His Absolute Proposal: An Illicit Billionaire Love Story (Elise, #3)

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Foreword

His Absolute Proposal

A Note from Cerys

Sample (Sequel)

Sample (Concurrent)

Sample (Sweet)

Sample (Dark)

Other Writing by Cerys du Lys

About the Author

Afterwords

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O
ther books in the
Elise's Love Story
series:

His Absolute Assignment

His Absolute Betrayal

Books in the
Jessika's Love Story
series, the concurrent series that follows alongside this one, involving Elise and Lucent's side of the story:

His Absolute Arrangement

His Absolute Insistence

His Absolute Authority

W
hen I went to sleep, all my dreams came true.

I didn't know how to explain it other than that.  To be honest, sometimes I felt a little obsessive.  Was obsession good or bad?  Lots of people called it lots of things, so I didn't know if there really was a one-size-fits-all approach to anyone's obsessive nature, but...

Mine was somewhat strange.  I knew this, I understood it, but I felt like there was nothing I could do about it.  Or, at least there wasn't anything I wanted to do about it.

When I went to sleep, all of that changed, though.  I didn't need to worry.  I didn't need to consider what someone else might think.  It was just me here, myself, all alone.  Sort of, at least; somewhat.

I fully realized that I couldn't actually spend every waking minute with Lucent.  Maybe I couldn't spend every waking minute with him, but we could spend every sleeping one together, right?  That wasn't wrong, or bad, or insane, it was just how it was.

Do you know that feeling?  The feeling of waking up and realizing that in your dreams you fell in love?  And it's so wonderful and magical and miraculous, like it's the best feeling you've ever known.

That's how I felt a lot of the time. That's what I felt in my dreams, and that's how I felt when I woke up.  I loved Lucent so much.  What was strange and special about these particular feelings is that he was mine, too.  When I woke up, I didn't have to satisfy myself with a lost love, a dream remembered.  It was more.  When I woke up, I fell in love with him again.  And again.  Over and over.  For the tenth time, the hundredth time, the thousandth time...

I never wanted to stop.  Loving someone should be enough, right?  That's how life was.  You fall in love with someone and you love them.  I didn't want that.  I wanted more.  I knew this was strange, borderline obsessive.  Maybe it wasn't even borderline; maybe it actually was obsessive, or beyond it.

Lucent was my driving passion, my compulsion and delusion, my manic infatuation... my
raison d'etre
.

I fully realized this sounded strange and out of the ordinary.  To literally proclaim him as my
raison d'etre
, my reason for being?  Maybe people would think that's a bad thing, too, like I relied on him for everything.

I didn't.

Yes, Lucent was my absolute obsession, but I was his, too.  It was mutual.  I knew this was impossible to really say, because how do you know?  What if he was lying to me?  What if he didn't love me as much as he said he did, or what if I somehow loved him more than he loved me?

How do you know, Elise?  I asked myself this same question sometimes, but the answer never really mattered, nor did it bother me.  I didn't need to ask myself how I knew, because I just knew.  We would always love each other the exact same amount, no more and no less, and that amount of love was nearly incomprehensible to me.  It was too much, and yet somehow it seemed like it'd never be enough, too.

When I first met Lucent, we talked once about names.  We talked about how he preferred to call me Miss Tanner, because he thought a person's first name should be special.  If you said it too much, it lost its uniqueness and its special appreciation.  Because of this, when Lucent said my first name, when he called me Elise, I knew for an absolute fact that I was special to him, someone to be savored, yearned for, and desired.

My name is Elise Tanner.  Miss Tanner, to Lucent.  Elise to most others.  My first name means "God is my oath" and I've always thought it was special because of that, like maybe someone was looking after me, looking over me.  You know?  I could fully admit that I wasn't exactly the most religious of people, but I liked to believe that there was...
something
.

I didn't know what, but
something
.  Something special about the world, about life, about all of us.  Something that made each and every one of us unique.  Maybe it was always as simple as my name, and the meaning behind it.

"Elise" means "God is my oath."

But also...

"Lucent" means "Shining light."

That was what we were.  That was why he was so special to me.  It was more than that, too complicated to really explain.  It sounds simplistic and ordinary when described like this, but sometimes it's the simple things that count, you know?  Sometimes we didn't need a lot of words, we just needed a few.

I was Lucent's oath, a promise, kept, an order and a command.  I was his
something
, special and unique.

And Lucent was my shining light, vibrant and bright, illuminating, showing me the strength of the sun while intensifying the darkness of the shadows.  He was my
something
, my light and my shadow.

When I was awake, I knew that we couldn't spend every waking moment with one another.  It was impossible, not feasible, improbable, and unlikely.  I wanted it, though.  I desired it so bad.  Not for any reason, but just to be near him.  Even if we never spoke, even if we did nothing important and said nothing to one another, just being in his presence comforted me, whether he was at my side, across the room, or coming to meet me soon.

When I was asleep, though...

When I was asleep, he was mine.  Always and forever.  Near, not far.  We were inseparable, no matter what.  People said that sometimes, but I never really knew if they meant it or not.  A wife became her husband's other half, or she became his.  Was it true?  Did they each believe that?

I didn't know about anyone else.  I only knew about myself.

I believed it when I was asleep, but I believed it even more when I was awake, especially when I woke up in Lucent's arms, him holding me tight.

Don't let me go, Lucent.  I loved to watch him when he slept, as if I could stare into his soul and see everything about him.  Please, don't let me go.

I loved him.  I wanted him.  I lusted for him.  I needed him.

I wanted to know everything about him.  That's why it hurt so much when he withheld things from me.  It... it made me doubt.  Not just him, but me.  It made me wonder if my obsession—my love—was wrong, if I was doing something wrong, if I was being someone wrong.

Lucent and I did so many things together that I'd never thought of doing before.  He tied me up and he spanked me.  He dripped hot wax over my oil-covered body, painting pictures on my smooth, shining skin.

He fucked me.  Hard.  And he made love to me with gentle tenderness.  He shoved his thick erection into my tight sex until he filled me with his seed, all while holding my hands above my head, pinning me to the bed with his strength and his body, refusing to let me resist him.  And then he gave me a sliver of control, letting me ride atop him, letting me explore his body while we were fitted tightly together, him inside of me, us, as one.

He gave me his true self, and all he asked for in return was me, my true self.  I wanted that.  I wanted us to have that, now and always.  I wanted it forever.

I loved him so much.  It hurt to even try and think of feeling any other way.

I
awoke in Lucent's arms, cuddled close to his body.  It was a little uncomfortable laying the way we were, but I liked it a lot, too.  I was laying on him, draped across his prone, sleeping self, and he was beneath me, acting as my cushion.  I had my head on his shoulder, lips parted and pressed against his slightly scruffy cheek.  I liked to feel the little prickles, just before he shaved.  It reminded me of his BDSM things sometimes; which might sound odd, but I didn't think it was.  A spanking is a little bit of pain, right?  Except... what came after spanking?  Usually it was very nice... deviously delicious and sinfully erotic in the nicest of ways.

And this was the same, but different.  Yes, his unshaven face tickled and pricked at my skin, and especially my lips when I kissed him directly, but it was a promise of something to come, wicked and sweet.

Prickles led to a kiss, and kisses led to...

I kissed Lucent lightly and savored the feeling of our bodies like this.  I'd been dreaming before that, and in my dream I was in love.  I was always in love, but this was a new love, and now I was in love again.  Again and more.  With him.

"I love you," I said, whispering into his ear and kissing his earlobe.  I teased my tongue out, starting at the bottom, then tracing a line along the outer edge of his ear, then back around.

Lucent moved beneath me, my slumbering, shining light.  He breathed in deep, then settled back down, falling into rest once again.

I just wanted to kiss him, so I did.  And I wanted to lick him, too, so I did that.  I scratched my tongue across the slight prickles of his cheek and his face.  It wasn't a lot, just a day or two's growth, but I liked it.  Just not more than this, though.  I didn't want Lucent to grow a beard or anything.

Why, I wondered, were we wearing clothes?  Also, why were we on the couch?  Sometimes we fell asleep like this at his apartment or mine, and we woke up in the middle of the night and headed to bed.  That was fun.  I liked it because usually it led to half-awake sex, which was possibly the best sex ever.  It was difficult, though, which made it interesting.  Both people needed to remain half-awake for it to work best, because then it was very straightforward and primal.  I couldn't exactly think of a good way to explain it besides that, but when I talked with Lucent about it later, he agreed.

When we were both barely awake, there was an odd rush of instinctive urgency to it.  Neither of us lasted long, and it was like we were driven by our bodies instead of our thoughts.  There wasn't foreplay or ramping up, because everything was already laid out, right there in the open.  His cock felt harder, almost forceful and needy in its greedy assumptions.  And I was slick and wet for him without even thinking about it.

I didn't really know how this worked, but it worked well.  It was like a midnight quickie, where he thrust hard into me, barely a care or a thought in the world, and I was much the same, accepting his cock with unconscious lust.  Orgasms like that were so intense and strong, but restfully satisfying, too.  I barely remembered it when it happened, but when we both woke up in the morning it all came back to us, and...

Well, right now, I was awake, so this wouldn't quite work, but Lucent was definitely asleep.  We were laying on the couch, which made this a little difficult, though.  I just wanted to see it, you know?  I wanted to see his unconscious urgency, his forced erection, his greedy cock shooting forth his cum in wild, reckless abandon, hoping to cast his seed into a fertile womb.

Maybe that was a weird thing to think, but Jessika and Asher were trying to have a baby, and it just made me wonder about the "what ifs," you know?  What if Lucent and I had a baby, too?  This wouldn't quite work, because I was on the birth control shot, but it was still exciting to think about.

I wanted to see what it was like.