Jim was shaking uncontrollably but managed to scrawl down some names.
“If none of this makes sense, if these names are false or you happen to be playing any kind of game with me, remember, I know where you and your family live. I also have your New York address. I know where you work. I know everything about you, Jim. Give me your cell phone.”
“Why?”
“I said we’d leave all weapons behind. I leave my gun, you leave your phone. Get out of the car…slowly.”
Jim opened the car door and exited carefully. A gust of icy wind blew into the vehicle. It was crisp outside and pitch-black. Alexandre quickly got out, too; he noticed the man’s large shoulders were shaking. “Hand me your phone,” Alexandre said quietly. His breath was making steam in the frosty air.
Jim handed over his cell. Alexandre’s black gloved hands took it and he proceeded to frisk him all over; just in case the guy had two phones, or even a gun or knife on him. But he was clean.
Alexandre said, “Now hand me over your car keys.”
Jim obliged. Alexandre took the Smartphone, then threw it with the gun into the trunk, took off his long coat which he chucked over the back seat, closed the car doors, zapped them locked and pocketed the car keys. “We’re both weapon-free now.” He smiled.
“You still have my car keys, man!” Jim replied with a sneer.
“Come and get them. Come on, you’re a big man - throw me one of your best punches and you can have it all. Me, the car keys, your car, your phone – even the gun.”
Jim eyed him suspiciously and rocked from one heavy foot to the other as if weighing up his options.
“Come on, you pussy,” taunted Alexandre. “If you’re the big, bad money-maker, Wall St. master of the universe footballer, come on! Show me what you’re made of! Come and get me.”
Jim launched himself at him, flailing his fist as it caught the air because Alexandre ducked and side-stepped so fast. Jim swung again and Alexandre dodged to the left. A third swing had Jim’s punch meet the edge of his SUV and he shouted out curses then shoved his bashed hand in his mouth to ease the pain of his bleeding wound. He then pushed his feet on the side of the car to give himself momentum and threw himself at Alexandre smashing hard into his torso, but Alexandre didn’t fall. Alexandre simultaneously elbowed his adversary in the face and drew up his knee sharply into Jim’s crotch – Jim stepped backwards, buckling up in pain as he cupped his testicles protectively.
“You need to lose weight, you rapist scum,” shouted Alexandre.
Then it happened so quickly: Alexandre moved his body with fierce momentum as his leg swung in a semi-circle landing like a bolt of lightning on Jim’s head. Jim toppled over instantly, groaning in agony. Blood was pouring from his ear.
Alexandre bent over to check the damage. “You’ll live. That was for Jane Doe. Remember, the money. No fucking about. You might want to warn your rapist buddies to have their money ready, too. Two month’s wages, each one. They would be advised to give a little extra as a bonus just so I know they’re showing good will; call it a heartfelt apology. In fact, I’ll leave it to you, Jim, to collect the money. Within a few hours, I’ll know who they all are, what they all do for a living, how much they earn, so no bullshit.” He gave the man one last kick in the kidneys. “Have a nice walk home, scumbag.”
Jim was moaning in pain hunched into a fetal position, the icy ground was blotched red with his blood. He moaned, “You can’t leave me to walk back, it’s freezing!”
“Leaving people lying like garbage when you’re done with them? You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, Jim?”
Alexandre zapped Jim’s SUV unlocked, got in and drove off. In his rear-view mirror he saw Jim get up and collapse on the ground again still cradling his groin. Alexandre sped off back to his own rental car. He’d rented it in a false name, just in case. Jim couldn’t prove a thing and he’d be an idiot if he tried.
He parked the SUV, took the gun out of the trunk, leaving Jim’s cell phone inside and the keys on the windscreen wipers, changed vehicles and screeched off back in the direction of New York. He smirked to himself about the gun. The ‘gun’. It was one of those cigarette lighters – pretty convincing, but if you pulled the trigger all that happened was that an orange flame ignited. Alexandre laughed out loud and then turned on the radio. It was that song again. The one Elodie kept listening to: Little Things by that boy band, One Direction. It was uncanny, as if the song had been written especially for Pearl, the dimples on her back, the crinkles by her eyes – the lyrics spoke of a woman’s insecurities but how the guy loved her despite her faults, even for her faults. A beautiful song….
Pearl…fuck he missed hanging out with her; it was driving him crazy. He could feel his cock expand, now, just thinking about her face, her peachy ass. He had in his mind’s eye her soaking wet pussy and he could almost taste her, just thinking about it. So sweet. Always trimmed and neat, always tight and hot, and always, always ready to be fucked by him. Nothing in the world gave him more pleasure than making Pearl come – nothing. No woman had ever desired him as much, and that was the biggest aphrodisiac of all.
Jesus! His cock was rock hard now and it ached. He thought of that last time when he had her moaning as if she had a fever, squirming on the bed beneath him. He loved the way she was always so vulnerable; tried to act like a tough cookie but always gave in, in the end.
Except for now. Lately, she was being really stubborn. He wanted to fuck that stubbornness out of her, make her scream his name. He’d have to get her alone without Daisy there. Damn Daisy, always hovering about, and Amy, too – even worse. He could hardly just barge into the apartment with a five year old there, even though he still had keys. His mind ticked over, thinking of ways he could get Pearl alone, whisper into her ear, push her up against a wall and kiss her so she couldn’t…wouldn’t want to get away. His heart was beating like a drum out of rhythm, imagining how he would fuck her again, how he’d tease that little pearlette, prize open that glistening oyster with his big hard cock. He needed to control the beast in him, though. Needed to sweeten her up a bit more before he pounced. He had to have her, had to fuck her…Jesus, this was torture.
His cock was flexing and throbbing. He stopped the car and pulled over. He unbuttoned his jeans. He freed his cock from its prison and it sprang through his boxer briefs, rock hard and wet with pre-cum. It was huge, even he realized that. He knew the size of men’s dicks in general – seen them in the gym - he knew he was big (the only decent thing he had inherited from his father). Girls had told him all his life, too. More than once, he’d been too much for them to handle – he’d even scared some women away on occasions.
He let the car seat go all the way back and relaxed into it. He thought of Pearl now, kissing Alessandra Demarr and he gripped his hand about his pulsating phallus and squeezed hard. Ah, that was better. He moved his hand up and down his smooth length, with images of Pearl’s wet pussy and her mouth sucking his cock flitting like photos through his brain. He imagined the two women kissing and wished for a second he had been there, too, not enjoying a threesome but just to be a fly on the wall – because a threesome would have hurt Pearl. Not in the moment, no, she would have been turned on - but afterwards – she was too sweet, too easily wounded. Other men had screwed her over enough for several lifetimes – he wouldn’t go there. She was too vulnerable to experiment with. Besides, he’d been there, done that - had his fun with threesomes in his late teens; they weren’t all they were cracked up to be – two’s company, three’s a crowd. He didn’t like it when women felt hurt or jealous from feeling left out, which is invariably what happened, at some point, when there were three.
And right now he, ironically, found himself in this situation of three with Laura right there in the middle. He knew how poor Pearl’s heart was bleeding, but what could he do?
He thought of all the women that had come and gone over the years. Come and gone. There had been too many to count. How he was taught – no trained, by a pr
ofessional - how to make love. How to really get a woman turned on. It was Sophie’s co-worker, Hélene, the one who pulled his sister into the game when she was seventeen. Sophie worked with her for years. By the time Alexandre got to be broken in, the woman was thirty - Alexandre was fourteen. His hand was moving fast, now, remembering his first fuck-orgasm, how mind-blowing it was for him as a skinny teenager and how he feared his penis might explode with pleasure.
He and Hélene needed each other. It had been the perfect symbiotic relationship. She taught him everything about the art of sex. Because never forget, great sex is an art…How to take his time, how to wait until she was really wet and never enter her too early. She taught him that if he had to use lube then he must be doing something wrong. She explained how women want to be told sweet nothings and dirty talk but nothing too crude. To be dominant, but never aggressive…to hold out until the woman was begging for sex, take his time; it wasn’t a race – that if the man could be patient he’d get paid back double-fold by her passion.
She explained to him that many men were fools…so obsessed with the chase that they lost focus. Forget the chase, she said. That’s ‘old-school.’ Don’t end up with a woman just because she says ‘no’ to you or plays hard to get. Just because she says no doesn’t make her any more special. Look into her soul, her eyes. Don’t judge a woman by her past. A woman in love with you, she let him know, was a woman who would be sexy as hell. And loyal, too. Loyalty, she said, was like a sovereign coin - never abandon family…never abandon those who truly love you.
Hélene told him how all women were different; there was no blueprint and how he must pay attention to the girl’s whole body not just her orifices and breasts. Stroking and caressing – foreplay was imperative. Any man could ‘stick it in’, she said - and don’t be fooled into thinking you were good in bed - women were good at faking orgasms. She’d warned him about this on countless occasions.
She drummed it into him that the woman must always come first – well, he’d got that wrong once or twice with Pearl. Fuck, with her, sometimes, he couldn’t control himself- even just one of her kisses could drive him wild. No woman ever had gotten him as horny, no woman could hold a candle to Pearl in the sack. Why? Even he couldn’t explain. Was she the most beautiful woman he had ever dated? No. But she had something, something irresistible. The smell of her skin. Her flavor. Her humor…her sweetness…her smile.
An image of Pearl’s tits flashed through his head – couldn’t put a pencil under those. No – too pert. Her ass, her tits, her face, her wet pussy – which was his very own little private pearl, his pearlette - her lips, those big blue eyes….
He groaned out loud and felt the spurt of his climax pulsing through him. Fuck, his cum was all over the seat. But it wasn’t enough – he needed the real thing. He couldn’t stand it anymore – the minute he got back to New York he’d have to fuck her.
Fuck her till she screamed.
Chapter Seven
Here I am in the kitchen again, eating ice-cream. They say just as much ice-cream is sold in the winter as in the summer months, and I believe it. Daisy and Amy are fast asleep. That will be me, soon….a single mother with my child…although, I suddenly remember…Daisy and Zac – wow, that came out of left field. She may not be a single mother for long. I have mixed feelings; delighted for them but…well. Time will tell if he’s good enough for her.
My ice-cream reverie is interrupted by the sound of the front door opening - I forgot to lock it with the safety latch. A rush of adrenaline surges through my body but then I remember… Alexandre still has keys. I pray it’s him and not some armed robber, although Alexandre is just as dangerous, in another way. I go to grab the first thing I can think of for protection; a kitchen knife – just in case it really is an intruder. No, that’s dangerous; it could be seized from me. I see Amy’s cowboy gun lying on the kitchen table, snatch it up - it looks quite realistic - and tiptoe quietly down the hallway towards the front door. It isn’t a thief. Well, it is. A thief of my emotions…Alexandre.
There he is….gorgeous as ever.
He turns on his heel and observes me with wry amusement stealing across his face, ready with my toy gun.
“Sorry, baby,” he whispers, “I didn’t want to wake anybody so I thought I’d slip through the door quietly.”
I should be furious but all I can think is, what took you so long, I’ve missed you. My heart is racing with left-over fear of thinking I was being broken into, and renewed fear of being broken into…my body being broken into. No sex, the doctor forbade it. I keep saying this mantra to myself in my head. Despite all this, desire is circling me like Cupid with his arrow and I’m only too aware of an aching need for Alexandre to hold me.
Until I remember the L word.
I’m wearing pajama bottoms and a thin cotton tank top and his glittering green eyes stray to my swollen breasts. A low rumble comes from deep within him like a lion about to devour his prey. He doesn’t say anything, though, but I can see the rise and fall of his chest – his heart is also pounding. His desire for me is palpable and I sense the familiar tingle between my legs.
“You need to leave, Alexandre.” My voice is weak, laced with yearning. My sexed-up pregnancy hormones are not helping one bit.
“I need to hold you, baby. To breathe you in.” He comes towards me. I’m still grasping the gun and his half-cocked smile breaks into a grin. “But I think you’d better put that gun down, don’t you?”
In a moment of foolishness I grip the handle even tighter and wave it in front of me.
He grins, “Love the toy gun. You and I have more in common than you can possibly imagine.”
But I’m not smiling back. “I mean it, Alexandre, you need to leave me alone and stop torturing me this way.”
His smile fades and he says sadly, “yes, it is torture – you’re right. I just can’t go on like this – I can’t stand it anymore.” He slumps against the wall and slides down so he’s sitting on the floor. His big boots drip with melted snow on the polished parquet wood. Tears are welling in his eyes. I’ve never seen him look so vulnerable and it’s breaking my heart.
I set Amy’s gun on the hall table and sit down opposite him. He holds his dark ruffled head in his hands. He’s wearing the long World War One overcoat. He looks so handsome, like a movie star – the Hollywood legend kind, the kind they don’t make anymore.
“Why are you doing this, Alexandre?” I speak in a whisper because I don’t want to wake Daisy and Amy. “Why can’t you stop seeing Laura?”
He looks up at me and a tear falls down his cheek. I want to hug him but perhaps this is all part of his little-boy-lost act, the act that makes dumb women like me swoon and lose all reason. Talk about Hollywood. This guy’s a good actor.
“My plan was to come here and fuck you, Pearl. But I can’t play that game anymore. It isn’t fair on you.”
My heart starts thumping like an oil well. What’s worse than him wanting to use me for sex? Not wanting me at all. A lump gathers in my throat. “What’s going on, Alexandre? Why are you…practically crying?”
“Because all I want in the world is to be happy with you and it doesn’t seem possible.”
“But that’s your choice, Alexandre. It’s you that’s putting up all these barriers. All I want, too, is for us to be together but I can’t be in a relationship with three people. You have to choose – me or Laura. You simply can’t have us both.”
“That’s why I keep asking you to marry me, baby….despite Laura. So you’d be my wife and you couldn’t testify against me.”
I flinch. “What the hell are you talking about?”
He temples his hands over his nose and lets out an exasperated puff of air. “I literally don’t know what to do! With all my money and influence…yet still, she has me beat…I swear I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re being so obtuse and enigmatic, right now, I’m completely lost.”
“Please come here, chérie – I need to
hold you. I swear I won’t do anything. I won’t even try and kiss you. I promise.”
I tentatively shuffle my behind over to his side and sit close to him. He puts his arm about me, his fingers squeezing me tight. He smells of the night air and his Alexandre elixir that weakens me every time. I stroke his head and he sighs, closing his wet eyes and biting his lips…perhaps to stop himself from actually weeping. I’m dumbfounded by his demonstration of emotion and understand, now, that it is for real. I lay my head against his shoulder and we just continue sitting there on the floor in silence with only the sound of our breathing between us.
Finally I say, “Why?” I don’t even know what I am referring to but ‘why’ seems like a good thing to ask.
“Remember I told you I was protecting someone I love?”
“Yes,” I say bitterly, conjuring up a host of ex girlfriends. Or is he talking about Laura, herself? The idea of him loving someone else sends a wave of jealousy to course through my veins and circle my stomach.
“I was talking about my mother,” he says in a grave tone.
I exhale with relief but then ask, confused, “What on earth does Laura have to do with your mother?”
“Laura’s threatening her.”
“What? How?”
“Laura has something that belongs to her, something incriminating, something…Look, Pearl, I’ve already said enough. I made a promise to my mom that I wouldn’t ever say a word and…” His eyes tighten as he starts chewing his lip with worry.
“Your mother did something and Laura has evidence?”
“I knew if I said anything you’d pick up on it straight away. I’ve revealed way too much, I need to go, I—”
“You can trust me. I don’t care what your mother did, or what you did – I love you,” I plead. “I would never say a word. Never.”
“Please come back with me tonight. I need you in my arms, baby. I need to sleep with you. I’ve been going crazy without you.”
I take his head in my hands and say, “Look me in the eyes and tell me the truth.”
Shimmers of Pearl (The Pearl Trilogy, Part 3) Page 9