The Paris Secrets trilogy: includes: Window, Screen, and Skin (57 page)

At such a startling thought, I closed my eyes.

I hadn't seen Pierre l'Etoile in over five years.  But the last time we'd spoken he'd worn a beige linen suit and had always pushed his hair over his ears, a quirk of his.

My jaw tensed and I could feel the strain at the corners of my eyes.  I tilted my head toward the window and feigned sleep, while I surreptitiously wiped a tear from my cheek.

Damned old bastard was finally making me feel something toward him.  Should I have accepted the money?  Gone to university?  I wouldn't have been happy.  But it would have made him happy.

Fuck.

I felt Hollie leave her seat and when I knew she had gone, perhaps to the lavatory, I sniffed and used a shirt cuff to dry my eyes. 

Idiot Frenchman, sobbing on the train.  Get it together, Jean-Louis.  The old man was gone.  And I had done the right thing.  I'd followed my passion.

You know you did not.  You followed the money. 

I was passionate about VSquire.  But yes, the cooking would always be a part of my soul.

I didn't believe in regrets.  But this felt like something deeper, something I might never completely dive into—and didn't want to take that plunge.  So I'd shove it aside.  I had to.  It was the only way I'd make it home without blubbering on my girlfriend's shoulder before a trainload of passengers.

***

He hadn't been sleeping.  But I sensed Jean-Louis wanted a few minutes to himself, so I got up to wander about the train.  I stopped in the bathroom.  It was bigger than an airplane bathroom, which relieved me only a little because—okay, maybe I was claustrophobic.  I quickly washed my hands and splashed my face with water.  That refreshed me.

The dining car paneled in dark wood boasting red-velvet seat cushions featured a bar.  I bought a crisp moscato and sat in one of the window seats for twenty minutes, watching the snowy countryside zoom by.  The postcard view featured a jagged horizon of snow-crusted trees that glistened under the afternoon sunlight.  Made me only a little homesick for Iowa.  France didn't get nearly as much snow as we did in the States.  And I did not miss having to shovel heavy, wet, heart-attack snow, and plodding through slush and ruining my shoes. 

You see, I had been destined for Paris long before I'd moved there.  I hadn't the patience for snowboots when heels and cute suede flats looked much nicer, even in the winter.  Nor, as I'd grown older, had I appreciated the winter activities like snowmobiling or skiing or sledding.  I was a city girl to the core. 

You most certainly can take the country out of the girl.

Tonight was actually New Years Eve.  I wondered if Jean-Louis might like to go to a club.  Really do the New Year up with a bang.  I wasn't much of a bar hopper, but maybe a quiet place and a couple flutes of champagne would be all right?  We'd be in Paris by early evening.  It might be the thing to lift my lover's spirits.

Either that, or he'd insist he wanted to stay home.  Which, I should expect.  He had lost his father.  Everyone grieved so differently.  I know I wouldn't have wanted to go out partying a week after my mother's death.  Perhaps it would be best not to bring up the idea of partying.

I wrinkled my mouth in thought.  I'd play it by ear.  If all else failed, maybe we could start reading the book together.  He'd loved the gift.  I'm so glad I'd thought to look for it for him.

I passed the bathroom on the way to our car, and call it the effects from the wine, but a sexy idea zinged into my thoughts.  Jean-Louis smiled as I returned to my seat, and I leaned in to kiss him.  "Come with me," I said.

"You find the bar?" he asked.

"I did.  I should have brought you some wine, but I didn't."

"Then where are we headed?"

I pushed open the bathroom door and tugged him inside, reaching around him in a hug to lock the door behind him.

"Pants down," I said.  "This is going to be a quickie because it is so cramped."

He nuzzled his nose into my hair and nipped at my ear.  "Sort of like an elevator, eh?" 

I hadn't considered the resemblance to my most feared nemesis.  And now that he said it...

"
Oui
.  You will master your fears now and I will help."  His trousers unzipped and his pants dropped at my heels. 

"I don't want to master anything right now," I protested.  "I just want a fast fuck."

He dove to my jaw and nuzzled a biting kiss there.  "As you wish."

I was wearing a skirt with tights, so I realized this wasn't going to be easy.  Not if I wanted to keep my shoes on and the tights.  Which I did.

"Think we can manage this?"  I pulled down his boxer briefs and wrapped a firm clasp about his at-attention cock.  "I don't want to get undressed."

His hand slid under my skirt and tugged at the tights.  "I am talented in putting you in the right position,
mon abeille
."

I squeezed his hardness firmly.  "I want—no, I need this.  Inside me.  Pumping fast."

I shimmied my hips to assist as he pulled down my tights and his fingers glided over my pussy.  I was wet because the spur-of-the-moment adventure excited me in ways I'd never thought possible.  Standing in a small, snug box that smelled like air freshener?  So not romantic.  Mastering a fear?  Forget about it.

The rocking motion of the train banged Jean-Louis's shoulders back and forth between the walls.  If I thought about it too much I'd demand escape.  Right now.  Before the tiny box got stuck between floors—

His finger entered me and I sucked in my lower lip, tilting back my head.  Who cared about cramped little boxes?  We were not between floors.  All that mattered was Jean-Louis's hot skin against mine and that his finger stroked inside me, glancing the sweet spot.

I worked his cock up and down within my circled fingers, eliciting a hiss from him.  "More," I said.

He obeyed, pushing two fingers inside me, his knuckles kneading my thigh with focused pressure.  I wanted to pull off my sweater and let him bite my breasts, gently, hungrily, but I didn't want to risk the time.  This was the only lavatory for two cars.  Quickness was key.

Jutting my hips forward, I guided his penis between my legs and he moaned appreciatively as my thighs hugged him.  He pumped between my legs using the friction to amp up his pleasure and juice his rod.  The train joggled and he pressed both hands out to the walls to stop from plunging into me and taking us down. 

I caught his erection with my thighs and this time didn't let go until he'd entered me, just the head of him, because that was all we could manage in this awkward position.  But that small connection felt so good.  The two of us joining, when all around us the world remained unaware, going about their way, doing their random things. 

And we were fucking.  Furiously.  Grabbing a stolen moment of excitement and pleasure.  Using it to disguise the underlying grief.  And forging it into a persuasive means to forgetfulness. 

"You're so hot," he said, clasping me across the back and lifting me onto my toes so he could glide in deeper. 

With my thighs pressed together and him driving into me, his every movement tugged at my clit and a sudden, surprising jolt of orgasm shot through my belly and mons.  I gasped against his neck and kissed him hard, there beneath his chin.  Body shuddering against his, I squeezed my inner muscles and Jean-Louis's body jerked against mine as he came.  Clutching me tightly, so I wouldn't fall away, his body pulsed a few times as he road the pleasure wave. 

He pulled out and reached around me for a Kleenex from the dispenser then slipped it over the cum on my thighs. 

"To a wondrous New Year," he said, and kissed me deeply before we heard the knock on the door.

***

The woman who had been waiting outside the bathroom returned down the aisle and shot me a long hard glare as she passed.  Yes, yes, so we'd been fucking in the loo.  Get over it you old bat.  Ha!

I clasped Jean-Louis's hand and he cast me an effervescent smile. 

I kissed his hand and said, "I love you."

"That makes me a lucky man."

"You think?"

He nodded. 

"Do you want to go out and do up the town tonight to celebrate the New Year?"

"I would love that."

"Really?  You don't think it's too soon after...?"

"Not at all.  We both need to get out of our heads,
oui
?  We'll start at the Crazy Horse, then there is a club in the 9th I would take you to."

"The Crazy Horse?  Isn't that a sex club?"

"They feature the follies."

"So, half naked women but no naked men?  How does this figure in to my kind of entertainment?"

"If I can find a naked man for you will that make you happy?"

I slid a hand over his lap and squeezed his cock, which grew noticeably firmer.  "I already have one."

"We don't have to do the sex show.  If it would make you uncomfortable?  I would like to see you watching it, though."

"Be a voyeur at my side?"

"Of a sort."

"It is your MO."

  He smirked and winked at me.  "I don't think it's the kind of show one watches to get off.  It is art."

"And dozens of bare breasts for your viewing pleasure."  I kissed him.  "I'm up for it, as long as we can hit a dance club afterward.  I want to fill my brain with loud music and get a little tipsy.  Not too much, though.  I am a teetotaler."

"I'm not much of a drinker myself.  I will make sure you do not get drunk, Hollie.  We will begin the new year with a bang,
oui
?"

"Only if the bang means you putting me up against the wall when we get home."

"That's exactly what I meant."

Chapter Fourteen

I watched Hollie's reaction to the mostly-nude dancers on the stage.  We had only been able to get seats in the back, but that provided for a better view of the entire show.  Which was disappointing.  The Crazy Horse had become too touristy since I had last been here.  I heard English whispers bantered in the audience, and many other languages as well.  The seedy atmosphere smelled like stale sex and popcorn.

No self-respecting Frenchman would have taken his date here.  I had failed New Years Eve.

Hollie clasped my hand and leaned in close.  Her vanilla scent softened my regret.  When she kissed my jaw and dashed her tongue along the stubble I probably should have shaved, I tilted my head against hers and we swooned together through the rest of the show.

"Not as
risqué
as I'd expected," she announced as we filed out of the club and I vacillated on whether or not to hire a taxi or to take the Métro to a club.

"I am sorry," I said.  "That wasn't even titillating.  They were selling nipple pasties in the gift shop.  Remind me never to take you to any place that has a gift shop." 

I mocked a horrific shudder then hailed a cab.  I wasn't about to let my girl struggle in the Métro in those sexy bow-tied high heels. 

Seated in the back of the cab, I hugged her close and slid my hand inside her dress.  Sexy, bold blue.  Toward the end of the show, I'd discovered it was one of those dresses that wraps and ties at her waist.  She had worn the same for our liaison before Mona Lisa.  I had but to slide my hand inside and over her breast.  And Hollie snuggling closer to me from the cold?  The evening just got better.

"The only strip show I want to watch," I whispered at her ear, "is the one from my window."

"I wish I could see better into your living room window."

"Why is that?" I wondered as I toggled her nipple lazily.

"Then I could watch you teaching fencing," she said. The cab soared through the city.  A constellation of red taillights streaked by.  "I'm so curious about it.  I want to see my musketeer in action."

"Perhaps you could attend a practice session one time."

She squirmed when I gave her nipple a squeeze.  "I don't know.  Would that be weird for your student?  But maybe you could give me a lesson?"

I hadn't thought of that.  It sounded like fun.  And I knew it would end in a sexy tumble on the ottoman.  "Deal.  That club!"  I pulled my hand from Hollie's dress and rapped the window.  "
Arret
!"

The cabbie pulled over and I tossed a twenty-euro bill up front, thanked him, and escorted Hollie to the front doors.  It was a classy place that only let in those they deemed trendy or stylish, or rich.  We were nodded in immediately.  I suppose the Zegna suit had done the trick, but I liked to think it was the gorgeous woman on my arm whose sexy gams had drawn the eyes of the bouncer downward. 

The dark decor was a study in variegated shades of blue.  Blue neon everywhere.  Blue lights up under the bars.  Blue dance floor.  Even the waitresses wore shiny blue skirts that were so short a man could spy a peek of ass curve when they bent over the tables.  Nice.

I slid a hand over Hollie's toned ass—her blue dress matched the decor—and nuzzled a kiss against her neck.  "What's your drink?"