Lyon (10 page)

The very thought of her growing round with their child and the manner of its begetting, had his cock twitching under his hand. His eyes narrowed on her darkened window as he began a long, slow, upward tug. He kept his cock close to his belly at first and forced himself not to rush. In the wake of his hand, a labyrinth of purpled veins sprouted along his length, heating him.

Finally, at the top of his stroke, the O of his fist met the jutted ridge that encircled the brim of his crown. His grip angled so the knuckle of his forefinger massaged the sensitive notch at its underside.

His eyelashes fluttered, drooping lower. Amber glinted from beneath them, searing that high black mirror she hid behind across the quai. A soft breeze brushed over his skin and he imagined it was her, lifting her skirts to kneel on the bench and straddle him.

Slouching back, he planted his feet wide in the grass in front of himself, uncaring that he'd turned exhibitionist. No one would see through the spell he'd woven and he was beyond caring if they did.

An opalescent dribble of pre-cum pumped from him and he smeared it over his crown with his thumb. And imagined himself pressing into her…stretching her tight lips wide with his knob…imagined her coating him with her slick, hot nether kiss. Another pump of semen came, inside her this time. Then she was slipping away, only to return for another all too brief taste of him, and another.

Umm.

When it became too much, he dragged his fist downward and imagined tunneling himself deeper, higher between her legs. Imagined the long, subtly curving hug of her taking more and more of him. And more.

The side of his hand depressed his scrotum at the finish of his downward push, and he imagined instead that she had sunk over him. That she was so completely open for him and he was so deep inside of her that the cleft of her ass coddled his sacs.

And then she was sliding away again until her rim massaged his plinth and she almost lost him. And then down over him, more urgently this time.

Flushed and ruddy now, his cock angled high and hard from him, glistening with the drench of moonlight and his own seepage. As he worked himself ever faster, his slitted eyes went to the railing of the bridge where he'd first seen her. He summoned the memory of her skin and lips and perfect scent.

His thrusts turned harsh and his breathing labored. His belly tautened toward his impending release. His fist rammed itself down his shaft one…last…time…

A strangled, guttural cry escaped him. His cock jerked in his hand and a forceful spurt of cum shot from it, fountaining across the grass between his feet. More came, surging and spewing and dribbling over the back of his hand to smear his belly and balls and cling in his nest. His breath sawed in his lungs, as it seemed to go on forever.

Gods
, would it never stop? Rarely had he come in such magnificent, wrenching pulses, especially by his own hand.

Eventually it did ease and his spill slowed. He squeezed gently, bringing a last well of it from the slit of his crown.
Ahh.

For long moments afterward, he reveled in the contented balm of satiation. But the heated blood of his ancestors still sang through his arteries and his cock remained thick and turgid under his hand, ready for more. In time, it demanded that he begin again and he did.

There, in the shadows of cypress and maple, in the dewy autumn air, he fucked himself over and over far into the night. And each time he came in his own fist, he dreamed of her. Juliette. His chosen one.

The moon had traveled halfway across the sky before he ultimately tired. He rinsed off at the river, then returned to the bench and stationed himself more comfortably.

Raising his arms, he stretched, then folded them across his chest, prepared to watch over Mademoiselle Rabelais throughout what remained of the night.

Somewhere in the ether, King Feydon was probably laughing himself silly at having handed him this dilemma. Sisters—one a cranky water nymph and the other a wary
grande horizontale.

Though all was in a tangle and he shouldn't have been happy, he was. The night ahead was to be Moonful. And Juliette would be coming. In more ways than one.

Just before sunrise, there was a knock on the door of the high attic room Lyon unwaveringly monitored.

Juliette stirred in her bed. The knock came again, then the door opened and Fleur poked her head inside.

“Are you awake?”

“
Oui
. Come in.” Juliette sat up, tucking her knees high to her chest. She'd been unable to sleep and was glad of the company.

Fleur slipped inside smelling of sex and perfume and looking as fresh and innocent as someone who hadn't just passed the entire evening in the company of men.

Juliette moved aside, making room for her on the bed. With her usual easy manner, Fleur flopped onto her belly on the mattress and propped her chin on one elbow to contemplate her.

“Look! Monsieur Tremont has geeven me a geeft.” Holding out her other wrist, the girl briskly rotated it, so the bracelet she wore sparkled in the moonlight filtering through the curtains.

“It's lovely,” said Juliette, reaching out to examine it.

“
Oui.
” Fleur yawned behind her hand. “But I haven't come to talk of this. Tell me what happened with the beeg gentleman with the golden hair. The others are wild with jealousy that Monsieur Satyr chose you as his companion in the salon. Then, when you went together to the hall of rooms! O la la! I'm certain that Agnes turned as green as the absinthe when she told me of it. You have never taken a man to veezeet the rooms before. Did he veezeet your quim as well?”

“Fleur!” Juliette looked toward the heavens as if seeking help. “You're incorrigible. You may tell Agnes and the others that we only engaged in conversation. Nothing more. They are welcome to try their luck with him if he comes again.”

Fleur tsked. “You should let the gentlemen veezeet! For geefts if nothing else.” She shook her wrist, rattling her shiny bracelet as a reminder. “Weeth your beauty, you'd acquire a trunk full of finery in no time at all!”

“I think you overestimate my powers of attraction ever so slightly.” Juliette held up a hand when the girl made to protest. “However, you'll be pleased to know I'm to cook for Monsieur Satyr. Valmont is sending me to his hotel tonight.”

“
Alors
! But this eez wonderful.” Fleur leaped to her knees and clasped her hands over her heart. “
La!
So handsome. So beeg. But with his sorry clothing I guess maybe he is not so rich for buying geefts.” Her brow knit at this insurmountable problem.

Juliette only shrugged, knowing his fiscal circumstances were lofty, but not bothering to contradict her.

Brightening, Fleur bounced on the mattress. Palms outward, she wiggled her fingers. “But he has such beeg hands.” She raised and lowered her brows meaningfully.

“And?” prodded Juliette, not catching her meaning.

“Eet means he grows a beeg wanker between his legs. Perhaps that is geeft enough!” Fleur giggled merrily.

“Oh! Trust you to locate a happy side to every situation.” Juliette couldn't help joining the girl in laughter, though she couldn't imagine why she found such a thing comical.

The door pushed open and suddenly Valmont stood there. In his grim shadow, they both fell silent.

“A word,” he said to Juliette.

Mute for once, Fleur jumped up and made to depart. As she passed him, he tipped up her chin to study her face. “You're a plain little thing, aren't you? And recently from the kitchen help?”

“
Oui.
”

“Your name?”

“Fleur.”

“Well, little Fleur, your sense of decorum leaves something to be desired.” His hand cupped her cheek and Juliette tensed.

“
Monsieur?
” Fleur asked tilting her head.

“In the salon last night. You allowed liberties to Messieurs Arlette and Tremont that were not permissible outside of the back rooms. We are not a common whorehouse.”

Fleur nodded, looking chastised.

“Don't worry, ma petite. You may be forgiven one such lapse.” His gaze slid over her. “You're a shapely little package. I'll invite you to my bed soon, eh? I'd like a sample to determine what draws the others your way. But maybe first we'll see about your hair.” He lifted a dark lock of it and let it drift from his fingers, staring at it consideringly. “Something more flattering in the way of color. Perhaps blond, like our Juliette here.”

Fleur darted a knowing look her way that was as expressive as a roll of the eyes. He will change me in order to pretend I'm you when he fucks me, it said, as loudly as if she'd spoken her thoughts.

“Her hair is beautiful as it is,” Juliette protested.

Valmont ignored her and instead found Fleur's bracelet and lifted her arm to examine it. “You like the bangles?” he asked. “If you please me, I might just have a little reward for you myself.”

“Jewels?”

“Perhaps,” he said, dropping her hand. “See to your hair first. Now leave us. And shut the door behind you.”

“
Oui,
monsieur.”

Fleur turned to go. From the doorway, she made a face at Valmont's back, then winked at Juliette before slipping away down the hall.

“Why her?” Juliette demanded once she'd gone. “She's not your usual style.”

“I take an interest in all your interests,
chèrie
. You know that.”

It was a threat. Whatever or whomever she came to care for, he would besmirch or destroy. Concern for Fleur's wellbeing blossomed.

“She should be warned of your violent tendencies if nothing else,” Valmont went on.

Juliette wrapped her arms tighter around her knees. “You wanted something?” she asked, refusing to argue.

His eyes went to the flask on her dressing table. “Did you take your drops?”

“
Oui.
Too many in fact.”

“Yet you do not sleep? I wonder if lecherous thoughts of Monsieur Satyr are what keep you awake?”

“Fleur woke me. I assure you I was sleeping quite soundly before her arrival.”

He didn't leave then as she expected, but instead came to sit beside her on the bed, his hip warming her thigh.

“Rest. You must be tired.” He nudged her flat on her back and made a place for himself to lie on the mattress beside her. Joining her on her bed in this way was an unprecedented event and it scared her nearly out of her wits.

As she lay back, she pulled the covers to her chin. He curled close to her on his side, his head on the pillow beside hers.

He lay a hand on the cover, on her belly. “You're tense. Relax.”

“I'm tired,” she hinted, making to turn away.

But his hand snaked beneath the coverlet and around her waist, holding her still. Between them, his cock was rigid against her hip. Panic swept her.

“You were right earlier. I am jealous,” he whispered at her ear. “I can tell Satyr interests you.”

She stared at the ceiling, refusing to look at him. “No. He doesn't,” she lied. Any other response would have been foolish. “You're the one who suggested I show him the rooms last night. You're the one who arranged a meeting between us tonight. Not I. I would gladly cancel it.”

His voice and his grip on her tightened. “Then you were only acting on my behalf when you let him maul you?”

She glared at him, noting the changes in him that were even more startling at close range. Absinthe had been slowly leaching the color from his skin since they'd come to Paris, turning him gaunt.

“What did you expect would happen if I took him to the rooms?” She sometimes thought he put her in the way of other men to test her. To see if she would succumb. It was all some insane game only he understood.

“However, I did gather some gossip before you interrupted us,” she informed him, going on to relate the meager facts she'd learned, embellishing and inflating their importance as best she could.

“It's not much for all the time you spent with him,” he groused when she finished.

“Since I haven't been particularly successful with him thus far, why are you sending me to him tonight? Why not send one of the others?”

“You know why.” His eyes bore into hers and she looked away. Yes, she knew.

“It will be no more than what he deserves,” he told her. “He and his brothers lord themselves over me, enjoying my father's failures and seeing me laid low. How he must be laughing at me to see me running women here.” His hand fisted on her stomach. “All of Paris society currently scorns us, though many of them patronize us on the sly. The police will eventually be forced to expel us, despite my bribes. But rest assured that I have a plan to see myself reinstated among the
haut monde
and in a more respectable business enterprise.”