Chapter 24 The Roque and the Mouse

"Come down from there, little mouse." He spoke in the careful tone a person uses when struggling not to become a madman.

"I do not think that would be a good idea. You appear very annoyed."

"Annoyed doesn't begin to describe it. Down. Now."

"I think it would be best if you calmed yourself first."

"I am quite calm. I will be even calmer after I get my hands on you. I will not regret the things I'll do with you little mouse. People around you indulged and spoiled you and you think that you needn't obey anyone. I am giving you the punishment they should have dealt you years ago. After that I will be calmer than I have been in days. Get down here quickly and it may not go too badly for you."

The discomfort of her current situation suddenly didn't seem so bad. "You have no authority to abuse me thus."

"Little mouse, you forget your situation. I am the Lucifer Morningstar. I have all the rights and authority to do whatever I wish with you, for the last time, climb down that tree."

She glared at him. Her situation was ridiculous, but his threats were intolerable. "Fine. Turn away. I won't have you watching me and looking at my almost naked self."

With an expression of profound exasperation, he turned away. She waited a short while before saying, "I can't."

He turned and narrowed his eyes dangerously, "What do you mean?"

"I am stuck. I can't get down."

"Of course you can, you little witch. You got up there, you can get down."

"Don't be stupid. It doesn't always work that way and you know it. Even animals get stuck. In fact, I cannot even get myself off this branch."

"Like hell. Climb down that damn tree or I will come and get you."

"Really, Mr. Morningstar. Spoiled or not, I am a Lady. Your language - "

"My language?"

"See? You are not the least bit calm. And you should not come up to help me, gallant though the offer is. Look at this branch. It is not very strong it barely took my weight."

He studied the limbs with grudging recognition that she was right, "I think that you should go and find help," she suggested. "I might be able to manage if I had a rope to hold on to."

"You insult me, Jasmine. I do not have to be a philosopher to see what you are up to. When I leave here, it will be with you slung over my saddle, woman."

"If you are going to be unreasonable and stubborn, we have a serious problem, Lucifer. I suppose we are going to stay here until we starve? That is a very clever solution." He glared up at her. She half expected his fury to give him wings so that he could fly and get her. He stomped over to a nearby tree and sank down to sit on its shade. He stretched out and made himself comfortable.

He plans to wait her out. Well she had a very strong incentive to beat him at that game. They stayed thus a long, silent while, Jasmine dangling on her high branch while her wet clothes dried, Lucifer sitting below and glowering up at her.

"Who are you meeting?" he finally asked. He sounded a bit less furious. "You came to meet someone. Who? Benedict Cumberbatch?"

"Benedict is in New York. I planned to meet no one."

"That is a lie. The last in a whole series. You are well practiced in deception. I will have to remember that in the future."

She began to refute him, but stopped herself for one thing, there was no point in arguing. For another, she was well practiced in deception.

"You look quite lovely up there. Like some wood nymph. But it must be uncomfortable, since you are practically naked..."

She really could do without him noticing that. "It is indeed not pleasant. It is unkind of you to get help or a rope."

He didn't answer. He simply rested his head against the tree and closed his eyes. Taking a nap was out of the question for Jasmine, and she was left to wait out the long minutes shifting and trying to find some relief.

Every moment felt like an hour. The sun had moved quite a bit when he looked up at her again. His expression seemed calmer, even normal. "Are you ready to come down now?"

"If I could do it, I would have long ago. I truly cannot move from here."

He rose and walked around, studying her predicament. "Perhaps you speak the truth the closest branch is some distance away, and turning on that one could be treacherous."

"That is what I have been trying to tell you."

"I don't think that you will be going anywhere. I will ride back and fetch some help and a rope."

"I suggested that over an hour ago."

"Don't move too much. That branch is bending in a dangerous way from your weight."

"Your concern touches me."

"I will be back shortly. Do not fall."

She followed the sounds of his departure through the bush, and then the movements of his horse trotting away. She forced herself to count to one to hundred before raising one stiff leg and swinging it over the perch. Just moving felt wonderful. She rolled carefully onto her stomach and lowered herself while her feet failed to find the next branch. When she connected with it, she let out a little laugh of triumph and quickly eased her way back down the tree.

Quickly, she picked her way upriver to the spot where Lucifer hid her knapsack. She knelt beside the fallen tree and felt beneath it. Nothing. She pushed her arm in farther, and then leaned low to look.

"Searching for this?"

She froze for one despairing moment, then straightened up on her knees. Lucifer stood twenty feet away holding her knapsack in one and her sodden bundle of change of clothes in the other. He let the sack drop to his feet and threw the wet lump toward her.

He leaned casually against a tree and folded his arms over his chest. He had seemed unfazed by her state of [almost] nakedness while he sat in the tree, but now his gaze blatantly drifted down her body.

"You said you were leaving," she mumbled accusingly. She jumped up and picked up the tied bundle of change clothes and fussed nervously at the knot. The water had tightened it into a nub of stone.

He didn't respond. He just stood there watching her in that silent, dangerous way. There wasn't much anger in his expression, but she decided that she would prefer fury to what else she saw. Her fingers clawed desperately at the knot to get to her change of clothes, and she blinked hard against the expectant fear suddenly pulsing through her.

"You are really very beautiful," he said, as if he had just discovered the cure for aids.

She sucked in her breath and kept her eyes safely on the knot. Her heart pounded a little harder. "For one so puny and scrawny, I am passable."

"Not so scrawny. Diminutive and delicate, as the great lords prefer," she glanced over and saw his vague smile as he threw her own words back at her, just as she had done to him. The air between them was getting very heavy, and despite his relaxed and distant stance, something predatory emanated from him. That dark gaze did not move from her.

She turned her attention back to the knot and sought some distraction in her efforts with it. The silence pulsed with his awareness of her. She sensed that he knew he was frightening her. "I want you," he said, calmly giving a name to the terrifying power invisibly reaching toward her.

"Am I supposed to be flattered? Am I supposed to swoon with delight that the handsome business tycoon, Lucifer Morningstar favors me? Your attention has been spread so wide and thin that it has never crossed my mind, you Satan incarnate."

"Considering your situation, little mouse, it would be unwise to provoke me right now."

The threat stunned her. She became acutely aware of their isolation, of their distance from their site and the tall trees, from everyone and everything. A silent, slow, primitive rhythm beat between them.

"You look perfect out here, with the flowers and grass around your legs," he said. "Much more becoming than being surrounded by books and pile of papers. For all of your learning and logic, this suits you. Your mind may have been trained into neat garden beds, but your core spirit is still wild as the growth here."

"You are wrong," she said still being her defiant self. Her skin felt unusually alert to the sun, the breeze, his gaze. Frightening that just his presence could be so confusing to make her helpless.

"Take off your shirt, Jasmine."

Her breathing stopped. She stood motionless, rigid. She grasped the little bundle as through it were all that stood between her and perdition.

Mottled blotches of sunlight fell through the trees, picking out the darkness of his hair. His face held a serious expression, and those eyes looked out from beneath their long lashes. He was so beautiful. No wonder women are head over heels for him.

"Take them off Jasmine," he repeated. "Let down your hair and come here."

"You do not even really want me. You are just annoyed that I deny you." She retorted. He smiled in his devastatingly way. It softened his expression, but not the intensity of his attention. "It is not that simple. I do not know why I want you so much. It is rare." He continued toward her. Lithe. Strong. Confident.

Lucifer looked at her standing with her back to him. She quickly plied at the knot on her knapsack. He walked over, drawing out his Swiss knife, and she visibly shook as he neared. He stood behind her and reached around and cut through the knot, his hands covering hers for a moment. His surrounding arms dominating her small form, and he caught a faint scent of vanilla.

The knapsack opened and her change of clothes fell out. "It is wet," he said looking at the lovely nape of her neck.

"It will have to do," she muttered, snatching it up and shaking it out. Jasmine reminded herself to invest in more pricey waterproof knapsacks in the future; she needed to save lots of money for that to happen though.

"You will not put it on Jasmine. And you will remove that bloody shirt."

She clutched the garment to her body. He touched her hair, his fingers gently prying for the ponytail that bound it. Her whole body trembled and a blush ran up her neck.

"I want you," he said again.

"Do you always take what you want?"

"Usually. Eventually. I am not well practiced in denial." He stepped closer and pressed his mouth at the crown of her caramel colored hair. He could not see her face but he knew that she had closed her eyes in resistance. Hopeless, of course, but he admired the strength that made her worth pursuing.

Resistance is all Jasmine had and after finding the last resort to get the slimy bastard off her by kicking his groin, Lucifer did something she didn't expect in a million lifetime.

He covered her wet body with a picnic blanket. She looked up to him, a puzzled look on her face in which he expected after all Lucifer Morningstar is known as a pompous rake who would take any girl anytime. But apparently not with Jasmine Matthews.

"I know what's going on that pretty little mind so let me clear it for you," he said exhaling a heavy sigh then continued, "honestly, I can have you right here right now but if I wanted to make you properly mine it will not be in a random place at any time. I want to tie you up and hide you from the world and make you mine and mine alone in every way possible but I won't do that."

Jasmine opened her mouth to rebuke his statement but immediately closes it when she can't think a rational insult for him.

"I don't want just your body. I want your heart too so..."

"Of all the possible clichés out there you choose picnic. Really?"

"Exactly." He muttered trying his most charming smile.

A/N: Thank you for all the support.. Happy holidays dearest readers!!! Do not forget... READ, VOTE, SHARE AND COMMENT TO YOUR HEART'S CONTENT!!!!