The Paris Secrets trilogy: includes: Window, Screen, and Skin (17 page)

“Feel me,” I said, and moaned raggedly.  Head falling forward, my thighs clenched.  So close.  So close to coming.  Just a few more slicks of my finger….

Never lose him.  Make him wait.

I stepped back from the window, fingers slipping from my wet folds.  My legs unsteady, I stumbled and landed on the chair behind me.  My skin, moist and hot,
cushed
against the velvet fabric.  Panting, wanting to press my clit again to set off the rocket-fire, I clung to the chair arms. 

My gaze never left his.

Pausing his grip on his erection, his mouth fell open.  Abdomen pulsing, his chest rose and fell rapidly.  Stopped in the middle of something I never wanted to end. 

Yet tomorrow it would.  And I couldn’t pause this feeling forever, wishing it would hum along at this perfection vibration, occupying our beings with a never-ending pleasure that spoke only between the two of us. 

I’d found something I’d never imagined possible.  A handsome man willing to experiment with this crazy sex scenario.  A certain confidence that a relationship had begun.  Trust. 

And yet I didn’t even know his name.  Couldn’t scream it out as the orgasm ripped through my body and I found ecstasy.  I wanted to know it.  I needed to have a name to whisper while I softly thumbed myself in the middle of a sleepless night.

I didn’t want to grab the notebook and write out the question.  My body panted, pleading I continue with the seduction.  The singular mastery of the emotion he was sending through the glass.  He wanted me.  He wanted to see me come. 

He splayed his hands out at his sides in a
what next
gesture.

I spread my legs wide.  He nodded. 
Please.  Give me that.  All of you
.  The humid night air might have been cooler than the heat forged from between my legs.  I slicked my fingers over the throbbing nub that demanded attention.  It pulsed as if with a life of its own.  If I should rub it much longer, too fast, or too hard, it would swell and retreat, a punishment for my greediness.  Instead, I dipped two fingers lower, wetting them inside my hot pussy.

Across the street he licked between two fingers, mimicking what he would do if he had me in his bed, his face buried between my thighs.  My God, I wanted him there right now.  His moustache tickling my thighs and labia.  My musketeer who could slay me with his rapier tongue. 

My moan littered the room in aching, languorous tones.

I wanted him to hear my desire.  To know how he made me feel.  To understand that this—whatever it was—could go on forever.

I wanted to pull his head down and feel his nose nuzzle against my clit as he sought to tease me.  And then the hot lash of his tongue was all it would take…

A flick of my wet fingers across my clit bucked my hips and shuddered my bones within my skin.  I came hard, my breath forcing out in a guttural moan.  My legs shook, shoe-tip pressing to the cool window, and my shout had surely been heard through the glass. 

Fifteen feet away.  Separated by two thin sheets of clear barrier.  His eyes held me in an embrace.  He’d wrangled me into his world.  I didn’t ever want to leave.

Sighing and allowing laughter to bubble up and shake my breasts, I tilted a glance to him.  Waving, he then kissed his fingers and blew that morsel to me.

As I was going for the catch the craziest thing happened.  Another wave of orgasm rippled through my bones, prickling my skin and shivering sweetly through my body.  But instead of laughter, a teardrop trickled out the corner of my eye.

What the hell?

I stood and, waving behind me without looking back, retreated between the sheets on my bed where the teardrop turned into sobs.

***

I woke in the morning with a sense of dread.  Springing upright in bed, fully awake and completely naked—shoes on my feet—I turned toward the window.  The sheer was not pulled.  Rain beat against the glass.  I wouldn't see him for two weeks.

Last night had been incredible.  And insane. 

I’d cried.  Because the orgasm had been that good?  It had happened once or twice before.  Sex was so emotional.  And to achieve such a tremendous release as orgasm would sometimes bring up tears, a sort of joyous cleansing of the soul.

What we’d shared together last night had felt joyous.  And sad.  I hadn’t been able to look at him once the tears had started.  Hadn’t even given him a wave goodbye.

“Two weeks,” I muttered.  “Oh hell.”

Jumping out of bed, I pulled on the bee robe and spun to press my palms against the window.  Dark across the street in the opposite window.  He'd already left.  Or was that…?

I saw the end of a cab parked at the corner down the street.

I rushed out into the living room, my heels clicking frantically, and bowed my head to the window.  My lungs panted.  Something in my core flip-flopped.  The joy I’d felt last night threatened to implode in a burst of sad tears.  So this was what it felt like to lose something.  Unsure and sick in my chest.  I wanted to shout or even punch something.

"Only a few weeks," I whispered.

It could have been for the rest of my life.  It still could be.  I held all the cards, apparently, in that call. 

What if, while away, he found someone new?  Or simply decided that sex through a window wasn’t fulfilling for him?  What if he decided to call it off?

“Stop thinking,” I reprimanded.

A man walked across the street toward the cab, coming from the direction of my building.  Monsieur Sexy had been in my building?

Of course, he'd promised to leave an envelope for me with the doorman.  Who had he said it was for?  He didn't know my name.

How I’d wanted to call out his name last night.  Would I ever…?

Didn't matter.  I wasn't going to let my mind wander when these may be the last few seconds I saw him for a while.  Wearing a casual gray business shirt and gray slacks he strode across the street, unconcerned about the rain.  Smart Italian loafers, I decided of the shoes.  I couldn't see well for the distance and angle of the streets.  But yes, that was his style.

He strode around the back of the cab, shoving a hand through his hair.  Casual.  So easy and relaxed.  He slicked away the rain that must jewel in his hair like diamonds on this slightly foggy autumn morning.

I pressed a palm to the window, leaning forward and almost said, "Stop, stay," but that was a fantasy I made up.  He had business.  He wouldn't stop and drop it all because some nameless woman behind glass requested he do so.

I felt his absence creep into my heart and chew away a tiny black spot as he opened the cab’s back door.  Mouth open, the humid air felt raw against my tongue.  He stepped off the curb—and looked up and across the street, directly at my rain-streaked window.

Be still, my heart.  He had been thinking of me. 

I waved, and cautioned myself not to bounce on my toes in an attempt to show him how desperate I was to keep him here.  Here, not so close to me, but within eyesight.  Fifteen feet away.  Behind glass.  Mine when I could see him.

And when I could not?  He belonged to the world, and anyone else he should happen to glance at, casually chat with while standing in line at the airport, or share a funny story with his seatmate on the airplane.  Not mine. 

He blew me a kiss.

He could be mine.

I caught the kiss and crushed it against my heart with both hands before kissing my fingertips and returning the goodbye.

Standing there with a hand upon the cab roof, he held my gaze as surely as a man could hold a woman's heart.  With a fierce conviction that I did not want to waver, no matter the distance he was putting between us.

"Yes," I whispered.  It wasn't in answer to any of his questions in particular, only a promise to myself.

He slid inside, and the cab rolled down the street.

My heart stopped beating.  That little black spot began to bleed out, growing larger—

“The envelope.”  I raced into the bedroom to slip on some clothes. 

Five minutes later I had scampered down to the lobby, asked the doorman if I'd been left anything, and now held a small red envelope in my hands.  And a book-sized package wrapped in red paper to match the envelope.

It was thick, beautiful paper.  Couldn't have come from any stationary set I'd imagine a man using.  Had he bought it purposely for this moment?

I pressed the envelope to my lips and closed my eyes.  Berlin.  For two weeks.  And I held the key to taking our relationship to the next level.  To open it or to tear it up and toss it in the trashbin without looking?

And this unexpected package.  What could it possibly be?  Felt like a paperback book.  Did he want me to read something in particular while he was gone?

The package had nothing to do with the envelope, I reasoned.  I could open it now and still leave the envelope as I muddled over whether or not to rip that open. 

“Right.  Save the envelope, but as for the package…”

I’d never been patient at Christmas.  More than a few times, I’d convinced my parents to let me open a package a day starting a few days in advance because that would stretch out the joy all the more.  (Because you know, childhood logic.)

And there was rule number three: never open the package.  Which, by its very forbidding tone, demanded I break it.

Turning over the package to look for the taped seam, I found that it had been wrapped with such precision a professional wrapper would shed tears at the results.

“He must have had the sales girl do this.”

If he had done it himself I wasn’t sure if I should fall at his feet and worship his skills or maybe wonder if he had control issues.

I myself liked to control things as much as possible.  It was the introvert in me that liked quiet and calm.  Yes, even amidst my mess of stacked books and unmade bed and piles of clothing I maintained a certain order.  It was all in my head.

Sliding a finger under the ends, they released and I carefully folded away the thick crimson paper.  Inside, gold leather covered a thin notebook.  I turned it over and gasped.  A bee with wings spread had been hand-tooled onto the lower right corner of the cover.

“Oh, my God.  This is the one.  From the shop.  From the day…”

I pressed the notebook to my chest as if it was my dream musketeer and I had finally been allowed to hug him.  We’d touched for the first time that day at the leather shop.  Never had we stood so close to one another.

Lifting the notebook to smell the rich leather I blinked away a teardrop.  How had he known?  Had he made a guess?  I did have the bee embroidered on my robe.

“Monsieur Sexy, I…”  I didn’t know what to say.  This gift was tremendous.  It was everything.

It was a beckon.

Picking up the unopened envelope, I slid it over my lips and then, wandering to the kitchen table, I set it down, leaning it before a stack of research books.  A question mark had been drawn on the front of the envelope with a black sharpie.

I walked backward, hugging the notebook to my chest, eyes on the question mark.  Heartbeats thundered.  Another tear fell across my cheek.  Tilting my head against the window I reveled in the crazy anxious sexy warmth that flooded my soul.

Dare I open it?

The End

Screen: Book #2

Chapter
One

Let's begin with a bang, shall we?

Because right now my mind was not here in my living room, three stories above a quiet Parisian street in the 7th arrondissement.  I had just returned from an evening shift at the map shop.  I pulled my shoulder-length chestnut hair out from the chignon, smoothed my hands down my hips, and let out a sigh.  You know that sigh.  The 'I'm home and I can finally relax' sigh.

My thoughts, though, had no intention of relaxing without a little help.  In my mind, I drifted through the window, grabbed the man in the sleek Zegna suit by the tie and tugged him across the street.

Mmm...  If I closed my eyes and pressed my back to the wall I could picture him standing before me now.  Tall, broad-shouldered, and possessed of an innate charm; he could seduce without uttering a word.  His fingers slid down the charcoal suit coat, unbuttoning one, then the next steel disk.  Sky gray eyes mesmerized me.  The man's grin said 'I know things that you don't, sweetie, but if you're lucky, I'll teach them to you'. 

The only thing on his mind was sex.

He strode toward me.  I dropped my arms to my sides, my palms flattening against the wall.  With an anticipatory inhale my chest lifted and my shoulders tilted forward.  Aiming for him, wanting him to move faster, to make a connection.

To finally touch me.

He shrugged down the finely-pinstriped suit coat.  Hooking a finger at the collar, he smoothed it in half lengthwise in a well-polished move.  A man of style and taste.  He tossed it aside, landing the expensive coat across the back of the gray velvet chaise where I had spent many an afternoon daydreaming about him.