He straightened and kissed her parted lips again, leaving her breathless.

“Your husband is cheating on you.”

Sophie frowned, blindsided by Lucien’s strange combination of serious conversational matter with sexual stimulation.

He moved her sweater higher to reveal her bra. His gaze scorched her skin even as the air cooled it. He reached out and covered her breasts with his hands.

“Shall I have him killed?”  He pinched her nipples, already stiffened by cold air and desire. Sophie squirmed, but the soft scarf held fast.

“No!” She hoped he was joking. Was he? “Lucien, do we have to have this conversation while I’m tied to a tree?”

“Yes.” He pulled down the nude-coloured lace cups of her bra and exposed her nipples. “The stupid bastard doesn’t appreciate the fact that you have perfect tits.”

He lowered his head and sucked on first one nipple then the other. His hot mouth fastened hard over her, and the cold breeze on her lick-dampened flesh served only to heighten the incredible sensation.

When he popped the top button of her jeans, she gasped. “Lucien, don’t. What if someone walks by?”

He looked up at her from between her breasts.

“They probably won’t.”

“Probably isn’t good enough. Please … can’t we just …” The flustered words died on her lips when he stood and pressed his body firmly against hers and the cold material of his jacket crinkled against her skin.

“If anyone came by, which they won’t, they’d be fucking lucky to see you like this. Yet another thing your husband seems to take for granted.”

Even his fingers on the waistband of her jeans couldn’t take the sting out of his words about Dan, mostly because she knew he was right.

“It’s complicated, Lucien.”

“Why so?” His thumbs drew circles on her hipbones.

“Because…” she struggled to hang onto her train of thought. “You wouldn’t understand. He’s just not like you.”

She felt him exhale scornfully. “You mean he’s dull, short and wears fuck-awful suits?”

Inappropriate laughter bubbled in her throat. “No, he’s none of those things. He’s …”

Lucien’s fingers unpopped the last of her buttons, and the brush of his fingertips against her pubic bone rendered her speechless.

“He’s what, Sophie?” he whispered against her throat.

She shrugged, pained, and excited. “I don’t know… he’s bored… with me… I guess?”

Lucien swore under his breath and dragged her jeans down her hips.

“Don’t justify his fucking appalling behaviour by blaming yourself.”

Sophie looked down at him, shocked by the roughness in his voice and his hands, and ridiculously turned on by the lewd feeling of her jeans around her knees and the cold breeze between her legs. He leaned against her as he stood and cupped her bottom in his big, warm hands.

“Why do you think he fucks someone else when he should be fucking you?”

Sophie dragged cold air into her lungs, unable to breathe properly. Lucien’s words lay like acid on her heart, yet his fingers soothed away the pain of the burn.

“I guess I’m just not enough for him anymore,” she whispered. It was the fear she’d kept hidden even from herself.

Lucien’s game was turning out to be one with high emotional stakes, and she was pretty sure it was a game she couldn’t win. She jolted as his fingers bit into the flesh of her bottom.

“Bullshit. Where’s your backbone?” He slid his arm between their bodies and touched between her legs. When his mouth covered hers, his breathing was as laboured as her own.

“I’ll tell you why he does it, Sophie,” Lucien whispered as his deft fingers found her clitoris. “He does it because he can. It’s no more complicated than that.”

His words were in her ears and her head, yet her mind was unable to process them over the sensations of his hand between her legs.

“Monogamy isn’t natural. Not for men, anyway.” He pushed two fingers deep inside her and her knees buckled. “For women, maybe, but not for men.”

He dragged his open mouth up the curve of her neck as his fingers worked between them. Sophie found she wasn’t bothered any more about the possibility of strangers discovering them in the clearing, because she so much wanted the orgasm Lucien was pushing her towards. Yet something in his words stopped her from giving herself over to it. He was wrong. After the week she’d just spent with him, she knew very well that women were every bit as capable of cheating as men.

“I never thought I’d cheat, yet here I am, tied to a tree by a… a… Norwegian sex mogul.” Jeez. Where had that come from?

“Sex mogul?” he muttered incredulously. He shot her a look, then shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”

He dropped to his knees and pushed his face into her sex, making Sophie moan as he flicked his tongue over her clitoris. She wanted to open her thighs wider but her jeans held her in constraint. Something about the awkwardness served only to increase the sexiness of the act, and it certainly didn’t impede Lucien’s skill or concentration. He parted her lips with his fingers and buried his tongue inside her folds, sucking and fingering her swollen clitoris until her body started to shake with pleasure.

He unzipped his coat and slid up the length of her body, unbuttoning his jeans as he did so. “Sex mogul,” he repeated under his breath. “A sex mogul who’s about to fuck you.” He had his jeans down and a condom on in a matter of seconds, then positioned himself against her and thrust hard. Sophie cried out at the swift intimacy of the act, at the searing fullness of him, at the relentless friction of his cock sliding against her clitoris. It wasn’t gentle. It was pure, hard fucking, and she orgasmed with a scream almost as soon as he was inside her.

Lucien’s eyes blazed bright with hot lust, and Sophie found herself desperate to hold his face in her hands, to soothe away the tension from his jaw.

He pulled back. “Does it feel this good when he screws you?” His voice came out as a harsh rasp as he slammed into her, making her gasp. Sophie shook her head, unable to say out loud that no, no one in her life had ever made her feel like this. His mouth was all over hers, clashing teeth, sliding tongues, and his fingers curled possessively around her hips to hold her steady as he pumped.

“Does it?” he ground out, his eyes boring into hers. “Answer me, Sophie. Say. The. Fucking. Words.”