Knight and Sleigh: An Erotic Lucien Knight Christmas Novella (10 page)

“This is nice.” He nodded his approval at the table, complete with candlelight.

“I thought we could use a little romance.”

Dan laughed and reached for the wine bottle. “Steady on, Soph. I’m bloody knackered.”

Sophie’s smile faltered as she slid the pizza onto their plates. “Eat your dinner then. Get your strength back.”

Dan reached for his knife and fork and launched into a work-related story as they ate, and Sophie pushed her salad around with ever increasing despondency. The evening was ebbing away from them on a tide of meaningless chitchat, when she’d really wanted to make it into something more memorable to get them through the coming days. He reached for more pizza, and Sophie took advantage of the lull to change the subject.

“I’ve got a job interview on Monday.”

Dan looked up in surprise. “I didn’t realise you were serious about looking for something else.”

“I wasn’t really. It just caught my eye.”

Dan topped up their wine glasses. “What is it?”

Sophie hesitated. “Another PA role, just a bigger company.”

“Cool.” Dan yawned and rolled his shoulders. “Christ, I ache. This job’s killing me, Soph.”

“Yet you don’t want to leave,” Sophie said, pointedly. Dan moaned incessantly about his long hours, but she knew perfectly well that he wouldn’t be scouring the job ads for something else.

Dan shrugged and pushed his plate away. “I’m done. Better go and pack.”

Sophie nodded with a tight smile as she picked up the empty plates, then blew out the candle with a resigned huff as he disappeared. While she cleared down the kitchen, she reasoned with herself. She’d tried subtlety with her comment about gathering his strength and it had slipped under his radar. She took a good swig of wine and decided to up the ante a little. After all, it wasn’t fair to expect him to make all the moves. She flicked out the light in the kitchen and mussed her hair up in the hall mirror, then added a slick of lip-gloss to her mouth for good measure.

She could hear him zipping his bag upstairs, so she skipped into the lounge and sat down, her legs tucked beneath her in a ‘sit next to me’ kind of way. Glancing down at her blouse, she popped a button to give Dan a bird’s eye view of her lace bra when he joined her on the sofa.

Except he didn’t. He gave her a distracted smile when he came down and flopped down in his armchair, then reached out and swiped the TV remote from the coffee table. “Anything good on?”

Sophie tried to ignore the sting of resentment and reached for her wine glass with a neutral smile. “I’m not sure.”

Dan flicked the channel from the programme Sophie had half decided to watch and settled on a re-run of a reality cop show that she really couldn’t stand the sight of.

“All packed and ready to go?” she asked.

“Think so.” Dan didn’t look away from the screen as he answered her.

“Ten nights is a long time,” she said softly.

Dan flicked his eyes at Sophie and grinned. “Will you miss me?”

Sophie nodded. “Of course.” She paused, crippled with awkwardness. “Shall we, umm, have an early night?”

“Yeah,” Dan yawned. “You go on up if you like, I’ll lock up and be up in five.”

Sophie unwound herself off the sofa and picked up their wine glasses. As she passed Dan’s chair, she leaned down and brushed a kiss over his mouth. “See you in bed.”

Upstairs, she undressed slowly, leaving her lace underwear on for Dan to remove. In bed, she propped herself up and sipped her wine whilst she waited. After five minutes she fidgeted with her underwear and wondered if it looked too obvious and she should change into something else. After ten minutes she decided to pick up a book to pass the time. After twenty, she was battling to keep her eyelids open, so she gave up waiting and padded downstairs. Dan was still in the armchair, fast asleep with his Blackberry in his hand. She touched his shoulder, and he started awake and dropped his phone.

“Fuck. Sorry, Soph.” He hurriedly grabbed his phone and checked the screen. Sophie turned and headed back to bed, still holding onto hope despite the fact that he’d barely so much as glanced her way as she’d stood in front of him in the underwear she’d kept on just for his benefit. She may as well have had her winter coat on.

When he came into their bedroom a few minutes later, he stripped off and slid straight into bed, grumbling as he set the alarm for earlier than usual. He flicked the lamp out and flopped back with the duvet pulled up to his chin.

Sophie turned to him in the darkness, and for a couple of minutes neither of them spoke.

She could see his profile clearly now that her eyes had adjusted to the shadows, and even though his eyes were already closed, she reached out and stroked his cheek. He turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm.

“Night, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I’ll try not to wake you in the morning.”

Creeping desperation forced Sophie onwards, even though she was struggling to ignore Dan’s fairly clear signals that he wasn’t up for anything but sleep. She snuggled in close and kissed the side of his mouth. “I’m really going to miss you.”

Dan sighed. “You too, babe.” He shifted a little and kissed her forehead rather than her lips. “I’ll be back before you know it.” He laughed softly and turned over, leaving her looking at his back. “Look on the bright side, Soph. You can have sole custody of the remote while I’m gone.”

“Mr. Knight will see you now.”

Sophie flickered a nervous smile at the immaculately dressed woman in front of her. She’d spent most of the day at work running through potential answers for possible questions that might be thrown at her, but one glimpse of the glossy, black Knight Inc. Building had chased all of her carefully memorised words out of her head. Its predatory presence on the busy road intimidated the hell out of her, and she’d seriously considered turning away.

She already had a job. She didn’t need another one.

Then she’d caught sight of her reflection in the mirrored glass. Kara had been true to her word and waved her magic wand yesterday, leaving Sophie barely able to recognise the sexy, sophisticated woman gazing back at her. The jacket of the dark business suit nipped right in at the waist and then followed close against her curves. The pencil skirt ended just a hair’s breadth from being too short, and her Mary Jane high heels added at least three inches to her legs. Kara was a designer clothes junkie, and she’d turned up with an armful of work clothes that were a world away from Sophie’s off the peg, ordinary attire. The moment she’d slid into the deep inky purple suit, something extraordinary happened. She wasn’t just Sophie, the local builder’s PA any more. She was an enhanced version of herself, someone sassy and sophisticated. Someone brand new, open to endless possibilities.

Much of that confidence had drained away as she’d sat in the reception on the top floor waiting to be called through, and she could just as easily have bolted as follow the woman along the plush carpet of the corridor.

She felt physically sick.

But then they came to a halt in front of a door at the end, and after tapping it once, the woman opened it and stood aside so she could go through.

Sophie swallowed hard and stepped inside.

In the usual course of things, Sophie didn’t lust after other men. But from the moment she stepped inside that room, she couldn’t take her eyes off Lucien Knight.

This wasn’t the usual course of things.

Tall, dark and handsome was nowhere near the mark. He was tall, definitely, but with dirty blonde hair and flint blue eyes that were now fixed on her with a predatory look of interest. He wasn’t exactly in business dress, either. He might have been, earlier in the day, but right now he was down to a close-fitting charcoal shirt with the cuffs turned back to reveal strong, tanned forearms. He’d loosened his equally dark tie and popped his top button, and if he’d put his feet up on the desk and produced a glass of whisky, Sophie wouldn’t have been altogether surprised. He looked like he’d tumbled out of a club, or stepped straight from the centre-fold of a glossy hipster magazine. Or in fact, make that a top shelf one.

“Come in, Ms. Black. I won’t bite.”

She walked across the room.

“… unless you want me to?” he murmured as an afterthought, and raised an eyebrow at her as she took a seat opposite him at the desk.

It certainly wasn’t a question Sophie had devised an answer for in her interview preparation. Was she supposed to respond, or pretend she hadn’t heard? Thankfully, as she considered it, Mr. Knight moved on.

“So, Ms. Black. Why do you want to be my PA?”

Phew. Safer territory
. A question she had prepared for.

“Well, I’ve been in my current position for several years, and I feel like I need a new challenge.” She watched him watching her. Her words seemed to amuse him.

“I see,” he nodded. “But why here, specifically? Why Knight Incorporated?”

Sophie crossed her ankles and knotted her fingers in her lap to stop them from fidgeting. “Well… because it’s very different from what I do at the moment.”
Hah.
That was the understatement of the year. He was still watching her intently, but his expression gave nothing away. “And because… because, well, to be perfectly honest, I’m bored, Mr. Knight.” His eyes flickered, letting her know she’d finally said something that surprised him. A silence stretched out between them as he seemed to weigh up her words.

“Do you know why I called you in for interview?” he asked, eventually.

Sophie stalled. “My CV?”

He nodded. “You sealed it with a kiss. I wanted to see the lips that made that mark.”

His answer knocked the breath clean out of her lungs and sent hot prickles shooting up her neck. This was beginning to feel less like an interview and more like someone coming on to her in a bar, and that hadn’t happened to her in some considerable time.

“You blush too easily, Ms. Black.” He twirled a pen in his fingers. “Trust me, that’s not a good thing in this industry.”

His mouth twisted to one side, that assessing look still in his eyes. “This isn’t an industry for shy girls.” He leaned forwards on his elbows and steepled his fingers. “Are you a shy girl, Sophie?”

Jeez this was ridiculous.
Sophie couldn’t tell if he was making fun of her, and a fair part of her brain was shouting at her to hightail it out of the building back to the safety of her ordinary, mundane life. But something held her in her chair, and that same something gave her the boldness to meet his challenging look and answer his question.

“No, Mr. Knight. I’m not especially shy.”

“It’s Lucien.”

Lucien. Crap. Even his name was sexy.
 

“Okay Sophie. Here’s the deal. I need someone who can do all the usual PA stuff. You already know what that is so I won’t bore you with a list, but it includes making a decent cup of coffee. Is that a problem for you?”

Sophie shook her head and laughed, almost giddy with relief. Emboldened, she replied, “That’s a little chauvinistic of you, Mr. Knight.”

“Lucien.”

“Okay, well… for the record, yes. I make a mean cup of coffee, Lucien.” Sophie tasted his name for the first time and felt as if she’d said something far dirtier.

“I’ll need you to accompany me to meetings, exhibitions, the odd commercial trip. I keep odd hours. Will that bother you?”

He was all business now, and the look on his face brooked no argument. Sophie frowned. Her first thought was for Dan, but then didn’t he give exactly the same service to his boss without a thought for her?

“Not a problem,” she said smoothly.

“So far, so good.” He nodded in approval, and scrubbed a hand over his chin for a few seconds as he studied her.

“I don’t know, Sophie. You tick all the boxes, and yet…”

“Yet what?” Sophie asked. His hesitation chased away any attempt to stay businesslike. Besides, he’d already veered so far away from businesslike that it seemed unlikely to worry him.

He cocked his head to one side. ‘How can I put this delicately?” He licked his lips. “You look too… innocent.”

Sophie shook her head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

He threw his hands out to the sides. “This is the sex industry. Sophie. You’d be a long way from typing up building quotes here. One day you might be working on a report comparing sex toys. The next you might be ordering new cages for one of the clubs. I need someone who can do all of that without turning a hair.” Sophie knew that the telltale colour was back in her cheeks. “Someone who won’t blush at the mere mention of a vibrator,” he added, to illustrate his point.

“I can do all that,” Sophie insisted, feeling far from certain that she could.

Lucien gave her an assessing look and opened the desk drawer.

He placed an object down on the desk between them. “What’s that?” he asked. Sophie looked down and felt heat slap her cheeks again.

“Mr. Knight…” He raised an eyebrow. “Lucien… I…”

“You what, Sophie? You don’t know what it is, or you’re too prudish to say it?” He picked up the blue jelly silicone ring and held it out to her. Sophie looked at him, and his eyes told her that this was the acid test. Fail it, and she was out the door. She took it from him, and swallowed hard at the feel of the small, stretchy ring in her hands. She looked him squarely in the eye.

“Fine. It’s a cock ring.”

“Good girl,” he grinned. “And what does it do?”

Sophie swallowed again and looked down. She had no intimate knowledge to draw on here.

“It… umm…”

“Wrong answer, Sophie.” He frowned. “Try again.”

Sophie squirmed in her chair. “I’m not totally sure, but I think it would probably make a man last longer?”

Lucien’s mouth twisted to the side. “Not totally sure, huh? Am I to draw from that that you have no direct experience of sex toys?”

“Mr. Knight...” Sophie gasped. “I really don’t think that’s an appropriate question for any job interview.” She bristled, partly with indignation and partly because he was bang on the money.

“Maybe not, but you don’t want this job if you’re in any way prudish.”