Knockout! A Passionate Police Romance (18 page)

They walked hand in hand to La Marmite Restaurant in the old town of Antibes. Mike Leyton was already seated. Several diners recognized Freddie and swiveled necks as he crossed the room.

“Mike - we met in Cannes...” He opened, shaking her father’s hand warmly.

“Mmm - indeed. You only wanted a boat then and now you want my daughter as well! Now that’s what I call inflation.” He joked.

Anna watched her father’s face, knowing that he would be carefully appraising her man and also his likely response to the planned revelations after the sea trial.

“She is so lovely - who could not want her? I think she can stay in the business maybe - I guess you don’t want to lose your top executive...” Beamed Freddie.

Mike looked a little uneasy. She could see that he did not want to enter the deception further.

“Oh well - we’ll see how it goes shall we?” He said breezily.

They dined heartily on sea food specialties de la maison, washed down with an unpretentious crisp Muscadet. Mike did not drink, explaining that he had to chopper back to La Rochelle. The two men formed an instant bond, talking of boats, engines and sea fishing. She had never seen her father so animated and at ease. She was an only child although he had longed for a son. Maybe that is how she ended up as a cop. Maybe now he would have the son or grandson that would make his life... She slapped herself inwardly. That could never be now... now that she had deceived her way into Freddie’s heart. A wave of utter sadness rolled in across her.

“Baby - I’m so sorry,” began Freddie “- you look so alone there with us guys rattling on about boys toys.”

She smiled, putting on her mask of happiness.

“I’ve got to get airborne,” said her father, fixing her with a kind expression but conveying command. “I’ll leave everything to you. Deal with every aspect.”She was in no doubt as to what he meant.

“Trust me Dad - I won’t let you down.” She replied, kissing him on both cheeks and letting him go. They sat down while Freddie sipped a cognac.

“Probably my last for a while,” he commented with a wry smile. “Normally I train for two months.

“It’s only a couple of weeks to the fight.” She replied, hoping for an insight.

“Yeah - people see me in restaurants and on a boat... they do not see my body... they run off and write that I’m out of shape.” He chuckled, looking at her with a wicked gleam in his eye.

“And are you in the right shape?”

“When I step in that ring - I’ll do what I have to do.” He drawled.

She looked into his exquisite masculine face with the long scar over his brow. She surmised that the good humored chat with her father, the wine and the brandy had opened him up and he wanted to talk.

“And what do you have to do?” She asked, fixing her eyes on his.

“I have to marry the most beautiful woman - that’s all that’s on my mind.”

“God Freddie - why do you shut me out like this?” She fired hotly.

“I’m not shutting you out baby,” he cajoled. “Just think of it as a few minutes of lunacy between now and the rest of our lives.”

“Lunacy that could kill...” She pulled up short, not wanting to go there in her own mind or plant the idea in his...

“Anna - I know what I’m doing baby. You just asked your dad to trust you - so do the same and trust your man.” He said firmly.

He helped her with her wrap and drew her into his arms, kissing her warmly and searchingly on her lips.

“Allez!” Yelled an enthusiastic diner.

He smiled as several females appeared to become motionless staring at him. Anna looked around the room. Then she saw him. Deep in a corner, the guy who had been driving the white car at the help-pad. She caught his slow pitiless eye and stared back his menace, recognizing a signal that she had received so many times from dangerous criminals. Abruptly she switched out of her professional character. Perhaps it was already too late and he would have picked up her own cop radar that worked like a dog’s nose and would never leave her. At least she knew there were sharks in the water - in case she had to swim.

She took Freddie’s arm. She thought deeply about his behavior. Suddenly she realized that above all, he wanted to be seen, wanted to be reported as the playboy champ. Something was cooking and she was sure that Freddie was about to win another Michelin star for cuisine.

The Nereus rocked gently on its moorings. The moon was full and reflected with the harbor lights on the inky water. For a few moments he held her as they stood on the deck taking in the view. He was still and she felt his thoughtfulness as she picked up the slow beat of his heart.

“What are you thinking?” She asked.

“Oh - just how lucky I am to be here with you in this beautiful place. I can smell the salty air, I can know your love and dream of our lives to come. I can look up and wonder at the stars - all those things that not everyone can do. This life is not fair you know...”

She knew he had stopped and did not look at him. Her voice whispered to him in the darkness.

“You seem sad to say that - but it is so. On the streets of the city there are tragedies sleeping in doorways - kids with no chances who die in a despair of drugs - innocent victims of terrible crimes. These things make it more important to see the stars.” She replied warmly against his shoulder, sensing that his constantly unspoken sorrow drifted in the still night. She wanted to say more but pulled back, realizing that she was opening up her own inner world that he could never enter.

He shook his head and pulled her to him more firmly.

“You are the strangest creature Anna. You come from a world of wealth and glamour - but sometimes you talk like a social worker.”

“Perhaps you don’t really know me...”

“You are right,” came his deep gentle voice, “we should talk - I should talk. You are to be my wife and there are things - big things you should know.”

And there in that moment, looking out into the moonlit velvet darkness she let her secret slip away noiselessly into the ocean and the moment was gone. After the sea trial she would wade straight in. Until then there was love and the warm hard power of her lover to share the night.

Bertrand and Lucienne served breakfast before setting off for a day shopping in Monte Carlo. Anna wore a simple Leyton marine T shirt and blue cotton shorts. Freddie had opted for jeans and denim shirt.

The twin engines roared into life and soon they were heading out past the Cap D’Antibes, turning east towards Cannes. The Mediterranean sparkled in the warm autumn sun as the Nereus cut through the sea, trailing behind it a path of pure white water like a bridal train. She watched his skill at handling the boat. Everything he did look assured and confident. He checked the depth and radar before pushing the throttles forward. The vessel surged onwards, raising the note from a deep baritone to a clear tenor. They flew and bucked across the tops of waves along the coast. She watched his delighted face as he enjoyed the handling and power of the superb machine. Finally he brought the speed down and headed towards the sea side of the Isle Ste Marguerite, dropping anchor in an area of sea called the plateau milieu. He closed down the engines and let the wind and the lapping sea frame the postcard of the Nereus in a pure blue ocean.

Anna went below and returned with a bottle of champagne and two crystal glasses. He had moved to the front deck and was relaxing on the king size white leather sun pad. She sat beside him and bent over, kissing his lips.

“You don’t give me a hard sell on this boat.” He said, smiling wickedly and running his hand under her T shirt to her aroused longing nipple. His touch was as light as a bird but sent shockwaves vibrating down to the apex of her thighs.

“These boats sell themselves.” She murmured, already beginning to twitch at the base of her stomach. She could not control her response to him and knew that her moist heat of desire was rising and opening - shrieking for his touch.

She lay back. Above her was nothing but the infinite blue of the sky and beyond that the invisible universe of stars. They rocked gently on the sea as if she were a cloud, free of the world and all its constraints - free to abandon her body and mind to the ancient gods of lust and desire.

Deftly he raised her shirt and placed his lips in a sweet sucking kiss on her nipple. She felt his hand sweeping teasingly down to the waistband of her shorts and resting on the damp silky barrier of her knickers. Imperceptibly he slipped his finger under the fabric and into her soft lush groove and let out a groan of pure male excitement and arousal.

“
Anna - ma belle - je t’aime.”
He croaked huskily. She let her legs drift apart without modesty as he began his now familiar tiny circles of exquisite teasing. Her nub hardened and screamed for attention as he began to press her little petal folds against some deep focus of joy.

“Oh Freddie - you know you’ll make me come...” She whispered in a hoarse lust laden voice that brought a deep animal sound from his throat in response. A warm spill of pleasure began to spread across her belly and thighs. Inside she started to tense and pulse as her mind flooded with the fantasy of his face and the gush of his release, pouring and pouring within her like an unstoppable warm rain.

He continued his delicate caress, his hand between her flesh and her knickers. Her sense of naughtiness and the open air excited her more and more. Now there was only the dark void of pleasure as she released her hold and let the dam of ecstasy burst and gush around her.

He felt her convulsion and pressed his lips to her neck, whispering “You are my woman - I love you so much.”

His words mixed with the abstract throb of her body and pushed her on to a sensation beyond anything she had known. She felt him pulling away her shorts and knickers and let her thighs open. Her soft longing triangle was exposed to the wild air and sky as she felt his tongue licking down her belly until a jolt of bliss sparked through her as he found her bursting bud. His lips caressed her soft secret folds, teasing and holding her at the brink of oblivion. Her eyes took in the cloudless blue above as he led her on and on towards paradise. Ripples built to waves until the tidal deluge of her abandoned climax swept her away, leaving her powerless to stop, calling his name into space and across the perfect sea.

He felt the tremble of her belly as she came. Now he could no longer control his own desire. He slipped from his jeans letting the power of his erection free. Her wet longing body called to him and drove him forward, desperate to plunge into her.“Je t’aime.” He groaned as he slid deep inside, feeling exquisite jolts of pleasure with every move.

She felt him rock hard and massive between her thighs. His thrusts filled and held her open as his gorgeous fullness brought her back to her peak once again. All restraint had drifted away into the wilderness of the sky and sea. She craved for him to come inside her and pulled his iron muscled buttocks towards her as she wrapped her legs around his waist. She could hear his groans lengthening as he plunged to her limits.

He felt her legs wrap around him as the distant drums of his own ecstasy started their unstoppable beat faster and faster. He looked down at her face, soft and enraptured with wordless pleasure. The force of his climax blotted out all thought as his juice rushed and pumped into the moist pulsing heart of his woman - his lover.She let out her own animal squeal of passion and joy and let the pagan spirit of the air and water accept them as two helpless and unashamed creatures of lust and flesh, loving as all time had created them to love.

For a while they lay wrapped in each other’s arms, rocked by the motion of the boat. Too soon it began to chill and she watched him as he stirred and made his way back to the controls. His imprint was still warm inside her as the awareness of what had to come dawned on her. As soon as they tied up in the harbor she would tell him - tell him everything. At least he had not learned the truth from some other source. She had to face the truth and her deception. Somehow - somehow she felt that they could still be lovers at bed time. The engines roared into life and she went to stand behind him as he turned the craft back towards Antibes and opened the throttles. She gently soothed his massive rock hard shoulders, hoping that in some way she could comfort him in advance. The evening was settling as lights began to sprinkle the shoreline of Cannes and the Riviera. A night was coming and could not be avoided.

Skillfully he slid the vessel onto the mooring, shut down the engines and went below as she secured the ropes. She waited for him to return, but he did not appear. She descended the stairs into the stateroom where he was sitting silently on the leather sofa looking down at the screen of his mobile. He did not seem to have heard her. Now was the time - she would tell him now...

“Freddie - there has been something - something I should... ”

She stopped as his eyes came up to hers. Within them she saw a deep hurt and questioning that she had never seen in the eyes of any man.

“Detective Inspector Leyton... I’m so pleased to meet you.” He said sadly but also with a note of ruthless anger.

Her legs almost buckled as she studied his face. He knew. She had hit the wall. Just at the moment when she was going to go for broke he had learned the truth and now he would never believe her. She sensed the cold terrifying anger within him. He remained seated and coiled. In desperation she searched for words, going to him and kneeling .She longed to touch him but held back.