Carnal in Cannes (6 page)

Illusions.

His life had been built on one after another.

Harry halted in midstep when Martine glided through the doorway of the

“Her” bedroom opposite. The muted lighting, aided and abetted by the glow of dozens of ivory pillar candles scattered throughout the living area, cast a shimmery radiance over her beautiful skin. The golden almond color of her flesh had mesmerized him from the first second they met several hours ago.

Frigging hell, the woman in Grasse—she’d had skin the color of Martine’s,
hadn’t she?

Shadows waltzed over Martine"s high forehead and hid her black eyes.

Black eyes. The woman in Grasse didn’t have black eyes.

Candlelight danced over incredible cheekbones, which spoke of a tribal heritage, and accented a straight, thin nose a tad too long for anything but the arrogance of nobility. His gaze dropped lower. He couldn"t take his eyes off a full mouth that ignited wicked, sinful images. Rosy lips, the top one full and lush and a perfect shape, the lower an oomph thinner but plumper right in the center.

St. Pete did a soft-shoe under his bathrobe, moistening the cool fabric. Harry shot his nether parts a surreptitious peek and stifled a groan when he saw the dark, wet splotches on the bathrobe"s fabric.

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“Dinner"s here.” Harry did a quick about-face so the evidence of St. Pete"s eager salute wouldn"t be obvious to Martine. “Shall we?” He waved a hand at the table and took three long strides to the far chair whose back faced the fireplace.

He"d never seen a woman move with such effortless grace, those long legs sliding across the plush carpet, the only sound the supple cloth whispering against her body. Entranced, he almost forgot his manners and had to dart to the other side to ease her chair from the table and then gently shift her into place.

His chin grazed the rich milk-chocolate curls falling to her nape when he slid her chair forward, and he inhaled the aroma of honeysuckle and lemons. As he lifted his head, he caught a glimpse of small perfect ears with tiny conch earrings decorating the lobes.

“Champagne?” He let his hands rest on the back of her chair, and he allowed his fingers to brush the tempting flesh the robe"s shawl collar bared along one shoulder.

At least she didn"t flinch away from the slight caress, but her voice when she answered stumbled. “As you wish.”

Fricking hell if she didn"t have the sexiest voice he"d ever heard, laced with the dusk of just-had-screaming-sex hoarseness. St. Pete jiggled his impatience as Harry popped the cork from the bottle, then poured the fizzing liquid into two glasses. The wine had a fruity aroma, and the bubbles formed a rim of froth as he set the flute to the right of her glistening sterling knife.

The courage and pride that had kept her going during the gynecological exams required to prove her virginity dissolved during the three seconds it took for him to circle the table and take a seat. Her plump bottom lip quivered, and her nostrils flared ever so slightly. The carbonated liquor held her attention, and she didn"t look up when he cleared his throat.

Sitting, he slipped his hand under the pristine tablecloth and adjusted his erection, squeezing the head of his dick in reprimand. St. Pete wanted full speed ahead and straight to ignition.

Martine"s long, elegant fingers curled around the fragile crystal stem, but the glass made a shaky ascension to her mouth. She hadn"t noticed the magnificent one-eighty panoramic view of the Bay of Cannes, and not once had she inspected the luxurious contents of the twelve-bedroom suite. Martine tipped her head back and downed the entire glass of champagne.

Okay, if he were she, he"d get a little tipsy too.

Harry leaned over and refilled Martine"s glass when she set the flute on the table.

Evidence of Martine"s nervousness abounded. She wouldn"t meet his gaze, and her pink tongue snaked out to lick the corner of her lip every few seconds. The silence stretched to the tautness of a fishing line taken to the darkest ocean depths by an eighty-pound tarpon.

“Where"re you from?”

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Jianne Carlo

Martine"s fingers fluttered around the crystal stem. She knocked the glass sideways, and the flute tumbled to the carpet, liquid spattering the shell pink linen and the burgundy-and-cream-patterned carpet.

“Merde,” she whispered and bent to retrieve the glass. “Pardon, pardon, Monsieur.” She straightened, set the crystal on the table, stared at a tulip vase filled with fresh sweet pea stems and baby"s breath, and said, “Monsieur—”

“Harry or Harrison, Martine.”

“This.” She waved a hand at the table. “It is not necessary. We have a business arrangement, non? Can we not do the fornication and then eat?”

St. Pete collapsed like an overinflated helium balloon hit by a thirty-man buckshot squad. Harry couldn"t stop the bitter twist of his lips.

Forni-fucking-cation.

How often had Daddy gone on and on about forni-fucking-cation?

Harry tipped his hat down over his forehead, effectively shadowing his features until he could force his clenched jaw and flattened mouth to relax.

“
Mon Dieu
. Pardon, pardon, pardon, Monsieur, I have offended you.”

She fisted her hands over her mouth, but Harry heard the half-hiccupped sob she tried to stifle. He shuddered, anticipating a flood of waterworks and hysterics.

Rattlesnake piss. Time for plan B.

Harry scraped his chair back and almost vaulted over the table. Her eyes widened, the white corneas making her pupils and irises Bambi-huge. He didn"t have time for reassurances and had to get her out of there faster than Speedy Gonzales. He scooped her into his arms and jog-walked to the terrace doors, surprised she weighed so little for such a tall woman. Thank the almighty she didn"t struggle, because her long limbs would have loosened his hold on her when he fumbled with the lock on the French doors.

As soon as he stepped onto the stone balcony, he set her down and turned to close the door. Mediterranean brine bore by an icy mistral gust, one of the famous winds of France"s Provence region, sailed across the wide patio. Harry swung around to face Martine and found her hugging herself, her lips pursed, staring unblinkingly at his throat.

She froze like a desert rat mesmerized by the hiss of a rattler about to strike.

She swallowed, the movement imperceptible to those not trained as an interrogator in Afghanistan to pick up subtle distress cues. The muscles in her slender neck worked. She showed no other sign of nervousness, poignant features impassive, fathomless eyes unreadable, but her toes had turned inward, a sure sign of pure terror.

Until the war he"d never known fear smelled the same from race to race, from sex to sex, from adult to child. And he could scent the dread oozing from the slight sheen of perspiration barely visible above the corners of her mouth. He had the urge to stroke her spine, to soothe the fear emanating from her still form.

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27

She swallowed again, and the movement did him in.

“Ah shucks, sugar,” he murmured and tugged her tight against his chest.

She went rigid, knees locked, vertebrae aligning in a jerk so her stomach sucked away from him.

“Listen to me carefully,” he whispered, all the while scanning the ivory balustrades for any hint of irregular dark circles, any sign of the hidden surveillance his gut told him remained. No matter what the SEALs had said, Harry knew they"d been bugged and were being watched. “We"re getting out of here.”

Her control had been absolute until that moment; his stroking palms detected the barest hint of a quiver in her deltoids. “Monsieur…the contract? You are sending me away?”

“Too late for that. You and I are stuck with each other for the duration.”

Her rigid back relaxed a tad, and her soft exhale feathered the chest hair bared by his robe. St. Pete"s crest grew slick.

Down, boy, Harry ordered, and he squeezed his eyes shut, his brain sifting various methods of calming her.

“Just follow my lead, but no talking while we"re inside, okay?”

She nodded, and a stray curl tickled his collarbone. St. Pete twitched.

Setting her at arm"s length, Harry tipped her chin with a finger and asked,

“Ready?”

Again, a slight nod. She met his gaze directly, and the fierce pride she"d exhibited before returned with a vengeance. “Yes, Mon—” She shook her head, then continued, “Yes, Harrison.”

He had no siblings, had never felt pride for another human being in memory aside from his mama, but damn he liked her style. Reluctantly Harry broke contact with her supple flesh, and he reached into the pocket of his robe for his iPhone.

Holding one of her hands loosely, he thumbed a text message to Terry O"Connor.
Plan B ASAP.

The response came within twenty-five seconds.

I figured - 15.

Adrenaline coursed through his blood, and Harry grinned at the iPhone"s screen. He hadn"t fought an enemy, save for internal demons, in years. The future suddenly seemed brighter than the stars on a Texas plain in the middle of nowhere at midnight.

He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the center of her palm, ignoring the way her spine straightened.

So she"d sold him her virginity. Long ago he"d sold his soul to Satan.

Special-ops mode kicked in—divide the mission into achievable, incremental goals, and proceed. “The suite"s bugged. There are cameras in there.” Harry hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Delora, my stepmother, plans to record our, as you so 28

Jianne Carlo

blithely put it, fornicating. St. Pete ain"t going for that. We"re getting out of here while the going"s good. A friend and his wife are going to take our place.”

Martine"s breathing hitched, and her eyes dominated her face. She frowned, her lips formed the words
St. Pete
, but she said nothing aloud and stared at him like he was the Loch Ness monster. All the color drained from her complexion, and her mouth opened and closed once, twice. He"d probably confused the daylights out of Martine with his reference to St. Pete, the name Terry"d given Harry"s randy cock after a particularly lewd R & R spent in a famous Thai bordello.

“Don"t speak once we"re inside. Not a word no matter what happens, okay?”

Tawny eyebrows lifted a fraction, and her nostrils quivered a tad, but she lifted her head and replied, “As you wish, Mon—Harrison.”

The prearranged switcheroo, plan B, went without a hitch.

As they walked through the streets of Cannes, intermittent streetlights revealed the slow paling of Martine"s caramel complexion, and she swallowed visibly but squared her shoulders and asked, “Cameras. Bugs—not insects, but the spy things like in James Bond? Why would she do this, Mon—Harry?”

He had a damned hunch that Delora planned to stream the tape or a portion of it on the Internet. This whole will farce was her way of getting back at him for refusing her after Daddy"d died. How she ever imagined they could pick up from where they"d left off ten years ago… He scrubbed his chin. “Yeah, like in James Bond. She"s vicious.” And that sex DVD would"ve rocked Houston oil society.

Fifteen minutes later Harry massaged his right shoulder as the yacht, the
Glory
, maneuvered from its Cannes dock, heading for a small, privately owned cay near the Italian coastline. He gulped in the familiar and soothing salty pungency of the Mediterranean Sea as the ship accelerated. Martine stood beside him, her slender fingers curled around the
Glory’s
aft railing, curls ruffling when a lazy wind drifted aft to stern.

Harry glanced to her profile and caught her chewing the inside of her left cheek, more emotion in the simple gesture than she"d showed since they met.

She looked like she was about to upchuck.

“Do you get seasick?”

A fringe of spidery eyelashes fluttered three times in rapid succession.

“Non. Not even when the storms whipped the Gulf of Gonâve—” Fist to mouth she choked back a gasp, and their gazes met before she quickly averted her eyes.

The name tickled a memory neuron that refused to blossom.

“Look at me, Martine.”

For a second her cheeks hollowed in and out; then she gave a side-glance to the lapping sea, lifted her chin, and stared into his eyes.

St. Pete saluted as if the commander in chief had issued a command.

“For you to get your money, I have to fulfill the conditions of my father"s will.”

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He studied her face. She hadn"t so much as blinked faster, but her jaw clenched a mite.

She nodded.

Her lashes fluttered, and she studied a spot between his mouth and his nose.

Her throat worked, and when she answered, her voice had coarsened. “You need a virgin bride, a child of both our loins, and to be married when the child is born.”

A child of both our loins? Who speaks that way these days?

For a second his concentration wavered; then he refocused. “Correct on all points. And what that means is that we"ll be living together for at least a year. And my stepmother will be trying to break us up every second of that time. With me on this?”

Her lids descended to shutter her eyes, and she took a deep breath, her firm breasts rising and filling the ivory shell top she wore. “
Je comprende
.” Martine met his gaze directly. “We have an enemy, non?”