He took a step closer. Just one. But enough that I caught the faint smell of sunlight on him. His scent curled into my lungs and sent a shiver straight to my core.
Lucien opened his mouth, his gaze still locked on me, likely ready to say something that would no doubt make me blush like a schoolgirl, when Thorne’s voice rang out from the back.
“Can you two take your disgusting affection elsewhere?” she called. “Some of us are trying to work, and your unresolved sexual tension is curling the wallpaper.”
I stared at Lucien, my cheeks igniting for an entirely different reason.
But he simply rolled his eyes, clearly unaffected. “As blunt as ever, Miss Wolfe.”
Without another word, he reached for my hand and laced our fingers together.
“Shall we?” he asked in a low, seductive voice that practically had my toes curling in my new boots.
Before I could answer, he gave me a gentle tug, and I found myself following him toward the stairs.
Just like that, my nerves short-circuited.
Because shall we implied our going upstairs. And not to inspect my ransacked room or exorcise the demonic toilet demon still residing in my attached bathroom.
No, it meant shall we go upstairs to be alone.
And that turned my brain into mush.
Because I hadn’t been alone with a boy that wasn’t Trystan in over a hundred years. And Lucien was far from a boy. He was centuries old, practiced in charm, and fluent in seduction. He was a predator in a three-piece suit and mature in a way that Trystan had never been.
So, yes, my nerves were on fire. I didn’t know how to do this. How to date or touch or even just care about someone again. And especially not with someone like him.
I wanted to, though. Desperately. Not because I was lonely, or simply because he made me feel desirable. But because in less than one impossible week, Lucien had made me feel more than the entire century Trystan and I had been together.
And that terrified me more than anything else.
Looking back, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d missed Trystan when he was gone. Or yearned to see him. Or felt joy when he returned. I couldn’t recall craving his touch or longing to hear the sound of his voice. I’d simply been coasting through life, supposedly at his side. Except if I’d truly been at his side, then wouldn’t I have noticed the signs? Seen the corruption? Known he was going to screw me and my family over in the worst possible way?
I’d felt numb with him. And I’d thought it was normal. That indifference was simply what love became after enough time had passed.
It wasn’t.
And I knew that now. Because with Lucien, I felt things I had never felt for Trystan. With Lucien, I was awake. Electrified. Terrified. And now, I never wanted to go back to sleep.
So, I followed him up the stairs.
One step. Then another. My hand in his.
And prayed I wasn’t making another huge mistake.
Chapter
Twenty-One
LUCIEN
Isadora’s footsteps echoed behind me, the heels of her new boots tapping against each step. Her hand gripped mine tightly, her fingers curled around my own. That told me two things: she was nervous, but not afraid. If she was afraid, she would’ve let go. Or her pace would have slowed.
Instead, she clung to me like I was her lifeline.
And I loved it. Loved the feeling of being needed for once, rather than reviled.
I understood why she was nervous. A century was a long time, during which she’d only been with her mate. Most likely, she was wondering what I expected from her, or maybe even wondering what she expected from herself.
