Knight and Stay

by Kitty French

  His other hand stroked the back of her head.

  "Don't want me, Sophie."

  She slid up onto his lap. "I can't stop."

  "Try harder," he said, but even as he spoke his arms surrounded her. His hands slipped up her back into her hair until his thumbs were tracing her jawline.

  She mirrored him, her hands cradling his head close to hers. His mouth brushed her cheeks, catching the tears as they spilled from her closed lashes.

  "Beautiful girl," he murmured, his lips on her eyelids, his arms sliding lower to hold her close. Sophie could feel the hard heat of him under her thighs, sensing that slow slam of sad into sexy that he seemed to specialise in. It got her every single time. She tipped her head a little, and his mouth covered hers with stifling intimacy. His kiss seemed to suck all of the air from her body and meld her into one with him. One great big tangle of tongues and hot emotions. She wrapped her arms around him and opened her mouth against his, letting him plunder and take his fill as she held on tight, swept up in him.

  This was her only way in. Her only way to connect with the man behind the barricades. The man she loved. The man who couldn't love her back.

  He filled his hands with her hair, great fistfuls of it as he kissed her endlessly. He eased her head back as his hips started to rock beneath her, slow and steady.

  "Go and get your lunch, princess, before I eat you whole."

  "I'd rather stay here."

  He laughed softly, but Sophie could feel him retreating behind those walls again. He straightened her skirt and tucked her hair behind her ear, treating her to the slow glide of his thumb over her bottom lip. "Go."

  She didn't move. "Can we talk later?"

  He frowned, but nodded. "I'll drive you home."

  She slipped from his lap, ready for lunch now, and ready to fight for him later.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  "Don't invite me in."

  Sophie understood what Lucien was asking. He wanted her to stop, because he couldn't. But she wasn't playing that game. She turned defiantly to him in the dark. "Come inside." It was after seven, a cold winter’s night outside the warm confines of Lucien's car.

  "If I come in there, I won't come out again without fucking you first."

  "Is that a threat or a promise?"

  "Which do you want it to be?" He shook his head with a low frustrated laugh, more at his own stereotypical response than hers. "It's just a fact, Sophie, and not one I'm proud of."

  God, he drove her crazy. "Why do you do that?" she asked gently.

  "What?"

  "Deny your feelings."

  "`Why do you that?" he countered.

  She looked at him steadily. "What? What do I do?"

  "Overcomplicate things." He shrugged. "Read too much into things."

  "I'm not." She placed a hand on his warm thigh. "Please come inside. It's too cold out here to talk." They both glanced out at the frosty, late November evening. "Coffee. You on one side of the table, me on the other, and I promise to let you leave without sleeping with me."

  He unclicked his seatbelt with a resigned sigh.

  "It's not your resolve that bothers me, Sophie."

  In the kitchen, Sophie busied herself with the routine of making coffee, even though she didn't especially want one and suspected that Lucien probably didn't either. He was like a pent up lion prowling around the small space, and she wasn’t sure she knew how to handle him now that she had him here. She'd asked him inside ostensibly to talk, but the reality was that the invitation had been made just so she could be close to him, regardless of what they were doing.

  She wanted his time, and his attention, and his love. Two out of three were relatively easy, but love seemed impossible. He'd expunged the word from his vocabulary. He didn't like to say it, and hearing it made him flinch. But she wanted to say it, and she wanted him to hear it; to know he was loved, even though she knew that the likelihood was that he'd react badly.

  Coffees in hand, she changed her mind and led him through to the living room. She couldn't face another summit at that kitchen table.

  Lucien followed and sat down at one end of the sofa. She took the other.

  "Lucien..."

  "I want you to stop working for me."

  Wow. His unexpected, quietly spoken statement hit her head on.

  "But I don't want to stop working for you," she said rapidly, unable to keep the panic out of her voice.

  He placed his untouched coffee down on the table and turned back to her.

  "Sophie... it's run its course. This thing going on between us has to stop, and it won't stop if we still see each other every day. I can't work with you without wanting to fuck you."

  "Are you firing me?"

  Lucien pushed his palms into his eye sockets. "What else am I supposed to do?"

  "Carry on as we are?" All thoughts of declaring love now paled into insignificance by comparison to the urgent need merely to hold on to what they already had.

  He shook his head. "It won't work."

  Sophie moved closer to him, afraid to touch him. "Don't do this."

  He turned his head towards her, and the look of pure desolation in his storm blue eyes hurt her heart.

  "I mean it, Sophie. Don't come into work tomorrow. Or the next day, or the one after that. I'll write you an amazing reference. I'll pay you until you start somewhere else. It doesn't matter if it's weeks or months. Just don't come in."

  Every word of his speech landed like a razor blade slicing her flesh, and anger and frustration battled for space in her head. He didn't mean it. His eyes and his body and his kiss told her that he didn't want her out of his life, yet his stubborn head wouldn't let his feelings get a look in.

  There was only one way Sophie knew to cut through all of his crap.

  She stood up and unbuttoned her blouse.

  "Don't do that," he breathed, as she peeled it from her body and dropped it one the floor. He'd taught her many lessons, including how to embrace her own beauty, and in that moment she turned the tables on him. Pupil to teacher. As he'd taught her how to be a confident lover, now it was her turn to teach him how to have the confidence to love.

  He dropped his head into his hands when she let her skirt fall to the floor beside her blouse.

  In just whispers of dove grey lace, she stepped closer to him and stroked his head.

  "Look at me, Lucien."

  She felt a heavy sigh leave his body before he lifted his head, his eyes dragging slowly up the length of her body. Her fingers smoothed over his hard, proud cheekbone as she waited for his gaze to reach hers.

  But it didn't.

  His tormented eyes lingered on her breasts as he drew his top lip in between his teeth, and then he moved onto his knees in front of her and buried his face against her abdomen. His arms slid around her hips, holding her captive as she cradled his head to her body, letting her hands smooth and soothe him.

  He breathed her in deep, and Sophie ached for him. What the hell was it that held him back? Why did he torment himself like this? She wanted to make it better for him, to find the right words to unlock his heart. But right there and then, just holding him seemed the most important thing.

  And so she held him.

  Lucien breathed in the scent of Sophie's skin, lost in how good she felt in his hands, and how good she made him feel in hers. Did she have any idea how powerful she was? He knew that he needed to leave, but there was no way he could leave her like this. The soft roundness of her bottom filled his hands, and the silken curve of her stomach warmed his face. He wanted to bury himself in her and never come up for air again.

  Eventually, she eased her body back from his just enough to allow space to lower herself to her knees. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Her brave, unwavering gaze met his as she reached behind her back and unclipped her bra.

  He'd seen her naked enough times now to know how she'd look, but watching her offer her sweet, wholesome and utterly fuckable body to him was something he wanted
to remember forever.

  "You said you wanted it to be me last night," she murmured, and she reached for his hands. "I'm here now." She lifted his hands to her breasts, and closed her eyes when his fingers made contact with her skin.

  Christ, he was in trouble. Everything he'd hoped to feel with Tammy last night crowded in, and so much more besides. His cock strained hard against his clothes, but his chest ached too, heavy with need for this woman, a need that was somehow more than physical. It was alien to him, terrifying and yet compelling.

  Her rose nipples stiffened beneath his thumbs and her flesh filled his palms. She opened her eyes, and the raw vulnerability there seared him.

  Tammy had been bold-eyed last night as she stripped with the expectation of sex. Sophie had none of Tammy's boldness, but she had a lion's heart of courage. He'd just told her that they were through, for Christ sake. She'd risked his rejection when she'd taken her clothes off, and Lucien knew her well enough to know that it wouldn't have come easy. My brave, beautiful princess. All of those thoughts filled his head in an abstract way, but the overriding sensation leading his body and his hands at that moment was white-hot lust.

  He could no more walk away now than he could stop breathing.

  Sophie's body responded to his caress, her eyelids drifting down, her lips parting a little with the tiniest of moans. It was an invitation Lucien couldn't resist.

  He brushed his lips over hers when she whispered his name, once more as he squeezed the softness of her breasts and let his tongue stray between her lips.

  "Stay with me tonight," she said, her fingers slow and deliberate on the buttons of his shirt.

  He knew he should say no, but the words wouldn't come as her palms slid inside his shirt and eased it back over his shoulders. He wanted to be naked. He wanted her hands on him. Christ, he was losing his mind over this woman.

  "One more night, Sophie, and then no more." He needed to say it, and he needed Sophie to hear it, and to accept it. "Tonight, and I will walk away. Do you understand?"

  Her lips trembled beneath his, and her slow tears turned their kiss salty, but she nodded. Thank God. Even the temporary reprieve was worth fighting for, somehow representing a tremulous pact that made it okay.

  "You’d better make it good then," she half-laughed and half-cried, and he crushed her against him, missing her already.

  "Count on me, princess."

  Chapter Thirty

  It was as if she'd opened the gates to paradise.

  Lucien was parched and desperate to drink from her, to fill himself to the brim with the magical elixir that seemed to flow from her soft curves and hidden hollows straight into his bloodstream.

  He lowered his head and captured her nipple between his lips, turned on as much by her groan of pleasure as by the feel of the nub in his mouth. He swirled his tongue over her as he let his hands explore her back; the delicate bones of her spine, the way it dipped then flared at the base.

  He shrugged out of his shirt as he transferred his attentions to her other nipple, loving the feeling of his skin against her skin again. The sure slide of her hands over his shoulders had him pushing down her lace knickers. There would be time later to take it slow. Right now he was driven by urgent need; the need to embrace her naked body completely, to be overthrown by the mind-blowing sensation that only fucking this woman could give him.

  Sophie's shallow moans of anticipation told him that she was of the same mind, as did the way she swayed her body against his as he reached for his belt.

  "I love you like this," she murmured when he gathered her to him, and he had to hold back the words that almost left his own lips as he lifted her onto the edge of the sofa and positioned himself between her legs.

  He noticed how she held her breath with anticipation as he let the tip of his cock play against her entrance, and how it rushed from her body when he surged his hips forward. She might have groaned, but he didn't hear it over the animalistic sound that left his own throat. Oh, the way Sophie wrapped her legs around his thighs, and Christ, the feel of her hands pulling him in deeper. She'd regained the weight she'd dropped in her weeks of turmoil and distress and felt to Lucien all the more amazing for it; her lush velvet curves were surely designed to make a man lose his head. Fuck. He needed to thrust, and he needed her with him when he came.

  Sophie's mouth opened wide under his when he reached a hand behind her head and pulled her into his kiss, and she mouthed his name when he reached his other hand between their bodies and massaged her clitoris as his hips found a furious rhythm. Christ, she was going to come, he could feel her body tensing and it aroused him almost beyond endurance. She clamped him with her legs, her head flung back with pleasure as he slammed himself into her. So sexy. Bang. So fucking, fucking sexy. Bang. Sophie cried out, her finger nails arcing into his skin as she orgasmed around his cock and under his fingers. Her whole body tightened deliciously, wrenching his own climax out of him with a shout of absolute, blissful, excruciating, intense release.

  "Mine." The ragged word left his mouth unplanned and uncensored by rational thought as he buried his face in her neck. "Mine."

  Sophie heard Lucien's possessive words and they welded themselves to her heart.

  Yes, I'm yours. Completely, utterly yours.

  How I wish you were mine too.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Sophie settled herself against Lucien's chest as they dropped down together onto the sofa. "Do you want some dinner?"

  "No." He stroked her hair.

  "Coffee?"

  "No."

  "Cake?"

  "Only if I can smear it all over you and then lick it off."

  Sophie harboured no delusion that he was joking; she was instantly transported back to Norway, laid out on Lucien's dining table wearing nothing but his dessert.

  "I don't want food or drink. This isn't a date."

  She sighed heavily. She didn't ask what this was then, because she knew the answer.

  This was goodbye. The best, longest, sexiest goodbye kiss ever.

  "Come upstairs?" she whispered, and felt his smile against her neck.

  "Now that, Sophie Black, is a much more enticing offer."

  Sitting snug behind Lucien in the bathtub half an hour later with her legs wrapped around his hips, Sophie scooped up foamy water in her cupped palms and trickled it over his broad shoulders. He massaged her calves as he lounged idly against her, his eyes closed and a small relaxed smile on his lips as the water ran in rivulets down his chest.

  "Feels nice?" She murmured it against his cheek, letting her fingers follow the water to stroke his nipples into stiffness.

  "Nice." He echoed the lamely inadequate word with a crooked half smile. It was warm and steamy in the bathroom, gilding Lucien's skin with a damp sheen. It was impossible to look at him and not to want to touch him, and Sophie wasn’t holding herself back. She wanted to imprint him on her hands and her memory forever. If this was to be her last time with him, then she was entitled to be greedy.

  He leaned forward for a second to top up the warm water, and Sophie's eyes rested on the monochrome lone wolf tattoo that lay across his shoulder blades. It was beautifully detailed, a solitary, restless animal with hungry, watchful eyes. Much like the man he resided on.

  She curled her arms around him when he settled back down.

  "Why the wolf?" she asked.

  Lucien didn't answer straight away. Instead, he squeezed soap into his hands and smoothed the resulting lather over her bent knees, massaging her skin in broad circles.

  "He reminds me of home."

  "But you can't see him."

  Every trace of his nostalgic smile had gone, replaced by a faraway melancholy. "I don't need to see him to know he's there."

  Sophie felt that she knew so much of Lucien, and yet so little too. There was a great, yawning sadness in him that she sensed but couldn't reach. His relationship with his homeland seemed so complex, a love-hate relationship that she couldn't quite grasp.
The few occasions she'd tried to push him for information had ended badly, and she didn't want tonight to go the same way.

  Not our last night together.

  Besides, Lucien was already keen to move things along. He clearly had plenty of ways in mind to make the most of their evening. He'd asked her to fetch the glass dildo he'd once given her, and right now it lay submerged somewhere beneath the warmth of the water.

  He sat up and eased her around and over him so that their positions were reversed, a slippery manoeuvre that he pulled off with aplomb. Sophie found herself cradled against his chest. She wriggled herself comfortable, deliciously aware of his cock against the small of her back.

  "One hell of an impressive way to change the subject, Mr. Knight," she said, gratified to hear him laugh under his breath. He reached for the shampoo and tipped a little into his palm rather than reply, then smoothed the apple-scented cream over her hair.

  "I love the smell of this stuff." Lucien inhaled deeply as he massaged the shampoo into her skull with slow, rhythmic movements that made Sophie sigh as her eyes closed reflexively. "It smells of you."

  She was glad then that that her eyes were closed and glad of the damp, steamy room too, because they disguised the tears that welled up at his words. He had no right to be so damn romantic when he denied that romance even existed outside of fairytales.

  No one except Sophie’s hairdresser had washed her hair for her since she was six years old. It was an unexpected and distinctly sensual experience having it done for her by Lucien, somewhere between an intimate massage and a loving gesture.

  He was unhurried, scooping up all of her hair, making a thorough job of it, spinning it out until she was deeply relaxed under his touch. Then he picked up a glass from a nearby shelf to wash away the lather he'd created, rinse after rinse of cascading warm water and tender hands as she tipped her head back and let him minister to her.