The Paris Secrets trilogy: includes: Window, Screen, and Skin (53 page)

"Oh, Jean-Louis."  She hugged against me, and—
merde
—my erection strained against my pants.  Impossible to keep down at times, especially when Hollie was so close.  She noticed, and giggled.  "I'm sorry.  I guess the unexpectedness of being fired freaked me.  Like I said, I understand.  Richard can't afford to pay his part-time employees.  I've never been fired before.  Makes me..."  Her sigh blew against my throat.  "Do you mind if I use your bathroom?  I want to splash some water on my face.  I shouldn't have come straight here until I'd worked through this a bit."

I kissed her forehead and hugged her tightly.  "I'm glad you came to me when you were feeling low.  Means a lot to me.  Go splash some water on those tender tears.  Maybe take a shower and you will feel better?  I'll pour some wine."

"Make it a double," she said as she walked down the hallway.

***

He sat on the ottoman, the setting sunlight falling across the side of his face and shading his gray dress shirt to charcoal.  His profile was pure Gascon, those hearty, boastful men of adventure and French heritage.  Prominent browline, and fierce nose that was straight as a blade.  Hair that did as it pleased, (and it always pleased me).  A firm, decisive jaw.  Strong, it said.  And yet, it was also kind and comforting.

Good thing I had decided to come up here instead of going home to muddle over getting fired.  I may have dug out the chocolate and Michael Bublé.  And no one wanted to see me in that kind of funk.

I tilted a swig from the wine goblet sitting on the kitchen counter.  Cool and fruity.  Num.

I felt better now.  I could put this behind me.  Because really, if Richard wished to save his shop, he had no choice but to do what he had.  And I'd had no choice but to have a mini-breakdown.  Without doing so, I may have sunk into said funk for days.  It had been good to get it out in an explosion of tears.  And a shower.

Yes, I'd climbed into the shower for a quickie.  After, I'd tugged on a plaid cotton robe I found in Jean-Louis's closet and belted it loosely.  I smelled like sable rum now, and no one could feel sad when they smelled like their lover.

I wandered to the ottoman and Jean-Louis patted the tufted cushion before him and drew up his legs to sit cross-legged.  "Sit here," he said. 

A wicked smile curled my lips.

"I don't want to fuck you," he offered.

My smile dropped.

"Let's be quiet together. 
Oui
?"

Quiet did sound appealing.

I sat before him, back facing his chest, pulling up my legs to sit cross-legged.  Outside, thick snowflakes danced in the gray sky.  If I could own a solarium that was completely glassed in, I would put a big bed in the middle and spend my winter days snuggled beneath the goose down comforter and flannel sheets gazing at the gorgeous world.

"You feel better after a shower?"

I nodded.  "So much better.  Thanks for being my safe place to fall."

Jean-Louis leaned in, his nose brushing my hair, and whispered, "Can I touch your skin?"

"Please," came out as a form of amen that I wanted some higher power to acknowledge as I felt my lover's presence in every breath.

Ever so slowly, the robe slipped down my shoulders, then loosened and fell as if water to puddle at my elbows.  I closed my eyes.  I didn't want sight to interfere with this experience.

The gentlest touch swished aside my hair and relegated the wet strands over one shoulder.  My bare breasts tightened, the nipples hardening as the sweep of cool hair tickled my skin.  But it was the next touch that undid me.

One finger landed on my shoulder and softly glided its horizontal measure.  Barely touching, but firm enough so that my skin reacted to his skin.  Not quite magnetic, more a tease of contact that shivered down my spine and tilted my head forward. 

His fingers journeyed down my arm, slowly, seeking.  Learning.  At the curve of my elbow, his touch glanced inside the silken soft inner crease and lingered there.  Skin heated skin.  I sighed.  Parts of me were rapidly warming.  This quiet touching was such a turn-on.  And he hadn't spoken a single word.

I didn't want him to speak.  I only wanted to feel.

And smell.  The tint of his aftershave alchemized in the air and I felt as if he surrounded me as his finger glided onward.  There at my wrist, he paused.  Perhaps testing my pulse beat?  It was fast, because it matched my anticipatory heartbeats. 

And when his finger glided across the bracelet lines that demarcated my wrist from my hand and over the meaty base to land my palm, it felt as though he touched me everywhere.  There, at the base of my spine where it tingled.  And there, at my ankle where I imagined I'd been kissed by a snowflake.  And yes, there, at the lower curve of my ass where my thighs met glutes.

He spread his hand over mine, not clasping, just drawing in my aura.  Reading me.  I suddenly wanted to ask him what it said on that page of my palm, but instead kept my eyes closed and my senses focused to his command.

Curving his fingers about my hand, he cupped my fingers inward and then drew them upward to hold my arm outstretched.  I thought we could fly together.  Drift through the snowflakes outside and never land, always safe within each other's arms.

Now he drew my arm up and toward my body, bringing my hand down toward my shoulder where I felt his breath hush against the thumb.  He sniffed my skin, and I shuddered.  And then he placed my hand on my thigh and with his other hand performed an exploratory glide along my opposite shoulder. 

As his finger traced my skin, I realized I absently stroked my thigh, mimicking his barely-there touch.  I wanted to touch him.  And then I did not.  I tilted back the untended shoulder.  My nipples were tight because the air before me was cool, facing the snowfall.  And behind me, and moving all through me, was Jean-Louis.

Once at my wrist, he again bent my arm and brought my hand up to sniff and then planted the softest kiss there at the crease where thumb meets forefinger.  A dash of his tongue teased the arc of skin.  I knew from certain historical research that spot was called the purlicue.  The place between the thumb and finger.  So sensitive.  Deliciously devastating to have it licked.

Now I did moan, the agony of my restraint tainting the air with sound.  I thought my desperation might move his touch faster, make it more focused, perhaps between my legs or to caress a breast, but he did not answer that unspoken desire.

Instead, both sets of his fingertips touched my shoulders and then slowly journeyed down my back, moving slightly to the left and right, drawing wings for the flight I most desired.  He mapped out all portions of me, learning this, the largest and most sensitive organ on my body—skin.

Such a touch felt to me as if he were encountering the female form for the first time, tracing the shape of my structure, marking it in his thoughts.  Drawing a mental map with such detail to rival the exquisite artifacts sold in the map shop.

And as the touch glided downward, achingly slow as he marked each vertebra I learned him.  He was a patient man, a curious man.  A man who respected and adored me. 

He loved me. 

And I think at this moment I could admit to love.  Lost in his touch, I wanted to surrender to everything about him.  Every French word I couldn't understand, every movement that caught my eye and made me smile (or yes, horny), every wink and sexy smile that always captured his eyes and made his whole face beam.

Everything about him could be mine.  I felt him in my heart. 

And there he was, thumbs dipping into those sensual curves that sat above my derriere.  Dimples of Venus, they were called.  Yes, I was this man's goddess.

The sudden heat of his tongue at the base of my neck tilted my head forward, opening myself, laying bare the canvas on which he wanted to create.  He licked down my spine as far as he could, and I felt his hands move around my hips and up my stomach. 

I uncrossed my legs.  Mercy, but my pussy hummed and I was slick between my thighs.  He could own me with a touch to my clit.  But I liked the refusal to something so easy, so obvious.  Instead, he held me against his chest, the alien presence of the dress shirt in bold contrast to the bareness of this moment. 

Take me, I wanted to whisper.  And then I did not, because he had taken me.  He owned me.  He was the master of my skin, and of the shimmering tingles that effervesced high in my mons, cluing me that orgasm was so close.  A treat for my patience, my willingness to let him do as he pleased.

And when his hands moved up to caress my breasts, I felt as if he held something valuable, and he tendered his touch as if for a princess who mustn't be broken, yet held firmly, protectively.

Urgent breaths lifted my breasts up in his grasp.  And with an exhale, I wondered if a finger would trace my nipple.  I waited for that delicious contact, and then—his hands were gone.

"Come for me," whispered at my ear.

My body relaxed, commanded by his voice.  And surrender rushed up to spill from between my legs as the orgasm shivered through my being and shook my shoulders against his chest.

I panted.  Once.  Again.  A smile broke on my lips but the usual giggle didn't rise.  I let my head fall against his shoulder.  Eyes still closed, I could see him in my heart, bold and bright.

"I love you," I whispered.

Chapter
Eleven

Weeks later...

I had won the argument for a medium-sized Christmas tree after I reassured Jean-Louis that I would be responsible for cleaning up the fallen needles daily.  I didn't expect the tree to dry out in the short time we would have it up.  Christmas landed in two days.  We'd brought in the tree last night, and I usually got rid of that sucker right after New Years.  Of course, we'd put it up in his apartment.  Mine was too small even for this slender pine. 

Mmm...it smelled great, and made me only a little homesick for Iowa.  (I'd worked my fifteenth winter at a Christmas tree farm.)  I spent the afternoon running lights through the branches while Jean-Louis had taught a class online in his bedroom.  I'd suggested a quickie during his lunch break, and it had been fast and festive.  So much so, that the man had ended up with tinsel hanging off his erection at one point during the liaison.

I'd snapped a picture of Monsieur Eiffel all decked out for the holiday (with his permission) and while I wanted to put that as my screen saver on my phone, I knew that my less-than-exacting technical skills could likely send the Christmas Cock to my client list by mistake.  So I transferred it to a For My Eyes Only file. 

Dinner smelled delicious.  After emerging from the bedroom around five, Jean-Louis whipped up a veggie lasagna with lots of zucchini and ricotta and had put it in the oven. 

"How about this?" he called from the sofa where he had selected some music and streamed it through the wireless speakers positioned throughout the loft.

I opened a box of fragile glass ornaments and bobbed my head to The Beastie Boys' version of a Christmas song.  "I like it!"

By the time he'd joined me to look over the half dozen boxes of shiny new ornaments I'd chosen from the supermarché this morning, the song segued to Joan Jett's "Crimson and Clover".

"I love this one," I crooned, and picked up a few bars in my reasonably decent singing voice.  "Over and over..."

Jean-Louis took the ornament box from my hand and set it aside, then pulled me close.  He swayed me into a slow dance.  Outside the window, heavy snowflakes drifted down.  The faint December sun was setting.  My man held me close, his chest humming as he sang to the music.  My heart felt light. 

Heads bowed together, our noses touched, but our lips did not.  We both smiled.  Our breaths mingled.  The anticipation of a kiss was sweeter than eggnog, yet it was nice to nuzzle.  To enjoy the closeness that didn't require anything more than our hands clasped and our hearts synchronizing in rhythm to the music.

I nuzzled my nose against his neck and kissed his skin.  Sable and bay rum filled my senses.  "Don't get me anything for Christmas," I said while Joan Jett serenaded us.

"Don't tell me what to do," he said lightly, and turned me to sway toward the center of the room behind the sofa.  "I'll give you the moon if I want to."

"Then no one would be able to see at night, and there would be great calamity world round.  Crashes.  Blackouts.  Disasters."

"Yes, but I would be able to see you by the light of your moon."

"Fine.  Then I'll buy you a rocketship so you can come visit me."

"You see?  We will have one another this Christmas, sitting on the moon, holding hands."

Romance, meet Monsieur Sexy.  He's all mine, girls. 

"But seriously."  I couldn't drop it.  The music switched to something jazzy.  "I don't want a gift.  Promise?"  What I'd gotten was nothing, really.  And I hadn't indicated I couldn't get him a gift.

He shrugged, and grabbed my hands.  A sexy hip shimmy drew my eyes to his agile form.  "Do you cha-cha?"

"Nope.  But you must."  He stepped forward, and I followed his lead by stepping backward.  The man's hips shifted to the beat.  Like a pro.  "Seriously?  Have you taken dance classes?"