Lucy's Liberation [Elk Creek 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (13 page)

Ki looked at her not as if she was silly to ask such a question but as if he sympathized with her for not having traveled to all those countries. “You’ve never been out of Elk Creek before, have you?”

She averted her eyes and shook her head, unsure why she felt embarrassed by the fact.

“Perhaps we can go to Paris for our honeymoon.” He smiled and took her hand in his.

“Ki…”

“I mean it, Lucy. Just think how exciting and romantic it would be. I’d love to
take
you to all those countries. You deserve to see the world, have your eyes light up in awe at the sight of the Louvre, the Pantheon, the Sorbonne. I want to be the one to show you all those things and so much more.”

“Given the means, I’m sure I could visit all those places on my own.”

“I’ve offended you.”

“Nope. Not even a mite.” She, however, felt like she had offended him with her snippy response—hurting him before he could hurt her.

Ki put the bag that he had picked up in the hallway down in a red-and-gold upholstered chair behind the library door. He grinned and sidled behind Lucy. He carefully put both his hands on her shoulders as if he thought she would bolt then he bent his head to nuzzle her throat.

“Mmm, you smell delicious, Lucy.”

“Th–thank you.”
Don’t fall for it. Don’t fall for
him
. This man has been all over the world. He’s tasted and touched more beautiful women than me.

“You are a smart and resourceful young woman, so I’m sure you could visit all those places I mentioned on your own and given the means. However, wouldn’t you enjoy it all better with some company?”

“Company like you?”

He laughed. “Ideally, yes.”

Lucy closed her eyes and caught her breath as he circled the shell of her ear with his tongue. She shuddered at the nearness of him, his breath skimming over the sensitive skin of her neck and behind her ear, disturbing her hair. “Seems to me you’ve done all those things already. Wouldn’t you be bored?” It took everything in her to make sure her voice didn’t come out on a breathy rasp. She didn’t want him to get the idea that he…affected her in any way.

“I could never be bored spending time with you, Lucy. You are full of more surprises than any woman I have ever met in my life.”

She pulled away slightly and opened her eyes to stare at him over her shoulder.

His grin was wide and genuine as he nodded. “You have no idea how much you excite me, do you?”

“I can guess.” She smirked before turning back around. She couldn’t look into those fiery eyes of his for too long or she would fall under his spell, a fall she was sure she would never be able to recover from.

“Yes, well there is that.” He chuckled and slowly ran his hands from her shoulders down her arms. He laced his fingers through hers before drawing her arms in front of her so that his hands rested right over her pussy as he pressed his hard cock against her backside.

His arousal didn’t appall or shock her like she thought it should. After years of enduring Rance’s advances with no recourse and being passed around to his cronies at the saloon, she was used to men and the physical evidence of their lust. What she hadn’t expected was how aroused she would be with Ki this close to her, so close she could sense the heat of him beneath his expensive clothes, smell the citrusy aroma of his cologne.

Rather than dreading Ki’s attentions, she hungered for them, and that made him a more dangerous man than Rance had ever been. She didn’t want to desire Ki. She didn’t want to
need
him. Desire and need would complicate things between them even more, making their inevitable separation that much trickier.

But good Lord, he smelled good! He felt good against her, too, just like Prentice had.

With a moan that was part desire and part pain, Lucy pulled out of Ki’s embrace and sauntered to the other side of the room, taking a sudden interest in several of the classics Sabrina had on the upper shelves. She needed distance from him so she could think straight. He had her mind all jumbled up. Her body was overstimulated by his closeness—nipples pebbled and pussy tingling and wet.

Lucy heard Ki laughing behind her and looked over her shoulder to see him approaching, grin firmly in place.

Did nothing faze the man?

“Was I moving too fast?”

Propriety and social etiquette said that they were both moving too fast. The sultry moisture in the crotch of her bloomers, however, said he wasn’t moving fast enough. “A mite,” she lied. Her pussy ached with wanting him inside her already.

“Here. I want you to look at this and tell me what you think?” He pulled the sketch,
her
sketch, out of the bag and handed it to her. “Do you think the artist captured the real me?”

Lucy briefly glanced at the picture. She didn’t need to look at it too long. She knew every graceful line of his face, every masculine curve intimately. She had memorized them upon meeting him. He’d made that much of an impression. It was how she was able to capture him so accurately on paper. At least Maia thought she had captured him.

“You know it’s mine,” she rasped.

He nodded. “What I don’t know is why you would turn your back on your talent and deny ownership.”

“How do you know that’s what I did?”

“I spoke to Maia.”

“You’ve been a busy man today.”

“I had to occupy myself in some fashion as my fiancée won’t spend time with me.”

“I’m sure you don’t lack for any female companionship.”

“Only the female companionship I want.”

Lucy turned to him, tilting her head back to look into his eyes. The twinkle of warmth and concern in their depths almost blinded her. She turned her attention back to the books, running her hands over the spines before she blindly pulled down one of the books and aimlessly flipped through the pages.

“Maia believes you have talent.”

Lucy shrugged, speechless, and unnerved by the idea of Ki and Maia spending prolonged time together discussing her. She would have been jealous if she didn’t know how much Maia loved Thayne and Cade, or if she had any real feelings for Ki, which she didn’t, uh-uh, no way, no how.

“I, too, believe you have talent.”

Lucy put the book back on the shelf and turned to him, silently castigating herself for wanting his approval, for needing it.

“Your work is very good.”

She shrugged again and Ki caught her by the shoulders. “Why don’t you believe that? What makes you think your work can’t be as good as Maia’s?”

“Maia’s had…schooling. She’s been educated. She’s been places. She knows things.” Unlike her, who hadn’t been out of Elk Creek since she’d been born.

“You might surprise yourself with how much you know.”

According to Rance she didn’t know anything and he had only tolerated her because her father had begged him to take her off his hands.

“Lucy, you’re stronger and braver than you realize. You can do anything you set your mind to. I believe that. You should believe it, too.”

Lucy wanted to believe him. Like Maia, he had been places, traveled the world, seen things she had never seen and done things she had never done. Here this man was, this worldly wise and sophisticated man, saying all the right things to make her feel like she was worth more than the sum of her female attributes.

If he was only saying these things to make her feel good and soften her up, then he was crueler than Rance, who had only seen her as a convenient hole to bury his cock in when the mood struck him.

Ki took Lucy’s hands and she watched as he gracefully got down on one knee before her.

She gaped. “What are you doing?”

“Proposing to you properly, the way I should have before.”

“You really don’t have to do this.” Lucy’s heart pounded in her chest so until she thought it was going to burst right through her rib cage.

“Don’t be ridiculous. All brides-to-be deserve a proper proposal. It gives you something to tell the grandkids.” Ki smiled. “
You
deserve a proper proposal, Lucy.”

She felt tears brimming too close to the surface of her eyes while her nipples pebbled beneath her dress—her heart and her loin warring for supremacy of her body.

Good Lord! What was this man doing to her? “Grandkids?” she squeaked.

“I know, I know, one step at a time. We have to have kids first.”

“Kids?” She wanted babies, lots of babies, but was Ki the man she wanted to have them with? Was he the man she wanted to have anything to do with at all?

It was a fine time for her to be asking these questions now, huh?

Ki pulled a black velvet box from his jacket pocket and Lucy put her free hand to her mouth, shaking her head. “Lucy Colfax, will you marry me?” He opened the box and removed the diamond ring that was inside.

Lucy stared, still stunned by his use of her maiden name, as if he wanted to erase the memory of her horrible marriage to Rance, like her marriage to
him
would be her first.

The ring, however, was the icing on the cake, even if she didn’t know much about jewelry. Rance had grudgingly slipped a wedding band on her ring finger when they had married. Forget an engagement ring. The one Ki slipped onto her trembling finger, however, was beautiful, the diamonds brilliantly capturing the ambient light in the library, and it fit her finger perfectly.

Lucy didn’t know what impressed her the most—the fit or the ring itself.

She looked down at Ki with wonder in her eyes and fear in her heart. She knew she shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. She knew that all that glittered wasn’t gold either, and Ki in his fancy clothes with his stunning ring was just a glittering up a storm. “Say yes, Lucy. Say you’ll be my wife.”

“I said I’d be your wife in the lawyer’s office.”

“This is different. I want you to say it to me now, like you mean it.”

She didn’t know anymore what she’d meant when she’d accepted his proposal the first time. She knew what she wanted, at least she had back then. Now all of her wants and needs seemed to be wrapped up in what one Hezekiah Benjamin wanted.

All of a sudden, there was a commotion, someone loudly banging on the front door.

Sabrina came out of the kitchen grumbling for the person to hold his horses.

Lucy motioned to leave, but Ki stood and held firm to her hand as he led the way out into the corridor to see Sabrina opening the door.

Ethan stood on the porch and stepped into the foyer, looking grim.

What’s happened now?

“Well, Ethan, what are you doing around these parts?” Sabrina asked.

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Go? Is everything all right with Clint and Kate?”

“We…we’ve had a bit of a disagreement so I’ve left home. I wondered if it would be all right if I—”

“Stay with us, Ethan.”

“Lucy…?”

She ignored the questioning tone in Ki’s voice and stepped forward.

Sabrina and Ethan both homed in on her hand where the ring Ki had just given her shined brighter than a star in the night sky.

“Us as in whom?” Ethan asked.

“I’ve just accepted Ki’s proposal…again. He wanted to do it right and proper with a ring.” She wiggled her finger, emphasizing what they had already noticed. “We’ll be married tomorrow at the Justice of the Peace. In the meantime, you can stay with Ki in our house.”

“We will?” Ki asked.

“He can?” Sabrina chorused.

Lucy didn’t know what had come over her or what she thought she was doing, but responded as if she did. “He…he can,” she said.
Lordy , I hope I’m doing the right thing!

Prentice didn’t know what Lucy had up her sleeves but he wondered about her sanity in throwing him and her fiancé together alone in the same house overnight. Not that he was worried about Mr. Hezekiah Benjamin. Powers or not, Prentice knew he could handle himself against any threat, probably now more than ever since he was in Ethan’s body and Ethan seemed to be as fit as Prentice had ever been if not more so. It must have been all the country and outdoor living.

Regardless, Prentice was sure with Hezekiah being the proper gentleman from New York that he appeared to be he didn’t pose a physical threat, more because Hezekiah didn’t seem to have a violent temperament and not because he didn’t have the capability or strength to do bodily harm. The latter had Prentice wondering exactly what Hezekiah Benjamin’s story was.

Physically, he resembled most of the rich Aryan-looking jocks with whom Prentice had grown up or gone to school. Prentice, however, didn’t get that same sense of entitlement and pomposity from Hezekiah. That probably just meant Prentice hadn’t spent enough time around the other man. Prentice was sure Hezekiah was like all the other good-looking, rich men with whom he had ever had run-ins. No one got to be that rich and successful without having stepped on a few people on his way up the ladder.

Prentice tried to temper his opinion, if for no other reason than to give Lucy’s fiancé the benefit of the doubt, especially since he was going to be spending the night under the same roof with the man.