He watched her coolly for a second, and then reached across the void and handed her a pair of chopsticks. She eyed them doubtfully.

"I'm not great with these."

"I can't hear you Sophie. You're practically in the other room." Lucien cupped his hand to his ear, and she rolled her eyes and scooted a little closer to the food, and to him. He nudged a carton across the table.

"Try this. I think you'll like it."

The delicious scent of Singapore noodles filled her nostrils as soon as she opened the carton. Novice as she was with chopsticks, she managed well enough to discover that Lucien was right - they were divine.

He handled his chopsticks with the ease of a man who used them often, and each new carton he offered her held amazing flavours and textures. Delicate glass noodles. Fiery rare fillet beef. Tender lobster. He encouraged her to try a little of everything, and Sophie found herself relaxing a little as the good food hit her stomach. Even the chopsticks behaved themselves, right up until the point Lucien insisted she test a particularly fragrant rice dish. Try as she might, more than a few grains at a time eluded her grip, until she laughed and placed the carton down, defeated.

"Like this." Lucien demonstrated the correct way to use the sticks. "Keep the ends even, and pinch the top one between your thumb and finger." He frowned as she tried and failed to copy his example. "Wedge the bottom one here, like this." He looked at his own hand, and then at hers. He made it look so simple. Of course he did.

Lucien moved along the sofa, close enough to reach out and touch her fingers with his own

"Not like that. Like this."

His warm hand brushed hers, placing her fingers into the perfect arrangement around the chopsticks. Sophie couldn't meet his eyes. The casual touch of his fingertips against her skin was enough to dissolve any further interest she had in eating. She badly wanted not to react to him, not to remember, not to want more… but it was too hard.

"Sophie."

She dragged her eyes upwards and found him watching her closely. He took the chopsticks from her fingers and placed them on the coffee table.

"I'm sorry..." she said, and cast her gaze upward to the ceiling as she blinked tears back in. What was happening to her? She didn't cry easily, and yet these past few weeks she'd wept enough to cause a flood hazard.

"Jesus. Come here."

When Lucien moved in close and pulled her into his arms, Sophie couldn't fight it. No one – apart from Kara, her dear, dear, friend - had held her for weeks. And Kara didn’t hold her like this. She really, really needed it. Her unchecked tears dampened his shirt, and his familiar, expensive warm spice smell assaulted her senses. The strength of his arms. The gentle rub of his hand over her back. Little by little, his comforting eased the heave of her shoulders and stole away the painful ache from her chest.

Sophie's eyelashes drifted down, and somewhere along the line, the touch of Lucien's hands went from being comforting to something else. Something way, way too intensely pleasurable to call a halt to. She became aware of the heat of his back where her arm curved around him, and the steady beat of his heart where her palm lay flat against the buttons of his shirt.

Did his lips brush against her hair when he murmured her name?

Did she turn her face into the warm, golden skin at the hollow of his neck?

His mouth was a whisper from hers when she tilted her head, close enough for his breath to warm her lips. Lucien was a long way beyond irresistible. Sophie closed the barely there space between them, letting her lips brush his jaw. The lowest of moans escaped Lucien's throat, and his gentle fingers cradled her cheek to draw her face in to his. He kissed her then, warm, slow and delicious. Pliant lips. The suggestion of his tongue against hers. His fingers in her hair. Murmured endearments in her mouth.

"Princess."

Lucien let himself hold her for a few moments longer. She felt so damn good in his arms. He was around five heartbeats away from pushing her down on the sofa and burying himself inside her, and he knew that right now she wouldn't stop him. But he also knew that she'd regret it as soon as it was over, and that she wouldn't come back again tomorrow. He wanted her to come back again tomorrow.

She was porcelain in his hands. His thumb skimmed her raised collarbone and he was beyond tempted to slide his hand inside her blouse to cup the fullness of her breast. He'd caught a glimpse of her black bra strap earlier, and remembering the sight of her body from the times he’d opened her blouse a few short weeks before only made it harder not to reach for her buttons. Would she still look the same? Every lush curve seemed a little less full than the last time he'd held her.

But it went deeper, too. It wasn't just her body that had taken the hit over the last few weeks. From the moment she'd walked into his office that morning, brittle fragility had been written all over her face. She'd come to him because she had no other choice, and whichever way he shook it down, that wasn't a good basis for sex. So he held her and tasted the sweetness of her mouth, then gently eased back and smoothed her mussed up hair behind her ear while she caught her breath.

He watched her eyes and saw lust give way to confusion, then to a dawning realisation, a re-examination of what the hell she was doing.

She covered her mouth with shaky fingers.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, wide-eyed. "I didn't mean..."

"It's okay. I know."

Sophie dropped her hands into her lap, and Lucien covered them with his own. He felt her move to pull them away but he held them steady.

"Sophie, there's nothing I'd have liked to do more then let that carry on, but even I can see that it's not what you need right now."

She nodded, her gaze fixed on his hands.

"I shouldn't have come here." The flat, deflated sound of her voice pierced him. "It's not going to work, is it?"

"Not if you can't keep you hands off me, no," Lucien said, choosing a light tone, glad when she laughed shakily and looked up.

"I think we're going to need some rules."

Lucien raised an eyebrow at her suggestion. In general, he preferred to be the one making the rules.

"Go on." He waited to see if Sophie's rules were the kind of rules he could live with.

"Well..." She glanced down at his hands still covering hers. "No touching, for starters."

He swallowed hard, then nodded grimly and moved his hands. He didn't say it, but the idea of having Sophie around him and not touching her made his balls ache.

It helped a little that she looked equally regretful at the loss of contact.