Breaking Out (8 page)

Chapter 5

The Danger of Deception

“Evelyn? Are you listening to me?”

She looked up from her plate. “What?”

Lucian tilted his head and frowned. “What were you thinking about?”

“I . . . I don't know.”

“How did your trip go today? Did you get what you needed?”

She nodded tightly. “Yes. I even picked up something for you. When we get back you can open it.”

“A present?”

“Yes. I hope you like it.”

He placed his hand over hers and squeezed affectionately. “I'm sure I will. What else did you do today?”

“I went to the salon and met Patrice for lunch.”

“And I assume you two behaved yourselves. Or should I expect another four-hundred-dollar bar bill?”

She rolled her eyes. Get drunk and buy a few rounds
one time
and she'd never hear the end of it. “Don't be silly. It was lunchtime, not happy hour. I only spent two hundred on drinks for my admirers today.”

All signs of amusement disappeared.
Shit.
She was only joking, but clearly her barb fell flat.

“Did anyone else join you for lunch?” His whisper was dangerous, the kind that told her there was no room for sarcasm.

“I was joking, Lucian.”

“Jokes are meant to be funny, Evelyn.”

She stilled and frowned at his snide tone. “No,” she said succinctly. “There was barely anyone else in the restaurant. Unless you want to nitpick over the waiter being male, I think I'm in the clear.”

“Watch it, Evelyn. You're mine. I have a right to be territorial when your last excursion with Patrice ended with men drooling all over your shoes.”

She rolled her eyes. He was being ridiculous. “Those men don't matter, Lucian, and you know it.”

“Are you sure about that? I think you underestimate your appeal.”

She met his gaze and instinctively pulled back in her chair. “Yes and the same could be said for you.”

He was in a mood. Lucian was an extremely possessive man, but she'd given him no reason to doubt her. It was a stupid joke. How could he have possibly taken it as anything more? Why was he looking at her like that? The fact that she'd been deceptive that morning was perhaps intensifying her guilt and making her a bit too prickly.

No. He was being the prick. Picking up her fork, she defensively whispered, “God, forget I said anything.”

The waiter came and refilled their glasses. The rest of the meal was eaten in silence. Maybe it was time to ask him about whatever was bothering him. He'd been extremely temperamental lately.

“Lucian, is everything okay? You've been acting strange lately, like something's been weighing on your mind.”

His eyes softened. “I'm sorry. I've been . . .” She could tell he was choosing his words carefully. “I've been distracted over this deal I made a while back. It's silly to worry. I'll stop.”

“But if you've already made the deal there's nothing to worry about, right?”

He placed his fork on the gold filigree rim of his plate and folded his hands at the edge of the table. “It all depends how things work out. Believe it or not, Evelyn, sometimes I make very stupid choices.”

“Well, what's the deal about?”

“Finish your dinner. Let's not waste the evening talking about things I can't change at the moment. Everything will work out in time.”

He was being cryptic and she didn't like it. Her appetite had dwindled. Taking a few more bites of her vegetables, she pushed her plate away and leaned back as the waiter cleared the table.

“Would you care for dessert?” Lucian asked.

“No, thank you.”

The waiter returned and Lucian said, “She will have a hot fudge sundae.”

As the waiter turned, she scoffed and whispered. “I said, no thank you.”

“You're being stubborn.”

The accusation was uncalled for and she didn't appreciate it. His crappy mood had nothing to do with her. “You're being thickheaded.”

His eyes narrowed on her. Her mouth twitched. She couldn't believe she'd just said that. With Lucian, she had wisely learned to choose flight over fight. She stood. “I . . . I need to use the ladies' room. Excuse me.”

Quickly, she turned to find the restrooms. What was wrong with them? It seemed like every word out of their mouths was a lie, her with her quest to locate Parker and him with his stupid deal—his words, not hers.

The guilt she had over worrying about Parker was eating at her, and that was simply ridiculous. He was her friend. She was allowed to have friends, damn it.

As she washed her hands she scrutinized her reflection. Her dark hair was down, its dark hues giving her skin an opalescent appearance. Her blue, nearly silver irises were darker than usual. She had too much eye makeup on.

Evelyn suddenly wanted to scrub her face clean. Her dress was bloodred and fit her curves like a second skin. For some inexplicable reason she resented everything she saw in her reflection. She looked so different from the girl she was only months ago, but she didn't really like her either.

Irritably grabbing her clutch, she turned with a huff to leave the fancy restroom. She gasped and stumbled slightly on her death heels when she saw Lucian watching her. He stood, posture lazy, leaning against the door, studying her. How long had he been there?

“Everything okay?” he asked in a monotone voice, face unreadable. He was being weird.

“This is the ladies' room,” she hissed, stating the obvious.

“You seem upset. Something you want to talk about?”

He was acting cold and distant. “You can't be in here, Lucian.”

“Who's going to stop me, Evelyn? I practically paid for this bathroom in tips alone. No one has the balls to ask me to leave.”

A humorless puff of laughter slipped past her lips.
Arrogant much?
“Well, whether they have the balls or not, it isn't right. Come on. Let's go back to the table.”

Her heart beat too fast as she walked past him. He was making her nervous. As she brushed past him, he grabbed her wrist, pulling her in the opposite direction. Her body spun and the cool wood of the door pressed into her back. His arms fit on either side of her face, boxing her in, and the lock to the door clicked into place. She stared at him, waiting for an explanation.

“I'm not ready to return to the table.”

She couldn't wrap her brain around his polar temperament. “Lucian—”

“Take off your dress.”

She gaped. “We're in a public restroom.”

“Are you telling me no? There's a word for that.”

Checkmate.

She knew the word. They had an agreement that with all things sexual she would trust him not to harm her, to know what was okay and what wasn't, but under no circumstances was she to tell him
no.
All she had to do was breathe her safe word and he would back off. That was acceptable, but the word
no
was not.

“Lucian, why are you acting like this?” Her voice wavered and she hated showing that he was upsetting her, but why shouldn't he know? He was being a jerk.

“Are you mine?” he snapped and she flinched. “Are you?”

Why was he behaving like this? “Yes! I don't understand—”

“Take off your dress.”

Pressing her lips together, she drew in a deep breath. His scent was all around her. She knew he wouldn't hurt her. He loved her. But for some reason he was not being himself, and that made her worry something bigger, something she was missing, was wrong. There was something he wasn't telling her.

Lowering her gaze, her fingers reached to the back of her dress and closed over the tiny zipper. The slow glide of metal teeth filled the quiet room as she pulled. She swallowed and slid the straps off her shoulders, exposing her breasts, her stomach, and then her hips. She wasn't wearing panties. The dress was too tight. As the fabric passed her hips, she let go.

Lucian bent to pick up the dress just as she stepped out of the red puddle. He tossed it to the seat by the door. “Go over to the vanity.”

She blinked then did as he said. The vanity was built into the wall. A flat porcelain countertop with a gilded mirror bracketed to the wall. He used his foot to move the cushioned seat directly in front of her. Evelyn didn't want to see her reflection in that moment. She was afraid if she saw the confusion in her eyes, paired with the antipathy in Lucian's, something inside of her would crack.

His hands pressed down on her shoulders. “Kneel.”

She lowered herself to the cushioned stool, her palms automatically reaching for the vanity for support. The metal clank of Lucian's belt coming undone made her shiver. Her body had a Pavlovian response to such things and, to her chagrin, her sex contracted.

His palm pressed into the back of her shoulder, slowly easing her forward. She finally lifted her gaze to her reflection, needing to see his as well, and searched his expression.

His gaze was directed at her backside. His expression made no sense. He appeared almost . . . rueful. Evelyn studied her reflection, trying to see what he saw. Her breasts hung like twin pieces of supple fruit fresh for the picking, and her dark, wavy hair draped over her lily-white shoulders. In that moment she had a flash of Eve driving Adam to madness.

The queen has more power than any other piece. She can manipulate even the king to move from a distance.

Lucian was completely dressed, still wearing his suit jacket, his hard cock protruding from the opening in his pants. He stepped close and without a word, lined his cock up with her sex. As much as she wished she could claim she was unaffected, she couldn't. Her body was ready for him, as always.

Without preamble, he thrust into her and she reflexively grunted at the force in which he entered her. Looking up, she found his eyes boring into her. After pulling slowly out, he thrust again, hard, as if to convey a message to her.

Her breasts swayed. His hands gripped her hips tight enough to leave bruises. He controlled her movements, sliding her body forward, coating his cock with her arousal as he withdrew, then slamming back into her deeply. It was as if he was once again showing her that she belonged to him. With each deep and purposeful thrust, he never took his gaze from her.

Her brow pinched in confusion, but she never looked at her reflection. She kept her stare solely on Lucian. She didn't come. Her body neared a point of pleasure that naturally came no matter how he touched her. Becoming more malleable, she went with his thrusts, but he never eased his grip on her.

He made not a sound. Even the slap of flesh was absent, the material of his pants muffling each hard contact with her ass. His thrusts grew closer together, faster, and with one final, hard slam of his cock he was filling her. His rigid length pulsed within her channel as warmth coated her folds.

She sucked in a breath as he suddenly grabbed her shoulders, pulling her back to his front. He gripped her jaw and turned her face to his shoulder, his mouth connecting with the curve of her throat. It wasn't a kiss. He sucked her flesh between his lips and teeth so hard she felt the blood vessels rising. He was marking her.

What did I do?

He sucked on her neck longer than necessary. When he pulled away, there was a purple mark about the size of a small plum. Her hand covered the bruise and she looked at him in confusion.

He swallowed. Uncertainty flashed in his eyes for the briefest second, and then his staunch confidence was back in place. He thrust one last time. “Mine.”

Evelyn's heart raced. She was glad he said it, because in the last ten minutes her confidence had been shaken. No matter what he was going through, she didn't want to lose him.

He withdrew and her sex wept with the proof of their intercourse. Rather than clean her up the way he usually did, he reached between her legs, gathering the remnants of their coupling, and smeared it over the delta of her sex and onto her lower belly.

“I want you to leave that there until I wash it off you.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice in that moment. Lucian left her there, kneeling on the stool as he went to clean his hands. As soon as the water shut off he was there with her dress. She stood docilely, allowing him to dress her. Bending at the knee, he lifted her foot, brushing his palm over the forced arch formed by her spiked heel. His actions were tender, loving, a complete contradiction to his behavior minutes ago, yet familiar to Evelyn all the same. Lucian loved her.

He stood, gliding the fitted red dress over her curves and feeding her weakened arms through the straps. His palms brushed over the flare of her hips.

“Turn.”

She pivoted slowly, in a daze. The face she saw in her reflection was washed clean of all innocence. It was the face of a child presented with something they'd never understand, needing to be taken care of. She shivered as his fingers sifted under her hair and draped it over her shoulder. He slid the zipper slowly up her spine and placed a kiss at the nape of her neck before fanning her hair back in place.

The bill was apparently taken care of, because as they emerged from the ladies' room they went right to the coat check and out to the limo.

***

They entered the condo in silence, tension thick from their unusual evening. As Lucian flipped on the lights, he stilled. “What's that?”

Evelyn removed her coat and turned. It was the picture she'd bought for him, wrapped in brown butcher paper. Dugan must have had it delivered while they were out. “It's a gift.”

He stepped closer to the thin package where it stood tilted against his desk.

Lucian was always peculiar when she gave him presents. For a man who had everything, he seemed to cherish the little things. “It's for you. I told you I bought it today while we were out.”

His fingers gently traced the edge of the package. “What is it?”