PROLOGUE, PART I
FIVE YEARS AGO
DALLAS
Her name leaves my mouth like a motherfucking wish.
“Lucy.”
The cab of my truck is too small for what we’re doing, for who weare. It’s early October, but even with the engine dead as we park on the end of the same street that always hides us, heat presses in on every side: from her mouth on mine, our bodies finding each other, the sharp inhale and shallow exhale she makes when I utter her name like that…
Like it matters.
Like she was born to bemine.
“I owe you better than this,” I murmur against her pale throat, even as I shove up her skirt, lifting her slightly off of my lap as she grips her panties through her stockings, pulling them both down enough to give me full access to her pussy… even as I thrust up, bumping her sensitive flesh with the rough material of my jeans and the erection bulging against it, I wish I could giveher what she deserves. “A bed,” I gasp out. “With silk sheets. You deserve to be wined and dined and fucked on silk sheets.”
She pauses just long enough to look down at me, her stormy gaze roving over my face, searching for something that I’d give her if I only knew what it was.
“I don’t care about silk sheets, Dallas,” she says, her knees bracketing my lap as she leans away. Her thumbs caress the sides of my neck. “You know that. I never have. I just wantyou. But if you’d rather not…” She swallows, and I follow the motion of her throat with feverish eyes. “We can stop.”
Stop?
With Lucy half-naked on my lap?
Never.
Shaking my head, I slip my hand under her blouse, pressing my palm to the small of her back. Try escaping me, Luce. The touch is a warning for her to try, though I know she won’t. She wants this as much as I do, and she starts pleading softly under her breath as I use my other hand to flick open the button on my jeans.
It’s awkward, a struggle and a half to get the zipper down, to yank my jeans down one ass cheek, then the other. With a gentle push, I guide Lucy toward me, taking her mouth in a hungry kiss. I gasp into her mouth, nipping her bottom lip, groaning at her taste as I spare both hands to get my jeans down to my ankles. My boxers go next, my body shifting just enough to free my erection as our kiss turns sloppy.Messy. I want to devour Lucy. I want to burrow myself inside of her so deeply, she can never escape.
She’s with me now. I have her soft blonde hair tangled in my fingers, my hands palming her head, refusing to let her get away from the heat of my mouth. It’s in the way she was hesitant to climb into my truck when I tracked her down after work earlier. It’s in the way that she’s been ducking my calls all week. Yeah,my fucking father’s kept my busy, and I hate touching my sweet Lucy when there’s blood on my hands, but with my latest job behind me, all I want is to find salvation in her arms, in her kiss, in her body…
So I thought she’s been withdrawing lately. Here, with Lucy whimpering my name whenever I free her mouth enough for her to make the sound, we can pretend that this… what we have… is forever.
It has to be forever.
She chose me. I’m fuckingobsessed. There isn’t another soul in Harmony Heights that’s a perfect match for me other than Lucy Wright, and I couldn’t give a shit if Jack doesn’t see it like I do. She’s mine. She’ll always be mine. The only way I’ll ever let her go is if Lucy asks it of me, but so long as I never give her the chance, she’ll stay.
I’ll make sure of it.
“I love you,” I bite out, dropping my hands so that I’m cupping her shoulders. I give one a squeeze, then trail my fingers over her sleeve, my hand going, going, going until it’s between our heaving, impatient bodies. I grab my cock by the base, angling it so that I can slide it between her folds, gathering up the slick proof of her arousal. I shudder, fucking grateful that Lucy wants me as much as I want her, butfuckit. I need the words. “Luce… Iloveyou.”
She gasps as the head of my cock bumps into her clit. She mewls, inching closer, rising up just enough that she can try to feed my erection inside her heat.
I reach for her tit. My thumb swipes across the hard nipple poking through her bra, through her blouse. Lucy moans, and I take another kiss, swallowing the sound as I dig my fingers into her flesh.
Our foreheads meet, and I tease her again. She wants my cock, but I won’t give it to her until she gives me whatIwant?—
“You’re all I want, Dal,” she breathes into my ear. Her fingers tighten in my tee like she’s holding on to something precious anddoomed. “I love you, baby. I love you so fucking much.”
For a heartbeat, I believe it. I believe that she loves Dallas, not the heir, and that my future as the King’s only son isn’t something that she thinks about every damn day like I do. She doesn’t want a Collins, she just wantsDal, and that Idobelieve. My last name is a liability when it comes to my claim on Lucy Wright. I know that.
Which is why, for a heartbeat, I think our love might be enough to burn the whole fucking Order to the ground. To escape a future I don’t want, to find happiness with the woman I chose instead of some pristine Offering that all of the high-ranking Owed are expected to accept.
When I fucked her the first time, more than a year ago, I knew I wasn’t her first, but I would do anything to be her last. Lucy was a temptation in so many ways. She lives on the outskirts of the Order, her father a low-ranking member, and her future wide open. She wasn’t taught from the cradle to obey the Owed, and virginity was something she said goodbye to long before our paths ever crossed.
I liked that. I liked that she didn’t care about my status, or that she didn’t have to live and die by the Order’s laws like I’m supposed to. She was free and now she’s mine, and as I shove my entire length inside her waiting pussy, I give her everything I can.
