“I’ll help you get your things,” he said, his voice so quiet that for a split second she didn’t register what he’d said. When she did, her heart began to pound in her ears.
“Are you kicking me out?” she asked shakily.
His brows slanted and he tightened his hold on her hand. “No, of course not. But there’s no going back. I won’t be able to deny myself, now that I’ve actually been inside you. You’ll sleep in my bed from now on. Come on,” he said, pulling her into her room and flipping on a light. Neither of them spoke as they worked together to gather her things from the bathroom and bedroom. Lucien’s mood was solemn, Elise’s bewildered and wary.
She’d been the one to push this. So why now did she feel so much disappointment in herself for her lack of control? No—for her insistence upon taking control of the situation.
Lucien went ahead of her with her suitcase and an armload of items. Elise finished packing up her toiletries from the bathroom and followed him a few minutes later. That feeling came over her as she quietly walked through the partially opened door to his private suite and looked around for the first time, the feeling she’d never really experienced before beginning this thing with Lucien.
Shyness.
He glanced up from his task of placing a lacy camisole in an opened drawer of a massive wardrobe cabinet.
“Come in,” he said. “This wardrobe will be yours. I have another in my dressing room where I’ve moved my things.”
“Thank you,” she said, feeling awkward as she stepped farther into the large suite. His addictive scent tickled her nose—a combination of his skin and his soap and his cologne, Clive Christian 1872. It was a masculine room, a luxurious delight to the senses. Maria, his maid, hadn’t been there that day, with the result that his enormous king-sized bed wasn’t made perfectly. Instead, Lucien himself had obviously pulled up the thick, feather-filled comforter and draped the sheet back over the top of it. The multitude of dark brown, caramel, and ivory colored pillows were slightly askew. She liked the hint of disarray. His bed looked sinfully soft . . . extraordinarily sexy. She pictured Lucien rising from it just this morning, gloriously naked, and fluffing and straightening the duvet absentmindedly before padding away to his shower.
He touched her upper arm and she looked up at him, guilt rushing through her as if he could read her covetous thoughts about him.
“I’ll show you the bathroom and you can put your things away. Perhaps you’d like to take a bath afterward?”
She searched his gray eyes but found no hint of how he was feeling about all this. She’d feel more comfortable with his anger than with this cool, aloof Lucien. Perhaps it’d always been that way. She’d been trying to peel back his distant façade since she was a child, so eager to connect with him.
So desperate.
Several minutes later, she stood alone in the huge bathroom, which featured a step-up marble spa bath in the center of it in addition to a steam shower. She set her bottle of perfume next to his cologne on the granite countertop, a surreal sensation going through her at the vision of the bottles sitting side by side. She was living in Lucien Sauvage’s home . . . sleeping in his bed.
It had to be a dream.
“Do you want me to draw you a bath?”
She stared over her shoulder, awe spiking through her when she saw the man who came with that low, sensual voice. He leaned in the doorway, his hands bracing himself on either side of the frame, all lean, sexy male power. It really was him. This really was happening to her.
“I . . . I’ll just get my things and take a quick shower,” she said throatily.
He nodded once and was gone from the entry. Again, regret spiked through her. A tantalizing thought sprang into her mind’s eye of bathing and scenting her skin . . . of walking into the suite nude and intent upon seduction, of goading Lucien into taking her again and again.
She could do it. The stables had proven that to her.
But it had been a hollow victory.
When she walked into the suite, Lucien was gone. She grabbed some items from the wardrobe he’d designated as hers and returned for her shower. Ten minutes later, she left the bathroom wearing a loosely fitted pair of soft cotton men’s-style pajamas. They were serviceable, not sexy.
He stood by the far side of the bed wearing nothing but a pair of dark blue sleep pants that rode low on his hips, fully exposing his ridged abdomen and defined oblique muscles. He was so beautiful to her, it caused an ache to expand in the area between her chest and belly. It was overwhelming, this swelling, intimidating feeling. She had a ridiculous urge to turn and walk back into the bathroom. Instead, she just stood there awkwardly. He glanced up in the task of pulling back the luxurious comforter and met her stare.
“Come here,” he said gruffly once his gaze had run over her from head to toe. He strolled around the bed as she approached. Confusion mixed with rampant longing as she watched his sleek muscles flex as he threw back the comforter and sheet. He nodded at the bed and she got in, sighing as she sunk into the decadently soft sheets and feather-top mattress. He came down next to her, stretching his long body. Suddenly the light went out and he was rolling her into his arms against him.
It’d happened so quickly, she went from anxiety to amazed arousal in a manner of seconds. He must have gone and showered in another bathroom. His smooth skin smelled wonderful and there was still the trace of humidity in it when she touched it with her fingers.
“Lucien?” she whispered into the darkness, her cheek pressed against a dense pectoral muscle.