“Don’t be ridiculous. Look, there’s a woman, two women, right over there,” he said, indicating the women dining past her shoulder.
“Grande horizontales,” she said after a quick glance. “And you know it. The more I’m seen with you, the more they’ll assume the same of me. Worse, they’ll assume I’m a grisette reaching too high.”
“Would you forget about all that, please? I just wanted to see you. Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, it seems, my mind drifts to you.”
“And Madame Kohl?”
“On holiday in Nice.”
“How nice.”
“Nice? I suppose it’s nice.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Order something. Please. You’re far too thin, sweetheart.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
“What may I call you? Darling? Dumpling? Dove? What?”
After placing their orders, she said, “I assume I’m here to hear of my audition scheduled with Monsieur Zidler.”
“Ah, no. I haven’t scheduled that yet.”
“You promised me.”
“And I will arrange it. I just haven’t gotten to it.” He studied the sheer cream ruffles coyly hiding her décolletage. “Spend the week’s end with me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I have to work.”
“Has Madame Pelletier not given you your Saturdays off?”
“She already gives us the Sabbath. Why should she give us Saturday as well?”
“Because I’ve asked her to. If she hasn’t, I will have a problem.”
“I sing at Le Chat.”
“Not until Sunday night. I’ll bring you and stay to watch. Then deposit you at home. It’s settled.”
“It isn’t settled.”
“Why do you resist? We both know you want me.” He leaned in and whispered, “You’re thinking of taking my cock in your mouth even now.”
“I’m not.”
He sat back with a smirk. “Spend the week’s end with me. Where are we at? Thirty? We could shave a good number off.”
She shook her head.
“Stop shaking your head at me. You’re so stubborn, Monica. I hate it. And I love it. But I hate it.”
She continued to shake her head, licking her lips, chewing on them as if she were swallowing something.
“I can’t fall for you,” she said.
He tried, but couldn’t suppress a small smile. “Why?”
“I’d like to think I’m cold and ruthless when it comes to getting what I want. That I’m utterly single-minded. But I’m not. That is, I haven’t always been. I let myself get distracted.”
“You fell in love with Monsieur Talac.”
She nodded. “Too easily I forgot who I was and what I wanted. I’ll never do that again. Even for great sex.”
He smirked.
“I’m serious.”
“As the grave. I can see that. And I admire it, though I may not understand it entirely.”
“How can you say that? You have your passions. I have mine.”
“Yes. But you’re a woman. It’s different.”
“It isn’t different.” She exhaled and looked around the dining room. “Have you seen your ex-wife? Do you even know the woman you love?”
“I don’t love Joselin.”
“Yes, you do. You needn’t pretend with me, Jonathan. I have eyes to see.”
He wanted to deny it again, because the truth was his visit with her had unsettled him. Perhaps she’d been lonely with Erik gone, but she fell so easily into manipulating him. She would use him without a second thought for his feelings. He never imagined that he could love someone who was so ruthless. Then there was Monica, who wanted to be and couldn’t, even if she tried. The contrast between the two—one so cunning and callous, the other so honest and earnest and honorable, more noble than most of the men in this room—was so startling in its clarity, he could finally see Jos for what she was. And he didn’t like what he saw.
“You’re determined,” he said. “I can see that very clearly.”
“You won’t interfere, no matter how good the sex gets.”
“I wouldn’t dare. No matter how good the sex gets.”
“You won’t fall in love with me.”
“You’re feeling confident today.” He smirked. “I like that. What I’m proposing will be a harmless lark. I promise.”
“And you’ll schedule my audition.”
“Consider it done.”
Chapter 10
Monica sat looking around the room. Night had fallen and the space was cast in amber by the fire and a dim lamp. Though the ceilings were tall, perhaps twelve or thirteen feet in height, it wasn’t particularly large. But for the elaborate moldings carved around the chandelier, arched doorway, and windows, it seemed a forgotten space. Apt since, sitting naked and alone for some time, she felt forgotten.
I just need to take this, darling, he’d said with his hand over the mouth of the telephone. Go into your room, take off your clothes, and wait for me. I won’t be but a moment. That was possibly a half an hour earlier. What a peculiar intrusion, this telephone. A friend could monopolize your time without even bothering to make a visit. It was so rude, she was seriously contemplating getting dressed and leaving.
Why had she agreed to come? She’d spent the past two weeks like a bitch in rut, so aware of her body and its needs. Her sex was like a ringing bell that wouldn’t stop. And the shameful truth was, she liked it that way.
The door opened and Jonathan peered in, a small smile lighting his face. “You’ve done it.”
“Yes.” She walked away from his perusal.
“I shouldn’t be too much longer.”
She turned to see the door closing with him on the other side and her jaw dropped.
Moments later, record time for her, really, she was dressed and striding past him for the door.
“One moment, Charles,” Jonathan said, then he lunged for her arm. “What are you doing, Monica?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Would you like me to answer that?”
“No”—she grabbed the doorknob—“I don’t really care.”
He closed the door and caged her in with his arms. “It looks like you’re a petulant child who’s throwing a fit because she hasn’t gotten her way. Are you a child, Monica?”
“You’re obviously busy and I have other things I’d rather do than be ignored in a lush apartment on the Rive Gauche. Now let me go.”
He tsked. “I don’t think I will. No.” He turned her to look at him. “Now, I’m going to finish this call with Charles Zidler, a call I took because I also wanted to arrange your audition.” He raised a pointed brow. “Are you going to go back in that room and wait for me?”
Monica took a deep breath. She was fuming and thought she had a right. Until he made her sound like a spoiled child, then it seemed she was.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He brought his hand to her chin and his gaze to her lips as if to kiss her, then skated a finger slowly under her chin back and forth. It was a little nothing gesture, still it made her soften.
He appeared in the room only a minute after she’d returned.
“Shall I lock you in this room for the weekend?” he asked.
“No.” She smiled slyly.
“You’re wearing far too much clothes.”
“Am I?”
He crouched before her so that she looked down on him and still he seemed to own the space between them.
“I’m sorry, Monica.”
“You’re not sorry, Jonathan.”
“No. I’m not.”
She exhaled. He was infuriating, but she was so drawn to him. The air between them felt like tinder in need of friction.
“Get undressed,” he said as he added another log to the fire.
She reached for her bodice laces, then hesitated. Defiant by nature and irritated by the whole of manhood being so assuming
, why was it she seemed eager to obey this man without so much as a thought?
He glanced at her, then smiled smugly. “Would you defy every man you meet?”
“If I can, yes.”
“Yet you reached for those laces so beautifully. Fall to a chair at my command, come when I call, spread your legs at my urging. Why?”
She felt heartbroken at the pain. Of the truth. “I don’t know.”
“I know.” He paused, as he was want to do. Every word or touch a great anticipation. “It isn’t that you’re a good girl. You’re not. And that makes you grit your teeth”—he waggled a finger at her mouth—“as you’re doing right now, because you’re the least like a girl of any woman I’ve ever known. It isn’t that you want to obey me.” He shook his head. “You need to obey me. And, happy coincidence, all that spirit in that obedient heart, I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
“No.”
“No?” He slid a hand along her cheek, threaded up through her hair, then began pulling pins. “It’s all right, Monica. I know you feel like you need to fight this. You love to obey me, but you don’t like that you love it. Isn’t that right?”
She wanted to deny it. Could feel her head shaking, yet she knew he was right. Worse, she knew he knew she knew.
He reached around and began untying her bodice. “You love being submissive to me,” he continued.
“No,” she said as she tried to pull back from him. But his hands on the laces held her firm.
“Shh, just relax,” he said, pressing wet kisses down her neck. “It’s your inborn character. There isn’t anything wrong with that.”
“‘Inborn character.’” She bristled as if he were calling her ill-formed. “I don’t know what you mean. But I’m not deficient, nor am I docile like most women.”
He removed her bodice, outer skirt, and bustle, then moved on. “I know. Perhaps that’s what’s so intriguing about you.” When he stepped back, she was naked but for her stockings. “Take them off.”
She bent to do it, then paused. For some reason, at that precise moment, it felt as if she’d reached the edge of all she knew for certain. She should turn back. If she were sensible she would. They exchanged a look—all her independence held in the still water of it.
She took off her stockings.
He began removing his clothes. When he stood naked before her, he slid a hand to her sex and pressed a finger inside. “Ahh, this right here is exactly what I mean.” He played with his finger inside her. “You’re so perfect for me. Do you know that?”
Everything inside her screamed yes and still she felt her head shaking in denial. Gently he stilled it, then laced a finger around her hairline, tucking her hair behind her ear. He nuzzled her cheek, her jaw, all the way to her ear, then whispered, “Yes. And I’m perfect for you.”
He pressed his hard chest and even harder arousal to her and she couldn’t help it, she moaned. She felt her knees buckling and he picked her up and brought her to the bed. Sitting beside her, he played with her breast as he looked at her. The fire lit his soft smile and the hard lines of his torso.
“Have you ever been tied up, Monica?”
She should be appalled. Should be frightened. Should run and not look back. But she wasn’t any of those things. Her sex only felt fuller.
“No.”
He held up her stockings. “Would you allow me?” When she hesitated, he added, “We’ll stop whenever you say. You have my word.”
She could feel her heart beating against her chest. But that still, small voice inside that says yes and no with such infinite wisdom was chanting YesYesYes. “All right.”
He straddled her, wrapping the stockings around her wrists, then securing them to the headboard. “Are you all right?”
She nodded.
“I need to hear your voice.”
“Yes. I’m all right.”
“It’s not too tight?”
“It’s tight, but not too tight.”
He cupped her cheek and grazed a thumb over her lips, too light, she arched toward his hand. He smiled and pulled away. Then he drew fingertips down her neck and along her collarbones. Skimming too lightly, he circled her nipples and breasts, slid into the hollow of her belly and around her hips, then where her bottom met the bed and down her legs. Back up between them, pausing to kiss so sweetly on the insides of her knees.
All the while she met his teasing, squirmed and gasped and moaned. What was it about him? A hundred tiny things. And this—a touch so small it made her weak with wanting more. When he finally spread her thighs wide and she felt his warm breath on her sex, she nearly cried with relief.
“Please!”
“Please, what?”
Now he moved his mouth as feather-light as his hands, pressing the barest kisses up and down her inner thighs, over her belly, and all around her sex. Then he bit where her leg met her core. The pain was sharp and she arched and hissed. Yet a moment later, a wave of warmth rushed over it that was inexplicably good.
“Again.”
He didn’t hesitate, biting again on the other side.
“Jonathan, please.”
He climbed up her body and stroked a hand through her hair. “What did you need, darling?” He slid a finger deep into her sex. “This?”
“Yes,” she moaned. “More.”
“More?” He slid another finger alongside the first and pumped slowly. “How’s that?”
“Good. So good. But I need more.”
He tsked. “You’re so needy, Monica.” He thrust his fingers so halting and slow, her arousal was catching, building on his control and he knew it. He loved to torment her. God help her, she loved it, too.
“How about this?” Finally he replaced his fingers with his cock and slowly slid inside her to the hilt.
“Oh, God, yes. Now harder.”
“Harder?”
“Please.”
He pulled out and slid back in, biting where her neck met her shoulder. She lost her breath at the confusing and delicious complement of the pain to the pleasure.
“More.”
“More?”
“Make it hurt.”
He cupped her face and she opened her eyes to look at him. The gaze he returned was delicate and mind-turning. “Make it hurt. You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
With bruising strength, he gripped her thighs and spread them wide until she felt her muscles burn. Then he began to slam inside her as if he were reaching right to the heart of her. His strokes were punishing and went on and on and on. The pain was deep and pulled the pleasure down with it so that she felt both of them fused into her marrow. Bound and desperate, she let go of her shame and fear, let go of everything. Her release barreled up through her.
“Oh, God, Jonathan! Please!”
Chapter 11
The next day, Monica emerged from her room in a forest-green velvet day dress. But for the floor-length skirt, it looked in every way—from the cuffs and buttons on the sleeves, to the intricately beaded lapels and waistcoat, and the creamy lace collar of the shirt which gave the effect of a cravat—like a men’s Georgian suit. For some reason, the singular ensemble thrilled her to the tips of her toes. And as much as she didn’t want to go to the races with him, she wanted to wear the dress more. And damn him, he knew that very well.
“You look beautiful, darling.”
“Why must we go?” He was intent not only on seeing her, but being seen with her.
“Would you wear such a distinctive promenade dress and not be seen?”
“No. It would be an injustice. I agree. But…”
He took her hands. “But, nothing. The sooner you get used to being seen with me, the sooner you’ll get used to seeing me.”
“At least with this lace and the heavy cuffs, my bruises are covered.” She was bejeweled with bruises around her neck, wrists, and thighs.
He winced. “I’m so sorry.”
“Would you stop apologizing? I told you I wanted it. We just d
on’t need anyone to know.”
He cupped a cheek, brushing a thumb along the apple of it. “Why does it seem like I’m your dirty little secret?”
She sighed. “When we’re out together, it just makes you and this all the more real. And I can’t fall for you.”
“Too late, I think.” He shrugged into his coat and extended an arm. “If you’re worried, I promise you, when they look, they will see the Pingat first, then the lucky lady who’s wearing him. Today is not about who you should be with, but who you should be wearing. Now come.”
The Avenue du Bois de Boulogne was framed by chestnut trees, alleys leading to ornamental lawns and gardens, and teeming with le gratin. Smart carriages bearing polished people rolled slowly by. Steel-spined riders jogged their horses. Ladies in their susurrating silks gripped candy-colored umbrellas against the bright sun. A man held fast to a cloud of red balloons while holding a single one out to every wide-eyed child that passed. Sure to delight. Sure to delight, he promised. A flower girl in a dull blue dress and braids gripped a wire basket bursting with sprays of spring blooms. For the lovely madame, she called out.
Jonathan strolled as coolly controlled as he fucked. The dip and send of his cane, how he tipped his hat and to whom, the way his eyes slid across the avenue, his tight smiles and subtle nods, when they stopped and how he introduced her. Have you had the pleasure? he asked, indicating her, then introducing her as if she belonged with them. This walk was as much a performance as any Monica had done on any stage. And it was a thing to behold.
“Do you care about any of them?” she asked when there was a break in the crowd.
“Jon.”
Marie-Thérèse walked towards them, arm-in-arm with another woman who resembled Jonathan’s sister. Two gallant men trailing behind.
“Some more than most,” he said, indicating the women. “Mademoiselle Fauconnier, may I introduce my sister, Liane.”
Liane gasped, running her hands along the intricate detail on Monica’s cuff. “You devil! How did you manage to secure this Pingat? He’s been notoriously stingy this spring. I can’t get over him. Of course, it only makes me want his dresses more.”
Jonathan smirked knowingly. “Don’t be so rude, poussin.”
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