to him, where had Renard gone? Paul didn’t trust the man. Though he was rumored to have a cock as limp as the rotting asparagus in his vegetable cart, he had a reputation around Les Halles for seducing young girls, then raping them. Tearing apart their pussies with the black leather shaft of his long whip. He was probably waiting in the shadows somewhere in the vast market to grab the girl the moment he let her out of his sight. This Englishman, however, with his wild accusations, was an immediate threat. Alors, he’d have to change his plans.
Paul spun around, folding the massive swirl of his black cape around the girl. He couldn’t hide her completely from view as the foreigner cut them off between the meat stalls, his goblin face lit up with a grinning smile of white teeth, a lustful snarl rolling over his lips as he reached out to grab the girl’s bare breast peeking through her cloak.
Paul was tempted to use the sharp knife concealed in the end of his cane to convince the man to go about his business. A dryness caught in his throat at the thought of her pure, lovely skin being touched and tainted by the overly eager Englishman. Pampered and smooth-skinned, the gentleman probably hadn’t had his balls stroked by a woman since he was an infant at the breast of his wet nurse.
“Run into the Black Beau, mademoiselle,” Paul whispered to the redhead, indicating with a nod a tiny bistro nearby.
“Monsieur?” she questioned.
“Do as I say or the Englishman will cause enough commotion to have your beautiful ass hanging upside down on the wheel.” He opened his cape and cleared a path for her between the stalls. “Run, now!”
The redhead rushed past him, so close to him his fingertips brushed up against the exposed skin on her neck and a hot flush warmed his groin. She must be his.
“Stop that thief, monsieur!” shouted the Englishman.
“Thief, what thief?” Paul mumbled, twirling his cane and gracefully pirouetting around in a circle, his wide cape swirling around him. “I see no thief.”
“That one, monsieur.” He pointed to the redhead pushing through the crowd and heading toward the tiny bistro. “She won’t get far.” He elbowed past Paul, shoving his shoulder into the artist.
“Quel bâtard,” Paul muttered under his breath. “Mongrel.” Such poor manners. The Englishman deserved to be taught a lesson.
Quicker than the flick of a brush, the artist thrust his long, ebony cane out in front of the Englishman’s feet and tripped him.
The Englishman cried out, tumbling onto the ground, his arms and legs flailing in the air in all directions before he landed with a loud thud.
Paul smiled, wiping his cane on the ends of his black cape with the tips of his fingers. The dirty hands of the Englishman would never touch the girl, he swore, sweeping the cane under his cloak with little effort. It disappeared like grains of sand caught on the wind.
“You tripped me, monsieur,” the Englishman accused, struggling in his drunken state to stand up. “I should call you out for that, except I’ve already sent my bodyguards home for the night. And I refuse to dirty my hands on the likes of you.”
“Me, monsieur?” Paul couldn’t help but snicker. The man resembled a pot of jellied consommé, dumped onto a saucer. “I am but a poor artist.”
“I don’t believe you, monsieur,” demanded the Englishman. “You’re a magician. What have you got in your hand?”
“Nothing, monsieur—” The artist feigned a look that clearly said he was insulted. Adding to the effect, a muscle in his neck twitched and his eyes loomed large in his handsome face, casting a surrealistic, dangerous twist to his features. Smiling, he threw open his cape, his muscular chest straining against the thinness of his white shirt, “—but this!”
With a grandiose gesture he pulled out a faded handkerchief and waved it under the man’s nose. The Englishman reeled backward, caught off balance by the heady smell of patchouli, a minty perfume from India that spoke of long nights of exhaustive pleasure.
Paul bowed slightly. “Your servant, monsieur.”
The Englishman shook his head in disgust. “You and your magic don’t fool me. You helped that girl to escape.”
“You are mistaken, monsieur.”
“You have insulted the Duke of Malmont, monsieur. Next time we meet, it won’t be under such unsavory circumstances in front of peons. And when we do, I swear I will kill you,” the Englishman threatened, squaring his shoulders and wiping the dust off his coatsleeves. He stalked off in another direction, his battered British pride flattened in front of the market jammed with porters, commissionaires and wholesale and retail buyers stocking food on their hand carts.
Paul tapped his cane on the sawdust-strewn floor in an uneven rhythm, a mental fear engulfing him. He was rid of the Englishman, his threat meaningless to him, but the redhead wasn’t safe with Monsieur Renard looking for her. He must get her out of here, this goddess who couldn’t be more than nineteen, not yet a woman.
Where did she come from?
He often frequented the back doors of the cabarets and theaters where the women he met were victims of lascivious upper-class diversion long before he stroked their feminine egos with compliments and money. These women had succumbed to a living death on the silken sheets of sexual perversion and greed. One fed off the other. He merely provided a way out for them, indulging in their fantasies, giving them the joy of his cock for one night.
Unless he helped her, he had no reason to believe the future for this redhead would be any different. He tried to imagine her life on the streets. Begging for a sou might buy bread, but the day would come when her pitiful plea would buy nothing but an offer to take from her the one thing she could sell but once: her virginity.
He wondered what hope she would have then when she lay on her back with languid eyes turned away from the stranger thrusting inside her so deep, the walls of her cunt grabbing for him hungrily, betraying her. Hope that died with each thrust, each sweaty moan, each careless fondle. Paul knew the darkness of perversity came next. It always did.
He rubbed the handle of his cane between his fingers. Sticky sweat imprinted his fingerprints on the smooth ebony. He must save her from that darkness.
CHAPTER FIVE
Running from the beast they call Monsieur Renard, I’ve never been so scared as when I saw him spring toward me like a wild animal. I swear I saw him pull out his dick, dark and meaty, and wave it at me. The pungent smell of his sweat overwhelmed me. Repulsive. Because of him, I’ve lost Paul Borquet.
You fool.
Okay, so the artist is sexy, gorgeous, and has a cock that lives up to his reputation, if it’s as big as it felt pressing against my hip. And when he spanked me, I squealed with both surprise and pleasure, arcing my back up toward him. I’ll never snicker at those SM personal ads again. There’s something about a little whack on the butt that sets off a girl’s libido like a vibrator on autospeed.
But if you think I’m going to tell you what he whispered in my ear when he was playing with my cunt, dream on. I can’t think about it now. I gotta haul my butt outta here before that creepy Monsieur Renard finds me and turns me into his own private peepshow. Why do I get all the corpulent creeps? Why don’t I get the Disney dream with the dorky dwarves and
