A Deceptive Attraction: The Wilsons, Book 3 (7 page)

“You mean the French announcer?” Leon said innocently.

Violet wound up to give him a real piece of her mind, but she stopped herself just in time. Troyesha had once said something about men that she had forgotten until now. “Sometimes you gotta let a man save face,” her seamstress had told her.

Violet was fairly certain that this was one of those times. She stroked Leon’s forearm gently. “Please, if anything starts to make you uneasy, be sure to tell me. I promised your sister I’d take good care of you.”

Leon looked startled, and Violet realized too late that she should have kept this information to herself.

She was taken aback when Leon kissed her full on the lips in plain view of the other passengers. “I will tell Colette when I see her that you are doing a fine job of taking care of me,” he said. His voice was grateful.

Violet smiled. “Do you think the other passengers will mind if you kiss me in public?”

Leon dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “Not at all. They’re French, remember?”

Chapter 9

Leon settled back into the bus seat and tried to relax.

He was mortified that he had been hit with a panic attack on the observation platform at the Top of the Rock. He was certain that Violet would think him less of a man because he had an irrational fear of something no normal person would be afraid of. After years of covering it up, he had finally told Colette about his condition, although of course she had already figured it out for herself. His sister was certain he had inherited it. Their mother had suffered from the same fear of heights and had never once been up in the Eiffel Tower in the seventy-six years she had lived in Paris.

The last thing Leon wanted to do was ruin his day in New York City with Violet. He was thoroughly enjoying the bus tour. It was such an efficient way to see the city, and Violet had been so thoughtful to secure a French language tour. Although his understanding of English was fine, he appreciated her gesture of respect to him as a French visitor. Her consideration for others was one of the most attractive things about her.

The bus was entering the financial district, one of the few places in New York where he knew his way around.

“Look, there’s the bull,” he said to Violet, gesturing out the window.

The announcer informed them in French that the Wall Street bull was cast in bronze and weighed over seven thousand pounds. Leon smiled to himself. The Americans constantly forgot that Europeans used the metric system.

“I wonder why there’s no bear?” Violet mused.

Leon laughed. “Because people are optimists. They want to believe things will only get better.”

“That’s not a bad quality to have
.”

“Ah, but we need to be prepared for both. The bull markets get all the attention, but the bear markets keep us on our toes.” He smiled at her.

Violet smiled and returned his gaze through half-lidded eyes, which made Leon’s heart beat faster.

“Your eyes are so large and blue, Violet,” he murmured in her ear. “They are almost the color of your name.”

She drew away from him. Her face was flushed, whether from anger or embarrassment, it was hard to tell.

Leon wasn’t sure whether she understood the effect she had on him, or on men in general. She seemed completely unaware of how beautiful she was, and when he tried to compliment her, she either shrugged it off or became angry with him. She only tolerated him complimenting her if he was kissing her.

Leon resolved that he would have to kiss her more often.

After winding through Lower Manhattan and Wall Street, the tour bus stopped in Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan. Violet nodded to Leon that it was time to get off the bus. It was early evening, and the streets around the lower tip of Manhattan were swarming. There were tourists, stockbrokers, street vendors, hot dog carts, young hipsters, people of all ages, ethnic groups, and stations in life, swirling in a sea of humanity. As a lifelong Parisian, Leon loved roaming crowded urban streets. He was good with directions and prided himself on his ability to find his way around in any setting.

At this moment, though, Violet was in charge of his New York experience.

Leon offered her his arm, and she took it without protest. The crowd was so thick that it would have been easy to lose each other.

“I guess you’d like to know where I’m taking you next,” she said.

“I was curious, yes,” he said sardonically, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“I wouldn’t dream of showing a visitor around New York without a ride on the Staten Island Ferry,” she said. “The views of Lower Manhattan and the statue are wonderful, and well, it’s just part of the experience. The terminal is over here.”

She looked up at him. “Are you okay on boats?”

“Of course I am,” Leon said, trying not to frown. It was the truth. He had never even been seasick.

To Leon’s dismay, the terminal was packed with wall-to-wall people. He reached for his wallet.

“This is going to take a long time,” he said. “I can pick up our tickets for us.”

Violet looked as though she was going to laugh but thought better of it.

“There is no fare, Leon. I know it’s hard to believe, but the Staten Island Ferry is free.”

***

The sun was going down as Violet led Leon to a choice spot looking west along the railing on the outside deck of the big orange ferry. She watched him closely for signs of unease as the boat left the dock and glided out into the harbor. She strongly doubted that he would give her a straight answer if he started to experience distress, so she had positioned them near a doorway in case he suddenly needed to go sit in the cabin – or worse.

There had been no more mishaps that afternoon, and Violet had to admit the bus tour had been fun, even though it was supposed to be for tourists. Now it was her turn to be the tour announcer.

“There’s Ellis Island,” she said. “If you were a European immigrant between the 1890s and the 1950s, it would be your first stop in America for processing. Sometimes they just gave people new names if the old one was too hard to pronounce.”

“It looks like a forbidding place,” Leon remarked.

“Look!” Violet exclaimed. As they gazed toward the Statue of Liberty, the night lighting came to life, bathing the entire statue in a blue-green glow and illuminating France’s long-ago gift to a young nation. The torch burned a bright orange, casting its welcoming message across the water. Behind the statue, the day’s final streaks of light left a faint indigo hue in the west.

Violet had no words to describe it, and none were needed. They both understood the symbolism of the moment. Leon took her in his arms and kissed her, lightly at first, then deeper and more passionately. His tongue made its way into her mouth and lingered there, making lazy circles around hers. She heard him groan faintly as he wrapped his arms around her body, pulling her close to him until she was molded to him. Violet felt his manhood through their clothing, hard and insistent, pressing into her belly and wanting her.

Oblivious to the other passengers, they stayed wrapped in each other’s arms for the rest of the ride across the water. The night was growing cool, and for the return trip, Leon took off his jacket and placed it around Violet’s shoulders, then wrapped his arms around her again. They stood on the foredeck and admired the lights of Lower Manhattan that winked against the night sky like an enormous galaxy as the boat drew closer to the dock.

Violet felt as if they already were lovers.

They disembarked from the ferry and Leon hailed a cab. “I’m in the mood for Italian food,” he told Violet as he helped her in.

“Then it’s Little Italy,” she said, and gave the driver an address. “This place is one of my best kept secrets,” she told him.

“I plan to learn more of your secrets.” Leon gave her a penetrating look with his dark eyes, with a promise of unnamed things to come.

After the host seated them, Leon ordered a seafood dish and had the waiter bring two plates. Violet found that she didn’t mind his assumption that she would like his choice, even though in the past it would have irritated her as presumptuous. The waiter poured their wine – French this time, Violet noted with a smile – and they clicked glasses. The food was excellent.

As their cab whisked them back to their hotel, Leon held her close again and put his hand on her bare thigh.

“I can’t take any more of this,” he murmured in her ear, his voice low and husky so that only she could hear. “I intend to make love to you tonight, Violet. If you don’t want me the way I want you, you had better tell me now.”

His big, warm hand slid up her thigh under her silky black dress, higher and higher, as if daring her to refuse him.

Violet’s heart was racing from the excitement of his touch, but her mind was serene. She had made up her mind on the ferryboat when Leon placed his jacket around her shoulders that she wouldn’t be sleeping in her own bed that night. She turned her face upward to his and accepted his mouth as it engulfed hers. His hands explored the curves of her legs and hips under her dress as the cab sped through the nighttime streets.

The cab dropped them off at the hotel, and they walked through the lobby with Leon’s arm firmly around her shoulders, supporting her and holding her close. Violet was certain that everyone in the entire room knew what they were about to do, and she didn’t care if they did. In fact, she wanted them to know.

The lights of Upper Manhattan were visible through the windows of the suite. Leon tossed his jacket on the back of the leather sofa and turned to Violet.

“Come to me,” he said.

Violet stepped forward into his embrace. Leon’s mouth firmly took possession of hers. His tongue eased between her lips and wrapped around hers, big and hungry. He kissed her lazily at first, then harder and more urgently. She felt his hands lifting her dress at the back and reaching under it to caress her bottom through her cotton panties.

Still kissing her, Leon lifted and squeezed her butt expertly with his hands, letting the firm flesh drop and then lifting it again with a subtle rhythm. Violet stifled an urge to cry out.

Leon broke the kiss and looked into her blue eyes with his deep brown ones. “This must come off,” he said, nodding at her black dress. Violet obeyed and slipped it off over her head, standing before him in her bra and panties.

Leon took off his shirt, revealing his bare, well-muscled torso. Violet drank in the tawny color of his skin, so dark compared to her own.

“Now it is our time,” he said.

Grasping her thighs firmly, he lifted her up to him like a child, with her bare legs spread and wrapped around his waist. Violet clasped her arms around his shoulders and held on to him as he carried her to the master bedroom and lowered her onto the king size bed.

“I have been thinking about this since I met you,” Leon said. He bent over her on the bed and pulled her right bra strap down from her shoulder to her arm with excruciating slowness. “The first evening we went to dinner, I kissed you here…” he said, planting a succession of soft, slow kisses in her cleavage, “and here…” he continued, working his way down the lacy edges of her bra and back up the other side. “And for the rest of that night I couldn’t sleep because I wanted nothing except to taste your beautiful breasts.”

He hooked his finger into the right cup of her bra and slowly peeled it away until he had freed the round, ripe mound of her breast from its confines. He lowered his lips to her nipple and kissed it so gently that at first Violet wasn’t sure whether he had yet touched her. He kissed the nipple again, this time with more pressure, then took the tiny nub into his mouth. His tongue made circles all around it, teasing and caressing it as his mouth opened wider, taking in more and more of the roundness of her bare breast.

Violet cried out with pleasure and pushed her breast upward into his hungry mouth. As he kissed and pleasured her right breast, Leon tugged her left bra strap down around her arm and released the left one. Instantly his mouth was on it, equaling the attention he had just given the other one.

Violet felt Leon’s hard organ digging into her bare belly through his trousers. Without warning, he stood up, unbuckled his leather belt, let his pants drop to the floor, and stepped out of them.

Violet opened her eyes and gasped. He wore no underwear and hadn’t been for the entire day while he had been with her. He was fully erect and stood proudly in front of her, showing his desire for her with his hard flesh. His entire body was muscular and deep tan.

Again, Leon bent over her on the bed, this time tugging at her panties. Violet willingly helped him as he stripped them down over her thighs and tossed them aside.

Lying beside her, he gathered her into his arms and groaned as her skin made full length contact with his body. He pulled her against him more tightly, crushing her soft breasts against his hard chest and kissing her so hard that his face rasped her cheeks and lips like sandpaper. Violet felt him making small thrusting motions with his hips against her belly. The hot length of his
erection burned against her skin.

Gaining control of himself, Leon gazed longingly at Violet, and lightly trailed his fingertip down her nose, across her lips and chin, and down her neck. His finger’s journey continued between her breasts and down the length of her belly, slower and slower, until he arrived at her sex. His eyes met hers, asking her a silent question.