Scarred

Chapter 16: Visitor

Finally Michael closed his beautiful golden eyes, and gathered himself together. "As much as I desire to continue this, we must go. While keeping an unexpected guest waiting for some time is reasonable, we are quickly approaching the boundaries of acceptability and will soon risk giving offense."

She softly touched his cheek, not even registering that she'd chosen the scarred side of his face, until the flash of surprise and warmth in his eyes tipped her off. Maybe one day he won't be surprised anymore, and I hope it will be because he will forget to think about which side I'm touching, she half thought and half prayed to herself.

"I sure hope whoever it is has a good reason for popping in," she replied with a sigh of resignation. Somehow she doubted anyone would randomly visit Michael without a good reason.

He simply gave her a rueful smile before moving around to the driver's side. Moments later they were travelling across his property, one hand on the wheel, and one holding hers.

Thank goodness he asked Elijah to bring me clothes, she thought to herself, smoothing down the skirt of her dress with her free hand. It would have sucked royally to meet some stranger having to wear yesterday's clothes which probably need a good washing by now.

Lucienne had been more than a little surprised when Michael had brought her into the most amazingly huge closet she'd ever seen. She'd then been rendered speechless when she saw that half the closet was empty except for several items taken directly from her home. He'd explained that when he woke earlier this morning, he'd asked Elijah to pack her a selection of clothes so she would have something to change into. Of course she also suspected he was using it as an excuse to start moving her into his space.

And if anyone else had tried that with me, I think I probably would have blown up at them. With Michael, though, it felt fine. No, more than fine, it felt right. Probably because of the whole early bond thing. Of course it's not like he's not trying to force me to move in, though that thought isn't as scary as it probably should be. He was simply doing his best to see to my comfort, and let's be honest, I sure as hell want repeats of last night and this morning, so having some clothes around would be helpful.

She was very grateful and surprised about how thorough Elijah had been in his packing, too. She'd found the appropriate underthings and accessories for the outfits he'd brought over, and had been very pleasantly surprised to discover a bag with her makeup, deodorant, hair brush and flat iron. She just about could have kissed him when she saw all that, and she did kiss Michael to thank him for his thoughtfulness.

She smiled remembering how that had almost led to another round, and only the fact they had someone waiting on them put on the brakes. "Michael?" she asked, knowing she had his attention when he tilted his head toward her. "This person we're meeting, I'm assuming they're not human, but what are they?"

"No, they are not human, however we did not have time for me to teach you about them. With this race, even a partial explanation would place an expectation on you to follow certain rules with them. With full ignorance you gain... leeway for the time being, and are granted a grace period."

"And they would know if you gave me a partial explanation or do you think I'd give it away?" she asked, not able to keep a slight edge of anger from her tone.

He glanced at her, his face blank. "They can detect any kind of deception, no matter how skilled one may be at concealing information," he replied, an underlying coldness marring his tone, though he did not release her hand.

Lucienne thought back to her words and realized she'd implied he didn't trust her when everything he'd done to this point had proven the opposite. Not only that, but I just demonstrated that I didn't trust him, she realized and mentally slapped herself for her stupidity.