by Gow, Kailin
He sat behind his desk, clasped his hand over his belly and looked up at her. “I would like to think my classes are important to everyone here.”
“I just want to make it clear.” She set both hands on his desk and leaned forward, hoping to get through to him. “My scholarship here means everything to me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I would hate to put it in jeopardy because you insist on playing your silly games.”
He rose to face her as a wicked grin took hold of his lips. “They didn’t seem that silly this morning.”
A streak of blush heated her cheeks. At first the responsibility fell on the flash memory of that morning, but she quickly realized it was also the infuriating manner in which he made light of the situation she now found herself in.
His hand crept along the top of the desk until the tips of his fingers met hers. She recoiled with surprising speed. For a moment she considered her options. She could threaten to move out of his apartment; that was hardly viable. She could threaten to report him. Who would believe he was harassing her? In anything, they’d accuse her of stalking him.
Crossing her arms in front of her, she looked at him. “Please, Errol,” she said softly.
A wistful smile came to his lips and his eyes softened. “I wouldn’t dream of doing anything that could ruin your chances of attaining your goals.”
“I’m glad we understand each other. Thank you.” Before he could say more, she turned and left the room.
That night, as she waited for him to arrive, she contemplated the situation she’d gotten herself into. Errol King was a handsome, charismatic, if not enigmatic man who thrilled her in ways she never would have imagined.
Yet, she felt she’d allowed herself to play in a game she couldn’t win.
Since arriving after school, she’d changed clothes three times; out of her school clothes and into lace panties and a semi-transparent blouse. Too obvious, she argued. He’ll think he’d won. Going to the opposite spectrum, she’d pulled on unflattering sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt. Again, too obvious, she thought. He’d think she was deliberately trying to downplay their affair.
In the end, she opted for her dressy pajamas. Blue and white striped cotton, they were legitimately relaxed enough for a cozy night at home without any hint of sexuality. The message would be clear; their sexual liaison was over.
She settled in on the sofa, plugged the television to a food channel and opened her French technique book on her lap. The moment she heard the doorknob rattle, however, she looked down at her dowdy pajamas and wondered if this was really the message she wanted to send him. Did she really want it to be over? As the door opened, her skin tingled. As his footsteps approached, her body heated up.
“Nice try,” he said.
The sound of his voice, deep, masculine and sensual flowed over her like a velvet hand, soothing her and making her forget the promise she’d made to herself; it was over.
She turned to him, her face a mask that hid the sexual tension she felt inside; at least that’s what she hoped he’d see.
“Those pajamas,” he went on. “If you’re trying to dissuade me from seducing you tonight, you’ve failed miserably.”
Getting to her feet, she was pleased and disappointed. “And if you think you’ll succeed in sedu…”
He took one forceful step toward her, wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck and pulled her in to kiss her. Her resolve melted in that instant, and when his tongue swept over hers and she tasted his hunger, all she wanted was his body pressed against hers.
Through the heated kiss, he yanked off the bottom of her pajamas, tore off her panties and grabbed her legs to pull her up and wrap her legs around his waist. With a tight hold around his neck, she held on as he carried her to the dining table.
His kisses plundered her neck, and down to the valley of her breasts. With a savage roar, he grabbed each panel of her top and pulled it apart, sending buttons flying across the room. Her breasts, exposed and heaving with the need to be touched, begged for his attention.
“Tell me you haven’t been thinking of this very moment all day,” he challenged. His mouth clamped onto a breast and drew an orgasmic cry out of Taryn. “Tell me the day wasn’t endless and tortured with wanting me.”
He hurriedly pulled off his shirt and unfastened his pants to let them pool at his feet.
In a brief moment of lucidity, Taryn put her hand to his chest to stop him. “Tell me what you would do if I were to stop you… right now.”
Amusement played in his eyes, though they smoldered with undeniable passion. “Would you, Taryn?” He smiled, that wicked smile that weakened her every time.
“Errol…I can’t,” she whispered. “I want you in me too much, even if I try.”
He leaned in close. “Then just try to stop me,” he whispered hoarsely as he buried his erection in the soft, moist folds of flesh that awaited him. “Try to stop me,” he repeated as he continued his plunge, deeper and fuller each time, taking her breath away with each thrust.
All sense of pride and propriety left her as she screamed out her pleasure and clung to him for more. Only when he stopped, sweaty, his hair rumpled in front of his face, and spent, did she look soberly at him. She leaned back, her elbows propped up on the table and felt strangely free and vulnerable at the same time.
“I’ll readily admit I enjoy this game, Errol. You do things to me I never could have imagined. And, yes, okay, I did spend the better part of the day thinking about this moment, but I need you to be more specific with your answer.”
“Answer to what?” Still hooded with the remains of lust, his eyes barely focused on her.
“You’re not doing anything to protect me. You’re not taking any precautions.”
“What precaution? Protect you from what?”
She gazed down at their joined pelvises, the sight causing her to become aroused again. “Pregnancy. Sexually transmit…”
“That again? I told you not to worry about that.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one at risk.”
“Look, there’s no way you can get pregnant because… well, I already took care of that, besides it’s both of us at risk…I would not leave a woman not taken care of.”
Stunned, she looked at him. “But you’re so young.”
He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “As for the other stuff; one, I’m careful; two, I’m tested and three, I’m not as slutty as the media sometimes makes me out to be.” He looked hurt for a while, “I do care about the women I’m with, Taryn. I may like it rough, but I always take care of my lovers.”
She took a moment to take in his words. “Okay,” she finally said. “What about my scholarship?”
“I told you earlier.” He cupped her cheek and brought a sober gaze to meet her eyes. “I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that. Besides, you wanted this arrangement, as much as I did. You said so yourself when I asked in the beginning.”
Taryn looked down. It was true…she wanted this just as much as he did.
Errol brought a finger to her chin to lift it up so her eyes were looking into his blue ones. “You do want this, don’t you?” His thumb played with the full flesh of her lower lips, making her want to take in his thumb and taste him. God, his mere touch was enough to make her want to climb all over him and ride him until they were both sweaty and exhausted from passionate lovemaking.
Errol’s voice was husky but soft against her ear. “You do want me, Taryn, don’t you? I can see the desire in your eyes…you want me now.” He replaced his thumb with his lips on her lip, and nibbled on her lower lip, sucking it until they were swollen. Then he moved his mouth over hers, plunging his tongue in to taste her tongue, while his fingers found her folds below, dipping in and out until she was writhing against him.
“Yes,” she cried. “Yes, God, yes! I want you, Errol. Now!”
He positioned himself against her, rubbing her clit with his shaft before plunging
deep inside of her. He rocked against her back and forth, gyrating his hips, causing her to moan with intense pleasure. Soon they were making love in every part of the apartment, their passion for each other insatiable.
Errol was true to his word as the weeks passed. Taryn felt safe with him, in every way, and even became the instigator of their sexual games in many instances. In class, she deliberately toyed with him, running her fingers along a stiff rod of dough in a suggestive way, and licking cream off her fingers while she eyed him from across the room.
On more than one occasion she caught him heading to his desk to readjust his arousal. Today, he discreetly brushed that arousal along her back side as he helped her.
“You’re being too rough with the cream,” he said as he stood behind her and rearranged her hand on the whisk. “You have to…”
She didn’t hear a word of what he said. All she knew was the clear and unmistakable pressure of his hard-on against her back, that instantly made her wet.
That night they didn’t speak a word to one another, but quickly engaged in the animal dance that occupied so many of their nights. There were no formalities or niceties, just an endless hunger that kept them clamped to one another until they were too exhausted to go on anymore.
Every night following was filled with wild passionate lovemaking. She couldn’t get enough of him, and her body craved him like food.
“I can devour you all day,” Errol said, one lazy Sunday as they stayed in bed, making love from morning to night.
“Then devour me,” Taryn said, huskily.
Errol grinned wickedly. “You don’t have to ask. Your taste is a constant aphrodisiac for me, Taryn.”
Still glowing from the effects of their white hot sex, the next morning, Taryn rolled off the bed to get the phone that ringed with persistence. It’d rung twice during their love making, but they’d disregarded it.
“It’s for you, Monsieur King,” she said as she held the phone out to him. Standing nude before him, she already anticipated his next hard-on.
With a knowing grin, he ran his finger along the thin line of hair between her thighs then took the phone. “Oui. Oui c’est bien ca.” He fell silent and furrowed his brow as he listened. His eyes reddened as tears gathered. “Comment? Mais, elle est… Oui.”
Hearing the emotion in his voice, Taryn sat beside him and waited. The husky, sexually charged man he’d been just seconds ago now sat lost in the middle of the bed, like a little boy.
“Oui, je comprend.” Keeping his eyes on the bed sheets in front of him, he absentmindedly played with the corner of his pillow. “Tres bien. J’arrive.”
“What’s the matter?” Taryn asked, taking his hand. She had never seen him so down and sad as he was at that moment. “Please tell me, Errol.”
Errol stared straight ahead of him, his entire face broken.
“My nana,” he said. “She passed away last night.”
Chapter 11
Though she always made sure she remained just one step behind him, Taryn accompanied Errol to his grandmother’s funeral. While he appeared strong and stoic to all those in attendance, Taryn knew just how fragile his mental state was. Since receiving the phone call he’d barely spoken a word to her. He’d barely spoken at all.
He’d found himself with the regrettable task of arranging his Nana’s service; nothing less than the Notre Dame Cathedral for his beloved grandmother. “If there’s anything I can do,” Taryn had offered.
Pressing his lips together, he’d shaken his head. “It’s my responsibility. Besides, it’s all in French. There’s little you can do.”
Feeling shut out, Taryn busied herself around the apartment. She prepared meals that went uneaten by Errol and picked up after him. In the brief week between learning of his Nana’s death and the finality of the service, he’d visibly lost weight. The day of the service, he was gaunt and pale.
“Notre Pere qui es aux cieux,” the priest said from the pulpit.
Dressed in somber black, Taryn sat in the row behind Errol. “Our Father who art in heaven…” She murmured the Father’s Prayer in English as everyone around her prayed in French. “… Give us this day our daily bread…”
“… mais deliver-nous du mal.”
“Amen,” everyone murmured in unison. Many associates from the Institute had come, as well as a few elderly and distant family members, friends of his grandmother’s and some acquaintances.
At the end of the service, Taryn put her hand to Errol’s shoulder. He looked back at her, an appreciative, but tight smile on his face.
For an interminable hour he stood at the doors of the cathedral, receiving words of condolences, praise of his Nana’s life and encouragement to move on. He nodded, smiled and even offered a few words of solace and comfort to a few friends overwrought with emotion.
“Want me to drive you home?” Taryn asked Errol when the last mourner walked away.
Not looking straight at her, he nodded. “I just have to go back in to get the urn.”
Taryn brought the car around and looked at the urn as Errol got in. “What are you going to do with her?”
“A long time ago she said she wanted to have her ashes thrown into the wind on the Mediterranean. When I have the chance…” With his hands wrapped securely around the urn, he sat in silence as Taryn drove off.
Though she’d never driven through the streets of Paris, she managed to bring them home with only two wrong turns. She helped Errol out of the car, escorted him to the elevator and pushed the button of his floor.
Once in his apartment, she brought him to the bedroom, undressed him and settled him into bed. He’d put the urn on the bedside table and simply stared at it, saying nothing.
“Do you want me to bring you anything?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
She put her hand over his, wondering how long it would take him to come out of his stupor.
“Laisse moi,” he murmured. Pulling his hand away from hers, he turned away from her and pulled the blankets over his shoulder.
Her meager French, along with his unmistakable body language told her everything; leave me alone.
The following morning she took a taxi to school. After three unanswered knocks at his door, she’d cracked it opened and had received a firm, “Leave me alone.”
“What’s with Chef King?” Henri asked when she arrived in the class normally given by Errol.
Taryn shrugged. “I don’t know. I heard someone in his family died, or something.”
Yveline Desperreault, the pursed-lip, middle-aged woman who had taken on the task of teaching Errol’s class, looked at Taryn and snapped, “It was his cherished Nana. Of course the boy is distraught.” With a cluck of her tongue, she turned to face the class.
The lesson, a review of culinary plating techniques, was long and tedious. Though Madame Desperreault was reputed to have talent as a chef, her talent for teaching was sorely lacking. She had a droning and draining voice that could turn the most vibrant topic into something bland and blasé.
Taryn was happy to finally be out of the class, out of the school and into her taxi for the ride home. Eager to see how Errol had managed during the day, she put the key in the lock and opened the door.
The apartment was as it had been when she’d left that morning. It was impossible to believe he’d spent the entire day in bed. Worried about the depression he seemed to be in, she tiptoed to his door and pushed it open.
His bed was empty. She glanced toward the closet door. Things had been pulled out and discarded.
“Errol,” she called out into the empty apartment. Knowing what she’d find, she went into the bathroom. There were vague signs he’d taken a shower, and some of his toiletries were gone. “Errol.”
Hurrying back to his room, she looked for his grandmother’s urn. It, too, was gone.
“Damn it, Errol. Where did you go?” she muttered into the room.
The answer, simple and vague, came by way of a hastily scrib
bled note on the refrigerator door.
Gone for a few days.
Chapter 12
Taryn spent the next four days alone, wondering and worried. Other than the simple note, she had absolutely no idea where he was, what he was doing, or when he’d come home. At school many speculated on his absence: He’s mourning in private. He went to the Mediterranean to dispose of his Nana’s ashes. He’s off partying somewhere to ease the pain.
But the theory that most disturbed Taryn was that he’d returned to a long ago lover; a woman who’d loved Errol dearly and who’d been greatly appreciated by his Nana.
At night she dwelled on that notion, envisioning him wrapped in that woman’s arms, his body pressed against hers, and her cries of ecstasy sounding in his ears.
In that endless week, she’d gone through hours of worry, a day of near panic and now two sleepless nights that left her pained and increasingly angry.
Why hadn’t he brought her with him? Why hadn’t he even bothered to call since leaving? Why had he chosen to go off with this other woman?
Sitting in front of a dinner she didn’t have the appetite to eat, Taryn finally allowed the release of a few tears.
She’d been naïve and stupid enough to think she could actually mean something to him. Like so many women before her, she’d misinterpreted all those little kisses, every tender touch, every hushed word in her ear. She’d allowed herself to think they’d meant something.
And in return, she had allowed him to mean something to her. Frustrated with herself and angry at him, she put her hands over her face and let out a pain-filled cry. With her elbows propped up on the table, she sat behind the darkness of her hands, reviewing all that had happened and wondering how she’d let herself get in so deep.
As his playful, flirtatious, wicked ways came back to haunt her, rage slowly simmered up to the top. She opened her eyes and looked around the apartment that was his playpen; the place he brought women to do with as he pleases all while toying carelessly with their hearts.
