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Naughty Paris
Jina Bacarr
After being jilted by her fiance, Autumn Maguire uses her nonrefundable honeymoon tickets to explore Paris on her own.Eager to experience the true bohemian lifestyle, she answers an ad for an artist's model. When she exchanges her clothes for the artist's lush red cloak, something strange happens–a feeling of intense sensual reawakening overcomes her. Suddenly lightning strikes and through the power of black magic she's thrust back into– –the nineteenth century where the scandalous painter Paul Borquet is insisting she become his Titian-haired muse.Between everyone's strange clothing, the claustrophobic Parisian streets and the overpowering pull of sexual desire, Autumn can't process–just where the heck is she and how did she get here?And frankly, with Paul's expert caresses imprinted on her body, does she really care about going back to present day?
Jina Bacarr
NAUGHTY PARIS
www.Spice-Books.co.uk (http://www.Spice-Books.co.uk)
To my husband, Len LaBrae, an artist in his own right.
Acknowledgments
My love affair with Paris began years ago when I visited the City of Light as a struggling art student and fell in love with everything Parisian, including the world of the Impressionists. I visited the Louvre, the art studios, the cafés where the Impressionists had hung out and an idea began to form in my mind: what if I could travel back in time and become part of their world? Now that idea has become a novel, but not without the hard work and perseverance of three special and dedicated women.
I wish to thank my editor, Susan Pezzack, whose artistic sensibilities helped me fine-tune my manuscript; Leslie Wainger, the editor who opened the door for me, and my friend and agent, Roberta Brown, who loved this story from the first time she read it and never gave up on me. Merci.
I loved the film Moulin Rouge about Paris and La Belle Époque and wondered what it would be like to be slim and gorgeous like Nicole Kidman, fall in love with a handsome hunk, and sing on key when I’m having an orgasm. I thought about it at lunch when I dieted on herb quiche with low-fat cheese and gulped down latte without whipped cream. I thought about it when I showed commercial properties to boring old men with lust in their eyes and soft putty in their pants. I thought about it when I got jilted at the altar and went to Paris for my honeymoon sans the groom.
Then I didn’t have to think about it anymore because it happened. To me. Autumn Maguire.
It all started with:
Désir (Desire)
I am not a woman—I am a world.
My garments only have to fall
and on my body you will find
a whole series of secrets.
—Gustave Flaubert
(1821-1880)
CHAPTER ONE
Paris Today—An Art Studio in the Marais District
The Model
“You want me to take off my T-shirt?”
“Yes, mademoiselle.”
“And my yoga pants?
He nods. “Yes, mademoiselle.”
“Hold on a Paris minute,” I protest, glancing over at the old artist with a Gauloise cigarette hanging out of his mouth like a limp penis. He takes a drag without taking his eyes off my wet T-shirt sticking to me like a Post-it. “I ducked in here to get out of the rain, not sign up for strip aerobics.”
Husky voice, low in the back of my throat. Jeez, is that me? Got to be nerves.
I had the same catch in my throat when I swallowed the mint in my mouth after David, my ex-fiancé, insisted I give lousy BJs and he couldn’t go through with our wedding because he had issues with us.
The jerk.
As if flunking a postgraduate course in blow jobs is a top-ten reason to send me into therapy and sic my mother on me for the prepaid, nonrefundable honeymoon to Paris. But here I am, wandering around the Right Bank in the rain like Jean Valjean in squishy Nikes. Jilted and miserable.
And wondering how I let silver-tongued David—a guy who knows how to use that tongue to trigger my starter button—talk me into charging everything on my credit card. I’ve worked my ass off climbing the corporate ladder since college, putting my dream of opening my own art gallery on hold. Now I’m not only groomless but I had to dip into my 401-k account to pay for twelve bridesmaids’ dresses with matching dyed Jimmy-what’s-his-name stilettos, not to mention more than two hundred pounds of prime rib. Rare.
After I cut up my maxed-out credit card, I guzzled down the last bottle of champagne then tossed my white satin Vera Wang knock-off into the closest trashcan. The next morning I took off for the birthplace of Godiva chocolates to sweeten the bad taste in my mouth. And I don’t mean spending time on my knees sucking on a guy wearing a raspberry-flava condom. I mean something dramatic and wonderful, heart-stopping and sizzling with pent-up energy. I want to feel alive, desired.
Who am I kidding? I want to be a drop-dead-gorgeous sex goddess.
Youth and a fab bod aren’t everything, you know.
Ha! David thinks so. That’s why I’m not all snuggly and warm with him between the sheets in my Paris hotel instead of sneaking through the city like a rat in an underground sewer.
You’re not young anymore, kiddo, and you are, oh, so not thin. That’s why you lost David to that Aphrodite, an insipid skinny-as-a-toothpick, not-old-enough-to-drink-yet blonde. Your assistant, yet. How could you be so dumb?
Dumb? I was stupid, insane, a complete idiot for letting that bitch take David away from me. I got punked.
Zap! As if agreeing with me, lightning rips through the long multipaned window, hitting me in the eye like a redlight camera, illuminating the faint light in the studio and diluting the smoky atmos.
I blink, then blink again. A B horror film mentality creeps me out, making me shiver. It can’t get any worse. Storm clouds hide the afternoon sun. A rush of rain falls outside, banging against the windowpanes shimmering with a wet sheen. Thunder cracks like a boombox bursting with outta control volume. The old building shakes. I cringe. Do I really want to go back outside into that stormy mess? That’s why I don’t protest when the old artist hustles me toward the platform in the back of the art studio.
“Hurry, mademoiselle, we’re losing the light.”
A pungent whiff of burnt tobacco shoots up my nose. Who is this putz? For sure, he’s no panting Adonis who can seduce a woman to take off her clothes with a smile. He’s short, balding, sporting a little paunch and he smokes too much.
“Watch those hands, monsieur. I know karate.” I’m bluffing, but it works with the geek corporate types I deal with every day who think a physical workout is something you do by yourself with one hand.
By the way, did you notice the old artist was impressed when I said kah-rah-tay with the accent on the tay? I may give lousy blow jobs, but I’m not Gallic challenged. I got an A in French in college. I can rattle off enough swear words to impress the surliest taxi driver, from calling him a salaud, bastard, to a quel casse-couilles, pain in the ass.
“You made a mistake, monsieur,” I continue, now that I’ve got his attention. “I wouldn’t look as soggy as over-cooked lasagna if I owned an umbrella, which I don’t. Nobody from the O.C. does. It ruins our image, not to mention Nielsen ratings.”
He makes a face. Silly me. As if he understands my pop-culture rhetoric to explain why he doesn’t want to see me naked, why I slap on phony tanning stuff rather than sport a citrus-yellow bikini on a SoCal beach. I don’t tell him cellulite and I are as tight as sorority sisters. Not to mention my stomach is upset and I feel like I’m going to pass gas from the greasy pommes frites I gulped down at the flea market.
“Then you’re not a model, mademoiselle?” The old artist gestures with his two hands like he’s feeling up melons in the supermarché.
I shake my head emphatically. “No.”
“Pity.” He coughs, tosses his cigarette into an empty saucer, then does a mental strip search of my bod from the top of my red Angels baseball cap to my DKNY white cotton T-shirt, mauve yoga pants with a white stripe running up the side, and comfy walking shoes. “I’d still like to draw you.”
I tilt my head to one side, thinking. What’s holding me back? Posing in my bra and panties isn’t any different from sporting a bikini at a pool party, right? So why not go for the win?
I nod. “Okay. It’ll be a fun souvenir to take home.”
He smiles, then drops the bombshell. Right into my lap.
“Bon. Good. You must pose in the nude.”
“Are you sure Madonna started like this?” I ask, holding on to my panties, pulling on the elastic waistband until it snaps against my bare skin. Ouch. I’ve already taken off my wet clothes and left them hanging on the tall black screen standing in the corner, along with my waist pack with my money and passport.
“Mademoiselle?”
“You know, the pop star? ‘Like a Virgin’?” I sway my hips like the superstar diva. Somehow it doesn’t have the same effect. The old artist shrugs.
“I don’t care if you’re a virgin—”
I’m not, but I smile anyway.
“—I wish to sketch you, mademoiselle, not make love to you.”
That did it. Can my ego get any flatter? Ever seen a used condom?
Well, here goes.
I wiggle my peppermint pink panties down over my thighs and let them drop onto the small platform. There. I’ve done it. I’m nude. No turning back, even if I haven’t shaved below my bikini line.
Vive la nue me.
I glance over at the old artist wiping down his posterboard with a damp cloth. The look on my face says, What do I do next?
He coughs, wipes beads of perspiration off his forehead, then points to my feet. I look down. I’m up to my ankles in pink nylon. I shift my weight from one foot to the other. The wooden platform creaks. Loudly. Urging me to hurry. Okay, okay. I scoot my panties off the platform with my bare toes. Wearing nothing but my sweat, I grin.
The old artist nods, picks up a Conté carré dessin, drawing charcoal, and waits for me to get into position. I hold my hand over my crotch. What a silly thing to do. I must relax. Relax. Keep up my courage. A chill slithers up the back of my neck, making my nipples harden and point straight out. I know now how guys feel when they get a hard-on in the middle of a heated business meeting. They can hide it behind this week’s market stats report. Me? I’m as naked as a low-carb burger going solo.
I know you’re sitting there all comfy in your sweats, shaking your head, pinching your thighs, wondering how a thirty-something woman could even think about taking her clothes off in front of anybody but her gyno. Brace yourself. It ain’t pretty. Here’s the skinny, which I’m not, so it’s even more outrageous.
I’m desperate for excitement, a cheap thrill, and if it cost me a new pair of La Perla panties, then let them fall. Nothing exciting ever happens in corporate real estate sales, though I keep hoping I’ll run into Donald Trump between bankruptcies and wives.
Unfortunately, time is running out for this apprentice wannabe. I’m thirty-four with more than a little tummy since David took off with my heart and my willpower stuffed into his back pocket. The idea of posing nude evokes a sexual charge in me, an irresistible allure of the forbidden without putting myself in danger or jeopardizing my corporate reputation, a unique twist to my personality I never dared explore.
Until now. This moment. My world is so frustratingly normal, so conservative in every way, that although I’m shocked at the artist’s request, I’m also terribly intrigued. It’s my nature.
Besides, I want to show my ex-fiancé I’m still hot stuff.
I grind my teeth. Just thinking about David makes me cringe. When I discovered he used me to get info on a major land development deal in Wyoming, I should have broken up with him then. But he was so convincing in his “I’m doing this for us” speech, I put aside my fears and didn’t protest when he proceeded to slide my panties down between my thighs and do more with his sexy mouth than give me spin.
Even my mother warned me about David, said he was looking for a hot body with a trust account, but I didn’t listen. She oughta know. My mother and her talking mirror just divorced their third husband.
I’m not in the mood for advice so I clicked off my cell phone. Mother drives me insane with her text messages that resemble the bottom-of-the-screen news headlines on CNN. Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother, even if she collects marriage licenses like some women clip grocery coupons.
For your information, I left her blissfully engaged in bringing down the French national debt single-handedly on the fashionable rue Saint-Honoré while I wandered around the Marais district. I was looking for a poster or painting to take home to add to my collection of lowbrow work by undiscovered artists, or to put it bluntly, cheap, when a summer storm hit. A refreshingly cool rain blew in from the west, twirling over the blue-tiled rooftops and pelting down the narrow alleyways. The raindrops fell in bunches and splatted on the stone streets like water balloons. I got drenched. Not a pretty sight. I took refuge in an art studio with faded lettering over the arched entryway: House of Morand.
House of Wax is more like it.
Looking around the studio, the place looks like something out of a scary movie. Dirtballs fill every corner, mustard-yellow newspapers sit piled up on chairs, and a bookcase filled with art books stands alongside a tall, ebony pearl-inlaid screen. A hotplate with dirty red pots sits atop a Chinese coffee table alongside paint brushes sitting in trays in a liquid that smells like turpentine.
I hear the old artist clear his throat.
“Are you ready, mademoiselle?”
I nod.
Wetness drips down the insides of my thighs, a wetness which makes me twitch when I see him smoking and humming to himself, waiting for me. I can’t back out now. I exhale deeply. This is it. My destiny on canvas. I’m hot, sweaty and perspiring.
I strike a pose.
Who knew standing still for twenty minutes would be so difficult, especially since I was trying hard not to concentrate my energy on my throbbing pubic area? Okay, my pussy. Yes, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I got turned on posing nude. No, the old artist didn’t come on to me. He’s very professional.
It’s me.
I’m sexually frustrated, and not even a stiff neck—oh, for the delights of a stiff dick instead!—and achy back can stop me from daydreaming about moving my body in a brisk rhythm, my lover licking my clitoris, then the lips of my pussy, digging his tongue into me, and then back on my clit. Back and forth until I’m buzzing down there with an undulating energy that never stops…never stops…
Mmm…keep dreaming.
I take a break behind the screen to soothe my sore muscles and wipe off the sweat between my legs. That’s what it is, isn’t it? I smile, then sniff. Maybe not. Letting go of a sigh and a little gas—I couldn’t help it—I grab a faded smock off a coat hook. Gray-tinged and splattered with dried paint, it looks like it’s been hanging there since Paris was liberated but it’s dry. My clothes are still wet. Drip, drip. I tiptoe through puddles of water on the wooden floor. Or is there a leak in the roof?
I look up. Unlike the rest of the studio, the ceiling is a square skylight. High over my head rain beats down against square glass panes framed with lead, blocking out what little gray daylight can slide through the pelting drops. I shiver. It’s creepy back here. I wonder what the old artist is hiding under the black velvet drape covering the wall? Dorian Gray in his jockeys?
Before I can pull back the curtain to find out, I see an object that intrigues me. It’s about a foot high, battered bronze, and grimy looking: a statue wearing a feathered crown, carrying a flail, and with his erection protruding straight out in front of him.
Did I say erection? As in penis? A dick? Oh, yes, I did.
This is way better than any hotel souvenir. Oozing with curiosity, I reach down and wrap my fingers around the statue’s penis and continue to hold on to it. I have no idea why, I just can’t let it go. I smile. It’s been a while since I’ve held such a hard penis in my hand.
I peek over the screen and ask the old artist about the statue.
“You’re holding la gaule, the erection, of the Egyptian god Min,” he says, tapping his cigarette pack. It’s empty.
“He should be the poster boy for Viagra,” I say, trying to make light of my awkwardness. The statue’s kinda cute, if you dig a walking Egyptian with spiked hair.
“Min is the god of fertility, mademoiselle. His symbol is the thunderbolt.”
Thunder cracks. How apropos.
The old artist never misses a beat, as if he’s told this story a hundred times. “He has the power to grant youth and sexuality—” he pauses, then lowers his voice “—if you’re willing to pay the price.”
“Price, monsieur?”
“You must sell your soul, mademoiselle.”
I cock an eyebrow at him. “Sell my soul?”
