I lower my lids and give her my most seductive look. “Only if you like it.”
She bites her lip and giggles before plopping down on the edge of the mattress.
“Gimme.” I motion to her right foot. She lifts her leg high enough for me to palm her heel. When I lift it higher still, her skirt pools around her thighs, and she leans back on her elbows, her head cocked coquettishly.
She’s about to say something coy, but then her eyes roll back in her head when I press my thumb into the sole of her foot.
“Oh my Lord.” She flops back on the bed. “That’s heaven.”
I can’t keep looking at her lying there, a smile of pleasure on her face, her bare legs a temptation to touch, to taste. So I glance around her apartment instead. Which is when I realize the animals are nowhere in sight.
“What happened to your menagerie?” I work the ball of her foot and her dainty toes with my fingers.
She points toward her bedside table where a bottle of champagne sits in an ice bucket. Beside the bucket is a sheet of notebook paper, folded in half and set up like a tent.
Leaning over, I read the note. It’s from Jean-Pierre. Two neat, succinct lines:Brought the animals to my place in case you get lucky. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
I chuckle. “I like your friends.”
She opens her eyes, but only partway, making her look like a woman recently sated. Making mewantto sate her. “I do know how to pick ’em, don’t I?”
I know she’s lumping me into that category of Good Picks, and I show my appreciation by bending and biting her delicate arch. Her breath catches, and goose bumps erupt all the way up her leg.
I want to rub each of them. Settle them with my hands and my lips. Instead, I motion to her left foot. “Next one.”
She doesn’t hesitate to place it in my hands. Her toenails are painted (you guessed it) Tempest Blue.
I work the tension from her sole and her toes, and when I finally lower her leg, I figure I’ve stalled as long as I dare. Time to face the music. To ask her what she wants from this night. From me.
Before I can open my mouth, however, she stands and shakes out her skirt. I’m sad to see her legs disappear under the fabric. But then she goes up on tiptoe to spear her hands into my hair, and thelastthing I’m feeling is sad.
She pulls my mouth toward hers, and I don’t deny her. Ican’t. Even if I wanted to. Which Idon’t.
At first, her kiss is sweet. Soft. Tentative, even. But the instant I pull her against me and touch the tip of my tongue to hers, the sweetness is stripped away and replaced by intensity. She makes a sound in the back of her throat. It’s a humming, appreciative sound. Like she’s tasting something she craves. Something she can’t get enough of.
It’s my favorite sound in all the world.
I want to hear it a million times over. For the rest of my life. All the way to infinity, like her tattoo.
Thisis what kissing is supposed to be, and I can’t stop. I kiss her until my mouth hurts, until my whole body hurts for want of more. For want of it all.
All of her.
All of us.
Together.
“Luc.” Her voice is low and breathy. It goes straight to my head. And other parts decidedly south of that. “Are we crazy to be doing this?”
Straightening away from her takes every ounce of self-control I possess. And when her hand lands on my chest, delicate and warm, I wonder if she can feel my heart thrashing around inside the cage of my ribs. It’s pleading to be set free. Pleading to be nearer to her. Nestled up next to its match, her heart.
“D’ya feel crazy, sweetheart?” I ask, rubbing my thumb over her lips. They beg for attention even when they’re not being kissed.
She shakes her head. “No. And yes. I don’t know. I was so sure out on the sidewalk, but now…” Her eyes are beseeching. “I’m nervous all of a sudden.”
That makes two of us.
I take off my sports coat and toss it on the foot of her bed. Then I sit beside it and beckon her with a crooked finger. “Come here to me.”
