Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (The Three #1)(90)

He knew she wasn’t asleep. He’d slept a month of nights beside her. He knew exactly what her breathing and heart sounded like when she was sleeping.

That was not it.

Furthermore, she couldn’t be tired considering she’d had a nap at the opera.

It was safe to say, even though Leah hadn’t told him, she didn’t like opera.

During the first act, he’d discovered this when he felt her subtle movements beside him. However when he turned his head to look at her, her own head was bowed as if deep in contemplation.

He thought nothing of this, suspecting she was considering her options for their discussion later that evening.

His gaze moved to Stephanie who was sitting beside Leah, eyes glued on the stage, lips curved into an amused grin.

They weren’t watching a comedy.

His gaze traveled back to Leah and he saw her suddenly pull an outrageous face. Chin jutted out so the cords in her neck strained, she flicked her tongue between her lips like a snake.

Lucien stared in disbelief wondering if the pressure of his taming was getting to her.

Then he heard a child’s giggle.

He looked down over the balcony railing and saw a little girl no more than six who was completely uninterested in the opera. She was staring up at Leah, her face wreathed in smiles. After a moment she mimicked Leah’s snake face and then rearranged her features, using her thumbs to pull out her mouth and her fingers to pull down her eyes.

Lucien looked back at Leah, who’d bugged out her eyes comically wide and was shaking her head in a subtle “no”.

The child giggled again, practically jumping up in her seat, making motions with her hands that Leah was to follow her lead something that had, apparently, been going on for some time. Her mother, sitting beside her, finally noticed her daughter’s behavior and Lucien heard the mother’s hushed rebuke.

His arm moved around Leah’s shoulders, she jumped and her head turned to him. He caught a look on her face that nearly made him roar with laughter. She looked exactly like the six year old below who’d just been caught and scolded.

He sought her ear with his mouth and whispered, “Be good.”

He felt her shoulders tense under his arm but ignored it, pulling her into his side which she resisted pointlessly.

His eyes moved to Stephanie who was watching them, smiling broadly now before he tucked Leah firmly in his side and glanced back at the stage.

He, too, was smiling.

She managed to curtail her antics for the rest of the first act and chatted amicably if pensively with Stephanie during intermission.

The second act, he positioned her as he had the first and she promptly fell asleep with her head against his shoulder.

And that nap had not been feigned. She had been out, the entirety of her weight resting against him. Although he wished she’d told him she didn’t like opera, he couldn’t say he minded her sleeping with her head on his shoulder where he could tug a tendril of her hair free and twirl its silkiness around his finger something he found that night he could do for hours.

His thoughts still on that tendril, Lucien saw they were home.

He hit the garage door opener and parked the Porsche next to the Cayenne. He was out of the car over to her side with her door open when she pretended to wake.

“We’re home?” she asked in a false drowsy voice.

Lucien bit back a smile. “Yes, pet.”

He helped her out and she started to wander sleepily to the door to the kitchen. He caught her and slid an arm along her shoulders, pulling her close and guiding her the rest of the way.

“Tired?” he asked with sham solicitousness as he halted them by the door so he could hang his keys on the hook on the kitchen wall.

She faked a yawn.

Then she answered, “Definitely.”

“Let’s get you to bed,” he murmured and she nodded.

He walked with her close to his side all the way to the bedroom where she pulled away. He moved to turn on the bedside light and she sat on the bed, bending double, her hands moving to the straps of her shoe.

He shrugged off his suit jacket and walked to the chaise.

“I take it you aren’t fond of opera?” he asked, throwing his jacket on the chaise and sitting to take off his own shoes.

“Um…” she hesitated, sliding her shoe off her foot, setting it aside and then going after the straps of the other one, “no.”

Pleased she hadn’t attempted to lie in order to tell him what she thought he would want to hear, Lucien stood and unbuttoned his shirt. “I think I got that.”

She rose from the bed without a reply or even looking at him and started toward the dressing room.

Using his natural speed, he slid off his shirt, dropped it on the chaise and was at her side before she walked three steps.

His hand caught hers, she quaked to a stop and looked up at him.

“Where are you going?” he queried.

“To take off my dress and put on my pajamas,” she answered.

“No pajamas,” Lucien replied, her eyes grew wide and he turned her so her back was facing him before he continued. “I want to feel you against me tonight, pet.”

Her body turned to stone as his fingers went to her zipper but she didn’t resist.

He slid it down and she stood ramrod straight. The material parted and then fell away. She was wearing nothing but a pair of sheer lavender-colored panties edged in the same colored lace. Her hands went up to shield her br**sts as he turned her again and pulled her to him, her arms caught between their bodies.