The Pleasures of Autumn (20 page)

Niall bristled under Clara’s gaze and Sinead shot him a warning glare, urging him to be quiet.

‘Hair down?’ she asked Sinead.

When Sinead nodded, Clara chuckled. ‘He’ll make a perfect Samson. I’d love to see Hermione’s face when you arrive with him in tow.’

Sinead retreated behind the curtain before Niall exploded. She hung her clothing up and examined the costume. The silk pants were almost sheer and the one-shouldered top barely covered her right breast. There would be quite a lot of flesh on display. The imp in her laughed as she pulled the pants on and fastened them at the waist.

She unpeeled one pastie from the backing sheet and fixed it over her bare nipple. There, it was almost decent. She studied her reflection in the mirror. Who was she kidding? She could stop five lanes of traffic around the Arc de Triomphe if she appeared in public wearing this. A familiar sense of power surged through her. Lottie LeBlanc was in the house.

‘How are you doing there, pet? Do you need a hand?’

‘I’m fine, Clara.’ With a final glance in the mirror she drew the curtain and stepped outside.

‘Holy fuck,’ Niall exclaimed. ‘You are not going out dressed like that.’

‘Who are you? My grandmother?’

Sinead pivoted for Clara’s approval and stood still as she made a tiny adjustment to the outfit and marked it with a pin.

‘The waist needs to come in an inch. Drop back in an hour and I’ll have it ready for you.’

Sinead caught Andy casting a discerning eye over her costume, lingering a little too long on her barely covered nipple. She raised her chin, daring him to keep looking, but he didn’t bother to hide his interest and smiled shamelessly at her. ‘Perhaps Mademoiselle O’Sullivan would like another slave? Clara, I don’t suppose you have another loincloth?’

‘Only if you don’t want to see thirty-one.’ Niall snapped.

Andy laughed. ‘I’m joking. Besides, we can’t all enjoy ourselves. Someone has to act as back-up.’

Sinead smiled, pure evil in her heart. ‘Of course, you do realize that you’re not ready to go out in public yet?’ she said.

‘Why not?’

Her grin was diabolical. ‘In an outfit like that, you need to have what I believe is called a B, S and C?’

Niall shook his head. ‘Never heard of it. What is it?’

‘You’re about to find out.’

The sign over the narrow doorway said ‘Smile’. It was years since Sinead had been there but she knew a lot of dancers used the place. Niall grimaced when he saw the price list and she guessed that it wasn’t the cost he was worried about.

‘You can still back out, you know.’

Niall ignored her and held the door open. The walls on either side of the wooden staircase had a series of before and after shots, as well as advertisements for services that made Andy laugh.

‘Shut up, Andy. Haven’t you got anything better to do?’

‘Better than this? Not a chance.’

Sinead stepped past him and down the stairs to the basement. She immediately caught the scent of warm wax. A sullen blonde dropped her magazine and stood up.

‘Irina?’ Sinead asked.

‘Irina gone back to St Petersburg. I am Nadia. You want treatment?’

‘Er, no thanks, but my friend does.’

Niall’s face had turned the colour of putty. Sinead almost felt sorry for him as the no-nonsense Russian girl approached him with the keen eye of a woman who enjoyed her job. ‘Gabriel says it’s a piece of cake. You’ll be fine.’

‘He needs the works,’ Andy interrupted her study. ‘And a spray tan.’

‘You can’t do a tan after waxing,’ Sinead corrected him. ‘It will sting and he –’

‘Is no problem. I have special gel to help with irritation. Tan will be fine. But first, open shirt.’

Sinead kept her eyes fixed firmly on the tiled floor and waited for the inevitable explosion. It didn’t come. She heard the rustle of clothing and when she looked up again the woman was stroking Niall’s chest. ‘Nice,’ she said to Sinead. ‘You want to wait while I take care of him?’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak or to look at Niall’s face.

Nadia pointed to a brown-painted door. ‘You – in the back, clothes off, lay down, turn over.’

‘Want me to come and hold your hand, boss?’

Niall’s reply was unrepeatable.

They took seats in the waiting area and Sinead tried to concentrate on reading a magazine, but it was impossible. The silence in the next room was broken by Nadia’s voice, ‘So sorry, so sorry, so sorry.’

From Niall, there was no sound.

Andy’s eyes were filled with mirth. ‘I can’t believe it – Niall Moore getting a back, sac and crack. I wish Flynn was here to see this.’

‘How is he?’ Sinead hadn’t spoken to him in months.

‘He’s grand. He still does the odd bit of work for Niall but no long-term stuff any more. Summer’s dad is opening up an office in BA. He’s offered him a job as head of security.’

Sinead missed her cousin. She had been more like a
sister to her, but she had found the love of her life and they were living happily in South America. ‘Tell them I was –’

The brown door opened and Nadia stepped into the room. ‘He will be ready soon. I think you will be pleased.’

As Andy settled the bill, Sinead kept her eyes focused on the door.

The tan did something for him. It made his eyes almost silver. The impassive expression on his face prevented her from offering a compliment. Niall walked with a stiff-legged gait that was different to his usual stride. She followed him outside.

‘You could have warned me,’ Niall said when Andy joined them. ‘That woman poured glue stuff all over me and all of a sudden she lays something on me … and Jesus that hurt! I’d rather take another bullet than go through that again. I need a drink.’

‘It’s only lunchtime,’ Andy pointed out unhelpfully.

‘I don’t care. Find me a bar.’

They sipped coffee in a café while Niall had a shot of brandy in his. After a while, he regained his composure. He set down his cup. ‘Where to now? It couldn’t be as bad as that.’

Andy was in his element now. ‘It might be worth picking up a few accessories for the party.’

‘Accessories?’ Niall said, looking suspicious.

‘Yes, boss – I know how you like to be fully prepared and tooled up …’ Andy was smirking and Sinead guessed what he had in mind.

Twenty minutes later they were wandering around Avenue du Plaisir. The sex shop was as big as a supermarket,
with rows of costumes down one wall, interspersed with sex toys of all kinds. Andy pointed out the various toys, and told her to ask him if she had any questions about any of them. Oh yeah, she just bet he’d be helpful and discreet, and not try to make a show of her.

Andy needed a keeper.

He stopped in front of a display of dildos and cast a sly glance at Niall. ‘Will you be needing a strap-on, Sinead?’

‘A what?’

Andy couldn’t be serious. Some of them were monstrous. ‘I couldn’t possibly be expected to –’

‘You should see your face.’ Andy laughed and even Niall smiled at her naïveté.

‘Don’t worry,’ Andy said. ‘We just need a couple of floggers and maybe some movies.’

‘Movies?’

The wicked grin was back. ‘You might dress up like a Domme, but underneath you’re like a nun in a brothel. You won’t last five minutes before someone realizes that you’re faking it.’

‘Oh, but I …’ She just closed her mouth before she could tell him about her scene in the club with Gabriel. Probably best not to mention that. ‘And absolutely no movies.’

Andy studied the selection of leather flails with a practised eye. ‘Nice,’ he murmured. ‘They can be used for pleasure or pain.’

Niall snorted. ‘Don’t give her any ideas. She needs a couple of toys for carrying around. Sinead won’t get to use any of this stuff.’

‘Wanna bet?’ Sinead selected a whip from the stand and
flicked it experimentally. The tip cracked inches from his feet.

‘Whoa.’ Andy stepped back. ‘You’ve done this before.’

She shrugged. ‘My cousin was mad into horses so I had to learn too. Want me to show you again?’

‘No,’ both men chorused.

She left them studying a selection of movies while she wandered the aisles. The store had everything, from fun items for a hen party to the truly bizarre. She stopped at a glass-topped case and looked at the items inside. Pretty jewelled nipple clamps, some items that might have come from a gynaecology practice and a metal object that looked like one of the fabric tracing wheels from Clara’s workshop. Except it was rimmed with small spikes.

‘A Wartenberg pinwheel,’ Niall said from behind her and she jumped. ‘It was originally designed to test neurological reactions. I’m told some people find the sensation quite pleasant.’

Sinead shivered at the thought of the tiny metal spikes against her skin and she wasn’t sure if it was from interest or nervousness. ‘Would it hurt?’

‘Only if you want it to.’

An image of being tied to Niall’s bed while he ran the wheel along her skin popped into her head. She had always thought of herself as being pretty average in her sexual tastes, but the past few days had opened her eyes. Maybe a little too much.

Andy placed his selection of purchases on the counter and Sinead cringed when she saw them. Two days from now, she would have to pretend to be a Domme, just like her sister.

‘Will that be all, Monsieur?’ The assistant asked as he packed them.

‘We’ll take one of the wheels too,’ Niall announced, ignoring Andy’s knowing smirk.

Heat flooded her face and she couldn’t look at either of them.

Outside, a gust of wind raced along the pavement, scattering brown leaves underfoot. She zipped up her jacket and shivered.

‘Come on.’ Andy threw his arm around her, ignoring Niall’s disapproving glance. ‘Let’s pick up your costume and find a café. I’m starving.’

They headed to the nearest metro station, laden down with their purchases. Sinead couldn’t stop thinking about the flogger that Andy had insisted she would need. It was heavy, with at least thirty strands of red and black leather hanging from the handle. What must that feel like hitting human flesh? She shivered. This was all getting too much for her.

She could handle a single-tail whip, mostly thanks to sharing riding lessons with Summer when they were younger. Her cousin had always been a bit lazy when it came to lunging the horses before they rode them, while Sinead relished the chance to concentrate on training the horse before she mounted it.

She had learnt how to handle the long whip, to crack it loudly and flick it so that it barely tipped the horse without hurting it. It was a skill that she had put into several of Lottie’s burlesque acts.

Strange how men reacted to a woman holding a whip.

From nowhere, she had a vision of Niall with a flogger in his hand. He was dressed in smooth, supple black leather, and a collar and handcuffs hung from his belt. He handled the flogger with negligent ease and he was looking at her with heat in his eyes.

Whoa! Where had that come from? Before she met Niall, she would never have considered any of that stuff. Sinead O’Sullivan did not do kinky.

Studious, uptight, careful and hard-working, that was the real her. She wasn’t the confident, shimmering seductress with a string of celebrity lovers. Lottie loved the tease. She adored the slow theatrical build-up, the drawing out of tension until she enslaved her audience. She might entice men with her eyes, incite them to desire with her body, but Lottie was a chimera. She knew that she would never have to make good on her sensual promises. When the lights went down and the curtains dropped, Lottie was gone.

Night after night, they both went home alone. Until now.

This experience of being in a state of near-constant arousal around Niall, of her imagination taking her to places she hadn’t known existed, was disconcerting – and annoying. She wasn’t Lottie, couldn’t be her, not in a million years. But the vision of Niall with a flogger would not fade away no matter how hard she tried to suppress it.

She glanced up at the display board above their platform. The next train was an express on its way to Gare du Nord, and their RER would be along in five minutes.

‘Is there a vending machine around here?’ she asked Andy. ‘I’m thirsty.’

She carefully did not look at Niall.

‘Never mind, I see one.’

It was halfway down the platform and she fished out coins as she walked. She examined the selection of snacks and drinks.

Something brushed against her, but before she could make a sound, a hard hand was over her mouth and she was being dragged off the platform and through a dark doorway.

She was paralysed, the terror of the last time freezing her limbs until fury came to her aid. They would not do this to her again. She kicked out wildly and bit down on the hand.

‘You little –’

There was a split second when his grip loosened but it was enough for her to open her mouth and scream. A lifetime of not making a fuss evaporated. She yelled at the top of her lungs, knowing that Niall was close by.

Next moment, she was free. She caught a glimpse of Niall’s enraged face as he hauled the man away from her, then he was gone.

The other man was big, dressed in close-fitting black clothes that made it hard to see him in the dim light of the ancient metro station. His speed was shocking and he and Niall were engaged in a combat so fast and lethal that her brain couldn’t follow it.

‘Andy.’ Niall’s voice was calm, despite the speed of his movements. ‘Get her to safety.’

‘But –’ Andy stopped his protest. ‘Yes, boss.’ He took Sinead’s arm, grabbed the bags and pulled her away.

‘We can’t leave him,’ she protested.

‘My priority is getting you to safety. After that I can help him.’

Put like that, she had no choice except to obey. The sooner she was safe, the sooner Andy could go back. She hurried in search of a security man. She’d noticed the gun-carrying security staff on the way in. Where were they now?

Sinead looked back at the platform. Niall and the other man were on the ground, still locked in combat. The sign clicked over. The RER was now due in three minutes. How could all that have happened so quickly? The rush of the express train roaring into the station drowned out her shout for help.

Andy dragged her along, pulling her away from the platform, back up the corridor towards the exit. Her heels clicked noisily on the tiled floor, echoing under the barrel-shaped ceiling. ‘We have to help him,’ she told Andy.

He didn’t stop. ‘Niall can look after himself. Don’t worry about him. I want you out of here.’

The noise from the platform increased. Screams mingled with metal screeching on metal. A bell rang insistently, deafening her. Moments later, six armed and armoured security men ran past them towards the platform.

A muffled voice on the PA system said something Sinead could not catch. ‘What is that?’

Andy looked away.

‘Tell me.’

For once, his mobile face was deadly serious. ‘It said there was an accident and a man has fallen under the train.’

No. No. No.

Sinead’s brain went blank. No. It could not be Niall. No.

She fumbled her phone out of her bag, and pressed his number. With a small, detached part of her brain, she noticed that her fingers were shaking. The number clicked through. Sinead waited for it to ring. A female voice told her, ‘The number you have dialled cannot be contacted. It is out of service.’

Since she’d met him, she’d never known Niall to switch off his phone. He was always in contact.

What had happened to him?

Outside the station, Andy bundled her into a taxi, ignoring the protests of the Japanese tourist who had flagged it down. After giving instructions to the driver, Andy removed the phone from her shaking hands. ‘Fuck, I’ll have to risk it.’

He punched a number rapidly and Sinead heard a woman’s voice on the other end of the line. ‘Reilly, Niall is down. Check the metro station at Nation. I want the full team on this and I don’t care where you have to pull them from.’

Niall is down. Niall is down. The words resonated inside her like a bell, each peal more mournful than the last. Niall is down. Niall is –

Andy shifted the phone to his other ear and pulled her against his chest. ‘Breathe. Just breathe, baby. Don’t fall apart on me now.’

He returned his attention to the call. ‘Reilly? No. we don’t know that yet. Get me confirmation asap. And send me a secure phone. This one is traceable.’