Heartless: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance Read online

  He answered in a beat. “If I thought for one second you’d be telling one single person I was in here, you’d be dead already, sweetheart.”

  He could’ve snapped my neck with his fingers still inside me, and I knew it. He’d have made it out of the compound before anyone even noticed I was gone. It’s not as though anyone would have cared I was gone anyway – Mom would probably be grateful. She’d probably raise a glass to my demise, just so long as nobody saw her do it.

  If I wasn’t dosed up on cocaine and champagne, I’d have been petrified. A mouse in the claws of Lucian Morelli – head of the whole Morelli clan since his father handed him the reins.

  He was a brute. An evil brute. A freak on a mission to tear down my family every single day of his life. An oath sworn in blood.

  Maybe I was the next sad little victim in his quest.

  Maybe I wouldn’t even care. Maybe it would be a blessing. So long, world.

  I was torn between screaming for help or accepting I was a toy in his grip. Because maybe, just maybe, I could finally know what it was like having a real cock inside me before I choked out my final breath.

  That’s when the coke spoke louder than anything. That’s when the coke, and my racing heartbeat, and the tingle between my legs laughed at me, and told me I wanted to be a toy in Lucian Morelli’s grip.

  So, I did it.

  I spread my legs even wider for the devil between them, and I kissed him. I kissed him, and I hoped he’d make it hurt. I hoped he’d make my first time something that would scar me forever. Especially if my forever wasn’t going to last all that long.

  The monster pinned my wrists above my head.

  Yes. Do it.

  I smiled at him, my lips puffy from when he bit at them. I felt like a whore, and I spoke like one.

  “Fuck me,” I whispered. “Show me just what a badass you are, Morelli, and fuck me.”

  He twisted his fingers even deeper and his smirk was evil enough to burn the sun. “Well, well, well,” he said. “I never thought Elaine Constantine would be a virgin.”

  My belly lurched. Actually lurched.

  How did he know that? How the fuck could he know that? Was it really so obvious that I was a dumbass little girl who’d never taken a cock before?

  Maybe it was. Maybe I really was that crap at the whole damn lot of it.

  One thing was for sure – if he hadn’t known for definite, the flush of my cheeks would have told him he was right.

  I was a virgin.

  A desperate virgin, aching to be touched. To be used. To be fucked hard enough to hurt.

  The one thing that would save me from hurting myself was finding someone else to do it for me.

  “Do it,” I hissed. “Show me what a bad boy you are and fuck me, Morelli. Fuck me and die for it.”

  He would have done it. I know he would. I could see the raw lust in his eyes, fixed on mine as he tugged my panties down my thighs. I’d have lost my virginity against a bathroom wall with my dress hitched up around my waist, and I’d have been grateful for it.

  But Lucian Morelli didn’t get the chance.

  We were both jolted to our senses by the thump of the bathroom door, and there were footsteps. Men’s footsteps. Getting closer.

  “Elaine? Are you in here? Your clutch was on the floor outside; have you lost your fucking mind?”

  Lucian was silent, and so was I. Faces just an inch apart, breaths ragged.

  “Elaine?! You in here? Seriously, what the fuck are you thinking? Your mom is going to lose her shit. At least take your damn coke with you when you take a piss.”

  Oh no.

  No.

  It was Silas. My cousin, and one of the few I considered almost an ally.

  My cousin burst straight into the water closet without a second’s pause, catching me right in the grip of our family’s arch nemesis. Even being pinned by the guy wouldn’t have hidden the fact that I was desperate for him. It was obvious.

  Shame piled on top of the rest of my frazzled emotions as Silas lurched backwards, mouth open wide.

  Lucian dropped me back to my feet and stared at him, still not even flustered.

  “You’ll be dead,” Silas snarled and jabbed a finger at him. “You’ll be fucking dead, Morelli. You’ll never get out of here alive.”

  Lucian was smirking as he bent down to the floor to get his mask.

  “If I die here tonight, Roosevelt, your whole world will be dead around you within days.” He laughed and lurched towards him with a boom of his hands to illustrate.

  Finally, I snapped to my senses. “GO!” I screeched and shunted him from behind. “Just get the fuck out of here!”

  Silas didn’t speak, because he knew the monster was telling the truth. As much as he would have hated to admit it – Lucian Morelli was right. If the eldest child of the Morelli family was killed at Tinsley Constantine’s birthday ball, she would be the first one to have her throat slit in the aftermath.

  Tinsley and then me.

  Again, maybe it would be a blessing in disguise.

  Our family had been up against his for decades, billionaires out to kill for the thrill, just so long as we were spilling the blood of the other. My family was better than his at hiding our corruption from the world – smarter and more cultured – but that didn’t matter. We were all bound in the same pit of cruelty and criminality, pursuing wealth and power at any cost.

  Drugs, arms, trafficking, fraud . . . it didn’t matter. We were all up to our necks.

  It made no difference to anyone but us, of course – the police and the courts were so tightly in our back pockets that they’d have rolled over and shown us their bellies in a flash.

  “Get the fuck out of here, Morelli!” Silas snarled again, and Lucian laughed as he pulled his mask back on.

  “I was leaving anyway,” the monster told my cousin and slapped his shoulder on the way past. “This place is a joke. Your party is a sorry excuse for one.”

  He was right on that score, too. The party really was a joke. False dumbasses singing to the same dumbass tune. Nobody really gave a fuck for anyone else in our world.

  I looked at the asshole once more, soaking him in under the harshness of the bathroom lighting.

  Even though the man was Lucian Morelli, and I hated him with every scrap of my soul, he was seriously damn beautiful. His features were preened but rugged. His jaw was firm, sculpted like a statue.

  He was the opposite of me and of all of us Constantines. Dark to our fair. His hair was styled in thick dark sweeps away from his forehead, and his eyes were deadly black. His shoulders were huge, but he was toned all the way down to slim hips. The tuxedo he wore fit perfectly to his insanely hot frame.

  Lucian Morelli was a god.

  An evil god.

  “Never come back,” I told him. “I mean it, Morelli. If you ever come back here, I’ll scream until I’m dead.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” he said and smirked once more before he stepped out.

  The door closed behind him before Silas grabbed my arm and yanked me over. He shoved my clutch to my chest and shook his head at me.

  “Get yourself to rehab before you get us all fucking killed. He gets three minutes before I tell security he’s on the grounds, then I’m done with it. And I’m done with you, too.”

  “He grabbed me and pinned me,” I told him, but Silas sneered at me.

  “I saw the way you were looking at him, Elaine. You wanted him. You wanted that scum to fuck you. You don’t deserve to call yourself a Constantine.”

  The cousin I’d been so close to through my childhood stared at me with disgust in his eyes. Almost as much disgust as he’d had for Morelli.

  Betrayal and shame burned through me.

  Silas didn’t hang around to make sure I was okay, just stalked out of there without a goodbye. Yeah, it was definite. The one final member of my family who didn’t wish I’d rot in hell, besides cousin Harriet who loved everything with a pulse, had written m
e off. Silas was now on team hate Elaine with the rest of them. Great. What an achievement.

  I opted to snort a fresh line of coke before heading back to the party, but it didn’t make any difference. I could’ve snorted all the coke in the world, and it wouldn’t have meant shit to the self-loathing in my eyes as I stared in the mirror.

  If only everyone knew the truth.

  If only they knew the filth that had turned me into the sad little freak I’d grown up to be.

  But it was too late for that.

  It was too late for anything other than to destroy myself as quickly as possible. Maybe one day I’d finally pluck up enough courage to end my life. Maybe.

  Just a shame Lucian Morelli couldn’t have finished me off and made a martyr of me. He’d have given me a damn good fuck before the slaughter.

  Fuck it.

  Fuck it all, and fuck him too.

  I headed back to the party and drank until I passed out.

  3

  Lucian

  I should’ve gone straight on to Violent Delights and fucked whoever I wanted, abusing them long and hard before I slammed their pussy. That’s the beauty of having your own personal BDSM club – you treat it like one. Everyone in there was mine. They belonged to me, just like the building they were playing filthy games in. They just didn’t know it.

  It was the perfect amusement in my portfolio, and I didn’t have to lift a finger to oversee the place. Clark Ventana did all the grunt work, and I cashed in on the profits. We were my kind of team. Still, that team meant nothing to me that night.

  My chauffeur looked shit scared as he pulled up at the rear of the Constantine compound and opened the back door for me. He ushered me inside as quickly as he dared and shot back to the driver’s side. Trenton was already on the cell as I dropped into the leather.

  “I want one of Rex’s girls. Now.” I paused to smell Elaine’s scent on my fingers. “Blonde. Blue eyes. Young.”

  He cleared his throat. “Where do you want her?”

  The sweep of Bishop’s Landing was outside the windows when I gave my answer. I’d had enough of it. I needed the hub of the city. “Central apartment.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll have her over within the hour.”

  I didn’t say thanks before I ended the call. Thanks was limited to special occasions for a man like me.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked the chauffeur.

  “No, sir.” He shook his head, pretending he was unable to hear a word I’d been saying. Smart move on his part.

  “Central apartment.”

  It was the third of my properties, positioned right at the heart of New York. At least the little blonde slut would get a nice skyline view as I fucked her up.

  I’d pulled my mask off and dumped it out the window long before the car pulled up outside the Central main entrance. I could practically feel the relief of the driver as I left the car. Pussy.

  I took a deep breath of city air before I reached the doors and stepped inside. I loved the city. I loved the buzz; I loved the life; I loved the thrill. Sure, I’d traveled the globe plenty through my thirty-five years on this planet, but nowhere had ever captured me like this place.

  The team on main reception tipped their heads as I walked on by, but I ignored them, pacing through to the elevator.

  I reached level thirty-two in a flash after giving a nod to the overhead camera as I passed level thirty-one. My security team is on constant high alert. Anyone trying to get to my suite would never make it without being stopped and shot. My go-to pimp, Rex Halloway, would be plenty safe with the bitch I ordered in his grip, but very few people could say the same.

  I was standing at my main suite windows, surveying the city lights, when the buzz of my door sounded. I made my way over slowly, making them wait.

  Rex arrived well within the hour. Excellent service. So it should be, since I was paying a fortune for his filth.

  He gave me a nod as he handed the girl over. She was small. Scared. Pretty. Perfectly within my brief . . . but her hair wasn’t naturally blonde.

  “Substandard product,” I said. “She’d better be a true fucking virgin or there will be shit to pay.”

  “Short notice,” he replied. “I’ll send you a better one free of charge when you’re next buying.”

  I shut the door in his face.

  The girl didn’t know what to do. She was wearing a slip of lace, white and sweet. It suited her. I ignored her as I strode back through to the main living room, and she followed me with dainty little steps.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her, and her voice was a delicate quiver when she answered.

  “Natalie, sir.”

  “Well, Natalie, tonight you’re Elaine, understand?”

  She nodded. “Elaine.”

  I smirked at her. She’d be a fun conquest.

  “Get on your knees and crawl to me.”

  She paused. Scared.

  “I said, get on your fucking knees and crawl to me.”

  She dropped down, a beautiful contrast against the black marble floor tiles, and did as she was told. My dick was straining in my pants as she reached my feet and stared up at me with those sweet blue eyes.

  “How old are you?” I asked, and her eyes stayed fixed on mine.

  “Eighteen, sir.”

  “Have you ever taken cock before?” I asked her, and she shook her head.

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you want me to fuck you?”

  She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “More convincing than that.”

  She nodded harder. “Yes, sir! Please, sir!”

  “Show me,” I said. “Show me how much you want to be fucked by Lucian Morelli.”

  I sat down in my leather armchair, and she hovered on her knees, not sure what the hell she should be doing. I liked that. I liked the nerves bristling through her slender little body.

  She couldn’t pass for Elaine Constantine, but I’d have fun making her try.

  I clicked my fingers. “Come here and show me how horny you are for me, little girl.”

  Once again, she did as she was told. She positioned herself between my legs and tugged the white lace down over her tits. Sweet little nubs, ripe to be bitten. She flicked at her own nipples and squeezed her flesh. They were small. Cute. Not as big as Elaine Constantine’s, but still aching to be hurt.

  “Sit down and open your legs for me,” I said, “Show me how eager your pussy is.”

  She sat back on the tiles, lifted the slip of lace and opened her legs. Her pussy was shaved and glistening. A sweet little innocent slit.

  “Play with that pretty wet clit, little one,” I told her. “But don’t you dare put your fingers inside.”

  Her quivering hands told me my instruction was redundant. She wouldn’t be putting any fingers inside herself. I doubted anything had ever been inside that delicious little pussy of hers.

  I could see her mind whirring, and there was something about this little one. Something I hadn’t seen for a while. Something that reminded me of Elaine Constantine far more than her blonde beauty ever could.

  Curiosity.

  The girl was curious.

  “Talk to me,” I whispered. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  Still, she was nervous, but there was a fresh flash of curiosity in her eyes.

  “They say you are . . .” she paused. “They say it’s . . . good . . . that it can be good . . .”

  “Who says so?”

  “The other girls,” she said. “They say you make it hurt . . . but they say it’s good . . . they say it’s really good . . .” She dropped her eyes to the floor. “They say you’re really good.”

  I leaned forward and crushed her cheeks in my hand, tipping her face side to side. She was a beauty. I hadn’t had one this pretty for a while.

  “I always make my girls come,” I told her. “Give yourself over, and I’ll make you come for me. I promise you’ll hurt, and hurt plenty, but you’ll want it. You’ll be
begging for more by the time I’m through with you.”

  The curiosity was burning all the brighter in her when her fingers started working on her clit.

  The girl wasn’t innocent on that score. Her fingers were far too skilled.

  My mouth was watering and my cock was throbbing as I watched her tease herself, my fingers desperate to plunge inside and stretch her open.

  “Tell me you want to find out how it feels to be hurt and fucked,” I hissed, and she let out a whimper.

  “I want it, sir. Please.”

  It seemed Rex had delivered me a good little slut.

  “Get on my lap,” I said, and she eased herself up, spreading her legs nice and wide over mine as she climbed on.

  I tugged the white lace lower over her tits, and squeezed them hard, flicking the little nubs with my thumbs.

  “Do you know much about pain, sweetheart?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “A little.”

  “What do you know about pain?”

  Her eyes were so raw. “My stepdaddy used to beat me when I was a little girl. With his belt. He said it would make me a good girl.”

  “Did it make you feel like a good girl?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  My mouth was watering. “I’ll make you feel like a good girl with my belt, sweet thing, I promise you.”

  Her mouth was dry. I could see her trying to swallow. “I’d like that, sir. I’d like to be a good girl for you.”

  I squeezed her tits harder, making her grimace.

  “Pain is a beautiful thing. It makes your body sing and brings you to life. Ironic really, that you feel most alive when you’re about to die, isn’t it?”

  Fear flashed in her eyes, and I laughed. “Don’t worry, darling. You’re not going to die. You’re very safe with me tonight, even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

  She let out a breath. She believed me. Good, because I may be the most evil man on the planet, but I’m no liar.

  The girl cried out when I slapped her tits for the first time, rocking a little as the pain dulled to a tingle. I loved the way the pink bloomed on pale skin.

  “Get ready for a long night, Elaine,” I said and leaned in close enough to bite.