The Paris Secrets trilogy: includes: Window, Screen, and Skin

by Michele Renae

  My toes wiggled nervously, the silver toe ring glinting under the lamp glow. My fingers actually shook a little, too. I glanced aside where the long mirror that leaned against the wall caught my reflection. The woman in the mirror with the wet hair and bright yellow robe nodded at me. She was the vixen within who had giggled and delighted when I'd initially flashed my breasts to Monsieur Sexy. She was the one who had the nerve to finger herself before the window as he watched, his hand firmly wrapped about his cock.

  She was me. And I was in for the ride.

  I scrolled across the Skype menu and clicked on Video. All I had to do was lift my finger from the trackpad…

  The tiny green camera light on the laptop flashed on. The all-seeing eye. An entrance into my home, my bedroom, my very soul. A video box opened on the majority of the screen, hiding Romain's sexy smirk. And then he appeared, looking straight at me. He smiled, his eyebrows perking up in delight, and then waved.

  I returned the silly little wave I'd perfected from behind glass. It was our silent greeting that we knew well. I was almost compelled to grab a notebook and scribble out a 'What now?' but I didn't have to. I could simply speak.

  The ability to form words scrambled off into a shadowed corner. My tongue felt numb. The simple skill of speech I'd learned twenty-eight years ago up and abandoned me. Oh, Romain, what do I do now?

  I turned the music down to a quiet background murmur.

  "Bonsoir," he said. Nervous as well, I sensed. He rubbed a thumb across his chin and looked aside before meeting my gaze and smiling widely.

  Oh my God, his eyes were so gorgeous. Framed within black-rimmed glasses. Grayish blue and deep, not pale. They held depth and…soul. A girl could navigate new worlds in those eyes and wouldn't protest should the adventure lure her to Wonderland.

  "All right," he said. "I will speak first. We are both nervous, oui?"

  I nodded. His voice was accented with the French tones I heard every day walking about the city. But he was speaking to me. And the accent was only for me. Here was the Frenchman I'd dreamed about. Had wanted to meet, fall in love with, and make passionate love to for days on end. Yet he spoke English well.

  Because he was smart. Computer geek, remember? Oh, but I knew how to pick them.

  "You are nervous, mon abeille?"

  I nodded again. I could listen to him speak all day. And stare into his eyes. I almost reached to touch the screen.

  Suddenly the vixen poked me and I cleared my throat. "Yes," I managed. "Nervous? A little. Maybe a lot. Uh, hi. Your voice."

  "Oui?"

  "It's so sexy," I offered with what I felt was a blush, but in reality, I think my entire body turned a rosy shade. I was growing warmer everywhere, especially between my thighs. It was his eyes. That soft yet penetrating gaze permeated my skin and heated my insides. "You speak English well."

  "I speak English, German, and some Russian. But I am a Frenchman to the bone. Was born in Paris, actually. You are American."

  He said it as if he knew it. I didn't need to confirm. Instead, I simply listened. His voice was some kind of magic. Deep and steady, no awkward attempts at English, yet so gorgeously edged with the French accent.

  "I won't try to guess what state you are from judging your accent. There are so many American accents."

  "Iowa," I offered. "Midwestern middle of nowhere."

  "Iowa is below Minnesota, oui?"

  I nodded, struck by the beauty of him. The exquisite sound of him.

  "I have been to Minneapolis on business. Pretty in the summer." He pushed the thick, black-rimmed glasses up his nose. "We will continue with the no names rule?"

  "Oh, yes. Uh…it may seem weird to you, but I'm more comfortable maintaining that rule. For now, anyway."

  "It is not weird. It is unusual, but not weird." A grin broke in his eyes first and I caught my chin against my palm. Wow.

  I couldn't take my eyes from his face. It was so close, and yet hundreds of miles away. And his voice. Honey and French lavender woven together. What a way to trap a bee.

  "You are beautiful, mon abeille."

  And he was sex incarnate. I wanted to grab him by the face and kiss him. French him. Moan into his mouth and melt against his body. This little bee's wings were humming for some action.

  "You are not saying much. Is everything okay?"

  "Oh yes," I said. "Uh, I mean." I sighed. "I'm just falling into your voice. I could get lost in it. Maybe even live there. I know that sounds silly."

  "You forget I have seen you at your silliest," he replied.

  "Yeah?"

  "Your stripper dance on my birthday made me smile. Er, I hope that was the intention?"

  It hadn't started that way, but it certainly had ended on a comical note. My attempts to give him a birthday present through glass by digging out a set of stripper tassels I'd won as a gag gift from a girlfriend's shower had resulted in an awkward display. I'd dubbed myself the Hunchback Stripper for my unskilled attempt at the dance.

  "I hope you had a great birthday," I offered.

  "A couple of friends and I went to a club in the 9th. You know the Pigalle?"

  "Yes, the red light district." I'd been there once or twice with my best friend, Melanie. The neighborhood featured three and four-story sex shops, flashing pink neon signs shaped like naked women, discreet hookup clubs, and not-so-discreet sex clubs.

  "It is touristy," he said, "but we danced and drank whiskey shots. It was a good time. It would have been even better dancing with you."

  "I do like club dancing. But you have seen my dance moves."

  His image tilted closer to the screen and his voice grew more velvet than it already felt. "You would dance with me, oui?"

  If he continued to pepper in some French words? Oh, fuck yes. He didn't need to speak the language, the accent alone was melting away my clothing, tightening my nipples, and wetting my pussy. And I'd seen him doing a sexy shimmy wearing only a towel while dancing around his bedroom. Yeah, I'd dance with the man.

  "Mon abeille, you are...falling again?"

  I nodded. Always. "You're wearing glasses. I've seen you wear them to read."

  He tapped the rims. "My long distance vision from window to window is excellent. But up close and for the computer? Not so good. They bother you?"

  "No!" I rushed out. Hooking my little finger at the corner of my mouth, I blushed again. So different speaking as compared to gesturing. I had to rein it in. "The glasses are sexy. You're sexy."

  He bowed his head and I think he actually blushed. I'd called him sexy what—two or three times already in less than five minutes? So smooth, Miss Cyber Virgin. Not.

  But I was a cyber virgin so I had to cut myself some slack.

  We got caught in a silent appraisal of one another. The silence felt comfortable, familiar, so I let my gaze soften on him. He wasn't blatantly tan, but he did have a healthy skin tone. And that mustache and the trace of a stubble smudge under his lower lip were perfection. Mmm… I often imagined him as a musketeer who would lift my skirts and go down on me, his tongue sinking into my depths and then twirling around my clit until my body shook beneath his command. All for one and...oh, yes, please.

  A lift of his brow clued he was waiting for me to speak. Did I have to? Couldn't I daydream a while longer?

  "So I haven't seen you dressed all that often," I said, sliding up my feet on the bed so my legs were bent. I adjusted the laptop so my face still appeared on screen. "You do clothing well."

  He laughed, and I instinctively reached for the screen. Wanting to touch those crinkles at the corners of his eyes. To hold that liquid laughter that sounded as good as it had looked through the window.

  "I could listen to your laughter all day," I confessed. We'd been more intimate than this. Bald truths should not be difficult from here on out.

  "And you laugh every time you come," he said. "I love that."

  "I don't think I do every time."

  He tilted his head and nodded. "Oui. You
do. It is one of the things that makes you sexy to me. That and your ease to walk before the window and show me everything. Your ecstasy. Your silly side. Even your sadness. You are a confident woman."

  He saw all that in me? I guess I wasn't as much of a wallflower as I'd always thought. Introversion didn't mean shyness or even being a hermit. I simply guarded my privacy. Yet with him, I preferred to share, because I knew I could trust him. And there was a certain perversion of danger play that appealed as well.

  "Tell me," I asked, "that day we saw each other on the street outside your building." It had only been three days since then. My mind had been wandering on my walk home from a shopping excursion and I'd forgotten to loop around his building so I wouldn't accidentally run into him. We'd stood but twenty paces from one another for breathless moments. "Did you want to walk up to me?"

  "More than I needed to breathe, mon abeille. I wanted to crush you up against me and kiss you and… " He rubbed a thumb along his temple, casting that soft gaze upon me again. So much emotion in his eyes. "But I sensed you were still unsure. I didn't want to rush you. I never want to do that. What we have…"

  He paused for so long, I felt compelled to fill in the silence. "It's different."

  "It is. But not a wrong different."

  "No. It's something we have created for ourselves, and we're figuring out how it works as we go."

  "Oui. I like that. Figuring it out as we go. Because, uh…we are a we?"

  Strange to hear a desperate kind of hope in that question. But then, it did match my hope. And that he felt the same made me giddy with singing bluebirds and sunshine beaming from all around my head.

  "Yes, we are a we," I confirmed. "Yet I don't suppose I've a right to demand exclusivity."

  "Demand it," he insisted. The shadow of a mustache above his lip looked so lickable. My God, I'm so glad I'd clicked on Video this evening.

  "Very well. Let's call this a relationship," I said. "Just the two of us. No others allowed."

  Not that I expected a third party, but there were some who trolled for online lovers. I'd done research on it for an author last year. Cyber addicts kept a list of hookups and rarely stuck to just one. A different cyber sex partner for every day of the week was the norm. And two or three at a time? The more the merrier.

  "I can do that," he said. "I want to do that with you, mon abeille."

  I let out a breath and simply smiled at the screen for a while, allowing my heart to slow to a casual pace instead of frantic. We were a we. How cool was that?

  We fell into that easy stare that we had mastered from window to window. When his eyes averted downward, and a smile tickled the corner of his lips, he finally said, "You are wearing the robe with the bee on it. I can see the inner curves of your breasts. I want to kiss them."

  Instant gush between my legs. I was so slick I wanted to reach down and test the waters, but instead I pressed my thighs together to focus the intense hum of pleasure. Mmm...yes. I cupped my breasts, the silk sliding over the nipples and revealing them fully to him.

  "You want to kiss these?" I teased.

  Drawing my fingers along the edges of the robe, I pushed it off my shoulders, and put down my legs, sitting up straight. I allowed him a good look at them.

  He'd seen them before. From a distance of fifteen feet and through glass. In a manner, he was still looking through glass. But the distance was lesser.

  He kissed the tips of his fingers and said, "Foutre."

  I knew that meant fuck.

  "Do you know how often I think about fucking you, mon abeille?"

  I sighed and leaned forward. His eyes were blue and gray and deep and wide and, yes, I had taken the proverbial fall and was currently performing the backstroke.

  "As often as I?" I flicked him a cheeky wink.

  "I dream about you," he said. "I wake in the morning with you on my mind."

  And, apparently, on his cock. I'd caught him one morning—spied him through the glass—asleep on his bed, naked, erect cock high and proud. But I had no intention of telling him that I peeped on him when he wasn't looking. That was just creepy, right?

  And having a sexual relationship through glass wasn't creepy?

  No, it wasn't. Voyeurism was a safe fetish when shared by two consenting adults. Besides, we'd moved on. Cyber sex was the hot thing. The intimacy of such a situation moved beyond touch because it was all about the brain. And the brain was the biggest sexual organ in the body.

  Sigh... We were almost close to normal now that we'd added voice to our repertoire.

  "What are you thinking about?"

  I dipped my head, because his question made me blush. I thought I'd gotten over my inhibitions by flashing the man through glass, but there were still things we could do that tested the depths of my intimate discretions. Like talking about sex. There was a hell of a lot more emotion involved in talking than going through the motions and watching without sound. Talking revealed more than sight alone with tone and rhythm. It was that brain thing. Voice engaged my imagination and at the same time connected me to reality. A heady new challenge.

  "You don't have to tell me your thoughts," he said. "We can talk about anything. I like to listen to your voice."

  "I'm sure the American accent has nothing on the French when it comes to sensuality. Your voice does things to me."

  "Is that so?" Boyish glee glinted in his eyes. Mercy, I needed to touch my humming clit. "Like what?"

  I tapped my chest instead. "I feel it here. The tenor of your voice stirs in me. Makes my skin warm, and…" I lowered my eyes, lashes dusting my cheeks. "…makes me wet."

  "My voice does that? That is remarkable. So I wouldn't have to touch you, just talk?"

  I nodded then offered a sheepish shrug. "You have something, Monsieur Sexy. Oh—" I pressed fingers to my mouth. I hadn't meant to tell him I called him that. Darn.

  "Monsieur Sexy? Is that what you call me?"

  Another sheepish lift of shoulder.

  "You started as Mr. Sexy," I said, deciding I was in over my head, so I might as well go down and sit at the bottom like a properly chastised naughty girl. "But since you're French..."

  "I see. I'm not sure I can live up to such a title."

  "Don't worry about that. Your voice alone…" I purred a satisfied noise from the base of my throat.

  "Now you are making me self-conscious."

  "Really?" I perked up and searched his eyes. He glanced aside for a few seconds. "After all the times I've watched you jack off, a silly little nickname is what makes you nervous?"

  He swiped a hand over his mouth and leaned back in his chair. A coffee cup went to his lips, and he sipped. "Tea," he offered. "Chamomile. It calms me after a long day at work."

  "I prefer cinnamon myself. And you're changing the subject."

  "So I am. We are testing the grounds, oui? This new medium of voice challenges our expectations of one another."

  "Oui," I said. "Truth? I would feel more comfortable stripping off my clothes for you if we hadn't sound on these things."

  "I can relate to that. This is more intimate than what we've done thus far. But I don't want to go back to the window. Not when your pretty blue eyes are so close to me now. Do you want me to turn off the sound?"

  I actually considered it for nano-seconds. "No. We can do this. But is it okay if we go slow?"

  "How slow?"

  Splaying my hands over my naked breasts, I felt entirely comfortable sitting there. And I could see on the little screenshot of me that my breasts bounced up and down into the picture as I moved. I then wobbled my hand back and forth to signal middle ground. Then I realized I'd just made a hand gesture.

  I wasn't standing before the window anymore.

  "Let's play it by ear," I finally said.

  "How does that mean? I'm not sure I understand that phrase."

  "Oh. Uh. Let's go with however comfortable we're feeling. I'm flashing you my boobs. I'm comfortable with that."

  "I am comfort
able with that, too."

  His sexy grin started at the corners of his eyes and curled his mouth. It was a comfortable place I'd peered into often. And now I'd taken a step across the threshold. I liked it there, standing in the foyer waiting to be invited further.

  "I think your breasts are very sensitive to touch," he said. "You like to squeeze your nipples to get off, oui?"

  "You noticed?"

  "I have noticed everything about you, mon abeille. Your breasts are full yet soft like peaches. They are a handful for you."

  I cupped my breasts before the monitor. Yep, he was right. Perfect handful. But what it would feel like to have a larger, more masculine pair of hands on them tickled at my core and tightened my nipples against my palms.

  "Mm, I'm thinking about you touching them right now."

  "Me as well," he agreed. "Your nipples are always hard. I could lick them for you. Trace my tongue along the soft undersides of your breasts. Taste your sweetness. Drag my tongue up to the rubies that grow harder in my mouth. Then I will slide my teeth along them in a tease."

  I pressed my thighs together. The heat between them slipped moist and slick across my skin. What had happened to going slow?

  Fuck slow. Seriously.

  "You like me to suck them hard or softly?"

  "Both," I answered immediately.

  Hands still cupping my breasts, I tilted back my shoulders to lift the sweet treats he described for his tongue. I couldn't feel the hot, wet lash of him tasting me, but I did feel a satisfying tingle skitter across my skin when I tweaked both nipples with my fingers. I moaned and settled against the pillow, the laptop wobbling on my thighs.

  "Mmm," he growled. His eyes were closed, one hand held up before his face, his fingers dancing imperceptibly. Imagining his actions. "I think you taste like honey, mon abeille. And you smell like a honey-soaked bee. Anticipation jitters your heartbeats beneath my mouth. Fast. You like it firm now. I suck in your skin and feed on your nipple. The texture of it against my tongue is fun to play with. I lick it and trace the rigid peak until I can memorize the shape of you. I could suckle from you forever. Mon Dieu."

  The hand before him dropped to his lap. I couldn't see what he was doing, but I had my suspicions.