Maxence sent Dree to the spa for the day, and he wished he could have accompanied her. His back felt like a snarl of knotted ropes that pulled when he moved his arms.
Instead of allowing his body to be coddled in the spa, Max took some ibuprofen on Dree’s advice and attended business and personal meetings he’d already scheduled.
Early the next morning, Maxence would fly back to the Congo for more work with his charity in that region. He’d worked in the thriving, cosmopolitan megacities of Africa including Kinshasa and in small villages decimated by war. He’d seen the reckoning for the genocide in Rwanda, which was ongoing decades later, which was where he’d met Father Moses.
He met with Father Moses in a small room in the rear of the Église Saint-Sulpice Cathedral to discuss his projects and the ongoing collaboration with Catholic Charities. Maxence saw himself as an administrator, but that hadn’t stopped him from literally taking a shovel and digging wells or raising the beams and doing the carpentry for new schools. Much of Maxence’s physique from the last several years had been built by hard physical labor, and he had thick calluses on his hands to prove it.
After they discussed the projects and progress for the last few months, Father Moses reached over and rested his hand on Maxence’s arm, a comforting pressure that Maxence had missed since the older priest had transferred up to Paris several years before. In a few more years, Father Moses would look to a quiet placement in an abbey or a monastery to live out his days in a more peaceful environment. He’d more than earned it.
Maxence patted the old priest’s hand with affection.
Deep scars crisscrossed Father Moses’s right hand, and a portion of his pinky was missing. “I am worried about you, my child.”
As well he should be, but Maxence didn’t say that aloud. He’d dropped out of his true life and the praxis he’d committed to and gone rogue far too much this last month.
Instead, Maxence said, “I am working on it, Father.”
He nodded his head, but his eyes did not leave Maxence’s. “I know you are, and that’s what worries me.”
They went over documents pertaining to the projects’ progress. Maxence’s family had been Catholic for probably eighteen centuries or more, since he did trace its roots back to the Italian city of Genoa. Indeed, in the year 1180, Maxence’s ancestor Grimaldo Grimaldi had been an ambassador from Genoa to Morocco. His family had preserved the letters between him and his parents, which they had donated to a museum. Many men in Max’s family had been priests, and some of the women had taken the veil.
At the end of Max’s meeting with Father Moses, the old priest said, “We need to discuss your next assignment. There is great need for your singular talents elsewhere for a few months.”
Maxence said, “But I have a household in the Congo.”
Father Moses nodded. “You’ll need to decide what to do about that, and that is another reason why I worry about you, Maxence, my child, my most faithful child.”
The texts flew furiously that morning because Maxence could not escape his extended family. There were just too many of them.
From his older brother, Pierre: I have made inquiries. I did not order surveillance nor any interference. Our uncle Jules sent people to Paris on a plane from Nice the evening after our altercation. I would suggest you look to him for answers.
Maxence could deal with his brother sending goons after him because Pierre probably just wanted Max temporarily detained.
Jules Grimaldi had good reasons to want Maxence dead.
But again, Maxence was leaving the next morning, and Jules would not be able to send mercenaries to follow Maxence to where he was going and kidnap him.
Probably.
His uncle Jules Grimaldi was exactly the type who would send assassins, even more so than Pierre.
From Max’s cousin Alexandre: Something happened with Christine. She won’t tell me what, but she’s freaked out. She quit the symphony and says she’s leaving.
Christine was Alexandre’s younger sister and a violinist. She was one of the steadiest members of Max’s family. If she was freaked out and leaving—
—something bad was going on at home.
Maxence quietly waited in the living room of the hotel suite, running the tip of one finger over his Patek Philippe watch on his left wrist. There was no need to rush. The charity ball could start without them. Indeed, Max preferred to arrive later, near the end of the hors d’oeuvres and just before supper.
Plus, he needed time to reflect.
And time to plan. He sent emails to his household in the Congo. Three-month assignment. Prepare to move house. You’ll meet me there.
Whenever the thought of Father Moses arose, Maxence’s mind darted away. He was keenly aware that he had one night left with Dree before he went back to his other life.
He’d caught a glimpse of Dree when she came back from the spa, her hair carefully arranged and wearing perfectly applied makeup, but she’d flitted into the bedroom and told him not to peek.
They dodged around each other for an hour while he showered, shaved, and dressed in the tuxedo Arthur had also left in the closet. It was conservative, unobtrusive, and unrelieved somber black, which was not Maxence’s style at all. The Tom Ford tux he’d worn a few nights ago in Monte Carlo was midnight blue, which in a tuxedo is a dashing fashion statement.
The door from the bedroom opened. Dree emerged, dressed in the scarlet and black body-hugging sheath he had picked out for her at the Alexander McQueen boutique. Her soft blond hair curled like a halo on her head, and her make-up accentuated her already generous but beautiful features.
With her hair and makeup done, Dree was an absolute bombshell. The black eyeliner drew out her eyes to be flirty and sensual.
He hoped she felt as good as she looked.
The oxblood lipstick on her full lips drew him.
Her garnet fingernails with very subtle glimmers of gold nearly made him drop his phone and take her to bed.
He sauntered over and offered her an elbow. “You look absolutely beautiful, and I shall be the envy of every other man tonight.”
She beamed a dazzling smile at him. “Hush your mouth, Augustine. You’ll turn my head.”
He’d arranged for the hotel’s car to pick them up in the underground parking garage. The ride to the Palace of Versailles took only about forty minutes, even with traffic.
They walked into the glorious palace with her hand on his arm.
Watching Dree as she saw the cavernous Gallery of Great Battles, one of the grand salons in the palace, for the first time was enchanting. King Louis-Philippe had constructed the sumptuous gallery in the early eighteen-hundreds to exhibit thirty-five enormous paintings depicting fifteen centuries of France’s glorious military history. The salon’s purpose was to instill pride for the magnificence of France’s many accomplishments in its citizens and to intimidate foreign dignitaries into meek silence. Busts of the illustrious military leaders rested at the base of each of the paintings.
Maxence had seen too much of colonialism’s damage to the rest of the world to enjoy the gallery anymore.
Christmas trees sparkling with red lights and ribbons were arranged in groups of three and five in the corners and near the walls. Evergreen boughs and wreaths adorned the crown molding and chandeliers far above them and scented the air with fresh pine.
Maxence could see that Dree was trying to repress her reaction to the magnificent palace, but occasionally delight overwhelmed her and she giggled or gasped. She’d been quiet when she got home from the spa, and seeing her happy again was gratifying.
A few of Maxence’s friends had been in France that week and decided to attend this charity event benefiting clean water access in impoverished parts of the world. Most of them were school chums, as was not surprising. Attending a boarding school marketed to the world’s wealthiest families tended to leave one with filthy rich friends who attended charity events.
Micah Shine stood over by the bar, drinking a flute of champagne and soberly listening while an older, bald Black man said something of great importance that he punctuated by stabbing the air with a forefinger that was the same color, texture, and length of a cigar stub. Micah listened seemingly without comment, only nodding when the man seemed to be winding down.
Maxence always liked Micah. They both preferred their literature and social studies classes to their sciences or maths classes, and they’d often discussed the novels and poetry that they had been forced to read far beyond what would be expected to study for a test. Micah hadn’t been born into wealth like the rest of them. He’d been part of a scholarship program, probably instituted to raise the academic credentials of the school rather than any real attempt at charity. Micah had been purported to be starting a company, but Maxence had heard that on several previous occasions. The other companies were rumored to have failed, which amused some other Le Rosey alumni who did not need to and would never stoop to working for a living.
Maxence took Dree by the hand and swam through the crowd to stand beside his old school friend, tucking Dree behind him for just a moment. “Micah! So good to see you, old sod.”
Micah angled toward Maxence and offered his hand. “Maxence Grimaldi, a pleasure to see you again.” His accent was carefully neutral American, perfectly measured and expressionless. Micah had sported a thick Brooklyn accent when he had arrived at Le Rosey for high school.
As usual, after he hadn’t seen Micah for a few months, Maxence blinked as he registered the color of Micah’s eyes. Inside the dark ring around his irises, sapphire blues, aquamarines, and pale grays surrounded a center that was amber flecked with black, the several colors blending together. It was almost impossible to remember the brilliance of his eyes and a surprise to register them again.
Before Maxence swung Dree around to meet Micah, he lowered his voice and whispered to him, “I’m called ‘Augustine’ tonight. I’d appreciate it if you’d go along with it.”
Not even a hint of surprise registered in Micah’s opalescent eyes. “Of course. Last name?”
“None.”
Micah’s striking eyes rolled upward slightly, but he had no other expression. “You and your games.”
Maxence brought Dree around and said, “Dree, may I present Micah Shine, an old friend from school. Micah, this is Dree Clark, a very new friend.”
She tilted her head and smiled at him from under her lashes.
Micah inclined his head down to look at Dree, who was about five feet, six inches, or so. Micah was roughly the same height as Maxence, which is to say, exceedingly tall. Le Rosey graduates are often in the top one-percentile of many traits, whether it was height, income, intelligence, arrogance, or depravity.
Micah offered his hand to Dree. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. May I present my associate, Sir Marvin Meriwether-Stone.”
If Micah spoke any slower and more monotone, Maxence would have thought that he was a computer voice set to fifty-percent speed. His languid pace belied the active, brilliant mind churning beneath Micah’s placid exterior. Because Maxence knew him so well, he tended to view Micah’s demeanor as calculating rather than sluggish. Micah spoke nine languages with the same calm precision.
Maxence greeted Micah’s acquaintance, who was doubtlessly a new business associate. Micah had many irons in the fire. Maxence wasn’t sure what any of them were.
They spoke for a few minutes, until Dree asked Micah, “Are you here with somebody?”
Micah’s expression still did not change. “Sadly, no.”
Maxence wanted to ask him what had happened to their mutual friend Micah had been dating, but wouldn’t want to bring up a sore subject in company. All of them seemed to be nursing broken hearts lately.
The man Micah had been speaking to, Meriwether-Stone, seemed petulant, so Max took pains to bring him into the conversation. Meriwether-Stone pouted and subtly snarled insults in an upper-class British accent at Micah, who did not respond. He phrased the insults as questions, of course, and always asked Micah to agree with him. “Your previous import-export venture was quite dodgy, don’t you think?”
Maxence had had enough of it.
He turned to Meriwether-Stone, an angelic smile on his face, and he summoned real enthusiasm for his school friend. “Micah, here, is an excellent businessman. I remember back in school when we were putting together business proposals, he always had the best ideas.” Energy flowed through him, and he clapped Micah on the shoulder, beaming at him. “It’s impressive, some of the things he’s done. Micah Shine is truly an excellent human being, an incredible businessman, and I’m glad he’s my friend.”
By the time Max was done talking, Meriwether-Stone was nodding along, and his pouting mouth had turned upward in a smug smile. “Yes, I’m sure we will be doing business together soon.”
Splendid.
As they walked away, Dree said, “That wasn’t weird or anything.”
“What?” he asked, though he was already sorry he’d done it.
“The way you talked that guy into liking Micah. Heck, I think I want to give Micah all that money or screw him right now. You convinced me.”
He wheeled her between a few columns for privacy. “Micah’s smart. The guy stands a good chance of making an excellent ROI. I’m not sure I did Micah any favors, though. That guy seemed like a pain in the arse.”
“What were you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Is it hypnosis? Did you hypnotize him?”
“No. I don’t have to make eye contact, though it helps. I like people, and I like to talk to them. When I like something, other people like it, too.”
“Have you done it to me?”
“No. I’m careful about what’s appropriate. If I had tried to convince you of anything, it would have been to get into the car at the Buddha Bar so I could take you home rather than going back inside after your coat and possibly into a dangerous situation.”
Dree tilted her head to the side and nodded. “I can see where that would have been warranted. I was smashed that night.”
“Yes, you were. But no, I don’t use it to fuck people, ever.”
“Okay.” She was nodding and looking at her shoes, thinking. “Okay. I can see that you’d be moral about something like that.”
“You do?” he asked.
She looked up at him. “We’ve been playing some games, but they’re games. I think I can trust you. I think you do the right thing.”
Maxence drew her into his arms and hugged her, careful not to muss her too much. Her soft arms hugged his midsection, and he let himself have the moment.
In the Gallery of Great Battles, round tables with seating for about five hundred people occupied two-thirds of the room. Maxence saw several more friends of his and introduced Dree around, and then the meal was spectacular, as he’d expected.
Later that evening, they walked the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, thus allowing his little blonde to check yet another item off her bucket list. He thought the black formal coat he had purchased for her matched her dress splendidly.
Classical music played from strategically placed, invisible speakers. The enormous trees were bare for winter, of course, and the fruit trees had been removed to the orangery under the South Parterre for the winter. Evergreen shrubs still lined the paths, and the grass between the walkways was verdant, if not lush. Christmas lights clung to the trees and shrubs, illuminating the gardens.
Max cornered Dree behind bushes, seeking to tease her once again, but she practically climbed him even though hampered by that sultry evening gown. She planted a rough kiss on his mouth.
He had to disentangle himself from her arms and set her back, but he whispered in her ear, “Wait until I get you back to the hotel. You’ve been a naughty, naughty girl.”
“It’s our last night together. Please tell me you’re not going to stop again.”
Maxence lied, “I haven’t decided yet.”
Dree began beating against his chest with her tiny fists, giggling effervescently as she did so.
The music drifting from the speakers changed, and one of Max’s favorite pieces of classical music, the “Vienna Blood Waltz,” began to play. He caught Dree’s hands with his fingers, clasping her left hand in his right and placing her other hand on his shoulder while he grabbed the deep indentation of her waist.
“Oh, are we going to dance?” she asked.
Instead of answering, Maxence stepped toward her, nearly tripping over her feet and ending up in a heap.
Her wide eyes looked more terrified than when kidnappers had attacked them outside the Louvre. “I don’t know how to dance like that!”
“It’s a waltz. It’s in three-four time, so it’s BAH-dah-dah, BAH-dah-dah. Just let me lead, and you’ll get the hang of it.”
She was looking down at their feet, holding herself bent over in a way that would never work for a waltz. “You Europeans learn this when you are kids, and all we learned in school was the stupid Virginia Reel.”
“So, let’s learn something new tonight. It’s usually a box step, but considering that I just want to dance with you for a few minutes tonight, let’s just go side-step-step, side-step-step.”
He taught her the simple sway, and within a few moments, at least they could enjoy themselves. She got the hang of it quickly, and he was able to turn her under his arm a few times and watch her grin at her accomplishment.
Oh, the things he could teach her if they only had more time.
He meant more classical dances and introductions to food and culture and travel, but the depraved things he also wanted to try with her lurked in the back of his head.
After a few rudimentary spins, Maxence clasped her in his arms and enjoyed swaying with her, her buxom curves pressed up against him, even though the waltz was never meant to do that.
“All I need are glass slippers,” she said, smiling up at him.
He didn’t get the reference. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’m practically Cinderella tonight. I have a new gown like I’ve never had before, and we’re dancing at a real palace,” she motioned to the majestic Palace of Versailles directly behind them, showered in golden light, “and you’re a handsome prince.”
Maxence paused. “I am?”
“Sure, you’re the prince of Monagasquay, second in line to the throne.” She grinned hugely at him. “Remember?”
“Oh, yes. Monagasquay, and I’m the prince.”
“For tonight, you’re my prince.”
He held her closer. “For tonight, yes, I am.”
“And I’m Cin-Dree-ella.”
He laughed. She was undoubtedly a bit of magic in his life.
Dree said, “It’s nice of you to introduce me to your friends, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. They’re never going to see me again, and I won’t take offense. It’s all just kind of wasted breath.”
The pragmatic part of it had not occurred to Maxence. Even though he supposed it was true, the insult implied in it was something that he would never indulge in. “I know you’re going back to the States, but perhaps someday one of them might turn up in your emergency room, and it would be nice for them to see a friendly face and know your name.”
Dree laughed at him and then stopped short. “How did you know I work in an ER?”
He couldn’t help but smile a little, even though he felt like he had been snooping just by observing her. “You evaluated the child yesterday at the Louvre very competently, as you did when I said I sprained my shoulder this morning. I know we said we were not going to discuss our lives and we were going to lie about it if we do, but it seems obvious you are a medical professional who deals with fast-paced, varied situations. That’s an ER. You’re obviously very good at your job.”
She nodded, but the softening of her smile into a more wistful expression seemed more downcast. “Yeah, maybe I’ll see them in my emergency room, someday, after I go back to the US tomorrow.”
He pulled her closer to his chest and tried to slow down time so he could remember this joyous, voluptuous woman and these few, beautiful days that they’d had together in Paris.
She asked, “Do you think I’ll ever see you in my emergency room?”
“Monagasquay is a long way from Arizona.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
They swayed together under the stars with winter fog swirling at the edges of the garden.
Max said, “I wish you could have seen Versailles in the spring. It’s amazing in the springtime.”
She nodded, rubbing her face against his black coat over his tuxedo.
They swayed together in the cold of the Christmas-season night for a while longer, and then Maxence decided it was time to take her back to the hotel for the night he had planned.
On the way back, Maxence cuddled his little bombshell against his chest in the town car, during which she whispered to him, “Better than a pumpkin and mice.”
He chuckled and watched Paris’s Christmas decorations whizz by: the globes of red or white pinprick lights around bare trees, the glowing gift boxes and nutcrackers, and the fir and pine boughs swagged over doorways or bent into wreaths. He should enjoy them while he could because Christmas was not particularly celebrated in the land where he was going tomorrow.
That was too bad. Maxence liked Christmas.
The hotel’s town car deposited them in the underground garage for the hotel. It was a quick trip up the elevator to their floor, where Maxence had to insert his key card into the slot to allow the doors to open.
Dree wrapped her arm around his waist, and he had his around her shoulders. It felt companionable and affectionate.
Or it did, until she looked up at him with that dark red lipstick and touched her lips with a delicate finger tipped with a blood-red fingernail.
Maxence had been teasing her for days, but he was desperate for her.
They strode off the elevator and into the suite, and he slammed the door with one hand as he unbuttoned his coat with the other.
Dree was already half out of her coat and struggling to get the sleeves off.
Maxence reached over and grabbed the collar of the coat behind her and yanked it down, pulling the coat off her arms. The force spun her, and she stumbled backward, but Maxence caught her before she could fall over.
The moment Dree was in his arms, he was lost. The softness of her feminine flesh enticed him, and he grabbed her hair to pull her face back so he could kiss her properly. His mouth crashed down on hers. She flung her arms around his neck, and her body molded to his.
Maxence tried to keep kissing her while he unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket and stripped it off, letting it fall to the floor while he went after the tie at his throat. Dree had both of her arms wrenched behind her own back, trying to find the zipper of her dress. Maxence reached around her and found it, whipping it down her back and grabbing her ass while his hand was right there. She gasped against his mouth and kissed him harder, her dress falling away like rose petals.
Dear God, she was wearing some sort of a matching corset underneath the dress, a scarlet, boned contraption that nipped in her waist and pushed up her breasts and was altogether feminine and powerful and sexy.
Maxence fumbled with his tie and shirt. As soon as he had that abominable tie and a few buttons of his collar undone, he yanked the tuxedo shirt and his undershirt off over his head and tossed them aside.
“Your back,” Dree murmured against his lips. “Come on, I want to see what that tattoo is.”
There’d be time for that later. He craved the touch and taste of her skin.
He wrestled with the cummerbund and enclosure on his tuxedo pants. The stupid thing wouldn’t come off. There was some sort of a clasp in the back, but he couldn’t undo it. “The stupid cummerbund,” he whispered to her.
Dree reached around his back, her curvaceous body a temptation that he could not believe was in his arms, and she fiddled with the cloth strip until it loosened and half-fell off of him. She pulled it from around his waist with a flourish and almost flung it behind her. “Got it!”
“Excellent.” He was reaching for her corset, ready to figure out how to take it off her. He hoped it would unlace or be released in some complicated manner. Hooks, maybe. Or a long row of tiny buttons. Something womanly and female.
Dree asked, “Hey, what’s wrong with this cummerbund?”
“What about it?” he growled, grasping her hair and raking his teeth down her neck.
“It’s stiff or something.” She scrutinized the clasp and picked at something with her fingernail. “It feels like it’s part plastic, but it’s nice fabric when you touch it.”
Maxence leaned back. “Let me see it.”
“I’ve just about got it.” She seized something with her fingernails and pulled on it, unsheathing a long, thin metallic strip with a silk-wrapped handle on one end. The metal made a wah-wah sound as she whipped it through the air. “Whoa!”
Maxence ducked. “Be careful!”
The end of the metallic strip sliced the couch.
White feathers flew everywhere in a flurry.
Dree slammed the strip onto the floor. “Oh my God! It’s dangerous!”
Maxence inspected it, noting the razor-sharp edges along both sides and the wicked point at the tip. “It was in the cummerbund. I’ll bet there’s another one in his belt.”
Dree was aghast. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Maxence considered his options as to what he could say. “As I mentioned, my friend Arthur left clothes here for me because I didn’t have time to pack before I left Monagasquay. Arthur has unusual talents.”
“Considering all the weird stuff that happened to us in the last couple of days, I don’t want to know anything more about Arthur, if this really is about Arthur and not your thing.”
Maxence raised his hands and laughed. “I swear on everything that is holy, this cummerbund belongs to Arthur, and this is Arthur’s little toy.”
“What, is he an assassin?”
“I would never dare ask.”
“Never mind. I don’t want to know.” She grabbed Max’s hand and tugged, leading him toward the bedroom while wearing that scarlet teddy that accentuated her curves.
Dear Lord, she was still wearing the exquisite high heels that flashed their red soles at him when she walked. Her hips swung as she towed him toward the bed, and he had eyes only for her.
Maxence sat on the side of the bed, legs spread, with his chest bare. He braced his hands on his knees and stared at her, his eyes steady.
He said, “Strip.”
Dree looked aside, uncomfortable or embarrassed by his command.
Maxence drew her attention back to him and said, “Strip.”
He was careful not to be too convincing with women until after he’d made sure they wanted him, but after that, the convincing was part of the fun. He knew some men in his position liked compliant women. They wanted submissives who would do anything they wanted with a snap.
Maxence liked sexy, powerful women, and he liked them on their knees, or their hands and knees, or tied up for him to pillage.
He liked to make them fall. If they weren’t a challenge, they didn’t interest him.
He liked to win.
Dree started to use her toes to pry her shoes off her feet, but Maxence told her, “The corset first. Leave the shoes on.”
Dree reached around her back, her elbows akimbo and biting her lower, red lip. “I can’t get this off.”
Maxence lowered his voice and said, “Come here. Turn around.”
She did, and Maxence took a long look at her curves from her shoulders to her waist and then outward over her hips, frankly female and gorgeous.
The bow at the top of the back of the corset had become knotted, and Maxence carefully picked it apart and then drew the silken ribbons through each of the wire grommets until the corset loosened. Oh, God, yes.
The silk loosened, and it fell away from her creamy skin.
She grabbed it with her hands and held it to her chest.
Maxence told her, “Let it fall.”
She did, but she let it fall slowly.
Maxence appreciated it even more.
She stood in front of him, her glorious breasts free, still wearing little satin ribbons that held her stockings up and those sexy high heels.
He couldn’t help himself any longer. He reached with his hands for her hips and drew Dree toward him, his lips meeting the soft skin of her chest and then angling to kiss her neck.
Her soft moan encouraged him, and Maxence turned her to lie down on the bed and clambered over her, kissing her mouth and running his hands over her curves.
Within minutes, she was panting and nipping his neck when he gave her room to lift her head. Every time she took a breath her body heaved toward his, and he reached down to take her breasts in his mouth and suckle them.
Her hands were threading through his hair and fluttering over the skin on his back. He grabbed both her wrists and pinned them above her head so he could kiss her deeply, his tongue invading her mouth and licking her until she was gasping and trying to twist her arms away from him.
He released her hands for just a moment to tongue farther down her body and run his mouth between her legs. He pushed her knees aside, French-kissing her deeply and sucking on her clit.
Her gasps became sharper, but he didn’t want to let her release too soon. He wanted to be inside her when she came.
He backed off, keeping her legs apart so that she couldn’t find relief from his torment. She was reaching for him, begging for him, but he captured her hands and pinned them above her head again.
“You like to hold me down, don’t you?” Dree groaned.
Oh, she had no idea.
He kissed her and made her wait some more, tweaking her nipples with the fingers of his other hand, while she writhed on the bed and her hands twisted in his, trying to get free.
When he thought he had her absolutely at the peak of frenzy, he slowly pressed himself inside of her, making her wait even for his full length.
The heat and slickness of her body as he pushed in was almost too much for him.
He gritted his teeth and slowed further.
Her body bucked underneath him, but Maxence pulled away, holding her back.
Slower.
Maybe minutes later, maybe hours, he was trembling from restraining himself. He continued to move slowly, torturing her by inches, not giving her the satisfaction she wanted until she was on the brink of madness.
Closer.
Maxence told her, “Don’t scream. Don’t make a sound.”
He knew what she would do instead.
She whimpered with closed lips, her eyes squeezed shut as he rocked into her, feeling her silken body along the length of himself.
Her fists rolled where he had pinned her hands above her head, the slim muscles in her wrists flexing in his grip.
Almost.
He pushed into her, rolling his hips, digging himself deeper inside her. She bucked under him, sweat misting her skin as their musk filled the room like the fresh scent of a blue sea.
He buried his cock deeply inside her.
Her eyes clenched as she tried to comply with what he wanted, but her throat worked with unvoiced screams, and her fists tightened.
Now.
He released her hands, braced himself on his elbows, and drove himself into her.
She arched under him, her hot flesh pressed against his and slipping along his length.
And her hands—
Her hands floated down to the skin on his back.
And alighted there like birds.
Her talons pressed his flesh.
And dug in.
His suffocating soul inhaled the pain with a frantic gasp.
“Don’t scream,” he whispered in her ear as he barreled into her.
Her fingernails raked the skin on his back.
She pierced his skin, clinging to him, straining for release and not to scream.
Lines of ice rose on his shoulders and lats.
Panic and rage escaped his body.
More.
Beads of sweat and blood trickled over his ribs and fell to the bed around them.
She arched, a keening scream, her body clenching him as she came, and her fingernails doing more damage.
Max sparked and caught fire.
His balls clenched. Blinding white light slammed through him, and unfolded within him, and he hung suspended in the unthinking bliss. His body and soul flooded through himself and into her.
Her breath whispered in his ear, slid around the curls of his ear, and trickled into his mind. Her words, her pleadings, her prayers.
Her hands brushed his hair away from his eyes.
Guilt and remorse thundered like storm clouds on a far horizon as they had been for days, but they didn’t roll in. He turned away from them, toward her.
Max tightened his arms around her, holding her, pressing his lips to her temple, her cheek, and her open, eager mouth. These final kisses were everything to him, a moment of connection when the tides of lust receded.
Her arms folded around his neck, and she kissed him back, murmuring things he shouldn’t hear but strained to hold onto.
“That was amazing,” she said.
“So are you.”
He tilted off her and rolled to the bed, where he got rid of the condom, turned out the light, and wrapped her in his arms.
He didn’t want her to see.
“Don’t leave,” she pleaded.
“I won’t,” he said. “Not for a while. My flight is early in the morning, though.”
“Mine is later,” she said. “I need to leave the hotel about ten.”
“I’ll be gone when you wake.”
Her small fingers crawled into his. “You’re amazing. I had the time of my life these few days. Thank you for everything.”
He squeezed her soft body. “You have enchanted me. I hope you find what you’re looking for, and I wish we could meet again someday.”
“But we can’t.”
“I know,” he sighed.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Me, too,” he said, pouring all the meaning he could into those words.
“Who are you, really?” she asked in the darkness.
“Prince Augustine of Monagasquay, second in line to the throne and the spare heir who will never inherit,” he said. “Because while I’ve been with you, I’ve felt more myself than I have in years. Any other name that I have been called isn’t me anymore.”
“Okay, fine, Prince Auggie. What do your tattoos mean?” she asked sleepily.
He stretched one arm into a slice of Paris’s light that peeked in through the curtains and lay across the bed. The ink on the inside of his forearm above his wrist looked gray and black in the moonlight, but it wasn’t. “My friends, Arthur and Casimir, have the same tattoo, but rotated,” he said. “The red and white harlequin pattern, the diamond checkerboard here, represents me because I am a prince of Monagasquay.”
She snorted, and Maxence smiled in the darkness.
He said, “Casimir is a Dutch prince, so the orange field and white lion is a symbol of the Dutch royal family.”
“Uh, I hate my junior-high geography teacher, Mrs. Galbraith, right now. Where’s Dutch-land?”
“The Netherlands, actually,” Max told her.
“Not just a place in Minecraft, huh?” she asked.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a video game. You learn some weird things when you have an autistic nephew. I babysit Victor a couple of times a month so Mandi can go grocery shopping in peace. What’s the other one, the one with three crowns?”
“Not crowns but coronets.”
“They look like crowns.”
“Arthur would tell you that there is a significant difference because the coronet signifies that he is an earl, not a prince or a king. This is very important to him, that he is an English nobleman.”
“Oh, he’s the Sir Arthur Sumpin’-Sumpin’ who rented the hotel room.”
“The very one. He’s the Earl of Severn.”
“Oh, Lord Severn. I get it.” Dree nodded. “Like Severn Snape.”
“Close, and I would bet that Arthur’s house would be Slytherin, were it not named Spencer House.”
Dree laughed. “I only read the slashfic anymore because, you know. Hermione and Draco forever.”
Maxence smiled more in the darkness.
She didn’t believe him.
She didn’t have to. The night was perfect because he could tell her anything.
He could tell her everything.
He could tell her about when he had been kidnapped when he was nine and held for two weeks on a rusty freighter ship off the coast of Europe, and about how he’d finally gotten away because his family hadn’t done jack shit to get him back.
Max could tell her all the people who might kill him, if they had the chance.
The list was long.
Estebe Fournier, the mafia boss, because Max had rescued his wife, Simone. Estebe held grudges.
Max’s older brother Pierre, probably, because Max existed.
His uncle Jules, who had over a billion reasons to kill Maxence, if he could, if it even mattered.
More.
Maxence held Dree Clark more tightly in his arms.
The beds at the Four Seasons George V were so comfortable.
“And what’s the tattoo on your back?”
Maxence tried to answer her.
Darkness settled around him.
Darkness and silence.
Maxence breathed in her scent, clutching this moment.
He breathed, “Estebe, Pierre, Jules, Pope Celestine the Sixth—”
“They’re on your back?” Dree murmured, but she was falling asleep, too.
In his mind, he told her what they were, but then he was flying over Paris’s lights and the Eiffel Tower with Pope Celestine the Sixth chasing him, and then he broke out into the moonlight.
Too soon, the sounds of the traffic outside the hotel crept through the curtains, and dawn leaked into the room.
His phone buzzed.
Your plane leaves in two hours from Orly. Be on it this time.