The Paris Secrets trilogy: includes: Window, Screen, and Skin (12 page)

A woman strolled ever so casually about his bedroom, stripping away her clothes!  She flipped long, gorgeous red hair over a shoulder, and shrugged off a padded fencing vest, letting it fall to the floor.  Beneath, she wore a sleeveless gray tank, which she pulled off to reveal—no bra, and huge breasts.

"What the—?"

I crawled toward the window, using the pulled curtain on the left side as my camouflage.  I didn't want her to see me watching, but she was oblivious, wandering before the end of his bed, flashing the whole world her breasts.  They were huge, and she cupped them possessively and smiled.

I turned my back to the window.  Crazy thoughts assaulted my brain.  His lover?  Well, she must be.  Who else wandered around in his bedroom half naked? 

She'd been wearing fencing gear.  Maybe they went a few rounds and then—  No.  He wasn't in the room with her, helping her to undress.  Wouldn't a lover do that? 

Maybe she was a student?  He didn't teach.  Hell, I didn't have a clue about what he did, except that whatever it was, it seemed to keep him around home most of the day.  I didn't want to look like a Peeping Jane.  I never observed his living room antics.  At least, not for too long.

Seriously.  I know, my logic is fucked.

I peered around the curtain again and caught Boobs pulling a tee shirt over her head.  It fit tightly and she cupped her breasts again and smiled.  Yeah, honey, they're nice, but….

But, I had nothing.  Her double Ds trumped my demure almost-C cups any day.

Now the pants went down and I forced myself to look away because
no panties
.  When would he come into the room?  Was he in the shower? I pressed the back of my head to the curtain and glass.  Damn it.  How long had they been lovers?  Was I a side order on the nights he didn't see her?  But he was around most nights.  Did they have a day-time fling?  Was this Awkward Marriage Proposal Guy all over again?

It wasn't like we really had any sort of relationship.  Me and Monsieur Sexy were window buddies.  We got off while the other watched.  There were no feelings, emotions, or partnership contracts involved.  I had no say over whom he saw.  Or what, for that matter. 

Ugg.  She could stop a crash with those boobs.

As much as I'd like to think that he and I were exclusive, it was silly to expect so much from a man with whom I'd never even held a conversation.

All right.  Chill.  I have to accept this.  I wasn’t sure what to do with this new knowledge, but I wasn't going to freak over it.  I didn’t do the commitment thing anyway, and I was perfectly happy with that.

And yet, I'd seen her for a reason.  No coincidences in this universe.  None, whatsoever.

I turned and peeked around the curtain.  She was no longer in the room.  Out to the main living area to seduce her lover and let him undress her?  Why the undressing?  She could have sauntered out naked.  Planted herself on his lap and spilled her long red hair over his face as he kissed her…

But I wanted him to kiss me.  To feel his mouth on mine, tendering slow, passionate kisses.  And then devouring harder, deeper.  Driving inside me, taking from me and giving, too.  It had been a while since I'd been properly kissed.  A woman couldn't do that for herself.

I realized that I cupped my breasts, and flung my hands to the floor in disgust.  No, not disgust, disappointment.  He had a lover.  And I had been a fool not to expect as much.  The man was handsome times ten. He was a Frenchman, which—in my fantasies—implied he would have lovers.  Many of them.  A woman here, a woman there.  A woman across the street in the window.

A woman wishing she could erase what she had just seen.

Standing, I eyed the books scattered at the base of the bed.  I'd had enough with Henri VIII tonight.  There was another man who couldn't keep it in his pants.  The Tudor king had taken a multitude of women, and had found despicable ways to dispose of them when he’d grown bored of their affairs.  Was Monsieur Sexy an asshole after all?

I sighed and shook my head.  Not quite willing to label him so harshly, but cut to the core at this stunning revelation.

Again, movement caught my eye.  I didn't want to see that obnoxious red hair or those bouncing breasts.

I backed toward the window and thought I'd be able to pull the curtain closed without turning around.

"Just do it.  You know you want to."

Compelled to look, my heart fluttered this time.  He wandered into the bedroom, his eyes tracking the floor.  He saw me and his smile grew to that easy natural curve I'd come to expect from him.  He waved.  Putting up one finger—wait a second—he then searched the bed, under the pillow and turned aside the comforter.  His eyes wandered the floor, and then he dove, snagging something from under the bed.

He straightened, dangling a pair of pink panties.  Waggling them toward me, he shrugged, then left the room.

I tugged the curtains closed. 

"Asshole."

***

Work flew by like a wounded vulture bobbling over a barren landscape.  It was only two when I'd looked at the clock on my computer’s control bar—for about the fourteenth time.  After four hours of my eyes tracking page after page, I couldn't get in to online research anymore.  It was a beautiful fall day.  The sun was high.  I'd spent the morning listing the various forms of marble used for sculptures in the fifteenth century. 

Stone was boring.  I needed…I needed…a respite. 

Sitting upright, an idea for a field trip blinked above my head.  I'd head to the Louvre for closeup inspection of the marble works.  That would prove much easier on the eyeballs than screen strain.  And afterward, a leisurely walk in the Tuileries would serve me the sunshine I craved.  Strolling down the alleys of carved trees, the rocks crunching beneath our feet…

I sighed and caught my chin in palm.  I'd made the mental slip of including another, nameless someone in my fantasy.  Yet if I knew his name right now, I'd probably scribble it on a piece of paper, burn it, and offer the ashes to some demigod in exchange for singeing off his pubic hairs the next time his redhead went down on him.

Chuckling at my devious thoughts, I closed the laptop and reached for my purse.  A lightweight purple scarf for around my neck—
de rigueur
when in Paris—and a small notebook to jot notes while at the museum.  Skipping down to the lobby, I waved to the doorman and headed out toward the Seine.  I avoided looking in windows as my rapid stroll moved me south.  Was it because I didn't want to see the truth?

Or was I worrying too much?  Creating scenarios that couldn't possibly be true.  I'd worked with fiction writers so much my mind was beginning to spin and concoct fantasies just as theirs did.  Always thinking.  Thinking far too much.

He'd flashed the panties at me as if a pink banner he'd wanted me to salute.  What man would do that unless he meant to send a message?

I beelined it toward the right bank and the Louvre.  "Just a couple hours," I promised my reluctant work self.  "And then escape."

***

Wandering from the Richelieu wing, where the majority of the marble statues were displayed, I made way back toward the Denon wing, planning one quick stop before my escape into the park.  Once there, I'd do the tourist thing and buy a Nutella and banana crepe from a food stand, and not care that it had more calories than an entire week's allotment.

And I wouldn't give him another thought.

The museum was packed to the gills with tourists.  All scattering about like ants seeking crumbs, none clear on their direction.  I tuned out the bustle and managed to walk relatively unscathed through the thickly populated hallways.

It was difficult not thinking about someone who existed in a section of my brain designed to always bring him to the fore.  Like a filing cabinet that, when opened, had one pesky file always popping up.  No matter how many times I tried to stuff it back down, or fold back the corner, it kept popping up and would sometimes jam the drawer so it wouldn't close completely.

My brain was not completely closed.  He'd jammed a corner into the drawer.  I kept seeing him standing before the window, his palms pressed flat, his body with the impossible abs and ridged muscles.  Hand on cock, he drew my admiration.  Our eyes holding one another's.  His were sky-gray.  Had he noticed that mine were blue? 

I wondered if I had jammed his drawer?  Did he think about me while doing mundane things? Jabbing a fencing foil into defensive poses? Concentrating on business? 

Or was he fucking the redhead right now?

He was usually home.  Which meant that he must go to her place for an afternoon liaison when I was working and not paying attention to the comings and goings across the street.  And why the hell had she been fencing with him?  She didn't look the type to be interested in the sport.  Not that I knew what type that was, just…she wasn't it.  She was too top-heavy.  How did she keep the proper balance required for perfect footwork and form?

I had no idea what fencing form was, or if big boobs helped or hindered the sport.  Certainly though, she must require a special vest with a larger bust.

Big Red fenced because it was how she'd snagged him.  I was sure of it.  Now that she'd caught him, she'd slowly wean him off the fencing by offering more sex.  And he, being a lusty Frenchman whose cock never seemed to be lax, would take anything she offered.

I caught my face in my palms and growled.  "Stop doing this to yourself!"

I turned down a crowded hallway and forced myself to walk into the room that displayed the most popular painting here at the Louvre.  The
Mona Lisa
.  The crowd before the small portrait had to be thirty people deep, so I stepped to the left and stood before
The Wedding Feast at Cana
, my back to the curious bustle of gawkers.

I'd never had a tendency for choosing the wrong men.  The bad men.  My dating history had been filled with normal, polite, reasonable men.  Yes, even Awkward Marriage Proposal Guy had been nice (when he’d not been eating out other women).

Ugg.  Normal, polite, and reasonable.  Didn't that sound sexy?

My eyes strayed around the massive wedding feast that had been painted in the sixteenth century by Paolo Veronese.  The largest painting in the Louvre, I could lose time looking over the crowds of people on canvas.  I bet the painter had been polite and reasonable.

Argh!

Who was I?  Why couldn’t I be more like Melanie, jet-setting the world with a man in every port?  Seducing with a red-lipsticked pout.  I wasn't ugly.  I could do pretty when I broke out the blush and mascara.  I could have any man I set my sight on.  Not that I needed a man.  Men were nice accessories.  But I simply needed to know that I had the power to captivate.

I needed to know that I could flip my hair over my shoulder, like the redhead had, and win my prize.

I'd been festering over this too long.  I hadn't gone back to the window last night.  And I had no intention of opening the curtains tonight.  It was over.  I couldn't do this with a man who—

With a man who what?  A man with whom I hadn't spoken a single word?  A man whose name I didn't even know?  A man who had never agreed to window fuck me exclusively.  A man, whom I had so much to learn about.

And I wanted to keep learning.  I just…needed a breather.  Yeah, that was it.  A day or two to get the pink panties out of my mental file folder.  I didn't care that his file kept jamming my drawer.  I just wanted it to be because of his papers, and none of them pink.

It was clearly time for Nutella and bananas.

I turned, preparing to leave the room, when an aisle opened amongst the mass of people and I got a great view of the Mona Lisa.  She smiled that knowing smirk at me.  Winked even.  She'd have window sex with a man first chance she got.  She'd probably had sex with Leonardo da Vinci—

"Leonardo da Vinci," I breathed.

My heartbeats started to bust a move.  I began to pant.  I couldn't believe it.  Could it be? 

The symbol from Richard’s map.  I'd seen it somewhere in my research.  I'd compiled a few pages on Leonardo da Vinci last year for an author who had been writing a travel exposé on Milan, Italy.  It had been a fascinating mental tour into fifteenth century Italy and the painter's life.  Except he hadn't been simply a painter, but also a sculptor, designer, engineer, and…he'd made lots of sketches.  Including a folio of knotwork designs.

I rushed out of the room and headed for the exit doors.  I didn't care about the crepe anymore, or the sunshine.  I had to find that book.

Chapter
Ten

The next morning I raced into the map shop.  "Richard?"

"Tea's on," he called from the back room.  He startled when I rushed into the tiny room, elation panting my breaths.  Teacup in hand, his bright eyes waited my revelation.

"How did you know?" I asked.  "And do you really believe the map was drawn by Leonardo da Vinci?"

A grin curled into his eyes.  And I noticed for the first time the sweater he wore daily matched his pale blue irises.  I wanted to hug him, but that would be pressing it.  He was more of a handshake kind of guy.