Read Online Knight and Sleigh: An Erotic Lucien Knight Christmas Novella by Kitty French - Free Book Online Page B

husky pup.  
     

Chapter Five  
     
    Sophie jumped out of bed and shot across the room, not even bothered for a moment that she was naked.  
    ‘Oh my God! He’s early!’ she said, wrapping herself quickly in her toga sheet from earlier before taking the sleepy pup from him. ‘He wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow morning.’  
    ‘So I gathered from Henrik,’ Lucien said, his face unreadable. ‘He delivered him tonight in case the mountain is impassable by morning. It seems that the wonderful English woman made quite the impression on him. It must have been one hell of a trek to reach us out here.’  
    Sophie and Henrik, a local husky breeder, had been in regular, if somewhat difficult, contact to arrange the delivery of Lucien’s Christmas surprise. She wanted to thank him personally for his help, but maybe not dressed only in a sheet.  
    ‘Has he gone?’  
    Lucien nodded.  
    ‘In a flurry of dogs. Except… he left this one behind for you.’  
    Sophie nodded, burying her face in the dog’s teddy bear fluff and inhaling deeply. She looked up, meeting Lucien's blue-grey stare directly.  
    ‘He’s not mine. He’s yours,’ she told him, then placed the puppy back in the arms of his new master. ‘Merry Christmas, Lucien.’ Sophie remembered the Norwegian phrase he’d said to her earlier. ‘God Jul.’  
    Lucien looked down at the by now wriggling puppy, and when he looked up again at Sophie, she saw something in his eyes that threw her completely. Tears.  
    ‘Lucien, I…’ she said, stricken, and then he thrust the dog back into her arms and backed out of the room.  
     
    Lucien stood at the kitchen window, his hands braced on the surface, his eyes on the dark outlines of the mountains and alpine forests. Breathing steadily, he slowly pulled himself back together.  
    Today had been so very different from how he’d pictured it. He’d imagined bringing Sophie here and the place being virtually unrecognisable as his childhood home, thinking that the designers would have swept away all traces of the past. It wasn’t that way, though.  
    Maybe if he’d taken charge of the renovation himself it would have been so, but he’d given Sophie the reins and she’d chosen to keep the cabin cosy and traditional. So much of her subtly feminine stamp evoked memories of the style his mother had favoured too. Yes, it was more exclusively furnished now and fitted out with the latest tech and toys, but they blended seamlessly with the rustic Scandinavian style that so typified cabin homes all over the mountains. She must have asked the designer to stay quite faithful to the original cabin, because it was almost as if it were the same, only better.  
    Memories had unexpectedly assaulted him today from all angles; the sight of the cabin outlined against the dark sky as he’d hauled the Christmas tree home through the snow, the familiar fireplace he’d sat beside to drink hot milk as a child, his mother’s lovingly crafted advent calendar decorations.  
    Lucien didn’t consider himself a sentimental man, yet nostalgia for the innocent days of his early childhood had hit him more than ever on this journey back to Norway, like being caught in a Yuletide time slip.  
    His mother had stood in this exact spot and looked out over these same mountains. Her spirit was here in the very fabric of this place, and he deliberately hadn’t been back in over twenty years because he’d imagined it would hurt, not heal his heart. And in some ways being here had hurt him, because remembering the good times also meant having to remember she wasn’t here any more.  
    But seeing the things she’d made for him… this place was sending him a little crazy, because it felt almost as if she was here, that her decorations and her Christmas card were her gifts, her seal of approval of his life with Sophie, and her way to say, enough now, let go of the past.  
    And now, on top of all of that, there was the damn