I was terrified he’d want to take a shower with me or worse, a bath, but he let me take a shower alone.
My first big mistake was when I was sitting at my dressing table, blow drying my hair.
Lucien had disappeared while I showered but I heard the shower go on as I was doing my makeup. While I was doing my hair, Lucien walked into the dressing room in nothing but a towel.
My mistake was I should have looked away. But I caught sight of him in my big, Hollywood starlet mirror and my mouth started watering.
Then he tugged off the towel with me sitting right there and at the sight of all that was Lucien, and there was a lot of it, my mouth went dry.
He was, it must be said, perfect from head-to-toe. Utterly perfect. Strong, heavy thighs. Muscled, well-formed behind. Bunched, defined calves. He even had handsome feet!
And there were other parts of him that made me wonder if he was not a vampire but instead a living god.
I jerked my eyes back to my reflection as Lucien dressed.
He chose jeans, boots, a great belt and a tailored shirt that was stripes of white, baby-blue, midnight blue, light gray and charcoal gray. He wore this untucked.
It was pretty much casual wear on any other man.
Lucien looked like he’d stepped alive out of a magazine.
I decided from what Stephanie had said during my Selection, and how Lucien behaved at The Feast, that he’d want me to make an effort so he could show me off.
This wasn’t tough for me. I was a girlie girl. I made an effort even if I was running to the store to buy eggs.
I decided on nice, low-rider jeans, high-heeled, ultra-strappy tan sandals, a matching belt and a great blouse, almost see-through, white with buttons that stopped at my cleavage. The neckline went out to a vee, it was collared and had half a dozen thin pleats running along the sleeves and down the spine from collar to waist. It was a killer shirt.
I did my makeup subtle and left my hair long, in smooth flips.
I had no jewelry to put on so, being done, I just tucked my lip gloss in my back pocket as I had no wallet or phone thus taking a purse was unnecessary. Then I left the room.
By the time I was ready, Lucien had disappeared and I went in search of him. When I found him, he was plugging the phone into the jack in the kitchen.
I didn’t know what this meant to him but I knew what it meant to me. I nearly threw myself at him and gave him a big kiss.
Instead, I called, “Ready.”
His head came up, he looked at me, his eyes went lazy and my stomach pitched pleasantly.
Then he asked me, “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
My body rocked to a complete halt.
It was safe to say, no. I didn’t know.
I mean, I knew I was nothing to sneeze at. No mothers had pulled their children away from my grotesqueness and I could somewhat easily get a date.
The way he said it, the fact that Lucien said it – a man so rugged, so compelling, I’d likened him to a living god not twenty minutes before; a man who’d probably seen his fair share of women in his time – that made it another compliment which was profound and I was definitely not sure I could handle it.
“Leah?” His voice calling my name jerked me out of my Lucien Profound Compliment Stupor.
I didn’t know what to say. What did you say?
I decided on, “Thank you.”
He walked right up to me, his eyes thoughtful. When he stopped (in my space, by the way), he used both his hands to shift my hair over my shoulders and then he curled his fingers around my neck. The whole time, his eyes were locked on mine.
“You have no idea, do you?” he asked quietly.
“I count the fact that I’ve reached forty and no one has asked me to join a circus as a good sign,” I told him, his head cocked sharply to the side and he burst out laughing, pulling me to him roughly and giving me a stand-up hug.
I endured this hug. It was hard. A stand-up hug from Lucien wasn’t as good as a lying down one but it wasn’t far off.
Eventually, after what felt like an eternity but wasn’t, obviously, he pulled away. “Let’s get you some books.”
He drove us in the Cayenne to a mall in the city. Not any mall but an exclusive one that was surrounded by streets and streets of luxurious boutique shops and classy restaurants, cafés and bars. These were all nestled in between wide, clean sidewalks with lampposts on which hooked hanging planters and big, stylish pots on the walks all dripping colorful flowers.
He valet parked and we went to an enormous bookstore. There, he bought me ten books.
I thought we’d walk right back to the valet but he steered me into the boutique streets and seemed perfectly fine with wandering the sidewalks on a sunny day, hand-in-hand.
I saw a particularly gorgeous outfit in a window and my heart must have leaped because his head turned to me before he walked me right in. Then he went directly to the shop assistant, told her we wanted the outfit in the window and gave her my size.
I was staring at him and I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open when the assistant asked me, “Would you like to try it on?”
I looked at her and was about to speak when Lucien said, “No. We’ll take it.”
I watched in horror, mainly because I could see the prices on the register display, as she rung it up and it took all my willpower not to freak out.
I stood dutifully beside Lucien as he paid, the shop assistant looking at him probably like I did when he yanked off the towel and at me definitely like I was the luckiest woman in the universe.
As we walked out, Lucien carrying both my bags, I felt it important to say something.
“That wasn’t necessary.”
His hand gave mine a squeeze but he didn’t look at me.
“You’re correct, it wasn’t,” he replied.
Well, what could you say to that?
Except nothing. So I said nothing.
I was careful to moderate my heart and I did this by not looking into any more windows so that Lucien wouldn’t again go spending hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of dollars on one single outfit.
It didn’t matter. This happened twice more with things Lucien wanted me to have. A pair of delicate, antique, silver and coral Navajo chandelier earrings and two pairs of outrageously expensive but undeniably gorgeous, high-heeled shoes.
I tried the shoes on. Both pairs, Lucien, lounged back in a chair like he owned the joint and staring at my feet, asked me, “Do they fit?” Before I said a word, he looked at my face (which was probably rapturous, what could I say, they were great shoes) and then said to the salesperson, “We’ll take them.”
I was struggling with the supremely peculiar fact that it appeared that the Mighty Vampire Lucien, who was most definitely a male of his species, didn’t mind shopping when I noticed something.
It was the same on the street and in the shops as it had been at The Feast. People were looking at him, even some of them staring at him.
They didn’t know who he was. They only saw a tall, vital, unbelievably good-looking man who was clearly wealthy and held himself with a raw but restrained power.
They had no idea he could move faster than lightning and haul me and my fat ass around like I weighed as much as a pencil. They had no idea that, for whatever reason, he was revered by his people, a race of superhumans who lived forever.
And they’d never know.
The Mighty Vampire Lucien was walking down a sunny street but he was forced to live a secret life hiding who he really was.
Memories hit me like sledgehammers. My behavior at The Selection. My response to my first lesson, telling him the way his people fed was sick. When I was talking to Stephanie, assuming the people who went to Feasts were victims. Telling Lucien yesterday he disgusted me.
This was when I made my second mistake.
I stopped walking down the sidewalk but I did it like my body had slammed against a brick wall. Lucien kept walking for a stride bu
t turned his head when he felt resistance from my arm. His eyes went to our linked hands then to my face. Whatever he saw made him turn to me and take a swift step back.
“Leah, sweetheart, what is it?”
My head had tilted back to look at him and for some reason I again felt like crying.
Before I could think better of it, I blurted, “You can’t be you.”
He got closer. “Pardon?”
I lifted my hand and waved it around. “Out here. You can’t be you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You,” I repeated, pointing at him. “You can move like a rocket and you can probably lift up that car and throw it across the street.” I gestured to a shiny Audi parked next to us and Lucien looked at the car then back at me. “You can, can’t you?”
“Throw a car across the street?” he asked like he thought I might be mental.
“Yes,” I answered.
“I’ve never tried,” he replied, his brows drawing together and he got even closer. “What’s this about?”
I gestured again in a vague way. “Everyone’s looking at you. They look at you and they can see you but they don’t have any clue what you are.”
His jaw got tight but I was too much in my tizzy to notice it.
Then I said, “I was a bitch and I’ve said some pretty unforgivable things and, for that, I apologize. It won’t happen again.”
His brows unknitted but they went up. I’d surprised him.
Then his gaze turned wary. “What brought that on?”
I didn’t answer him. Instead I asked my own question, “If you tried, could you throw that car across the street?”
“Leah –”
“Please answer me,” I requested softly.
He sighed before saying, “Without a doubt.”
Wow. I’d just guessed.
Holy crap.
He even made it sound like that wouldn’t be too much of an effort.
All of a sudden I wanted to know how strong he was. I wanted to know how old he was. I wanted to know how he could walk and move like a normal person and not shatter glasses in his hand or crush my bones to dust when he hugged me.
It was at this point that I was seriously lamenting my behavior in Vampire Studies.
“Would you like to tell me what this is about?” he enquired, taking me out of my astonishment.
I didn’t. But I’d started this; I had no choice but to end it.
“It seems,” I hesitated, not knowing what to say, found the word and carried on, “wrong, that you can’t be you. There aren’t a lot of people you can be you around and I’m supposed to be one of them. That thought just occurred to me and I’ve said some nasty things about you and your people. You deserved an apology so I gave you one.”
I tried to pass it off as nothing, a simple apology. I was wrong and admitted it.
It clearly didn’t come out as a simple apology.
In fact, looking into his face, which had changed again to a look I’d seen a glimpse of before, right before he slammed me against the wall at The Feast and kissed me with savage possession, that he took it as something far, far more.
I took a step back.
Lucien’s arm twitched. It was a simple movement for him, barely there, but I staggered forward, crashing against his hard body. His hand dropped mine, his other hand dropped the bags and both arms came around me in a crush. He kissed me with a savage possession that was highly inappropriate on a Sunday afternoon in a street filled with boutiques.
It also curled my toes, sent fire straight between my legs and had me melting into him.
“Yeesh, get a room,” someone who seemed far, far away said.
“Randy, shush!” someone else who seemed far, far away shushed the first someone. “They’re probably on their honeymoon or something.”
Lucien’s mouth disconnected from mine and I found I was on tiptoes. I had one arm wrapped around his neck, my other hand was fisted in his hair and I was plastered against him from chest to knees.
My foggy mind snapped to and I tried to shut down my systems, my response, the way I liked it far more than was healthy when he kissed me.
Especially when he kissed me like that.
My hand left his hair and went to his shoulder but he kept me close, his eyes hooded but examining my face.
Then he said something that freaked me out.
“I want to believe this is you,” his voice was low, soft, quiet, “but this isn’t you.”
He was wrong and he was right.
It wasn’t me. It was the new, improved me.
Or at least the new, improved, perfect concubine me before I could go back to the old, faulty, real me when he released me.
“You don’t think I can apologize?” I asked, giving his shoulder a testing push.
He didn’t move a centimeter.
I stopped pushing.
“No,” his voice was still low, “that was you. The kiss was you. The rest of it is not.”
“What rest of it?”
He changed subjects. “We should talk about last night.”
I felt my body begin to stiffen but I fought it and stayed relaxed.
“If you like.”
His mouth grew tight as his gaze grew sharp.
“Not. Fucking. You,” he declared, now angry and I held my breath for what was next.
I couldn’t fight with him. The new, improved Leah wouldn’t do that, certainly not on a boutique street.
No. Not ever. I could never fight with him.
I was channeling Perfect Cousin Myrna when he let me go but grabbed my hand, snatched up the bags, switched our direction and headed back to the valet parking.
We walked in silence.
I decided to test his mood. “Do you mind if we get a latte for the road?”
He stopped and looked at me. “What would you say if I did mind?”
Old Leah would tell him it would only take ten flipping minutes or at least she’d glare at him and pout all the way home.
New Leah didn’t know what to say.
As I struggled to come up with a reply, he closed his eyes as if patience eluded him. Then he gave up, walked us into the nearest coffee house (there were a billion), got me a latte, him a double espresso with enough sugar to down an elephant and we were away home.
My third mistake wasn’t a mistake, as such. It was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I was in the dressing room putting my fantastic new shoes on the tilted shelves that showed shoes to their strategic best when Lucien walked in and went directly to my purse that was sitting on the dressing table. I turned and saw him drop my cell phone and wallet in the purse, my passport beside it.
Throughout the ride home he seemed tense. He didn’t anymore and I was unsure of his mood and further unsure what to do.
Was this another test?
The phone in the house was one thing but he’d put the keys to the Cayenne on the key holder by the backdoor. Now he was giving me back my freedom, in total.
Obviously, I couldn’t run immediately from the house, he’d catch me. I also couldn’t run at all because, again, he’d catch me.
Still.
He turned to leave, caught me staring at him and stopped.
“Italy,” he said.
I blinked. “What?”
“Italy. That would be your preferred on the run from a vamp destination.”
I felt my lips part and my eyes grow wide.
For some reason, my expression made his guarded face gentle and he walked into my space.
I tilted my head to look back at him and whispered, “How did you know?”
“Fiona,” he answered without hesitation.
“Fiona?” I asked.
“Fiona Hawkins.”
Fiona Hawkins? Aunt Fiona Hawkins? How did he know Aunt Fiona?
And why would she be telling him about me always wanting to go to Italy?
This was just bizarre!
“Aunt Fion
a told you I’ve always wanted to go to Italy?”
“Fiona told me a great number of things. Fiona Hawkins was my concubine fifty-one years ago.”
This information rocked me so much it was physical. I took a step back but his arm snaked around my waist and brought me forward so my stomach, hips and thighs were pressed against his.
“Aunt Fiona serviced you?” I breathed.
I mean, I knew she was a concubine. She wasn’t a Buchanan but concubines were friendly (most of the time). I’d known her since forever.
“I throw birthday parties for all my concubines, every year,” he answered.
I felt my mouth drop open again as something occurred to me.
I went to Aunt Fiona’s birthday parties.
Every year.
“Oh my God.”
Lucien ignored my prayer and went on, “I try to attend. Sometimes I can’t stay long. Sometimes I don’t attend the party but visit with them before or after. Twenty years ago I was able to attend. She served fried chicken.”
I felt the pulse of his words shaft through my body and it was physical too. My entire frame jolted with it so much I had to grab onto the sleeves of his shirt at his biceps to stay standing.
“Or,” Lucien continued, “I should say, you made fried chicken for her guests. She told me before I went it would be the best thing I tasted… for eternity.” I kept staring at him as his face dipped closer, his black eyes warmed and he murmured, “She was wrong.”
My mouth opened and then closed. I didn’t know what to say. What I did know was that he’d just given me another earth-shattering compliment.
He kept talking. “After that I went every year. And every year, you made her your fried chicken.”
“That’s her favorite,” I whispered.
“I know,” he replied.
I put my hands on his chest and commented, “I didn’t see you.”
“I didn’t want to be seen.”
“You can do that?”
“When you can control people’s minds, you can do anything. Even disappear.”
I felt my body tense. “You controlled my mind?”
He nodded and said, “I also marked you.”
Oh my God.
That was true!
I’d felt it. That weird drugged feeling, not as strong as he did it now but I felt it. I always thought it was the oppressive heat of Aunt Fiona’s kitchen. She had bad ventilation and frying chicken for seventy-five guests heated up a kitchen, believe you me.