The Bad Boys of Eden (99 page)

“Yes.” This time my affirmative has way more conviction.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have to.”

He stands and I think perhaps he’s about to leave, but he doesn’t and I realize I’m relieved that he is staying.

“Aren’t you curious?”

“About what?”

“About what I’m proposing.”

“What are you proposing?”

“Not only a new way of making love, a new way of being.”

Needing something to occupy my hands, I slice a piece of cheese and take a bite. “Not really,” I lie.

“So, you do not want me to describe what an encounter between us would look like?”

I raise my gaze. “No.”

He grins. “You truly have the worst poker face I’ve ever encountered.”

Chapter Five

“I’m not lying.”

“Tessa Savage. You are dying to hear how being with me would be different from that primal, animalistic act you’re accustomed to. You want desperately to know how it is that we could reach a
state
of orgasm, together, rather than the fleeting moment that is over before it even begins.”

Oh my fucking God. He is right, I am curious and I hate him so much right now for knowing me so well.

When he sits back down, he doesn’t sit across from me, he sits next to me. He does not ask me again if I want to hear his tale, he just starts telling it.

“We do not start by removing clothing, but by sitting together. Much like we are now. Looking at one another, holding hands, gazing softly at each other. I wait for your eyes, your breath and the warmth of your skin to tell me you’re ready.”

Unfortunately I’m pretty sure I know what my eyes are saying right about now.

Ready, ready, ready!

“Only then do I begin to remove your clothes. Reveling in every inch of skin revealed. Touching, tasting, breathing in your scent.” He bends closer and breathes me in like I’m the Macallan. Then he lifts his gaze. “Observing your reaction.” His hands move from mine up my wrists to the sensitive inner elbow. “Finding each erogenous zone. Grazing it lightly. Savoring.”

Dammit! He found that one so quickly.

“I will not be frantic with you. I will not tear off your clothes. I will relish you. Appreciate the flavor of your shoulders…” He touches me there, softly. “…of your neck and jaw.” His fingers graze as he speaks. “I will take my time exploring your collarbones and chest…your breasts.” His hands pause before drawing a line down the front of my dress between my breasts.

“I will taste your nipples, delighting in their texture and scent, worshipping each because they are so lovely, so perfect, so much an important part of you.”

Right this second, my nipples are letting me know they are very keen to experience this scenario with Christophe. Very keen.

“My desire is not just to experience your flesh, but to touch your heart and to connect with you on a deeper, more meaningful level.”

Umm, this part sounds unnecessary and I sense my forehead crinkling as I wait for him to move on to the good bits.

“Only then do I explore your belly, your hips.”

Oh yes. Here we go.

“Slowly, slowly I part your thighs. You give me permission to devour you with my gaze, and I am honored for this privilege. I spread your legs wide, opening you with my thumbs and glimpsing the glistening entrance to your body.

“Your arousal is my cue to come closer, to take in your scent. To taste you, to breathe in your unique perfume. I touch the satiny texture of your pussy with my tongue, and it is smooth and slick, like warm silk. My fingers glide inside of you, your most sacred and intimate space. You are wet for me. Eager for me. Made for me.”

Moisture pools in my mouth and I have to remind myself to swallow.

“The simple act of exploring you results in arousal. My cock grows hard…for you. Longing to join with you. Ready to awaken a new and profound passion within you. Eager to journey into love, together.”

It takes me a while to realize that Christophe has stopped speaking in that deep, hypnotic tone of his. Who needs opium when I’ve got Christophe drugging me with sex tales?

I open my eyes. “Is that it?” I whisper.

“Non.” His smile isn’t quite as smug as you’d think it’d be considering how quickly I am on the verge of giving in to his seduction. “That is barely the beginning. You see, there is no end goal in Trantra. No ten second orgasm that’s over before it begins. I will take you to a place where time stands still and ecstasy is embodied. This is something that must be experienced. It cannot be described.”

“Well.” I reach for my glass and take a drink, falling back on my old habit of gulping. I cringe from the burning shock of the alcohol, but it has the desired effect of snapping me out of Christophe’s influence. “What you described sounds nice, but it’s not going to happen. I’m totally happy with my sex life
exactly
the way it is.” I take another drink. Again too much at once. I cough. When things are under control, I say, “I’m all good.”

“If you say so.”

I hear doubt. Doubt makes me want to prove myself. But not here. Not now. Not with him.

“Besides,” I wave my hand dismissively, “I understand Tantric sex takes a long time. Like six hours or something.”

“It can. When you reach Nirvana, you don’t want to leave.”

I nod because suddenly six hours of sex…with Christophe, well, that doesn’t actually sound too bad. “Of course, if you were Sting, I might change my mind.”

His smile turns to a grin and then to laughter. It’s sexy as hell, dammit. Why does he have to keep surprising me? Taunting me? Tempting me?

He refills his glass, hands me mine and then taps the rims together in a toast.

“You are a remarkable woman, Tessa Savage. I do hope we can become friends. Close friends.”

I lift the glass to my mouth and drink, slowly and purposefully. The taste is so much better this way—dammit—and I wonder whether sex with Christophe would be as glorious as I’m starting to suspect it’d be.

“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe one day.”

* * *

It’s my last day in Monte Carlo and after sharing a rushed breakfast with Tal on the Terrace of Le Hotel de Paris—so he could spend the rest of the morning with Alejandro before rehearsal—I find a secluded spot to sit and read. I’m reading a book called
Slayer
, an erotic retelling of the Princess and the Pea story where the princess in question is a dragon slayer.

Very fun.

I’m a third of the way through the story when a shadow falls across me. Instead of looking up, I breathe in.

I recognize that scent.

“Hello Christophe.”

“Tessa.”

“Would you care to join me?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” There is humor in his tone and I like it. God, he is turning out to be a lot different from the man I thought he was.

“I understand you leave today.”

“You need to stop stalking people. It’s creepy.”

I love the way his eyes crinkle at the corner when he laughs. It’s infectious.

“If certain women wouldn’t drive certain men to distraction, then certain men would not have to stalk certain women.”

“Touché.”

He draws his chair closer. “When do you leave?”

I pull my phone out of my bag and check the time. “In an hour.” I place my phone on the table.

He nods and looks away, gazing toward the sea. “A friend of mine owns a resort on an island. It’s exclusive. Special.” He turns back to me. “I have a long standing invitation. I should like to visit again.”

“Oh?”

His expression is suddenly serious.

Even though he hasn’t asked me to join him, I know where this is going. “Christophe, we barely know one another.”

“Yet, I feel as if we’ve met before, as if I know you.”

I shrug. It’s weird but I feel the same way.

“Is it not the same for you?”

It’s my turn to look away. I think about the moment our eyes met in the salon, him sitting at the bar, me about to play roulette. Though I had just read about him, there was something instant between us.

A chemistry?

A connection?

God, I don’t know.

“Maybe,” I whisper.

“Then take a chance.” He takes my hand and caresses the backs of my knuckles. “Trust the feeling.”

I’m captivated by what he’s saying and by the incredible light in his eyes and am about to ask what he’s proposing when I’m startled by the sound of my name.

“Tessa.”

Christophe releases me and I turn to see Tal striding across the terrace. He looks angry. Upon closer inspection I see it is probably the heartbreak of having to leave his lover that is etched across his forehead, not anger.

“The car will be here soon.” He reaches for my hand, barely sparing Christophe a glance, as if Christophe is ‘the help’.

Christophe is so much more. More than I ever imagined. There’s a depth to him that I wish I could delve into and I feel let down that I’ve barely had the chance to scratch the surface. And now it’s too late.

As Talal directs me away, I turn and wave. “Good-bye.”

He tilts his head. “Until we meet again, Tessa Savage.”

Chapter Six

Tal and I part ways in Paris where I’ve got a short layover. Now, I’m sitting at the Café Voltaire, across from the Seine, sipping a glass of wine. I can’t stop thinking about some of the stuff Christophe said. Some of the stuff Christophe did. Okay, okay, I can’t stop thinking about the man…period.

But, apart from wishing I’d had the chance to jump his bones and/or be Tantra-sized by him (seriously, who the hell cares how we do it?), the conversations we shared has got me thinking. And thinking.

And thinking.

I pull out a mini-notebook from my bag that I keep around for times like these, when ideas just sort of
pop
into my head.

Across the top of the page, I jot down,
A Guide to Smoking Hot Sex by Tessa Savage
. Grinning, I start with number one:
Love yourself – masturbating with the lights on…

I’m laughing quietly to myself when I realize there’s someone standing directly in front of my table. I close the notebook and glance up to see a man looking down at me. He’s wearing a gray suit and dark sunglasses.

“Mademoiselle Savage?”

“Yes,” I say, taken aback. How the hell does this guy know my name?

“This is for you.”

“Excuse me?"

He hands me an envelope. It’s a beautiful cream color with the texture of heavy silk rather than paper. It’s sealed with wax, like some medieval correspondence, and when I turn it over, I find my name written in beautifully embossed script.

“What is this?”

“My job is to deliver the envelope. That is all.”

“How did you know where I was?”

“I was told you’d be here.” He tilts his head toward me. “And here you are.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“I believe everything you need to know is in the invitation.” He nods once and then walks away.

Watching him leave feels surreal like the guy will disappear—poof!—into thin air. But he doesn’t. He turns left at the next intersection and walks swiftly out of sight.

After turning the invitation over a couple more times, curiosity gets the better of me. I break the seal and open the flap. Inside is a heavy card with beautiful gold illumination and a logo for EDEN swirled at the top. The weird sense of déjà vu I experienced multiple times while in Monte Carlo hits me again. Where have I see this logo before? I let my finger trace it, willing the strange sense of familiarity to work itself out of wherever it’s hiding in my brain.

For the life of me, I can’t figure it out. I must have seen the logo in passing. Maybe in one of the many travel magazines left in airplane seat pockets.

My gaze drifts down and I read…

Dear Ms. Savage,

You are cordially invited to spend a week at the Eden resort, where reality is whatever you want it to be.

That’s it. There is no signature, nothing. What the hell?

Standing up, I crane my neck to look for the delivery man. He needs to do some explaining because while this is lovely and exciting and totally unexpected, it’s also confusing and alarming and maybe even a little frightening. I mean, who knew I’d be here? How did he find me? Who sent him?

Is someone watching me right now? I glance up and down the street, checking out the couples sitting next to me. No one looks familiar, but I suddenly feel exposed. I shove the invitation into my purse, leave more than enough money on the table for my unfinished glass of wine and wave down the nearest taxi.

Within forty-five minutes, I’m at the airport and after booking the next transatlantic flight, I find myself sitting in the waiting area outside my gate, about to board. My phone rings and I see it’s a call from one of my very favorite people in the world, Wade Messing.

“Tessa Savage,” he drawls. The phone crackles. It’s a bad connection and I miss the second half of his sentence.

“What did you say?”

“I said we were just talking about you.”

“Oh? Good things, I hope.”

“Always. Connor wants to know if you got our invitation.”

“The invitation?”

“Yes. Things have changed and we weren’t sure where to find you so we sent out a couple of invitations—” the phone beeps in my ear and then goes dead.

I go to phone back, but my battery is completely drained.

Damn.

There’s no time to plug it in because my flight is called and boarding begins for first class. Yes, okay, Tessa Savage is a princess when she flies. Believe me, you’d fly first class too if you could afford it and you flew as much as I do. Airports are not fun and they are getting less and less fun every year.

The complications and annoyances of flying aside, at least now I know where the invitation came from. I bet I can guess what is going on. My two favorite cowboys have probably ditched all their wedding plans and decided to elope at some tropical resort.

Huh.

It makes sense and yet…I have a really hard time picturing my best friends—the Marlboro Man look-alike and his badass boyfriend—getting married anywhere other than their ranch, though I can’t say I blame them. Weddings can be a bitch to plan. If I was to ever get married again—which is even harder to imagine—I think I’d skip that little detail and just head straight for the commissioner of oaths’ office.

Pulling out the invitation, I flip it over. There are detailed instructions on how to get to the island resort, which means when I get to New York I’m going to have to connect to Miami. I slide it back into my bag. Mystery solved. After stowing my things and accepting the mimosa the flight attendant offers me, I close my eyes and drift off into a semi-doze. Why my mind wanders to Christophe, I don’t know.

Okay, I’m such a liar.

Of course I know why it drifts off to Christophe.

There’s something about the man that intrigues me. Whether it’s all an act or whether he really is deeper and more interesting than I’d originally thought, I don’t know, but I am intrigued—terribly intrigued.

I can hear his voice—his deep, sexy accent—in my head, describing how he would remove my clothes.

The daydream begins with the conversation in the Buddha Bar but suddenly (as in all good dreams and daydreams) we are no longer in the private room but in a lushly appointed penthouse suite that is very similar to the one I shared with Talal.

Christophe hands me a glass of scotch and then turns me toward a mirror.

“Watch,” he whispers very close to my ear.

Standing behind me, he begins to undo the buttons on my shirt. One by one. Slowly. His fingers graze the newly exposed skin, first the hollow at the base of my throat, then the hollow between my breasts until finally he reaches the hollow of my belly button.

“Smell the alcohol. Breathe in deeply.”

As I do this, he untucks my blouse from my skirt and somehow the whisper of silk from beneath my waistband skims my skin in such a wonderfully sensual way, I catch my breath as tingling feathers of pleasure radiate over my belly and up my back.

Taking the glass from my hand, he slides the blouse off my shoulders and arms and drops it to the floor.

“Look at yourself.”

I do. Kind of. I look at where his hand is resting at my waist, moving gently against my skin. I gaze up the length of my body and past to meet his gaze in the mirror. His eyes have a soft, sensual look to them as they briefly meet mine and then return to my body.

“Some men would treat a woman as an object,” he says, running his hand up my side, barely over my bra and then to my shoulder. Sweeping my hair back, he comes in lower. “I understand that.” Though his breath is hot in my ear, I stiffen. Yes, even in my imaginings I am affronted by Christophe’s blatantly sexist remark.

“You are a beautiful thing to behold.” He strokes my throat. “The old me would want to possess you. Own you.” His grip tightens about my neck. “The more you tried to deny me, the more I would have wanted you.” His hand slides down my bare back to my skirt. He bunches it in his fist, rubbing me hard from behind. “God, I would have enjoyed making you submit.”

I try to pull away, no matter how hot he’s making me. No matter that this is my fantasy, my imaginings…I think.

Though it feels like something else completely. It feels as if my mind is going in other, unexpected directions, like I’m watching a movie that I don’t know the ending to.

His hand releases my skirt and comes around to cup my breast, gently squeezing, holding me in place. “But men who see women only as objects are missing the most beautiful part.” He dips a finger into the glass of scotch and paints the side of my neck.

He breathes in deeply before gently licking the alcohol from my skin. Lapping, nipping, sucking.

“You pair well with this Glenfiddich. So delicious.”

There is something so erotic about watching him kiss and lick my neck, I am almost willing to forgive his arrogance. Almost.

“What is the most beautiful part?” I ask.

He turns me toward him, tilting my chin up to him. “Your soul.”