Page 86 of Black Castle

Something flashes in Lucan’s eyes, and though feeting, his jaw tics. And when she glances down, his fingers are curled into a fist, pressing into his thigh.

“Are you…” He trails off hesitantly, his gaze on his clenched fist.

“Am I what?”

“You are going to leave, aren’t you?”

The broken way the question is asked causes a shiver to ripple through her, leaving behind a trail of tiny raised bumps on her skin.

Her heart skips, her stomach lurching.

When she finally leaves this room, she plans to have Kenji quickly find a way to switch their return ticket to today. She was going to disappear quietly; he wouldn’t even have realized she was gone until she was already on the flight back home.

But now, the desperation and sincerity in his voice, like he can’t bear to lose her—even though this might be him manipulating her—she shakes her head. “No.”

And as soon as she utters that one word, a memory from last night plays like a movie in her head.

“Now that I know what you taste like, I will not be letting you go anytime soon,” he had murmured against her searing skin as he pounded into her. “You will never belong to another man,” he added as he sank his teeth into her neck, breaking open a skin like a vampire from her silly novels. “You are mine now, ladybird.’

And as she replays the memory in her head, she wonders; if she does want to truly leave, with the way the promise had rippled from his chest, the darkness lacing every word, will she even be successful with escaping him?

He will find her. He will definitely haunt her down. There’s no other way to put it. She has walked into a wicked web. Her tentacles have been entangled and bound. Escaping won’t be a walk in the park.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Vivienne

At 11 p.m., Vivienne can’t sleep. She tries reading but it doesn’t work. Her social media following is nothing to write home about. So after going through several pieces of content from fellow artists for nearly an hour, it gets boring pretty quickly.

Then she decides to pick out the outfit she will wear to the airport, should she change her mind and decide to head back to Pennsylvania tomorrow.

She ends up in a flannel jeans she doesn’t really like much—and quite frankly, can’t understand why she packed it in the first place—and a green woolen long sleeve top with a really cute artistic work on the front.

Then a knock comes on the door and she stills, her eyes breaking away from the mirror to glance at the door.

She already told Kenji good night. So she knows who the person behind the door is. The slow creeping awareness of his presence even before he speaks gives him away.

“Come in,” she murmurs, pulling the sweater over her head, leaving her in a black lacy bra and the jeans.

The lock creaks, the door creaking as a resounding echo travels down the empty hallway, while his silence stretches into the room, thick and weighted.

Then his voice. Low, smooth and dangerous in its quiet intimacy. “Still awake?”

His gaze crawls over her, zeroing on her chest, igniting heat beneath her skin.

“Was just about to sleep, actually,” she murmurs, her hand moving behind her to take out the hook of her bra, the straps of the lace falling off her shoulders, and her silky breasts bounce free.

Stripping in front of him isn’t really an invitation for intimacy. With how weary he is of physical touch, she doubts he is even interested in that. But she wonders if she is affecting him nonetheless. That he doesn’t like being touched doesn’t mean his loins can’t stir when in front of a sexually appealing naked woman.

The door shuts, and a click follows as the lock latches into place. She hears his footsteps, slow, deliberate, as he crosses the room to her. And her pulse hammers with each measured step.

She folds the sweater she just pulled off, sure that she won’t be wearing it tomorrow. She suddenly hates the color, the texture, the weight of it in her hands.

Then she feels it, warmth. A presence behind her now. He’s close, so close, his body heat seeps into her skin, his scent curling around her in a dark intoxicating embrace.

She takes in a sharp inhale, and doesn’t move.

She can’t.

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