Perfect Strangers

I spend the next three days in a state of suspended animation, cocooned in the apartment, writing in a blind, compulsive frenzy and ignoring the outside world. I’m consumed by the story and have a hard time tearing myself away from the page even to eat or sleep.

It’s like I’m obsessed by the characters. Or, more accurately, that I’ve become them. I see what they see. I feel what they feel. When they’re sad or happy or confused, I am, too. They’ve arrived in my brain so dimensional and complete, it’s as if I’ve known them my entire life.

They seem more real to me than some people I’m related to.

None of this strikes me as strange, only fantastic. A spigot inside my head has turned on and started gushing. A locked door has swung open wide.

Finally, after more than two years, the thing that makes me me has returned.

With it has come a profound sense of relief.

I haven’t allowed myself to consider what would happen if I’d permanently lost the ability to tell stories. The idea of a life without creativity is too terrifying, because I’ve seen firsthand what happens to artists when they can no longer create.

They shrivel up and die.

But now I’m feeling very much alive. Alive and on fire.

When the doorbell rings at five o’clock on Friday, I head toward the door with a grin splitting my face from ear to ear. The grin dies a death from shock when I open the door and see James standing there.

He’s wearing a gorgeous black suit, expensive looking, probably custom made due to the way it hugs every contour of his big frame. His white dress shirt is open at the collar to more perfectly showcase the strong, tanned column of his throat. His silk pocket square is white, too, his smile is small and mysterious, and the hunger in his eyes is that of a feral wolf.

Looking him up and down, I say faintly, “Oh.”

He glances down at himself. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’ve just never met a man who could make a suit look so hot.” I wave a hand in the air. “This is like…suit porn. If I took a picture of you and sent it to my girlfriend Kelly, her ovaries would explode.”

He flattens his hand on the back of the door and pushes it open wider, steps close, then takes me into his arms. Bending his head down, he softly presses his lips to mine. “And what are your ovaries doing?”

Tightening my arms around his broad shoulders, I say breathlessly, “The cha-cha. But they just noticed that hard bulge in your trousers that’s pressing against my hip, and now they’re about to faint.”

His grin comes on slow and wicked. “We can’t have that. Let’s give them something to stay awake for.”

His mouth takes mine in a deep, passionate kiss.

Though we’ve only been apart for a few days, we both must have been starved for each other, because we stand there for uncounted minutes, our bodies and tongues entwined, until we’re both breathing hard and I’m digging my fingers into his hair and sagging against him. I’m sure it’s only the strength of his arms that’s keeping me upright.

Then he breaks away, leaving me panting.

“Hi.” His voice is low, rough, and warm with stifled laughter.

I open my eyes to find him grinning down at me, his gorgeous blue eyes half-lidded and twinkling with amusement.

I grouse, “Hi yourself. And stop laughing at me. It’s not my fault you’re so sexy.”

He reaches down, grabs a handful of my ass, and squeezes. “I’m not the sexy one here, sweetheart. You look absolutely edible.”

“I borrowed this from Gigi.”

When he arches his brows, I say, “You said to wear a dress, but I only have that blue gown you already saw, and I didn’t have time to go shopping because I got so caught up in work, so I called Edmond this afternoon and asked him for her number. I thought we might wear about the same size.”

The dress Gigi loaned me is a sleeveless red silk wraparound with a plunging neckline that I had to pin together with a safety pin so my boobs don’t fall out. Her gravity-defying cleavage probably holds the neckline in place without any assistance, but mine needs a little help.

Cupping the back of my head in one palm and my butt cheek in the other, James says, “There’s no way she looks as good in it as you do. I want to rip it off your body with my teeth.”

He kisses me again, hungrily, until I’m shaking. This time when he pulls away, I’m laughing.

“Oh my God. I’m dead. You’ve killed me.”

Something sharp and dark flickers in the depths of his eyes. “Don’t say that.”

I was teasing, so the terse tone of his voice surprises me. “I was paying you a compliment, silly. I only meant that you’re a great kisser.”

A thundercloud settles over his mood. He pulls away, his shoulders stiff and his smile vanished. “You ready to go?”

“Sure,” I say, confused. “As soon as you explain to me how I just upset you.”

He opens his mouth to answer, but closes it again. Then he looks away, brows drawn down, and drags a hand through his hair. “I can’t do that without getting personal. Very personal.”

He swings his gaze back to mine and pins me in it. “I’ll be honest with you if you want me to, but I’m telling you right now you don’t want to hear it. Your rules. Your call.”

War erupts inside me.

Of course I want to hear whatever it is that brought on such a change in his demeanor…but I also don’t. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to tell me, that he thinks telling me will change something between us. I appreciate that he’s giving me the choice, but for someone with an imagination like mine, ambiguity is dangerous.

Three months, Olivia. You’re only in Paris for three months. Keep it light. Let it go.

James watches me, waiting.

I say, “I’m feeling really ambivalent about this.”

He nods, his gaze searching mine. “I hear you.”

I love it when he says that. So many arguments could be solved with that short phrase alone. “Maybe we could compromise?”

“Compromise how?”

“What if you just told me if what I said is somehow related to your work?”

His eyes widen. He repeats gruffly, “My work.”

Why does he look so surprised? “Yes. Your art. Those portraits you drew, Perspectives in Grief. Death is kind of a thing for you. Right?”

A muscle in his jaw flexes over and over. He stares at me so hard I think he could ignite me with the heated intensity of his gaze. When it finally comes, his response is careful.

“Let’s say it’s…a touchy subject.”

I study his expression, convinced he’s telling me the truth, and also that he doesn’t want me to push it any farther.

Watching him waiting so tensely for me to speak, I decide I don’t want to, either.

I already know death has touched him somehow, the same way it’s touched me. There’s no need to exhume the graves.

“Okay.”

His eyes are wary. “Okay?”

I nod. “We’ve already agreed we’re not going to share our sad stories. I get that you don’t want to talk about yours, because I definitely don’t want to talk about mine. So…okay. From now on, if either of us doesn’t want to get into the details of something, we’ll just say, ‘touchy subject.’ It’ll be our safe word. Safe phrase, technically. Deal?”

The thundercloud over his head evaporates with dizzying speed, leaving his shoulders relaxed and his eyes smiling. Pulling me close against his chest, he says in a throaty voice, “What do you know about safe words, sweetheart?”

The heat in his gaze tells me that he knows an awful lot. “I’ve…read about them. In books.”

He murmurs, “Have you now?” and presses his face against my neck, gently biting the muscle above my collarbone. This time when he cups my ass, it’s with both hands.

Then he kisses me until almost every thought is eradicated from my mind.

Every thought except the memory of how his eyes changed so quickly from light to dark when I said he killed me.

I have the sneaking suspicion that one’s going to stick with me for a while.

“A book store?”

Standing beside me in the dappled shade of linden trees on a quiet, cobblestone avenue, James smiles and squeezes my hand. “Not just any book store. The book store. Shakespeare and Company is probably the most famous independent book store in the world.”

I gaze at the quaint shop across the street with its green awning and matching trim, rustic yellow sign, and weather-beaten book stalls lining one side of the small plaza in front. It looks like a place time forgot.

“I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never heard of it.”

“That’s all right. But I have to warn you, you’ll fall in love with it as soon as we walk through the door.”

He tugs on my hand and pulls me away from where the taxi dropped us, on the left bank of the Seine, a stone’s throw away from Notre Dame. A small crowd of people mills in front of the store, browsing through the outdoor book stalls and chatting, sipping espressos from the café next door. The building the store is housed in appears centuries old, a tall stretch of pitted stone with crumbling corners and a white façade mellowed to ivory with age.

As soon as we pass through the glass-paned front door and a bell somewhere out of sight jingles merrily, I’m flooded with the most wonderful sense of connection, like I’ve been plugged into a socket and have started to hum with energy. I feel as if I’ve come home.

It’s the smell.

Books—especially old books—have a smell all their own, a sweet and musky scent warmed by a hint of vanilla that floods the brain with good memories and good feelings. I stop in the entry and close my eyes, inhaling deeply.

I exhale and open my eyes, drinking in my surroundings.

The shop is crammed to the ceiling with shelves of books. Narrow passageways lead away from the entry to a nest of other rooms. A wooden staircase winds up to a second floor. Dusty chandeliers cast warm light over red velvet draperies and the occasional leather chair, their seats cracked and worn.

In a voice like you’d use in church, I say, “This is heaven.”

Standing beside me, James chuckles. “Told you. C’mon, let’s look around.”

He nods to the lovely blonde behind the register, then leads me down a passageway. Stenciled on the soffit above us an inscription reads, “Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.”

I trail my fingertips over spines as we pass shelf after shelf of books, until we turn a corner and stop in a quiet alcove. I glimpse a copy of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov shelved next to War and Peace by Tolstoy.

“The Russian section is my favorite,” says James, coming to stand close behind me, his chest against my back. He grasps my upper arms and dips his nose into my hair, inhaling deeply the same way I did when I walked in and smelled all the delicious books.

“That’s good news. For a minute there, I thought you were leading me straight to Hemingway.”

I pluck The Brothers Karamazov off the shelf and open it, lifting the pages to my nose for a sniff. Sighing in pleasure, I look at a random line and read it aloud. “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”

“Indeed,” murmurs James into my ear. He slides his hand down my arm, over my hip, and between my legs.

I freeze. My heart takes off like a rocket. Through small gaps in the shelf in front of me, I see other people browsing in the front of the store.

I whisper, “James.”

His strong fingers delve into the gap between my thighs, gently rubbing. “Hmm?”

“Someone will see us.”

“Maybe.”

He sounds nonchalant. Meanwhile, I’m starting to sweat. Is this why he asked me to wear a dress?

“I’m not sure we should—”

“Read me some more.” He pinches his fingers together, making me gasp. Then he slides his hand down my thigh, slips it under the hem of my dress, and slides it back up again. He settles his warm palm between my legs. Now the only barrier between his hand and my naked flesh is my panties.

The way he cups my sex feels possessive.

“James—”

“Read,” he commands, his voice low.

I look at the pages, but the words have started to blur. With shaking hands, I flip a few pages, then focus on a line. “L-love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”

“Mmm. How eloquent. You see why I like the Russian section? It’s so romantic.” James slips his fingers under the elastic of my panties and glides them over my clitoris.

I jerk, sucking in a startled breath.

Into my ear he breathes, “Guess you like it, too. You’re already wet.”

My heart bangs so hard against my sternum it’s painful. He winds his other arm around my waist and pins me against the wall of his body, then starts to move his fingers faster, stroking me until I’m breathless and throbbing.

“Read, Olivia.”

Panting, feeling scared and desperate and insanely turned on, I stare at the book in my hands. Pages whir past as I flip forward, then back, almost dropping the book in the process. I find a page and read, my voice shaking.

“You will burn and you will burn out; you will be healed and come back again.”

James kicks my feet apart wider, then sinks one finger deep inside me.

When I shudder and let out a soft cry, he whispers harshly into my ear, “Burn for me, sweetheart. Let me feel it.”

His erection is a hard, insistent heat against my ass. If he bent me forward a little, he could yank aside my panties and fuck me from behind.

I’m out of my mind with the thought of it.

The possibility that he could make love to me here, in a public place, in partial view of the patrons at the front of the store or full view anyone who wandered into the alcove, has me so hot—and terrified—I can barely think.

He uses my hair as a leash to pull my head back. Then he kisses me deeply as his thumb works my clitoris and his index finger slides in and out of me, over and over.

The book falls from my hands and clatters against the floor.

He winds me tighter and tighter, coiling me up into a superheated ball of nerves. Powerful waves of heat lash me, scorching my skin and hardening my nipples to two aching points of need. I reach out blindly and brace myself against the shelf, clawing at the wall of Russians like I might start to climb.

James breaks away from my mouth. Breathing hard, in a guttural voice, he says, “I could fuck you here, sweetheart. I could take you right here. Do you want that?”

“No! Yes! Oh God…” I groan, frantic for release.

“Or I could get on my knees and push you up against the shelf and make you come with my mouth.”

My moan is soft and pleading. I’m so wet I can feel it on my thighs. Incoherent, I rock against his hand.

“Or I could put you on your knees and make you suck me off. Would you like that, sweetheart? Having me fuck your mouth with my hard cock while you play with your wet pussy, on your knees in the Russian section?”

I picture it. My cheeks hollowed, his big hands gripping my head, his erection sliding in and out between my lips as I kneel in front of the open fly of his trousers, finger fucking myself while taking the entire thick, hard length of him deep down my throat as all the shelves of books look on.

A sob breaks from my chest.

James whispers hotly, “Oh, yes, you’d love that. My sweet, dirty, beautiful girl.”

He tugs firmly on the swollen bud of my clitoris, and I come.

He swallows my gasp with a kiss, holding me tightly with that arm like an iron bar around my waist again as I convulse and shudder through a violent orgasm. He plunges his finger deep inside me once more, setting off another series of hard contractions.

James turns his face to my ear and says through gritted teeth, “I need to feel your gorgeous cunt throb like this around my dick.”

I’m lost. Lost to his voice, his taste, his filthy words. Lost to pleasure, to sensation, and to a sudden, overwhelming fear.

This isn’t me.

This woman, so reckless and overtaken by desire, isn’t anyone I recognize. She’s wild and uninhibited and doesn’t care who might see her jerking helplessly through her orgasm as a beautiful man in a beautiful suit holds her tight against his body and growls obscenities into her ear. She doesn’t care what she looks like, arching in ecstasy as he works his hand between her spread legs. She doesn’t care what anyone might think, seeing her so exposed.

The only thing she cares about is the man behind her and how he’s brought her back to aching, blistering, terrifying life.

I lean against James’s chest, throw my arms up and back around the mass of his shoulders, and tilt my head for his kiss.

Because fuck it.

I’ve already jumped off this high cliff I’ve been standing on since I met him. Might as well do it with my eyes open and my arms flung out wide.

At least I’ll be smiling when I smash into a million pieces when I hit the ground.