"Anything?" I reproached and he gives me a lazy smile,
"Toute ce que tu veux." He assures me,anything you wantand I didn’t think he had any idea how much power he was giving me and it was for that reason that I said.
"Let's go hang out at your place," I suggested and he gave me a confused look,
"I tell you that we can do anything you want for a day and you just want to hang out at my boring penthouse?" He asked and I nodded in agreement,
"It's only boring because you're always there alone, well now you've got me and I'm fun so let go!" I exclaimed and buckled my seatbelt as he shrugged and started the car down the road to the other side of the city.
Once we arrived at his apartment I raced into the fancy kitchen and started cooking up something for us to eat. I was guessing we'd be pulling an all-nighter and I wasn't about to starve. I flipped through a few cookbooks and managed to dig up a recipe for vegan mushroom Alfredo which I whipped up in no time with River constantly warning me not to burn his penthouse down.
Once the food was ready I plated the meal for the both of us and we ate on the kitchen island, my eyes met his and a question I'd been meaning to ask for a while popped into my head.
"How can you afford this place as a college student?" I asked and he let out a slight laugh, "my parents would never agree to pay for a skyline in Paris."
"My parents don't pay for any of this, although they've offered many times." River disclosed to me, "I pay for my expenses with stock shares and money from commissions I do for film stars, critics, and quite frankly anyone else who can afford it."
The fact that he had film stars commissioning his work took me by surprise and I realised that I'd been watering down how great of an artist he really was, Victoria had once told me but I didn't listen.
"Why don't you stay on campus in the dorms?" I asked and he paused for a second before replying,
"It would all be a little much for me, and I don't think I'd be able to stand having a roommate. If you haven't already noticed, I quite like the distance and solitude." He explained and in a way I actually understood. “I would die before I had to spend any more time without the walls of St Kathrines than necessary.”
"You're almost impossible to figure out River Kennedy," I remarked and he winked at me,
"Vous seriez surpris de voir à quel point je suis transparent." He commentedyou'd be surprised just how transparent I really am.
River and I spent the next hour or so playing chess at his pretty crystal glass and cherrywood chess table that he told me was an antique that belonged to his grandfather. I was certain I was kicking his ass at this round but came to see quite the contrary when he knocked over my queen.
"Checkmate." He declared victory with a slight smirk on his Greek god-like face, it was insane how his beauty still managed to take me by surprise.
"Is there anything you're not good at?" I sighed,
"No." He replied honestly leaning in to place his lips against mine.
His kiss was slow at first, then hot, fiery, and passionate. Then next he pinned me to the floor and took over my body completely with his touch. But soon I realized that he wasn’t not doing anything else but kissing me, he wasjustkissing me, taking the time to appreciate every inch of my full lips on his and it was the most exquisite thing I'd ever experienced.
His tongue slipped past my lips and tamed my own in a slow battle of the purest intentions, but then he stopped with a jagged breath, almost as if struggling to gain composure, then he asked,
"How can I lose you when I've barely had you?" And I smiled sadly kissing him once more,
"I wish there was another way," I confessed but I knew there wasn’t, I would be leaving the next day and we may never see each other again.
"Promets-moi une chose?" River asked, and I didn’t think I'd ever heard his voice so meek and uncertain.Promise me one thing.
"tout ce que tu veux." I repeated as he once said to me earlier today,anything you want.
"promets moi que ce n'est pas la fin et tu trouveras un moyen de me revenir." He said leaning his forehead against mine intimately,promise me this isn't the end and that you'll find a way back to me.
"River you know I can't promise you that-" I began and the look in his perfect blues was enough to break even the strongest part of me,
"S'il te plaît."Pleasehe retorted and I could not deny him,
"Je promets," I promised.
I told River that I would take the bus back to campus because I didn't want him to drive me to the airport. After all, if he did I wouldn't be able to leave. I packed up all of my things and said goodbye to all of our friends, a goodbye fornow.
I gazed out the plane window as I once did when I first arrived in Paris on that cold summer night, and waved goodbye to the city that I was only just growing to love and had to let go.
