I never thought this could be so erotic, sopowerful.It feels good to have him in my hand, my mouth, running my lips and tongue over his straining flesh as he writhes beneath me, panting my name, begging for more. I slide my lips over the tip, watching his face tense with pleasure, his mouth opening with a groan as I take more of it, bracing my hands against his hips. I can’t slide far before the tip brushes against the back of my throat, gagging me, but I stroke him as I lick and suck, learning with his gasps and moans and the twitching of his hips what he likes best.
“Come here,petite,” Alexandre groans when I come up for air again, swirling my tongue around the tip of his cock. “I know what you were suggesting earlier. Come sit on my face while you taste me.”
With anyone else, I think it might have felt awkward or strange. Still, with Alexandre, it feels easy, natural as I angle myself over him, leaning back against his mouth as I take him in mine again. I moan with the first hot slide of his tongue over my clit, his fingers twitching at his sides helplessly as I use his tongue like a toy, grinding against it as I suck his cock. He moans every time I do, the vibrations of mine along his cock spurring his pleasure, and vibrating over my flesh in turn until we’re nothing but panting, moaning, straining bodies, stroking and licking and pleasuring one another as we lose ourselves in the taste and heat of lust.
It feels so good, better than anything I could have ever imagined. I ride his face shamelessly as I take his cock in my mouth, again and again, wanting the pleasure too much to care about the reality of what I’m doing. He laps eagerly at my clit, sucking and licking, sliding his tongue to my entrance and back down to where I want it the most, until I can feel my climax rising, eagerly spreading through my body as I come closer and closer to the edge.
“I want to fill your mouth,petite,” he groans against me, his mouth pressing against me harder than before. “Come on my face, Noelle, and I will come for you, too.”
I don’t want it to end, but it’s hard to make it last. Alexandre has gone so long without having this kind of pleasure often, tormented himself with it just out of reach for so long, and my body, newly introduced to it, is eager to fall apart. I can feel him in my mouth, swollen and harder than before, his balls tight against his shaft as he throbs between my lips, and as he hungrily sucks at my clit I know I’m on the verge.
“Come for me, Noelle—” he groans it again, devouring my pussy as if he wants my orgasm more than he wants to breathe. I cry out, the tense knot of pleasure deep in my belly unfurling as the heat spreads through me, over me. My thighs quake on either side of his face, my hips jerking against his mouth as I ride his tongue to bliss, coming hard on his face. As my arousal floods his mouth, I feel his cock swell in mine, throbbing, and Alexandre is too busy devouring me through my orgasm to warn me, but I don’t need it. He’s on the verge of coming, and I want it.
I suck him hard, stroking the part of his straining length that I can’t fit in my mouth. As he keeps licking me, sucking me, pushing me into aftershocks of pleasure, I feel the first hot spurt of his cum over my tongue as he groans aloud, the sound reverberating through me.
I swallow convulsively, wanting it all, sucking him as he comes in my mouth, flooding me with it. We keep pleasuring each other, not wanting to stop, wanting it to go on and on, until at last, I feel the spurts of cum in my mouth slow to drops. Alexandre groans as he tears his mouth away from my pussy, his body twitching.
“Enough,petite,” he moans. “It’s too much.”
I don’t want to let go of him, to stop, but I do. I slide off of him a little awkwardly, my body feeling loose and liquid from my orgasm, and without him asking, I stretch alongside him naked as I reach for the blankets. I don’t lay too close, for fear that I might hurt his wrists, but I stay close enough that I can feel him, my chest aching with sorrow as I look at his sharply handsome face in the dim light.
Slowly, Alexandre turns to look at me. “Three times,” he whispers, his voice low and quiet, thick with sleep.
“What?” I peer at him, confused, and he smiles sadly.
“To love another person is to see the face of God.You said I had loved twice. But you were wrong. It is three times that I have loved someone else, now. And three times, that person has shown me what it means to see God.” He chuckles. “The priest liked that quote very much. I didn’t think I would find beauty in it again. But here we are, mypetite souris. My Noelle.” He smiles faintly in the dim moonlight. “I know you will miss the library. I hope you can miss your beast too, at least a little.”
My throat tightens, choked with emotion. I don’t know what to say. I’m not his, not in the way he wants, not in the wayIwant—but for tonight, I am. For tonight, I chose to be.
Very gently, I lean forward, brushing my lips over his forehead as I remember another quote from the book, one that I liked very much. “Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they looked at each other,”I whisper, reaching up to touch his cheek gently, caressing his face. “But it is in this way that love begins, and this way only.”
Neither of us can say the words, not aloud. But we can speak in the other language that we both love. The language he spoke with another woman, once. I can give him that again.
“I thought you were the beast,” I say softly, still touching his cheek as his eyes close. “And I knew you were no prince. But in the end, Alexandre, you are a man. You are bad, and you are good, and you are so much more than either of those.” I kiss him again, gently, curling as close to him as I can. “In the end, all you ever needed was someone to love you, just as you are.”
I don’t know when, exactly, I fall asleep. When I wake, the grey dawn is coming through the window, and I’m all but in Alexandre’s arms, my head resting against his chest as it rises and falls slowly in sleep.
For a moment, I wonder if I should wake him. But I don’t want his last memory of us to be goodbye. I want it to be of last night, in the aftermath of pleasure, whispering the words of love that someone else had written, so that we wouldn’t be forced to come up with our own.
Slowly, I slip out of the bed, careful not to jostle him. I get dressed in one of the wrap dresses hanging up, belting a wool coat over it, and slip on a pair of boots. I check to be sure I have the money and my passport, buried deep in one of the pockets, and then I walk around to his side of the bed, looking down at his handsome face in the dawning light.
“Goodbye, Alexandre,” I whisper softly, leaning down to kiss his forehead, and then his lips, a ghost of a kiss, like the one I thought I dreamed of that night. “I promise I won’t forget.”
And then, as my heart clenches in my chest and tears rise in my eyes, I slip out of the room and down the hall, out into the cold and snowy early morning. I look back once at the apartment that I came to bound and drugged, that I’m now leaving free, under my own will.
What happened in there felt like a dream, a strange and horrifying and beautiful dream.I have to wake up,I tell myself as I hesitate, tears sliding slowly down my cheeks.I have to go home.
Before I change my mind, I turn and head for the train station.
22
NOELLE
I’d thought I would get a nap on the two-and-a-half-hour ride from Paris to London, but sleeping on the train proves to be impossible. Every time I start to drift off, some noise makes me jerk awake, thinking Kaito has somehow discovered I’ve left and come to take me back for himself. I feel jittery and anxious, as if I’ve been out of the normal world for much longer than the short period of time it actually was. I can’t stop thinking about the worst-case scenarios I might find back at the flat—Georgie gone, the flat rented out to someone else with no idea where he is, and no way to contact him. It doesn’t help that I have what feels like a ridiculous amount of money on me. I feel as if everyone looking at me can see it radiating through my pockets.
Just breathe,I remind myself as the train pulls into the station. If any of those bad things have happened, I can’t change it by worrying, and if they haven’t, I’m working myself up for nothing. I try not to panic as I make my way off the train, clutching my coat close to me so no one can pick my pocket.
It’s freezing outside, and I hollow into myself as I hail a cab. I’ve never in my life had enough money to spend on a taxi before. It feels like a terrible luxury as I give the driver the address to the flat, sitting in the relative comfort and warmth of the car’s interior as he pulls out into traffic.