Perfect Strangers

James strips me with swift, silent efficiency, tossing my clothes onto a nearby armchair. He stops to briefly consider the chair—a big purple velvet number with a high, rolled back and carved wooden legs—then drags it over to where I’m standing naked. It must weigh a hundred pounds, but you’d never know by the easy way he handles the thing. He faces it toward the windows.

Then he whips off the decorative gold silk tassel from the drapery, positions me so my belly rests against the curved upper part of the back of the chair, and pulls my arms behind my back.

He binds my wrists with the cord of silk.

My heartbeat jumps into overdrive. “James—”

“No talking,” he growls in his dominant voice. From the seat of the chair he retrieves my panties, which he balls up and stuffs into my mouth. “I’ll be doing the talking, sweetheart. You just listen and watch.”

My helpless groan is muffled by the panties. It’s warm in the room, but my skin prickles with goosebumps. I’m already shaking with anticipation. My nipples are hard. My breathing is erratic.

And my mind is going a million miles per hour trying to process all the unanswered questions I have about the man who’s now kneeling between my spread legs.

When I feel James’s hot mouth latch onto my clitoris, I suck in a breath. The pleasure is intense. He grabs my ass in both hands and makes a meal out of me, sucking and licking until my thighs shake.

Across the way, Gaspard turns Gigi onto her back. He hooks her ankles over his shoulders and reaches down to caress her firm breasts.

James slides a thick finger inside me. We both groan at the same time.

“This sweet pussy will be the death of me,” he whispers, then goes right back to sucking, sliding his finger in and out as my hips begin to match his rhythm, rocking back and forth against his face.

I stand with my ass canted out, my hands tied behind my back, and my belly resting against the chair as James eats me and Gaspard thrusts hard into Gigi.

My low, helpless moan brings James to his feet. He stands behind me. I hear a rip of foil, his ragged breathing, then he shoves his hard sheathed cock into my aching wetness and wraps a big hand around my throat.

He doesn’t even bother to get undressed.

I feel the rough fabric of his jeans against my bare bottom, the cool metal of the open zipper scraping my skin, the hem of his T-shirt brushing the small of my back, and find it so overwhelmingly erotic that he’s fully dressed and I’m naked—helpless and vulnerable, bound—that I moan again, shuddering.

James’s free hand cups my breast. He pinches my taut nipple between his fingers, does it harder when I arch into his palm.

“You like it a little rough, don’t you, love?” whispers James, thrusting faster into me. “You like me to tie you up and spank your ass and your beautiful pussy. You love it when I fuck you deep and hard.”

Close to orgasm, I whimper. I go up on my toes, tilting my pelvis back so he can find the deepest center of me and take it, own it, make it his.

“Oh yes,” he breathes, tightening his hand around my throat. “You love it. You fucking love it all.”

You, I want to say, I love it all because it’s you who’s giving it to me. But I can’t speak a word around the wad of cotton stuffed into my mouth.

I’m thankful for the enforced silence. I don’t trust myself at the moment. I fear I wouldn’t have control over what dark truths would fly out of my mouth.

Across the courtyard, Gigi screams as she comes, arching up from the mattress as Gaspard bends over her, folding her nearly in half, his ass muscles clenched. He thrusts into her again and again, making a noise like an animal.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

When James reaches down and pinches my engorged clit, I come, too. Instantly, violently, my entire body stiffening.

Behind me, he stills, holding me as I convulse.

“Oh fuck, that feels so amazing.” He groans, pulling on my nipple, causing another cascade of contractions to rock me. “Milk that cock, sweetheart. Milk my cock with your gorgeous greedy cunt.”

I sob, not understanding how I can like them so much, all his filthy, beautiful words. How I can adore being manhandled, no matter how carefully. How much I can enjoy abandoning my inhibitions under the spell of his voice and our crazy, carnal desire for each other, the likes of which I’ve never known.

He was right: I love it all. I need it all.

And that scares me straight down to the darkest corners of my soul where my deepest longings lie in secret, hiding.

Panting, I collapse against the chair. James removes his hand from my throat and sinks it into my hair, gently pulling my head back. He leans over me so his broad chest is pressed against my back.

Whispering into my ear, he begins to fuck me with short, perfect strokes, telling me how beautiful I am, how good I make him feel, how much he loves my trust. His words spin a dizzy web around me until I’m spinning, lost in a haze of pleasure, lost under the magic we make together, two perfect strangers who’ve found something rare.

We’ve unearthed a treasure most people dig for their entire lives and never find.

But, like most buried treasure, this one comes with a curse. There’s a price to be paid for discoveries such as these. Nothing this valuable is free.

Please don’t die. I don’t want you to die. Please, James. Please.

I make a noise of desperation. My lover is still whispering into my ear, his voice thick, his breath coming in pants. I turn my head and glance at him. His eyes are closed, and there’s a furrow carved between his dark brows.

He’s not paying any attention to Gaspard and Gigi. All his attention is on me. On us. On this creature of bliss and insanity we create every time we touch.

He shudders, groaning. Standing more upright, he palms both my breasts and increases the speed of his thrusts. He pinches and rolls my nipples between his fingers as his heavy balls slap against my soaked folds, the sound lewd and impossibly hot.

I watch through the windows as Gaspard flips Gigi onto her stomach. He shoves his erection into the tight pink bud of her ass and holds her down as she bucks and wails.

But her wails are those of pleasure, not pain. She’s spreading her legs wider for him, pushing back to take him deeper. He closes his eyes and turns his face to the ceiling, his mouth slack, fucking into her most tender space with an expression that’s one of almost religious fervor.

James says my name. It’s a fractured sound. Desperate. He’s going over the edge and taking me with him.

Gaspard shouts.

Gigi screams.

And the warm Paris night breathes in the sounds of four lovers’ passion.

When I wake in the morning and discover I’m alone—again—the disappointment is so crushing that for a moment I’m unable to breathe.

“Don’t be a fool,” I scold myself, gazing out the bedroom windows into another brilliant, beautiful summer morning. “You’re too old for illusions.”

Too old for hope. Too jaded for dreams. Too long in the tooth to be dumb enough to pin my heart to a shooting star.

I drop my head to my drawn-up knees and angrily promise myself that if I cry, I’ll cut off all my hair with rusty scissors.

A few moments later, the front door opens. James calls out, “I’ve got coffee and croissants!”

Joy explodes inside me, as bright and burning as a swallowed sun. I topple to my side and bury my face in the pillow.

This is bad. This is so bad.

What’s worse is that I know it’s going to end in tragedy, but my stupid, stubborn heart refuses to get the memo.

Heavy footsteps cross the apartment and stop short at the bedroom door. “Don’t tell me you’ve replaced me with another boyfriend pillow.”

I lift my head and regard him, standing in the doorway like some Greek god bearing Starbucks. Instead of blurting the pathetic starry-eyed sonnet my brain has composed in the ten-second interval between now and when he came in, I say tartly, “Maybe I have. Mr. Pillow here is extremely charming.”

Blue eyes twinkling, James purses his lips. “Hmm. I can see these feather-stuffed friends of yours are going to be an ongoing problem. Why don’t you go back to sleep so I can round them all up and toss them out the window?”

Rolling to my back, I stretch, noting with no small satisfaction how James’s gaze avidly follows every move of my naked body. “Are you jealous of an inanimate object?”

He smiles. Somewhere up in heaven a choir of angels break into song. “I’m jealous of anything that touches you that isn’t my hands.”

Dropping my fake indifference, I stretch out my arms and wiggle my fingers at him. “Speaking of your hands, I want them. Come here.”

“So demanding,” he murmurs indulgently.

“I’m always demanding before I’ve had my morning coffee. Crabby, too. Better hurry up and get your butt over here before I throw a tantrum.”

His smile turns smoldering. He sets the bag of croissants and the cups of coffee on the dresser. Then he launches himself across the room and jumps onto the bed, landing right on top of me.

“Oof!”

Peppering kisses all over my face and neck, James chuckles. “Oof yourself. I was careful not to smash you.”

He didn’t smash me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to admit it. “You weigh a ton! I can’t breathe!”

He lifts his head and smiles down at me. “You can’t breathe because of how much I weigh, or because I’m lying on top of you in all my incredible manliness?”

I stop pretending to struggle to get out from underneath him and just stare at him, shaking my head. “It’s not your muscles that weigh too much. It’s your ego. You might be the most conceited man I’ve ever met.”

“Might be?” he teases. “I’ll take it.”

We grin at each other for a while, until something inside my chest goes all melty, and I have to look away so he doesn’t see it.

James bends his head and whispers into my ear, “You should know by now you can’t hide from me, sweetheart.”

I close my eyes and sigh. “God, that’s so annoying.”

He chuckles, nuzzling his nose into my hair. “You love it.”

There’s that word again: love. It keeps popping up during random cracks in conversations, like some persistent weed.

He must feel the tremor go through me at the thought of that scary four-letter word, because when he raises his head and looks at me, his expression has lost its lightness. It’s Intensity James gazing down at me now, all sharp edges and laser like eyes.

I beg, “Please don’t say anything. I just woke up. I haven’t had my coffee. I’m in no mental condition to deal.”

“Deal with what? No, don’t look at the wall. Look at me.”

Chewing my lip, I focus on the cleft in his chin. It’s a much safer spot than the black hole of his eyes, which will suck the truth right out of me.

He waits for me to speak with his hands framing my face and his body taut with anticipation. When I take too long to answer, he prompts softly, “Deal with what, Olivia?”

Oh, fuck it. If I lie to him, he’ll know, so there really isn’t any point in trying.

I say, “This,” then take his hand and press it to my chest, right above my pounding heart.

I thought I’d seen his blue eyes burn before, but in them now entire planets are on fire.

He presses down against my sternum, spreading his fingers wide so his big hand spans nearly the breadth of my chest. “This is how you feel about me?”

Beneath his palm, my heart is a wild animal.

Reaching up to sink my hands into the thick silken mess of his dark hair, I whisper, “That’s a grain of sand in a universe made of beaches how I feel about you.”

Then I kiss him, because someday not too far in the future, he’ll be gone, and I won’t ever have the pleasure of kissing a man as beautiful as he is again.

He kisses me back ravenously, making urgent noises low in his throat. When we break apart, we’re both panting.

He slides his hand down the length of my body and under me, gripping my ass. When I grind my hips against his pelvis, he curses under his breath. “I’m getting on a plane in an hour. I’ve got a car waiting downstairs.”

Germany again? So soon? He doesn’t elaborate, and though I want to ask, I can’t. But I’m distracted soon enough by his next statement.

“But we’re going to talk about this when I get back.”

His tone is dark. I can’t decide if it’s a promise or a warning, and that irks me. “Last I heard, we were being in the moment. No questions, no strings, no regrets. Any of that ringing a bell?”

His lips quirk. “You think I’d forget a single thing I said to you, smartass?”

“So you’re just breaking the rules on the fly, then?”

He gazes at me for a beat with that same unnerving stillness that comes over him sometimes, that quicksilver change that brings to mind a predator stalking its prey.

As if making a confession of murder, he says softly, “You have no idea the kind of rules I’m breaking here, Olivia. But if you asked me to, I’d break every rule there is. I’d smash every one of them to pieces.”

As we stare at each other, I have that same sensation of stepping out onto a tightrope balanced high over a black abyss…only now a cold wind has picked up and the rope is swinging.

Of a few things I’m certain.

One: we’re talking about different sets of rules.

Two: I’m falling fast and hard for a man who’s a complete enigma.

And three: the fact that he’s dying might not be the only big secret James Blackwood is keeping.