Looking sexy and wicked, he began rubbing his hands, then twining his fingers together and turning his hands inside out.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, laughing nervously.
“Just limbering up,” he said, reaching for the bottle of suntan oil. “After all, we can’t have you burning such tender skin, can we?”
“No,” she agreed, barely able to speak as she watched him pour a pool of oil into the palm of his hand.
Once again he slid his hands together and then he molded the satiny fullness of her, but instead of watching what he was doing, he watched her eyes. Watched what his touch did to her… watched her come apart in his hands.
And then he coaxed her into doing what she’d secretly wanted to do since arriving at the beach… coaxed her into running topless along it and splashing into the surf.
11
THE FOLLOWING MORNING the sound of gently falling rain woke them. When they finally got up, Grey showered first, then went down to the hotel boutique to buy her something to wear in the rain. He found a metallic trench coat that she could wear as a dress with low-heeled pumps.
It was a perfect day for browsing the antique shops. Grey insisted on buying her an antique stickpin and she bought him something from the store’s collection of fin de siècle cuff links—just about maxing out her credit card.
As they shared a marron glacé Italian ice she wondered if the gifts would become treasured mementos of their early days together or sad remembrances of what might have been.
Grey was right.
She did have a choice to make. But she wouldn’t think… couldn’t think of it on their last day together. It wasn’t a decision to be entered into capriciously. She had to face the fact that when they parted tomorrow, it might be for ever. But, like Scarlett, she preferred to think about that tomorrow.
And he’d never told her he loved her.
They took the old-fashioned ferry to the îles de Lerins, where they explored the two small, lush islands that lay off the coast. Fort-Sainte-Marguerite was the site of a seventeenth-century fortress where the Man in the Iron Mask had been imprisoned. On Saint-Honorat they explored the medieval monastery now occupied by Cistercian monks.
When they returned to Cannes, she was still in an exploring mood and wanted to visit the museum and galleries. After stopping at a pastry shop to try its buttery petits sablés cookies, they headed in search of a museum.
Zoe was delighted by the last museum. They’d stumbled upon a photo exhibition. There were over two hundred works assembled for display.
“You really like this, don’t you?” Grey mused as they strolled through the rooms with their impressive collections.
“It’s like an addiction,” she admitted. “I like the photography and painting, as well. What I really want to do is figure out a way to use the two of them together, in collages or something,” she said as they left a group of fashion photographs and entered another room, showing the work of an artist with a weakness for forests.
A grouping of Hollywood portraits caught Grey’s attention but it was the display of a variety of interpretations of urban streets that held his interest the most.
The museum was nearly deserted, being closing time, when they came to the last room. Here there were evocative photographs of lovers taken by a photographer whose work was extremely sensual in style. After studying the images, Grey and Zoe looked at each other.
Walking over to a window splashed with rain, she turned her back to the wall and crooked her finger at him.
“What?” he asked, tilting his head and glancing into the hallway to see if anyone was coming.
She continued to crook her finger, her eyes soft and dewy and began unknotting the belt of her metallic trench coat.
Glancing out the doorway one last time, he went across the room to her.
“What are you doing?”
She smiled.
“No. Uh-uh. No way, Zoe.”
Footsteps sounded in the hall and a couple of teenage girls entered the room to begin browsing through the display.
“See,” Grey admonished her, reknotting her belt.
The girls suddenly realized they were late for an assignation on the beach and didn’t finish looking at the photographs, only giving Grey and Zoe a cursory glance as they left the room.
Zoe looked at Grey and smiled again, her hands going back to the belt of her trench coat.
“Will you quit that,” he said, swatting them away.
“But you promised,” Zoe complained with a pout, her eyes dancing, sort of glassy and hot.
“I did no such thing. Someone could walk in again.”
“I want to.”
“Zoe, no.”
“You agreed.”
“When? What are you talking about?”
“The beach yesterday, my taking my top off, you do remember that, don’t you?”
He grinned, all wolf. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Then you must also remember you owe me a payoff.” She’d unknotted the belt, her hands were working on the buttons.
“Zoe, we’ll be caught and thrown in the Tower,” Grey said, walking over to check the doorway yet again. From where he was standing, he could see a guard talking to a tourist near the front doors.
“That’s England, we’re in France,” she said, finished with the buttons.
Grey turned back to her. “Okay, dungeons, then. Is that any better?”
“You know what?” she said, flashing that secret little smile again.
“What?”
“You talk too much,” she answered, opening the trench coat.
“Stop that!” he said, motioning to her with his hands.
“Are you saying that you’re reneging on your promise?” she asked as he watched her spellbound.
“No, but could we talk about this somewhere else?” He was trying to gauge how long the guard and tourist would continue talking.
“Gr-rey…”
He turned his attention back to her. Zoe had slipped off her white lace bra. She was naked except for the filmy white garter belt and pale stockings… and the white satin and lace thong bikini that was etched forever on his mind.
“What the hell…?” he swore, giving in.
“Where did you ever get such an idea?” he asked, his hands cupping her firm breasts, massaging them as his lips urgently kissed a path down her slender neck, his actions pressing her against the wall. He was pulsing and hard.
“From Alexia,” she whispered.
“Alexia… who’s Alexia?” he mumbled, his mouth replacing his hands and skimming and teasing her nipples into tingling, anxious pleasure, dampening her. He strained to attune his ears to the hallway, past the pounding of his heart.
“I met her in the one and only aerobics class I took. In our last class together, I told her I was going to take some art classes, and she divulged something that had happened between her husband Crew and herself when they first met. He followed her to a gala opening of an exhibit at the art museum one rainy night and cornered her in an alcove, where they almost did it.”
“I think the key word here is almost,” Grey said, coming up for air.
“You want to stop…?” she whispered, licking her lips temptingly.
He listened again for the sound of approaching footsteps. Nothing. Hopefully the guard was still with the tourist and no one else had entered the museum.
“I can’t,” he said, breathing heavily, his mouth as dry as cotton from the rush of fear of discovery and the excitement of it.
“Me neither,” she said, pulling his lips back down to hers.
“Help me out of these,” she whispered, bringing his hands to her thong bikini.
His tongue brushed past her teeth to explore the sweetness of her mouth in a wild, damp, eating kiss and then he leaned forward to slip the scrap of lacy panty down her long legs.
She braced her hands on his wide shoulde
rs and stepped out of them.
Rising with them in his hands, he was momentarily at a loss and hastily stuffed them into the pocket of his bomber jacket. “Is it hot in here?” he asked, feeling as if he was burning up with fever.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said with a giggle. “I’m practically naked.” She shifted one long, stocking-clad leg provocatively.
“Don’t tease me,” Grey warned, snapping her garter playfully on her thigh, noting the flush of her skin and the fine sheen of perspiration on her lightly tanned breasts.
Her lips were swollen, inviting.
Taking a deep, tremulous breath, he unsnapped, then unzipped his jeans, wincing at the sound they made.
Sliding his hand beneath her open coat, he pulled her to him, thrusting into her waiting smoothness. She wrapped her arms around him and hid her naked breasts against his chest. On an oath of desire, he moved his hands to her buttocks, pulling her to meet his urgent thrusts.
Moaning, she wound her hands into his hair, clenching and unclenching her fingers, giving herself up to his passionate lead.
They had only a vague notion of their surroundings, their range of vision had narrowed so much that they were virtually blind at the moment of exquisite, peaking pleasure, when their senses exploded.
“Bonjour, monsieur.” Zoe sighed.
“Sweet witch,” Grey groaned softly, breathlessly and then they were enveloped in a still and peaceful calm filled only with the sounds of their labored breathing.
“Is anybody still back here? It’s closing time.”
Muscles that had been agreeably slack only seconds before jumped at the approaching footsteps of the forgotten guard.
“Damn!” Grey whispered. “He’s coming all the way back.”
Zoe’s nimble fingers closed her metallic trench coat, knotting the belt, while Grey hastily zipped and snapped his jeans, only a heartbeat before the old guard poked his head around the corner.
“Uh…” Grey’s voice cracked. “We were uh…just…”
“Leaving,” Zoe supplied, grabbing his hand.
“Yes, that’s right, we’re finished…er, that is…well, goodbye, then.”
“Good day to you, too,” the guard said with a friendly wave as they more or less bolted.
Once they were back outside on the street, they leaned back against the museum and broke up in laughter.
“Do you realize we were almost caught?” Grey said, his eyes bright and accusing.
“I think—” Zoe said, regaining her composure, raking her nail down the side of his jaw, “—the key word here is almost:”
“You are a sweet witch,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “An enchantress. What am I going to do with you?”
“Isn’t it more like what are you going to do without me?” she asked, kissing him senseless.
12
THEY ATE IN THE CAR on the drive from Cannes to Monaco, later that evening.
“Mmm … this is so good.”
Grey shook his head, glancing at Zoe. “I can’t believe you came to Cannes, where they have some of the best food in France…some of the best food in the world, and you chose to eat this instead.”
Zoe smiled at him. “But this is great French food …le French fries, le burger and le shake,” she insisted.
“I give in,” he said, rolling his eyes, then biting into the juicy hamburger she held to his lips.
“Admirable quality in a man, that,” she teased, then made a slurping noise as her shake bottomed out. Her eyes feasted on a beautiful clump of wild irises beside the road as they continued their journey toward Monaco and the casino in Monte Carlo.
“Are you sure this is a good idea? What time is your flight out of Nice International in the morning, any-way?”
“I thought we could stay up all night. I can sleep on the plane.”
“What about me?”
“You could come home with me….”
When she didn’t answer, he supplied another suggestion. “I’ll have the Porsche picked up in Nice and get you a rail pass so you can sleep on the train to Paris.”
“You have the answer to everything, don’t you?” she said, feeding him the rest of her fries.
Picking up his shake, he polished it off, then looked at her again. “No. There are some questions only you have the answer to.”
He was wrong, she thought, studying his profile. She didn’t have the answer, either.
The closer they got to Monaco, the more luxury cars she spotted. Any way she looked at her situation, she was way out of her element.
When they reached the border of the small principality, discreet cameras recorded the license plates on the Porsche before they entered the craggy coastal hills of Monaco, locked against the Mediterranean Sea.
Getting his bearings, Grey headed uphill to Monte Carlo after consulting the map, tackling the principality’s famous hairpin turns with zest.
“Isn’t Monte Carlo lovely?” Zoe said, noting that every inch was either under development or neatly manicured with formal plantings.
“That it is,” he agreed, parking the Porsche when they arrived at their destination.
After securing them a private suite, he led her to it. “You know, if your stomach had held out, we could have had lobster at Rampoldi,” he said, opening the door. “I’d planned for us to have a romantic dinner there for our last night together before I left.”
Zoe shrugged. “Can I help it if Lauren-Claire’s gotten me hooked on American junk food again?”
“Is that all you miss about the States?”
“No,” she answered, taking a pair of black taffeta evening pants, sequined black lace bustier and matching satin and lace pumps from her shopping bag.
“Then you could be happy living there again?” he asked, hanging a rumpled dark suit in the bathroom and turning on a hot shower to dewrinkle it.
“I need to use the shower,” she said when he closed the bathroom door.
He remained in front of the door, blocking her way. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Where I live doesn’t make me happy or unhappy, I’ve discovered. I do that.”
“All by yourself…” he said, leaning against the door with his shoulder, forearms crossed.
“With a little help from my friends,” she conceded with a shrug.
“Friends…”
“Like Lauren-Claire. It was a stroke of luck meeting her in Paris. She’s fun and carefree. Her exuberance keeps me from being too narrow in my perspective. Without her I’d probably work all the time.”
“You’d get caught up in your art like your husband got caught up with being a cop…” he said, playing devil’s advocate.
“Touché.”
“And this Alexia person…”
“She’s more like me, driven to improve herself. At least she was until she married Crew.”
“The guy who taught her the trick about … ah … taking the time to really … er … appreciate museums, the way you taught me.”
She nodded.
“Heck of a guy,” he said, his eyes dancing.
“The shower … before all the hot water’s gone,” she reminded him.
“Sure,” he agreed magnanimously, moving aside so she could go in.
As she stood in the shower with the water streaming over her, she thought back over the past week and how she’d felt being Grey’s mistress. It had been an exciting and educative experience. They had both explored their sexual boundaries. She certainly hadn’t found him wanting as a lover.
She had been selfish and so had he, but in a giving way. Zoe knew that until she was sure of who she was, she wouldn’t be able to give herself completely to another. She knew now that the failure of her marriage was partly her fault. She’d expected her husband to fix everything. Sure, she’d gone to classes to try to improve herself, but it had really been her way of running away.
She’d been inventing a new pe
rson. Perhaps her husband wasn’t so much to blame; he’d been confused. They had both been so very young. Too young, she realized now. He hadn’t known enough not to get lost in his job, and she hadn’t known enough to stop him.
And to be honest, she had chosen the easy way out instead of deciding to stay and fight for their marriage—for him.
Over the past week she’d found that while she liked being out of control, she also needed some structure in her life.
She thrilled at the idea of having a dark, mysterious lover but knew she wasn’t really unconventional enough to live outside the bounds of marriage. Her dilemma was that she wanted the best of both worlds. She wanted a dark, mysterious lover but wanted him to be her husband.
When they entered the casino an hour later, the first thing Zoe noticed as they moved among the glittering crowd was the abundance of different languages being spoken. English, Arabic, Italian, French, German. Some of the players were number crunchers with computerized systems for betting, while others were clearly risk takers who played with their gut instincts.
All were better gamblers than the two of them. They lost their gambling money in very short order and were happy to leave the rather stuffy casino to seek their thrills elsewhere.
They struck out on their second try as well.
The disco they chose asked thirty-five dollars a beer, and the young women in minidresses kept coming up and asking Grey to dance with them. He didn’t have to ask her twice if she wanted to leave the disco. She wanted their last night together to be special. She didn’t want to share him.
Driving around, they found a spot with a view of the city. Parking, they sat for a while, quietly taking in the beautiful view of the city that twinkled with a million tiny white lights against an inky sky and Le Grand Bleu, the Mediterranean.
It was telling that he lighted a cigarette.
“So,” he asked, “have you made a decision?”
“I need time, Grey. I don’t know what to do.”
“What about your marriage?”
“It won’t be easy going back to it, and it could never be the way it was when I left.”
“I see.”
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