In the shelter

When the rain started to pour down, Lucas caught hold of Belle's hand and pulled her, making her run right behind him. The rain hadn't started slowly as after a few drops of water it felt as if buckets of water were being poured from the sky. He pulled her towards the closest shelter which was available as they had walked quite a distance from the mansion.

She couldn't see anything after seven to eight steps because of the force of the rain and she kept up with his footsteps and when they finally reached a small shelter like a cave, he let go of her hand and that part of her skin suddenly started turning cold with the atmosphere.

The rain continued, and the ground they were standing on filled itself with water. With both their clothes wet, Belle bent down, wringing the ends of her dress with her hands as it was soaking wet. She then stood up, looking at the trees that she could see and the rain that looked like it was not going to stop any time soon.

Belle's eyes then fell on Lucas whose hair had turned wet and that stuck to his forehead and the sides of his temple. The drops of water dripped down from the tips of his hair but that wasn't all. He had removed the coat to wring it just like she had been trying to remove excess water to watch in time how the white shirt now stuck to his body which only emphasized his muscles on his arms.

She had seen handsome men before during the time of balls and tea parties and all these years Belle had been looking at him as a butler. She saw him lean, place his coat which was part of the uniform on his shoulder and lean his head back before he used both his hands to push back the hair that was hindering his gaze slightly. His jawline was evident and sharp that followed down the neck which was wet.

Feeling her heart skip a beat, her breath turned slightly uneven and she looked away from him when she felt he would catch her looking at him.

She didn't know why but she felt something churn in her chest right now and her eyes kept darting here and there.

All these years, to Belle, Lucas was a guardian who made sure she was following her parents and his words when it came to how to behave or what to read or how to eat and talk to people. He was the cold butler who maids feared at the thought of him giving them more work until they would wither away like a flower. She knew it because that's how he had taught her and made her study.

The man barely smiled when there was no one around him or at the servants in the mansion. His smile reserved for Mr. and Mrs. Adams along with the guests with whom he had to be nice. He did smile at her but there were times he smiled at her sarcastically, taunting her to see if she could get the right answer as he expected her to give him. It was her butler, her cold-hearted butler...was he always this handsome? Belle wondered why she hadn't noticed this before. Was she blind to not notice it?

As if wanting to confirm, she turned her head casually that it didn't feel casual at all as it felt like her head had turned to a creaking door making her know that she was looking at him.

Lucas was weaving his fingers through his hair, combing it so that his hair would not come to fall down on his forehead and her heart skipped again.

She turned away quickly!

"What's the matter?" she heard Lucas ask her.

Act normal, Belle! she scolded herself. But what was normal? She asked herself.

Her heart didn't stop with a single flip. With the weather where it was raining and after seeing him like how she saw him right now, his voice only accentuated her heart and she could feel it beating loud making her chest ache slightly. Was she going to die?

"Nothing," she breathed the words which always brought suspicion in Lucas' sight. He walked around to stand in front of her which Belle wished he didn't.

"Your face is red. Did you catch a fever?" he asked her. Though vampires and humans were genetically different when compared to each other, along with the vampires who had a colder body temperature compared to humans and pureblooded vampires, vampires could still catch a fever or fall ill.

He placed his hand on top of her forehead. She took a step back from him to maintain some distance but that made it worse as she could see him more.

Her butler looked at her unamused by this action. Then again, he was always unamused, "It doesn't look like you have a temperature. Here," he said, taking the coat that was hanging on his shoulder, "Wear this," he said, putting it around her own shoulders. Strangely the coat was much warmer than she had expected.

"It's going to take a while for the rain to stop," she heard him speak, and when he looked back at her, she felt herself getting sucked into his eyes, "Mr. and Mrs. Adams is not going to be happy once they see that you have got drenched in the rain."

Belle would have given a thought about her mother looking at her disapprovingly once she would reach the mansion but there were other things that she was concerned with.

Her eyes moved everywhere until it finally saw Lucas before shifting her eyes somewhere else. It went for so long that Lucas had started to notice how she kept looking at him.

"Is there something you would like to say to me, Miss Belle?" he asked her. There was something she did notice about her butler. He didn't smile at her as often as he smiled at her parents. Was it because he didn't like her? It wouldn't have bothered her before but now that it did, she wondered why he didn't smile at her as often as he did with others. Even the guests received his smiles.

Without holding back, she asked, "Why don't you smile at me?"

Lucas looked back at her with his pitch-black eyes and his eyebrows that were slightly raised by default. The rain had somewhat pulled out hidden features that she had failed to take notice of, "Don't I smile at you?" Yes, when she made mistakes he did smile but it wasn't out of encouragement but it was as if he was looking down at her. There were times when Belle questioned if she was the mistress and he was the butler or if it was vice versa.

On hearing the sound of the rain start to slow down, Lucas turned away to look at the sky and then the forest, "We should head back," he announced and when the rain did stop, Belle followed Lucas but she took her time, letting Lucas take the lead and she followed a couple of steps behind him.

Belle's heart had not stopped thudding as she walked looking at Lucas back, some parts of his shirt sticking to his body while some were getting dried up in the wind that breezed through the forest.

She now understood why the girls and women who visited their mansion often liked to keep the butler around to speak to him. They would often find reasons to talk to him, inviting him to their mansions or to help them. It was because they were all attracted to him.

It wasn't that she was unaware of Lucas' popularity as he was a butler with exceptional skills when it came to his keen eyes and the way he completed work quicker than the rest of the house workers. Like many other butler's he had a polite speech.

But it was Lucas...and she chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes not averting from him.

When they finally did reach the mansion, she handed him his coat and she went straight up to her room without exchanging a single word to him. She now stood in front of the mirror, her cheeks pink and red along with her lips because of the wet cold weather outside where she had got drenched in the rain with Lucas.

It wasn't their first time to be outside together. Belle had grown up, looking up at him and she was still looking up at him. Once because of their height as she was short and another because Lucas was an excellent butler to look up to.

Changing her clothes, Belle climbed on her bed. Taking one pillow in her hand, she hugged it close to her body. She then picked up Mr. Fluffs who was still living with her. She smiled looking at the rabbit, one of the eyes which was replaced by Lucas when she was a young girl and a soft smile made to her lips.

She then sighed, "I don't know what is going on, Mr. Fluffs. I feel like my heart is beating for the very first time. This has never happened before," her cheeks still felt warm. Placing Mr. Fluffs back on the bed, and the pillow which was on her lap, she stepped down from the bed.

Walking towards the door, she opened it to find Lucas standing right in front of the door.