Two Weeks in Geneva: Book Three (9 page)

“So your parents basically arranged a marriage so that they could be more popular at the country club, or the Swiss equivalent, I guess. That’s so fucked-up.”

Quinn leaned back, trying to picture a scenario where her parents, who loved her far more than she probably deserved, would do something like that. She failed. They simply wouldn’t, and she knew she would never do something like that to Ethan.

“It’s a little more complicated than that. Name, status, they still mean something here that Americans don’t understand. My parents saw it as a way to secure everyone’s legacy, and I guess me married to a woman like Magda, who isn’t without her charms, seemed a small price to pay.”

“No, it’s a big price to pay, and it’s just plain shitty.”

“I’ll agree with you, but I’m just trying to give their side, what I imagine they were trying to do. Mind you, I did not react well at the time. I moved out, got my own place, and cut them all off. I only talked to my father about work and didn’t talk to my mother at all, though that relationship had thawed a bit over the years, mostly at my grandfather’s urging. And, well, as for Magda, she partied her way through Europe, or so I heard. I didn’t keep track.”

“And that was that?”

“Pretty much. I mean, I had lovers, but never anything serious, never someone who meant anything. Not until you.”

She didn’t doubt his words.

“Alexander…I-I know I shouldn’t ask, but why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He held her gaze but stayed silent, considering.

“No reason? Every reason?” he finally responded. “I thought that part of my life was over, and in some way, I guess I still wanted to please my parents. Staying married seemed like the best of all worlds: they’d get their precious status, Magda would get her precious money, and I’d have my precious freedom. It seems stupid when I say it out loud, but it’s the truth. After so many years, I couldn’t think of a good reason to change.”

“And after…?”

“After you, after Ethan?”

She nodded.

“At first, I didn’t even think about it. I mean, with everything that came with finding out about him, Magda, my…marriage, never crossed my mind. And then the thing with you, being with you, seeing what all three of us together was like…I was terrified. I never expected not to; I knew I had to tell you, but the time never seemed right.”

He grabbed her hand and laced his fingers through hers, held her gaze with his own intently.

“Quinn, please, if you don’t believe anything else, please know that I never, ever meant to hurt you. Or him.”

“I know now,” she said. “I think I knew all along.”

“And as angry as I was, as much as I hate what my weakness has done, what I’ve allowed it to take from me, I love you more than anyone or anything, and I can’t make myself stop,” he said quietly, the evenness of his tone at odds with the earnestness in his eyes.

He stood up from the couch and walked over to the balcony doors, staring out into the inky darkness of the night. Quinn followed and reached up hesitantly to touch his shoulder and then wrapped her arms around his waist. He flinched but didn’t pull away, so Quinn snuggled closer, trying to pour everything she felt into him.

“Me either,” she said, voice muffled against the solid wall of his back.

“What?” he said, his body still rigid.

“I can’t make myself stop loving you either. Even after what I did—what we did to each other—I can’t stop.”

She reached around him to grasp his other shoulder and turn him to face her, staring up into his eyes, imploring.

“I love you, Alexander. With all my heart and soul, I love you.”

Time seemed to stand still as his gaze searched hers, and for a moment she feared he would send her away. Instead, he pulled her into a tight embrace and whispered in her ear.

“Je t’aime pour toujours. Je t’aime pour toujours. Je ne peux pas vivre sans toi.
I love you forever. I cannot live without you.”

He kissed her, deeply and possessively, his tongue and lips obliterating thoughts of anything except him. But a few moments later, he pulled back. He continued whispering the words like a mantra, a sacred prayer, as he peeled off her shirt and pants, then her bra and panties, hands caressing every inch of her skin as it was revealed. She stood before him fully exposed, both in body and in heart, and her gaze searched his, seeking some confirmation of what he felt. But he remained inscrutable, his eyes intense but unreadable, and her heart skipped a beat.

It wouldn’t end here; they’d fought too hard. So Quinn breathed a deep breath, pushed all of the fear and doubt that floated on the edges of her consciousness aside, and waited, hoping he could see,
feel
, the love and trust she had for him. The moments stretched, stretched even further, but she waited, secure in the bond that she’d only just acknowledged but in which she believed with every fiber of her being.

And then he smiled, his whole spirit seeming to lift with the expression. That smile remained as he lifted his sweater over his head, revealing the smooth, taut plane of his abdomen, the picture of masculine perfection, before he tossed the garment aside, the muscles in his chest and arms rippling with the effort. Her breath hitched, and her gaze followed his hands as he reached toward his belt. Throat dry and pussy wet, she watched, mesmerized as he removed the belt, the
whisk
of the leather as he pulled it through his belt loops sounding in the air and heightening her anticipation to a fever pitch. Then,
finally
, he pulled his pants, and his underwear with them, down around his lean hips.

Her gaze was riveted to his cock, and she moaned at the sight of it, hard, glistening with the fluid that flowed freely from his slit. She moaned again at the gentle sway of his cock as he walked toward her. The moment was almost surreal. She’d dreamed of this, of being with him again, her body longing for him on an almost atomic level. And when he touched her, she ignited. He trailed his fingers down her neck, over her shoulder, down to rest on her breast.

Directly over her heart.

A rush of blood raced to her head, leaving her almost dizzy. But Alexander was there to hold her, his arm around her waist as solid as steel, as clear a message as any words that he’d be there to catch her.

He’d always be there.

He leaned in to kiss her, soft and gentle, a startling contrast to the heat and heavy emotion that pulsed between them. He led her into the bedroom, and she lay down on the mattress, the coolness and texture of the linen amplified by the sensitivity of her skin. He lay on top of her, and she spread her legs instinctively, cradled him with her hips, desperate to have him inside her again, to have them joined as they were meant to be.

His heated tip brushed against her, and she opened wider, silently urging him on. The movement shifted his cock, and he was aligned with her entrance, the intimate contact making them both breathe harder, the air passing between them as if they shared the breath.

And then he thrust into her with no further preamble, and in that moment, all was as it should be, her and Alexander, no ghosts between them, him filling her, showing her with his body what he’d expressed with his words.

He moved against her again and again, the slap of his flesh against hers as he hammered into her filling the room, punctuated by their grunts and moans. He caressed her breasts, thumbed her nipples as he stroked inside her, touched her with a mix of awe and reverence, as if he wasn’t quite sure that she was real. She smoothed her hands down his arms, reveling in the ripple of his taut muscles before reaching up to hold his face.

“I’m here, Alexander. Forever.”

Her words seemed to send him over the edge, and after a few more hard, deep thrusts, he exploded inside her, filling her with his essence. Love shone in his eyes as he rode the wave of his climax, and she kept her gaze on his, hoping that he could see all of his love being returned.

Later, Alexander held her in his arms, stroking her back.

“When do you have to go home?” he asked.

“I am home.”

His hands stilled, and he turned her to face him.

“What did you say?”

“I’m home; we’re home.”

“But…but…” He trailed off, his brow furrowed with surprise. “What about your mother?”

“She’s already looking for an English-speaking bridge club for her long and frequent upcoming visits.”

“The house?”

“Vern’s finally striking out on her own. She’s moving in the beginning of the month.”

“Your job?”

“Who cares?” she said with a shrug.

His eyes widened, and she rushed on. “I mean, I won’t mooch or anything, but I told you, it’s just a job. I wouldn’t let it keep us apart.”

Alexander sat up, looking stunned, disbelieving. She kissed his arm, and he glanced down at her, eyes filled with hope.

She smiled at him, letting the love she felt show without any restraint.

“If you’ll have us, of course.”

“Have you? I’ll never let you go.”

He returned her smile and leaned down to take her lips in a scorching kiss.

Two weeks in Geneva had become a lifetime.

Thank You!

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed the conclusion of Quinn and Alexander’s journey. Look for Verna and Joe’s story, coming soon.

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•Please read on for an excerpt of
Devil’s Plaything
, the first book in the Playthings series,
available now
.

Devil’s Plaything: Excerpt

She hadn’t expected him tonight.

He’d been antsy, restless, last time, and she’d wondered if maybe, finally, one of them had come to their senses. Apparently not, for here he was, tapping at her door at this ungodly hour as he had so many times before. She opened it without looking and upon realizing what she’d done, braced herself for his reprimand.

He did not disappoint.

“You check first before you open,
da
?” he asked, his cold blue gaze sweeping the small expanse of her home as he entered and began his check.

“Sorry,” she said, though she resented feeling chastised in her own home. But placation, even in circumstances like this, was second nature to her, so better to apologize than risk upsetting him. He murmured indecipherably, clearly distracted by his search.

She watched him prowl the space, much like a lion in a cage, his large, bulky frame making the small studio apartment seem cartoonishly smaller. His gaze quickly moved over the tiny kitchenette, but there was nothing to see there besides the cheap round table with two chairs, two-burner efficiency stove, minifridge, and bar-sized sink. She didn’t even have proper cabinets, just a converted shelf where she stored dry goods. Before, she’d kept the shelf covered with a cheery-patterned curtain but had removed it at his request, his response to inquiry as to why a vague, “It is good to see.” She hadn’t pressed.

Before moving to the final area of the apartment, he quickly took in the living room, where the furnishings consisted of a loveseat she’d reclaimed from the side of the road, a twenty-one-inch television she couldn’t remember where she’d gotten, and a plastic storage bin, which also doubled a coffee table, that contained most of her wardrobe. The few items that she owned that required hanging were discreetly, or so she hoped, hung on a rack in the corner.

She’d curtained off a section of the space to create a bedroom and was silently thankful that he hadn’t asked her to remove that curtain as well. It wasn’t much, just a couple of sheer, iridescent panels of fabric that she’d picked up for practically free, but she loved the illusion they created, how every time she parted them and entered her “bedroom” they made her feel like she was entering an entirely different space, a private oasis of sorts, not that she was lying down on the iron Murphy bed that came preinstalled in the terrace-level studio apartments of a marginal building in a marginal neighborhood. As silly as it was, those curtains were like a turnstile, a barrier at which she could shed all the troubles of the outside world and enter that special place free and buoyed.

She’d never allowed anyone,
anyone
, into that special place, but with him it hadn’t been a question. His presence made her feel much the same way the curtains did, and him behind them was almost otherworldly, an escape from her real life that she’d come to rely on like a drug. Disturbingly so, in fact, as evidenced by her willingness, no, her eagerness, to allow a stranger into her home, to put up with his repeated, and frankly scary, searches, and even to alter her decor, all for just a few illicit hours with him.