Midnight Train to Paris (14 page)

Next he slips the blanket off my shoulders and begins to pull the itchy, damp wool sweater up over my bra. I wince as I lift my arms up, but Samuel moves quickly, removing the sweater, then gently laying my arms back down and rubbing his hands over my shoulders to warm me.

The smoke in my head finally begins to clear, and it is only as I am half-naked and vulnerable, lying before my ex-boyfriend, that I realize he is still sporting that handsome 1930s tux from our stint as a wealthy married couple on the Orient Express.

I slip the black tux jacket off his shoulders, then reach for the black bow tie, pulling it out of his collar and tossing it to the floor beside us. The fire casts a glow on the perfect contours of Samuel’s face, and as I focus on his full lips, I am suddenly overcome with desire.

For years, I’ve longed for the completion I’d only ever felt in Samuel’s arms. No matter how hard I’ve tried to push away the memory of his skin, his touch, his love, I’ve never succeeded.

And now, in this stranger’s cabin in the middle of the French Alps, in the wee hours of Christmas morning in the year 1937, we have found each other again.

Despite the impossibility of our situation and of our surroundings, nothing in my life has ever felt more right.

I unhook the top button on his white, collared shirt and nod for him to come closer.

He leans toward me, and just as our noses touch, I whisper, “Did you mean what you said back on the train? That you’ve never stopped…”

“Loving you?” Samuel finishes as he cups my chin in his hand and gazes pointedly into my eyes. “I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”

Samuel’s hands find my waist as he brushes his moist lips down the length of my neck and over my collarbone. He is gentle, soft, careful not to touch any of my cuts or bruises as his lips continue their delicate journey down my body, only stopping once they reach the curves of my breasts. He slips one bra strap over my shoulder, moving the lacy black material farther and farther down my skin, before he cups my breast in his hand and raises his lips to mine.

The kiss that follows is a burst of passion, longing, and desire. All of the feelings that have been pent up inside of me for so long, hidden and locked away, are now exploding at Samuel’s touch, at his sensual kiss.

I reach for his shirt, my fingers fumbling with the buttons as he takes both of my breasts in his hands and kisses me. The feel of his lips on mine is so consuming that I immediately forget the horror of what has just happened to me.

I finally reach the last button just as Samuel has unhooked my bra. I slip the shirt off Samuel’s firm shoulders, running my hands down the length of his muscular arms, while I marvel at his rough, sexy chest.

Next I go for his pants buttons, my fingers working with more precision now that the fire—and
Samuel
—are warming me up. I help him pull the black tux pants off his long legs, then tug at his black boxers until his entire firm, ripped body glistens before me in the glow of the flames.

A heavy breath escapes his lips as he climbs over me and slips my black lace underwear off in one quick movement. Samuel runs his hands down my back, grabbing my butt and pulling me in closer as I wrap my legs around him.

He dips his lips onto mine once more, devouring me with his kisses, with each stroke of his hands on my bare, naked skin. The cold has completely evaporated and has been replaced by a buildup of desire that has taken over every cell of my body. I am unable to think of anything other than Samuel, his body wrapped around mine, holding me, kissing me, rocking me in his arms.

In this moment, all I know is the need I have for him. It is intense, forceful, primal. And in this seventy-five-year time gap we have mysteriously traveled together, our connection is the only thing that feels real to me, the only thing that feels safe.

The flames sizzle and hiss beside us as Samuel kisses me on the lips, then lifts his hooded gaze to mine. I know it is dangerous, letting myself fall again. Especially for the one I could never forget.

But as our eyes lock and blankets of snow cover the world around us, I realize there is no choice in the matter. And so, just as our hips are fitting together, our bodies yearning to connect in the deepest way, I whisper into his ear, “I’ve never stopped loving you either, Samuel. Not for one second.”

Samuel pulls me tighter into his safe, warm embrace, then breathes heavily into my ear as he thrusts inside of me. I squeeze my legs around his back and cry out in pleasure as he pushes deeper and firmer into my core, filling me up so completely, I know I will never again leave him.

I wrap my hands around the rippling muscles of his biceps as he continues to move over me, in slow, firm strokes. His mouth traces the skin along my collarbone as his hands roam the curves of my breasts. Samuel’s breathing becomes deeper and heavier as he thrusts a little harder into me, then dips his hands to the space right in between my thighs. He knows
exactly
what to do with those hands, and soon he coaxes a moan from my lips.

I grip onto his broad shoulders as our bodies move in synch on the soft rug. With each caress, each loving kiss, each emotion-filled gaze, I know in my heart that Samuel’s words were true. He is still totally and utterly in love with me.

Just as I feel him growing harder and firmer inside me, he wraps his arms around my back and pulls me up so we are both sitting, our bodies shimmering with a coat of sweat as the flames pop and crack beside us. My legs straddle his as he grinds his hips into mine, holding onto my butt and trailing kisses up my neck, before finally he reaches my lips.

The relief I feel each time his lips meet mine is powerful enough to make all of my defenses melt away. I have never felt more open, more bare, more vulnerable than in these naked moments in Samuel’s arms.

Fear tore me away from him once before—fear of exposing my true self.

But now, with our bodies connected, each quickening rock of our hips bringing us closer together, I know there is no going back. I am exposed, vulnerable, bare. I can only be the true me with Samuel. And nothing has ever felt more freeing.

“Jillian, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.” Samuel’s hot breath grazes my neck as his thrusts come even deeper than before. Tingles roll through my body, the desire pooling in my abdomen and between my legs finally bursting in a sweet, intense climax. I cry out as I hang onto Samuel’s shoulders and let him take me further until he lets out a guttural moan, his muscles tightening then releasing in my arms.

Samuel holds me until our breath slows down, then smiles deviously before he kisses me on the cheek, the forehead, and finally on my lips. He tastes sweet, salty, and satisfied.

Moments after our mouths and hips have parted, I run my hand over the tattoo covering his left bicep, then over the jagged scar on his chest, and finally I find the small tattoo which lines the inside of his right wrist.

Just as I noticed before, the tattoo is made up of seven sets of initials. I trace my finger around them before lifting an inquisitive gaze to my lover.

“They’re the seven people I haven’t been able to find,” Samuel says quietly. “Before it was too late, anyway.”

I study the initials, noticing that the first set belongs to his late wife, Karine.

“I loved you even when I was with her,” Samuel says, answering my question before I can bring myself to ask it. “It’s one of the reasons I’ve never been able to forgive myself for Karine’s death. It wasn’t fair to her—loving you the way I did the entire time I was married to her.” Samuel runs his thumb along my cheek, being careful to avoid the cuts. “I don’t regret loving you all these years, though, Jill. The thought of you, of what it was like to be with you—no matter how hard I tried, I never could forget it. And now, here you are, in my arms again.”

“I only wish that Isla didn’t have to go missing in order for us to find each other again,” I say quietly.

Samuel lifts my chin so that our eyes meet. “I will find your sister, Jillian. I promise you.”

The certainty in Samuel’s eyes is assuring, but as I gaze once more at the initials carved on his wrist, I am reminded that not all of the women who are taken will be rescued as I was earlier tonight.

Samuel lifts my hand to his lips but stops when he notices the vintage emerald ring on my left ring finger, glinting in the firelight.

“I didn’t realize I still had it on,” I say, marveling at the beauty in the bright green stone, at the way I feel mesmerized, almost in a trance, each time I look at it.

Samuel traces his finger over the shiny jewel. “Do you think the ring has something to do with bringing us back together and with bringing us here?”

I nod as I inch closer to his warm body. “I have no idea
how,
but yes, I think so.”

The corners of Samuel’s lips turn up into a grin. “Well, in that case, I’m never letting you take this ring off…because I’m not letting you go again, Jillian Chambord. That, you can count on.”

I want so badly to believe that Samuel and I will never again be separated. But as he pulls me into his arms and I gaze out at the thick snowflakes piling on the windowsill of this deserted cabin in the middle of the Alps, I can’t shake the ominous feeling that has once again settled in my bones.

“Samuel?”

“Yes?”

“Even if we do succeed in saving Rosie and Frances, what if we never make it back to 2012? What if I never see my sister again?”

The wind howling through the trees outside is my only response as these two lost souls of ours—who have found each other under the most unimaginable of circumstances—hang on for the storm.

We have no way of knowing what will come next, if we will find Isla or the other missing girls…or
even
if we will come out of this alive.

December 25,
1937

The French
Alps

This
endless night before Christmas doesn’t provide a single moment’s rest for
either Samuel or me. We are both too spun up after everything that has
happened—Isla’s disappearance, our mysterious time travel to 1937, my own
abduction, and now, this most recent development—Samuel back in my life…in a
way I never expected.

Just when I begin to shiver in his
arms, Samuel grabs the thick wool blanket and wraps it tightly around me,
before throwing another log on the fire.

“How did you find me tonight?” I ask
when Samuel returns to me, his green eyes gleaming in the glow of the fire.

Samuel slips his warm hands
underneath the blanket and wraps them around my bare waist before he speaks.

“Earlier on the train, I
assumed
that you would follow the plan and stay in the sleeping compartment until I
came back for you.” Samuel pauses, lifting a brow. “I should’ve known you would
take things into your own hands. Unfortunately, when I heard you passing
through the corridor, I thought they were taking Rosie. But when I found both
Rosie’s and our sleeping compartments empty, I realized they must’ve taken
Rosie
earlier
—right after the train
was stopped. I knew then that the woman I’d heard just a few moments before,
passing by the restroom, was you. By the time I made it outside, though, you
and the others were gone. I searched for a while before I found the shack. By
the time I got there, the others had already left, but when I looked in the
window, I saw him in there—that barbarian—hitting you.” Samuel’s jaw tightens
as he gazes into the flames. “Which is why taking things into your own hands
isn’t always the best idea.”

“I’m sorry. I know I put us both in
more danger by doing what I did. But I kept hearing thumping sounds in the
hallway, and the lights were flickering off and on, and…well, you know me.”

Samuel levels his serious gaze at
me. “That I do. And like I said when you hijacked my car two days ago in D.C.,
you haven’t changed one bit.”

I smack him in the arm. “I didn’t
hijack
your car. I kissed you, and if I remember correctly, you had
no problem kissing me back. It’s not my fault if you weren’t paying attention
to the whereabouts of your car keys during the kiss.”

Samuel shakes his head at me, his dark five o’clock shadow
looking impossibly sexy in the glow of the fire. “Yeah, well. That was the kind
of kiss that makes you not give a damn if the woman who’s kissing you is about
to steal your keys.”

“I’m glad to see I still have it after all these years,” I
tease.

He grins as he pulls me closer to him. “Oh, you still have
it, Jill. Trust me.”

A rush of heat creeps up my neck as Samuel brushes the hair
out of my eyes and kisses me on the forehead.

“I still don’t understand how you managed to track us down in
these conditions,” I say. “It’s pitch-black out there and there’s snow
everywhere. Not to mention, you were only wearing a tuxedo, for God’s sake. You
must’ve been freezing.”

“I’m trained for these situations.
This is how I’ve spent the last three years of my life.”

“Naked by the fire with a different
woman in your arms?” I poke.

“Only
you
get this type of special treatment after a rescue,” he says,
before brushing his lips over mine. “Since the day I started this job, I’ve
been searching. Searching for women just like you. Just like Isla.”

The fire crackles beside us as
Samuel runs his strong hands up my arms. “Except you’re not like all the other
girls. You know how to escape trained assassins. You know how to fire weapons.”

In Samuel’s eyes, I see that same curious bewilderment from
years ago. He’s still searching for the truth. For
my
truth.

“How, Jill? What happened to you and Isla when you were
younger?”

This time I am the one turning my
troubled gaze to the fire, recalling a childhood I wish I could burn in those
flames. But no matter how much I hate my past, it is always there—waiting to
sabotage my latest relationship, steal another night’s sleep, destroy any
inkling of happiness. And Samuel is the first person in a long time to make me
feel hopeful that happiness might not be so far beyond my reach after all.

But hiding the truth from Samuel will only make him think—as
it did once before—that I don’t love him.

As we sit at the eye of this blazing
storm, where the lines between the past and the future are blurring to the
point of nonexistent, I know that Samuel is the only person I can count on. And
despite the promise I made to Isla all those years ago, when were only innocent
girls, I cannot—
I
will not—
withhold the truth from him yet
again.

And so, I turn back to the man who
has found me after all these years, the man who has succeeded in breaking
through the impenetrable wall I’d built around my heart, and finally I tell him
my story.

“I have to start from the very
beginning for you to understand everything,” I warn him.

Samuel shoots a glance toward the
steamy cabin windows, where a haze of black night and white flakes swirl beyond
the glass. “Go back as far as you need to. We’re not going anywhere until
morning.”

After taking in a labored breath, I
launch in.

“Isla and I grew up, for the most
part, without a father. He left when we were only five, and he took everything
with him. The money, the house, our mother’s sanity—well, I’m not sure she ever
was
sane—but regardless, he took it
all. Apparently, he never wanted children. He was a wealthy D.C. businessman,
and kids were never in his plan. From the day my mother told him she was
pregnant, he threatened to leave her.”

I hesitate before continuing on with
the next part of the story, but one glance into Samuel’s compassionate gaze
tells me I am safe.

“You see, my parents first met while my dad was on a business
trip to Paris. He called a prostitute to his hotel room one night…and the
woman who showed up was my mother.”

Samuel’s expression stays neutral, not revealing even an
ounce of the disgust I feel at saying those words aloud.

“Your mother told you this story?” he asks quietly.

“There were no boundaries with her. No concept of what was or
was not
appropriate with her children.
So, yes, we learned all too young that our mother, Céline, was a prostitute.
She’d been raised in a Paris brothel by her own mother, and it was the only
life my mom ever knew. As a result of her horrible childhood and her early
foray into the art of pleasing men for money, she wasn’t the most stable
person. But for as crazy as she was, she was also good at what she did. So good
that she managed to put my father under her spell. He fell in love with her
that first night in Paris and offered to whisk her away from the world of
prostitution and give her a new life in the States. I know you’re thinking
Pretty Woman
, but unfortunately, this
story doesn’t have a happy ending. And although she was certainly beautiful in
her day, my mother is no Julia Roberts.

“She knew my dad had a lot of money, and she knew she could
keep him happy, so she said yes. He paraded her around to galas and political
events in D.C. as his gorgeous French trophy wife, with the agreement that she
would
never
tell anyone the true
story of how they met. But years later,
as soon as he left her high and dry with no money and two hyper five-year-old
twins on her hands, she turned back to the only thing she knew how to
do—prostitution. All of the politicians and D.C. businessmen who’d admired my
mother from afar were now paying her for sex during their lunch hours, after
work, overnight, and on weekends. The shabby house we moved into after my
father left
became
my mother’s
brothel.”

The muscles in his Samuel’s jaw tighten as he shakes his head,
but he doesn’t say a word.

“This began right after my father left, and even though Isla
and I were too young to fully understand what my mother was doing with all of
these male
houseguests
, we caught on
pretty quickly. She was such a tyrant during the day that we learned just as
quickly to take care of ourselves. We locked our bedroom door at night and
played music so we wouldn’t hear what was going on just down the hallway. But
we heard it…we always heard it.”

Concern lines Samuel’s large, sweet eyes. “I’m so sorry,
Jillian. I had no idea.”

“You couldn’t have because I always refused to tell you.
There’s a reason for that though…a reason I couldn’t tell you the truth. And
it has to do with a promise I made to Isla.”

A chilly draft slithers through the dark cabin, sending a
shiver through my body. Samuel wraps the blanket tighter around me, then nods,
urging me to go on.

“By the time Isla and I were in junior high, our mother had
reached the height of her insanity. She would scream at us for no reason at
all; she stopped buying us clothes, food, or medication. She blamed us for our
father leaving and for the decline of her
business.
The truth was that she was getting older and she wasn’t able to reel in men
the way she once could. I was so ashamed of her, of the way we lived. I wanted
to be as far away from that house as I could, so I immersed myself in the
school newspaper every day after school. I’d hang around until the cleaning
crew would literally kick me out. During this time, Isla told me she got a job
babysitting for some of the neighbor kids after school. She said she was saving
her money to get us out of there. She told me she had a plan…that I should
trust her.

“But what I didn’t know was that Isla wasn’t babysitting. One
day she had come home from school early, and Parker Williams—not yet a senator
at this time—was just pulling up to our house. He’d come to the other side of
town to visit my mother for one of their afternoon
sessions,
but when he spotted Isla in her short skirt, prancing
into the house, he forgot all about my mother.”

A flare of anger passes through Samuel’s eyes as I continue.

“Williams worked a deal with my mom. He would pay her double
if he could have Isla two afternoons a week. You have to understand that at this
point, my mother
hated
Isla…much
more than she hated me. Isla was the beautiful twin, and at thirteen her beauty
had far surpassed my mother’s. But there was something else about Isla—she was
pure, sweet, and innocent. The complete opposite of my jaded, damaged, nasty
mother. My mother knew her prospects weren’t good, so she agreed to Williams's
proposition. That night, when I came home from the school newspaper, Isla
didn’t speak to me. She didn’t speak to me for a whole week. At night, I heard
her sobbing in her pillow. I kept asking her what was wrong, but she wouldn’t
tell me. She just kept saying she was fine, that she had a plan to get us out
of there and I needed to trust her and stop asking questions.

“This went on for months without me having any clue. But Isla
hadn’t been lying to me—she did have a plan. One of the
other
men who came for my mother was younger, more handsome than
the others. He noticed Isla, and he wasn’t as pushy with her—
unlike
Parker Williams, the bastard.
This man’s name was Russell Hughes.”

Samuel raises a brow, surely recognizing the name from the
police reports he looked up on my mother.

“Isla approached Russell once when my mother wasn’t in the
room. She made him an offer. Pay her twice what he paid my mother, and he could
have her as often as he wanted. He agreed. He stopped seeing my mother, and he
only came over when Isla knew my mom wouldn’t be home. Despite the sickness of
the situation, Isla actually liked Russell. She saw him as a ticket out of our
hellish home life. But what Isla didn’t know was that my mother
was in love with Russell…or at least
in her deranged head, she
thought
she
was in love with him. When he stopped seeing her, she went even more mental.
She would leave us for days at a time without food, money, or any clue as to
where she’d gone.”