“I think you’re done,” Lucien told him and his voice made it clear Justin was, indeed, done.
Again, Justin didn’t agree. “Oh, do you now?”
Leah pressed into his side as her hand came up to grasp his lapel. “Lucien, don’t –”
Lucien looked down at her and saw her face had paled with alarm. But before he could reassure her, Justin was there.
“He’s a big guy, Ley-lo, but you know I can handle myself,” he announced. Leah’s body turned to marble and Lucien’s eyes sliced to him.
Justin was dark-haired, dark-eyed and clearly fit but, even if Lucien wasn’t a vampire, he had four inches and fifty pounds on him at least.
However, he was a vampire and without any effort at all, he could rip the man’s head off which was something he would have liked to do. Not because he was clearly an asshole but because Lucien knew he’d been an asshole to Leah for a very long time.
Justin, Lucien knew from Fiona, was ambitious. He was also callous with his ambition not only in business but often cancelling plans with Leah, sometimes important or special ones in order to spend his time clawing his way to the top.
Justin was so ambitious that when he needed Leah to be available to charm associates at a business dinner or the like, regardless of the fact that he often chose work over her, he demanded her attendance. He did this even, on occasion, when she was ill or when she had other plans. The former, she’d done, according to Fiona, once. The latter she’d told him to “go screw himself” (Fiona’s account, direct from Leah’s mouth), which meant they fought, not cleanly or at least Justin didn’t fight clean. In a fight, as he was always, he was insensitive, selfish and manipulative.
Justin, Lucien now knew, was also stupid.
Leah tried to salvage the situation. “We’re at the opera,” she hissed to Justin.
“So, fucking, what?” Justin hissed back. “You think you can stand there and hang on some guy, some guy you’ve known for what? A couple of months? Some guy you’ve moved in with when you wouldn’t entertain the notion for even a second with me? Hang on him right in front of me when five months ago you were in my bed?”
Lucien prepared to move. “I see you’re not done but we are.”
Justin, proving his immense stupidity, leaned in and snapped, “Listen up, Lucien, whatever fucking kind of name that is, take it from me. Trust me, I fucking know. Get out, get out now. She’ll twist you around her little finger, get you addicted to that toffee snatch of hers, then she’ll –”
Lucien was done.
Instead of ripping his head off, which was something he now really wished to do, he did something else which would likely not horrify Leah, the rest of their many onlookers and sentence him to be hunted down and burned by The Dominion. The last of which would put a world of hurt on his plans to tame Leah as he’d be dead.
Silence, Lucien commanded, Justin’s mouth clamped shut and his eyes bugged out. Walk away, Lucien continued and without hesitation, Justin’s body jerking woodenly, he turned and walked away.
Lucien watched him go.
Then he heard Leah breathe, “Did you…?”
His head tilted down to look at her and she was staring at him, lips parted, eyes wide, faced filled with wonder. His favorite look. A look he hadn’t seen in three weeks, a look he didn’t realize how much he missed until that very moment.
She went on, “Did you just mind control Justin?”
“Yes,” Lucien replied without hesitation wondering what her reaction would be.
If he’d been asked, he would have guessed a variety of things. None of which was what he received.
She burst out laughing.
Laughing.
She threw her head back, exposing the elegant line of her throat, her face lit with mirth, her entire body shaking with it.
He’d never made her laugh. Not once.
In eight hundred years there were a great number of things he’d done but at that moment none of them seemed as monumental as making Leah laugh.
She curled into his front. One arm was still holding him tight around the waist, her other hand still clenched at his lapel. The rest of her body collapsed into him as if the weight of her hilarity was too much to bear. She bent her neck and rested her forehead against his chest, still giggling.
“You… you… mind-controlled Justin,” she stammered through her giggles into his chest then her head snapped back and she cried with very loud glee, “Justin!”
Lucien felt Stephanie’s gaze. He glanced at her to see her brows raised, a smile playing at her mouth.
He looked back down at Leah and made a decision. Half-leading, half-dragging her still giggling frame, he guided her to the far less crowded hall that led to the restrooms. There, he pressed her into the wall and got close.
She put her hands on his chest and smiled up at him.
Lucien felt his chest get tight. This feeling wasn’t unpleasant in the slightest.
“That’s usually Justin’s gig,” she said through her smile.
“Pardon?” Lucien asked, smiling back, his arms sliding around her waist to pull her closer even as he leaned into her, pressing her back into the wall.
“Mind control. Justin was the master.” Then she laughed again, out loud, her body sagging into his. When she controlled herself she told him, “If I’d have known you six months ago, I would have paid you to mind control Justin. He was such a shit, the master manipulator.”
“You wouldn’t have had to pay me, my pet. It would have been my pleasure.” He was still smiling but his words were serious.
They also sobered her. Her body twitched and the smile died on her face.
Lucien wanted it back.
“Don’t,” he warned, his arms tightening.
She looked around, noticing for the first time where she was. Then her eyes locked at the entryway five feet down the hall.
“We should get back to Stephanie –”
“Look at me, Leah.”
For the first time in weeks he watched her struggling against her natural reaction before her eyes met his.
“For five minutes, I had you back. Don’t go away again,” he demanded.
“But you already –” she started and he cut her off.
“If you tell me I’ve already got you, I swear to Christ, we’re going home right now and I’ll do whatever I have to do to drag you out of that fucking fortress you’ve built around you.”
Her mouth clamped shut, her eyes flashed and Lucien felt a bolt of elation rip through him.
Finally, he was getting somewhere.
“Can we talk about this later?” she asked quietly.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” he told her. “You’re withholding from me.”
“Am not,” she returned.
“Leah.” Her name was a warning.
“Well, I’m not!” Her voice was rising and Lucien welcomed it.
Because of this, his tone softened when he spoke. “You forget, sweetling, I’ve been watching you for twenty years.”
Her eyes slid away and she muttered, “I haven’t forgotten that.”
His arms gave her a squeeze and her gaze came back to his.
“Therefore, I know the Leah Buchanan who I’m sharing a bed with is not Leah Buchanan.”
“She is,” Leah retorted.
Stubborn. He nearly smiled.
He didn’t.
“She isn’t,” he replied.
“What do you want from me?” she asked and there was the barest hint of a snap to her question. Regardless of her crumbling composure, he could hear her heart racing and he could smell her fear.
He’d missed that too.
He drew her even closer and her hands on his chest started pressing.
He ignored it.
“Everything,” he answered.
“You’ve got it.”
“I don’t.”
“Whatever you don’t have then you can’t have.”
Definitely a snap.
<
br /> Yes, his Leah was coming back.
He couldn’t help it, he smiled. Her eyes dropped to his mouth and he heard her pulse accelerate.
“You’re saying you’re determined to be nothing but my whore,” he stated.
Her body grew still and her heart skipped. “What?”
“You have a choice. You can be with me as I want you to be or you can be my whore. Your choice.”
He watched her face work as she struggled to find a way out of the predicament she placed herself in.
Then she said, “There’s a third choice.”
“And that would be?”
“You can release me.”
He felt his chest tighten again. This time it was extremely unpleasant.
“That isn’t going to happen.”
She pushed against him. He ignored it.
“I refuse to choose,” she hissed.
“Then I’ll choose.”
She stopped breathing and her face went pale before she whispered, “You can’t make me do either one.”
His hand slid up her back, fingers wrapping around her neck.
“Would you like to try me, pet?”
Her fear spiked, the scent of it filling the hall and he felt his cock start to get hard in reaction as he felt her heart tripping against his chest.
The bells sounded, announcing it was time for the patrons to take their seats.
“Please can we talk about this later?” she begged and he studied her face.
She’d had enough. However, he was again getting through.
“Yes,” he relented. “We can talk about it later.”
She sagged in relief against him.
He dipped his face to touch his mouth to hers.
“But we will talk about it, Leah,” he cautioned, his lips moving against hers. “Your new game ends and we begin.” He watched close up as her eyes grew round, her scent enveloping him, her delicious fear coating his throat. “Tonight,” he finished.
* * * * *
Leah sat beside him in the car, feigning sleep.
He knew she wasn’t asleep. He’d slept a month of nights beside her. He knew exactly what her breathing and heart sounded like when she was sleeping.
That was not it.
Furthermore, she couldn’t be tired considering she’d had a nap at the opera.
It was safe to say, even though Leah hadn’t told him, she didn’t like opera.
During the first act, he’d discovered this when he felt her subtle movements beside him. However when he turned his head to look at her, her own head was bowed as if deep in contemplation.
He thought nothing of this, suspecting she was considering her options for their discussion later that evening.
His gaze moved to Stephanie who was sitting beside Leah, eyes glued on the stage, lips curved into an amused grin.
They weren’t watching a comedy.
His gaze traveled back to Leah and he saw her suddenly pull an outrageous face. Chin jutted out so the cords in her neck strained, she flicked her tongue between her lips like a snake.
Lucien stared in disbelief wondering if the pressure of his taming was getting to her.
Then he heard a child’s giggle.
He looked down over the balcony railing and saw a little girl no more than six who was completely uninterested in the opera. She was staring up at Leah, her face wreathed in smiles. After a moment she mimicked Leah’s snake face and then rearranged her features, using her thumbs to pull out her mouth and her fingers to pull down her eyes.
Lucien looked back at Leah, who’d bugged out her eyes comically wide and was shaking her head in a subtle “no”.
The child giggled again, practically jumping up in her seat, making motions with her hands that Leah was to follow her lead something that had, apparently, been going on for some time. Her mother, sitting beside her, finally noticed her daughter’s behavior and Lucien heard the mother’s hushed rebuke.
His arm moved around Leah’s shoulders, she jumped and her head turned to him. He caught a look on her face that nearly made him roar with laughter. She looked exactly like the six year old below who’d just been caught and scolded.
He sought her ear with his mouth and whispered, “Be good.”
He felt her shoulders tense under his arm but ignored it, pulling her into his side which she resisted pointlessly.
His eyes moved to Stephanie who was watching them, smiling broadly now before he tucked Leah firmly in his side and glanced back at the stage.
He, too, was smiling.
She managed to curtail her antics for the rest of the first act and chatted amicably if pensively with Stephanie during intermission.
The second act, he positioned her as he had the first and she promptly fell asleep with her head against his shoulder.
And that nap had not been feigned. She had been out, the entirety of her weight resting against him. Although he wished she’d told him she didn’t like opera, he couldn’t say he minded her sleeping with her head on his shoulder where he could tug a tendril of her hair free and twirl its silkiness around his finger something he found that night he could do for hours.
His thoughts still on that tendril, Lucien saw they were home.
He hit the garage door opener and parked the Porsche next to the Cayenne. He was out of the car over to her side with her door open when she pretended to wake.
“We’re home?” she asked in a false drowsy voice.
Lucien bit back a smile. “Yes, pet.”
He helped her out and she started to wander sleepily to the door to the kitchen. He caught her and slid an arm along her shoulders, pulling her close and guiding her the rest of the way.
“Tired?” he asked with sham solicitousness as he halted them by the door so he could hang his keys on the hook on the kitchen wall.
She faked a yawn.
Then she answered, “Definitely.”
“Let’s get you to bed,” he murmured and she nodded.
He walked with her close to his side all the way to the bedroom where she pulled away. He moved to turn on the bedside light and she sat on the bed, bending double, her hands moving to the straps of her shoe.
He shrugged off his suit jacket and walked to the chaise.
“I take it you aren’t fond of opera?” he asked, throwing his jacket on the chaise and sitting to take off his own shoes.
“Um…” she hesitated, sliding her shoe off her foot, setting it aside and then going after the straps of the other one, “no.”
Pleased she hadn’t attempted to lie in order to tell him what she thought he would want to hear, Lucien stood and unbuttoned his shirt. “I think I got that.”
She rose from the bed without a reply or even looking at him and started toward the dressing room.
Using his natural speed, he slid off his shirt, dropped it on the chaise and was at her side before she walked three steps.
His hand caught hers, she quaked to a stop and looked up at him.
“Where are you going?” he queried.
“To take off my dress and put on my pajamas,” she answered.
“No pajamas,” Lucien replied, her eyes grew wide and he turned her so her back was facing him before he continued. “I want to feel you against me tonight, pet.”
Her body turned to stone as his fingers went to her zipper but she didn’t resist.
He slid it down and she stood ramrod straight. The material parted and then fell away. She was wearing nothing but a pair of sheer lavender-colored panties edged in the same colored lace. Her hands went up to shield her breasts as he turned her again and pulled her to him, her arms caught between their bodies.
“Take off my trousers,” he ordered, his fingers drifting up the soft skin of her naked back.
She blinked.
Then she asked, “What?”
His fingers found a butterfly clip in her hair. He squeezed the wings gently and pulled it out.
Then he repeated, “Leah, take off my trousers.
<
br /> She hesitated a moment then, stiltedly, her hands went to his belt.
His fingers found another clip and he carefully pulled it out.
“So, I take it you’ve decided?” she whispered, his belt undone, she moved to the fastening.
“Decided what?” he asked, taking out another butterfly and watching, with no small amount of fascination, as her shining hair slowly tumbled to her shoulders.
“That I’m to be your whore.”
So deep in his study of her hair he was startled by her words and his eyes moved from her hair to hers.
“Why would you say that?”
She slid his zipper down. This, evidently, was her answer.
With one hand, he found more clips and also bobby pins which he pulled out as well. The other hand he wrapped around the back of her neck.
He didn’t take his eyes from hers.
“Lovers disrobe each other, Leah,” he said softly.
He heard her heart bump unevenly, she tore her eyes from his, looking at his shoulder as she slid her hands along his waist and tugged his pants down.
They barely hit the floor before he stepped out of them, had her cradled in his arms and at the side of the bed. He yanked back the covers, depositing her in it. He dropped her hair bobs on her bedside table, moved over her and settled at her side.
“Sit up and turn your back to me,” he demanded, she hesitated again before she complied, bringing the covers up to her chest as she did so.
His hands went back to her hair.
“How many pins do you have in here, sweetling?” he muttered as all the butterflies were out but there seemed hundreds of pins still in.
“I have a lot of hair,” she whispered.
He stopped pulling out pins, his hand moving to her neck, across her throat, and down. He curled his fingers around her upper arm and pulled her back to his chest, his face buried in her thick, soft, now wildly wavy hair.
“Mm,” he murmured into the locks, “that you do.”
Her hands came up, fingers sliding into her hair. “I’ll finish it.”
He pulled back, letting her go and pushed her hands away.
“I’ll do it.”
She blindly batted at his hands. “It won’t take me a second.”
“I said I’ll do it.”
“Really –”