Knight 01 Knight And Play (21 page)

His fingers slid lightly over the back of Sophie’s neck as he settled into the warmth of the water alongside her.

Sophie wriggled in her seat, hyper-aware of his touch and the warm jets of water bubbling underneath her. When she moved, it sprayed directly between her thighs, and she couldn’t help but spread her legs a little. It felt so damn good, like a secret, intimate massage. She moved again and the water pummelled her clitoris. Lucien licked her ear, his fingers playing idly with her stiff nipples.

His open mouth slid down her neck. “Just let it happen.”

Sophie closed her eyes as Lucien stretched behind her and powered up the intensity of the jets.
Jesus.
The anticipation of her climax tightened her body. She dropped her head back on Lucien’s arm, enjoying his hands over her breasts as she built towards the release only an orgasm could give her.

She rocked her body in the seat, restlessly searching for enough intensity to push her over the edge. The butt plug moved inside her, a sexy fullness that was all the more delicious for still being unfamiliar.

Lucien met her gaze and held it, then ran his tongue over his slightly parted lips. It was all it took. Sophie moaned softly as she came hard and fast, ecstasy all the more intense for sharing it eye to eye with Lucien. He moved in close and kissed her, slow and open mouthed as her body softened from taut to relaxed in his arms.

Sophie closed her eyes and surrendered to the sensations. The ripples and bubbles of the warm water. The stroke of Lucien’s tongue in her mouth, and the rhythmic pressure of his thumb, back and forth over her ribcage. The feeling of her hammering heart slowing in her chest as her body settled against his. The kaleidoscope skies that would be there when she opened her eyes and looked up. It was a fairy tale, albeit a very grown up one. A fantasy, maybe. Not real life, anyway. Sophie couldn’t imagine how her old life could possibly still be waiting for her in the UK, a comfortable pair of slippers compared to the sexy stiletto lifestyle she’d led at Lucien’s side this past week.

Much as she didn’t want them to, the bony fingers of reality poked at her, sharp digs that made her sigh heavily. She opened her eyes and found him watching her.

“What am I doing here, Lucien? I don’t recognise my own life any more.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

Sophie twisted her damp hair into a rope over one shoulder. “This week has been…” She cast around for the words to sum up what a cataclysmic shift the past week had been for her. “It’s been amazing, but I have to go home and face reality on Sunday.”

Lucien twirled the coil of her hair around his own hand. 

“You do. But at least you know that there are other options now.”

“Are there, really?” She searched his open expression for answers. “How can I carry on working for you after this?” She gazed around at the celestial beauty overhead, and the shadowy mountain ranges. “This is your world, Lucien. It’s real to you. For me, it’s a one week fantasy.”

“Only if you want it to be. I still need a PA, Sophie, and you’re shaping up to be pretty good at it.”

“I’ve barely done any work,” she pointed out softly.

“On the contrary. You’ve exceeded my expectations by quite some way.” Lucien’s eyes glinted with amusement at her as he uncorked the champagne and poured it.

“Was this always your plan?” she asked. “Did you employ me because you saw me as a bored wife ready to stray?”

He laughed low in his throat and laid his head back on the ledge of the jacuzzi, his eyes on the moving skies.

“No. I employed you because you kiss envelopes before you mail them, and because you surprised me.” He paused and closed his eyes. “I like people who surprise me.”

Sophie frowned at his profile, aware that she knew practically nothing about this enigmatic man. With his eyes hidden and his head tipped back, he looked thoroughly relaxed, at one with his surroundings. But then again, that wasn’t all that surprising if her hunch about him was right.

“Why Norway, Lucien?” Her fingertips trailed over the defined curve of his shoulder as she sipped her champagne.

“Why not here? I like the privacy.” The imperceptible tightening of his jaw belied the lightness of his tone.

“It
is
gorgeous,” Sophie murmured. “But is there more to it than that?”

“What are you asking, Sophie?” Lucien opened his eyes and met her direct gaze.

“Is this place home for you? I mean… did you grow up here?”

Lucien took a long drink from his champagne flute then placed it down with deliberate care.

“
I left Norway on my eighteenth b
irthday. London is my home now.”

Sophie wished he’d look at her, but his eyes were trained on the scrolling skies. She’d already sensed that this place, this country - both were integral to the man he was, but she couldn’t work out his feelings for it. He had this beautiful home here, so surely he had to be fond of it, yet there was a toughness to his stance and a steel to the set of his jaw that suggested otherwise.

“Do you miss it when you’re in the UK?” Sophie assumed he must. It was way too beautiful not to.

Lucien re
ached for the champagne bottle.
“I didn’t, not for a long time.”

“So what changed?”

“I did, I suppose.” He shrugged non-committally. “I grew up.”

“So I guess you must have family here? Parents, brothers and sisters…will you visit them while you’re here?” She trailed off uncertainly, aware that she was pushing him for information he wasn’t necessarily willing to share.

“No. This visit was only ever about fucking you.”

Sophie shook her head and laughed lightly, despite the fact that he was blatantly trying to throw the conversation off course.

“We could have done that back home.”

“Yes, but here you can’t escape me.”

“Who said I’d want to?”

“I do. You’re still that good girl deep down, Sophie. Home would have pulled you back to it every moment. Here you’re free to be the person you want to be, the amazing woman you can be.”

Sophie nodded slowly. His reasoning was sound. Being here had severed her attachments to home - at least for the present - and absence had not made her heart grow fonder.

“It’s all still there waiting for me though.” She sighed heavily. “What am I going to do about everything, Lucien?”

“What do you want to do?”

Sophie exhaled slowly and shook her head, her mind far away in the UK.

“I don’t know. I have to talk to Dan I guess, about his affair, and now about my affair.”

Lucien’s mouth twisted to one side. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking you are the same as he is, Sophie. If he’d been a real husband, you wouldn’t be here now.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because you’re soft, and kind, and good. All the things he isn’t.”

Sophie registered each compliment, but she didn’t feel any of those things. She was an adulterous cheat, every bit as much as Dan.

“You don’t know him, Lucien… he’s not a bad person.”

Lucien shrugged. “I don’t need to know him to understand him.”

Sophie reached for her glass and swallowed a big gulp of champagne, but the sparkling wine and dazzling views couldn’t calm the swirl of emotions inside her.

Lucien looked at Sophie’s profile, at the dejected set of her mouth, and that same dull, haunted expression in her eyes that he’d seen the first time he’d met her.

Just talking about her husband had been enough to instantly paint shadows on her face.

What was seeing him again going to do?

What was hearing his confession of an affair spanning more than two years going to do?

The only thing he wanted to do right at that moment was put the sparkle back in her eyes.

He reached out and topped up her glass, then slipped under the bubbling water and resurfaced on his knees face to face with her.

“I think it’s time I removed that acorn for you.”

Unshed tears still glittered on her eyelashes, but a trembling laugh bubbled from her throat at the broken tension. He could see her turmoil, and he could feel her fear, and he just wanted to make her stronger, tougher and ready to fight. If it was up to him, he’d have had her husband taken care of, one way or another, and be done with it – and he could have made it happen - but he knew that that wasn’t the type of resolution Sophie wanted.

Her nipples bobbed rosy and pert in front of him, and he dipped his head to take one into his mouth.
Christ, she was sexy
. He rolled his tongue around the pink nub, enjoying her gratified moan when he closed his lips over it and sucked. His cock stiffened as her nipple turned to rock in his mouth, taut and straining for more attention from his flickering tongue.

When he glanced up, he found her eyes closed, damp tears on her cheeks and her lower lip snagged behind her teeth. She looked trapped somewhere between rapture and despair, and he needed to tip the scales in the right direction.

He moved up her body and covered her mouth with his own, a slow kiss designed to chase the lingering demons from her mind. From the way her tongue responded to his and her hands crept into his hair, he knew he’d succeeded. She arched into him now, her breasts against his chest, his cock between her legs.

It was all about her. About making her feel wanted, about making her eyes shine with satisfaction instead of tears.

When she rocked her hips forwards and invited him inside, Lucien accepted without thought or question. He cradled her body in his arms and thrust slowly, feeling her tightness enfold every inch of him.

She closed her eyes, and he kissed them.

Sophie’s body flowed around him like silk, and it didn’t feel like fucking. It felt like connecting, and soothing, and like other feelings that he didn’t care to give a name to. He slipped his arms around her body under the water as he sensed the beginnings of her orgasm, and as she came he stood and thrust hard, his deft fingers massaging the acorn inside her. 

Lucien lost control as Sophie’s hips ground hard against his, as the frantic, erotic pulse of her orgasm around his cock had him coming with her. Water cascaded from their hot bodies as they stilled, and Lucien gently eased the acorn out of her splayed bottom. Sophie buried her face in his neck, exhausted, and for a few seconds, Lucien just held her warmth close against his and watched the light show overhead.

He wasn’t a man given to romance, but the perfect weight of this woman in his arms and the majesty of the skies above them filled him with an unexpected sense of peace.

Moments later he carried her through the quiet rooms of his home with her head on his shoulder, and by the time he lowered her down onto the bed, she was asleep, tear tracks still just visible on her cooling pink cheeks. When he brushed a blonde strand of hair out of her eyes she sighed and turned her face into his palm, looking for comfort in his touch even as she slept.

Long buried emotions forced their way to the surface as he curled around her and spooned her body into his.

Comfort, sweeter than he’d ever found from a woman’s touch.

Fear, spikier than he’d felt for anyone since the day his mother had died.

Anger, sharper than he’d sensed it since the last time he’d laid eyes on his father.

Bile rose in his throat at the thought of the man whose actions had driven his mother to her death.

How dare Sophie’s husband push her to this?

How could he put her at risk for the sake of a cheap thrill?

As Sophie’s husband and Lucien’s father meshed together in his mind, he tightened his hold around her pliant, sleeping form. The quilt settled soft and warm over their shoulders, and he fought to match his heartbeat to her slow, steady breathing pattern.

There was only one thought in his mind as sleep claimed him.

He would protect this woman.

He wouldn’t fail again.

Sophie opened her eyes in the half-light of early morning, disorientated by the unfamiliar bed linen and the unfamiliar man sleeping beside her. With one arm flung over his head and the other splayed out to the side, Lucien was utterly peaceful, quite the opposite of his wakeful state. She watched him for a while, trying not to let guilt and dread impinge on the tranquillity of the silent Norwegian dawn. It was something she was never likely to see again. After today, she’d never wake up next to Lucien Knight again.

Real life seemed a world away, but within twenty-four hours she’d be back in her own little house with her own big problems. She closed her eyes for a minute and breathed deeply, then opened them again slowly.

She was ready. Now fully awake and resolved to make the very best of the day, she slid out of bed and into the white towelling robe that hung on a hook on the back of the door, then headed downstairs in search of coffee.

Twenty minutes later, Lucien found her sitting on the deck with a fur blanket around her shoulders and a steaming mug of coffee cradled in her hands.