Page 37 of Irrevocably

“I’m not your boyfriend, Astrid,” I cut her off. “And fucking is not why I’m here. There’s the little question of that information, which you still haven’t provided to me.”

It’s cold, and I know it, but that’s the way it has to be.

She just looks at me. “You made me promise, and now you’re going back on your word?”

“I didn’t give you my word.”

“No, but you meant it.” She pauses, her grey eyes direct. “And you liked it, didn’t you? That got you off.”

More heat winds through my blood, the breathless sound of my name in her mouth echoing in my head. Begging me as I pinched her hard nipple. The tightness of her cunt around my cock, and her hoarse voice telling me that it hurt. The give of her flesh as I sank my teeth into her lip and the feel of her pussy convulsing around me, as the pain sent her over the edge.

She is the perfect match for you.

The thought nags at me, my recalcitrant cock hardening. The pain I deliver is Enzo’s punishment, Enzo’s justice, but right here in this bed, the pain I delivered was for her pleasure, and she’s not wrong, it was for mine, too.

Aren’t you tired of doing everything for other people and having nothing for yourself?

Yes, of course I fucking am. But until I’m free, I can’t have anything for myself, and thinking about it is a weakness I can’t allow, and yet…

“You want to do this again?” I ask. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Her chin lifts. She can’t stop challenging me, can she? “Don’t you?”

“A fuck is just a fuck, Astrid.”

“Not to me it isn’t.” She straightens, sitting on her bed wrapped in her quilt like a little empress. “I think you want more, Lucien. I think you want to do this again.”

She’s staring at me so directly and it shouldn’t feel as if she can read what’s in my head. She’s only a sheltered twenty-one-year-old college student, with very limited experience of life, while I’m older and more experienced than her in just about every way. I’m an enforcer, like her friend. A killer, a dealer of pain, without mercy and without hesitation.

“You have no idea what I want, Tinkerbell.” I pull on my T‑shirt. “Except for one thing, of course. Which you still haven’t given to me.”

Her jaw tightens and she leans forward, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Why do you want to know about Dad and the club?”

“That information isn’t relevant.”

“It’s relevant to me. I’d like to know what you’re going to do with that information before I give it to you.”

Ah. So, now she’s asking me what all this is about.

I sit on the side of the bed and grab my boots. “Isn’t it a little late to be asking that?”

“Better late than never.”

“There’s no point asking. I’m not going to tell you.” I shove one foot into my boot and start with the laces.

“Who are you?”

“You know my name.” I tie the laces, then put the other boot on.

“Are you from another club? But no, you don’t have a patch, so…”

“Stop asking questions.”

Again, there is a light touch on my back, her fingertips trailing down over the cotton of my tee, and I tense in reaction as a ripple of lust curls in my bloodstream. Her touch is like that whisper in my head, insidious, and I have no idea why I’m reacting this way. I’m always in control of myself, always, and yet that beast in me wants to turn and pounce on her, get her underneath me again.

Bite her neck, bite her nipple, bite her thighs. Hold her hard and leave bruises on her pale skin. My bruises.

She says nothing, tracing patterns on my back. Everything in me wants to pull away from her touch, but that would mean my control isn’t as good as I want it to be, and I can’t allow that. So, I stay where I am, lacing my boot as she touches me. It’s a test, and I’ve been tested many times before. I’m immune now.