by Kitty French
Yes. He had wagered well. Paris was good for Sophie Black, there was his payout. But was Sophie Black good for him?
Chapter Nineteen
"I'd never tire of this view."
Sophie stood on the penthouse balcony with her hands on the cast iron railings and surveyed Paris by moonlight. Pale, blue-grey buildings scattered with pinprick diamond lights in the windows. The Eiffel Tower a glittering column of light presiding over them.
Lucien joined her on the balcony. Dinner had just arrived beneath polished silver cloches and now awaited them on the balcony dining table.
"You look very beautiful."
Sophie absorbed his quiet compliment, glad that he'd taken the time to notice her efforts. She couldn't put her finger on why it had mattered to dress for dinner. She could have easily and decadently stayed in her robe. It wasn't as if it was a date, yet still she'd lingered over her choice of clothing. In the end she'd opted again for her beloved new dress. It seemed a shame that she'd only worn it fleetingly to the club last night: it deserved more. Dinner overlooking the Paris skyline fitted the bill handsomely. Strictly, the dress was better without underwear, yet she hadn’t been able to resist the lure of the silken lingerie also delivered by the boutique last night.
As she'd stepped into the little black knickers and fastened the quarter-cup bra behind her, she'd straightened and tried to see what Lucien saw when he looked at her. She'd pinned her hair up loosely and applied a little makeup, added high heels for effect, and then stood back to survey the results.
There was so little to the underwear, yet what there was of it worked so much harder than any other lingerie Sophie had ever owned. Thanks to the cut of the knickers, her waist seemed a little more dipped, her legs a touch longer. The bra was something else again. How could such a scant frippery provide such perfect support? Her breasts rose like pale marble, rose-tipped and suggestively revealed. It was sex underwear, and Sophie wanted to wear it for Lucien. She was his Parisian courtesan for the evening.
He'd made an effort for her too, with his usual unerring instinct. His white shirt fitted his body in all the right places, highlighting rather than hiding the breadth of his shoulders and the definition of his biceps. No tie of course, and sleeves folded back; trademark, laid back Lucien and sexy as hell. His narrow charcoal trousers made Sophie's hands itch to run over his backside. He was beautiful whatever he wore, but like this he was breathtaking. And all the more so because he'd made the effort just for her. Even though it wasn't a date.
He moved alongside her and rested his hand on the curve of her waist.
"Why the serious face?" he asked, his other hand warm over hers on the railings.
Sophie chewed her lip, unsure how to phrase the thoughts that had occupied her mind before he joined her outside. "This place..." she gestured around the balcony, at the flower-laden window boxes and elegantly laid table. "This view..." she looked out over Paris, and then back at Lucien. "And us. It's romantic, whether you like it or not."
She didn't dare look at him.
"I don't see romance. I see sexy." His tone was light, as he ran the back of his fingers down her arm. "I see two people making the most of the moment." His other hand massaged her waist. "I see a woman with curves in all the right places, and a man who wants to eat dinner and then get her out of her dress as soon as possible."
Sophie laughed and shook her head a little wistfully. He had a glib answer for everything, but still, something told her that he didn't always operate on that shallow level in his head. His mouth said one thing, but his body said another. His words said I want you now, but every now and then his body said I'll adore you always.
Or was that the classic mistake of a woman on the rebound, seeing her new lover's actions through rose-tinted glasses? Lucien had certainly never said anything to lead her on or make her think of him in terms of a boyfriend.
Boyfriend. Even the word was alien in this context. Lucien Knight was nobody's boyfriend. He was a man, not a boy, a lover not a boyfriend.
Right now he was a big, beautiful man who had decided it was time for them to eat. He held her chair out as she sat down, then reached towards the candles in the silver candelabra. His fingers hovered near the wicks for a second.
"Will you take it the wrong way if I light these?"
Sophie paused for a beat. "How could I take a candle-lit dinner any other way?"
"I'm lighting them because it's dark, and because they’re there." He conjured the flames into life and sat down opposite her. "But there's no denying that you look even more fuckable by candlelight."
Fine. She'd play it his way. "So do you."
Lucien's confident expression flickered like the flames for the merest of seconds, just long enough for Sophie to observe that he was a man used to giving the compliments rather than receiving them. Or maybe it was just her compliments that he was uncomfortable with.
Frowning slightly, she lifted the silver dome in front of her, more than ready for the distraction of food to distance her from her disturbing thought processes.
And it was distracting. Plump, rare fillet steak, butter-soft and accompanied by golden frites and salad.
"No eggs this time?" she asked, wide-eyed and innocent.
"Would you like there to be?"
Smart guy. She shot him a reproving look. "You were out of order today. The Carmichaels must have wondered what was going on."
"It was product research."
"What, and I was the guinea pig?"
He paused midway through cutting his steak and regarded her, amusement dancing in his eyes.
"You don't fool me. You loved it, Sophie Black."
Sophie considered a denial… but who was she kidding? It had indeed been a massive turn-on, knowing Lucien had control of her body, sharing the intimacy of a sexy secret with him in a public place.
"Okay. Maybe I did love it a little bit. Did you?"
"Are you trying to make me say the L word again, Sophie?" he countered. "Because if you are, then hell yeah. I loved it." Lucien splashed wine into Sophie's glass and then his own. "I loved having you at my mercy. I loved watching you struggle to hide how fucking excited you were." He picked up his wine glass and drank from it, his eyes darkening lustfully. "And I loved knowing that you were naked beneath that dress. I was hard for you most of the way through lunch.”
He set the glass back down. “So. Enough love for you? Or do you want more?"
Sophie was amused, despite herself. "I think that's probably enough love for you tonight. You're in danger of having real feelings."
"Not a chance," he smirked and raised his glass again. "But for the record, I still love your tits."
"Just eat your dinner."
As he laughed softly and looked down at his plate, a sucker punch of emotion hit Sophie squarely in the chest. Cast golden in the candlelight, his easy smile and unguarded laughter was such a rare, beautiful thing. Agitation made the delicious food suddenly unpalatable. Her feelings for Lucien confused the hell out of her. On paper, this should be easy. No strings, no emotions, no heartbreak. So how come he'd managed to take over her mind and her body so completely that she had barely spared a thought for anyone else since they'd arrived here? The man bewitched her.
"Enough?" He laid his cutlery down and nodded towards her half-eaten steak.
Sophie nodded and glanced up at the cloud-scuttled sky. A few spots of rain dampened her cheeks as she shivered a little. There was a definite nip in the air that the food and blood-warm red wine couldn't counter.
Lucien picked up their glasses. "Looks like rain's stopped play. Let's go inside."
Chapter Twenty
His choice of the armchair rather than sofa startled Sophie enough to make her mirror his choice in the opposite armchair. His decision to cork the wine in favour of a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses was equally disconcerting. When he laid down a deck of cards, she was completely nonplussed.
"Cards and tequila. Now you've surprised me
."
"Good." He poured two shots of tequila and pushed one towards her. "Let's play strip poker."
Sophie picked up her glass and drained it. She understood his game. This was a prelude to sex, but as the clear liquid burned her throat, she found she wanted to make her own moves too.
"If we're drinking tequila, then the game should be truth or dare."
Lucien swallowed his shot and refilled their glasses. "Fine. But I'll lie, and you'll regret it."
Much as Sophie suspected he was right, the idea of having carte blanche to ask Lucien questions was too tempting to pass up.
"I'll play your game if you'll play mine." She folded her arms across her chest and tilted her head in challenge.
Lucien leaned back in his chair and contemplated her, his shot glass in his hand. In his white dress shirt and the low lamplight of the room, he looked like he belonged in a late-night club, ready to seduce someone over a bottle of whisky.
One hundred percent trouble, and off the scale sexy.
"Fine." He leaned forward and dealt the cards.
"I don't remember the rules," she said, picking them up. Her experiences of strip poker had been little more than glorified snap designed for titillation rather than strategy.
"Good. You'll be naked pretty darn fast in that case." Lucien turned his cards over and studied them. Confusion must have been written all over her face when he looked up again. "Okay, okay." There was a glint in his eye. "Let's make this simple." He gathered the cards back in and re-dealt them just one card each. "Lowest card loses. Aces high."
Sophie nodded and turned her card over. A seven. Maybe...
He flicked his card over in his fingers so she could see it. A nine. He raised an eyebrow, enjoying his advantage.
"This is probably the point where you wish you'd worn more clothes, princess."
She tossed her seven down on the table. His eyes flicked over the card, and then back up her legs to her face.
Sophie kicked off one shoe.
"Both of them. They count as one item."
"According to whose rules?"
"Mine."
She sighed dramatically and removed the other shoe, placing both neatly beside her chair. Lucien retrieved her card and reshuffled skillfully, the cards whirring through his fingers.
Sophie held up a hand to stop him as he leaned forward to deal the next pair.
"Truth or dare first. You promised."
He rolled his eyes and picked up his shot glass, then drained it and banged it down on the table. "Shoot."
Sophie cleared her throat, her own glass still full in her fingers. What did she want to know first? He was one long list of contradictions and unanswered questions. They could be here all night, so she decided not to pussyfoot around.
"Okay." She eyed him levelly. "How many women have you loved?"
He didn't miss a beat. "One."
Sophie realised too late that she’d made the elementary mistake of asking a closed question, leaving her with another, bigger one unanswered. She found the notion of Lucien in love with someone else unsettling. Stupid. She’d think more carefully next time.
"Drink up." He poured his own shot and refilled hers when she'd swallowed it.
Rain beat down on the windows and on their abandoned table outside, making Sophie feel incongruously that it was as if they were cloistered inside playing cards on a camping trip because the weather had turned.
"Do I get to ask you a question now, then?" He shuffled the cards again with idle expertise.
"If you want to."
Lucien's eyes moved slowly over Sophie's face. "How many times have you wished you were in Paris with your cock of a husband instead of me?"
"None." The word came out at speed, a gut reaction that shocked Sophie more than it did Lucien. "Not once," she said, more quietly this time. She'd thought of Dan, inevitably. She'd wondered bitterly where he was and what he was doing, but as for wishing that he were here at her side in Paris instead of Lucien? No. Not even once.
"Does that bother you?" Lucien enquired smoothly.
"You're not allowed to ask a second question," she said, mostly because she wanted to avoid answering it.
Lucien raised his eyebrows for a second, and then leaned forward and dealt two cards.
Sophie reached for hers. Ten of hearts. The corners of her mouth tipped up involuntarily, enjoying the game now that she was likely to win the round. She turned the card to Lucien, who nodded philosophically and dropped his three of clubs on the table.
"Any preference?" he asked, gesturing down at his clothes with perfect assurance.
"You choose."
He rubbed his lips together in deliberation, and then started to unbutton his shirt.
Sophie swallowed her tequila. Trust him to go straight for a big money item. He watched her face as he popped the last button and shrugged the shirt off his shoulders onto the floor.
He settled back into the chair, thoroughly comfortable with his semi-clad state.
"Is it interrogation time again?"
"You say interrogation, I say talking."
"Let's call the whole thing off then and cut to the sex bit."
"Very funny." Sophie chewed her lip. "Why are you so anti-marriage?"
Lucien's expression gave so little away, but Sophie didn't miss the way his grip tightened on the arms of the chair.
He shrugged. "I'll take the dare."
Sophie paused. She hadn't banked on that, and she seriously doubted that her limited imagination could come up with anything that would be out of Lucien's comfort zone, not sexually at least, anyway. The tequila wasn't helping either, she couldn't think straight.
"Umm… Sing to me!" she said, giggling.
He laughed. "Don't be fucking ridiculous."
Sophie realised with pleasure that she'd inadvertently hit on something that actually made him uncomfortable.
"I don't sing. Not for you or anyone else."
"Not even in the shower?"
"Want to come in with me to check?"
Sophie wasn't letting him off the hook. "Truth or dare. You choose."
He rolled his broad shoulders and glanced down.
"Love is a temporary insanity curable by marriage, as they say. It fucks people up."
"So you do believe in love?"
"Only when it comes to your tits. And that was two questions. Take your dress off as a forfeit."
It was an unsatisfactory answer, but she had no chance to object as he cleverly moved her attention on with his sexy demand.
"You can't make up new rules."
He lifted an eyebrow at her lazily then pushed a card across the table.
She looked at it with trepidation, then reached down and flipped it over quickly.
"Ha!" She pointed at the queen of clubs and then at Lucien. "Ha!"
He turned over the king of diamonds and sat back with his arms folded across his naked chest.
"Dress. Off. Now."
Sophie's problem lay in her underwear. The idea of continuing this game clad only in the indecent quarter-cup bra and barely-there knickers had her reaching for her tequila yet again.
Was she brave enough? Her only other option was to throw in the towel, and that didn't feel like something that could happen in Lucien's rulebook. Besides, she wanted to keep asking him questions. What’s more, she had to acknowledge that a part of her did want to take off her dress and let him look. A frisson ran through her body at the thought.
He watched her weigh up her options in silence, arms still crossed and a look of unyielding expectation on his face.
The dress had to come off. She stood up, reminded of her first time with Lucien in the Gateway club in London. Back then he'd asked her to take her dress off rather than ordered her, though.
She reached for the side zip and slid it down, then shrugged the dress into a pool on the floor. Two options presented themselves. Sit down quickly, or stand there brazenly and let him drink his fill.
"Sophi
e, Sophie, Sophie."
Lucien's low, appreciative groan sealed the deal.
Sophie attempted the universal model pose, a hand on her hip, one knee slightly bent, and Lucien nodded a little.
"Fucking beautiful."
He stood and walked slowly towards her, and she held her breath in anticipation.
"Something's not quite right," he said, close enough to touch her anywhere he chose. Her nipples beaded for him, and the tip of his tongue touched his lips as he looked at them.
"Sit down."
Her eyes flickered to his, and he inclined his head towards the armchair. Surprised, Sophie perched uncertainly, and Lucien took his place behind her on the arm of the chair.
"It's your hair," he murmured, resting his hands on the curve of her neck, his thumbs rolling on her backbone. "I want it down." Her hands moved to unpin it, but he caught them and laid them back in her lap. "Let me."
Sophie closed her eyes as his fingers moved over her hair, slowly removing the pins one by one. It was an act of tenderness, so out of place in the theatre of their sex games that it brought a lump to her throat. This was what had been missing from her marriage, too. Scorching sex was all well and good, but she could have lived forever with Dan's missionary style if he'd shown her even a fraction of the sensitivity that Lucien did right at that moment.
She heard the tinkle of pins on glass, then felt the strength and warmth of Lucien's fingers working through her hair. Mussing, freeing, caressing. He moved from the arm of the chair and dropped to his knees between hers, then leaned back a little to survey his handiwork. His eyes roamed over her hair, her face, then lower, to her exposed breasts.
"Now you're perfect."
He dipped his head first to one nipple, then the other. The lightest of kisses, the briefest swirl of his tongue before he lifted his face to hers and kissed her mouth. His hands slid into the hair he'd just unpinned, his kiss tasted of tequila and tenderness and desire.
