“I don’t believe you.” Kate backed away as the other woman pulled out a tiny gun and pointed it at her. “Have you lost your mind, lady?”
“Because I invited you, he’ll kill me, too,” Rosalinda told her flatly. “Now strip. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you myself. Then I can tell him I caught you spying.”
Kate slowly took off the lace dress and her thong. Once she was nude she pulled on the silk robe Rosalinda flung at her. “Spying? What the hell is going on here? You were just supposed to give me something for Thierry.”
“He will explain later.” Rosalinda tucked the gun back in her bodice. She then removed a small memory stick clipped under her thick dark mane. “Hold still,” she told Kate as she reached for her head. “The guards will not check your hair.”
Kate waited until the other woman had concealed the stick in her up-do before she said, “Look, I’m not Belanger’s lover, or part of whatever this is. I’m just a stand-in. I don’t know any spy stuff.”
Rosalinda’s expression turned bleak. “Then we are all fucked.”
“No. I’m not going to let anyone hurt Thierry.” Kate took a deep breath. “What do I need to do? Give me the crash course version.”
Rosalinda told her in succinct terms, and then added, “Rodrigo is already drunk; he can never handle too much brandy. When he passes out, the guards will take him to bed, and you and Belanger can go.”
As they walked back to the play room, Kate drew on the determination and calm she employed during fashion shows. What she had to do now seemed utterly outrageous. Buoyed by her secret love for Thierry, however, she knew she could manage it – and save them both.
Rodrigo hailed her with a happy belch. “Look at you, Katrina. Naked and all ready to play.”
Thierry came to her at once. “We’ll go now.”
“Not just yet,” she told him, giving him a fierce look before she went with Rosalinda to the restraining rack.
Kate pushed her hands into the cuffs, which the dominatrix secured around her wrists. She couldn’t help flinching as the other woman untied and opened her robe, but lifted her chin as the men stared.
“She is ready for you,” Rosalinda told Thierry. “Now come and play with her.”
Chapter Four
Kate kept her gaze locked with Thierry’s as he walked slowly over to the rack. When he slipped his hands inside the robe to grip her waist, she whispered, “Do it for real, boss.”
“I can’t, not to you.” He looked miserable. “Pretend to be sick.”
She couldn’t believe he was being so prissy. On the other hand, she loved him for it. “They won’t buy that, and they’ll kill us if you don’t.”
Thierry gave her a long, silent look, and then nodded. “Forgive me, Katie.” In a louder voice he said, “I don’t care how embarrassed you are, you little slut. You’re mine, and I’m going to do whatever I want to you.”
“Please, Monsieur, don’t.” As he caressed her breasts, making it look as if he was being rough with her, Kate struggled against the cuffs.
“Stop resisting,” he grated. “You know you like it like this.”
“You’re hurting me,” she cried out, trying to sound pitiful as she looked over his shoulder at Rodrigo, who grinned as he caught her eye.
“She wants me to watch. Do her from behind, Belanger, so I can see her pretty tits bounce,” Rodrigo said.
“Next time, I will,” Thierry told him as he reached down to unzip. “This time is for me. I like to watch her cry while I fuck her.”
Kate produced a realistic whimper as she glanced down at his thick, heavy shaft. Her thighs trembled as he shifted closer, sliding it between her legs. It had been so long since she’d had sex, she felt a little worried, until he rubbed against her. She felt her own wetness gliding against him, making him slick.
“Katie,” Thierry breathed, as if they were alone. “Is this for me? Are you wet for me?”
“Well, I’m not for anyone else in the room,” she whispered back. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it.”
“Never say so,” he murmured, kissing her cheek. “I love you for this. For wanting me.”
“What are you doing?” Rodrigo stumbled over to stand by the rack, his body swaying as he peered down at their sexes. “Stick it in her, Frenchman. She needs a good plowing, eh? No more teasing her. Fuck her now.”
Slowly Thierry reached down again, and this time positioned himself against the tight ellipse of her opening.
Kate bore down on him, engulfing his broad cockhead even as she thrashed against the cuffs. “No,” she moaned, dragging in a deep breath as he worked deeper inside. “Please, please, Monsieur.”
Thierry gripped her bottom with his big hands and began thrusting gently, his body tense and hot against her naked front. Kate could feel her breasts jiggling from the rocking, pumping penetrations, and wondered how much longer they’d have to continue before Rodrigo was satisfied. Then she remembered something, something so unbelievably important that she nearly wailed.
“She wants it harder,” Rodrigo said, leaning on the rack so close to Kate that his hot, brandy-soaked breath nearly choked her. “Give it to her.”
A flood of sensation swept over Kate as the sweet friction stoked her desire and swept away the last of her doubts. Suddenly she didn’t care that four strangers were watching them, or what Rodrigo was muttering. She didn’t even care about what she had just remembered. She thought only of Thierry, and how he was inside her, and who looked as if he was in agony.
“Oh, please,” she begged him, not bothering to act now. “More. Give me more, Monsieur.”
“You want more?” He plunged deep and hard, stroking out to hammer into her again. “Here, take it. Take all of it. Yes, there. Now I have you. I have you, Kate. I own you.”
He did own her, and he always had. Even with Rodrigo and the guards and Rosalinda there watching, Kate couldn’t hold back her climax. It ripped through her, bright and hot, the pleasure so intense she thought she might lose her mind.
“You are my darling one,” Thierry said to her in French as he pounded into her, his shaft like the piston of an engine racing out of control. “I am going to explode in you, Katie. I cannot stop now.”
He kissed her a moment before he came, and groaned into her mouth as he flooded her with his seed, his thick cock pulsing with each creamy jet. The intensity of the moment made them gasp together, stunned. Out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw a guard scoop Rodrigo from the floor. The little man sagged limply as the guard carried him out.
“Such passionate lovers you are,” Rosalinda said as she reached up to release Kate’s wrists. “The poor child looks exhausted though. Come, I will show you to a room where you can rest.”
Kate didn’t protest as Thierry tucked the robe around her and picked her up in his strong arms. She hid her flushed face against his chest as he followed Rosalinda down the hall into the room where Kate had left her clothes.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
“No.” Once he set her down on her feet she thought about telling him what she’d realized, and then decided it could wait. “Can we leave now, please?”
“You must dress, quickly,” the older woman said, scooping up Kate’s gown and flinging it at them. “Belanger, knock me out. Then go through the window, and down the fire escape. There is a car waiting at the end of the block for you.”
“You don’t belong with Rodrigo,” Thierry said as he pulled the lace dress over Kate’s head. “Come with us. We can arrange a new identity and life for you.”
“But not for my family,” Rosalinda said. “They watch them, you know, in Seville. If I cross the cartel, they will kill everyone I love. You must go now, please. Hit me, hard. Do it, Belanger.”
When Kate saw him still hesitating, she came over and punched the older woman. Everything she’d been through that night let her put her whole weight behind the blow. Thierry caught the dominatrix as she crumpled, and lowered her gently the rest of the way
to the floor.
Kate shook her throbbing knuckles before she grabbed his hand. “Come on, boss. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
#
Thierry took Kate to his hotel suite, where she walked onto the balcony overlooking the city. He watched her back, frowning. She hadn’t said a word since they’d left the villa. He grabbed a bottle of single malt from the bar and two glasses before he joined her.
Outside he poured a healthy measure into one glass and offered it to her. Wordlessly she took the bottle from him, drinking directly from it for ten seconds before she passed it back to him.
He had no choice but to say the three words that no woman ever wanted to hear. “I can explain.”
“Before you do.” She reached up and removed a small object from her hair, handing it to him. “Your thing.”
“Thank you.” He closed his fist around the memory stick and then pocketed it.
She nodded. “Explain now.”
“Obviously those people are not my friends,” he said carefully. “The villa is one of many strongholds used by an international terrorist cartel. Rosalinda is an informant, and what she gave you will help us stop an attack they’re planning. But she couldn’t pass it directly to me. Rodrigo’s guards watch her closely when she is around other men. They also report everything they see to him. So it had to be a woman – you.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time. “Who is ‘us’?”
“The DGSE. It is one of the French foreign intelligence services,” he admitted. “They are working together with the British and your government against this cartel. I agreed to help arrange this drop and retrieve the plans. It took almost a year to set it up.”
“So you’re a DGSE spy.” Her voice sounded flat, almost disinterested.
“I am a designer,” he corrected. “Who sometimes helps the DGSE. Kate, it was only supposed to be a drop. I never would have brought you into this—”
Kate slapped him, almost as hard as she’d hit Rosalina. “You bastard.” She stalked into the suite.
Thierry followed her into the master bath, and frowned as he watched her strip out of the lace gown. “What are you doing?”
“I’m using your shower.” When he stepped toward her, she glowered. “Alone.”
“I know how angry you are with me,” he said. “But you don’t understand. What we did tonight – you and I may have helped saved thousands of lives.”
“You’re still a bastard.” Kate pointed to the door. “Go find me some clean clothes I can wear.”
Thierry had a suite filled with expensive designer garments, many of which would have fit Kate perfectly. He went to his own suitcase and took out his favorite button-down shirt, which on her would be like a dress. He went back in the bath to hang it on the back of the door and then paced around the front room until she emerged.
“Kate, please.” He went to her, taking her hands in his. “I am sorry. I should never have lied to you. You were so brave tonight, so beautiful. And yes, I am a bastard, but a bastard who loves you. I did not know it until tonight, but now I do.”
Kate looked up at him if deciding whether or not to hit him again.
“I think you care for me a little, too.” Thierry seized her hand and brought it to his lips. “I will do anything to make this right between us. Please.”
Carefully she took her hand from him. “I just had bondage sex with you in front of four people, in a villa filled with perverts. Excuse me, international terrorist perverts. Your informant told me if I didn’t, we would be murdered, but that’s not why I did it.”
He sighed. “Then why, Katie?”
She jabbed her finger into the center of his chest. “I don’t care for you a little. I care for you a lot. Actually, I love you.” She shoved him hard enough to unbalance him. As he staggered backward, she advanced on him. “I’ve been in love with you for years, you conniving, cold-hearted, evil son of a bitch.”
He felt elated and dreadful all at once. “Then you will forgive me.”
“You don’t get it. Do you have any idea of the consequences involved in this? No, you don’t,” she said before he could reply. “You are completely clueless about anything but what you want and need and have to do. Thierry Belanger got what he wanted. The hell with the rest of the world.”
“No, Kate. You’re wrong.” Before he could pull her into his arms, she spun on her heel. “Kate.”
“We’re done. I quit.” Out she went, slamming the door behind her.
Chapter Five
Kate sat in her favorite outdoor café in Paris watching the tourists try to cross the Champs-Élysées without becoming roadkill. Her suitcases lay on the bed in her little studio apartment two blocks away. She still had to pack them. She hadn’t yet booked her flight back to the States. She hadn’t even called her parents to tell them she was giving up her vagabond ex-pat foolishness for good.
This time she actually had a damn good reason to go back home and be an American again.
Mom and Dad would be thrilled, of course. They still hoped she’d come home, marry a nice guy, and produce a bunch of grandkids for them to spoil. The one time she’d convinced them to come to France, they spent most of the visit complaining about the coffee.
“It’s like tar,” her father had said. “I can feel it sticking to my throat when I swallow.”
Kate loved French coffee. She loved France. She loved Thierry Belanger, the bastard, and he’d ruined it all for her. But without him the rest of her life yawned in front of her like a big, empty tunnel with no light whatsoever at the end.
At least for now.
Kate knew the tunnel wasn’t completely empty, and the light was there, too. It was just too small to see for the moment.
“Hi, there.” A slim person who could have been a pretty boy or a handsome girl sat down in the chair across from her. “Mind if I join you, Kate?”
She lifted her Wayfarers to squint at the elfin face, which looked a bit more feminine when she smiled back. The girl, if she was female, had a mid-western American accent, the body of a preteen, and the eyes of a world-weary wanderer.
“I’m a girl. Wren Calhoun.” She offered a small hand, which Kate ignored. “Wow. You really are pissed.”
“You’re a genius, too.” Kate sat back in her chair. “Get lost.”
Wren removed an envelope from her denim jacket and slid it across the table. “A little something from my boss, who must remain nameless. A gesture of his thanks for helping Belanger with the op. The big French guy’s really miserable over the whole forced-to-have-sex thing, you know.”
Kate tossed some Euros on the table as she stood, shouldered her purse and walked away. Wren Calhoun caught up a block later and paced her.
“What don’t you understand?” Kate asked without looking at her. “The get, or the lost?”
“Oh, I got that part. My big questions mark,” Wren said, “is why you blame Thierry. I mean, he had to sign like ten thousand non-disclosure statements after we recruited him. You know, the kind where you get thrown in federal prison for spilling the beans to anyone, even the woman you love? Or whatever the DGSE equivalent of that is.”
Kate stopped and turned toward her. For a terrible moment she thought she might lose her temper and let her have it, all of it, right in her little elfin spy face. But none of this was Wren Calhoun’s doing, and she didn’t want her running back to Thierry. “What do you want from me, kid?”
“I’m older than you, Kathryn,” Wren said, and stuffed the envelope in Kate’s purse. “Go see him. Please. Thierry hasn’t slept or ate since he got back. You won’t regret it.” A long black car pulled up to the curb, and Wren went to it and climbed inside, waving at her through the window before it sped off.
Kate trudged back to her apartment, more miserable now that she knew Thierry was definitely back in Paris. As she dragged herself up the narrow staircase to her floor, she pulled the envelope Wren had given her out of her bag and opened it.
Inside
wasn’t cash or a check, but two train tickets to Provence, and a battered old key tagged with a hand-written address. There was also a note, written in the same hand, thanking her. It was signed with simply a large S.
Kate took out her own keys to unlock her apartment door. Before she could, the old hinges creaked and it swung in. The smell of coffee and fresh bread made her decide against screaming for her landlady.
Inside Thierry Belanger took up most of the room in her tiny kitchen. He stood at the counter, where he placed bright red radishes atop slices of buttered bread. He barely glanced at her as she came in.
“I made you coffee for once.” He handed her a steaming cup.
She took a sip and leaned against the counter, eating him up with her eyes. He looked thinner and tired, as if everything Wren had told her was true. She blinked until the tears stop threatening, and then asked, “You broke into my apartment to make me lunch?”
“This is for me, not you.” He carried the plate out to her little front room and sat down gingerly on her rickety second-hand sofa. “As soon as I smelled that lavender you keep in your clothes, my appetite came back. You can have a piece if you’re hungry.”
If she was hungry. Kate considered slapping him again, but instead perched on the rocking chair across from him. “You can give this back to S, whoever he is. I don’t want it.” She tossed the envelope with the train tickets and key beside his plate. “Then you can go back to your mansion across town. The one where you have an entire army of servants to wait on you, make you radish and butter sandwiches, and cater to your ass.”
He shrugged. “I like it here. My ass does not need to be catered.” He ate another slice as he examined the contents of the envelope. “Ah, this is the key to Simon’s vacation chateau in Provence. Nice. He has an army of servants, too, but he never goes there. He prefers the islands. I think he is insane.”
“So are you,” she pointed out.
“My insanity is less temporary than Simon’s. I think it may be permanent.” He dragged his too-long black hair back from his furrowed brow. “I’m in love with you, Kate.”
MILITARY ROMANCE: The War Within Himself (Alpha Bad Boy Marine Army Seal) (Contemporary Military Suspense & Thriller Romance) Page 145
