“Stay there,”
she
whispered, and sank to her knees on the floor beside him.
She didn’t think about what she was
doing, she only acted, filled with a primal need, a deep hunger only he could
satisfy.
The zipper of his pants
was straining over his erection, and she fumbled with it, her hands shaking.
He laughed softly.
“I’ll
take care of it,”
he said,
releasing the zipper.
He shoved
the trousers down his narrow hips, ready to shuck them off completely, when she
stopped him.
He was gorgeous,
iron-hard, and she wanted to touch him.
But some last remnant of sanity held her back, and she didn’t move.
“Put your mouth on me.”
His words were quiet, and she still hesitated, even though she had
started this.
His hand shot out
and caught her chin, his fingers rough.
“Now.”
She moved, and bit his hand, hard.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, the pain ignored.
“Don’t do that to my cock,”
he said in an even voice.
“Bastard,”
she muttered,
releasing his hand from her sharp teeth, wishing she’d drawn blood.
And then she leaned over him, took him
in her hand, and let her mouth sink around him.
He said nothing, but she could feel the pleasure ripple through him,
and an answering reaction spread through her naked body.
She covered the head of his cock,
sucking lightly, and he was smooth and cool and delicious.
She took more in, loving the feel of
him against her tongue, the strange sense of control and power that swept over
her.
This was madness, and she was
giving into it.
She held him in
her mouth, all his strength and masculinity, his very essence, and she took
more, filling her mouth with him, her fingers wrapped around the base as she
sucked, kneeling over him, her hair spread over his hips, wanting more, so much
more.
She was shaking with desire.
Why was this arousing her more than anything she’d ever done with
Drake?
How could she be on the
verge of climaxing with no one touching her?
She could come simply from the surging thrust of his cock in
her mouth.
“You can take more,”
he
murmured.
“If you want to.”
She wasn’t going to lift her head to answer.
It was impossible, he was too big, but he brought his hands
down, his long fingers cradling her face, massaging her jaw, stroking her with
such a deft, sure touch that she opened, and the last few inches filled her
mouth, and an unexpected climax shook her body.
“Oh, Christ,”
he groaned,
holding still, letting her take what she wanted.
And she wanted more.
She
wanted him to come in her mouth, she wanted to swallow him, swallow everything,
take it all inside her.
But suddenly he pulled her away, lifting her off him, and she let out
a cry of protest, struggling.
It was a waste of time – he was too strong.
He pulled her onto the shabby old sofa,
underneath him as he reached for his pants, shoving them off his legs.
He pushed her back against the
cushions, turning away, and then he came back to her, a silver packet it his
teeth as he tore it open, taking the condom and sheathing himself in it.
She closed her eyes, her legs spread
around him, but his hand caught her chin once more.
“Look at me,”
he
said.
“I want you to watch me when
I come inside you.”
She couldn’t move.
Didn’t
want to move, her eyes caught with his as he lowered himself over her, and she
felt him against her, the silken touch of his sheathed cock against her
wetness.
“Watch me,”
he whispered, pushing inside her.
She let out a little gasp.
He was big, so much bigger and she wanted to close her eyes, savor the
feel of him, but she couldn’t.
She
simply stared into his eyes as he pushed deeper, harder, taking her as she had
taken him.
She thought he was all the way in, when he slid his hands beneath her
butt and pulled her up, against him.
The last bit of his cock shoved home and a shudder of pure, molten
pleasure exploded inside her.
He smiled down at her.
“Now you can close your eyes,
ma belle
.
And enjoy the forbidden.”
She lifted her hands from the sofa and clutched his shoulders.
“Who’s forbidding me?”
she whispered.
“Good girl.
Take what you
want.”
He pulled out, then thrust
back in, deeper than ever, and she moaned, her head thrown back.
“Too much?” he whispered against her mouth.
“More,”
she gasped,
digging her fingers into his sweat-slick shoulders.
It was if she’d released a whirlwind.
He pushed her down onto the old feather cushions, pinning
her shoulders as he arched over her.
She held on to him, reveling in the feel of him, deep inside her, as a
darkness began to build, something powerful and unknown, differing from the
climax he’d given her on her bed, different from anything she’d ever felt
before.
Everything was dissolving,
leaving nothing but their joining, thrusting against each other, and her body
trembled with the beginning of a terrifying, impossible release.
“No,”
she gasped,
suddenly frightened.
She didn’t
want to go there – it was death and disaster and she would be lost.
He covered her mouth with his, silencing her cry, and she kissed him
back as a climax shuddered through her, clenching around his thrusting cock.
He growled in response but didn’t stop, pushing deeper, deeper still
inside her, and the darkness closed over her.
She struggled, and his mouth was hot and damp against her
ear.
“Let go,”
he said, his
voice a mere whisper.
“Don’t fight
it.
Take it.
Take me.”
He bit her earlobe again, hard, and she cried out, sliding
to a darker level of hell, shuddering in the final, building response that made
no sense, she had come already, too many times, she didn’t want this, she was
afraid …
And then the last barrier fell, and she tried to scream, but no sound
came out as she tumbled into the darkness, free falling, her entire body
shaking apart.
She clawed for
something to hold onto, but he fell with her, his silent, choked gasp echoing
in her ears as everything went black.
She came back to herself, slowly, reluctantly, but he was no longer
inside her, on top of her.
She was
lying on the sofa, a cover placed carefully around her, and she lay unmoving,
trying to gather the scattered bits of herself back together.
Had she actually passed out?
Her entire body felt sensitized, bruised, her skin paper-thin with
nerves pulsing beneath it.
She lay
where she was for long moments, staring out into the rainy night.
She had no idea what time it was,
midnight or dawn.
The doors to the
balcony were open again, and she wondered if he’d left as silently as he’d
arrived.
And then she heard the shower running.
She managed to sit up, but just barely.
She wrapped the cover around her and got to her feet, amazed
that she was even able to stand.
She took the two steps up into her bedroom and the bathroom beyond,
glancing at the clock on the way.
It was three-thirty, the empty middle of the night, when monsters roamed
and souls were lost.
She wasn’t sure what she meant to do, opening the bathroom door.
It was filled with steam, and he stood
there, naked beneath the pounding water, beautiful.
She had an old-fashioned French shower, with no curtain, and
through the steam he could see her quite clearly.
He reached for her, and belatedly she tried to pull back,
but he simply pushed the cover off her and pulled her into the shower, wrapping
his warm, wet body around hers.
For some reason she began to cry.
Silently, and her hot tears mingled with the water.
He kissed her forehead, murmuring soft
words, he held her tenderly, ignoring his own erection as it grew between them,
stroking her, soothing her as she shook with emotions she couldn’t name.
When she finally stopped he washed her tear-drenched face in the
water, smoothing his hands over her cheeks, before turning off the shower.
He wrapped her in one of her huge bath
sheets, lifted her and carried her back to bed.
He lay down with her, holding her in his arms, and the feel of him was
almost more powerful than the sex.
It was comfort, protection, impossible as it was it felt like love.
Non, je ne
regrette
rien
, she reminded herself, the last bit of
tension draining from her body as she sank against him.
I regret nothing.
They made love again as the light of dawn began to fill the apartment,
gentle at first, tender, and then suddenly turning feral, and she turned her
head into the pillow to stifle the scream he’d coaxed from her, so easily.
She knew she shouldn’t fall back
asleep, but exhaustion overcame her, and when she awoke she was alone in the
bed.
A dark, impossible dread had begun to fill her, and she lay very
still, hoping, praying he was gone.
This insane suspicion was simply the result of too many things
assaulting her senses.
She was
wrong, terribly wrong, and if she simply stayed in bed she wouldn’t have to
find out the truth.
CHAPTER FIVE
Constantine made coffee.
He should leave, check on Tessa, but something kept him here.
He’d been mad last night.
Perhaps he still was. It had to be
insanity.
He’d made his way up the
fire escape of the building like fucking Spiderman, just to get to her.
And now he couldn’t leave.
He didn’t bother to turn around when he heard her come into the
kitchen.
If he looked at her he
might drag her back to bed again, and he couldn’t afford the time.
He’d already been here too long.
Ten minutes was too long.
“Why did you come here?”
Her voice was only a thread of sound.
He laughed. “You can’t be that naïve.”
She’d spoken in English, and he’d answered in the same
language, his voice stripped of the Italian accent he’d used.
He didn’t even know if it was his
normal voice – it had been so long since he’d used it.
But it was ordinary enough, the flat,
neat English that gave no clue to his origins.
She didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m not naïve at all,”
she said. “I told you no.”
He braced himself, turning to look at her.
At least she wasn’t wearing that fucking flannel robe.
She was wearing some other enveloping
kind of thing, hiding her delicious body, thank god.
Not that he had to see it.
The memory of it was going to stay with him a long, long
time.
“No, you didn’t,”
he said wearily.
“You said it was a bad idea.
But it wasn’t.
You’re a sensual woman, even when
you’re dressed in your mother’s baggy Balenciaga or the underwear of a
nun.
You needed a lover last
night, and your own lover wasn’t coming home.
You needed me.”
She ignored that.
“How
did you know that dress was my mother’s?”
“I’m an observant man.”
And just like that her face froze, and her blue eyes were like chips
of dark ice.
“I think you should
leave.”
“You’re absolutely right.
I should.”
He didn’t
move.
He should have read the
signs, but he was a fool.
“I know who you are.”
He wasn’t a man who made mistakes.
He wouldn’t have survived as long as he had if he did.
“You do,”
he agreed, hoping he was wrong.
“I’m a worthless playboy, a man who uses women.
But I didn’t use you.
After tonight I promise you won’t see
me again, you can forget this ever happened.”
But she had grown very still, no longer trembling.
“I know who you are,”
she said again, and the sudden
realization shocked him.
He would have to kill her.
In his arrogance, so certain he’d managed to blind her with lust, he’d
given himself away. Maddy Banks knew him, and for that terrible truth she
couldn’t be allowed to live.
“Don’t say it.”
His voice
was cold.
His fingers flexed on
his coffee cup.
She stood a little straighter, as if considering her words.
She opened her mouth to speak, then
closed it again, looking at him.
He rose and came to her, putting his forehead against hers, closing his
eyes, and he slid his hands around her slender neck, cradling it.
He leaned down to kiss her, to say
goodbye to what he couldn’t have, when her mouth opened beneath his, and her
arms slid around his neck.
She was
trembling, and he didn’t know why. Whether it was desire, or the knowledge of
what he must do.
“
Ma belle
,”
he
whispered against her lips.
“Don’t,”
she said with a
muffled cry, and there were tears pouring down her face.
“Just make it fast.”
He could do that.
He
could snap her neck, so quickly that she wouldn’t realize what was
happening.
He could do what he had
to do.
“I can do fast,”
he
whispered, pushing her up against the kitchen door.
It took only a moment to rip open her robe, and he was still
hard, seemed to be always hard in her presence.
She didn’t move, quiescent, and he released his cock with
one hand while his other slid between her legs, finding her wet, ready.
He lifted her, pressing her against the door, and thrust inside her,
all the way home with one thick shove, and she arched back with a shudder of
pleasure that was unmistakable.
Did her desire for him override her fear of death?
Or was she one who courted it, secretly
longed for it?
He didn’t care.
He pushed
for release, fast and hard, and she came an instant before he did, the slick
walls of her cunt milking him.
He hadn’t used a condom.
It took him a moment to realize it, as he slowly disengaged, letting her
limp body slide down against his.
Not only had he betrayed himself, he’d left clear DNA behind.
Not that he was in any data banks, at least, not recognizably.
He was systematically screwing himself
in his blind desperation to screw her.
He slid his hands up to cradle her throat, and she looked up at him
out of dazed, tear-filled eyes.
“
Au
revoir
, ma belle
,”
he whispered.
She managed a smile, shaking her head.
“Good-bye.”
He tightened his fingers, and a moment later she slumped in his
arms.
He caught her body in his
arms, carrying her back to the bed,
refusing to remember lying there with her.
He set her down, pulling the torn robe back around her,
chastely.
And then, like fucking
Prince Charming, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers.
He went back out into the kitchen, washing the coffee cup and wine
glass, wiping down any obvious surface.
If they looked hard enough they could track him.
If he had half a brain left he would
torch the apartment, wiping out any trace of his presence.
But he wouldn’t do that.
He’d come to the end of the road, that particular road.
He’d had enough.
The early morning streets of Paris greeted him as they had the day
before, and yet everything felt different.
The smell of fresh bread mixed with the stink of
diesel.
The small car was where
he’d stashed it, and he drove through the suicidal traffic, back to the hotel,
back to Tessa.
With luck she’d
still be passed out, and he could slip away without having to make excuses,
face recriminations.
He could
simply … vanish.
In the end, it was easier than he wanted.
She lay stretched across the bed, the needle near her
outstretched hand.
He cursed,
feeling for the thread of a pulse at her neck, but her skin was already cool.
She hadn’t been dead long enough for rigor to set in – in the
overheated room it had to be only a few hours.
He pulled the covers over her, pushing her hair back from
her face.
For some crazy reason he
leaned down and kissed her cool, dead lips, this woman he had used and never
cared for.
This time he wasn’t
Prince Charming.
Now he was the
Angel of Death.
He wanted to go back to that apartment in the Marais.
He wanted to go back to bed with
Madeleine and stay there.
He
wanted fresh air and blue skies and space.
He wanted everything new again, when he knew that was
impossible.
It had been an erotic fairy tale, a dream and nothing more.
If he saw her he would probably feel
nothing.
And he knew women –
she would never want to see him again.
No, he had no choice.
He
would disappear again, vanish an become someone new.
He’d lighten his hair, take out his contacts, dress in
rough, serviceable clothing.
He’d forget everything that had happened in Paris.
He was going to have to find a new way to make a living.
A talent for
wetwork
didn’t mean he had to follow it.
A
gift for death was no gift at all.
He headed out into the early morning light, vanishing in the icy mist.
Someone was pounding on the bathroom door.
Maddy didn’t move from beneath the shower, once more
thanking god that this apartment had a ridiculously large supply of hot water.
It had to be Drake – no one else
had a key to the place.
She had to
face him sooner or later, and he was no fool.
She’d done a cursory job cleaning up, wiping any lingering
trace of the man out of existence, but the knowledge of sex still hung in the
air, and Drake would know it.
At least she’d never said she would marry him.
Some small piece of wisdom had remained
as everything else had gone out the window.
She tilted her face up into the hot stream of water.
Even now she didn’t know what was truth
and what was her imagination.
She
only knew the man was gone and wouldn’t return.
She could pull sanity back around her like the soft flannel
robe.
Drake must have heard the shower and decided he wouldn’t be
intruding.
He pushed the door
open, and there was concern on his good-looking face, in his dark eyes, as he
stared at her.
“How long are you going to stay under there?”
he demanded in a calm enough voice.
Forever, she thought.
But
obediently she turned off the water and stepped from the corner of the small
bathroom, taking the towel he offered her, and she wondered how much he saw.
What kind of marks the man had left on
her pale skin.
“I’ll make us coffee, shall I?”
he said briskly.
“Then we
can compare notes.”
Not likely, she thought bitterly.
But she managed a tight smile.
“I’ll get dressed.”
To her surprise he brushed a kiss against her mouth.
Drake wasn’t one for random
kisses.
“You do that.”
She’d already stripped the bed, shoving the sheets and all her
discarded clothes into a hamper.
It was daylight, and the shadows were clear.
She dressed quickly, refusing to look at her reflection in
the old gilt mirror she’d found at a flea market.
She didn’t need to see herself to know what she looked
like.
Rode hard and put away wet
was the term that came to mind.
Drake pushed the mug of coffee across the counter towards her, made
just the way she liked it, with almond soy milk and lots of fake sugar she had
her mother send her from America.
She took the stool opposite him and took a sip, letting the caffeine
slide through her system like the blessing it was.
“Tessa Parker is dead,”
he said abruptly.
“They’re
looking for her pretty boyfriend but he seems to have disappeared.
Not that the French police are worth a
damn.
Someone like
D’Angelo
could pretty much buy himself out of anything.”
She set the coffee back down.
After the first sip it was churning like acid in her stomach.
“What happened?”
“Overdose.
Sometime in
the middle of the night.
They
think he was the one who shot her up – she had so much junk in her system
that it would have been almost impossible for her to have done it herself.”
“She was already an addict,”
Maddy said carefully.
“That wasn’t generally well-known,”
Drake said, watching her.
“You’re not the only one who can find out things.”
There was just the trace of an edge in
her voice.
She’d never found Drake
condescending before.
It must be
her own guilt.
“Sorry,”
she said.
“I didn’t get much sleep.”