Lucien POV
The moment the door closed, the restraint I carried all evening began to crack.
She felt it.
I saw it in the way she turned slowly in the foyer instead of walking toward the stairs. The soft lamplight caught the curve of her shoulder, the slit of her dress falling open as she shifted her weight. Her heels dangled from her fingers, abandoned sometime during the drive.
“You’re looking at me like you want to eat me,” she said quietly.
“Maybe that is because I am hungry and you look like a good dessert,” I replied.
Her breath deepened almost imperceptibly.
The house was silent. No staff. No interruption. Just the echo of space and the faint hum of distant night beyond the walls.
She took a step toward me.
“If I run now,” she murmured, recalling her earlier words, “would you
