"Weird how?"

Sophie sighed heavily. "I feel guilty." She saw the incredulous look cross his face and shook her head to stop him jumping in. "I know what you're going to say. Dan lives with his mistress now. I'm not doing anything wrong. And maybe I'm not, in here," she touched her fingers against her head. "But in here..." she touched her heart. "In here, he's still my husband. We were together for too long to move on just like that."

Lucien frowned into his champagne glass.

"Does he deserve your loyalty?"

"No. But he has it anyway." She held out her glass for a refill. The champagne was definitely helping to loosen her tongue, if nothing else. "Loving him is a hard habit to break."

She unfurled her legs, and Lucien refilled their glasses then pulled her feet into his lap.

"One you need to kick."

Sophie watched him idly massage her anklebone as he drank his champagne. He was utterly beautiful and absolutely right, but he had no clue how it felt to separate from the person you'd always imagined you'd grow old with.

"It's easier said than done though, you know?"

Lucien's mouth twisted. "I don't, actually. I don't know, and I don't want to."

Sophie shook her head. He'd made his dim opinion of marriage crystal clear before now, but it seemed so at odds with the fire and passion she glimpsed when they had sex. Day to day he was all confidence and cockiness, but get him naked and every now and then he revealed a tantalising glimpse of the emotional man behind.

"Has it never occurred to you that you might be missing out?"

He laughed lightly, trailing his fingers up to her knee and back down again.

"No. Seducing other men's wives has worked out pretty well for me so far."

Sophie shook her head. "I'm being serious, Lucien."

He placed his glass down and twisted his body towards her.

"Okay. I'll be serious." He placed his hands on her knees. "I don't like marriage. Never have, never will." He leaned forward to drop a kiss onto her kneecap.

"I don't believe in true love, or Valentine’s Day… or fairies at the bottom of the garden." He kissed her other kneecap, and Sophie held completely still as she watched him. However distracting his accompanying actions were, his words offered a rare insight into the real Lucien Knight and she wanted him to keep talking.

"I'm a here and now man." He put his hands over her knees and splayed them wide, making her gasp and almost spill her champagne in shock. The edges of her robe just about covered her modesty, but only just.

"Drink your champagne," Lucien murmured, his hands already thigh high. When he raised his eyes to Sophie's, she saw that predatory, sexual edge back in them that turned her brain into wanton mush. She wanted him to keep talking, but now she wanted him to keep touching her as well, so she drank her champagne, slow and deliberate, and he inclined his head in approval.

"Why does everything have to be so serious, Sophie?" His fingers strayed higher, closer to the edge of her robe. "Isn't it better to just enjoy what you have, without trying to hold onto it, or control it, or twist it?"

"You make it sound so simple," she said, and he tugged on the belt of her robe. She felt it give way, along with her ability to focus on the insights she craved, as he continued speaking. And touching.

"It is simple, if you let it be." Lucien reached out and spread her robe open, baring her body to his waiting, appreciative eyes. Sophie fought the instinct to close the material, or her eyes, or her legs. Lucien wanted to look at her, and she wanted him to look.

"Drink your champagne," he said again, and topped up her glass once she'd obeyed his order.

"Isn't this better?" he asked, moving up the sofa to sit between her spread legs. "Isn't there something refreshingly honest about saying 'I want sex with you now, but that doesn't mean I'm going to want sex with you for the rest of my life’?'

Sophie tried to consider the question, but she was absurdly turned on by her nakedness and his constant switching between conversational and sexual modes. He reached out and played with her nipples, flicking them upwards with his thumbs.

"I love your tits."

"I thought you never used the L word."

He raised his eyes to her amused ones. "Fine. I love your tits right now," he corrected himself. "I love how they're tinged pink because you're blushing, and how your nipples are as stiff as pebbles because you're turned on." He cupped her breasts as he spoke, circling her nipples with his thumbs. "I might not love them next week, or next month, or next year, but here and now? Hell yeah. I fucking love your tits."

He moved up again, close enough for his denim-clad thigh to press between her legs as he leaned in to draw one of her nipples into his mouth. Sophie's free hand moved to stroke the back of his head, and he flicked his eyes up to hers.

"What else do you love right now?" she asked, and he laughed under his breath and switched his attentions to her other breast. Tight spirals of lust knotted in her groin as she watched the wet tip of his tongue trail around her nipple.

"Right now, I love how warm your body is." He held her lightly around the waist and dipped his head to kiss her navel, then slid back up her body until his mouth was a breath from hers. "And I really, really love knowing that right now, you're desperate for me to touch you here." He brushed his hand lightly between her legs as he spoke, then closed the space between their bodies and kissed her. Sophie's mouth opened under his, letting his tongue slide in as the barely-there drift of his warm fingers readied her tantalisingly for his definite touch.

"You know what else I really love right now, princess?" he said, lifting his mouth from hers to look into her eyes. "Knowing that no matter what old-hat crap is going on in here..." he tapped his fingers over her heart, "the rest of your body knows how fucking good this feels, doesn't it?"

Sophie's body responded to his question of its own accord, wrapping itself around him and opening to beckon his fingers inside. Lucien Knight did things to her that no man had any right to do. He bypassed all rational thought processes and tapped into the visceral, animal instincts that lurked beneath the surface.

Even still, her brain battled to hang onto some semblance of control of this situation.

"Lucien... I worry that you're my rebound guy."

He laughed low in his throat. "And now I feel used." He dipped to kiss her hip, then glanced up at her troubled eyes and paused.