I notice things, too. Just how bloody tiny she is in such close quarters. Thick and short. Plump. Which is so fucking appealing, I can’t help but give her some weight in return. It’s not like I’ll get another chance to feel this body against mine. May as well enjoy what she’s willing to give.
“It’s Colin,” I tell her, finally, in a whisper so low she’d never hear me in the real world. But here? Where it’s so dark and quiet, alone has a fresh meaning, I reckon she could read my lips from the noise alone. “Colin T. Llewelyn. At your service, Madame.”
“Huh. Okay. How d’you do, kind sir?” Her voice goes high and fluty and, this time when I reach out, I get her hand instead of the whisky. It’s still cold. Mine engulfs it, tightens slightly. Holds it, suspended. Waiting. Neither of us moves to separate.
“I’m not gonna ask what the T stands for.”
“Best not to.” I give that little hand a light squeeze. And still, I don’t pull away. That’s the thing about the dark. You can pretend not to see things, pretend you don’t feel them, like they’re not happening at all. “Wouldn’t want to know too much about the enemy.”
“Right. Might humanize him.” She squeezes back. Lingers. Pretending, like me. “Lord knows I don’t want to do that. The last thing a man like Colin Theophile Llewelyn needs is a bigger head than he already has.”
“A big head?” I let my thumb drag over the back of her hand—just a centimeter or two. Not something she’d notice. “Me?”
“Oh, come on. You’re hot, you’ve got the…ridiculously sexy accent, a thriving pub in the center of Paris. I’ve seen how packed it gets.” She has? When? “Don’t tell me you’re not rolling in admirers.”
“Positively smothered by them.” I lean in. “But you’ll be pleased to know that none of them is as annoying as you.”
“Flatterer.”
“It’s part of my charm.” I snort. “Actually, the sum total.”
We breathe, holding hands without moving. Waiting, listening, literally suspended in place, in time. Chilly fingers, shuddering breaths, whispered words we’d never have been able to hear through the ceiling of my flat.
“Shall I warm the other, as well?” I ask, hoping like hell she’ll give in and say yes.
CHAPTERSEVEN
Jules
Warm the other? Yes. Yes, I want that.
Lightheaded and breathless, I turn so we’re facing each other, lean my shoulder against the wall for balance, and hold my hand out, whisky bottle and all.
He wraps his hand around mine on the bottle neck and leaves it there so we’re gripping it together. A joint effort.
I have to break the silence. “What do you think’s gonna happen? To us?”
I feel more than see his upper body cant toward me. “Do you mean will Madame Christen’s yapping dog finally wake her up for its three a.m. piss and get us help?”
“Or did she go away for Christmas, too?” The idea scares the crap out of me.
He makes this low, grunty sound, which I think for him might be close to a laugh, and shuttles slightly closer. “That woman hasn’t a friend in the world. She’s evil. Her furry little devil’s spawn’s no better. Have you evernotbeen attacked by that creature?”
I picture the woman’s little dog, barking its head off in the lobby, while she looks on benignly, and can’t help but laugh. Our hands drop, breaking our mutual hold on the bottle, which he’s now left with. I ignore how cold I am. “What if you’ve got it all wrong? What if the dog’s barking in a wild bid to get free from the woman’s clutches?”
“Oh, that’s good. Very good. An SOS. Like it’s been kidnapped.”
“Yeah. Yeah, and here we are, clueless passersby, while the dog’s screaming, likescreamingat us to help him escape.”
“Free me, fucking humans! Get me out of here!”
“God.” I accept the bottle from him, back to the wall, and then slide slowly down to land on my butt, knees bent. “Poor thing. How… There’s no way of knowing, is there? What if he’s just trying and trying, yapping in this wild frenzy, and we’re ignoring it.”
“Oh, I don’t ignore the little fucker.”
I stare up at where he’s still standing, somehow closer now that I’m down here and my face is near his leg. “You secretly kick it, don’t you, you angry man?”
“I’m not angry.”
