Why this had become her place.
Exposed brick walls gave it character and history. Dark wood tables polished smooth from years of use and countless meals. Soft amber lighting even in the afternoon that made everything feel warm and private and slightly removed from the city outside. A large chalkboard menu written in careful French script hung behind the small bar.
The waiter—older, distinguished, with that particular Parisian ability to be simultaneously welcoming and faintly judgmental—seated us near the window overlooking the streetand handed us leather-bound menus before disappearing with practiced efficiency.
I scanned the options with genuine interest and appreciation.
Confit de canard with crispy skin and white beans. Steak frites with herb butter. Moules marinières in white wine and shallots. Ratatouille. Coq au vin. Boeuf bourguignon.
Simple French classics executed properly. The kind of place that understood technique mattered more than innovation.
The kind of cooking I actually respected.
Ella studied her menu thoughtfully, then glanced up at me with open curiosity.
"What are you getting?"
"Everything," I said with complete seriousness.
She laughed, the sound lighter and more genuine than I'd heard from her in days. "Everything? Really?"
"I like to cook. This is research. Professional development."
Her eyebrows went up in genuine surprise that was almost comical. "You cook? Like, actually cook cook?"
"Yeah. Really cook."
"I ..." She paused, clearly recalibrating something fundamental in her mental image of me. "I guess I just assumed if you cooked at all, it would be like ... grilling burgers or something basic like that. Or maybe whole hogs on a firepit."
I leaned back slightly in my chair, studying her with barely contained amusement. "Is that assumption because of my size?"
She surprised me completely—and delighted me even more—by reaching under the table, hand finding my thigh first, then sliding deliberately higher with clear intent until her fingers wrapped confidently around my cock through my jeans and squeezed.
Not hard. Not painful.
Just enough pressure to make her point crystal clear.
"I like your size just fine," she said quietly, eyes holding mine with that devastating mix of innocence and deliberate intent that was absolutely going to kill me, eventually.
Heat shot straight through me, like lightning striking.
Fuck.
I was so completely, irrevocably into this girl it wasn't even remotely funny anymore.
What an absolute anomaly she was turning out to be.
Sweet and sexy in perfectly balanced measure. Bold enough to grab my cock in a restaurant, but vulnerable enough to wear her dead sister's sweater for comfort. Direct, but soft underneath all that bravery.
I never in a million years could've predicted any of this happening to me.
Not in any timeline or scenario I'd ever imagined for my life.
My existence had always been defined by war and fighting. Strategy and survival and staying perpetually one step ahead of whatever threat was coming next.
Not leisurely afternoon lunches in Paris with a woman who made my chest feel uncomfortably tight. Not easy small talk over wine about cooking techniques and favorite ingredients. Not someone who made me want impossibly normal, domestic things I'd convinced myself I'd never have or deserve.
But sitting there across from her, watching her smile at something the waiter said, I found that I genuinely enjoyed the small talk.
