“I haven’t the faintest.”
“You didn’t even like me.”
“I most definitely do now,” he replies, dragging me in for another slow, deep kiss that tingles all the way to the tips of my toes. What feels like hours later, he pulls away and looks across the room at where our neighbor and her dog are holding court at a table. “I reckon we’d do well to stock up on steak for the dog and champagne for the woman. Lest we anger Fate by taking all these gifts for granted.”
CHAPTERTWENTY
Colin
Nobody’s leaving and it’s driving me mad. There’s tinsel and mistletoe and a fucking Christmas tree and a beautiful woman to unwrap rightthere. Unfortunately, half the bleeding neighborhood’s arrived and they don’t look ready to leave anytime soon.
I open my mouth, on the brink of letting Ebenezer back out, when Raf comes up to the bar.
“Want me to close up shop?”
I don’t usually trust anyone else with my bar. With anything, really, but…
A giggle rings out from the front of the pub and an old man I’ve often seen shuffling in the square below swings Jules and then twirls her back into his arms and she’s truly the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen and not touching her right now would be a tragedy of epic proportions.
“Yep.” I dig my keys from my pocket and throw them on the bar. “I’ll clean it up tomorrow. Just don’t…” Someone whoops. It’s Madame Christen, also dancing, only she’s doing it on a table that’s wobbling dangerously beneath her. “Let anyone die.”
“I’ll get them out in one piece. No broken hips.”
My eyes meet his. “Merci.”
“De rien. Maintenant casse-toi!” He points at the door, kicking me out of my own pub. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
I grab my coat and Jules’s and arrive at her side just as the song’s ending.
I wrap her up in her coat, grab her arm and pull her out onto the chilly street to the cheers of the gathered crowd. We make it three steps before falling into each other’s arms.
“The party’s not over,” she whispers against my lips.
“Did you want to stay?”
Her eyes are warm, sparkling, lively. I feel caught in their net, lifted by them.
She shakes her head, straining up. Slowly, I lean down and meet her lips in a kiss that’s soft and wet and leaves me breathless.
After a long time, she pulls away with a sigh, leans in and rubs her face against my chest. I can’t help but kiss the top of her head, which isn’t something I remember doing before.
“Let’s go for a walk.”
I look down at her, all snug in her coat, with those ridiculous shoes on. “Won’t your toes get cold?”
“Oh, I stopped feeling them ages ago. Come on. I want to see the Seine on Christmas.” She tugs at my hand. I follow her over the cobblestones. The trees in the Village Saint Paul are strung with fairy lights, the shop windows lit up with them. A very few people hurry past as daylight starts to fade. Already? Where on earth did the time go?
We turn the corner from the Rue d’Ave Maria to the Rue Saint Paul, and cross the nearly deserted Quai des Célestins. Jules drags me to the wall and leans over to stare at the city lit up, the sky pink, all of it caught and reflected in the water’s glow. I’d have denied that magic existed until this moment.
“It’s beautiful,” she sighs.
“It is.” I nod, watching how the light shimmers on the water, the rare couples strolling below, the glow from windows across the way, where people eat and drink, laugh, talk. Love each other. Speaking of which… “I could stay here all night.”
She leans back to look at me, eyes narrowing at whatever she sees on my face. “Why do I feel a but coming?”
“Oh, do you now? A butt? You into that?”
Her laugh tinkles like bells as she swats at my arm. “Oh, shut up. You know what I mean.”
