Chapter Nine
There was a question in Joel’s eyes. She shivered, caught in his gaze. And then he brushed his fingers down her cheek.
His smile was tentative. ‘Can I kiss you? I realise, given your own exper–’
Chloe pulled his head down to hers. She didn’t care about her own experience. She didn’t care that he was getting married. She didn’t care if he probably preferred men. The only thing she cared about was the sublime sensation of his mouth on hers, here and now, and the fire that was raging through her, ignited on Oscar’s bench, fanned by Monsieur Noir.
The kiss quickly progressed from hesitant to passionate, his teeth briefly clashing with hers, his tongue sliding into her mouth. Well, they were in France.
That was her last coherent thought before a powerful wave of desire – an absolute tsunami of it – obliterated her ability to think, sweeping away her awareness of anything other than Joel’s body pressed against hers, his soft lips exploring hers, his hand sliding down to her bottom, pulling her closer before moving to her breast, caressing it, stroking it gently as electric shocks ripped like lightning from his fingers to her groin, opening her up like a flower.
He pulled off her jumper, which took the beret with it, then undid her shirt and slipped his hand inside, circling a nipple with a finger, brushing it, then pinching it … harder, until a moan escaped her.
Then he backed her up against the wall, his shackled hand on her waist, the other making its way inside her shirt again, and kissed her neck.
‘Bite and suck,’ she breathed. ‘Do it, Joel.’
His low laugh was muffled as he licked her skin, the tip of his tongue travelling slowly up to her jawline. He sucked on her lips, bit them gently, his teeth sending more of those shocks south, opening her up further and her knees began to tremble. He kissed the hollow behind her collarbone, then moved down, taking her nipple in his mouth, sucking it, biting it gently. She moaned with pleasure as the remaining strength drained from her knees.
‘I’ve got you,’ he said, holding her up, ‘unless you’d like me to lie you down on a tomb.’
For a moment that thought was disturbingly enticing, but then, somehow, she remembered her manners. ‘That would be disrespectful,’ she panted, ‘and we might get haunted.’
‘Really?’ he whispered into her neck, gently biting her again. ‘Would the idea of two people making out on your future tomb make you angry, or strangely happy? Or even exceptionally horny.’
Her excitement ratcheted up another notch. There were hardly any notches left. She was close to the edge. ‘Well, if you put it like that …’ she gasped.
He stopped for a moment and fixed those eyes on her. They were molten in the darkness. They were temptation personified.
‘Would you like to fuck on a tomb, Chloe?’ he said softly, as those eyes seared her retinas. Her skin broke out in goosebumps; his voice was rich, dark chocolate, sourced from an as-yet undiscovered cocoa bush in a dark, wet, equatorial rainforest.
Fuck yes. I want to fuck you on a tomb.
‘Joel? What’s happened to you?’ she breathed.
‘There’s two sides to us all.’
‘I know. And I need to talk to you about that.’
Were bisexual men maybe better at pleasuring women than straight men? At knowing what they wanted? Knowing what to say, how to touch them? Was it because they had a stronger feminine side? She’d never before been anywhere close to this turned on.
‘Later,’ he said. ‘Look – if you want me to stop, tell me, whenever you–’
‘No,’ she shot, as he undid her jeans. ‘Don’t you dare stop. What happens in Paris …’ She tugged with her left hand as he tugged with his right.
‘Chloe,’ he said, as his fingers worked their way into her underwear. ‘I’ve wanted to do this to you since you stomped around that tomb and roasted my mates. A beautiful bad-arse girl with such a beautiful arse.’
‘I thought you were pretty much unconsc–’ The end of the word vaporised as his fingers found ground zero and she sucked in a breath.
‘Shit,’ he said, letting out a small groan, ‘you’re so wet.’ He slid his fingers slowly inside, and she thought she’d die from the ecstasy of it.
‘I–’
‘Shhh, no more words.’ He stroked her … slowly, slowly … a little faster; sliding his fingers in and out, and around, knowing exactly what to do – how hard, how fast, how deep – and his shackled hand twisted to hold hers, gripping it tight as she moaned. She was tipping, tipping …
Another groan escaped her. ‘Don’t stop. Please … don’t stop. If you stop you’ll be dead as these guys …’ She flapped the hand that was gripping Joel’s shoulder in the general direction of a tomb. Seconds later she was shuddering uncontrollably, and it was beyond her not to let out a cry loud enough to wake those dead as she came, more spectacularly than she’d ever come before.
She turned her face to the sky, to the moon, arching her body towards Joel, then seconds later flopped against him as every bone in her body that wasn’t already liquidised turned to jelly. Beautiful, warm jelly.
As the pulsing subsided she was swamped in bliss, in deep peace, in existential happiness.
I never knew it could feel like that.
He withdrew his hand and held her tightly against him, kissing her hair. ‘Beautiful Chloe,’ he said quietly. ‘Thank you for tonight.’
They didn’t move for a while, her head remaining buried in his shoulder. She breathed him in, loving the warmth of his broad, strong chest.
‘Nice?’ he said.
Her eyes were still closed. Then, as she regained the ability to think, and to move her muscles, she properly registered what had just happened. ‘My god Joel,’ she said, pulling back, looking into his eyes. ‘I can’t believe I wanted to fuck on a tomb.’
He smiled a wicked smile.
‘I wanted to fuck on a tomb,’ she repeated quietly, to herself. ‘And we just … and I … bloody hell.’
He grinned down at her. ‘You’re so funny.’
She smiled back. ‘Why didn’t we fuck on a tomb? Joel …’ She tentatively moved her hand down to his crotch, but he stopped it with his free hand.
‘Unwise,’ he said, ‘with no protection.’
Ah yes. Once bitten, twice shy, presumably.
‘True. So would you like me to …’ Her hand was still clamped in his.
‘No, I’m fine.’ His smiled was amused. ‘That was all about you.’
She frowned in confusion. A guy turning down a … well, whatever he wanted her to do, frankly. She knew he’d been turned on too – it had been veeery obvious. She owed him, and then some.
Or maybe he was in fact reluctant to cheat while on his stag do. Perhaps what they’d done didn’t count because it had been all about her. Like Bill Clinton, I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
Once again, she bemoaned her lack of knowledge when it came to anything beyond heterosexual, vanilla-flavoured sex. Did gay guys sometimes … She had no idea. No idea at all. They really needed to talk.
He spotted the look in her eye. ‘Let’s go open that damn door,’ he said, as she opened her mouth to ask.
The old iron key turned with an unequivocal clunk.
We’re out.
For Chloe, the sound signalled the opening of one door, but the closing of another. Joel lifted the latch and pushed, and the narrow street beyond was revealed. Opposite were tall, balconied buildings with picturesque, shuttered windows, lit by moonlight and the soft glow of a streetlamp. The cemetery trees leaned over the spiked wall, casting shadows over the footpath. There was no one around.
‘What do we do with the key?’ Joel asked as they stepped through.
‘Toss it over the wall?’
He locked the door behind them then did as she suggested; they glimpsed it silhouetted against the sky then heard it land with a faint chink .
‘So long, dead people,’ Joel said, lifting his free hand. ‘Goodbye, Oscar,’ he added quietly, and gave a small salute.
‘I’m so glad you got to see him,’ said Chloe. ‘I’ll swing by sometimes on my way home from work and send him your love.’ As she said the words she saw herself in weeks to come, leaning on the glass barrier, remembering.
Sitting on that bench, remembering.
To her dismay, a big fat tear rolled down her cheek. She quickly brushed it away.
Thankfully, Joel was looking up the street. ‘Is that your restaurant?’
‘It is,’ she said. ‘Look, it’s still open. I wonder what time it is.’
‘You want to eat? Um, have you got any money? The guys took my card. I can pay you back, obviously.’
For that he’d need her phone number, or at least to send a Facebook friend request. Not that she had a phone, currently. Would he really get it back to her? Oddly, she didn’t relish the prospect of staying in touch. She didn’t want to witness this journey he was on. If he stuck with it.
Back to her mission, then.
‘When are you going home?’ she said.
‘Tomorrow afternoon. We allowed the morning for recovery.’
‘And where are you staying?’
‘Not far from the Eiffel Tower, in a hotel. Food, Chloe?’ he said, looking longingly at the cosy little bistro. The thought was extremely appealing, and she was hungry, but she was far too shy to walk in there chained to a man. A man who’d just made her come against a cemetery wall. For some reason she felt that might be written across her face; her cheeks were probably still flushed, and there could well be a rash on her neck courtesy of his stubble. And when was the last time she’d brushed her hair? This morning. Oh dear.
Joel, however, looked cool as a cucumber. Un concombre . Unflushed, with his hair just slightly, appealingly, dishevelled, beautiful in his tight stripy T-shirt and close-fitting black jeans, his shadowed jaw the only hint of stag weekend depravity. She supposed she was part of that depravity now, but that fact didn’t bother her as much as it might have done earlier.
Her reluctance to step inside the bistro was mostly about the chain. Her French was too basic to explain the truth of the padlock – who knew what she might end up saying? Table for two and please excuse my bondage accessory?
‘Do you speak much French?’ she asked.
‘Not unless it would be useful to tell the waiter my aunt’s pen is on the table and it might rain today.’
She looked down at their wrists. ‘We can’t go in, Joel. Not like this. It’s too embarrassing. We need to find a gendarmerie. Or … I guess there might be something back at my apartment we could cut it off with? A bread knife?’
Joel snorted. ‘Have you seen the thickness of this chain? It’s reinforced steel. Do you have a hacksaw?’
‘I do not. My DIY skills stretch only to changing light bulbs and hanging pictures. But we could try the bread knife? It’s quite a good one. Shall we?’
Joel threw one last look of regret at the bistro, then they set off.
This was an entirely different experience to wandering around the cemetery. As they turned from the quiet lane onto a wide boulevard, an elderly woman’s eyes went to their wrists, then to their faces, before looking quickly away. She was followed by two men who nudged each other and smirked. ‘ Amusez bien! ’ called one.
Chloe was mortified. Joel was trying not to laugh.
‘Hold my hand,’ he said. ‘People will think it’s chunky his ‘n’ hers jewellery.’
She twisted her wrist and he grasped her hand, and swung it a couple of times. ‘There we go. Just two lovers strolling the nighttime streets of Paris.’ He squeezed it.
She loved holding his hand far too much.
‘This is beautiful,’ he said, looking around him at the apartment blocks that lined the boulevard – pale stone buildings topped by steep grey roofs. Rows of shuttered French windows glowed in the dark, throwing light onto the narrow balconies that ran along the building facades, and right at the top, five or six floors up, little garret rooms nestled in the rooftops. ‘I was too drunk to notice how lovely it is this morning. You’re bloody lucky, living here.’
‘I am,’ she said. ‘And here we are. My place.’