Chapter 33- An Extraordinary Woman
They were silent as they walked through the filth of the city. Every dozen feet or so, Javert would notice the grated light of another covered sewer-hole above them. They rhythmically passed them by. One orange beam of light exactly every twelve paces. Eventually, his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he found he did not rely on the orange beams of light as much to see where he was putting his feet.
After a few minutes, Grace stopped. She turned to Javert with a heavy sigh and pointed to a small alcove in the tunnel.
"Over there. We can stop there. That's our shooting range."
"Shooting range?!" Javert exclaimed.
"Priorities, Inspector…" Grace sighed.
Javert swallowed down his outrage and followed on at her back.
True enough, there were some upturned barrels and crates for sitting on, as well as a few empty bottles of wine stacked in a neat little line at the end of the alcove.
They both trudged through the puddles of filth and water and found themselves a seat. Grace scavenged half a candle amongst the rubbish on the floor and handed it to Javert to light with his matches.
"Go on then. Ask your questions." She said when he had lit the wick.
Her face was lined with anxiety when the flame bathed her in its orange light.
True enough, he had many, many questions. And it took him a while to decide which ones to start off with.
"Why here? Why now?"
"You mean…?"
"If what you claim is true, then why 1831?"
She sensed a coldness in his voice. A distance. Stony and biting doubt.
Grace realised from the tone of his voice that there was a very real possibility that he wouldn't believe her. Even if he'd not declared her mad from the offset, he could still walk away from her. Yet, she couldn't quite bring herself to regret telling him. And she tried her best to swallow down her emotion and shrugged at him.
"I've no idea. The Story Teller hasn't exactly been forthcoming with information about why he sent me to this time. Trust me, I would rather have been sunning myself beside Cleopatra or sailing the oceans with Sinbad. Instead I've been stuck in this necessitous, miserable nightmare."
"So, you've spoken to this man, the 'Story Teller', since you've been here?"
"Only briefly. He comes and he goes. And he never stays for long. To be honest, I think he enjoys toying with me."
"And… are there others? Like you?" He asked.
"Not that I've met." Grace answered, shaking her head. "I seem to be the only one from my time here."
"Your time…" he echoed, an air of scepticism in his voice.
He shook his head in the gloom.
England. The future…
The information circled around his head again.
"Swear to me, Grace, that this isn't a joke. It's not some sort of cruel trick that you're playing upon a besotted, gullible-in-love old man."
"I swear, I'm telling you the truth!" She exclaimed, her eyes pleading with him. "Do you really think I'd do that to you?"
"Think about what you're asking me to believe, Grace!" Javert exclaimed. "Tell me, if you were I, what would you think?"
Grace didn't want to answer that question, because she knew what the answer would be: she'd say "lock them up in the loony bin and throw away the key". It was the very thought that had stopped her from telling Julius and Jocelyn, Cosette, Enjolras, Eponine… anyone who she'd grown close with in the past. It was only logical that she could never be believed. Not by anyone. Not even him.
Her shoulders sagged and the tears burned hot in her eyes.
"I wish there was something I could do… something I could say to prove it..!" She wept. "I could… I could tell you about the Eiffel Tower, and Coco Chanel, and the trenches, and the Moulin Rouge, the French resistance, and Emmanuel fucking Macron… but you'd have no way of knowing if I was telling you the truth."
She hung her head low in defeat. Javert watched as the tears fell from her cheeks and dripped to the floor in the soft candlelight. He said nothing. He couldn't say anything.
"I want to tell you…so badly… about vaccines, sportscars, the pill, miniskirts, the internet…I want to show you it all. "
"Not to upset the apple cart further, but I'm afraid I really don't understand a word you're saying." Javert said miserably.
Grace snapped her head up, mouth open.
"Apple..." She breathed. "Oh my God, I'm a fucking idiot..!"
She raised her arms, looking for something on her person, and grasped at the bag she carried close to her body at all times. The bag she had sewn in the inside of her coat.
"What? What is it?" The Inspector asked.
Grace rummaged past the dozen or so bullets Enjolras had given her, a modest handful of francs, spare parchment, one of Courferyac's broken quills…
"I've had proof all this time! I can't believe I forgot about it!"
"What?!"
Finally, Grace pulled a thin, brick-like thing from out of her bag. He recognised it in an instant. It was the strange glass rectangle that Thénardier's gang had stolen from her weeks ago.
"You were so upset when you lost that…thing." He muttered. "What is it?"
"Come here, let me show you."
She shuffled over to make space for him. Javert groaned as he got to his feet. Perhaps she was mad, after all. He watched as she fiddled and prodded at it, holding it as if it were a clarinet or a piccolo. He sat down with a groan, leaning over her shoulder and staring at the device in her hands curiously.
"So, this magic brick is proof that you're from the-"
The screen burst into life. Light illuminated the dark sewers and blinded Javert momentarily.
Grace smiled as the Apple logo flashed before her and she turned to Javert with a triumphant look.
"What… what is that thing?!" He asked breathlessly.
"My phone."
The display on the device changed as it finished booting up. Grace tapped in her passcode as she spoke.
"Now, I don't have much time to show you. The battery's running low."
She poked and stroked the screen. Javert watched in amazement as she summoned, on the front of the glass brick, an image for him. It was like a painting, but it was the most detailed, extraordinarily lifelike painting he'd ever seen…
It showed two women. One of them was Grace, he could tell that much, but the other he did not know.
"What is this?"
"A photograph."
"Photograph…?"
"It's like…a moment in time, captured by a machine and then stored forever as a picture."
He didn't truly understand her, but he couldn't take his eyes off the small miracle in front of him.
My God, she was telling the truth… he realised.
His entire understanding of the universe fell apart as he gaped at the device in Grace's hands.
"This is you." He said, pointing to one of the faces in the picture.
"And this is my Mum." Grace added, pointing to the other woman.
"Your… mother." Javert sighed, words failing him.
"I need to be quick. Hang on, let me show you something else…"
She brought the phone up to her face whilst the Inspector stared, completely dumbstruck, at her.
"Listen. Watch this." Grace said, placing the glass brick in his palm. "You remember the aria that the soprano sang that night at the Opera House?"
"Der Hölle Rache?"
Grace nodded and pressed another part of the screen.
Music sprang forth from the brick. So suddenly and loudly that Javert almost dropped it out of fear. His blood thrummed in his ears, and only when his breathing had slowed down a little did he recognise what he was hearing…
"It can't be."
The beautiful, soaring voice of a soprano echoed around the sewage pipe, singing a song he had heard before. He inspected underneath the device, tried peering inside its miniscule cracks and holes, somehow looking for a whole orchestra and a soloist to be concealed inside it. His face was ghostly pale when he turned back to Grace.
"This is-"
"The Queen of the Night's aria. From Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 'The Magic Flute'. Recorded by…oh, I think this version's by the London Philharmonic Orchestra?"
Javert handed the phone back to Grace and stood to his feet. He walked a few paces up and down the pipe with something of a gormless look on his face. Grace silenced the music and put her phone in her lap.
"I know it can be a bit of a shock…" she said gently.
"Sweet, merciful God… You are from the future!" Javert uttered, his eyes as wide as saucers.
Grace felt that knot of dread ease away in her stomach. It pained her to see Javert so bewildered and shocked, but he believed her. He believed her…
She almost felt like crying with relief. Something eased off her shoulders. A weight that she'd been carrying with her ever since the first moment she'd woken up in that carriage. She'd almost gotten used to it. Almost didn't feel it anymore after so long bearing down upon her. But passing on some of it to Javert made her ache in a new way. She could see the spinning confusion, the uncertainty of everything dancing in his eyes. The weight of the truth was now turning his whole world on its head. And whatever momentary relief she felt, it was gone by the time she cast her eyes to the floor of the sewers, sighing deeply.
"You're the only person here who knows. And I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner-"
"Your people… they must be gods if they can do such things as this." He continued, pointing at the phone in her lap.
"Gods? Bloody hell, no. We're just as greedy and desperate and selfish as the people are in this time. Trust me. This is just… technology."
"But, the things you must have seen! The wonders you must have performed!"
"And… I'll probably never see them again." She said with a sad smile.
"But your device. Can it not take you home?" He asked, pointing at the phone.
"Unfortunately no. It's… it's broken here." She surmised for him simply. Perhaps she'd try and explain phone signal and 3G to him another time. "All it can do is remind me of what I've left behind. And one day, I won't be able to use it anymore. The battery will die. And… I won't even be able to look at a picture of my Mum's face again."
Her eyes filled with tears as she powered-off the device.
16%
Perhaps that day would come a lot sooner than she'd anticipated.
Her shoulders began to shake as she wept openly before him. Watching her shed her tears just about reached through his shock and awe, and her sadness broke his dazzlement. He sat back down beside her again, each sob she made tore chunks out of his heart.
He put his arm around her as she cried, for the first time truly understanding the pain that he had always sensed at the core of her. She had been separated from everything she'd ever known. Everybody that had ever loved her. Everything that she held dear.
She didn't belong here, like a star shining in the wrong place in the sky. Imperceptible to most, only noticed by the few who knew to look.
She leant against him as her pillar, her rock. His gunpowder and sage smell soothed her a little in her misery. Yet, soon the lapel of his heavy leather coat was slick with Grace's tears.
"I love you too…" she said softly, amidst her sobs.
The memory of what he'd said, what he'd told her before her massive revelation, struck him like a hammer blow.
"I didn't say it back. I couldn't. Not before you knew the truth." She choked out. "And…and I don't know if….I don't know how much this changes your feelings…"
"Grace…" he sighed.
"Because all this time I've been thinking 'as soon as the Story Teller shows up, as soon as he lets me go home, I'll go'. And then you happened. And now… I can't. I couldn't leave you."
A bubble of emotion rose up in his throat. He wondered, could he be the reason why the impostor star stayed where she didn't belong? No matter how much he adored looking up at the constellation with her in it, was it right that he held her in that place?
He banished those thoughts from his mind, for the time being. Instead, he pulled her closer to him. Cherished his star from another time. Held her tight to his body as she cried.
"It changes nothing." He said, low and steady.
"What?" She asked, looking up and into his eyes with a sniffle.
"You spoke of how much this…new understanding of you changed my feelings. It changes nothing." He repeated.
The rumble in his voice sent a pleasant shiver through Grace.
"Perhaps it's the reason why I fell for you at all. Perhaps I always knew you to be a remarkable woman from the first time I saw you at that soirée. Only an extraordinary woman could have touched the soul of a man like me."
Grace looked deep into his eyes. "Since the soiree?"
"And every day henceforth." he answered bashfully.
His cheeks turned red as Grace held his gaze. She thought of all of those small moments that had passed between them and found it baffling to think that he had been in love with her from the very first night.
"Truly? All this time?" she asked gently, tracing faint circles on his arm.
"Truly. Why do you think I went back to Provins after you'd left?"
"But… you didn't know that I'd left."
"Exactly. I gave my superiors some vague excuse about following up on the gypsy encampment I'd cleared a few weeks before, but I went because…I couldn't bear to think that I would never see you again. Not after I left you crying in those gardens."
"That was the Story Teller, by the way." Grace grumbled. "He'd been there only a few moments before to taunt me."
"I see."
"He comes by every few months or so to drop something vague and enigmatic, and then up and leaves me again. The last time I saw him was that day in the Luxembourg Gardens. And I doubt he'll be visiting me again."
"Why?"
"Because I basically told him to get bent."
Javert snorted and gently shook his head.
"Well, if he ever does, you are to quit this place at once and allow him to take you back to your time. Do you understand?"
"I just told you. Now there's you, I couldn't -"
"You deserve to go home." he said quickly. "Is the place you came from…better than here?"
"Well, there's not as much shooting and starvation. But that's a loaded question…" she answered enigmatically. "It depends on what you mean by 'better'."
"Then I won't hear any more arguing about it. If this Story Teller ever gives you the opportunity to go home, you take it."
"No." Grace said, shaking her head.
"Grace…"
"No!"
He took in a deep breath, preparing a whole litany of arguments and statements for her. But in the end, he let the breath loose. He knew that arguing with her now would be fruitless. She was headstrong and stubborn, and he loved those things about her, but now she had her hackles up, there was no way he was winning this round. He could slowly work at her. As painful as it was for him, eventually he could get her to see sense.
For now, he committed himself to just enjoying whatever time he might have left with her.
"If you're from…2023…" he began, her body still pressed close to his. "...then you must know how all of this turns out. Is that why you've committed yourself to the boys in the cafe? Is their revolution successful?"
"I'm a music graduate, Javert." Grace replied flatly. "Nineteenth century French history wasn't something I specialised in."
"But surely… you must know something."
"Well… in 2023, France is a republic. And there isn't a King."
"Well surely this is it, then?" Javert asked, frowning at her. "Surely this is the event that sees off the monarchy forever."
"Oh yeah? How did that go last time for you in 1789?"
Javert closed his mouth and swallowed again.
"I know it happens eventually… I just don't know if…this is it."
"Hmm."
Javert went quiet and stroked her hair as a million questions swirled around his mind.
"Tell me more." he said softly. "Tell me more about the world you came from."
"What? All of those things that I mentioned before?"
"Maybe eventually. But I want to hear about your world. I want to hear about your life. Tell me all of it."
Grace sat up straight and thought for a moment. Where should she even start? It felt like she'd longed for an age to tell someone the truth of who she was, where she'd come from, but now she finally could, she suddenly felt struck dumb.
"So, you lived in Oxford." Javert prompted her, sensing her hesitancy.
"I lived in Oxford." she confirmed, nodding her head. "I rented a flat in Jericho with my cat, Wilf."
"By yourself?"
"Yes. Well, I used to live with my ex-boyfriend, David..."
If she was going to spill the truth, then it might as well be the whole truth. Even the parts that he perhaps didn't want to hear. She glanced over to Javert, watching as his eyes widened in outrage. Grace's heartbeat was suddenly racing again.
"The rules about dating and sex and all that are different in 2023. More relaxed. People… court for much longer. Maybe lots of different people before they find the right person. It's normal for men and women to live together before marriage in the future."
"And…live as a married couple would live?" He asked delicately.
Grace bit her lip and nodded at him.
He blinked a few times at her. Grace's people might have been god-like, but the world they inhabited sounded, to him, like Sodom and Gomorrah…
But he looked long and hard at Grace's red-blushed face. It shocked him, but in the end, this world of which she spoke had produced Grace. With all of her cleverness and wit and kindness. She certainly wasn't 'immoral', whatever he supposed that meant. Once upon a time, he had held such a rigid view of what made a person good or evil. And look where that had got him.
"So, you weren't married to this man?"
"No. He shagged his lab assistant behind my back, and that's why I broke it off and he moved out."
"So, I am deducing that despite the rules being more 'relaxed', practising infidelity is still very much frowned upon?"
"It is."
"Bastard. We never need speak of him again."
Grace laughed, appreciating Javert's attempt to make light of the situation. She could see that he was still wrestling internally with his strict, God-fearing, Catholic upbringing, but he tried to smile causally at her and she relaxed a little.
"So, you don't mind..?" she asked quietly.
"You have a past. I have a past. I can't expect my extraordinary woman to be anything other than extraordinary."
"And… you don't think I'm some kind of whore?"
Javert flinched at the word. He took her gently by the hand and squeezed it tight.
"Are you mine now?" he asked, his voice small and a little vulnerable.
"Yes." she breathed, leaning in close to feel the warmth of his breath on her face.
"Then that's all I need, Mademoiselle." he said.
He brushed his lips up against hers. She opened for him, letting him in wholly. Completely. With all that he now knew, the wonder of her danced through him. He could taste that magic on her tongue. He could feel that faraway place she was from on her skin. And it was potent. Exhilarating. Exciting. Kissing her was like drinking from a powerful, foreign kind of wine. He could always taste that spice, like sprinkled starlight, on her lips before, but now he knew it. Recognised it. Wanted it. Craved it.
So much, that he felt he'd burn up into nothingness if he couldn't gorge himself on her magic there and then.
He cupped his hand gently around her neck, pulling her in deeper.
She braced a hand on his chest, the desperateness of his kisses making her flushed and breathless. His heart was thundering underneath her palm, and he pulled away from her in a gasp when she slipped her hand underneath his worker's shirt. Feeling her fingers against his skin for the first time.
Suddenly, her hand was not enough. He wanted more of her. Seizing her body, he pulled her on top of him. Grace barely had to think. Barely had to tell her body to do anything as her legs spread and she sat atop him. Nestled so close to her, feeling the throb of his manhood so dangerously close to her, his hunger roared inside him.
Javert's hands groped at those parts of her that he'd only ever dreamed of. Her supple, rounded backside, pressed up against his pounding groin. Every tiny movement of her hips as they ground against him made his ache grow.
Grace lay down her kisses on his mouth. She'd never felt this need, this desperate a burning for someone. There was no existence outside of him. His mouth, his tongue, his chest, his growing hardness pressed up to the apex of her thighs…
They both heard the distant boom of guns through the sewer's brick roof. The rustle of boots overhead.
Their kisses ceased. Grace gasped and shrank away from the noise, nestling deeper into Javert's chest. Both of their eyes watched the dark space above. Neither of them could make out any sort of voices or words, but the rhythmic pounding of many feet trudging the pavements up above echoed down to them.
Javert held her tight whilst they waited for the noises to pass them by. Grace too kept a firm grip around his neck, fixedly watching the roof above her, as if the patrolling soldiers were going to burst through the dark bricks.
When silence resumed, they both let out a sigh and turned to face one another again.
"Is there…somewhere else we could go, Mademoiselle?" he asked, his eyes burning like hot coals, but his hands gentle as he played with her hair.
"Somewhere else?" she asked, a wicked smile on her lips. "What exactly did you have in mind, Inspector?"
She bent low to his mouth and kissed him again. But he pulled away and smiled at her. If they started again, he didn't know if he could stop himself. Not even if a battalion of the National Guard did end up bursting through the roof…
"Well, 1831 or 2023, I imagine no lady worth her salt wants to be had in a sewer…"
Grace scoffed and nodded. "You're right on that front, Inspector."
She dismounted from him and stood to her feet. Her legs were a little shaky as she stretched herself out and from out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Javert trying to reposition himself underneath his belt buckle…
"I don't suppose you went past the Rue Hyacinthe on your travels?" she asked him.
"Your cousin is building his barricade close to there. I'll wager the National Guard consider that a no-go zone, considering how close it'll be to the hostiles. Is he even your cousin?"
"The short answer is 'no'. The long answer is, do you want to wait around here for me to explain or would you rather get going to somewhere where I think there'll be an empty room for us..?"
Her eyes, full to the brim with mischief and carnal lust, smacked into him with the force of a horse kick. He felt that familiar stir of want in his stomach. Felt the tightening vice of need grow tauter in his chest as he watched the playful and enticing smile grow on her face. If he had been a lesser man, he would have had her, right here, right then, in amongst the rats and the stink. But he was not a lesser man.
And she was an extraordinary woman.
He returned her sinful smile with a wicked grin of his own. Laughing to himself, he looked at the floor, trying to fight down the pounding sense of urgency he felt in his nethers.
"You'll need to give me a few moments before I can stand up anyway…" he said, his voice low and husky.
They left the stink of the sewers behind, emerging back onto the streets of Paris as if nothing had happened. As if the universe had not just shifted and changed, all thanks to Grace's revelations. As if he didn't now see the wonder of her glowing out of her, like the light of a thousand stars.
After some more light-footed alley dodging, Grace eventually managed to steal herself and Javert back to the ABC cafe on the Rue Hyacinthe.
Finally, the door to her chambers swung open and Grace charged forwards into the gloom.
She strode over to her dresser, laying down the pistol Enjolras had given her with a heavy sigh. She similarly unburdened herself of the bullet bag and her coat, flexing her aching shoulders.
She realised that Javert was not beside her and she turned on her heels quickly.
The Inspector stood in her doorway. His awkward hands clasped his worker's hat in front of him and he fiddled with the rim. It was the first time that Grace had seen Javert like this; at a total loss for what to do with himself. And she realised, as his eyes flicked about him and his hands continued to fiddle with the rim of his hat, that he was nervous.
"Javert?"
His eyes looked up from the floor and crashed into hers. The tenderness there, the vulnerability there, almost knocked her over.
"I…I haven't been in many women's… private bedchambers before." He said in a small voice.
"Many women's?" She asked, intrigued.
"Only one other. When I was a much younger man."
She waited for Javert to say more, watching him carefully as he turned his hat in his hands.
"Camille was her name."
"Camille?"
"And the last time I saw her was…twenty-three years ago."
Grace gave out a huff as understanding hit her.
It was inexperience, ignorance, greenness. These feelings were what had him standing nervously in her doorway.
"Anyway, I wish not to speak about her. Not now." He said hurriedly. "Our…union did not end well."
Grace nodded her head silently.
Exes. It seems no one likes talking about them. Past or future.
She smiled kindly at Javert and walked slowly towards him. It was as if she was approaching a wild animal and didn't want to spook him. With gentle hands, she reached out for him and took his hat from out of his grasp. He watched her tender movements with great intensity as she placed it down on her bedside table.
She lay out her palms for him, and he allowed his awkward hands to fall into hers. Steadily, she guided him forwards. One step at a time. As if they were wading through perilous quicksand or lava fields.
After only a few steps, she stopped. Grace turned her face upwards, until she met his gaze once more. His eyes still sang with nervousness, but she squeezed his hand tight.
"There. You're inside. No turning back now."
The corner of Javert's mouth turned up in a small smile and she sensed the trembling in his hands subside a little.
"You know…" she began gently, toying with his fingers. "…nothing has to happen in this room. Not unless you want it t-"
His mouth slammed into hers. Hungry and desperate.
Javert's kiss was clumsy but flaming. With a hand poised at the base of her neck, he teased at her lips. His soft leather gloves caressed the part where her neck and her hair met. Feeling his fingers on that sensitive skin made her bristle with pleasure. His tongue was longing and incessant. And once Grace had recovered from her surprise, she moaned deeply and opened herself for him.
The groans of pleasure that erupted from Javert's throat made Grace's legs turn weak. She threw her arms around his neck, desperate to draw him closer, bring him into her. And the kisses grew in fierceness. Tongues snaking and dancing together. Breaths turned ragged and hot. And the burning at their cores turned into an inferno.
She pulled the woollen coat from off his shoulders and he shrugged it off, landing on the floor with a heavy thud. His roving hands found the ribbon she used to tie her hair into a ponytail and he tore it free. He almost growled in triumph when her tawny hair tumbled over her shoulders. Those gloved hands plunged into it, eliciting a shiver from Grace as his fingers caressed the nape of her neck and up, up, up into her scalp.
She leant her head back, tearing her mouth from his to moan up at the ceiling. Javert bent his mouth to her neck, kissing and kissing that sensitive skin. Brushing his coarse whiskers over her and pulling moan after quivering moan from her.
"Lady, I am yours." He said, low and growling, whispered against her skin. "I give myself entirely to you."
"So, take me." She whispered back.
Grace leapt into his arms. He caught her with his soldier's strength, arms wrapped tight around her back. Her legs were about his waist, and a whole new closeness and warmness of her crashed against him.
He lost himself in her body, hands roaming up her back, underneath her boy's shirt. His groin pounded against hers. This newfound intimacy made him intoxicatingly dizzy. She was champagne, and he could not stop drinking from her.
He suddenly felt the urge to feel her with his real skin. Javert carried her over to a chest of drawers, placing her down upon the top, caring little for the porcelain wash-jug that crashed to the floor in her wake. He relinquished her tongue and her mouth, but only for the brief few moments it took for him to bite a finger of his glove and drag it off his hands. He did the same to the other and plunged his bare fingers back underneath her shirt.
Grace sighed, and Javert's groin pulsed again as he felt each ridge and bump of her spine with his fingertips. His desire grew, and he found his hands delving lower. To her backside. To that supple flesh. Pulling it deeper into him and pressing her warm core harder against him.
His rigid self-control was a distant memory as he let his body take over. His hands clutched tight the flesh of her behind, as if he wanted to fist it in his palm. The urge to be inside her throbbed through him with each press of his groin against her open legs.
She worked at his clothes until his chest lay bare before her. Grace ran her hands over his coarse, black hair, over each of the knotted muscles in his shoulders. The ache between her thighs pounded with longing, sending shockwaves of pleasure rippling through her when she felt his hardness pressed up so tantalisingly close to her. She lifted her arms up high, inviting him to remove her shirt too.
He did so. Slowly. Easing the cotton over her head as gently as if he was removing a bride's veil. He looked down at her nakedness reverently. Pausing in his impassioned kisses and gropes to fully take her in. However, rather disappointingly, he found her chest still bound. A roll of fabric was wound tight around her breasts and he let out a growl of displeasure.
"Oh…Part of my disguise as Monsieur Degas." Grace said, when she realised why Javert had stopped.
"Hmm…" he hummed.
Javert reached down into his left boot. When he straightened his back again, Grace saw something small and long concealed in his palm.
"I'm afraid I'm no good at knots, Mademoiselle." He said with a knowing smile.
Out flicked a blade from the device in his hands. "Bloody hell, have you got any more weapons on your person?!" Grace asked with wide eyes. "Might be good to know before I go sticking my hands… anywhere else on you."
Javert laughed, deep and sinfully, but he said nothing. He merely fixed Grace in that desperately ravenous stare of his that seemed to bore into somewhere deep and responsive inside her.
Grace had the wind knocked out of her when Javert, in one swift movement, ran the blade up the bindings and cut them from her.
She gasped as the coldness of the night touched her naked breasts. Yet, she did not move to cover herself. Instead she watched Javert's October-sky eyes roam over every part of her.
He let the knife drop to the floor. His eyes never once left her soft, exposed skin. Again, his body seemed to act without the interference of his mind and he soon found his hands clasped gently around her breasts. Her skin was as soft as velvet. Her nipples as pink as rosé wine.
Javert ached to taste them. He reverently bent his head to her and placed his mouth, in a gentle whisper, around her.
Ripples of pleasure ran through Grace's body. She arched her back into his mouth, feeling every flick of his tongue against her. Her groans of pleasure were deep. Each sound she made sent a throb of desire lancing through him. And still, he kissed on. Until he had covered every inch of her breasts with his lips. Until he had drawn a symphony of noises from out of her mouth.
"Take me to bed." She whispered hoarsely to him.
Something about the look in his eye had changed when Javert's gaze met hers. That nervousness was there again. That vulnerability was there again.
"Do you…want to?" Grace asked unsurely.
"Dear God, I want to." Javert grumbled, tracing a finger down her breastbone and over her nipple.
Grace shivered in delight.
"It's just…that it's been twenty-three years since I last…"
"Oh." Grace said, biting her lip.
"And even back then it was maybe a handful of times…"
"Oh…" she said again.
She paused for a moment, looking deeply into his blue eyes.
"It sounds like you need a guide then." She stated with a wry smile.
"Not a guide. I've traversed the road before." Javert muttered, a little defensively.
"A teacher then." She said, trying to hide her eye-roll from him. "Do you trust me?"
His gaze was tender when he looked into her face. He was a little surprised by her question, but he knew the answer intrinsically, deep down in his core.
"With my life, my body and my soul."
She kissed him again, drawing him close until heart was pressed to heart.
"Then take me to bed." She said again, a delightful playfulness in her voice.
He smiled, and she felt the brush of his whiskers against her face.
With one swift movement, she was in his arms once more, and then laid on her back upon her mattress. His eyes glazed over with lust when he saw her spread out before him. The softly fluttering curtain nearby sprinkled her skin with delicate moonlight, starlight caught in her eyes.
"I would tell you 'boots off first, then trousers'. But I figure you already know how to get dressed and undressed, Inspector." Grace said playfully.
He scoffed, glad that she was still teasing him. He would have hated it if his naivety and inexperience had caused her to treat him differently.
He didn't need telling twice. Javert tried to still the tremble in his hands as he pulled off each of her boots. Once they lay discarded on the floor, he reached out towards the waistband of her boy's trousers. Grace saw the tremble in his fingers as he stretched out towards her, and with kindness in her eyes, she took his hands in hers.
Her smile was warm as she helped his clumsy fingers undo the string, but she backed away and let him act alone for the reveal. Javert took a deep breath before he pulled her trousers off, over her behind and down her long legs.
And there she was. As naked as a starless sky.
He lost count of the seconds that he took, staring open-mouthed at her, fire roiling in his belly. He obeyed like a man in a trance when she sat up a little and spoke gently to him.
"Lie down beside me."
Javert soon found himself on his back and her kneeling beside him as she traced a hand down his chest. She followed the line of his dark hair, down to his belt buckle. A thumb stroked over the bulge that was rather prominently protruding from between his legs and he closed his eyes as another strong pang of lust lanced through him.
He moaned her name softly, on the cusp of begging her for more.
"Grace… My Grace…"
His moan grew louder as a thumb became her whole hand. Caressing his throbbing bulge through his infernal trousers. His world narrowed down to just her hand, and every small bit of contact, of touch, of friction, that she had with his groin. How he wished he could be rid of the barrier between him and her in the blink of an eye.
And no sooner had he thought that did he hear the sound of her undoing his belt buckle.
His eyes flew open and he flicked off his boots with almost boyish haste. Grace laughed, and he laughed too as he helped her wriggle himself free of the last of his clothes.
Now, completely naked himself, there was quite literally nothing left between him and her. His cheeks turned deep scarlet when he felt her eyes dip down to his exposed cock. His instinct was to cover himself up, but he resisted. He wanted to show her all of him, like she had shown every part of herself to him. Even the parts that she'd thought he might not like. And he had loved it all, regardless. Without hesitation or reluctance. He just hoped that she felt the same…
Almost in answer to his thoughts, she mounted him. Lowering her mouth to his, her kiss was like a seal of acceptance. Claiming him wholly as hers. They locked back together again as desire overtook both of their bodies. Lips parted again, hands roamed one another again, breaths became feverish again. Her body was so warm and soft and the feel of her spread out on top of him was glorious.
This was not like the lovemaking he'd known before. Back then, it was a quick and hurried affair. It had left him feeling sordid and abashed.
But this…He could languish in this for the rest of his life. It was an ecstasy that he'd only ever seen painted on the faces of Saints. Never experienced.
"Are you ready?" She asked, her hot breath spilling over his face.
He took a few gulps of air as he felt her hand encircled at the base of him. There he was, poised at the most private part of her, and everything in him was screaming at him to proceed. Yet, that fear that had kept him at her doorway resurfaced, like a bad apple bobbing on the water.
"You will…tell me… if I do anything wrong, won't you?"
Grace smiled warmly down at him. She stroked the side of his cheek as if she was trying to brush away his insecurities, like they were cobwebs on his face.
"Javert, when have I ever taken the opportunity not to tell you off when you're doing something wrong?"
Again, another reassuring tease from her. He chuckled and blinked away the tears that had suddenly sprung up in his eyes. He felt like such a fool. Shaking and stuttering like the greenest of boys being led into their first backstreet brothel. But so much of his life had been under the strictest of control, and now here he was placing all the control firmly with her. Willingly and wantonly placing it in Grace's hands, but it was a shock to his system nonetheless.
"I suppose that's why I love you." He said, his eyes watery.
"You suppose?" Grace asked with a smirk.
"Indeed. What is it that you once said to me? You're alright, I guess."
His smirk bloomed across his face. If she was going to tease him, then he could have a good go at teasing her back.
"Oh well, if I'd have known your feelings were so apathetic…" she sighed, relaxing her grip on the base of his manhood.
She moved to get off him and Javert grabbed her thighs firmly before she could leave.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"To find the man who told me he would 'love me in the same way the sky loves the stars'."
"Oh shut up and let me be inside you."
He pulled her back down upon him until their mouths were locked in fiery kisses once more.
When the ache within both of them had reached an almost hammering throb, Grace finally lowered herself upon him.
Their conjoined sighs were like whispers of silk in the air.
It was almost difficult for her to fully bury his manhood within her. He was a sizeable man, and she felt a pleasant ache deep within her before she had even finished moving.
For Javert, every excruciatingly exquisite movement had him enraptured. The feel of her, so completely around him, so warm and wonderful, was ecstasy. He had to close his eyes. Had to concentrate on those achingly slow moments that he first spent inside her. And once she had settled, adjusting to the largeness of him, and he'd buried himself up to his hilt, did he open his eyes.
Her mouth was open in a delicious expression of pleasure. He too sported a similar look. And when she smiled at him, he felt complete ease and peace inside himself.
She began to slowly rock her hips. And just when Javert thought he had somehow gotten used to this ringing feeling of ecstasy, it skyrocketed.
His hands clasped her hips, fingers digging into her flesh as he moaned.
"Oh, Grace…My Grace…" he groaned again.
He moved his hands in tandem with her grinds. It was at once both tantalisingly slow and breathlessly fast.
"Slowly, slowly…" Grace breathed. "Otherwise it will be over too quickly."
Javert groaned. From frustration or pleasure, he wasn't quite sure. Still, he followed her guidance and let her lead the rhythm of her rocking.
That tether, that bond between them sang with pleasure. Not just through the meeting of their hips, but he felt it deep within his stomach, his chest, his throat. And each time she rocked herself, or rose herself up to come down upon him again, it pounded through him.
He watched her face in enraptured focus. Her tawny brown hair falling down her chest. The slight bounce of her breasts as she moved on him. The grip of her hands around his clutching forearms. Her soft, pillow mouth was open and sighing, her eyes scrunched up ever so slightly when she felt him all the way inside her, and he might have asked if he was hurting her if she didn't gasp deliciously each time he felt himself touch that most inner part of her. Seeing her like this, feeling the warmth of her pleasure around him, there was nothing in the world like it.
He felt her rhythm growing faster, a slave to her own pleasure despite the warning she had given him. The speed was dizzying. A tidal wave of aching crashing into him again and again and again. So hot and fast that he couldn't keep his head above the water. The most wonderful feeling of drowning that he could imagine. And he felt a tightening forming in his guts.
He longed to be closer to her. For the last moments, he yearned to feel the press of her heart up against his. Javert abruptly sat up, curling his arms around her back and finding her deliciously sighing mouth with his own. He gently moved her body around his. Picking her up in his arms of strength and laying her softly down upon the mattress. He felt himself pass out of her as he did so, and the electric shiver as the head of his manhood glided over her flesh had him choking with intensity.
With her head rested in the pillow and her body spread out before him, he had the closeness he desired. He positioned himself in between her legs and savoured the warmth of her skin against his own. Her stomach, her chest, her beating heart were all pressed to his. And now he could taste each moan that came from her mouth. Feel each rise and fall of her breath as she sighed.
He reached down to guide himself back within her. In one white-hot movement, he was buried deep in her wonderful warmth again. They both stared back at one another open-mouthed and aching.
Grace smiled at him and pressed her forehead to his. "You don't need my help at all." She whispered to his lips. "I think you remember this part just fine."
"I don't want to hurt you…" he growled, already feeling the urge to thrust, that tightening ball growing in his stomach.
She wrapped her legs around him. Inviting him in closer. Drawing him in deeper.
He moaned. That tightening in his guts was almost painful now.
"I'll tell you if you do. I promise." She said softly. Reassuringly.
And that was all he needed to draw himself out a little, and slam himself up against her. He would have started off slowly, but that ball in his guts would not be ignored, its demand would not be pacified. He couldn't not be gentle in his lovemaking to her any more. This was now feverish and desperate. And Grace cried out each time he thrust inside her. Arching her back into him. Bringing her hips up to meet him. He barely even felt the dig of her nails into his back. Each pound of his groin against her sent shockwaves along his bones.
The ache in his stomach was screaming. It roared in his ears. Thundered through his blood.
And then it snapped.
Uncurling itself so suddenly it had him gasping with shock.
He felt like his whole soul poured out from him, into her. And if it did, then he could think of no better person to leave it with.
And then there was silence. Studded only by the sounds of both his and her panting.
After a long moment, she sighed and opened her eyes.
"Thank you for choosing Grace Beaumont as your coach today." Grace said jovially. "Please remember to tip your guide and leave a positive review."
Javert snorted with laughter. He was still too weak to pry himself off her, but his shoulders shook with mirth against her. He craned his head up a fraction, looking into her face to see her smiling up at him.
He kissed her deeply one last time, before drawing his ringing manhood out of her and flopping to her side.
"Good Lord…" he breathed up at the ceiling. "That was…You were…"
"Hold that thought…" Grace said, getting up to clean herself with a nearby bit of cloth.
She eventually returned to his side, slipping in close to his chest and nesting beside him. He wrapped his arms around her, a deep golden glow settling in over where that tight ball of pleasure had once been.
"Yes, that was a very good first attempt indeed." He eventually said.
"First attempt?!" Grace said, surprised to hear him say something like that.
"I may be out of practice, but I do recall that women may find their pleasure in the act too. And did you?"
"I…I still massively enjoyed it…" she responded sheepishly.
"Hmm. Well I am not a man who believes in half-arsing a task. A momentary respite, and then business can resume, Mademoiselle."
Grace scoffed in outrage. She pulled her head up off his shoulder and stared at him in surprise.
"Don't look at me like that. I thought you were the one who was meant to have come from the more sexually liberated society." He said teasingly.
"You were trembling with shyness when you stepped in here!" Grace exclaimed.
"Yes, well… Please excuse an old soldier a few pre-battle nerves. But you were right. Once it came down to it, I remembered the steps just fine."
"Oh, say that again for me." Grace said, cupping her ear. "I was what? I was r… I was rrr…"
"Don't push your luck, Mademoiselle."
He jabbed her firmly in the ribs and she squirmed against him.
When she had settled back down and he'd drawn her in close to him again, he lay a small kiss on her lips.
"I love you." He whispered to her. "Truly, I do."
It seemed feeble to say it just then. Pointless, even. Surely she must know that he loved her, with the two of them lying naked, side by side, tangled in each other's embrace. But he had to say it. He wanted his love for her to be the last thing she thought of when she closed her eyes. The warm thought that made her dark and miserable days a bit better. And if she ever did leave, he wanted his love for her to go with her wherever she trod.
"I love you too." She whispered back. "I just wish I'd told you sooner. We could have had more time together."
Almost on cue, they both heard the far away prattle of gunfire. The world was falling apart outside their little room. But Javert put his head back down on the pillow beside her. The world could wait. And the National Guard would be foolish to attack without seeing the Barricade Enjolras was building in daylight first. He would make it wait.
"Well, we have the rest of the night, Mademoiselle. And what can't be said in a single evening, isn't worth knowing."
He drew her in tighter, savouring the smell of her skin and the warmth of her body.
"So, go on. Whilst we wait, tell me more of your life before you came here." Javert said.
"Hang on, I think we should take it in turns."
Javert scoffed. "You don't really want to hear about my feckless existence prior to this, do you? Surely the world you come from is infinitely more interesting than-"
"I want to know everything. Tell me about every chapter of your life before your plot intertwined with mine."
A lump of emotion raised in his throat. He had never volunteered information about his past to anyone, and, perhaps more tellingly, next to nobody had ever asked for it. But she was. Grace was.
He nodded, and said thickly, "Alright, what would you like to know?"
"Well, I told you about David. Now you tell me about Camille."
Hearing her name was still difficult, but he did not flinch away from it as he might have done before. He groaned, but it was a groan of resignation rather than discomfort. In fact, he was surprised to find that he actually wanted to tell her.
"I've never told anyone about Camille…" he began unsurely. "Oh God, where do I even begin?"
"Not even your mother and father?" Grace asked.
"I never knew my father. And the last I saw my mother was when I was taken by Monsieur Froid."
"Taken?" Grace asked, her eyes ringing with sympathy."
"Well…" Javert sighed, rolling onto his side and placing a lazy hand over her waist. "…it looks like I'll need to begin a little further back…"