The Nightlife: Paris (The Nightlife Series)

by Travis Luedke

  On this night, as had become habit, he went straight for the sword.

  “No. We need to work on your mental focus and discipline.”

  He groaned. More meditation. Urvashi the self-help guru.

  “A time may come when your mental focus and abilities will make all the difference in the world, the difference between life and death. As you know, you can die. It can be as simple as a man with a gun.” Her speech hit home.

  Choked up with the grief her words inspired, he nodded acceptance.

  “You must hone your mind, focus your abilities. A sharply focused mind visualizes directly. Learn to act by thought, by visualization. Clear out the debris and distractions. Meditation is the first key to unerring focus.”

  He kept on nodding, wondering if she’d ever done seminars with Tony Robbins.

  “You have heard it said, ‘What a man can conceive he can achieve.’ This is a partial truth understood by wealthy, powerful men, and the occasional genius. For you, this is the only truth you need to master. There is much potential awaiting your discovery.”

  He sat and waited to discover, listening, letting her smooth voice penetrate his thick skull. Why not believe her? He had no reason to distrust her. So he opened his mind to all possibilities.

  “You may do many things that seem impossible, magical, but this result is simply a product of a finely tuned mind.”

  Coming from a fallen angel who did impossible and magical things, he believed her.

  “The power of your desire will determine the results of your efforts. You must learn to concentrate on your desires with all your focus and intensity.”

  Despite his willingness to follow her teachings, he found it difficult to focus. Her meditation exercise reminded him of his first night with Michelle. The bittersweet memory resurfaced.

  As though it was yesterday, he recalled Michelle sitting in front of him, legs crossed, wearing nothing but a see-through white slip and panties. As he lusted over every inch of her, she smirked in an unspoken promise. And she had delivered on that promise, giving all of her body and soul to him. He fell in love with her then, that very first night. And when she confided her darkest secrets he betrayed her love and trust. Sitting with Urvashi, practicing meditation, same as with Michelle, seemed a betrayal of her memory.

  Urvashi snapped at him, “Pay attention!” He jerked back into focus, embarrassed.

  “Visualize yourself. Feel the world around you. Feel my presence in front of you.” She sat legs crossed in a black form-fitting bodysuit, and looked every bit the fallen angel. “Feel the flow of air currents and the energies around us, between us.”

  He felt it then, a slight pressure on his skin, a static electricity, crackling and prickly. In his mind’s eye he saw a faint glow coming off her, reaching toward him.

  She snapped again. “You’re blocking me. You’re blocking out sensations with your shielding.”

  He didn’t have the first clue how to ‘unblock’ whatever she thought was blocked.

  “Drop your shields!” Spoken as command, her will tore down the barrier he hadn’t known existed.

  She stripped him bare, his soul naked for her perusal. He felt her then, an immensely hot and powerful thing – a burning hot sun roasting him with uninhibited radiant energy. She engulfed him, invading every pore and crevice, stealing the air from his lungs. He drowned in the overwhelming surge of her power wrapping around him.

  She invaded his psyche, his memories, every fiber of his being, rifling through his most intimate secrets. She dredged up his humiliations, joys, failures, fears, all his life experiences. Her exploration evoked the deep grief of his father’s passing at sixteen years old, and then recently Anastasia and the crushing agony of Michelle’s death.

  Re-experiencing the moment, he sat there in the street, his lover and companion bleeding to death in his arms. It was more than he could bear.

  “Please stop! Oh god, no more!” He screamed and slammed his mental barriers back into place. She flowed back into herself, her power tightly contained within her golden-skinned façade of humanity.

  He gasped trying to recover. Tears of blood streamed down his face.

  “I’m sorry. I pushed too hard. Forgive me.” She laid her hand on his, and that’s when he felt it, a siphoning-draining of his emotions. She stole his grief and pain, and with it a small measure of his energy. This exercise, though painfully harsh, had brought a new facet to his awareness.

  “Is that what you have been doing all along?”

  Her composure slipped for a second, then her mask of perfection resumed. “Yes. I have taken your pain, when necessary.”

  “I think you took a little something more.”

  She smiled. No apologies or shame. “It seems you can learn after all.”

  * * * *

  Each night Michelle descended to the front desk to find Maximillian Sinclair. “You have news of Monsieur Pilan?”

  “Non. I cannot find him in any hotels in Paris. Are you certain he has not left the city?”

  “Non. I can only hope he will come back here.”

  It was the same each night, no luck.

  She had visited the mansion several times, but never found any evidence that Aaron had stayed there. She hated the place more than ever, for the memories of their harsh words, a moment of anger when she almost went too far. She had considered killing him that night.

  Nothing to do but wait.

  And so she waited.

  * * * *

  Chapter 25

  “Michelle!” Aaron screamed as he buried his cock and almost bit Urvashi by mistake. He barely stopped himself before his teeth broke her skin.

  “Aargh!” She yelled in his face and her blinding daze of light-energy shoved him off the bed.

  He shook off the last crackles of her energy. How foolish, to risk the jealousy of a fallen angel. “I’m sorry, I … got carried away.”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, head in hands, unable to look her in the eyes. In the past three weeks, sleeping at her side, making love to her night after night, he had mistakenly called her Michelle more times than he could count.

  Her electric fingers traced the line of his shoulder and down his spine. “Of all the men in the world, I choose you. And yet you long for another.”

  “I’m …” The apology had gotten old. Saying it again wouldn’t make it any better. “I just miss her. You don’t know what it’s like, to be connected so intimately. We shared everything. It’s like a piece of my soul is missing, the best piece.”

  “The imprint was very deep. It might take a long time to overcome.”

  He looked back at her. Her tone seemed strange, as if she spoke more to herself than him. “I need to accept she’s gone.”

  “Yes you do.”

  He took off to shower and get a grip on his messy emotions. Barely able to look her in the eyes, he dressed in silence and followed her down to the ground floor. As they had done so many times before, he accompanied Urvashi and her chauffer Renault out into the streets of Paris.

  He steeled his nerve to do the thing that had to be done. “Have Renault take us to the Hilton. I need to put things in order, tie up loose ends.” His clothes, Michelle’s clothes, the hotel bill. “It’s about time.”

  She sat silent for a moment, and then nodded to Renault. She slipped a comforting hand over Aaron’s. “Yes, it is time. It would seem unavoidable.” She had that strange tone again.

  At the Hilton reception desk he met the ever so courteous Maximillian Sinclair. “Bonjour, Monsieur Pilan, have you been enjoying our lovely city?” Max looked pointedly at Urvashi with a snide tilt of his upper lip.

  Guilt hit Aaron square in the gut.

  Reading Max’s mind, the manager’s hatred boiled. He saw Aaron as cheating scum and worse, the other woman was obviously not French. Max’s intense loathing blotted out all else in his mind.

  “I need a room key. I lost mine a few weeks ago.” Aaron spoke stoically, keeping a tigh
t control on his emotions. This asshole didn’t know the truth, and he had no right to judge.

  In his fury, Max almost forgot to tell Aaron about the wire transfer. His eyes narrowed and he breathed heavily through his nose as he presented Aaron with the paperwork. “Sign here, and here, and here, and I will get you another key.”

  Once more, Aaron signed form after form shoved in front of him, and Max slid the coveted room key across the counter along with an account statement.

  Aaron glanced at the bill. “Shit! Can’t you give me some kind of weekly discount? You’re billing me for the entire month and I haven’t even been here!”

  He read Max’s sublime pleasure at this small retribution. “Pardon, Monsieur, we do not have a weekly rate. This is not Motel 6. You have had the Executive suite available all month. It is regrettable you were otherwise occupied.” He executed another snide eyebrow lift in Urvashi’s direction. Max’s mind burned with outrage that Aaron would betray the beautiful blonde French woman with Urvashi, and then have the audacity to complain about his hotel bill.

  “Oh, and I’ll be checking out tonight. I want the balance of my money, whatever’s left after paying for the majestic Executive suite.”

  Max’s hatred and attitude set him on edge. He already had more than enough guilt about Michelle’s death. He didn’t need this asshole giving him a hard time. Aaron considered leaping over the counter to smash the smug little bastard’s face in.

  Urvashi snatched up the key and ushered him away brusquely. “Thank you very much, Monsieur Sinclair.”

  She steered Aaron toward the elevator with a firm grip on his arm. “Money is not an issue, but the Parisian police are. You cannot growl and intimidate everyone. Some problems require finesse, negotiation.” She lectured him on their way up to the fourth floor.

  The implications of her words about money sunk in. The only people who spoke like that were those who had more money than they could ever spend. Looks like I got tangled up with another millionaire. He suspected she owned all the floors below the penthouse apartments they occupied, and a building like that was easily worth several million.

  Fucking millionaires.

  When they arrived at the door to his room, Urvashi stopped him. “I think you should do this alone. I’ll wait down in the lobby.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’d rather not be alone right now. You’ve been a comfort to me. I’d appreciate it if you stayed.” He wanted to make a place for her in his heart. He sincerely tried.

  She ran her fingers through his hair, smiling brightly. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  They walked into the suite together. He braced himself to confront the situation head on. He worried he might find evidence of the foul play from Michelle’s abduction.

  The room looked spotless. He imagined Michelle there in bed, her tousled golden locks spread across the pillow, her glorious creamy skin, and that sexy little smile of hers whenever she caught him thinking about making love to her.

  As though manifested from his imagination, Michelle glided out of the bathroom wearing only a black silk bathrobe. She looked so provocative he instantly grew hard in his pants and his mouth filled with teeth in anticipation of her wonderful blood.

  * * * *

  Michelle gawked at her lover and the woman standing next to him. At first she could do nothing but stare at Aaron in shock, the man she had been waiting for, praying for.

  She burst with joy at the sight of him. “Aaron!”

  But something was different. His aura held a strange golden-bright color, like nothing she’d ever seen. And it leaked over to the woman at his side. Following his aura to her, this same golden color shone brilliantly from the woman, like the corona of the sun emanating out in fiery waves. This woman was not human but something more – much more – and she held his hand as if she owned him.

  “Aaron?”

  “Michelle! Is that really you?” Aaron looked back and forth between the two women, as if he expected to see another Michelle somewhere else.

  When he looked to the black-haired Persian for approval, Michelle knew the bitch had laid claim to her lover.

  “Meurs, pute!” Die, whore! “He is mine!” She launched at the bitch in a snarl of rage.

  Aaron intercepted her, snatched her right out of the air in a crushing bear hug. “Oh god, I missed you!”

  She watched the bitch glaring at Aaron’s back as he squeezed Michelle so hard it hurt. Murderous fury filled her. Rend and tear flesh. Rip out her guts. Listen to her screams as I filet her breasts and peel out her spinal cord.

  “I love you so much, Michelle.”

  Six little words spoken with unmistakable sincerity dissolved her rage. Jealousy and suspicion evaporated, leaving only love and happiness. In his arms again. He was back. He lived. Nothing else mattered.

  “Je t'aime de tout mon cœur.” I love you with all my heart.

  And he kissed her, the way he always kissed her, like she was the only woman in the world. Glorious heat and love poured over her, working its way through her whole body. Heavenly joy, wonder, awe. She loved this man. She would follow him to the ends of the earth to be together. Tears of blood and joy ran down her face.

  In Aaron’s arms, all was right with the world.

  A dark-haired slut with tear-drop eyes pecked Aaron on the cheek. “I’ll give you this night with her. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Snap. Michelle’s teeth closed on empty air as she lunged for the bitch. Too quick, the door clicked shut behind the interloper.

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “I’ll tell you all about her later. We have some serious catching up to do.” He kissed her soundly, and his hands slid her bathrobe off her shoulders, flowing all over her skin. He laid claim to her mouth with a fiery kiss of possession. He carried her in his powerful arms and leaped onto the bed. Landing in a giggling tumble, his hard chest pushed against her breasts as he kissed her again.

  She shredded his shirt in her impatience to strip his clothes. His cock pressed against her leg and she grabbed it. Just like she remembered, rock hard, pulsing in her grip. He growled as she stroked the length of him, teasing the head of his cock with her thumb. She wanted him, needed him inside her, filling her, loving her like no other man had ever loved her.

  “I have dreamt of this moment.” He slid in his hot, engorged erection. Inch by glorious inch, he stretched and filled her, burying all that cock where she needed it most.

  She growled into his ear. “You are mine and I will never let you go.” She wrapped her legs around him and hooked her heels in, gripping his ass for more.

  He shifted his weight and hit that spot. He always knew where to find her spot. Shuddering waves of bliss rocked her body as he ground and thrust, hitting her right where she liked it, over and over.

  “J'ai besoin de toi.” She clawed his back and pulled on his shoulders.

  “I need you too, and I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

  For a brief second she wondered what the black-haired bitch would have to say about that. Then he growled and hit home inside her, nailing her spot with deliciously painful thrusts. He sunk his teeth into her neck, and she bit him back. Heavenly bliss erased all thought, and nothing else mattered.

  * * * *

  Chapter 26

  Aaron awoke in Michelle’s arms, her scent and their lovemaking permeated the bed sheets. The glorious aroma of home. No matter where they were, no matter what bed they slept in, with her at his side it would always be home. Everything in his universe aligned perfectly with Michelle’s naked limbs wrapped around him snugly.

  He prayed Urvashi wouldn’t force him to give her up. It would be unbearable. The lines from Wikipedia came to mind, “Extremely moody, seductive, and jealous.” Urvashi didn’t strike him as one to share.

  Michelle’s eyes opened with a smile on her lips. “Good morning.”

  He banished thoughts of Urvashi as he settled between his lover’s thighs.
He worked her clit with his thumb while he slipped two fingers into her hot wet folds. She gasped, her eyes rolling back as she thrust her hips, finding his rhythm. He sensed her soreness from the punishing sexual marathon last night. She loved the delicious ache inside her, the soreness from her abused hips and thighs.

  He nipped at her ears, kissing lightly down her neck and collarbone. “I’m going to wake you like this every night.”

  “Céleste.” Heavenly.

  He licked at her nipples to watch them harden, tracing little circles with his tongue. His hand deftly maintained his rhythm inside her, sliding in her slick, wet heat till she writhed beneath him.

  “Aaron, give it to me! Stop playing!”

  He loved this woman so much it hurt, and he had an aching hard cock as evidence. She pulled on him, guiding him to her. His thumb still in place working her little nub, he slid into her warm wet embrace. She was sooo ready for him. He felt burned by the heat of her womb. He could never get enough of this woman. Never.

  Sliding all the way in, he withdrew slowly, watching her shudder with sensation. She hurt inside, but she wanted it bad, and he couldn’t deny her. Slowly, he plunged back in, hitting her at that deepest point, right where she liked it, painful bliss. She gasped and squealed with the sweet torment.

  Her sounds drove him on, he couldn’t hold back anymore. He buried it and began a slamming rhythm, beating the inside of her like a drum. She held him tight, whining and moaning and growling. He worked to hear her grunts and hit her deep where it hurt. This was what she wanted, and he needed to give it to her.

  She came hard, clenching, contracting and screaming in his ear. “Aaron!”

  She sank her fangs into his neck. He bit her a second later, grinding in to hit her limit. He pounded his cock into this wonderful woman, and knew the ultimate bliss of true love and that moment of simultaneous orgasm. Two souls as one, in love, convulsing in bed-shredding, toe-curling release.