“Really? Because I thought I was the only one compensated that night?” She examined her nails, blithely reminding me that the only relief my cock had felt was by my own hand.
I folded my arms over my chest and let out a harsh laugh. “And I thought I’d made it clear I have no interest in being compensated by you.”
My tone was flat. Almost as flat as the way the lie fell between us.
“Is that why you saved my life then?” she murmured, slowly and seductively. “Why not let me fall if it would make it easier on you?” Her eyes captured mine as she came closer. “Why talk to me? Why share about your life… Why ask about mine… if you really want nothing to do with me?”
“Boredom,” I replied with a hoarseness that made the lie pitiful.
She laughed. “For some secret agent spy, Monsieur Gargouille, you are incredibly bad at lying.”
I tensed and growled. “I’m not lying,” I insisted. “Perhaps you should continue to give your attentions to your fellow musician.”
I watched the shock turn her lips into a tempting little ‘o’ that I wanted to fill with my cock.
Too late did I realize the admission also carried with it my jealousy.
“Are you jealous of Khal?” she asked, freely giving me his name that I already knew.
Esme shook her head and her tongue darted out over her lips, sending shooting pain through my dick.
“Don’t be,” she said softly. “I don’t want him.”
My heart surged at the admission. Even though I could see she hadn’t returned his affections as they played and danced for the crowd, it hadn’t dulled the possessiveness I felt.
“He wants you.”
“I don’t care that he wants me,” she said firmly. “I care that you want me, because I want you.”
I let out a long breath, not realizing just how long and how badly I’d been desperate to hear those words—to hear them from her. But before I could inhale, let alone find the excuses to fortify another lie, her hand cupped over the length of my cock and squeezed tightly. Instantly, the last remaining drops of air in my lungs suctioned out as I choked on need that was distilled into one-hundred-and-ten-percent proof.
“Fuck,” I hissed, allowing myself one instant—one fucking exquisite second—to feel the way her firm fingers wrapped around my length. One instant to let my hips press against her hand, to memorize the way her fingers rubbed over my balls and her palm ground against the head of my cock before I put an end to it.
An end to the insanity.
With a growl that masked her yelp of surprise, I grabbed her wrist and whipped her around against the wall, pinning her hand above her as I shoved one knee between her thighs.
“That didn’t feel like no interest. That felt like you want me just as much as I want you,” she murmured, squirming and rubbing her tits against me.
She was always fighting for more of me. Even when I had her pinned to the wall or my hand wrapped around her throat. It was as though she knew I wasn’t a danger to her.
Maybe I was the only one who hadn’t learned that yet.
“What are you afraid of, Quinton?”
My breaths became more forceful.
I was afraid of desire. I was afraid of want.
I was afraid of becoming the fool once more.
I was afraid of once again, losing everything I’d spent years working toward.
“Do you want me, Esme?” I returned, bending down so I could sink my teeth into the tender skin on her neck just below her ear. “I wonder if I reached down and felt right now, if your cunt will be just as drenched as it was the other night, leaking through your clothes and mine.”
I more than wondered. I needed to know.
My hand slid along her side, savoring the warmth of her skin before it climbed over the edge of her skirt and toward where my knee had split her thighs apart.
Her free hand clutched my shoulder, digging sharply into the muscle beneath my shirt.
It was a pain that spurred me on.
Grunting, I dove my hand past that strip of fabric, brushing my knuckles over the damp fabric of her underwear before shoving it to the side and sliding a finger down her warm wet slit.
“Is this what you want, Madame Gypsy?” I rasped against her damp flesh. “With your jewels that chime like a siren’s song and your body that is too perfect to be anything but holy… are you trying to tempt me until I can’t think of anything else except breaking open this tight pussy?”
I pushed two fingers roughly inside of her and was rewarded by a rush of moisture and a lusty moan against my head.
“I just want you,” she murmured. “God, I just want you.”
My need made me angry, and I tightened my hold on her imprisoned wrist. “For what? For my secrets? For my scars? For the experience of fucking a monster?”
Her hiss quickly turned into a gasp as I began to slowly fuck her with my fingers, feeling the hot clench of her muscles as they quivered around me.
“Make no mistake, Esme,” I growled, still moving my fingers inside her, curling the tips of them against the sensitive front wall of her sex. “You can keep pushing, but one of these days, you will find yourself prostrate on that altar, with my cock splitting this soaking hot pussy in two until my name, the name you begged me to give you, is the one you’re calling out, pleading for mercy.”
Her breaths were stuttered. Her core clenched and dripped around my fingers, pulled so quickly toward her orgasm that it frayed even her most basic need to breathe.
“And I’ll give it to you.” I pressed my thumb against her clit, red spots of need incinerating pieces of my vision as I fought to control my own desire, let alone hers.
“I’ll give you so much fucking mercy it will leak out from between your thighs and onto the floor. I’ll fill you with my cum like its fucking communion, and just when I decide to let you breathe again, when I’ve decided you’ve had enough, I’ll disappear back into the shadows where I belong, and where you can’t follow.”
She whimpered in protest. Against my words. Against my restraint.
She writhed deliciously against my fingers, her body that was so exquisitely formed desperately begging for me to break it apart.
“And whatever ideas you’ve attached to fucking me will burn like unanswered prayers on the damn votive table because there is nothing more I can offer—there is nothing more to me.”
I pulled my hands away from her as I turned and bolted from the church.
I’d rather leave and incur her anger, than stay and cause her pain. I’d rather keep all the pain for myself and let it burn through my loneliness in the moments I was forced to acknowledge it.
Because if I stayed to hear her cry of deprivation, of being brought to the brink of climax only to be yanked back from the precipice… If I stayed and saw her flushed cheeks and swollen lips… the hard outline of her pierced nipples or the glistening of her desire dripping along her thighs… it might’ve had the power to make me believe there was more for me.
And if I believed that, I’d never be able to finish what Méchant started.
Because revenge was a jealous mistress—she either claimed all of your attention or wanted none of it.
And I knew, as I stopped at a public toilet and forced myself to wash what I wanted to taste off of my fingers, that I was pulling against the very fine string which held me to my constant mistress… and pulling toward a very different kind of mistress. One with vibrant eyes whose step was set to her own music.
One that saw the beast and wanted him.
One that wanted the beast and saw that there was more underneath.
Esme
“How can I help you?” the woman at the reception desk in the orphanage asked, hardly even sparing me a glance.
Her hair was in disarray and the only thing bluer than her tone were the matching bags under her eyes.
I knew the look all too well. Gretchen, the woman who’d worked the same job in the orphanage I’d been thr
ough a time or two, appeared with the same expression—as though someone put pity and frustration inside a blender without a lid, the mixture spewing everywhere without concern and with no ability to stop it.
“No, thank you,” I said with a quick nod, not wanting to hold her up from the mountains of work we both knew she’d never accomplish. “I’m just here to meet with Monsieur Bonheur.”
Whether it was my American accent or the artistic alias of the man whose name translated into ‘Mister Happiness,’ the buzzing of her eyes stopped and whipped up to mine, opening wide.
“Monsieur Bonheur? Here?”
Monsieur Bonheur was the pseudonym of an urban photographer of growing popularity with several exhibits in the city, but whose primary focus was depicting the reality of life in the banlieue—the working-class suburbs that encircled Paris. His mission was to counteract the media’s attempt to demonize the neighborhood—to portray them as lawless, dangerous places nicknamed ‘no-go zones.’
In some ways, they were dangerous. But there was more than crime and drugs. There was an everyday life that was being forgotten and bulldozed over. There were people—many of them immigrants from Africa or the Middle East—who were being forgotten.
And Monsieur Bonheur was capturing his breathtaking real-life images to make sure that didn’t happen.
“Oui,” I nodded, allowing my smile to widen. At least, that was what his message on social media had said.
Apparently, Quinton wasn’t the only face hidden in the crowd of our performance the other night.
My expression faltered for a moment. After the encounter on the roof the other day, Quinton avoided me. And it was to the point where I found myself half tempted to hang off one of the towers just to force his appearance because, come to find out, the lonely silence in the sanctuary while I worked was deafening.
I missed the sulking shadows with black eyes always watching me.
I ran my tongue over my lips, pulling out my phone.
He could claim it was to protect the cathedral all he wanted, but I was the one who felt those eyes on me. I was the one who felt how they seeped into every pore, not just searching for secrets but desperate to share their own.
I missed the gruff responses that echoed through the cavern, sharing pieces of a man who had so much more to give.
It was illogical to miss a man who claimed he didn’t trust me.
It was illogical to want a man whose very face was scarred with danger.
And it was illogical to feel as though I knew him so well.
Though I knew more about Quinton than most of the men I dated.
I drew a sharp breath as the thought sparked in my mind that all this time—all these moments—were the closest thing I’d had to a real date in a long time.
At first, that thought was depressing.
But then, I realized maybe it was just unorthodox. Because if a date was time spent getting to know someone while doing something that you enjoy… then there was no other word for what we’d been doing. Getting to know each other while we searched for each other’s secrets.
It was entirely unorthodox.
But so was a man who hid from the world and lived in a cathedral.
And so was the professor who had more piercings than letters in my name.
The bell on the door chimed and in walked a young, African American man wearing a soccer jersey, athletic shorts, and a camera around his neck.
“Madame St. Claire?” A bright white smile flashed at me when I nodded and reached out a hand in greeting.
“Monsieur Bonheur,” I returned. “Please, call me Esme.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Esme.” He had a firm but warm grip, the kind that held a determination to do good. “The sun is finally out. Let’s walk.”
He sent a smile and a wave to the woman behind the desk and said something along the lines that we would be back shortly.
“Thank you for meeting with me.” His accented English was warm and inviting.
“I was shocked when you reached out,” I admitted with a grin, following his lead as we crossed the street over to a small park where a few children were playing on the older playground, the paint was rusted off in some spots and the grass well-worn in the frequent paths of the children’s chase. “I didn’t realize you were in the crowd that night.”
“Your focus was right where it should’ve been,” he said to assure me that the children who’d been standing up front had been the most important spectators. “I was in the area meeting with a few colleagues about my third solo exhibit in the city next month—”
“Congratulations,” I interjected.
“And I heard your music—so authentic, so heartfelt. And I had the thought that if my photographs could be set to music, that would be it.”
“Wow…” I swallowed down the enormous compliment. “Thank you.”
He went on almost as though he didn’t hear me. “And, as I walked up to the crowd who stopped to listen, I saw the real France. I saw adults, children, white, Black, Arab, and Asian… I saw orphans and businessmen and every social class in between. And for those moments when you played, there was no prejudice, no boundaries. No one was digging their heels into the little corner they’d placed themselves in, but rather tapping them and clapping their hands as they swayed with the beat. Together.”
He paused and smiled as though he were reliving it while I fought back tears.
“Like I hope for my photographs to do, your music brings the most beautiful parts of people together and forces them to step away from the discrimination that makes society sluggish and sectioned.” He turned and met my surprised gaze. “What I saw that night was my idea of France. It is my idea of fraternité.”
The French motto was its three pillars: Liberté. Égalité. Fraternité.
Freedom. Equality. Brotherhood.
My heart swelled. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say.”
The corners of his smile jumped as he replied, “Well, then I guess it’s a good time to ask my question.” He clasped his hand on his camera that rested on his chest, his finger tapping on the shutter button as though it were painful to not capture the world sitting in front of him, he went on, “I reached out to you because I was wondering if you and your bandmates would consider playing a concert in the Neuf-Trois. I wanted to see if you’d come play in Saint Denis, outside the basilica.”
My head slowly tipped to the left, as though the words I’d heard mostly in that ear had weighed it down.
The Ninety-Three, or Neuf Trois, was the Seine-Saint-Denis region of the suburbs; it was considered the most dangerous of all the banlieue, wrought with poverty, drugs, lawlessness, and unrest.
The famed Saint Denis Basilica sat only five kilometers away from Notre Dame. It was built in the same Gothic style with the same noteworthy elements and was the burial site of French kings. And yet, it only received about one percent of the visitors of Notre Dame because of its location.
The series of terrorist attacks on November 13, 2015, some of them inside the Saint-Denis suburb itself, cemented the region as a symbol of trouble and unrest when the perpetrators of the horrible crimes, members of ISIL, were found with their operation base in the suburb.
“I wanted to see if you’d come play for people who only want goodness and happiness and love, who only want to be included,” he said with a long sigh.
And I felt two twin tears slip from my eyes because I identified with them too—the immigrants in the Neuf Trois. Just like I did with the orphans.
I’d grown up in a world without parents but also without a home. Not just the physical kind, but the kind of home you feel inside you knowing you belong somewhere.
Though lately, I’d started to feel like I belonged at Notre Dame.
Because it was my life’s purpose.
And because he was there.
“It’s sad when so many are judged on the actions of so few,” I murmured.
I’d grown up being stared at and turned
away for the same reasons they were—because the world worried their living circumstance might make them a terrorist.
Just like my family relations might’ve made me.
He put up a hand, and I realized how long I’d been sitting without saying anything, let alone responding to his request. “I know it’s not your typical locale for—”
“We’ll do it,” I agreed without thinking, without even pausing to consider asking the guys. “I’m sorry, I just wasn’t expecting that at all.”
He let out a small laugh as he looked down at his camera and turned it on.
“I know it has a reputation—”
“I’m not worried,” I informed him, running my hands over my skirt.
“No?” He seemed intrigued more than surprised.
I looked out at the park which had emptied during our conversation, a cool breeze and dimming sun suggested it was about to start raining again soon, and then I met his gaze. Unwavering.
“I’ve learned from personal experience, Monsieur Bonheur, that fear will have people frantically clinging to lifesavers of lies, rather than realizing the truth is stable and solid and only three-feet below the surface if they would just take a moment to stand up.”
I felt his eyes on me, knowing and yet not the skeletons my past held.
He didn’t need to know the truth.
But there was one person I ached to confess it to—the one man who thought me a liar. The one man who accused me of being a terrorist without knowing just how close to home his accusation had hit. And the one man who, I believed, had the power to take my confession and put an end to the work I was doing for the cathedral. My life’s work.
Maybe that’s why I fought so hard for his truths… so I would know I could trust him with my own.
“I’m actually heading to meet my friends as soon as we’re done,” I said as I stood and we began our walk back to the meeting spot. “So, tell me, when are we playing?”
My bow swung down in front of me as our last song of the night ended with shouts and cheers, the crowd whistling and hooting in approval of the lively tune that had onlookers and passersby dancing.
The Gargoyle and the Gypsy: A Dark Contemporary Romance (The Sacred Duet Book 1) Page 18