Chasing Scarlett: A Breeder Romance

16. Lorcan's Visit

Scarlett

It’s a nightmare. One I’ve had nearly every night for several months since I first shifted and it always ends the same way. With death. Not mine. His. I don’t mean to kill him, but somehow, every time, I end up tearing out his throat with my teeth that grow too large to contain my mouth.

And his iridescent eyes lose life, his golden hair drenched in his blood. I don’t know who he is, but his lips remind me of Riordan’s. His nose is Lorcan’s. His hair is Tiarnan’s. And the strong set to his brutally chiseled jaw is Cillian’s.

I wake up panting, and in that same moment, the skin on my neck tingles with familiar heat and I instinctively reach under my pillow for a weapon as I jerk up from where I’m tangled up with the sheets.

“Have you always been this unsettled?” a voice drawls ahead of me and my head snaps to the windowsill where a figure is perched comfortably. I’ve never been more grateful that I sleep with the lights on, because I’d have blown his head off if I didn’t see his face.

Lorcan’s leg dangles off one side of the window, his black boot kicking into the wall as it swings back and forth idly. There’s a hood over his head that hides his hair, but the black, unruly locks still manage to peek out. Eyes, the color of honey lower from my face to my body and his nostrils crinkle at my grey oversized pyjamas. “Odd.”

“How did you get in?” I ask, my fingers flexing as I try to decide if he’s a threat or not.

He shrugs. “I broke the wall behind the house and walked in. Your pathetic wards can’t keep me out.”

So much for Riordan ensuring I didn’t have visitors I didn’t want. To think I almost believed him. Almost.

“No,” I tell him, shoving the covers off my legs.

“No what?”

“No, I will not be sleeping with you.”

He chuckles, his brown eyes brightening. “I am hardly interested in burying myself in your very wanted, oh so expensive cunt, Scarlett.” He leans his back against the wall. “I’m more than content with watching your tormented expressions. Do tell what nightmares plague you. You looked positively terrified.”

I don’t respond. I cross over to the table by the door, pouring myself a glass of water and blessedly ignoring the mockery that is stark in his tone. I’m beginning to wonder if Cillian might soon pop into my room as well, seeing as I’ve already been graced with the presence of three brothers today.

“You’re thin,” Lorcan says like the fact offends him on a personal level. I feel his eyes undress me as I walk over to my work table—because it’s the farthest point in the room from Lorcan and the constant heat he’s throwing off—but he’s already standing by the table before I reach it.

I storm for him, angling to push him off, but I think better of it when I sight the genuine curiosity crinkling his brows as he plucks my notes off the wall, reading each one. When he’s done examining them, he meticulously places them in the same exact spot he found them and it dawns on me that if Lorcan ever broke into my apartment, I’d never find out.

He bends slightly, raising his brows at my preferred screen saver on my laptop—an old picture of myself and my father on a vacation at Aspen fifteen years ago. I reach forward and slam the screen down. “I’d much appreciate it if you didn’t snoop through my things, and I’m f*****g tired of asking this question today; what the hell do you want?”

Lorcan reaches forward, startling fast and his fingers settle on the back of my neck before I can move. His thumb digs into my pulse point and he c***s his head at the scar and practically snarls, “Who the f**k gave you that?”

He’s holding me, and I hate it, but it’s him and my body remembers…and…and…I can’t think properly with him so damn close. It really doesn’t help that the dark thing living inside me likes the way he smells. He smells like s*x and musk. “I—I…It’s nothing. I killed him.”

His fingers spread, encompassing my entire neck and he lowers his head, slowly, until his lips brush against the tip of my ear. “Good.”

The intensity in his brown gaze steals my breath and he follows me as I shuffle back, until my thighs hit the table. “Let go,” I whisper, my hands feeling the table for my pen knife. I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t trust myself not to kiss him back if he kisses me. I remember just what his mouth feels like between my legs and I clamp my thighs as my core clenches.

“Go out with me,” he murmurs, pressing the tip of his nose against mine.

“Where? It’s three in the morning.” My voice is breathy and squeaky and it has nothing and everything to do with the way he’s holding me.

Lorcan’s free hand palms my waist before travelling down my thigh. “You’ve been hiding for two years, Scarlett, and caged for longer.” He wraps my thigh around his hip and reaches to grab the other, and I’m losing my brain. “You’re a vicious little thing, yearning to be set free.” He lets go of my neck, only to push my hair back from my neck and I shiver when he breathes against the skin. “Do you trust me?” he asks with his mouth on my neck.

My eyes flutter close. “f**k no.”

He starts laughing, but it ends in a strangled choke. “How can you smell this good? It should be illegal.”

“Says the one who lives in a lawless kingdom.”

That earns me another laugh. “It’s not entirely as bad as you think it is, Scarlett. And it could be our kingdom, our world, if you wanted.” His voice is serious now. “How can you not want it? All that power?”

“Because…” A faint breath escapes me as he nudges my thigh apart with his knee and pushes me back against my work table. My pens fall and my tablet follows. My laptop—is unimportant right now, not with the way his knee presses against the apex of my thigh. “That isn’t…who I am, Lorcan.”

He shudders when I say his name and even if he’s kissing my neck, his hands shake with restraint as they cup my ass. “And who are you, Scarlett?”

His teeth catches my earlobe and I swallow a moan. “I…” It takes me longer than I’d admit to gather my thoughts, but when I do, a horrifying truth snaps me out of my lustful haze. Who I am? Two years ago, I might have had an answer to the question. Two years ago, I was Scarlett Chase. I was a business woman who tried not to disappoint her father and would do anything in the world to make her husband happy. I was my father’s greatest treasure. Two years ago, I was happy. I loved fries and cheesecakes. I had friends. I spent my weekends like it was my honeymoon, in Alexanders arms, falling asleep to his scent of aftershaves and something chocolate-y. Two years ago, I was human.

Now, I don’t know who I am. I’ve become something I don’t recognize. Haunted. Frightened. Angry. Insatiably hungry. Sexually frustrated. So f*****g lonely. I’ve become a mother whose daughter doesn’t know her face. Or her scent. I’ve become a murderer.

Lorcan draws back and looks me in the eye, like he knows I have come to the same conclusion that he has. He takes a lock of my hair and tucks it behind my ear gently. “Turning lycan doesn’t change who you are at the core of your being. It merely enhances what is already there. If you cannot tell who you are now, then you never really knew. And that is alright. You have an eternity to relearn yourself.”

I swallow the lump growing in my throat. “I’m not a killer.”

A devilish grin curves Lorcan’s lips. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Before I can respond, he grabs my hips and sets me down, his grin widening. “Come on. We have to go.”

He’s yanking open the door to my closet, tossing out a skimpy black leather dress I haven’t worn in years, gloves, boots and—“Where are we going?” We? f**k, am I really thinking about going out with him? I am! Why? What is it about Lorcan’s smile that has my defenses completely lowered? No. This has nothing to do with Lorcan. It’s Tiarnan’s outburst, right after he saved me from that vampire. It’s Riordan offering me a cup of coffee after a cold, long day. It’s Riordan offering himself to me and asking for so little in return. It’s Lorcan looking at me like he really sees who I am and doesn’t hate it. It’s Lorcan’s understanding.

That is what has me walking into the shower and putting on the leather dress, even if he doesn’t tell me where we’re going. I’m Scarlett and I’m done being afraid.