I wanted to protest when we reached check-in, the unfailingly chic woman behind the counter allocating us our room with a grace and poise I would’ve loved to possess just a little of. The porter was ushered forward with a hand gesture from us, and then we were taken up via the elevator.
“The penthouse suite,” Lucien said when the porter asked what floor we were on. The man’s eyes widened slightly, but he punched in the number and up we went. We were escorted to our door, Lucien dismissing the man with a tip before opening the door into the most beautiful hotel room I’d ever seen.
The thing with Australia architecture was it was largely modern. It might be beautifully austere, but few buildings had the kind of decorative finishes that this did. It had white walls and doors, but there were gilt accents everywhere, creating decorative little finials on the panels of the doors or frames on the walls, rich dove grey carpet so thick you could feel your feet sinking into it, elegant furniture that looked too nice to actually use, then… I followed Lucien past a sitting-dining room, into the bedroom, and then wandered past him into the bathroom.
“Lucien…”
How the hell was I having a freaking moment over a bathroom? There I was, staring at the black, gold, and white marble tiles on the walls, the clawfoot bath, and then as I turned, a view of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées from the huge windows. I stepped forward with a hand out, as if touching it might make a difference, make it more real, but it didn’t. The glass was cold to the touch, and Lucien, he was warm, so warm, as he stepped in behind me.
“So what do you think, Sage?”
He pulled my hair away from my neck, making me shiver as I stared and stared.
“What do I think?” My voice had a slightly hysterical edge to it. “It’s beautiful, far too beautiful.”
“Well, we’ll be able to soak that all in later, but now?” He pulled the curtain closed, laughing when I strained to see past them, until he turned me around to face him. “I dunno about you, but I feel crusty, grimy, and am desperate to have a shower. That’s an experience that could only get better if you were in there with me.
I consulted the elaborate shower recess, with gold taps and an old-fashioned showerhead, and then nodded, feeling like my hair lay lank on my shoulders right now.
“Oh god, yes please.”
56
When I saw him emerge from his clothes, muscular and hard for me, I thought I knew how this would go, but Lucien stripped me bare and then washed every inch of me, even my hair, until I was blissfully clean. When I turned to do the same to him, starting with his cock, he stopped me.
“I want you to,” he told me. “I’ll always want you to. I feel like a fucking teenager, getting hard from a stiff wind, but not right now.” He pushed the soap into my hands. “This isn’t about getting you away from my brothers to rut into a fancy arse bed in Paris.”
“Then what is this?” I asked yet again, an edge to my voice.
“Right now, its comfort. I feel grotty as fuck and need to get clean. Nothing would make me feel better than you doing that for me.”
I paused, frowned slightly, waiting for the gotcha moment, but it didn’t come. Instead, Lucien let out a weary sigh I could completely empathise with. With sex taken off the table, exhaustion shouldered forward very insistently. We were doing this arse around. He’d come on strong, horny, and hot when we first met, but this? What was more intimate than this? He let me get closer, smoothing the soap over his body, revealing every inch of it to my gaze, like the small scars all guys seem to sport, the big ones too, even the ones inside him as those hazel eyes stared into mine. I washed and washed, forcing him to lean down so I could do his hair, until finally, the last of the plane trip was washed away and there was only us.
Just Lucien and just Sage crawled between the crisp sheets of the massive bed and stared out of the window at the twinkling view of the City of Light we were afforded from the massive window.
“I’m not going to tell you what we’re doing tomorrow,” he said, pressing an apologetic kiss to the back of my neck, “but I will say this.” My focus sharpened right then, and he chuckled in acknowledgement of that. “We’ll always be bossy and domineering, but if we do it right, you’ll like the end result. That’s what tomorrow is—an attempt to do something for you that you’ll appreciate, despite being forced to put yourself in someone else’s hands for once.”
I didn’t question him, even though I bloody wanted to, thinking that the strange bed, strange city, and strange man would keep my mind sharp and awake for hours, but it didn’t. There was something about the weight of Lucien then. It was the press of a lover, not a hook-up, his body warm, familiar, and comforting, that had my breaths coming in slower and slower. I knew he could turn me to putty with his volcanic touch, but discovering this, a sweetness, a trust? I found I liked it very much as I fell asleep.
Just as Iwas drawn into sleep by his presence, sometime the next morning, I was brought back to wakefulness by it.
“Sage…”
My name was uttered in a low rasp, then lips were brushed against mine, reminding me that I had them.
“Sage, baby…”
More kisses came, slow and sweet, all over my skin. My hand was picked up and each finger kissed, then he grabbed hold of it and kissed his way up my arm. Warm blankets were pulled away, my nipples becoming tight beads from the cold as much from what he was doing.
“Lucien?”
Somehow, I knew it was him, and when my eyes flicked open, there he was, crouching over me and smiling.
“I’m sorry, love. I wanted to leave you in bed as long as possible, but Master Henri will be waiting for us.”
“Who’s Master Henri?” I asked, my brain coming online abruptly. Lucien smiled slowly, as if he knew this would happen all along. “Lucien?”
“Come and have something to eat. I got—”