Paris
“Holy sweet Mary in hell.”
I curse and stumble, straight into my new, less glamorous room in Montparnasse and down onto my hands and knees. Eye level with an empty, discarded French bourbon bottle.
Hastily, I fold back onto my elbows and crab-crawl backward. But it’s too late, he’s slammed the door shut with a resounding crash.
Damn, Jaxson’s good. I underestimated his tracking skills—heck, he never took anything seriously, so how should I know he’s got the sense of a goddamn bloodhound. How the heck did he find me?
I raise my chin, peer at him, and scrunch my nose. My room reeks like the aftermath of some college happy hour. Ironically, this is an accurate assessment, given the bourbon as well as my knowing that the days of happy hours between Jaxson and me are long gone.
“Are you drunk?” I demand, incredulously.
“Barely.”
Jesus. He’s in my room, has tracked me to my new digs, and all I can wonder about is why go on an uncharacteristic bender now? Yeah, Jaxson’s full of surprises. But I’ve never seen him like this.
“Dumb ass,” I tell him, “you’re leaving yourself open. I could seriously hurt you right now.”
He snorts. I’m unsure if this means he doubts I can kick his ass or worse . . . that I’ve already hurt him.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
He scowls fiercely at me, his lips drawn in an increasingly unfamiliar tight line. Then, turning his back on me, the foolish, foolish man strides over to the small writing table beside the hotel-room window.
I scramble to my feet, all too familiar with the warm blush of awareness washing over me. His presence always does that to me. And the achingly familiar cocky tilt of his head reminds me of the sexy, blasé, balls-to-the-wall man I loved.
I watch him a bit breathlessly as he plucks up a chocolate bonbon from the delectable stash of sweets spread out buffet-style on napkins I’ve laid out on the table. Disbelieving what I’m seeing—he’s alive, drunk, and in my room, eating my damn bonbons. When he turns back to me, our eyes connect a second before he pops a little taste of heaven into his mouth, chews, swallows, then proceeds to make my life a living hell by darting his tongue out and licking the sugar off his lusciously full lips. Naughty boy. He knows exactly what he’s doing. And I find myself falling for it, over and over and over again.
Keep your patisseries, Paris. I’ve got a deeper hunger. A craving. For him.
“Help yourself,” I manage to say.
He plucks a second confection from the desk and consumes it in two bites, all the while raking his gaze over me, from my chest to my thighs and down to my strappy peekaboo-toed sandals. “Deceptive little morsels. So pretty on the outside—” He pauses to lick bonbon glaze off his fingers. “—but rotten to the core on the inside.”
God, he hates me. Jaxson honest-to-God hates me. And almost as bad is how I’m guilty as charged. Nothing I can say is going to change that.
Gone is the lover who’d held me in his arms when I was at my most vulnerable and needed him with me. Inside me. Gone is the naughty charmer who took me under his wing, into his bed, and worked his way deep inside my heart. Gone is the Jaxson I loved. Gone but not forgotten.
No. Given present circumstances, make that gone and best forgotten.
I glare at him.
Unfazed, he picks up a third bonbon, then crushes it between his fingers, crumbs falling like teardrops onto the carpet.
I step by him, careful to keep out of arm’s reach as I repack the confections into the bakery bag and pretend to tidy up the desk. “It takes someone special to be able to distinguish between what’s genuine and what’s not. To find the bonbon mixed inside a box of donut holes.” I toss the words over my shoulder.
He moves across the room, all the while watching me in the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the far wall. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Too late. I just put everything away.” I feel his eyes on me as I transfer crumbs off of the napkins and onto one, taking my time as I fold each one in half and place it in a neat stack. “Though I suppose everything tastes the same after consuming an entire bottle of bourbon.” I finished up, scrunching and tossing the used napkin into the trash can by the desk.
I’m tempted to call room service for a bottle of table wax so I can polish and polish and polish the fine cherry surface until my face is reflected back at me. Watch the relief spread across it as Jaxson presses a hand into my back and bends me forward over the table. My teeth gritted and my throat contracted by my moans as he shows me exactly how much he’s forgiven me. “I’ll spread the whole damn bag back out across this desk. I’ll do whatever it takes to help change your mind. But you have to want it. You’ve got to ask for it.”
“No need to go through all the trouble. I’ve already gotten a taste of what’s inside.” He sucks the sugar off of one finger, then another. Intentionally reminding me exactly where those fingers had been the last time we met. Then he cocks his head slightly and stares at me in the mirror. Daring me to say something.
Speak? My heart is jammed tight in my throat, then expands and cuts off the tiny gasps of air I can’t seem to draw into my lungs when something in his gaze shifts. From hate to . . . what . . . hurt?
“Please. Let me explain.”
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I have my orders.”
“So this is it. You reported in.”
“No.”
“What? Why not?”
“Leave the bag and come here,” he demands. His tone is harsh yet his order is in complete opposition with his head shake. “Fucked up as it is, I’m wanting a final taste of rotten,” his voice rumbles, his tone low and dangerous.
Sweet mother Mary. This isn’t the reunion I dreamed about. It’s sick and twisted, ripe with hate and an intense, all-consuming tension that’s impossible to cut through. He’s changed. Before me is a newer, angrier, meaner version of the nonchalant playboy I fell in love with. A more muscular, more powerful, impossibly hotter Jaxson than before. A dangerous man who’d hurt me as quick as he’d fuck me. Impossible, this dream I want. Unless we’re talking wet dreams, the kind women with high hopes and distorted dreams have.
But this is my one-more-chance. Of feeling him close to me. Of reliving what we had together—or at least trying to. Of hope, that maybe, just maybe, he’ll forgive me.
I kick a crumb with my toe. Should I stay or should I go? Like the song says. But by go, I mean get the hell out of Paris. Fast, before things really start to spiral out of control. But I can’t walk away from him. From whatever this moment is. I want it. I want him. I’ve never stopped wanting him. Yep, no ifs, ands, or buts, I’m pretty much fucked.
What the hell. One final taste. Maybe it’ll sink in. Maybe he’ll be ready to talk. Maybe it won’t have to be au revoir—France’s fucked up way of saying good-bye that doesn’t literally mean good-bye forever—which is exactly the kind of send-off I’ll be giving him if this doesn’t resolve things.
With a false sense of confidence, I cross the short distance separating us, feeling a bit more confident as I notice the slight stiffening in his spine. Beware the traitorous Kylie, his body language says.
The thought pisses me off. I might be physically prepared to fight him—this could be a ploy on his part, after all. But emotionally, I’m on the base of a wildly steep cliff I mean to conquer. No time to be a meek mouse. No damn buttercup suck-up, either.
Tigress it is.
I stop behind him then, with a full forward thrust of my hips, push my groin into his ass, pinning his lower body against the mirror. “Sweet’s overrated, anyway,” I say, running my hands up both his arms as I rub my body fully up against him.
His eyes narrow at me in the mirror and I smile. He makes a noise deep in his throat. He turns on a dime, and I catch my breath as he grabs me by the waist and spins us both around so my back is to the mirror and his big, beautiful body is facing me. “You called. I came,” I say, my tone full of faux confidence.
“Yeah. A day late and a dollar short.”
I gasp, his words piercing me to the core, but he’s far from done with me. I try to step away, out of reach and out of sight and in desperate need to lick the wound the truth of his accusation has slashed open, but he grabs hold of my boho dress by the V-shaped neckline, then with a horrifying downward tug, rips the material apart, sending tiny buttons scattering around like victims of a sinking ship. The dress falls open but that’s not enough for him. He works the material over my shoulders and free of my arms until it falls in a pile of way-to-go-boho mess at my feet.
I’m an aching, quacking disaster in the making. My legs shake and are in sync with my quivering knees and the offbeat rhythm of my heart. I’m feeling everything; hurt, anger, regret, passion . . . hope. Slightly afraid with a whole lotta lust.
Forgive me. Forgive me.
He places his hands high on my chest, just below my throat and at the top of my breasts. I come up on my toes, earning a slight caress of my girls before he moves his hands lower. I let out a silent moan when he sinks his thumbs up inside my lovely new purple bra, the one—thank God—with a sheer lace front that hides nothing, and strokes my nipples.
“I’m going to fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before. You’re going to take everything I give you without discussion. I say drop to your knees, you get on your goddamn knees. Spread your legs and play with yourself on the bed, you hop to it. Wrap your breasts around my cock and milk me, you do as I tell you. Understand?”
I place my hands over my bosom and push his thumbs into my nipples. “Got it. No talk, all play. So shut up and fuck me already. Or is this a new form of foreplay . . .”
He pinches a nipple hard and I stiffen in surprise.
“Harder.” I flash my eyes at him, daring him.
His lips tighten and then his hands are gone, leaving one lucky nipple on fire. I’m tempted to give the second a naughty pinch. Except my attention is riveted on him as he kicks off his shoes, removes his pants, retrieves a foil packet from the wallet in his back pocket, then without the slightest bit of embarrassment, works his boxer briefs over his hips. Exposing his massive erection. His tip is moist. Jesus. No hiding it. Despite him hating my guts, I feel a glimmer of hope. He still wants me.
I lick my lips, catching his undivided attention before lacing my thumbs into the straps across my fancy new G-string and, wiggling my hips, slide the thin minuscule bit of lace over my hips and down my thighs.
He fists his erection and I bite my lip, refraining from telling him, “Let me. Let me take you in my mouth. Let me take care of you.” I give my pulse time to slow before asking, “Are you going to take off your shirt?”
“No.”
Okay then.
“Finger yourself.”
Something about the aggressive way he’s ordering me, so domineering, so aggressively masculine, just does it for me. Finger myself? No problem. Enjoy the show because I’ve got news for you. I’m going to get you inside me. Making love to me—or fucking, however you want to label it.
I lean back into the mirror, shift my weight to one leg, and cock the knee of the other leg. Cupping my breast with one hand, I slowly slide my hand across my abdomen, to my mound, to the hot wet mess between my legs. With two fingers, I part my folds and sink my fingers inside my channel.
“Fuck.”
I’m going to put on a show for him he’ll be jerking off to for months. Make him want me enough to regret his reasons for being here in Paris. Regret his orders to kill me.
I open my lips to let out a fake moan, but something sounding more like a wild animal escapes my throat first. My fingers are drenched. My nipples hardening like pebbles. My body loving what I’m doing, that he’s watching me with those sexy hooded eyes. The truth spelled out in every stroke, every little shiver of pleasure running up my spine. I shouldn’t want this. Not like this, under these circumstances, with all the distrust and unanswered questions, to be fucked just like any number of his targets. Fucking is what Jaxson does.
Not always . . . you know differently.
He rips the foil packet and rolls the condom across his erection. Unable to hide his reaction, along with the lust in his eyes.
Hard. Rough. Distant. I’ll take him any way I can get him.
“Do it,” I demand.
“Turn around and brace yourself against the mirror.”
Without a word, I pivot on my toes, spiraling around but not without accidentally brushing up against his arousal. I’m rewarded with his quick inhalation of breath.
I feel the heat of his chest even before he lifts me and pushes into my back, holding me in place against the mirror with his muscular chest. He hooks his elbow beneath the back of my knee and lifts my leg, positioning it high against the mirror. His erection slides between my thighs with his movements.
Someone moans. Me. Yes, me.
“I used to think you deserved better than a fast fuck,” he says, his nose brushing my ear. “That you were special.”
“I’m not.” You’re right, I was. Until I wasn’t there when you needed me the most. “Do it, damn you.”
He flexes and lifts, raising my leg and angling me into position.
“I’m going to fuck you six ways into Sunday. You’re going to take every inch of me, deep until you whimper my name. Make you forget your own name. And when I’m done, we’re done.”
When I’m done with my job, he means.
Not if I can evade you.
I feel him shift behind me but am unprepared for the feel of him slamming up inside of me, in one fluid movement filling me to the hilt with his beautiful cock. I moan loudly, my moistness easing the friction of his thrust. Still, the walls of my channel strain to adjust around his thick girth. My memory of him only a shadow of how he really feels deep inside me.
He withdraws slowly, and then slams me into the mirror from the weight behind his thrust.
I swear to God, I see stars.
Flexing his hips, he pulls back, then grinds back into me, withdraws before he hammers into me, pulls back, then takes a kill shot by slowly sliding into me. Inch by inch until each and every nerve sings out with joy.
“Jaxson,” I half whisper, half moan. Our eyes connect. It’s like being thrust into the past, to another time, another place where we reveled in each other’s pleasure. When we couldn’t get enough of each other. The feel, touch, smell of him. The warmth of his body against mine. His naughty grin. His trust. I can’t even ask the question, “What happened to us?” Because the answer is clear: I didn’t show up. I risked his life—suffered . . . agonized . . . over the loss of his life, too—and that special bond that only he and I shared is dead.
I’m sorry . . . so sorry.
I choke back tears as his features harden. “You bitch,” he grunts, pulling out of me completely and releasing my body and my leg to settle back on my feet.
That word feels like someone waved a magic idiot wand in my face.
“That all you got?” I taunt, foolishly.
“Sweetheart, we haven’t even gotten started.” He reaches out, grabbing me by the arms and twirling me around. The wind is knocked out of me as he spins me around and slams me into the mirror.
With one hand, he pins my wrists overhead to the mirror. I feel his legs between my thighs, spreading me open. The tip of his cock rubs against my folds, then all holy hell breaks out.
Fast and furious, he thrusts into me. Hard. Deep. Aggressive. Over and over, while I watch him grit his teeth, grunt, and close his eyes, blocking me out from what’s going on inside his head.
There’s nothing but my panting and his occasional grunt. The cold glass pressing against my girls, the ache building in my core, and him, taking me like he promised. Fucking me like a madman. Driving me insane with lust.
And I take it. I take all of him.
“Oh. Oh,” I gasp as the relentless pace he’s set begins to stir up an orgasm from somewhere deep inside me. A slow-building one, soon to register on whatever is Paris’s equivalent of the Richter scale.
But Jaxson beats me to it. With the next thrust, he shoves into me so hard I come up on my toes. Then he pins me in place, rooting me from deep inside my body, and then with a low, snarled “fuck me,” comes.
I thrust my hips backward, as my climax mounts. Aching for his thrust, his taking me up that steep cliff until I pass over to the other side.
Then he withdraws, leaving me freaking hanging from the rafters.
“What the hell?”
“I’ll give you a five-minute start.” He slaps me on the ass. “Then it’s back to business.”
“You asshole,” I say between clenched teeth. The ache between my thighs is unbearable. If he hadn’t given me a five-minute head start, I’d be finishing off what he initiated. Show him how I’ve no problem getting off without him.
Lesson learned.
I kick aside my panties and gather up my boho dress, ripping the frill from the hem to use it to secure the destroyed material in place.
Jaxson moves beside me as he pulls his pants back on. His T-shirt fits snugly around his chest, unwrinkled despite being wedged between the two of us. But I ignore him, deep in contemplation about whether or not to stick around to kick his ass. Or at least die trying.
I quickly gather my things and toss them into my suitcase. For a second I contemplate my satchel and the contents inside it—namely the gun. Consider shooting him in the leg and slowing the chase. But he’s giving me a chance, which is a dumb-ass mistake on his part, so who am I to complain? Besides, he didn’t hurt me, not physically at least.
“Thanks for the memories,” he says, his tone laced with sarcasm and disgust.
Okay, a bullet to his thigh is back at the top of my list.
This is what Jaxson does. Press people’s buttons and throw them off-kilter. Titillate then torment. Yeah, the ache between my thighs is proof of this. I should have known better.
Grabbing my luggage, I head to the door. Two minutes to go until the man of my dreams turns into my worst nightmare.
No, I remind myself. I can live with his anger, his hatred. Live knowing he’ll come after me to finish a job. But his death—by my hands or otherwise—I’m never going to survive.