A Perfect Storm by Cameron Dane Page A

it when I looked up, but it has certainly passed by now. He will severely chastise himself for allowing that small crack in his armor. By tomorrow, he will have suppressed what he so briefly let himself feel for you.”
    Even as Sophie’s mind spun too fast, her stomach competed for top billing with its sudden roller coaster act. He felt something? For me ? “I don’t think you saw what you think you did.” Sophie could still feel Lucien’s mouth pressed against her neck and his erection against her back, though, and absently rubbed the now sensitive skin. “Lucien doesn’t even know me.”
    “He needs to, though.” Magnus’s voice held urgency. The odd violet shade of his gaze intensified to a pure, royal purple. “You need to let him in. You can’t put any walls up. Open yourself to him every chance you get. It’s the only way.”
    “The only way to what?”
    “To save him.” Not a bit of humor or teasing lived in Magnus’s demeanor. “And in the process, save yourself.”
    Sophie’s jaw went slack. The roller coaster in her stomach crested its highest peak, and she suddenly felt light-headed. What?
    Magnus closed her mouth for her. “Good night, Sophie.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’ve said what I can. From here on out, you’re on your own.” With that, Magnus strode down the grand staircase, leaving her alone.
    Long after Magnus had disappeared, Sophie stood in the shadows of the meeting room, her mouth agape once more. Rooted in place, she could not move.
    What?
    Lucien’s behavior mingled with Magnus’s vague, strange comments—words that sounded like nothing so much as a hope-filled warning. Her mind spun with one word over and over again.
    What?
    She had not answered if for herself in the slightest by the morning.

Chapter Four
    The morning brought bone-shivering cold temperatures, deep gray skies, and a constant mist hovering in the air. Still silently chastising himself for slipping into his need with Sophie last night, Lucien welcomed the vigorous physical activity that came with beginning the cleanup of Raven Island.
    He swung an ax over his shoulder and grunted with satisfaction at the thwack of razor-sharp metal slicing through the thickness of a fallen tree branch. Cale and Jade gathered debris into piles across the expansive front lawn of Ravenstoke. They would later transfer it to the compost shed. Magnus stood at the edge of a sharp cliff that dropped down to Raven Island’s stony beach, binoculars held up to his eyes.
    “I don’t see her,” Magnus said as he scanned the open water. “I had prepared myself to tell Ms. Emerson a lie about a lack of transportation back to the mainland, but I won’t have to now. The Maiden’s Voyage is gone.” Lowering the binoculars, Magnus looked back at Lucien. “At least for now.”
    Without a word, Lucien took another whack at the fallen tree and welcomed the strain on his shoulders, arms, and back. Not yet ten in the morning and he had already put in two hours of physical labor. Still, as with last night after leaving Sophie, his mind would not rest. His anger at himself that he had possibly pushed Sophie too far too fast and disgusted her right out of her natural curiosity about the sexual goings-on at Ravenstoke had not allowed him even an hour’s worth of sleep. You should not have put your hand between her legs . Lucien punished himself with judgment he’d already shouted in his head a hundred times. Touching her sex so intimately so quickly was far too aggressive a move.
    Lucien snarled, tossed a disc of wood into a rapidly growing pile, and took another swing with full force. Sweat trickled down his back under his oiled slicker and sweater, chilling his skin, but he welcomed the discomfort. It reminded him he was at least still alive to feel it, and in doing so poured the fuel of guilt into his wounds, reminding him of his task.
    Right then, a breeze, something almost balmy in comparison to what they’d experience in