Covenant (Paris Mob Book 1) (19 page)

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C
harlotte watched dispassionately
as Christophe beat his brother to within an inch of his life. Her body was numb, her mind still lost to white noise as Christophe pulled his brother up, sent him careening across the floor.

He fell once, then struggled back to his feet, his leg bleeding through the fabric of his pants. It seemed like forever before he stumbled out the terrace doors, leaving her and Christophe alone with the two dead men. She was only dimly aware of the banging from behind the door with the housekeeper, not because of the blood slowly dripping down her neck. Not even because of the two dead men that lay on the floor not twenty feet away.

It was the painting over the fireplace that got her attention, and she blinked, wondering if she was imagining it, taking in the striking, dark haired woman with flashing eyes. It was an old fashioned oil portrait, if not a very good one. In it, the woman gazed seductively at the camera, her breasts straining against the neckline of a green gown.

But it was the necklace strung around her neck that held Charlotte captive. The chain was visible, but the pendant at the other end was mostly hidden in her dress — all except for a tiny portion of it.

A portion that looked like the top of a gold cross, the faintest glint of an emerald barley visible.

Christophe had frozen next to her, his gaze drawn to the direction of hers.

“Do you see what I see?” she asked him, still looking at the painting, afraid to take her eyes off it in case the image disappeared.

“I think so,” he said. “Unless I’m dreaming.”

“I don’t think you’re dreaming.”

He took her hand. “I don’t think so either.”

H
e set
her down on the sofa, opened the doors to the balcony, and went to the kitchen where he unearthed what looked to be a very old bottle of brandy. He poured a healthy dose into two glasses, downed one of them, then leaned against the counter.

They’d called the police from Ayers’ house phone and left quickly. It was the only way to avoid questions about why they had been there, and while there were people in the States who would help him if he called, he was eager to avoid scrutiny of his business interests.

This was cleaner, smarter.

The only one who had seen them was the housekeeper. The police would rescue her and Ayers and process the bodies of Bruno’s men like any other home invasion. He was concerned about the security cameras, but there had been no help for it; they would have to hope Bruno had done the work of disconnecting the feed before they got there.

But none of that was eating away at his gut.

It was something else that was killing him. Something he’d known since the moment they’d walked into Randall Ayers house and he’d seen his brother.

He refilled his glass and tried to swallow the sadness welling up inside him. He’d put Charlotte at risk. She could have died. Could have been brutally murdered in front of his eyes. But as horrific as that knowledge was, he understood now that what had happened at the Ayers house was a prelude to something else.

Something bigger.

And Bruno was involved.

He didn't know how. Didn't know how the disruptions in his business — in Farrell's business — were connected to the cross. But they were. He felt the gossamer ties that bound them even if he couldn’t see them. Bruno had no interest in art. No interest in stealing anything that was too difficult to sell. Too high profile.

Bruno was about easy money. About skirting attention that might bring the law to his door. It was why he liked to use Christophe’s business. A shield of sorts. He knew Christophe was careful and that if something happened, Christophe would see that it was resolved.

So why risk everything for a piece of stolen art that would be next to impossible to fence? And what had he meant when he’d told Leo in London that he didn’t know who he was messing with?

“Is everything all right?” Charlotte asked from the living room.

He took a deep breath before he answered. The sound of her voice hurt him.

The knowledge of what he would have to do threatened to destroy him.

He picked up the two glasses and returned to the living room, the evening sun casting a soft glow over the small room.

“Everything's fine," he said, handing her one of the glasses. “It took me awhile to find the brandy.”

She took a healthy swallow and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

“Do you have a first aid kit?” he asked.

“A first aid kit?” Her eyes were glassy, and there was something faraway in her expression that made him think part of her was still back at the Ayers house.

Still being held at knife-point by his brother.

He realized he’d made his hands into fists, and he loosened his fingers, then gently touched the area around the dried blood on her neck. “We should clean this up.”

She took another drink. “In the bathroom. Under the sink.”

He stood, went to the bathroom, pulled a clean washcloth off the shelf. After running it under warm water, he retrieved the kit, then returned to the living room.

“Let me know if this hurts,” he said, touching the washcloth to the wound on her neck.

She didn’t flinch, and he let it sit on her skin for a minute, loosening the blood so he wouldn’t have to rub. When he removed the washcloth, he was relieved to see that the cut was small.

“It’s smaller than I expected,” he said. “Does it hurt?”

She shook her head and took another drink.

“Good.”

He didn’t want her to hurt. He wanted to shield her from anything that could ever harm her or make her sad. Instead he’d led her to danger’s door.

He carefully patted antibacterial ointment on the cut. “It’s not bleeding anymore. Do you want me to put a bandage on it?” he asked.

“No.”

“All right.” He set the first aid kit on the coffee table and sat back on the couch, pulling her into his arms. “What can I do?”

She didn’t speak at first. Then she lifted a hand to his chest. “Just… be with me.”

He held her closer, breathing in the smell of her, savoring the soft weight of her against his side. “I’m here.”

She ran her hands against his chest. He stroked her hair, and her breath quickened. God help him, he wanted her. He knew she was vulnerable and probably in shock. That she needed him to be solid and steady beside her. But what he really wanted was to be inside her. To reassure himself that she was alive and well by cloaking himself in her body.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and clear. “Take me to bed.”

“That’s not a good idea,” he said. “You need to rest.”

“No, I don’t. I need you.”

“Charlotte…”

“Stop,” she said. “Just stop. You asked what you can do. This is what you can do; take me to bed.”

He nodded, then stood and swept her into his arms. She kissed his collarbone, and he felt her tongue against the flesh at the base of his neck. It sent a trail of heat up his spine, and his cock lurched to attention. Ready for her. As always.

He set her gently next to the bed, then opened the windows. The ocean breeze rushed into the room like a sigh, the briny air clearing the last of the fog in his brain. He wouldn’t think about the future. Not right now.

Tonight she was his.

He walked slowly back to the bed, trying to memorize the sight of her standing in the soft glow of the sun, slowly beginning to set over the Pacific. When he reached her, she lifted her hands to his shirt and began to work the buttons. He forced his hands to remain at his side, letting her finish. It was only when she reached for his belt that he took her hands in his.

“Not yet, darling.”

He tucked her hair behind her ear, tracing the perfectly sculpted shell with his finger, then running it along her jaw until he reached her lips. They were parted as if in anticipation, and he rubbed his thumb against the cushiony lower lip, just like he had that first night in Vienna.

He wanted to kiss her, but he wanted her naked first. Wanted to feel the press of her nakedness against his chest as he slid his tongue into her mouth. He reached for the tie at the side of her wrap dress and pulled. It opened easily, her body bare between the folds of fabric except for a dainty lace bra and the slip of fabric covering her pussy.

He pushed the dress off her shoulders, then wrapped his arms around her and pressed her close to him. Her hair smelled of jasmine and the sea. He breathed it in, wanting to remember, wrapping his arms around her until she was enveloped against his chest.

Her hands stroked his back, light as a feather, and the softness of her stomach against him made his cock throb. She turned her face to his bare skin and kissed his chest, lightly at first, and then with increasing urgency, her hands moving up to his shoulders, her breath raspy.

“I need you,” she said. “I need you inside me.”

He pulled back, angled his mouth over hers and swept her lips into a kiss that threatened to ignite his body in a firestorm. Her mouth was familiar to him now, but that only seemed to make him want her more. To revisit the heat of it, the slide of her tongue on his. To remind him that she had belonged to him. That he had once known every inch of her.

She pressed against him, her hands sliding into the hair at the back of his head as she met his demands. As she made demands of her own. He explored every corner of her mouth like it was the first time, his hands cradling her head, tipping it up so that he could own her mouth the way he was going to own her body.

One last time.

She broke their kiss first, gasping, and kissed her way down his neck. Then looked up at him. Her chest was rising and falling in time with his own, like they’d both spent a lifetime running toward this moment.

“It’s time for you to fuck me, Christophe.”

S
he’d never wanted
him so badly. Maybe it had been her brush with death. Maybe it was something about the way he was looking at her. Like she might disappear. Like he might disappear instead.

Like they were on borrowed time.

She didn’t know. But she was ravenous for him. She wanted his body and his mouth and his hands. She wanted it all. Wanted to blot out everything that had happened and the looming feeling that it wasn’t over yet.

He reached for his belt, held her gaze while he pulled it out of the straps. He dropped it on the floor, then unzipped his pants and dropped them until he was standing in front of her in all his naked glory.

Her breath quickened further as she took in his cock — swollen and hard. Ready for her. An answering wetness blossomed between her legs, and she felt the beat of some primeval instinct at her center.

Something older than art and beauty and time itself.

She reached for him, taking the engorged member in her hand, wrapping her palm around it and squeezing until he shuddered. He shoved her back on the bed, his eyes molten with need.

She propped herself up on her elbows as he climbed his way up her body, brushing his nose against her thighs, her stomach, her chest. He stopped at her neck, kissed her tenderly near the place where Bruno had cut her. She turned her head, wanting to give him better access. Wanting to feel his lips. Wanting him to heal her.

His cock brushed against the crease between her legs, and she wrapped one leg around his hips, wanting to pull him in closer. He let her have her way, nestling his rod between her folds as he looked down at her. Watching her expression as he slid in between the petals of her sex. She moaned, her back arching as his tip hit her clit.

“Please,” she gasped.

He lowered his mouth to hers. “Please?” he said against her lips.

“Please fuck me,” she said.

He chuckled. “Soon, darling. Soon.”

He touched his tongue to one of her nipples, then sucked the areola into his mouth. The warmth of it combined with his cock, still tucked into the folds of her pussy, almost sent her over the edge. She slid her fingers into his silky hair and moved her hips as he lapped at the nipple.

Then the pressure of his cock was gone as he worked his way down her stomach, pausing between her legs to lay the flat of his palm on her stomach. His expression was reverent, and she held still, letting him worship his way.

When he was done, he pushed her legs open and spread her pussy wide. “You’re a work of art, Charlotte. The finest I’ve ever seen.”

His breath was hot on the sensitive skin between her legs, and she lay back and closed her eyes as he lowered his mouth to her. The flick of his tongue against her clit was a kind of torture that was only heightened when he slid two fingers inside her. She pushed down on them, moving her hips to match the rhythm of them fucking her, his mouth alternately covering her clit in fire, lapping at it, and sucking it into his mouth until the orgasm roared through her body like a backdraft. It took her by surprise, and she had no choice but to give herself over to it, to let go of her body and let it shudder against his mouth, lapping at her pussy as his fingers moved inside her.

When it was over, she reached for him, desperate to feel him inside her. He rose to his knees and flipped her onto her stomach, and she felt his hands running down her back, caressing the cheeks of her ass.

“I’m going to be so far inside you, Charlotte. You’re going to feel me everywhere.”

She lifted her hips off the bed in answer, and she felt the big head of his cock brush against her entrance. She wanted to push back on him. To feel him sink all the way into her. He rubbed his tip back and forth through her folds until he was slippery with her come.

“I wish you could see how beautiful you are right now,” he said, running a hand down her back.

Then he grabbed her hips and drove into her.

She cried out as he hit her cervix. He reached around, rubbing her clit with his thumb while he gave her time to stretch for him. It didn’t take long for her to start moving against him. Her body knew what it wanted.

It had known since the first moment she’d seen him.

He moved slowly inside her, taking his time as he sunk all the way in. Taking just as long to drag out of her, inch by inch, before thrusting slowly into her again. There was something tender about it, about the slow but forceful strokes, the way he held the back of her neck with one hand as he fucked her.

She pushed against him when he drove into her, moved with him when he pulled out, working his rhythm like they’d been made for each other.

Maybe they had.

He started moving faster, and she felt him swell inside her. Felt him grow harder as he approached release.

“Yes,” she said. “Come inside me, Christophe.”

He groaned, favoring her with a particularly ferocious thrust, then bent over her body to kiss her. She turned her head, meeting his lips, the feel of his tongue invading her mouth while his cock plundered the core of her body erotic enough to bring her orgasm to the forefront.

He was thrusting in and out of her pussy, kissing her with so much urgency she could hardly separate the occupation of her mouth from the occupation of her body. There was no separation of anything now.

His body was hers. And she belonged to him.

They were one.

Ducunt volentem fata.

The fates lead the willing.

The words drifted through her mind as he pushed into her with a guttural cry, pouring his come into her while her body clenched around him, still thrusting, taking possession of her mouth as he took possession of her body.

Then he was collapsing over her, leaving a trail of kisses on her back in the moment before he pulled out of her and tucked her into his side. He was still breathing hard when he kissed her lips, tenderly smoothed her hair.

She tried to ignore that it felt like goodbye.