“Oh, for heaven’s sake, why?” Aunt Millicent snapped.
“Because, you and Katie are right, this is Leah,” Aunt Nadia snapped back. “And she’s special. We’ve always known that. And I’d rather her have however long Lucien can give her of something beautiful before The Dominion puts a stop to it, if they can defeat Lucien at all, then for her to be set aside like the rest of us.”
At that I backed away slowly, carefully, not making a noise.
My heart was racing, my eyes were stinging, my stomach hurt and my head was filled with loads of junk none of which I could sort. I really, really, really needed to talk to Stephanie.
Or maybe Edwina because I had the sneaking suspicion she knew more about everything than she let on.
Or even, possibly, Avery.
I turned and walked up five steps, shutting out their murmurs while deep breathing.
When I had myself under control, I bounded down, shouting, “Found you guys a guest house!”
Their murmurs stopped. I sauntered in like I’d heard nothing.
“That’s great, honey,” Mom, sitting on the couch, said and since I was close to her, she grabbed my hand. She gave my hand a squeeze. I gave her a squeeze back.
“Are you still disowning me?” she asked, giving me a cheeky grin because she knew my answer.
I had, of course, in my efforts at being sarcastic, bitchy and obnoxious, told my mother I disowned her.
“I haven’t decided,” I replied but she knew I wasn’t serious.
She gave me another hand squeeze.
I saw movement outside and looked out the windows. One wall of the kitchen was made of floor-to-ceiling windows making the indoors seem kind of outdoors, which was really cool. And I saw Lucien and Stephanie stroll out of the woods.
So Stephanie and Lucien had gone for a stroll which was why he couldn’t hear my family’s mind-boggling, earth-shattering, Leah’s place in the family and all her foundations and everything she ever thought about life herself and the world as she knew it rocking conversation.
They were walking slowly even for mortals and I watched Lucien’s body move.
It was a sight to behold.
Even walking slowly across a yard, he looked imposing. Not like he was walking across a yard but as if he was strolling broodingly across a battlefield, pre-battle. A battle he’d eventually win, of course, soundly.
As I had this thought, his head came up, and he looked right at me.
I hoped he didn’t hear my thoughts.
Then his lips tipped up in that sexy way of his. Not smug or arrogant, just smiling at me.
He didn’t hear me.
I smiled back.
Then I felt something strange and I looked toward its source and saw Avery was watching me musingly. And somehow I knew that he knew I’d heard every word of the earlier conversation.
But it was something else. And that something else was somewhere I did not want to go.
I wrinkled my nose at him and he grinned.
Lucien and Stephanie walked in.
I went to sit down on the arm of the couch next to Aunt Kate which, incidentally, had the added benefit of being closer to Lucien. Then, I couldn’t help myself, I bent and kissed the top of Aunt Kate’s head.
“What on earth!” She batted around her head, her hands getting nowhere near me. Aunt Kate, by the way, hated public displays of affection or affection at all for that matter. “What’s the matter with you, Leah Buchanan?” she snapped.
“I’m trying to find new and interesting ways to annoy you,” I informed her.
“Well, you found one,” she retorted.
“Good,” I returned. “Next I’m going to force you to cuddle with me and a tub of ice cream and tell me about all your secret crushes as a teenager,” I hesitated and finished, “in minute detail.”
Aunt Nadia, Aunt Millicent and Mom giggled. Stephanie out-and-out laughed and I heard Avery’s chuckle.
Aunt Kate stood and announced, “We’ve a guest house to check into. Ladies, we’re going.”
The rest of my family and also Avery and Stephanie made their moves to leave.
Nicely done, pet, Lucien said to my brain.
I looked at him. He looked amused and hungry and very, very sexy.
My heart skipped a beat.
I hadn’t actually kissed Aunt Kate to piss her off enough to leave and drag everyone with her.
But at that moment, I also wasn’t upset to see them go.
Chapter Seventeen
The Joining
Three weeks ago, Lucien came home and gave me a black-colored credit card, a checkbook and a bank card
The credit card, he told me, was for my use whenever I wanted, whatever I wanted. The bills would go to him.
The checking account, he told me, had its first deposit. The same amount would be deposited every month and that was for my use whenever I wanted, whatever I wanted when cash was required.
When he left me, I looked and the amount of the deposit was a quarter of my yearly salary.
It was the kind of thing dreams were made of, if you didn’t hate the person who made that dream come true as, at the time, I hated Lucien.
Two weeks ago, Stephanie came over one morning and told me we were having a girlie day. Then she whisked me off to a spa, we had facials and massages and then sat in a sauna where, incidentally, her super-vampire senses came in handy because all that steam made me blind. I tripped over the wooden mat by the door and she caught me before I took a header. Then we had a gourmet lunch followed by manicures, pedicures, makeup and hair.
Then we went shopping and she took me to the place where she bought the outfit I admired so much.
And she also took me to a place that sold lingerie that cost more than most people’s monthly mortgage payments.
It was there that she made me (and she did make me, I didn’t want to do it) buy the getup that I was wearing at that very moment. She heard my heart start racing when I eyed it in the shop, she forced me to try it on and then she vampire-talked me, as in no protesting allowed, into buying it.
Now I was standing in front of the three-way mirror in the dressing room and examining myself.
I had to admit, I loved it. It was kind of naughty but it was also cute.
The problem was I didn’t know if Lucien would like it.
It was a camisole and panties in sheer baby pink. The camisole was bloused from under the breasts, the cups had rows of tiny, black lace frills that ran at diagonals. The thin straps were made of baby pink satin and there was a little black frill around the hem. The panties were also sheer baby pink but they were covered in rows of tiny, black lace frills, like little girl panties.
Very sexy. Very sweet. Very cute.
But definitely kind of naughty.
I fancied I heard a noise, jumped like the scaredy-cat I was and ran to the black silk man’s tailored robe that came down to my knees that I also bought at that store. Both purchases cost more than my food budget for six months when I was at home. Lucien was going to have a conniption when he got the credit card bill.
I covered up, tugged the belt tight on the robe and wondered if I should put on lip gloss. Then I decided that was a supremely stupid idea since I was, essentially, going to bed.
I took a deep, ragged breath, walked out of the dressing room through the bathroom and into the bedroom.
Lucien was laying in bed, back to the headboard, covers up to his waist, gorgeous chest bared. He was reading a book.
I stopped and stared. His eyes came to me. I fought back the need to start panting. To hide my distress, I latched onto something else.
That something else was the fact that he was lying in bed reading and he was blinkety blank eight hundred and twenty-two years old.
“After eight hundred years plus, haven’t you already read every book ever published?” I asked.
His thumb holding his place, he dropped the book to his side.
Then he answered, “No.”
<
br /> Hmm.
Next question.
“Do vampires ever get so old they have to wear glasses?”
“No,” he repeated.
“Hearing aids?”
“No.”
“Dentures?” I went on stupidly and, maybe, semi-hysterically.
His lips turned up at the ends. “No, Leah.”
“Do they ever have to walk with canes?”
The lip-turn morphed into a sexy smile.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he ordered gently.
Seeing as, if I decided to make a run for it, he could be on me faster than I could blink, I thought it best to do as he ordered.
As I walked toward him, he put his book on the nightstand.
I stopped at the side of the bed.
With vamp speed he twisted, grabbed me by the waist, slid down the bed and I was on top of him over the covers. I arched my back and rested a forearm on his chest, catching my breath at his sudden movements. He gathered all my hair in both of his hands at the back of my neck and his eyes caught mine.
“Nervous?” he murmured.
Nervous? No.
About to have a cardiac arrest? Yes!
“No,” I lied to save face.
He grinned and told me, “I can hear your heart, pet.”
Why was I always forgetting that?
I wrinkled my nose and informed him, “You’re very annoying.”
He put pressure on my neck, enough for my arm to buckle and get trapped between us as he lifted his head and buried it in my neck.
“You’re very adorable,” he replied against my skin.
I was pretty certain my heart was accelerating past the point of cardiac arrest straight to cardiac explosion.
Regardless of this fact, since I was me, I retorted, “That’s part of you being annoying.”
His lips slid up the side of my neck and I did a full body tremble.
“What is?” he asked the underside of my jaw.
“You calling me adorable,” I answered, tilting my head back to give him better access.
I felt his smile. Then I felt the tip of his tongue move along my jaw and then down my throat. I held my breath while he did this and my female parts rippled.
“Are you going to feed?” I whispered.
“No,” he answered.
This surprised me. He hadn’t fed that night except on roast chicken, stuffing, potatoes, rolls and Edwina’s whipped up at the last minute strawberry pie.
“You’re not?”
One of his hands slid up to cup the back of my head, the other one glided down my back. He guided my mouth to his and touched his lips to mine.
Eyes holding mine captive, he replied, “If I feed, the numbing agent will release. I don’t want any part of you numbed with what I do with my mouth tonight.”
Oh my God.
Another full body tremble, female parts ripple and goose bumps formed on my flesh. He felt it, he knew it, he grinned his smug grin and then he kissed me.
It wasn’t a claiming onslaught. It wasn’t a wild, ravenous duel. It was sweet and soft, coaxing and discovering, a new kind of kiss that was quite like our first one but a whole lot better.
My body melted into his and I kissed him back.
His hand at my back slid over my bottom, down my thigh and then started to bunch the robe in his fist. From somewhere far away, my naughty-girl undies popped right into my head and I jerked straight up to straddling him.
He allowed this, why, I didn’t know. He just laid there looking up at me, his eyes alert but not angry, his hand now caught in the crease of my leg, his other hand coming to rest on my other thigh.
I stared down at him thinking one thing.
I needed to change clothes. Like, now.
“There’s something I forgot,” I muttered.
“Leah –”
I prepared to move and while I took the nanosecond to do this both his hands settled firmly on my hips.
“Leah, you aren’t going anywhere.”
I was mentally inventorying my lingerie drawer (he’d filled it full himself, he had to like those things, he bought them!), when I replied, “This won’t take a second.”
His hands tensed, his face gentled, his eyes grew warm just as his voice dipped low, a killer combination. “Sweetling, there’s nothing on this planet you have to worry about right now.”
“Lucien –”
His hands slid up my sides at the same time putting on pressure to pull me toward him.
“Just relax,” he muttered.
My mind searched wildly for ways to delay.
“Can I…?” I muttered, coming up with nothing as his face got closer. “Can I…?” I repeated stupidly. Then it came to me. “Will you let me… explore?” I whispered.
The pressure stopped.
Thank God.
His hands drifted down my sides, my waist, my hips to come to rest on the tops of my thighs.
“By all means,” he murmured, my heart skipped, his eyes had gone hooded and now I was really in trouble.
Since I’d been really in trouble before like, lots, as usual, I just winged it.
And, anyway, his chest was right there. And I’d never really touched him before. He touched me but I’d never got the chance to have a go at him.
I took my chance.
I lifted up to straddling again and, using my fingertips, I explored. Drifting softly as my eyes followed my movements, I touched all the planes and angles of his chest, his abdomen, brushing my fingers across the top of the bedclothes under his navel.
I discovered he felt good. His skin was soft, his muscles hard. The angles fascinated me. The planes fascinated me more. I lost myself so much, it came as a surprise when he took in a sharp breath and his fingers tensed on my thighs as I ran the pad of my thumb across his nipple.
My eyes flew to his and his were intense, so intense they were blazing.
For the first time since I met him, I felt power.
And I liked it.
I liked it so much, I couldn’t stop my smile.
Totally forgetting my lingerie, I bent at the waist. I followed the trail my fingertips had made, this time with my mouth, often my tongue, tasting him.
His skin tasted just as delicious as his kisses.
My lips slid across his nipple then my tongue did the same then I swept the front edge of my teeth against it.
Suddenly, he knifed to sitting, his hands no longer at my thighs, they were yanking at the belt of my robe.
“I’m not done exploring,” I protested.
Looking in my eyes, he tugged the robe off my shoulders and tossed it aside. Then his hand fisted in my hair and he steered my mouth to his.
“You can explore all you want when we’re both naked.” His voice was a low, sexy rumble.
I had no chance to speak further. He kissed me, hungry, even needy, and demanding. So demanding it rocked me, my arms circled him for I had no choice but to hold on.
I was dazed, trembling and feeling ripples everywhere when his mouth tore from mine, he leaned a bit back, his hands at my camisole and he stilled.
Then, eyes on my middle, in what could only be described as a raw groan, he growled, “Jesus Leah.”
“What?” I breathed then I remembered and I stilled too.
Damn!
He didn’t like my naughty-girl undies.
His hand went into my hair, twisting and fisting and he used it to bring my face close to his.
His eyes were burning.
I quit breathing.
Then he ground out, “Leave it to you to wear something I want to fuck you in when I’ve been fantasizing for twenty years of fucking you wearing nothing at all.”
Okay, maybe I was wrong. One could say he liked the lingerie.
Good to know.
“Is this our only shot?” I asked, still dazed and now slightly confused.
“Pardon?”
“Are we only having sex once?”
“Fuck no,”
he clipped.
“Then can’t you do both… eventually?”
I’d barely uttered the “ly” in “eventually” when I was flying through the air, landing on my back.
Before his mouth took mine in another hungry, demanding kiss, I guessed I had my answer.
I learned very quickly that Lucien hadn’t only used his eight hundred plus years on this earth to become a master with his hands and mouth.
Lucien had used those years to become a master at everything.
He also used the lingerie to his advantage. His mouth did the same on me as mine did on him but trailing the edge of the camisole at my breasts, pushing the blousing up and gliding his lips and tongue across my midriff and belly, tracing the edge of my panties then up. Over the frills, I felt his tongue dart aggressively against my rock hard nipple then again and again before he sucked it into his mouth over the fabric.
When he did, it felt so freaking fantastic, I moaned for a very long time.
Not done, he tugged the fabric down so it dragged across my sensitive nipple in a sexy way that made me whimper before his mouth locked on my nipple and he drew it in sharply.
Vampires understood suction like no one else. It was sheer ecstasy.
After a while, he did this to the other nipple too.
I was paying attention, of course, lots of attention.
But I was also busy moaning and writhing and gripping his hair to hold him to me. I was so turned on I thought I’d have an orgasm just by what he did to my nipples.
But I wanted more.
I pushed off on a foot, rolling him to his back.
He let me do this, his arms sliding around me, crushing me to him for another wet, hot, demanding kiss.
“My turn,” I whispered against his lips when he ended the kiss.
Before he could say a word, my lips went down his throat, down his chest and down his stomach, pushing the bedclothes lower and exposing him.
He was thick, rock hard and looked utterly delectable.
I could not wait to explore.
I wrapped my hand around him, thrilling when I heard him suck in a sharp breath.
I no sooner twirled the tip of him with my tongue when he bent double. He wrapped an arm around my waist and yanked my body around so I was facing his lap but my knees were in the bed beside his shoulder as he lay back.