The Art of Seduction (9 page)

And then he was lifting her in muscular arms, sweeping her through, his urgency now a palpable presence. He swept her through another set of double doors and into his bedroom, kicking the door closed behind them. Swallowed by darkness, his private domain smelled ever so faintly of him.

He laid her on the bed, following in one swift move so he came on top of her, his erection grazing her between her thighs. He kissed her madly, his mouth grinding into hers, his tongue quickening her pulse as he roamed her with his hands, feeling her through her clothes.

She moaned helplessly, suddenly so hot, she felt nearly delirious with yearning. She clung to him, running her fingers through his crisp hair, pulling his head to her and whimpering now as the force and possession of his touch, and his demanding kiss, made her head spin. She felt drunk on the taste of him. His hands running over her curves as if he could never get enough of the feel of her, causing her blood to boil in her veins.

She reached between their twined bodies, touching the rampant erection, and he groaned in her mouth like some sort of unleashed beast. She loved the feel of him in her hand, so large, so stiff, pulsing with the energy of life.

She wanted him inside. She wanted it so badly she knew she couldn't wait another minute. She began to tear at the fastenings of his trousers, frantic now. Wanting him to hurry…hurry…to fill the ache inside with his virile strength.

He shoved her hand away. Somehow, still ardently kissing her, he got himself unsheathed. And then he was hiking up her skirts, wading through the barriers of petticoats, brushing them aside. Yanking off her undergarments with a savage tug. His hands found bare flesh, igniting her lust. He pushed her knees open and plunged inside.

He filled her so suddenly, so fully, that she cried out. She was so juicy, she took him easily, as big as he was, feeling him slam home with a jolt that sent her heart galloping. He thrust into her powerfully, masterfully, swallowing her cries with his mouth, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe.

His relentless drive carried her away, escalating her excitement, until she felt she was levitating in his arms. She exploded on his cock, delicious spasms that spiraled one into another, cracking her open, washing over her with a rush of emotion that brought tears to her eyes. She clutched him desperately, loving him so deeply, so completely, that she felt herself a part of all living things. As if her soul had shattered and was spreading all around her like a shower of shooting stars.

She wished, with all her heart, that this moment would last until the end of time.

As if sensing it, or feeling it himself, he didn't stop. He increased his thrusts, pounding into her like a honed athlete, propelling her to orgasm again…and again…and again…until all her senses were filled with nothing but him.

Only then did he allow himself release. Waiting for her, for that sublime moment when her heart began again to race out of control and she felt herself losing it once more…only then did he join her, holding her wrapped in his enclosing arms, pinned to him, taking them both to a climax that was sweeter and more fulfilling than anything she'd ever known.

When it was over and she felt wondrously complete, limp with swimming joy, he stayed lodged inside her, holding her as his breathing slowed, clutching her to him like something precious beyond measure, swelling her heart as she, too, held him for dear life.

Minutes passed. She became aware of a clock somewhere in the room delicately ticking away the time. And then his heated breath at her ear. “Holy Christ!”

He moved then, dislodging himself, taking away his warmth and weight. He stood, turning his back to her, running his hand along his sweaty brow. A faint stream of moonlight illuminated him, his large frame so treasured to her love-softened gaze.

He stood like a statue, rigid and still. And then, so softly he might not have even known he spoke aloud, he rasped, “I can't do this.”

She pushed herself up with effort, her body so depleted it didn't want to move.

“What can't you do?”

He turned to her. She could see his face faintly, so achingly handsome, but twisted by some inner torment she didn't understand.

“This.” He gestured toward her. “It's too much—I hadn't counted on—” He stopped abruptly, as if he'd said too much. He was staring at her as if she were some sixteenth-century witch who'd stolen his senses.

Suddenly, she understood.

He was falling in love with her.

And he didn't want to.

She rose from the bed and went to put her hand on his arm. It felt like iron. “It's all right,” she soothed.

In the moonlight, he pierced her with his gaze. “This can't happen again.”

“Of course not,” she said.

His eyes narrowed to slits. “We have a mission. We have to concentrate on that. We can't afford to become…distracted.”

She'd never before been such a distraction to a man that it frightened him. She couldn't contain the smile that spread across her face.

“I mean it,” he told her sternly.

“Of course you do.”

“It won't happen again.”

“Of course it won't.”

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “It—won't—happen—again,” he ground out.

“Never.”

She tiptoed to kiss his cheek. As she did, she put her hand on his cock. It was flaccid, but at her touch it hardened instantly.

He jerked away from her, turning his back once more. “Please,” he groaned, “go.”

“Of course I'll go.”

“And stop saying ‘of course.'”

She gathered up her things, then went to stand before him. Kissing her fingers, she reached up and touched them to his mouth.

“Of course,” she smiled.

U
ncertain of Cuthbert's commitment to the story, Richard left for London the next morning to lobby his editors. Mason welcomed the reprieve because she needed the time away from him to do some of the new paintings that would be “shipped from the States.” She also wanted to give him time to miss her. But as it turned out, over the next few days she felt no inspiration to create the new works, and it was she who missed him—achingly.

Time and again, she found herself going to her window and looking out at the back façade of the Grand Hotel. She thought of his suite where she'd found such bliss, only to be pushed away, and she felt his absence keenly.

Finally, she was sick of it. She had to get away.

The timing was perfect. The Cirque Fernando had just ended its current season and wouldn't start up again for another few weeks, so Lisette would be free to come along. They would go to the country and paint.

She sent a message to Lisette, bundled up all the painting equipment she'd bought the morning Richard had left town, then went to the offices of E. Larue, Real Estate Agent on the Boulevard Montmartre, and told him she wanted to take a lease on the villa in Auvers-sur-Oise that her sister Mason had rented the summer before. Using Falconier's letter of credit, she paid three months' rent in advance. This would afford her a place to go in the months ahead to be alone and paint in secret.

The next morning, Lisette met her at the Gare St-Lazare with all seven of her dogs in tow. She was delighted to leave town. “It will give me a chance to get away from that pesky Juno. Ever since he saw your paintings of me, he hounds me like never before. Every day, flowers. If I see another bouquet of red roses, I will lose my mind. Boxes of candy. Poems.”

Mason laughed. “Juno Dargelos, the king of the Apache gangsters, writes poetry?”

“Pooh! He can't write his name. He must have made some destitute poet do it for him.”

Mason studied her friend. “He seems so devoted to you. You take lovers at the drop of a hat, but this man who's considered a romantic Robin Hood by half the shopgirls in Paris, you won't give the time of day.”

“What he did, I can never forgive.”

“It must have been something awful.”

“More than awful. Disgusting. But enough. I refuse to discuss it!”

The train took them through the northern outskirts of the city, over the Seine at the town of Asnières, which the Impressionists had immortalized in their art. Once they'd navigated the confusion of cramming more than half a dozen dogs into a single compartment and had settled down, Lisette pulled some grapes from her hand luggage and gave half of them to Mason.

“I asked around about your man,” she said.

“You asked about Richard?”

“But of course. I've never seen you so smitten with a man, and I worry about you. After all, you don't seem to know much about him.”

“What did you find out?”

“Not much. He moves around Europe going to art shows and mixing with high society. Lives in hotels. Comes to Paris several times a year. He has money, but no one seems to know where he gets it.” She tossed a grape to one of the terriers. “He's a mystery.”

“What about women?”

“Oh, lots of women. But none for very long.”

“What kind of women?”

“Mostly society types. An Italian contessa who never got over him. Some English heiress. That sort of thing.”

“No wife stashed away, I hope.”

“
Mais non!
If I'd found that out, I would have shot him for you.” The dogs were up again, all begging for grapes, which Lisette tossed to each, smiling her affection.

Mason mulled this over. “I suppose you think this is all a little crazy, don't you?”

“Crazy? What's crazy about spending the rest of your life pretending you're a sister you never had so you can be with a man who wants to spend his life promoting your paintings, which you have to paint on the side because he can't know you're alive? What's crazy about that?”

The absurdity of it caused Mason to laugh.

But Lisette wasn't smiling now. “The only thing that really bothers me about your little
comédie
is that flic Duval. He's no one to trifle with.”

“I'll just have to be careful and not do anything to rouse his suspicions. I'll only paint in Auvers and leave all my equipment there so I won't leave a trail for him.”

Fifty minutes later, they arrived in Auvers-sur-Oise. It was a charming village of old stone houses with thatched roofs that stretched for several miles along the picturesque Oise River, rising in a series of terraces from its banks to a plateau of wheat fields that seemed to stretch to infinity. In the early days of Impressionism, Cézanne, Pissarro, and Berthe Morisot had painted extensively in its fields and rustic lanes and along its willow-draped riverbanks. The cost of living was much cheaper here than in Paris, and Mason had found it both economical and inspirational to spend several of her summers here.

The villa was located a mile or so upriver from the hamlet itself in a sylvan setting. They had a boatman row them from the landing just below the train station to the small private dock stationed between two large willows with dangling leaves that floated lazily in the water. Across a grassy expanse, the house with its black shutters stood by a huge oak tree with a swing attached. The rooms inside were tiny, in the French tradition, but numerous enough to house Mason, Lisette, the art supplies, and all the dogs. It was a peaceful retreat that looked as if it had sprung from a Louisa May Alcott story. But just as they arrived, the sky clouded up and it began to rain.

The rain kept up for the next three days and nights. Lisette was in a lethargic mood, and Mason had to struggle to make herself pick up a brush. She hadn't worked for months and she'd been looking forward to it, but the dreary weather dampened her spirits, and the lack of momentum made her feel nervous and rusty. She forced herself to finish three canvases in the style that had so captivated Richard, but she felt disconnected from the process and the work gave her none of the satisfaction and sense of escape that it had before.

To add to her uneasiness, she couldn't stop pining for Richard. Was he thinking about her as he went about his business in London? Or was he trying
not
to think about her? It didn't seem possible that he could shut her out of his mind completely, as much as he might want to. Not after the explosive lovemaking they'd shared. But then she remembered all those other women—the contessa who'd never gotten over him. Had she, too, been convinced he was in love with her? Had he said to her, in that tormented way,
I can't do this?
Thinking about it kept her awake nights, tossing in her bed, with the rain beating incessantly on the roof.

The warmth of a beam of sunlight streaming through the lace curtails awakened her on the fourth morning. Rising from bed, she could see that the gloom had passed and it was a delightful April day. Birds were chirping, the crocuses were suddenly in bloom, and the world, bathed in the golden light that had brought painters to France for the past 400 years, seemed newly born. Thrusting her top floor window open, she leaned out and took in a cleansing breath of the crystal air, feeling the familiar stirring inside that told her she was ready at last. She was itching to paint.

She ran into Lisette's room in her bare feet and pounced on her bed, startling the dogs who lay sprawled about her, shaking her awake. Lisette sat up, muttering, her blond hair tangled and cascading about her shoulders, and held a hand to her eyes to shield them from the flood of morning light. “What time is it?”

“Who cares what time it is? It's a new day. A new world. Out of bed, lazybones. I want to capture this beautiful morning before it goes away.”

They hastily packed a picnic lunch and spent the day down by the river. Mason had no stomach to attempt another “typical” Caldwell picture. She just wanted to paint Lisette in the joy of nature, to capture the quality of light on her face as the willow fronds blew around her in the gentle breeze. All at once, the enjoyment of painting returned to her.

They had a marvelous time together, like two children frolicking barefoot in the fields beneath the invigorating sunshine. They laughed and talked of nothing and everything the way they'd done in the old days before Mason had disappeared. They ate their picnic lunch on a blanket spread out beneath the willows, nibbling brie and bread and sipping wine, tossing tidbits to the ever-present dogs who performed the tricks Lisette had taught them in her spare time.

While playing with them, Lisette had stuck out her fleshy lower lip and given her mane of blond hair a shake. It gave her the look of a petulant child, and yet, with her lithe, sexual body, the effect was extraordinary. Mason had captured elements of this look before in earlier canvases, but she'd never seen it so striking or fully realized, this innocent, pouty sexuality.

“Stop!” Mason cried. “Stay just as you are. Don't move a muscle.”

She brought over the canvas she'd been working on and began to make revisions. After a while, as it was beginning to come together, she said, “Lisette…”

“Hmmm?”

“You know about men.”

“Some,” Lisette shrugged. “It's so cozy here, I could just go to sleep.”

Mason sat back to survey her work. “After years of constant practice, I finally feel that I'm beginning to know something about art. The finished products don't always live up to the image I first had in my head, but they're coming closer.”

“Oui.”
Lisette sounded as if she was already falling asleep.

“Painting is familiar to me. But I know absolutely nothing about the art of seduction.”

“What's to know? You just show the man your ankles and he won't leave you alone.”

“There has to be more to it than that.”

“I don't know. I never seduce men. They always chase after me.”

Mason tried another tactic. “You know how I feel about Richard, right?”

“I know you've lost your head.”

As she painted, she told Lisette about what had happened with him the other night. “He wants me, but he doesn't
want
to want me. How do I get around that? I need something foolproof. Something he can't resist.”

“Ah! Like a magic potion?”

“Well, yes, in a way.”

“I know just the thing. Perfume.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Bah! You think I'm joking? What do you think gives French women their legendary allure? Are we more beautiful than you?”

“
You
are more beautiful than anyone.”

“Have you ever seen a likeness of Madame Pompadour? Or Madame du Barry? Homely as doorposts! But they smelled like goddesses. Scent is the greatest of all aphrodisiacs. Every French woman knows that.”

“I hardly think you would ever need a perfume to drive a man wild.”

“No? When I need to be devastating, the first thing I do is go to see Madame Toulon. She is more than a concocter of perfume, she is a sorceress. She creates for me a scent men can't resist.”

“Could she do that for me?”

“But of course.”

Mason wasn't convinced. “I find it hard to believe a strong-willed man like Richard Garrett, with his confidence and experience with women, could be swayed by a mere perfume—”

Abruptly, Lisette held up a hand. She straightened up and peered into the distance. “This man of yours. Is he very tall? Dark like Lucifer?”

“I guess you could say that. Why?”

“I think he's here.”

Mason shot around to see a figure coming their way from the road by the house. They were some distance from him, but Lisette was right. Richard!

In a panic, she looked at the scene around her: the canvas, the paints, the easel, the smeared smock she was wearing. Trapped!

“What are we going to do?”

“You hide everything,” Lisette told her, leaping to her feet. “I'll stall him.”

With that, she pointed toward the oncoming figure and called out a command in French. At the sound of it, her pack of dogs, who'd been dozing contentedly in the shade, went barking across the field after him. They surrounded him, jumping up on him, nearly knocking him down, while Mason frantically grabbed the canvas, the easel, her paintbox and pallet, and tossed them all in a jumble under the blanket. She ripped her smock off, saw the pigment stains on her dress, and stepped out of that as well, stuffing them under the blanket with the rest of the incriminating evidence. She hurriedly arranged the picnic things on top, then turned to see what Richard was doing.

He'd crouched on his haunches and was holding out his hand for the dogs to sniff, trying to make friends with them. They were responding too quickly. In another moment he stood and his new friends led the way toward the two women.