Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (The Three #1)(67)
Author: Kristen Ashley

Therefore, it was up to me to get things straight.

“I thought I was giving you what you wanted,” I told Lucien and his hand in my hair stilled for a few moments before his fingers started twirling a lock again.

Then he said something that threw me way off guard, “I want you.”

Me? He wanted me?

No one wanted me.

I was, as I just noted, a moron, amongst other not so good things.

This made my stomach feel warm at the same time it made my heart lurch and fear crawl up my spine.

This was just great. Instead of two contradictory emotions now I was having three.

“You have me,” I lied before pointing out the obvious, “I’m right here.”

I felt his head move, his lips touched my temple before he settled onto the pillows again.

“I had you, sweetling,” he murmured, using a different endearment, this one old-fashioned and way, way, way too effective. So effective it wiped out the heart lurch and the crawling fear and significantly intensified the warmth in my belly. “Every day and every night, I’ve had you. Until today and tonight. Now, you’re gone.” His hand clenched in my hair gently and he asked softly, “Why have you gone, Leah?”

Something stuck in my throat. I knew what it was but I swallowed it away and pretended it wasn’t there in the first place.

I knew I was lying to myself now but I figured lying to myself was definitely the best way to go.

“I’m here,” I whispered, “right here, where you want me to be.”

His hand went out of my hair and he moved me. He slid me off his body and shifted me so my back was pressed to his front, his arm tight around my waist, elbow cocked, hand pressed flat between my br**sts.

“Remember that,” he said into the back of my hair when he’d repositioned me.

“What?” I asked.

“That here is where I want you to be. For twenty years, I’ve wanted you here.” His arm tensed and pressed me deeper into his body as I felt his face press deeper into my hair. “You don’t wait twenty years for a whore, Leah. You don’t take her shopping for books. You don’t move your clothes in her closet. You don’t take her amongst your people. And you certainly don’t put up with her when she’s misbehaving.”

I decided to focus on the last thing he said because it pissed me off. The other stuff made a lot of sense. It also made my belly feel warm again and I really didn’t need that.

But Myrna wouldn’t get pissed off. Never.

I tamped down the anger and decided to go with resigned.

“So, where does this leave us?”

“Where we’ve always been,” he replied, his voice somehow lighter like he’d not only had some weight lifted but also like he was amused. “But instead of you coming out fighting, you’ve retreated and put up our defenses.”

Oh no.

He had me totally figured out!

He pressed closer and stated firmly, “But I’ll get through.”

Oh no he would not. Not if I had anything to do with it (which I did).

“You’re already through,” I lied and he chuckled which made me want to throw something at him.

Of course, I didn’t.

“I’m not,” he declared.

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

I pushed against his arm, surprisingly it loosened and I turned to face him.

I looked up at him in the dark and I said my next in a whisper, “If you want me to beg you to f**k me, I will. I’ll do anything you want me to do. Try me. I’ll prove it to you. Lucien, you have me.”

I held my breath, not really wanting him to make me do anything he wanted me to do but prepared to do it nonetheless.

His face dipped closer to mine but stopped a breath away giving me the impression he could see in the dark.

“I don’t want you to beg, sweetling. It isn’t about that. That was just a test, which you failed. If you’d let go, just a little bit, I’ll show you what it is about.”

“Tell me,” I urged.

“There are no words.”

“Okay, try to tell me.”

He hesitated then he said, “Trust.”

I blinked in the dark. “Trust?”

“I’ve told you this before, you need to trust me, Leah.”

“With what?”

“With everything.”

Was he crazy?

He wanted me to trust him? With everything? Then, when he was sick of me, he’d let me go and move onto his next concubine, doing this for eternity.

He had to be crazy!

He would, of course, throw me birthday parties and maybe, as decades passed, recruit me to help him stalk his next obsession.

Boy, that would be fun.

It took a lot out of me and it was really not a nice thing to do but self-preservation forced me to curl closer to him and lie yet again.

“You have my trust.”

It was nearly imperceptible but I could swear I felt his body give a small jerk.

“You don’t think I know how it feels?” he asked and his voice was no longer mellow and amused, it was edging toward anger.

I had, inadvertently, made a tactical error.

I attempted to salvage the situation.

“Lucien –” I started.

I failed to salvage the situation. He kept right on talking.

“When the taming is complete, Leah, it isn’t completed with words or a ceremony. It happens through actions and feelings.”

His words took the breath out of me. Or, I should say, one particular word.

“The taming?”

“The taming,” he said calmly. “I’m taming you.”

I felt Old Leah slipping back into place.

“You’re taming me?”

His body tensed and his arm tightened around me in a way that felt like containment.

Even so, his voice was still calm when he replied, “Yes.”

“Taming,” I repeated.

Now he sounded like he was smiling when he repeated, “Yes.”

“Does that mean what I think it means?” I asked.

“I’m guessing that’s unlikely,” he answered.

This did not make me feel any better.

“Have you done this…” I could barely bring myself to say it but I forced myself to say it, “taming business a lot?”

“Not recently, no. But I used to do it before The Revolution on occasion. But only if my prey was special,” he held me closer and his voice got softer, “like you.”

I figured he thought that this was one of his profound compliments.