It was a long time before I uncurled them. I felt him shuddering at my back, stifling the roar that sometimes accompanied his orgasms. This was too close and snuggly for that. Instead I got another volley of kisses along my neck, and another hard bite on my ear.
“Ow,” I said, even though I barely felt it. My pussy was still contracting around his fingers, and my ass still felt full. I sighed when he finally pulled away.
“That was wonderful,” I whispered.
“Wonderful and naughty.”
I turned and nestled against his chest. “You make me so naughty.”
He laughed. “I think you were plenty naughty before I came along. I just know how to capitalize on your filthy urges.”
“My filthy urges?” I feigned outrage. “You suggested anal.”
“Silence, filthy little slave.”
He prevented further outbursts by sticking his tongue in my mouth and kissing me into submission. By the end of our make out session, I felt so blissed out and content I could have fallen back to sleep, but he wouldn’t allow that. After a shower and an elegant breakfast in the restaurant downstairs, I headed out into Paris determined to wring all the inspiration I could from the City of Love. While Price attended his conference, I was to spend my day exploring the Louvre.
Honestly, I could have spent a month at the Louvre absorbing everything I wanted to see. I made a list of each exhibit I visited, because I knew Price would ask me about them when he returned to the hotel. I took a break at lunchtime and basked in the sun at an outdoor cafe. So many people, some locals, some tourists. It struck me that they all had a story, perhaps as complicated and disjointed as my own. As traumatic as my own.
No, I didn’t want to think about that here, in the sun and loveliness of Paris. My past was my past. I knew that, but it still haunted me sometimes. Here in Paris, the past felt very close. I couldn’t help remembering the time I’d come here with Simon, and walked with him through the Louvre until we found his newly installed painting. Heart-Lust. I could close my eyes and see it, or...
Well, I was here at the Louvre. I could go see it for real.
But I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. After our run in with Simon at Andrew’s art show, Price had forbidden me to have anything to do with my ex. He’d actually forbidden it two years earlier, when he’d bought me an apartment on the condition that Simon never set foot inside.
Still, the painting wasn’t Simon. It wasn’t like I was drifting toward the Modern Impressionists area of the museum so I could see Simon.
It’s your history with him, my conscience whispered. It’s practically the same.
I tried to get engrossed in other things, but I kept thinking of Heart-Lust as Simon had worked on it, as it had hung on his studio wall in our loft. He’d done other paintings inspired by me, but that was the first one, the one that changed my life.
I thought of how he’d stood me in front of it and pointed out all the things I couldn’t see in the whirls and swirls of scarlet paint. I thought of the poem Simon had given me. Her heart breaks in a smile, and she is lust. It was the same E.E. Cummings poem that Price had given me years later when my life—and my relationship with Simon—was falling apart. In that way, Heart-Lust joined all of our histories, and I was here in Paris, so why shouldn’t I see it while I had the chance?
Because Price wouldn’t want you to...
I silenced the warning in my head and found my way to the correct gallery. I tried to go by memory, but in the end I had to consult a map. Funny how we forget things we should remember so intensely, or perhaps the museum itself had changed.
But when I found the right place and walked into the large atrium where the painting was lit and mounted, I was shaken by a recognition so strong and so poignant that my eyes filled with tears.
Heart-Lust. It was a beautiful mess, just like Simon had been before he got sober, just like I was before I met Price. The massive, rough-edged canvas was red and angry and sweet and lyrical at once.
I was over Simon, I was absolutely over him, but the sadness of our ten-year failed relationship would always be there, just like this painting would always be on display in the world. On the back, where no one could see, he’d painted my name over and over, Chere Chere Chere Chere Chere. I couldn’t see that now. I couldn’t touch it the way I once had, with Simon’s permission. I couldn’t run my fingers over the textures, not with the surly museum docent standing in the corner. But I did it once, I thought. I traced those million dollar brush strokes. I have quite a contemptible past.
Price hated when I lived in the past. He’d be angry to know I was lingering here, staring at Heart-Lust, crying and reminiscing over a relationship that had been so very bad. I’d have to confess that I’d visited Simon’s painting. He’d consider it a breach of the rules. He’d punish me. This isn’t why you’re in Paris. I could practically hear him say it in his hard, firm, angry-Master voice. He’d tell me that I needed to look forward, not back. I needed to become who I was supposed to be.
I turned to escape this wing, wiping away guilty tears. I had my head down, so I didn’t see the elderly man I bumped into. A younger man at his side steadied him with a sharp, foreign volley of words.
“I’m so sorry,” I stammered, looking into dark silver eyes framed by thinning gray hair. The old man had deeply bronzed skin and a compact body that felt strong for his age. His companion watched me with dark eyes, inclining his own head of jet black, close-cropped hair.
“Are you all right?” the older man asked. “Our collision was my fault. I was fiddling with my tie pin.”
His English was impeccable, despite his Indian accent. His clothing, for that matter, was impeccable. Rich suit, rich shoes, and a jewel-encrusted gold tie pin that was indeed sagging to one side.
“It’s a bit top-heavy for a tie pin,” I said, as he fussed at it some more.
“I know, and it greatly disappoints me. I had it specially made.”
The giant at his side muttered something urgent, but the gray-haired businessman waved a hand.
“She’s not going to steal anything,” he said. “She is not a gypsy. She speaks English.” His striking silver eyes softened as they studied me. “She is a lover of art. Look, she’s been crying.”
I ran fingers beneath my eyes. “These paintings are so powerful,” I said, even though I was really crying about something else. “I’m sorry I bumped into you.”
“My dear, I am a lover of art as well. I understand how it can affect you. My name is Vinod, and this is my friend Jino, who follows me about to make sure I don’t get into trouble.”
I took his hand when he offered it. His fingers felt soft and cool. Though his “friend” was very tall, the old man was just my height, so it was easy to hold his gaze.
“I’m Chere. It’s nice to meet you.” I looked back at his tie pin, wishing I could take it off and try to fix it. “I design jewelry,” I said. “Forgive me, but I think that piece is poorly made, even if it’s beautiful.”
He gave a grunt of agreement. “You see,” he said, turning to his companion. “Finally, some honesty.” He plucked at the pin again. “They say it’s my fault, that I don’t position it properly. But no matter how I position the thing, it droops.”
“I think maybe…it’s just too much. I could take that apart and make three different tie pins that were just as beautiful with less weight. Right now...” I touched the heavy piece. “Right now it has too much all at once. Sometimes understated elegance looks just as rich.”
“You say you’re a designer?” he asked, regarding me closely. “Do you have a studio here in Paris?”
“I have one in New York, on Park Avenue.” I was trying to sound more important than I was, like I had some big storefront when all I had was a two-room converted office. Still... “Can I give you my card? Or...” I slid a look at his companion, who I had come to suspect was a bodyguard. “I’m staying at a hotel just down the street. I have some samples with me, tie pins and cuff links and w
omen’s jewelry too. I also do custom work, if you...” If you would like to become a client. You obviously have money, and I don’t want to get my ass beaten...again...
“I would like to learn more about your aesthetic,” he said. “I love anything well-executed, and lately understated elegance has been in short supply.”
We returned to the hotel in the car Price had hired for me, keeping up a steady stream of conversation. Vinod was excited when he learned I’d recently graduated from the Norton School of Art and Design, and told me a little about his work in a fashion design firm in Mumbai. We were on the elevator heading upstairs before I realized I didn’t really know these two men. I’d been so excited that someone was interested in my work that I hadn’t considered whether it was safe or reasonable to invite them to my room. It wasn’t even my room, it was Price’s room.
But in my ten years as an escort I’d developed a sixth sense about people, and Vinod didn’t have a shred of evil about him. This might be my only chance to pick up a client, so I decided it was worth the risk.
When I keyed into the room, Vinod didn’t even react to the grandeur of the furnishings and the breathtaking view. He exuded wealthy privilege. He must be so rich. I took out the small case of samples I’d brought just in case an opportunity like this arose. Jino lingered a few feet away, but Vinod leaned over the array of delicate pieces and took them in with an avid gaze.
“Yes, I see what you mean,” he said in his clipped accent. “These are simple but beautiful. Elegance defined.”
“I’ve always believed less is more.” I dug for a tie pin half the size of his, made of smooth polished silver with one dark pearl set into the tip. “Try this. It’ll look great with the color of your coat.”
Vinod took off his pin and handed it to Jino, and slid my pin into the smooth black silk of his tie. It wasn’t an everyday look. It looked fancy, even regal, but it fit Vinod’s style.
“There are matching cuff links,” I said, fishing them out. “And a ring.”
“How beautiful these are. You made them?”
“I make everything.”
“Why haven’t you been snapped up by some big fashion house?” he asked, his brows coming together in a dark line. “This is inspired design. So novel, so simple, and yet so striking.” He fiddled with the cuff links and finally held out his wrists so I could help him. That was when the door beeped and clicked, and Price walked in.
He stopped just inside, taking in Jino first, and then Vinod. I saw a flash of anger, then a rueful scowl as he crossed his arms over his chest. I was putting together the words to explain how I’d met them and why they were here, when Vinod walked to Price and greeted him by name.
“Ah, Mr. Eriksen. Of course this little visionary belongs to you.”
“Yes, that one’s mine,” he said. “What a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Sushil.”
“The pleasure is mine. Are you in town for the architecture conference?”
Price nodded, looking between the two of us. Jino had gone to sit on the couch. “I have to admit,” said Price, “you’re the last person I expected to find in my hotel room. What are you doing here? How do you know Chere?”
“I found her in the Modern Impressionists wing.” Vinod looked at me fondly. “She was in tears over something she’d encountered there, so I couldn’t fault her for barging into me, even if she almost knocked me down.”
Price’s gaze met mine. Maybe I looked guilty, or maybe he just knew. He wasn’t an idiot. He knew Simon’s painting was in the Louvre, and that he was a modern impressionist. It was all I could do not to flinch under his prolonged regard. Meanwhile, Vinod continued relating the story of our collision in the museum, and his travails with his tie pin, and how I’d come to the rescue with my “ground breaking designs.”
Come to his rescue? Ground breaking designs?
I stood like someone lost in a dream as he showed Price the cuff links he’d tried on, and the ring. Price showed Vinod his cuff links, also of my design. The Indian man clapped a hand against his heart and said, “She is so raw. So fresh. We need an eye like this. We need designs like this.”
“You need them for whom?” I asked.
“For whom?” Vinod made an expansive gesture. “For everyone, my dear. For the entire world.”
“Vinod,” said Price. “Would you and Jino care to join us for dinner? I’d love to catch up.”
* * * * *
Only Chere could go to a cavernous French museum, bewitch an eccentric multi-billionaire by almost knocking him over, and then invite him back to our room without even knowing who the fuck he was.
Vinod Sushil was an Indian fashion magnate, overseeing hundreds of brands and boutiques throughout central Asia and the Far East. I knew him from my time in Mumbai, from years of contact within the Indian design community. We’d spoken together at decadent parties and glittering charity events. He’d been there when they’d opened my bridge, congratulating me on the culmination of a three-year project.
I’d told her to pick up a client, one client, to avoid further punishment. Instead she’d tapped into half the world’s fashion market by charming an old man at the Louvre. In the Modern Impressionists wing, damn her. Vinod believed she was sensitive and artistic because he’d found her in tears, but I was pretty sure I knew the real reason she’d been in tears.
And yes, I felt sorry for her. She’d survived a hell of a depressing relationship with Simon, a ten-year slide into codependence and self-loathing. But if that was the case, why had she gone to see his painting? Why had she gotten emotional over it? Did she still feel something for Simon? Had she forgotten how terrible things had been while they were together?
I watched her during dinner, trying to gauge her thoughts. My own thoughts cycled between disappointment, suspicion, and unbridled fury. Simon Baldwin was an asshole, and I...
Well, I was better than him. I knew I was better than him, that I treated her with more kindness and respect. Didn’t I?
Maybe she didn’t see it that way. Maybe my level of control was too much. But I’d warned her. Maybe she was tired of the sex. We had so much sex, until I thought I probably exhausted her. She and Simon never had sex at the end. Maybe she’d prefer that.
Ugh, I had to get out of my head. I took another sip of wine and tried to follow Chere and Vinod’s animated conversation. Jino sat to Vinod’s side, a stone-faced gargoyle whose partnership with his employer was a much-discussed controversy. The two of them denied their relationship was anything but professional, but there was something in the way Jino watched over him that went beyond dutiful vigilance.
That’s how I felt toward Chere. It went beyond dutiful vigilance to possession and proprietary demands. I reluctantly agreed that Chere could spend more time with Vinod while we were in Paris, to talk about design and collaboration. I’d had other plans for her time here, carefully considered plans that she would now have to break. It felt like a loss of control.
But you can’t harm her. You can’t suffocate her. You have to let her grow.
I feared that she’d grow so much she’d drift away from me. I had so many fears. I was a ridiculous, fear-riddled man, and dinner was hard as fuck for me to cope with, and Vinod’s effusive estimation of her talent was hard for me to cope with, and her smiles for him were hard to cope with even if he was seventy fucking years old and reputed to be gay, and why the hell had she cried over Simon’s painting? Why had she visited it at all?
By the time we parted with Vinod and Jino and returned to our hotel room, everything seemed alarmingly unstable and fucked up. I felt confused about what to do, and Chere was nervous and overexcited, and we had to have a discussion that was going to get pretty brutal by the end, because it was about Simon and her, and her checkered past, and our past, which wasn’t exactly a fairy tale either. Fuck.
“Take off your clothes and sit on the bed,” I said, pointing to the spot where I wanted her to plant her ass.
She murmured something. Maybe Yes, Sir
. She was immediately on guard, which only underlined the fact that we had tough shit to talk about. I watched her undress and fold her clothes with shaking fingers. When she was done, and sitting where I’d told her, I stood in front of her and buckled her collar around her neck.
“How was the Louvre today?” I asked. “Aside from meeting Vinod Sushil?”
“It was good. Nice.”
“Nice?” I grimaced and stepped back from her, crossing my arms over my chest. “What did you see while you were there?”
She let out a soft, slow breath and looked up at me. “I saw a lot of things. I did what you asked. I spent the day there looking for inspiration.”
“Did you find it?”
“I found a customer. Vinod’s interested in producing some of my designs for his spring lines.” Her chin lifted a little. Her fingers glanced over her collar before returning to her lap. “That’s what you told me to do. I did everything you told me to do.”
“And something you knew you weren’t allowed to do.” She paled at my sharp voice. Her lips tightened. If I’d had any lingering doubt of what she’d done, or why Vinod found her in tears in the Modern Impressionist area, her guilty expression washed those doubts away. “Confess it,” I said. “Don’t play games with me.”
Tears rose in her eyes. “Today of all days, I thought you’d be happy.”
“I’m happy about some things. Not so happy about others. Say it. Tell me what you did.”
“I went to see Simon’s painting,” she said in a rebellious tone. “I don’t get to Paris that often, and it was right there—”
“I don’t care to hear your excuses. Who do you belong to?”
“You.” Her voice trembled on the word. Maybe I was being too scary. I felt a scary intense love for her, even though she’d disappointed me.
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