When I'm with You (Because You Are Mine #2)(39)
He was going to catch her.
Dear God. Was this it? All those years she’d partied indiscriminately with fools and drunks and remained unscathed. Was she to be raped or beaten now, when she was finally trying to take control of her life? No. The thought was unbearable. She reacted instinctively when Baden caught her arm, wrenching it behind her. She spun around like a whirlwind and whacked him hard at the side of his head with her fist.
“Brûle en enfer. Let go of me, you greasy bastard!”
Her unexpected move and fierceness temporarily set them both off balance. After a brief struggle, however, Baden steadied himself.
“You little slut,” he hissed between ragged breaths. When she saw his face, terror tore through her like a tidal wave. She’d obviously hurt him, and he was as furious as a kicked junkyard dog.
“No—,” she protested when he grabbed her hair, but her voice was cut off when he jerked back her head, stretching her neck, making it so that she couldn’t see the threat of him. Her breath caught in her lungs as she instinctively braced for pain.
A jolt went through her, but it wasn’t from Baden’s fist. She staggered and tripped on the stairs, abruptly free of the restraint of Baden’s hold. She glanced around in confusion at the guttural oomph of someone taking a fist deep in the gut. It was followed by the sickening sound of bone against bone. Baden sunk to his knees.
“You f*cking—”
“Lucien,” she muttered, interrupting Baden’s curse, shocked and disoriented by his unmistakable tall shadow looming over both her and Baden.
“I’m assuming you live in this godforsaken place?”
“Yes,” she replied shakily.
“Go to your room this instant and lock the door.”
“But I—”
“Do as I say, Elise,” he said with eerie calm when Baden started to struggle to his feet.
She scurried up the stairs on her hands and knees before finding her balance to stand. As she flew through the door to the hallway, she heard again the unmistakable thud of a fist sinking into flesh, followed by a vicious grunt.
* * *
An hour and a half later, Elise closed the door behind the two police officers that had arrived after she’d called 911.
“Lock it,” Lucien said quietly from behind her. Only he and she remained in her room. Between Baden being taken away, and the police asking questions, she’d been too distracted to be embarrassed. It hit her now, full force. A flood of shame went through her as she considered him observing her shabby lodging firsthand. She triple locked the door and slowly turned to face him.
Baden was in police custody, although he’d been taken initially to Stroger Hospital for multiple contusions. Lucien, on the other hand, sported only a single cut over his right eyebrow. He wouldn’t allow the EMT to attend to the small wound, telling him to attend to Baden. Later, he’d allowed Elise to wash it and apply a small bandage, never speaking to her the whole time.
In fact, Lucien had said very little to her in the past hour and a half, talking mostly to the police officers as he gave his report and listening intently while she gave hers.
In a million years, she wouldn’t have guessed the evening would end this way. What if Baden had pulled a knife or gun on Lucien, and he’d died out there in that stairwell? She shuddered at the horrible thought. Now they were alone together, and Elise wasn’t sure what to say.
“Are you all right?” she asked him, studying him closely where he leaned against a chipped dresser, looking calm, deadly, and downright gorgeous in his well-fitted pants and sports jacket. Somehow, the bandage above his right eyebrow appeared perfectly in sync with the rest of his appearance.
“I’m fine. It’s you I’m concerned about.”
“Like I told the officers, the worst I got was grabbed.”
“You were lucky.”
She gave a shaky laugh and walked toward him. “That you came? Yes, I was.” Her gaze ran over his implacable features. “If I haven’t thanked you yet, I will now. You have about a million more thank-yous coming.” She swallowed thickly when he didn’t respond, just continued to laser her with those light gray eyes. “I’m sorry I left Ian and Francesca’s party like that. I was feeling . . .”
“Rejected?” he said softly when she faded off.
She swallowed. It did sound silly when she heard Lucien say the word. But why didn’t he want to take her in a heated rush like other men? Was she not as attractive to him as she’d hoped when he’d first expressed his desire? She felt helpless about how to deal with him.
Manage him.
“Because I am controlling the pace of this doesn’t mean that I don’t want you like crazy, Elise,” he said, seemingly reading her mind. He straightened and closed the distance between them. “I owe you.”
Her breath hitched when she absorbed his low, ominous tone. “What do you mean?”
“What in the name of all that is sinful do you think you are doing living in a flophouse?” he asked succinctly, his nostrils flaring with what she recognized as contained fury.
“It’s not a flophouse! It’s a perfectly respectable—” She paused midsentence when they heard a door slam loudly in the hallway and the sound of a woman cursing loudly and a man talking in rapid Spanish. Ms. Inga. One of her johns must have stiffed her. Elise noticed Lucien’s frown as he glanced toward the hallway and quickly changed tracks. “I have to live within my means, Lucien. I am just doing the best I can.”