Chapter 2

The office smelled like him.

Dark wood, leather, and that expensive cologne that had been living in her fantasies for years. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed the city glittering far below, but Bella barely saw it. All she could see was the man who closed the door behind them and walked past her like he owned every breath in the room.

Lucian stopped in front of his desk and turned. He didn’t sit. He leaned back against the edge, arms loosely crossed, grey eyes fixed on her with that same controlled intensity from the doorway.

“Sit.”

There was only one chair in front of the desk. She sat. The thin white sundress rode up her bare thighs. She didn’t bother fixing it.

Lucian’s gaze dropped for half a second, then snapped back to her face.

“There are rules,” he said. Voice low. Even. “While you are under my roof, you will follow them without argument.”

Bella nodded, but her mind was already somewhere else.

She was imagining him closing the distance, one big hand wrapping around her throat, the other shoving the sundress up to her waist. She could almost feel the cold wood of the desk against her bare ass as he bent her over it. In her head he was already thick and hard, pushing inside her without warning, stretching her open while he growled against her ear that she belonged to him now.

“You will not leave the estate without my permission or an escort I approve,” Lucian continued. “You will not contact anyone from your previous life unless I am present. Your phone stays with me when you are not using it for approved calls.”

Bella’s thighs pressed together. The fantasy shifted. Now he had her pinned on her back across the desk, one hand locked around both of her wrists above her head, the other working between her legs. Two thick fingers. Then three. His thumb on her clit while he watched her face the entire time.

“You will sleep in the room I assign you. Meals will be taken when and where I decide. If I call, you answer. If I tell you to come, you come.”

*Come.*

The word made her cunt clench.

In her mind he was fucking her hard enough to make the desk scrape across the floor, one hand fisted in her hair, the other gripping her hip hard enough to bruise. She could hear the wet sounds. She could hear herself begging.

Lucian’s voice cut through the fantasy like a blade.

“Bella.”

She blinked.

He was watching her closely now. The muscle in his jaw had gone tight.

“Are you paying attention?”

Heat flooded her face. She should have looked away. She should have apologized. Instead her hand drifted almost of its own accord, sliding under the hem of the sundress and between her bare thighs. Her fingers found her soaked folds and rubbed once, slow and deliberate, right there in the chair in front of him.

Lucian went completely still.

Bella didn’t stop. She circled her clit with two fingers, eyes locked on his, and let a soft, shaky breath leave her lips.

“I heard every word,” she whispered. “I just… can’t stop thinking about what you would do if I broke one of them.”

For a long second the only sound in the office was the faint wet noise of her fingers moving between her legs.

Lucian’s grey eyes dropped to the movement under her dress. His hands tightened on the edge of the desk until his knuckles went white. Something dark and hungry flashed across his face before he locked it down hard.

He pushed off the desk and walked toward her slowly. When he stopped, he was close enough that she had to tip her head back. Close enough that she could feel the heat of his body.

He reached down, caught her wrist, and pulled her hand out from under the dress. Her fingers glistened in the low light.

He stared at them for a beat too long.

Then he released her wrist like it burned him and stepped back.

“Rule number one,” he said, voice rougher than before. “You do not touch yourself in front of me again unless I tell you to.”

Bella’s pulse hammered between her legs. She didn’t look away.

“And if I do it anyway?”

Lucian’s control slipped for the briefest second. His eyes dropped to her mouth, then lower, to the damp spot she knew was visible on the front of her dress. His throat worked.

“Then you will learn exactly how little patience I have left,” he said quietly. “Now stand up. I’m showing you to your room.”

He turned and walked to the door without waiting to see if she followed.

Bella stood on unsteady legs, thighs slick, heart racing.

He wanted her.

She had seen it.

He just refused to take it.

And that, she decided as she walked after him, was something she was going to change.