In the Mists of Time (8 page)

Louise felt her stomach twinge in sympathy. “Which was?”

He grabbed his glass, twisting the stem between his fingers. “Cancer. A rare form, generally regarded as untreatable. She never had much chance, but there was hope in some new, horrendously expensive drug treatment.”

He took a drink, set down the glass, staring at its swirling contents rather than at Louise. “The state wouldn't pay for anything so experimental and with such low odds of survival, but we had health insurance. I'd taken it out for all of us when I started to earn good money.”

“With London and Scottish,” Louise murmured, beginning to see the picture. “They wouldn't pay out.”

“No, they wouldn't. They claimed we weren't covered for a pre-existing condition, and the doctors all agreed this cancer had been growing undetected in my sister for years, that she'd had it when the policy was taken out. So even though we hadn't known, they wouldn't pay.” His gaze flickered to Louise. “She was fourteen years old.”

Louise swallowed. “I'm sorry,” she whispered.

“So was I. I had nothing much to sell, being young and stupid. I'd earned good money, but I'd never saved. My Paris apartment was rented, my car on finance. I had enough for us to live on for a few months, but nothing like enough for Annette's treatment. In desperation, I contacted my old firm in America, but they'd filled the position I'd have had, and couldn't offer me anything else. No one else seemed to be hiring either.” Thierry sat back. “I figured London and Scottish owed us, so I took it. Because I could.”

He took another drink and lowered his glass with a crooked smile. “How's that for a hard-luck story?”

“Did your sister get the treatment?”

He nodded. “Yes. It gave her another couple of months. The disease was too advanced for more.”

“Shit,” Louise said. “I'm so sorry.”

Thierry gazed into his glass. “I gave the rest of the money back for publicity, so they'd be shamed before the whole world. I don't think they cared. And I went to prison. Apparently the judge was lenient.”

Louise leaned forward. “But London and Scottish must know how you spent the rest of the money. Surely they don't think you still have it?”

He shrugged. “Something's rattled their cage.”

Deliberately casual, Louise swirled the wine in her glass. “Must be the
other
money, the stuff that you never told them about.”

His eyes focused on hers. Unexpectedly, he smiled. “I suppose it must. Who told
you
? Ron?”

“Via Aidan. They're
both
looking now, Thierry. You have to give it back.”

“I haven't got it.”

“Thierry—”

“It's the truth.”

“Then what happened to it?”

“I've no idea. I gave it away.”

“Why?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Actually, it still does.”

Louise sat back, nursing her glass while the waiter handed them dessert menus. When he'd gone, she said, “Will it still seem such a good idea when you're dragged back to prison and Ardknocken House is leaned on even harder?”

“It won't happen.”

“And if I'm wearing a wire?”

In the act of raising his glass to his lips, he didn't even pause. His eyes were steady. “But you're not.”

“I could be. Or I could repeat what you just told me. I never imagined you were so trusting.”

His lips quirked. “Some risks are worth taking. I'm being honest with you.”

“And with everyone else? With Glenn?”

“We don't talk about crime.”

“Then he doesn't know any of this?”

Thierry shrugged. “He knows about my sister.”

“You need to tell him the rest.”

“Or you'll tell Aidan and Ron?”

“I don't know,” she said honestly. “I might tell Aidan anyway.” She wouldn't even speak to Ron.

“Aidan already knows, or he wouldn't be looking for the money.”

Louise scowled at him. “You didn't give it to your mother, did you?”

“Even Ron could have found it if I had,” Thierry said dryly. He transferred his attention to the menu. “What would you like for dessert?”

With difficulty, she switched her brain from embezzlement and the danger of her companion returning to prison to the choice between tiramisu and fruit tart. She suspected these kinds of bizarre conversations were going to seem normal to her soon.

And, in fact, she quickly found herself laughing at Thierry's tale of Glenn's dog helping himself to a large and excessively alcoholic tiramisu lovingly made by Jim, the Ardknocken House cook. It lightened the atmosphere again, and by the time they were leaving and Thierry helped her on with her jacket, his questionable actions had sunk into the unimportant past for her. She was aware only of the present Thierry, the man who stood so close behind her, his fingers brushing against her shoulder, her nape. The buzz of attraction, of excitement that she always felt around him, intensified as they left the restaurant. Deliberately, she didn't look at the hotel entrance, but that didn't stop her wondering how sex would be with him in an actual bed. She couldn't stop the images playing through her mind—naked bodies entwined, undulating, Thierry's face above hers, clouded with passion as his mouth took hers.

Oh God. Almost desperately, she turned to him, and the fantasy faded into the solid reality of his presence beside her, his arm just brushing hers as they walked. Ahead was a pub, with music and laughter spilling out the door and a few smokers forming an unofficial guard of honour for those going in or out.

Abruptly, Thierry seized her hand, but though her heart jolted at his touch, there seemed to be nothing loverlike about it. She was spun into a doorway she hadn't even noticed, hemmed in by Thierry's body, his finger over her lips. Too stunned to be frightened, she stared up at him, frowning her question.

Footsteps passed, a familiar voice saying, “Aye, all very well, but there's no point getting into a fight just to get my leg over! I don't suppose she fancies men with black eyes and bleeding knuckles.”

“She might, depending on the state of the other guy,” came another clearly amused, voice. “I just meant she clearly…”

As their voices faded, Thierry breathed, “Rab and Charlie.”

“Didn't you want to talk to them?” she asked wryly.

His lips quirked. “I'm being discreet.”

He didn't move. Her heart beat and beat. Through her open coat, she felt the stirring of his arousal and an answering clench between her legs. His finger on her lips moved, softly caressing.

“How long do we have to be quite this discreet?” she managed.

“They've gone,” he confessed. “I just kind of liked being here. Can I kiss you?”

Desire jolted through her, heating her skin. She swallowed, trying to make herself turn it off with a laugh, push him away, even, but right now she couldn't think of a good reason to do either. She could only think of his kiss. Mutely, she lifted her face, parting her lips under his finger, which fell away as he bent his head and took her mouth.

It was long and sweet and thorough, and when it ended naturally, she took back his lips for another. By then her back was against the shuttered door behind her, and his pronounced erection pinned her there, stroking her while he kissed. Her knees felt like jelly.

“I like kissing you,” she confessed when their lips parted.

A smile flickered across his face. She could almost have imagined it was surprised. “That's good,” he said, “because I'd like to do it a lot more.” In proof, he kissed her again, then, disappointingly, the heat and weight of his body eased away, and she was stumbling into the cold air, his arm holding her loosely to his side. And that was nice too.

For a little, they walked along the seafront, pausing occasionally to admire the moonlit view or speculate about the distant boats. For Louise, the world had shrunk to a bubble containing only herself and Thierry and whatever caught their random attention. She could have walked with him like this for hours, talking of unimportant things or of nothing at all, just absorbing his presence. She didn't even notice the cold until he brought it up.

“Come on, you're freezing. Let's go back.”

She turned her face up to deny it and found her mouth lost in his once more. When she could speak again, they were walking, and towards the car rather than the hotel. She wanted to suggest they change direction and stay the night, but when she wanted them, the words wouldn't come. Her tongue seemed to have stuck to the roof of her mouth.

There was a moment when she sat in the car, seat belt in hand, when he climbed into the driver's seat beside her and then didn't move. The air seemed to heave with unspoken words.

Well, if he wouldn't say them, she would. “Thierry—”

“I know. But I owe you more. And you need to trust me.” He moved at last, starting the car, leaving her baffled as he backed, turned and drove into the road.

Chapter Eight

As they approached Ardknocken, mist hovered over the hills, white wisps drifting across the black sky and tangling around the top of Ardknocken House. It seemed to be the season for mists. Louise watched it for a while, disturbed by the inevitable memory of her first meeting with Thierry.

She frowned, and they both began to speak at once.

“Why were you…?” she began.

“How could you…?” Thierry asked at the same time.

They broke off.

“You first,” Thierry said. “I can wait.”

Louise shrugged in quick apology. “I just wondered what took you into the hills when the mist was so thick. It's not generally a good idea.”

Thierry shrugged. “I like mist. Since I was a child. I like to lose myself in it, as if it's another world. I used to make up stories that happened in this other world. I was going to ask how is it you saw so well in such impenetrable fog? It was opaque, but you knew exactly where to go and where not to.”

Louise, still mulling over this new aspect to his personality, answered in a distracted way, “Familiarity, I suppose. I just remember the way. Or at least my feet do.”

“But why did you go out in it in the first place? Up there”—he lifted one finger from the wheel in the direction of the big house and the hills behind—“isn't exactly
en route
to anywhere else. And you weren't dressed for hill walking.”

They'd come to the fork in the road. Left led into the heart of the village and the B&B. Right went uphill to the big house.

“It was an impulse,” Louise said, then suddenly leaned forward and twisted the wheel to the right. The car swerved up the right fork.

Thierry straightened it without looking at her. “Thank God we don't live on a main road. I couldn't face many five-car pile-ups. Where are we going?”

Louise sat back with an embarrassed laugh. “I don't know. Sorry. That was another impulse. I just had the idea we could walk a little way in this mist. I'd like to hear your stories, and I can make sure we're safe.” She glanced at his face. “Or you could just drop me here.”

Steadily, he drove past the gates of Ardknocken House and the two cottages beyond until the road fizzled into dirt track.

He stopped the car and turned with quiet deliberation to face her. “Aren't you afraid to go into the mist with me again?”

Heat seeped into her face. “I'm not offering a fuck. If that's what you want, you should have asked in Oban.”

He released his seat belt, opened the car door without looking at either. “I'll try to remember.”

So will I.

Thierry didn't appear to bear a grudge for her sudden spurt of ill nature. As she got out of the car and joined him, he took her hand with perfect ease and began to walk towards the hill.

After a few steps, he paused. “You're wearing sandals,” he remembered.

She drew him on. “We won't need to go far. The mist is coming down to meet us.”

It was, almost swooping down the hill until the first tendrils curled around Thierry's hair. Louise walked faster. Thierry smiled in a distant way, as if in recognition.

“Do you suppose it's always the same mist?” Louise said on impulse. “The same moisture that forms and fades and reforms into the next one? Perhaps I've been walking through exactly the same mist all my life. The same as my great-grandparents saw, and their great-grandparents…” She stretched one hand out in front of her, catching at the elusive tendrils that swirled around her fingers and couldn't be caught. “It
feels
old, doesn't it? Like the hills themselves. As if it's always been here and always will be…”

She dropped her arm with a half laugh of embarrassment. “All right, that's enough of my imagination. Now for yours. Tell me a story.”

He did.

* * * * *

It was easy to lose himself in the secret mist-enclosed world, to tell some of the stories within stories that had been driving him over the last few days. He barely had to think about them as he talked, which was fortunate, for most of his mind, and all of his body, seemed to be taken up with the woman beside him. Her beauty shone bright and silver as the mist gathered, swirling between them, tugging at his heart and his loins. Electricity sparked from her palm to his as her fingers curled more tightly. Heat from her body invaded his from every tiny touch; her unique scent of citrus and spring flowers flooded his senses.

At least the mist might hide the bulge in his pants, he thought ruefully, although he had no chance of concealing the quickening of his breath for very long. Her every movement, so close to him, touching, was exquisite torture. He had to keep reminding himself of his reasons for leaving Oban, when she'd been ready to stay, and of her words before they got out of the car. Neither made sense any longer, but they were all that kept him from crushing her in his arms, flinging her on the ground and fucking her to distraction. Just like before.

Worse, her shoulder pressed into his with increasing strength, her breath came in short, erratic bursts, as if she felt it too, this overwhelming, soul-searing lust…

God knew, he was only human. With a groan he hoped she didn't hear, he spun them around. “Back,” he uttered.

Her fingers were trembling, but she didn't object, merely nudged him back onto the path and kept walking.

She cleared her throat. “You should write it down.”

He couldn't think what she meant, for the lust addling his brain.

“Your story,” she said breathlessly. “You should write it.”

“I am. Sort of. I have a plan.” If he could only remember what it was. Right now, plans for getting her naked and all the things he would do to her when he succeeded were all that filled his head.

“What plan?”

“I'll tell you if it works. Where in hell are we, Louise?”

“Coming down toward the big house.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.” He could almost hear the frown in her voice. “You're right, though. It is a bit weird. I'm never wrong.”

“No, you're not,” he agreed as the house loomed out of the partially thinning mist. He could make out the dark shapes of the outhouses in the yard. Just. But as if the mist was following them, by the time they entered the yard area, nothing very much was visible at all. Louise guided him away from Rab's workshop and onward, and he finally recognized the ground in front of his caravan.

Louise gave a little shiver that vibrated through his whole body. Finally, he snapped, pushing her against the cold metal of the caravan, dragging his fingers free of hers so he could hold her waist between both hands instead. Greedily, he stroked upwards, under her arms, over the sides of her breasts, letting his thumbs tease her maddeningly hard nipples on the way past, before he brought them downward again, sliding over her waist to her hips, which he dragged against his, pinning them hard between his raging erection and the caravan wall.

Their breaths came in tangled pants, their breath mingling like tendrils of mist.

“It doesn't matter, does it?” she gasped. “What your guys think? What my family or the village imagines? In the mist, there is only you and me, and what we want.”

“And what is that?” he managed, his voice as laboured as his breath.

“You. I want you.” She seized his face between her hands, struggling to stand on tiptoe to reach him. He needed no further invitation, merely fell on her open mouth as he dragged her along towards the door and pushed it open.

He all but carried her inside, snapped on the light as he kicked the door shut. He had her coat off and her top up over her head before he realized she'd gone straight for the fastening of his trousers. Her impatience drove him on. Her bra unclipped and slowly falling, he shoved at her skirt and knickers while his eyes devoured her breasts.

“Oh Christ,” he muttered in anguished appreciation. He lifted her out of the rest of her clothes and stumbled to the bed, falling there with her while he kicked off his trousers. Her trembling hands tugged his shirt upwards, and he tore it off impatiently. His main, overwhelming need was to be inside her. He had to force himself to slow even a little, to find out if she was ready for him. But as his cock slid wetly among her folds, he groaned with something very like relief and drove inside her.

Her cry mingled with his, and at last, in the bliss of her sheathing body, he could make himself pause for breath.

“All right?” he managed.

“More than that!” she said fervently, her hands stroking his face. Slowly, she lifted her head from the pillow and kissed his mouth, her hips undulating beneath him, drawing him deeper, arching into him, seducing, taking. “Much, much more…”

“Then I have permission to fuck you all night?”

Her hips slammed upwards into his, which he held still only with fast-dissolving force. “If you can stand the pace,” she taunted.

“Let's see who can stand what,” he said, catching her hands and pinning them to the pillow while he latched his mouth to one quivering nipple.

His body screamed as he teased her, arousing her with his hands and lips, with everything except actual fucking, to the shaking verge of orgasm and holding her there as she whimpered and pleaded for release, trying to buck beneath him, furiously commanding him to do it.

“Do what?” he asked huskily, pushing his tongue into her mouth while he pulled achingly at one nipple with his fingertips.

“Fuck me,” she said between her teeth, when his tongue released her. “Hard.”

“Oh, trust me, I will.”

If it hadn't been the sexiest thing he'd ever experienced, he'd have lost control long before he did, for his body was at least as desperate as hers for completion. But this was a delicious new game that he knew, somehow, would make her all the readier for the ultimate pleasure, and make him all the more potent.

Unsure where the thought came from, he concentrated on what he could see and touch, and held on with increasingly ragged control. His curious fingers found a new pleasure point just above her anus and played there for a little. Perhaps it was her surprised gasps or involuntary writhing that distracted him, but his orgasm suddenly threatened without permission.

Groaning, he reared back and plunged into her. Control snapped, giving way only to irrepressible desire and the massive tide of pleasure roaring over him. It was as if the thick, white mist had entered the caravan walls, filling his head as he drove into Louise again and again. She clung to him, straining, writhing, her beautiful elfin face shrouded in the mist of his own lust. Just for an instant, he imagined a different face, a different beauty. If he hadn't been so far gone, he might have been thrown enough to pause, but he couldn't stop now, and in any case, one blink brought back the face he wanted to see, so lovely in passion.

Her voice rose up with his, eager and grateful and curiously beautiful in his ears as he hammered her to orgasm. It seemed to burst upon them both with such fury that he couldn't stop thrusting as it took him, kept pushing into her over and over. And when she fell into another orgasm from the first, fresh arousal tore through him with the desire to make her keep coming and coming for him. Still hard, he drew up her knee, adjusting his position, and fucked her with slow, powerful, intensely sensual strokes that reached deep inside her. It felt as if she sheathed all of him, consumed him as he did her.

When her third climax broke, he came again with her, and for a while, they just lay there, boneless, tangled in a big, sweaty mess with the quilt and the half-torn-off sheet.

“Bloody hell,” she croaked, when at last her mouth could form words. “I'd ask you where you learned to do that, but I suspect I don't want to know.”

He smiled sleepily into her breast, gave it a lazy lick. “Imagination.”

She opened one sceptical eye. “And yet the French have the reputation of being great womanizers.”

“I may be French, but I'm a computer geek. We don't get out much in any country.”

“I think you got out enough,” she observed, flopping her arms around him.

He eased out of her so he could lie on his stomach without squashing her. With lethargic fingers, he stroked her hair, her cheek.

“We should have stayed in Oban,” she said ruefully. “I doubt that was very discreet.”

“Most of the guys are away,” Thierry said. “They go off on a bender most Friday nights. Glenn and Izzy are in the house, but I doubt anyone else is,”

She turned her head to see him better, kissed his caressing finger. “What changed your mind?”

He drew in his breath, wondering the same thing. “I don't know. I suppose the temptation just became too much. You're the loveliest, sexiest creature I've ever encountered, and I've no idea why you even look at me.”

She blinked. “I've never seen myself quite like that! ‘Boring old Louise' fits better.”

“No, it doesn't. You're a beautiful, sensual little elf, put here to distract and tempt the unwary. Or even the wary.”

She touched his lips, a little shy, a little rueful. “You make me feel like that.”

“That's because you are,” he said, sucking her finger into his mouth. Her eyes widened, and he couldn't resist sliding down her delectable body. “Look, I'll show you.”

“Again?” she breathed as he kissed his way down her belly to her inner thighs and the heat between.

“I promised you all night,” he said, unable to believe his luck that he could have that privilege, and took her clitoris between his teeth.

“Oh God,” she whispered.

* * * * *

It might not have been all night, but they came pretty close. At some point after her first orgasm of the night and his, the urgent need to come together had morphed into sheer joy in
being
together. At least for her, and judging by his constant attentions, for him too. She certainly couldn't doubt the pleasure he'd found in her, and as she fell asleep in his arms at last, she knew only pride that she'd given him that.