Tearing his stare up from where his shaft pierced her sex, Lucien bit off another curse, slammed his fist into the table, and jerked himself to a stop. Holding himself still, balls-deep, his frame trembling, Lucien ran a hand over Sophie’s heated flesh, watching his palm as it moved over her body. “Every inch of you is flushed and beautiful.” As he grazed across her breasts, tweaking her pebble-hard nipples, Sophie pulsed deep inside around his length. Clenching his teeth, Lucien hissed and bore a strained hardness around his mouth. “And so goddamn tight yet so fucking slick and ready.” He slid his hand down her belly, over her mound, and then kept going. Parting his fingers, Lucien rubbed over Sophie’s split-open slit, around his embedded length, touching every tiny nerve ending where their bodies merged with such raw openness they both shivered. He glanced up from where he had himself buried inside her, and when he found her gaze again, that dark edge swarmed in his eyes once more. “You’re so fucking pretty everywhere.” His hand slid back up to pluck her nipple hard enough to feel it in her core. “I could come just looking at you.”
Sophie’s heart squeezed unbearably. “I want you to,” she confessed, hiding nothing from him. “Fuck me, Lucien.” She rocked her hips up into his buried cock as best she could, aching to make him feel her touching him in some way. “Make me feel you come.”
With only one flash of warning given in his stare, Lucien erupted with a harsh sound and then attacked Sophie with a voracious, claiming kiss. He ran his hand up her arms, clutched her wrists, and began a punishing thrust of his hips, one that rolled Sophie’s ass and back higher off the table with every rough pounding. Sophie welcomed Lucien’s aggression and told him so, using filthy, explicit words that had never left her mouth before. Her utter abandon only seemed to ignite Lucien more. He ate at her mouth in a way that would leave nicks and swelling, and slammed his cock into her with rough force again and again and again.
Sophie’s and Lucien’s grunts and moans mingled with similar cries from the trio on the floor. Jade now had Emma under her, kissing and rubbing her body against the other woman, with Cale on top of Jade, fucking her from behind. This group of people, who were virtual strangers to Sophie, were engaged in sex within feet of where Sophie was chained to a table at the mercy of a man she’d only known for days, but rather than disgusting or shaming Sophie, their joy filled her, and she reveled in the cries and shouts of abandon filling the room; she gloried in the smells of arousal saturating the air.
Lucien groaned into Sophie’s mouth and ate at her as if he tried to steal her very breath for his own. Sophie put every ounce of attraction, tenderness, and passion she felt for Lucien into kissing him back. She invaded his mouth to lick as deeply as she could, then nipped at his lips, slid tongue against tongue, to finally graze or scrape lips and teeth, anything to get closer and touch and learn this amazing, secretive man. With every kiss that ended only to lead to another more intimate one, Lucien never eased the deep, repeated slide of his cock in her pussy, or the angle and press of his groin constantly rubbing and grazing with varying pressure against her exposed, aching clit.
Each whisper or scream of contact pulled Sophie tauter and tauter inside, shoving her dangerously closer to the abyss. Oh God. Please. “Lucien…” Suddenly, raw, mingled cries of completion from the ménage on the floor filled the air, the sound of their pleasure so deep and acute Sophie’s pussy fluttered around Lucien’s cock in response. Lucien gritted his teeth, bore his forehead into hers, and the wild brightness in his penetrating stare tore the basest of Sophie’s needs. “I’m so close,” she confessed. He jerked as she squeezed around his invasion with gripping force once more, her body backing up her claim. “Come on me,” she begged. “I need to see and feel it happen.”
His pupils flaring, Lucien muttered, “Jesus fucking Christ, honey,” as he reared upright. In doing so, his cock slid out of her body. He tore off the condom, but rather than leaning over her and spilling his seed, he rubbed the fat, red head of his erection right over her clit. Sophie gasped and convulsed in response, and Lucien did it again. As he looked into her eyes, he pressed his cockhead against her supersensitive bead and said, “You come first. I want to watch you too,” and then twitched his dick oh so perfectly over her clit.
Everything inside Sophie snapped. She instantly bucked and screamed, just as Lucien wanted her to do, and her pussy clenched and clenched as orgasm ripped through her system. Lucien flashed his teeth like a possessive animal, and his amber eyes gleamed as Sophie shuddered and struggled against her restraints in the throes of release. As Sophie continued to shake, Lucien suddenly shouted hoarsely, and his entire frame jerked. He wrapped his hand around his cock and shoved forward, pulled on his shaft one time, and then went statue-still as he lost himself and shot all over Sophie’s stomach. Endless ropes of warm, milky cum splashed onto Sophie’s belly, making her flesh quiver with each spit of ejaculate Lucien marked on her flesh.
As if that was not enough to turn Sophie’s limited world of sex upside down, Lucien then dipped his hand between Sophie’s thighs, gathered her cream on his fingers, and mixed it in with his ejaculate coating her skin. Oh God. She trembled again.
Sophie eventually became aware of Emma, Jade, and Cale surrounding her. Each of them released her from the chains and cuffs pinning her to the table. Blood rushed to Sophie’s limbs, stinging and leaving her temporarily unable to move. The three of them adjusted her legs back into place and put her arms to her sides for her.
Without breaking eye contact from Sophie, Lucien said, “Leave us.” Just as quietly as they’d arrived on Lucien’s command, Jade, Emma, and Cale left them alone, closing the door behind them.
The room now still and silent, just the two of them, with no distractions, Sophie watched Lucien closely and so picked up exactly the split second when the barrier he’d so briefly let down moved back into place. The arrogant glint returned to his eyes too.
Oh no. Not this time, my dear Mr. Cabot. Lucien, she mentally corrected herself. For Sophie could never think of him as anything other than Lucien again. Would not let him be anyone other than Lucien with her anymore.
He parted his lips, and she could see in the slant of his mouth he meant to say something smug. Instead, she beat him to the punch and said, “So is this the kind of thing you used to like to watch in one of your many secret sex clubs?”
Lucien’s jaw did drop. But nothing clever came out.
Chapter Twelve
Sophie dropped her bombshell revelation on Lucien and then zipped her lips. It’s your move now.
It only took a moment for Lucien to snap his mouth shut. He climbed off the table and then looked Sophie all up and down, now wearing a devil-may-care smile and nothing else. He whistled long and low as he slipped back into his prowling mode, and he wagged his finger her way. “You’re good,” he told her, his tone smooth and easy. “I could immediately tell you were smart as hell. I knew you’d figure out my history eventually, but I have to give you credit, you did it a hell of a lot faster than I thought you would. So what was it that gave me away? Or do you have an outside investigator who is as good as the pair on my payroll?”
Itching to shake his cool demeanor, Sophie instead very deliberately sat up and clasped her hands in her lap. “You know I can’t afford anything so fancy as my own investigator, and I would never use the station’s resources for personal gain.”
With a sideways glance, he asked, “So then how?”
Lucien continued to move around his room, nude, with a pantherlike grace. His streamlined yet muscular frame in motion was a thing of beauty to watch. The sight of him made Sophie’s mouth dry, as it always did. She ached to touch him, to put a stop to his pacing and get him to look at her for more than a flicker of eye contact, but her gut clenched with the certainty that if she ran to him right now and tried to crowd his space, he would turn inward and shut her out.
Just breathe. Sophie listened to herself and purposefully exhaled. Take him on one step at a time. “I found out ab
out the sex clubs by putting a little something you said a few days ago alongside a couple of other small bits of information from other people. An Internet search produced a club in DC. I have a friend who works that town, and she knew something of some rumors about this nightclub really making its money as a private sex club.” Lucien passed by her right then and raised one of those brows at her that somehow reeked of arrogance. Sophie raised one right back at him. “Once I heard the rumor,” she went on, “I knew it was true. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter how I figured it out.” Treading carefully, she kept her voice gentle. “What I want to know is why you felt the need to hide it from me.”
Lucien shot her a quick glare. “It’s an easy instinct, Miss Emerson.” His tone dripped with impatience. “You’re a television producer, and breaking a choice story like that would be very good for your career.”
In a snap, Sophie shot back, “I don’t buy that.”
He whirled on her, but she did not wither to the other side of the table under his suddenly hot stare.
“You said you contacted me specifically because you knew I would handle William and Jude’s story with respect and dignity. It doesn’t jive that you would also think me capable of blowing all those clubs you used to own out of the water by exposing what they really are.”
“Still own,” Lucien corrected. He planted his hands on the table on either side of her, taking over her personal space. “I own minor shares in each one of those clubs.” The hard line of his lips barely moved as he spoke. “Any harm done to them will adversely affect me.”
Bad move or not, Sophie reached up and smoothed her fingers over that unforgiving mouth, knowing in her heart it wanted to lift in laughter more than cut in a frown. “All the more reason you should have known I’d never do it.” Unable to fight the need, Sophie leaned in and grazed a soft kiss against his lips, then soared inside when he clung and kissed her back with exquisite gentleness. “You’re not a fool, Lucien.” She brushed kisses against his jaw and cheek, her desire to know more about him growing with every minute she spent in his presence. “No matter how much you like to pretend you’re above everything and see the world through a cynical eye, you can also sense when warmth is surrounding you.” She pulled back and let him look into the truth in her eyes. “I have cared about you from almost the beginning. And because you watch people closely, you knew I already did—don’t tell me you didn’t—so you also knew I would never do anything to hurt you, and by virtue of that hurt, harm your nephew and the others here at Ravenstoke. You didn’t keep the sex clubs hidden from me for fear of exposure. Heck, if you feared my spilling your secrets and destroying you, you never would have let me see all that I have at Ravenstoke, all that you’ve encouraged me to witness.” She studied him closely, and asked, “So what’s the real deal?”
Lucien pushed away from the table and began his methodical walk again. “The desire for privacy doesn’t require an explanation,” he replied, a growl lacing his tone.
Sophie snarled, and her fingers itched to strangle something. Someone. Him. “What about the concept of exchanging some conversation with a woman you just invited into an extremely intense part of that private world?” she said to his back. “How does that rank on your personal scale of courtesy?”
From across the room, Lucien laughed, and the sound grated across the air. “You’re assuming I have one.”
Whether he knew it or not, the way he couldn’t stand still and face her told her volumes about his internal struggle. “I think you have more integrity that you’d like anyone to know.” He whirled on her at that, but she just added, “I think you’re more moral than you want me to know too.”
Chips of ice crystallized his stare. “I’ve already told you once that it’s dangerous to assume anything about me.”
In a shot, Sophie jumped off the table and rushed to confront Lucien, the fire in her belly growing too strong to ignore. “I think that’s bull crap.” She rose up on her tiptoes and got in his face as best she could. “I think you want me to believe that you’re some kind of disengaged loner who has lost any interest in his soul and who likes to sink into the depravity of voyeuristic sex, and—”
With one step, Lucien backed her against his dresser. “You and your hot little body tempted me right into full-on exhibitionism tonight too, sweetheart.” He slowly grazed two fingers from her throat down a straight line to her stomach, where she still wore the smeared mixture of his seed and her arousal. Dipping his fingertip into her belly button, he turned his lips up in that cheeky grin. “That’s a whole new world for me, honey, and it happened because of you.”
As much as his touch sparked a coil that twisted down into her sex, she snorted and pushed his hand away. “You won’t flatter me out of my point.”
“Which is?” As he asked, Lucien leaned against the dresser and crossed his arms and ankles.
He wanted clever, meaningless banter, and she refused to give it to him. “My point is that for someone who is so very alone and claims to desire sex without attachments, you have surrounded yourself with people who love you desperately and would do anything for you. I know you care about them just as much.” Right in front of him, she looked him up and down this time, her hands on her hips. “From where I stand, whether you can accept it or not, that’s not a man who is truly cynical, disengaged, or alone in this world.”
That too-confident light still owned his gaze. “So then maybe I’m manipulating you.”
This time it was Sophie’s turn to laugh. “Oh, I’m fairly certain you are.”
She watched him, and so she noticed when he didn’t quite hide the stiffening in his spine. “Then why are you still here?”
For the first time since crawling off that table, Sophie had Lucien’s complete attention. She could feel it, and she would not give him a pandering, simpering answer about the weather. “I’m still here because I think there’s a genuine, generous, kind person who lives alongside that bastard you want everyone to see.” He went terribly still, and Sophie took courage, stepping even closer to him, until only a handful of inches separated their bodies. “And I think no matter what the other part of you is doing, the good, caring man has shown himself to me in small pieces more than once—even though I’m sure a bigger part of you has tried to repress him—and that sincere man wants me to be here.”
His voice dropped to lethally soft. “You would do well to seriously consider which one is almost always in control, Miss Emerson.”
She didn’t step back to give him even an inch of breathing room. “Why don’t you want to tell me about your sex clubs?” she asked again.
Lucien—the son-of-a-bitch half—freaking tapped her nose. “You are a determined one,” he said with a shake of his head. “I will give you that.”
Jerk. This time, his arrogance doesn’t get to win out. This was it. Putting steel in her spine, Sophie took a precarious step onto a tight wire. “I think you’re terrified to tell me about the clubs because in doing so it will tear the bandage off a scar you don’t want me to see.”
“This ought to be good.” His tone was that of a bored parent. “And why is that?”
Breathing, Sophie maintained eye contact with that indifferent stare and said, “I think you won’t talk about the sex clubs because they are connected to your brother’s death.”
With a flare of his nostrils and pupils, Lucien jerked out from under her scrutiny. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was already on the move again.
Staying in place, Sophie turned as Lucien walked, always keeping him in her sights. “Josh is the only thing you’re not blasé about showing me. Yet you are working extremely hard to deflect my questions about the sex clubs. That makes me certain they are somehow connected. Otherwise, you’re so arrogant that I don’t think you’d care if I knew about them. Heck, I think you’d even brag about them.”
Flint sparked volatile light in Lucien’s eyes. “You are treading on dangerous waters, Miss Emerson.” Sandpaper coat
ed his warning. “I am warning you to cease right now.”
The more Sophie looked and listened to this complex, hurting man, the deeper the slice he cut into her heart. “I wish I could,” she admitted, opening that wound for him to see, “but there’s something about you that makes me care.” He jerked and shook his head, but Sophie didn’t stop. “Something in you that I don’t fully comprehend makes me dream about being with you in ways that are even more carnal than what we just did on that table.” Her confession scratched up her throat too. “It makes my chest ache when I see you hurting, and it pushes me to learn everything I can about you to ease that pain. In the beginning, I wanted to chock it up to infatuation with an enigmatic man, but I know myself well enough to understand it’s more than that.”
Lucien swung his hard stare up from the floor, locking in on her, and made somersaults churn in her stomach. Swallowing down the jitters, fighting through a fisting fear of rejection, Sophie went on. “You are compelling, and there’s a part of me that wants to figure out all of your secrets, but there’s an already bigger piece of me that would let go of that and let you keep them forever if the tradeoff was seeing peace and ease in your eyes.” He shook his head again. Something that looked hunted flashed in his stare, but Sophie couldn’t give him running room. Not right now. “You aren’t a story to me, Lucien. You’re a person, one I began to care about from the moment you opened a little bit of your soul to me the night I walked in on you having that nightmare, and then later, when you told me about losing your father. The more time I spend with you, the more I like you, and the more I hope there’s something equally interesting and compelling in me that might make you feel the same in return.” She shrugged, and her smile felt as tight as her throat. “It’s the truth. Do with it what you will.”
A Perfect Storm Page 20
