A Perfect Storm (9 page)

“Jesus Christ.” A rumble rolled through Lucien as he tugged off the woman’s gloves. “You should have quit a long time ago.” He took her icy, clammy hands between his and rubbed some life back into them. “You’ll be lucky if you don’t catch pneumonia.” Her fingers not warming fast enough for his liking, Lucien cupped his palms around both of Sophie’s hands, brought them to his mouth, and blew warm air onto them.

A visible shiver rolled through Sophie. “I-I could say the same for you.” Her blue, blue gaze suddenly seemed to capture him in its grasp. “You were out there getting just as wet and cold as I was.” Her voice went husky, and her fingers curled in the clasp of his. “You might give yourself the same break you offer to others.” Trading positions, she wrapped her much smaller hands around his.

The second she brought her mouth in to blow, Lucien yanked his hands away.

Disturbed, fucking hating the gentleness in her touch and the sincerity darkening her eyes, Lucien busied himself with moving to a tall hutch in the mudroom. “Let me get you some towels.” He rubbed his neck, unable to shake the sensation of her watching him. He’d lived with it all day.

“I know what I want to ask,” Sophie said softly, breaking the brief silence.

Crap
. What should have been elation that Sophie had risen to the challenge, and unknowingly put herself back in his game, instead put a different kind of racing in Lucien’s heart. After the way she’d looked at him, not to mention the fucking bold yet sweet way she’d cupped her hands around his, Lucien needed time to regroup without an audience so he could find his footing again.

Tough shit
. The unforgiving taskmaster in his head pushed Lucien to grab a few towels and saunter back to Sophie.
Take the opportunities you’re given and move this thing forward.

Handing one of the towels to her, he chuckled and said, “You’re shivering like a drowned puppy, yet you still want to ask your question?”

After pressing the plush terrycloth to her cheeks, Sophie held the folded material against her chest. “I do,” she replied.

Once again, Lucien mirrored her stance. “Then go for it.”

“It’s about Owen,” she said, her complete focus on him. “I know he’s Emma’s boy, but is he your son too?”

What the fuck
? Lucien automatically jerked upright. “No, he isn’t. But he—” He clamped his mouth shut.

Sophie stepped in closer, invading his personal space. “But he what?” Her burst of energy vibrated around them. “What were you going to say?”

Shit
. Her question had come from so far out of left field Lucien had parted his lips to spill more information before catching himself just in time to shove confessions back down inside himself.

He wagged a finger in her face. “Nope. That’s it. You had your one question. I answered it. You can’t take it back now and wish you’d asked something else.”

Without missing a beat, Sophie shook her head. “I don’t regret it. And maybe it answered more questions about you than you think it did.”

Lucien narrowed his stare. “What does that mean?” He mentally raced through everything he’d said.

As Sophie peeled off her jacket, she grinned at him in a way that sent a new chill down his spine. “You didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would simply forget to mention he has a child. I made an educated guess that Owen wasn’t yours. Your confirming it for me tells me that maybe I can trust a few more of the gut instincts I have about you too.”

Recovering quickly, Lucien chuckled softly. “My dear Miss Emerson.” He curled his hand around her nape and lifted her chin with his thumb. “I would strongly advise you against believing you have the ability to read or trust anything about me.”

She only smiled bigger. “You just proved me right again.”

Lucien took his hand away before she felt the tremor. “How’s that?” Making his steps as casual as possible, he strolled into the kitchen.

Sophie chased after him, and Lucien allowed himself a private grin.

“You’re trying to intimidate and scare me off you,” she said to his back. “I fully expected you to give me just such a warning.”

Lucien kept a steady pace through the lower level of the castle to the stairs. “I’m sorry to hear I’m becoming so predictable.” His tone could not have been more droll.

Hot on his heels, Sophie added, “I also expect you know I’ll ignore it. You want me curious about you and your home, Mr. Cabot. The only real question for me is why.”

“Ahh.” Midway up the stairs, Lucien stopped and made eye contact the moment she came level with him. “Now that’s the question you should have asked. I would have been compelled by my vow to answer it honestly.”

Her blonde brows shot halfway up her forehead. “So then you don’t deny I’m here for a reason?”

“I don’t deny or admit to anything,” Lucien responded, feeling so very, very much in control again. “I’ll leave your answer seeking to your snooping. Maybe next time you’ll stumble across something that gives you answers rather than creates more questions.”

Skipping ahead of him, Sophie reached the landing first. “How did you know I was snooping last night?” She stood at the top of the steps, a triumphant smile taking over her pretty face. “It was amazingly perfect timing that you came upon me just as I was about to storm in and break up that little scene.”

Remaining a couple of steps below, Lucien paused when he reached eye level with this pretty, intelligent woman. He leaned in and murmured next to her ear, “So then you haven’t quite figured out everything about me yet.”

Sophie’s mouth suddenly gaped. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Relishing this moment with Sophie, Lucien let himself whet her appetite just a bit more. “I’m saying I didn’t know you would be there, Miss Emerson.” Moving again, he reached the second floor. “Now close your mouth and think about what that means.”

Passing her stunned, statuelike stupor, Lucien mentally saw himself move his queen into nearly perfect position.

It won’t be long before we’re at checkmate, my old friend.

Sophie stood locked in place at the top of the stairs, watching as Lucien walked away. “But…but…”
Darn it
. She couldn’t make her brain form the words it had drawn about Lucien’s revelation. “Y-you…”

From fifty feet away, Lucien paused and looked over his shoulder. His amber gaze held steady confidence—and a hint of hunger. “Your stammering tells me you’re not ready to know everything that goes on at Ravenstoke. You’re not comfortable examining what you saw last night.” His smooth voice stroked across the distance between them and left goose bumps on Sophie’s arms. “But feel free to keep searching. Good night.” Turning away, Lucien waved and then strolled down the hall.

For a solid minute after Lucien rounded the hallway toward his study and suite of rooms, disappearing from her sight, Sophie remained rooted in place, still sputtering inside with unspoken questions. And she gosh darn couldn’t ignore the way her heart rate continued to kick extra fast on the heels of Lucien warming her hands with his heated breath.
Ohhh shoot
. She was in trouble, and she knew it.

Mentally kicking herself in the butt, Sophie moved with distracted steps to her room. All the while, she tried to reconcile the gentle caring in such a gesture, in the way he’d cupped her hands, with the man whose eyes sparkled with every verbal carrot he tossed in front of her. He was luring her toward something, yet he knew she was aware of his little games, so now Sophie had to wonder if he really had an agenda at all. Maybe he just liked playing with people and had chosen to wave a ball of yarn in front of her because her presence at his home created the opportunity to do so, rather than for some sinister, deeper reason.

But he invited you here. On the eve of a storm
. As Sophie disrobed and stepped into the shower, she reminded herself never to forget that simple, unbendable fact. She would not be here if not for Lucien’s specific request. Rather than letting go of her quest for answers due to his
sort of
admitting he’d brought her here for a reason, Sophie would remain vigilant. With a keenly intelligent man like Lucien, Sophie’s smarter assumption would be that he’d sensed her suspicion and had teasingly confronted her with it in the hopes of throwing her off his scent.
Yeah. He’s definitely shrewd enough to try something like subtle reverse psychology.

Groaning, Sophie pushed her face under the spray of the shower, hoping the warm water would ease the tension from her head and body. Not a single muscle loosened.
Shoot
. Sophie grabbed the shampoo. As she began washing her hair with vigorous scrubbing to her scalp, she berated herself for chickening out on confronting Lucien all day long. She’d had more than one opportunity to ask him about what she’d seen at his home so far—Magnus and Cale taking Emma, and Emma and Jade kissing so passionately—yet every time Lucien had made eye contact with her, Sophie had clammed up. The demand for an explanation would not leave her throat. And now, just at the top of the stairs, Lucien had intimated he’d intended to join that threesome last night. Sophie’s presence had deterred his plan.

Twin sensations hit Sophie with a double sucker punch. Her chest banded at the visual of Lucien taking Emma with as much passion as Cale had. The pain pushed a jealously whispered “No” into the steamy shower stall. Yet at the same time, Sophie’s pussy swelled at the thought of Lucien removing his clothes and engaging in any manner of sexual act, as long as it was with her. She envisioned Lucien coming down on top of her in bed, slipping between her spread thighs, and sliding his cock deep into her body. She imagined him holding her head still and claiming her with a kiss full of ownership, plundering her mouth so deeply and completely he stole her very breath. And all the while, he would rock his hips and fuck her slowly, as if he planned to make taking her an all-night event.

In the privacy of the shower, Sophie’s cunt wept for the scene filling her mind. She rubbed her hand across her breasts, and in response, her nipples puckered and her channel squeezed, her sex searching for Lucien’s cock. Her breath quickening along with her pulse, Sophie pushed her open palm down her belly and over her smooth mound, needful of something to fill her pussy. She pushed her fingers lower, deeper.
Oh God
. She shivered as she grazed her clit. The moment Sophie ran her fingers along her crease, though, she flashed back to Lucien doing the very same thing in the darkness of the hallway the night before, and she whipped her hand away. Her spine tingled. She suddenly felt as if Lucien stood in the bathroom with her, and she could no longer slip her hand between her thighs.

Sophie snarled, as much at herself as she did the invisible specter of Lucien Cabot. Her sex still throbbing with need, Sophie turned off the water and stepped out of the shower with jerky movements, all the while murmuring impatient lectures under her breath. She knew darn well how to take care of her sexual needs, and it irked her to no end that just the thought of Lucien watching her masturbate had turned her into some simpering, frigid miss. Clearly a large part of what went on in this castle had to do with ease and comfort with intimacy and sex. If she had any hope of cracking through the layer of confidence Lucien wore like an icy cloak, she would have to find a way to become as easy about her sexuality, or at least give the appearance of that ease, as those in his employ seemed to be.

As Sophie pulled on a plush bathrobe, one of a handful of additional clothes deposited in her room this afternoon, she snorted, and her face heated.
What in the heck is the matter with me
? Her automatic response of a nervous laugh and blush worked like a burr stuck in her foot. It irritated the crud out of her. Okay, so maybe she’d comfortably hit the back end of twenty-four years old and as of yet had engaged in sex with only two men, but that didn’t make her giggly and immature. With those two men, she’d openly touched herself when needed during sex in order to help make herself come. It hadn’t humiliated or embarrassed her to do it. Yet the smallest thought of doing those same things with Lucien filled her with shyness and discomfort and made her want to cross her legs.
That’s because somewhere unexplainable inside, you already know Lucien Cabot could make you come harder than either of those two boys, just by looking at you and kissing you deeply.

Sophie passed in front of one of the windows in her bedroom, her robe around her shoulders, but suddenly jerked to a stop as a shadow crossed the soft lamplight in the room across the courtyard. During the course of her shower, the rain had come to a complete stop, and a dark, clear sky remained outside. A shadow cut across the light in the other room again; this time, Sophie could see it was no shadow at all. The gentle lighting illuminated Lucien, and he wore only a white towel, draped low on his hips.

Oh God
. Sophie’s entire being flushed under her robe, and her breasts and pussy swelled again.
He’s perfect
. The clothing she’d seen him in thus far had disguised a body hewn with sinewy muscles, surprisingly wide shoulders, and sculpted chest and stomach. Then, sweet mercy, he undid the towel, and it fell to the floor. He turned and moved out of view, but not before Sophie got a glance at a long, reddened cock and then the sleek curve of his buttocks. Her heartbeat quickened and arousal slickened her channel.

Just then, his likeness shadowed another window, and Sophie realized he’d moved across the room. Without thinking, she circled her bed to do the same and found him slipping on a snug pair of white underwear. Disappointment rocked through her, harder than she’d ever experienced with any man before. Sophie sighed at the loss of such a lovely sight. As if he’d heard her through the night air and two layers of glass, Lucien looked up and locked right in on Sophie.

Shoot
. Sophie automatically shrank out of sight and plastered her back against the wall next to the window.
Shoot. Shoot. Shoot
. Her heart slammed against her rib cage, and beads of perspiration dotted her skin under the robe. He had caught her peeping on him, red-handed, no ability to deny it. Instinct had Sophie eying the bed and wishing she could crawl under it to stay for the duration of her time at Ravenstoke. Humiliation burned through her in a hot wave. Just as quickly, she stood up straight, hot under the collar for an entirely different reason than embarrassment.