Knight 01 Knight And Play (9 page)

“I’ll take it as a compliment that you slept so well.” He leaned against the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest. Sophie frowned, wrong-footed by the fact that he’d changed his clothes. She hadn’t seen him in anything other than business dress, but right now, in soft, battered jeans and a faded black t-shirt that clung to his well-defined body, he was a brand new kind of gorgeous.

“What time is it?” she asked, disorientated by the darkness and Lucien’s nearness.

“Almost midnight.”

Sophie squinted at him. She’d been asleep for more than three hours.
Oh God
. She was in a sex club. Heaven only knew what was happening beneath her.

“Lucien. This is wrong. I shouldn’t be here.” Her voice came out hoarser than she’d expected.

He shook his head and disappeared for a few seconds, then returned with a tray. He placed it down on the bed next to her, then sat down alongside it.

“Eat. You must be hungry.”

Sophie glanced down at the array of food. Delicate sandwiches. Bowls of fruit. Chocolate truffles.

She looked up at Lucien again, wondering how he could expect her to sit there naked and snack. She was his PA. He was her boss.

“Is this how you welcome all new staff, Lucien? A trip to a sex club, a quick fumble, and a sandwich? It’s not very classy.”

She’d aimed to offend, but he just laughed off her rudeness.

“That wasn’t a fumble, Sophie. It was a prelude.”

She’d been half-considering eating a sandwich, but the idea lost its appeal at his words. “A prelude?”

He nodded and helped himself to a cherry from the bowl.

“A prelude.” He sank his teeth into the dark, glossy skin of the cherry and ripped the flesh from the stone.

There was always an element of surprise in conversations with Lucien; he was as unpredictable as quicksilver. Sophie watched him in silence and waited for more.

“I have a proposition for you.” He reached for another cherry.

Sophie shook her head. Where had her reality gone? She suddenly understood how Alice had felt when she’d tumbled down that rabbit hole. Had someone plucked her out of her own life and dropped her into a fantasy? She was naked in a sex club watching a Viking warrior suck on a cherry. This was not her average Tuesday evening. She couldn’t speak. She didn’t know any appropriate words.

“Stay with me this week.”

Whoa.
She knew the answer to that one.

“What? No!” He might be gorgeous, but he was clearly crazy.

“Give me one good reason why not,” he said, then stretched out next to her on the bed and dangled another indecently big cherry over his mouth by the stalk.

“Because… because I don’t want to, for one thing.”

“Of course you do, you’re just afraid to admit it.” Lucien laughed and bit the cherry in half. “A better reason, please.”

Sophie shook her head. “You are the cockiest man I’ve ever met.”

“Yada yada yada.” He gestured for her to move on, and she stared at him, frustrated. She was trapped. Her clothes were strewn across the other side of the room, and the sheet was pinned beneath his body. Short of treating him to a strip show there was no getting away from this conversation, and he knew it perfectly well.

He turned big, innocent blue eyes on her. “Do you have a cat? Is that it? Is Mr. Tibbles going to die without you going home to feed him?”

She narrowed her eyes and looked away. “I don’t have a cat.”

“A dog, then? Two screaming kids?”

Sophie sighed and flopped back on the pillow, the sheet clutched under her arms. “It’s just me and Dan.”

“Who isn’t there.” The quiet starkness of his words stripped away Sophie’s anger and left her defenseless.

“Right. Let’s start this conversation again. Stay with me until Sunday.”

Sophie propped herself up on one elbow and turned to him.

“What for?”

His eyes slid to hers. “Because you owe it to yourself. Because you’re young, and beautiful, and there is so much more to sex than you’ve experienced so far. You deserve to know it all, to feel it all, and I want to be the one to show you.”

“Has it occurred to you that I might not want to know?”

He shook his head with a low, sexy laugh. “It’s occurred to me that you think you don’t want to know. But then I touch you, and you come alive.” He reached across and picked a peach from the tray. “Aren’t you curious, Sophie?
Really,
don’t you want to know?”

Convention decreed that Sophie should refuse, but his directness demanded the same candour from her. She couldn’t bring herself to lie, yet equally couldn’t allow herself to admit the truth.

Lucien turned the peach over in his hands, knowing full well that it was so much more than an innocent piece of fruit.

He trailed a fingertip down the curve of it, and he may as well have been stroking her bottom. He was doing it again, subtly infiltrating her thoughts. If he ever gave up his life as the king of a sex empire, he’d make a crack hot hypnotist.

“Stay because I want you to, Sophie.” He brought the peach up to his nose and inhaled deeply.

“Stay because I can make you feel better than anyone else ever has.” He put the peach to his mouth, closed his eyes, and sank his teeth in deep.

Sophie’s nipples stiffened beneath the sheet. She couldn’t deny it. He’d won. She wanted his mouth on her rather than that peach, but the words wouldn’t come out.

He propped himself up on his elbow, mirroring her pose, then offered the peach up to her lips, close enough for her to taste it. “Bite.”

She closed her eyes and obeyed his command.

“It tastes like you.” His words caressed her as she ate the soft flesh. “Sweet.” His fingers touched her mouth as she swallowed. “And tempting.” Sophie couldn’t stop herself. She opened her mouth and sucked his finger in, swirling the sweet peach juices around him with her tongue. When she opened her eyes, he slid his finger slowly out of her mouth and into his own.

“I like the taste of you,” he said. “Tell me you’ll stay.”

Sophie gave him the tiniest of nods. “I’ll stay,” she whispered, then cleared her throat. “I’ll stay,” she repeated, louder this time. “I want to stay with you, Lucien.”

Lucien’s answering smile was full of sexual promise, and in one swift movement he leaned over and rolled Sophie on top of him. He was fully clothed, and there were layers of bedding between them, but Sophie could still clearly feel his arousal pressing up into her stomach.

His hands swept down the length of her exposed spine, making her gasp. She was nude apart from her hold-up stockings, and Lucien wasted no time in helping himself.

He filled his hands with her backside. “Now that’s peachy,” he said, with a sidelong glance at the abandoned plate of fruit, then he snaked a hand around the back of her neck to pull her mouth down onto his kiss. Fireworks exploded in her gut as his tongue slid over hers and his hips rocked, hard into softness. She couldn’t help it, she opened her legs a little for him, and his fingers slid into the crevices of her backside. His other hand moved to cup her head against his.

His fingers moved in long strokes, touching her everywhere. Sliding just inside her, then back out to trace lazy figures of eight on her clitoris.

“I’m going to lick you here.”

Sophie groaned with anticipation.
God, she wanted his tongue there.

“And here.” He slid his fingers inside her again for a second, then slipped them out again and around to caress her bottom.

“And here.” His finger stroked the tight little entrance, making her squirm with shock.

“Lucien! No.”

He sunk his teeth into her lower lip. “No?”

He didn’t move his fingers away from her bottom, but his touch was so feather-gentle that she stopped trying to wriggle away. “It might surprise you.” 

She shook her head. It was a taboo that she’d never been interested in breaking. And she still wasn’t, but there was something undeniably sexy at the feel of Lucien touching her there.

“I’ll add it to my list,” he breathed into her mouth.

Sophie lifted her head a fraction, and the movement pushed her spine downwards, which in turn pushed her backside down a little deeper onto his hand. Her eyes opened wider. He said nothing, but instead gave her a long, knowing look. He was on to her. He knew that she’d already grown to like the alien feeling of his attention there.

“What list?”

“The one in my head of things I’m going to make you do this week, Princess.”

Sophie felt beyond filthy. She was lying on top of a man who was playing with her bottom and filling her ears with promises of a week of unadulterated, uncensored pleasure. She was full to the brim with dark, luscious desire, and ready to follow this big Viking sex god into his thrilling, unfamiliar world.

His hand lingered for another moment on her backside, then he sat up and rolled her off him.

“Get dressed, Sophie. We’re going downstairs.

Sophie hung back by the open door to Lucien’s suite, dressed once again in her green dress and high heels, but bereft of her knickers. They were in Lucien’s pocket, and no amount of pleading for them back had made the slightest jot of difference. He’d laughed at the idea that she’d never before left the house without underwear, and pocketed them regardless of her protest.

He stood at the bottom of the small flight of stairs and beckoned to her.

“Come on, Sophie. I’m going to do a full walk through, and you’re coming with me.”

“But…” she glanced desperately down at his pocket. She really wanted the security of her knickers.

“Stop looking at my crotch and come here.” He reached for her hand, taking the edge off his words. She stepped uncertainly down to stand next to him, feeling wrong and exposed even though she looked perfectly decent to the unknowing eye.

“That’s better, Sophie. Now, I’m going to do a full check on the place, and you are going to do your job as my PA and accompany me.”

Sophie found small solace in the fact that he’d given the event a work-related slant.

“Shouldn’t I have a clipboard, or something?” she asked. She’d feel so much better if she looked official, distinct from the rest of the club’s clientele. Something to mark her out as staff, rather than as a pleasure-seeker.

Lucien laughed at her.

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re aiming to blend in, not stick out and put people off their…” he turned to her and licked his lips. “Their stride.” He ran a hand over her backside and leaned close to her ear.

“I don’t think I’m going to let you wear knickers again this week.”

The man was lethal. This was all a big game to him, and he was a world-class player. Sophie straightened her spine and pushed her shoulders back. The thought of seeing the club with people in those rooms, on those beds… she shivered. She sort of wanted to run home, even without her knickers, but she had to acknowledge that a bigger part of her wanted to stay and see what lay beyond. She reminded herself that regardless of everything else, she was supposed to be here in her capacity as Lucien's PA. If she thought of it that way, maybe she could make it through the next few hours.

“Lead the way, Mr. Knight.”

He inclined his head and placed his hand on the small of her back.

“Stay close to me. No one will touch you unless you touch them first.”

She’d been apprehensive before. She was terrified now.
What if she stumbled into someone, or brushed past them by mistake?
Would they tie her to the bed and give her thirty lashes? And would Lucien intervene, or would he consider it all part of her sexual liberation?

“Sophie?” Lucien came to a stop and looked down at her. “For God’s sake, just relax, will you? This way.” He moved towards a fire exit, and threw her an enquiring look when she didn’t automatically follow.

“We’ll go down this way and come in through reception,” he explained, holding out his hand again. “I want to see it through the eyes of our paying customers.”

Sophie threw one last, longing glance over her shoulder at the now locked door that stood between her and sanctuary, and then followed Lucien out onto the fire escape.

Sophie clamped herself against Lucien's side as they bypassed the small queue at the front door. The club looked different now that darkness had descended. The smoked glass exterior took on a menacing stance without the sun to glint off it, and the subdued lighting in reception added to the air of anticipation that radiated from the waiting customers. Sophie sneaked the smallest glance at them as she passed, then looked away hastily. From what she could see, most people looked pretty regular. Maybe she’d overblown things in her mind. It was a club. She’d been clubbing enough times, the people in the queue had been no less dressed than regular clubbers.

Lucien nodded at the security staff and placed his hand on Sophie’s back again to steer her past reception and through the double entrance doors.