Page 28 of Lucien

Luc’s brain shut off for a moment.

“So far I’ve gotten this skittish, frightened version of you,” Jamie went on, apparently not caring that Luc’s brain had gone completely offline. “I want the real thing. I want what all your other lovers and midnight snacks have gotten over the years.” Jamie shot him a slow smirk, and Luc’s cock jerked in response. “I want the Lucien seduction.”

Luc’s thumbs brushed along the soft skin of Jamie’s stomach, his human’s words filling his gut with a steady warmth.

His human wanted a seduction? Very well. Luc could give that to him.

Jamie was right—he’d been shortchanged by Luc’s cowardice. Luc had been hiding himself, holding himself too still, too steady, afraid to let the monster out. Afraid to wreck Jamie before they could begin.

But if Jamie already accepted him as he was and the monster was going to behave itself per their human’s orders…

Luc could be himself again.

Luc’s fingers tightened on Jamie’s hips. “Not in here.”

Jamie shot him the barest hint of a pout. “What’s wrong with my room?”

Luc grinned, running a tongue along his fangs, delighted at the little gasp Jamie let out at the sight. “We need to set the scene, my flower.”

eight

Jamie

Jamiestoodwithhisback against the living room wall, arms crossed, watching Luc “set the scene,” as his vampire had called it. Jamie was holding himself as still as he could manage, but he couldn’t help fidgeting with his fresh toothpick, rolling it from one end of his mouth to the other.

He was just so fuckingexcited. His pulse was racing, and he felt flush with adrenaline. He just wanted this vampire so fuckingbad.And he felt like they were actually moving forward. Like some invisible line had been crossed on Luc’s end.

Luc had already straightened Jamie’s living room, and now he was draping blankets artfully over the couch and chairs, throwing a red scarf of Monique’s he’d found over one of the lamps to bathe the room in a dim rosy glow. He’d asked Jamie if he had any wine, wrinkling his nose like a snobby asshole at the less-than-ten-dollar bottle Jamie had held up but in the end pouring them both a glass anyway.

All that was missing was a record player playing some smooth jazz.

“No music?” Jamie teased when Luc finally seemed to be slowing down in his rearrangements.

“No music. Too distracting.” Luc eyed his changes, nodded once decisively, then set his sights on Jamie.

Fuck. So intense, when all that animal energy was focused in one place. When that one place wasJamie.

He had asked for the seduction as a lark more than anything, a means of closing the distance between them and finally getting those hands on him properly. But he was beginning to think he wasn’t prepared for what was in store for him. Jamie’s past sexual experiences had been noncommittal, inexperienced fumblings with other dudes his age, not immortal creatures with over two centuries of seductive encounters behind them.

“Now—” Luc prowled forward, bracketing Jamie up against the wall with two broad arms. He reached down and plucked the toothpick out of Jamie’s mouth. “You do know I’m not fucking you tonight, yes?”

Well,no. Jamie did not know that at all. Major bummer. He slouched back against the wall, disappointed. “And why not?”

“Because, pretty flower,” Luc crooned, brushing the backs of his fingers against Jamie’s cheek, “when I fuck you, it will be a claiming. You’re not ready for that yet.”

“I’m not?” Jamie asked petulantly.

“PerhapsI’mnot,” Luc amended, running his thumb over Jamie’s bottom lip.

Ohh. Jamie was actually getting honesty from the vampire now. What a heady fucking feeling. He did his best to ignore the surge of disappointment he wasn’t getting filled tonight by the stud in front of him. He was realizing maybe the hesitancy on Luc’s end was less about Luc being unsure about Jamie and more about Luc being unsure of himself.

Jamie could work with that. “No one has ever called me pretty before.”

“Oh, but you are,” Luc purred. “Everyone else must have been distracted by your punk petals. Such a lovely face hiding underneath.”

“I’m not hiding,” Jamie protested. And he wasn’t. The green hair, the punk-leaning clothes. They weren’t a costume, or a way of hiding from the world. They were just what he liked, simple as that. The way he chose to decorate himself.

Luc rubbed a lock of Jamie’s green hair between two fingers. “No, you aren’t, are you? Still, it keeps the unworthy from realizing how beautiful you are, I think.”

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