Satin Doll (41 page)

“Well, don’t move,” she said quickly. “I’ll do it. Good lord, I don’t want you to start bleeding again.”
 

“Sweet darling.” He closed his eyes. “I’m all yours.”
 

He meant it, she saw as she looked down at the silky expanse of his chest, his taut belly and the powerful sprawl of his legs. He opened himself to her touch, confident and strong, aroused and beautiful. A hard, tough man. Wanting her. Trusting her.
 

In a flurry of little loving movements, Sam caressed him, feeling him tighten under her touch. She buried her lips in his throat, tasting him, giving light, breathy kisses over his eyes and his nose. Then her lips were at his ear, and she sighed into it, overcome with the quick rush of her feelings.
 

It was strange to be making love to Chip, oddly disturbing. He certainly was strong and beautiful, she couldn’t help thinking as she nibbled down his shoulder, across the bulge of a powerful bicep and into the inner curve of his elbow. He tasted slightly salty, and his skin was silky, his forearms a little roughened with fine black hairs. His masculine scent was overlaid with the soapy aura of the shower he’d taken before going to bed. It was very pleasant, loving him. Better than that, she thought enthusiastically, as she ran her tongue across his exposed skin below the white bandage.
 

He went rigid under her. “God, woman,” she heard him say tightly, “but that’s lovely.”
 

She had never done this before; every time his body responded to her Sam felt a curl of fire in her own flesh answering him. She let herself slide slowly down, defining his body inch by inch with her mouth. It was Chip, big and tough and beautiful, and she was loving him. The feeling was so overwhelming she couldn’t believe it. She wanted to give him everything.
 

“Ah, darling,” he gasped, “be careful ... my God, aaah, yes, like that...”
 

Her fingers and lips traced a path across his taut belly, over his hip and thigh, into his groin and the silky mat of black curls to find his rigid, straining flesh. When her mouth closed around him, his body jolted, a wordless rasp tearing out of him.
 

“Am I hurting you?” she cried, pulling back.
 

He tried to laugh. “No, sweetheart, not hurting, just torture ... oh, my love ... easy!”
 

She kissed him intimately, lingeringly, sensuously, listening to the broken love words he couldn’t hold back. Suddenly he growled, more than a little agonized, “Hold still, darling ... ah, love ... God, wait!”
 

He lifted her at the waist and poised her over himself. They came together with an explosion of a fiery need that made them both shudder. She enveloped him with a bursting fire, and he thrust into her, crushing her to him, joy and triumph and sheer sensuality blazing in his face. She wanted him more in that moment than she had ever have believed possible to want anyone, as he drove into her with all the pounding force of his desire. She wildly rocked him, her hands smoothing and stroking, her eager mouth raining kisses on his mouth, his eyes, his hair.
 

“Come with me, love,” he rasped. “Ah, my darling, my beautiful Samantha, say you love me.”
 

She took his raging need deep inside her and arched, brilliant bursting lights, rockets ripping through her. “I love you,” she cried, dimly surprised that it was the truth.
 

His hands seized the back of her head to pull her down to him and their mouths came together. Time stopped, the world stopped, and there were only the two of them in space and darkness, reeling with the sense of each other. His hoarse groan burst into her lips as he convulsed under her, pouring himself into her. It was love.
 

Sam let herself fall against him softly, Chip’s sweaty form still vibrating with powerful aftershocks, his arms wound tightly around her as though he would never let her go. She lay with her hands pressed flat against his shoulders, still clasping him within her, feeling him hard and passionate, wanting her still.
 

“Marry me, Samantha,” Chip said hoarsely.
 

Chapter Twenty-Three

“If we get married, where would we live?” Sam asked.
 

She stood in the doorway of the bathroom watching Chip as he shaved in total, naked magnificence except for the bandage around his chest. He bent over the washbasin to peer into the mirror as he scraped at his foam-covered upper lip, and she couldn’t help admiring the rippling muscles in his back, the solid length of his legs and the tight, hard planes of his buttocks. He was so powerfully masculine, Sam was thinking lasciviously. Not every man had a backside that looked as tough and masterful as the rest of him. She liked standing there in the bathroom door just looking.
 

His black eyes met hers in the mirror, as he slung a glob of foam off the razor into the bowl. “Not ‘if’ we get married, Samantha. I thought we settled that.”
 

All right, Sam supposed they had. “Well, where
would
we live?” she insisted.
 

He tilted his chin and began scraping at his throat. “London, for the most part. My base is here, at Scotland Yard, traveling when I have an international case for Interpol.” He waited for a moment before he said, “There are a lot of fine shops here. London’s quite a fashion center. Ever thought about having your own boutique?”
 

She stared at him. Her first thought was, Inspector Chiswick, in command of everything. Then she found that she was actually surprised and touched. He’d been thinking about it—for her. “Well, that would be great,” she said tentatively, “but I don’t have any capital to start my own design business, if that’s what you mean.”
 

He frowned, holding the side of his cheek down with one finger as he raked the corner of his mouth. “I could get you some financing. When I travel, you could get someone to look after it for you. A manager, I suppose. You’d want to go with me most times, wouldn’t you?”
 

He was quite serious, she saw. He had it all planned—boutique, manager, traveling with him. It sounded wonderful.
 

“Not to get started on the shop too soon, though,” he said around the razor. “Have to wait awhile. I have some relatives on a ranch in Calgary, Canada. That’s right around Wyoming, isn’t it? I thought we’d honeymoon there.”
 

Now they were going to Canada on their honeymoon. It took an Englishman, Sam thought, to think that Calgary was right next to Wyoming. “You certainly do have things organized,” she said dryly. “Just when are we going on our honeymoon?”
 

He threw the razor into the washbasin and turned on the taps, still watching her in the mirror, one eyebrow cocked. “Day after the wedding, silly twit,” he said softly, burning her with a warm, suggestive look. “Say, day after tomorrow?”
 

Sam swallowed hard. She already knew she was attracted to powerful, commanding men; now she was finding out how much. Inspector Christopher Chiswick. Interpol. Scotland Yard. Honeymoon and boutiques and a trip to Canada. She wondered if he already had the tickets.
 

“I have three weeks’ leave,” he said, standing with his hands braced on the washbasin, still watching her with his sensuous black eyes. “I’ve always wanted to see Canada and the States. Do we visit your family?”
 

Samantha stared at him. She hadn’t thought about that. All of her brothers were married now and more or less settled down, although two of them were still out of work and Jack, the youngest, was still reporting to his probation officer on an assault conviction from his last fight in a country and western bar. She had a feeling her brothers would love Chip—he was even tougher than they were. He’d probably even get along with her father. He’d be right at home with her family, even if he was a policeman. “I suppose so,” she muttered. “Do you always shave naked?” she asked, curious.
 

The other eyebrow shot up. “Do you always watch naked?”
 

She looked down at herself quickly, turning a bright shade of pink from the hot look in his eyes. “I’ve never watched a man shave,” she mumbled. She kept on blushing, but she wasn’t going to run back into the bedroom. She met his eyes directly, her chin up. “I only made love with one other man before I met you.” She wanted to get that much straight. He knew she hadn’t done anything with Alain des Baux.
 

“I know, love,” he said softly. He smiled at her in the mirror.
 

He always surprised her, she thought, looking at him with love in her eyes. He wasn’t going to ask her about Jack. He probably never would, unless she brought it up herself. “What did they do with the heroin after they’d made it?” she said to change the subject. “They had to get it out of the Maison Louvel, didn’t they?”
 

Chip bent over the washbasin and patted water on the shaved side of his face. “They carried it out through the crypt.”
 

“But Alain took me down there, he gave me the whole tour.” Of course he did, she knew instantly. Alain des Baux had even told her he’d show it to her so she would never go down there alone. Once she’d had the personally guided tour, he was safe. That had seemed such an enchanted time, that first morning in Paris, she remembered somewhat wistfully. Alain had been so charming, showing her the tombs of the Crusaders; he’d let her think it was all a joke, when all the time he’d been involved in the drug operation. And there were other things too, she remembered, for instance the peculiar way Alain had acted toward Sophie that first day at Maison Louvel, when she had fled from him in distress. That must have had something to do with the drugs.
 

“What’s the matter, love?” He’d been watching her face.
 

“Nothing.” She sighed. “I just don’t understand it, that’s all. He had everything going for him—looks, money, a title. Alain des Baux was a duke, did you know that?”
 

He grunted. “Some obscure Angevin line, but no money, love, for hundreds of years. It was all a sham, not even a castle left. The money came from drugs.”
 

Another one, she was thinking. Alain des Baux was another part of that strange underside of Paris that included all the down-and-out titled old crones and their relatives who tottered in and out of the Maison Louvel. “I hope I never meet another aristocrat again,” Sam said fervently. “Now I know why there was an American Revolution.”
 

The man at the basin paused, razor lifted over the unshaved side of his face. “Can’t judge them all by one bad apple, Samantha. Be charitable.”
 

“Oh, yes, I can. And Alain des Baux wasn’t the only one. There’s the old ducchessa lying about her poor granddaughter to get her married off, the whole bunch having their weird clothes made and not paying their bills. And there was that ‘right of the lord,’” she said, raising her voice so that he wouldn’t interrupt her, “that the lord could have sex with the poor bride of the peasant before her husband ever went to bed with her. That’s cruel and disgusting. The whole thing is disgusting—all that pretense, princesses and countesses and duchesses, and they weren’t better than anybody else. They were nothing but a bunch of street people! And if it hadn’t been for them, there wouldn’t have been any drug operation going on.”
 

“Probably not,” he agreed mildly. He began to shave again. “They had their uses as a cover, I admit.”
 

“What I can’t figure out is, when they got the heroin down in the cellar, what did they do with it?”
 

“Crypt, not cellar, love,” he corrected her. “Part of the Paris sewer system is right beyond. There’s a small stream that runs between the rue des Capucines and the rue des Bénédictines. There used to be two old monastery sites on the banks. It’s all underground now, connecting with the sewer coming down from the Opera. One of the first clues to the operation.” He turned, his face dripping. “Hand me that towel, there, will you?” He paused, hands on his hips, staring at her. “What the hell’s so funny?”
 

She leaned against the doorjamb, laughing helplessly. “No, not you, the sewer! It was an old movie, the
Phantom of the Opera,
every American knows it. Everything happened down in the Paris sewers, it’s kind of a joke.”
 

He pulled his towel from the rack and patted his wet face, looking at her over the cloth. “Are you going to put some clothes on and go have lunch with me?” His eyes caressed her from the top of her pale hair to her bare feet. “Or are we going back to bed to make love?”
 

At that moment the telephone rang.
 

Samantha saw the change in Chip’s eyes. He watched her as it rang again, his handsome face expressionless. “It’s for you. You can take it in the bedroom.”
 

“How could it be for me?” She was puzzled. “Nobody has my number here.”
 

“Samantha, please go answer it,” he said quietly.
 

Sam turned and went back into the bedroom. She sat down on the bed and lifted the receiver. “Hello?” she said, frowning.