“Tell me, Leah,” he ordered.
“Oh all right,” she snapped and frowned at him before admitting something astonishing and tremendously gratifying but doing so with extreme ill-humor. “You make me feel safe.”
Again, Lucien was stunned. This time in a much better way.
“I make you feel safe,” he repeated.
“Yes. You,” she poked him in the chest, “make me,” she pointed to herself then her hand fluttered in the air, “feel safe.” She dropped her hand and stared at him. “You’re big and fast and you can throw a blinkety blank car, for heaven’s sake. You make me feel tiny and sheltered and… well, safe!”
That warmth in his gut started spreading.
“Leah –” he began, his hand inching up her back, sifting into her hair.
But she wasn’t quite through.
Glowering at him, she admitted irritably, “My father left me, which was enough to twist me in a way that I’d never feel safe. We were girls on our own. Mom’s strong but, you know, sometimes…” She trailed off, losing track of her theme then she found it and kept going, “Then every guy I’ve ever been with has hit the top bell on the jerk-o-meter. You can be a jerk but, get this!” she fairly shouted. “One of my boyfriends sat in the car while I changed the tire. Another one didn’t do a freaking thing when some guy was pawing me at a bar. After I got away I asked him why he sat there and watched and did not… one… thing and he said he didn’t want to get ‘into it’ with some ‘moron’ and it was obvious I could ‘sort myself out’.” She lifted her hands and used two fingers to put quotation emphasis on her words before dropping them again and finishing, “Can you believe?”
He couldn’t. In fact the very idea infuriated him.
He didn’t get a chance to share this, she kept talking.
“You wouldn’t make me change the tire and you wouldn’t let some guy paw me and you haven’t told me I have a fat ass and perhaps I should lay off the fried chicken. You’re big and heavy and strong and cart me around like I weigh as much as a kitten and you’re tall and I have to look up at you even when I’m wearing heels,” she uttered this last like it was a total impossibility for her to look up at anyone and to look up at him was akin to a miracle. However, she wasn’t quite finished. “And you could probably change a tire just by glaring at it.”
Lucien bit back laughter as he rolled her to her back and decided they weren’t having Crêpes Suzette. And definitely her family wasn’t coming over.
His mouth went to her throat and he muttered, “I’m sorry to say I can’t change a tire by glaring at it.”
Her voice was no longer loud but breathy when she replied, “You know what I mean.”
His mouth moved up and over her jaw to meet hers.
Looking into her eyes, he murmured his understatement, “I’m glad you feel safe with me, sweetling.”
She tried to make light of it by announcing, “Anyone would feel safe with you. I’ll repeat, you can throw a car.”
“Maybe,” he allowed, “but I’m thrilled that you do.”
Before she could speak again, he rewarded her admission with a kiss.
Without hesitating, her arms stole around him and she kissed him back, her mouth sweet, her tongue sweeter.
His hand moved to her breast and cupped it, his thumb stroking its peak, feeling it harden instantly.
His cock responded in kind.
She gasped into his mouth.
He lifted his head to watch her face as his thumb stroked back and as he did he liked what he saw.
Her cheeks warmed and she bit her lip.
Then she said, “I’m hungry.”
“I’ll feed you,” he assured her, executing another nipple swipe before he finished, “later.”
Her eyelids fluttered lower, desire evident in her face, he felt a further tightening in his groin but even so, she whispered, “My family –”
He added a finger to his thumb and rolled. He was rewarded at once. Her breath caught, her heart started hammering and he smelled the rush of heat between her restless legs.
Magnificent.
“Later,” he repeated, his head descending and his mouth was on hers when he heard it.
Her body froze beneath his as his head jerked up. His two fingers stopped rolling but all of them curled possessively around the swell of her breast.
He listened and he couldn’t believe what he heard.
“What is it?” Leah asked, a tremor of fear in her voice.
His eyes caught hers.
The doorbell rang.
Her body went solid and her fear permeated the air.
Lucien’s temper spiked.
“What is it?” she asked again, the fear stronger.
“It’s my fucking family,” he growled. He watched as her eyes grew wide, her lips parted and yet again he found no pleasure in her endearing expression.
This was mainly because, instead of being able to do something about it, something they’d both like very much, he had to go answer the fucking door.
Chapter Nineteen
The Family
Lucien walked the small pier to the end where he stopped and examined the lake.
His children followed.
He didn’t speak for long moments and Julian and Isobel astutely left him to his silent contemplation of the serene water.
Then, quietly and menacingly, Lucien spoke to the water. “Explain.”
“He came to see me, Father,” Isobel replied swiftly.
“And?” Lucien prompted.
“I thought –” Isobel started but stopped when Lucien’s head turned and his eyes sliced to his daughter.
“No,” he said softly, “you didn’t.”
Her eyes slid to her brother. Julian’s gaze locked with hers a moment before he looked to his boots.
Julian had his father’s build, his father’s hair but he had his mother’s startling blue eyes. They were clear sky blue. In all his years, Lucien had never seen eyes that color except in the face of his ex-partner and his son.
Isobel had her mother’s curves and delicate bone structure but she had her father’s dark hair and eyes. She was petite for a vampire, an inch shorter than Leah, her mother’s height.
Lucien was close with his children. He visited them when time allowed. They visited him the same. And he spoke to them regularly.
At that moment, however, he’d gladly throttle the both of them. Starting with Isobel.
This was because she brought Lucien’s father, Etienne.
It was safe to say Lucien was not close to his father.
This was because Etienne was not a vampire you could get close to. He was cold, unfeeling and superior.
This was also because Etienne was not a vampire you’d want to get close to because he was cold, unfeeling and superior but also because he was avaricious, sly, duplicitous and cruel.
And lastly this was because of Maggie.
Etienne had little to do with mortals except partaking of them as food and, at The Feasts he liked to attend, partaking of them in other ways. Some of them, in the cold, unfeeling, superior and savage ways he did it, not entirely welcomed by the mortals who attended The Feasts and usually those mortals were up for everything. He’d been called on this by The Dominion on more than one occasion and therefore had learned to hide these proclivities but Lucien, as did many, knew he had not ceased this behavior.
Etienne held no regard for mortals, never had. Therefore he had hated Lucien’s union with Maggie. And lastly he had not kept this feeling a secret from Lucien or from Maggie.