He blinked, feeling the impact of that statement. Over the centuries, his family had taken everything they could, and they’d been excellent at it.
Maxence had been feeling his way toward a different kind of life. He was just genetically unsuited for it and spectacularly bad at it, no matter what his intentions were.
But such navel-gazing wasn’t on the agenda.
He checked his watch. The steel hands on the blue and silver face showed it was after nine-thirty. If they didn’t hustle, they would be late for what he had planned.
“Let’s go,” Maxence said, turning away.
A small tug on his elbow caused him to turn back.
Dree was standing there, and she lowered herself to her knees and reached for his belt.
Maxence stepped back. “Not now, pet.”
“But, don’t you want a—” She swallowed, and he liked watching her throat work above the neckline of that soft pink sweater. “I mean, shouldn’t I—”
He ran one finger down her jaw and lifted her chin. A delicate shiver ran through her, and at that, he almost unzipped his pants and shoved his cock down her throat. “Not now, pet. Stand up and get your coat.”
She licked her lips. “Yes, Sir.”
He liked it when she called him “Sir” much more than he should, and he had trouble looking away from her glistening pink lips where her tongue had licked them.
Later.
They walked out of the hotel and onto the busy Parisian street, lined with trees and stone planters. Blue and white Christmas lights sparkled among branches of the trees and showered from the sides of the hotel’s overhanging roof.
“Oh,”Dree said as they emerged into the winter fairyland of millions of points of light in the night.
Maxence smiled at her reaction. He’d seen Paris’s Christmas decorations so often that he hardly noticed them. “Paris is the City of Light, yes? Christmas is amazing here. A lot of Europe decorates for Christmas, especially if I may note, the more Catholic parts of Europe. Catholicism has a more exuberant celebration, while places like Germany are more austere.”
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed, looking around as they walked. “New Mexico and Arizona are less wintry, of course. The tourists don’t wear coats at all because it’s maybe fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and they laugh at us for putting Santa hats on the cacti.”
Maxence repressed a chuckle.
They passed storefronts decorated with hundreds of evergreen boughs and wreaths, planters of Christmas trees, and oversized, sparkling statues of toys and wrapped presents. People in the crowd stopped to take pictures or admire, and some passed by on their way to more critical engagements.
They crossed one of the bridges festooned with thick evergreen garlands and covered in dark red Christmas balls.
She was trotting to keep up with him.
Maxence shortened his stride to allow her to keep up and checked his watch on his wrist. They had seventeen more minutes to get there, which should be just enough, barely.
At every intersection, they were blessed with green traffic lights and walk signals.
They walked on for a while. Dree looked around at the Christmas trees glittering with lights and illuminated piles of enormous presents, and Max watched her.
Paris was a pedestrian city, and crowds of people strolled on the wide sidewalks at all hours of the day and into the wee hours of the night. They had to push past knots of tourists as they made their way through the people-jammed streets of Paris. Parisians hurried to their homes or destinations, considering it was well after nine o’clock at night.
They turned a corner.
The Eiffel Tower blazed gold ahead of them. The spire soared into the air, filling the sky over them.
Dree stopped and drew a breath. She slipped her hand in his and stared at the tower’s graceful curves, lit against the shimmering Parisian night.
Maxence glanced at his watch, and the minute hand clicked over to straight-up ten o’clock.
They’d made it.
