Carnal in Cannes (12 page)

Harry nuzzled her neck, and his teeth grazed her skin. The slight love bite sent shivers down her spine, made her nipples bud and fight the constraints of the silk bra she wore. Her neck muscles went slack as her head fell to the one side.

“Hmm, you like that,” he whispered, and his lips feathered her throat. “Let"s get out of here. Too many eyes and ears.”

Remembering the hidden cameras and microphones, her glance swept from floor to ceiling, and she nodded. They were too alone here, his presence too overwhelming and more dizzying than champagne.

“Like the duds,” Harry commented as he guided her out of the hotel, and the sun warmed her face. His gaze trailed from the curls tickling her nape to the knitted button-up-the-front three-quarter-sleeved top and matching midcalf skirt she wore. He stroked her earlobe. “You always wear the same pair of earrings.”

So Grand-mère is always with me
. Her inner cheek stung she nipped the flesh so hard. The answer had almost flown out of her mouth.

They came to the crowded noisy part of town, the jumble of different sounds, horns blaring, cars farting backfires, people laughing, peddlers shouting their wares, the odd street musicians strumming guitars and banjos, too dissonant and loud for conversation. Harry curled an arm around her waist, and he led her in the direction of the pier where the
Glory
was docked.

“You never answered my question,” he said as his fingers stroked up and down her hipbone.

“Question?” She turned to find him glancing at her, and once again his sheer maleness assailed her nostrils and made her itch to touch him, to brush the soft fuzz on the side of his jaw, to tangle her hands in his silky brown hair, though the Stetson cocked at a jaunty angle hid most of his coffee-with-cream locks.

“I"d give a million greenbacks to know what you"re thinking right now,” he murmured, his voice husky and deep.

I’m hoping you’ll make me feel like I did last night, that you’ll make my worries
disappear if only for a while. I want to know if I’ll explode and shatter every time we
fornicate—no, make love.

56

Jianne Carlo

Hordes thronged the narrow wooden pier, most hurrying in the opposite direction in which they walked. She and Harry swam upstream, weaving around the tourists who stopped abruptly to take photos of the bay and a shoreline studded with tents and oiled, golden bodies lying on black-and-white-striped towels. The midafternoon sun highlighted the sparkle in the beach sand, and the brilliant rays bounced back a brightness so blinding her pupils ached and she had to blink rapidly to ease their stinging.

The aromas of different perfumes and colognes mingled with sweat faded as they neared the end of the jetty, replaced by the smell of the sea as a cool gust whisked to shore. Martine"s skirt fluttered and ballooned, and she lifted her chin and closed her eyes, relishing the slight nip in the air. So different from Port-au-Prince. She didn"t miss the stench of rotting food, alleyways reeking of blistering urine, or the sulfuric sweat-soaked scent of men who toiled under a relentless tropical sun day after endless day.

The Mediterranean coast smelled like heaven, like freedom, the air made fragrant by the constant sea breezes, which washed away the sins of humanity.

Even on the hottest day, winds gusted, making the temperature seem balmy. She hadn"t encountered a single humid day since stealing off the boat in Marseille so many months ago.

“I like when you do that.” Harry"s palm cupped her jaw.

Martine"s eyes flew open to find him standing in front of her, staring at her, his pupils widening as their gazes met.

“I am doing nothing.”

“You were in the moment,” he stated. “Delighting in the way the sun and the breeze and the smell of the sea made you feel alive and safe.”

“I do
not
like it when you read my thoughts.” The protest came out before she snapped her teeth together.

“Tough. I do.” He winked at her. “It"s sexy as all hell.”

Martine couldn"t stop the quick peek at his crotch, and her face and neck flamed when she looked back up and realized he"d caught her.

“Oh yeah. I"ve been hard and aching since we left the
Glory
this a.m.” He kissed her nose.

She tried to keep the surprise off her face, but her eyebrows refused to obey her command and winged up. “You purchased me,” she said, saying the words aloud to force some emotional distance from him. “You can fornicate with me anytime you want.”

His jaw worked. “Let"s get onboard. One thing you"ll learn about me fast, Mrs.

Martine Ford. I only ever give
one
warning.”

Her heart clamored to break free of her rib cage. Martine forgot to breathe.

I made him angry. Angry men are dangerous.

Mediterranean Mambo: Carnal in Cannes

57

When they stepped inside his stateroom on the
Glory
a few minutes later, she stopped in midstride when she saw her suitcase on a low table to the right of the bed.

“Something wrong?” Harry bumped into her back.

Martine muttered, “Pardon moi, Monsieur,” and wanted to cuff herself.

Mistake after mistake. She shook her head and took as long as a step away as her legs allowed. “I"m sorry, Harry. It"s my habit to address all adult men as Monsieur.”

She darted a surreptitious glance at the bed but couldn"t determine if the luggage had been opened or not.

“What"s in that suitcase that has you all hot and bothered?” He completely ignored her apology. “Whatever lie you"re concocting right now, stifle it. I want the truth and I want it now.”

I must be brazen.

The Bandoleer"s wife had told her in graphic detail how to use fornication to her advantage. She shifted sideways, pasting a smile on her face.

“Is making love always like last night?” And she did want the answer to this question, badly. “Will I always shatter?”

The fierce expression he had worn before she spoke vanished in a blink. His nostrils flared, and the veins beating in the hollow of his throat visibly pulsed, making his taut flesh expand and constrict faster.

“Strip,” he ordered as he unbuckled his belt and then slid an engraved brass button free. “Skirt first.”

She sent a silent thank-you to the Bandoleer"s wife for making her buy the matching high-backed teddy and thong. The skirt had buttons down the front, but she only had to undo the first two, and the silk cascaded to the floor. Harry"s gaze held hers, and she knew better than to try to look away.

“You have the most gorgeous pair of legs on this earth. Maybe in the entire universe. Have you ever been to Grasse?”

Grasse?

If she didn"t know otherwise, Martine could have sworn her heart had stopped beating. Her fingers and toes iced in an instant.

A half-truth.

“I have only lived in Marseille.”

“Take off my boots.” His expression didn"t change at her admission. He strode to the bed, sat on the mattress, and extended his legs.

Boots? I’m losing my mind.

Swallowing around the coconut-sized constriction in her throat, Martine forced her feet to move. She halted between his spread legs and dropped to her knees.

“No,” he said. “Turn around.”

58

Jianne Carlo

Her lungs stammered to a halt. “Please, Harry. I do not understand what you want.”

“Come.” He crooked a finger.

Martine rose slowly and edged forward.

“Closer,” he ordered.

When seven inches separated her thighs from his face, he muttered, “Stop.

Nice,” he said in a tone that sounded like the
Glory’s
engines at slow speed—dark, coarse, and so deep the sound echoed through her belly. One finger slid under the lace of the white thong she wore, and his touch forced dampness to her folds, a flickering flame to her vaginal walls, and that place he"d rubbed last night screamed for pressure. His hands rose to her waist, and he turned her around.

Martine tried to block the image forming in her head—her ass, his lips, mere inches apart. He drew her closer. “Bend over. Then take off my boots.”

Her hands shook so much that the fingers curling around his leather footwear felt like a palm tree in a tempest. He bit her buttock right at the point where her thighs began; Martine yelped and lunged forward. The grip he had on her hips strengthened, and he pulled her back.

Panic scrambled her thoughts and clogged her lungs.

“No you don"t,” he growled, his lips skimming the small of her back. “Don"t turn into that scared girl you were for a few minutes during dinner last night.”

She squeezed her eyes shut as her heart stuttered.

“Yesterday and today when you had to lie on that damned table in those grotesque stirrups, you never flinched, never moved an inch. You"ve no idea how proud I am of you for that.”

His words skittered hot draughts over her rump as one weathered boot slid off his socked foot. Martine shifted her stance to address the other boot, his finger slid down her crease, and his mouth followed their path, depositing hot kisses that scalded her skin. A strangled moan escaped her lips, and she rested her hands on his thigh as her knees threatened to buckle.

“Is making love always like last night?” He suckled the middle of one cheek, and her mind went blank. “No. There"s something between us, Martine. Some spark, some chemistry that makes our lovemaking special.”

His open palm connected lightly with the curve of her bottom. “Get the damned boot off, sugar. If I don"t taste you today, I"m likely to die from wanting.”

He spanked her again, this time harder, and though her ass cheek stung, her sex moistened and slickened. Martine snagged her lower lip between her teeth and bit hard. She wrapped her fingers over the arch of his boot and pulled. The boot slipped off, and she was thrown forward. Harrison hauled her backward.

“Steady, steady. I got you. I"ll always get you,” he crooned, and she so yearned to believe him. “Will you always shatter? Damned right you will. When you climax you lose that mask you wear in public and I see the real Martine.”

Mediterranean Mambo: Carnal in Cannes

59

The edges of an arctic iceberg lodged in her chest melted with each word he spoke. The promise of tears blurred Martine"s vision, and the need to be in his arms spun her about so she straddled him and looped her hands around his neck, knocking his Stetson off.

“You can wear your mask in public, and I"ll support you in every way. But when we"re alone together, no pretending, no shutting me out. Agreed?”

For long seconds Martine"s mouth and brain wouldn"t connect, her lips wanting to blurt yes, her mind calling up every word in every language for fool, idiot. She so craved to trust him, to tell him all, but she couldn"t, too afraid he would despise her when he learned of her past. The hypnotic hold in his brown eyes stilled her terror, and she surrendered the battle but not the war. “I will try.”

“Good enough. For now.” His uneven grin chipped away the barriers she"d needed to survive. “Undress me.”

“Pardon?” She shook her head.

“You heard me, sugar. Take off my clothes.”

“You are not going to punish me?”

“Look at me.” His thumb slid up her throat. “I"m pissed you deliberately tried to rile me by using the word „fornicate." So I"m gonna make you understand once and for all the difference between fornicating and making love.”

A fifteen-pound dumbbell lifted off her shoulders, but the dread didn"t recede entirely, and blood raced through her veins, making the pads of her fingers tingle.

“You want to believe me, but you"re afraid,” Harry murmured, his hot palm cupping the crook of her neck. “I"ve got your back, remember?” He gave her a little squeeze. “Undress me, woman. St. Pete"s mighty impatient.”

His asymmetrical smile and the golden glints in the halo of his irises crumbled Martine"s defenses. Tension seeped away as her bunched shoulder muscles slackened, and she wanted nothing more than to lay her cheek on Harry"s chest and have him hold her. And as if he read her mind, he pressed her head against his T-shirt-swathed pectorals, and his strong arms curled around her back, petting up and down her spine. His breath tickled her scalp, his fingers tangled in her hair, and he tugged her head back so their eyes met.

“Better?”

She nodded.

“Undress me.”

The corners of her mouth tugged upward, and she trailed her hands over the hard ridge of his chest to the hem of his T-shirt.

“No, Martine. No hands.” His eyebrows arched, and he shot her a bad-boy grin that out blasted Bruce Willis"s any day.

Cocking her head to one side, she studied the fly of his jeans. “The zipper?”

“Teeth,” he replied.

60

Jianne Carlo

“Oh,” she whispered, and unbidden images peppered her brain, draining the blood flow required for logical thinking. “You have to lie down.”

“Cakewalk.” In less time than it took her to exhale, he set her on the mattress, shifted to the middle of the bed, and lay down on the pillow, head cradled in his linked hands. “Go for it.”

Martine did something she"d never done before in her entire nineteen years—

she giggled, and after realizing the sound came from her lips, clamped a cupped palm over her mouth.

“Don"t,” he warned, his voice a richer coating than a tongue covered with melted dark chocolate. “St. Pete likes that little giggle.”

“Who is this St. Pete?” she asked. “I know St. Peter was one of the twelve disciples. Is that the Texas way of referring to him?”