Covenant (Paris Mob Book 1) (13 page)

S
he didn't start shaking
until the plane was in the air. After deciding to go to Boston, they'd made their way out of the city center in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Julien had been waiting at the airport with their bags and passports, all of which he’d retrieved from the hotel after a call from Christophe. All the while she’d been perfectly calm. Or she thought she’d been perfectly calm. Now that they were airborne, she was beginning to wonder if it had been numbness, her body’s response to the shock of being chased through the city by someone who clearly meant them harm.

She turned her eyes to the window, watching Vienna disappear beneath them, trying to focus on her breathing, to ignore the prickle of ice that seemed to be spreading along the surface of her skin. The air in lungs felt heavy and wet. It took effort to drag it in and out of her body.

“Come.” She looked up to find Christophe leaning over her, concern written on his face. He reached down, unbuckled her seatbelt, held out a hand.

She took it, and he led her through the plane. They passed the galley and a restroom before coming to a bedroom at the back of the aircraft. The room was small, a bed occupying almost every inch of it, although there was also a diminutive cabinet and drawers built into the walls next to the bed.

She sat on the edge of the mattress, overcome with the desire to lay down, let her head sink into one of the soft pillows, close her eyes and shut off her mind from everything that had happened.

Christophe opened a door built into the wall of the plane and removed a blanket. He set it across her shoulders, and she wrapped it tightly around her body, a buffer against everything harsh and dangerous that had somehow come to occupy her world.

He turned away and opened the cabinet, poured a healthy dose of bourbon into each of two glasses, handed her one of them.

“Drink.”

She did, and for a moment her body was occupied with the smoky taste of it in her mouth, the burn of it in her throat. The warmth spread slowly into her limbs, and she felt the frost on her skin begin to recede.

“You're in shock,” he said, sitting next to her. “It's understandable.”

“They were shooting at us,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Do you think they were the same men who threatened me in Paris?” she asked.

“I suppose that's a fair assumption.” He opened his mouth as if to say more, then seemed to decide against it. She wanted to ask him about it. What had he been about to say? Did he know something about the men who had chased them? About what they wanted?

But her body was weighted down with shock and bourbon, her mind growing increasingly fuzzy as her eyes fought to stay open.

He took the glass from her hand, set it on the cabinet, pulled her back onto the bed so that she was nestled in the crook of his arm. She sighed, sinking into him, breathing in his scent, a scent that she’d somehow come to associate with safety and solidity in spite of the danger that had surrounded her the past few days. The hum of the plane was a faint backdrop to the sound of his heart beating against her ear, the soft inhale and exhale of his breath.

He stroked her hair, his hands gentle but sure. “I’m right here. Sleep, darling.”

She closed her eyes, letting the warmth of his voice settle over her nerves like a lullaby. She was falling into the abyss of sleep when a last thought drifted across her mind.

He called me darling.

S
he woke with a start
, sitting up all at once, pulled from some kind of nightmare.

“It’s all right,” Christophe said, stroking her back. “I’m here. You were dreaming.”

She lay back against him, trying to calm her racing pulse as the last remnant of the dream — shadows and fear and footsteps closing in behind her — faded like smoke.

The cabin of the plane was dark, the hum of its engine a soothing vibration. The moon was full, shining in through one of the windows. She could make out the shape of the cabinet, the rumpled bedding, Christophe’s legs stretched out in front of him next to her own, bare under her skirt.

“How long have I been asleep?” she asked.

He checked his watch. “About three hours.”

She lifted a hand to his chest, reassured by the solidness of his body under her fingers. But of course, it wasn’t just that. She was beginning to wonder if she would ever touch him and have it only be that. Because now she felt the current of her desire for him spark between his skin and her fingertips. Felt the low and persistent beat of need at the center of her body.

She should have been embarrassed. After all that had happened, wanting him shouldn’t have been at the forefront of her mind. Needing him inside her shouldn’t have been the one thing she desired most of all.

But there was no help for it. Her body’s call to him was as undeniable as the breath moving in and out of her lungs. As the feel of his body under hers.

She ran her fingers lightly over the crisp shirt, touched her fingers to the bare skin near his neck. Already something was coming alive in her, the nerve endings that had been cold only a couple of hours before now glowing like embers at the heart of a fire.

He captured her hand in his, kissed it. “You should rest.”

She propped herself onto her side, lowered her mouth to his. “I don’t want to rest,” she said against his lips.

And it was true. She’d been in shock earlier, her body shutting down as it attempted to process the near-death experience of being chased by the men in Vienna. Men who had probably killed Stefan Baeder.

Men who probably wanted to kill her, too.

But she was alive, and now her body was crackling with the truth of it. She was nearly crawling out of her skin with need for him. With the need to touch him. To feel his hands on her. To kiss him. To feel his lips on her skin. To open herself to him until he filled her completely.

She kissed him again, slipping her tongue between his lips as she slid on top of him, straddling his cock, already bulging and rock-hard in his trousers.

He groaned, reached up to cradle her head in his big hands as he pulled her closer, taking possession of her mouth with his tongue. A bolt of heat pierced her center, and she positioned herself over his erection, her skirt riding up to her hips as she ground against him through his pants while she returned every parry of his tongue with one of her own.

He kissed his way to her ear and she reached down, unzipping his pants, reaching in to free his massive cock. She closed her hand around it, and the feel of it — skin on skin, heat on heat — sent a pulse of fire to her pussy.

He groaned as she stroked him, his lips traveling down her neck as he unfastened the buttons on her blouse one at a time, kissing each newly revealed patch of skin. There was something tender about the motion, about the stroke of his tongue on her stomach when he reached the last button, the gentle sweep of his hands across her shoulders as he dispensed with the shirt. It was something that hadn’t been present the night before when his possession had been a force of nature.

This was different, and he moved his hands over her breasts, down to her hips. His eyes glittered in the half-darkness, and she thought she saw something conflicted there, something more complex than the fire igniting between their bodies.

She leaned down, kissed him slow and deep, and felt his cock pulse through the thin fabric of her panties. She unbuttoned his shirt slowly, sinking into the languid feel of their lovemaking. They were underwater. Already in the lagoon that had closed over them when they’d come together the night before.

When she was done with the buttons, she spread open the shirt, revealing his muscled chest, perfectly formed and defined. Moonlight streamed in through the window, painting his skin alabaster. She’d never been an artist, had always been satisfied with her study of the art of others. But now she wished she could draw or paint, that she could somehow commit the beauty of his body to paper or canvas.

His eyes were locked with hers through the darkness, and she felt something pass between them. Some kind of communication that transcended language. He moved his hands carefully down her body, tracing her curves, as he held her gaze. When he reached her hips, he slipped a hand between their bodies, pulled her panties aside. Then he was bare against her folds, the taut, smooth skin of his cock nestled within the petals.

She moved against him, let him slide back and forth, his thick head hitting her clit until it throbbed like a sensual beat.

“Charlotte…”

They were the first words he’d spoken, and her name on his lips as his body moved against hers was erotic and emotional at the same time. Tenderness flowed toward him even as she knew it was a mistake. Knew it was dangerous to feel anything — let alone something like tenderness — for a man like Christophe Marchand.

But it was too late. It was already there.

“I need you inside me,” she said. It was the truth, and an easier one to bear than the possibility of having feelings for him.

He reached into one of the drawers next to the bed, removed a condom. She felt the restraint in his body. Felt the strength it took for him not to flip her under him, drive into her like he had the night before, make her his before she could try to possess him instead.

Christophe was not a man who wanted to be possessed. Wasn’t a man who would normally allow it.

But he remained under her, handing her the condom even as she felt his body twitch against the constraint of her body over his. He was doing it for her. Letting her take control. Letting her be in charge as a way to banish the helplessness she’d felt when the men had threatened her in Paris, when they’d given chase through Vienna.

She took the condom from his hand and opened it, positioned herself between his legs as she stroked his magnificent cock. He was gripping the blankets on the bed, forcing himself to submit to her ministrations when what he really wanted was to fuck her.

She lowered her mouth to him, flicking her tongue against his swollen tip before closing her mouth around it. He groaned, and his hands came down to tuck her hair behind her ears. She sucked the head while she stroked his shaft with her hands, reveling in her power over him as he lengthened and hardened in her hand.

She couldn’t control her heart. She couldn’t make him feel anything for her in return. But right now, in this moment, he was hers.

She slid her mouth down his length, taking every inch of him in her mouth as she massaged his balls.

His hips came up off the bed. “Fuck, Charlotte…”

She willed her throat to open, took him in another inch until her mouth was all the way at the base of him, his head nestled at the back of her throat. She held the position, feeling him throb in her mouth, then moved back up to the tip, closing her hand around him as she took him in and out of her mouth, sucking at the tip, pushing him all the way into her throat on the downstroke.

It was what she needed. The desire to make him come, to focus on his pleasure, blotted out everything else. There was nothing outside of the tiny room, the faint hum of the plane, the moonlight over Christophe’s body. Nothing except his pulsing flesh in her mouth, the wet heat soaking her center as her body readied itself for him.

“You can either fuck me or I can fuck you,” he said, pulling at her arms. “But one way or another I’m going to be inside that sweet pussy, Charlotte.”

The words sent a tidal wave of urgency roaring through her body. She took her mouth off him, rolled the condom onto his steely rod, then straddled his hips and positioned herself over him. She took him in her hand, centered his thick crown at her entrance.

She leaned down, touched her lips to his. “If you want this sweet pussy, you’re going to have to come and get it.”

He grabbed her hips and drove up into her with a ferocious thrust. She screamed as he impaled her. He was so big — almost too big — and she held still, his cock stretching her open as she sank deeper onto him, willing her body to part for him.

After a few seconds she started to move, rotating her hips, grinding on him to get the friction she wanted on her clit. He chuckled, and the rumble of it through his body while he was inside her brought a smile to her lips.

“That’s right,” he said. “Take it, Charlotte. Take every inch of it. Use it.”

It was all the permission she needed, and she braced her palms against his chest, using the leverage to press him deeper into her, to give her more control over the position of his body against the pulsing seed at her center.

He moved with her, meeting her rhythm as he reached between them, touching his thumb to her clit.

“Oh, god…” she moaned. “Please…”

“Please?” he murmured.

“Please don’t stop,” she gasped.

“I’m not stopping until you come, Charlotte. You should know that.”

And she did. She didn’t know everything about him, but she knew enough. She knew that he would let her wring him out, that he would worship at the altar of her body until she came, until she’d let go of everything ugly that had happened in Vienna.

Everything ugly that had ever happened to her.

She closed her eyes, let her body take over, her hips rocking against his, his cock filling her as his fingers circled her clit. The other side was there. She could feel it blossoming at her core, spreading outward like a blush, the heat seeping through her body as she came closer to release.

He moved faster, his hands firm on her hips as he thrust upward, taking control as she lost herself in the sensation of his body joining with hers: the painful separation when he slid almost out of her, the exquisite relief when he plunged into her again. She let go of everything.

The threats from the men in Paris.

Her doubts about Christophe Marchand.

The mystery of the cross and the unknown future chasing it would bring.

She let it all go and focused on the burgeoning climb at her center, Christophe’s body moving under her, his hands warm on her hips, the perfect rub of him against her clit.

“Look,” he said. “Watch me fuck you.”

She opened her eyes, looked down, watching him disappear inside her, emerge wet and glistening before he thrust into her again.

It sent her over the edge, pushing her back underwater until she was both sinking and floating. Until she was swimming through the fireworks at the center of her body, her pussy clenching hard and fast around him as he moved inside her.

His groan erupted into the room around them as he shuddered inside her, spilling his come as he drove into her, letting her milk him of every drop. His orgasm seemed endless, his thrusts vicious as he sought to empty himself into her until she collapsed on top of him.

He closed his arms around her, and rather than the distance she expected as he came back to himself, she felt that he was still right there. Still swimming with her through the mysterious waters of their passion.