Once in Paris (20 page)

Pierce felt his heart kick hard against his ribs. “Pack?”

“Pack.”

She kept going.

Tate studied his boss curiously. “Is she going somewhere?”

Pierce rammed his hands hard into his pockets. “To Las Vegas to get a divorce,” he said through his teeth.

Tate pursed his lips. “Smart girl.”

The look on the older man's face surprised his security chief. It wavered between homicide and shock.

Tate wasn't intimidated. He went to the piano and picked up a framed photo of Margo that still stood there. The glance he gave Pierce was eloquent.

Pierce's expression hardened. He knew what the other man was saying, even without words.

Tate put the photo down. “She must have been a unique and very special woman, to de
serve such loyalty from you.” His dark eyes narrowed. “But Brianne is unique and special herself.”

“The years are wrong,” Pierce said shortly.

The other man smiled sadly. “I've used the same argument myself. But in the early hours of the morning, when I'm alone, it's not much consolation.”

Pierce couldn't detect a shadow of emotion in the other man's face, and he felt vaguely sorry for Cecily, who loved his security chief with so little hope of happiness.

“She loves you,” Tate continued.

Pierce's face hardened. “She thinks she does.”

Tate's broad shoulders rose and fell. “Suit yourself. Where is she going to school?”

“She wants to go to the Sorbonne, in Paris. I'd rather she went here, in D.C., so that you can keep tabs on her. Brauer may still have henchmen who owe him a favor.”

“She'd be just as safe with you in Nassau,” Tate returned. “And I don't need any more complications in my life right now than I've already got, especially female ones.”

That was when Pierce was certain that some
thing had gone very wrong for Tate Winthrop. “Can I help?” he asked sincerely.

Tate shook his head. “Personal problems, and they aren't easily resolved, even for the people involved.”

“Cecily?” Pierce probed.

Tate's face closed immediately. “I can't think about Cecily right now. I won't.”

That meant that she wasn't directly involved. He wondered what was.

“If I get in over my head, I'll let you know,” Tate told him. “And thanks.”

“What are friends for?” Pierce turned away. “All right, I'll let her go back to Paris. It isn't as if I've got much choice. Assign one of your agents with a current passport to go with her, and get him a visa. I'll also want one to keep an eye on Mrs. Brauer in Jacksonville. Hire more people if you have to. This is important to me.”

“Will do. I'll send Marlowe with Brianne. He's young and handsome and sharp as a tack. She'll like him.”

Pierce whirled, his eyes furious. He didn't have to say a word. That expression said it for him.

“So,” Tate mused, smiling faintly. “Not as uninvolved as you pretend to be, hmmm?”

Pierce's big fists tightened at his side. He realized at that moment just how involved he was with Brianne, so involved that the mere thought of her with someone else was enough to make a madman of him.

Tate sobered. “Live your life as you please,” he told his boss. “But if you let her go, you'll have to realize that she's young and pretty and full of fire. She won't be sitting around by herself.”

The knowledge was painful. Of course she wouldn't. She'd be out dining and dancing, having fun with people her own age, enjoying her youth. Once Pierce was out of the picture, it wouldn't take long for some new man to step into it. He felt rage all the way to his toes as he considered that.

“Pity,” Tate murmured, turning away.

“What's a pity?”

“The waste of all that wide-eyed wonder. Brianne isn't used to wealth. She isn't blasé about life in general.” He shook his head. “She might have given you a new perspective on the world around you. But, as you say, it's just as well. She'll be happier with someone younger.”

He went to find Mufti, to tell him about the arrangements they'd made to fly him back to Salid in style. At least things were working out for one member of their little party, he thought.

T
ate took Mufti to the airport and sent him home to his native land.

“He'll be a hero,” Pierce told Brianne when the others had gone and they were alone. “Of course, he'll also convey a warning about what can happen if his people decide to make a grab for Qawi's oil.”

She glanced at the framed photo of Margo and wrapped her arms around herself. She felt a chill as she thought about the coming trip to Las Vegas. Margo had won again.

“When do we leave for Las Vegas?” she asked with her back to him.

He drew in a sharp breath. That trip had no
appeal to him whatsoever. He was worn-out from their captivity and escape, and it wounded him to think of throwing Brianne out of his life so quickly. She looked vulnerable in her soft oyster silk pantsuit, with her long blond hair wound in a braid around her head.

“Not today,” he said shortly. “I have to get out to our platform in the Caspian Sea and check on my men's progress.”

She glanced at him curiously. Shouldn't he be anxious to get it over with? Her eyes ate him up, from his powerful long legs in black slacks to his broad chest in an open-necked beige silk shirt. He looked bigger than ever, so attractive with his thick, wavy, silver-flecked black hair and black eyes and olive complexion. She ached for him all over again and hated herself for her vulnerability.

He moved closer to her as if drawn by invisible threads. The silence in the apartment was suddenly tense, alive.

He stopped, towering over her, his black eyes sliding with growing hunger over her lifted face.

His eyes narrowed. “Do you want me?” he asked in a tone she'd rarely ever heard him use.

Her heart jumped. “Wh-what?”
“You wanted one night,” he reminded her. “Not a rushed encounter where interruptions were always a threat.” He jerked his head toward the hall. “The bedroom is through there. It's a king-size bed,” he added huskily.

She wanted to. She didn't have to put it into words. It was visible in her eyes, her face, her tense body.

“Do you…want to?” she whispered.

“Oh, yes,” he said with bitter self-contempt. “More than anything in the world.”

She lifted her arms, and he bent and swung her up off the floor, feeling a foot taller, ten years younger, as she burrowed close and buried her warm, soft mouth against his throat where thick hair peeked out of the opening of his shirt.

His arms contracted. He walked down the hall with her, into his bedroom. He kicked the door shut behind them and lightly tossed her onto the cream-and-brown striped coverlet. After he unplugged the telephone, he unbuttoned his shirt, standing over her prone body, his eyes smoldering as his hands dealt with the pearl buttons.

She watched him undress, her breath coming rapidly. It was broad daylight. The curtains
were open. She could hear traffic in the street below, she could see the stripes the sun made as it filtered through the venetian blinds and onto the beige carpet of the room.

Her whole body was tense with delicious anticipation when he came to her, tall and fit and completely uninhibited about his nudity, and his arousal. He drew her up long enough to divest her of her own clothing.

His lean, warm hands slid over the softness of her body from her breasts down her flat belly and then to her hips and thighs. “You're trembling,” he chided softly. “Surely you aren't afraid of me.”

She arched a little under the electrifying sensations caused by his caressing hands. “I'm on fire for you,” she whispered huskily.

He smiled gently. She was never coy or coquettish about this. He touched and she yielded completely. It made him proud, because he knew how cool she was with other men.

He drew her gently to him, enjoying her soft gasp as she felt his arousal against her so blatantly.

His mouth brushed against hers. He took his time, nibbling first her upper lip and then the lower one, toying with her mouth before he fi
nally eased his own between it, and began to kiss her with slow insistence.

Her nails bit into the hard muscles of his upper arms, and she moved closer as the familiar throbbing ache settled in her lower stomach.

His hands eased between them to trace around her firm breasts. He touched her delicately, with fingers that barely brushed her, in circles that were lazy and sweet and arousing. She arched, but he ignored the invitation and kept his hands at a deliberate distance from her nipples.

Her nails bit harder into him. “Pierce!”

His hard mouth teased her soft lips while his hands continued their subtle play on her body. “Don't be impatient,” he said quietly. “I'm going to take a long time with you.”

She made an odd little sound in her throat. He covered her mouth with his own, and his hands moved ever closer to those hard, aching peaks. Finally, finally, when she was almost mad with hunger, his thumbs and forefingers took the nipples between them and contracted gently.

Her hoarse cry of pleasure was loud in the silence of the bedroom. Pierce's mouth on her
lips became insistent as her headlong response kindled a roughness in him.

But he controlled it quickly. He lifted her onto the bed and held her between his hands while his mouth replaced his hands on her breasts. He suckled her in a silence that was alive with tense passion. She writhed helplessly under the torment of his warm lips as they moved from her breasts to her rib cage, to her soft, flat stomach and then down to the silky softness of her upper thighs.

Time seemed to go into permanent eclipse in the heated minutes that followed. He touched and tasted and nipped and teased, savoring her violent reaction, her soft little cries of delight as he pleasured her.

When he poised at the threshold of her womanhood, she caught his hips and tried to pull him down, but he wouldn't be moved.

He lifted his head and black eyes bit into hers at point-blank range. “No,” he whispered. “Lie still.”

“Pierce,” she sobbed, shivering with torment.

“A breath at a time, Brianne,” he whispered, moving gently as he looked into her eyes. She gasped and his hips withdrew, hesitated, and
then came back to hers in a slow, seductive dance.

“I…can't…” she sobbed.

“You can.” He caught both her hands in his and held them over her head on the coverlet. One long leg moved hers gently apart, and he eased down and then up again, repeating the teasing movement rhythmically, but never coming closer than that.

She tensed, shivering, as each movement of his powerful body sent thrills of pleasure up and down her spine. Her heart was racing madly. He seemed completely removed from what they were doing, his eyes watchful, in total command of himself and her.

He shifted sinuously, increasing the contact. She caught her breath and her body lifted to his helplessly.

He looked down the length of her body, enjoying its soft innocence, its wondrous response. He could smell her light perfume, the faint sweat that clung to her, the womanly smell of her.

Her eyes followed his, a little shocked at the intimacy of it, and then met his own again. There was delight in them, mingled with lingering traces of inhibition.

He bent and brushed his lips over hers. “You haven't looked before.”

“It was too quick before,” she said unsteadily.

“And now it isn't.” He traced her upper lip with his tongue while his body rose and fell tenderly against hers. “I want to feel every pore of you as close to me as you can get,” he breathed into her mouth. “When I have you, I want to possess you completely.”

She caught her breath, aroused by the words as much as the rhythm of his body.

He shifted roughly to one side and then the other. The action was so arousing that she cried out.

He pushed down suddenly and lifted just as suddenly, feeling her body constrict with pleasure. He gasped, too, overwhelmed by the delicious stab of delight it gave him to feel her like that.

He moved again, slowly losing control. His mouth opened against hers and penetrated it in warm, soft thrusts that mirrored the movements of his body.

She arched up to him, tears wetting her eyes as the pleasure became unbearable. Her fingers grasped his feverishly as she shivered.

“It won't be enough,” he said roughly. “Dear God…!”

He shifted her quickly, sitting up on the bed. His hands gripped her thighs and held her over him, his breath rasping in his throat as he let her ease down to possess him in one slow, achingly sweet motion.

She clenched onto his broad shoulders, feeling the thick hair on his chest tickle her breasts as he moved her against him.

He lifted her and then pulled her down, shifting her body sharply with each slow thrust, his black eyes looking straight into hers. He could barely keep his head. He felt the pleasure build and then flare like a fire with gas thrown on it. He watched her eyes mirror the fierce ecstasy she was giving him. His big hands contracted harshly, bruising her, as he began to build the rhythm.

She heard the box springs of the bed make alarming sounds as he moved her ever closer. She felt him in an intimacy that, despite their brief marriage, was beyond anything she'd ever known.

“I've never been this potent, Brianne,” he whispered to her as his hands contracted again. He grimaced and groaned as the fever burned
in him. He shivered. “I can feel you…” His body shuddered. “I want to get…closer,” he bit off, his blind eyes meeting hers in the grip of madness as his movements became violent. “I want to go…deeper…deeper…deeper!”

She felt her body suddenly open to him completely, felt the throbbing pleasure explode in waves of unbelievable ecstasy, felt her body convulse over his as the tension snapped and splintered into a scalding heat of satisfaction that made her cry out.

She knew he was looking at her, seeing her face, her wide, shocked, unseeing eyes as her body whipped against him.

The contractions spread from her body into his. He groaned harshly, his voice breaking as he gripped her hips and held her against him, riveted her to him, as the violent spasms lifted him straight up into the sun, into an oblivion so passionate that he felt himself throbbing for endless sweet seconds before the release came in a shattering rush.

She leaned her damp forehead against his equally damp chest, her whole body a sensitive instrument that registered delicious little explosions of pleasure in the aftermath of their loving.

He shivered, too, holding her close as he savored the delicious sensation of her body welded to his in such intimacy.

Her breasts were soft where they lay against his chest. He moved and felt her all around him, like warm, moist silk where she sheathed him.

He became aware slowly of the position they were in, and for an instant he felt staggering concern. “Brianne, did I hurt you?” he whispered urgently at her ear, his fingers slowly loosening their bruising grip on her hips.

“No,” she whispered back, too shy to meet his eyes. Her lips touched his neck hesitantly. “We…never did it like this,” she added.

“I've never done it like this,” he replied in a deep, solemn tone. His hands moved up to caress her soft back. “I shouldn't have. I could have damaged you.”

She looked up into his worried black eyes. “How?”

He looked down at where they were joined and swallowed hard. “You took all of me, baby,” he said gently, lifting his eyes back to hers. “Are you sure I haven't hurt you?”

She shook her head and smiled tenderly. She touched his hard mouth with soft fingers. “It was incredible,” she said, a little dazed.

His hands framed her face and he touched his mouth tenderly to her eyes. “Incredible,” he agreed huskily. “I couldn't get close enough,” he added, sounding as dazed as she felt. “I've never had it like this, never felt it like this.” He drew in a shaky breath and shifted. As he did, his body reacted suddenly and violently and he gasped.

She felt the reaction with awe. “The books say that men can't, so soon afterward,” she whispered shyly.

“That part of me can't read.” He moved, easing her down onto the mattress. He positioned her gently, so that they were curled together with her legs over his, his knees on either side of her body. He held her face in his hands as he moved tenderly, watching her eyes register the fierce pleasure he gave her. It occurred to him at that moment, in the grip of the most sweeping tenderness he'd ever shared with any woman, that he wanted most desperately to make her pregnant.

He loved her as if he could, as if the exquisite union would produce a child. Ridiculous, of course. She was on the pill and he was going to divorce her. But he could pretend. And he did. He made love to her in such a way that
when the contractions came, they were the most poignant and profound pleasure he'd felt in his life. She felt it, too. He knew without the rushed, whispered words that were torn from her throat as the ecstasy shot through her like sweet fire.

They lay like that for a long time, unmoving. He never wanted to pull away. He wanted to stay in her arms like this. He wanted to stay with her.