Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (The Three #1)(75)

The way he said it, the fact that Lucien said it – a man so rugged, so compelling, I’d likened him to a living god not twenty minutes before; a man who’d probably seen his fair share of women in his time – that made it another compliment which was profound and I was definitely not sure I could handle it.

“Leah?” His voice calling my name jerked me out of my Lucien Profound Compliment Stupor.

I didn’t know what to say. What did you say?

I decided on, “Thank you.”

He walked right up to me, his eyes thoughtful. When he stopped (in my space, by the way), he used both his hands to shift my hair over my shoulders and then he curled his fingers around my neck. The whole time, his eyes were locked on mine.

“You have no idea, do you?” he asked quietly.

“I count the fact that I’ve reached forty and no one has asked me to join a circus as a good sign,” I told him, his head cocked sharply to the side and he burst out laughing, pulling me to him roughly and giving me a stand-up hug.

I endured this hug. It was hard. A stand-up hug from Lucien wasn’t as good as a lying down one but it wasn’t far off.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity but wasn’t, obviously, he pulled away. “Let’s get you some books.”

He drove us in the Cayenne to a mall in the city. Not any mall but an exclusive one that was surrounded by streets and streets of luxurious boutique shops and classy restaurants, cafés and bars. These were all nestled in between wide, clean sidewalks with lampposts on which hooked hanging planters and big, stylish pots on the walks all dripping colorful flowers.

He valet parked and we went to an enormous bookstore. There, he bought me ten books.

I thought we’d walk right back to the valet but he steered me into the boutique streets and seemed perfectly fine with wandering the sidewalks on a sunny day, hand-in-hand.

I saw a particularly gorgeous outfit in a window and my heart must have leaped because his head turned to me before he walked me right in. Then he went directly to the shop assistant, told her we wanted the outfit in the window and gave her my size.

I was staring at him and I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open when the assistant asked me, “Would you like to try it on?”

I looked at her and was about to speak when Lucien said, “No. We’ll take it.”

I watched in horror, mainly because I could see the prices on the register display, as she rung it up and it took all my willpower not to freak out.

I stood dutifully beside Lucien as he paid, the shop assistant looking at him probably like I did when he yanked off the towel and at me definitely like I was the luckiest woman in the universe.

As we walked out, Lucien carrying both my bags, I felt it important to say something.

“That wasn’t necessary.”

His hand gave mine a squeeze but he didn’t look at me.

“You’re correct, it wasn’t,” he replied.

Well, what could you say to that?

Except nothing. So I said nothing.

I was careful to moderate my heart and I did this by not looking into any more windows so that Lucien wouldn’t again go spending hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of dollars on one single outfit.

It didn’t matter. This happened twice more with things Lucien wanted me to have. A pair of delicate, antique, silver and coral Navajo chandelier earrings and two pairs of outrageously expensive but undeniably gorgeous, high-heeled shoes.

I tried the shoes on. Both pairs, Lucien, lounged back in a chair like he owned the joint and staring at my feet, asked me, “Do they fit?” Before I said a word, he looked at my face (which was probably rapturous, what could I say, they were great shoes) and then said to the salesperson, “We’ll take them.”

I was struggling with the supremely peculiar fact that it appeared that the Mighty Vampire Lucien, who was most definitely a male of his species, didn’t mind shopping when I noticed something.

It was the same on the street and in the shops as it had been at The Feast. People were looking at him, even some of them staring at him.

They didn’t know who he was. They only saw a tall, vital, unbelievably good-looking man who was clearly wealthy and held himself with a raw but restrained power.

They had no idea he could move faster than lightning and haul me and my fat ass around like I weighed as much as a pencil. They had no idea that, for whatever reason, he was revered by his people, a race of superhumans who lived forever.

And they’d never know.

The Mighty Vampire Lucien was walking down a sunny street but he was forced to live a secret life hiding who he really was.

Memories hit me like sledgehammers. My behavior at The Selection. My response to my first lesson, telling him the way his people fed was sick. When I was talking to Stephanie, assuming the people who went to Feasts were victims. Telling Lucien yesterday he disgusted me.

This was when I made my second mistake.

I stopped walking down the sidewalk but I did it like my body had slammed against a brick wall. Lucien kept walking for a stride but turned his head when he felt resistance from my arm. His eyes went to our linked hands then to my face. Whatever he saw made him turn to me and take a swift step back.

“Leah, sweetheart, what is it?”

My head had tilted back to look at him and for some reason I again felt like crying.

Before I could think better of it, I blurted, “You can’t be you.”