by Pippa Roscoe
The self-recrimination, the humiliation of how innocent he had been was like a knife twisting in his gut. But he had to continue. Maria had to understand. ‘In such a short time, she’d orchestrated my feelings like a maestro. I thought myself half in love and would have given her anything. She was very clear on what she wanted from me, and I knew no better. Until that point, no one had seen my scars. I had never done any sports, worn my school jumper even in the heights of summer. I should have known,’ he said more to himself than to Maria. He turned away, casting his gaze into the night, but couldn’t avoid the reflection of her face in the glass window. He could tell that she had a sense of what he was about to say. Could see, feel even, the sympathy, the concern, passing from herself to him. He shook it off and pressed on.
‘She had a camera. I didn’t know. She and her friends had been approached by an unscrupulous journalist who had offered them an obscene amount of money for a picture of me. But that wasn’t enough for Clara. She arranged a greater pay-out for an accompanying article about how I had seduced her and tried to take advantage of her. About how I had grown angry when she wouldn’t do what I wanted. A harsh irony because I had been the one to refuse to sleep with her, wanting to take things slowly. As if being rejected by a beast like me had burned her ego. Malcolm had an injunction taken out, the article didn’t make publication, but it was too late. Rumours filled the school, reaching the parents, reaching the press...the damage had been done.’
* * *
Maria was shaking. With fury, with injustice... For the first time she felt like the beast, wanting to lash out and destroy. That such a thing had been done to him. That he had been so badly misused and betrayed, on top of the devastation that he had already experienced. Suddenly memories of their first night together crashed down upon her. It must have taken so much for him to give into her request It must have taken trust. A trust that she hadn’t earned then, but wanted to now. She wanted him to see what she saw.
‘I am truly sorry that happened to you.’
He shrugged his shoulder, as if dismissing her and the compassion she offered. But she wouldn’t be dismissed. Not this time. She turned him around to face her and waited until he met her eyes.
‘But you need to know that I did not and do not see you as a beast. And...’ She paused, hoping that Matthieu would understand, would believe her next words. ‘And I think you should also know that not all the posts on your phone, not all the press reports, do either.’
He scoffed and turned back away from her. She didn’t need his phone to remember the other headlines.
Montcour Finds Happiness.
Montcour’s Charity a Resounding Success.
Millions Raised by Montcour.
‘Matthieu—did you ever think that the reason the press are so interested in you is not because of the scars, or your reputation, or the loss of your family, but because you survived? Because you turned something truly terrible into something amazing? A charity that gives back to those that need it?’
Disbelief and something painfully like hope shone in his eyes. It gave her the strength to carry on.
‘That they aren’t horrified, but amazed by how well you’ve done for yourself?’
He frowned and in that moment she wondered whether he had even seen those particular headlines amongst the dross that had spewed onto social media.
She could see him trying to assimilate what she had said into how he had spent years of his life viewing the negative headlines about him and what he’d achieved. She could almost feel the war within him as he tried to reframe the image of himself, not through the bitter lens of the desperate press, but as how she saw him, as how others might. But before she could tell what conclusion he had come to, he shut down. She could almost hear the door closing on his thoughts.
‘I am going to bed.’
And he left her standing alone in the middle of the large open space, concrete and soft white leather, so stark in comparison to the way his entire being had become her sole focus, the large, heated breath of his body... She couldn’t leave it like that. Couldn’t just let him walk away. He was in pain, that she could see clearly. For a while she simply stood there, wanting to go to him, not sure if she had that right. But if she didn’t, she saw how their future would be—two isolated and lonely people sharing the same space, the same love for a child, but not together. If she let him go this night, she suddenly felt that she would lose Matthieu for ever.
She followed the path he had taken up the stairs to the bedrooms, the one she had been allocated all the way at the other end of the house—as if as far away from him as possible. But she would not retreat, would not hide, would not abandon him tonight.
She pushed open the door to his room, the one she had never been in or seen. For a moment she was plunged back to the night they had spent in Iondorra. His room was just as large, almost big enough to contain the entire flat she had shared with Evin and Anita in Camberwell.
It was beautiful. The bed jutted out, as if floating inches above the floor, the frame and headboard made from reclaimed oak, warming the incredible breadth of the side wall that met floor-to-ceiling windows framed in black, making the most of the stunning view of Lake Lucerne, even in the night time. It must be incredible in the morning, Maria thought. Either side of the inconceivably large bed hung a series of metal tubes, like huge wind-chimes, glowing gently with discreet lighting. Behind her the entire wall was encased in antique mirror, flooding her mind with shockingly sensual thoughts as to what might be seen from the bed, bringing an almost painful blush to her cheeks.
From the corner of the room was a corridor that must have led immediately into the bathroom, because she could hear the sounds of water streaming from a shower, traces of steam tinged with the scent of lemon grass reached where she stood.
She slipped off her shoes and made her way towards the shower, swirls and twists in the steam beckoning her forth. The long swathes of heavy silky material sweeping behind her bare feet made a gentle brushing sound that barely reached her ears.
As she rounded the corner, the sight took her breath away. Hidden lighting illuminated the space in long strips, copper taps and accents warmed the grey tones of the concrete, and the glass-fronted shower unit, large enough for more people than Maria dared to imagine in a shower, was only partially misted. Behind the glass she could see Matthieu, his head bent under the powerful jets of water, his arms outstretched against the wall as if he was bracing himself against the emotions of that night. For just a moment she allowed herself to watch as the water cascaded over the stunning breadth of his shoulders, the way it twisted over his muscles, as if it clung to his skin until it had traversed as much of the length of him as possible. Her fingers itched to follow its path across his skin, back and down to his legs and calves. She had never been so enthralled by a man—not even her naïve crush on Theo had been this devastating.
She fumbled with the fastening at the back of her dress but her fingers caught against the clasp and the urgency to go to him increased with each heartbeat to the point where she couldn’t care less about the dress. Refusing to waste any time, she reached for the handle and swept aside the glass, catching his image in the reflection and noting that Matthieu’s only reaction was a raised eyebrow, nothing else. Not even a turn of his head, not even the stiffening of his shoulders. Just a simple wry questioning gesture that barely acknowledged her presence.
But she would not be ignored. Not in this. Not now and not ever again.
She picked up her skirts, stepped over the threshold of the shower fully clothed, and ducked beneath one powerful arm, to bring herself in between them, facing him. He yanked his head back, finally unable to escape or deny her.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded, but left his arms where they were, still braced against the wall, encasing her, as if perhaps teasing or testing himself, she couldn’t tell.
The water soaked
into the dress, making it impossibly heavy, but she didn’t care. It turned her hair into thick ropes that broke free from the pins that had held them in place and fell around her shoulders and down her back. But all she wanted, all she could think of was his hands on her skin, the feel of him beneath her tongue, and touch. She reached up and cupped his jaw, running her thumb over the rich dark beard that was surprising in its softness. She gazed up at him as rivers of water poured over them both, each now breathing as hard as if they’d run a marathon.
‘You need this. I need this,’ she said before sweeping her hand around his neck and pulling him down to meet her lips, just as she said, ‘We need this.’
* * *
The moment his lips pressed against hers, Matthieu’s mind and heart were consumed with need. She might have offered an alternative vision of how the press viewed him, but how he had viewed her had not once changed. She was irresistible. Her soft, wet slicked skin, the plumpness of her lips, he wanted it all. He braced himself against the cool concrete of the shower enclosure and devoured her, his tongue plunging deep, teeth gently scraping against the softness of her. Her hands were wrapped around his neck, clinging to him as much as he wanted to cling to her, her breasts moulded against his chest, bump against abdomen. He held himself back, bridged against the wall, yet consumed everything she could offer him with her mouth, her touch. He could have sworn he was shaking with the effort of fighting the need for restraint and the desire for more.
For an entire month he had avoided this, avoided her. Not because he hadn’t wanted her. But because he had. Because he’d wanted her with such a raw need that it had threatened to undo him. But after tonight, after all the emotions dredged up from where he had kept them locked and hidden away, by both the press and the painting, he wasn’t strong enough to deny him, them, this. And damn him, but he was going to take everything she had to give.
‘The baby?’ he said, the last barrier to lifting the leash on his desires completely.
‘Will be absolutely fine,’ she assured him, pressing another kiss to his lips. And it was the sweetest thing he thought he’d ever heard.
Leaning back and pulling one hand from the wall, he wrapped it around her back, bringing her closer to him, pressing her against the length of him, bringing a half laugh from deep within his chest. ‘You’re still wearing your dress.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’ she demanded, not full of coquettish intonation. More of a challenge—a challenge and a silent demand.
He wanted to growl and beat his chest, not like the beast she denied that he was, but the animal she was turning him into being. He wanted to tear it from her body. As the water cascaded down from above, he loosened his hold on the wall and reached down to fist the layers of material by her thigh. The soaking wet bundle leached more water, pooling over his hand and down his arm. He released his hold on the material and reached for what he really wanted. Her.
‘Turn around,’ he commanded and, casting him a look of sheer unwarranted trust, she did, turning her head to the side and exposing the long thin column of her neck to the hot sprays, causing her hair to dip and fall over one shoulder. Between her shoulder blades where each side of the dress gathered was the top of the zip. His fingers went to it and slowly, oh, so slowly, drew the tab down from the top, the weight of the waterlogged silks pulling the dress apart, exposing the length of her spine, the curve just beneath his fingertips so that he was unable to stop himself from tracing the progress with his thumb. She shivered beneath his touch and he wanted more. So he pressed open-mouthed kisses across the skin of her back, delighting and devouring in each inch that was revealed to him.
With one arm wrapped around her, covering her breasts, and the other drawing the zip down to the base of her spine, he felt as if he held the most precious thing in the world in his arms and that he was not, and never could be, worthy of such a thing.
She arched into his touch, as if desperate to feel more, and he could not deny her any longer. Slowly, he turned her in his arms, gazing into the dark brown orbs that studied him with an intensity he felt deep within him. He watched as she lifted a hand and brushed the material of the dress off her shoulders, fascinated as it poured from her skin, and she was left standing before him in nothing more than her panties, rivulets of water glistening trails of silver across creamy skin that he wanted to trace with his tongue.
She reached for his hands and pulled them gently around her belly and his thoughts splintered between the firmness of the slightly strange shapes beneath his palms and the fact that their child was within her, protected by her, loved by them both. He worried about his hands, so large, and Maria and their child so small. And she smiled up at him as if sharing the same thought.
‘Surrounded by us both,’ she whispered to him above the pounding of the water around them. Was it wrong to want such carnal things from his wife when she was pregnant with his child? he wondered. Ever since Clara, he’d always believed that intimacy needed to be emotionless, no expectation of hope or betrayal, desires simply and easily requested or refused—no judgement or pressure. But this? This sense of attachment to his wife was threatening to cut him off at the knees.
Because suddenly his needs and wants didn’t matter—all that mattered was Maria and what she wanted and desired and how he could give them to her. When she had come into his shower, all he had wanted was to erase the night, to delve into sensual satisfaction that would rob him of thought and want, but now? Now he didn’t care if he lived on a rack of his emotions for the next twenty years of his life. All he wanted was her to have every indulgence, every desire, want and need met and exceeded.
He hooked a thumb into the side of her panties, slowly drawing the material down over her hips and thighs, and pushing them to the floor. With one hand, he reached for her neck, pulling her into a kiss as he delved between her legs with the other, drawing a gasp from her lips, one that he immediately consumed, pulling her breath deep within him, wanting everything, her moans, her cries of pleasure. Almost instantly she bucked against his hand, quivering with unchecked arousal that matched his own. He felt the tremor run across her skin beneath the layer of slick water that poured down from above them. He cursed, so close she was to orgasm that he feared it would call forth his own. His hard erection jutted against the smooth firm curve of her abdomen, again and again as her moans grew sensually urgent and full with need.
Words, begging and pleading, fell from her lips and he wanted to give her everything. He dropped to his knees, supporting her with his hands around her backside, the glorious feel of it filling the palms of his hands, more exquisite than he could have imagined.
He followed the path of his thumb across her clitoris with his tongue and he preened beneath the stifled moan of pleasure that her hand blocked from leaving her mouth. Ruthlessly he drove her to the edge and back, over and over again, because he wanted, needed, her as lost in her passion as he was.
As her cries mounted, so did his need, but he held himself firmly in check, because it was no longer about him and his wants, but her. She came apart in his hands and mouth and he had never experienced anything more magnificent or beautiful in his life.
* * *
Maria was shaking and she didn’t care, clinging to Matthieu’s shoulders as if it were the only way she could remain standing. Standing. She had come to him for his needs and he had seen only to her own, but couldn’t find it within herself to feel regret and instead focused on the soaring pleasure shimmering through her body.
She had thought that she’d imagined it, misremembered the dizzying heights Matthieu had taken her to that night almost five months ago now. But she hadn’t. Instead, she wondered whether time had in fact dulled her memory because every touch, kiss, caress rang through her body like a song—the melody both familiar and yet strangely new and wonderful.
She let her head fall back as warm water cascaded over her. Matthieu rose and took her
in his arms in a way she’d only dreamed of.
‘You look like a mermaid,’ he said, the honey-coloured glint in his eye highlighted by the surrounding emerald green.
‘A large, round, pregnant mermaid?’
‘You look incredible.’
‘Smooth talker,’ she said, gently slapping him on the shoulder, the wet of their skin making the sound louder than she’d expected.
‘Hardly,’ he admitted, his voice gravelly. He reached out a finger to loop beneath the silver necklace that hung between her bare breasts. ‘You are always wearing this.’
‘It is the only thing I have left of my mother,’ she replied. ‘She died bringing me into this world.’
Matthieu’s breath left his chest on a whoosh, and he closed his eyes against her words. ‘Maria... I am so sorry.’
And she gently smiled as if trying to ease his sympathetic ache. ‘Had it not been for me, she would have lived. Sebastian would have had a mother and my father wouldn’t have hidden his grief in apathy, a second wife who would rather spend money than love us, and risky business deals that almost destroyed us.’ She placed a hand on his arm. ‘I don’t blame myself. I can’t. I know that it’s not my fault, that there was nothing I could have done, that I was a baby. She had a medical complication. But I do know something of loss, Matthieu.’
The words came unbidden to his lips.