Falloir (Passion Noire Book 2) (24 page)

I told her that I only wanted to show her that I could make her come with one finger—the worst chat up line in the world, daring her ... no, actually hoping that she’d slap my face and tell me to piss off but she didn’t. She giggled and ate it up. It made me feel sick. I tell you what though—it’s enough to justify the expense of my gym membership. I need to keep my physique so I can still attract classier women than that by the time I reach my fifties because the prospect of only having that on the menu is not one I relish. I’d rather go without—there’s no way I’d go there.

Thankfully, there were younger, if not classier women in the place and I’d flirted and responded to the advances of the sluttiest one with the intention of screwing Veuve right out of my system. I hadn’t even set foot outside the pub with her before I knew it wasn’t going to work. I knew I’d regret it. And why? It’s fucking obvious. The only way I can fuck Veuve out of my system, is to
fuck Veuve
out of my system. So I extricated myself from the octopus-like clutches of whatever-her-name-was and left her slumped against the bar, sulking into her Jaeger Bomb, and came back here.

My bladder’s beginning to feel bruised so I head back to the bathroom. Surely Veuve’s finished now. Nope. I can still hear the water running. That does it, it’s either sprint for the kitchen sink or an open window—neither of which would earn me another night on Veuve’s sofa—or it’s bursting into the bathroom and averting my eyes as I point Percy at the porcelain.

The latter wins but, as soon as I set foot inside, my senses tell me there’s something wrong. My feet still and my bladder loses its urgent need to piss as I attempt to find out what’s amiss without earning a black eye from the Black Widow herself. It’s obvious, even using only my peripheral vision. The water’s running in the shower but there’s not a body standing under the spray. I concentrate at the edge of my vision and realise that the body is in the shower tray.

I stride over and pull open the door. Veuve’s sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them and her cheek is resting on her knee until she registers me. Even with the water cascading down over her, I can tell she’s crying. My first thought is that I’m glad I put my brown contacts back in as soon as I’d finished crippling Nurse Gareth’s car. My second thought is that something went wrong tonight. She went out to get laid and now she’s sitting in the shower, sobbing. My second thought makes it past my mouth.

I knew I shouldn’t have let her walk into Vouloir earlier. When I dropped her off, I almost tried to stop her but I knew she wouldn’t listen. I was about to say ‘fuck it’ to the whole Thierri plan and ask her to take me in there and do whatever she needed but she’d made some quip about my eyes getting girls into bed. It kind of took the wind out of my sails. Now, more than at any time tonight, I wish I’d insisted.

‘What happened, Veuve? Tell me who hurt you and I’ll fucking kill the bastard.’

She looks up at me in confusion and then shakes her head, just a fraction as though anything else would be too much effort. ‘Nobody hurt me. I’m fine.’

Correct me if I’m wrong, but whenever a woman says she’s fine, she’s anything but ... and, given the vision I’m confronted with, not to mention her shaky voice, I know she’s far from fine. I grab a bath sheet from the rail and, with my other hand, reach in and turn off the shower. She looks at me warily as though she’s trying to decide something. I crouch down so I’m almost at her eye level and it’s only then that I realise that she’s still wearing that corset. I open the towel and hold it out with both hands.

‘Come on, let’s get you dry. Then I’ll make a hot chocolate and you can choose whether to tell me what’s going on. Deal?’

She sniffs to clear her nose and nods. Something tugs at me inside my chest. She looks so young and so vulnerable. Since that first night I came here, when I brought a semi-conscious Dean, and then we went off to try to save Dan, I’ve had an urge to protect her. I saw vulnerability in her that night, along with plenty of tears. Since then, although she’s made it clear that my appearance and my alpha male status make her want to keep me at arm’s length, I just seem to want her more. Now, the need to protect is stronger than ever.

I wrap the towel around her and help her to her feet then begin to rub my hands over the fabric. I don’t know whether I’m trying to dry her or comfort her but I expect her to push me away. She doesn’t. I grab another towel and begin to pat her long, black locks that are dripping water down her back. As I work, I sense her beginning to relax—it’s as though she’s letting go of something but I’ve no idea what. I feel like I should suggest that she remove the corset to be comfortable but I don’t want to break the bubble we’re in.

‘Thank you,’ she whispers, when I’m done. She’s like a version of herself ... not the whole thing ... I can’t describe it but she seems smaller, no—not smaller, less powerful. Less controlling, allowing me to dry her and not putting up her usual prickly resistance. It feels good but I don’t fool myself that this is anything more than her needing to regroup and re-energise herself. And the last thing I’d do is try to take advantage.

‘All dry,’ I declare. ‘I’m going to make you a hot chocolate. I’ll be two minutes—I’ll bring it into the living room.’

‘Can we sit on my balcony?’ she asks and I manage to hold on to my eyebrows.

‘Sure,’ I say as though it’s the most natural thing in the world for her to defer to me but, as I leave her and head into the kitchen, I feel uncomfortable. I know she’s under a lot of stress and, believe me, I know the signs. Acting out of character, feeling low, maybe even a little depressed ... they’re all warning signs that someone is in stress overload. I’m glad she’s released some tonight but if the causes of her stress are still there, it can, and will, build up again in no time at all.

Maybe I’ll get some luck with Thierri tomorrow. I’ll certainly do my best. That might help to lift some of the stress from her. I’m still worried about how she took the loss of Dan. I know he wasn’t a close friend or family and that she didn’t know him well but she blames herself for his death, at least in part. I know she does. With everything else that she’s got going on, it’s no wonder she’s beginning to struggle.

I heap instant powder into mugs and it occurs to me how much I’ve enjoyed letting her lean on me, just a little. I also know that she hates it. I guess I’ll just have to make her see that it’s not the end of the world. We all need somebody, sometimes. Except I know that because of her past and probably because of the shit she helps her clients to deal with, she doesn’t want to need anybody. Needing somebody is a weakness in her eyes. Ruthless independence is her protection, just as bottling everything up is her coping strategy.

I recognise it well; I’m cut from the same cloth. It kept me alive and yet, since leaving the Corps, I know it isn’t the best way to deal with things. I’ve seen too many commandos get eaten up by their demons because their head’s full of all the shit they’ve seen and done but they won’t let anyone in. Mind you, she opened up to me about Paul, didn’t she? I know that was more out of necessity—she thought I should know about him in order to keep her safe. Did that help her or did it simply wake her demons?

Fuck—I don’t like the thought that confiding in me is what could have triggered this. I get the impression that I’m one of only a few who knows about her past so she’s not used to offloading. The whole drama about the letterbox fire that followed before she had a chance to get her head straight wouldn’t have helped. And that was followed by The Kid’s revelation. The fact that events triggered nightmares for both of them is proof that both of them are struggling.

I’d thought that nothing could top the vision of her in that ‘fuck me’ corset when she walked into the kitchen earlier when I was waiting for my clothes to dry. But the image of Veuve looking so broken, so weak, in the shower cubicle is one that will stay with me for a long time. It’s odd that the picture of vulnerability and emotional overload is more powerful than her personification of dominance. Maybe it’s because it’s so rare. She hides it so well.

After visiting the bathroom at long last, I take the mugs through to her bedroom and see that she’s opened the doors to the balcony but she’s standing with her back to me, minus the towel, guiding a hairbrush through her tangled hair. I place our drinks on the little bistro table and hover inside the doorway. The knowledge that I’m in her bedroom, dying to get her out of her corset yet with no desire to lay a finger on her doesn’t escape me. I also know it’s because I respect her, something that’s practically unheard of for me but it’s true.

‘Your hot chocolate awaits, ma’am,’ I announce and then bow and gesture toward the balcony when she turns. It’s designed to break the ice before she has a chance to finish re-erecting the barriers. I know that’s what she’s doing from the determined way she’s dragging the hairbrush through her hair.

She turns and smiles and I know I’ve halted the process, for now. ‘Thank you.’

I grin. ‘I’m sure you’d feel better if you took that killer corset off ...’ I see her eyes flash and I continue hurriedly, ‘and put something more comfortable on instead. I’m not trying to get you naked and, believe me, that corset is incredibly easy on the eye but it’s wet and—’

‘Okay, Jones,’ she says, sounding more like herself. ‘I get it. And trust me, I would have taken it off before I got in the shower but I couldn’t unfasten it.’

I walk over without hesitation. She turns and pulls her damp hair to one side, over her shoulder and out of my way. My fingers begin to tremble the second I touch her. There’s a ball of knots for me to go at—I can’t help but think those tits would need some securing to keep them in but I know that she must usually be able to extricate herself from these garments without a problem. I also realise that tonight’s activities are probably to blame for the additional knotting and yet again, my stomach churns.

I push those thoughts away and concentrate solely on picking away at the knots—not easy when my damn fingers seem to be vibrating. With every breath I take, I can smell the delicate scent of her body wash and her exposed neck is urging me to pay it some attention ... with my lips. I defeat the last knot and release the cords. They dangle down the middle of her back and come to rest between her voluptuous arse cheeks. The urge to step up and grab her, pulling her into my body so I can feel her through my clothes and then taste her damned inviting neck is almost overpowering.

Instead, my trembling fingers pick up the cord and carefully begin to loosen the lattice that runs from under her shoulder blades to the top of her arse. I visualise ripping it open, flipping her round and burying my face between those tits. I can picture them ... full ... heavy ... tipped with deep pink circles that pucker as soon as soon as I so much as look at them. My cock lurches and it’s a wakeup call; this isn’t supposed to be a sexual act or even a sensual one, but it’s so hard to be this close to her—no pun intended.

I realise with a jolt that I’ve frozen completely, such is the tension between doing the right thing and doing what I desire. She must have felt it too because she turns, holding the loosened corset to her chest as the cords are pulled from my fingers. And, just like that, the prickly, awkward atmosphere is back. I stride on to the balcony and grab the rail then stare, unseeing, into the darkness. She joins me a few moments later, wrapped in an ivory-coloured, silky robe.

The tension is still building yet I don’t know what to do or say to break it. I know I should—it was my fault for allowing those thoughts to invade my brain. I fear the moment to encourage her to talk about whatever is upsetting her has passed. I turn and retrieve the mugs from the table, passing one to her. She whispers her thanks but her thoughts are distant as she stares out into the night. Something is still bothering her but she’s going through the motions of pushing it to the back of her mind, burying it.

I want to tell her not to, that it will only clamber back to the surface again but, more than that, I want her to feel that she can open up to me. Whether it’s confessing, venting or baring her soul, I want to be the one that she turns to. I want to help.

‘Not easy when everything gets too much, is it?’ I say quietly, almost to myself as I stare across the darkened gardens.

Unless she is totally lost in thought, waging an internal battle or something, I know she’ll have heard me. She doesn’t miss much. I know that if I push her, she’ll clam up so, in the spirit of openness, I decide to take a different approach. I’m pretty sure she’ll figure out what I’m doing, she’s the therapist after all but I have to do something.

‘We’re not so different, you and I. We’ve both lived through more than our fair share of shit but, unlike you, most of mine is in my past. Your job and your lifestyle just keep throwing more at you. I take my hat off to you, you cope so well with it ... on the surface.’

Silence. I sip my hot chocolate but she remains statuesque next to me.

‘What do you mean
on the surface?
’ she asks eventually in a little voice.

‘You bury everything as deeply as you can in the recesses of your mind.’

She holds her mug to her mouth, blowing on the hot liquid. ‘I don’t get what you mean. You started by saying you were impressed by how I cope but ended by implying that I don’t cope well at all.’

I shrug. ‘I’m not criticising you, Veuve. I’d be a fucking hypocrite if I did. I’m saying that burying it is
how
you cope.’

More silence. I’m beginning to wonder if she’s shut down now that there’s no argument to be had but then she speaks.

‘As a therapist, I should know better, I know that. But the biggest thing I’ve had to deal with happened before I did my training so my coping mechanism was set and, because of the severity of the emotional trauma, it was set in stone. So yes, you’re right. I bury everything ... or as I think of it, I lock each thing away in little boxes inside my head. Each little box contains something that I’ve parcelled up and banished. If anything’s too big for a box, I break it down and consign it to a number of boxes.’