“For tonight, you’remyprince.”
He held her closer. “For tonight, yes, I am.”
“And I’m Cin-Dree-ella.”
He laughed. She was undoubtedly a bit of magic in his life.
Dree said, “It’s nice of you to introduce me to your friends, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. They’re never going to see me again, and I won’t take offense. It’s all just kind of wasted breath.”
The pragmatic part of it had not occurred to Maxence. Even though he supposed it was true, the insult implied in it was something that he would never indulge in. “I know you’re going back to the States, but perhaps someday one of them might turn up in your emergency room, and it would be nice for them to see a friendly face and know your name.”
Dree laughed at him and then stopped short. “How did you know I work in an ER?”
He couldn’t help but smile a little, even though he felt like he had been snooping just by observing her. “You evaluated the child yesterday at the Louvre very competently, as you did when I said I sprained my shoulder this morning. I know we said we were not going to discuss our lives and we were going to lie about it if we do, but it seems obvious you are a medical professional who deals with fast-paced, varied situations. That’s an ER. You’re obviously very good at your job.”
She nodded, but the softening of her smile into a more wistful expression seemed more downcast. “Yeah, maybe I’ll see them in my emergency room, someday, after I go back to the US tomorrow.”
He pulled her closer to his chest and tried to slow down time so he could remember this joyous, voluptuous woman and these few, beautiful days that they’d had together in Paris.
She asked, “Do you think I’ll ever see you in my emergency room?”
“Monagasquay is a long way from Arizona.”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
They swayed together under the stars with winter fog swirling at the edges of the garden.
Max said, “I wish you could have seen Versailles in the spring. It’s amazing in the springtime.”
She nodded, rubbing her face against his black coat over his tuxedo.
They swayed together in the cold of the Christmas-season night for a while longer, and then Maxence decided it was time to take her back to the hotel for the night he had planned.
On the way back, Maxence cuddled his little bombshell against his chest in the town car, during which she whispered to him, “Better than a pumpkin and mice.”
He chuckled and watched Paris’s Christmas decorations whizz by: the globes of red or white pinprick lights around bare trees, the glowing gift boxes and nutcrackers, and the fir and pine boughs swagged over doorways or bent into wreaths. He should enjoy them while he could because Christmas was not particularly celebrated in the land where he was going tomorrow.
That was too bad. Maxence liked Christmas.
The hotel’s town car deposited them in the underground garage for the hotel. It was a quick trip up the elevator to their floor, where Maxence had to insert his key card into the slot to allow the doors to open.
Dree wrapped her arm around his waist, and he had his around her shoulders. It felt companionable and affectionate.
Or it did, until she looked up at him with that dark red lipstick and touched her lips with a delicate finger tipped with a blood-red fingernail.
Maxence had been teasing her for days, but he was desperate for her.
They strode off the elevator and into the suite, and he slammed the door with one hand as he unbuttoned his coat with the other.
Dree was already half out of her coat and struggling to get the sleeves off.
Maxence reached over and grabbed the collar of the coat behind her and yanked it down, pulling the coat off her arms. The force spun her, and she stumbled backward, but Maxence caught her before she could fall over.
The moment Dree was in his arms, he was lost. The softness of her feminine flesh enticed him, and he grabbed her hair to pull her face back so he could kiss her properly. His mouth crashed down on hers. She flung her arms around his neck, and her body molded to his.
Maxence tried to keep kissing her while he unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket and stripped it off, letting it fall to the floor while he went after the tie at his throat. Dree had both of her arms wrenched behind her own back, trying to find the zipper of her dress. Maxence reached around her and found it, whipping it down her back and grabbing her ass while his hand was right there. She gasped against his mouth and kissed him harder, her dress falling away like rose petals.
Dear God, she was wearing some sort of a matching corset underneath the dress, a scarlet, boned contraption that nipped in her waist and pushed up her breasts and was altogether feminine and powerful and sexy.
