Chapter 2. Lustful Night

His car.

She shouldn’t be here. She knew that. Every time the city lights flashed across the leather interior of his car, she caught sight of herself in the dark window and barely recognized the woman staring back. She couldn't recognize the risk taker of a woman she had become overnight.

Her dress rode high on her thigh. Her breath became shallow and her skin still tingled from where the man had placed his hand on the small of her back to guide her outside, like he already owned her body without ever asking for permission.

He didn't say much during their drive. Just subtle glances. A smirk here and there and his index finger tapping the steering wheel in a rhythm she couldn’t decode. But somehow, the silence had felt louder than words. It had charged the air between them, so much so that when they finally pulled up in front of a towering building with black glass windows and no name on the entrance, her legs nearly trembled when she stepped out.

His place was too beautiful for someone like him. All clean lines and mood lighting, whiskey-colored walls and charcoal marble floors, but like him, it radiated control.

She stood in the middle of his penthouse after he had held the door for her, her heart thudding in her ears, waiting for him to say something.

He didn't.

He stepped behind her and reached up slowly to slide the zipper of her dress down. He noticed her body tensed under his hands so he smirked wickedly.

“Say stop if you want me to,” he murmured.

She didn’t.

She couldn’t. The excitement between her legs wouldn't let her even if her senses warned her against it. Against him.

Her breath hitched as his fingers grazed the bare skin of her back. He pushed the straps from her shoulders, inch by inch, until the dress pooled at her feet and her back was bare. She wore only a peach underwear beneath her dress, no bra, nothing else.

She turned around and faced him, uncertain, but not afraid anymore. Not really. There was something else behind her eyes. Defiance. Curiosity. A kind of stubborn fire that called to the predator in him.

He had watched her all night. The flicker of jealousy in her eyes. The clenched fists. The proud chin. The heartbreak she tried to mask with lipstick and attitude.

And now she was in his space. In his hands.

He didn’t rush. He stepped closer, letting his palm coast along her hip, fingers following the curve like he was tracing a map he planned to memorize.

"You’re not what you pretend to be," he said, voice low. "You wear innocence like a costume."

Her lips parted slightly, but she didn’t reply.

He leaned in, brushing his mouth against her ear. "You want to be devoured, don’t you?"

She shivered.

‘Why use that word?’ the same part of her mind asked that question.

He kissed her neck, just below her ear, and the soft sound she made; something between a gasp and a moan, went straight to his core.

Lucien stepped in front of her then, unbuttoning his shirt slowly. Letting her watch. Her gaze dropped to the ink covering his chest, the same serpent, now coiled across his ribs and her breath caught like she was watching something sacred being revealed.

"Touch it," he said, and it wasn’t a request.

Her fingers trembled as they reached out, hesitant at first, but then she settled her palm flat against the heat of his chest. His skin was smooth, taut over muscle, and the ink that marked him felt like something alive under her touch.

He didn’t move. He watched her, eyes sharp and patient, letting her explore, letting her come to him. He swallowed.

"You don’t scare me," she whispered, convincing herself more than she did him.

His lip curled with a light snicker, "Liar."

And maybe she was. Because everything about him did scare her; the way he looked at her like he already knew what her moans would sound like, how he touched her like she was both glass and gasoline. But her fear wasn’t the kind that told her to run. It was the kind that made her want to leap into it.

He cupped her jaw gently, but there was tension in his fingers like he was holding himself back. His thumb brushed her bottom lip, playing with its tenderness.

He leaned it and Anna closed her eyes to receive his lips. Unlike his touch, his kiss wasn’t gentle.

It was rough, consuming, like he was punishing her for every second she had tried to ignore him earlier. His hand slid down her back, pressing her closer, until her bare chest was flushed against him and her breath mingled with his in a tangled storm. He was sucking the breath out of her, but she loved it. She had craved such a kiss for so long.

He played with her tongue. She tasted like heat and rebellion and something he hadn’t realized he’d been starving for. Every time her mouth parted for his, he wanted more. Deeper. Wilder. Messier.

He lifted her easily, effortlessly, and carried her toward the bed, never breaking the kiss. She wrapped her legs around his waist like instinct, her arms around his neck. The woman was fire and softness, all tangled in one.

When he laid her down, she arched beneath him like her body had been waiting for this.

Lucien pulled back to look at her. They both stared at each other, while Anna's heavy breathing reduced the silence in the room. Lucien was thinking to himself, about how long he had to follow her for this opportunity to fall in his hands.

His eyes wandered all over the beauty on his sheets. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips bruised. And her eyes heavy with want.

"Last chance," he said, his voice hoarse. "Tell me to stop." He begged her, knowing now, that what he craved from her was more than he thought; afraid that he might get too indulged, addicted maybe.

Anna stared up at him and said the one word he hadn't expected but craved deeply.

"Don’t."

"Fuck." He swallowed.