by Kitty French
‘Thank you, I love them,’ she said, bending to kiss his mouth. He lingered, playing with her hard, sensitive nipples.
‘Put them on,’ he said.
Sophie went to sit, but he shook his head.
‘No. Bend over to put them on.’
Ah. So that was the game. And she felt more than ready to play it now. Turning her back on Lucien, Sophie placed the shoes on the floor before her and stepped into the first one, bending slowly from the waist to run her finger around the inside and slide her foot in.
She heard him move a little on the sofa, and could almost hear his newspaper slowly lowering as she caught his attention.
Stepping slowly into the other shoe she repeated the performance, bending a little lower again as she adjusted it.
Standing up, she twirled slowly with one hand on her hip.
‘They’re a perfect fit,’ she said. ‘What do you think?’
Lucien’s gaze swept to her feet, resting there for a few intense moments before it scorched its way back up her body, taking in her flushed face and finally coming to rest on one earlobe.
‘I think you’ve lost your earring, Princess.’
She looked down, squinting hard at the floorboards and then back up at him through her lashes. He’d just given her Louboutins. What a way the man had of turning up the temperature. Well, she’d play this game out with pleasure. Extreme, bone-melting pleasure.
‘I can’t see it,’ she said reflectively. ‘I think I’m going to have to bend over and search, Lucien.’
She turned her back on him and slowly bent over. With anyone else, Sophie would have felt paralysing self-consciousness, but Lucien had schooled her well, making his appreciation of her womanly arts so clear that her sexual confidence peaked around him. The shoes definitely added to her self-assurance too.
‘It’s so tiny,’ she murmured provocatively, ‘I just can’t see it.’
‘I think you dropped it a little closer to where I’m sitting,’ he said.
Sophie didn’t miss the husky note to his voice, the one she knew meant he was extremely turned on. Straightening up, she stretched out her spine, her arms above her head to muss up her practically dry blonde waves and send them tumbling around her shoulders. He wanted a show. And she now felt very much like she wanted to show off, enjoying her nakedness, the added poise of her sexy heels, and most of all the effect she was having on Lucien.
Slowly, slowly, she bent again, her backside rounding out towards him, her hair falling in a curtain towards the floor. She heard him move, and a peep around her leg told her that he’d moved into the centre of the sofa to sit directly behind her.
‘Best seat in the house, Princess,’ he murmured.
Encouraged, Sophie ran her hand up the inside of her thigh as she scanned the floor, so caught up in their theatre that she almost expected to see the glint of diamond winking up at her.
‘I can’t see it yet,’ she said softly.
‘I can’t quite see it either, Sophie.’ Lucien moved to the edge of his seat, his voice steady but distinctly throaty now. ‘Open your legs a little wider.’
He made her blush, and he made her bold. She stepped her feet apart, feeling herself open a little for him.
‘What we’re looking for is really quite small and delicate,’ he said, soft and lethal. ‘It’s hidden, like treasure. You might need to use your fingers.’
Jeez. Sophie’s cheeks blazed with heat and it was nothing to do with the fire in the hearth. Moving her hands between her legs, she spread her lips for him, her fingers sliding in the slickness she found there.
‘That’s better,’ he said, on the edge of his seat now, his hands on her hips to steady her. ‘Bend even deeper, and open yourself even wider, Sophie.’
God, he was lewd and scandalously sexy. Sophie did as he’d asked, peeling her flesh open and rounding her ass towards him even more.
‘I think I see it,’ he said, massaging her hipbones in deep, firm circles.
'It’s beautiful. Like a pearl.’
Leaning forwards, he traced his tongue over the curve of her ass cheek.
‘Touch yourself. I want to watch.’
Behind her Sophie heard his jeans hit the floor, and knowing he was naked and liable to take over at any given second sent her light-headed with lust. Her fingers moved between her legs, touching, sliding, giving him the show he wanted and herself the pleasure she needed.
His hands moved from steadying her hips to stroking over her ass, his fingers moving down between her legs and then lower, plunging decisively inside her and then out again, making her gasp.
‘Don’t stop,’ he whispered.
‘Don’t you stop,’ she replied.
His fingers moved into her, slow, deliberate thrusts, pulling out to his fingertips before pushing deep inside her again.
‘Stand up.’
If he’d asked her to run down the mountain naked she would have. As it was she straightened slowly, and then paused when he slipped his fingers out of her and stood behind her with his palms flat over her hips, pressing against her body, his cock hard against the base of her back. His hands slid down between her legs, lifting her knee out to the side so he could take over where she’d left off.
‘I feel it,’ he said, wrapping his other arm around her to play with her nipples, his mouth on her ear. God, she felt it too.
‘I want you to make sure I can see your sweet, wet clit every time you bend over,’ he said, his hand working between her legs as he spoke.
‘Can you do that for me, Sophie?’
She’d do anything for him. Anything he asked. Beg, steal or borrow. She loved him with every atom of her being, but right now she wanted him even more. Turning in his arms, she wrapped her leg around his thigh, and in an instant he growled low and lifted her onto his waiting cock with one decisive slice.
‘Holy fuck, Princess,’ he murmured, holding her impaled. ‘Holy fuck.’
Wrapping her legs around him, Sophie kissed him hard and open mouthed, drunk and giddy with the overwhelming sensation and relief of being filled by him at last. All of her limbs entwined around him, gathering him in until they touched everywhere. His arms held her vice-tight, one hand on her ass and the other in her hair. His neck was warm, his pulse vital beneath her lips when she buried her face there, eyes closed, breathing painfully fast because she suddenly needed to come way more than she needed oxygen.
‘Harder,’ she whispered, and he walked with her until her back pressed against the wall, imprisoning her with his chest.
‘Harder?’ he asked, a formality, because he’d already pushed the thickness of his cock even deeper inside her, grinding his hips into hers as he bit down on her lip.
‘Oh God.’
Sophie wound her arms around his broad, hard shoulders and clasped him to her, the spike heels of her Louboutins resting against the firmness of Lucien’s ass where she linked her ankles.
Slipping his hand down between their bodies when he pulled back, Lucien fingered her as he slammed into her again, hard and urgent now with both his hands and his cock, French kissing her deeply.
‘I think I found your earring, Princess, right here,’ he rasped, flicking her clitoris as her body stiffened and she dug her nails into the muscles of his shoulders. Her orgasm triggered his, her body clenching around his cock as her arms clenched around him, primal, raw and exhilarating, better than skydiving or roller coasters or bungee jumping. Sex with Lucien was more powerful than a lightning storm, all-encompassing and drenching, a world where there was only him, and her, and a love so bright it made the sun jealous.
Chapter Two
‘Tell me again what this is?’
Sophie stood by the fireplace a little later and picked up the brand new straw goat with red ribbons tied around its neck. Lucien had put it there when they’d arrived that morning, pulled from a box he’d hauled in out of the boot of the car when they’d arrived, packed to ensure he made her first Norwegian Christmas as perfect a
s possible.
‘It’s called a julebukk,’ he said. ‘Every home displays them in a place of honour at Christmas. Ours was always on the fireplace when I was a child.’
It was precious beyond words to Sophie to hear him speak of his past here in Norway. It was a window into his world, into his head almost, into the life that had shaped him and made him into the extraordinary man he was today. She placed the straw goat carefully down again.
‘Why a goat?’
Lucien lay on the sofa, once more commando under his faded jeans, his arms folded behind his head. Seeing him so utterly and uncharacteristically relaxed, Sophie’s fingers itched to grab her phone to click a photo so she could have him to look at like this any time she wished. He was always so busy, so vital, it was sexy to see him so chilled. Being in his homeland seemed to have that effect on him these days.
‘There’s many myths, stories of Thor and his goats, and of Viking feasts. Some even speak of human sacrifices.’
Sophie looked thoughtfully at the straw goat, conjuring up the movie image of Thor and finding he came a clear second to the hot Viking in front of her right now. As close as they’d grown over their intense love affair, Sophie knew she still had much to learn about Lucien, about his past and his heritage.
There was a sense of otherness about him that set him apart from other men; a darkness and a strength, a confidence and sense of ease with himself that made him as addictive as crack cocaine and only slightly less dangerous.
‘Hot chocolate?’ she suggested. It felt an incongruous statement, as Sophie was still not at all used to the fact that he’d banned her from wearing any clothes. It wasn’t that she was cold: the cabin was warm as toast and lit by the low glow from the creamy fairy lights on the arty twig tree supplied by the interior designers as well as by the golden-hued firelight. The days in Norway at this time of the year were mercilessly short, bringing a scant hour or so of overcast daylight at best before the darkness settled back over them once more like a cloak. It might have been oppressive, yet it never seemed to feel that way at Lucien’s side.
He nodded, traces of amusement mingled with the ever-present hint of dangerous lust in his eyes.
‘Keep the shoes on while you make it.’
He knew she wasn’t entirely comfortable, and she knew that he wouldn’t change his mind and give her her bags back, either. It was the way he approached every aspect of their relationship; to reel her out as far as she was willing to go then push her a little bit further still, ever watchful and ready to gather her in again the moment she really needed him to.
She made her way over to the small kitchen, and he followed her, pulling out one of the stools at the breakfast bar. She glanced towards him as she reached a couple of tall mugs down from the high shelf, and as always his impossible blend of beauty and sheer, sleek manliness made her gaze linger. Seated as he was behind the breakfast bar, she could only see him from the waist up, his chin resting on his hands as he leaned his elbows on the surface.
Sophie had a thing for his hands; from the strong, capable size of them to the wickedly good things he was capable of doing with them. They were the hands that held her body when she orgasmed, held her hand when she was scared, and held her heart as delicately as if he were cupping a dandelion clock to protect it from the wind.
Flicking the gas on, Sophie set some milk to warm and spooned in chocolate, stirring it slowly as it heated through.
‘I have other gifts for you. Would you like one of them now? It’s traditional to give gifts on Christmas Eve here.’
‘You already gave me these gorgeous shoes,’ Sophie said, worrying afresh that her gift for Lucien wouldn’t arrive, or that it wouldn’t please him in the way she imagined it would. One thing was certain - it was going to be late. Her plan hadn’t accounted for the Norwegian tradition of Little Christmas, the practice of exchanging gifts on Christmas Eve rather than December twenty fifth.
‘The shoes were a gift for both of us,’ he said unconcernedly. ‘I like seeing you in them.’
She let her eyes dwell on the view from the kitchen window as the chocolate warmed slowly though. It was coming up to midday, towards the precious hour or so of brief, beautiful blueish daylight before the polar night resettled once more over the pristine, snow covered Lyngen Alps. It was snowing heavily out there, flakes the size of feathers drifting down and settling like a thick quilt over the arctic landscape.
Sophie leaned over and flicked on the radio, half for musical accompaniment and half so they could keep an ear out for weather warnings. Soft carols filled the kitchen, and for a few seconds Sophie wished she were a child again making gingerbread with her mum back in England.
‘We could go outside, take a walk maybe?’ she murmured, trying her luck as she poured the chocolate cautiously from the pan into the mugs, because bare skin and boiling milk in close proximity could so easily end in disaster.
‘We could, if you’re feeling brave.’ Lucien’s eyes glittered at the prospect. ‘It’s pretty deserted out there but you might thrill the occasional walker. I’ll let you wear walking boots, but it’s birthday suit, not snowsuit. From the ankles up, you stay naked, Princess.’ He accepted the mug she slid across the counter to him, his eyes on her breasts as she turned. Sophie wondered about challenging him, because she was not making coffee, as stipulated in his earlier rules, but decided it would be splitting hairs. Anyway, she had to admit she was enjoying Lucien’s adulation, even if her nakedness in the kitchen was a little unnerving, not to mention risky.
Considering now the option Lucien had offered, Sophie flicked her eyes to the ceiling. She should have known better than to try stealth to get around his rules.
‘We could go as far as the hot tub later, if the snow stops,’ she tried.
Lucien flicked an eyebrow up, a “maybe”, or a “maybe I have other plans” kind of gesture. He looked as if he was going to say something, and then his gaze moved from her to the radio beneath the window, listening intently to what the Norwegian presenter was saying. Sophie stilled, watching him.
‘What is it?’
Lucien waited a moment, until the report’s section ended. Focusing again on Sophie, he explained, ‘The storm blowing through, it’s more severe than expected. They’re recommending people hunker down and wait it out as long as they’re somewhere safe.’
‘What about us? Is this a good place? Or should we try to make a move?’
Lucien shook his head decisively. ‘We have good food and drink, a supply of firewood, and you’re naked. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than here.’
Smiling, not surprised by his answer, Sophie headed back into the living room and settled on the sofa, pulling the soft fur throw up over her as she curled her legs beneath her and blew the steam from her chocolate. If Lucien thought this was a good and a safe place to be in the eye of the storm, she believed him. She knew he would never put her in danger.
Lucien followed behind, pausing by the bookcase to scan the reading selection. He raised his eyebrows. He’d been expecting a shelf of glossy, trend-led coffee table books, supplied by the designers. But here were novels, old biographies, reference books, a dictionary, in both Norwegian and English… some of them distinctly battered.
‘Read to me?’ Sophie said softly, savouring the rich, sweet drink.
He glanced towards her almost quizzically, then ran his fingers over the spines of the books for a minute or two before easing one of them out.
‘Did you choose these?’ he asked, sliding down onto the sofa beside her to add, ‘And don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re hiding underneath a blanket.’
He lifted the edge of the fur and joining her beneath it. ‘I’ll allow it to stay as long as I’m underneath it with you.’
Sophie reached over the arm of the sofa and placed her mug down beside the lamp then twisted around and lay down with her head in Lucien’s lap, scanning the book cover as she pulled the fur throw up over her body.
‘Y
es, I did,’ she admitted. ‘I thought books were too personal to let a designer choose them. I picked… ones that I like, and I thought you might like them too.’
‘So you’ve read this before?’ Lucien asked, opening the green linen cover of the book he’d selected and turning the first pages to the beginning of chapter one.
Sophie nodded. She’d first read Wuthering Heights as an impressionable fourteen year old, and like many girls before her she’d fallen head over heels for Heathcliff’s brooding, gypsy charms. She’d read it countless times over the intervening years, and the idea of listening to Lucien read it to her now on this snowy Christmas eve was the stuff her made were of.
Lucien leaned in and kissed her forehead.
‘What about the Norwegian books?’
Sophie grinned. She’d spent several hours on the Internet and in email conversation with a very helpful English-speaking second-hand bookseller in Oslo. ‘Remember, I’m a PA,’ she told him.
‘Resourceful as ever,’ he said, touching her cheek. ‘Thank you. I like them very much.’
She closed her eyes as he started to read, breathing in slowly and enjoying the rich depth of his tone coupled with the beautiful, atmospheric words of one of her most favourite books. If there had ever been a more serene and perfect moment in Sophie’s life, she couldn’t bring it to mind. He stroked her hair with his free hand as he read, spreading it out over his thighs absently as he combed his fingers through it. Every now and then he shifted a little, and each time Sophie was freshly reminded of the distracting presence of his crotch beneath the back of her head. She was torn between the urge to turn her face into him and pop open the button on his jeans and the wish to lie still and listen to him read forever.
Was there anything sexier than a lethally hot man reading a truly great book? He read beautifully, of course. Expressive and unhurried, as though he too knew the text well. Just watching him and listening to him was more pleasurable foreplay than hanging-from-the-chandeliers sex with any other man on the planet.
