by Zoë Archer
Their limbs tangled together. She reveled in the feel of his legs against hers, the wool of his trousers abrading her softer skin. He reached down between them, cradling her breast through the muslin of her chemise like she was something precious but strong. She arched up into his touch.
He peeled away her chemise, baring her to the waist. Still holding her breast, he lowered his head. She gasped as his lips found her nipple, drawing on it, circling his tongue around the sensitive tip. He gave the same attention to her other breast, and she writhed beneath him.
He had an instinct for how to touch her, how to set her afire. His hands roamed over her body, and in his touch, she sensed everything they couldn’t speak. I want you. I need you. This can’t ever last.
Impatiently, he tugged off her drawers. She was nude, fully exposed, and let him look his fill as she stretched out on the bed. His face grew tight and sharp, his breathing ragged. She gasped at the sensation of the rough skin of his palm skimming over her belly, then lower. He cupped her sex—only that, held her in his hand in a gesture of tender possessiveness.
But she wanted even more than this, and pushed her hips up, demanding. He obliged, kissing her as he stroked between her folds. He rumbled his approval at finding her wet and ready. And when he slid one, and then two fingers inside her, she cried out into his mouth.
She was pinned with desire—his mouth on hers, one hand stroking her breast, the other hand between her legs. Lost. She was lost to this. To him.
How does he know me so well and yet we can’t bridge this distance between us?
She gripped his shoulders, the muscles tensing and shifting beneath her touch.
Freeing herself, she opened her legs wider, sensation building. His strokes became faster, deeper, as his thumb pressed against her bud. Lightly, he pinched her nipple.
Her orgasm came on quickly. It harrowed her, this mixture of ecstasy, love, and sadness, gripping her tightly in its unrelenting clutches. Like a storm, it rode over her in torrential waves, pleasure upon pleasure, heightened and sharpened by the fact that this thing she and Marco shared had to pass, like any storm. And she could hope that her feelings for him would lessen over time.
Spent, she collapsed upon the bed, her breath ragged. Yet this wasn’t enough.
She reached for the fastenings of his trousers. He didn’t stop her, and when the fastenings were undone, he tossed his remaining clothing onto the floor.
He stretched out above her, and their gazes locked. She saw it in his eyes, too—a sorrowful hunger, a wish for something impossible.
She wanted whatever she could have. Like grabbing the ebbing tide, even as she watched the ocean slip through her fingers, called back by an unstoppable force. And when he positioned himself at her entrance, she angled her hips to meet his. His fingers interlaced with hers. They continued to hold each other’s gaze. Then he slid into her.
Neither looked away as he began to move. They didn’t close their eyes to lose themselves in pleasure. This was now. This moment. Her future self would face the repercussions and anguish.
He kept a steady rhythm, deliberate. Controlled. But she felt when his prized control abandoned him. His pace increased, his jaw tensed, his eyes flared. Sensation built within her again, so soon when she’d thought herself wrung out. But he called it forth from her. His palms pressed tightly against hers, almost more intimate than his flesh within her.
Neither spoke. Not a word, but their intermingled breath and enmeshed bodies spoke for them as they made love with a kind of desperation. Straining toward something. She knew it as a futile love. What he felt—she couldn’t say. Only felt his body tight and hard and demanding.
Outside, all was danger. In the dusty, shabby little room behind the toy shop, everything was uncertain. Except the desire between them.
Another climax took her, bright and hard. An instant later, his followed, and he pulled out just in time to spill onto her belly.
Their fingers finally unclasped. He used a corner of the sheets to clean her, then rolled onto his back. They were apart again.
She stared up at the grimy ceiling, nude, sweat-glossed, her forearm lying across her forehead. She listened to his breathing as it eased, her own breath still heaving in and out.
They’d agreed that this thing between them could never go for very long, and never beyond the physical. And, at the time they’d made that pact, she’d believed it. She had no desire to entrap anyone with false promises.
But she’d lied not to him, but to herself. Because now she did want more. And it wasn’t just the physical pleasure she craved.
No, what she wanted was him. In all his cunning permutations. The man capable of picking a lock in seconds. Who sought justice for those who couldn’t obtain it for themselves. Who was moved to passion by her music.
She’d said that he kept himself withheld, but now she realized her mistake. All along, he’d been revealing himself to her. Perhaps without his knowledge, but he’d done it just the same. In tiny, gleaming fragments. His ethos. The tales of his family. His very opacity revealed that he was a man who felt deeply. Maybe more deeply than he knew.
In all this time, she had come to know him. Like an archaeologist, slowly uncovering the priceless artifact buried beneath layers of sand and history. All it took was patience.
Because there seemed to be a part of him that wanted to be revealed, to be known. She felt his yearning in his touch, in his dark gaze, sheltered in whispered Italian.
But she couldn’t make him bridge that gap. She couldn’t cling to him, trapping him with declarations of love. Unfair to expect something he wasn’t willing to give. And she … she’d have her own life to return to, away from Nemesis and secret train rides and rooftop dangers.
As if reading her thoughts, he asked, “What will you do? Once your fortune’s been returned?”
“I suppose I’ll find myself someplace to live. Bloomsbury, perhaps.”
“Bohemian.” He stroked his fingers along her torso, and her thoughts scattered like moths.
She fought to gather herself. “More affordable than Mayfair or Bayswater. And it will be just me, so I won’t need anything particularly large.”
“So you’ll have a home again.” He sounded almost melancholy about the idea. “Then what?”
“Then…” She tried to picture the hazy future beyond this moment. Since she’d learned that her fortune was gone, her life had been a series of moments strung together by fragile filaments, ready to snap. “I’d thought I’d go back to what I’d been doing. The usual society activities.” Now she sounded melancholy. Having seen what she’d seen, done what she’d done, that old life seemed so pallid.
And a life without him … seemed even more wan and flat.
“No,” she corrected herself. “I’ll probably take a flat somewhere, like Bedford Park. Do like I said to Giovanni. Use the rest of my money to open a home for widows.”
It had been all too easy for someone of her station to fall into helpless destitution. For those women already in less fortunate circumstances, they would be even more vulnerable and in need. She might never know exactly what they felt, what they experienced, but she could help where she might.
“A noble plan,” he murmured.
“Selfish, actually,” she corrected. “My conscience wouldn’t leave me alone if I went back to picnics and dinner parties. I’d never get a decent night’s sleep.”
He shifted, rolling to his side and propping himself up on his elbow. His hair was in delicious disarray, a mop of black curls that begged for her fingers. More of his beard had grown in, too, giving him a raffish look, like one of the pirates that used to sail the Spanish Main, preying upon enemy ships and sending all female hearts to helpless longing.
“That’s assurdo,” he said heatedly, “and you know it. Nothing selfish about helping others. It shows that you’ve got a good heart.”
She smiled gently. “Is that why you do it?” She pressed her palm to the center of his che
st, feeling the brush of hair, and the steady beat of his own heart.
He scowled. “Setting wrongs to right—that’s why I do it. Making sense out of disorder. It’s no different from solving a mathematical equation.”
“Yes,” she replied. “I can see why you’d risk your life again and again just because two plus two doesn’t equal five.”
“Bronwyn,” he said warningly.
“I’m applying your logic. Action, not words, define character. If I’ve learned anything over the course of this mad journey, it’s that.” She lifted herself up, bracing herself on her elbows. “You tell me again and again that you’re not a hero. And maybe you’re not. What’s a hero, though? Someone of pure soul and intentions? No one like that exists. But there are people like you, and Simon, and Harriet. And even Giovanni. People that do what they can with what they have. Seems fairly heroic to me—as heroic as anyone can be in the real world.”
He stared at her for a moment. “I won’t shake you of that belief, will I?”
“No,” she answered. “Because it’s my belief, and I’ll never let it go. It’s not a theory, either. It’s been tested many times over the past few weeks.” She smiled to herself. “Many things have been tested these past weeks.”
He brushed a lock of hair back from her face. “Damn it, fragola. I’m going to miss you.”
“I know,” she replied.
Then they lay down to sleep, neither speaking of the future.
* * *
When she woke, she bathed as best she could. She used a small jug of water and ewer Marco had procured.
Despite her quick bath, though, as she and Marco approached the headquarters of the Sûreté, Paris’s police, she felt distinctly unkempt. Her lone outfit showed its wear, and she’d had to dress her hair without the benefit of a mirror or maid. Marco wasn’t much assistance. He, of course, looked immaculate, despite the fact that they’d both been through the same ordeals. In contrast to the way he could somehow make himself fade into near invisibility, the moment he set foot inside the building, he radiated authority and demanded respect as though it were his due.
Blue-jacketed policemen scurried out of his way as he strode to the desk sergeant, Bronwyn hurrying to keep up with him.
“Oui?” The sergeant didn’t lift his head up from filling out his blotter with the latest developments in Paris’s criminal activities.
Marco said nothing.
“Well?” the sergeant asked in French, still not looking up.
Yet Marco continued to remain silent.
Finally, the sergeant looked up. The moment he looked at Marco, he snapped to attention, tugging on the tunic of his uniform. “How may I help you, monsieur?”
“Captain Journet,” Marco said.
“Is he expecting you?”
“No, but he’ll want to see me.”
The sergeant started to rise from his desk, then stopped halfway. “I’ll … uh … need to tell him who you are.”
“The man who can help him take a bite out of Les Grillons.”
The sergeant’s eyes widened, and he hurried off. After he’d gone, Bronwyn shook her head. “I doubt I’ll ever get used to that,” she murmured in English. “The way you can inhabit different personas.”
He shrugged. “Actors do it all the time.”
“Not the way you do. As if everyone has no choice but to believe you’re the person you present.”
“It’s a useful skill.”
She glanced at the hallway down which the desk sergeant had disappeared. “Clearly.”
What role did he play with her? The thought lowered her already melancholy mood.
“Who shall I be?” she asked.
“A woman who rejects the word no.”
She took the thought into herself, letting it seep into her.
Given that the police captain was likely a busy man, she expected her and Marco to be kept waiting, but within minutes, the sergeant returned. A man with a white goatee, dark suit, and sharp eyes strode behind him.
“This the man?” he asked the sergeant in French.
“Yes, sir.”
“Your name?” he demanded of Marco.
Bronwyn felt as though the command couldn’t be disobeyed—it was given with uncompromising authority. But Marco only shook his head.
“No names, Captain,” he answered. “At least, not mine or my companion’s. If we’re to give you what you want, everything is done anonymously.”
“My superiors won’t like that.”
“Then we’ll say good-bye, and good luck with Les Grillons.” Marco took her arm, as if to lead her out the door.
“Hold a moment,” Captain Journet snapped. He thought for a moment, then motioned for Marco and Bronwyn to follow him. “Come on, then.”
She’d never been inside a police station before, and the activity made her head whirl. Men in uniform and civilian clothing rushed back and forth, some carrying dossiers, others leading rough-faced men and women from one room to another. Noise buffeted her, and the eyes of many people followed her as she trailed after Marco and Journet, but she kept her chin tilted up, her glance cool and impersonal. I have never heard no.
Finally, Journet waved them into an office with his name painted on the glass mounted in the door. More half windows surrounded the room, though the slats of the blinds were tilted open. As she and Marco sat in the two chairs positioned in front of a desk, Journet closed the blinds with a snap.
The captain lowered himself into his chair and laced his fingers together, resting his hands on his desk. “All right, Monsieur and Madame Nameless, I’ll say this once.” He pointed at a battered clock at the edge of a console. “That thing only eats time, it doesn’t create it. Which means you have ten minutes before I tell Sergeant Daugier to throw you the hell out onto the street. Apologies, madame,” he added in Bronwyn’s direction.
“You’ll make time for this, Captain,” she answered.
“To wound Les Grillons?” Journet threw up his hands. “My men and I have been working for years to bring them to justice. Then you dance in here like some exile from the Moulin Rouge and tell me you’ve got the way to hurt that passel of bastards? Excuse me, but no, I can’t believe it.”
“Then believe this.” Marco held up the ledger given to him by Bertrand. He tossed it across the desk at Journet, who caught it neatly and began thumbing through its pages.
“What the devil is this?” he demanded.
“Solid evidence linking two of Les Grillons’ top men to the murder of Olivier Maslin,” Marco replied.
Journet stood, grabbed his clock, and dropped it into the rubbish bin beside his desk. Then he sat back down.
“My time is all yours, Monsieur and Madame Nameless.”
* * *
An hour later, after reviewing the evidence against Cluzet and Reynard, Bronwyn watched as Journet slowly shook his head.
“Is this Christmas?” He exhaled. “Because you’ve given me a gift. How’d you come by it?”
Marco only smiled. “I can’t say, and you know it.”
“Does it matter?” Bronwyn asked.
“Normally, yes,” answered the captain. “There are practices to follow. Rules to obey. But we’ve been hunting Les Grillons so long, no one upstairs is going to give a damn—apologies, madame—about things like procedure and policy. We just want to throw these bastards—apologies, again—in the darkest hole in France.”
“You’ve got your shovel right there,” Marco noted, nodding toward the ledger.
“I’ll need to keep this,” Journet said.
“Of course.”
But the captain had no idea that what he held was, in fact, a counterfeit. After they’d awakened, Marco had forged a duplicate copy of the ledger. It was a common enough notebook, found in stationer’s shops all over the city. He’d purchased one, and similar ink, and then spent hours meticulously reproducing the ledger. She’d gazed in amazement as he’d duplicated the tiniest nuance of the handwriting within. B
ut he hadn’t stopped at reproducing the writing. He’d taken gritty paper and recreated the wear on the ledger, and made certain that the pages within looked as though they’d been handled many times.
Yet another of his countless skills that continued to astonish her. It was a beautiful art, in a strange way.
He’d explained that making a duplicate of the ledger gave them added insurance, in case anything should happen to the original.
The captain had no idea he held a forgery, and no one who looked at the original and the reproduction would be able to tell the difference between the two.
“What happens now?” Bronwyn asked.
“I take this to my superiors,” Journet answered, “and close the trap around Les Grillons’ legs.” He narrowed his eyes. “What will you gain by it, the arrest of these two men?”
“I can’t tell you the particulars,” Marco replied. “But suffice it to say that my parents would still be alive if it weren’t for Les Grillons bleeding them dry.”
He told untruths so easily. But he’d never lied to her.
“How long will it take to bring them to justice?” Marco pressed.
“Much as I want to damn the rules entirely,” Journet said, “there’s still paperwork to be filed, and the case assembled. But the Sûreté wants to move fast on this. I’d give it a day, and then we’ll make our move. Are you on a clock, monsieur?”
“Time’s always in short supply, Captain,” he answered.
Did Marco want to tie everything up so he could finally be done with her and move on to the next assignment? Though he’d said he’d like to continue their relationship as lovers, once their association was over, he would soon be on his way. To the next job. The next woman.
“And we’ve been here too long,” Marco continued. He stood. “Shall we, my dear?”
She also rose. “If our business is concluded.”
“It is. For now.”
“How do I get in contact with you?” the captain asked.
