“So… you’re admitting that somebody staged a raid on Grant’s penthouse, right?”
Duplass watches me warily. He can sense some sort of trap, but he doesn’t know what it is or where it’s coming from. “So…?”
“So you think an armed raid with a team of mercenaries is reasonable, but using stolen paintings to frame Grant isn’t?”
“For all I know, Carlson cooked up the whole scheme himself.”
“Wait – you’re saying he outed himself as an international art thief?”
“Alleged international art thief,” Grant says.
“Why would he do that?” I ask. “Your theory makes no sense.”
“Neither does his,” Duplass snaps.
“Of course it does. Grant accidentally ruined a serial killer’s plans. The killer wanted revenge, so he raided Grant’s penthouse in an attempt to capture him. When that didn’t work, plan B was to frame Grant by leaving behind stolen artwork. That ruined his entire reputation, forcing him to go on the run, which would make him an easier target in the future.”
It’s fairly easy to construct a conspiracy theory when 95% of it is the truth.
Of course, when the other 5% is complete and total lunacy, that tends to mess up your sales pitch.
“That’s ridiculous,” Duplass says contemptuously.
“Maybe so, but it’s the truth,” Grant says.
“We’re both innocent,” I protest.
“If you’re so innocent, why didn’t you run to the police in the first place?” Duplass asks, repeating his earlier haymaker.
…uh…
“Because the mercenaries who raided my penthouse said they were the FBI,” Grant says. Technically that’s true, but we didn’t find that out until we saw it on television the next morning. The mercenaries never told us they were the FBI, just Grant’s staff.
But Duplass doesn’t need to know that.
“So we thought the FBI was somehow working with the serial killer,” Grant finishes.
“Impersonating the FBI – that’s a pretty significant felony, right?” I ask.
“Worst thing I ever did was break and enter,” Grant says like he’s an innocent little choirboy.
“Yeah, right,” Duplass snaps. “You both have spent so much time with your heads up your asses that your brains have turned to shit. No judge is going to listen to anything you’re saying, because it’s idiotic.”
“Hey, Agent Duplass,” Grant asks. “Were my fingerprints on any of the paintings or picture frames?”
Duplass freezes. He doesn’t answer.
But Mailin does. “No – the NYPD didn’t find any prints at all.”
“You want to know why? Because those paintings aren’t mine. They were planted there.”
Huh, I think, and make a mental note to ask Grant about that later.
Duplass’s face twists into a mask of hatred. “You’re going down, Carlson. Whether we get you here in Paris, or in Moscow, or Tokyo, we’ll get you. And when we do, we’re locking you up and throwing away the key.” Duplass looks at me. “This is where you walk away from him and agree to turn state’s evidence. Otherwise, when we arrest him, I’m putting you away for life, too.”
My guts turn to ice.
Mailin looks at me with a mix of sympathy and pain.
Is it because you’ve been here before? I think. When they gave you the option to work for the FBI, or go to prison? Or do you just look sad because you PUT me in this fucking position?
I thought – naively, it seems – that this whole meeting was going to go differently. I placed my trust in Mailin, and he let me down.
Grant never has.
I make my choice.
“No thanks,” I say.
“Your funeral, then,” Duplass says.
Mailin tries to run interference. “Agent Duplass – ”
“Shut up,” the older agent snarls.
The hatred and humiliation on Mailin’s face is intense. He just got reminded that he’s a dog on somebody else’s leash.
Grant puts a protective arm around me. “You can catch a serial killer… or you can destroy an innocent woman’s life. Contact us if you change your mind.”
Then he pulls me into the gardens, and we’re gone.
56
We’re back in the car, with Marcel’s driver speeding us through Paris.
“Well, that was pointless,” I mumble. “Sorry I wasted your time.”
“Don’t be,” Grant says. “It was worth exploring the option. Now you know.”
More than anything, I’m disappointed in Mailin and how he lied to me. My friend sold me down the river. Or tried to, at least – and no amount of sticking up for me in front of Agent Duplass can change that.
I’m also uncomfortable with how he’s become one of them. Yeah, Duplass treated him like shit, but Mailin’s joined the other team. It’s beyond obvious. He’s not the high school hacker buddy I used to know.
Unfortunately, there’s an uncomfortable parallel there with my own life. I watched Mailin get caught as a teenager. As a result, I’ve walked the straight and narrow ever since. I got my college degree, a pat on my head from society, then a nice, safe job at an internet security firm…
Until I met an international art thief and started hacking again.
I’m not just talking about Interpol and the NYPD police files. There’s also last weekend, when I hacked phone companies and international banks to track Grant down – all because he had sex with me, walked off like a cad, and stole my phone.
Now there’s a lousy excuse for committing a couple dozen felonies.
What’s more, when I committed those couple dozen felonies, I was surprised at how much I’d missed hacking.
More than I would ever admit to Grant.
That’s an uncomfortable thought, though, and I immediately push it out of my mind.
Desperate for something, anything to talk about, I cast back to the big surprise in our discussion with Duplass.
“How did you there weren’t any fingerprints on the paintings?” I ask.
Grant looks amused. “Because I made damn sure I removed them.”
“Yeah, but the paintings were in your house. If they were ever found – which they were – who did you think was going to believe you?”
“You were making a pretty convincing case back there,” Grant says.
“Duplass didn’t buy it, and he’s right: no judge is ever going to buy it, either.”
“Someone once told me that the first rule of hacking is ‘never admit to anything, even when you’re caught red-handed.’ I was just following her advice.”
I sigh and snuggle up next to him. “Next time, follow the second rule.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t get caught in the first place.”
“I’ll try to remember that one.” His voice switches from levity to wistful melancholy. “Well… a deal’s a deal… and it’s time to collect.”
I look up at him, and suddenly I’m afraid. “You want me to go with the smuggler.”
“It’ll only be for a little while,” he soothes me. “JP, Dominique, and I will catch Epicurus, and then it’ll all be fine.”
“Just a little while ago you said that he would never stop coming. That he would always be a step ahead.”
“When I’m worried about your safety, that’s how it feels. If I know you’re safe, then I’m confident again.”
“Can I ask for one thing, then?”
“What?”
“Just give me one more night,” I whisper. “One more night with you.”
He holds me close to him and kisses me.
“Okay,” he whispers back. “I can do that.”
57
It’s later that evening. I’m sitting in the room above the restaurant, morosely fiddling with my laptop, when Grant whispers in my ear, “Come with me.”
I turn around, surprised. I’d meant ‘one more night’ in a let’s spend one more night having passionat
e sex and just holding each other kind of way. Several hours have passed since our conversation in the car, and it’s dark outside, yes – but it still seems a bit early to begin the festivities.
Grant sees my reaction and smiles. “Trust me.”
I follow him out of the room, up the stairs, and past the bedrooms to a door around the corner with a stairwell inside. Grant leads me up the steps to the roof of the building.
Paris spreads out in front of us, a thousand lights shining amongst a tapestry of 500-year-old buildings. It’s absolutely gorgeous.
But Grant isn’t finished.
“Come on,” he says, and takes my hand.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
“But Epicurus – ”
“Has eyes on the street. Not on the rooftops.”
He lifts me over the stone guardrail surrounding the roof, then leads me over rickety scaffolding to the next building over. I’m terrified, but he assures me we’re safe, and we get there in one piece.
We take a minute to admire the view, then move to the next rooftop via a similar fashion… then the next by jumping a three-foot gap…
I’m aflutter with terror and exhilaration. Every stage in the journey poses a new danger, but each one ends in triumph – and a new, even more spectacular view of the City of Lights.
After days running from a madman, I feel wonderfully, amazingly free.
More than that, I feel alive.
But still confused. “Where are we going?!”
“We’ll be there soon…”
We traverse at least a dozen roofs. Grant moves with the grace of a jungle cat; I’m more like a panda bear, but I keep up, and he always makes sure I’m safe.
We finally arrive on a building rooftop with a private garden filled with flowers, and a glass-enclosed penthouse – a modern oasis in the midst of all these Napoleonic-era buildings.
On the grassy patch of rooftop sits an ice-filled bucket chilling a bottle of wine, an outspread blanket, and a picnic basket.
“What’s this?!” I gasp.
“I wanted you to see life the way I see it,” he says, as he pulls two champagne flutes out of the basket.
“But – someone might be home – !”
“Marcel knows the guy who lives here. We’re alone.”
We sink down on the blanket, which is surprisingly soft on its bed of rooftop grass. We drink champagne by moonlight… eat foie gras on crackers, with a variety of cheeses… dine on roasted quail… and finish with crème brûleé. All the while, we look out at the magnificent Parisian skyline, with the Eiffel Tower a thin column of light in the distance.
I’m tipsy and warm as I lie against his body on the blanket – but I think of what’s coming tomorrow, and a wave of sorrow suddenly engulfs me.
“I don’t want to leave…” I murmur.
“It’s just for a little while,” he whispers back.
“I know, I just… I don’t want to leave.”
He smiles at me. “A deal’s a deal.”
I draw myself up on my forearms so I can look into his eyes.
“Then give me everything you promised me,” I whisper as I kiss him.
58
He leads me by the hand into the glass-enclosed penthouse, which is as dark as the roof outside. We pass by shapes in the darkness – luxurious leather sofas and chairs and tables – until we reach a bedroom with a king-size bed.
Grant pulls me inside the room and shuts the door. I let him kiss me everywhere on my body as his fingers loosen pieces of my clothing, one by one.
Before I know it, I am standing naked in front of him, while he still wears his pants and shirt. I feel an erotic charge in the imbalance; I feel vulnerable yet sexy, an object of desire, nude in front of this man I desire so much.
He pulls back the sheets and then lifts me onto the bed. As I lie there on my back, he parts my legs and begins kissing my belly… then my thighs… then the spot where my legs meet my body. I sigh and close my eyes and grip my fingers in his hair, urging him to go where I want to feel him most – but he resists.
I playfully force him towards my pussy – but he refuses to kiss me. I can feel his breath on my lips, tickling my skin, making me ache with anticipation –
And then suddenly I feel his mouth envelop me, hot and wet and lustful. After a minute of licking and playing with my lips, he pauses long enough to slick down one finger with his mouth, then slowly inserts it inside me.
I moan as he begins softly stroking inside me. At the same time, he licks my clit in a hypnotic rhythm. His other hand drifts across my belly, soft as a feather. The combination of gentle touches outside me, tender caresses inside me, and delicious sucking on my most sensitive parts pushes me slowly but inexorably toward orgasm.
Gentle contractions spread through my body, slow and long and sweet. I luxuriate in the feeling, which reaches a plateau of pleasure and stays there for minutes on end. Not overwhelming, just intoxicating. I murmur and moan with each new pulse of my muscles, each new contraction of my core.
After my orgasm subsides, Grant steps back from the bed and undresses. I watch as he reveals the parts of his body I love so much, one by one: his sculpted chest. His washboard abs. Those powerful shoulders. His bulging biceps. Then the pants come off, and I get to see his massive thighs… and something else massive, bulging in his boxers. Then those come off, too, and I get to see his cock, long and thick, bobbing lustily upright as his underwear falls to the ground.
He crawls across the bed towards me and I loop my arms around his neck as he enters me. I moan and purr with pleasure as he slowly eases inside me, inch by luscious inch. He goes so slow that I’m able to keep my eyes open the entire time. When he finally hits bottom, his pelvis firmly against me, we stay like that for a long moment, just staring into each other’s eyes.
Then he begins to move, slowly, gently, rocking back and forth inside me. We never lose eye contact unless we kiss – and we kiss often. His tongue gently caresses mine, like a counterpoint to his manhood deep inside me. He’s so hard, but he moves so gently… and I bask in how feminine he makes me feel, how sexy I feel with such elemental masculinity surrounding me, embracing me, filling me.
We stay like that for a very long time, him not moving too fast, me not urging him forward – just lost and drunk in each other’s eyes, enjoying the pleasure of our bodies riding the plateau before orgasm.
Gradually, though, he begins to move faster, and I can hear his breathing growing shallower. It turns me on, and I kiss him harder, deeper. He shifts my legs up so that my knees are bent over his shoulders, and suddenly everything feels different. I’ve grown accustomed to him being inside me in one position; with this new angle, he’s deeper now, the velvet skin of his cock stroking different spots. Growing excitement starts mounting inside me. Before I know it, the stream of pleasure has turned into a giant cascade, and I’m screaming his name as I rake my fingers across his back.
“Look me in the eyes – look me in the eyes when you come,” he commands, and I do my best to keep my eyelids open as ecstasy slams through my body like a hurricane.
He lets loose a howl of animal lust, and I can feel him bursting inside me with spasm after spasm. The sensation – and the sound he makes – doubles my own pleasure, both psychological and physical, and I come in an uncontrolled jumble of screams and orgasmic contractions. We end up like that, me whimpering, him grunting, our bodies still joined, as we stare into one another’s eyes and kiss once more.
59
I open my eyes.
It’s morning.
I don’t remember falling asleep. Not that anybody ever remembers falling asleep – but I don’t remember anything leading up to it, other than Grant being inside me.
The memory immediately makes me a little horny.
I turn over in bed. I’m still in the glass-enclosed bedroom, and sunlight is streaming through the window.
There he is beside me.
I just lie there and drink in his beautiful face, as handsome as any sculptor’s masterpiece.
His eyelids slowly open.
“…hey, you,” he says sleepily.
“Hey, you,” I say, and smile – but a wave of sadness washes over me. This might be the last time I ever wake up with him for a very long while.
Actually… this might be the last time I wake up with him, ever.
He can see the shift of emotion in my face. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just… I’m worried.”
He reaches out and caresses my cheek. “It’s going to be okay.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know.”
He leans across the bed and kisses me.
I feel the warmth of his body under the sheets, and I wrap my arms around him, drawing him closer.
He lets his weight settle down on me, and we wrap each other in our arms and kisses.
He’s not hard – yet. But I can feel him between my legs, getting larger and firmer, the heat slowly intensifying along with our kisses.
I roll him over – actually, I prod him and he goes along with it, since I couldn’t physically overpower him if I tried – and lie on top of him.
He brushes the hair out of my eyes as we stare at each other.
“It’s going to be okay,” he repeats.
“I know,” I lie.
We kiss some more, and eventually make love.
The entire time, I feel a struggle inside me, a battle between sadness and joy.
Joy that I have him here with me now…
Sadness that the moment will never last.
When I come, I start to cry.
He kisses away my tears, but he can’t kiss away the pain.
60
Going back to Marcel’s restaurant is basically the most brutal return to reality ever.
As we return to the restaurant hideaway, it hits me square in the face: this is really happening. I’m leaving. And I don’t know if I’ll ever see Grant again.
The Billionaire's Redemption (The Billionaire's Kiss, Book Five): (A Billionaire Alpha Romance) Page 17