The Paris Caper (8 page)

As she told Pierre the
part about her and Jean-Marc having sex, she didn’t dare look up from her
hands. She could feel her lover’s eyes bore into the back of her neck from
inside her bedroom. Pierre just nodded and took more notes.

Breaking off in
embarrassment, she fanned her flaming face with the photo sheets. Paris wasn’t
usually this warm, even in the dead of summer. “I’m sorry it’s so hot in here.
No air conditioning.”

Suddenly she felt the
whisper of fabric against her shoulder. Startled, she realized Jean-Marc had
taken off his suit jacket and tossed it over the back of her chair. His scent
lingered on it, curling around her like a python, robbing her of what little
breath she had. Reminding her of being in his arms.
Of him being inside her.

She shook off the memory.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like some iced tea?” she asked Pierre.

“Well, maybe—” But just
then his cell phone rang. “
Excusez-moi
,” he said, and answered it,
listening for several moments before saying, “
D’accord
,” then hanging
up. He stood abruptly and gathered up the photo sheets from her. “My apologies,
but I must go.” He glanced at Jean-Marc. “
Commissaire
Lacroix will
finish the interview.
Au revoir, mademoiselle
.”

Before she could think to
protest, he’d swept out of the apartment, leaving her alone with Jean-Marc.

She jumped to her feet,
starting for the rapidly closing door. “You should go with him. There’s really
nothing else to—”

Jean-Marc grabbed her
arm. “
Arrête
.”

She swallowed a gasp. And
peered up at him. His eyes blazed with...anger? Could he really be
angry
about her not calling?

“Listen,” she said,
“about last n—”

He cut her off with a
swift shake of his head. His fingers dug into the flesh of her arm as he tugged
her nearer and grasped her other arm, holding her fast in front of him.

The dark brown leather of
his shoulder holster stood out in stark contrast to his crisp white shirt, as
did the black stubble on his jaw. His suit trousers, expensive navy blue
worsted with subtle pin stripes, covered athletic, muscular thighs. He looked
cool and elegant, as he had last night...and incredibly dangerous.

Her heart skipped a beat,
then sped out of control. She tugged uselessly at her arms.

“You are afraid?” he
asked, his voice low and guttural.

She thought of Sophie,
and Etienne, and said, “Yes.” Then she thought of last night, and shook her
head. “No.” She gave up trying to hide her confusion. “I don’t know. Should I
be?”

His mouth was cruelly
beautiful, sculpted and smooth, a sensual slash of cold disapproval. She
remembered it sliding over her body last night, insistent, demanding. She
shivered. She wanted it on her again.

His eyes dipped to her
breasts. “Your body is not afraid. I can see your nipples through your top.
They’re hard. Like I am.”

He started to walk her
backwards into the bedroom. She tried to resist, really she did. This would be
a bigger mistake than last night. One that could not be undone.

He was dangerous. Wrong
for her.

But she wanted him even
more now than she did then.

He halted in front of her
dresser, low with a big, round mirror. From the corner of her eye she could see
the bed with the blue Hand of Fatima design Sofie had painted on the wall above
it, palm out, like a warning against the folly of what she was about to do with
Jean-Marc. Their profiles reflected back in the mirror, him with his merciless
grip on her arms, her with a look on her face she’d never seen before—somewhere
between terror and breathless anticipation. She attempted to pull away again,
but her limbs were strangely powerless.

“Tell me, Ciara,” he
demanded. Pulling her closer still.

“Tell you what?” she
asked, befuddled and distracted by his legs tangling with hers.

His breath was hot in her
ear. “Tell me why you’re afraid of the police. Tell me what you’re doing that’s
illegal.”

Shock welded her to the
spot. She stared at him openmouthed.

No.
He couldn’t know
.

She shook her head.
“Nothing. Why would you say that?”

He let one arm go and slid
a hand over her breast. She sucked in a breath. He squeezed her slightly, his
thumb toying with the stiffened tip.

Giving in to the
sensation, she groaned softly.

“You want me,” he
whispered.

He didn’t ask. Didn’t
equivocate. Merely stated the obvious. Keeping his hand on her breast, he
turned her toward the dresser and the mirror. Stood with his hard-ridged front
pressed into her yielding backside. She started to tremble.

“When you didn’t call, I
thought maybe you’d lost my business card. But you didn’t lose it.”

Because there it stood,
canted up against her hairbrush, right in the middle of the dresser. Impossible
to miss. Rife with implication. Damning in its blatancy.

“There’s no sign of a man
anywhere in your apartment, so I’m guessing it’s not a boyfriend. So why? Then
I remembered, you are a foreigner, on a student visa, with no visible income.”
He leaned down, closer to her ear. “And at the club, when I told you I was a
cop, your reaction was...unusual. Suddenly you were frightened of me, and to get
involved with me. Why?”

She licked her lips. “I—”

“I’m an excellent
detective, Ciara. And I’m also damn good at math. Two plus two always adds up
to four. Now, tell me what you’re involved in. Drugs? Prostitution? I’ll help
you if I can.”

She closed her eyes
against the chaos trying to break through in her mind. Prostitution? Was he
kidding?

No. She’d be all right if
she just came up with a plausible reason...

Think!

“You’re wrong,” she said
past the dryness in her throat. “I’m not afraid. That’s not why I didn’t call
you.”

In the mirror his eyes
met hers as she forced them open. His hand moved across her breast, going for
the top button of her camisole. He slid it open. “I’m listening.”

Her pulse zoomed.

He slid open the second
button.

“It’s not that you’re a
cop,” she said in a rush. “It’s that you’re a
commissaire
.”

His brow went up and his
fingers paused on the third button.

She quickly went on,
“You’re right about me. I’m a foreigner. A student with no money. Look at how I
live!” She swept a hand around at her miserably shabby apartment and the
threadbare furniture she didn’t own. The lack of adornment, the few items of
clothing in the tiny armoire. The pitiful state of her life. “But you...you’re
older than I. An important man. We’re from two completely different worlds,
Jean-Marc. Why start something when it will never work? I’d never be welcome in
your world. You’d be ashamed of me.”

She tore her gaze away,
embarrassed by the truth and vehemence of those last words she’d never meant to
utter.

Her childhood had been an
agony of shame—something she had believed she’d put far behind her. Though it
drove everything she did, even now, she seldom thought of those unhappy years
in the States, before she met Etienne.

She tried to extract
herself from Jean-Marc’s grasp. “Please,” she whispered. “Let me go.”

“
Non
. I won’t. It
is you who are wrong, so very wrong, about me.” He put his lips to her hair.
“Age is of no consequence when you’re past thirty. And I could never be ashamed
of you,
mon ange
.”

His fingers sought the
last buttons on her camisole. He opened them and brushed his hand over her
yearning flesh. For a moment war raged within her: desire versus wisdom. She
wasn’t
wrong. But he seemed so...sincere.

She knew what she’d have
to do if she had sex with him again. Hell, even if she didn’t. The moment she’d
seen him standing at her apartment door she’d known what she’d be forced to do.

So what would it matter
if she surrendered now? Gave in to the sheer insanity of this incredible,
impossible attraction?

“We’re not different,
Ciara,” he murmured, sliding the camisole off her shoulders completely. Taking
her in his arms. Holding her.
Wanting her
. “I’m not who you think I am.”

She sighed as he kissed
her neck, melting into the pure joy of being with this man who was so wrong for
her. Accepting that, despite everything, at this moment he was exactly right
for her. For today, anyway. Until he realized what a monumental mistake he’d
made....

“I’m not who you think I
am, either, Jean-Marc,” she whispered, letting down her guard completely. “But
for now, I’ll try to be just who you want me to be.”

♥♥♥

Jean-Marc gathered Ciara
in his arms. He took her mouth with his and plundered, using his lips and
tongue, thrusting deep. Tasting bliss.

He groaned softly. He was
sunk, and he knew it. It was as though all the pent-up emotional need he’d
suppressed for five years had busted loose at one time. Inconvenient. But
probably past due.

She wrapped her leg
around his knee, met his tongue with hers, opening to him completely, yielding
her sweet favors to his demands. Her eagerness made him dizzy with desire; he
wanted to feel her luscious body under him, to hilt his cock deep inside her.

Bon sang..
. No
wonder he was feeling obsessed about this woman. What was it about her that had
him crawling out of his skin to have her? Was it because he recognized her on
some visceral, elemental level as being so much like himself? A fish out of
water. Basically, thoroughly, insecure. Striving to be something he was not.

A fake.

But the emotions he was
feeling right now were not false. And in her naked passion for him at least, he
sensed she was being honest.

He backed her up to the
bed and reached for her zipper. In two seconds he’d peeled off her skirt. Two
more, and her panties were on the floor.

She groped for his shirt
buttons as he tumbled her down onto the mattress.

“
Non
,” he growled,
and tore his mouth from hers. He grasped her wrists in one hand, pulling them
above her head as he pushed her thighs apart and lowered himself between them.
He savored the sight of her nude body below. He’d wanted her like this last
night, and now he had her exactly as he’d craved. Naked and panting under him.
Open. Willing. Needy. And in his complete power.

He took her mouth again,
hard, and skimmed his hand down her body. Relishing the silken feel of her
warm, undulating flesh, the taste of her tongue on his lips, the smell of her
desire for him filling his nostrils.

Si bon
. So good.
So different from the counterfeit passion he’d grown used to. What had he possibly
seen in the cool indifference?

“Take...your
clothes...off,” she moaned between eating kisses.

“Later.” He liked being
fully clothed, his shoulder holster in place, while she was so vulnerable.

He let her wrists go and
slid down so he could feast on her breasts—another fantasy from last night. She
cried out as he took one nipple into his mouth and sucked fiercely. Her body
bowed in a crescent and her fingers tunneled in his hair.

“Please, Jean-Marc,” she
moaned. “Oh, God.”

He fought for
self-control. He’d never been with a more responsive woman. Every touch, every
lick, every nip he gave her made her moan and writhe and plead with him to come
inside her. But he had no intention of ending the pleasure so quickly. He
wanted to make it last and last. All night.

He slid even further down
her body. Over the dip of her belly to the joining of her legs. And he feasted
there. Teasing and inflaming her with his tongue and teeth. As he did, he
slipped a finger into her and sought the rough spot that would make her light
up like Bastille Day.

He wanted her out of
control. He wanted her helpless and boneless with need. He wanted her begging
for his cock. For
him
.

She screamed. And came
apart, sobbing his name.

He banked the immense
gratification and kept at her, until she came again. Until she lay under him,
trembling helplessly with the pleasure he’d given her, moaning in bliss.

Completely his.

He lifted off her and she
watched with slumberous, half-lidded eyes as he slowly stripped off his gun and
his clothes, and sheathed himself. Preening for her. Making her wait. Making
her spread her thighs and whisper, “Hurry.”

She reached for him as he
mounted her, wrapping her arms and legs around his body. But he didn’t enter
her. Not yet.

“Who is your man now?” he
demanded softly.

A shiver purled through
her and her eyelids drifted closed. “You are, Jean-Marc.”

“Open your eyes,” he
commanded. “And say it again.”

She did as he bid.
“You’re the only man I want, Jean-Marc,” she whispered breathlessly.

He thrust home in triumph,
his male pride swelling along with his member. “You are mine, Ciara. Don’t try
to hide from me again.”

He twined his fingers
through her hair and held her still for his kisses. He pulled out and plunged
into her again. She gasped. He hilted again.

“Mine,” he murmured,
thrusting over and over, claiming his right to her body, and imprinting his
name on her will.

He didn’t even want to
think about why he was acting like this. Didn’t want to think about anything
but burying himself as deep as he could inside her. He had her now. And he
would keep her. She was
his
.

Her body trembled and
shuddered under him, filling him with an erotic sense of power. Of possession.
She cried his name in climax once again, and he knew that she had surrendered
completely.

With three final,
powerful thrusts, he allowed himself to fall into the ecstasy. Sweaty and
burning in the flames of their passion, he held her tight and flung himself
into the pleasure of orgasm. Roaring his completion like a man possessed.