Chapter 47: The Interruption

​Olivia’s POV

​My breath hitched, and I shoved against his solid, dripping chest. "Let go of me!" I gasped, my heart racing. "Lucian, stop!"

​Lucian didn’t budge. His dark eyes remained fixed on mine as his grip tightened around my waist, holding me effortlessly against him. "Let you go?" he murmured, his voice low and husky. "Why should I? Aren’t you my wife?"

​My mouth fell open. "That doesn’t mean you can just..."

​I never finished.

​Before a single word could escape my lips, Lucian leaned down and captured my mouth in a sudden, bruising kiss.

​My eyes widened in pure shock. For a second, I was too stunned to react. Then I put my palms against his broad shoulders and tried to pull my face away, but he reached down, grabbed my thigh, and pulled my leg wider around his hip. The movement brought my core flush against his rock-hard length under the water, and he used the leverage to deepen the kiss.

​Fuck.

​Why did he have to be such a good kisser?

​Worse, there was something strangely familiar about the way he kissed me. The thought hit me so suddenly that my resistance weakened for a second. My mind went straight back to the stranger from four years ago, and then to the tattoo I had just discovered on Lucian’s arm.

​Could it really have been him?

​Or was my mind only trying to force pieces together because I desperately wanted an answer?

​Before my racing brain could make sense of anything, Lucian pulled me closer, his breathing becoming heavier as the kiss continued. I felt his hand sliding beneath the water, moving past the edge of my wet underwear.

​I gasped against his lips as his fingers found my center. He didn’t hesitate. He slid a single finger slowly inside me, stretching me open in the warm water.

​A quiet, helpless moan escaped my throat directly into his mouth, and my fingers somehow ended up tangled in his wet, dark hair. He began to move his finger in and out of me, a steady, agonizingly good rhythm that turned my knees to jelly.

​Lucian let out a low growl against my lips and added a second finger, thrusting deeper into my tight heat. I squeezed my eyes shut, my fingers knotting tighter into his wet hair as I arched into his touch.

​"Fuck, Annabel," Lucian groaned into the kiss, his hips pressing forward so his fully aroused cock rubbed directly against my thigh. "You’re so tight."

​I moaned again, completely lost in the overwhelming sensations washing over me. I felt his fingers slip out from between my legs, and my instincts immediately took over. I spread my legs wider beneath the water, intuitively preparing for the weight of his thick length to slide inside me.

​Then, a voice shattered the moment like a bucket of ice water.

​"I think your bedroom would have been a much more appropriate place for this."

​Lucian froze instantly. I froze too.

​For one horrible second, neither of us moved. My eyes snapped open, and I tore my mouth away from his as we slowly turned our heads.

​Standing right at the edge of the pool, looking down at us with a dark, unreadable expression, was Lucas.

​Oh, Moon Goddess. Kill me now.

​Of all the people who could have found us, why did it have to be him?

​I scrambled to pull my underwear back into place and tried to shrink into the pool, but Lucian immediately shifted his massive body, standing directly in front of me to block Lucas’s view of my body completely.

​"Lucas!" Lucian thundered. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

​Lucas crossed his arms over his broad chest, his green eyes cool and entirely unfazed by his brother’s rage. "What? I was walking around looking for you to discuss the border reports, and I heard something."

​"So you decided to show up here?" Lucian growled, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched violently in his cheek.

​"I never knew I would find you here." Lucas glanced around the area before looking back at his brother. "But you do have a bedroom, Lucian. Several, actually. Use one."

​I wanted the water to swallow me whole. This could not possibly be my life.

​"Get out," Lucian growled.

​Lucas raised an eyebrow. "And if I refuse?"

​Furious at the response, Lucian didn’t even bother to grab a towel. He surged out of the pool in a single, explosive movement, stepping completely naked onto the tiled deck right in front of his brother.

​My eyes accidentally darted over, and I caught a direct view of Lucian’s bare, muscular ass cheeks before I frantically looked away, covering my face with both hands. Moon Goddess, save me.

​He reached Lucas and grabbed his brother firmly by the shoulder before Lucas could move away.

​"What are you doing?" Lucas demanded.

​A bright flash of magic surrounded them both, crackling in the air. Then, in an instant, both men vanished into thin air.

​The poolside fell instantly silent.

​I stared at the empty space where they had been, slowly lowering my hands.

​Realizing they were finally gone, I didn’t waste a single second before either brother decided to teleport back. I scrambled out of the water on shaking legs, my hands trembling slightly as I grabbed my clothes from the deck and hurriedly threw them on over my damp skin.

​My mind was still racing wildly. It was the tattoo. The kiss. That strange, lingering feeling of familiarity. And the fact that Lucas had the exact same mark in the exact same place.

​I grabbed the rest of my things and sprinted away from the pool as fast as my feet could carry me. I hurried up the grand staircase and ducked straight into my bedroom, locking the door firmly behind me.

​I spent the rest of the afternoon pacing around my bedroom. Every small noise in the hallway made me jump. I kept thinking Lucian would burst through the door to ask about Lucas or finish what started at the pool. After the way he had dragged Lucas away, I was almost certain he would appear within minutes.

​An hour passed, then another. By the time the sun disappeared and darkness settled outside my windows, I had checked the door more times than I cared to admit. But as the hours passed, the room stayed quiet.

​He didn’t come.

​Why was I even waiting for him? I should have been relieved. After what happened in that pool, avoiding Lucian for the rest of my natural life sounded like a perfectly reasonable plan. Yet every time I heard footsteps in the hallway, my stupid heart jumped before I could stop it. Apparently, nearly losing my mind with the man in a swimming pool wasn’t enough humiliation for one day. Now I was waiting for him to come looking for me, too.

​Eventually, I gave up. By the time night came, I was completely tired.

​I changed into my nightclothes, turned off the bright lights, and got into bed, pulling the blanket up to my chin.

​Even after I climbed into bed and pulled the blanket over myself, the same questions continued circling through my mind. The royal tattoo. Lucian. Lucas. The stranger from four years ago. One of them could be him. Or maybe it was someone else from their family who carried the same mark. The thought made my stomach tighten. I had spent four years knowing almost nothing about that stranger, and now, instead of getting answers, I somehow had even more possibilities. But who was he? I stared at the ceiling for what felt like forever, turning the question over and over in my head until, sometime in the middle of the night, exhaustion finally won.

​I didn’t know how long I had been asleep when something changed. At first, it was so small that I almost ignored it. The air suddenly felt colder, and my half-asleep mind struggled to understand why. Then the mattress slowly sank beside me, followed by the soft movement of the blanket.

​Someone was getting into my bed.

​My eyes remained closed, but every trace of sleep immediately disappeared. I could feel the unmistakable warmth of another body beside mine, close enough that my heart began slamming against my ribs.

​What the hell?

​My eyes flew open, and I felt a figure leaning behind me. For one confused second, my mind immediately went to Lucian. Maybe he had finally decided to come after all.

​I quickly turned around, expecting to see Lucian, but my breath caught.

​It wasn’t Lucian.

​It was Lucas.

​"Alpha Lucas?" I gasped.

​Before I could ask what the hell he was doing in my room or even breathe, he suddenly moved closer and caught my wrists, pinning them firmly against the mattress to hold me down.

​The moonlight from the window showed a pair of sharp green eyes staring down at me.

​My eyes widened. "Lucas, what are you..."

​His face lowered toward mine. Before I could say another word, he leaned down and pressed his mouth over mine, stopping any sound from coming out.