chapter 12
1140 Words
Lucien moved. His thumb brushed her jaw. Just once.
"Gwen. If I wanted you scared, you’d be begging. I’m not threatening you. I’m trying not to kiss you."
The room was too quiet. Just the sound of her breathing, which was fast and wrong, and the slow press of his thumb against her jaw. He wasn’t gripping her hard enough to bruise. He was holding her like he could crush her if he wanted to. And she knew he could. He looked strong. Unscarred. Unbreakable. Except right now, his eyes weren’t on her throat. They were fixed on her mouth.
Gwen forced herself not to flinch. “You think threatening me is going to work?”
Lucien’s mouth curved. Not a smile. Something darker. “Threatening?” His voice dropped, low and rough, like he was tasting the words.
Her pulse jumped under his thumb. Damn him.
He saw it. His gaze dropped to her lips again, and his thumb brushed over the corner of her mouth. Just once. “You’re trembling,” he murmured. “But you’re not pulling away.”
“Maybe I want to see if you’re all bark,” she shot back, and immediately hated how breathless it sounded.
Lucien’s eyes went black at the edges. "Be careful of what you wish for.”
Then he stopped talking.He didn’t ask. He didn’t give her time to run. One second his thumb was on her jaw, the next his mouth was on hers.
It wasn’t soft. It was a claim. The kiss was hot, hard, and far too certain for a man who was supposed to hate her. His hand slid from her jaw into her hair, holding her still while he kissed her like he had been thinking about it for days and was done pretending.
Gwen should have shoved him. Should have bitten him. Instead she melted.
Her hands came up to his chest before she could stop them, fisting in the fabric of his shirt instead of pushing. Heat flooded her, stupid and traitorous, because his mouth was demanding and his scent was all forest and storm and something animal that made her knees weak.
She kissed him back. Just for a second. Just enough that Lucien groaned against her mouth, low and surprised, like he didn’t expect her to meet him there.
And then he pulled away. Just like that. His hands dropped. He stepped back half a pace, and the cold air hit her lips where his lips had been.
Lucien dragged his thumb over his own mouth, eyes gleaming, and gave her a slow, wicked smirk.
“Careful yourself,” he said, voice rough around the edges. “You kiss like you’ve been waiting.”
Gwen’s face went hot. Anger flared to cover it. “I…”
He didn’t let her finish. He turned his head slightly, never breaking eye contact with her. “Alfred.”
Footsteps scuffled a few moments later and the door opened behind them.
Lucien said without looking away from her. “Show her to her room.”
The last part came out wrong. Like he didn’t mean her room, he meant alone. Tonight.
Gwen opened her mouth, furious and flustered and still tasting him. “I’m not…”
Lucien’s smirk sharpened. “Didn’t say you were. Yet.”
He stepped aside, letting Alfred see her properly. “Make sure she gets there.”
Then he looked at Gwen one last time, that smirk still in place, and walked out without another word.
Leaving her shaking, furious, and ruined by one kiss.
. *. *. *
Alfred shut the door behind her and the lock turned with a sound that felt too final to be accidental.
Gwen stood in the middle of the room and waited for her breathing to slow down, but it did not. Her mouth still burned from his kiss and her skin still felt like it remembered the weight of his hand on her jaw.
She moved without thinking, crossing to the bed and sitting on the edge like her legs might give out if she didn’t. The sheets were cold under her hands. The air was cold. Everything was cold except for her.
She pulled her phone from her pocket because she needed something to hold, something that wasn’t him. The screen lit up and the bank balance stared back at her. One hundred thousand dollars.
That was the reason she was here.
The number did not feel like a rescue. It felt like a chain. Her mother’s treatment, the debt, the months of panic, all of it was gone because of him. And now she was in this room with his kiss still on her lips and no idea what he wanted in return.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered, but the room did not answer her.
She should not be letting a man like Lucien get that close. He was dangerous in a way she did not have words for yet. The way he looked at her like he could take whatever he wanted and the way he had kissed her like he was done pretending not to want it.
She hated that her body had gone soft in his arms. She hated that she had kissed him back before her brain could catch up.
A knock at the door made her heart jump.
“Miss.” Alfred’s voice was low through the wood. “Water. And clothes.”
Gwen opened the door only a crack. He kept his eyes on the floor and handed her a bottle and a folded set of plain clothes. No silk. No lace. Nothing that looked like it had come from Lucien’s hand.
“Mr. Lucien says you are to remain here tonight,” Alfred said, and for half a second his eyes lifted to hers. He looked terrified. “For your safety.”
Gwen’s jaw tightened. “His safety, you mean.”
Alfred did not reply. He just stepped back and let the door close. The lock clicked again.
She was trapped in here with the money on her screen and his mouth in her memory and no way to tell which one scared her more.
Gwen set the phone face down on the nightstand like she could stop seeing the number. She walked to the window and pressed her forehead to the glass. The city was dark and quiet and she was alone with a man who had kissed her like a threat and then let her walk away.
She was going to repay him. Every dollar. She would find a way and she would leave this house before she made the mistake of wanting him again.
But her body did not believe her yet, because it could still feel the exact place his thumb had been on her jaw.
- Writer
