Dark Alpha (ALPHA 2) (15 page)

With Nicky he seemed to have broken every one of his own rules.

No closeness.

No questions.

But definitely no answers.

He sat up to swing his legs to the floor before standing up, his back turned towards Nicky as he crossed the room in long and determined strides. “I’m going to take a shower,” he rasped uncompromisingly. “Be here when I get back, don’t be here, it’s your decision.” He opened and then closed the bathroom door firmly behind him.

Lucien breathed out deeply as he leaned back against it, an unfamiliar and heavy weight pressing down on his chest.

The heavy weight of wondering what choice Nicky would make.

Would she leave or would she stay?

Chapter 9

The bedroom was empty when Lucien came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later wearing a dark green silk robe over his nakedness.

The dinner jacket lay neatly on the rumpled sheets.

Clearly telling him that Nicky had chosen to leave?

Wearing what, he had no idea—maybe one of his T-shirts and some sweats? It didn’t really matter what she was wearing, only that she had chosen to leave him.

Lucien sat down heavily on the side of the bed, head bent as he realized he shouldn’t really have expected anything else. He’d behaved like a bastard again. That ‘arrogant ass’ Nicky kept calling him.

Nicky, Nicky,
Nicky.

There
was
no other explanation; he really was totally obsessed with her.

Enough for him to know he would have to go after her. Again.

He lifted a hand to rub the tension from his throbbing temples, groaning his frustration as he ran that hand over his face before looking up.

Which was when he saw her.

Nicky.

Standing silhouetted in the open doorway of his bedroom, and dressed in one of the white formal shirts from his walk-in dressing room.

They stared at each other in silence for several seconds, brown eyes locked with green, the air between them crackling with a taut and yet thrilling tension.

Nicky forced herself to relax the tension from her shoulders, having already accepted that she was the one to blame for this last argument between them. That she was responsible for pushing Lucien into telling her to either go or stay.

She had asked him a personal question, when he had already made it very clear how he felt about anyone, including her, asking questions about his private life.

The sort of personal questions she wasn’t willing to answer about herself.

Knowing all of that, Nicky had chosen to stay.

She hadn’t
quite
been able to bring herself to sit in the bedroom and wait for Lucien to come out of the bathroom, though, and had instead taken one of the shirts from his walk-in closet—a room that was bigger than the whole of the sitting room in her tiny apartment—before going in search of another bathroom; she had needed a shower after their hot and heavy lovemaking.

Once she had showered she pulled on Lucien’s shirt, leaving the top two buttons unfastened for comfort. As neither of them had really eaten dinner, she had then gone to the kitchen to see if there was anything in Lucien’s fridge she could cook them both for dinner.

She found lots of ready-made meals in the freezer section of the American-style fridge—as evidence that Lucien did occasionally eat at home—choosing a couple of pasta meals and putting them in the oven before sitting down at the marble table to wait for Lucien to join her.

She had tensed expectantly when she finally heard Lucien turn off the shower, followed by the opening of the bathroom door five minutes later, and then—nothing.

Lucien hadn’t come out of his bedroom, or called out to her, there had just been that overwhelming silence.

In the end Nicky hadn’t been able to stand the tension a moment longer, standing up and padding on bare feet down the hallway to Lucien’s bedroom. She made as little noise as possible, very aware that he could simply have gone to bed and was now fast asleep, reinforcing his disinterest in her.

Not that she could exactly blame him, if that was the case. She really shouldn’t have attempted to step over the line Lucien had drawn between them and his private life.

The last thing she had expected to see, when she stepped quietly into the open doorway of Lucien’s bedroom, was him sitting on the side of the rumpled bed, wearing nothing but a dark green silk robe and an air of defeat, those muscled shoulders slumped, his hair more tousled than usual as he ran his hand over the grimness of his face.

Until he saw her standing in the doorway, and his eyes blazed with an unfathomable emotion.

He gave a shake of his head. “I thought you’d gone.”

She gave a rueful smile instead. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I wouldn’t have known how to get out of this fortress even if I’d wanted to.”

He quirked one dark brow. “Fortress?”

She shrugged. “The ivory tower on the tenth floor.”

He nodded, his gaze guarded. “Did you want to get out?”

“No,” Nicky answered him honestly; neither of them was comfortable talking about themselves, but surely they could at least give each other honesty on everything else. “Would you rather I had?”

She held her breath as she waited for Lucien to answer, wondering if he would reciprocate or if his defenses were now, and would forever remain, firmly in place. She didn’t hold out much hope for their already fragile relationship—or whatever this was—being able to continue if Lucien turned her away again now.

“No,” he finally answered her gruffly.

Nicky released her breath on a thankful sigh as the weight of uncertainty lifted from her chest; she didn’t want to say goodbye to Lucien—again—but neither could she keep banging her head against the brick wall of his defenses. Something had to give. On both sides. She had given by remaining, Lucien had now given by telling her that he hadn’t wanted her to leave.

It was a start.

“Would you like to come and eat dinner now?” she prompted lightly. “I found some pasta in the freezer, and garlic bread to go with it.”

“What I wa—what I would like,” he corrected dryly, “is for you to come over here and kiss me.” He met her gaze challengingly, as if he half expected Nicky to refuse.

As if
. Lucien hadn’t exactly said please this time, but he had corrected himself from saying ‘I
want
’.

Nicky walked lightly across the bedroom on her bare feet, the silk shirt a sensuous caress against her already sensitized flesh. A fact Lucien fully appreciated as his gaze locked on the plumpness of her roused nipples pressing against that silky material.

Instead of bending down to kiss him, Nicky dropped slowly onto her knees between his parted legs, hearing Lucien’s indrawn breath as she placed her hands on his muscled thighs. She rose up slightly and pressed her lips softly against his closed ones, relaxing into him completely as Lucien parted his lips with a throaty groan, his arms moving firmly about her as he deepened the kiss.

Deepened it and lengthened it, and yet somehow it wasn’t a sensual or demanding kiss. It was more a meeting, a giving, of two stubborn people who knew they had met their match, and were slowly coming to terms with that fact.

That impression was reinforced when Lucien finally broke the kiss to place his forehead lightly against hers. “I apologize for being an arrogant ass,” he murmured self-derisively.

“And I accept your apology for being an arrogant ass.” She nodded.

Lucien’s gaze continued to hold hers for several seconds before he smiled wryly. “Do you think we could go and eat now? I’m starving!”

Nicky laughed softly as she pushed down on his thighs to help her rise to her feet. “Yes, we can go and eat dinner now.” She held out her hand for him to take.

Lucien eyed that hand wryly for several seconds before his own hand moved to take hers, his fingers wrapping lightly about hers.

Nicky accepted the concession for exactly what it was; Lucien wasn’t a man who indulged in intimacy for intimacy’s sake, was a man who preferred to hold himself aloof from physically touching anyone, unless it was in a sexual way.

She felt a warm glow inside her as they walked the length of the hallway together and held hands, Lucien’s fingers just tight enough to prevent her from letting go.

It was enough.

For now.

Lucien had no idea how it happened, but when he glanced at the kitchen clock some time later he realized he had spent what was left of the evening sitting at the kitchen table with Nicky, with him dressed only in his robe, and Nicky wearing one of his shirts.

He had never spent an evening like it before.

He had taken out one of his favorite bottles of red wine to go with the pasta, and the two of them had talked as they ate and drank, discussing everything from the world’s current financial situation—a subject Nicky knew almost as well as he did—to the films they had both seen. Although Nicky had looked at Lucien askance when he had revealed that he had seen those films in his own private movie theatre here in the apartment.

At which time Lucien had dryly assured her that he didn’t have a single porn movie in his collection.

The only thing they didn’t discuss, as if by tacit agreement, was themselves, Nicky obviously no more eager to share than he was.

Which was surely unusual in a twenty-something woman?

Maybe instead of having Dair keep a protective eye on Nicky this past week, what Lucien should have done was instruct his cousin to investigate Nicky herself. It still wasn’t too late for him to do that—

No.

Lucien couldn’t do that; whether she realized or not, by not leaving earlier this evening when Lucien had give her the choice to do so, Nicky had placed her trust in him. To have Dair do a full investigation into her now, without her knowledge, would be a violation of that trust. A trust between the two of them that was already tenuous at best.

“Is it time to go to bed yet?” Lucien raised a dark, enquiring eyebrow at Nicky as she sat across the table from him looking sexy as hell; her nipples were like two small ripe strawberries pressing against the silky material. As evidence of her arousal? Lucien certainly hoped so.

After their frenzied lovemaking earlier, a thorough and more considerate lovemaking would appear to be long overdue.

“I thought you would never ask!” Nicky gave a husky laugh as she stood up and held out her hand to him.

Lucien gave her a sideways glance as the two of them walked down the hallway, hand in hand. This evening was a definite first for him; he really wasn’t the hand-holding type. But Nicky seemed to like it, so for the moment he would go along with it.

He quirked a brow. “You’re very keen on this being asked, aren’t you?”

She shot him an impish grin. “As keen as you are to tell people what to do rather than ask them if they would like to, yes. Good manners cost you nothing, Lucien,” she repeated softly.

He gave a snort. “Did your mother tell you that?”

The humor faded from her eyes. “I don’t remember.”

“How old were you when she died?”

“Young.”

Another nugget of personal information for Lucien to store away; and God knows, Nicky was as parsimonious as he was when it came to revealing personal details about herself.

“I’m sorry.” He grimaced.

She shrugged. “As you said, death is a part of life.”

“And maybe I’ve lived on my own for so long I’ve lost some of the finer nuances of...the social niceties?”

Nicky wasn’t about to ask, but she dearly wanted to know how long Lucien had lived alone here in his tenth floor eerie; she had grown up in London, and this building had been a bank when she left London so abruptly. So where had Lucien lived and worked before that time?

There were so many things she still wanted to know about Lucien, but remembering what had happened the last time she had asked, Nicky wasn’t about to do it again.

She had enjoyed the last couple of hours of just talking with Lucien, knew they were well matched in intelligence, the wide range of subjects in their conversation having proven that. She was very wary of damaging that by asking Lucien questions he obviously didn’t want to answer.

She eyed him teasingly instead. “Did you ever have any of the ‘social niceties’?”

Lucien’s lips twitched at the rebuke. “Probably not—maybe you could help me work on that?”

“Maybe I could.” Her own lips twitched with the same humor as they entered his bedroom, the bedside lamp still on to illuminate the rumpled sheets from earlier.

He gave a rueful grin as they came to a halt beside the bed. “Just don’t expect miracles, hmm?”

“Oh I won’t,” she assured him dryly as she reached out to unfasten the belt of his robe before parting the folds and baring his chest. “Now this,” she lowered her head to place butterfly kisses against his flesh. “This surely is a miracle,” the warmth of her breath brushed against his bared skin. “You’re beautiful, Lucien,” she groaned throatily. “These tattoos— No, I’m not going to ask you about them again,” she assured hastily as she felt Lucien tense beneath her fingertips. “I just want to look at them, touch them,” her fingers traced the black swirls even as she lowered her head once again. “Kiss them.”