Page 40 of Wicked Bonds
“No,” he says.
He’s close enough I can see the deeper flecks of deep red in his eyes and the faintest curl of his lip. I want to bite him.
The grip on my wrist is so tight I’m sure it will leave a bruise, but I hold his stare, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing fear. “What’s the matter, Lucien? Afraid of me?”
He laughs, and it’s mean. “You couldn’t hurt me if you tried.”
I’m a sucker for a challenge so I knee him in the crotch with everything I have. He doesn’t even blink, just tightens his hold and steps in until the space between us is less than a sliver. And my knee is now in fucking agony.
“You’re all the same,” I say. “You tell yourself you’re different. Better. But you’re just as fucking damaged as the rest of them.”
His eyes drift to my mouth, then back up. “You think you’re different, Rose? That you’re not just like every other little martyr who comes through this place, convinced you’re special?” His breath is cold and faintly minty.
“Wrong. I know I’m nothing special,” I say. “I’ve spent my whole life coming to terms with that. The difference between you and me is that I never wanted to be anything other than what I already was. I never deluded myself into thinking that I was better.”
He leans in, his lips brushing my ear. “Keep telling yourself that, Rose.” His voice is almost gentle, but there is an undercurrent of cruelness.
I snap my teeth at his ear like a feral cat, and he jerks back. At that moment I see the hunger in his face.
We’re so close I can feel the outline of his body, the hard line of his thigh pinning me to the desk. He wants me to back down, to give in.
I don’t. Not today.
“Let go,” I demand. My anger is snapping and clawing inside me, but there’s something else, too. Something that makes my insides churn in a way that is not entirely unpleasant. Hisproximity is distracting and I can’t think straight. My rage isn’t the only thing throbbing.
Lucien smiles slowly, like he can read my mind, and I see a flash of his fangs. “No,” he says. “Tell me what you’re going to do with all this,” he says. His hand is on my hip now, pressing me back, and I realize I’m both shivering and grinding against him. Not on purpose. Not exactly.
I want to scream at him. I want to claw his eyes out. I want to tear my own skin off so I don’t have to feel this, whatever this is.
Instead I say, “Let go or I’ll set you on fire.”
His eyes dance, amused. “You don’t have the control.”
“Exactly,” I say, and dig my nails into his arm until I feel them break. “One out of control witchy wildfire is coming your way, motherfucker. I squeeze the magic in me, and for a crazy second I imagine it sparking out through my hands and lighting him up like a bonfire.
But before I can, his mouth crashes down on mine
The kiss is savage. It hurts. It’s brutal, and there’s nothing sweet about it. He doesn’t coax, or ask nicely, he just takes. It’s a fistfight, a brawl. I bite his lower lip, and he makes a noise deep in his throat that’s half a growl, half a moan. He pushes me back, hands hard on my hips, and just like that I’m sitting on the edge of the desk, knees parting as he steps between them, pinning me with his whole body. I want to slap him, and I want to fuck him, and right now I’m not sure which urge is stronger.
His hands slide up my arms, as the smell of him, vetiver and mint, shorts out my brain. My hips roll up towards him instinctively.
Lucien’s hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back so he can bite down my throat. His lips are hot and rough, scraping along the tendon, finding the soft spot at the base of my neck where the pulse flutters. He’s so close to losing it I can feel his fangs graze my skin, not quite piercing, just enough to tease.
I gasp, arching into him, and my whole body goes slick with heat. I don’t care that he’s angry, that I’m angry.
He bites down. Not enough to break the skin, but enough that my knees nearly give out. I claw at his back, digging my nails in, and he responds by sliding his hands under my ass and drawing me to him. I hook my ankles behind him and grind against him shamelessly, wondering if he can sense how wet I am through my jeans.
He’s shaking, and I realize with a vicious satisfaction that I’m the one making him lose control. The ever-in-control Lucien, always so stoic and composed, is losing his self-control, and that’s a power I never expected to have.
For all his centuries of discipline, Lucien is on the edge of something untamed and ugly and the opposite of everything he tries to be, and I’m the one who put him there.
I lean back, panting, and stare at him from an inch away. “You’re not supposed to want this,” I say, and it comes out as a taunt, not a question.
“I don’t,” he grits out.
“Liar.” I push his chest, just to feel the muscle tense under my palms. He doesn’t move, but his eyes narrow, and for a second I think he’ll plunge those fangs into my jugular and be done with it. But then it’s like the realization of what he’s doing dawns, and his pupils contract into tiny pinpoints.There it is.
I wrench myself free of him, shoving with all the force I have left in my arms and legs. Lucien lets go, not resisting at all this time. He stands there, eyes locked on me as if he’s at war with his own body.
