His hand dropped to her shoulder, squeezed. “Mia,” he said quietly, and there was an echo of her aching grief in his voice. He understood. He saw the great mistake she’d made. “Then we should enjoy your time here now. Enjoy every damn second of it.”
With that, he stood, pulling her up with him. “C’mon,” he said. “We have Paris to absorb into the marrow of our bones.”
And so they did, wandering around the city, sticking close to the Seine, but people-watching and sight-enjoying, and café-sitting whenever they tired. Night descended but they didn’t slow and Mia smiled and laughed and not only enjoyed where she was, but she enjoyed being in love.
Thoroughly enjoyed it.
Throwing caution aside, she held his hand and hung onto his arm and didn’t suppress the impulses that prompted her to pop onto tiptoe to flash-kiss his jaw or his cheek or the side of his shoulder. He took her PDA and returned it—ushering her into the restaurant with his hand on the small of her back, feeding her bites from his plate, kissing her lavishly, deeply, after they consumed their desserts and walked back into the night.
When she finally slowed down, he guessed she was tired and suggested they head back. It was close enough that she refused to take a cab, wanting to linger in the enchantment for the few blocks to the apartment building. Along the river, couples were entwined, young families walked along, sleepy toddlers draped over their shoulders. A teenage couple appeared in the midst of a fiery argument, but then they started to laugh, shrugged in true Gallic style, and arm-and-arm strolled away, apparently fast friends again.
Life. Love. Paris.
In the foyer of their apartment building, she and Trey shared a long, charged look. And then, to her unsurprised and certain delight, he pinned her to one wall. “I don’t want tonight to be over,” he said, his body pressing into hers.
“Me neither.” She wound her arms around his neck. Why not? She was in love and for the moment had given herself permission to feel the feels. Life was short and though all this with Trey was destined to end, it would end whether or not right now they went from vertical to horizontal. “Though thank you for the wonderful memories we’ve already made.”
He kissed her tenderly, then lifted his head. “Today, somebody asked me when I’m going back to the States and…I don’t want to, Mia. I don’t want to be that man who never takes the time to watch the leaves fall or smell the cool water of the river or stuff himself with one last bite of dessert.”
She took in his intense eyes and serious expression. “You can go back, but not go back to being that other person,” she said. “Can’t you?”
His gaze bore into hers for a long moment. “To hell with a Paris fling,” he finally said, his hands tightening on her waist. “You have no place to be immediately. I have no place I want to be…other than in your arms. How about a Europe fling instead? We can take some time to travel around, eat, enjoy…make love. What do you say?”
Make love. Oh, she wanted to do that. Almost immediately. A Europe fling was out of the question, though. Not only was her trip to her final destination in Nice the day after tomorrow, but agreeing to an extended yet ultimately finite affair would only allow more time for Trey to burrow deeply into her heart. Getting the man out of that tender place was going to be painful enough.
So no Europe fling. That wasn’t going to happen.
Tonight, though…tonight she could have him again.
Or, to be honest, tonight she couldn’t refuse him. She rose onto her toes and brought his head down for a kiss. “Let’s go to my bed,” she said against his mouth, certain she could distract him from any promises. “I want more magic.”
Chapter Eleven
Thank God, Trey thought, as Mia pulled him through the door to her basement apartment. He’d been one breath away from begging. The afternoon and evening had been just what she’d said—magic. Paris deserved the acclaim it received and he supposed the only way he’d avoided its influence on previous visits was that he’d been the Trey Blackthorne that hadn’t seen any value for the company or his position in walking the streets, breathing in the air, holding the hand of a beautiful mermaid/nymph/fairy.
But of course, if she hadn’t been there, then this Trey, the one who laughed and overate and who’d fed her from his own fork, wouldn’t have emerged from the drab shell that was the overly prescribed existence of his previous thirty-four years.
Mia turned to him now, her smile coy as she shut the door behind them. “You get comfortable while I shower.”
He caught her hand as she began to walk away. “Company?”
“I think you might have seen my shower. We both couldn’t stand in it, let alone do anything more creative.” Her fingers slipped free.
She scampered off and he grinned at the sassy smile she threw over her shoulder and appreciated the peachy curve of her ass dressed in tight denim. Perhaps he’d bite her there.
His grin widened at the idea and he drifted into her bedroom that smelled of her sweet-spicy perfume and was scattered with personal belongings—more scarves, a handful of charcoal pencils, an open sketchbook lying on the duvet over the bed.
Of course he had to move that. They were going to be using that bed.
Before snapping the cover shut, his eyes happened to fall onto the open page where a naked man was half-drawn. Headless, a torso, then the top of the thighs, the figure’s sex not yet detailed. He took another look.
“Hell,” he muttered, and tossed the book to the bedside table, then crossed to the mirror hanging over the dresser. Shoving up his sweater and shirt, he studied his reflection. “That’s me.”
Should he be offended? Flattered? And why had she left off drawing the parts any man would hope might leave the biggest impression? He crossed back to the pad, grabbed it up and studied it again, frowning at the blurry section, where it appeared she’d attempted to capture the likeness of his stuff but then erased her lines.
“I decided I needed another look in order to get that area just right.”
Mia stood in the narrow doorway leading to the bathroom, her hair damp around her face and her body covered in a bath sheet from chest to knees.
“You drew me,” he said.
“A habit. I draw lots of things. Everything.”
Turnabout was fair play, he decided, amused by the idea. “Then I get to draw you back,” he said.
Her eyebrows shot high. “You sketch?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” He settled onto the mattress, back propped up against the headboard, legs straight, his ankles crossed. With a determined air, he turned to a fresh page and picked up a pencil discarded on the bedside table. Looking to her again, he tilted his head this way and that.
With his free hand, he made a little gesture. “Lose the towel please.”
Her face and the skin from her neck to her collarbones turned a delicious pink. “What?”
“Drop the towel.”
“But—”
“You drew me naked,” he said reasonably.
“Except you weren’t here at the time, uh, being naked.”
“Mia,” he said, pretending to muster patience. “Is it my fault my memory isn’t as good as yours?”
She blinked. “You don’t recall what I look like with my clothes off?”
Every centimeter of creamy skin, every occasional golden freckle, the exact shade of peachy-pink of her nipples when they were soft and the darker shade when they were hard.
“Remind me,” he said with a bland smile.
After another moment, with a little hmmph, she wiggled inside the towel and then let it go. Terry cloth fell to her feet, leaving her damp body uncovered for his gaze. For his pleasure.
Gorgeous.
Maybe his jaw dropped a little. He knew his pants shrank by a size or three as he stared at her figure, the full breasts, slender waist, and hips curved-to-perfection. Her toenails were painted a shimmery pink that matched the color of her mouth as she wet it with her tongue.
Oh, God. He’d have to start thinking of winter—snow, icicles, the mud room at the King Harbor estate that Pam O’Reilly, the housekeeper, complained never was adequately heated no matter how many repairmen came to address the problem. At Christmas, you’d freeze your balls off just removing your boots.
“Aren’t you going to start drawing?” Mia asked, and it was Coy Mia talking, a smile just shy of a smirk tipping the corners of her tempting lips.
“In a minute,” he said, gripping the pencil tighter. As if he could tear his gaze away from that body, with the small indentation of her navel and the light dusting of auburn hair at the juncture of her thighs. So light, that her sex was not hidden from him, but only veiled, making it even more desirable.
His head went dizzy as additional blood rushed to the lower portion of his anatomy.
“In more than one of my classes we had to take turns posing for each other,” she said. “So I’m more comfortable with my body than you might think.”
What he didn’t like to think about was her nudity being revealed to the gaze of any number of other men. Or other women, for that matter.
Okay, this was new, he thought, tamping down a feeling he suspected might be jealousy—or worse, possessiveness. He’d never turned caveman before, but he was learning all kinds of things about himself on this trip.
“Would you prefer I pose like this?” Mia said, turning so that her back lined up with the doorjamb and he had her in glorious profile. As he watched, the temptress arched her spine, bringing her breasts into unforgettable prominence. He swallowed a groan.
“Or how about this?” She made another quarter pivot so her back was presented to him.
“That,” he choked out. “Stay like that.” His gaze avid, he took his fill of her, from the delicate shoulders to the small of her back, and then to the rise of her spectacular ass.
Definitely going to bite her there.
“Oh, I should pick up my towel,” she said in this faux-innocent voice that set a match to his blood, making it burn even hotter. Then she bent at the waist, legs straight, her posterior pointed straight at him, and he was certain he would lose his mind, if not his dignity.
“Mia,” he said, raspy and commanding. “Get the hell over here.”
Straightening slowly, she glanced at him over her shoulder. Coy again. Oh, she still pretended she didn’t know exactly what she was doing to him. “Did you finish your portrait, Trey?”
“Count to five,” he said, “then you better rush that naked glory of yours over here or you won’t like the consequences.”
Her laugh sounded more like a giggle and then she breathily counted out each number. At “three,” he finally applied pencil hurriedly to paper, both which he threw aside when she spun to face him. His arms spread wide, he said, “Move it, sexy girl. Don’t make me wait.”
He hadn’t considered the lucky outcome of her running to him. Her bouncing breasts made his lust spike and his arms closed around her as she leaped into them. Instantly he rolled, trapping her beneath his body. His lips dropped onto hers and he kissed her, claiming her mouth, sucking her tongue into his, as one hand wandered to her breast, fondling the soft skin. The other snaked around to cup her round butt and her legs opened wide to cradle him then wrapped about his hips.
A frustrated noise came from low in her throat. “Take off your clothes.”
Another swift, hard kiss, then he sat up. As he reached for the hem of his sweater, her gaze moved past him to the sketchbook and she leaned over to swipe it up. Her lips pursed in disapproval when she looked at the image he’d wrought. If you could call it an image—two curving vertical lines that indented toward each other in the middle, topped by two circles on top with dots at their center representing nipples.
“Picasso couldn’t have done any better,” he said, yanking off his top layer. Then he went for his belt. “Admit it.”
She laughed, then lay back on the pillows to watch him remove the rest of his clothes. “I expected better of you, Trey.”
“Maybe I just need a little more up-close observation.”
And then he did that, observed, up close, with his eyes and his mouth and his tongue. She clutched at his shoulders and his hair as he teased her without mercy, using the stubble of whiskers that the Trey he’d been before Paris would have close-shaved away before going out on a date, let alone going to bed with a woman.
Mia didn’t object, she moaned and arched and all-around let him know she was enjoying herself. And then it was he who was groaning while her mouth explored him until he fumbled for the condom he’d thrown on the bedside table.
He rolled it on but when she opened her legs he went down on her instead, reveling in her scent and wetness, thinking this was Paris too, Mia’s feminine mystique, the elixir of her arousal making his heart slam against his chest and his shaft so hard he shook as he slid his fingers inside her and imagined they were his erection, claiming the urban mermaid.
Taking her magic as his own. She came apart in his arms and against his mouth and then she urged him over her body. She cried out again when he slowly entered, watching her lovely face soften and her eyes drift close. Then he was done with slow, the heated clasp of her body urging him on, causing him to drive in steady and strong, to make a place for himself in her clasping, welcoming heat.
Making a place for himself that no one could take away.
He touched her clit as his balls tightened, stroking the bundle of nerves until she clutched at him and came, and he followed after. The two of them, wrapped up in Parisian magic.
In the aftermath, with her small warm body curled in Trey’s arms, he recalled she hadn’t answered him when he’d suggested an extended fling. He hadn’t been kidding. And now he decided it was a great idea, maybe his best idea yet, and he could see it would serve as the ideal transitional period between Trey Blackthorne, Executive Vice President of Operations, and Trey Blackthorne, man who didn’t know what the hell he was going to do with the rest of his life.
But for a few weeks he could fool around and have fun and scoop up the leftover glitter Mia left strewn behind in the wake of her smiles and her laughter.
Smiles and laughter that he brought out in her. He thought he could be a transition for her, too. They could help each other through unusual points in their lives and then they’d move on separately, more clear-headed for sure. Physically sated, what a bonus.
“We can be each other’s transition persons,” he said and she stirred, her head coming up to look at him, her beautiful eyes—now the dark green of a settled pool—drowsy.
“What?” she said.
“I’ll explain later, baby.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re gonna like it.”
Mia couldn’t feel her fingertips, not after digging them into the sheet-covered mattress, and her toes were numb too, she’d clenched them so hard as she came. The man responsible sat on the edge of her bed, his phone having buzzed with an incoming text on his way back from the bathroom.
“Mom’s invited us to breakfast,” Trey said. “Fifteen minutes.”
On her stomach, she buried her face in the pillow. “Oh, God, I can’t believe you stayed the whole night,” she said.
He laughed, then slipped the covers down below her naked behind and palmed the revealed curves. “You’re not glad it wasn’t a stranger who woke you up an hour ago for another hot round?”
She couldn’t stop the shiver rolling down her spine at the memories, at the casual exposure of her bare assets, at the big hand so familiarly molding her flesh. “I can’t have breakfast with your mother. She’ll know what we’ve done.”
His palm gave her another sweet caress. “She has seven sons. This kind of knowledge is not new to her.”
“I’m certain it’s not always right in her face.” Mia’s skin heated everywhere. “I think you gave me a hickey on my neck, Trey.”
“Really?” he sounded a combination of interested and amused. “I’m usually more circumspect.” His hand slid
to her hip and he rolled her over, his gaze going to her throat.
His eyes widened.
Her hands clapped over the spot where he stared. “It’s horrible. How could you do something so horrible?”
Instead of apologizing—or better yet, groveling—he leaned down to take her mouth in a tender, thorough kiss making her forget she was mad at him.
“God,” he said, lifting his head. “I know I should be ashamed…but I’m not. Didn’t they find Neanderthal remains in France? We can blame the caveman influence.”
“It wasn’t anyone thousands of years old who woke me up by sucking on my neck,” she grumbled, rolling toward the other side of the bed.
He laughed again, reaching for her, but she managed to slide away and ran for the bathroom. “You can shower after me.”
When she faced him again, damp from the spray, she was protected by her robe and a new attitude. They’d had their fun, their Paris magic, and thanks to circumstances and her common sense, their time together was ending. Practically over. Today she’d say goodbye, and it would hardly hurt at all, not with all the good memories still vivid enough to disguise the pain.
Trey passed with a brief peck to her temple on his way into the bathroom, and a few minutes later they approached the penthouse door. With his key out, Trey hesitated. Mia took the opportunity to inhale a calming, morning-after, facing-the-mother-of-the-lover breath and adjusted the silk scarf wrapped around her throat.
There. Now she felt completely fine. Completely adult.
“You’re my first,” Trey said.
She turned her head. “What?”
“I had to set a good example as the oldest Blackthorne. Always be discreet. Never do anything to get talked about. So you’re my first hickey.”
She stared at him. “Why are you sharing this?”
He shrugged. “Because I surprised myself by it.”
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