The Token (#10): Shepard

by Marata Eros

  I'd rather not know what became of Léo Dubois than find out it's the worst outcome I could imagine.

  Thorn and Juliette don't know where he is. Thorn is only a consultant to the cops and not privy to foreign affairs and processes.

  So I am here, in Paris, renting a studio apartment at one thousand US dollars per month. It's what I wanted. What I worked for.

  My head is crowded with memories of Juliette and Thorn's love through fire, and I smile. My family was stolen from me, and so was Shepard's. If any two people in the world deserve a second chance, it's us.

  I sigh, shelving my introspection for a later time. My eyes dance around the café, noting which customers have received water and coffee.

  I snicker. The French love their bottled water in a manic way. They're zealots about it. And I thought we Seattleites had been into coffee.

  Not as much as the French.

  The weather is gloomy, as gray as my mood. An unseasonably warm spring day has ushered in a very Seattle-like drizzle.

  When a sunbeam slices through the middle of the café, I pause from polishing the bottom of the glasses of their hot water from the dishwasher to stare at the bright spear of light through the cloud cover.

  I stack the last tumbler on the glass shelf behind me and turn.

  Sun smacks the door, backlighting a stranger in shadow. There's something that's vaguely familiar about him, but he's totally shrouded in darkness, hovering at the threshold of the door, the light causing a halo effect around him.

  Then he steps forward, fully inside the café.

  The new glass I'd picked up shatters on the ground as I meet his eyes.

  My heart ricochets in my chest, and I put my hand to my breast, trying uselessly to calm down.

  Shepard finds me easily, as though he always knew where I was.

  I round the counter of the bar full of coffee and water selections on tap.

  Someone asks a question as my feet crunch over the glass I broke.

  I never slow.

  Shepard watches me come with a neutral expression on his face.

  When I'm a foot away from him, I suddenly stop, unsure of his response.

  A smile breaks over his face. It’s so much like the sun that came through the doorway as he entered, I catch my breath.

  He holds out his hand, and I take it.

  Shepard pulls me close, wrapping his arms around me.

  His heart beats wildly against my chest.

  “I love you, Marissa.”

  I squeeze my eyes, and conversation, the clanking of dishes, and the background noise of the busy environment are fading.

  I tilt my head back, and his eyes fill my vision, deep, dark, sincere.

  Here. Finally here.

  “Not as much as I love you.”

  He puts a finger under my chin. “We shall see,” he says in English then leads me out of the café.

  *

  I take him to my place because it's walkable.

  We need to talk.

  But that can be after.

  I barely get through my door and Shepard's slammed me against my wall, his palm smacking the wall so I don't crack my skull open.

  “Please,” I whimper, out of my mind with need.

  Need to be owned by him, need to connect.

  Just need.

  He tears his pants down, and they float to his ankles as he one-handedly hikes the simple black uniform skirt I wear to my waist.

  The fabric of my panties tears as he yanks them off me.

  He lines up his cock with my entrance, slams his lips on mine, and impales me against the wall in one thrust.

  I scream into his mouth. I'm tight—I haven't slept with anyone but him, and the pressure, the stretching of his girth, hurts. It is divine.

  I nearly pass out from pure lust.

  Then Shepard begins to move within me, and every thrust is deep and languid. Meant to connect us.

  He fucks me.

  Shepard loves me with his body.

  One hand's on my ass, his cock buried deep, and one is in my hair as he gently bites and kisses my neck.

  “Marissa,” he groans. Sliding both hands to my ass cheeks, he lifts me, thrusting up as he pulls my body down, and I cry out in pleasure, for more.

  “Shepard,” I breathe out in a throaty word, gripping his shoulders.

  His hands move to my hips as his body pins me against the wall. His finger sweeps to my clit, my eyes flying open to meet his. “Come for me, ma chérie.”

  He tramps the slick little bundle of nerves as he buries himself over and over inside me. When Shepard hits that spot high and deep while roughly circling my clit, the combination undoes me, bringing me to that golden edge.

  I tumble over, waves of sweet pulsing at my core radiating throughout my body.

  Shouting my pleasure, I fold over his body, and he carries me to the couch that also serves as a bed.

  Shepard arranges me on the couch and drives himself into me again and again.

  His cock subtly grows harder, my nails biting into his back when his release joins the aftershocks of mine from moments ago. He throbs his seed inside me, and tears spring into my eyes.

  Happy tears, but he doesn't know.

  Shepard pulls away, looking at my face with concern. He withdraws, tucking me against him. “Why do you cry? Did I hurt you? I was too rough, I know it. I—”

  I vehemently shake my head, but I can't speak.

  He curls his finger underneath my chin. “Quelle?”

  What? I cry harder, and he holds me.

  When I can finally tell him why I'm crying, Shepard's brows meet. “Why is your happiness a sad thing?”

  “I'm not sad, you silly man—I'm blissful.”

  Shepard pulls me close. “I have always found women mysterious, but you, Marissa, are the greatest mystery of all.”

  I wrap my arms around him and go back to crying.

  Some tears feel good.

  TWENTY-ONE

  One week later

  Some things had been settled. The French courts had determined the atrocities committed against Shepard while a boy in their charge had indeed been the fault of the country, and they had elected not to pursue unsubstantiated claims. We knew he was guilty of some of the accusations. We also knew that as soon as he could, Shepard chose a different path. Beginning with Juliette and ending with me.

  The orphanage had been seized and shut down, and the perpetrators of abuse against children, imprisoned, putting a solid wrench in the cogs that made the machine of la famille operate.

  Léo Dubois was truly free.

  *

  “Okay—give me a break with all this secrecy!” I say loudly.

  Léo's hands are warm over my eyes while I fight tripping over my own feet.

  “Voila!” he says with soft urgency and removes his hands.

  The Eiffel Tower is the only view from the bank of French doors that take up the entire wall of his flat. My breath stills as my eyes run over the balcony, enclosed in ornate inky-black wrought iron. Nude stone statues lounge in the corners of the lengthy patio, holding cascading green vines from their clasped hands. A generously sized bistro table anchors the middle as the tower appears to rise from its center.

  “Do you like it?” Léo murmurs from behind me, laying a gentle kiss at the bend of my neck.

  “Like it?” I breathe as my hand flutters by my neck. Balconies line expensive, old architecture as far as the eye can see, and hanging baskets with bright flowers dot the rails of the balconies of Léo's neighbors. But my eyes stray back to the tower.

  Léo's hands come to rest on my shoulders, and slowly he pivots me so my back is facing the tower and my front faces the living area.

  Fourteen-foot ceilings have a plastered cornice that is deeply carved and a foot tall, breaking the wall from the ceiling, and at its center is a matching plaster medallion with a crystal chandelier hanging from the middle. Obviously antique, it drips with refracted iridescent light, flinging
small diamonds around the huge space as the sun hits the facets.

  Every piece of furniture appears hand-engineered for the space. The proper color palette, the proper scale. Baseboard over a foot tall wraps the wall between the floor and wall as it rises, giving the space a grounded look, all elegance.

  I walk slowly toward where I think the kitchen is and gasp, covering my mouth as I take in quartz countertops in the color of marble. Two sinks, one in the island and one facing the incredible view, are brushed stainless. A six-burner stove tries for unobtrusive in the corner and fails. It's outfitted for a gourmet cook.

  Not a girl from America with an impossible French dream.

  Léo's presence is warm and solid at my back.

  I check the bathrooms next. Gilded and glorious, they are elegant as well but not ostentatious. Three bedrooms round out the penthouse, spaciously appointed, and I think of how good that size will be. How opportune.

  When we arrive at the master bedroom last, I run to the bed and whirl at him. “This is not a king-sized bed!” I say, leaping on top of the bed and bouncing on it. “This is orgy-sized.”

  Léo's arm curves around a huge corner post of the bed frame, and he smiles. “It was custom made.”

  “I'll bet,” I say, pressing my fingertips into the luxury.

  Guilt swamps me.

  I have to tell him. Before this goes further. He told me he loved me, that he's brought me here for something.

  “Why the frown?” Léo comes close. “Do you like it?” he asks again softly.

  I nod, tears draining from my eyes. I fuss with the material, and he stills my fingers from their continuous fret. “Are these happy tears, Marissa?”

  “Kind of.”

  He lets go of my hands, and I look up, but not before he places something between them.

  Something soft.

  I look down again, and a very small, very square black velvet box rests on my fingers. I curl my hand around the box.

  Afraid to open it.

  Afraid.

  “Open it, Marissa.”

  “Not before I tell you something,” I say in a voice full of the confession I need to make.

  Léo shakes his head. His hair, once so short, has grown longer and curls around his ears a little. It doesn't make him less handsome.

  Just more.

  “There is nothing you could say to me, ma chérie, that would stop me from wanting you”—he lifts his chin, indicating the box that I hold—“from wanting what waits inside that tiny box.”

  I take a deep breath and snap open the lid.

  A princess-cut solitaire diamond sits nestled inside. I suck in a breath and bite my lip. Tears roll down my face.

  Léo sees my problem and takes the ring out and slips it on my finger. It's a zillion carats. It looks enormous on my finger. Huge.

  It's perfect.

  “Ah—it looks so much better on my future wife than in the box.” His face rises from my hand, and his eyes search mine intently. “That is, if she will have me?”

  I spring off the bed and rise up on my toes, hugging him for all I'm worth. “Yes,” I say in fierce answer.

  When the doorbell rings, I sink back to my heels.

  Léo frowns, and I race around him, sprinting to the door.

  He follows closely, I'm sure worried about my erratic behavior, my strange reaction to the first time seeing his home. To everything.

  Léo reaches around me and gently shoves me behind him. Protective to a fault.

  He opens the door, and my second cousin stands at his entrance. “Bonjour.”

  A woman who looks vaguely like me holds a toddler in her arms. Large, dark chocolate eyes gaze at Shepard, and eyelashes like ebony lace, impossibly long, flutter. A halo of light blond hair stands out in a kinky, curly flop around her shoulders. A chubby fist clings to Sandra's arm.

  “Marissa,” Sandra says like a question, her eyes skating between Léo and me.

  I nod.

  Léo stands there, holding the door, his mouth agape.

  “I wanted to tell you,” I say, ashamed.

  Léo doesn't look at me; his eyes are all for his daughter.

  Claire Augustine Martin DuBois.

  I proudly used his last name on her birth certificate. She is a dual citizen, born in France shortly after I arrived.

  After a full minute of Sandra lingering by the door, shifting her weight, I mutter, “Say something.”

  “Is this”—Léo coughs, clearing his throat—“beautiful creature my daughter?”

  His voice shines as if each word is polished by hope.

  I laugh, and he finally looks at me. “Our daughter, Léo. Claire is not an immaculate conception.”

  I take Claire and make introductions between Léo and Sandra, which he nods through, never taking his eyes off Claire.

  After closing the door, Léo immediately takes us in his arms, wrapping his arms around his discovered family.

  “Why—”

  “I didn't want you to feel obligated. I didn't know what you wanted from me—from us,” I confess miserably.

  He pulls away, and Claire coos, lightly touching his face. He clasps his large hand around her tiny one. “I want it all, Marissa.”

  I gulp, asking the words. Hated words. “Do you still want to marry me?”

  He kisses Claire's forehead.

  His face turns toward me, his eyes boring into mine. “More than ever. You are the mother of my child.” His eyes gleam. “You are the woman I love.” His voice cracks, and I hold him while his shirt is soaked by our tears.

  Happy ones.

  THE END

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  ***Love Token? Read on for a FREE dark romance novella, also by Marata Eros....

  NOOSE

  A Road Kill MC Novella

  Volume 1

  New York Times Bestselling author

  MARATA EROS

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2016 Marata Eros

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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  Synopsis

  Whores

  A smorgasbord of sweet butts, one for every taste.

  Noose has a sweet tooth that won't quit, and a clubwhore to suit his every need.

  Being a part of the Road Kill Motorcycle Club isn't a hard choice for Noose. A former Navy Seal and expert knotter, he's seen realtime choices—in circumstances most never do.

  It's killing road. Women and freedom are the benefits of being a one percenter.

  Until Rose Christo comes along and slams the brakes on his outlaw existence.

  Murderers

  Rose Christo knows death.

  Murder stole her sister, and gave her a son that's not hers.

  Love doesn't come in neat packages; it comes in the form of a five-year-old boy.

  Love is packaged in a man that tears out her heart with a brutal sexuality that strips Rose of her most sacred vow.

  Never count on a man.

  Never love.

  Never.

  When her sister's murderer comes calling, demanding his property, who does Rose trust?

  1
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  Noose

  I grab Crystal's hair, fisting it tightly against the scalp, and drive into her hard from behind.

  She squeals, and I suck up the noise like a starving man.

  Sweet butts are all the same. They want to be taken.

  I want to take.

  I love bareback, but rubbers are key. This pussy has had more dicks than I can count, and it's like fucking another man if you're not wearing a raincoat.

  Even when it's not raining.

  I'm done being introspective. I don't have to be anymore. I just fuck. I wear a rubber so I can fuck and not think.

  Perfection.

  Like the knots I make. Like the ones I've made to murder with.

  Crystal moans.

  I thrust harder and start swirling my dick high in a semi-circle. She screams, her cunt squeezing my dick in big deep pulses.

  My balls get ready for lift-off, and I come from my toenails, emptying the double barrel right on target.

  My head tips back, and I give an exhausted exhale.

  When I finally come down, I slap her tight ass and withdraw, stripping the spent rubber from the top and rolling it off as I walk. Chucking the limp sheath in the trash can, I turn around. She's still there, tits still mounded on the tabletop I pushed her on, pussy all bright pink and plump.

  Splayed for the next guy. If any were dumb enough to enter my lair. I smirk. They sure as fuck shouldn't be.

  An exhale drives out of me, and I tear calloused fingers through my hair, wanting a smoke bad.

  I glance again at Crystal's slit. It's a shame when a perfectly good pussy isn't leaking cum. I shake my head in partial regret.

  Can't have it all.

  Her head pops off the table, and she moves to the side, her natural large rack sort of rolling toward the tabletop. Crystal puts her head in her palm, studying me.