by Angel Payne
As we spiraled down—slowly—from the explosions, my tiny shudders and convulsions were also Lucien’s. Our entwined energies were enough to keep reality shoved back by blessed inches. I’d never been more thankful for the fact.
At last, I lowered back to the ground. My senses were as broken as the leaves beneath my back, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be put back together again. But Lucien did just that by pressing his forehead to mine, resealing every connection of our minds, our souls, our hearts.
We remained like that, simply absorbing each other, for minutes that went by like microseconds. As always, time was our mortal enemy, but we fought to make the most of it. The summer breeze rustled through the trees, and eventually brought the sound of muted voices, as well. Some of them were interspersed with knowing laughter.
“Shit!” Though I whispered it, panic husked the syllable. I sat up straight, suddenly remembering our discarded bikes and uneaten picnic. “You think they know we’re in here?” I stage-whispered to Lucien.
His chuckle was not a reassurance. “Ah, most certainly, mon reve,” he stated, tucking me back against him. I nuzzled into the protective plane of his chest as he finished, “And probably wishing they were us, as well.”
“And why did I not ever want to step foot in this city?”
And why had I thought those words would stay put in my head?
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I licked my lips, waiting for Lucien to launch a fresh inquisition about them. I tensed, preparing myself to resist his charm-filled probe.
Instead, he mounted a more terrifying campaign.
His silence.
It didn’t come without a backup. He fine-tuned his stare to its most piercing shade of black before he fully looked back down at me. His face was set in steady solemnity, and his muscles were set in the same watchful stillness.
Stillness.
As he simply waited on me.
And waited.
I wanted to look away.
I couldn’t.
And God, how I wanted to tell him…everything.
But couldn’t.
Telling him would mean surrendering another chunk of my soul to him. And damn it, he had so much of it already. Too much.
Another burst of wind hit the trees. This gust was chillier than the others. And moister. And sadder.
An aura Lucien once more seemed to absorb by osmosis.
With a sigh that seemed almost grief-stricken, he trudged to his feet. “Rain is coming, ma bichette,” he murmured. “And while the idea of getting you muddy and wet has its appeal…” With one gruff shrug, he brought back his dangerous D’artagnan side once again—only that dashing warrior was even better now.
For one last moment, he was still my hot, naked swordfighter.
But just for a moment.
As I pulled my riding gear back on, he pulled off the condom. After zipping up, he threw his dirty, wrinkled shirt over his shoulders and departed our fantasy hideaway. When I stepped out from the trees, it was to find him walking back from the trash can, tapping on his cell phone with one thumb.
A barely tamped sigh. No; forget it. I sighed anyway. Reality again. Inevitable, but disgusting all the same.
“What’s happening?” I asked. He was wearing his “business emergency” expression. And yeah, it was scary that I knew that. Equally alarming? My total non-stress about his shirt, knowing he kept a few extras at the office for shit that popped up. Like interrupted picnics-that-weren’t-picnics.
And that would teach me to assume absolutely anything.
As he glanced up, emergency man was gone. In his place was my lover Lucien all over again. Fresh heat ignited cobalt fire in his eyes. New intention—at least that’s what it looked like—defined every formidable angle of his face.
“Done,” he said simply—making me wish the whole mind-reading thing went both ways. It really was unfair. I’d have to have a talk with karma about that.
“Done…what?” I asked.
“Private messages to Yvette and Milo.” He smirked a little wider. “Neither of us is working this afternoon or tonight.” He blinked his eyes, all mock innocence. “I need you.”
I popped my gaze wider. Attempted a smile, despite feeling like a hunk of fresh bread about to be cleaved by D’Artganan’s…errrmmm…sword. “You need me for…what?”
As he stabbed his arms back into his shirt, coiling his muscles in a million alluring new ways, he stared liked I’d asked if the raindrops on our faces were real. “To continue our private training, of course.”
“Training at what?” Incredulity crept into it, my only way to stay serious here.
His eyebrows knit. “Does that matter?”
I huffed. But then giggled. I didn’t know whether to punch or kiss him. “Milo Proust really bought that?”
“Of course not. But Liev has been wanting a crack at the headliner position when you leave, so I instructed Milo to audition him tonight.”
“And Yvette?”
“Oh, she responded right away.” He cracked a mischievous grin. “Said she already cleared the afternoon. That she had a feeling.”
Finally, I surrendered to my own tiny smirk. “Lucien?”
“Hmmm, ma reve?”
“Give Yvette a big fucking raise.”
14 Days and Counting
“You know, Monsieur Paget…you could easily convert me.”
“Convert?”
Lucien hitched up on one elbow in the gazillion thread-count sheets of his master bedroom centerpiece. Seriously, I think this bed had belonged to Phillippe d’Orléans too. “Je ne comprende pas, petite,” he murmured, wearing a look of total bewilderment.
I didn’t answer him right away. It was too easy to revel in the pillows that felt like clouds and bask in the resplendence that was him. In the gray light of late morning, he was still stubbly, tousled, lazy—and naked.
Ohhhh, so gloriously naked.
In short, the way I wanted to freeze him forever.
The way I’d have him for only an hour more. Two if I was lucky.
A reality I didn’t have to confront yet.
Later, damn it. Deal with the pain later.
After the comfort sank in, I refocused on my goofy teasing. “To the whole corporate employment thing,” I clarified while rubbing a thumb across his breathtakingly scruffy chin. “I mean, if all training programs are like yours, what have I been missing out on?”
He chuckled while I pulled him down, but expanded the mirth to a growl when our mouths met again. The rough sound vibrated into my mouth as he took me with long, languorous seduction. I was soon returning the favor with high sighs and throaty mewls.
We pulled apart, but not very far. His gaze turned the shade of charcoal as he rasped, “No conversion for you. No other trainer for you.”
I let him tinge the words with solemnity. Since we’d arrived at his penthouse yesterday afternoon, we’d kept things humorous and horny—especially after anointing every room of the three levels with sex in a matching number of positions. We’d finally eaten our “picnic” on his living room floor, sprawled naked in front of the plate glass sliders, enjoying the light show of the storm over the city and sharing a bottle of Bordeaux. Around midnight, we’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms, waking as the dawn had brought a rain as intense as our passion.
It had been one of the best nights of my life.
This morning had been shaping up the same way—until now.
The elephant in the room had woken up. And insisted on sharpening his tusks right away. And aiming them right at my gut. And straight into my heart.
It was time to deal with the tough stuff. Probably past time. The honesty didn’t ease the agony at all—but maybe I could start out easy. “Personal coaching, hmmm?” I lifted my head and licked the lush cushion of his lower lip. “Well, I like the sound of that.”
Lucien opened up, flicking the tip of his tongue out. After touching it to mine, he husked, “Moi aussi, ma mignon. Me as well.” He lowe
red a soft kiss to my nose. “More than you can ever know.”
I hummed in silken pleasure as he continued the little nips up and across my forehead. “Maybe the training itinerary for the afternoon can consist of you trying.”
He continued his grazes into my hairline. “Now I like the sound of that.”
Succumbing to blissful temptation, I hooked a leg around the muscled taper of his waist. “It sure as hell beats the itinerary from last week.”
The words had spilled out more easily than I expected—but I regretted giving into them as soon as he jerked away by a few inches. “Aha.” Just like that, he’d flipped from all-flames to all-business. “So here we are.”
It was useless to even think about a protest, so I joined him in sitting up straighter. I twisted around to lean against the padded black satin headboard, dragging a pillow along with me to tuck against my chest. Oh yeah, I’d already noticed the dip of his gaze. I wasn’t blessed profusely by the tits fairies, but what I had was a constant source of fascination for the man. In certain circumstances, that was a pretty fun thing. In other instances, it was one—make that two—distractions we didn’t need. Instances like this.
Instance?
Yeah, probably a huge understatement. The elephant in the room, now parking his backside on top of my senses, agreed in full.
“Yeah,” I quietly stated. “Here we are.” I cocked my head, but kept my gaze firm and strong. “Not a destination you sound too shocked about.”
Lucien reached for one of my hands. Brushed his lips across my knuckles. His beard tickled the sensitive skin there, sending tingles through my whole torso…especially the two peaks now being teased by the fluffy pillows too. “It was confusing for you, last week, n’est-ce pas? I am sorry, Juliette. Truly.”
His confession jabbed the center of my heart. The conflict made its way to my twisting lips. “I just wondered if the apology should’ve been mine.”
His brows crunched so hard, they nearly met. “The hell?” he spat. “Pourquoi? Why?”
I shifted a little, if only to ease the pressure of the pillow on my newly erect nipples. “Things got…well, weird…between us after we were together on the river cruise.” I looked away. I’d never get this out if he kept wrapping me in the dark silk of his stare. “After I fell apart on you like a teenager who’d just lost her virginity.” The rain on the windows didn’t help my confidence level. “Turns out it was probably just a piece of my mind.” I tried punctuating with a laugh, only to learn levity wouldn’t help either. “Anyhow, it was intense, and I’m sorry if it freaked you out.”
All right, no levity—but apparently, some higher power chuckled at getting to freak me out now. His reaction, while instant, was beyond what I expected—yet more than I dared yearn for.
After surging forward as if to kiss me again, he backed off as if halted by a force field. But the next second, with the barrier seemingly shattered, the kiss came after all—once more to my knuckles. This buss was different. No more gallant prince behavior. He pressed his lips to my flesh with harsh fervor, as if needing to prove a point—though the confusion in his eyes didn’t expose a single clue about that point.
“All right,” he finally said. “I was ‘freaked out’—but not as you are intending it.”
I tightened my hold on the pillow, my gratitude tripling for the cushiony anchor. I hoped it hid the acid roller coasters now colliding tracks in my stomach. Was he trying to reassure me, or set me up for a poetic kiss-off after purging me from his system with twelve hours of C-4 level sex? My senses supplied a thousand possible answers, and none of them felt right. Worse? None of them were less terrifying.
“And how…am I ‘intending it?’” I ended it on a swallow, not ashamed of my defensive bite No more hiding, Lucien. This is what you asked for. And yeah, it was what I’d willingly agreed to—in a woodsy bower, on an orgasm high. Guess I had the rights to claim he’d taken advantage of a weak spot, but why? Truth or pretense; it didn’t matter. Like every other path I’d skipped down with a man, this one was leading to the same concluding fork—and the same direction he’d pick. Not mine.
Didn’t mean I had to make it easy for him.
You want goodbye here, buddy? Great. Ball’s in your court. Bounce away.
I just prayed to end the game with my dignity intact.
I started prepping my mind for it. Where had I tossed my clothes last night? And how fast could I get back into them before the tears hit with full fury? I’d been wearing runners, so I’d have to simply stuff those in my purse and carry them out. Soaked feet would be a paltry price to pay for a speedy exit. I’d be a wet mess anyway, as soon as the heartache set in. With any luck, everyone on the Metro would ignore the weeping girl in the bike shorts in the corner…
The man himself wasn’t going to make a shred of this any easier. Damn it, now more than ever he looked like Lucifer in the most juicy and carnal form possible. His dark stubble shaped his noble jaw, and the sheets were wrapped around the ridges of his abdomen as if a fashion editor had spent an hour tucking them “just so.” And there was still the issue about his death grip on my hand…
“Juliette.” Great. And now he scooped up the other hand too. “Your tears were—and are—the greatest gifts to me. They ‘freak me out’ because…they fill my heart.”
My brain stuttered.
No, literally. Every neuron in my cranium froze in place. Then backtracked. Then reexamined every one of his words—so not the ones I’d braced for—and scrambled to grasp the reality of the new agenda here. “Wait.” A bizarre grunt pushed up from my throat. “Huh?”
His lips curled up. As if he’d also commanded the universe to contribute to the moment, a shaft of light unfurled through the clouds, streamed through the sliders, and angled perfectly across his sculpted face. “That night…on the boat…” he paused to shake his head. “Clearly, you and I remember things differently.”
I swallowed hard. Every drop cascaded freely until hitting my wildly throbbing heart, where the confusion rain dance began. “Wh-What do you mean?”
He shifted closer. Twined his grip tighter. “Things changed that night.”
I spurted a soft laugh. “Well, that we can agree on.”
Another lean in from him—to the point that I was now helpless to look away from him. “But how they changed…was different for you, n’est-ce pas?”
I tugged the inside of my lip between my teeth. Truly debated that answer for a few seconds, until remembering his demand for the full force of my honesty. “You referring to your sudden allergy about touching me after we deboarded?”
Unbelievably, his focus intensified. “Which you interpreted as my fade in desire.”
“Well, duh.”
“And not the fact that you became the most important person in my life.”
So much for the grand eye roll I was summoning. I had to think fast, recovering from my plummeting jaw long enough to stammer, “Excuse…me?”
He gave me a break from his scrutiny, dropping his head as if finishing a brutal workout. “Oui. That was exactly what you thought,” he muttered. “Because that is exactly how every other connard in your life has treated you.”
No use in arguing with him about that one—which didn’t make it less of an epiphany. Holy crap. Was that where my brain had really arrived now? At the default assumption that if I wasn’t packing a nightclub dance floor for a man, my only use was helping him pack his penis?
It was so pathetic.
But, I sensed, horrifically true.
A reality this man had been desperately trying to change for me. I’d just been too committed to my dysfunction to see it.
“Lucien.” And here I was, attempting to thank him for it—and still bumbling. but I tried again. I had to. “Lucien. I don’t know what to—”
He cut me short with another flesh-smashing kiss, but this time across my mouth. Oh God, it was nice. “And you do not have to,” he whispered when we were done. “I do not require tha
t from you until you are ready, mon reve. I do not require anything from you, above what you already have given. Do you understand that, Juliet? You are enough for me. You, here and now and from the moment we met, have given my life an energy…a light. You have brought back a force to me that was so long missing.” He huffed and shook his head again, as if attempting to shake more words loose. Instead he just repeated, “So long.”
Again, I grappled for a reaction. Any reaction other than the trout I likely resembled as my mouth opened then closed, opened then closed. “I—uh—r-really?” I finally blurted.
He circled his head back around to fully gaze at me again. His luxurious lips were once more curved in a smile. More sunbeams blasted across his face, turning my beautiful Lucifer into a certified archangel. “Oh, ma chere. Please tell me you have felt at least a little of it too…yes?”
“What?” I asked softly.
“All of it.” That helped nothing, but I couldn’t bear to press when he so clearly fumbled for the right words himself. “Just…all of it.” Besides, he was kind of adorable in awkward alpha mode. “From the first time that you came apart in my arms, in your bed…”
“Technically, your bed.”
His grin served as a wordless thanks for my mirth—all two seconds we got to indulge before he went on. “It moved things beyond just feelings for me, Juliet,” he whispered. “It became…”
“What?” And now it was my turn to tighten our grasp. “It became what, Lucien?”
He pressed closer to me. Very close.
“It became commitment.”
I swallowed hard. Very hard.
“So…oui,” he confessed in a rasp. “I was, as you say, ‘freaked out.’ We barely knew each other that night, not in the normal sense. And you were very clear that in the end, this can all be simply business. And at first, I was all right with that. I told myself I was helping you achieve an end, in exchange for your assistance with my…needs.” He visibly tensed. Even dropped his hands, in order to stab both of them through his hair. “When I looked at it that way, I was ashamed of myself for what finally happened during the cruise.”
