“Aiden…”
“Louis stays. Deal with it. You’re a Knight now and that means you’re target practice for all the petty chancers and criminals on the Riviera. You saw what happened at the casino yesterday.”
“Do you think someone’s trying to kill me?” I whisper.
“If there’s a chance it could hurt me, then yes.”
If?
I study his profile, noting the frown lines and the set jaw. He’s like a card from a deck, with one side always ready for the game while the other stays a blank expression. I’m definitely getting the latter today.
Dammit, Aiden.
I want our flashes of lightness back. I want a taste of what we could have been before it’s gone forever.
“Fine, I won’t fight you anymore.” I drop my iPhone into my purse. “I accept your complete and utter over-protectiveness, but only because you’re a control freak and I make allowances for it… and because it’s hot.”
“Hot?”
“Yes, hot.” Leaning over, I go to seal the deal with a kiss to his cheek, but he turns at the last second and captures my mouth with his own.
“How hot are we talking here, exactly?” he growls, switching tack, trapping me in place with a firm hand wrapped around the base of my neck. It’s sending out ripples of hot lust that are congregating between my legs. “Second base over the tits hot, or sliding my middle finger into your pussy right up to the knuckle hot?”
I let out a moan of lust, glazing his face with it. This man has a hotline to all my turn-ons. He holds the key to the cage of my inhibitions. When he took my virginity last night, he set me free, and now I have years of sexual ingenuity to catch up on.
“How about ‘riding you so hard your eyes roll back in their sockets’ hot?”
“Okay, so now I’m interested.” A beat later, I’m straddling his lap and his hands are in my hair—tugging, wanting, claiming. He drives his tongue between my teeth and I accept everything—tugging, wanting, claiming him right back—rocking my hips over his huge erection as a rush of need floods my senses. My dress gets yanked up to my waist again as his hand slides between my legs.
“Yesterday, you told me off for talking like that, Aiden… Oh God.” His fingers brush against my clit, zinging my swollen nerve endings and making me squirm.
“Turns out I like my wife’s mouth as filthy as mine.” A couple of early-rise shoppers are wandering past the car as he tugs my damp panties to the side. “Good job these windows are tinted. We’d get arrested for what I’m about to do to you.”
“Thought you didn’t get arrested?”
“Turn of phrase, Issa.” He groans as his fingers glide effortlessly toward their destination in a sea of slickness. “You're the only one who can lay their hands on me.”
My heart gives a vicious flutter. “Then what are you waiting for?” I tell him, breathless and frantic as I reach for his belt. “I gave you my permission at least thirty seconds ago.”
“Good girl gone bad. One day a virgin, and the next a nymphomaniac… I’m liking the progression.” He chuckles darkly into my mouth. “It’s my progression only, though. You’re—”
“I’m yours,” I whisper, dropping his zipper and pressing a hand to his mouth. We're bound by lies, by depravity, by injustice. But we’re also bound by two souls that fit together perfectly in the heat of these moments, when all the other bad stuff falls away. He felt it first, and now I’m catching up and overtaking him.
Rising up on my knees, I invite him to banish the conflict, to take what he wants because I know he’ll be giving me so much more in return. I don’t want to think about anything else except us—not Karina’s operation or tomorrow’s deception—just glorious, incomparable us.
“You’re a goddamn tease, Mrs. Knight,” he says, shaking his hand off my mouth. “Be careful what you wish for.” With that, he gives good on his promise, thrusting two thick fingers inside of me with just the right amount of savagery.
I curse in French and Russian as I feel my inner muscles clamp greedily around his digits, and then he’s pressing his thumb against my clit and moving it in slow circles. I’m still sore from last night, but my red-hot arousal is mixing everything up into a sensory paroxysm.
“Ride it,” he orders through gritted teeth. “You’re not leaving this fucking car until your juices are all over the front of my pants, do you hear? When we’re through, I better be as soaked as you are.”
“Yes!” The desire to drive him deeper into my body is all I can focus on. Gripping the headrest, I tilt my pelvis as he curls his fingers inside me to hit a spot that has me groaning again. “Aiden!” I shudder to a halt. The waves are lapping harder and faster. I’m too consumed to do anything but surf the incoming storm.
“That’s right, baby. It’s my name on those rosebuds, no one else’s.”
I quiver and shake as the tipping point looms.
“Self-control, Issa,” he chides. “We went through this the other day.”
“I’m falling…”
“Then let’s fall together.” With his other hand, he grips my hair so tightly my eyes start to sting. At the same time, he starts pumping his fingers in and out of me with a breath-taking violence that pushes me over the edge and beyond.
Wrung out and spiraling, I collapse against his body as the thunder of his heartbeat forces its way past the scars and bruises and into my own chest.
“I hope you brought a change of underwear,” he muses, sliding his fingers out of me.
“I hope you brought a change of pants,” I mumble into his shirt.
“No chance. I’m wearing you with pride for the rest of the day. When I meet you father later, I’m planning to rub his fucking nose in it like a dog who did wrong.”
I pull back to look at him, pushing my damp hair out of my eyes. “You promised, Aiden...”
The corners of his mouth twitch. “I said I’d keep my bullets at bay, I never said I’d play fair.” We stare at each other for a moment. “Get your soaking-wet pussy to work. I’ll pick you up at six.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, teasing kisses along his jawline.
“For the orgasm or for the lift?”
For being you, I want to say. Demanding, compromised, insecure, broken, sexy-as-hell you…
But instead, like always, I hide that truth in a smile.
His eyes are burning me up as I cross the street in front of his car. I’m amazed I can put one foot in front of the other. My good girl tendencies have been shaken to their roots, and the rest of me is stuck in the violent aftershocks. I’ve never been more aware of the creases in the dress I’m wearing—mid-length, amber and white striped silk—or the tell-tale flush in my cheeks.
He parked up a good fifteen minute walk from Eloise’s store, so that’s fifteen minutes to loosen the scent of sweat and sex from my skin with the help of the ocean breezes. Just before Louis and I reach Rue Meynardier I come across a small perfume stall, but all they sell is old school Calvin Klein, so now I smell like Kate Moss heroin chic, as well.
I can still feel the sting of his fingers inside me—thieving and conquering—as I pass by under the russet entrance sign with Louis trailing five paces behind. Every time we touch we’re crossing lines and smashing barriers. It’s becoming rougher, dirtier… I sense the monster. We feel each other’s fraud. There are parts of us that want to lay all our secrets bare, and the only method we trust is by fucking them into the open.
Leaving Louis loitering like a pit bull next to the racks of holiday postcards and cheap sunglasses of the store next door, I push the door open and step inside. Right away, I’m greeted with overjoyed smiles and open arms by an elegant vision in full-length burgundy with white cap sleeves.
“Issa! Oh my goodness. How are you feeling, ma chérie?”
“I’m better, thank you.” Once again, I accept her embrace like it’s a rescue remedy, breathing in the scent of lavender and coconut oil from her soft, iron-gray hair which has been coiled into a nea
t bun on the top of her head. “I missed you. I wish I could have been here two days ago… Aiden said he called?”
To her credit, she keeps her smile bright and unwavering at the mention of his name. “Yes, he called. He sounded concerned.” She pauses to give me a chance to fill in the blanks. Instead, a clock ticks and the chatter from the street filters into the store, but she soon takes the hint. “So…colors!” She spins away and claps her hands briskly at the shelves and rails as if her dresses are her children and it’s time for the day to begin.
“It was my father,” I say quietly, and she spins back again, her Chanel red lipstick frozen into a perfect ‘o’. “The marks you saw on my chest? He gave them to me last week, or rather his men did.”
Eloise looks stunned. “No, no, no, Issa, there must be some mistake. The Aleksandr Dubov I knew would never have been so cruel to his daughter.”
“The Aleksandr Dubov I know would never have been so kind,” I say, hurt by her reaction. Half-measure… halfway… half-truths. The story behind my scars is far more complicated than I’m letting on, but my father deserves vitriol, not compassion, for everything else he’s done to me in the past.
“Distant, maybe.” She takes a couple of hesitant steps toward me as a form on contrition. “Perhaps more absent than he should have been, but it was only to protect you from his work.”
“His work?” I splutter. “You mean all the murder, extortion, and fun stuff that a Bratva Pakhan excels in?”
She glances nervously at the door. “When I knew your parents—”
“How exactly did you know my parents?” I say, frowning. At the age of thirteen, I’d never once stopped to question such things. I’d been too swept up in the notion of not being ignored for once. My café visits had been allowed to continue, and that was enough for me.
“We met that summer.” She seems hesitant to elaborate. “It started when your mother sent for me. She’d heard all about your little art and textiles meeting with the lady in jade.”
“I never told my mother anything about you. I spoke to her even less than I spoke to my father.”
She waves the mystery away as if it’s nothing more than a fly. “That afternoon I found myself in the summer room on your father’s estate in La Californie. Your mother was such a beauty, Issa,” she gushes. “You remind me so much of her. She was a muse for all ages.”
“Except when she’s drunk.” My newly acquired acid tongue is creeping into Aiden Knight territory now. “Then she’s only a muse for Gordon’s and Tanqueray.”
Eloise lifts a reproving eyebrow. “I can still picture her, you know—reclining on a crushed velvet antique Louis XV, with the sunlight streaming through the open window and setting fire to her hair.”
“With a cocktail in one hand and her responsibilities in the other,” I say, pouring even more burning oil on the memory. “Shall we take a guess at which one she dropped first?”
I’m done listening to romantic notions when it comes to either one of my parents. My mother lives her days like she’s an eighteenth-century courtesan. When the shit hit the fan, four weeks ago, she made sure it was her daughters that faced the guillotine, not her.
“She’s fragile. She can’t comprehend—”
“She’s cruel!”
“She was married too young to a man she didn’t know,” she argues gently. “He came with more baggage than she could handle.”
“You’re telling me you garnered all this from an afternoon in her company?” I walk over to the counter and drop my purse on top of it. All of a sudden, I don’t care about the unexploded bomb inside it. Call it a fleeting ‘fuck you’ to MI6 and the gun they’re holding against my head.
“She was thrust into a world that frightened and ostracized her…”
“It’s not a parallel with my own life, Eloise.” I’m growing tired of her case for the defense. In my mind, my mother will always be tried and found guilty, the same as my father. “Life is what you make of it. We all face decisions that rip the fabric of our souls apart. That’s when you need to stay true to the people you love.”
Am I staying true to Aiden?
I pause, feeling like a con artist again. I don’t love my husband. I can’t love my husband. You can’t throw that word at people you've only known for five days, even if they feel like holy water in your hands. Okay, wrong analogy for a man like him, but still.
I watch her pick invisible lint off the dress on the mannequin. “Sometimes there are decisions behind decisions… Like a wall of mirrors in a fairground attraction, the illusion never ends.”
“I always hated fairground attractions.” I sigh and tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. I only ever seem to wear it down these days. “I swore to myself that I’d never become like her, Eloise. I told myself I was stronger… Kinder. That if I ever had children, I would never be complicit in their pain, not like she was in mine. She had the choice to love Karina and me unconditionally, but she didn't. She chose to love her misery instead.”
“Affairs of the family are as closely guarded as affairs of the heart,” she says, reaching out to run her hands lightly up and down my arms as if she’s trying to rub her point of view into me. “I cannot possibly try to understand the motives of your parents for treating you that way. I can only go on what I perceived for myself that summer, all those years ago. I sat with her for three hours, ma chérie. Afterward, I was summoned to your father’s study where I sat with him for two more. I came away from his estate content in the knowledge that you had two parents who loved you deeply.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “You’re mistaken. So very mistaken. You’re trying to touch up a portrait that was framed and forgotten about a long time ago.”
The bell above the door chimes, and a customer enters the store.
Concluding our conversation with a tight smile, Eloise steps forward to greet the newcomer.
We don’t speak about it again for the rest of the day. Some topics aren’t so easy to resurrect when they’re driven by differences.
By midday, we’re so busy, I don’t even get the chance to panic about all the things I need to panic about. Eloise’s designs are as popular as I remembered, and her small store is a thoroughfare. I find myself lost in someone else’s moment, one that’s full of fabric, small talk and laughter as I fetch different sizes and offer opinions to everyone from passing tourists to wealthy regulars. I even manage to sketch a couple of new designs when I’m meant to be stocktaking, my pencil flying over the paper as a rush of inspiration takes hold.
It doesn't feel like I’m drawing memories today. It feels like I’m outlining a cautious future. Is there a gentler fate awaiting me once all of this is over? Something simple and safe with Karina and Maxim? We could own a store like this, or maybe even a café… No more guns. No more Bratva. No more danger and deceiving.
I don’t have the chance to ask Eloise about Aiden until the afternoon heat is waning, our last customer is exiting, and Louis is acting less like a well-trained pit bull and more like a pacing tiger.
“Is he one of Le Corbeau’s?”
I nod as I catch her glancing out of the window. “Have you only just noticed him?” I ask, nudging the cash register shut.
“Oh, I noticed him. I just wasn't sure if you wanted to talk about his employer or not.” She comes over and starts rearranging a display of scarves on the counter that don’t need the interference.
“Tell me about him, Eloise… Tell me everything you’ve heard.”
She considers me thoughtfully for a moment. “Does he treat you well?”
“Not at first.” I try to conceal my smile, but it bursts through anyway. “I guess men like him aren’t supposed to. To them we’re trophies. Playthings. Pretty ornaments to use and abuse… I tried to show him I was different.”
“And he liked that?” She sounds surprised.
“No other Bratva or mafia man would have let his wife work here today. They’d see it as an insult, whereas he sees it as a
turn-on.” I flick her a grin and she swats my arm with a honeyed laugh. “He doesn’t hide what he is, and I know he’s never going to change. But he’s smart in a way I never expected him to be, and the best parts of him shine through the dark clouds when you least expect it.”
“If he’s good to you then things like pasts and bad reputations are nothing but sandstorms.” She leans over and strokes my cheek affectionately. “Let them blow over you, Issa. Make yourselves a home in what’s left behind.”
A pang of regret hits me. There will never be the chance for that.
“The problem with sand is it lingers.” I glance at my iPhone. Six p.m. Aiden will be here any minute. “It seeps into every crevice. It’s immortalized in nicknames...” I think about his father’s lighter with the raven insignia. Feeling weary suddenly, I lean over the counter, resting my elbows on the glass. “Sometimes he drops clues to a past he has no intention of sharing. Then he accuses me of ‘fire dancing’ when I ask too many questions.”
The bell chimes again and the man in question stalks in, filling the store with his powerful presence.
Urbane.
Savage.
Beautiful.
He’s all the things I first thought about him and more…and he’s still wearing the same black suit that he had on this morning. A shiver of longing zips up and down my spine. He wasn’t kidding when he said he intended to wear our desire as a victory prize tonight,
“Are you done?” He nods at Eloise who gives him a cautious wave.
“I am.” I slide my purse onto my shoulder, and give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for today, I loved every minute.”
“Me too, Issa. A bientôt.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“How does it feel to be working class?” He leads me out onto the street with his hand clamped to the base of my spine. Louis and two other men fall in behind.
“Good. How does it feel to be criminal class?”
“Fucking awesome.”
I burst out laughing and slip my arm around his waist. It’s another stunning early evening in Cannes, rich in both heat and atmosphere. Many of the boutiques and stores are still open and a surfeit from the bars and cafes is spilling out into the streets. Aiden’s casual arrogance makes every head turn. More than once, I see the mouths drop open on some very beautiful, rapacious faces.
Black Skies Riviera: An Enemies To Lovers Mafia Romance Page 20
