Page 31 of All Mixed Up

“Why are you so sad?”

“I’m not—” He stopped me by delving his hold back into my hair and then squeezing his fingertips against my scalp. Despite his wordless command, I wrenched my head in violent defiance. No. Don’t make me answer. He persisted, twisting into my hair this time. With a long sigh, I relented. “Because,” I blurted. “It’s…it’s all too good.”

His brows bunched over his glittering eyes. “Je ne comprende pas.” I don’t understand. “That is a reason to be sad?”

I attempted a thin laugh. “Not sad. Just…”

“Just what?”

“Just not used to it.”

He could’ve pried at that one. A lot. Instead he waited, patient and silent. No. More like…expectant. That was it. He was simply assuming there was more, something deeper beneath my statement. I felt it in his energy and saw it in every attentive inch of his gorgeous face.

Silent groan.

I hope you have a lot of patience, Monsieur.

A full minute passed. He persisted in staring. I persisted in letting him. The band ended one song and began the next. The innocuous sashay of Nina Simone’s My Baby Just Cares for Me turned into the slower strains of Les Mots, a song recorded a few years back by a French singer, Mylène Farmer, along with the British artist, Seal. While the song had captivated me, I’d never used it in a mix. Losing one’s dad to a Frenchwoman had a tendency to bias a girl, and listening to the dreamy vocals en francais had not been my jam.

Not until tonight.

The band’s female vocalist was joined by their male drummer. He had an earnest baritone much like Seal’s, and sang the English part of the song with the same sensual heartache. His parts were the perfect balance to the woman’s otherworldly soprano. By the time they reached the chorus reprise, talking about saying goodbye but giving anything to keep a fraction of their love alive, I felt like they were pulling the sounds from the corners of my soul.

The soul that followed their lead to form my next words.

“This is going to end.” For two seconds, I pretended this was just a matter of choosing pragmatism over grief. Okay, pretended to pretend. Lucien’s gaze called bullshit on my words as soon as they were spoken, but the song swirling around us was fate’s horridly melodic confirmation of the truth.

Lucien slowed our pace. Then again.

We were hardly dancing anymore, though I doubted either of us cared.

He twined his fingers deeper into my hair, combing down, down, down until he was gently twisting the ends that brushed against my waist.

I gave up thought. Gravitated toward him like a planet to its sun. Answering lights flashed at the back of his gaze. He bent his head, ensuring our breaths blended like the gossamer notes of the song.

Beautiful. He was so beautiful.

Midnight magic in his touch. Midnight sun in his eyes.

“Do you want it to end?”

A promise of endless stars in his words.

I swallowed. Almost didn’t answer. He was no longer talking about just tonight, and we both knew it. Because it had been this way from the start. Everything between us—every glance, every word, every moment, every damn star—had been about more. Even this sham of an “arrangement.” Had he really thought the contract would help us with limits? Had I?

My chest compressed as my heart surrendered its incontestable answer.

And then pushed unfightable words to my lips.

“Wh-What if I said no?”

And what if I’d just delivered the piece de resistance of mixed signals? What if this was the sole pebble in the water that didn’t ripple to his shore, and he really saw the basket case I was about this? What if he decided to invoke contract clause number one for himself?

Both parties to this Agreement may terminate it at any time, if unsatisfied with any portion of its execution.

Ohhh, shit, shit, shit.

As soon as Lucien dropped his hold and stepped back, I made it a verbal litany too. But I’d only gotten to my eighth or ninth repetition when he locked up my throat by grabbing my hand. He led me off the dance floor, but not toward our table. A girlish protest was supposed to be my appropriate reaction, but the urgency in his stride sealed my uselessness in that department. I half-ran behind him, my steps fired faster by the heat pumping off of him like microwaves. Nope; definitely not feeling girlish or appropriate. And savoring every second.