Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
JO
-voyage, voyage-
The door to the vault opens so suddenly, that I nearly drop the delicate brush in my hand.
“What the hell?” I exclaim.
“Jo!” Axel practically shouts, ignoring my startled exclamation, His voice cuts through the calm. He’s out of breath, his eyes sharp and focused. “I’ve got information.”
I put down my tools, my anger forgotten, and excitement swirls inside of me.
“Information? About what?” I ask, although it has to be about the painting.
He strides over towards my workstation, closing the distance between us faster than I can react.
His dark hair is mussed slightly at the sides, and the black t-shirt he is wearing, his signature look when he’s not in his office wear, clings to him in a way that makes my stomach do a quick flip. I shake the longing away.
“The painting?” I ask cautiously.
He nods. “Bingo. The painting. The real one. I found out who has it, or at least who sold it last year. There’s a dealer.
He’s shady, well-connected, but not someone you’d stumble across in polite circles.
He’s the one who facilitated the sale of the painting to an anonymous buyer.
If anyone knows for sure who stole it, it’s him. ”
“Where is he?” I ask, my pulse quickening.
“Paris.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Paris? As in France?”
“Yes. I’m on my way to the airport. I just wanted to stop by and update you.”
“You’re going to fly to Paris? Right now?”
“Yes,” he says, his eyes locking on mine. “I’ll go and sort this out.”
“OK. Give me a chance to change and pack. I’m coming too.”
He frowns. “That won’t be necessary.”
I take a step closer to him, my hands on my hips. “Axel, I’m not sitting here twiddling my thumbs while you play detective in another country. I’m coming with you.”
There’s a pause, that slow, calculating look of his, and I know he’s weighing the argument. Finally, he exhales and shrugs.
“Fine,” he says. “Half an hour. We leave in half an hour. Get packed. If you’re not in the foyer in exactly half an hour, I am going without you.”
I practically fly from the vault through the mansion and up the stairs, my mind racing with excitement and nerves.
A change of clothes and a frantic shove of essentials and enough clothes for two or three days into a weekend bag later, I’m ready.
Axel is already waiting in the foyer when I dash down the stairs with one minute to spare, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“You actually did it,” he says, his tone teasing but warm. “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not about to let you have all the fun. And besides … I need to see Paris.”
He lifts an eyebrow, amusement flickering in his green eyes. “I was right. You’re stubborn; you know that?”
The flight passes in a blur. This is now my second time flying on a private jet, and I am still far from used to it.
We spend the flight on a combination of planning our approach to the dealer, having occasional discussions about who the dealer might have sold the painting to, although that’s more out of curiosity than anything, and silent moments where our shoulders brush, and I have to bite back a shiver.
Axel pretends not to notice, but I know he too can feel the pull between us intensifying with every glance.
When we arrive at the airstrip, the hotel is only a quick taxi ride away. It is only as we stand outside of the hotel that Axel hesitates slightly.
“I deliberately chose a slightly seedy hotel so we appear a little shady. Unfortunately, my PA only booked one room,” he admits.
“As you know, the original plan was for me to come alone. Unfortunately, when my PA called back to see if she could get a second room, she was informed that they were fully booked. So… we either share the room, or we find you a room in a different hotel.”
For a moment, anger flickers inside of me. Why the hell didn’t he tell me this sooner? But then an idea comes to me. Everything happens for a reason. The anger fades away as heat spreads through me. I don’t want to have a room in a different hotel. Play it cool, Jo, I warn myself in my head.
“Well,” I say. “It’s not a big deal. We can share without it being a major thing. After all, we’re not here on a holiday. We’re on a mission to catch a thief.”
A flicker of relief, maybe even admiration, crosses his face. “Good. I was hoping you wouldn’t overreact.”
Inside, though, a small irritation lingers.
I don’t like the way he just assumed I would react badly to the news.
Still, though, my anger is tempered by a strange, growing sense of closeness.
He trusted me enough to let me come, and that counts for something.
I decide not to start this trip off on the wrong foot by being all butt-hurt and proving Axel’s point.
He goes to the reception desk to check us in while I hang back looking over a map of the city that is pinned on one wall.
When the check-in process is done, I follow Axel to the elevator and up to our floor – floor six.
We enter the room and I flick the lights on.
The soft electric lighting clashes with the orangey toned light from the Parisian streetlights outside that is spilling in through the glass door that leads out onto a balcony.
Axel sets our bags down by the dresser, and I pull the drapes across the balcony door.
I look at the time and see it’s almost two a.m. Axel sees me checking the time.
“It’s too late to do anything now,” he mutters, half to himself, half to me. He looks up at me. “Unless you’re hungry? I’m sure there will be somewhere open for a takeaway.”
“I’m still stuffed full,” I say. We were served a full, restaurant-standard-three-course meal on the plane.
“Me too. We should unpack and get an early night. Start fresh in the morning,” Axel suggests.
I nod, though my pulse is already racing, not just from the day, but from the energy between us, and the thought that I am about to share a bed with Axel Rhodes. As we start unpacking, casual conversation turns into playful banter.
He smirks, tossing a folded black T-shirt at me. “You brought five pairs of socks? Are we hiking the Alps or something?”
I snort out a laugh and throw the T-shirt back to him, and then I start hanging up my clothes. “You never know. Paris could get chilly.”
“You really brought three sweaters for a weekend?” I tease, holding one up and laughing.
He leans a little closer to me, brushing past me as he grabs something from his bag. “One was for you.”
My breath catches in my throat, something I try and fail to hide, and I can feel the electricity crackling in the small space between us. I finish unpacking quickly.
“I’m going to go and get changed,” I announce croakily.
I head into the en-suite bathroom with my pajamas and my toilet bag.
I brush my teeth, wash my makeup off, and brush out my hair.
I change into the pajamas. I use the toilet and cringe when I have to flush.
Ugh… Schooling my features into an expression of perfect calm and insouciance, I open the door.
Good God!
Axel is naked, but for a pair of black boxer shorts.
He looks up as the bathroom door opens and heads casually towards it.
For a few seconds, I freeze at the glorious sight, and we almost bump into each other just outside of the bathroom door.
Then I come alive. We both attempt to sidestep each other, but we both go the same way.
For a fraction of a second, the world contracts.
His hand brushes my arm as if to move me to one side, and I feel that same jolt of heat I’d felt in the vault when our hands touched over the painting.
He looks at me, his gaze so dark and intense that I don’t pull back.
I can’t. What he wants, I want too. I tilt my chin slightly, and in a motion that feels both natural and inevitable, he leans in.
Our lips meet, tentative at first, then urgent.
The careful restraint I promised myself I would show on this trip shatters into a million pieces, and we haven’t even been here for an hour yet.
None of that matters, though. What matters is here and now.
Axel’s bare chest presses against me, and suddenly every second of tension, every unspoken word, every glance and brush of skin over the past few days explodes into a raging fire that neither of us can control.
The hotel room becomes a blur around us: the few bits of luggage we haven’t put away yet, the open window next to the balcony doors that lets in a faint Parisian breeze, the quiet hum of the city outside.
All of it recedes. Nothing matters except the heat of him, the way his hands find my hips and my waist and the way I cling to him like I am drowning, and he is the only one who can save me.
It’s raw, it’s consuming, and it’s nothing like I imagined it would be.
There are no words, no plans, only the desperate need to claim, to feel, to taste.
Axel grabs the bottom of my vest top and tugs it upwards.
I pull away from his kiss and put my arms in the air, and he peels the top off me and throws it aside.
For a second, his eyes glitter as they alight on my bare breasts, then his lips swoop down and find mine again.
My breasts press against his warm chest, and I can feel my nipples hard and aching as they touch his heated skin.
We tackle each other’s bottom halves; Axel expertly pushes my pajama bottoms down, and I find myself wrestling with his boxer shorts and the massive, thick, strutting cock that jumps out.
We both kick them away and stand together nude, our tongues entwining as our hungry mouths press tighter together.
My hands roam Axel’s back and sides, and his hands cup my ass.
His dick throbs urgently against my flesh.
He lifts me, and I wrap my arms around his shoulders, my legs around his waist.
He carries me to the bed, sits me on the edge, then kneels down in front of me.
Wrapping his big hands around my knees, he pushes my legs apart.
And for a long while, he stares with glittering, greedy eyes at my pussy.
When finally, he looks up at me, the naked lust in his eyes makes my stomach clench hard, and my clit pulses like mad.
Axel doesn’t waste any more time. He brings his head in between my legs and starts flicking his tongue hungrily over my clit.
The velvety warmth feels amazing, and I groan and open my legs wider, giving him better access.
He lifts one of my legs, hooks it over his shoulder, then does the same with the other one.
I lay back in surrender, and his hands run over the sides of my thighs and my hips.
He sucks on my clit, gently stretching it until I can’t take it anymore, and I gasp.
He releases it and then goes back to licking it.
I can feel the pressure building inside me, and I press myself against his face, moving my hips, desperate for release.
Axel moves his tongue through my slit and pushes it inside of me.
His fingers replace his tongue on my clit, and he rubs quickly, side to side and then around and around.
My orgasm comes over me, the release I need coming fast, flooding out of me.
Axel slurps up my juices, licking around my opening, tasting me, claiming me with his mouth.
I close my eyes and moan his name as another rush of pleasure moves through me. I feel my clit pulse, my pussy clench, and my stomach contract all at once as an intense feeling of heat and pleasure spreads through my body.
I am still feeling the after-effects of my orgasm when Axel lowers my legs and pulls his face back from me.
He is still kneeling between my legs, and I lift my head to look at him.
He looks me in the eye and licks his lips clean, then he wipes his face with his hand and, with his eyes never leaving mine, he slowly sucks his fingers clean.
I moan as desire floods through me.
Axel gets up and gets onto the bed between my legs.
I quickly scoot backwards to make space for him.
His cock is hard as a rock. It looks angry and ready to do damage.
He holds it against my opening and thrusts into me in one hard movement.
I cry out as his cock fills me, stretching me as I have never been stretched in my whole life.
I want to call out to God and send him special thanks for the indescribably delicious sensation.
I reach up for him as he begins to thrust, and he lowers his head and starts kissing and sucking at my neck as he moves within me.
We cling to each other, our bodies moving as one.
We roll, first he is on top, then I am, then he is again.
The whole time, he is pumping into me, his cock rubbing over my G spot, sending shocks of electricity through me, waking up nerve endings I didn’t know I had.
When I orgasm again, I am on my back beneath Axel, and I look into his eyes as I climax.
I dig my nails into his shoulders, clinging on as I ride wave after wave of intense pleasure.
I say his name over and over again until my throat feels raw.
As I clench around him like a vice, it pushes him over the edge too, and he climaxes alongside me, burying his face in my neck as he pulses inside of me.
We cling together a moment longer, and then he slips out of me and rolls off me.
He rolls me with him, so we lie on our sides facing each other.
Spent and breathing hard, we lie that way, our foreheads pressed together, until finally, I feel like I am myself again, that I can breathe normally once more.
“Holy shit,” I finally say.
“This is going to complicate things,” he mutters, his voice rough but amused despite everything.
He rolls onto his back, lifting his arm so I can lay my head on his shoulder. I laugh softly, resting my hand on his stomach.
“Complicated maybe, but worth it,” I whisper. “Or we could make it simple. What happens in Paris stays in Paris.”
He smiles, a brief, wolfish grin, and presses a soft kiss to my head. “Yes, we can blame the whole thing on Paris. I like that way of thinking.”
“We didn’t use any protection.”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice,” he says softly.
“It might be a way to kill two birds with one stone…”
Axel laughs softly, his breath warm on my face. “That’s true.”
I let out a small laugh, too tired to speak more, and close my eyes. Paris is suddenly more than just a city of lights and art. It’s the place where everything between Axel and I have changed, and neither of us will ever be able to go back to denying this pull between us.