He sighed before saying, “Without a doubt.”
Wow. I’d just guessed.
Holy crap.
He even made it sound like that wouldn’t be too much of an effort.
All of a sudden I wanted to know how strong he was. I wanted to know how old he was. I wanted to know how he could walk and move like a normal person and not shatter glasses in his hand or crush my bones to dust when he hugged me.
It was at this point that I was seriously lamenting my behavior in Vampire Studies.
“Would you like to tell me what this is about?” he enquired, taking me out of my astonishment.
I didn’t. But I’d started this; I had no choice but to end it.
“It seems,” I hesitated, not knowing what to say, found the word and carried on, “wrong, that you can’t be you. There aren’t a lot of people you can be you around and I’m supposed to be one of them. That thought just occurred to me and I’ve said some nasty things about you and your people. You deserved an apology so I gave you one.”
I tried to pass it off as nothing, a simple apology. I was wrong and admitted it.
It clearly didn’t come out as a simple apology.
In fact, looking into his face, which had changed again to a look I’d seen a glimpse of before, right before he slammed me against the wall at The Feast and kissed me with savage possession, that he took it as something far, far more.
I took a step back.
Lucien’s arm twitched. It was a simple movement for him, barely there, but I staggered forward, crashing against his hard body. His hand dropped mine, his other hand dropped the bags and both arms came around me in a crush. He kissed me with a savage possession that was highly inappropriate on a Sunday afternoon in a street filled with boutiques.
It also curled my toes, sent fire straight between my legs and had me melting into him.
“Yeesh, get a room,” someone who seemed far, far away said.
“Randy, shush!” someone else who seemed far, far away shushed the first someone. “They’re probably on their honeymoon or something.”
Lucien’s mouth disconnected from mine and I found I was on tiptoes. I had one arm wrapped around his neck, my other hand was fisted in his hair and I was plastered against him from chest to knees.
My foggy mind snapped to and I tried to shut down my systems, my response, the way I liked it far more than was healthy when he kissed me.
Especially when he kissed me like that.
My hand left his hair and went to his shoulder but he kept me close, his eyes hooded but examining my face.
Then he said something that freaked me out.
“I want to believe this is you,” his voice was low, soft, quiet, “but this isn’t you.”
He was wrong and he was right.
It wasn’t me. It was the new, improved me.
Or at least the new, improved, perfect concubine me before I could go back to the old, faulty, real me when he released me.
“You don’t think I can apologize?” I asked, giving his shoulder a testing push.
He didn’t move a centimeter.
I stopped pushing.
“No,” his voice was still low, “that was you. The kiss was you. The rest of it is not.”