Knight and Stay (9 page)

Sophie's heart thumped hard against her breastbone. She slowly became aware that her fingernails were embedded in his shoulders, and she loosened her grip to soothe the deep gouges she'd left there. His hands moved from supporting her bottom to cradling her close in his arms as he eased out of her. 

"Let's take a shower," he said hoarsely, smoothing her hair.

Sophie kissed the hollow at the base of his neck as he kicked his clothes off his ankles.  A shower sounded good, but it involved moving and she wanted to stay pinned between the door and his body forever. Lucien's mouth roved over her hair, half kissing her, half sighing with sexual fulfilment. He carried her into the bathroom, every inch the Viking sex god as he kicked the door open and switched the shower on and stepped inside.

Warm water sluiced over Sophie's shoulders as Lucien placed her gently on her feet and pulled the glass door shut on the huge shower enclosure. She turned her face up to the spray and let it slick her hair into ropes down her back as Lucien filled his hands with soap from the dispenser on the wall.

"Turn around," he breathed, after a drenched, lingering kiss. Sophie sighed and turned her back to him, her hands resting on the steamed up glass wall. She moaned lightly when his hands came to rest on her shoulders, and she tipped her head forward to rest on the glass as he massaged the creamy lather into her skin.

"I like my rules better than yours," he said, and Sophie could feel his erection resting against the base of her back as he ran the fragrant bubbles over her arms. She arched involuntarily as his fingers swept down her spine, then leaned back against him when he wrapped himself around her, one hand splayed on her stomach, the other cupping her cheek. He had her completely relaxed, and she turned her face into his palm and sighed.

"I like your rules too," she admitted.

He helped himself to more soap, then covered her breasts with his warm hands.

"You feel even better wet."

He shifted behind her a little so his cock slipped between her thighs as he rolled her nipples in his fingers. She rocked her hips, enjoying the slide of his erection between her legs.

"You too," she murmured, sighing at the delicious friction. When he reached for yet more soap, Sophie had a pretty good idea of where he was headed.

"Open your legs."

Sophie hooked one foot behind his calf as he held her steady between the glass wall and his body. She was hot, and drenched, and pressed her cheek to the glass as he fingered her slowly. Thoroughly. His mouth against her ear murmured incoherent words. Slow drags of his teeth against her skin. She turned her head into his open-mouthed kiss, warm droplets cascading over their faces as his tongue laced with hers. She wanted more, needed everything he had to give. Every slide of his cock against her entrance had her moaning for it to be the time he pushed himself inside her. Slide. Push. Slide.
Please push.
Lucien groaned into her mouth, then stopped making her wait any longer with one long, deep thrust.

"Oh God..." Sophie moaned. "Oh... so good..." She could barely string two words together. The sensations were too big, and building with every slow, decisive stroke of Lucien's cock. He played with her clitoris, his other hand on her face, his fingers moving restlessly over her jaw, in her mouth. His breathing in her ear kicked up a notch, and his thrusting hips told her he was as close as she was to coming. She started to tremble, and Lucien held her up as the exquisite sensation of being on the brink became almost too much to stand.

"So fucking beautiful..." Lucien's murmured endearment tipped her over the edge, dragging a yell of release from her body as she burst for him, over him, around him.

He held her hips steady as he thrust himself into her, only one word on his lips over and over as his body spasmed.

"Princess."

Chapter Thirteen

Wrapped up in the oversized white bathrobe a little while later, Sophie curled herself into the corner of the huge sofa. The remnants of a sumptuous buffet delivered by a nearby restaurant were spread over the glass coffee table in front of her, and Lucien, dressed only in low slung, faded jeans, crossed to sit alongside her with a newly opened bottle of champagne and two glasses.

"So. Here we are again, Ms. Black."

Sophie accepted the glass and tasted chilled bubbles. She knew what he meant. Here we are again, colleagues
and
lovers. Except this time she wasn't - technically - cheating, and her estranged husband wasn't hiding his other woman behind a smokescreen of late meetings and business trips. How very grown up of them all to be so frank. But it didn't feel entirely grown up. As she came down from her endorphin high, Sophie acknowledged that it still felt dreadfully messed up.

Lucien touched his glass to Sophie's.

"To Paris."

The smile that curved her lips must have looked as lacklustre as it felt.

"Tell me what's going on in that head of yours." Lucien relaxed back onto the sofa, his champagne glass in his hand, his gaze on Sophie.

She screwed up her nose, not even sure that she could put into words the cauldron of emotions that churned in her gut. She added a mouthful of champagne to the mix and lifted a shoulder in a half shrug.

"I don't know... I feel weird." In truth, weird didn't come close to describing how she felt.

"Weird how?"

Sophie sighed heavily. "I feel guilty." She saw the incredulous look cross his face and shook her head to stop him jumping in. "I know what you're going to say. Dan lives with his mistress now. I'm not doing anything wrong. And maybe I'm not, in here," she touched her fingers against her head. "But in here..." she touched her heart. "In here, he's still my husband. We were together for too long to move on just like that."

Lucien frowned into his champagne glass.

"Does he deserve your loyalty?"

"No. But he has it anyway." She held out her glass for a refill. The champagne was definitely helping to loosen her tongue, if nothing else. "Loving him is a hard habit to break."

She unfurled her legs, and Lucien refilled their glasses then pulled her feet into his lap.

"One you need to kick."

Sophie watched him idly massage her anklebone as he drank his champagne. He was utterly beautiful and absolutely right, but he had no clue how it felt to separate from the person you'd always imagined you'd grow old with.

"It's easier said than done though, you know?"

Lucien's mouth twisted. "I don't, actually. I don't know, and I don't want to."

Sophie shook her head. He'd made his dim opinion of marriage crystal clear before now, but it seemed so at odds with the fire and passion she glimpsed when they had sex. Day to day he was all confidence and cockiness, but get him naked and every now and then he revealed a tantalising glimpse of the emotional man behind.

"Has it never occurred to you that you might be missing out?"

He laughed lightly, trailing his fingers up to her knee and back down again.

"No. Seducing other men's wives has worked out pretty well for me so far."

Sophie shook her head. "I'm being serious, Lucien."

He placed his glass down and twisted his body towards her.

"Okay. I'll be serious." He placed his hands on her knees. "I don't like marriage. Never have, never will." He leaned forward to drop a kiss onto her kneecap.

"I don't believe in true love, or Valentine’s Day… or fairies at the bottom of the garden." He kissed her other kneecap, and Sophie held completely still as she watched him. However distracting his accompanying actions were, his words offered a rare insight into the real Lucien Knight and she wanted him to keep talking.

"I'm a here and now man." He put his hands over her knees and splayed them wide, making her gasp and almost spill her champagne in shock. The edges of her robe just about covered her modesty, but only just.

"Drink your champagne," Lucien murmured, his hands already thigh high. When he raised his eyes to Sophie's, she saw that predatory, sexual edge back in them that turned her brain into wanton mush. She wanted him to keep talking, but now she wanted him to keep touching her as well, so she drank her champagne, slow and deliberate, and he inclined his head in approval.

"Why does everything have to be so serious, Sophie?" His fingers strayed higher, closer to the edge of her robe. "Isn't it better to just enjoy what you have, without trying to hold onto it, or control it, or twist it?"

"You make it sound so simple," she said, and he tugged on the belt of her robe. She felt it give way, along with her ability to focus on the insights she craved, as he continued speaking. And touching.

"It
is
simple, if you let it be." Lucien reached out and spread her robe open, baring her body to his waiting, appreciative eyes. Sophie fought the instinct to close the material, or her eyes, or her legs. Lucien wanted to look at her, and she wanted him to look.

"Drink your champagne," he said again, and topped up her glass once she'd obeyed his order. 

"Isn't this better?" he asked, moving up the sofa to sit between her spread legs. "Isn't there something refreshingly honest about saying 'I want sex with you now, but that doesn't mean I'm going to want sex with you for the rest of my life’?'

Sophie tried to consider the question, but she was absurdly turned on by her nakedness and his constant switching between conversational and sexual modes. He reached out and played with her nipples, flicking them upwards with his thumbs.

"I love your tits."

"I thought you never used the L word."

He raised his eyes to her amused ones. "Fine. I love your tits
right now
," he corrected himself. "I love how they're tinged pink because you're blushing, and how your nipples are as stiff as pebbles because you're turned on." He cupped her breasts as he spoke, circling her nipples with his thumbs. "I might not love them next week, or next month, or next year, but here and now? Hell yeah. I fucking love your tits."

He moved up again, close enough for his denim-clad thigh to press between her legs as he leaned in to draw one of her nipples into his mouth. Sophie's free hand moved to stroke the back of his head, and he flicked his eyes up to hers.

"What else do you love right now?" she asked, and he laughed under his breath and switched his attentions to her other breast. Tight spirals of lust knotted in her groin as she watched the wet tip of his tongue trail around her nipple.

"Right now, I love how warm your body is." He held her lightly around the waist and dipped his head to kiss her navel, then slid back up her body until his mouth was a breath from hers. "And I really, really love knowing that right now, you're desperate for me to touch you here." He brushed his hand lightly between her legs as he spoke, then closed the space between their bodies and kissed her. Sophie's mouth opened under his, letting his tongue slide in as the barely-there drift of his warm fingers readied her tantalisingly for his definite touch.

"You know what else I really love right now, princess?" he said, lifting his mouth from hers to look into her eyes. "Knowing that no matter what old-hat crap is going on in here..." he tapped his fingers over her heart, "the rest of your body knows how fucking good this feels, doesn't it?"

Sophie's body responded to his question of its own accord, wrapping itself around him and opening to beckon his fingers inside. Lucien Knight did things to her that no man had any right to do. He bypassed all rational thought processes and tapped into the visceral, animal instincts that lurked beneath the surface.

Even still, her brain battled to hang onto some semblance of control of this situation.

"Lucien... I worry that you're my rebound guy."

He laughed low in his throat. "And now I feel used." He dipped to kiss her hip, then glanced up at her troubled eyes and paused.

"Whatever gets you through, princess." He trailed a slow line of kisses across her abdomen to her other hip, then paused again and tipped his head to one side as he looked up her body. "So what if fucking me makes you feel better?" He shifted further down and laid his head against her inner thigh. "Let me be your medicine. In fact, it makes me practically a doctor."

He opened her with his fingers and held her wide, gazing at her sex with a satisfied groan. "Right now, I prescribe cunnilingus." He flicked his eyes up to hers again as his tongue touched against her exposed clitoris. She sucked down air into her suddenly dry throat.

"Drink some champagne. Doctor’s orders," he said, lifting his head a fraction to make space for his fingers.  Sophie did as he suggested, the bubbles cool and welcome as she watched Lucien reach out for the champagne bottle.

Her mind was already feeling fuzzy around the edges. Was he going to top up her glass again?
She quickly realised he wasn't as he lowered the bottle and tipped the last of the cold fizz between her legs, making her gasp out loud at the combination of the chill and the thrill. The champagne was ice cold, and Lucien's lapping tongue a second later was sensationally hot. Sophie squirmed, and then put her glass down and covered her pink cheeks with her hands when he touched the neck of the empty bottle against her hot opening.
Too much Lucien, too much.
The words formed in her head but didn't make it out of her mouth, because he'd eased the cold glass inside her already and fastened his lips over her clitoris.

"Fuck, Lucien..." she gasped, wanting him to stop, wanting him to carry on even more.

He twisted the bottle, and she watched his mouth, mesmerised both by the visual and sensory impact. His tongue relentless over her clitoris. The base of the green glass bottle cupped in his hand.  

"You taste of champagne and sex."

Lucien screwed the bottle into her and the reverberations of his low, lustful voice against her fevered flesh had her hips jerking in response. He knew precisely when she'd reached the point of return, because he switched from playful to lethal, holding her in his mouth as she orgasmed, stroking her clitoris with his tongue until she stilled and her body softened against the sofa.