Jean sighed. After tossing and turning for almost an hour, she was forced to accept she just wasn't going to be sleeping any time soon. Especially not without Lucien next to her. In the few short months they had been married, her entire body had become attuned to him and it felt like she couldn't remember a time she ever slept without his solid warmth beside her.

Sliding out of bed and slipping her slippers and robe on, she padded softly down the hallway and into Lucien's study. Leaning her hip against the door, she watched as her husband pace back and forth, rubbing anxiously at the back of his neck, stopping to think for a moment, and then shaking his head and resuming his pacing.

She smiled softly at his antics. He was one of a kind. And, she thought warmly, he's mine.

"Knock, knock."


He started at the sound of her voice, his face instantly breaking into a smile upon seeing her. He reached a hand out to her and she went to him, slipping effortlessly into his arms. "Couldn't sleep?"

Jean smiled ruefully. "No, my husband apparently found something more interesting than me to occupy his time with this evening, so I was left all alone. And I've grown rather used to having him next to me, so…"

Lucien looked down, abashed. "I'm sorry, love. This case is just," he let out a little huff of frustrations. "I just don't understand it."

Jean stood back and allowed her husband to resume his pacing, settling herself against his desk and crossing her arms over her chest. "What don't you understand?"

"Daniels—our murder victim–was found spread eagle on the bedroom floor, clearly strangled to death. Every inch of evidence points to his mistress as the perpetrator but he was killed with bare hands; Alice determined it from the post-mortem bruising patterns."

Jean nodded and pursed her lips, not following. "So why haven't you arrested the mistress? It sounds like she clearly did it."

Lucien nodded slowly, "Yes, but…"

"But?"

"Well, I just don't see how she could have done it."

Jean arched an eyebrow at him. "You mean to tell me you can't imagine a woman murdering a man? Because I can tell you, Lucien, it's crossed more than woman's mind."

Lucien huffed out a laugh and raised his hand in surrender, "No doubt about that." She smiled at him, knowingly, and let him continue. "I just mean strangling is intimate and requires quite a bit of strength. Why didn't Daniels just fight her off?"

Jean cocked her head to the side, thinking. "Poison?"

He waved her off, "No, toxicology was clean. And no alcohol either–well, not enough to make me think he couldn't have reasonable fought her off."

And then it came to Jean in a flash, the murder itself almost playing perfectly in her head. But this was perhaps her only chance at taking advantage of tactic so oft used by Lucien and she certainly wasn't going to waste it.

"Get on the floor, Lucien."

He turned an incredulous look upon her. "Pardon?"

Pushing herself up off the desk and shedding her robe and slippers, she repeated herself. "You heard me. Maybe you just need to reenact the moment? That's what you normally do, isn't it?"

Wondering what game his wife was playing, Lucien lowered himself to the floor in an approximation of how they had found the victim's body, spread-eagle.

Jean circled him, taking in, feeling suddenly mischievous and powerful. Here was her husband before her, at her mercy. He had left her alone in a big, empty bed in order to solve something that seemed so obvious to Jean. Well, this was her moment to take.

Lucien spoke from the floor, "Uh, Jean? Is there something you had planned? The floor is rather uncomfor–oof!"

In a heartbeat, Jean was straddling him, knee on either side of his hip. He looked up at her, shocked. "Jean!"

Settling herself over his body, Jean rolled her hips experimentally before leaning over him and wrapping her hands around his wrists, pinning him to the floor. Lucien shifted beneath her, but didn't struggle to break free. He simply raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for an explanation.

"Well, no alcohol, no drugs, and no restraints, right?" He nodded. "Well, do you know what a woman's other option is?" Lucien's brow furrowed, nose scrunching in thought. Finally, after a helpless look, Jean helped him out. She brushed his nose with hers and her lips ghosted over his.

"Seduction."

Jean slanted her lips over his and sucked his bottom lip gently, nipping at the soft flesh there before using her tongue to lave over the gentle bite. Beneath her, Lucien groaned and returned her kiss, hands instinctively reaching for any part of her that he could reach. Jean tightened her hands over his in warning and Lucien understood: don't move.

She broke the kiss and peppered kisses over his cheek, nose, and forehead. "I'm going to let go of your wrists now, but you're not going to move are you?"

Lucien shook his head obediently, "Not if you're going to stop."

She pressed a rewarding kiss to his lips. "That's right." Sliding down his body, Jean set to work licking and kissing at the skin of his neck. Lucien groaned and his hips twitched upwards. Jean felt his hardness press against her belly and she grinned against his neck, proud.

Deftly, her fingers set about unfastening each button of his shirt, pressing a kiss to each newly exposed patch of skin. In just a few short moments, his chest and abdomen were exposed to her and she set about touching him in all the places she had learned pleased him so well.

First, a kiss to each hardened nipple which resulted in chills spreading across his skin and out of the corner of her eye, she saw his hands briefly come up off the floor before curling into fists and falling back to the ground. She pressed a kiss to his sternum in reward and resumed her task.

With featherlight touches, she tweaked his nipples and Lucien moaned, hips bucking and she reveled in the sound of his gasped, throaty, "Jean!"

She hushed him, "Patience, patience."

Lucien continued to roll his hips, desperately seeking friction and the warmth of her body. "I don't have any more patience, love. Please. Please."

Jean shimmied up his body, nails digging into the skin of his chest and slotted her mouth over his. As she broke the kiss, she noted with pride that he chased her lips, eyes still closed and seeking her out.

No matter how many times they did this dance and sang this song, it thrilled her. He thrilled her. Beneath her hand, she felt his heart pounding wildly and she knew he needed her as badly as she needed him. The wetness between her legs was proof enough.

Sitting back on her heels, still straddling him, Jean's hands went to his trousers, slipping the button free and tugging the zipper down gently. She cupped him in her hand, the weight of him heavy and his heat searing.

Lucien's eyes were wild, his skin flushed, and his hips thrusting up into her hand. Her name was the only word he knew and he chanted it into the darkness. "Jean, Jean, please, Jean."

She continued stroking his cock, hand twisting with each upward stroke and running a hand over the head, sweeping the fluid leaking from the tip down and over his length.

"Fuck."

The curse surprised Jean. Lucien was not one to curse normally, but the out of place word seemed oddly appropriate for the moment and Jean savored the sinfulness of it.

Lucien panted, hands clenching and unclenching beside him. "Jean, please love, let me touch you."

She shook her head, the speed of her strokes increasing. "That wasn't the rule, sweetheart."

His head thrashed from side to side, lost in the pleasure of her touch. Jean took pride in this power, the ability to reduce this brilliant man to a babbling, incoherent mess.

"Love, I need to, I need to," he gasped out. "I need to be inside you, please."

Jean wholeheartedly agreed. As much enjoyment as she was getting out of teasing him this way, her own desires were mounting and she wanted her husband inside of her–where he belonged.

She pressed a kiss to his navel, his stomach jumping at the touch. "Yes, sweetheart." She let him go and pushed her nightgown up around her hips and slid over him. Jean reached behind her and grasped his erection, lining it up with her entrance and then she sank down onto him.

They both gasped and Jean fell forward, her hands going around his wrists. But it didn't matter, Lucien didn't need his hands to make love to his wife. He thrust up into her over and over again. Jean, for her part, rocked her hips in time with each thrust, pulling him deeper inside her.

Lucien was babbling incoherently in her ear and she caught every other word, too wrapped up in the building pleasure within her. "Yes, Lucien, yes, right there, right there."

She glanced at him and noted the way his eyes were screwed close and his lips wordlessly formed her name over and over again. The sight of her husband so lost in pleasure pushed her over the edge and she came around him, her walls clenching hard around his cock within her. Muffling her pleasure, she turned her head into his neck and bit down hard.

The wave of pain mixed with pleasure tipped Lucien over the edge, too, and he was spilling himself inside of her, calling her name.

She lay on top of him, his sweat-slicked skin soaking through the thin material of her nightgown. He was rapidly softening inside of her, still twitching.

"Can I touch you now, Jeannie?"

She laughed and released his wrists and he immediately wrapped his arms around her, hands splaying over her back before burying his fingers in her hair. "Not that I'm complaining, but what brought that on."

Lifting her head from his chest, she pressed a finger into the rapidly darkening bruise on his neck. "Did you even feel me do this?"

He shook his head, dazed. "No."

She grinned. "Exactly."

"I'm still not following."

Huffing and rolling her eyes, Jean pressed a kiss to his neck. "You, my love, are now dead. It's how your murderer distracted her victim."

Lucien whistled low in understanding before laughing and gathering her up firmly into his arms. "Oh love, you can kill me any time."