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I looked over at him, my breath suddenly held tightly in my lungs. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll take the bait. Why have you moved?”

“No reason.”

“Right.”

“Just go to sleep, okay? The chair really isn’t that uncomfortable.”

I was lying, of course. Sure, the chair was nice enough, but sleeping in it was going to suck. I just knew I was going to wake up stiff, and sore, and probably grumpy as all hell. It wasn’t ideal, but it was better than sharing a bed with him and flirting with danger.

A few seconds passed, maybe a minute spent in dark silence. Lucien sat up, his eyes flashed red, illuminating the features of his face for a brief moment. I felt his magic flare, and an instant later, all of the small LED lights in the room shut down.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Giving us privacy,” he said.

“And why… why would you do that?”

“Because I don’t want anyone hearing this conversation.”

“I thought we were going to sleep, not talk.”

Lucien got out of bed and stood up. Though there were no lights in the room, there was enough ambient light filtering through the gaps in the curtain that I could just about pick out the outline of his body as he stood upright and walked over to the armchair I was on.

My heart started to pound, my chest tightened, and my breath hitched. He stood beside the chair, then he leaned over it. “Come back to bed,” he said.

“I’m… uh… I’m good here,” I struggled.

“That wasn’t a suggestion. You’re going to come to bed with me.”

He was slowly leaning in closer.

“I really can’t do that.”

“And why not? I need you rested, and relaxed… and I know you want to be a good girl and do as you’re told. Don’t you?” Holy shit.

Something about the way he purred those words did all sorts of things to me, and he knew it. Any self-control I was holding on to went straight out of the window, and I found myself instantly wet, and entirely willing to do anything he wanted me to do.

“I do…” I breathed.

“Good girls get rewarded.”

Lucien moved, so he was no longer standing beside me, but in front of me. Firmly, he tugged my hips toward him, so I was almost on the edge of the armchair.

If my heart could’ve leapt out of my throat, it would’ve.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Relax…”

I felt his hands rest on my thighs, very gently, he pulled them apart. He knelt before me, moving his hands up and down my thighs, his firm fingers gently squeezing, and releasing, squeezing, and releasing. I seemed to have lost the ability to take a decent breath, or have a conscious thought. There was only the heat rising from the space between my legs, and the excited knot in the pit of my stomach.

When he brought his lips toward my left inner thigh and gently kissed it, I could’ve squealed. Instead, my breath skipped. He planted another kiss, this one further up my thigh, and the knot in my stomach tightened. I felt his hands gently move up my hips, his fingers sliding into the waistband of my shorts; in a quick movement he had slid both my shorts and underwear down to my ankles.

“Lucien,” I breathed.

He looked up at me, a dark, red sheen in his eyes. “Yes?” he asked.