However, he had every intention of spending the night with Leah even had he not lost control necessitating that he wait for the healing. And he had every intention of spending every night with Leah until he lost interest in her and released her.
Cosmo continued to study him before he remarked dubiously, “So, it was all innocent.”
“No,” Lucien replied honestly. “It was far from innocent.”
Cosmo closed his eyes.
In a low voice that held a vein of steel, Lucien declared, “I’ll not live like this for another day, Cosmo.”
Cosmo opened his eyes “You are planning a revolt.”
“It might not lead to that.”
“You know it will.”
Lucien shrugged. “Then it’s war.”
Cosmo pulled in breath through his nostrils at Lucien’s words but his face and eyes went blank, hiding his thoughts. Katrina could learn from Cosmo.
Quietly, Cosmo spoke. “I’ve seen her, Lucien. I’ve smelled her. I like her. She’s fascinating. She’s funny. She’s different. But,” he paused before finishing, “she’s not worth war.”
“You haven’t tasted her,” Lucien returned decisively.
Cosmo’s head cocked to the side, intrigued despite himself. “She’s that good?”
“Better.”
Cosmo’s brows went up before he muttered, “Jesus.” Then he continued in a low voice, “Did you fuck her?”
“Not yet.”
“You intend to?”
“Absolutely.”
“Christ, Lucien –”
Lucien lost patience. “If I remember correctly there was many a night, for seven years, you left her mother and went direct with me to A Feast. Not to feed, to fuck, the way you wanted to fuck Lydia. If I remember correctly, for seven years, you wanted Lydia in a way you couldn’t have her because the Agreement said you couldn’t. It nearly drove you mad. You had to release her before you wanted just to end the torment. Do you remember?” Lucien demanded.
“I remember,” Cosmo answered, his jaw clenching.
“That is not going to happen to me,” Lucien stated. “I want Leah, all of Leah, and I’ll damn well have her. I’m tired of these ancient, absurd edicts ruling my life, your life, Stephanie’s life. We’re vampires for fuck’s sake and everything that is our essence has been stripped away. No more. I’m taking it back. If they try to punish me, I’ll fight.”
Cosmo’s face again lost all expression. Because the time might come where he’d need allies, and Cosmo would be an excellent one, not to mention he was a trusted friend, Lucien continued to explain.
“It’s been over five hundred years since I caught a scent as extraordinary as Leah’s.”
Understanding lit in Cosmo’s eyes.
“Maggie,” Cosmo muttered.
It took an extreme effort of will, even after all of these years, for Lucien not to flinch at her name.
He ignored his friend’s muttering and carried on, “I caught Leah’s scent twenty years ago. I should have had her then. I should have been able to take what I wanted. But I had to wait. Twenty years, Cosmo. I’ve lost twenty years. Or, more to the point, she’s aged twenty years and I’ve lost that. My time has come, as has Leah’s, and there will be no barriers, no boundaries, no fucking laws that tell me I cannot do what I wish.”
“You intend to tame her,” Cosmo surmised.
“I’ve already started,” Lucien announced.
Cosmo hesitation was brief before he sighed and shook his head. “I suppose there will be those who’ll champion you.”
“I’d like you to be one of them.”
Cosmo went still, his face remaining blank, before he asked softly, “You doubted I would?”
Lucien didn’t answer.
Still speaking softly, Cosmo said, “I’d burn for you Lucien. I’ve proved that before.”
“You have,” Lucien agreed.
They locked eyes for long moments before Cosmo broke their silent renewed vow of allegiance by saying, “She’ll not be easily tamed.”
For the first time since seeing his friend, Lucien smiled. “This is very true.”
Cosmo smiled back. “How was she last night?”
“Untamable.”
Cosmo threw his head back and laughed.
Thus ended their tense conversation.
Lucien turned into the driveway of the home he’d purchased for Leah three months before, just weeks after she’d ended her last relationship.
He’d broken his own practice and searched for it himself. He gave Sally his requirements and attended the viewings personally, twenty of them, before he found what he wanted to provide for Leah. Then he’d hired a team of decorators to fit it to his exacting specifications.
When he’d met Edwina there just days before to give her the keys to her new home and place of employment, she’d been stunned at what she saw.
Edwina had been housekeeper to his acting concubines for forty years. She knew Lucien had a reputation for being particularly generous with them. He kept them well while they serviced him and left them well when he’d released them. All vampires did the same but, either miserly or unable financially, they didn’t do it as Lucien did because he was not miserly and he was far from financially unable.
But a six-bedroom mansion on a fifteen acre plot was beyond even Lucien’s pale.
He hit the garage door opener on his visor and slid his sleek black Porsche Turbo next to the equally sleek, black Cayenne he’d purchased for Leah.
Edwina, likely curious at hearing his car pull in the garage, met him by the kitchen door, her face startled.
“Lucien,” she breathed.
“Edwina,” he replied in greeting, not pausing but moving beyond her.
“You’re here,” she noted unnecessarily.
He stopped in order to ask where Leah was as he had no desire to go in search of her and turned back to Edwina. “Yes, I am. Where’s Leah?”
He watched her eyes go round before she blurted, “She’s not ready for another feeding! And you can’t be ready for another one either.”
Lucien’s gaze leveled on hers and he watched the color run from her face.
“Sorry. I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, looking away.
“Where’s Leah?” Lucien repeated with ill-concealed impatience.
“In her room.”
Lucien turned immediately toward the stairs.
“Lucien!” Edwina called and with reluctance Lucien turned back. “She’s…” She paused, her face still ashen, her fear fragrancing the room.
“She’s what?” Lucien asked when she did not carry on.
Her body twitched then she continued, “She’s…” and she stopped again.
“Edwina,” Lucien’s voice was a dangerous hiss.
“She’s in a…a…” he watched her swallow before she finished, “she’s in a mood.”
Leah was in a mood. This was excellent news.
Slowly, Lucien grinned. Edwina gawked.
Lucien turned back to the stairs.
As Edwina said, Leah was in her bedroom though he knew this since he heard her heart beating and smelled her scent the moment he entered the downstairs hall.
When he walked through the door he saw her sitting on the chaise, her back to its arm, her legs bent in front of her. She was wearing faded jeans, a pale pink camisole and a lightweight pale green cardigan. Her feet were bare but her toes were polished a new color. Last night it was a sheer pink, tonight it was a bright fuchsia, evidencing the fact that she obviously disobeyed his command to rest and instead gave herself a pedicure. Her long, layered blonde hair fell around her shoulders in soft flips, the tendrils at her neck curving in, framing the graceful line of her throat in an invitation she likely didn’t know she was giving but one he savored.
Her head shot up when he arrived and he noted she was reading a book which she had opened on her thighs.
He turned to close the door. When he turned back, her head was again bent to the
book. He watched her as he walked into the room, shrugging off his suit jacket. He continued to watch her as he threw it on the foot of the bed and moved closer. And he continued to watch her as he walked past her to the small table at the arm of the lounge.
She kept her head bent to her book the whole time, ignoring him but her heart was racing and he smelled her fear.
He bent and picked up the bookmark that was resting on the table next to a cold drink and walked to the lounge, seating himself an inch away from her feet.
Then he twisted his torso, reached out and pulled the book from her hands.
Her head snapped up and she cried angrily, “Hey!”
This time he ignored her, put the mark in the book and leaned into her.
She cringed back against the arm of the lounge, her head turning slightly to the side, the pace of her heart escalating.
Lucien ignored this too.
He deposited the book on the table, leaned in further and put a hand in the chaise on either side of her hips, his stomach and chest brushing her calves.
His eyes caught her wary ones and he demanded, “When I come to you, Leah, I want you to greet me.”
He watched her jaw tighten and the flash in her eyes and he waited for her reply.
She gave it to him. “I’m sorry, oh Great Master. Hello. How was your day?”
He smiled right before he moved.
He’d decided not to hide his heightened abilities from her. He would be nothing but what he was with Leah.
In a second he had her out of the lounge and resituated in it, stretched out on her back, Lucien at her side up on his forearm leaning over her, his lower body pressed against hers.
When he was done, her dark blue eyes were wide, her full lips parted and her breath had stopped.
“You don’t have to use the ‘great’ part, pet. ‘Master’ will do,” he teased her, still smiling.
She wrinkled her nose and glared. He threw his head back and laughed, barely controlling the urge to bury his face in her throat to get closer to her scent, her pulse, her.
Instead, when he stopped laughing, he put his hand at her fully-healed neck and ran his thumb down her jugular while his eyes watched its movements.
Then his gaze caught hers. “How are you feeling?” he asked quietly.
“Full,” she replied in a sharp, unfriendly voice. “Edwina isn’t skimpy with her portions.”
His brows went up. “You’ve eaten?”
“Yes.”
His thumb continued caressing her throat and his eyes moved back to it as he murmured, “I would have liked to share dinner with you.”
He felt her body give a small jolt, his gaze went to hers and he caught her wonder before she could hide it.
“You’re surprised?” he asked.
She briefly struggled with something before she nodded.
“Why are you surprised?” he went on. “Because I eat or because I wish to eat with you?”
“Because you eat.” Her voice was still short, clipped, hostile.
Even so his body relaxed, pressing closer to hers, settling in. Hers tensed.
“I eat, I drink, I sleep, I bathe. I do everything you do,” Lucien told her.
She made no comment to this although her face was filled with curiosity.
She hid the curiosity and decided to change the subject, demanding, “Are we going to talk?”
“We are talking.”
She lifted her hand and waved it around. “No, not talking-talking. Talking about whatever it was you wanted to talk about this morning.”
“We’ll get to that.”
“Can we do it now so you can go?”
“That has a two part answer,” he explained and her brows knitted.
“It’s a yes or no question,” she informed him.
“Then no, to both parts.”
He watched her jaw clench again and he heard her teeth grind together. It took another enormous effort not to laugh.
“Why can’t we get this over with?” she insisted.
“Because I’d like a moment to relax and get a drink.”
She made to move and he allowed more of his weight to settle on her until she stilled.
“If you let me up, I’ll get you a drink,” she offered with false courtesy.
He ignored her attempt to get away from him and his gaze moved to her glass. “What are you drinking?”
She didn’t answer as he took his hand from her neck and reached for the glass. He brought it to his nose and inhaled its scent. It was diet cola and rum.
His eyes moved to hers. “You shouldn’t be drinking spirits,” he admonished.
Her head tilted to the side and her blue eyes grew darker. “Is that an order?”
“For tonight, while you’re still recovering, yes. Any other time you can drink what you wish.”
“I just don’t believe you,” she whispered angrily under her breath.
This was something else he ignored while he took a drink from her glass. For some reason, this caused her to protest, her hand shooting out, fingers wrapping around his wrist and jerking to no avail.
“Hey! Don’t drink from my drink!”
He replaced the glass on the table and looked at her. “Why?”
“It’s my drink!”
“Yes. And?”
“You can’t drink my drink!”
“And why not?”
“Because it’s my drink.”
He sighed her name, “Leah.”
She mimicked his sigh sarcastically. “Lucien.”
He could bear it no longer. She was, quite simply, enchanting.
He burst into laughter, burying his face in her neck while he pulled her to her side facing him, his arms wrapping tight around her, pressing her torso deep against his chest.
“Stop hugging me,” she grumbled over his shoulder, her hands between them pushing against him.
His hand slid down her back to its small, right above her ass and he pressed in. “I can’t help it, pet, you’re entirely huggable.”
“I’m huggable?”
He lifted his head and smiled at her. “Entirely.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know, Lucien, you need to make up your mind. Either you’re this guy or you’re the jerky, controlling guy who I met at The Selection or you’re the near-miss murder guy last night. Pick one. I’m getting confused.”
He pulled slightly away, bent his elbow and rested his head in his hand, looking down at her.
“I’m all those… guys.”
“Can we make a deal that I get to pick which one I want?”
He was still smiling when he asked, “And which one would you choose?”
“None of them, in a perfect world.” He chuckled and she talked through it. “But this one, since we don’t live in a perfect world.”
“Lucky for you, you have this one now.”
“Then this one would give me back my phone.”
His smile died. “I’ll not be giving back your phone.”
“Okay then,” she shot back, “I don’t have the slightly tolerable one. I have the jerky, controlling one.”
He disregarded her heated words and said, “There are things you need to learn.”
“Yes, and if I could phone my mother, she would teach me.”
“I’m going to teach you.”
Her mouth snapped shut and she stared before she asked in a soft, stunned voice, “You?”
“Me.”
“Why you?”
It had been a boon she’d been expelled from Vampire Studies even if the reason why annoyed him. She had no idea her role or his limitations. All she knew was the contract which flew straight in the face of the law. Until he knew why the Buchanans sent her to him even after examining the altered contract, she would have nothing to do with them or anyone.
In the meantime, his path was cleared, at least with Leah.
And that was all that was important.
He, obviously, didn’t tell her any of that.<
br />
“Because the idea of doing it amuses me.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Leah,” he called and her gaze came to his. “I’ll take your instruction seriously and I expect you to do the same.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s no one to pass notes to here and I don’t have a phone so I can text my friends.”
He reached up a hand and slid his fingers through the soft hair on the side of her head. A mortal man might have missed the delicate shiver that slid across her skin at his touch. And a mortal would definitely miss the sudden racing of her heart.
Lucien didn’t.
This pleased him.
Greatly.
He made no mention of it nor did he give her any indication he felt it.
His eyes locked with hers. “Good, then I’ll have your undivided attention.”
“Can we get started?” she snapped.
“You’re very impatient,” he told her, fighting a smile.
Her eyes darted to his mouth then away while she announced, “I’m a lot of things, none of them good.”
“I’ve noticed you’re a lot of them, pet, but I beg to differ. I think all of them are good.”
She closed her eyes in despair while muttering, “Great.”
He chuckled and slid under her, pulling her over his body until she was mostly on top of him, part of her settled at his side against the back of the lounge. He kept his arms locked around her waist as she came up on a forearm and looked down at him. Her thick hair fell in a curtain around her face, its fragrance enveloping him in an intoxicating mixture of peonies with a hint of grapefruit.
He tamped down the urge to pull her hair and her closer and instead offered, “We’ll start with last night, shall we?”
“Finally,” she breathed and he gave her a gentle but unmistakable squeeze.
“Leah,” he added a verbal warning to his physical one.
She drew in a breath and exhaled loudly.
Then she invited, “Begin, oh Great Master.”
He again fought back a grin. “You’re about to earn another hug.”
“You’re already hugging me.”