I looked at the clock and noticed it was nearly noon. Then I looked at the ceiling. Then I wondered if Lucien could make breakfast. Then I figured, since he’d lived hundreds of years, during one of those years he’d have to learn how to cook. At least make toast (or something).
Then I sighed because I couldn’t escape it.
If he kept acting like this, there was a big, ugly, gaping flaw in my plan.
This was going to be hard. Really, really hard.
Lucky for me, one of my bad traits would come in handy. I was crazy stubborn.
“I can do this,” I mouthed to the ceiling, not wanting Lucien to hear and hoping I wasn’t lying to myself.
* * * * *
I stood at the stove and slid the big spoonfuls of vegetable shortening into the skillet, the shortening melting as it hit the hot iron. As I did this, I considered the many mistakes I’d made that day and began to prepare not to make anymore that evening.
I didn’t discover if Lucien could cook. But I did discover he could toast a mean sesame bagel and put the exact right amount of cream cheese, smoked salmon and capers on it.
As we ate our bagels and drank our coffee, we didn’t talk. This was not companionable silence, it was uncomfortable or at least it was for me. I didn’t know what to say, seeing as I couldn’t be me. And I didn’t know why Lucien wasn’t talking. And I wanted to know why, like, a lot.
I tried to gauge his mood but failed.
What I did know was that he’d attuned himself to me. It wasn’t that he marked me. It was something else, something new, it made me feel less like I was drugged and more like I was pulsating. It was like he was trying to figure me out, source my mood.
I didn’t know if he succeeded but I guessed no as his quiet watchfulness lasted all day.
I was terrified he’d want to take a shower with me or worse, a bath, but he let me take a shower alone.
My first big mistake was when I was sitting at my dressing table, blow drying my hair.
Lucien had disappeared while I showered but I heard the shower go on as I was doing my makeup. While I was doing my hair, Lucien walked into the dressing room in nothing but a towel.
My mistake was I should have looked away. But I caught sight of him in my big, Hollywood starlet mirror and my mouth started watering.
Then he tugged off the towel with me sitting right there and at the sight of all that was Lucien, and there was a lot of it, my mouth went dry.
He was, it must be said, perfect from head-to-toe. Utterly perfect. Strong, heavy thighs. Muscled, well-formed behind. Bunched, defined calves. He even had handsome feet!
And there were other parts of him that made me wonder if he was not a vampire but instead a living god.
I jerked my eyes back to my reflection as Lucien dressed.
He chose jeans, boots, a great belt and a tailored shirt that was stripes of white, baby-blue, midnight blue, light gray and charcoal gray. He wore this untucked.
It was pretty much casual wear on any other man.
Lucien looked like he’d stepped alive out of a magazine.
I decided from what Stephanie had said during my Selection, and how Lucien behaved at The Feast, that he’d want me to make an effort so he could show me off.
This wasn’t tough for me. I was a girlie girl. I made an effort even if I was running to the store to buy eggs.
I decided on nice, low-rider jeans, high-heeled, ultra-strappy tan sandals, a matching belt and a great blouse, almost see-through, white with buttons that stopped at my cle**age. The neckline went out to a vee, it was collared and had half a dozen thin pleats running along the sleeves and down the spine from collar to waist. It was a killer shirt.
I did my makeup subtle and left my hair long, in smooth flips.
I had no jewelry to put on so, being done, I just tucked my lip gloss in my back pocket as I had no wallet or phone thus taking a purse was unnecessary. Then I left the room.
By the time I was ready, Lucien had disappeared and I went in search of him. When I found him, he was plugging the phone into the jack in the kitchen.