“It has been home for a long time.” She lived in the fashionable 18th district, where the river and the Eiffel Tower dominated the landscape, along with cafes and shops. It was primarily residential, though offices such as her own were tucked here and there. “I do love it here.”
“I brought the stuff you ordered with me. You know, your shoes and the other . . . things.”
Oh dear. She remembered precisely what that other stuff meant. She had tried to cancel her orders when she’d gotten home, but it had been too late. She had written the purchases off as lost, and she realized she had underestimated Johnny yet again. He wasn’t going to let a thousand dollars of her drunken purchases languish on his doorstep. That wasn’t him. “Thank you, I appreciate that very much. I do love those shoes.”
“What about the sexy panties? You love those?” he asked with a grin as she stopped in front of her building. “Because I have to say, I kind of was digging them when I opened the box to pack them in my suitcase.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen them yet.”
“By the way,” he added, as she used her key on the front door. “I talked to Saxon about the wedding night. He actually remembers everything. It turns out he didn’t drink the punch. He said that we were never alone. After the reception we were hanging in the group with everyone just having fun, and that the only reason we were in the dungeon was because you insisted such a thing couldn’t exist.”
That did sound like her, expressing skepticism over a sexual fetish. “So what does that mean?” Good God, she hoped they hadn’t had sex in front of other people.
“No funny business. Saxon said it was all good clean fun. We were in handcuffs because he wanted to show us a magic trick with them, only he couldn’t remember it and he couldn’t find the key.”
She didn’t even care about the handcuffs. She was just relieved that they hadn’t had exhibitionistic sex. Though she found herself oddly somewhat disappointed that they hadn’t had the private, intimate night of wild and unbridled passion she had been envisioning. Of course, they had the next night, but there had been something romantic about the idea. “So where did my panties go? And why did I feel so . . . aware down there?” That seemed a rather puzzling mystery to her.
But Johnny didn’t seem to think anything of it. He gave her a big grin. “You rode the mechanical bull at the Bourbon Cowboy. I saw the pictures. I’m guessing that might have had some impact on your girl parts. I’m sorry, I can’t account for your underwear.”
“What? Bull riding?” Lizette started up the marble stairs, her shoes echoing loudly as she walked rapidly. Of course, she couldn’t stomp her way past her actions. “I’ll have to see that to believe it. So did you find out who drugged the punch? It was the punch, yes?”
He nodded, keeping up with her on the steps. In a minute they were in front of her apartment. “It wasn’t the Chers, like Drake suspected. It was Ashley, Josie Lynn’s catering help.”
“Really? Well, I have to admit I’m glad to hear the cross-dressers weren’t involved. They seemed so helpful in the bar, and I rather liked their style. But why on earth would she drug a punch at a wedding reception?”
“It turns out she is the daughter of another cross-dresser who has lost business to the Chers in the last few years, so her plan was to roll the wedding and frame the Chers to give her father a leg up. Though one of the Chers did make off with Zelda’s wedding dress. So basically it was like an entire night lost because of a catfight over clothes and stage time. Totally insane.”
That was insane. “I am speechless.” Lizette led him into her apartment, which was a typical Parisian place, with a small living area and an even smaller bedroom. “Make yourself comfortable.” She still felt nervous, like what happened in the next few minutes could determine the course of her immediate future.
“This is a nice place,” he said, sitting down on her sofa. “Have you been here long?”
“Ten years. Probably in the foreseeable future I’ll have to move. My neighbor has been here the whole time and she is starting to ask me how I keep my youthful appearance.” Which was a shame. She loved this apartment. She sat down next to him because she wanted to be close enough to touch, to read his eyes.
“It looks like you. It feels elegant and cozy all at the same time.”
“I have to confess something to you,” she blurted. “There is a reason why I am so committed to the VA and to our secrecy as a species.”