Chapter 21 #3
By this time Maddelena had lost all her senses, and she was screaming filthy words at Chloe, trying to scramble up.
Chloe shoved her, and Maddelena went down again, shrieking imprecations.
She caught Chloe’s ankles, tumbling her to the floor on top of her.
She was biting, scratching, pulling at Chloe’s hair as she screamed her insults, and Chloe punched her hard, in the stomach.
“Don’t call me a cunt,” she said in a dangerous voice. “You overgrown bitch.”
But Maddelena seemed to be inexhaustible, hammering at Chloe around the head and shoulders, and Chloe finally caught her flailing arms, pushing them down on the floor with all her strength, which was thankfully better than Maddelena’s frenzied temper.
She tried to spit at her, but gravity sent the spittle back to her own face, and Chloe laughed, when suddenly strong arms slid around her stomach and pulled her away from the madwoman. It was Bastien.
“What’s going on here?” Le Faucon demanded, looking no more than mildly irritated. “Maddelena, are you fighting again?”
Maddelena answered with a spate of garbled words, few of which were recognizable. Chloe had managed to land a blow to her jaw, and her mouth was swollen and bleeding. Maddelena tried to scramble up, but Luc had reached her by that time, and he pulled her away.
“I don’t need to ask if you started this,” Le Faucon said heavily. “If you can’t behave yourself, my dear, you’ll have to go away. I can’t have my work disturbed by catfights.”
“Send her away!” was Maddelena’s muffled cry, but her father ignored her, turning to Bastien and Chloe.
“You’d better go clean her up,” he said, surveying her, and Chloe suddenly realized she felt like she’d been hit by a truck. Her fist was bleeding, her face ached, and Maddelena had bitten her several times on the arms as Chloe had tried to hold her flying fists still.
“Can I get a rabies shot?” Chloe demanded, and Maddelena leaped for her again, held back by Luc’s rough hands.
“Come along, mon ange,” Bastien said, and there was a note of amusement in his voice. “I’ll patch you up. And I assure you, Maddelena has already had all her shots.”
Chloe was still wound up from the epic battle, and hearing Bastien refer to her with one of his casual endearments rather than her name made her want to hit him as well. And then, as quickly as it had come, her fury vanished, leaving her shaky and weak.
“I can take care of myself,” she said stubbornly.
Bastien simply shook his head. “Don’t be difficult. You’ve smashed your hand, you’re bleeding, and you need patching up, even if rabies isn’t an issue.”
Maddelena let out another shriek of fury, and Luc simply shook her. “Get her away from me, or I’ll kill her!”
“You and what army?” Chloe managed to shoot back, even though she felt dizzy.
“Girls!” Le Faucon protested.
Bastien simply put his arm around her waist and moved her away. “Come with me, bébé,” he said, and his voice was rich with amusement, pissing her off even more.
“Don’t call me bébé, or mon ange, or chérie!” she snapped. “My name is Chloe.”
“I’ll call you anything I please. Bébé,” he added for emphasis. “Now stop arguing with me. You may have won your fight with Maddelena, but you wouldn’t with me.”
“I didn’t win,” she said, suddenly deflated. “I think she was about to kill me.”
“Oh, I promise you, she was just on the edge of collapse. She fights hard but she has no finesse.”
“Why didn’t you teach her how to fight?” Like you taught me, she thought.
“Women don’t need to fight unless they’re in the business. Besides, Maddelena would turn any skills I taught her on me. She’s fine as she is.”
“She’s a raving maniac!”
“Yes. You shouldn’t have goaded her,” he added.
“Are you blaming me for this?” she said in a dangerous voice.
“No, bébé. I should have warned you about Maddelena. If we hadn’t broken things up, she might have killed you.”
“I thought you said I won?”
They’d reached the door of her room. The guard who was usually in attendance was gone, and he pushed her inside, following her and locking the door after them.
“Get on the bed.”
Fury and desire swept through her. “Fuck you.”
“Not now, bébé. I have to patch you up.”
“Fuck you,” she said again, and he pushed her down on the bed.
“So insistent. Lie back and I’ll get the first-aid kit.”
“You have a first-aid kit in here? Why?”
“Because I’m married to Maddelena.”
It wasn’t a comforting answer. Seventeen years, she’d said. She hadn’t known Bastien seventeen years ago.
“Why did you marry her?” she called after him as he disappeared into the adjoining bathroom.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. She was very pretty when she was young.”
“She’s beautiful now,” Chloe said, not happy about it.
“Not after you got through with her. She looks even worse than you do.”
It only gave her momentary satisfaction. God, she was bloodthirsty today! “When did you marry her?”
He’d emerged from the bathroom with a white box in his hand. “Why all this interest in Maddelena?”
“Considering she’s trying to kill me, I thought it a good idea to find out everything I can.”
“What does our marriage have to do with that? It was a long, long time ago. Are you, by any chance, jealous, chérie?” He seemed amused by the idea.
“Not if you don’t stop calling me those phony endearments,” she said in a dangerous tone of voice.
“This is Maddelena we’re talking about. And jealousy is a waste of time. I don’t owe you or any woman my faithfulness. Move over.”
She didn’t want to move, but then he’d probably put those beautiful, deadly hands on her and she was too angry to let him. She inched over on the mattress, grudgingly, and he sat down beside her.
“You look like a prizefighter,” he said, touching her face gently as she winced. “You’re going to have a black eye.”
“I’ll survive,” she muttered gracelessly.
“And your hand is a mess. I just hope you didn’t break any fingers when you hit her. You can’t just punch people without knowing what you’re doing.”
“Yes, I can,” she said mutinously as he picked up her hand and surveyed it. It hurt like hell, and he touched it carefully, running his fingers along the back of her hand, her palm, slowly, before placing it on her stomach.
“No breaks as far as I can see. I’ll wrap it anyway—you might have sprained it.”
“It was worth it,” she said.
“If I were you, I would keep out of Maddelena’s way from now on. She won’t like having been bested, and for some reason, she really hates you.”
For some reason? He was denying everything between them, and she considered further damaging her fist by punching him.
But he was stroking her hand with an unexpected gentleness, and it was inexplicably soothing her.
She watched in silence as he wrapped an Ace bandage around it, holding still as he washed the blood off her face. He leaned back to survey her.
“Your lip is bleeding,” he said softly.
“Is it?” Her anger had vanished under his ministrations, and she looked up at him, her heart aching.
“Yes,” he said, and leaned forward to gently touch his mouth to hers. It barely hurt, and when he leaned back, she saw her blood on his mouth too, and it was inexplicably erotic.
“Did that hurt?” he said softly.
“Kiss me again and I’ll let you know.”
As Jean-Marc, he’d seldom smiled at her, but he did now. “Now is the time for ‘fuck you’,” he said, and kissed her again.
He was slow, tender, and unbearably erotic as he stripped off her clothes, dropping them on the floor beside his.
Every touch aroused her, every kiss enflamed her, and when he pushed inside her, she came immediately, tight around him as he thrust. He went slow, wickedly slow, driving her to distraction, and she made a whimpering sound of need that made him laugh.
“You want this?” he said, and sped up, and she cradled his hips with her thighs.
This was what she wanted, this was what she needed. He put his hand over her damaged mouth when she came, muffling any noise she might make, and his tight moan was almost soundless. He rolled off almost immediately, and she let out a cry of protest.
“I’m too heavy for you,” he said, stretching out beside her, cradling her head in one large hand. He kissed her again. “Sleep for a while. I have to find a way to sneak out of here so no one sees me, but I’ll find a way back. I feel like a goddamned teenager trying to sneak some forbidden sex.”
She was exhausted, drained, drowsy, barely aware of his body pressed up against her. “Bastien,” she whispered as she pressed her face against him, breathing in the scent of him. She drifted into sleep.
“Chloe,” he whispered back, and then froze.