French Blue (21 page)

Lisa’s face was now on fire. “Yes, I did. I didn’t really know I did, but Olivier led me to the fire, so to speak, and I walked straight in. Are you sure you don’t mind Alex being there? Nothing happened between us, I swear it. He was just a…prop.” Lisa clapped her hand to her mouth. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Carla’s face was mock horror, then she burst out laughing. “A prop? I love that idea. I must tell him.”

“No, please don’t. He’s absolutely gorgeous, of course, as far from a prop as you could get, but what I’m saying is that I don’t…I mean, I do fancy him, of course, who wouldn’t, he’s probably the sexiest bloke on the planet apart from Olivier, but it’s Olivier I’m in love with…I mean it’s Olivier I like.”

Carla’s smile faded, and her eyes were full of other emotions. Sympathy? Understanding? Pity?

“You’re in love with Olivier?”

“I. I…I’m not sure. It just came out. Carla, please don’t say a word to him or to Alex, because when we started this thing together, it was only meant to be a game, a few months of fun where I could explore this kind of lifestyle. Was that how you started out with Alex? Playing games?”

“Games?” Carla gave a sigh, considering. “Perhaps, at the start, we both thought it was a game although that didn’t last long. Now we have hindsight and can be honest with each other, it was pretty much love at first sight, and definitely lust at first sight!”

Carla laughed, but Lisa’s stomach was twisted in knots at her reckless confession about being in love with Olivier. An admission she hadn’t even made to herself yet let alone acknowledged to anyone else, and yet she’d chosen a virtual stranger to admit it to.

And she couldn’t unsay it now, because that would be lying to Carla and herself.

“Forgive me for asking, but do you and Alex play all the time you’re together?”

“Not all the time. Some people do, but we prefer to keep the sub-Dom thing to sex play in the bedroom. When we’re not playing, we’re as boring as everyone else, what with work, my degree and so on. Is that what you want with Olivier?”

“I…we can’t. I’m leaving to work in New York in a month, and Olivier doesn’t do long term, as you know.”

“Doesn’t he? I thought he was engaged to a girl until he got sick.”

“What?” Lisa’s heart squeezed painfully. Olivier had said nothing about an engagement.

Carla shook her head. “You must ask him.”

“It’s impossible, even though I’ve tried to get him to open up to me. He wouldn’t even talk about his painting.”

“Impossible? I thought the idea of Alex and me getting together at all, let alone falling in love, was impossible, and now look at us. We’re getting married this summer.”

Lisa allowed herself a knowing smile. It was obvious Carla was a romantic and in love. “Well, I’m glad you found your happy ending.”

“Happy ending?” She shook her head. “I can see the doubts in your face and that you don’t believe you and Olivier could ever be as happy as we are, but I was married before. My husband was killed, and…well, I won’t bore you, but believe me, there was a time I was so devastated by grief and betrayal that I thought I would never be able to take another breath, let alone find someone to love the way I love Alex.”

“I am so sorry. I had no idea.”

“Why would you? Lisa, you
must
fight for what you believe in, if you want it. I’m right, aren’t I? You do want Olivier in your life very badly?”

Lisa wanted to burst into tears. She wanted him to love her so much, but the idea of admitting how much, and of being let down, was too frightening and full of potential pain to allow.

“I don’t know.”

“Then you must decide—fast—and then fight for him.”

“There was someone once…but he hurt me badly. Even if I could get over that and think of someone else, Olivier is the last person on earth I ought to choose! We got together precisely on the basis that I would be leaving soon, and that he was only going to…well, you know, help me explore my boundaries.”

Lisa closed her eyes, partly from the shame of discussing her intimate life with Carla but also because tears were pricking the backs of her eyes.

Carla’s voice was soft. “Shouldn’t you be telling Olivier about this?”

Lisa shook her head, despairing. “It’s pointless. I’d rather die than have him think I’m needy, and even if he did reciprocate, I’m going to the States. I can’t see any possible way for us to work this out.”

“Forgive me for sounding naive. I know it
seems
as if there is no way, but there will be if you want it enough and he does.”

“Thanks.”

“Thanks for interfering?” asked Carla gently.

“No. You’re not interfering, far from it. You’ve only made me admit what I should have told myself weeks ago that I’m in love with Olivier. I think I do love him. Oh Jesus, what a mess!”

“It’s not a mess, and especially not now you’ve been brave enough to recognise how you really feel. But I do understand what you’re going through. All the uncertainty, the not knowing how he feels or if he’d admit it, the rawness you’ve exposed. If it’s the slightest consolation, you can talk to me any time.”

Carla delved into her bag. “Here’s my card so you can e-mail me or call any time you want.”

Lisa took it and shoved it into her own bag. “Thanks, I may well do that. Don’t tell Alex about this, though, please.”

“I won’t breathe a word, but knowing Alex’s forensic mind, he’s probably worked it out by now, if not from watching you, then from knowing his brother.”

Carla’s arms folded round her in a warm hug, and Lisa fought back tears again. “Come on, let’s get back to dinner before they wonder what we’re up to. We don’t want to get into trouble with the Lemaitres this early in the evening, do we?”

Chapter Eighteen

Lisa turned her head, blinking against the sun that filtered through the voile curtains stirring in the breeze. The dull rumble of traffic, sirens and general Paris hubbub drifted up from the streets below. The clock on the nightstand was an old-fashioned round-faced type with a brass bell alarm, part of the eclectic mix of furnishings and objects d’art in Olivier’s bedroom. Paris had woken up on yet another morning, like so many of them since she and Olivier had kissed Carla and Alex good-bye in the bistro a few weeks before.

The room, the traffic noise, the morning sun were much the same as they ever were, yet everything had changed for Lisa. The moment she had admitted to Carla that she was in love with Olivier, her whole world had been turned upside down. Every moment with him now felt like the last moment, to be savoured and treasured, the pleasure—and the misery—heightened by the fact that in just two weeks’ time, it would all be over and she would be waking up in a Manhattan apartment, racing into the shower, grabbing a cab to her new office.

As for Olivier? What about his world? It seems to Lisa that he was oblivious to the cataclysmic shift in Lisa’s life. Maybe she’d acted the role too well, or maybe he simply didn’t want to recognise that she’d fallen for him so deeply. He was as charming and attentive to her as ever—and even more demanding. His corrections had become more frequent and even more creative, sometimes so demanding that Lisa could hardly bear them. Yet the more he pushed her, the more she craved from him, like a woman drinking deep of every last drop of food and water before she was cast adrift in an open boat with no hope of seeing land again.

Only last night, he’d insisted she have a respite from their kinky games, and they’d had a gentle evening of vanilla sex before she’d fallen asleep in the crook of his arm.

How would Lisa go back to vanilla? How would she go back to an ordinary man? How would she live without Olivier? Her career mattered, and she wasn’t going to give it up, but it wasn’t all there was to life. Jody had been an added decoration; what she had with Olivier was the bedrock.

“
Cherie
.”

“Hmm.” Lisa turned her head toward Olivier’s face on the bolster next to her, heart-stoppingly handsome, unusually serious.

Reaching up to her face, he teased a strand of hair that had caught in her eyelash. “A penny for your thoughts?”

“Not worth a penny. I was just thinking…about how we’re going to spend the day.”

“I’m afraid I have to go into the gallery today. I’m meeting a new artist and his agent to discuss an exhibition in the autumn. Then I have to go to the university to discuss next term’s seminars.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I’m sorry, but autumn is just around the corner, and I can’t put these things off any longer. I should be free around five, though, so we could meet at the Bar d’Or in Place St Germain?”

“Yes, that sounds like fun. I ought to start preparing for my new job, anyway. There’s paperwork I should have signed last week for the apartment, and my new boss wants me to join a video conference.” She smiled. “If you’ll let me off, of course. I seem to remember that the last time I made a work call on our time, I ended up in hot water.”

Lisa’s bottom tingled as Olivier’s palm snaked around her naked body and rested on her cheek. “I’ll let you off for today, as I’m busy, but if you’re a second after five at the Bar d’Or, I’ll remind you of your first visit to me.”

Unexpected heat rushed to her cheeks, drawing an eye roll from Olivier. “You’re blushing. Don’t say you’re ashamed after all we’ve done together?”

“No, I’m just remembering how excruciating I found my first appointment with you. Not that you made it any easier for me in the slightest! I went home with a sore backside, wondering what the hell I’d got myself into.”

Withdrawing his hand from her butt, Olivier eased himself up onto his elbow. His voice was half-amused, half-tender. “I never go easy on my subs. You knew that. I am a Dom, after all.”

On his subs.
His words were obviously meant to remind her that she was merely one of a string of women, gently but firmly putting her into her place, perhaps as the start of the inevitable process of severing his ties with her. Lisa’s heart squeezed agonisingly.

Olivier sighed. “I guess I’d better take a quick shower. I can bring you some breakfast in bed if you don’t want to rush, but I need to get to the gallery.”

“It’s okay. You go. I’ll grab a coffee and go back to my flat.”

While Olivier showered, Lisa stared at the ceiling. The ornate plaster rose with its cherubs, garlands and roses seemed to mock her with its twee vision of idyllic love. The reality was this: lying alone in a rapidly cooling bed while they both prepared to go their separate ways. Maybe they could meet once every six months for a night or two of kinky fun until one or other of them found a new partner. Maybe—the thought stabbed her like a sharp blow to the gut—Olivier already had his new sub lined up, or at least a meeting lined up. Perhaps it wasn’t an artist he was meeting at the gallery but a prospective sub; a new woman to be interviewed and tested to see if she was serious enough to be disciplined and dominated by him for as long as the arrangement suited them.

Lisa buried her face in the bolster, fighting back hot tears. The thought of leaving Olivier was painful enough without the added misery of jealousy flowing through her veins like some corrosive poison.

She managed, somehow, to wipe away the moisture from her cheeks and squeeze back any more by the time he wandered out of the en suite, rubbing his jet-black hair with a towel. He smelled like heaven and looked like a Greek god who’d walked straight out of the sea. Lisa’s nipples puckered and her vaginal muscles clenched at the sight of his penis firming as he towelled himself dry.

“Please don’t do that,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because you have to rush out.”

She sat up in bed, the sheet falling from her body, exposing her breasts and her painfully swollen nipples. Olivier tossed the towel on a chair and flamed her with a look that took in her hot face and breasts. His pupils darkened, and Lisa’s pulse rate spiked.

“Did I give you permission to flaunt your breasts at me?”

“No,
maître
.”

“And now you have, knowing that I’ll have to make love to you. I’ll be late for my appointment.”

She lifted her chin, a delicious wantonness overtaking all other feelings. “Quite possibly,
maître
.”

“And that after I’ve made love to you, I won’t have time to correct you and will have to paddle you later.”

“I expect so,
maître
.”

Hands on hips, he shook his head. “You
expect
so? You look at me like this, brazenly, without the slightest remorse?”

The sight of his cock, now ready for her, made her mouth water. “I have no shame,
maître
.”

“I can see that. I can also see that your insolence has returned and I am going to have to become even stricter with you.” Olivier
tsk
ed and stepped toward the bed. Lisa gasped as he tore the sheet from her body. “Lie back and open your legs.”

She obeyed instantly, parting her thighs as he climbed onto the bed. Before she could breathe again, he buried himself inside her.

The clock had ticked around almost an hour before Lisa caught sight of it again and smiled to herself. Whoever was pacing the gallery, checking his or her watch in indignation, would have to wait awhile longer. She still had the power to keep Olivier by her side; he still ached for her body. His arm lay across her body now, possessively—almost protectively. Perhaps she should throw caution to the winds, expose herself—tell him how she felt, that she didn’t want their relationship to end; that she didn’t want to leave.