He makes a low, broken sound against my lips and his mouth opens over mine, tongue sliding in. He kisses me like he’s claiming something, like he’s finally letting himself take what he’s wanted for so long.
One hand brackets the back of my neck, the other gripping my hip hard enough to bruise, pulling me flush against him as his tongue strokes deep, filthy, devouring.
I moan into his mouth, and he drinks it down, kissing me harder, wetter, more urgently, like he needs something from me. And I want to give it to him. All of it. Every ounce of what he needs.
I walk him backward. One step. Two. With his hands on my waist, he lets me guide him, lets me move him, which is its own kind of extraordinary for a man who controls every room he enters.
The backs of his thighs hit the edge of the dining table, and I break the kiss.
He looks down at me. Chest rising and falling. Eyes dark.
“You recite my diary entry like it’s foreplay,” I say, holding his gaze, “make me come while doing it. Build me a fucking house with this impossible room. And now you have me wanting to thank you in a way that’s considered very French.”
“I didn’t build this house for you. You were never supposed to see it,” he says, voice low. “I built it because wanting you and not having you needed somewhere to live.”
Something molten unfurls in my chest. “Now, see, when you say things like that, you only make me want this so much more.”
He watches me closely as I reach for his belt, my fingers steady even though my heart is hammering. I unbuckle it slowly, giving him every chance to stop me. The button pops open, and the zipper slides down with a quiet rasp when he catches my wrist.
“Sophia.” His voice is pure gravel and warning. “I don’t know if I’ll lose control. I don’t want to fucking hurt you.”
“You won’t,” I whisper, gently easing my hand free from his grip.
He stares at me for a long second before he speaks, strained like it costs him everything. “I’ve never had a woman touch me like this.”
I stop. Look up at him fully. “You’ve never been…with a woman?”
“Never wanted to. Until you.”
The admission hits me like a lightning strike. He’s never been with a woman. Never let anyone touch him willingly—until me. And something fierce and ferocious uncoils in my chest at the thought.
This terrifying, beautiful wreck of a man is mine.
I lift myself onto my toes and kiss him. “Do you trust me?”
He nods—this tiny, clipped movement, jaw locked, eyes unreadable except for the hunger simmering underneath.
“Good. Now keep your eyes on me.” I sink to my knees. The cobblestone floor of Paris is beneath me as I look up at the man who has only ever experienced his body in a way that destroyed, now standing at the edge of something entirely different.
“Don’t look away.”
His throat moves as I slip my hand into his jeans and find him—hard and hot and so ready it pulls a sharp breath from somewhere in my chest—and his eyes roll closed immediately.
“Look at me.” My voice is firm. Gentle. Both at once. “Closed eyes take you somewhere else. I want you here.” I wait until his eyes find mine again. “With me.”
He grips the table, every rope of muscle in his body pulled taut, and the air is suddenly charged and tense and so unbearably intimate.
I free his cock, and it’s thick. Shockingly thick. The kind of heavy, veined length that makes my mouth go dry and my thighs clench instinctively. Flushed dark red at the head, already glistening with a bead of precum at the slit.
With my gaze locked on his, I stroke him once, and he sucks air through his teeth. “Sophia?—”
“Eyes on me.” And I take him into my mouth.
“Jesus Christ,” he groans, and his whole body goes rigid, his jaw locked. But his eyes…his eyes stay on mine, wide and dark and completely undone, the blue of them almost entirely swallowed. With our gazes locked, I take him deeper and watch every flicker of sensation cross his face because he’s letting me see it and I am not looking away for anything.
The scar on his cheek pulls tight as he drags his bottom lip between his teeth, biting down hard enough to whiten the skin. He’s forcing himself to stay perfectly still, locked and trembling with the effort, like something violent and starving is clawing just beneath the surface, fighting to break free. And he’s barely winning.
“Fuck,” he growls, his knuckles on the edge of the table turning white.
