Walking The Edge: A Romantic Suspense/Espionage Thriller (Corpus Brides Trilogy Book 1) (8 page)

Actually, now that she thought it through, the cold accuracy with which she’d handled the situation scared her.

The ding of the lift reaching her floor startled her and she jumped.

Gerard’s hand closed softly around her arm.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She shook her head. She wasn’t, and she wouldn’t be, not until she knew what brewed, what her life and her true identity really implied. Right now, she swirled in a void and tried without success to hold on to figures of mist that dissolved as soon as she touched them.

His hand travelled across her back to her shoulder, and he pulled her gently to him. “Come,” he said as he led her out of the lift.

*

Gerard quelled his surprise when she gave him her key card after a couple of bumbled attempts to open the door. Why the trust? He’d expected her to get in and slam the panel in his face, shutting him out ASAP. A woman like her would want—
need
—to call the shots.

One look into her pale face and he understood. She remained shaken, and if he guessed right, the realization of what had taken place tonight had caught up with her.

He released her and swiped the card through the lock. The door opened with a soft click and he ushered her inside. She trudged in with leaden steps and remained rooted to her spot when she reached the middle of the room.

She seemed frozen, and when he came up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders, the certainty slid in that he had to take control of the situation. She’d come to the end of her tether.

He held the collar of the blazer and peeled it off her. She shivered despite the warm interior, the damp marks on the back of her top clinging to her body. She’d catch a cold with such wet clothes on her.

He moved until he stood in front of her. Taking her face in his palms, he stifled a curse at how pale her skin had grown. Very far from what the confident woman in the bistro had looked like. She seemed so affected suddenly—could she be that good an actress? He also glimpsed a haunted look in her eyes, and he blinked. Her blue irises reminded him of something, yet, he couldn’t place his finger on what.

Better to focus on the moment. The questions could come later.

“You need a hot shower,” he said.

She acquiesced with a nod, blinking as if to snap out of a spell. Turning to the bathroom, she trudged towards it, placed her handbag on a table along the way, and closed the door behind her.

Gerard shrugged out of his jacket and slung it over a sofa. He scanned the room for whatever tidbits that could provide him with some information about her. The bedside table lay bare, the corners of the bed perfectly made.

He zoomed in on her handbag, and in two steps, stood in front of it. Zipping it open, he searched for any clue to her identity.

To his surprise, he found a British ID card in her purse, yet, not one hint of plastic money. Then why the ID? A lure wouldn’t boast her identity so easily.

Her name was Amelia Jamison.

It rang no bells in his mind.

He searched for a mobile phone but found none. Strange. No further information to be gleaned, except for the business card of a man named Peter Jamison, who worked at an investment company in London.

Gerard slid the card inside his pocket. He’d run a check on the man when he reached the
commissariat
.

Who is she?
The question plagued him.
And what does she want with me?

Weariness crashed down on him and he closed his eyes. Doing so made him recall the dark glimmer in her irises a few moments earlier. He knew that look, but from where? Then there’d been that hint of a smile she’d given him outside the garage.

He bristled as the adrenaline pumped through his body, obliterating even the lingering hint of pain. He hadn’t wanted any medication, but the SAMU doctor had pricked him with a needle despite all his rebuffs.

But he now thanked the drug coursing in his bloodstream, because taking the edge off the pain meant he could concentrate on the things that really mattered.

Like her. Amelia. If it were indeed her name.

The water stopped running in the adjoining room. He moved away from the handbag, careful to zip it back up. Gerard turned to the bathroom door at the same time she opened it, emerging from the cloud of steam wrapped only in a towel.

Something good could be attributed to adrenaline, but it also brought something bad with it. Like the way his gut tightened at the sight of her with the skimp of terry cloth covering her tiny frame. Freshly washed, her face looked younger, her eyes huge and darkly lashed. So it hadn’t been makeup that had given her gaze its intensity. He suddenly wanted her with the desperation of a thirsty man catching sight of an oasis in the desert. As if he craved her, needed her for survival. Like he had craved someone else before—

Don’t think of
her
. Not now. This woman is
Amelia
. Not
her
.

He tensed, unable to look away, unable to see her without intense longing tearing at his insides.
Merde
, he groaned. He would lose it. Really soon, too, if she didn’t stop looking at him with those big eyes and full, parted lips...

*

Coiled tension made him stand rigid and tall. She felt in the air as easily as the wisps of steam caressed her exposed skin. His face had grown hard, the fire in his eyes taking her breath away. A soft gasp escaped her lips.

While she’d been under the cascade of water, she’d tried hard to blank the thoughts from her mind, and she had managed, focusing only on the warmth flooding over her clammy skin.

The cold had blanketed her like a malevolent shroud as soon as she’d stepped out of the shower, but under his intense appraisal, heat built from deep and low inside her at a steady pace.

That beautiful, tough man... He would make things right, with his touch, with his heat, with his love. Like he always did, like only he could.

The certainty settled inside her of its own volition, soothing her mind, pacifying the storm raging inside her.

The surroundings blurred around her peripheral vision, taking her to a place and moment when he had looked at her in the same way, and she had experienced a similar, irresistible pull beckoning to him.

Oh, yes, she wanted him, with a desperation making her think she’d lose any grip on her life if he didn’t take her right away. Somehow, she knew this same kind of flaming passion had been the pulse of their relationship in the past.

Their gazes locked, and the room melted around her. He took a few steps and stopped a hair’s breadth away from her. Even through her damp towel and his shirt, the blazing temperature of his body reached out to her.

She pulled in a long inhale when he drew closer. Tension sizzled between them, and she recalled the moment on the streets when he had stood so close to her and had touched her cheek.

As if he, too, recalled it, he brought his hand up.

The warm skin settled firmly along her jawbone, cradling it in his grasp. She closed her eyes under the feeling of security spreading through her.
This feels so right.
She burrowed her cheek into his palm.

When his lips touched hers, the fire that had smouldered inside her blazed into a full-blown inferno. She opened her mouth to his kiss. His tongue delved inside to coax hers into surrender. She yielded wilfully, her arms going around his neck. His kiss brought her alive, made her yearn for more, for everything, with him.

You’ve come home
, her body sang.

*

Gerard groaned. Her passion proved enough to blow to ashes whatever remaining sense he still possessed. Why had he kissed her,
bon sang
?

She’s a killer
, his rational brain prodded.

She isn’t going to kill me now
, another side retorted.

In fact, he’d die if he didn’t have her. Not very professional of him, but who gave a damn right then? She made him think—

Stop that!

He needed to forget, to focus on the here and now. On this woman, and not on
her
...

He released her cheek and reached down to grip the towel, peeling it off her in a rough jerk. She arched against him, and he moved forward, making her take a step back until her body ended up pressed to the velvet-panelled wall.

Her hand came down from his neck to open the buttons on his shirt, pushing off his shoulder holster in the process. He helped her and shrugged out of the leather straps, then the cotton garment. His bare skin brushed against hers, and her hardened nipples rubbed against his torso. She would consume him with such heat. He groaned and tore his mouth from hers to trail fevered kisses along the column of her throat.

Small, plaintive moans escaped her on rushed exhales as she let him explore the recesses of her collarbone. She wanted him as much as he wanted her—he could feel it in the way she abandoned her body to his touch, to his kisses. He undid the button and zipper on his jeans and pushed them off, kicking them to the side.

Her leg came up along his thigh, her soft skin sending sparks of desire along his limbs and throughout his body.

Now. He needed her now.

Bracing his hands on her ribcage, he pinned her to the wall. She understood what he wanted, and in the blink of an eye, her legs came up, brushing feverishly against his hips, then straddling his waist. Standing like that, with his body aligned with her core, he entered her with a none-too-gentle push.

Even with her face buried in the crook of his neck, he heard the moan she tried to stifle. Her soft, velvety lips trailed up his skin to settle on the pulse beating frantically near his jaw line. Her tongue darted out to caress the throbbing vein, and she rocked her lower body against his.

He needed no further encouragement to meet her rhythm thrust for thrust. She weighed hardly more than a feather, yet, her body took his brute force and solid weight as if she’d been made for him, responding to the fierceness of his taking her with an equally strong drive begging him to give her everything.

She screamed and her nails dug into his shoulder blades. The flash of pain arching through him, right when he heard the echo of her pleasure in her heavy breaths, in the powerful contractions of her body, sent him over the edge. He came with a groan, emptying his seed inside her all while his soul lost himself in her.

In a way, he
had
lost himself, because he’d just fucked the enemy.

Chapter Five

Marseille.
Corniche
JF Kennedy

Sunday, December 16. 12:32 a.m.

What had he done?

With her arms and legs still wrapped around his body, he cradled her against him and moved to the bed where he gently deposited her.

Gerard let his gaze roam over her. They’d had sex. Unprotected. What had he been thinking?

“Are you on the pill?” he asked

She blinked up into his face, as if coming out of a spell, and shook her head. “I...I don’t know.”

Putain
. What had he gotten himself into? If this had been a ploy to get her pregnant as some sort of blackmail leverage... He shouldn’t—couldn’t—trust her. She had killed a man the past night, after all.

He had to get away, but not before he’d covered his tracks. If she left in the meantime, then he would know the score. If she stayed back, it would imply a whole other kettle of fish. One that probably had no bottom.

He moved around the room, gathered his scattered clothes and shrugged them on, trying hard to slam the lid down on the unwanted memories whizzing in as if on a fibre-optic exchange line. At the door, he turned to look at her.

She sat huddled in a tiny heap on the big bed, and something sliced through his heart at the desolate picture. She seemed out of her depths, and totally lost.

How much of this is an act, and how much is really what she’s truly feeling?

With a softly muttered curse, he went back to her. So much he yearned to ask her, but the words escaped him the closer he drew to her, her pull on him magnetic, something he couldn’t fathom. Who was this woman, that she could turn his world upside down so easily?

She turned those big eyes on him, and again, a pang of familiarity hiding a realization beating against his consciousness, eager to slide into his grasp, hit him in the gut.

Don’t go
, those crystal-blue depths begged.

He had to.

Without a word, he left the room, taking the key with him. He fully intended to be back despite what his mind screamed. He could fall for her too easily, but she held answers for him. And try as he might, he couldn’t shake the notion of something too familiar about her.

Once in the reception lobby, he ambled over to the front desk.

“Yo,” he said with a smile when he reached the counter.

Marcel smiled back and bumped fists with him. “
Commissaire
. What brings you here?”

“This and that,” he said, evading the question. “Life’s treating you good, it seems.”

Wearing a broad grin, the young man shrugged. “Wouldn’t have been here without you.”

Gerard nodded. “Listen, mate,” he said, “I don’t want to get you into any trouble, but can you do me a favour?”

“Name it and it shall be done.”

He leaned forward, his voice dropping low. “Room 327. Let me know all that happens where it’s concerned.”

Marcel nodded. “Comings and goings?”

“Especially these. And,” he paused, “can you get me a duplicate key for it?”

The younger man remained silent, before he nodded. “Meet Sami at the bistro later today. He’ll have an envelope for you.”

Gerard shook his hand and they bumped fists again. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

He left the hotel and walked to his car. Once inside the Peugeot, he set out for the nearest pharmacy. He finally found one still open and went in. Gerard glanced at the arrangement of boxes and bottles on the shelf behind the counter, finally locating what he had come here for. He pointed at the flat box.

“I’ll have one of those,” he told the pharmacist.

As the man rang up his bill, his attention locked on the condom boxes’ stand, and he pulled a packet out, adding it to his other purchase.

Lord knew he wanted to be sensible and not have sex with her again, but he also knew there existed a very slim chance of that. He closed his eyes, remembering the feel of her body as he took her. It made him think of someone else, someone he’d so wanted to forget—

No, he wouldn’t think of
her
again. He’d tried his hardest to erase her from his conscious mind. Not the time to recall the memory of her.

With Amelia, he
could
forget again, and that’s why he would go back to her bed.

After paying for his purchases, he left the pharmacy and returned to the hotel, keeping his mind and thoughts focused on the task he still had to undertake—questioning the woman he’d left in room 327.

He found her standing near the terrace door when he entered the room. She had draped an afghan over her shoulders, but the outline of her naked body lay evident to his gaze. As clearly as the edge of despair in her eyes when she turned to face him.

*

She jumped when he let himself in, the click of the door latch startling her in the quiet of the night broken only by the gentle swish of the waves in the distance. She hadn’t thought he’d come back, not after the abrupt way he’d left.

The events of the evening had caught up with her during his absence, and it all became too much. The silence in the large room had played on her nerves, and she’d tried hard to drown the thoughts swirling in her head, to push the eerie quiet to the back of her mind.

After a while, she’d stood and caught the throw on the edge of the bed. Pulling it over her shoulders, she had moved to the terrace door and opened it slightly. The soft sounds of the wind and the waves outside had settled their peaceful lull over her, and she had allowed herself to calm down, to let the world stop reeling around her.

What had happened here? She had shagged a man. No hiding from it. Not sex. Not making love. Nothing but hardcore shagging. Lord, she didn’t recall the last time she’d even been intimate with a man, and wouldn’t it be ironic if it turned out her last shag had been with this man himself?

Even odder—she didn’t feel bad about it. A good shag was a good shag, full stop, and she had a feeling she didn’t make a big fuss out of it. Why? Had she tumbled from bed to bed in the past? Was she a total trollop? Or was the encounter with Gerard simply rebound sex, after she’d found out her ‘husband’ cheated on her?

And the man she had killed...

Time slipped by as she’d burrowed into the little world where the questions tugged inside her mind and battled with the sound of the waves to get the better of her concentration.

Until the door clicked open and startled her.

He came in with a small, white plastic bag in his hand. He removed his jacket and threw it over the sofa, along with his gun and holster, before he went into the bathroom and came back with a glass of water. Pulling a flat box out of the bag, he carried it to the bed, where he sat on the edge of the mattress.

“Come over here,” he said in a soft, lulling tone.

As he patted the spot next to him, she experienced a strange pull again, the imperceptible, intangible thread binding her to this man. Not the first time she’d been with him—her body had recognized the heated way he took her.

Clue me in
, she whispered in her mind.
Make me remember
.

She wouldn’t achieve anything if she stayed near the terrace door, though, yards away from the bed. She tore herself from where she leaned against the clear glass to sit beside him on the mattress. Somehow, she knew she could trust him, that she could implicitly place her life in his hands if the situation required it. How she grew so certain, she didn’t know, but right now, her heart talked to her. And if she couldn’t trust her own heart, then in who, or in what, could she settle her faith?

He handed her the glass along with a single pill in its metallic envelope. “Take it.”

No!
Her mind erupted in revolt. No. Not him, too. She’d come to him to escape the other madman who plied her with pills. That nightmare wouldn’t, couldn’t,
shouldn’t
, continue here, too.

The horror burst to life inside her brain, but she couldn’t for the life of her move her body, as if some stimulus overdrive had frozen all nerve connections. Her lips parted, letting out only a small, strangled sound. The glass shook in her hand as she forced herself to move, to do anything, to respond to her mind’s command. Water spilled over her fingers and onto the sheet, and she would’ve dropped the glass had he not settled his fingers over her hand.

*

Gerard frowned. “What is it?”

Something was wrong. Why would she react in this way?

“Don’t do it,” she said, so softly he had trouble hearing her.

It sounded like she struggled to form the words.

“Don’t do what?” he prompted.

“This. Drugs. No. Not again.” She paused, turning those huge eyes onto him. “Please.”

That one word held so much despair he shivered from the raw emotion, the painful feeling laced within it. What the hell had happened to her? But then his cop instincts took hold.

Hold on
. She thought he wanted to drug her?
Putain
, if he’d wanted to do so, he wouldn’t have
handed
her the medicine, would he? He caught the terror in her eyes, in the pallor of her face, in the droop of her shoulders. She needed reassuring—everything screamed that he should handle her like one took care with an abuse victim.

“I don’t want to drug you. We didn’t use any protection, and the medication will prevent you from getting pregnant,” he said, keeping his voice to a low, soothing tone.

She still didn’t seem to understand. Could it be the shimmer of tears in her eyes?

“The morning-after pill,” he added.

She stared at the tablet in her hand, and then peeked up at him. So much trust battling with despair in those crystal-clear blue irises...

Trust me
, he wanted to say. But he didn’t, because she couldn’t, and shouldn’t, trust him. They weren’t from the same side.

Finally, after a long moment, she pressed the tablet out of its wrapping. After placing it in her mouth, she swallowed it with a sip of water.

The glass remained in her hand, and she made no move to either drink the rest or put it on the table.

She represented an enigma, this woman. Slowly, a picture cleared in his mind. Someone had been toying with her. No one could fake the kind of distress he’d witnessed take hold of her when he gave her the pill. She also hadn’t lied, her eyes remaining focused on him and not looking left or right. For all her defiance and composure so far, deep down inside, a battered and hurt woman begged for release from whatever abyss she found herself in.

“You want to tell me what happened?” he asked, taking the glass from her and placing it on the bedside table.

She blinked.

“You said you wouldn’t do it again. Take drugs.” He paused. “Someone made you take them?”

Not uncommon for criminal ringleaders to keep their women under the influence and addiction of drugs. He also remembered the bruise on her arm; he threw another look at the injured flesh. He’d seen countless physical abuse victims in his life and career—that type of discoloration came from someone’s too-forceful grip. Yes, she must be a victim, in some way.

She nodded, confirming his suspicions.

“Who did this to you?”

The tip of her tongue came out to wet her lips, and his gut tightened.

“My husband. No. He said he was my husband—”

“Hold on.” He couldn’t think straight anymore, and he stood, hoping that by pacing, he might infuse some sense into what she was saying. “You’re telling me you’re married? And to the man who drugged you? Do you even know what you’re talking about?”

“No!”

“No to what? You’re not married? Or it’s not your husband who—”

“I don’t even remember who I am!”

That silenced him and made him sit down on the edge of the bed.

“How can this be?” he asked.

Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes grew so wide. Every time she blinked, the sheen of tears deepened in her limpid blue gaze.

She took a deep breath but remained silent, looking away from him.

“Please, if you could just explain—”

“I have amnesia,” she started, sounding cautious. “I woke up in a hospital with this man beside my bed who said he was my husband.”

“What would he stand to gain by lying?”

“I don’t know, but that’s not the point. Whatever there was between us, it’s over. I’ve left him, to come here to see you.”

“Why me?”

“Because I remember you.”

He frowned. “You just said you have amnesia.”

She lowered her head, staring into her lap. “I saw you in a dream.”

“Okay...” Everything just got weirder and weirder with her involved. Whatever was wrong with her must be seriously warped.

Her head came up and the vehemence and purpose now blazing in her eyes startled him.