkest here, and furthest from the range of any camera up there, so we can at least talk.But not for long.
Because in approximately ten minutes, that guard will come back by, and neither of us can afford for Lucien to be here when he does.
“Tell me everything,” I saw bluntly.
He pauses for a moment, probably caught off-guard by the sudden change of location, and then presses my back against the wall again, leaning over me like we’re doing some sort of TikTok challenge.I open my mouth ready to ask him what he’s doing, but stop when he puts his fingers under my chin and tips my face up toward him.It’s so dark I can barely see anything, but his eyes are gleaming in the light of the dim moon, shining with amusement.
“If you wanted to get me into a darker corner, you just had to ask,” he whispers.
He slides the fingers of one hand down my neck, wrapping around the column of my throat for long enough to make me arch my back off the wall, and then continues down, brushing his fingertips between my breasts and over my belly, where he pauses to pull my flimsy blouse up.I feel the brush of his hand against my skin there and gasp out loud, my body responding even when my brain tells it not to.
“Lucien,” I mouth, fighting for control.“We don’t have time for this.”
“Hush,” me murmurs, his lips trailing down the shell of my ear.“I didn’t have you wrapped around me long enough last night before you were yanked off me and I’ve been half hard ever since.”
His fingers dip under the waistband of my jeans and then under my panties, and I squirm against him.My brain is screaming that we don’t have time for this–that we need to be planning–but my body agrees with every word he’s saying and is more than ready to offer itself up to finishing what we started last night.My nerves are on fire, his fingers leaving a trail of light that may as well be glowing like a fucking light bulb.Heat and moisture are blooming between my legs and when his fingers finally reach my pussy, I nearly cry with relief.
He brings his mouth down over mine, though, and swallows the cry before it can materialize.
This time the kiss is slow and sensuous, deep enough to steal a part of my soul as his fingers spread me and slip into my opening.And Christ alive, I think this might be the most aroused I’ve ever been.I’m keenly aware of the men behind this wall, making their plans, and the guard who’s about to discover us, and yet the danger, the impending doom, just makes me even hotter for the man currently finger fucking me.
Because Lucien and I have always walked a fine line between danger and lust.We’ve always been half enemies and half lovers, have forbidden and half destined for each other.
And this feels so perfectly us that I can’t find it in me to argue anymore.
Instead I open up further for him and welcome his fingers, reveling in the feeling of having him against me again, his hands on my skin and his lips against my throat.He’s hot and big and dangerous, everything I love the most, and if I could make this moment last forever, I would.
