by Nancy Warren
By eleven she was finished.
She read her work over, tweaked it a little and then she was done.
Five minutes later, Holden knocked on her door. “Well?” she asked as she opened it.
A big smile and an even bigger kiss greeted her. “I printed off a couple of my favorites for you.”
She took a quick look and her body went to liquid. “Do you have any idea how horny I am right now?”
“No, but you could show me….”
She looked at the proofs and her arms came out in goose bumps. Maybe he thought fashion was a stupid waste of time but he hadn’t let his prejudice affect his photography. The photos were incredible. In the one he’d marked, indicating it was his choice to be sent on, he’d chosen a photo that made her laugh. A woman feeding one of the birds through the cage. He’d managed to make the image humorous but he’d also captured the sense of whimsy in the birdcage hats. “I’ll keep that one for the magazine. I like this one here, with the feathers waving as she walks, and the Picasso in the background.”
He presented it to her.
In five minutes, the pictures and text were on their way to New York.
“Okay,” she said, stretching. “I’m yours.”
“Good,” he answered. “Because I have ideas.”
“What ideas?”
“Trust me.”
There was a pause. A silent tug-of-war took place. “Okay.”
He grinned hugely. “Grab a sweater and come on.”
“A sweater?”
He shrugged. “Something for the night air.” He looked at her more carefully and she thought he was having ideas she couldn’t fathom. “Sweater, jacket, blanket. Whatever.”
“Why?”
“Because Paris, nighttime and you together give a man like me ideas.”
“Why are you bringing your camera?”
He was probably the most exciting man she’d ever been with—no, he was definitely the most exciting, and the most unpredictable. His eyes were full of lust when he looked at her. “I’m a photographer. I might see something I want to take pictures of.” His words licked at her skin so she felt like she might ignite, light up like Paris on Bastille Day when it exploded in fireworks.
12
WITH A STRONG SUSPICION she was going to enjoy herself, Kimi walked to her bedroom, threw a black cashmere pashmina into a straw carryall and swapped her heels for a pair of ballet flats.
She felt the bubbling excitement of a woman who after turning in a great article, complete with first-class photos, was now taking a couple of hours off.
Of course, there were parties all over town she could attend if she wanted to stay up all night, but she had a feeling she was going to have much more fun at the private party Holden was arranging.
“Let’s go.”
“That’s my girl.”
“Do you want me to call the car?”
He shook his head. “No car.”
“Okay.”
They took the elevator downstairs. She noticed he had nothing with him but his camera case.
“Any hints where we’re going?”
“I’ve never seen Paris by night. I thought you could show me.”
“Paris by night? You want your own private tour?”
“That’s right.”
“I think we should start by strolling along the banks of the Seine. So American in Paris. There’s a moon, so it will be romantic.”
“But—”
“No buts. You asked for my help. If you want to see Paris by night, you start on the water.” She took him by the hand and they walked along the Seine, where the tourist boats and bateaux mouches were docked.
She imagined all the lovers who’d walked this stretch of river arm in arm. Some destined for a lifetime together, some to end in tears or tragedy.
The night was glorious. The skies were clear, the air crisp but not cold and the Seine glided by like a skater, silent and smooth. They approached a bridge.
“Wait,” he said as she started to walk along the pathway that would lead her underneath the stone passageway. She glanced up to see him shrugging his camera bag off his shoulder and opening it.
“I’m not a model.”
“Tonight you are. You are my personal muse. My inspiration.”
“I’ve never been anybody’s inspiration before,” she sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stand by the bridge.” He indicated where the solid stone foot of the bridge rested. “There.”
She walked over. There wasn’t a soul around. The walkway was lit, but dimly, so she still felt the effect of the moon and stars.
She stood leaning against the post and faced him.
He fiddled with the camera then huffed. “No, no, no. I’m not looking for a cheesy tourist shot. Stow the ‘here I am in Paris, having a wonderful time, wish you were here’ grin.”
“Tell me what you want,” she said in frustration.
“I want Paris. I want the mood. This is supposed to be the city of love. Give me love. Give me romance. At least give me sex!”
“You want sex?” She snapped. “Fine, I’ll give you sex.”
She opened her blouse, not very far, but far enough that she knew the mounds of her breasts would show. She pushed her hips forward and hiked up her skirt. She tried to imagine she had something to sell and he was a stranger, walking along the banks of the Seine looking for it.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That’s it. That’s great.”
He came closer. She heard the click of the shutter, the snap of photo after photo. She was annoyed enough that she knew her disdainful expression would come through. It kind of worked with the idea she had, and his enthusiastic clicking of the camera was a bit of a turn-on.
“Now, slowly, undo one more button. And look at me when you’re doing it. Slowly, remember.”
She glanced up at him from under her lashes, felt the heaviness in her breasts and knew her nipples were blossoming under his gaze and the soft breeze. She brought her hands to her chest, and slowly, slowly, slipped another button free.
“Holden?”
“Yeah,” he answered, his voice husky.
“Aren’t you supposed to take my picture?”
A moment passed and a look of stunned disbelief crossed his face. “I forgot.”
“Then I’d better do it again,” she said softly, and slipped another button free. This time he was ready with the camera, coming closer, moving around her.
“Oh, you’re good. You’re gorgeous,” he said as he snapped.
She almost expected him to name a price, but instead he gave her a huge grin. “Okay. Where to next?”
“This is Paris. Let’s go up the next set of stairs and see where we end up.”
“Fantastic.”
She knew exactly where they were, of course, but it was fun to keep him guessing. She started to do up her buttons, but he stopped her. “Put on your sweater.”
Without a word, she withdrew her pashmina and wrapped it around her torso. The cashmere was soft against her overheated skin.
Climbing up from the riverbank to street level, they were greeted by the Eiffel Tower, glowing ahead of them. “Wait,” he said as she headed closer, across the bridge. “I like the view from here.”
“All right.”
“Lean forward and contemplate the tower,” he instructed her.
She glanced at him over her shoulder, then did as he suggested. “Nice. Don’t move.” He came up behind her and she felt the shifting of her skirt.
“What are you—”
“Shh.”
She felt the fabric shift against the bare skin of her thighs, rising, rising. He didn’t touch her, but left her open to the elements, the sky, the soft breeze, the murmur of the river below them. His warm hands ran down her thighs and gently parted them. It was all she could do not to moan.
Anyone could come by at any moment. There was traffic, people looking out of windows.
He stepped away. She
could only imagine how she looked, fully dressed, but with her skirt flipped over her hips, her legs parted to show her lacy underpants. Pale-blue lace threaded with ribbons of silk. Her body felt heavy against them, already urgent with desire.
She heard the shutter of the camera and every click made her hotter.
“Turn your head and look at me.” She did and thought she’d never known a more exciting man. The breeze teased her where she was so hot, almost like a caress, too fleeting to bring relief, instead it just intensified her arousal.
By the time he was done she could barely hold still.
“You’re a natural,” he murmured in her ear as they kept walking.
At the Arc de Triomphe, he posed her against the lamppost that said Rue Charles de Gaulle, across from the famous arch, carefully slipping one breast out of her bra and placing her hands above her head.
“What are you doing?” she moaned.
“Shh,” he said. “It’s art.”
There was traffic, even at this hour, and she felt exposed and yet so hot she couldn’t imagine resisting.
Once more the camera chattered to her as he took his images. Once more, heat filled her.
“Touch yourself,” he ordered softly. “Offer me your breast.”
She moaned softly as she complied, staring at him as though she could will him to come to her and give her what she needed. The camera became like a lover, putting Holden at a distance, behind the lens, so he was like a stranger, watching.
Without direction, she released her other breast, upthrust by the underwire of the bra she still wore. Once more she wrapped up, leaving herself exposed beneath the shawl. She knew he was as aroused as she. It was obvious. But he didn’t so much as touch her. Not yet.
Since she was giving the tour, she led him to Place Vendôme, where the shopping was high-end. Rolex, Cartier, and it was also near her hotel. Of course, the gates were down on the Cartier store and here he posed her, under the arched doorway. She thought this might be heaven for her, sex and high-end shopping all in one.
He might have read her mind. “You’re waiting for the store to open. You’ll wait all night if you have to. I want you to sit on the ground, right there.” She started to lower herself.
“But first, give me your panties.”
She was going to refuse, this was ridiculous. But she knew he expected her to, so she slipped her hands under her skirt from behind, leaned over and drew them slowly down her legs. She walked forward and tucked them into his shirt pocket, with a little lace showing at the top like a handkerchief.
Then she stepped back, and, making sure it was her skirt under her and not the bare ground, she sat down. He didn’t need to tell her what he wanted, she understood.
She eased her legs apart, but not too far. Let him work for his shot. She eased her skirt up a bit, but not too much, she always thought subtle suggestion was more sexy than blatant pornography. And then she leaned back, wrapped tight in her pashmina, and imagined sitting here until the store opened.
She could see the column Napoleon had erected. The bronze plates decorating it were made from canon seized after the battle of Austerlitz, and way at the top, Napoleon himself stood, watching them.
THEY HEADED BACK along Rue de Rivoli. “Nice-looking park,” Holden said.
“Jardin des Tuileries, I’ve never been in here at night,” she whispered.
“Come on.”
They walked in and she felt the magic of the place. No doubt there were others here, but if so they were being very discreet. Surrounded by the Louvre on one side, the Seine and Place de la Concorde, it was a lovely, ancient park full of trees, statues, a lake and, in the day, crepe and sandwich vendors.
They walked down the tree-lined avenue, hand in hand this time. He found a statue of a female nude, and pressing Kimi up against it, kissed her with all the heat he’d been bottling up.
She moaned, low in her throat, and clutched at him, pulling him against her. She could feel his erection through the thin silk of her skirt, feel the heat of his body against hers. He loosened the shawl, pulled it down her arms and hooked it over her wrists then stepped back. He shot a few pictures, then set up the camera on one of the benches.
“Wish I had a tripod,” he muttered, but he was a resourceful man as she’d discovered, and he soon found a tree branch the right height for his purpose, which, she discovered, was to enter the photo himself.
He must have had a remote, for he came forward and kissed her again. Her arms went around him, the black pashmina hanging from her arms enfolding him like bat’s wings. She heard the click of the shutter.
And then she lost track of the photos as he began stroking her, loving her. He turned to look behind him once or twice, as though to check the angle and stability of the camera, and then went back to her.
His hand came under her skirt, slipped up her thigh and touched her, just there. He toyed with her, rubbing her with her own wetness until she felt herself shatter, her body hot and shuddering against the cool stone statue.
His urgency was too great to hold off any longer. She could feel it. He unzipped, let his jeans down, hiked up one of her legs and draped it over his crooked arm, and then he was pushing inside her and she thought she’d never welcomed anything more.
The slow seduction by photograph was over, and she felt him driving into her with a passion that verged on desperation. She came again almost immediately, pushing up against him, and then he drove her relentlessly up again until this time, they both went over the top.
13
KIMI WAS DRAGGED OUT of sleep—the deep kind that had been way too short—by the ringing of her cell phone. Annoyed with herself that she’d forgotten to turn the thing off last night—no, this morning sometime—after Holden left her, saying he had an early meeting and she should sleep.
And she would be still enjoying the deep sleep of the sexually satiated and exhausted if her damn cell phone wasn’t jangling. She squinted at the call display and then experienced a jolt of panic. Her mother?
Her mother never called her when she was away on business unless it was an emergency.
She answered her phone with, “Mom? Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine. But something rather odd happened that I wanted to ask you about.”
Kimi pulled herself up to sitting and stuffed a pillow behind her, resting back so she could chat to her mother in comfort. “Sure. What is it?”
“Were you sleeping? I thought for sure you’d be up. It’s seven-thirty in Paris. I timed the call so I’d catch you before you got too busy.”
“I was up really late last night. I had a deadline.” In fact, a quick calculation told her she’d had three hours of sleep. As soon as she got off the phone, she’d turn the thing off and try for another couple of hours.
“A man with the strangest name phoned me yesterday. From Paris.”
All vestiges of sleepiness blasted out of Kimi’s mind. “What was his name?” she asked, alarm skittering through her nervous system.
“Something Peacock. Oh, wait, I wrote it down. Brewster Peacock.”
“What did he want?” She had an awful feeling she already knew.
“First of all he said he was a friend of yours and what a talented writer you are, to which I agreed of course. He said he was writing a profile about you for his column and simply wanted some background. He implied that you had given him my phone number, which surprised me because you hadn’t mentioned he’d be calling, but he said you’ve been crazy busy with the shows and naturally I understood that.”
Her throat felt too clogged to speak.
“He said how nice it was to finally meet your father.”
She groaned as her worst fears were confirmed. “What did you say, Mom?”
“What do you think I said? I’m not a fool, Kimi.”
“Of course you’re not.” Too restless to remain in bed, she stood up, holding the phone to her ear as she paced to the other room. Every rotten epithet sh
e could think of she lobbed at Brewster.
“I said that I never discuss family business with strangers.”
“Good one, Mom.”
“Well, it’s true. I don’t. But Kimi, what’s going on? Who is this man and why is he suggesting he’s met your father?”
She grabbed a robe off the back of the bathroom door and wrapped it around herself.
“That man is a conniving little weasel who destroys people’s careers and lives for fun. Everybody in the fashion world reads his column. Everybody.” She perched on the edge of the bathtub then got up and started pacing again.
“And, Mom? He has met my father.” She halted at the window and looked out at Paris at dawn. On the street below, a corner grocery was opening up. She watched the proprietors carry out boxes of fruit and tubs of fresh flowers. An old woman walked her dog, a tiny ball of fur who insisted on stopping every couple of feet or so to sniff. The woman wore an old Chanel suit and sensible shoes that Kimi bet she hated with a passion.
“Your father’s in Paris?”
“Yep. With my half sister. His oldest. Claudia is her name.”
“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. Did you speak to him? Did he recognize you? And how did this awful Peacock person learn of your connection?”
“Peacock’s got spies everywhere. He’s got doormen, drivers and maids giving him tips, gossip for payment. Somebody could have seen me and Giovanni Ferrarro together.” She turned away from the window and paced once more.
“But you’d think the rumor would have been that you were having an affair, not that Giovanni is your father.”
“It’s Claudia. The daughter. She looks a lot like me. I guess he saw the three of us and started putting it all together.”
There was a pause as Kimi pictured her mother digesting this news.
“You’ve spoken to your father?”
“Yes. He practically killed himself trying to stop me from revealing my identity to Claudia and then he came over yesterday and we had breakfast in my hotel. He was nice enough, but he made it clear he doesn’t want me complicating his life.”