Chapter 4

Lucien

I had prepared for numerous contingencies when I cleared Elara to join this acquisition trip. I had anticipated tears, quiet brooding, even a sudden professional retreat. Seduction carried out with the blunt force of a woman trying to destroy herself had barely made the list.

I pulled my collar from her grip. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking, Miss Whitmore?”

Her green eyes, glassy with alcohol, stared up at me with a reckless, desperate heat. “Yes.”

Elara Whitmore presented such an immaculate, unbreakable exterior to the world. Nobody saw the pressure she carried, the vulnerability she fought so viciously to suppress, and the absolute brilliance she kept contained just to make the fragile men around her feel larger.

But now I watched as the carefully constructed mask shattered at her feet.

“You’re asking me to cross a professional boundary that—”

“I’m asking you to fuck me,” she countered, leaning closer until the scent of her floral perfume mixed with the sharp edge of the brandy on her breath. “Not as my employer. Not as Elliot's uncle. As a man.”

Though social opinions meant nothing to me, I possessed a strict personal code. Business and pleasure didn’t mix and I didn’t touch what didn’t belong to me.

Even though she called off the wedding, Elara had been my nephew’s fiancée.

Her broken heart still belonged to him.

“One night,” she whispered. The tremor in her voice was almost imperceptible, but to my trained ear, it vibrated like a plucked wire. She was terrified. She was running on adrenaline, spite, and alcohol, desperately seeking a fire hot enough to burn away the memory of Elliot’s betrayal.

The corner of my mouth twitched. “Is this a way of getting back at my nephew?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t want him to know. I don’t want anyone to know. This is just for me. I’m sorry if this is too forward of me, Mr. Beaumont, but you’re the only man I can think of who will treat this like it is—a simple arrangement.”

I stood up slowly. Her chin lifted defiantly to keep my gaze as I invaded her space. I reached out, my fingers wrapping around her delicate jaw, feeling the fine, frantic flutter of her pulse beneath my palm.

“What makes you think I have any intention of honoring such a ridiculous request, Miss Whitmore?”

A bitter half-smile touched her lips. “Because you don't care about the rules. And I just want to be fucked.”

The image her words painted in the dark corners of my mind nearly snapped a year’s worth of ironclad restraint.

The pad of my thumb dug lightly into her soft skin, tilting her face higher. “I don’t fuck my employees.”

A thin sheen of tears shimmered in her eyes. “That’s a shame, Mr. Beaumont. I didn’t think you were a spineless man.”

The insult stopped me cold.

Before she could draw another breath, my hand shifted from her jaw and closed firmly around her throat.

She gasped, but the defiance in her eyes flared brighter.

“You are playing with fire, Elara,” I growled. “There’s no soft version of this. No world in which you offer me one night and expect that to be enough.”

Our lips were barely a breath apart. Her throat swallowed against the pressure of my grip. “Okay.”

“I’m a man that takes, Elara. If you open this door, you don’t get to decide when it closes. You need to understand that."

"I understand," she choked out, her hands coming up to grip my wrists—not to push me away, but to hold me there.

The dark thread of satisfaction that coiled through my gut was swift, followed immediately by a far more dangerous hunger. And suddenly it didn’t matter that she was my employee, or my nephew's ex, or a disaster waiting to happen.

“You will follow every instruction I give you,” I commanded, my grip tightening a fraction. “Without hesitation. Am I clear?”

“Yes.”

“Use my name when you answer me.”

“Yes, Lucien.”

The sound of my name from her lips, stripped of all her usual corporate formality, pulled something vicious in the bottom of my stomach.

I released her throat and took a single step back. Her skin bore the faint red imprint of my fingers, a violent contrast against her pale neck.

I let my gaze travel the length of her. She was dressed in trousers and a simple silk shirt—yet on her frame, nothing ever looked ordinary. Elara carried herself with an unconscious, natural elegance, like a masterpiece entirely unaware of its own staggering worth. It drove me out of my fucking mind.

“Take the shirt off.”

Her movement was controlled as she reached for the hem and pulled the silk over her head in one fluid motion, tossing it onto the floor.

My breath hitched in my chest. Encased in a black lace bra were heavy curves of her breasts and peaked nipples.

Beneath my slacks, my cock swelled, hardening into a thick, uncomfortable ache.

“The rest.”

In a minute, she’d unbuttoned and stepped out of the trousers to reveal long, flawless legs. Then she reached behind, unhooked the bra and slid off the matching lace panties. A furious blush burned across her chest, spreading up to her cheeks as she stood naked before me.

I saw the fine tremor in her fingers when she let them fall to her sides, but Elara made no move to cover herself. Her steady gaze pinned on mine, a fiery challenge flashing in their depths. Look at me, her posture said. See what you're taking.

I closed the distance as the world narrowed into nothing but her.

My hand plunged into her thick hair and coiled tightly at the base of her skull, forcing her head back to expose the slender curve of her throat. My other hand slammed against her lower back, pushing her flush against me.

She let out a sharp, breathless gasp right before my mouth claimed hers in a rough kiss.

My tongue slid deep into her mouth, tasting the alcohol and swallowing the soft, hungry whimper she made. I angled her head further, deepening the kiss, taking every inch of space she gave me and forcing her to yield more.

Her hands came up, fisting my collar and holding on for dear life. Without breaking the kiss, I hooked my arms under her thighs and lifted her effortlessly off her feet. She moaned against my mouth, instinctively wrapping her legs around my waist, her core grinding hard against the thick ridge of my clothed erection

I carried her out of the living area and into my bedroom.

She hit the sheets with a soft bounce, dark hair fanning out like a cloud against the pillows. I paused only long enough to strip off my clothes and toss them away.

Elara gasped sharply when her eyes trailed down my body, widening as they landed on the throbbing length of my fully erect cock.

I grabbed her ankles, dragging her down the bed until her hips were resting at the edge. I pushed her legs apart, lifting her thighs and draping them over my broad shoulders.

“Don’t move,” I growled, spreading her delicate, pink folds open with my thumbs. She was already drenched, the tangy scent of her arousal filling my lungs like a potent drug.

I bit the tender skin of her inner thigh, hard enough to leave a red mark. She cried out, her fingers digging into the sheets as my tongue descended.

The first sweep of my tongue across her clit short-circuited every thread of rational thought left in my brain. Elara tasted like sweet sin.

“Oh my god…” She let out a broken moan.

I took my time in the exploration of her, mapping out every ridge and fold of her pussy with my tongue, working her clit with firm strokes of my thumb, until the tiny muscle swelled under my mouth.

“Oh God... Lucien, please,” she whimpered, her hands tangling in my hair, hips rolling blindly off the bed, seeking my mouth. “Don't stop... please don't stop…”

“I don’t plan on it,” I murmured, and sealed my mouth around her clit once more, taking her in completely and sucking hard.

Elara screamed, her toes curling, her pussy pulsing wildly against my lips as the first wave of an orgasm tore through her. I swept my tongue against her sensitive nerve endings until she was sobbing, her inner thighs trembling violently on my shoulders.

Only when the spasms slowed to delicate flutters did I pull back.

I licked my lips clean and slowly crawled back up her body, settling between her spread legs. The blunt head of my cock pressed against her wet entrance.

Grabbing her right hip with one hand, I anchored her firmly to the bed, and wrapped my other hand around the base of my shaft. “Eyes on me while you take it.”

She snapped her gaze to lock onto mine just as I leaned forward and drove home in one smooth, powerful thrust.

A loud, breathless cry ripped from her throat. Her tight walls stretched around me, gripping my shaft like a vice, pulsating around the intrusion. She was so tight that a low, guttural groan tore from my own chest before I could stop it.

I leaned down and captured one nipple between my teeth, biting down gently before sucking hard. She whimpered, her fingers clawing at my back, legs wrapping tightly around my waist, pulling me closer.

“Lucien—oh God, Lucien!”

“Look at me,” I growled, thrusting deeper, hitting a sensitive spot deep inside her that made her whole body snap like a bowstring. “Look at me, Elara!”

Her glazed eyes blinked, slowly focusing on my face.

“You are not weak,” I said, my voice low and rough. “Nothing about you is weak.” I pulled back half an inch and drove deep into her again, making her gasp. “You’re strong. You’re breathtaking. You’re alive. Say it."

"I'm..." Her voice fractured as I pulled back and thrust again, hitting the same spot. "I'm strong... breathtaking… alive."

"Again," I demanded.

“I'm... I'm alive!” she cried out.

“Good.” I released her waist and slid my fingers down between our sweating bodies, finding her swollen clit and stroking it in fast circles. “Now you’re going to come for me.”

“Lucien... It’s too much—” Her head tossed back against the pillows.

“You can take it.” I buried myself to the hilt with every stroke, watching her face twist in absolute ecstasy as she screamed my name and shattered.

Her body shook around me, her inner walls clamping down on my cock in a tight, pulsing squeeze that pulled my release forward like a tidal wave.

I pulled out of her and let out a low, guttural roar. Spurts of cum shot on her thighs, spilling down to the sheets.

For several minutes after, the only sound in the room was the heavy, ragged sound of our breathing.