Rhapsody: Interracial French Mafia Romance (The Butcher and the Violinist Book 1)

by Kenya Wright

  “Do you want Shalimar involved with the deal?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  I have to talk to Shalimar. She’s the only one not thinking with her pussy right now.

  “The location will be different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m tired of seeing you play in this brothel.” He tucked another curl behind my ear. “I’ll send my driver to you at seven in the evening tomorrow.”

  “Where will I play?”

  He dropped his hand. “A package will be delivered with what I want you to wear. I hope you won’t think it’s too provocative.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Have you thought about my other invitation?”

  I tapped my foot. “For the Girlfriend Experience?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m still not. . .sure I can do it. I would need time to think about it. And even if I did, the time would have to be limited.”

  His expression hardened as if he didn’t want me to know what he was thinking. “What would be the limit?”

  “We have sex one time, and even with those terms, I’m not sure if I would. I’m still thinking this through.”

  “No.”

  I blinked.

  “Come back with another counter, and give me a price tag with it,” he said it like this was no more than an exchange of dollars and objects.

  I shook my head. “No, never mind. I can’t do this.”

  Annoyance lay in his gaze. “Think about it.”

  “I don’t need time to think about it.” I grabbed my violin case.

  “And what about your Eros? You’ll have to return it to me soon.”

  “You’re not taking it now.”

  He quirked his eyebrows. “I’m not?”

  “No. You like to hear me play.” I smiled hoping it was the truth. Sometimes all I could do was bluff and pray for the best.

  Thank God he nodded. “You’re right. I would rather hear you play it, than let it sit and gather dust.”

  I let out a long breath.

  “But our deal is still not off the table.” He moved in close to me. “You want me, just as bad as I want you. What’s holding you back?”

  “The money exchange.”

  “The business of love makes it easier to control.”

  “There is no business of love. My heart doesn’t work that way.” I backed up.

  I wanted to have sex with him.

  My gut said no. Jean-Pierre wasn’t a guy I picked up from a bar for a one night stand like Leo. In fact, Leo could do something like that. He was big and could knock a guy out really quick. Leo could make mistakes and play with fire.

  Compared to Jean-Pierre, I was short and small. He could crush my neck in a minute. Possibly seconds. He was gorgeous, but was he safe? He was willing to pay, but would the consequence be worth the price? This was his world. Shalimar’s world. My aunt’s world.

  But this was not mine.

  Had he asked me out for dinner, then it would’ve been a different answer. Had he approached me like a regular guy, then there would’ve been no deep thought to contemplate.

  Just take your hot behind home and think all this through.

  I’d already snuck behind Aunt Celina’s back to play for him. Granted, she might not have minded too much. Her intent came from a protective nature. However, if she discovered that I slept with one of her customers for money, that would open up a whole can of chaos.

  Go home.

  As soon as I went home, I would be touching myself. Daydreaming about him would be safer than tangling with the real thing. Jean-Pierre was a dangerous man who had no intention of doing more than having sex. Keeping the emotions out of things was exactly why men paid for sex.

  I couldn’t keep my emotions out of it.

  Maybe if he’d been someone else.

  “I’m still going to give you time to think about this deal.”

  Smiling, I shook my head.

  “I want a better counteroffer.”

  “Okay.”

  Shalimar appeared at the door. “I was just checking. Are you done?”

  “For now.” Jean-Pierre nodded. “I’ve given her a tip, but the main amount was transferred an hour ago.”

  “I received it.” Shalimar grinned. “Will you be needing any other services?”

  “Talk to Eden. She’s aware of what I desire.”

  Shalimar widened her eyes and turned to me. “Okay.”

  Jean-Pierre walked out.

  “What’s he talking about?” she asked.

  “Give me a minute to process it. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  She bothered me the whole walk to the exit. My body blazed from the interaction with him.

  When I made it home, Leo had passed out on the couch. I put V out, lay in my bed, and though of him, as I played with my clit.

  “Vous êtes impeccable.”

  Chapter 8

  Whore Logic

  Eden

  Three packages arrived at my apartment the next morning—large, medium, and small. In the big box was a long dress. In the medium box sat a diamond necklace. And the small box was an iPhone.

  As soon as I pulled it out, the phone rang.

  I put it to my ear. “Hello?”

  Jean-Pierre’s sexy voice. “Have you considered my proposal?”

  What a way to put it—proposal. It lacked emotion. Sensuality. The passion and romance that I craved. Still, the idea of his body against mine tantalized every part of me. “I thought about it.”

  “And?”

  I cleared my throat to get control of myself. “I’m going to have to say no.”

  “We haven’t even discussed the amount.”

  “It would need to be a lot, in order to give up the things that I enjoy with sex.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “An emotional connection. Passion.”

  “I can give you passion, but the emotional connection is what I’m paying for us to resist.”

  “Why?”

  An edge lay in his tone. “It wouldn’t serve me in my new life.”

  Silence passed over the line.

  “Will Shalimar be brokering this deal?” Jean-Pierre asked.

  “I thought I made it clear that we’re not doing a deal.”

  “We will. Until then, I’ll give you time to think about it.” He lowered his voice and threw on that French charm. “J'ai hâte de te goûter, belle.”

  “I can’t wait to taste you, beautiful.”

  Shalimar showed up at my apartment twenty minutes later, panting, and out of breath.

  I let her in. “What’s up?”

  “You left some things out last night.” She strolled and wagged her finger at me. “He wants to fuck you.”

  “Well—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  “You were the one adamant that I wasn’t his type.”

  “Well, I was wrong. Clearly.” She shook her head. “Wait. What the hell are you wearing?”

  I stared down at my get-up. “It’s an elephant onesie.”

  “Jesus Christ.” She shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell me that he wanted to have sex with you?”

  “I was still processing it.”

  “And he wants a GFE, of all things.”

  “GFE?”

  “The Girlfriend Experience.” She let out a long breath. “I don’t know what his game is, but we have to tread carefully on this.”

  “I don’t think I could do it.”

  “Of course, you can’t. You have no idea how to be a prostitute.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You could do it, but would you and I be alive after you did it? That’s the question. Because if your aunt finds out—”

  “We’re not even going to think about that.”

  “And the length is crazy. He wants you for thirty days.”

  “Thirty days?!”

  “The whole time you would live in his penthouse with him on the othe
r side of the city. You’d be expected to do everything he desires from cooking, to sucking his dick as many times as he requires.” Shalimar folded her arms across her chest. “The Girlfriend Experience sounds easy, but most girls can’t do it. Especially with a man like Jean-Pierre.”

  I sat down on the couch. “Why can’t some girls do it?”

  “When doing a GFE, they either despise the man too much to be around him, or they like him too much to pretend that what they’re doing isn’t fake. What you have to understand is that…” Shalimar dropped down on the couch. “GFE blurs the boundaries between a financial transaction and a romantic relationship. The only way it works is if everyone’s head is out of the moment.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you?” Shalimar raised her eyebrows. “Jean-Pierre is a sociopath or something. I’m no psychiatrist, but that’s the only type that works with the likes of the Corsican.”

  It was hard to see Jean-Pierre that way, but I didn’t know anything about it. Shalimar knew about him and these dealings. It was best to hear her out at least.

  “You don’t think I should do this?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Just because they’re French, don’t take the Corsican for punks. They do everything from money laundering and prostitution to arms and drug trafficking. You would have to get a strong stomach around him. You might see something, and you better be prepared to keep your mouth closed.”

  “At Jean-Pierre’s party there was a guy that looked like his boss. He had a large scar on his cheek.”

  “That’s Rafael. He’s considered a legend, escaped jail twice. The last time was with dynamite and a helicopter. There’d been an international manhunt long ago.”

  “And now he’s just walking around Belladonna?”

  “You didn’t see him. In fact, you don’t even know who he is.”

  I sighed. “You’re right. I shouldn’t do this.”

  “Well, I’m not saying that.”

  “What? But you were saying all the bad things about this.”

  “Because I want you to know what you might be getting yourself into.”

  “He’s paying for me to be his girlfriend. What else does this GFE involve?”

  “It could be reciprocal sexual pleasure. Have you ever come before?”

  “Of course.”

  “Many women don’t experience an orgasm with a partner until they’re at least thirty. If a guy is buying a GFE, he expects you to know your body, know how you like it to be pleasured. He wants you to show him how you orgasm, and he’ll definitely want to see it.”

  I blushed, thinking of the ways I could come in front of Jean-Pierre.

  “For a man like Jean-Pierre, he isn’t supposed to feel in his job. And I don’t think he allows himself to feel when he’s off his job.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “So, with GFE he pretends to still be human.”

  I scrunched my face in confusion. “What?”

  “I don’t know why he does it, but it’s never real for him. You have to understand that part the most. That’s why I’m worried about having you do it. This was why your Aunt Celina forbade him from coming to the brothel.”

  “He did GFE with someone else?”

  “Yes. And it went bad for the girl. She came close to quitting and almost committed suicide.”

  I stiffened and studied her.

  Were you the girl?

  Shalimar looked away. “And this girl was a pro. She had some clients under her belt. So…if he could get in her head, then. . .”

  I leaned back on the couch. “I don’t think I should mess with it.”

  “Yeah,” she muttered with a frown and ran her fingers through her hair. “But. . .”

  “What?”

  “You know how people have a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “My angel told me to come here and tell you all the negatives.”

  I leaned my head to the side. “And what did the devil on your shoulder say?”

  “To tell you how much Jean-Pierre is offering for the thirty day GFE.”

  I sat up. “How much?”

  “100k.”

  I sat there with my mouth open. “So, 90k after your commission?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn.”

  “I know.”

  “But. . .uh. . .the other girl tried to commit suicide.”

  “With this much money, we could always get you a nice counselor afterwards. Maybe even a therapist or something to talk to while you’re with him.”

  A crazy giddiness came over me. “Ninety thousand dollars? Is he serious?”

  “That’s what I was thinking!” Shalimar raised her hands in the air. “I mean. . . hey I love your violin playing and you’re definitely good-looking, but 90k?”

  “Shit.”

  “I mean.” She looked me up and down. “I could pay 5k on you for one night, but 100k is for the girls that have been in the game for a long time. They know the ropes. No emotion. All acting with finesse.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment for paying 5k for me.”

  “You’re welcome. Of course, Jean-Pierre set your standard for 10k. And now, he’s raising the bar even more, making sure that no one could ever outbid him.”

  “Well, no one else is trying.”

  She sighed. “Not exactly true. Men are constantly trying to buy you throughout the night. They come to me or the servers. It’s normal. Jean-Pierre is the only one that is going straight to you. Luring and enticing. Celina will kill him, if she finds out.”

  “She won’t find out.” I rose and began to pace back and forth in front of the couch. “I can’t believe I’m even considering it.”

  “I can.”

  “What if he sucks in bed?”

  “He doesn’t.”

  I stopped and turned to her. “We have to be honest here.”

  “Fine.”

  “You’re kind of my pimp now.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Were you the woman that fell in love and almost committed suicide over him?”

  “I wasn’t her.” She put her leg over the other. “But I was one of them. Celina called us Jean-Pierre’s rotten apples. That was the only year I’d ever seen her so disappointed in me. We knew that the girls would fall in love with him after too long. She’d warned me. And for whatever reason, I walked right into it.”

  I let out a long breath.

  “I didn’t realize how alone I was, until I spent two weeks with him. He’d asked for thirty days and ended it sooner.” She shook her head. “And he was just so matter-of-fact about it. When he is being romantic, he is in that moment. And then in the next moment, he could shut it completely off, and he wants you gone.”

  “That would annoy me.”

  “Well…” she shrugged. “I didn’t play the violin. That could be the key. I mean. There were definitely moments of silence when we were together. Maybe there won’t be with you.”

  “If, I do it.”

  “You’re leaning toward yes.”

  She was right. I’d already made a list of the things I could take care of with that large sum of money.

  I went back to pacing. “He broke your heart, and how. . .how do you feel now? I mean…since he’s been back.”

  “Oh, I despise him now. Not in a I-hate-him kind of way, but in a I-can’t-believe-I-gave-him-power-when-he-didn’t-even-ask-for-it way.” She blinked. “I’m annoyed because Jean-Pierre reminds me about Celina’s disappointment.”

  I turned to her. “But you didn’t try to commit suicide over him?”

  “No, that was Theresa.”

  “How many others has he had the GFE experience with?”

  “I have no idea before three years ago. I was one of at least five. He would have us in his penthouse, and then when he was bored, he sent us back. The good thing was that he never wanted a deduction of his expenses.”

  “No refund policy.”

  “Ex
actly.”

  I walked over to the window and gazed out of it.

  Shalimar came to my side. “What’s freaking you out about this. . .besides the obvious? In fact, think of me like a review site. I’m your Yelp™ for Jean-Pierre. What I didn’t personally experience, I’ve heard from others. What’s your fears?”

  “Small penis.”

  “He’s very big. Impressively big—”

  “Okay. That’s good.”

  She laughed. “Don’t get weird about it. Jean-Pierre is a client, nothing more. Put that in your head right now. What else do you want to know?”

  “Is he good in bed?”

  “Yes. Sensual. Slow. That’s all I want to say about that.” Shalimar ran her fingers through her hair. “Eden, you’ll have a good time. The problem is. . .if you’ll have too good of a time.”

  “How do I guard from that?”

  “Boundaries. Rules. Come up with some. Keep him to it. And always in your mind, remind yourself that this is business and nothing more.”

  This is business. Nothing more.

  I shifted my thoughts to that and considered something else. “What about the violin?”

  Shalimar gave me an odd expression. “What violin?”

  “Did he include the violin in the negotiation? I would want Belladonna for a year.”

  “Who’s Belladonna?”

  “He’ll know.”

  Eyeing me suspiciously, Shalimar took her phone out and typed in it. “I need to know everything, Eden. You can’t keep anything back. I’m your pimp.”

  “You’re my manager. And Jean-Pierre used to play violin, and he actually used the one that I play now. He called the instrument, Belladonna.”

  “But, how do you have it?” She finished typing and put the phone up.

  “I got it from my conductor at the symphony.”

  “Belladonna Symphony?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmmm.” She tapped her thigh. “Jean-Pierre always went to the symphony when he visited here. He handled accounting for them too. I think that’s an odd coincidence.”

  “Why?”

  “Jean-Pierre is a very clever man. I would keep my eyes open around him. He must’ve known that you were using his violin the many times he went.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then, he’d seen you before you stepped into the brothel.”