by Jess Bentley
He’s your dad’s friend, he doesn’t see you in that way. He can’t. Besides, you’ve only just graduated from Kelsey. Can’t you stand on your own two feet? Do you have to leech onto someone else? Your dad’s friend?
It’s not leeching if he offers.
Someone looks at me on the square and points, saying something and nudging his friend. I look down at myself. Did that drunk guy mess me up? I don’t think so. I look fine. Then another person shouts something. I look behind me, but there’s nobody there.
This is really starting to freak me out. It’s probably nothing, but I don’t know why people are making a fuss over me. I clutch my cell phone in my hand as fear clenches my heart. I scramble to stand up so I’m not vulnerable, just in case someone comes at me again.
This isn’t going the way I thought at all.
“Now listen, Jordan,” my mother had said when I insisted I wanted to go to Paris. “Are you sure you can handle it? You’re not exactly Indiana Jones!”
Indiana Jones? Jeez. “I’ll be fine, Mom,” I scoffed, trying not to show how nervous I actually was, how much I wished Kelsey was still with me—still in the world, for that matter—and on this trip.
“Well, if you’re sure, but I don’t want you getting into any situations that are hard to handle.”
“We support you, honey,” my dad piped in, “but we love you and don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Maybe it’s best to call Mr. King?
I avoid everyone’s eyes and my stomach rumbles so loudly I’m afraid it’s booming across the square. Turning my face to the wall, I quickly dial the numbers on the card as stars start to swim in front of my face. I must have stood too quickly.
“King,” I hear as soon as he picks up.
“Mr. King,” I say. “It’s Jordan.”
“Where are you? I’m coming to pick you up right now.”
God help me, my core contracts in pleasure.
4
Raleigh
If we both leaned our elbows on the table, we would be close enough to kiss.
In the light of the small restaurant, Jordan looks like a shy goddess. The warmth makes her skin glow, and the subtle flashes of the candlelight play across the tops of her breasts, which peek out of her neckline.
If I had my way, I’d...
“Don’t you think?” she finishes.
Fuck. I have no idea what she’s talking about. Christ. Just then, as if by magic, the waiter swoops in. I love the French. They know just how to woo, and how to do damage control when something gets in the way. They’re a nation of cock-lockers, not cock-blockers.
“Madame,” he says. “More wine?”
“Yes, please,” Jordan answers, looking up at him. I take the opportunity to surreptitiously check out her body again. Her elegant neck, her proud breasts, her waist. Her arms. It’s all perfect.
I wonder what day it is today.
What’s less perfect is to be stuffed like sardines in this restaurant, instead of stuffing her sweet pussy. But that’s how they do it in Paris: pack in the tables until everyone’s on each other’s lap. I wouldn’t mind if Jordan were on mine. I can feel my cock strain against my zipper.
Jordan, you make me want to bend you over right here.
“Monsieur,” says the waiter.
“Oui, s’il-vous plait,” I answer. She looks up at me, probably surprised at my decent French accent. “I spent some years in France,” I say as an aside, by way of explanation. “As a child, and then later for business. It’s partially why your family and I lost touch the last decade or so.” Her eyes widen. I don’t mention Justine, my ex. She’d be the other reason.
“Oh my God,” she says quickly, covering her mouth just as fast as the words come out. “I just remembered you.”
“What do you mean?” I take a sip of the rich dark wine, and hold it in my mouth a moment before swallowing.
“I was totally embarrassing to you, wasn’t I?” she asks slowly. She puts her face in her hands. I want to grab her and tell her no, she was just a kid, but I’d embarrass myself.
“Don’t be silly.”
When she finally looks up at me, her eyes are apologetic and her smile mortified. “I tried to monopolize you as a kid. I would not let you out of my sight.”
I grin. “Well, yeah,” I finally admit. “You were quite...eager.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
My hand snakes across the table of its own accord, moving to touch her arm. “Don’t be.”
When there’s finally skin-to-skin contact, we both jump. I knew there was something strong there, but I had no idea that it would be like this. Burning. Electricity scorches through my fingertips and she jumps back, her eyes widening in shock.
“Mr. King,” she says. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” I finally say. “You don’t have to call me Mr. King.” It comes out harsher than I mean it to sound, and Jordan blushes. I clear my throat.
“I’m sorry,” she answers. “I remember you, but I don’t really know your name, and even if I did I’m not sure I could say it out loud.”
I’d like you to be screaming it, I think. Over and over.
“You don’t know it?” I say. “Don’t your parents refer to me?”
“Yeah, my dad does,” she answers. Shit, I didn’t want to bring him into this. “But he most often calls you ‘King.’ My mother usually says ‘your friend, King.’“
“Ah,” I say. “Yeah, most people in college called me that.”
I think Margaret doesn’t like me too much. She’d definitely not like me if she knew what I was thinking right now. I take another sip of wine, to stall. “Well, what does it matter if you know it if you can’t call me by it in any case?”
“I know it starts with R,” she offers.
“Then call me R.”
“Okay,” she says. “R.” She’s rolling it around her mouth like it was a hard candy. “Rrr.”
Or something else hard.
My cock twitches, quivers at the vibration from her mouth.
“How does that feel?” I ask softly.
“Good,” she says. “Rrrr.” Her eyes sparkle.
“I like how it sounds in your voice.”
“I think we’re drunk,” she says.
“Could very well be,” I reply, and signal to the waiter to refill our glasses. He weaves his way through tiny tables close together, and pours our glasses with a flourish.
“Plus de pain, Madame?” he says with an arched eyebrow.
Oh shit, we never ordered, and she hasn’t eaten anything but a breadstick. No wonder she’s drunk. I starve her, then I ply her with alcohol.
I quickly order for us in French and it earns me another one of Jordan’s “looks”: innocent but somehow sexy as hell.
“I never would have pegged you for a fluent French speaker,” she exclaims. “What were you talking about?”
“Ah, I just ordered some food for us. I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty.”
“Not at all,” she answers, “I didn’t want to have to say a word, honestly. I’m too scared to try to speak here.”
“You’re going to have to get over that, at some point,” I admonish her lightly. “You need to be braver than that if you’re going to be a world traveler.” It occurs to me I don’t know why Jordan came here to Paris. Was it just to see the City of Light, of Love? Was it for some other reason?
“I’m terrified,” she says with no affect, and I realize it’s the most starkly true thing that she’s ever said to me. The part of her that wanted me to pay all my attention to her, the little girl, she’s still there, buried under the most sexual, succulent body I’ve had the pleasure of seeing.
Yes, I’ve spent some time with that body. But she seems like she doesn’t let on what she does. Of course, who would tell their dad’s friend something like that?
The part of me that knows who she is and what she’s done is at war with this public persona of hers. Wh
ich is the public and which is private? I don’t know what is real and what isn’t with her. But her innocence is appealing, even if it’s false.
“So tell me more about this person who was following you,” I say.
“I’d really rather not.” She takes a quick gulp of wine. “I’d like to put it behind me if I can.”
“But you said he seemed to know who you were?”
“Yeah.” Her eyes meet mine again and I search them for any sign of guilt, but they are completely guileless. She is either a very good actress, or she’s actually innocent. I’m determined to figure out which.
There can’t be any way I’ve made a mistake. My PI is too much of a pro for that. If I see her body, somehow, and that mole is there, I’ll know for sure.
“Oh,” says Jordan, as an appetizer is placed in front of her. It’s escargot—a dish that’s a little dated, perhaps, but how can you go to Paris and not eat one of the classiques? “What is this?”
“Just try one,” I answer.
She dips the snail deeper into its bath of garlic lemon butter and then brings it to her mouth.
“Go on,” I say, and she finally pops it between her soft lips, her eyes opening wide and then closing as her head falls back. I watch her jaw line move as she eats the snail, and when she looks back at me her eyes are half-shut and a few loose strands of hair fall in her face.
“That was the best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth,” she says wonderingly.
We’ll change that, I think.
“Have some baguette with the next bite,” I say, pushing the basket toward her.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asks suddenly, sharply.
“No reason,” I say. Because I want to fuck you until you scream. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
“No reason,” she answers.
“Jordan,” I say. “Why are you here, anyway?”
“No rea—”
“You don’t get to say that more than once,” I admonish her. “Tell me.”
“To get the hell away,” she says. “I had to get the hell away.”
“I understand.”
The restaurant is getting darker, and as she places her next snail on the crispy, soft baguette, I find myself feeling the buzz of the wine slipping its shadowy fingers around the parts of me with good sense, and wresting them away. I begin to fantasize about Jordan more openly and look at her more baldly, without apology. She sneaks looks back at me. Does she see me as an authority figure? A dirty old man? A creep? A sexy older man? I don’t know.
She herself changes in the light. The wine is getting to her too. She’s slurring a bit.
Our food comes, and the night gets a bit late, a bit blurry. Before I know it Jordan and I are tumbling out of the restaurant, full of delicacies and wine, and she’s on my arm, laughing up at me. We’re stumbling toward my car service. Her foot goes out in front of her at a funny angle and she nearly falls.
“Jordan,” I say, “watch it—” and she’s in my arms, and we’re facing each other, and looking into each other’s eyes. “Careful,” I whisper, and everything disappears. It’s just her, and me, and the light of the streetlamps, and the endless infinity of her eyes.
“Oops,” she says even more softly, and leans almost imperceptibly toward me when suddenly I hear a shout.
We pull apart. It’s someone yelling at Jordan. In French.
He’s calling her a slut, a piece of ass. He says go back to your room and touch yourself, you trashy bitch. She’s staring up at me now, her eyes alarmed and worried.
“What is he saying?” she asks. Maybe she truly is innocent.
“Nothing,” I say quickly, pulling her by the arm toward the car. “He just wants your money.”
Her face is doubtful; she’s not convinced.
“Are you sure? Because I thought—”
“I’m sure. Now come with me.” My driver pops out of his side and goes to open the door, and Jordan almost falls into the car. I try to help her, and then I hear the shouts again.
“You’re a lucky man aren’t you, a famous piece of ass like her?”
“Shut up and go home,” I tell the man. I’m bristling. I don’t want to get in a fight, but I won’t shy away if I have to.
“You fuck off, you go home,” he says angrily, and my driver places himself in between us. He’s trained in martial arts, so I know he’ll defuse any action against me, but it’s a mistake to rely on someone fully, no matter how trustworthy he or she might be. Justine taught me that for one.
“Move along,” says my driver in a firm voice, the kind used for training dogs.
“Only too happy to,” he says with a sardonic laugh. “I hope you enjoy your piece of ass. I know I have.”
I wonder if this is what it would be like to be with her. Is this the kind of thing she experiences all the time? Or is it new? She seems shaken up by it, but wouldn’t a person have known it could happen? Wouldn’t a person have hesitated for this exact reason rather than take such a risk?
I put myself in the car and see that she’s sprawled out across the seats. Poor girl, she’s drunk as anything.
Don’t touch her, R, says one of my voices. The other argues and wins. I lift up her head, and sit on the seat underneath it, cradling her head between my thighs.
She makes a sweet sound and nestles in, and I feel a twinge of guilt, but not enough to make me stop. Her mouth is mere inches away from my cock. Her soft mouth. Her soft mouth that almost kissed me. One of her arms slips around the small of my back, and she’s hugging me as if I were a teddy bear.
With fear? Trepidation? I let my hand softly alight on her hair, its softness inviting me to stroke it. A sound comes from her throat, a small moan of happiness, as I let my fingers take one of her curls and tuck it behind her ear.
“Mr. King,” she says softly.
“I thought you were going to call me—”
“R,” she interrupts.
“Jordan,” I say.
“Don’t stop,” she moans and snuggles deeper into my lap. Her mouth is getting closer to my cock, and if the shaft grows any more, like it’s threatening to, it’ll meet her lips.
But she’s also so defenseless, lying there in my lap. Like a child who needs to be taken care of. And that’s part of this that I can’t deny. Dustin would be pissed as hell if he knew I was feeling these things about his daughter—that I want to take her and do all manner of unspeakable things to her. But it’s more than that too…some kind of tenderness I feel toward her that I’ve never felt toward anyone else.
I want to protect her.
Or I want to be the only one who violates her.
“Jordan, Jordan, Jordan,” I say softly as I stroke her hair. I guess we’re going to my hotel apartment here in Paris because I have no idea where she’s supposed to be staying or if anyone’s looking for her. She nestles more deeply into my lap, and I shift my hips, trying not to let my thick, engorged cock touch her soft, undefended lips.
5
Jordan
When I awaken in the unfamiliar room, I am alone. Sitting up in bed, I rub my eyes and glance around the gloriousness of this place. It is incredible—more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.
So this is Paris.
There’s no point in comparing it to my own hotel room, which I felt I splurged on. Here I could have whatever I desire delivered to me at a whim. In my hotel, I was scrounging for an apple in the morning. I bet if I called room service I could even order a seven-course meal. Even after last night, my stomach is growling. Still, my heart jumps a little at the idea. Could I manage to order anything? I wonder if they speak English in a place like this. They must, since it has to be the kind of hotel that’s full of international guests—but those guests are likely of such a high caliber they probably speak several languages each.
I each under the covers and realize I’m only wearing a bra and panties. Did R and I do anything last night? I’m embarrassed that I don’t remember everything clearly afte
r we got in the limo. Did someone yell at me? I hope I didn’t let him know how much I want him. Was I a mess? Ugh.
My hand falls to the side, and lands on a piece of paper. It’s a note.
Dear Jordan. I had to step out for business. If you’re reading this before I get back, feel free to relax in the hotel. However if you do stay, I want you to buy something in the lobby downstairs… AND I want to see evidence of your bravery. Don’t spend any money—simply tell them to charge it to the room. I insist.
You’ll need a formal dress and shoes for dinner, so that would be a good start. (Do you remember you agreed to accompany me to my business function tonight?) Key on the dresser so that you can get back in.
~ R
So his name starts with R. Right. I remember practically growling it at him last night, and I blush. I’m racking my brain trying to figure out if my parents ever called him by his first name around me. What could it be? Ray, Rock, Roland? Richard?
Thinking about seeing him tonight makes my heart flutter. I know my parents would be happy that he’s taking care of me in Paris, but there definitely is an undercurrent of something else. Or maybe I’m fooling myself, and it’s only on my side. But why would he want to spend so much money on me?
As I lie there in his bed, images from the night before start flickering through my mind. I remember lying in his lap. God, how mortifying. Him undressing me and putting me to bed. Him telling me I needed to learn to be braver as he slipped my clothes off my body, and laid me down on the bed. Did he get in with me?
As I think about it, my mind veers from what actually happened to my fantasy. I know I shouldn’t be thinking of Mr. King this way, but it’s too difficult to resist. R slipping off my pants and laying me back on the bed, his hand accidentally-on-purpose brushing against the crotch of my panties, the softest touch against my clit. Me gasping and R looking up suddenly.
“Sorry,” he might say.
I’d grab his hand and put it back between my legs, and despite himself, he would stroke the silken fabric up and down, so gently, the whole while looking in my eyes until they fell closed and I began to moan. His fingers would slip under the fabric, feeling the soft skin of my delicate folds, getting wet with his touch. The only sound in the room would be our breathing, hitched and quickening, as he entered the wetness between my legs, slipping a finger inside me, moving toward my sex with his mouth. His lips would kiss my thighs, naked and quivering under his touch, and he’d pull the scrap of fabric aside and his tongue would touch the tip of my clit as I shuddered.