Broken French: A widowed, billionaire, single dad romance

by Natasha Boyd

  I sucked and licked and an urgency grew as her body responded. I switched sides, giving the same attention, loving how she arched and writhed, her leg hooking onto mine. I sucked harder, teeth nipping, hands kneading, testing how much she wanted. She cried out, a guttural sound, and her lower body surged toward me, seeking relief. Her hands gripped my hair in a tight fist that bordered on painful. Good. She was no fragile flower. Because my need was so brutal right now I was likely to break her. I should take my time, I knew I should. But she’d been invading my mind and body for weeks, and my greed for her knew no bounds now that it was unleashed.

  I left her breasts, sucking and biting and devouring her skin as I moved down. It would leave marks, and somehow, I wanted to. I shoved her legs apart, and she spread them wide. I boldly lifted one, pressing it back, opening her fully. My dick strained against the bedding and towel beneath me, urging me to rut with the bed just to get some relief. Especially as I inhaled the scent of her, lightly soapy from her shower laced with the faint musk of her arousal that glistened in her pink folds and on her tight little entrance.

  My mouth watered, and lightening zipped down to my balls. I was in danger of coming too soon. I tried to slow myself down. I breathed her in and snuck my tongue out for a quick taste, licking up the seam of her.

  She gasped and thrust her hips up. I did it again. Softly. Torturing us both, trying to slow my heart down that pounded so heavily she could probably feel the vibration through the bed. I began whispering things between each little taste. French things. Things I knew she couldn’t understand, and it made me feel free. Things about her body only, to remind myself this was just sex. I told her how gorgeous her pussy was. How pink. How perfect. How sweet. How wet. How she’d bewitched me. With my fingers, I spread her open, tasting deeper. Telling her how I couldn’t wait to be inside her. I tested her with my fingers, the burning heat closing over my skin. The sounds she made like last night in the club, sang through my senses. I closed my whole mouth over her, tongue probing, and ending with a deep suck on her clit.

  She thrashed and her legs tensed. “Xavier,” she whimpered. “Please.”

  I did it again, and again, honed in on that sweet spot with rhythmic persistence. Inside her, my finger pressed upward.

  “God. Yes.” Her hands held my head, her body hardly moving it was coiled so tightly. “Right there. Please don’t stop.” She didn’t even breathe. It was like every single part of her stopped and coiled as I worked her.

  She waited.

  She strained.

  And then she snapped. Her back arched, her hips bucked. I felt the shudder as it rolled down her body, and a cry tore through her and reverberated around the room. The sound slammed into my gut, imprinting itself on my memory. I took one last taste, her body quaking in an aftershock, then gave a small kiss to the little cut that had left a blood smear on her thigh. My hips were grinding into the bed. God. I needed her so bad.

  Fuck. “I have no protection,” I gritted out. And it wouldn’t take long. There was no chance I’d be able to withdraw.

  She pulled me up to her, hands running over my face, caressing me, running through my air. “I’m on the pill. I’m religious about it. I’m clean. I—are you?” Her eyes were warm, luminous, watery, questioning.

  “It’s been more than two years—” the confession was out before I stopped myself. Fuck. I squeezed my eyes closed against the fleeting look that crossed her Josie’s flushed face. I didn’t need her pity. “Yes, I’m clean.” I gave the answer I should have before.

  “Then come inside me,” she whispered, her thumb pad running over my closed eyelids. “No rules, remember?”

  Jesus. I never did that. Never. But …

  I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want to. Didn’t want her to see something I didn’t want to show. Eyes still closed, I sought her lips, kissing her languidly, letting her taste herself on my tongue. Then I pushed upward on my arms, and slipping a hand under her back, roughly flipped her over to her belly.

  She squeaked.

  Now my eyes opened and I feasted on her. Her ass. I grabbed the soft skin. Pushed, kneaded. I dug my fingers into the skin and ran my hand up her spine and fisted it in her hair. “No rules. Two days. Just sex,” I said.

  Her neck arched and she gasped.

  I let her hair go and pulled her hips up. My cock was ready to yell at me. I closed my hand around the hard length and found her wetness, running my tip up and down. Readying it. “That’s all it can be.”

  “I-I know.”

  I notched my cock at her entrance and warred with my patience. My stomach clenched as I willed the wave of lust to recede just a bit. The boat rocked, and I slipped farther inside. I groaned and tried to stop myself. I wasn’t ready for it to be over, but she rocked back, taking more and letting out a soft cry.

  I gritted my teeth, stopping myself from pressing in farther, hands digging into her hips. She was so tight. So hot. “God, I love your body,” I breathed, my eyes greedily taking in the view. As my gaze slipped up her back past her shoulder, it snagged on hers. Her face lay sideways, pressed to the pillow, cheek flushed, mouth slightly parted, eyes soft—watching me. Her fingers clutched the bedding, knuckles white.

  “No rules,” she whispered. “Just let go. I’ve got you.”

  “Ah, fuck,” I breathed. “I know.” I slipped forward. “I know you do.” And she did. That was the most terrifying thing. I switched to French. “I’m worried I won’t be able to stop wanting you,” I admitted, knowing she couldn’t understand, and hissed as the feel of her enclosing the length of me swept up my body and down my legs. Pressure grew in the base of my spine. I gritted my teeth and withdrew, letting myself slam forward. Knowing, trusting, that she could take it. Again. Again. Words fell from my lips, but I wasn’t cognizant of them. It took all my effort to try and stave off the explosion that was building. She’d started by meeting my thrusts, and now she braced herself, back arched, offering what I was taking. Sweat beaded and pooled, rolling down my temple and splashing on her skin. She still watched me. I could feel it. I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to. I thrust harder, punishing myself for my weakness. Punishing her for it. Making myself wait. Finding the last of my control from the very depths of me. Admitting to myself I was taking advantage of her attraction to me. Of her love for my daughter. And hating myself for it. Because I knew if I opened my eyes, hers would be telling me it wasn’t just sex, and it wasn’t just two days, and there were rules. And we were going to smash everything down. Including ourselves.

  My eyes snapped open. She was there to meet me with everything I already knew. In that moment, something inside me snapped free. I wished we were face to face, my body cradled in hers as she took me in. I sank down, my chest to her back, hands slipping down her arms and entwining with her fingers, the need for connection overriding every argument I had. I rocked my hips, rolling out and thrusting back in. The angle had changed and she cried out and pressed back, seeking more. I buried my face in her hair and let her surround me. I was giving in to it. Giving in to her. Letting go like she asked.

  I couldn’t.

  I shouldn’t.

  This way lay utter destruction. I’d been down this road before, and I wouldn’t go again.

  But my body wouldn’t listen.

  Josie’s soft cries and needy whimpers held me captive. Her fingers gripped mine as if I could be her salvation. Or she could be mine.

  I had to pull back. I had to. Too late, the sensations boiled over, catapulting through me, dragging destruction and absolution in their wake. “Joséphine.” Her name tore through my lips as I let go, pouring myself out and leaving myself like a broken dam and utterly exposed.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  JOSIE

  The weight of Xavier—hot, hard, and sweaty—pressed me into the bed, teasing out the last of my orgasm. It was soft and rolling on the heels of his. Not near the explosiveness of the first one he’d given me with his mouth and hands, but no le
ss intense. Deeper even. The feel of his breath in my hair and on the back of my neck underscored the utter rawness of the moment.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling the moisture that had gathered and the rise of emotion that had just choked my throat closed. Shit. Crying after sex? This was new. I tried to even my breath before I sobbed and utterly embarrassed myself.

  Something had just happened. I’d felt it, experienced it as it happened to him, and whatever it was had tried to grab at my heart, trying to take me with it. What I’d just experienced had felt a lot less like fucking and a lot more like making love. Maybe it was a French thing. Perhaps this was what lovers were like in France. Soul sex, with lots of emotion, but able to simply switch it off. If this was his idea of just sex, two days, no rules, I was in so much trouble.

  His hand brushed my hair off my damp shoulder and his lips, soft and prickly with his stubble, pressed against my skin.

  I cringed into the pillow, fighting off the way his tenderness was confusing me, the way it made my eyes leak. He’d been rough in the beginning. Rougher than I was used to. Rough in a way I didn’t know I liked, apparently. The memory of it prickled over my skin. The roughness kept things simple.

  He needed to get up right now and clean up and leave me here. I was inside out.

  He eased off me. Out of me. I was bereft. “Dis moi …” he whispered.

  I wondered if he knew how often he’d slipped into French with me in the last little while. I wondered what it meant that he wasn’t mentally checking himself. Listening to him mumbling in French, saying God knew what, as he did those wicked things to my body, was just about the most erotic thing I’d experienced. I groaned and squeezed my thighs together. I wanted him again. This was bad.

  His fingers caressed my hair again. I turned my face away so he was on my other side. I wasn’t ready to look at him yet.

  “Josie,” he murmured. “Are you okay? Tell me … did I hurt you? I’m sorry.” His lips found my shoulder, my spine. Warmth moved through me.

  I answered him in my head. Not yet. But you will. Of that I’m sure.

  Counting silently to three, I turned my face to the side he was on, trusting that the pillow had wiped away all traces of my strange emotional reaction. He lay, temple propped up on one hand, looking down at me. His blue eyes were soft and dark. Intense.

  The boat’s rocking had calmed, though the engine still chugged, propelling us on our journey. “That was an interesting way of taking my mind off feeling seasick,” I mumbled and watched as his mouth spread into an open smile.

  I closed my eyes. “Don’t do that,” I grumbled.

  “What? Smile at you?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Are you so grumpy?” He trailed fingers down my spine to the curve of my ass. He was obsessed. My flesh rose with sparks in his wake. “I would have thought you’d be relaxed now.”

  “Like you are?” I mused. “You’re like a tamed panther.”

  “But still hungry. Hungry animals are never tame.” His palm circled over one mound, then the other before his fingers trailed up the crease.

  I was awash with aching heat again. I couldn’t believe I could be turned on again so quickly. Nor that he’d gone so long without sex. With the stamina and skill he had, it was a crime to deny the world so long. Ugh. Jealousy thumped me in the gut quick and hard.

  His hand left my back and his finger pressed between my eyebrows. “What happens in your mind when you get this line?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s stupid.”

  He waited, gaze on mine.

  “I was jealous of all the other women. Past and future.”

  Seconds passed and then he flopped onto his back, both arms coming up to cradle his head, and he stared at the ceiling, letting out a long breath.

  A chill swept over me at the loss of his heat.

  Me and my big mouth. I shifted, wincing at the feel of him, sticky and slick between my legs. I’d never let anyone do that. It was so intimate. And dangerous, to be honest. But this man could get anything from me. I should clean up. Finding the towel from my earlier shower bunched up beneath me, I made a move to get up and cover myself.

  His hand shot out to my arm. “Reste un moment.” He shook his head. “Stay? S’il te plait.”

  I grabbed the edge of the duvet and pulled it over me and rolled toward him.

  “Don’t hide.”

  “I’m not. I’m cold.”

  Looking down his body, I saw he was hard again.

  He followed my gaze and chuckled. “Lots of time to make up for,” he joked.

  “Surely … surely there have been others. Other chances?”

  His smile faded. “My life has been all about Dauphine and work. I know it seems easy from the outside. Other single parents have it harder. After all, I have a mother and plenty of staff who want to look after her. But,” he paused, brow furrowing as if thinking how to express himself, “I was scared. Scared I would not be a good father, and Dauphine would grow up being like her mother. I … keep looking for the signs. I don’t … it doesn’t seem like much else is important. I have my work. Many new challenges. Inventions. And I have my daughter.” He seemed to be dancing around something else. “I don’t like the way people—women—look at me. Like I’m broken. Tragic. A man to be pitied. Or saved. I am broken. I’m very aware of it. But it’s my business. And I don’t like to see it in people’s faces. In women’s eyes who think they can fix me. I don’t want to be fixed. I don’t trust easily. Not after Arriette. And I want to keep it that way. It’s safer. It works. But that hasn’t left me many opportunities. Women always want more.”

  Wow. Offense taken. I was equally awash with pity for him and sadness for us. And hurt. As if he was rejecting me personally. “Everyone should want more. Everyone should expect more.”

  He didn’t offer a response.

  It was one thing knowing the man you were with had walls. Quite another being personally told about their height, their breadth, and their utter impenetrability. And being warned not to try and scale them lest I be just another one of those women. Was I supposed to feel lucky he picked me? I was on the verge of feeling used. Irritation bubbled. No. I knew what the parameters were. What he wanted them to be anyway. I swallowed the bitter sting of rejection and hopelessness that rose up in me and tried to lighten the mood. “And now I get to be the lucky girl who enjoys this for a few days?” I reached out and closed my hand around his girth. Internally, I winced at the superficiality of my response. It sounded hollow to my own ears. But what other response could I have?

  He took my hand off him and brought it to his mouth and kissed the back. Then he sat up. “I should let you get ready. We’ll be docking soon.”

  Whatever connection we’d found during our lovemaking, because I was sure that’s what it had turned into, had waned in the aftermath. “Sure,” I said. “Are we still going to dinner?” I asked because, frankly, after what he’d just said, it would be anyone’s guess. I mean, wasn’t taking a woman you were sleeping with out for dinner kind of romantic? A way to get closer? Talk more? Have her ending up wanting more?

  “Yes, of course,” he said.

  Right. “What should I wear?”

  “Not that gold thing, or we won’t leave the boat,” he said with a laugh as he pulled his shirt from the floor and punched his arms through.

  “I don’t have a lot to choose from, but I’ll figure something out.”

  He stood and pulled on his underwear and shorts, fastening the button. He raked his one hand through his dark hair, then leaned forward and gave me a quick kiss. “You always look beautiful. Wear whatever you like.” Then he winked and unlocked the door and left.

  I flopped back on the bed.

  Good God, I was confused.

  We docked in a small port near Calvi that sat nestled beneath plunging cliffs and a huge, ancient wall. “Whoa,” I breathed out the word, shading my ey
es as we approached. The sun was setting across the ocean behind me, to the west, and the light danced up the limestone cliffs, making the rocks look like pure gold.

  Andrea joined me on the bow. “You look lovely,” she said.

  I’d embellished my simple black linen dress with a gorgeous jade green and turquoise necklace I’d bought with Andrea in St. Tropez. It brought out my eyes, if I did say so myself. I’d borne witness to that in the bathroom mirror after my second shower of the afternoon. “Thank you.”

  “You doing all right?” she asked.

  “Stratospheric,” I replied.

  She gave a grim smile. “That’s a long way to fall.”

  “No kidding.” I squeezed her hand. “Enjoy your time off.”

  “You too.” She winked and left me.

  I was due to join Xavier on the top deck, but I needed a second to myself in the fresh air. We were the only boat on the one long pier, side-to, probably due to the depth of the water available and the size of the boat.

  Rod was moving around, tying things up and righting things that had fallen. He and Chef would probably take a while to get off the boat. Andrea must have pulled the long straw because I watched her stride down the concrete jetty away from us to the gate at the end.

  After my shower, I’d checked my email again for any responses to my applications. There was an email from my mom. She’d sent me her contact’s name at the Charleston Historic Foundation. I was pretty sure I might even enjoy working there for a while. Certainly, the contacts in the city would be invaluable. People who valued what I did and weren’t out to make the fastest buck. Then after that, who knew? I hadn’t heard from anyone else, but for some reason, I still resisted applying.

  I’d keep in touch with Madame too, regardless of what happened here with Xavier. There was a lot I could learn from her that could be useful in my work back in Charleston. Besides, I genuinely liked her. So to that end, I’d messaged her and formally asked her if I could stay and shadow her for a week before returning home while I figured out my next steps. I’d give myself one more week in France, not the weeks she’d suggested, so I could minimize my run-ins with Xavier after this two-day affair was over. She responded immediately with the word: Absolument! Which I took to mean absolutely in French.