The Art of Retaliation (20 page)

 
“I sat outside the
Chateau in the car waiting for him to bring you out so I could follow you.
 
I got my chance tonight.
 
But I couldn’t find you on the
boat.
 
I eventually saw you go into
the toilets and caught you when you came out.
 
Never mind you’re safe now.”
 

Christophe smiled and took his hand from the steering wheel to give
her own a squeeze.

“Thank you, Christophe,” she whispered feeling she ought to say
something.
 
But all she could think
of was
Stephane
and how devastated he would be that
she had left him.

They didn’t speak again until they turned into the car park outside
Christophe’s father’s residence in Versailles.
 
He helped her out of the car and she found
she was leaning on him heavily.
 
Maxine greeted them at the door in tears as she hugged her friend.

“I thought I mightn’t have seen you again. The Police wouldn’t
believe anything I told them,” she sobbed leading Mara into the kitchen were
she had been camped over a cup of coffee anxiously awaiting her arrival.

“I have to go back, Maxine.
 
He needs my help.”

“Mara, what are you talking about?
 
You are tired.
 
Go to bed.
 
We can talk about this in the morning,”
the impatience was evident in Christophe’s voice.

He turned to Maxine.

“She keeps saying this.”

He took out a beer from the fridge and listened to Mara narrating
events.

“I don’t care.
 
I’m sorry
about his sister but it isn’t your fault.
 
You are more important to me.
 
Maybe there is some other way you can help him?
 
What about your business contacts?
 
Christophe
tell
her.”

“Mara, Ryan could kill you.
 
Maxine and I will not let you go back to him.”

Christophe grew annoyed and sank another beer.
 
He’d waited years for her to notice him
and now some man kidnaps her and she is in love with him.
 
He would never understand women.
  

“But there must be some way of helping.
 
There must be something I can do.”

She pulled Christophe’s jacket around her tighter as she sat at the
kitchen table and Christophe found himself loving her even more.

“I think we should get you back to England.”
 
Maxine said standing up.

“Yes that’s it.
  
I
can get Ryan’s brother to help.
 
Ryan will listen to him.
 
He
always does.
 
He will make him
listen.”

Maxine looked at Christophe in frustration.

Christophe leaned over a chair drinking his beer.

“How did you get here, Mara?” he asked.

“I flew why?”

“I think you should go back through the Channel tunnel.
 
Yhey
are bound
to look for you at the airport.
 
And
I think you should go tomorrow.
 
The
sooner the better.”

Mara nodded preoccupied with how she would get Ryan’s brother to
come over to France.

“Can I go to bed now.
 
I
take it that I am sleeping here.”

She slipped the jacket off and handed it to Christophe.

“Thank you for everything.” she whispered and lightly kissed his
cheek.

Christophe stood back smiling and rolled his black eyes at Maxine.

Mara sat up in bed, the luxurious creamy silk sheet crushed between
her full breasts.
 
The night was so
warm she had decided to sleep naked.
 
She cast a cursory glance out of the French windows to the source of the
noise that had disturbed her.
 
The
wind was picking up rustling the leaves of the maple tree that tapped
intermittently against the door’s glass panes.
 
The room was bathed in strong moonlight
making eerie shadows of the tree branches that stretched out like gnarled hands
trying to caress her naked breasts.
 
She lay back down again, satisfied that an intruder wasn’t present and
covered herself in the sheet to protect her from the gentle breeze sweeping
through an open window and fell into a light sleep.

The intruder she had suspected stood at the side of her bed, a
penetrative gaze emanating from his eyes as he looked down at her making sure
she was secure in slumber.
 
Satisfied he sat down on the bed sliding his eyes over her body.
 
She was exquisitely beautiful, strands
of her blonde hair stretched over the pillow crowning her face shone
a pale
silver in the moonlight.
 
Her eyes were wet with tears. He touched
them carefully brushing them away with the tips of his fingers as he studied
her outline moving seductively in sleep beneath the sheet.

Her breathing became fast, excessive, her breasts rising and falling
with each agitated breath as though she was running to escape some evil.
 
He cupped her face commanding her in a
stern whisper to calm and sleep soundly.
 
She was safe he would protect her.
 
A small cry protruded her moist ruby lips.
 
He stroked his thumb over her lips and
then brushed them with a gentle kiss to silence the sound.
 
The intruder sat guarding her body
stroking the hair from her forehead in a soothing motion delivering words of
comfort until she relaxed and the cries faded in the recesses of dreams.

Convinced the small terror had passed the finger he kept to her lips
trailed over her chin following a winding path over her throat caressing the
bruising that painfully stained her skin.
 
Then down to the cleft between her breasts protected from his eyes by
the sheet.
 
He pulled the sheet down
slowly but abruptly stopped when he heard her moan and saw her eyes open.

Mara stared at the intruder.
 
His face was masked.
 
Her
body stiffened and grew rigid with fear.
 
Mara’s hand reached out and grasped hold of the sheet to pull it back in
place.
 
The man’s response was
swift.
 
He bent over her and
descended on her mouth with the force of a ravenous bird of prey.
 
Mara looked up into
Stephane’s
eyes startled, resisting the pressure of his mouth, fighting him judiciously
with her fists that he now held against the pillow.
 
He persisted and succeeded in
penetrating her mouth and almost immediately found herself aroused by the way
his strength overpowered her will.
 
She wanted him with a passion and her throwing caution aside she
surrendered to him.

Mara’s body cried out with triumph arching up towards him.
 
She drank him in a frenzy stretching a
hand up to caress her hand around his face.
 
He lifted up from her, his fingers
winding around her own and brought the palm of her hand to his lips and
showered it with passionate kisses trailing them the breadth of the palm to her
wrist. Mara caught her breath and began to writhe underneath him, stunned that
such a simple action could cause so much pleasure.

Her breathing became shallow and heavy.
 
It was almost as though he was teasing
her with a lovers trick.
 
It was
working.
 
What resistance, doubt and
caution she had left he had slaughtered and beaten into a retreat.
 
Every nerve ending ached for him.
 
She wanted him badly and she was going
to get him.

When he was sure she was lost under his spell Mara felt him gather
up the sheet and in one motion tear it from her body to unveil the treasures
she hid from his view.
 
He seemed to
watch her for a moment taking in all the curves and swells of her body.

Suddenly his hands glided over the darkened peaks of her
breasts.
 
He pulled and teasing her
nipples, kneading her breasts before smoothing them firmly down her over smooth
alabaster skin to the neatly trimmed black triangle nestled between her
thighs.
 
She looked up at him
expectantly, determined to meet his eyes and gage whether or not she pleased
him in the dim light.
 
She hadn’t
been undressed in front of a man since Ryan.
 
Mara gulped feeling vulnerable and followed
his eyes over her body that took time to linger and appreciate. His scrutiny
was severe and he seemed to want to inspect every inch.

“You are very beautiful, Mara.
 
Just as I imagined,” he confirmed in a dark whisper.

He circled the tip of a breasts purposefully and watched it tighten
and erect before bending to taste its sweetness and nip its nectar between his
teeth.
 
He held the quivering
snow-white mounds massaging them back and forth whilst his lips stole another
kiss.
 
She moaned under the fierceness
of his touch, dancing and coiling like a snake to the tune his hands played
across her body.

Mara’s hands clutched around his back pulling him
nearer.
 
A hand broke free from her breast and pressed down flat across her
stomach, increasing the pressure as he neared her vagina.
 
Her breathing deepened and picked up
speed in anticipation of his touch.
 
Inside she was on fire screaming for his caress to soothe the painful
throb between her thighs.
 
He
appeared aware of her ache and cruelly decided to prolong it by flicking his
fingers over her hips and thighs edging closer and closer to circle her lips
until she cried out his name and whimpered.

Mara unconsciously parted her legs a little and raised her body to
beckon him.
 
She was dry and barren
when he first sank his fingers into her depths but a single stroke to its
budded center produced a flush of hot fluid and paved the way for
penetration.
 
She felt him
purposefully circle the entrance to her channel and then slowly push his digit
inside, stretching it higher and higher,
pusling
it
back and forth.
 
She began to pant
her breath, Her hips lifting and lowering with each thrust.

“So wet, Mara.
 
I can’t
wait to be inside you.
 
I have
waited so long to make you mine.”

The pleasure ended abruptly as he rose from the bed and undid the
buttons on his grey shirt pulling it over a hunk of lean taut athletic muscle
that awaited her caress.
 
He removed
his tight black jeans.
 
He wore no
underwear and his length was hard and pulsing, urging her taking.

Mara’s hands were gathering up the sides of the sheets at either
side, little moans floating on the air as he descended on to the bed with the
stealth of a panther between her wet thighs.
 
He caught her small waist under his arm
and pulled her up tipping her head back, breasts high and proud to his mouth as
he embedded himself inside her, claiming her from the man who betrayed him and
her lover Christophe.

Stephane’s
only
regret was that they were not there to see it.
 
Mara let out a cry that dissolved into a
whimper of pleasure.
 
He felt her
mold her body against him
Prompting
him to move strong
and urgent within her.
 
Mara’s head
fell back over his arm as he sipped contentedly.
 
She was helplessly weak, her body
languid and buttery against him.
 
Just where he wanted her.

She could barely catch her breath.
 
Her fingers invaded his hair to pull him
from her breast and kiss him.
 
A
distant voice echoed in his mind that the union was wrong but his soul craved
it and he knew she felt the same.

He left her mouth swollen and open and firmly tilting her back over
his arm once more to catch a peak between his teeth again.
 
Simultaneously he ran his nails from the
top of her spine to its base in one raced moment. The breath surged up and out
from the pit of her stomach through the cavity of her lungs to vibrate through
her mouth as she bucked against him.
 
He increased the pace of his thrusts and repeated the action.
 
He was so close to release.

This time she cried out his name over and over moving her pelvis
savagely.
 
He grasped the back of
her neck gathering her hair in the ball of his hand and took possession of her
mouth to still her screams lest they should be heard by the rest of the
occupants of the house and allowed her to climax.
 
He gave a low animal roar that growled
against her lips and exploded with her.

After their hips ceased their rhythmic movement Mara hung limp in
his arms.
 
He directed her head to
his shoulder breathing hard and stroked her hair away to suckle her neck.
 
Mara
lay
her
head over his shoulder relying on his comfort and protection just like he
wanted her to.
 
He was at peace for
the first time in an age.
 
The tree
was still tapping at the window to be let in and somewhere an owl hooted.
 

“I want to . . .”

“
Shh
rest,” he whispered kissing her
shoulder holding her a little while longer before he would have to do what he
came for and perhaps lose her forever.

He slipped from her body breaking their joining and disappeared into
the area of the room not lit by moonlight to dress.
 
When he finished he stood above her
looking down with satisfaction at her forehead that was a little damp from the
exertion as she lay back down.

‘Why did you make love to me?’ she asked lazily.

‘Because I wanted to,’ he told her coldly.
 
‘And for revenge,” he lied.
 
“Now I am taking you back.
 
Get dressed.”

She stared at him and for a second he thought he might falter.
 
The hurt on her face was
unbearable.
 
They had just made love
and he’d made sure there was no evidence of love any where in his voice, only
measured hardness.
 
It was the only
way to get through this.

“How can you be so dam cold?
 
We’ve just made love,” she asked in that delicious fragile voice he
loved so much.

“Keep your voice down and dress.”

“No it’s not going to happen this time.
 
I will help you on my terms, my
way.
 
I’ve contacted Ryan’s
brother.
 
He is going to help me get
Louise back and I’ve e-mailed my office.
 
They know what is going on.
 
You . . .”

“I’m not interested now get up.”

“No I won’t.”

He sat down on the bed beside her again.
 
She pulled herself straight to face him,
pulling the sheet further around herself.
 
He lent forwards until she had to bend backwards to accommodate him and
felt his lips touch hers again silently wishing that he would wipe everything
he had said away and make love to her again.

“I am not going to tell you again, I want you up and ready or I will
drag you from this bed and dress you myself.
 
And you should know by now that I will.”

He sat up pleased that she was giving him the same horrified stare
that she had done in the car and believed it would do the trick.
 
But the horror crumpled into anger and
she was sitting up raising a small hand to slap him.
 
He caught her wrist tightly and in one
motion pulled her from the bed as she clung to the sheet, pulling it with her.

‘Why all of this?
 
Why
the pretense? What do you gain,” she demanded tying the sheet around her body.