“Wait till you meetyours.”
“I can’t meet someone who doesn’t exist.” She filched the crustless lemon tartlet and stuffed it inside hermouth.
“Heexists.”
Chapter 55
After droppingCeleste back off at the guild and making her promise to visit, I headed back to a place that was starting to feel like home, a place with blood-red doors and a dazzlingly dark sinner. When I arrived in the checkered marble foyer, I heard voices in the study. Raised voices. Tristan’s. Jarod’s. But also two unfamiliar gruffones.
“You can’t be serious, Jarod!” Tristan must’ve yelled at the top of his lungs, because the walls of this house, that usually gulped down all sound, let his words pass through the thick wood withoutobstruction.
The guard standing in the entryway eyed me as though urging me not to intrude. I wouldn’t, of course, but had he not been there, I might’ve lingered to glean what Jarod “wasn’t seriousabout.”
Not wanting to be alone, I headed into the kitchen in search of Muriel and found her kneading a big ball of dough—brioche, she told me. As her hands pressed and pulled, I regaled her with stories ofVersailles.
“You’ve probably heard them all already,” I said, realizing I might’ve been boringher.
“Non, ma chérie. I didn’t know any of them. Why don’t you tell me more while you help me makedinner?”
I washed my hands, thrilled at the prospect of a cooking lesson. Recounting anecdote after anecdote, I learned how to emulsify egg yolks, softened butter, and lemon juice to make a velvety hollandaise sauce to complement the stalky white asparagus she’d bought at themarket.
“Thought I’d find you inhere.”
I twirled around at the sound of Jarod’s voice, my heartbeats melting into one another like the butter and egg yolksearlier.
Muriel smiled. “Why do I sense you’re about to steal my sous-chef?”
“Because I’m about to steal your sous-chef,” Jarodsaid.
Already unknotting the apron tied around my waist, I walked over to where he stood in the entrance of the kitchen, filling the entire frame. “Thank you,Muriel.”
“Thankyou. I got a fantastic history lessonandextrahelp.”
I shot her a grin as I slid my hand into Jarod’s outstretchedone.
“How was your tour?” heasked.
“Amazing. Beautiful. Enriching. Did you know that the king had a secret passageway inside his bedroom that led straight into his mistress’sapartment?”
He pushed out of the pantry and tugged me up the stairs. “Howconvenient.”
“And it took three thousand candles to light up the Hall ofMirrors.”
“That’s a lot ofwax.”
“And when there were guests in the palace, they were called in to witness the king’s rising.” Jarod opened his bedroom door. “That’s why Louis the Fourteenth was called theSun—”
He kissed me, stealing the last word from my mouth, then shut the door, and backed me up against it. “I want to hear all about it, but first”—he dropped to his knees in front of me and unbuttoned my slacks—“first, I want to do something that I’ve been fantasizing about allday.”
When his stubble scraped the inside of my thigh, I flung a hand out to grasp something solid. My fingers closed around the sculpted bronzehandle.
Jarod guided my thong down my legs, and every atom in my body contracted, then damn near snapped when his long fingers closed around my calves and tracked over my knees before spiraling up my thighs and easing my legs farther apart. My chest pumped in and out, fluttering the white fabric of my T-shirt.
After swiping one finger over my seam, Jarod’s eyes flared. “Hmm . . . sowet.”
The growl of his voice against my skin was almost enough to make me come; it was most definitely enough to make me begin totremble.
He gripped my legs again, then dipped his head, and licked over the line he’dtraced.
