"Count on me, princess."

Chapter Thirty

It was as if she'd opened the gates to paradise.

Lucien was parched and desperate to drink from her, to fill himself to the brim with the magical elixir that seemed to flow from her soft curves and hidden hollows straight into his bloodstream.

He lowered his head and captured her nipple between his lips, turned on as much by her groan of pleasure as by the feel of the nub in his mouth. He swirled his tongue over her as he let his hands explore her back; the delicate bones of her spine, the way it dipped then flared at the base.

He shrugged out of his shirt as he transferred his attentions to her other nipple, loving the feeling of his skin against her skin again. The sure slide of her hands over his shoulders had him pushing down her lace knickers. There would be time later to take it slow. Right now he was driven by urgent need; the need to embrace her naked body completely, to be overthrown by the mind-blowing sensation that only fucking this woman could give him. 

Sophie's shallow moans of anticipation told him that she was of the same mind, as did the way she swayed her body against his as he reached for his belt.

"I love you like this," she murmured when he gathered her to him, and he had to hold back the words that almost left his own lips as he lifted her onto the edge of the sofa and positioned himself between her legs.

He noticed how she held her breath with anticipation as he let the tip of his cock play against her entrance, and how it rushed from her body when he surged his hips forward. She might have groaned, but he didn't hear it over the animalistic sound that left his own throat. Oh, the way Sophie wrapped her legs around his thighs, and Christ, the feel of her hands pulling him in deeper. She'd regained the weight she'd dropped in her weeks of turmoil and distress and felt to Lucien all the more amazing for it; her lush velvet curves were surely designed to make a man lose his head. Fuck. He needed to thrust, and he needed her with him when he came.

Sophie's mouth opened wide under his when he reached a hand behind her head and pulled her into his kiss, and she mouthed his name when he reached his other hand between their bodies and massaged her clitoris as his hips found a furious rhythm. Christ, she was going to come, he could feel her body tensing and it aroused him almost beyond endurance. She clamped him with her legs, her head flung back with pleasure as he slammed himself into her. So sexy. Bang. So fucking, fucking sexy. Bang. Sophie cried out, her finger nails arcing into his skin as she orgasmed around his cock and under his fingers. Her whole body tightened deliciously, wrenching his own climax out of him with a shout of absolute, blissful, excruciating, intense release.

"Mine." The ragged word left his mouth unplanned and uncensored by rational thought as he buried his face in her neck. "Mine."

Sophie heard Lucien's possessive words and they welded themselves to her heart.

Yes, I'm yours. Completely, utterly yours.

How I wish you were mine too.

Chapter Thirty-One

Sophie settled herself against Lucien's chest as they dropped down together onto the sofa. "Do you want some dinner?"

"No." He stroked her hair.

"Coffee?"

"No."

"Cake?"

"Only if I can smear it all over you and then lick it off."

Sophie harboured no delusion that he was joking; she was instantly transported back to Norway, laid out on Lucien's dining table wearing nothing but his dessert.

"I don't want food or drink. This isn't a date."

She sighed heavily. She didn't ask what this was then, because she knew the answer.

This was goodbye. The best, longest, sexiest goodbye kiss ever.

"Come upstairs?" she whispered, and felt his smile against her neck.

"Now that, Sophie Black, is a much more enticing offer."

Sitting snug behind Lucien in the bathtub half an hour later with her legs wrapped around his hips, Sophie scooped up foamy water in her cupped palms and trickled it over his broad shoulders. He massaged her calves as he lounged idly against her, his eyes closed and a small relaxed smile on his lips as the water ran in rivulets down his chest.

"Feels nice?" She murmured it against his cheek, letting her fingers follow the water to stroke his nipples into stiffness.

"Nice." He echoed the lamely inadequate word with a crooked half smile. It was warm and steamy in the bathroom, gilding Lucien's skin with a damp sheen. It was impossible to look at him and not to want to touch him, and Sophie wasn’t holding herself back. She wanted to imprint him on her hands and her memory forever. If this was to be her last time with him, then she was entitled to be greedy.

He leaned forward for a second to top up the warm water, and Sophie's eyes rested on the monochrome lone wolf tattoo that lay across his shoulder blades. It was beautifully detailed, a solitary, restless animal with hungry, watchful eyes. Much like the man he resided on.

She curled her arms around him when he settled back down.

"Why the wolf?" she asked.

Lucien didn't answer straight away. Instead, he squeezed soap into his hands and smoothed the resulting lather over her bent knees, massaging her skin in broad circles.

"He reminds me of home."

"But you can't see him."

Every trace of his nostalgic smile had gone, replaced by a faraway melancholy. "I don't need to see him to know he's there."

Sophie felt that she knew so much of Lucien, and yet so little too. There was a great, yawning sadness in him that she sensed but couldn't reach. His relationship with his homeland seemed so complex, a love-hate relationship that she couldn't quite grasp. The few occasions she'd tried to push him for information had ended badly, and she didn't want tonight to go the same way.

Not our last night together.

Besides, Lucien was already keen to move things along. He clearly had plenty of ways in mind to make the most of their evening. He'd asked her to fetch the glass dildo he'd once given her, and right now it lay submerged somewhere beneath the warmth of the water.

He sat up and eased her around and over him so that their positions were reversed, a slippery manoeuvre that he pulled off with aplomb. Sophie found herself cradled against his chest. She wriggled herself comfortable, deliciously aware of his cock against the small of her back.

"One hell of an impressive way to change the subject, Mr. Knight," she said, gratified to hear him laugh under his breath. He reached for the shampoo and tipped a little into his palm rather than reply, then smoothed the apple-scented cream over her hair.

"I love the smell of this stuff." Lucien inhaled deeply as he massaged the shampoo into her skull with slow, rhythmic movements that made Sophie sigh as her eyes closed reflexively. "It smells of you."