The Paris Caper (10 page)

“Um, just meeting
the...some friends. For dinner.”

“Forget them. You’re
having dinner with me,” he said, but he grabbed the bag and started herding her
back up the stairs.

“Wha—”

“After.”

A coil of desire wound
through her body at the single roughly spoken word. His dark eyes glittered
with implication.

“Oh,” she whispered,
already lost to the erotic allure of him. Of his hard body and velvet
technique.

What would one more night
hurt?

She unlocked her door and
they tumbled through it; he kicked it closed and her bag hit the bare wood
floor with a dull thud.

“The chair,” he said,
shoving her around behind it. “Grab the back.”

Before she knew what was
happening, she was bent over the back of the easy chair with her skirt bunched
up around her waist. He ripped her panties down and spread her feet wide apart
with his.

And then he was inside
her, deep and hard.

“God, you feel good,” he
groaned. His fingers sought her sex and strummed over her, making her gasp in
pleasure. He pressed harder, and circled.

She came. Suddenly, and
unexpectedly. She cried out, convulsing with the impact, her climax nearly buckling
her knees.

He grunted low and
withdrew, then scythed into her again, gripping her hips to keep her from
falling. Over and over he plunged, so deep, so good, wringing wave after wave
of agonizing sensation from her body until she could only cling to the chair
and pray she wouldn’t pass out from the sheer pleasure. Then he stiffened, and
shouted out his own release.

When it was over, he lay
bent over her back, panting with his exertion. She could feel his penis throb
within her, still semi-hard. His depleted balls tickled her thighs as they
quickened and refilled, readying themselves for another bout.

“You’re...amazing,” she
whispered between gulps of breath, in awe of his easy mastery over her, over
her body. She’d never met a man like him, who could make her come like that,
and so quickly. Never wanted any other man so exquisitely that she was willing
to give up everything to have him. Even with Etienne, it had never been like
this.

Intellectually, she knew
her turbulent feelings and chaotic longing for Jean-Marc had nothing to do with
love, and everything to do with biology. But at the moment her heart couldn’t
tell the difference.

And really, where was the
line? She wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and never let
him go. To spend the rest of her life kissing and making love to him. If that
wasn’t at least the beginnings of real love, what was?

He nuzzled her ear and
withdrew, giving her butt a swat as he headed for the bathroom. “
Viens,
chérie
, put on some lipstick. We’re going out.”

She straightened and
managed to get her knees to work. The skirt of her flirty summer dress fell
into place and she brushed the wrinkles out of the front. What on earth should
she do about this untenable situation? Sex was one thing, but love...love was entirely
different. She
couldn’t
fall in love—not with Jean-Marc. Even if he did
make her feel warm and wanted, and so good it scared her.

“Leave them off,” he
called as she was about to pick up her panties. “I want you bare under that
dress.”

“Why?” she said, suddenly
irritated with herself for being so damn easy. “So you can push me into an
alley and have me whenever you feel the urge?”

He appeared in the
bathroom door wearing a wolfish grin. “Maybe. Would you like that?”

She shook a finger at
him. But didn’t answer. Because the awful truth was, she
would
like it.
Which made her even more irritated. “Where are we going?” she asked instead.

“Nowhere in particular,”
he said cheerfully as he adjusted his trousers. “Just for a walk.”

He beckoned to her, but
she held back, struggling to get control over her wayward emotions.

“
Viens, mon ange,
”
he murmured seductively. Luring her to him with a silken promise in his eyes.
Impossible to resist.

She gave up the struggle,
going into his arms, melting into another long kiss.

“Keep doing this and
we’ll never get out of here,” she sighed.

“The thought has its
attractions.” He pulled back with a wink. “But I’m afraid you may grow tired of
my carnal demands. I want to show you there’s more to me than a hungry cock.”

She tipped her head. “Ah,
a hungry stomach, too? So like a Frenchman.”

He feigned offense,
covering his heart with a hand. “A true Frenchman hungers for romance,
mon
amour
. To get to know his lover.” His lip quirked. “But—” he gave an
expansive shrug “—if that involves a good meal, so much the better.”

She laughed and gave him
a kiss, glowing inside because he’d called her his love. She was even more
attracted to this playful side of him. “I’d better make myself beautiful, then.
If I’m to compete with the entrecote.”

“Entrecote?
Ah, non
,”
he said. “No competition there.”

She shot him an
over-the-shoulder warning glance, and he broke into a grin. “Perhaps we should
stay in, after all.”

“Forget it, Lacroix,” she
said, taking a seat in front of the vanity mirror to freshen her makeup.
Sealing her fate. “I’d like to see just how romantic a true Frenchman can be.”

♥♥♥

As it turned out,
unfortunately, very romantic.

Of course, it would be
impossible for a twilight stroll along the River Seine on a warm summer’s night
not to be romantic. Paris, City of Light, was the most romantic place on earth.

And Jean-Marc was the
most romantic of men, Ciara decided sometime later as they walked over the
Petit Pont among the throng of lighthearted tourists jostling their way toward
Notre Dame. He bought a sprig of purple stephanotis from a roving flower
vendor, and tucked it behind her ear so the sweet scent floated about their
heads.

He bent to steal a kiss
and she sighed against his lips, loving the taste of him. Loving the way he
smiled at her as he took her hand in his. Wishing...wishing he were any man on
earth but the man he was.

She withdrew her hand and
banded her arms over her abdomen, turning to gaze out over the Seine, at a
glass tourist boat glittering in the sunlight as it glided along the peaceful
water under the bridge.

Damn
.

“Why are you avoiding me
again, Ciara?” he asked, glancing over her defensive body position.

God, how she hated lying.
How she hated deceiving him. How she hated that it was impossible for them to
be together.

She needed distance.
Somehow, she had to push him away.

She took a steadying
breath, and asked, “Are you married?”

The air between them
shifted. Bristled.

“Is that what you think?”
he demanded quietly. Not a peaceful quietly—a dangerous quietly.

“Yesterday you asked me
if I was a drug dealer or prostitute. Is that what
you
think?”

His mouth thinned. “That
was different.”

“Was it?” Suddenly, she
wondered... “A man like you—respectable, handsome, sexy. Romantic...” She
turned to him. “It doesn’t make sense for you not to be married.”

He regarded her. The
muscle at the back of his cheek ticked. “I was married,” he said. “But not any
more. We’ve been divorced for four years.”

“Not separated?”

“Divorced,” he repeated.
“Why are you asking? Now, after it’s too late?”

A warning buzz skittered
up her spine. “What do you mean, too late?”

He grasped her upper
arms, pulled her to his chest and put his mouth close to her ear. “I’ve fucked
you, Ciara, more than once,” he said in a low growl. “You gave yourself to me
willingly, and I intend to keep you.”

Her pulse kicked up.
Everything in her wanted to surrender to the raw power contained in his
murmured declaration, in the strength of his fingers on her flesh. To lie back
night after dark night and let him take his fill of her, for as long as he
wished.

But the very thought of
it scared her to death.

“Why are you so
determined?” she asked, baffled that he would want her this fiercely. “We
hardly know each other.”

He raised his hand to cup
her cheek, looking both frustrated and menacing all at the same time. “I wish
to God I knew.”

“You have to know I want
you, too. Jean-Marc. But—”

He showed her his palm.
“Don’t try to feed me that lame bullshit about us being too different, or you
being too young for me. I don’t give a damn about all that.”

She swallowed at his
expression.
Hot. Possessive
.

“What happened to your
wife?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed.
“You’re testing my patience, woman.”

“And you’re pushing me
too hard.”

The frustration took over
his eyes completely. He paced away and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I went
through a rough patch about five years ago. There was this case—” He blew out a
breath. “It went bad and I took a nosedive for a while. Got a little obsessed.
Stopped trusting people.”

She tipped her head.
“Including your wife?”

“Including everybody. My
ex-wife took the opportunity to move on. She has since remarried.”

Was this the case Valois
had told her about? That had nearly ended his career? Ciara wanted to ask more,
but he obviously didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be. I’m fine.
About that,” he added pointedly.

She sighed, her insides
filled with conflicting feelings that pulled her in opposite directions. “I
still—”

“
Écoute
,” he
interrupted. “Let us call a truce for tonight. We’re here together in this
beautiful place. Let’s enjoy it. And later...” He smiled and gathered her in
his arms. “Later, we can enjoy each other,” he murmured, tipping up her chin
for a kiss.

What was it about good
sex that could turn a woman into a brainless, witless lump of clay, ready to be
molded into anything a man wanted?

She opened to him and he
took. Standing there in the fading golden light of the warm Paris evening, with
the ripe green smell of the river and flowers, and the sweet spice of the cafes
and food vendors surrounding them, the laughter of children in the air, and the
cooing and rustling of pigeons underfoot. It was all too perfect to spoil.

Tomorrow she would do
what she must. But tonight...tonight she would forget about all the reasons she
shouldn’t, and simply enjoy him.

She wouldn’t feel guilty.

Not while they strolled past
the incredible cathedral of Notre Dame, then to the Isle St. Louis and back,
then further down the river to a small bistro on a dark, cobblestoned side
street where they ate a simple meal accompanied by a sizeable carafe of hearty
red wine and talked with their fingers laced and their heads bent close till
the smiling proprietress finally shooed them out at closing time well past
midnight.

And certainly not as they
made sweet, languorous love for hours and hours, until the orange-rose sun
peeked over the gray slate tile rooftops and the birds began to sing their
morning songs and the church bells chimed five times.

Not until Jean-Marc
reluctantly left her bed to get dressed and go to work did harsh reality once
again intrude onto her haze of sated emotional bliss. Along with the guilt.

When he was gone she
buried her face in the tousled sheets where he had lain. She wrapped her hands
around the back of her head and fought the tears, breathing in the musky peach
blossom scent of his body and his passion.

She had to leave him. She
had no choice. But God, did it hurt.

Who would ever have
thought the very worst consequence of her life of crime would be this?

Slowly, Ciara rose and
dragged herself from the bed. And reluctantly started to pack her things.

♥♥♥

For Jean-Marc, the next
day started out good and just got better. Making love to Ciara two nights in a
row had him feeling happier and more content than he had in years.

At
36
Quai des Orfèvres
, he and Pierre made excellent progress on the
unsolved robbery cases they were going through, piecing together
le Revenant
’s
early history of petty theft.

It was slow work. It took
the whole day to get there, but by the time they’d gone back through ten years
worth of files, the matching thefts finally trickled to a stop.

“I think we’ve finally
found when he started,” Pierre said after they’d pored through the files for
eleven years back and come up with nothing that fit. “Thank God.”

Jean-Marc stretched his
aching back muscles. A sense of satisfaction settled in his bones. Even if they
were hitting dead ends everywhere else, their profile was yielding some great
information.

“
Alors
… It
definitely appears the Ghost started stealing ten years ago,” Jean-Marc agreed.
“That probably puts his age at this point between twenty-five and thirty-five.
Which fits with his current level of sophistication.”

He got up and perused the
maps on the incident room wall. Yesterday they’d added a second one of Europe,
and used a different color push pin to mark the robberies committed during each
calendar year.

An unmistakable pattern
had emerged.

“
And
we know where
he’s from.”

Pierre tapped the pins
for
le Revenant
’s first year in business, one by one. Every one of them
was stuck in the port city of Marseilles. He grinned at Jean-Marc. “I gotta
tell you,
mon vieux
, this was one damned fine bit of police work, if I
don’t say so myself.”

Jean-Marc grinned back.
“May as well admit it, we’re geniuses.”

Pierre jerked his chin at
the sheaf of notes and graphs by Jean-Marc’s hand. “What else does your
brilliant statistical analysis tell us?”