by Laura Leone
"Don't... stop," she begged, welcoming this reckless plundering with every straining muscle.
The floor, she realized vaguely... he was bracing his feet on the floor now, and using the leverage... Oh, God.... to thrust so hard... So hard... So deeply and insistently... Yes, yes...
"More," she grunted.
"I thought so." His voice was almost inaudible amidst his harsh, desperate breaths.
She felt the demanding heat assaulting her loins yet again as he pumped into her, riding her with a mingled tenderness and violence that renewed all the hungry desire she had believed completely fulfilled only moments ago.
He let her burn, though. Denied her what she wanted. What she tried to take from him. Rough without satisfying her. Gentle without relieving her. Violent without finishing her off. Tender without soothing or pitying her.
"Paul!" she screamed.
He punished her with hot, savage kisses, plundering her mouth so ruthlessly that her throat ached. She needed more of those, but then he wanted her breasts again, suckling and nibbling on them with a voracious frenzy that she knew would leave them tender and sore later. She arched into him, eager to be consumed.
When she came again, it was like an avalanche, like something she shouldn't even live through. Devastating, demolishing, ransacking whatever was left of her after his ruthless subjugation. She felt him coming, too, heard him groaning ecstatically, felt his wild shudders, and absorbed his body's final explosion of pleasure deep inside of her.
Somehow, Gabrielle found the strength to stroke his back, her fingers finding bare skin amidst the bandages. She loved this moment. Always. The way his back moved convulsively with his orgasm. The play of smooth muscles, the sudden bow-tight arch, the helpless writhing... She inhaled deeply just before he sagged and collapsed. She had learned to gather enough breath at this very instant to help her get through the few moments when he rested weakly on top of her after coming, briefly forgetting about mundane things like letting his wife breathe.
Her whole body felt like it was turning to liquid. A pool of lava where her flesh and bones used to be. She couldn't stop quivering, didn't try. Paul's face was buried in her hair. She heard the soft sounds he often made, those faint, breathy, ragged, little moans that usually followed his climax. Her teeth chattered—an eccentric aftermath reaction she sometimes had to the extreme emotions and sensations he aroused in her. He had been amused the first time he noticed it; then he'd been incredibly tender when she told him it had never happened before. Never happened with anyone but him.
Paul... She couldn't stand knowing that all those private moments and intimate secrets between them were lost to him.
He had to start remembering. Particularly because even more important things than their shared past were at stake. His life, for example...
Paul shuddered again, then brushed his mouth against her cheek. "Gabrielle..."
He was here, in her arms, safe for now. Gabrielle stared at the rafters high overhead and tightened her embrace. Only days ago, she'd have given her life for this moment. She mustn't let anything spoil it now.
Morning would come soon enough. Until then, she would treasure this time with the husband whom she had believed she would never again see alive.
Gabrielle found the strength to roll her head sideways. Paul took a deep breath, then moved his head just enough so their eyes could meet again. He looked flushed and contented.
"I love you," she murmured, struggling for breath beneath his heavy weight.
He touched her cheek. "I'd be a fool if I didn't love you, too."
It wasn't the ideal reply, but she knew it was the best he could give her right now. Feeling dizzy, she tried to inhale.
He snorted softly. "Sorry." He started shifting so that his shoulder and hip, rather than her chest, would bear most of his weight.
"You always do that," she said now that she could breathe again.
He smiled lazily. "What an oaf I must be."
"I like feeling you all around me like that. Afterwards. When you're so soft and helpless for a moment." She smiled, too, and added, "Well, I like it until I need to breathe."
He spread his hand over her belly and started to say something—then tilted too far and nearly fell off the narrow table.
"Paul!"
He caught his balance with one foot against the floor. "I didn't pick the most practical spot for this, did I?"
He rose to his feet, then went suddenly pale and swayed. Gabrielle sat upright, her slip sagging around her elbows and her waist as she tried to help him.
"No, I'm all right," he said. "Just a little dizzy."
"Sit down," she urged.
He hooked one foot around the stool he had abandoned earlier, brought it closer, and sat down on it.
"Does your head hurt?"
"Not too much," he replied.
"But you're dizzy?"
"Well, that's to be expected after what you just did to me." He grinned and added, "So is the shakiness in my legs."
"But Paul—"
"It'll pass. Serves me right for jumping up like that right after you'd had your way with me."
She arched her brows. "Whose way was just had here?"
"Well, I guess we broke even," he conceded generously.
"Hah." She straightened her slip. "My insides feel like churned butter."
"Don't do that," he said softly.
She paused in the act of pulling up her straps.
"I find," he explained, hooking a finger into one strap to pull it back down, "that I like looking at you naked, too."
She let the slip sag back down to her waist. His gaze roved over her still-flushed breasts. "I like..." She was surprised to find herself strangely shy all of a sudden. Perhaps because she supposed this felt new to him right now, which made her feel a bit like it was new, too. "I like you looking."
He scooted the stool a little closer, until he was sitting between her legs, then took her hand. "I remember..."
"What?" she pounced.
"Feeling this way," he said vaguely. "With you. Love. Sex. Happy. Close." He frowned and shook his head. "They're not specific memories. It's that... when I touch you, I know what you want, what you like. I'm not just guessing. I can tell that I've learned these things about you, in a past I just can't remember clearly. I recognize the feel of your skin. The taste of your mouth. When you touch me, I know you've done it before. I know... the way we feel together." His fingers idly stroked hers as he continued, "And the way you breathe, the sound of your voice, the way you smell... I can tell you're the woman I sleep with, live with, think about. The one I know best. The one I love. It was you I was afraid I'd betray when I was held prisoner."
"Betray?" she said so faintly that he didn't seem to hear her.
"I know it was you. But..."
"But what?" she prodded.
"Things are so vague. I think I can remember loving you, being afraid for you. Even trying not to love you, at first. But the specific things..." He pressed his lips together—then winced and touched his lower lip gingerly, bleeding a little again. "You bit me."
"What?" She blinked.
He nodded to the table upon which she sat, where they had just made love. "You bit me. Hard. Ouch."
"Oh."
"It was just getting better, too," he complained.
"I'm not going to apologize," she informed him. "You made me do it."
"I think that's an exaggeration," he objected. Seeing her expression, he smiled and amended, "Well, slight exaggeration, anyhow."
"It seems," she said, returning to the subject at hand, "that you're at least remembering more—or are more aware of your past, more aware that you have a past—than you were this morning." Realizing that it was well past midnight, she shrugged and tried, "Yesterday morning."
She leaned forward and gingerly touched his head injury. "And you don't seem damaged in any other serious way."
"Far from it." He slid her a sly glance. "As I think I've just proved
."
"I mean," she said dryly, "no slurred speech or blurred vision. You can think and reason."
"And fulfill my conjugal duties."
"Even if you can't remember your wife."
He suddenly squeezed her hand. "I do remember you," he insisted.
"You probably wouldn't even know my name if I hadn't told it to you," she said sadly.
He sighed. "That's what I mean. That's the kind of thing I can't remember. Facts. Names. Incidents. Specifics. I feel like it's all right on the tip of my tongue, like a word you've forgotten for a moment and can't dredge up—but then you suddenly remember it an hour after you don't need it anymore."
He drew her hand up to his mouth, gently kissed her palm, and held it against his face for a moment. "I can remember being so in love that I didn't trust my own judgment anymore. I can remember feeling embarrassed about it, but being unable to change it or stop it. I remember laughing in bed with you, but I don't remember why or when or where."
"You're sure it was me? You were hardly a virgin when we met."
"No, I know it was you. And it was..." He looked up to the left, as if seeing the incident there in the distance. "It was daylight..." He started speaking more slowly. "Afternoon. We're both naked... no, you're wearing a big scarf... a shawl? And your hair is down..."
"Yes," she said, her heart flooding with relief as she recognized the day he was describing. "You are remembering."
"The scarf... shawl... it was from... North Africa... French colonies... Very sexy... black and see-through, with leaves..."
"Embroidered," she encouraged.
"Leaves embroidered in gold thread... and flowers embroidered in bright colors... silk thread... You used to wear it over your hair, and around your shoulders, on special occasions."
"Yes. Paul..."
"I took it and..." His gaze suddenly shifted to hers, bright and focused now while he continued, almost as if expecting her to deny it, "I used it to tie you to the bed?"
She cleared her throat. "Yes. That's right."
"And you..." He paused, then grinned. "Afterwards, you said you'd never be able to wear it to church again."
"And then on Christmas Eve, at midnight Mass, you made a point of asking me, in front of Madame Didier, why I wasn't wearing it."
His grin widened for a moment, then his attention moved to something else. "Madame Didier..." He shook his head. "Nothing. Not even a..." His eyes widened. "Her husband is dead. The leader of the local Resistance group."
"Yes. Since—"
"November. You said." He suddenly grimaced and touched his head, as if it were pounding again. "Who's... ah..."
"Maybe you should—"
"No. Tell me. Who's in charge since he died?"
She'd been so worried about them killing him if they found out he was still alive, she hadn't even thought to tell him until this moment: "You are."
He groaned. "Somehow, I just knew you were going to say that."
Chapter Six
June 5, 1944
Paul's head throbbed as he considered this revelation. "Why did Didier leave me in charge? You said he knew I was OSS, knew I wasn't French."
Gabrielle sat on the table, still flushed and glistening from passion, aroused and sated. Her golden hair tumbled gloriously around her shoulders. She looked heartbreakingly beautiful, and her scent... Clean skin and warm woman, rain-washed hair and recent sex... God, she smelled wonderful to him—and familiar. He wasn't lying to comfort her. He did remember her now. But only in a visceral way. His senses remembered her, even more so now that she had so vividly reminded him of what they shared as lovers. His emotions were clarifying into utter certainty, too. This passionate, almost irrational devotion he was feeling wasn't a sudden infatuation. It was part of him, so much so that he'd felt strange and lost earlier, missing it without knowing what he was missing.
He just didn't remember any facts about her. Or anything else. It all seemed to be right on the tip of his tongue, just at the edge of his conscious thoughts... But the harder he pursued concrete memories, the more frustratingly elusive they seemed.
Gabrielle answered, "He respected you. Trusted you. And didn't trust many others."
"Why? Was he just naturally suspicious?"
She shrugged in that very French way she had. It made her naked breasts wobble briefly. He watched, not even pretending that he didn't—she was his wife, after all, and she'd just said that she liked him looking at her.
"Didier had vague suspicions of a traitor among us. He trusted you, me, Jean Deschamps..." She shook her head. "I'm not sure he trusted anyone else. And of the three of us, you were best able to lead if he died, so he chose you."
"Did anyone mind?"
"Deschamps, certainly. He's never liked you." She hesitated, as if trying to decide whether or not to say more.
"What?" he prodded.
"Nothing."
"Gabrielle?"
"I don't think Madame Didier was pleased, either."
He could tell it wasn't what she'd been thinking about a moment ago, but it was interesting enough that he asked, "Why? I mean, apart from the fact that her husband was now dead, which must have been hard for her."
"I don't know, and I may be wrong," Gabrielle admitted. "It was a feeling I got. She never really liked you much."
"Did anyone?" he asked.
She grinned. "Well, I find you tolerable." He rolled his eyes. "Most people whom you and I know in common like you, or at least respect you. But you know many people you don't tell me about." She leaned forward and suggested, "Perhaps they don't like you, either."
"So was Didier right? Was there a traitor among us?"
Her expression changed as she sat back. "You thought his death might be an indication that there was. But we never had any proof."
"No leads? No ideas?"
"None that led to any answers."
"Who knew about this besides you and me?"
"Your superiors."
"Anyone else?"
She made a vague gesture. "In a way. I mean, there has been suspicion among us all since before Didier died, and it got stronger after that. But I was the only one among us with whom you discussed any specific suspects or strange incidents." She frowned. "Do you think someone among us betrayed you to the Nazis, and that's how you got caught?"
"I don't know. And it seems that, until I remember what happened, I won't know."
"There were a number of people whom I don't know and don't really know about—"
"Who knew who I was, and who might have turned me in." He sighed. "Yes, I understand." Why couldn't he have lost an eye instead of his memory? "And what was I doing when I was captured? Where had I been? What do I know? And how important is it?" He met her troubled gaze and wondered aloud, "And did I keep it to myself, or did I talk in the end?"
She was very still now. "Do you remember anything from the chateau yet?"
"Nothing beyond what I've already told you," he replied wearily, rubbing his temples.
"Maybe if you tried to relax—"
He snorted. "A little while ago, you relaxed me as much as is humanly possible, chérie."
"And it didn't do any good," she said miserably.
"Bite your tongue." He added, "You've already bitten mine, after all."
"I meant—"
"I know what you meant." He put a hand on her knee. "It did do some good, in that sense. I told you. I'm remembering more. Just not—"
"Facts, yet. Names, dates, places, incidents." When he nodded, she continued, "But, er, relaxing helped you a little?"
He smiled. "Well, I suppose it was more complicated than relaxing, but, yes, it helped."
"Then maybe if we made it simpler." When he lifted one brow, she spread her legs wider and opened her arms to him. "Pull your stool closer."
He did. Then, feeling cool now, he reached down for the blanket on the floor and draped it over his shoulders, letting it form a tent over all of his body and the lower half of hers. She took
his face between her hands for a moment, then speared her fingers into his hair, pulling his head down into her lap as her thighs bracketed his shoulders. Her belly was smooth under his cheek, the soft fabric of her slip soothing.
"Close your eyes," she instructed.
He did. Her fingers gently stroked his hair. He sighed and sagged, letting his head rest heavily on her. The scent of their recent passion rose from her loins, flooding his mind, comforting him, embracing him in a familiar sensation of peace and contentment.
"Talk to me," he murmured, wanting to add the sound of her voice to the cocoon she was creating for him.
"The first time I ever saw you," she said, "I knew. Not that I'd love you or marry you, or what kind of man you were. But I knew... something. Knew that I wanted to know so much more. Knew that I'd keep coming back. I suppose I knew that I'd been looking for you."
"Where did you see me?"
"In Didier's café. You were sweeping the floor."
"Oh, yes. My cover story."
"But I already knew the truth. Didier had asked me there specifically to meet you that day."
"So you already knew I was a dashing American spy."
"Terribly dashing," she agreed dryly, and he smiled. "Didier had told you I'd been cultivating the German officer—"
"The one you were going to let seduce you."
"Yes. You wanted to discuss the plan." He heard the smile in her voice as she added, "Then, as I've told you, you put a stop to it."
It made perfect sense at first, so even he didn't understand his own revulsion for the plan after meeting the woman. Didier was right about her, too: strong, smart, capable, gutsy. Good-looking enough to attract the German officer. To attract any man. It was more than looks, though. Charm, humor, warmth...and there was something so head-swimmingly sexual about her, despite her modest clothes and polite manner, that his mouth had gone dry and he'd had trouble concentrating on anything anyone said...
"Paul?"
He realized she must feel his tension. "A memory..."
She said nothing, just stroked his hair. But now he could feel her tension, too.
The door to the past closed, though, and the harder he tried to re-open it, the more it resisted him.
