Chapter 10
Until Tomorrow
“Oops, not Peter then?”
Wendy said referring to the sound of the now angry male sat next to me who was demanding to knowing who my boyfriend was.
“That would be a no,”
I muttered in a dry tone that secretly said, ‘thanks for putting your foot in it but I have to go now and try and explain to an overbearing Vampire asshole that my personal life is none of his business…but hey, thanks for that’.
Okay, so my tone didn’t exactly say all of those things, but it said a lot…and the main one was the ‘oh shit’ moment she knew she’d caused.
I knew this when she then said,
“Right, well call me when the man storm has blown over…laters Lessy Bessy,”
she said using code for her not really lesbian bestie.
“I am still waiting,”
he said in a tone that made me both want to shove him and recoil from him all at the same confusing time.
“Well, then I guess you’d better get used to the feeling because you’re going to be waiting a long time, as who I date is none of your business,”
I told him and doing so with sweaty palms as I was now worried that he would tell my parents and the next people I had to say these things to, would be them.
My mum would be hurt, and my dad would be furious.
Not the fact that I was dating per se but more the fact I didn’t tell them first so that my dad could have flown here, whilst doing a back-ground check on the plane, arriving in time for the interview/interrogation to start after he had his men set it up with the poor unsuspecting Peter.
Lucius, on the other hand, just looked outright enraged and ready to commit murder, a fate far worse than an intimidating talk with my dad, I think you would agree.
But the question was always the same with Lucius and that was…
Why?
Why would he even care, as surely he wouldn’t go as far as to be outraged on my dad’s behalf, would he? Well, sure as shit something was obviously wrong with him as he looked ready to tear the bloody car door off and throw it at some poor innocent pedestrian in anger.
You could see him fighting with himself for what looked like all the reasons he shouldn’t say something and also all the reasons that he should.
The latter ended up winning in the end as he snarled at me,
“It is the business of your family and as I am here in your father’s place then therefore, I have every right to know why it is you choose a lesser being that obviously cares so little for you as to let his woman go alone to a gala.”
My mouth dropped before I hissed,
“Now just you wait a…”
“And what’s more, a cretin that expects her to get the fucking bus home! Pray tell me, just how would you have gotten here had I not sent my car to pick you up?”
Lucius asked, after interrupting me and doing so by growling the words at me in a barely contained demonic side that sounded close to rattling the answer from me.
But to be honest there had been so much in that one sentence that I hardly knew where to start!
“You sent that car for me?”
I asked going with the less important of the two.
He raised a brow at me and answered me the way you would an aggravating child that had asked the same question one hundred million times.
“Yes.”
“But I got a text from…”
“Me,”
he said interrupting yet again and making me frown.
“But I sent one back saying, thanks dad.”
“And?”
he asked making me shake my head a little…I mean was he for real?
“And…well don’t you think you could have said something,”
I said dragging out the ‘and’ in a condescending way.
“Like what?”
he snapped.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe something like ‘Hey, its Lucius here, not your dad and you’re welcome for the car, see you soon, as FYI, I am going to be your date for the evening’.
Maybe that kind of something.”
I said flicking my hand out at the end unable to help being slightly dramatic.
Needless to say, he looked down at my hand and didn’t look impressed with the fact I nearly just hit him with it by mistake.
Therefore, he grabbed it and placed it back in my lap as though this would be a safer place for it.
I, on the other hand, just felt myself blush because of it.
“Would it have changed the outcome?”
he asked me, and I decided to be honest thinking that I would have surprised him…I was wrong, as he was counting on it.
“Yes.”
I said knowing that I wouldn’t have gone if I had known he would be there.
“Then that’s why… now tell me who this Peter is,”
he said finishing this off with a firm order.
I released a frustrated sigh and rubbed my forehead like my father sometimes did when my mother was giving him a hard time or putting him in his place as she often did.
“Seriously, Lucius, why do you even care?”
He looked taken back a moment and opened his mouth as if ready to say something but then stopped, obviously thinking better of it.
“I don’t.”
he replied, and it was as simple as that.
However, what wasn’t simple was how much hearing those two small words affected me.
But the saying, ‘the truth hurts’ was created for a reason and now…well, now there seemed like no better time for it to be true.
“Good, then leave it be,”
I said after swallowing down what I really wanted to say and having to look out the window for a second to compose myself.
But of course, this was Lucius we were talking about here, the man utterly incapable of letting anything…well…be.
“I would have thought your taste in men to be better than that.”
It was at this point I turned in my seat to look at him as my mind tried to ask itself had that really been what he had said? Which is when my mind came up with a deciding yes, as I had heard him right, which unsurprisingly made me snap back,
“Oh, I can assure you, my tastes in men have greatly improved.”
The meaning definitely wasn’t lost on him, not with the venomous tone in which it had been said.
The second I finished I saw his eyes flash once more, only this time in anger as they burned crimson a second too long, as was just enough to portray his annoyance.
“I doubt that!”
he snapped back, which is when I decided to inform him,
“Look, not that it is any of your business, but the truth is that I was the one who didn’t invite Peter, so he had no idea about this Gala because I was taking my friend Wendy, who usually comes with me to these things, so now you can just get off his back because Peter is a good, kind hearted man and you have no right to…”
The sound of his laughter suddenly cut me off.
“What is so funny?”
I asked managing to get at least one hand on my hip even though I was sat down.
“You just described someone who only fucks in the dark,”
he replied crassly, shocking me to stutter on my next words,
“Sss…so! What the hell is wrong with that?”
I asked in outrage, even though I myself had thought the same thing only earlier that day and I couldn’t remember…had I viewed it as a bad thing at the time? Well, if I hadn’t then, I did seconds later after Lucius gave me his reply.
“It’s wrong because when you finally possess beauty, two things happen, you do so as often as you possibly can, and you do so with her body illuminated, so that you can burn the image to your mind for all the times that you can’t,”
he answered, and it seriously made my heart suddenly start pounding in my chest.
Was this how he really thought about being with a beautiful woman? Just that question alone made me think about all the women Lucius must have been with in all his time upon the earth and I swear that pounding in my chest quickly started to turn into a painful ache.
Which also meant that I had no come back to this other than a very lame murmur, which was aimed at the window,
“Well, not everyone thinks like you.”
Thankfully, after that he said no more about it, obviously appeased enough now he knew that the man I was dating hadn’t just let me loose on the town unchaperoned.
But to be honest, one look at Lucius’ reflection in the window and I had no idea what he was thinking.
Well, that was until he cut the silence with another question and this time it ended up cutting the tension too, as it made me chuckle.
“Why do you pretend to have a lesbian lover as your date?”
“Ah, well, before Peter came along I never had anyone to take with me, so I asked my friend Wendy to come, then one thing led to another and…”
I stopped the second I heard him drawing in a startled breath, realizing he had the wrong idea.
“No, not that type of idea, what I mean is that when chatting to the guests some of them would hit on me…you know, ask me out or even ask me what I was doing after the event,”
I said making him once more look annoyed, only at least this time he hid it slightly better than before, this time only frowning and clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white.
“So, in the end Wendy came to my rescue and pretended to be my lover, and well that soon developed into my ‘partner’ as more people found out and then pretty soon I found myself being asked at work how my girlfriend was.
Then, before I knew it, bam! I was suddenly in a relationship with Wendy.”
At this he chuckled, and I don’t think that up until then I had ever heard the sound.
I liked the idea that he found me funny, so I tried to carry it on by nudging him slightly and telling him,
“And as it turns out, that once you have been in a fictional lesbian relationship, it’s actually quite difficult to get yourself out of one, as it’s not like I can just go into work one day and shout surprise everybody, Wendy’s gone and I’m not gay anymore…”
Again, he chuckled, and it was such a lighthearted sound I nudged him again and added,
“Although, you turning up tonight has kind of put a spanner in the lesbian works.”
Once I had finished he gave me a heart stopping grin that again, was another first for me, for this time it wasn’t the usual ‘bad boy, I am plotting evil things grin’ I was used to.
No, it was the blindingly handsome, breathtaking type of smile that had you admitting to yourself that if that was the last sight you ever saw, then you would die a happy woman.
By the Gods, he was beautiful.
“I am surprised they believed it in the first place,”
he replied, now making this the longest conversation we had ever had about anything that wasn’t done so in anger.
“Why do you say that?”
I asked, desperate to keep this easy manner going.
“Because you’re about as lesbian as I am gay,”
he replied, this time making me laugh as that was one thing I could never have said about Lucius.
Men were obviously not his preferred flavour of willing victims and there was only one person he had looked at tonight with lust…
The willing victim sat next to him now…
Me.
Before long we were at my building as it was only a thirty-minute drive, especially at this time of night when there was minimal amount of traffic on the roads.
I turned in my seat and said,
“Thanks for the…lift.”
I ended up letting the last word trail into a whisper as Lucius was already exiting the car.
Now as to why, I was yet to find out.
My door opened, and a hand was held out to me that definitely didn’t belong to the driver.
Wow, it looked like he was getting an easy night tonight as Lucius was obviously determined to do half his job for him.
Not that I was complaining as it gave me a wonderful excuse once more to place my hand in his.
The tingles that bombarded my senses the second our skin made contact was almost as though someone had flipped a switch, instantly making me flex my fingers in his hold, telling him without words that his touch affected me.
In return his grip on me tightened and in that moment something unspoken passed between us.
But as quickly as it had arisen it was gone again the second he let me go.
He then took a step back and held out his arm to indicate that I should precede him which I did, happy to be ahead of him just so that I could hide my reddened cheeks and the effects of how his touch still lingered.
But had I been the only one? I guess I would never know unless I asked him and even then, how could I ever trust in his words, for so far, he wasn’t just an enigma, he was also turning out to be a contradiction.
He would act as if he was duty bound in being here but then in the next instance he would go above the realms of obligation.
Like now for example, walking me to my door instead of just sitting in his car and making sure that I made it home in one piece.
There, job done and dusted with a clap of his hands and then congratulating himself on being rid of me at least for the rest of the evening.
But this hadn’t happened.
Which was why I questioned his reasons all the way to the front door and beyond when he still stood next to me as if waiting for something.
So, I turned towards him, feeling suddenly shy and tucking some loose hair behind my ear as I fumbled for my words,
“I…I guess I should say…”
“Open the door, Amelia,”
he said interrupting me with a purring of my name and I looked up at him in confusion for a moment until he strangely cleared his throat and nodded to the control panel, trying to jar me into action.
“Oh…right.”
I muttered with a little shake of my head turning around to hide my shame and trying to stop my hands from shaking.
I don’t know why it felt so different now, almost as though we had entered a more intimate place of the evening and I wondered if it was the stigma that surrounded the end of a date.
The quiet and almost expectant moment when your date walks you to your door and you spend those turbulent moments hoping that he liked you enough to kiss you.
But I needed to remember that this was Lucius we were talking about and there was only one reason why he would be walking me to my door.
His duty.
Because if there was one thing I knew about Lucius, it was if he wanted something he was the type of man to just reach out and take it, caring little about the consequences.
Which is why this thought developed into the most obvious other reason why he held the main door to my building open for me and now I felt utterly stupid.
In fact, I continued to chastise myself all the way to my door with him keeping a safe distance behind me.
So, before I could make an even bigger fool of myself, I turned around to face him and was about to discuss him seeing the box when I faltered.
By the Gods, how had he gotten so close to me without me even feeling it? Out of instinct I took a step back and felt my back hit the door and I swear the sound of it echoed all the way down the staircase we’d just walked up.
I bravely looked up at him and the second I did his gloved hand snapped out and gripped onto my door frame.
I didn’t know what caused this reaction only that for what seemed like long silent moments we were trapped in this strange space in time, and it kept us both captured until finally he broke through it.
At first when he started to raise his other hand, I thought it was to touch me in some way but then I heard the door unlocking and it all started to snap into place.
The third reason that he had followed me up here…I had no keys.
He obviously wanted to make sure that I could get into my flat in case Ben hadn’t been home.
Damn myself and my wayward imagination! This had been what had gotten me into trouble in the first place all those years ago.
Suddenly, I felt a shame like no other as he had been right…I hadn’t changed from that young, naive runaway mind of a girl simply full of unrealistic hopes and dreams.
Which was why I let my head drop and I looked down at the floor in a vain attempt to hide the extent of my shame.
In fact, I was getting so lost in it, that when I felt his touch under my chin I was startled enough to nearly jerk out of his hold.
So, instead of letting me go, he held on to my chin with his thumb and forefinger, lifting my face up so that he could hold my gaze with the intense one of his own.
“You did well tonight,”
he told me, and I could feel the questioning line appear in between my brows, asking myself what he meant by that.
However, if he saw it, then he ignored it because he said nothing further on the matter.
No, instead he nodded to the door once and said,
“Now run along, little one.”
I swallowed the sexual lump I had stuck there that had inhibited my ability to speak.
“You’re not coming inside?”
I asked and the second he raised a brow at me in a way that told me he was getting the wrong idea, which meant I flustered and quickly carried on,
“I mean…well, you know, to see the box…which is why you’re here…right?”
This was when the smirk came back and damn him if it didn’t make him even sexier than before.
It left me wondering if he knew it and kept it in his sexual arsenal, reserving it for times like this?
Then he surprised me as he looked over my head at the closed door as if he was actually taking the time to think about it.
But then he closed his eyes for a second longer than just a blink and opened them again by looking down at me.
This was when he really shocked me as the next thing for him to say sounded like pained honesty,
“I don’t think pushing my limits is a wise endeavor at the best of times.”
I wanted to ask what he meant by that but before I could he spoke again, and I had the impression that it was done on purpose so that I couldn’t ask.
“Bring the box to the museum tomorrow and I will be there to view it.”
In the end I was left with no other choice but to agree with a slight nod of my head.
Then he reached past me, turned the handle, brushing against my side as he did and making me weak enough to close my eyes at the contact.
I knew by doing this that I was giving away my feelings towards him, but it couldn’t have been helped.
My body wasn’t my own around him.
The door at my back was gone and my exit from this contact felt like an abyss behind me.
One he was expecting me to walk into and say goodbye.
It had been such a turbulent night that I felt almost exhausted just from battling my emotions in his presence.
And now was no different as I simply nodded my head and took that painful first step away from him.
But then I swear I heard the sound of wood splitting and just as my head snapped up, homing in to the source of the sound, I only just caught the sight of cracked wood forging itself back together again under his palm.
Now why had that happened I wonder?
“I…”
I only said that single lettered word, but it was enough for Lucius to know what I was going to say, for he got in there first before I had chance to say it myself.
It was almost as if he couldn’t bear hearing it…
“You’re welcome…Amelia.”
I don’t know why he paused a second too long before whispering my first name, as if it had been a promise unspoken.
I couldn’t help but bring a finger up to my lips and bite at the end which was a nervous habit of mine.
His eyes homed in on the sight and the quickest flash of hot amber seeped into his eyes, giving me a glimpse of his feelings.
However, what exactly those feelings were, I didn’t know as it felt as if there was a million words left unsaid in just that single look alone.
It felt like the weight of this connection we had also had the power to fill the canyon between us, one he himself had put us on either side.
So, there I was, desperate for him to merely say the word so as to fill the chasm of space and end my misery.
But that only happened in my dreams and right now, his intense gaze told me that I was not only awake, but I was dangerously close to slipping into a living nightmare.
For one painful word from him was all it would have taken to drag me there.
But in the end, I only received two words from him and thankfully, neither were painful.
His actions however were painfully confusing as he took my fingers in his own, pulling slightly so I had no choice but to let them go from being bitten.
Then shockingly he raised them to his own lips and I sucked in a startled breath the second he placed the tips of my fingers against his mouth and kissed directly over where my own lips had not long been.
I swear he would have been able to taste me, as they were still wet from where my tongue had teased the end.
And what, in that moment, had the last two words from him been.
The sounds of a promise, for they were ones I had no power to stop from settling in my heart and holding on to the comfort of them like a lifeline,
A lifeline from a King of Death spoken…
“Until tomorrow.”