Free Knight and Sleigh: An Erotic Lucien Knight Christmas Novella by Kitty French Page B

cover his.  
    He was still looking at her warily, and Sophie found herself suddenly furious with him.  
    ‘Lucien, wake up. How can you even think that? I don’t miss one damn thing about him. You’re better, sexier, kinder. You’re more, Lucien. You’re more in every last way.’  
    He searched her face for any sign of deception and found only honesty and love.  
    ‘No one’s ever loved me the way you do,’ she said, half laughing and half crying, incredulous. ‘You make me believe in fairytales, and in happy endings. There’s no room in my heart for him, Lucien. You fill it up.’  
    She ripped the card into pieces as she spoke.  
    ‘This has no place here. I’m so sorry it was in the envelope, and I’m even sorrier it was in our bed.’  
    Lucien’s breath shuddered out, and his eyes found hers for a fistful of heartbeats. Wordlessly, he took the torn card from her trembling hands and stalked from the room, flinging the pieces into the embers of the fire in the living room before going back into the bedroom and sitting down with his head in his hands.  
    ‘This place is making me fucking crazy,’ he said, lifting his gaze to look at her.  
    She reached out and held his face in her hands, kissing him as she rested her forehead against his.  
    ‘I love the crazy bones of you,’ she murmured. ‘You’re allowed to be sentimental sometimes, Lucien, and you’re allowed to be jealous.’  
    He thought about denying both counts, but knew that she saw straight through him and sighed.  
    ‘Fine,’ he said, exasperated by his own vulnerabilities as far as Sophie was concerned. ‘I’m just the jealous, sentimental man who loves you.’  
    ‘You can be him. You can be that man, without it compromising what you show to the rest of the world. I love that this side of you is for my eyes only. And Heathcliff’s, now,’ she added, after a pause, laying her fingers over his lips when he opened them to answer.  
    ‘Don’t even try to deny it, iceman. I know he’s made his way under your skin already.’  
     
    Much later that night, Sophie and Lucien lay tangled up in each other and the soft blankets of the big sleigh bed, Heathcliff snoozing contentedly in the warm crook behind Lucien’s knee.  
    Snow drifted silently down outside the picture window, and a bright shaft of moonlight fell across the peaceful room, illuminating the calendar now hanging in its rightful place.  
    Lucien looked at it as he drifted towards sleep, at his name picked out amongst the stars, and he offered a silent, wishful God Jul to his mother. Coming back to the cabin had brought back so many memories, memories he’d suppressed for such a long time that he thought they’d left him altogether.    
    Sophie stirred beside him, throwing her arm over his chest when he gathered her in. Wedged between the woman who loved him and the dog who was already developing a serious case of hero worship, Lucien closed his eyes, contented.  
    Mine, he thought, as he drifted towards sleep. My girl, my dog, my tribe.  
    My family. The word would have terrified him before he met Sophie. Maybe it was because two had become three that afternoon, or maybe it was because he was tired and overcome by the sentiment of Christmas, but for the first time ever, Lucien allowed his thoughts to rove into the future.  
    What lay ahead for them? Before he'd met Sophie he'd scorned domesticity, but little by little she'd shown him that ordinary could actually be rather extraordinary with the right person at your side.  
    Would their children one day discover the delights of their grandmother's beautiful advent calendar for themselves, laughing with gleeful wonder as they unearthed each lovely new thing she'd made?  
    He was almost asleep, dreaming for sure now, of Christmases to come, and of beautiful blonde children running in the snow with Heathcliff tumbling at their heels.  
    But most of all Lucien dreamt of Sophie, the girl who surprised