by Natasha Boyd
“Je—no. Mon dieu.” Xavier flashed a semi amused and semi shocked glance at me before relaying some sort of message to Cristo. Cristo seemed gratified, and then began pointing and explaining.
Some didn’t need too much explanation. There was a charcuterie board with a selection of meats and cheeses, some more olives, small fried squid, large glistening pink prawns lightly dusted with something and surrounded by big, fat, juicy lemons. There was some type of lighter colored meat, surrounded by round balls and carrots. “Wild boar and roasted chestnuts,” Xavier explained when I stared at it too long.
All the dishes looked sumptuous but small so we could taste everything.
Cristo opened a dusty bottle of red wine and set it to the side for now, and then shuffled away and disappeared.
“My mouth is watering.” I pointed at a bowl. “To be honest this looks like southern grits.”
“Grits?”
“Made of coarse cornmeal.”
“Ah, like polenta. Yes, this is Corsican though. So it will be made of chestnut flour. It’s to be served with the lamb or with anything you like.”
“Served the same as grits too, then. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Certainly in South Carolina. And people either love them or hate them. There’s no in between.”
“How are they prepared?”
“Simple butter and salt, sometimes with cheese, sometimes with sausage gravy,” I listed. “Definitely with shrimp and bourbon gravy. You name it. Some people even have it sweetened with syrup.” I made a face. “Though that’s a sin in my household.”
Xavier served my plate with a little bit of everything, and I began eating. The flavors were incredible. No herb was overpowering, but everything tasted fresh and bursting with flavor. I identified fennel, garlic, rosemary and, of course, chestnut.
“Tell me about growing up,” Xavier asked after we’d all but decimated the initial offerings, neither of us able to talk for too long before putting something else in our mouths. It was hard not to moan aloud.
Cristo had just been up and ladled out some kind of seafood bisque that was making me delirious. I was getting so full, and the now finished carafe of wine had made us both languid, relaxed, and laughing freely.
I answered Xavier, telling him about growing up in downtown Charleston and going to private school. We shared similar stories of what that was like and the kind of friends who lasted from that time.
He told me about the nuns at his Catholic private school and how he credited them with keeping him on the straight and narrow.
I talked about losing my dad. And I told him about the morning I woke up at boarding school and was summoned to the principal’s office. I was told my stepfather had been arrested, and I was being asked to leave due to the fact my fees hadn’t been paid since the beginning of the school year. “I wasn’t even allowed to go back to my room and pack my own things. Or even say goodbye. Everyone was in assembly.” I swallowed the ball of shame and humiliation that always lodged in my throat when I thought back. “My mother was there to pick me up, and she was so shocked and humiliated by everything she couldn’t even talk to me. We said nothing the whole drive home. When we got there, there were press at the gates. We could hardly get through. The police arrived so we could get through the gate but had to endure walking to the front door with that audience. I left all my stuff in the car rather than unpack in front of them.”
Xavier reached for my hand. “I know what wolves they can be.”
Blinking away some moisture in my eyes, I continued. “I remember asking as we closed the front door behind us, ‘Is this house even ours, or will we be kicked out of here too?’ The answer was, of course, yes, we would be kicked out. The mortgage had not been paid in six months. It was that question that broke my mother. She loved that house. She and my father had bought it together, well before my stepfather had entered the picture.” My wine glass empty, I picked up my water glass and took a long sip, remembering how she’d all but collapsed and I’d had to try and get her to the sofa. “Not many friends reached out to me. Even friends I’d been in school with for years. Meredith did though.” I smiled. “I’ve known Meredith since elementary school. Tabs only since college, though it feels like so much longer. I miss them. They’re also my family really.”
Xavier reached for the dusty bottle of red wine Cristo had opened earlier and poured us both new glasses.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he said. “I can’t imagine how that must have felt. Like an earthquake under your feet.”
“Something like that. If the earthquake destroys the whole world around you and leaves you standing and wondering where it all went. It still haunts us. Charleston has a long memory. The day I accepted the job to come here, I’d just been passed over for a promotion at work, and the senior partner made some mention of my stepfather. After all these years, we are still paying for his sins. I was told that I’d never get a promotion.”
Xavier scowled. “Fool,” he said acidly.
I chuckled. “I appreciate your blind allegiance, but you have no idea if I’m good at my job.”
“You’re extraordinary. I’d stake my life on it. You are passionate about everything you do. Interested. Curious. Talented, if the sketches Dauphine has shown me are anything to go by. You can draw out the exact detail in a façade that makes it what it is. And top of the class student.”
I raised my eyebrows, flushed with pleasure. “A top student? And how would you know that.”
He took a breath, and then looked me in the eyes. “I have your college transcripts. I make a habit of thoroughly investigating everyone who comes near my family.”
“That sounds lonely,” I fired defensively, not sure how I felt about him looking into me. It made sense given his position. It’s still didn’t feel right.
“It is lonely.”
Somehow that deflated me. “So, you knew everything about me. Why bother asking?” I asked tightly.
“Because those were facts. But there was no story. You’re the story, Joséphine.”
He picked up his glass and sniffed the new wine. In Charleston, I used to find that pretentious. But Xavier swirling and inhaling wine was sexy as all hell. Maybe it was just the confident way he sat, leaned back, legs slightly splayed. Candlelight and the glow from the overhead twinkle lights played across his features. Maybe it was the way he held his glass. And the fact that we were sitting on a rooftop on an island in the middle of the Mediterranean. But more than that, it was his presence. His intellect. And the way he was clearly a successful and important businessman, and yet he was looking at me like I was the most fascinating creature he’d ever encountered. It could go to a girl’s head.
After he took his first sip of the new bottle and didn’t spit it out or wince in horror, I assumed it was probably excellent. Not that I’d expected otherwise.
I took a mouthful and slow swallow. Wow. It was. “Mmmmm.”
Xavier cleared his throat. “Um, what was that?” he asked, his voice rough.
“What?”
“That face you just made. That small sound especially.”
“I made a sound? The wine’s so good, I guess. It conjures up images of lying in a dark field, staring up at a starlit sky surrounded by the scent of blackberries.”
“You have a way with words.”
“Ha. Not usually.” I gave him a small smile.
He set his glass down. “I don’t suppose while you are lying there inhaling the blackberries and staring at the stars I am between your legs, pushing up your dress and tasting you?”
I choked. “What? Oh my God.” My voice came out in a breathy squeak. The faint buzz and warmth of the simmering chemistry between us flared like a struck match and spread throughout my lower belly.
He gazed at me. “I love that sound you just made. I’m addicted to that sound. And that look you get on your face. You are intoxicating, Joséphine.”
My hand shook slightly as I took another small sip of wine in an attempt t
o not look as though I’d just been blown sideways. “You should give a girl warning before you make love to her from three feet away.”
He inhaled through his nose. “Is that what I’m doing?”
I set my wine down, licking my lips. Uncrossing and crossing my legs, I shifted in my seat. A move that didn’t go unnoticed by Xavier. “It’s definitely what it feels like,” I admitted. Just the way he said my name sometimes made my stomach free fall.
Cristo took that moment to materialize, and quietly, as if he could sense the change in atmosphere, cleared up our dishes. He whispered to Xavier.
“Dessert?” Xavier asked me.
I shook my head. I was full and was sure it would be delicious, but I just wanted to be alone with Xavier.
As soon as Cristo left and the dumbwaiter rattled its way down below, we were left in candlelit silence. The strains of soft classical guitar had faded between pieces and now slowly came back to life.
“There’s so much I still want to know about you,” I said. “Two days doesn’t feel like enough.”
“Maybe it will be. We are still at the beginning.”
I didn’t bother to disagree. Instead I nodded, shoving down the odd feeling of sadness that bubbled through my happiness.
“We won’t be disturbed again.” He slid his chair back and lifted a beckoning hand. “Viens ici?”
Come here?
As if I could resist.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Back at the boat, all was dark. Only Paco was apparently on board, and even he had retired for the night.
After Xavier had beckoned me over to his side of the table, I’d ended up on his lap, our arms wrapped around each other, talking for ages and making out like teenagers. We’d stopped short of getting to any indecent behavior out of respect for Cristo and his establishment, but before long it was clear that not even our surroundings might stop us if we didn’t get out of there. We stumbled giddily down the stairs, saying swift and jovial goodbyes. In the cobbled streets, Xavier held me close, tucked under his arm, pausing occasionally in darkened doorways to kiss my neck and whisper French things in my ear. My skin was a conduit for his desire, every cell lit up with electrical fire.
I was giddy, breathless, and utterly seduced.
I guided Xavier down to my cabin where we barely made it through the door before our clothing was discarded. Only the mooring lights from the boat and dock filtered through my tiny window as I cradled his body between my open thighs and he slid into me, filling the seemingly endless ache I had for him. His face and eyes were barely visible in the shadows.
Our lovemaking started off slow and deliberate.
He lifted my leg, finding his way deeper, and I cried out at the new angle. “There’s no one to hear you,” he whispered, moving in and out of me languidly, making me feel every slow inch as he dragged out and pushed back in. “Tell me what you want. Let me hear you.”
“This,” I’d gasped. “You. You feel so good inside me.”
He grunted and mumbled something back to me in French. Then switched to English. “Faster?” he asked as he thrust in hard and fast.
I cried out again.
“Oui, like this,” he answered for me. “You make me crazy. Hungry. I will finish and need more. How is it possible?”
Then his whispers quieted and it was just the sound of our labored breaths and my cries as he brought me closer and closer to the edge. The sudden silence from him was disconcerting, but, oh God, he was just in the right spot.
“Xavier. Yes.” I wrapped my other leg around his firm butt, urging him faster, deeper. Lightning shot up and down my skin.
His body grew tense and strained and we both struggled against and toward the rush to the edge. I got there first, my eyes squeezing closed and my head going back as I gave myself up to the fall.
Then I held his head in my hands, watching his shadowed features as he came apart, wishing I could see what was going on behind his tightly closed eyelids.
He collapsed on me, his heart pounding against mine, and then slid off to the side. Cool air whispered over my sweat-slicked skin as I caught my breath.
I disentangled myself without resistance and crept out of bed to clean up. When I re-emerged, I found Xavier already sleeping, hand thrown up over his head, the other on his belly. The light from the bathroom showed his features were smooth and relaxed at rest, his thick eyelashes resting on his cheeks. I made myself stop staring and clicked the bathroom light off, crawling in to join him.
I lay in the dark next to his warm body, feeling strange and discomfited. There was a struggle going on within Xavier. He was open and teasing one moment and quiet and broody the next. Despite our romantic evening and the foreplay, verbal and otherwise, that had preceded our lovemaking, he’d seemed distant at the end, as though he suddenly found himself being vulnerable and had scrambled to close himself back up.
I awoke with a start, gasping a deep breath. It was dark and hot, and I was suffocating. The memory of the evening we’d spent together slid through me. The heaviness of Xavier’s arm draped across my middle and the heat of him curled around my back brought me back to my surroundings.
His breathing changed, then his arm moved, squeezing gently before lifting so his palm ran down my torso. His hand flattened on my belly and ignited the banked heat that hadn’t waned since the night in the club.
“Ça va?” he whispered.
I dragged in a breath, filling my lungs with much needed oxygen.
He shifted away, rolling me onto my back. “This is why you visit the deck at night? You wake up like this?”
I nodded, then realized he probably couldn’t see me. “Yes. It’s okay. I’m fine. I just need a second to breathe.”
“Do you have a bad experience where this comes from?”
I chuckled. “No. Not that I remember. Not everything has to be rooted in past trauma.” I rolled to face him and slipped my hand into the hair at his nape, scraping my nails along his scalp.
He groaned.
Our lips met. Soft, seductive, demanding.
“You just have to distract me,” I whispered as his lips slid down my neck and I arched my body.
Suddenly his hands slipped under me. “Come.” He made to lift me.
“Whoa. Where?”
“My bed. It’s bigger. More windows. More space. More air.”
I stayed him with a hand on his shoulder, thinking of all of Dauphine’s mother’s things in there.
“What?” he asked.
“What about the top deck?”
“Outside?”
“Under the stars,” I said, wondering if he’d remember what he’d said at dinner. Not that I needed that. I mean, I wouldn’t complain.
“Mmm.” He hummed, his fingers pushing the sheet off me and trailing down my belly.
I grabbed his fingers and kissed them. “Insatiable.”
“Addicted. Come. The stars it is.”
He pulled on his shorts and handed me his shirt lying on the floor. Then he gathered up two pillows and my duvet and we trotted up the levels of the ship until we broke through into the muggy, starlit night. The lights from the port twinkled, and pale yellow light washed up the walls of the citadel high on the cliffs. Out to sea, all was inky black.
Xavier pulled two chaises together and pulled the cushions out of a storage box. We tied the cushions to each other rather than the chair to stop them slipping apart. He lay down the pillows and duvet and then climbed on, holding out an arm for me to slip under and rest my head on his shoulder.
The railing height hid our bodies, but above us the stars blazed. Our only witness.
“Is this better?” he asked.
I smiled, snuggling in next to him. “Yes.” The mooring lights cast a faint glow around us, and as my eyes adjusted I could see as well as if there was a small lamp on.
“We will wake up wet and covered in … what’s the word when everything is wet from the air in the morning? I forget it in English. In
French it’s la rosée.”
“Dew?” I suggested.
“Yes, dew.”
“God, that sounds better in French. Everything does.” Especially whatever the hell it was that poured out of his mouth while he was making love to me.
He kissed the top of my head.
“Now, tell me why you are so famous to Cristo. And why does he call you Pasqualey?”
Xavier chuckled. It was a dark rumble under my cheek. “One line of my mother’s family is originally from Corsica. There was a famous hero named Pasquale Paoli who at various times tried to help keep Corsica independent, working with the Corsican resistance against the French in the 1700s. Cristo is convinced I’m descended from him somehow.”
“Are you?”
“I have no idea. But likely not. Pascale is my father’s name, and as far as I know he has nothing to do with Corsica.”
I frowned. “Something doesn’t add up about tonight. That’s a lovely story, but I’m not buying it.” I poked him between the ribs and he jerked with a hiss. “Oh em gee, are you … ticklish?” I laughed.
He grabbed my hand just as I was gearing up to really go for his ribs. “I would be careful if I were you.”
We gazed at each other a beat, my face turned up to his.
Then he kissed me on the nose. “I … maybe …. did something to help clean the area up of crime and corruption by helping the local municipality with donations and contributing to the election of a more upstanding councilman.” He paused. “Who also happens to be Cristo’s nephew.”
“Ahhh.”
“They are good, honest, hard-working people. They deserve to run their own city and not give in to the organized crime that is never too far away. It also has a lot of history, which can be easily lost to too much progress. And I mean of the greedy, commercial kind.”
I turned my face up to him in surprise. “Really? I would have thought a businessman like yourself would be into applauding business opportunities wherever he could find them.”
“You make me sound mercenary.”
“Aren’t you? I’d heard you were.”