Chapter 47: The 101 Of Carnal Client Retention

Three hours later, Lucien finally steps out of the room, leaving most of the brothel splayed across beds and couches behind him. Tails draped over armrests, ears twitching in their sleep, one particularly spirited fox-kin still murmuring his name into a pillow.

He’s glistening with sweat, hair a disaster, chest still heaving, and thoroughly pleased with himself as he sucks down a bottle of stamina tonic like it’s a job well done.

Serenith hovers outside the door, tapping one foot against empty air, glaring daggers into his skull.

"The foot-tapping works better," he says, tossing the empty bottle into a nearby bin, "when your feet are actually touching something. Bit wasted on a woman who floats."

"It’s been three hours." She snarls. "All you’ve done is bang beast-folk into oblivion. How exactly does that secure a trade route, or help the world’s balance... in, anyway?!"

"Patience, feathers." he replies. "Building interest, drawing in clients, laying the groundwork for lasting business relationships. It takes time." He stretches, then smirks. "And hard work."

"The only relationships you’ve been building are carnal."

"For an angel," he says, grinning, "you have a lot to learn about business."

"I am older than most civilizations. I understand mortals perfectly well."

"Not one like me, angelcake." He gives her the smirk, the knowing one, and she goes red and turns to leave. Only to stop dead three feet later as the front desk bunny-kin appears, practically glowing, straightening her posture and failing entirely to hide her toothy smile.

"Careful," Serenith mutters under her breath, eyeing the woman’s ears, still faintly quivering. "That one looks like she hasn’t slept."

"Nobody sleeps here," Lucien says cheerfully. "That’s rather the point of the establishment. Now focus, this will be your first lesson in marketing and public relation, watch." Lucien says, shooting Serenith a look so smug it could probably be classified as a war crime.

She opens her mouth, but he lifts a single finger, and she bites her tongue with a huff so hard her halo hobbles.

"Thank you for being such a wonderful patron." The bunny-kin says, bowing deeply. "Our coffers, and our women, have never been happier." She straightens. "The owner of the establishment would love to meet you, if you would be so kind as to lend her a moment of your time."

Serenith gasps in open disbelief as Lucien’s smile widens even further.

"That sounds wonderful, perfect actually." he mutters, as if it was something he had planned for yesterday already. "But I’m still busy. Just taking a quick break. A few more lessons with the ladies and I should have something more... solid, to work with."

The woman’s eyes edges towards Lucien’s crotch, before she flushes, makes a small undignified sound in her throat, and bows again, smiling far too wide. "O-Of course. As you wish. I’ll inform my Madam."

She turns to go, and Lucien clears his throat. "I couldn’t help but notice, despite the impressive variety... there were no bunny-kin, among the women on offer today."

Her ears shoot up.

She flushes completely crimson from her toes to the top of her ears.

"A-A-Apologies," she stammers, "We don’t currently employ any b-b-bunny-kin talent."

"A pity." He sighs, theatrical, deeply wounded. "I’d heard rumors about the stamina of your kind. Your enthusiasm. Sounded like it might actually rival mine." Her gaze finds eyes. "I was hoping to... challenge the theory."

She bites her lip, eyes gone dreamy, ears slowly drooping down her head.

He turns the smolder up another notch.

"Since you’re a bunny-kin yourself... you wouldn’t happen to know anyone up to the challenge?"

Her mouth opens, closes, opens again.

Nothing comes out but a small, strangled squeak between desperate breaths.

"No pressure..." he adds, entirely unhelpfully, entirely on purpose. "Purely hypothetical. Strictly for research purposes. I would hate to—"

She doesn’t let him finish.

She grabs his hand and hauls him straight through the door with a strength that seems entirely unlikely for a member of her species, and he shoots Serenith one last grin before vanishing over the threshold, leaving her standing there, mouth open.

"I-Impossible." she mutters, "That’s impossible. He has no magic, no enchantments, nothing. I checked, twice, very thoroughly." Her eyes dart between the ledger on the floor and the room where Lucien had just been pulled into. "So... how in the holy hell is he pulling this off.

A deep, guttural moan answers the question for her.

Her eyes go wide.

And, curiosity winning over caution the way it always seems to where Lucien is concerned, she finds herself edging toward the door anyway.

What she finds inside has her biting her lip and pressing her thighs together without meaning to.

Lucien was pinning the bunny-kin against the wall.

Slow. Deep. Deliberate.

His fingers dragging down her spine like he’s memorizing the shape of it by the inch.

Every thrust is measured, precise, entirely too sensual for a man who was balls-deep in several kinds of beast-kin twenty minutes ago.

Her legs have long since given up holding her weight, wrapped instead around his waist, ears pinned flat, cheek pressed to his shoulder as she rides out every deep, deadly drag of his hips. He murmurs something against her neck that robs the breath from her body, praise and encouragement, whispered in the same smooth, fluid motion as the thrusts hitting her thighs.

Her tail twitches violently as she shudders through her orgasm, forcing her to bite down on her own ear in an attempt to muffle a scream.

Serenith’s fingers move on their own.

Sliding between her legs before she’s even registered the thought.

Her mind goes hazy, the whole world narrowing down to Lucien’s breathing, his low, broken groans, the movement to hips, and she sinks lower and lower until she’s flat on the floor beside the doorframe, head gently resting against the wood, biting back her own moan as her legs quiver, wings drooping loose against the floorboards behind her.

The bunny-kin lets out a slow, dwindly, wrecked cry, and Lucien holds her through it, hips slowing to something almost tender, murmuring praise into her ear until her whole body goes slack in his arms.

He eases her down gently, settling into the pillows, and she slides bonelessly to the velvet with a dazed, blissful smile.

Somewhere in the back of the bunny-kin’s mind, a small, exasperated part of her insists this is still surveillance. Due diligence. All for the Madam’s benefit.

The rest of her isn’t listening, as Lucien had already flipped her over and was driving her face into the velvet, and his entirety into her. Her brain and body hopelessly trying to keep up with the rhythm of his thrusts, breath hitching when he nudges a little too far.

Lucien’s gaze flicks to the door for half a second.

He grins, smug and wordless, and turns his full attention back to the vibrating bunny-kin.

"Ready to challenge that theory?" he croons into her back, "Don’t disappoint me now."

She answers him with a series of small, indignified squeals as Lucien turns up the intensity far higher and far faster than she was physically, or mentally, prepared for.