“Yes what?”
“I need your cock,” I beg, wanting him inside me more than I’ve ever wanted anything. “Fuck me, Charles. Fill me up. Do it hard. Please—”
He grabs me by the hips, turning me over onto my back on the bed, and then slams inside me in a single devastating stroke. “Fuck!” I yell, burying my face in his chest. He pauses, and I pull his ear close to my lips. “More,” I demand. “Don’t stop.”
St. Clair obeys, filling me with that thrumming hardness, and I push back in rhythm with him, both of us gasping for breath.
“God, Grace,” he whispers, his heart beating so strong I can feel it pounding against mine as my nails scrape the skin of his flexed back. He plunges into the deepest parts of me and then slides out slowly, slowly, before pushing back along my slick and ready skin. We’re staring into each other’s eyes and it’s so intense, the connection, the heat, the moment, as he thrusts, his steady pace building faster and faster, until I close my eyes and the world fades away.
He pounds me into the covers, thrusting over and over until I’m sobbing, begging for more. And he gives it to me, all of it, exactly what I need.
“Charles!” I scream, writhing under him as the climax rips through me. I think I might explode, my whole body vibrating and raw as he thrusts one last time and collapses on my chest, spent.
“I love you, Grace,” he says and kisses my shoulder.
I fall asleep feeling safer than I’ve felt in years.
CHAPTER 11
The next morning, St. Clair leaves me to go to some meetings – keeping up the charade that he’s just a successful businessman on a trip for work and play. He tells me to relax, go get a spa treatment or take in the Parisian sights, but the moment he’s not around to distract me anymore, all I can do is worry.
I go over our night a million times, wondering if there’s something we missed – something that will give the game away and broadcast our guilt. I keep checking the online news sites, the art blogs, the industry chat rooms where art news is often first revealed for word that our heist has been discovered, but there has been nothing so far. I refresh and refresh like a crazy person, waiting for them to find out that the real painting has gone missing, and there’s a forgery hanging in its place— but all day, it’s nothing but radio silence. Or rather, just excited chatter about the opening tonight and the two exquisite (and rarely seen) paintings on loan from two of Europe’s most important art donors. It should be good news, but I can’t seem to shake this edgy feeling, like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to plummet into the unknown.
I know we were lucky. I was lucky. If those alarms hadn’t been malfunctioning, the sirens would have brought the guards, the police and the media raining down on both of us. I’d be sitting in a prison cell right now instead of a luxurious apartment, dressed in an institutional uniform instead of preparing for a fancy gala event.
It was too close. I can’t put myself or St. Clair at risk like that again. I wanted to see into his secret life, join him in a heist and see justice granted where it was due, but I wound up risking both our lives instead.
I may be a world away from the timid, pushover Grace I was just a few months ago, but I’m not a hardened criminal yet. My nerves can’t take the heat.
Except you did, a little voice whispers in my mind. You stayed cool, you escaped unscathed – and you made sure he got the painting, too.
You got away with everything.
I feel an unfamiliar shiver: triumph, and pride too. I may not be lining up to undertake any more heists, but there’s still a part of me that’s proud of what we did accomplish. And tonight, Crawford will be crowing like he’s got the upper hand – with a fake hanging on the wall behind him all along.
Nobody will know the difference. Nobody except me and St. Clair.
I force myself to shake off the weird foreboding feeling, and get ready for the event. St. Clair thoughtfully left me the address of a beauty salon nearby, so I spend the rest of the afternoon getting primped and blow-dried, until I feel like I can fit in with all the glamorous socialites who’ll be in attendance tonight. By the time he meets me at the front door at eight, I’m transformed, sleek and polished in the red silk dress Paige helped me pick out.
“Wow,” the look of lustful admiration in his eyes makes all my effort worthwhile. St. Clair kisses my collarbone, then my neck, then my ear. “You look stunning,” he whispers in my ear before nibbling on the lobe and stirring up a little heat low in my body.
“Mmm,” I sigh happily. “That’s exactly the look I was going for.”
He guides me down to the limo we have waiting, and opens the door for me gallantly.
“You’re not too shabby yourself,” I tease, straightening his bow tie. He changed at the office, and looks like he just stepped off the red carpet, in a dashing tuxedo.
“I try to keep up.”
The gallery is a short drive, one I feel like I know by heart after our midnight adventures. My pulse speeds as we get closer, memories of last night flashing through my mind. St. Clair takes my hand, as if to calm me. “It’s all smooth sailing from now on,” he reassures me. “Tonight we just play our parts and act normal. It’s all about the art.”
“But what if somebody notices?” I quake. “The forgery—”
“They won’t,” he stops me. “And even if they do, nobody will say a word. It would be a huge scandal. Trust me,” he adds with a grin. “I know people who’ve spent years passing off fakes as the real deal, rather than admit they were fooled. Crawford would never admit he could have bought a forgery, back in the day.”
He twines his fingers through mine as if it’s how our hands were always meant to be.
I try to relax as we arrive at the gallery to an actual red carpet laid out along the marble stepped entrance. There are lights everywhere, camera flashes and spotlights on the who’s who of the art world and European society. We exit the limo to a fit of flashes and microphones in our faces. St. Clair is debonair and gracious, thanking the compliment givers and saying that he’s “just doing what I can to support the gallery and the larger world of art I love so much.”
I grin at him as we make it through the barrage of reporters and art fans. I know by the twinkle in his eye he is enjoying this as much as I am. I didn’t expect it, but it’s a rush having such a huge secret shared, just between the two of us. Nobody has any idea that last night I was trapped behind a security grille in this very gallery, and now I feel like I’m standing at the literal top of the world and looking down at the old me, the nobody me, the me who never would have taken this risk. She looks so small now. “This feels amazing.”
He smiles. “You have no idea how much better it is with you by my side.”
I didn’t think I could feel any higher than I already did, but his last words send me up to cloud nine. “My favorite place to be is by your side,” I tell him honestly. “You make me feel in control, like I can choose my own destiny.”
He squeezes my hand as we pass through the main doors. “You can do anything you put your mind to, Grace, you know that.”
“I do now,” I say as I take in the room.
A rainbow of gown colors stands out in contrast to the sea of black tuxes and white shirts, glamourous society people dressed up for the art opening of the season. Since St. Clair is one of tonight’s stars, I know we won’t have much more alone time together, and I want to tell him something. I pull him aside, out of the stream of people, and look up into his eyes.
“After I lost my mom, I think I gave up a little inside,” I confess, “I let other people make my decisions—about what mattered, what I should do. I just let the world happen to me instead of choosing my own path.” I take a deep breath, feeling emotionally exposed, but wanting him to know how much his support has helped me heal. “You helped bring me back to myself. You reminded me that I have to follow the life I want, and decide what that is for myself.” I lean up and kiss him lightly on the cheek. “Thank you.”