This was no gentle make up.
I felt his cock thicken up into my stomach, and I rolled my hips against his.
There was nothing—no gala, no more Méchant, no more Hubert, no more secrets—nothing except him and me.
“To remind me I’d do anything to have you. Cross any barrier. Break any bond. Sacrifice any person.”
His fingers dragged down and began to bunch the silk of my dress up into and around his fist, baring my legs several inches at a time. And while I clung to him, urging him on, I felt his other hand pause briefly at my soaking core, swollen and aching from the moment I’d felt him in the ballroom.
Dragging my thong to the side, his fingers toyed with my clit, the chain wrapped around them providing a coarsely ribbed friction which demanded my attention and ascent toward orgasm.
I whimpered when he drew back to unfasten his pants, pulling his arousal from their confines.
“Chain me,” he commanded and my eyes flew open.
It only took a moment to understand what he meant before my broken chain was dropped into my palm and his bare fingers went back to work on my clit.
With shaking hands, I reached down and wrapped the fine filament around the root of his cock, twisting it around his fat length all the way to the tip.
Oh, my.
I tasted blood from where I bit into my cheek, a small moan escaping.
Tying off the other end, I stared down at the reddened flesh, straining against the fine metal ornament wrapped around it.
With a grunt which told me his injuries were still uncomfortable, he hoisted me up, locking my legs around his waist while my hips angled in search of his cock.
My chest seized. I could’ve cried when I felt the smooth blunt head slipping through my entrance that dripped and begged to have him back.
And I did cry—loudly—when he plunged all the way inside me, the ribs of the chain creating a rough and delicious friction against my muscles, a sensation that tore my cells from my skin as they radiated pleasure.
“Oh, Q.” I breathed out, quaking around him as he buried his head in the corner of my neck, making sure he was fitted into the deepest part of me.
“My fucking fault,” he rasped as he began his demanding pace. “My fault for loving you. My fault for putting you in danger.”
I quaked with each thrust that speared through my clenching muscles to rub against my front wall and the mirrored collection of nerves housed there.
“Quinton,” I pleaded both for him to stop and keep going.
The chain quickly became my undoing. The small unyielding strands as they dragged against my sensitive flesh, scraping away anything that was soft and sweet and weak, and instead, breaking bare everything that hurt—everything worth feeling.
He froze. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said with a strained voice. “I shouldn’t be inside you. I shouldn’t want you.”
I curled the hair on the back of his head into my fingers and pulled hard.
“Fuck your faults, Quinton,” I argued. “This is how you protect me.” I licked my lips before sinking my teeth into his and tugging. “By keeping me closer instead of pushing me away.”
His body vibrated against me—inside me. It vibrated with the need to come, but also the need to give in. To take what his heart wanted even though his mind and his conscience had trained him for a decade that love was weakness.
“And what if keeping you closer puts you in more danger, Esme? What if it puts your life in danger?”
Desire. Frustration. Love. They all spiraled in my chest like a firework shooting up into the sky on a trajectory to explode.
I found his eyes, dark and heavy with lust and love. I felt my body squeeze around him, pinned at the very brink of having everything I wanted.
“I am my parent’s daughter, Quinton,” I informed him of the vicious and raw truth. I brought my lips up against his, but not in a kiss. The way my mouth touched his as I spoke was a communion—a sharing of the most intimate feelings a soul could possess. “And I would rather die for a love that puts me in peril than live the rest of my life alone under the shield of safety.”
I felt how the sharp breath he drew came from my own and whispered, “Would you?”
The groan that ripped from him sounded like the kind that would come from a man who’d just torn himself from a cross—pulling the nails through his flesh, falling broken and battered to the ground, but rising up free.
And then his hips slammed into me. Unrestrained. Unpunished. The chain disintegrated under the force, rolling and collecting into a giant ring around his cock that pressed where I was weakest. And I came in seconds.
Crying out his name into the empty room, my body convulsed around him until I felt the hot spurts of his cum filling me once again. Claiming me as his own.
It took a few more long thrusts before he was finally drained, and I was finally able to breathe again.
“I don’t know if I should, ma Gypsy, but I do love you,” he murmured, gently kissing me as he slid himself from my body and set my feet to the ground steadily.
“You should,” I replied confidently, feeling my dress slip back into place like the perfect spy—falling back in line as though nothing had happen. “Because I love you.”
A few minutes later, with our clothes mostly back to rights and the tension between us significantly decreased, I reached out and smoothed down his tie and asked, “So, what did you come here hoping to find?”
There was still hesitation—the kind that comes from years of being taught to keep every single piece of you and your life to yourself. It was these internal kinds of prisons which were the hardest to free yourself from—the ones where you had the key but not the belief you could use it.
“He’s not just Méchant’s pawn to power,” he began, leaning back to rest a hip on the round table in the center of the room. “There’s something being set in motion. Some sort of destruction…” He shook his head.
In the wake of our desire was left the heaviness of the world Quinton was entrenched in—a world I’d begged to be a part of.
“Everything else until now. The riots, the unrest. They’ve all been tinder to a blaze that will tip the balance in his favor.”
“But you don’t know what that is.”
He shook his head. “I was hoping for the opportunity to observe him here. To… talk to him and see what I could find. But then I saw you with him… and I saw nothing else.”
I closed the distance between us to where he was sitting and knelt between his legs.
“I’m sor—”
He pressed a finger to my mouth.
“Don’t,” he demanded. “You will always be more important, ma Gypsy. I just pray no one else knows it.”
I nodded silently, understanding the danger. But though I understood it, didn’t mean I was going to sit silently. I hadn’t been made for silence. I’d been made to stand out.
And if I was going to stand out, I might as well stand up.
“So, what do I do?” I asked and felt the way his legs tensed under my hands.
Steel eyes gripped mine. “You don’t do anything,” he warned. “You can’t do anything.”
Indignation spurred through me. “What do you mean?” I demanded as I pushed back and stood in front of him. “I’m working for the bad guy… I’m helping the bad guy.” A few strands of hair, loosened by our activities, slipped onto my back as I shook my head. “I can’t just… continue. You can’t want me to do that.”
With one fluid motion, he sprung up and towered over me, presenting me with a familiar glare that characterized so much of our relationship.
“I want you to stay alive. And I don’t just want Hubert, Esme. I want Méchant. And if you leave tonight and up and quit in the morning, everything I’ve worked for will crumble,” he said roughly and then took a shuddering breath, his fingers coming up to grip my chin and tip it higher.
“Sometimes, the hardest part about this life, is sitting and letting
evil continue, watching it flourish instead of cutting it off limb by limb.” His lips gently brushed over mine and I felt the urge to fight begin to calm. “Because you need the stalk in order to get to the giant.”
Patience wasn’t a virtue of mine, but I heard what he said and even though I still didn’t quite want to, I knew I’d obey.
“And to do that, I need Hubert to believe everything is still fine with you—fine with his stalk.”
My head dipped down in half a nod. “I hate feeling like I’m helping a murderer—a terrorist.”
Perhaps that was the hardest bit of all to swallow—knowing I was helping a man like my uncle.
“No, Gypsy,” he insisted, biting the tip of my nose for attention. “You’re helping me. Not a murderer. Not a terrorist.” One side of his lips tipped up. “Just a gargoyle.”
I felt the tug at the corners of my mouth. My gargoyle.
“I need you to promise me you won’t do anything, Esme,” he said, the roughness in his tone appearing just as smoothing as the sweetness it replaced. “I can’t do what I need to do… and be worried about you.”
The thought still felt foreign inside my body.
I wasn’t even sure I could walk back into the gala, let alone continue my work.
My work.
A shot of rage as potent as the finest vodka filtered through me.
My work was supposed to be for good. For research and academia. To bring understanding and value to a sea of information based on educated speculation. And Hubert… Méchant… whoever the hell they were had taken that from me.
“Esme.”
I jumped at the bite in his tone.
“Just because I’ve let you on the battlefield, ma Gypsy, doesn’t mean I’m willing to risk you in the fight… risk you any more than I already have.” His thumb traced tenderly over my swollen lips. “You need to continue your work, and let him continue his plan. You can’t give him a reason to distrust you because it would lead him to me, and to lead him to me could change everything. So, I need you to promise me.”
I struggled to accept his terms.
“I need you to promise you won’t let him use my work.” His eyes widened at my demand. “I need you to promise you won’t let him find a way to use my research for evil.” Even as I spoke it felt like my chest caved in. “Shit, Q… what if he’s going to use my work against Notre Dame? What if he uses it to harm—”
The thoughts came in a flurry of incoherent and irrational chaos. I had no time to think if such a thing were possible only to fear that it was.
“What if I’m part of his plan?” I choked out, my horrified gaze burning a hole in the front lapel of his jacket. “Not just some little side detail. What if they use my work to try to destroy—”
His mouth slanted over mine and cut off the rest of my rant. The kiss was the kind that was demanding only in its silence. Firm and unyielding, it took my worries from my lips and added them to the weight he already bore.
“I won’t let him harm your work, Esme,” he promised me. “I won’t let him harm you.”
And for a man who lived in a cathedral and lied for his profession, maybe I should’ve found it harder to believe him.
But I didn’t.
“Go back to the gala,” he instructed as he pulled away from me. “Enjoy yourself tonight, enjoy the praise for your work. And tomorrow, continue it as though you’d never met me—”
“Quinton—”
He held up a finger as he stepped back toward the door. “Don’t look for me. Don’t try to find me. Do what you were asked to do, and I will come to you when and where it’s safe.”
“But—”
“Promise me,” he interjected sharply, and I realized in all this time, I still hadn’t given him my word.
Then again, neither had he.
“I promise,” I murmured thickly, watching as he turned and made for the door. “Q,” I called softly, waiting until he paused to say, “Promise you’ll come back for me.”
“I’ll always come for you, ma Gypsy.” The words were so tender for a man who was leaving the room with the intent to kill. “I promise.”
Quinton
Water splashed up from the puddles littering the streets onto my shined shoes and carefully-cared-for tuxedo, but it didn’t faze me
The weight of what I’d just done was both unnatural and unbearable at the same time—inviting love into my life and offering it a permanent home.
It was dangerous. So fucking dangerous.
But Esme was like the sun. Having her in my world could burn me. Could make me sweat until I was brought to my knees. Her presence could bring untold damage to the world I’d created.
But I couldn’t give her up. Because to give her up would mean to give up her light. To give her up would mean turning from the life that blossomed under her warm touch.
I always thought it was easy to give up any idea or hope of love because I thought I’d loved Sophie. It was my mistake to assume that because she was easy to give up, it meant so was love.
My mistake because what I felt for Sophie wasn’t love.
It was a fucking raindrop compared to a hurricane.
I slipped around the cathedral. All the scaffolding which had been stacked outside at the beginning of the week was now gone—erected around the spire and roof of the transept.
Within seconds of learning Hubert was the one who’d sponsored Esme’s work on Notre Dame, I knew the cathedral somehow fit into their grand plans. It was unverified, and I could let myself believe that was the reason I downplayed any involvement of her work. But the truth was, she was on this battlefield now whether I put her there or not.
My only consolation was, after leaving the small room and returning to the event, I’d learned that the scaffolding had been built at the president’s request. Even though so much of the structure needed repair, he’d decided to start by removing the statues encircling the spire, along with several other pieces and relics, and sending them for restoration before they would set to work on the roof.
If it was the president’s wish—possibly inspired by rumors of Esme’s work—I knew it wasn’t coming from Méchant even if it was indirectly part of his plan.
It took less than five minutes for me to gather my things from the loft. I despised the idea of going back to my Valois apartment near l’Étoile, but I didn’t have a choice.
Even though she promised me truthfully, Esme’s determination could topple cities, let alone a singular promise. And I knew that all the best intentions wouldn’t stop her from worrying and wandering to check on me.
And if she did—and Hubert had men watching her—I didn’t want him to suspect her of working with me, let alone loving me.
My footsteps were solitary as they descended the stairs that led underneath the roundabout at l’Étoile. There was one more stop I had to make tonight before heading back to the apartment.
Minutes later, my footsteps pounded down a familiar hall, noticing the bodies that turned as I walked by them, as though magnetized by my appearance, as I headed for my father’s office.
Of course, they’d seen the news. Of course, they’d heard the rumors that the terrorist who’d set off those explosions must have died from his injuries. Even for working in this business, there were just some things you didn’t expect a person to come back from—to survive—so the way they stared made sense: as though I’d come back from the dead.
My fingers slipped under the knot in my tie and yanked it loose though it didn’t seem to help the tightness in my throat.
“Bossé.” I caught Malik’s harsh whisper as I pushed past him. “You can’t go in there right now.”
I felt his strong grip on my shoulder for a second before I whipped around and pinned him to the wall with my hand around his throat.
“This can’t wait,” I informed his unyielding face.
I didn’t know what it was about him that angered me so much. We were on the same side. Maybe it was that he questioned Es
me—that he’d been watching what was mine—which made me dislike him. Maybe it was because he got to be seen in public with her.
“Don’t make me regret not gutting you,” I said, jerking my hand away and reaching for the doorknob to Henri’s office.
Things had changed.
Everything had changed.
I’d joined the Valois for my own reasons, and I would continue until I’d fulfilled my purpose. But after that… instead of resigning myself to being given a new purpose—a new mission—Henri needed to know I was done.
I’d made the most dangerous mistake in this business. I’d gotten involved.
All my muscles tensed, preparing to accept the punishment for that as I let myself into my father’s office only to be halted in my tracks.
Henri Lautrec sat at his desk like every other time I’d entered this space. He manned it like a castle on a hill. But tonight, there was someone else who stood next to him.
Not an agent.
Not a friend.
A doctor.
Bespectacled eyes met mine as the wiry man looked up from where he had a stethoscope pressed to my father’s back, while Henri took deep breaths into a clear nasal mask with tubes leading to an oxygen tank.
The deterioration I’d brushed off the last time I was here had magnified to the point where, even without that small mask, I had to look twice to recognize the man behind it.
Like a king whose private fortress had just been invaded, he glared at me over his grip on the mask with anger and a hint of unprepared resignation, as though I’d just forced him to make a move he’d been holding off on for some time.
“William, if you’d excuse us,” Henri told the other, older man who hesitated until my father insisted, “We can finish this later. You know another few minutes won’t make a difference.”
The firmness in the doctor’s expression softened as he gathered his minimal tools and papers, putting them in the quintessential leather doctor’s satchel, and discreetly let himself out of the room.
“Lock it,” Henri instructed almost as soon as the door clicked shut.
The demand brought on a fit of thick, productive coughs that took several moments and several more long breaths from the oxygen tank to settle.
The Gargoyle and the Gypsy: A Dark Contemporary Romance (The Sacred Duet Book 1) Page 34