She had not been overwhelmed by this gesture. He’d received no radiant smile. In fact, she’d only ever smiled at him once and never repeated it.
Instead, she’d been only dutifully grateful. Nothing more.
He watched her get closer thinking he’d been absolutely right. The dress, the shoes and the jewelry all very much suited her.
The blank expression on her beautiful face very much did not.
She was less than ten feet away when a man’s hand curled on her upper arm, stopping her progress.
“Leah?” Lucien heard the voice, his eyes moved to the man. He recognized him and without delay Lucien moved.
He would have liked to have moved faster but he forced himself to go with a mortal’s slowness and it was at that moment Lucien hoped there was revolution, that vampires would be freed to be who they were and do what they liked.
For instance, being at Leah’s side in a split second, grabbing her and leaping across the room instead of having to wend his way excruciatingly slowly toward her.
“Justin?” Leah’s voice was stunned and not in a happy way.
“Leah, girl, what are you doing here?” Justin’s voice was also stunned, definitely in a happy way.
Lucien made it to her side in time for Justin to pull Leah into his arms.
She visibly stiffened. So did Lucien, a half a second before he moved closer in order to extricate her from an embrace with her ex-lover.
Leah got there before him. She put her hands to Justin’s waist and pushed away. Her shoulder met Lucien’s chest and her head jerked up to look at him.
And then she did something that stunned Lucien.
She turned to him, sliding her arm along his back, her fingers curling into his waist. She leaned the front of her body into his side, pressing close.
The act was smoothly done as if she curled into him all the time. It was also immensely proprietary in a beguiling, feminine way.
He liked it, a great deal, and therefore relaxed into it.
“Lucien, this is Justin.” She gestured with her hand then turned from him to Justin. “Justin, meet Lucien.”
Lucien looked at Justin who, Lucien was pleased to note, was now not looking so happy to see Leah. His eyes were darting back and forth between the two of them and his faced had paled slightly.
Unfortunately, Lucien had to break contact with Leah who’d burrowed under his right arm to shake the man’s hand.
“Justin,” he murmured.
“Lucien,” Justin murmured back, shaking his hand.
It took effort but Lucien stopped himself from crushing all the bones in Justin’s hand. Regardless, Justin winced behind the power of Lucien’s grip.
The minute their hands broke, Leah moved back in, assuming the same position but this time she rested her other hand on his upper abdominals.
It was a light touch but it spoke volumes.
As with most moments with Leah, but especially that moment, Lucien had the raging desire to kiss her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked Justin, her voice not entirely friendly, not exactly unfriendly. She was testing the waters and Lucien decided to give her the lead in this uncertain situation.
“I just asked the same thing,” Justin replied, his voice was entirely unfriendly, his pleasure at seeing her had evaporated.
“You first,” Leah said, she read his tone and her words were frosted.
Lucien settled in to watch.