Baby, Entertain Me

Princess Seraphine was seventeen years old and convinced she was in love.

She'd met Lucien at a party she wasn't supposed to be at. Some pseudo-trendy affair filled with neon lights and young people in bizarre outfits. Getting drunk, getting high, getting anything they could. Her mother would have killed her if she'd know where Sera was that night.

Lucien was a musician. A singer, to be exact, and it was his voice that attracted her first. Smokey and sultry and entirely amused. She would have followed that voice anywhere, especially since it was attached to those piercing blue eyes and that delectable body. He pulled her onto the dance floor and ran his hands over her and spoke into her ear and even though she couldn't make out the words over the music she felt flush and lightheaded the whole night.



In the back of the club, they found a shadowed, sheltered corner to hide in. The flashing lights from the party made shifting patterns of ambient light that played over their skin, made the entire encounter feel even more surreal. He pressed her up against the wall and kissed her with a touch so hot and yet so sweet that it made Sera gasp.

She wanted more of him. She pressed her body against him and encouraged him to take more, to take anything he wanted Alcohol had made her reckless and she didn't care in the least, especially not as his hands slid up her thigh and under her skirt. His mouth was doing the most marvelous things on hers, driving her wild with his tongue. She whimpered, but the sound of it was swallowed up by the noise from the party.

His hands were everywhere under her clothes and she squirmed and shifted, trying to present more of herself to his touch. She wrapped her legs around his waist and ran her fingers through his hair, not pulling him in so much as hanging on for dear life as his mouth wandered lower on her neck. She was drowning in his touches, in kisses, in desire and fire. Struggling to keep her head clear and tempted to let go entirely.

"Please," she whispered.

"Please what?"

"I...I don't know. Just- Oh, god, please. I want-"

He didn't give her the chance to say what she wanted but cut off her words with a hard kiss. "When you're ready," he promised.



He made her come to see him; he would never go to see her. She could hardly blame him; the home she shared with her mother wasn't quite the Versailles palace, but it was intimidating none the less. Sera started making a regular habit of ducking out unseen to go to him. She would visit in him in his tiny, one-room flat and they would talk, sometimes all night long.

She loved his voice. She would have listened to him talk about nonsense and been perfectly happy. But his favorite subject to talk about was her. She let him feed her ego with compliments and together they laughed about the secret of their meetings.

He said they had to be secret. She was too important and he was too unknown. Someday, he always promised. Someday when he'd made it big. When he had some clout to offer to her family, some reason for the royal family to accept him instead of bury him. Then they could tell people.



"Lucien." They were laying on a blanket on his floor since the bed was too small for them both. Sera crawled on top of him, straddled his hips and leaned over so her long hair made a curtain around them. "I'm ready."

He laughed and framed her face with both hands. "You're not, angel."

"But I am," she insisted. "I am, really." She turned her head to kiss his palm and then sat up again. "I'll show you I'm ready."

Sera pulled off her shirt and tossed it off to the side, followed shortly after by her bra, but Lucien just chuckled and caught her hands, tugging her down to lay against him. He kissed her soundly and she all but melted against his chest. "My angel doesn't want to live up to her name?"

"'Seraphim' means 'fiery one,'" she pointed out. "Do you want me to show you?"

"So much, angel," he whispered, and Sera could hear the truth of that in his voice. "But not yet."

"Why not?"

"You aren't ready."

"I've had men before," she pouted.

"Ah, but not like me."



When her mother found out about Lucien, the fight that ensued was legendary. Sera had snuck out to see his band play at a seedy little dive bar a few towns over and, impatient with the progress of Lucien's career, she'd tipped off a freelance photographer about her location. As expected, photos of her at the bar had made it into the gossip rags, all of the stories dutifully mentioning the name of Lucien's band.

Unfortunately, the photographer had also managed to catch her and Lucien in back of the bar, with her skirt hiked up to her waist and his tongue in her mouth. Their secret was out a little sooner than expected.

Sera's mother, the Princess Élodie, second daughter of the king of France, was considered to be eccentric but those eccentricities did not extend to the dating habits of her daughter. Falling in love with an artist was all well and good, practically a family tradition in fact, but any man who would sneak around with a girl, who would hedge his relationship with said girl on his material worth, was a dangerous catch at best. He would use her, Élodie warned.

Sera would hear none of it, convinced her mother was just hung up on Lucien's low birth. She could not be persuaded to drop the relationship or even simply to take more caution. With her patience worn thin, Élodie forbade Sera from seeing Lucien at all. She didn't know what else to do.

While Sera seethed under house arrest, Lucien was offered a solo act at a prominent local club.



"I would have come sooner," Sera gasped, pulling away from the kiss just enough to speak. "I couldn't get out of the house."

"Shhh." He held one finger to her lips and kissed her cheek. "It doesn't matter. You're here now."

They were just inside his door; he'd practically attacked her as soon as she'd shown up. He pulled her further into the room and peppered her face with kisses, pulled her into a tight hug.

"I don't care what they say," she insisted, curling her fingers into his shirt. "I don't care, I don't care, I don't care. I just want to stay here, please."

"As long as you want," he promised. He kept tugging on her, heading for the corner where his bed was, and she dutifully followed.

"I'm sorry I messed everything up," she said, hiding her face in his chest.

"Hush, angel." He made her look up at him with two fingers under her chin and kissed her softly. "You did nothing wrong."

They reached the bed and Lucien pushed her gently down to it, shifting around to keep his mouth on hers the whole way.

"Lucien-"

"You're ready."

The two simple words took her breath away and she was too stunned to react much as he shifted his kisses to her neck, then to her chest. Ready. He'd been denying her for weeks, inciting passion and desire in her only to pull away at the end, but now he'd declared her ready. Ready to take him. To be taken by him. Ready for both. She'd been ready since she'd met him.

She shifted back until she was laying on the center of the bed, pulling him after her, unwilling to give up the feel of his weight on top of her. His quick, clever fingers undid the line of buttons down the front of her summery dress and his mouth followed, kissing each new inch of exposed skin. Undressing her felt like it took a lifetime as she squirmed under his mouth, gasped at the feel of his teeth when he nipped her. When all the buttons were undone and she lay exposed before him, she was already wet and panting and breathlessly begging him to take her.

But that didn't stop him. He drove her mad with his mouth, kissing her until it felt like her skin would catch fire. Kissing her in places she'd never imagined could be sensual. Until she wasn't sure she could tell the difference between her fingers and feet, because every inch of her body felt like it was throbbing, wound up in a desire to be touched by him.

Sera wrapped her arms around him and tugged on his shirt, desperate to have it gone, to have more of his skin to touch. He lost his clothes far quicker than she'd lost hers and she was so caught up in trying to touch him, in trying to taste him and consume him, that it was almost a shock when she felt his erection pressed up between her legs. She gasped and dug her fingers into his shoulders, but he just rubbed his length against her without entering.

"Oh god. Luc, oh god, oh please."

"Tell me," he whispered, his beautiful voice filling her mind. "Tell me how much you want it."

"So much," she moaned, her hips pressing up against his, eager to feel him inside her. "So...so much it hurts...please. Please, Luc. I- I can't..."

He slipped inside her and she gasped, tossing her head back on the bed. It was more delicious than she would have thought possible. He moved in her and over and around her and it was all Sera could do to simply hang on. She was drowning again and trying desperately not to, but his powerful thrusts were robbing her of her senses. Her whole world became centered on his lips and his skin and the motion of his hips.

Lucien picked up the pace, faster and faster, until he was pounding into her harder than she would have thought possible. Again and again. She wanted to scream but she couldn't breathe. She wanted to moan but she could only gasp. She wanted to beg but she didn't know what for. Her hands scrambled over his back, pulled on his body though she didn't know to what purpose. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him in deeper and her chest heaved as she tried to breath and her head thrashed from side to side as she tried to hang onto her sanity.

"Let go, angel," he whispered.

"Wha..."

"Let go. I've got you."

The warmth of his words and his breath on her ear finally undid her and she couldn't have resisted him even if she'd wanted to. She surrendered to him, let the sensations crash through her and overwhelm her. Everything except his body and the fire he'd ignited in her melted away, everything except his hands on her skin and his limbs tangled in hers and his lips on her ear as he whispered words she couldn't understand.

The high when she came was so unexpectedly intense that she couldn't even scream, could only gasp his name as she seized around him. The pleasure faded slowly, leaving her clinging to him and gasping for breath. He was still going, and she was relieved when he finished a few moments later. She didn't have the energy to go through that again. She could barely find it in her to scoot over enough to let him lay down next to her.

He gathered her up in his arms and she went willingly, resting her forehead in the crook of his neck, her heart still pounding erratically. She'd never in life experienced anything close to that, and such a realization was enough to convince her. She kissed his throat gently and whispered, "I love you."

Lucien's arms tightened around her and after a moment's hesitation he laughed, a sound of pure, simple happiness. He rolled over on top of her to begin kissing her all over again.



Sera couldn't get enough of him. She spent days at a time hiding in his apartment, away from her mother and the screaming fights that inevitably followed. But she always felt that, whatever the aftermath, it was worth it to spend night after night with her lover, giving up her body to him and waking up next to him.

Eventually the fights with her mother faded, though only because they were both too worn out to continue. Sera was no longer forbidden from seeing Lucien, but she kept the relationship out of the media's eye as much as possible. Being with him was good enough; she didn't need to flaunt her defiance in front of her family as well. The whole world knew about it anyway.

Lucien bounced from one gig to the next, building his reputation as a talented singer. Building his savings account as well. Soon enough he was able to move into a nicer apartment, and Sera helped him christen every room in it.

She couldn't get enough of him, couldn't ever stop wanting the way he made her feel. Even as he tried to expand her sexual experience beyond just the vanilla love-making. She took everything he had and wanted more.



She loved him. She loved him when he blindfolded her and went down on her until she screamed. She loved him when he bit her and she loved him when he kissed her and she loved him when he twisted her nipples until she gasped in pain and she loved him when he licked them afterward until she writhed in pleasure.

Tonight she loved him when he tied her arms behind her back with her own bra and bent her over the counter in his kitchen. She loved him when he ground his hips against her bum and she begged him for more when he kissed a line down her neck and over her shoulder. She struggled against her bonds, but that just excited them both.

"Poor little angel," he murmured against her ear.

"Not an angel," she gasped. "Oh, god, fuck me. Please, Luc, fuck me."

He laughed as his hands ran down her back until he could grab her ass. "You're right, that didn't sound very angelic."

She pressed backward into his hands and moaned, her forehead resting against the cool surface of the counter. "Don't care." She tried to stand up again, but he pushed her torso down to the counter with one hand, keeping her pinned firmly in place. She was mad with desire already from the way he'd slowly stripped her, and being denied the chance to touch him nearly made her dizzy with the need to do just that.

But then his fingers, his so very clever fingers, were between her legs and she couldn't think of anything else. He brought her to the brink only to back off, again and again, until she was aching for him and the pain felt so good.

When she thought she couldn't stand it anymore, he stopped teasing her and she nearly wept with pleasure as he finally began fucking her. He was rough and unyielding, pounding into her hard enough to make her cross-eyed, trapping her between pain and ecstasy until she couldn't tell which was which. Until she welcomed both and begged for more, begged him to fuck her harder, until she was screaming and she didn't know why.

She came with such a force that her legs gave out and he had to hold her up to keep going.



Lucien had a rival. He was not the only star swiftly rising in the music industry, and where normal people would welcome competition, he saw her as a threat. A young woman named Emilee. They both were uncontracted, they both flirted with the same labels, they both vied for the same venues, and Lucien hated her with a passion.

For a while he spoke of nothing else. He was moody and temperamental and could not be persuaded to give up his crusade against the other woman. Sera tried to tempt and tease him back into a good mood whenever he turned sour, but her results were spotty at best. As often as he used to speak about her, he now spoke about Emilee, ranting and raving instead of complimenting.

Sera couldn't stand it. She hated the competition for Lucien's attention. It almost would have been easier if he'd been having an affair with someone she could have confronted directly, but there was really no accusation she could hurl at Emilee, who had done nothing wrong.

She began sending out very carefully worded letters to her friends. The sons and daughters of political figures who ended up in the social pages, the A-list celebrities who had curried royal favor. She fed them lies and enlisted their help and slowly, here and there, things began to change. Thinly veiled insults directed at Emilee cropped up in publicity comments and on the internet. Her shows were notably devoid of any celebrity attendees. Public opinion, which had been in her favor, shifted away. Suddenly she was a hack, a talentless pretender.

The label Emilee had been courting turned her down and offered a deal to Lucien instead. Sera helped him celebrate and kept his attention on her for the entire night.



They were laying naked on the floor. He had an enormous bed now, but they rarely ever used it, and she found she didn't really mind. Sitting on top of him was far more comfortable anyway. Her body still bore the marks from their last session and some of them stung slightly, but she put that out of her mind as she rested her head against his chest and let her fingers stroke over his skin.

"The release party for my first album comes out tomorrow," he said, making his chest rumble pleasantly.

"I know."

"You still haven't said if you're coming or not."

She picked her head up and looked at him, slight pain in her eyes. "I want to, darling, but..."

"But your family would disapprove."

Sera reached up and stroked his face. "They just don't understand," she told him gently. "I still love you, though. Even if they never approve, it wouldn't stop me from being with you."

"Just from being with me in public."

"Lucien..."

"No, angel, it's okay. I understand."



Sera went to the party. What was supposed to be a modest affair for a relatively new artist quickly became a three-ring circus as major publications suddenly wanted to cover the event. Socialites who had planned on staying in that night pulled out their Saturday-night-best and arrived late. Camera crews hurried to set up so they could cover the red carpet. Security guards went nuts trying to cover everything.

And every camera was trained on Lucien and Sera. He kept her hand on his arm the whole night, tugging her along as he talked to people, networked, preened for the media, and paid attention to her not at all. She smiled because she was supposed to.

His debut album sold 200,000 copies in the first week. He booked his first television appearance for the second week.



Lucien had her formal skirts hitched up and his hands on her thighs, urging them to part. They were in the Duchess of Guise's Paris home, avoiding the Duchess' party, the fourth such la noblesse function that Lucien had been invited to as her escort. The fourth one he'd dragged her out of.

She knew what would happen. He would take her like he always did, would muss her hair and rip her dress and make her moan no matter how quiet she tried to be. They'd step out and back to the party and everyone would know what had happened. Her grandfather would look disappointed, or her aunt, the Dauphine, if the king was not in attendance. The whispers would start, the snide comments, the slight snubs, until she would beg off early and flee. And then Lucien would take her home, would drive her crazy all over again, would try and make her forget there was anything in the world besides him. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

She'd known all this even before allowing him to drag her away. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and threw her head back as his lips found her neck, but already she was picturing her grandfather's expression. She hated to disappoint him.

Lucien tugged at the fasteners on the back of her dress and she winced as she heard one of them rip. Her maid had extras, but she had no idea how she'd get back to the dressing room with a gown that didn't close.

He didn't stop, though. He tugged the dress down until her breasts were exposed and for a moment it didn't matter that her outfit was ruined because his hands were on her, pinching and pulling and petting in a rhythm with his tongue.

She wanted to slip away with him. She wanted to go back to that moment in his old, tiny apartment when she couldn't feel herself anymore, could just feel both of them together. She wanted him to whisper 'let go, I've got you' but he never whispered to her anymore.

"Lucien, stop."

"Why?"

"I can't. I can't tonight. Please, let's just go back to the party."

He put his hands under her crumpled skirts and pulled at her thigh-high stockings until he could reach her skin. She shuddered at the contact and her attempts to pull his hands off her were weak at best. "But we're not done here."

"Lucien..." He let his fingers drift a little higher and her breath caught in her throat. "We can do this when we get home."

"Or we can do it here and there."

Just the thought made Sera excited and exhausted at once.

"But-"

"Don't deny me, angel," he said, his voice heavy with lust. "God, you're so gorgeous tonight. I'll go mad if I can't have you."

"You can," she said, her thoughts getting fuzzy as he fingers pushed inside her. "Just...um..."

"Don't you love me, Sera?" he asked, his lips brushing against her ear and his body pressing hers against the wall.

"I do, but-"

"Don't you want to be with me?"

His hand was driving her mindless. She knew this was wrong, so very, very wrong, but she couldn't make herself stop. Her fingers were curled into his formal jacket and she thought, 'This time. Maybe this time he'll love me again.'



Three weeks after the Duchess' party, it was all over. Lucien received an offer from a major label in Baton Rouge, where the world-wide music industry had its seat. Hundreds of millions of francs, the life of an A-list star, and all he had to do was leave France. He did so without a second thought, and with barely a word to Sera before he was gone.



Sera sobbed into her grandfather's shoulder, pouring out the whole sordid story in bits and pieces when she could. He held her gently and stroked her hair and tried to calm her down, but it was no use, he had to simply wait until she had cried herself out.

When she finally stopped and could sit in her own chair, Philippe handed her a box of Kleenex and she tried ineffectually to wipe the tears off her face. "He never loved me at all," she realized, her voice carrying a world of pain.

"He may have," the king suggested. "At the beginning. But he was still using you. It's better for you that he left when he did, before you could be convinced to do something even more drastic."

"More drastic than what?" she asked, confusion stopping her tears for the moment.

"Don't try and fool me, dearest. I know you were helping his career along the whole time you were seeing him."

Sera bristled at the entirely too accurate accusation. "So what if I was? I loved him. There's nothing wrong with helping the people you love."

"My dear Sera." Philippe pushed the hair out of her face and gave her an infuriatingly understanding look. "There's nothing wrong with it, but you used your position as my granddaughter in ways you never should have with this man, and you let him manipulate you into doing it."

"I let..." She jerked back from his touch. "Are you saying this is all my fault?"

"Not all. But you're a princess of the blood, and you have to be more careful. Others besides this boy will try to use you and you mustn't let them."

"I won't," she said softly. "I won't ever do that again."

"Good. I can't step in you help you out ever time."

"You?" She looked up at him, shocked. "But...but he left for that contract..."

"Yes, and I had to pay Jacques quite a lot to get him to take the boy on. He'll end up going much farther than his talent would have taken him without you."

"You sent him to Louisiana?"

"Of course. I had to protect our family."

Sera thought she was all out of tears, but fresh ones well up anyway. Betrayed by the man she loved and now also by the grandfather she adored. "Why? Why would you do that to me? How could you?"

"Sera, angel-"

"Don't call me that!"

"Sera-"

"No! Don't talk to me! I hate you!"

She fled the room and King Philippe was left alone with his box of Kleenex and his guilty conscience. He'd done what was right, even if she didn't see that right now. "She'll come around. Eventually."