Killing Time: The Bonus Collection (36 page)

Rory stood and backed away from the bed slowly. “It wasn’t me.”

“Liar! How could you…I thought you were better than Severin, Rory, but you aren’t! You two are so much the same it is ridiculous. How could you even think about sex when we laid your girlfriend and your unborn child into the ground today?”

My lover stared at me with an odd mixture of surprise and regret before he met Nicole’s gaze again. “It is true, I laid my lover in the ground but the child didn’t belong to me, Nikki. It isn’t your business whose baby it was but I will tell you once more: I didn’t touch Aurélie—not like that. There was nothing sexual about the way I touched her in any way, shape or form. I was merely undressing her so she could get some rest and that is when I saw the bruises.”

“It’s true,” I finally responded though my eyes began to close on me involuntarily. “I did it to myself and he was just as dismayed and disconcerted to see the bruises as you are now.”

My best friend walked toward me with her arms tucked against her small bosom and her long blonde hair flowing around elegant, slim shoulders. “What is wrong with you? How could you do that knowing how much self-harm Tresor was involved with? Have you lost your mind?”

“I sometimes think that is a strong possibility,” I replied before my eyes closed yet again and no matter how hard I tried, they refused to open again at that point.

Somewhere in a dark recess of my mind, I heard their conversation continue in a quiet manner but they’d both slipped into high German and the words blended together. I no longer understood what they were discussing and if I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to know what they were saying either.

My body succumbed to sleep and it was the best feeling in the world at that very moment.

THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, EVERYONE WHO
hadn’t left began to leave and it was only a handful of us guests who decided to stay an extra day including Rory and I, Severin and his new slave and of course my best friend Nicole and her husband, Renaud.

Renaud and I had a complicated relationship to say the least. Before he’d been my best friend’s husband, he’d been my lover, best friend and soul mate. He was the first man I’d fallen in love with and he was also the only one I allowed to inexplicably break my heart into a million pieces. I’d never thought I would feel anything remotely close to the feelings I felt for him until Rory had come along.

I would have been lying if I implied everything was copacetic between us because it wasn’t. I didn’t want to be his friend and merely tolerated him because he was married to Nicole. Other than that, I would have been perfectly happy if we’d never crossed paths ever again.

Although the weather was freezing, all the men decided we should have lunch on a shaded terrace which overlooked a flowing river that ran through town. It was easier to focus on the river than the political discussion Nicole, Renaud, Rory and Severin had decided to start in rapid French. Ingrid looked bored and uncomfortable, both wearing layers of clothing and sitting at the table. I suppose it wouldn’t have been kosher for Severin to have her naked next to the table in temperatures not too high above freezing.

I suddenly wished we had gone back to Paris, back to Rory’s opulent home in Vaucresson because I wouldn’t feel as naked as I did at that moment. I could feel Renaud’s eyes rake over me every now and then and coupled with Severin’s weathering glances, it all became too much. I felt an anxiety attack coming on, a major one and the last mistake I wanted to make was embarrassing myself at the worst possible time.

Rory never made me feel strange or not normal for having them, not like Renaud. Severin, on the other hand, seemed to revel in them. He enjoyed pain especially my own and I wouldn’t give him that, not now, not ever. Without thinking, I stood and strode back inside the warmth of the hotel just as it reached its pinnacle.

My heart raced with a burning intensity and I felt a cool sheen of sweat coat my skin as my breathing became frantic and erratic. I continued towards the stairs knowing that if I took the elevator, it would make the feeling worse than it already was and I couldn’t handle that. This one was a tough enough panic attack on its own.

Halfway up the second flight of stairs, I felt a warm hand brace my arm and I turned to face the first love of my life: Renaud. He looked different, somewhat older and his looks held less sway and charm over me but his presence didn’t ease my anxiety.

“What are you doing here?” I exclaimed in angry French. “Go back to your wife before she suspects something is going on between us.”

His eyes, so incredibly clear and a glorious shade of crystal blue pleaded with me for understanding. Though his hair was sandy brown, it’d always suited him and once he’d married Nicole, they became known as more or less the “golden couple”. His skin was clear as always, a natural peaches and cream complexion which complimented classic Gallic features, a toned body that went perfectly with his height of 5’11”. Although I wore four-inch heels, I still had to look up slightly to him and this didn’t make my heart slow down the least bit.

“Aurélie, don’t do this to me. Please don’t act like there is nothing between us.”

I laughed out loud. “My God, you’re delusional. There
is
nothing between us, Renaud. You’re married to my best friend and I am in a relationship. What makes you possibly think I am interested in sloppy seconds? Go. Back. To. Your. Wife.”

“Goddamn it, I refuse to believe you are happy with that…that
fils de pute
!” he exclaimed in anger.

“Does it feel better now that you have said it? It’s the second day in a row someone has called Rory a ‘son of a whore’ when he’s done nothing wrong. Whether you choose to believe it or not, I am very happy with him and I won’t break up a marriage between you and Nicole. My God, what has gotten into that brain of yours? Are you on drugs?”

Renaud let go of my arm as if I’d burned him and held his own at his side. “Listen, I am not trying to make you angry and I never said
anything
about
leaving
my wife. I’m worried about you. Your eyes have this hard-edged look to them and you seem so angry at the world—”

“Perhaps it’s because I am,” I responded flippantly and began to walk up the staircase again.

He followed me at a relatively safe distance until we reached the floor where our suites were located. “I don’t want to fight with you and I know you don’t have to treat me with any kindness but…I only wish for you to be happy. I don’t see how that could ever be possible with Rory Krieger. The man is a…well, his sexual practices are quite unique. Surely you don’t like being tied up and having pain inflicted upon you. I know what they are into and it’s a world you don’t want to know.”

I turned toward him finally and we faced off, merely several feet away from one another. Our fight had made my anxiety attack retreat rather quickly and I felt calm and less shaken than I had earlier.

“Listen, you don’t know anything about me. We had a relationship with one another almost a decade ago and I’m not the same person I was. I haven’t been that naïve young woman in a very long time, Renaud. All the sudden, you approach me and wish to know I am safe and secure but to be honest, it truly is none of your concern.”

He cursed softly under his breath in French before he said, “How could you go there when you know he was with your sister before you? Don’t you feel the least bit shameful by your outright wanton behavior? How do you know he isn’t using you as a place holder because he doesn’t have Trésor anymore?

“You’re a beautiful, vibrant and vivacious woman but do you really think you could hold a candle to your sister if she were still alive? Trésor oozed sex appeal and she was gorgeous and seductive. She had everything you will never possess because she had a genuine love and fascination with life. It truly is a pity she’s now dead.”

Renaud’s words shocked me as if I had been slapped in the face. He always could bring me back down to size with his cruelty. It was something he excelled at and I was not ashamed to say it but he was best at belittling a person. It was what kept me tethered to him for so long even after I knew he no longer was in love with me.

I wasn’t going to pretend I knew how he felt about my sister. Perhaps at one time he was attracted to her or maybe they’d had an affair. It no longer mattered as we weren’t a couple and what he did with her was inconsequential. She was dead but his words still stung and I couldn’t help if my eyes watered a bit.

“Sweetheart, is everything okay?” a male voice inquired.

I looked past Renaud to see Rory approaching and the breath I’d held on to for dear life slowly escaped my lungs. “Yes, everything is fine. I just need to lay down. I don’t feel very well.”

My lover walked past my ex-boyfriend as if he weren’t standing there and turned me around in his arms so I faced him and he faced Renaud. “I have a migraine from hell and I came up to take my medication. We should both lay down.” He looked up and murmured, “See you at dinner, Renaud.”

With that, he swept me into our suite after he unlocked the door with the card key and we both walked inside.

I leaned against his firm chest and melted in the heat and scent of his embrace. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Saving me back there…it was very sweet of you. My ex was just about to wax poetic about all the different ways my sister was much better than I was and I just knew I would have probably vomited all over the carpet. He’s always been such an asshole but sadly, I never realized that until now.”

Rory grabbed my face by the chin with warm fingers and tilted my face towards his. Every time I looked into those hypnotic aquamarine eyes, I fell that much more in love with him.

“He can’t tell you anything about Trésor because he didn’t
know
her. No one did except me…and Severin.” He added his brother’s name with a particular bitterness and it was then and there I knew he would never forgive his twin for what he’d done.

There was no way my sister should have gotten pregnant in the first place. She was on birth control so what happened? Had she been skipping days or was it something Severin had carefully planned while pretending to be Rory?

My poor sister could never tell the difference between the two brothers as they were identical twins and classic manipulators. I knew only because for me, it was in their eyes. Identical in every way but there was a soulless quality in Severin’s that Rory lacked entirely. He had life and love in those beautiful eyes and he hadn’t lost his humanity the same way his brother had.

Whether he’d freely given it up or it had been taken from him was anyone’s guess but he didn’t have the same heart and soul as Rory and to me, Severin could never have fooled me into believing he was Rory.

However my sister wasn’t quite as good with subtleties and would have never noticed. I had read enough of her journals to know she thought Rory might have been a sociopath because of his night-day mood swings but what she didn’t know was there wasn’t anything remotely wrong with Rory, psychologically speaking. The difference in attitude strictly came from the difference between the brothers’ personalities and nothing else.

Rory hadn’t even been in the country when she was murdered because he’d never administered her punishment in the first place, Severin had and all the while, she’d been ignorant enough to think it was Rory she’d greeted that fateful night she’d gotten home from the modeling job and not Severin.

Their relationship intrigued me and frightened me. I didn’t really like nor would I ever understand why they remained so close they were inter-dependent on one another. There wasn’t much they didn’t share, including bed partners, and although it was against my better judgment, I had slept with the both of them not just once but twice.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would have been the first to admit what I had done had been the behavior of a tramp and someone who suffered from low self-esteem. However, Rory had slowly taught me some of the most basic rules of the BDSM community and one of the first rules one learned was there were no rules in terms of sharing if that is what the submissive wished to happen.

The second night I shared my body with both Rory and Severin, I had not been under any duress and there wasn’t a shred of dubious consent involved. I’d done it because I had been in control and they’d bottomed out to me so for that one night, I was the dominant one and they were my two submissives. I didn’t spank them, tie them up or order them what to do but they voluntarily gave their power to me and allowed me to make the rules.