The Frenchman (Crime Royalty Romance Book 1) (25 page)

I crawled back over, tentative, and his eyes, so full of wonder, never strayed. I helped him undo his buttons while he staggered again. As I pulled back his shirt, letting it drop to the floor, I smiled at him.

“You are so fucking sweet,” he exclaimed, grabbing my hair, violently, “I want to lick every inch of you.” He threw me back on the bed and I yelped as he grabbed both my ankles, holding them high. He licked the arch of my foot, and then sucked my big toe.

The erotic, utterly unfamiliar sensation made my lower stomach ache with need.

My smile slipped. His eyes had fallen on my exposed pussy, and I wondered if he could see my clit clenching. He spread my legs wider and stared with base desire. I struggled in his grip. “Louis,” I whispered, covering myself. He looked into my eyes with lustful exaltation. He undid his zipper, pulled out his enormous hard-on, yanked me right over to the edge of the bed. Without bothering to remove his pants, he entered me slowly, holding my ankles tight. When he filled me up, my eyes were as glassy as his, and he said in French, “I could spend an eternity defiling you.”

• • •

I’d relished the way Louis had made love to me last night with drunken, gushing expressiveness. He kept calling me his “beautiful addiction.” I’d never felt so special in my life, and that closeness remained the next day as he stayed by my side—in the shower, where he washed me like I was about to be sacrificed in an ancient rite, leaving me wet and longing, open-mouthed, confused, staring after his naked ass as he left the stall without either of us coming; in the Louvre, where we spent hours wandering and making up stories about the secondary cast in paintings hung throughout endless galleries; across from the Louvre entrance, in the outdoor bistro, when he pulled his chair around the table and sat with his arm draped around me.

Pigeons flocked. Tourists took countless photos of the glass Louvre pyramid. The sun beat down.

A family passing by recognized Louis and interrupted us to compliment him and ask for his signature. He was very gracious and prideful at the same time. I reveled in being out in public with him. Yet it drove home just how secret we were in Toulon.

Our conversation was intent and avid. We talked about his performance at the final match of the season, his love-hate relationship with Paris, and his home, which I had not realized was originally Corsica, the tiny French island where Napoleon Bonaparte was born. He had said his family was from there, but I didn’t realize they
had a home
there as well as in Toulon.

He’d spent his summers growing up on the island. “You will see it,” he’d said vaguely, and I was a puddle of warm liquid love.

We talked about how I wanted to become a cookbook editor. I told him I must have got the editing bug from my other mom, who was a journalist, and he didn’t bat an eyelash. He asked what her name was, and what my childhood was like. When I mentioned that I was searching for an internship at a publishing house when I returned next year, he stiffened and changed the subject.

Much, much later, after a ridiculously expensive, delicious dinner and a quiet long walk along the Seine, we made love for a long time, quietly, softly, missionary style.

His passion was no less diminished, though wholly respectful.

What shook me to the core was how badly I wanted him to defile me—even as we shuddered in each other’s arms, tender and sweet. I wondered for a moment or two, when he looked at me in a strange way, if he’d been going so slow and gentle in the hope I might snap and beg him to fuck me like an animal.

In truth, it was starting to bug me how he seemed to manage a tight control of everything in our relationship, even the style of lovemaking we would indulge in. I mean, I could have asked for him to spank me, but then it’s not the same, is it? And after what happened last time I took the lead, I was too timid to try again.

The next morning we set out early to get back for an unexpected meeting he said he had to have with his brothers about the business. He’d told me this, tickling me in bed again, while I’d been barely able to open my eyelids. I got really mad then because I hate being tickled. And I hate being tickled first thing in the morning even more.
And
I had told him that the time before. But he did it anyway.

A while later he admitted, not at all sorry, “I wanted to fuck you angry.” Of course I forgave him.

As we bundled into the car that would take us to the airport, I looked one last time longingly down the Champs-Élysées. He said the next time we came back we would go shopping.

More liquid love.

I was closer to Louis than ever, and so on our trip home I was determined to bring up a few things I needed clarified. I spent twenty minutes watching us rise above the cloud line, building up the courage.

“How long are we supposed to remain a secret in Toulon?” I blurted out. I startled him because he was in the middle of a magazine article. And I pissed myself off because I’d meant to be so much more smooth.

“As long as necessary.” He went back to his article as though I’d asked how much longer until we arrive. I exhaled, huffily.

“What does that mean?”

He sighed with equal ferocity and put away the magazine. “As much as I enjoy your temper, Fleur, not today.” He said this through half-closed eyes, tugging me to him, where I could only fight the battle to cuddle so long. I knew something was up with his family, and . . . so . . . I let it go.

And you know, I slept on his chest like a contented kitten.

“
Bonjour
,” I greeted Marie, brimming with contentedness, leaving my suitcase by the door to hug her. I slipped the newspaper she’d yet to bring in onto the counter. I could tell she’d slept in all morning by her bed-head hair and cranky disposition. She was also cross I had not brought “Alain” in with me upon our return from Paris. “Oh, but where is he?” Her face fell as she looked over my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Marie. He had some family emergency.” I wasn’t lying. And I wouldn’t lie any more. I planned to tell Marie today about Louis.

“But this is very disappointing,” she grumbled. “You are not hiding him from me, are you?” Horror crossed her face. “You are not embarrassed by me?”

“Oh my God, no! Marie, I’m so proud of you, are you kidding? No, he had family business.” Again partial truth. Louis had seemed very distracted as he kissed me goodbye in the lobby. Also, we were met by Georges, who gave me a very polite hello. Something was up. I could feel it in Louis’s stiff body language. I hoped everything was okay.

Speaking of something being up, I asked, “Is everything okay, Marie? You seem out of sorts.” She wore a scowl, the likes of which I had never seen on her face before.

“I was so close.” She swore in French under her breath, and my eyebrows raised. Her elbow was on the bar, and her fist, which she’d been resting on, slid close to her mouth. She looked like she wanted to bite down on it. “I know, or I think I know who is the, how do you say, linchpin, behind smuggling in the ports. There was supposed to be a meeting last night.” She seemed lost in her anger, lost enough to be divulging police details.

“What happened?” I nudged her along.

“We set up a takedown in the port. There were extra teams. But even so—
il s’est échappé
—he got away.”

“Oh, Marie, I am sorry.” I tried to hug her, but she was too stiff. I ended up patting her back.

The rest happened in slow motion.

I had taken off my sweater, because I was feeling warm. I had on only a tank top.

I went over to the fridge and searched inside for some white wine, to make her feel better, as it was almost happy hour anyway.

I heard Marie gasp.

I peered over my shoulder.

I noticed her confused brow.

I spied the newspaper she was reading.

When her eyes met mine, my world stopped.

Her face read devastation. Like her best friend had died.

Then rage.

She picked up the paper, looked at again, then back at me.

Her eyes fell to the pendant. It was sitting where it had sat the past two days, on my chest, close to my heart. Only it had slipped outside my tank top.

“
What is this
?” she screamed at me, spit coming out of her mouth. Her face was maniacal. I looked at the newspaper and at the photo she held up. It was a picture of Louis and me, in Paris, walking along the Seine. Someone had taken a photo of us. I mean, lots of people take photos along the Seine. We hadn’t noticed. “National Champion and Mystery Girl,” or some such said the headline of the local paper. His arm was draped around my shoulder and he was kissing the top of my head. My face was dreamy.

“
Messette
,” hissed Marie, like she was breathing fire. “Louis Messette is your
rugbyman
?!”

“Uh . . .” I was flabbergasted by her rage.

I mean, I understood that she was upset I’d lied about his name. And I knew she disliked him from the elevator incident. But this reaction was beyond my worst expectations.

I didn’t even have time to answer before she came at me. She slapped my face so hard I found myself twisted over and cowering against the fridge. I grasped at my neck. She’d yanked the necklace right off, breaking the thin gold stand. Staring at me with shiny eyes, she held the pendant in her hand before me, like it was my heart, which was breaking in that moment. 

“Did you plan this back in America? What does he want from me? Tell him he won’t get it, whatever it is, he won’t get it!
Answer me
!”

“Marie—what—no!” I managed to shout, tears streaming down my face as I held my cheek.

“I don’t . . .” I stood there shaking my head, dizzy, lost, “I don’t know what you are talking about it.” I was sobbing wholeheartedly.

Did I meet him in America? What?!

“I met him that night, here, in the bistro with Jess like I said!” I stated this not at all sure what I was accounting for. But I was desperate to explain away my lies. How could she be this mad? “He asked me not to tell anyone,” I choked back my sob, “because he likes to protect his family’s privacy.”

“
His family’s privacy
?!” she screeched. I backed up, thinking I needed to escape through the other side of the kitchen. She was terrifying.

“Oh my God, you don’t even realize!” she said, following me. “I will kill them. I will kill them all. What lies did he tell you?” I tried to get away but she grasped my arm with an iron grip.

I still had no idea what she was talking about. As far as I was concerned, she had flipped a lid because I’d fibbed about his name.

Staring in her dilated eyes, anger reared up in me.
She knows nothing about who Louis really is
. Fuck her stupid assumptions about lifestyle. I thought she needed a psychiatric evaluation.

Maybe she saw my shock, my anger, my fear. “You are scared of me?” She pulled back, devastation ripped across her face.

We stared at each other for painful, long seconds. All I wanted in that moment was for her face to turn light again. All I could see was her struggling to gain control.

“Do you know who the Messettes are?” she asked me this while barely maintaining calm. Her regard for me—contempt—sickened me.

She tried to get me to look in her eyes, which had softened but not enough.

There were tears in hers. Pity or fury?

“What did he tell you, hm? Come, Fleur, it’s okay.
Ma belle
, I am sorry I hit you. I thought—” She shuddered. “I thought you had betrayed me on purpose. Now I can see they used you.”

Betray her? Used me?

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

“Do you know who the Messettes are, Fleur?” she asked, exasperated. She drilled her gaze into mine. Why was she asking?

“Th-they are a wealthy shipping family?” I was no longer certain of anything.

“
Mon Dieu
, Fleur.” She shook her head, pain stretched across her deserted eyes. She tried to steady her breathing but she was failing. Her hands were in tight fists.

“They are a criminal organization. A gang.”

The word “gang” dangled out in the open before my brain identified it.

Gang.

The matching black tattoos.

The bodyguards.

The guns.

“No,” I shook my head. Can’t be. “The newspaper articles I read, they all said they were a wealthy shipping family—”

“Propaganda paid for and bought by that family. France’s largest crime family!” she barked. “Listen to me, Fleur. They run illegal goods through the ports. The Messettes use businesses as, how do you say, fronts. They were who I almost caught last night! I am after Georges Messette!”

I shook my head. No. That’s not right. And yet . . . there Marie was, listing off countless charges that had been placed against members of the Messette family that had never stuck. I clasped my head, shaking it. I clutched at my chest. I stepped back.

Only when she’d quit her litany of memorized villainy was I able to open my eyes. She watched me with growing concern. “But,” I gasped, “Louis— He . . .” I couldn’t finish. All around me I fought through haze to make sense of what I’d just heard. I sat down on the sofa and put my head on my knees. The room was spinning.

Louis’s family were criminals? Images popped into my mind. That man who assaulted me at Sylvie’s. The fear in his eye when he saw the Messette symbol on my chest. Georges. Laughing at me when I expressed concern over involving him in something criminal.

Louis—asking me to keep him a secret
.

I’d made assumption after assumption because . . . because I didn’t know better, because I was a naive, happy-hearted idiot.

How could Louis . . . why did he let me believe otherwise . . . when he knew my mother was a police inspector?

Oh wait, of course! Hope surged in me. I quickly snatched at the most reasonable explanation. He knew my mother wouldn’t like him by association. He probably didn’t want to deal with her judgment about his family. Louis was merely a rugby player. He wasn’t like his family.

I raised my head. “Marie, Louis isn’t like his—”

Where had she gone?