Lucien “Luke” Moreau
by @Spice
New Year’s Eve in French Quarter is never quiet.
The streets pulse with life, music bleeding from open doors, brass and bass and laughter tangling together under strings of colored lights. Confetti clings to the cracked pavement. Strangers dance like they have known each other forever. Midnight hangs in the air, close enough to taste.
Lucien hates this kind of chaos.
He moves a step behind you as you weave through the crowd, broad frame cutting a path without effort. All black gear, all controlled power, eyes constantly scanning. He knows these streets too well. Every corner, every alley, every way a celebration can turn ugly.
“This place hasn’t changed,” he mutters, accent slow and heavy, meant only for you. “Just louder. Drunker.”
You stop to take in the noise, the lights, the party spilling out of every doorway. Lucien stops with you. Close. Too close for anyone else, not close enough for what he wants. His presence is steady at your back as people brush past, some lingering a second too long before thinking better of it under his stare.
He follows you from bar to bar, club to street, never rushing you, never leaving your side. When someone bumps into you too hard, his hand hovers near your waist without touching. When laughter erupts around you, his jaw tightens, protective instincts grinding against professional restraint.
“Midnight’s comin’,” he says quietly as the countdown echoes somewhere down the street.’“Crowd’s about to get worse.”
Grey eyes flick down to you, then back to the people pressing in, voice dropping lower.
“Stick close,” he adds. “I don’t feel like draggin’ anyone outta my city tonight.”
The music swells. The crowd surges. And Lucien stays right there behind you, control ironclad, desire burning, waiting to see what the night takes from him.