Lucien (20 page)

When do you plan on telling her about the little heir
, his conscience asked.

Luc grimaced. Soon. He’d tell her soon.

How soon?

Tomorrow. He’d take her out and—

Luc halted and his eyes narrowed with anger. He was swiftly consumed with a jealous, possessive rage. His fists tightened and his teeth reverted to grinding.

Bingley Junior was leaning against the wall, leering at Elise as she bent over the flowers ooh-ing and ah-ing. Elise picked up the bouquet and carried it into her office. Junior cackled quietly and pushed off from the wall.

Luc caught the man by the shirt and slammed him against the wall. “I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you, Junior.” Luc read the horny bastard like an open book. Junior was terrified. “Touch my wife and you’re dead. Got it?”

Junior nodded enthusiastically. “Y-yes sir.”

“Good. Tell your father the same thing.” Luc released him and Junior started to slide down the wall. “Go chase someone else’s woman, but stay the hell away from mine.”

“Y-yes, sir.” Junior at least had the sense not to turn his back on Luc as he slithered down the hallway and most likely out of the building.

Luc sucked in a deep breath. Letting Junior off with a few words was not what he would have preferred. He’d wanted to pound him into the ground, but—dammit—Elise was right. Luc couldn’t indulge himself until after the signing of the contract. And he would indulge himself, because he didn’t doubt for a minute that the short, but to the point warning wouldn’t last more than a few days.

Luc stormed into the office and slammed the door behind him, then locked it.

Elise jumped and spun around. “Luc! What on earth is the—”

He caught her by the wrist and pulled her to him, silencing her with a hungry, possessive kiss. All too easily the red-hot rage directed at Junior morphed into an aching need to have his wife. In the office. On the desk.

Luc cupped her buttocks and lifted her against him, carrying her backwards toward the desk. “Busy?” he rasped against her lips.

“Ah… no.”

“You are now.” He covered her mouth with his and set her on the desk. He was about to explode and Elise responded fiercely to him, kneading his shoulders, clawing at his clothing. Slight noises rose from the back of her throat and he recognized the heights of her own passion. Luc reached between them, following her down as he laid her on the desk, and found her panties soaked through.

He groaned. “Damn, Elise. You want this more than I do.”

“Mmm, yes. Give. Now.” She groped for his belt. “Thank you… for the beautiful… flowers,” she murmured between kisses. She worked his zipper down and wrapped her hand around his throbbing arousal.

“Ah, God. Wait for me,” Luc ground out. He shoved up her skirt, caught her panties then yanked them off.  

“Hurry, Luc. I can’t wait.”

“Come here.” He gripped her hips, poised himself at her entrance then fused their mouths to drink in her cries. A second later, Luc surged into her with a long, slick slide and Elise melted around him. She moved against him, meeting him stroke for stroke, grinding their bodies together. Wild and wanton, making love to his wife was as beautiful as it was perfect. Luc could stay inside her forever and wont for nothing.

“Luc,” she gasped.

“Yes. Give it to me.”

And Elise did, exploding in a muffled shriek, shimmering around him in a menagerie of flutters and convulsions. Luc drank in her cries and followed her over the edge. Vaguely his mind wondered if she was pregnant yet. Luc pushed back the musing and dropped his head to the crook of her neck.

“Lucien,” Elise whispered, combing her fingers through his hair.

A shivered coursed down his spine and along with it a ripple of warmth from inside her. “Yes, darlin’?”

“Thank you for the flowers,” she whispered dreamily.

Luc managed to raise his head and grinned. “Anything to make you smile.”

“Anything?” Her indigo eyes twinkled speculatively.

He arched a brow. “Why? Do you have something in mind?”

“Perhaps.” Elise caught his tie and pulled him down for a thorough kissing. “How about we go home early?”

“How early?”

“Now would be ideal,” she replied.

“Ben wants to talk to me about something.”

“Mmm, but I want to talk to you about something.” Elise punctuated her words with the most incredible display of strength Luc had ever felt. Her inner muscles gripped and squeezed him, arousing his body back to life.

“Your something wins,” he choked out.

Elise smoothed her palm across his cheek. “You’re a good boy, Lucien. I think I’ll keep you.”

“You will, huh?”

“Ah, yes,” she gasped as he retaliated by moving inside her.

He smiled. “For how long?”

Elise arched her back, her head falling back and exposing the smooth column of her throat. “For as long as… you do that.”

Luc slid deep inside her. “This?” She moaned and his knees nearly buckled. He picked her up, wrapping her legs around his waist, then moved them both to the chair behind the desk. “How about this?” He lifted her then pulled her down hard onto him.

“Oh,” she moaned. “Yes. That. Do that.”

“For… how long,” he asked throatily.

“Forever,” she whispered.

“Where did you get the money, Elise,” Raven demanded.

“It’s good to hear from you, too,” Elise murmured into the phone. “How is Aphrodite doing?”

“She’s fine. Answer my question.”

Elise sighed. “Luc gave it to me.”

“Why?”

“Because… he hated to see me worry about—”

“The truth,” Raven growled.

“Raven,” Elise snapped. “What difference does it make? Luc gave me the money and Mom’s not going to the slammer and you aren’t losing Aphrodite.”

“It matters a helluvalot if the reason you married him was to get the money.” Something banged in the background. “Dammit, Elise. I told you not to sell your—”

“Don’t even,” she warned. “You were there when Luc confessed his feelings and you know how I feel. So why are you making such a big deal over this?”

“Because the whole damn situation doesn’t make any sense. My sister marries a man she used to barely tolerate and suddenly my brother-in-law dishes out thousands of dollars to save his mother-in-law.”

“Raven, there’s nothing to be upset about. I know you’re worried about me and all, but really I am very happy.”

“Do you love him?”

Elise glanced up as Luc walked into the living room. She smiled and answered, “Yes, I do.”

“And it’s reciprocated,” Raven asked skeptically.

“Of course it is. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”

Luc frowned at her and mouthed, “Who?”

“Would you be there if Luc hadn’t offered to take care of Moonbeam’s problem?”

“Raven,” Elise said patiently and her husband smirked, moving around the arm chair to come up behind her. “You know me. Would I have married Luc just for his money?”

Luc nuzzled the side of her neck. “I thought you married me for my body,” he asked loud enough for Raven to hear.

“My brother is having doubts,” Elise replied, turning her face up for a quick kiss.

Luc fitted his hands to her thighs and slid them underneath her skirt, all the while nibbling on her neck. “Raven, marriage to your sister is bliss. She’s delicious and… so good for me. To me. On me. Under me.”

Raven chuckled.

Luc tugged her skirt up to watch as he played with her. “Mmm, darlin’, you are so firm and we—”

“Lucien,” Elise shrieked.

“Okay, I get the picture. Go play with your husband,” Raven said.

“She thanks you and she will. Bye, Raven.”

“Bye, Luc.”

“Hang up the phone, darlin’. You’ve got duties to perform.”

Elise said goodbye to her brother, then ended the call.

Her husband moved around the chair and crouched down in front of her. Luc lifted one leg to unhook her garter and roll down her stockings. “Why is your brother hung up on the love issue?”

Elise set the phone on a side table, then brushed back a thick lock on his forehead. “Because Raven is a hopeless romantic and our parents didn’t love each other.”

Luc finished with one leg, dropped a kiss on the inside of her knee, then turned to work the other one. “My parents didn’t love each other. They liked each other well enough to get four children.” The other stocking disappeared over his shoulder and he bent his head to kiss the other knee. “My father left soon after Eleanor and I were born.”

Elise frowned. “You didn’t know your father?”

“Not like you know your father.” Luc paused in the act of pressing butterfly kisses up her legs. His smile was wry and bitter. “I went down to the islands to find out why he filed for divorce the day after I was born.”

“The day after you were born,” Elise breathed. “Oh, Luc, that is horrible. Why would he do such a thing?”

“Because, in his words, he could.” He shrugged and went back to kissing her legs, massaging her thighs. “Are you as hopelessly romantic as your brother?”

“Maybe.” Elise shivered as his thumbs moved higher up her leg, teasing her into admitting the truth. “Yes.” She couldn’t think when he touched her like this. Later she would ask him more on the subject of his parents but for now….

Luc smiled against her skin then nipped at her flesh. “Then if we hadn’t married, I would have had to make you love me in order to make love to you?”

She threaded her fingers through his thick hair. “No. You would’ve had to do a lot more than that.”

“Like what?” His tongue snaked out, tracing a path up and down her leg. “Delicious.”

“Like a… commitment of your love.”

Luc turned his attention to her other thigh. “I don’t know if I could have done that.”

“Why not,” she asked breathlessly.

“Because… what is love? Does it exist? Is it something the poet’s invented to purify lust? A love for a relative I understand, but love for… a lover?”

Elise smiled as she urged him to look up at her. “You want a definition of love.”

“And you have one?”

Elise considered his question carefully then shook her head. Her wits slowly returned and she answered, “Love is a complex, yet simple emotion. All I can say is… when you feel it, you’ll know.”

“How?” He gazed at her as if he truly wanted to understand.