Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (The Three #1)(113)

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.”

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.”