Fool's Gold: A Kisses and Crimes Novel (9 page)

“Sure, kitten. We wouldn’t exactly want you on your knees now, would we?”

He turns his back to me without another word.

Trying to hide my surprise, I say nothing as Bishop hands me back my own cell phone. I say nothing when we leave the front door. And when he secures the locks behind us, I still say nothing.

A wicked smile in my direction, a stroke against my chin, and Bishop is off again, heading in a separate direction, taking a small and inexplicable piece of my longing with him.

DANI

An hour later, I am at Geoffrey’s bookshop again.

Head down, my nose stuck in another book, I read through the pages of yet another love tale… and all the while, I carry the dirty day-dream I’d had about Bishop with me through each line.

Amber-colored eyes replace the blue ones of the hero, blonde hair is supplanted by black, and by the time I reach the second chapter, I am reading a fantasy I’ve constructed in my head.

A fantasy where protagonists are dressed in all black and heroines are swept off their feet by these darkened knights.

I turn the page and recreate another scene when the sound of footsteps makes their way into aisle leading to my cozy corner.

Startled, I raise a fist, prepared to swing.

A man, clad in a collared shirt and bowtie, backs up and throws up his hands. His copper-colored hair is slicked back off of his handsome face, and his cheeks turn the hue of his reddish hair when he looks down and sees my tiny fist cupped wholly in his.

I apologize immediately.

“I’m sorry,” I say abruptly in English. “It was a reflex.”

The man, to my surprise, responds just as easily in the same language.

“It is alright.” His accent is the stuff of movie fantasies. “At least the hand was not my face.”

He lets me go with a sudden smile.

“You have a fantastic right hook.”

He laughs and, feeling disarmed by his surprising charm, I join in.

“You should see my left jab.”

He extends his right hand for me to shake.

“Gi. I’m the clerk here.”

“Dani…” I smile at how natural the name now feels.

“Dani,” he repeats. He nods his head, seemingly mulling it over. “Interesting set of books.” He leans his head toward my stack.

“Yeah, I guess so.” I almost blush considering what I’ve just been thinking. “I’m a sucker for a good romance.”

Gi glances at one book in particular.

“
Hello Sadness
… Fantastic story. Written about a, uh… young girl who interferes in her dad’s affairs. The romantic ones, in particular.”

My smile widens at him.

He’s cute… in a non-classical way, of course. The way he speaks and smiles. It has the essence of innocence. His build is strong, sturdy—stocky, but not overweight. His face lights up... and he has the grin of a good old college boy.

I feel fond of Gi almost immediately.

“Well, Gi, you seem very knowledgeable about books.”

He shrugs.

“Some would say. I would say that I am very knowledgeable about a lot of things…”

He leans an elbow on a shelf, and from the look in his eyes, I realize that Gi is flirting with me. It’s subtle, and part of me would be susceptible to it if he were someone else.

Someone whose last name I happen to share.

I take a step back.

“I’m sure you are. It’s nice to meet you, Gi.”

I clear my throat loudly, and Gi backs up.

“If you ever need help, just let me know. I live in this back corner of the bookstore these days.”

I wave good-bye to him as he heads to another aisle. “Good to know.”

I close the hardcover on “Hello Sadness” and a few other stories, and then I leave the aisle, heading to the local bakery for a quick macaroon snack before I head in the direction of home.

Down the sunny streets, around the familiar corner, I find the little loft much in the same way it was left.

Too
much like the way it was left.

I can’t get into the house without any secret golden nails to pull from their holes.

And the back door is shut much like the first. Locks line up over the large door knob and no matter how much I push or pull, they won’t budge.

I call Bishop but there is no answer. The phone goes to voicemail… so I leave, taking a trip to Amelie’s cafe to wait him out.

The second I enter the café and sit, the little waitress greets me with a piece of bread and Brie…  and a
big
, frothy glass of hard cider. The place is
packed
but Amelie doesn’t seem to notice.

She speaks to me in a conspiratorial tone, smiling while she serves. Handing a final drink to a customer, she takes a tip off a nearby table. Pencil behind her ear, a grin on her pretty face, she leans into me as if she knows a secret.

Truth is… she’s expecting that I will have a few of my own to share.

And she wants to know them.

She launches right into an inquisition that makes me laugh.

“So, my American girl… what happened?”

I take a peek at her over the lip of my over-filled glass.

“Happened with what?”

“With guy…”

She raises an eyebrow, and all of a sudden I feel an incontrollable urge to make my hard cider disappear.

One sip. Two sip. Three sips. Gulp.

I swallow practically half of the glass before answering.

“Which one?”

Amelie leans in.

“
You have more than one
?”

I plop my glass on the table, looking up at the television in the corner. I motion upwards at the large screen.

“Wouldn’t you rather get your news from people who do this for a living? Like him.” I point. “The man with the bad toupee.”

“Your stories are much more fun, American Dani.” She turns and nods at the TV. “They talk over same story all day. Blah, blah, war. Blah, blah, football. Blah, blah, missing American girl…”

The last bit draws my attention.

“American girl…?”

Amelie toys with a bottle cap that she lifts from a cold drink.

“Yes, yes. American girl. I watch. I read English captions.” She places a hand on my table. “Daughter of American senator go missing. Big deal. Everyone suspect that criminal family take her…”

“Take her?”

“Yes. It kept big secret until now. Now everybody know…”

And then Amelie stops.

She steps away from my table, rushing to help another customer at the other end. A new patron makes his way into the cafe, making the bells hanging over the large front door chime.

The cold breeze of impending dusk and French Alps air follows him in. It puts a chill in the air that creeps in before the door can close again.

But something else—something Amelie has said—puts a different chill under my suddenly cold skin. I shiver against my own will.

I polish off what’s left of my drink to warm myself. By the time I’m ready for my second glass Amelie is on her way back over.

I turn the inquisition tables around on her, trying to keep the conversation light.

I fold my hands.

“Amelie, did they—the news… did it show the missing American girl?”

“The girl?” Amelie retrieves another glass. “No. No pictures of girl. Short story. Too quick on news.”

My hands squeeze together even tighter, turning red under the sudden pressure. I rub them underneath my bottom lip.

“But…” Amelie cuts in. “They show senator. Man with dark hair. Serious face. He did not look happy in pictures.”

I reply absentmindedly.

“I’m sure he wasn’t…”

“I could make him drink that make smile come easier. He come to France. He may not worry much anymore.”

She shakes her head, giving me a pointed look.

“Americans too much. Too high or too low. Americans need to find middle place. Frenchmen understand balance.”

She points to a boisterous man on the far end of the room.

“Too much drink, then you will be fool.”

She shrugs.

“Too little, you will be unsmiling.”

I grin at the strange term.

“Too unsmiling?”

“Yes. Too unsmiling.” She imitates a frown. “Like American senator. Like handsome man at table.”

I look up and down the aisles.

“Handsome man at the table?”

“Yes.” Amelie waves lightly over my shoulder, whispering. “Man behind you. Handsome man. A man with serious face like American senator.”

I look behind me, glancing in the direction of Amelie’s fiddling fingers, and I find Bishop—staring back at me, his gorgeous face austere, his eyes just as serious as Amelie’s unseen and newsworthy senator.

DANI

“You followed me?”

“I missed your call.” Bishop’s expression is unmoving.

“
You followed me
.”

He sighs, unlocking the many locks fixed on the door to the loft.

“You could call it that.”

“What the hell else would you call it?”

“Keeping an eye on you.”

I drop my purse onto the kitchen counter, turning on my heel to look at Bishop’s face, his hard jaw—both barely visible under the low light that illuminates the dusky doorway.

“How chivalrous of you.”

I step past Bishop, making my way inside. Once I enter the foyer, my eyes start wandering. I don’t even realize I’m looking for things to use as weapons until my eyes land on the kitchen knives.

I glance back at Bishop’s face.

“There’s nothing chivalrous about it, Dani.
You’re my wife
. I’m your husband. Doing right by you has its own selfish rewards.”

“Selfish in what way?”

“You make me happy.” Bishop glares at me, never coming closer. “I want it to stay that way.”

“And yet you never touch me,” I whisper, turning from him.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” I kick off my shoes, padding over to Bishop barefoot. I keep the kitchen knives in my periphery.

“You keep me at arm’s length. You shut me in like some leper. You behave like a prison warden, and your name…”

I scoff.

“You won’t even let me call you by your real name… And I let you get away with it because my cooking could be used as fertilizer, and I’d probably
starve
if you weren’t here.”

I walk closer to him, making myself stop before I come within reach.

“You say I’m your wife, and yet you treat me like a stranger.”

“To you, I am. I don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

Under the sparse lighting currently on in the house, Bishop is like a shadow, fringed with black and daunting.

His gold eyes catch glimpses of the light and when he looks at me, there is a spark—a spark that illuminates his beautiful face, that highlights the stone stature of his body.

He is nothing like I’ve ever seen…

And I do not know if I should fear him… or fuck him.

My mind constantly teeters between wanting to do both.

“You don’t understand,” Bishop says suddenly. “And there’s no way you possibly could.”

He runs his large fingers through his dark hair and the muscles underneath his grey t-shirt and faded jeans begin to ripple. I swallow thickly.

“Do you know what it’s fucking like?” he asks angrily. “To have someone you spend everyday of your life with look at you and
not
know you? To want to
say
things you can’t?
Do
things you shouldn’t?”

He steps further into the house. “
Touch
the places you dream about at night?”

My breath hitches as Bishop’s look travels the length of me.

He’s close enough for me to count each trimmed hair on the lower half of his face. I can smell his woodsy fragrance. I can hear his labored breaths.

My nipples harden through my thinly sewn cotton dress.

“It’s
fucking
torture keeping my hands off of you,” he grits through clenched teeth.

He walks closer.

“To
stop myself
from doing the things any husband would want to do.
Hell,
things other husbands
won’t
do…”

He exhales harshly.

“You
know
me, Dani. And you know that I’m doing my
damnedest
to do what’s right for you.
Even if it comes at a cost to myself…”

I lower my gaze, feeling almost shamed.

“
Look at me
,” he demands, commanding my attention.

“Look at me and
listen to me
…”

He takes two more steps, and he’s practically skimming the planes of my body with his. He leans forward.

“I won’t
ever
fucking hurt you… At least, not in the ways you don’t want me to…”

His unspoken implication hits me like a ton of bricks.

He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, and I look up at him… and see the man from my first dream—the golden-eyed god at the bar.

How I wanted him then. How I want him now.

My mind is struggling with the recognition, but my body knows him all too well. It responds like a lightning bolt to a rod whenever he comes near.

And in this instance, I
am
the same Dani from the dream.

Seeking Bishop.
Wanting
Bishop. Needing no else in the crowded room but him.

I feel naked and exposed.

“Bishop…” I say, releasing his name on a sigh.

I place my palms on his broad chest, and he hisses sharply. He touches one of my hands and then squeezes it.

“Ah,
fuck it
,” he exhales loudly. “
I don’t give a damn anymore
…”

His expel of breath is quick, giving no fair warning. I don’t catch the switch in his eyes.

If I did… I would have known to prepare myself.

Because those words of mine cut a thin cord of control in Bishop that I didn’t know was hanging on by a single thread until the last syllable left my lips.

And a daydream is no match for the real thing.

With a frustrated growl, the real thing grabs me, lifts my thighs into his hands and plunges a tongue into my hungry mouth with a sensation that I feel from the edge of my teeth down to the apex of my thighs.

It is a sensation I’ve never felt… and one I’d like to keep feeling forever.

I give into it completely.

Lips eager, my hands shaking, I wrap every inch of my long legs around Bishop’s hips as he rocks my body into his, bouncing me slowly on the erection between his muscular thighs.

Hard, unyielding, the length of him prods towards the center of my cotton dress, pressing insistently below my waist… between my thighs, around my core.

I entangle my fingers into his hair, my hands pressing against his nape as he palms my ass, taking three long strides before pinning me against the wall, trapping my body between his own and the immovable brick.

He groans with a rumble that I feel in the pit of my stomach.

Gripping my ass, grinding his hardness into the hollows of my body, he holds me there. Loving me with his tongue.

Drawing desire from my every pore as I melt into a puddle right between his skilled fingers.

A gasp becomes a whimper. A whimper becomes a moan.

A nip here, a sweep of the tongue there, and I become putty in Bishop’s hands—molded, squeezed, modeled as I drape myself over his limbs, falling apart as his mouth performs a seductive dance inside of my lips, underneath my chin… between my bra-less breasts.

And all the while, he whispers things to me—gritty things that make me squirm, intense things that make me curl my body around the curve of his hardened cock.

“Daniela, do you hear that?”

He kisses the fabric over my tightening nipples.

“Your body?”

He rubs a finger at the top of my slit, under my dress, over my panties—circling with this thumb and index finger relentlessly. He flicks his tongue at my tender breast.

“
What do you think
…” he hesitates, laying his tongue flat, “it’s saying to me right now?”

Think?
My mind went blank the minute he touched me.

I groan in reply, rubbing my wetness through the soaked silk and over Bishop’s hand, wanting him to delve even further.

I sigh.

“I… I don’t know,” I reply. He tightens his teeth around one of my taut nubs, and my words turn to rasps. “Bishop…”

“It’s saying it
belongs
to
me
,” he answers on a low rumble. “It’s saying it’s
always
belonged to me.”

And then I feel it.

He plunges the hand I was hoping for under my silk underwear. He finds my core and he teases it. His fingers play a beat against the lips before it finally slides between them.

And then I come.

Nipples aching, my clit throbbing against Bishop’s hand, I pour my wetness onto his fingers. The friction between every contact point between us leaves me simpering in greedy whines, my mouth begging for his, before he finally breaks apart from my breasts and rejoins his tongue with mine.

I float on an indescribable cloud nine… until Bishop brings me crashing back down to Earth.

He withdraws his mouth from mine as I were a breathing flame.

“Shit, Dani,” He grits the words against my lips.
“I have to take you to bed.”

My heart starts to race.

Still in his arms, Bishop carries me up the stairs, through the hallway and into the sparsely lit bedroom.

He doesn’t bother to turn on any more lights.

He drops me slowly, letting my hips, my thighs, my ass slide through his hands until my bare feet finally touch the floor once more.

He closes his eyes.

“I can’t…
I won’t
, Dani. Not until you know me again. Not until you truly belong to me. This time… I want
everything
.”

He opens his eyes again.

“And I won’t fucking settle for just your body.”

He kisses me and then disappears, heading back out of the bedroom door. He locks it behind him and this time he bolts it for good.