Page 50 of All Mixed Up

I swallowed hard. Every drop cascaded freely until hitting my wildly throbbing heart, where the confusion rain dance began. “Wh-What do you mean?”

He shifted closer. Twined his grip tighter. “Things changed that night.”

I spurted a soft laugh. “Well, that we can agree on.”

Another lean in from him—to the point that I was now helpless to look away from him. “But how they changed…was different for you, n’est-ce pas?”

I tugged the inside of my lip between my teeth. Truly debated that answer for a few seconds, until remembering his demand for the full force of my honesty. “You referring to your sudden allergy about touching me after we deboarded?”

Unbelievably, his focus intensified. “Which you interpreted as my fade in desire.”

“Well, duh.”

“And not the fact that you became the most important person in my life.”

So much for the grand eye roll I was summoning. I had to think fast, recovering from my plummeting jaw long enough to stammer, “Excuse…me?”

He gave me a break from his scrutiny, dropping his head as if finishing a brutal workout. “Oui. That was exactly what you thought,” he muttered. “Because that is exactly how every other connard in your life has treated you.”

No use in arguing with him about that one—which didn’t make it less of an epiphany. Holy crap. Was that where my brain had really arrived now? At the default assumption that if I wasn’t packing a nightclub dance floor for a man, my only use was helping him pack his penis?

It was so pathetic.

But, I sensed, horrifically true.

A reality this man had been desperately trying to change for me. I’d just been too committed to my dysfunction to see it.

“Lucien.” And here I was, attempting to thank him for it—and still bumbling. but I tried again. I had to. “Lucien. I don’t know what to—”

He cut me short with another flesh-smashing kiss, but this time across my mouth. Oh God, it was nice. “And you do not have to,” he whispered when we were done. “I do not require that from you until you are ready, mon reve. I do not require anything from you, above what you already have given. Do you understand that, Juliet? You are enough for me. You, here and now and from the moment we met, have given my life an energy…a light. You have brought back a force to me that was so long missing.” He huffed and shook his head again, as if attempting to shake more words loose. Instead he just repeated, “So long.”

Again, I grappled for a reaction. Any reaction other than the trout I likely resembled as my mouth opened then closed, opened then closed. “I—uh—r-really?” I finally blurted.

He circled his head back around to fully gaze at me again. His luxurious lips were once more curved in a smile. More sunbeams blasted across his face, turning my beautiful Lucifer into a certified archangel. “Oh, ma chere. Please tell me you have felt at least a little of it too…yes?”

“What?” I asked softly.

“All of it.” That helped nothing, but I couldn’t bear to press when he so clearly fumbled for the right words himself. “Just…all of it.” Besides, he was kind of adorable in awkward alpha mode. “From the first time that you came apart in my arms, in your bed…”

“Technically, your bed.”

His grin served as a wordless thanks for my mirth—all two seconds we got to indulge before he went on. “It moved things beyond just feelings for me, Juliet,” he whispered. “It became…”

“What?” And now it was my turn to tighten our grasp. “It became what, Lucien?”

He pressed closer to me. Very close.

“It became commitment.”

I swallowed hard. Very hard.

“So…oui,” he confessed in a rasp. “I was, as you say, ‘freaked out.’ We barely knew each other that night, not in the normal sense. And you were very clear that in the end, this can all be simply business. And at first, I was all right with that. I told myself I was helping you achieve an end, in exchange for your assistance with my…needs.” He visibly tensed. Even dropped his hands, in order to stab both of them through his hair. “When I looked at it that way, I was ashamed of myself for what finally happened during the cruise.”

“Ashamed?” I jerked back so fiercely, my head audibly slammed the headboard. Thank God for over-the-top padding. “Ashamed of what?”

He shuttled his own head back, defiantly jogging his chin. “It was our first date under the new contract,” he retorted. “And I had your thighs spread in under three hours. And then I rutted on you like a beast with no control…” For a moment, he looked sick to his stomach. His nostrils flared over lips that clenched in disgust. “That was a fine way to convey how I didn’t think of you as a whore, n’est-ce pas? That I valued you for something more than the fire you give my cock?”

The roller coaster of my stomach dropped into reverse. It kept going, crashing into the doors of my heart—and blasting them wide. Into the new gap, a flood swelled and flowed, warm and bright and crystalline as Caribbean waters. Part of me hated feeling this way when Lucien was still racked by such anguish, but I couldn’t hide my sheer delight…my consuming joy.