Haunting vulnerability flashed across her face, and she turned it aside. "That's what my father said to me once."
And not kindly, he guessed. Lucien examined her half-turned away expression. "I did not mean it as an insult, but a compliment. You are beautiful. Passionate. Like a storm on the horizon, not quite unleashed. There's an untamed sensuality brewing within you." He traced her throat. "It is nothing to be ashamed of."
Ianthe's lashes fluttered closed. "I know I should not feel the sting of shame, but I still hear his words even now. Especially now."
"Why now of all times?"
Ianthe inhaled slowly and looked away, a hint of red dawning like a sunrise in her cheeks. "Because of you." The words were barely a whisper, but they struck him right through the heart. "Because I did not dare, before you. Because I did not... want... before you. Not like this." She looked up helplessly. "It was easy to accept your challenge to own my nights. Easy because then I did not have to put it into words that I wanted you, that I wanted to be in your bed, beneath you..." She turned her face away again with a harsh exhale. "I missed you tonight. I wanted you to come. That's the truth of it. I couldn't sleep because you weren't there. I could hear you down here, and that's where I wanted to be."
Every muscle in his body tensed. This was as close to a declaration as either of them had come—an admittance that there was something between them, something dark and thrilling, something dangerous, something... more. That she was the one who voiced it did not surprise him. She had always been braver than he in so many ways.
Thunder rumbled, vibrating the casements. Lucien hovered, torn by indecision.
"I'm scared," she whispered, "and I'm alone, and I don't want to be alone, not anymore. Not tonight."
It shook him. His own thoughts reflected back at him. He'd have never guessed that she felt this way. His demons were vast, but she hid hers so well. With a shudder, he pressed a kiss to her forehead, breathing in the scent of her hair. "I don't want to be alone either. I wasn't supposed to like you." He brushed his thumbs lightly back and forth between her thighs. Then again. Each stroke lighter than the last. Brushing higher up her thigh, then away, as she shivered.
"Are you saying that you do?" It was said breathlessly, and there was a faint tremor there that belied the ease with which she asked.
He could have said: Sometimes. When I'm not fit to throttle you. Or, Especially when you're like this, molten beneath me. But Lucien bowed his head beneath the weight of the feeling. "Yes, Ianthe. Yes, I find myself liking you."
"Oh."
Just that. But he saw the arrow hit its target, saw the faint bewilderment within her give way to a vicious joy that was swiftly muted by something else, something that scared her.
He understood it, because it scared him too. The ground beneath his feet was rapidly giving way, leaving him in a foreign land, a land he'd never been in before.
"And here we are," he mocked, "at an impasse which neither of us expected."
"Where do we go from here?" Ianthe whispered.
"Anywhere. I don't— I'm as at sea as you are."
A hush fell between them.
"I... don't think I can." A brutal blush speared her cheeks.
Lucien absorbed the impact and graced her with a smile. It was not rejection, but a safeguard, a means of mitigating the risk. That he understood. His thumbs resumed their heated stroking. "Then let this just remain this. Uncomplicated."
"This was never uncomplicated." Ianthe said it with a faint laugh, but there was no humor there.
"Then we make it uncomplicated." Lucien leaned closer, his mouth hovering but a half-inch from her ear. "What do you want? Right now?"
"You," she whispered against the corner of his mouth, lips almost pressing to his, but not quite tasting them, "inside me." A decision had been made. She was brave now with his confession. Her face turned toward his, breath caressing his sensitive lips. "No more talk."
"Very well." Reaching past her, Lucien gently closed the lid on the grand piano. That dark curl sprang from behind her ear, and suddenly he could not bear to see it controlled anymore. Reaching behind her, he plucked first one pin, then another from her hair, and another... Until it cascaded down her back in a series of loose waves. Curling his fingers through her hair, he slowly fanned it out across her shoulders. A wave of midnight silk, gleaming in the candlelight. "There. That's better. Not perfect, but better."
"What would be perfect?"
"This." Sliding his hands up inside her robe, he pushed it off her shoulders, uncovering the thin-capped sleeves of her nightgown. The curve of her shoulder slipped loose from one sleeve, revealing the sharp etching of her collarbone. Lucien tugged at the ties on her robe, and Ianthe sucked in a sharp breath, but she surrendered it to him, leaning back on the piano.
"This," he said, drawing the tie free of its loops and discarding it behind him. Her robe sagged, falling open to reveal the hem of her nightgown riding up around her hips. Those thighs, like white satin... He slid his palm up one, absorbing every inch of soft skin, wanting it to be his mouth on her skin, not his hand...
"This?" With trembling hands, Ianthe watched his face as she began to undo the string that held her nightgown together. Rosy nipples darkened the fabric, and the cotton draped over them, caressing every one of her curves like a lover.
Lucien's breathing raced as she gave a willful shrug of her shoulders. Each sleeve slipped free, captured on her upper arms, as Ianthe stared at him with a dare in her eyes.
"Yes," he said, reaching out with one finger to brush the cotton from where it caught on the upper slope of her breast. Heat pulsed in his cock. Every touch of her skin sent electric shocks to his brain, which seemed to communicate themselves everywhere. He was heat and need and the fierce clench of anticipation.
