This was not the first time this had happened, kissing Lucien. But it was so very different this time. This was not the madness of the moment, her hunger for blood mixing with lust. This was not two people losing control of themselves amidst a mutual attraction.

No, this was a declaration of soulmates sealing their connection to each other. Jean had found a soulmate after a century and a half on this earth, and Lucien had not only accepted this fact between them but eagerly embraced it. Eagerly embraced her.

And he was eager. She could feel the fire of him in his kiss. That hadn't changed from last time. The way his lips moved over hers, the way his tongue surged into her mouth, the way his hands moved over her body. He wanted her. And she wanted him just as much. And now, knowing that they were soulmates, she knew why she wanted him, why this had felt so right. It still felt right.

They broke apart to gasp for great gulps of the midnight air. Lucien's face moved down to her neck, and she reveled in the sensation of his beard against her skin. The slight scratch of it mixed with the soft wetness of his lips and tongue over her tendons and sucking hard on her pulse point.

She had been clutching his shoulders, but she moved her hands up to his neck and to the back of his head, threading her fingers through his hair to keep him anchored to her. His own hands moved from where they'd been on her back down to her bum where he massaged her flesh through the thin fabric of her pajamas. Oh he'd done that last time. It was just as good now. Better, even, as Jean was more in her right mind than she'd been before.

But what was different was when Lucien slid his hands down further to lift her up into his arms. She gasped in surprise as he picked her up, and she instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist. Lucien lifted his head to look at her. They were both panting and smiling. Jean had one arm around his neck, and she brought her other hand to his cheek, tracing the line of his beard. "Soulmate," she whispered in awe.

His smile grew at that. "Soulmate," he murmured in confirmation. "And perhaps with that it goes without saying, but I do love you, Jean."

Her breath caught in her throat at that. No one had loved her in so long. So very long. But Lucien did. And she loved him in return. How could she not? He was her soulmate.

He leaned in to kiss her again, softly this time. "My darling, my love, my Jean," he breathed against her lips. "Let me love you, Jean."

She pulled back from his kiss and wrapped herself around him, hugging him tight and burying her face in his beautiful neck. She did love him. She loved him so much she could hardly find the words. And his earnest pleading to let him love her struck her too deeply. He had been asking her to let him love her since the moment he'd found her passed out in the surgery, half dead from lack of blood. Since the moment he asked the truth of her, he had been quietly asking for her trust, for her to allow him to know her and help her and protect her. Love her. And she had resisted, wanting so desperately to be smart and to protect her secrets and her life and her heart. Her poor lonely heart that had been unused for so long, she hardly knew how to love anymore. How to allow herself to be loved. But slowly, carefully, trustingly, she had allowed him in. She had confessed each one of her secrets to him. She had placed her life in his hands. She had already given him her very heart and soul. She had resisted, but she would do so no longer. And there in the moonlight, wrapped up in his arms, Jean let go of the last of her resistance. "I love you, Lucien," she murmured in his ear.

Lucien's arms tightened their grip around her body, indicating his joy at her response. She looked at him once more to find him grinning in unadulterated joy. She could not help but laugh in shared delight. The both of them laughed and kissed and continued on that way even as Lucien carried her into the house and through the various rooms they shared until they ended up in his bedroom with the door closed behind them, shutting out the rest of the world.

He sat on the end of his bed with Jean in his lap. It was all very familiar and yet joyously new. Jean readjusted herself to straddle him, her knees resting on the mattress on either side of his hips. This had worked extremely well for them before, and she thought a repeat might do them good.

Their kiss renewed, and their smiles and giggles of joys soon turned to hungry passion. Jean could feel Lucien get hard beneath where her hips gyrated against him. His hands wandered her body again, this time up her pajama top. Those enormous hands of his could completely encircle her waist, and the feel of his touch on her bare skin gave Jean that feeling of wild freedom once more. She wanted. She wanted so, so much. She wanted to fall into oblivion with him. She wanted to remain in his arms for eternity. She wanted him to never stop kissing her. She wanted to touch and taste every inch of his body. She wanted to know what it was to feel him moving inside her. She wanted, wanted, wanted.

Jean's own hands got to work. He had already removed his waistcoat and tie at the end of the day, leaving him in just his shirt and vest. Her fingers rapidly worked the buttons and jerked his shirttails from his trousers as they continued their hungry kisses. She was glad he wore a belt today, rather than braces. Much easier.

Lucien removed his hands from her body and pulled back from their kiss to help her take his shirt off. She had seen him without his shirt many times. The number of healing bite marks all over his arms were evidence of that. But Jean was not satisfied to just have him out of his shirt. She then sat back on his muscular thighs as she pulled his vest up over his head. And for the first time, Jean glimpsed the full expanse of his bare chest.

He was utterly incredible. Muscular and golden and the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Jean was a shapeshifter, but it was Lucien who had managed to find the perfect appearance. She could not resist trailing her hands down his body, feeling the hardness of his pectorals and the softness of the blond hairs peppering his chest and the way he hissed with arousal as her fingernails grazed over his nipples.

After her eyes got their fill of him, she looked back up at his dear face. He had been watching her, and he was panting. His eyes were dark with desire, making Jean shiver with desire of her own.

It was Lucien's turn, then, to bare Jean to him. His hands were much bigger than hers, but they were elegant and steady; he was a surgeon and a musician, and he had more dexterity than one might imagine from a man his size. The buttons were all undone before she knew it. He pushed the fabric off her shoulders, leaving her upper half as bare as his. As she had been ready for bed, Jean wore nothing beneath her pajama top. Her breasts reacted to the cool air, though the had already been aching for his touch for quite some time now.

Those magnificently large hands of his started at her waist and traced up the curve of her, over her ribcage, and moved to the front of her body to cup her breasts. She arched into his touch. He was seeking what would bring her pleasure, experimenting with the way he gently squeezed her and traced her curves. Soon Jean could resist him no longer. She pulled him back in to kiss her. Her tongue surged into his mouth. Her hips began grinding against him once more.

Lucien pulled out of the kiss far too soon, however. He tilted his head, baring his thick, muscular neck to her. There were no marks to mar his gorgeous flesh; it had been many weeks now since she bit him there, plenty of time for the bite marks to heal.

"Feed, my darling," he offered.

Jean was surprised. She had not anticipated biting him. She certainly did not need to feed. In fact, it was a hunger in a deeper part of herself that begged for satisfaction now.

But Lucien had offered. He wanted her to bite him, to sink her fangs into his neck and drink his blood. His kindness and desire to give her all she could want or need was perhaps unsurprising, given the new circumstances in which they found themselves now.

"No," she said. He looked at her with surprise. But she smiled and gently pushed his shoulders so he fell back onto the bed. Jean leaned over him. "I don't want your blood right now, Lucien. I only want you." And with that, she pressed her bare chest against his and kissed him once more.