All Mixed Up

by Angel Payne

  “S-s-s-o…” I cleared my throat. Yanked on his hair in retaliation for his knowing snicker. “The girls also told me you’re a little bit Italian.”

  The man smiled like a silky Sinatra—as if his hard-on wasn’t growing with every inch we moved. Bastard. “Oui,” he murmured. “From my father. He is half-Italian and half-French. He met my maman when visiting the French mountains as a teenager. They had what they both thought would be—how do you say it?—a ‘hot French fling.’ Thirty-five years later, they are still passionately in love.”

  I wanted to pull his hair again. And this time, to make it hurt. One, for the cocky flick of his lips upon driving in the end of the story with knowing emphasis. Two, because I loved the story too damn much. And three—

  Well, shit.

  Three almost went without saying.

  The man was still wartless.

  How many layers was he really hiding them under, anyway? The question, and the endless blank space I still had for an answer, was moving beyond frustrating and into infuriating. He was a tall, gorgeous, intelligent, athlete-turned-billionaire who moved like a dancer, commanded rooms like a pharaoh, and seduced like a trained gigolo. Now he was referring to his parents with devotion in his smile and affection on his lips.

  Ugh. Just ugh.

  And yet…sigh. Just freaking sigh.

  “That’s…really cool,” I got out at last.

  “They are wonderful people.” His smile softened a little more, ensuring the flips in my heart were quadrupled now.

  “Did you get your love of bicycling from them?”

  “Mostly from my father,” he explained. “He also rode professionally for a while, but got into a bad crash one year during Le Tour, and never quite recovered.” He pulled in a long breath and blinked, as if accepting a huge piece of good or bad news. I couldn’t figure out which. “Crashes can be disastrous in a professional bicycle race, especially on steep mountains.”

  I nodded, finally understanding. “Like our professional football players, if they take a tough hit.”

  “Exactment.”

  “But you never took a crash that bad.”

  The look across his face was definitely pleasure this time. It emanated from him like heatwaves from a sunrise. “You have been doing your research.”

  A sunrise pushed up through my center, as well. It bloomed across my cheeks and spread my lips up. “Again, I blame Greer and Leese.”

  “Hmmm.”

  He didn’t buy the excuse any more than I did.

  Moving on… Hopefully.

  “So you got lucky.”

  “Oui.” A new solemnity overtook his features. “And I have never forgotten it—or the sacrifices my parents made, so that I could achieve what I did in the sport. The equipment, the travel costs, the special trainers, the motivation…both my mother and father made sure I had all of it. That is why I work hard now, and take care of them in return.”

  Okay, this still wasn’t warts. Nowhere near them. It was information I did not need; revelations that tangled my thoughts and pushed at my chest—right in the region of my heart. “You’re…you’re a good man, Lucien.”

  “I have my moments.” He winked but his vibe remained mostly solemn. “The key is, finding the people who love you even when you don’t. My parents never gave up on me, even during my not-so-good moments.” That contemplative tilt returned to his smile. “They would really like you.”

  Oh, holy damn.

  No time to wait for warts anymore. It was time to yank the emergency hatch, board the escape pod, and hurl myself off this lightspeed flight into a galaxy from which there was no return. The off-limits star system where aliens like loving parents who “liked me” existed.

  “Right.” I gave it authenticity this time. My spurting laugh wasn’t hard to summon. “I’m just what the parents want to see you roll up with, dude. Pink-streaked hair, triple-pierced ears, and shit-kicker boots.”

  His expression crunched. “They want whatever—and whomever—makes me happy.” Then he dipped his head, aligning our gazes more evenly. “Do your parents not want the same for you?”

  I swallowed. Hard.

  “Don’t you already know?”

  He pulled up, clearly knowing he’d been busted. If he’d checked out the bullshit surrounding Pax, it made sense he’d have gone farther. Or had his “people” do it. Whatever. “I know they were divorced a little over three years ago. Je regrette for prying without your knowledge.”

  “Why?” Another genuine laugh. “I pried without yours. Well, Leese and Greer did.”

  “But I have nothing to hide.”

  “So I’m beginning to learn.”

  He didn’t let that one pass. “Were you hoping I had?”

  I twisted my lips. “Perhaps.” Expelled a long sigh. “Maybe.”

  “Why?”

  Because I don’t want to feel this way about you.

  I don’t want to be dancing with you and yearning to do be doing other things with you.

  I don’t want to keep looking in your eyes, and thinking I’ve found a safe place at last…and not trusting the feeling at all.

  But trusting it more than I should.

  So much more…

  “Shit,” I croaked, and dropped my head. Like that helped stay my tears at all. The stinging pain that came with the agony of concluding my silent explanation.

  I don’t want to keep getting lulled into the dream of this.

  The dream of you.

  I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming when he tugged up my chin with firm fingers. I gritted them tighter to hold back the tears that hadn’t already torched their way out of my eyes.

  “Juliette.”

  The husk in his voice made my torment worse. “What?” I spat.

  “Why are you so sad?”

  “I’m not—” He stopped me by delving his hold back into my hair and then squeezing his fingertips against my scalp. Despite his wordless command, I wrenched my head in violent defiance. No. Don’t make me answer. He persisted, twisting into my hair this time. With a long sigh, I relented. “Because,” I blurted. “It’s…it’s all too good.”

  His brows bunched over his glittering eyes. “Je ne comprende pas.” I don’t understand. “That is a reason to be sad?”

  I attempted a thin laugh. “Not sad. Just…”

  “Just what?”

  “Just not used to it.”

  He could’ve pried at that one. A lot. Instead he waited, patient and silent. No. More like…expectant. That was it. He was simply assuming there was more, something deeper beneath my statement. I felt it in his energy and saw it in every attentive inch of his gorgeous face.

  Silent groan.

  I hope you have a lot of patience, Monsieur.

  A full minute passed. He persisted in staring. I persisted in letting him. The band ended one song and began the next. The innocuous sashay of Nina Simone’s My Baby Just Cares for Me turned into the slower strains of Les Mots, a song recorded a few years back by a French singer, Mylène Farmer, along with the British artist, Seal. While the song had captivated me, I’d never used it in a mix. Losing one’s dad to a Frenchwoman had a tendency to bias a girl, and listening to the dreamy vocals en francais had not been my jam.

  Not until tonight.

  The band’s female vocalist was joined by their male drummer. He had an earnest baritone much like Seal’s, and sang the English part of the song with the same sensual heartache. His parts were the perfect balance to the woman’s otherworldly soprano. By the time they reached the chorus reprise, talking about saying goodbye but giving anything to keep a fraction of their love alive, I felt like they were pulling the sounds from the corners of my soul.

  The soul that followed their lead to form my next words.

  “This is going to end.” For two seconds, I pretended this was just a matter of choosing pragmatism over grief. Okay, pretended to pretend. Lucien’s gaze called bullshit on my words as soon as they were spoken, but the
song swirling around us was fate’s horridly melodic confirmation of the truth.

  Lucien slowed our pace. Then again.

  We were hardly dancing anymore, though I doubted either of us cared.

  He twined his fingers deeper into my hair, combing down, down, down until he was gently twisting the ends that brushed against my waist.

  I gave up thought. Gravitated toward him like a planet to its sun. Answering lights flashed at the back of his gaze. He bent his head, ensuring our breaths blended like the gossamer notes of the song.

  Beautiful. He was so beautiful.

  Midnight magic in his touch. Midnight sun in his eyes.

  “Do you want it to end?”

  A promise of endless stars in his words.

  I swallowed. Almost didn’t answer. He was no longer talking about just tonight, and we both knew it. Because it had been this way from the start. Everything between us—every glance, every word, every moment, every damn star—had been about more. Even this sham of an “arrangement.” Had he really thought the contract would help us with limits? Had I?

  My chest compressed as my heart surrendered its incontestable answer.

  And then pushed unfightable words to my lips.

  “Wh-What if I said no?”

  And what if I’d just delivered the piece de resistance of mixed signals? What if this was the sole pebble in the water that didn’t ripple to his shore, and he really saw the basket case I was about this? What if he decided to invoke contract clause number one for himself?

  Both parties to this Agreement may terminate it at any time, if unsatisfied with any portion of its execution.

  Ohhh, shit, shit, shit.

  As soon as Lucien dropped his hold and stepped back, I made it a verbal litany too. But I’d only gotten to my eighth or ninth repetition when he locked up my throat by grabbing my hand. He led me off the dance floor, but not toward our table. A girlish protest was supposed to be my appropriate reaction, but the urgency in his stride sealed my uselessness in that department. I half-ran behind him, my steps fired faster by the heat pumping off of him like microwaves. Nope; definitely not feeling girlish or appropriate. And savoring every second.

  Alone. I needed him very alone, and very right now. I needed to gaze into his eyes so I could witness his true response to my confession.

  Eerie mental connection, don’t fail us now.

  He pushed open a small door next to the galley and led me up a short but steep flight of steps. When I emerged at the top, I was on the boat’s top deck, in an enclosed cabin measuring about ten feet square. Three of the four walls had window-like “portholes” made of clear plastic, likely retractable on balmy nights. Tonight they were latched tight due to the light rain, turning the city’s lights into a slightly fuzzy tapestry of amber, emerald, and sapphire. Fitted against the fourth wall was a velvet couch, so huge it might as well have been a bed, its royal purple surface piled with damask pillows in gold, black, and red. Though the look was modern and the décor stylish, it was no effort at all to imagine one of France’s kings from long ago, powdered wig and all, lounging on the cushion with his scantily-clad mistress.

  I wondered if any of those kings had resembled Lucien Paget.

  If so, I was signing up for mistress duty.

  And no, I couldn’t believe I was even thinking that. But yeah, I was sticking to it as my irrevocable truth.

  And was thrilled to watch as Lucien shut the door, locked it, then wheeled on me like a king ready to exercise every lusty royal privilege he possessed.

  He swept in and then over, crushing my mouth beneath his. I gave back a grateful moan, twisting my hands into his suit lapels. Our banked passion burst and meshed like the lights of the city, a thousand textures of magic at once. So good. This was so damn good.

  So much for contract clause number three.

  Physical relations are to be negotiated and agreed upon by both parties before commencement.

  Negotiation? Agreement? There was no negotiating this. It simply was. A cosmic fact waiting for its proper moment to explode. It was an earthquake fault waiting to shift. A dormant volcano, ready for the spark to ignite it toward the heavens. The desire in my being for this man…it was pure, primal fact. A connection to all the forces of my existence. The same touch the universe had used when forming me. It was the same force I beheld when dragging my eyes back open and filling my sights with my dark, decadent angel. He was so beautiful like this, black-eyed and lust-drunk, nostrils wide and teeth clenched…

  And shaking.

  Oh, wow.

  But ohhh, yes. The contrast of the taut restraint through his body and the raw wickedness in his eyes was like a match to my core. In return, I quivered too. And whimpered. And needed…

  But Lucien didn’t invade my space any further. Not a millimeter. He kept honoring that infuriating clause to the letter, as well as the conversation that had led us down this stupid path.

  That is your choice to make…your consent to give.

  But if he still thought this choice was mine, maybe the man was missing a few brain cells. Denying Lucien was like telling the sun to stop shining. The oceans to stop rolling. My heart to stop beating. My pussy to stop pulsing.

  With that, my throat finally gave up sound. “Lucien.”

  It was a wholely erotic rasp, making his pupils flare.

  “Oui, mon reve?”

  “Please.”

  I pushed his hands down, forcing them to mold around my buttocks. Well, as molded as they could get through the layers of my chiffon skirt. He helped out, digging in his fingers, snarling from low in his throat. “Please…what?”

  I clenched my teeth against a groan. “You know.”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment. Shook his head. “Non. I do not know.” When he reopened his stare, he stared hard at my lips. “You know how this works, ma belle. I must hear it. All of it. Your needs. Your desires. What you crave…” He dipped lower, rolling his forehead along mine. “What you lust for.”

  I pushed my face up, returning his pressure. I gasped from the fire of wanting him. Mewled from the delight of tilting up, aiming to again feel the perfect flow of his mouth against mine…

  But no.

  He lifted away after just a tiny nip. I seethed, frustrated and angry. He growled, resolute and forceful. “Tell me, Juliet.”

  “Ahhh!” I pushed the sound at him like Xena the damn warrior princess.

  “Tell. Me.” He pushed all that power right back, becoming my perfect Hercules.

  Screw it. I was done being polite. And damn it, the man knew it. And curled up a full grin about it.

  We’d see about that.

  I seized him by the nape and dragged him down like my wild beast kill. I devoured his mouth with untamed abandon. A matching groan echoed up through him as I pushed past his lips, raking my tongue across his, tasting him like it was my first time…perhaps my last.

  I fought that thought with every ounce of my body. By wrapping it tighter and harder to his.

  With strength I thought had long escaped me, I hitched a leg up, wrapping it around his thigh. A sensual rumble vibrated out of Lucien as he grabbed hold and locked me there. At the same time, he pushed our kiss harder, practically turning our turbulent kiss into a carnal feast. Damn. Even this frothy dress was starting to feel like animal skins I’d cut out on our cave floor. Take me, Mammoth man. Please!

  But not yet.

  We finally unlocked in order to inhale full breaths. Fortunately, Lucien looked as impatient with all this “air” stuff as me. He slung a hand around my other thigh, hiked me up around his body, and then stomped us both over to the couch.

  We tumbled down with legs twined, lips seeking, and hearts beating against each other. By now, his erection was impossible to ignore. Not that I wanted to. Not in a billion lifetimes. I cried out in joy while reaching in for it. At once, I formed my hand around the stiff, tight length.

  “This,” I gasped against the cruel splendor of his kis
s-stung lips. “I need this, Lucien.”

  “This…what?”

  Oh, for shit’s sake.

  “Bastard.”

  “This what, Juliet?” His stare was as ruthless as his prompt.

  “Damn it!” I moaned.

  “Tell. Me.”

  “But you’re driving me crazy. I—I can barely think.”

  And now, was doing so even less—as he wound a hand beneath the layers of my dress and trailed it between my thighs. With shockingly expert precision, he located the wet panel covering the swollen flesh at my core. “Is this why?” His words were rough and deep against the shell of my ear. “Are you throbbing for me, ma douce? Are you wet?”

  “Yesss.” I shook with each breath. The world spun and then fell away. Everything, all things, were only this now. The waters of a city’s heart. The lights of a million dreams. The man of my dreams. “Oh yes, I am. So wet for you, Lucien. So hot.”

  He issued a chiding cluck. It was the sexiest sound I’d ever heard. “We cannot have that, can we?”

  “No.” I gasped again. “I…suppose not…”

  He licked the edge of my ear. Only the edge, and only with the unwavering tip of his tongue. “How do you suggest we tame those naughty flames?”

  “Ummm…ahhh!” The yelp burst out as he teased the edge of my panties with his amazing fingers. At once, my most illicit button was pulsing without mercy. “Well, I think that’s a damn good start.”

  “Hmmm.” He trailed his lips trailed to the sensitive stretch between my ear and nape. “I do not think so. You only feel hotter.”

  Trembles. Tingles. Then my lips falling open with a long, desperate moan as he dipped in and explored the creamy petals of my pussy. “Oh! God…Lucien…”

  “Words, ma chéri. Give me the words.”

  I didn’t Xena-growl back this time. With my body climbing higher toward the ledge of no return, words were a small price to pay for the passionate ride ahead. “Touch me,” I begged. “Oh please, Lucien. Please!”

  “Where?” He trailed small, tantalizing circles along the column of my neck.

  “There. Right there. Oh…ohhhh.”

  My hips bucked before I could stop them. I tried to work a hand beneath his shirt but was frustrated by his tie, so I skipped straight to the row of buttons below. The result? A ridiculously sexy mix of awkward and hot, like Clark Kent in mid-déshabillé, complete with the super-powered eyes. One smoky stare from this man, and my whole soul was bared. Melodramatic? How I bloody wished.