The Paris Secrets trilogy: includes: Window, Screen, and Skin (48 page)

Except sex.

The door opened.  A hand reached out and grabbed me by my shoulders.  Hollie's green eyes were wide and...desperate?

"Help me," she pleaded. 

***

The emergency was in Hollie's bedroom.  She wasn't bleeding or gasping for breath.  Instead, she tugged me to the center of the room where boards and screws lay strewn on the hardwood floor.  I quickly assessed that should directions be followed correctly, perhaps a bookshelf would result from the scattered ephemera.

"You are having a time of it," I said to her.

"I've been working on this all afternoon."

"Really?"  I bent and picked up the instructions sheet written in English.  Only eight points to the assembly.  It couldn't be that difficult.

"I'm lousy with a screwdriver," Hollie admitted.  "I had to actually run out to buy that one.  And I bought the wrong one, the one with a cross shape on the end, so I had to return for a straight one."

Chuckling, I knelt before the boards and tugged off the sweatshirt.  I could have this assembled in no time, but I was hungry.

Brandishing the screwdriver, I offered, "I will rescue you."

Hollie wrapped her arms about my neck and kissed me.  Her hair smelled like vanilla and the brush of her breasts against my back lured me to turn and kiss under her chin then down her neck.

"All I ask in reward," I said, "is you feed me."

"I'll need to run out for groceries."

"Why don't you run down to the bistro around the corner?"  I dug in my pocket and pulled out the leather wallet.  From inside I plucked two twenty euro bills and handed them to her.

"Oh, I can't take that."  She shooed the money at me.

Americans.  They had this thing about accepting help that annoyed we French.

"Hollie."  I grabbed her hand and slapped the money into her palm.  "Bring me food."

"But I really can't take your—"

"Kiss me," I demanded.

Startled by my tone, she blinked and then did as I'd commanded.  Mm, she tasted like tea and her hair tickled down my cheek.

"Now, you stuff that money in your purse and go out and forage for your lover,
oui
?"

"
Oui
."  But, caught in a dazed grin of pleasure, she didn't move.

"
Allez vou
!"

She shook out of the daze and nodded.  "Right.  I must feed my big, strong man.  I'm off!"

I chuckled as she headed out, leaving me behind to flex my biceps.  Oh yes, I was her big, strong man.  And even if she'd said it playfully, I took it to heart.  I couldn't remember the last time a woman had complimented me.  Was that the reason I had so quickly fallen for Hollie?  Did she feed some sort of need for reassurance that brewed within my soul?

Hell, where had those thoughts come from?  I was here to save the day for my pretty girlfriend.  And she adored me.

All was well.

***

A week later, I had organized the bookshelves.  I kept fiction in the bedroom, and the six shelves were only a quarter filled.  I'd have no problem filling them up before the end of next year.  Out in the living room I'd organized the non-fiction according to the Dewey Decimal System because, yeah, I'm a geek like that.  Didn't matter that I only had the History, Natural Science, Mythology and Travel categories at the moment.  Four shelves were filled with travel guides (mostly Paris), historical costumes, and gorgeous Dorling Kindersley guides to bugs and beetles. 

Jean-Louis had been impressed with my collection of French history, and he'd browsed and then borrowed a volume written by Oliver Bernier about Paris in the 18th century.

Sharing books with my lover was some kind of all right.  (As a reader, you understand.)  But how often does it happen in real life that you pair up with someone who was equally as interested in words?  I'd found a man who shared my love for books, and with whom I could discuss my latest read over coffee at breakfast, or as we strolled along the Seine feeding sunflower seeds to the pigeons.

Life had become idyllic.  I couldn't argue it, and I wouldn't. 

And as if to spread frosting to life's delicious cake, it was snowing big, gentle, fluffy flakes outside my window.  Sure, it would probably melt because it was still too warm to last, but that didn't mean I wasn't excited for the afternoon walk Jean-Louis had called to invite me on earlier.  He'd said he would stop in and choose my clothing, so I should stay in my robe until he arrived.  I wasn't about to question that mysterious invite.  In fact, I reveled in the subtle domination he exerted at times.

I tugged the thin yellow silk robe tight because the tiny apartment was drafty in the wintertime, and I'd yet to invest in a space heater to place beside the bed.  The apartment was cool because the windows were so big.  But I wouldn't trade those floor-to-ceilings for more warmth any day.

Life may have been drastically different for me if not for those windows.

Strolling into the bathroom, I brushed my teeth for the second time today. I'd eaten a garlicky vinaigrette on my lunch salad.  My hair looked...passable.  In the growing-out phase, it was finally dipping below my shoulders and actually had a wave to it thanks to the thickness.  Chestnut brown, and not a gray strand yet.

I crossed myself in thanks for that because my female relatives generally went completely gray by age forty.  My mother had boldly resisted dying her gorgeous platinum locks, and had looked like one of those older models with the flowy, long silver hair. 

Please don't let those Scandinavian roots take hold in my scalp, I whispered to whatever color gods would listen.  I made a mental note to say a prayer for color longevity next time I was in Nôtre Dame.  Yes, I have my moments of vanity.

Inside the medicine cabinet, my fingers waggled before a few tiny vials of essential oil perfumes.  I rarely wore them because my vanilla bath salts generally did the trick.  Today I decided to go for a change and selected the clove-spiced-chocolate scent called Vixen.  A tap of fragrance to my neck, and there, between my breasts.

A rap at the door rushed me around to answer it.  I fell into Jean-Louis's kiss but quickly pulled away as my hands slid over the rough gray wool coat he wore.  Nickel buttons dotted the lapels and queued down the front in a military style.

"This is...different."

"My winter coat.  It is chilly today."

"It's thirty degrees."

"Like I said,
brrrrrr
."  He made show of shivering and closed the door behind him.

I wanted to laugh.  I shouldn't laugh.  As a hearty Midwestern girl, I didn't start to shiver until the mercury dropped below zero.  Heck, I wore sandals until the snow fell, and I can't remember when I last wore a winter cap (Because you know, it's all about protecting the coif; frozen ears bedamned).

Paris rarely neared the single digits, and it was early, I admit, for such low temps before Christmas.  But he did look handsome in the long coat that skimmed his thighs.  Black leather gloves and a gray- and blue-striped scarf at his neck finished the look.

"You're like some kind of GQ model, you know that?"

"You are the only woman I want to stare at my pictures then."

The texture of the leather gloves gliding up and over my breasts hardened my nipples and I pressed myself against the rough weave of the coat and tilted my head to catch the kiss he delivered to my neck.  His nose was still cool and it tickled my skin. 

"Mm, you smell different.  Spiced chocolates?"

"You like it?"

A long, sucking kiss below my jaw answered that one nicely.  He peeled away the robe and I let it fall away, slinking down my legs to the floor, leaving me naked and he dressed for the Snowpocalypse.

Clinging to the front of his wool coat, I tilted my head as his kisses drew a hot trail down my clavicle and to a nipple, where he sucked it hard.  My entire body curled up against his, as if it wanted to become a part of him.  Could I?  Could I crawl up under the coat and melt into him?  Infuse myself into his being?

He lifted me, his mouth still at my breast, and carried me into the bedroom.  When I landed on the bed, his gloved hands pushed down my wrists and pinned them to the down comforter near my shoulders.  I felt small and bare beneath this fully dressed man.  It was a sexy kind of vulnerability that arched my back.  I cooed teasingly, and lured him to tend the other nipple.

I hummed deep in my throat, and my legs wrapped about his hips, encumbered by the coat.  Thrusting up my hips, I rubbed my bare mons against the rough wool.  Ridiculously wet, and squirming against the restraints he maintained at my wrists, I gasped, "Yes, please.  Fuck me, Jean-Louis."

"I thought we were going for a walk?"

"Just a quickie?  Don't take off your coat.  I want you like this."

"Well, I have plans..."  His tongue lashed my nipple and I cooed in reaction.

"Plans?"  Oh, God, let me get off.  It wouldn't take long.  My pussy hummed and the harder I rubbed against him, the closer orgasm loomed.  "Wait.  Don't tell me your plans.  Just..."

Another deep, lingering suck at my nipple pulled my back off the bed as I sought his intense ministrations.  I gyrated my hips up against him and had succeeded in moving aside the coat.  Beneath, the tailored trousers rubbed my clit, which was thick and swollen, wet with need.

"Come," he whispered at my ear. 

And that simple word, issued on a hush, and followed with a lash of tongue over my nipple, set me off.

"I am," I murmured as the dizzying crash of success burst like a mini explosion in my groin.  It wasn't one of those earth-shattering, shouting kind of orgasms, but rather, an exquisite, finely-honed spark of pure pleasure.  "Oh, yes."

I wriggled beneath him and he dropped my wrists so I was able to reach up and pull him down, and not quite force, but certainly push his head lower.  He tongued my clit, and that was all it took for a second burst to buck my hips.

Panting, I gripped his hair and pulled up his head.  He winked.  "Is good?"

"Is good."

***

I have never selected the clothing with which I wished my lover to adorn herself.  Hollie had...not a lot of clothing on hangers.  The majority was strewn over the easy chair in her bedroom and on the floor.  But she seemed to know what was where in each of the piles.  I did appreciate that she'd hung the lace dress I'd purchased for her.

"This one," I said, dangling a red wrap dress that appeared thigh length (easy to lift up) and light and loose.  "And you've a long winter coat?"

She fluttered about the bedroom, her cheeks still flushed from the orgasm I'd given her on the bed.  Like a butterfly flitting into the red dress and then pulling her wings closed to cinch before her waist, she smiled and retrieved a knee-length coat from the rack.  Perfect.

I stood beside her after she'd pulled on the coat.  The wool coat I wore was the same length, but it was a little big for me, which was also perfect.  I'd wrapped a blue scarf about the lapels, and Hollie pulled it off and threaded it around her neck.  I liked it better there.  And I adored it when she pushed the fabric to her nose to smell it.

"I love wearing you on me," she said.  "Where are we going?"

"For a walk on
la rive droite
.  You up for a surprise?"

She nodded eagerly.  I leaned in to kiss her eyelid because those bright blue eyes flashed up at me like a puppy ready for play.  I had some play in mind for her that she might protest, so I intended to keep the plan under wraps until she guessed it.

It had snowed last night, and some of the sidewalks had been shoveled, while others I gripped Hollie's hand and we walked on the street to avoid slipping.  Once we reached the Eiffel Tower everything was cleared.  I picked up in the middle of a Fallout Boy tune and Hollie hummed along with me, casting me a knowing glance as we crossed a street hand in hand.

"I adore you," she said.

"Why?  Because we like the same songs?"

"Yes.  And because you're so good to me."  She tugged the scarf up around her neck.

"You cold?"

She snuggled up closer.  "Nope.  Got my big, strong Frenchman to keep me warm.  Oh!  Look at the Tuileries!"

The royal gardens lie across the bridge, and the espaliered trees, bare of summer leaves, glittered with hoar frost. 

"It's like a faery land."  Hollie rushed ahead, and I lingered, content to set
mon abeille
free.

If she knew my plans, she might grow anxious.  We'd once mentioned our secret fantasy places for where we'd like to have sex.  At the time, I had sensed she would be reluctant to play out my fantasy.  As was I reluctant to have sex in the snow with her.  I didn't think my cock could withstand the cold.  Then again, if I owned a cottage in the countryside in which to indulge the winter sex foray, then why not give it a go?  I am generally up for anything.