Combat

Seduction of Combat - Story-2

“I’m Frederic - Freddie La Salle,” he told her, offering his hand to shake. She took it and felt her hand disappear into his warm palm.

“I’m Anna Leyton.”

He continued to hold her hand. She felt the strength and gentleness of his grip and did nothing to resist - could do nothing - wanted to do nothing.

“Could it be that you come from the family of Leyton Marine?”

“Well yes - you could say I’m the boss’s daughter.”

“Ah, so if I want a Nereus 74 I can go straight to the front of the line?” he joked - or maybe not joked. As he spoke she realized that his French accent had slipped again from Paris chic to a relaxed Californian. She’d already figured that one. She played along.

“I thought you were French!”

“My mother is American - I live in France and work often in the USA.”

“So, all that ‘lost little French boy’ was a scam?”

“Of course,” he replied in a mocking French accent, “you cannot blame a man when suddenly from out of a clear blue sky in the pouring rain he meets such a woman who tries to muscle him out of his taxi...”

Anna laughed at the pantomime accent and coy expression that looked so out of place on his strong face and scarred brow that had to have a violent origin.

“What’s your line of work anyway Frederic - comedian - shepherd - conman?”

“Few people are what they seem - life is an acting job. Truth is a line like the Equator. To the South lies the tropic of exaggeration, to the North is the tropic of forgetfulness,” he teased with those smiling dark brown eyes.

Now - what the hell was this stuff? Philosophy - obviously well rehearsed. How could he know anything of her? Clearly he was aware of Leyton Marine and also of the waiting list for a Nereus 74. Did he know her father, or any details of her family?

“You tested a Nereus 74?”

“Well, I went on board - she was beautiful - there was no time for a sea trial.”

“And are you still in the market?”

“Certainly - I have an important deal next month - but after that - it will be play time.”

“Who showed you round the boat in Cannes?” she asked, desperate to know what he might recall. With this type of serious client, almost certainly her father would have been involved.

“I think I met someone called Mike... yes it was Mike.”

Her thoughts raced through all the possibilities - he had probably spoken to her father and even if he had made small talk about his family, odds were that this confident self-aware stranger wouldn’t have taken it all in. Anyway, he wouldn’t have told a potential client that his daughter was a cop given that a good number of clients had no love of the law.

“If he could have sold me the boat I’d have bought it that day.”

“I’ll call my father.”

“And you will supervise my sea trial personally?”

Hang on Mister Smoothie... she couldn’t go down this route.

“There are good sales people at all our offices - I don’t have a demonstration boat in London.”

“Perhaps I should call Mike - um - your father...?”

Adrenalin was squeezing into her blood.

“I’ll fix it,” she said, slowly downing the last of her vodka and hoping she appeared calm.

Okay - she had lied about her job - she could cover it if her father would go along with the deception. None of this mattered. She was never going to see him again. Her father could call him and explain that she had had to sell a boat to the king of some place. Some place with a king!

“If you sell me a Nereus 74 you will be Daddy’s Best Girl,” he teased, adding a theatrical wink.

“I am already,” she fired back sharply, suddenly realizing that losing the chance to sell a cool £2.5 million cruiser would definitely not please Daddy. This guy was too pushy - as if she could be influenced by money!

“Give me your business card Miss Leyton - I’ll call you to fix all the details.”

Business cards - sure - every sales person always has a pocket full! She thought swiftly on her feet. She could hardly give him a police visiting card.

“I was at a meeting this afternoon and handed them all out so I have none left just now... I was not expecting...”

“A rude stranger who hijacked your taxi!” he interjected.

“Not so rude,” she replied with a look at his masculine face, his tough looking jaw, his bull-like neck and those gentle brown eyes. Although his manner exuded confidence almost to a point of arrogance, those eyes shone out a deep kindness. Everything warned her off this guy. Everything she felt as a woman was sweeping her onwards - as if she had fallen into a raging river of warm seductive water where it was useless to struggle. He finished his beer. She declined his offer of second vodka... but boy did she need one.

“So, I’ll let you go and take your number?” he suggested.

She scribbled her personal cell phone number on a coaster. He took it and stood up, towering above her. His shoulders were twice the width of hers. She found herself staring at his lower stomach and waist. He had no stomach but was ridged and flat. A little lower was the bulge of his bull credentials. She forced herself to look up and then stood. As if it were the most natural thing in the world he moved beside her and placed his hand on her back.

“We must find you a taxi.”

She felt the sheer size and strength of him. Her composure wobbled on a knife-edge. Whatever way she dressed it up, she wanted him, not that he was gonna get that information. He had made no hard play for her. The most dangerous thing in a crook is patience - she knew that. It was screaming at her.

The doorman stepped out to hail a cab. Anna looked up and allowed herself to hold his eyes for a little longer than was quite polite and edged towards brazen. She felt a sweet tickle of excitement. A taxi pulled in.

“Well - thanks for the drink - and the entertainment.”

Without speaking he moved to face her and then lowered his chin to kiss one cheek and then the other. The brush of his lips jolted her, sending a current sparking and screaming down through her body, lighting up everything it touched.

“Forgive me...” he began, obviously aware of her response, “these things are normal in France.”

Bloody hell - did he think she didn’t know that? She watched his lips as he spoke, longing that he would bring them back to her cheeks, to her lips, to anywhere! God it had been so long...

“I’ll call tomorrow - it has been lovely to meet you Anna.”

“I’ll look forward to it Freddie,” she replied, hearing her own voice as if it belonged to someone else.

He turned back into the hotel and was gone. She leaned back in the taxi and let out a deep lungful of air. Dear Lord - had she gone nuts? How it had felt though - to be aware of a forgotten joy inside her. For a few moments she had pushed away from that blank plain where dark beasts could roar out of the long grass at any second. For an instant once again she was at the wheel of that car, controlling the drift into the corner. Ahead of her the bandit car spun out as a terrified kid lost control...

Freddie La Salle watched the cab pull away from behind the hotel window. He didn’t want her to see his interest. He checked the number she had given him and moved to the lobby payphone and dialed. As she answered he hung up. It was her - the correct number. He smiled and gave a little nod of satisfaction. Never had he seen such a girl. The beauty of her was a delicious ache. In her presence he had felt a surge of desire and a sense of protectiveness he couldn’t define. Something was there in her that he recognized. Some hint of his own regret. OK - he needed a girl on his arm, a girl was always part of the plan. Now she was gone there was so much more he could have said - maybe shared - maybe explained.

One day there would be a girl who could share the truth of things. Lucky she wasn’t a cop. If there were cops like that he’d have joined the force years ago. When he had seen her in the street he had had to act before she was swirled away into the gray London night.

How a split second in life could change everything. How well he knew the joy and sorrow that could flow from a chance moment. He took out his cell phone and called his driver. The poor guy was probably still waiting for him outside Scotland Yard.

Chapter 2

The phone jolted her from the nightmare. She thought for a moment to ignore it. Few people had her personal number - other than her family and of course her ex-lover Commander Beaumont Locke of Scotland Yard. As the caller clicked off, she pushed the mobile back in her pocket and rested her head on the seat. Probably a random wrong number. If she had time tomorrow she would check it out.

On and on the lives of unknown strangers rolled and swarmed along the Edgeware Road and Kilburn High Road. She was tired but had never felt more alive! By chance she had met this ridiculous chancer and experienced a brief out-of-body experience. Just in an instant her perception of life had changed. She’d always been inclined to rash decisions. How well she knew the price. Now things were real and she had to organize her actual life and career and maybe deal with the consequences of her deliberate dishonesty.

She paid the driver and took the stairs to her flat. Even though it was going to cost her twenty years salary and took half her pay each month, it was only a tiny flat – four small rooms above a tanning salon. She had refused all help from her family. What she had was her own. It wasn’t much.

She slipped out of her coat, poured a good glass of Pinot Grigio and headed for the bedroom. She wanted to think and to strip off the grime and gray of the London day. She would shower and then get an early night.

She let her charcoal business suit and cream silk blouse fall carelessly to the ground. She sat down on the bed wearing nothing but her ivory satin underwear. She released her b*a and let her full firm breasts fall free like a sigh. For a moment she lay back and swung her legs onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. She ran her hands comfortingly across her belly.

For all the urgent complication of the jingle-jangle day, she was flesh and a beating heart. For the first time in nearly a year she felt herself alive and warm, aware of the pulse and thrill of the life that was in her body. She thought of the enigmatic Freddie, some kind of con man she knew but still with his laughing eyes and strength. No man had ever touched her soul in the way that he had. Everything about him was like a rhythmic stroke - his cheesy humor, his powerful hands - creating a soft force that pushed everything aside and caressed her feminine core. The wine and the vodka shook hands in her empty stomach. OK - she was drinking too much.

How she hated this loneliness knowing that at any moment her mind could flip back in time. She had no lover although often enough men had told her of her beauty or at least wanted to get in her knickers. No one had ever got this close, not reached the power of her responses that she knew she possessed yet withheld. This man had no concept of knocking on doors. He had a key and would walk right into her, would know her rhythms, would dance and burrow within her, pulse and share ecstasy with her. This she knew now as if she were the first ever woman to know true oneness with a man. Her loneliness oppressed her and for a few moments she could lose herself. She felt the jolt of her own touch as she focused on her pleasure. This had always been her small secret delight until the crash had wiped out her desire. Now she was flying in circles up and up and up and losing control. It had been so long... just so b****y long.