The Chocolate Touch

by Laura Florand

  He sank one too-big hand into that short hair, curling halfway around her skull, and then drew it down over her neck, over her shoulder, down her arm, heavily, petting her for real.

  She sighed and sank back against the door.

  His body kicked into overdrive. That was a yes.

  He pressed his hand low over her belly between the sheltering panels of his jacket and rubbed it up over her ribs, a slow drag, until it was just below her breasts, and her eyes were closed, and her lips were parted. “Jaime,” he whispered, her name sounding so much like something else that fear and desire knocked through him, some strange wild harmony.

  She shivered and turned her head a little to the side, the line of her chin and throat all exposed to him. So he took the offer, brushed his lips very gently from the corner of her mouth, over the line of her jaw, down her throat.

  “Jaime,” he whispered, and his heart tried to stop in pure terror at the word, but his body kept it going. “What’s your code?”

  Her hands sank into his hair. He had to force himself enough away from her that she could turn in the tight shelter of his body, her shoulder rubbing against his chest, and tap it in.

  Don’t be stupid, some voice from his teenage past wanted to tell her. Don’t let me see your code. Don’t let me in. He quelled it ruthlessly.

  When the door released, he pushed it open instantly and herded her inside, letting the door close behind them, shutting out the street, shutting them into darkness. In that darkness, he lifted her up, riding her on his thigh so he could free a hand, running it up to cup the breast he had just resisted on the public street. His mouth closed over hers, and this time her lips were already parted for him.

  A door—to something of value—that was open for him. That welcomed him in.

  She liked to eat things in slow bites, he reminded himself. She liked to sit there for hours. She liked to take her time. So he gave himself to her in slow bites, a flicker of his tongue, a taste of hers, a nibble of her lips, an elusive slide of his. It was so hard his body shook with it. His forearms corded against the door on either side of her head with the effort to keep himself off her. Her arms clutching his back were all that were holding her up on his thigh.

  He loved that. He loved the way she clung to him.

  He had to force his mouth away from hers again, panting. “Tell me where to go.” He must sound like a savage. A man who had no control.

  She showed him the stairs, and he picked her up so that her legs were wrapped around his hips and carried her up them.

  He had to stop a few times because his breath was too short, and not from the stairs or the weight. He had to stop and kiss her, grabbing onto the banister so he kept some purchase in the world of her kisses and didn’t send them tumbling down the stairs.

  She liked this. She liked it. She liked the taste of him.

  He had to take the key from her at her door because she seemed so lost in kisses, she could let him kiss her against her door forever. But if there was one door in his life he was going to get open, it was that one, by God.

  He got them in, then threw the deadbolt on the whole damn world outside.

  Bed, he reminded himself as he looked around, managing a blurred vision of a small space, of hardwood floors and red curtains. No walls, no floors. Bed. Or maybe a couch, because one was right there and—Bed!

  The suitcase on the floor of her bedroom made his heart flinch, curling from a blow. The lid was propped up against the wall, and it was fully packed, with a few clothes folded loosely on top of a dresser. She hadn’t even put her clothes in the drawers in the room. She was living out of her suitcase, ready to go.

  He ignored his heart. No one in his life had ever dealt with it with much patience, including himself, and he wasn’t about to start now.

  He turned on the nearest lamp, and she stiffened against him and pulled away.

  “I don’t—turn it off,” she entreated.

  He paused with his hand on the switch. “Really?” he asked, disappointed. She stood there in that midnight blue tunic that didn’t even show the mark of his hands where he had slid them on her body, but her face was so flushed, her mouth so full and bruised looking, her eyes so dark and hungry. He wouldn’t be able to see whether the rest of her body blushed in the dark, or where her freckles went, or what happened to them under his hands.

  Her mouth grew stubborn. She started to fold her arms around herself.

  He turned the lamp off.

  In the light from the street, he could still see her, but more as a lighter form in shadow. He couldn’t make out those pale freckles or shades of blush. Next time, he promised as he reached for her, alarming himself with his continual attempts to make this long-term.

  She knelt suddenly on the high bed, bringing her face level with his, and when his mouth closed on hers this time, her hands slid under his shirt and found the T-shirt underneath. Damn it, he had worn too many clothes. But she pushed that barrier away, too, slid the knit up his skin.

  He pushed his jacket off her, which drove her hands away from him, then grabbed them back and brought them to the buttons on his shirt.

  “I can’t believe you—” She broke off, kissing him, just like he had dreamed she would, long and slow as if she could savor him forever.

  “Can’t believe what?” he asked against her mouth, attacking his own buttons from the bottom since she was taking so long from the top. But his own hands got lost, too, slipping away from his forgotten buttons, running over her body through the knit tunic. He got her belt off, dropped away that annoying metal that kept getting in the way of his hands.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered, sliding her hands all over his chest through his double layers of shirt. “I don’t care.”

  He couldn’t bite his own tongue to shut himself up, because it kept getting tangled with hers, and so he heard himself protesting, in a breath against her mouth as he took her down onto the bed, “Yes, it does. It does matter. I care.”

  His heart went wild to see her lying there for him. He drew her low, slouchy boots off, running his hands down her legs through the thin leggings, over slim, stubborn muscles, too thin but not weak. His hand curled slowly around that thin calf, harder than he should. He stared down at it, not looking at her. “Tell me the truth,” he said suddenly, harshly, in the dark. “Are you sick? Have you had cancer? Are you all right?”

  A moment’s silence while he waited in paralyzed fear for the response, not at all sure what he would do with it. But, “No.” She sounded angry. “I’m perfectly fine.”

  He did an involuntary tally of the calories she must be consuming in his shop. Unless she didn’t eat one single other thing, it didn’t add up. “Do you eat normal food?”

  “No.” Definite anger in her voice. He was ruining the mood, idiot that he was. “I only eat the best food in the world. But yes, that includes lots of healthy servings of fruits and vegetables.” She didn’t actually say Back off, but her tone rang with it.

  “Pardon.” He slid back up her body, propping himself on his elbows above her on the bed. “I just—” His thumb stroked her cheekbone. Her skin felt so soft, the bone under it so strong and so delicate at the same time. “I just—” What had he been going to say?

  He lowered his head and kissed her again, and this time he didn’t have any trouble taking a long, long, long slow time. He rolled over onto his back, pulling her on top of him so he could feel her weight, still kissing her. He dragged her hands back to his buttons. “Take it off,” he whispered against her mouth. “Please. I want to feel your hands.”

  He knew better than to take her clothes off yet. She might be able to spend an hour savoring him, but he was pretty sure that as soon as he got her naked, he would devour her.

  She pushed herself up on his chest, her palms pressing into his muscles, and looked at him. Why wouldn’t she let him turn on the light? He was positive she must be blushing. But she sat all the way up, knees slipping to either side of his hips
to straddle him and his very unmistakable arousal.

  She had to be blushing. She had to be. And when his hips surged up against hers uncontrollably like a beast that kept slipping off leash, she had to be. She drew her lower lip in under her teeth, and longing squeezed him in one hard fist. He grabbed her fingers, pressing the tips of them against his buttons. At last, she gave them her attention.

  He kept thinking he couldn’t get more aroused, and she kept proving him wrong. Feeling her hands slip the panels of his shirt away and smooth over his T-shirt, feeling her ride his arousal as she did it, pressing down on him without flinching, feeling her hands push his T-shirt up, sliding over his skin . . . desire shook him like a worthless cur. No.

  No, that wasn’t right.

  Desire shook him like some sparkly, beautiful star from which she wanted to wring all light.

  He sat up to let her pull the shirt over his head, and that brought them face to face, with her astride him still. “Ma minette,” he whispered, running his hands down her arms and catching her wrists, stretching her hands away from him before he lost it. “Can I have more than one try?”

  She pressed her face into the join of his neck and shoulder and nodded.

  CHAPTER 9

  Yet another reason to insist on no light, the blush she could feel covering her entire body. Her skin transparently showing the heat he generated inside her.

  He made her so hot. And so warm, both. She had no idea what had inspired him to give himself to her, but like some dry, desperate sponge, she was going to soak up every last bit of him that she could. He could wring her every way he wanted, afterward, to get himself back, she would still have him, have some of him to keep.

  She just hoped he got something out of it, too.

  She turned her head from his throat, pressing kisses over those big shoulders. Why did a chocolatier-pâtissier have such shoulders? His work was physical, but this was brute strength, here, the shoulders of someone who did heavy construction or who devoted serious effort at the gym to maintaining them. She squeezed her hands into the biceps that matched them, letting her fingernails test their resilience. He had taken a shower between his work and meeting her, washing away the chocolate scent that made her feel she was coming home. Here, in the night, his scent was his own essence, the cacao in it elusive, as if she could chase it all over his body and still find only him. The scent of totally new territory.

  So why did it feel like the place she wanted to belong?

  “Jaime.” Her silked-out name shivered over her.

  “What?” she whispered, trailing her lips over his chest.

  It rose and fell. He pulled her hips in harder against his. “Nothing.” One of his hands dragged over her back, through the knit. “I just like saying your name.” His hands scooped under her bottom, flexing into the muscles there. “Say mine.”

  She pressed her face into his chest and let him feel her grin. “Monsieur?”

  His fingers flexed punishingly into her bottom. “That’s not funny.”

  Really? Well, maybe she did have a peculiar sense of humor.

  He pulled her head back from his chest enough to look at her in the darkness. “Well, maybe a little funny,” he allowed. “Some other time.”

  This wasn’t a one-night deal? Some other time they might play erotic games? Maybe “some other time” was just a figure of speech. She wrapped her arms suddenly as much around him as she could, squeezing herself hard to him, as if she could imprint all that heat of him inside her body forever.

  She must have been stronger than she realized, for she felt the breath leave him, puffing against her head. He pushed her tunic up until his hands were rough against her bare back, and that made her shiver all over. They were so rough. They were so big. They were so . . . tender. Her whole body wanted to cry out like parched earth for rain at that strength and that tenderness, as if he healed everything about her. “Say my name,” he said again.

  “Dominique Richard.”

  He shook her hips in punishment, a tiny movement that rocked her tormentingly against him. “Just me.”

  She loosed her stranglehold on him enough to slide one hand down his arm while with the other she still held on tight. Those muscles in his arms. The way they flexed to her touch. “Dominique.”

  He rolled them down, onto his back, then twisted them onto their sides, pulling her leggings off her, those rough big palms scraping over her naked butt and all the way down her legs. She twisted restlessly, cool air flowing against her sex. He had caught her panties with the clinging material of the leggings. She wasn’t sure at first he realized it, covered as she still was by the long tunic.

  Then his hands slid slowly, excruciatingly slowly, back up her bare legs and . . . he realized it.

  “Chérie,” he whispered into her mouth, kissing her again and again as his hand rubbed her open. “Do you want me so much then?”

  Of course, he couldn’t see that she was all one big blush, but it wasn’t as if her wet and hungry sex was being any more subtle about it. She twisted against him, burying her face in his body, nodding helplessly as her arms wrapped around him, slid over him.

  “Do you, Jaime? Do you really?” He slipped the tip of one of those big, blunt fingers just a half-inch into her. She panted against him, the top of her head pressed hard into his chest so that she could hide her face from him and see his hand between her thighs at the same time. Her fingers dug into him frantically. “Just a little bit?” he whispered to the back of her head, slipping his finger a tiny bit farther into her. “Just a little at a time?”

  She twisted her head back and forth against his chest, wildly denying it. No, not a little bit. All, all, all.

  But he ignored her, letting his finger sink only one half-inch more.

  “I like this,” he breathed to the back of her head. “Oh, I like it, the feel of you yielding to me. You like it, too, don’t you, chérie, you like taking me inside you. Tell me you do.”

  Her fingers dug and dragged against the muscles of his back. “I do.” She felt close to weeping with desire, but her lower body was doing that already for her. “You have to know I do.”

  “I want you to tell me.” His finger slid just a little deeper, his other hand curved around her thigh, not forcing her but encouraging her to be still for him. The walls of her sex yielded to him and then squeezed back tight against him, her lips curled hungrily over him. “I like you to tell me.”

  Oh, yes, praise. He liked praise. She let her head fall back so he could see all of her, her desperation. “I love it,” she whispered. “I love it. I want you inside of me. I won’t get enough of you. I want you. Don’t—don’t torment me.”

  “Torment you?” He scraped a hand over her hair, cradled her skull. “Minette, I thought you would like it slow. I wouldn’t torment you.”

  She managed something like a smile, her body shaking with need. “Some—some other time, perhaps.” She gave him his own words back. “Right now, I just . . . really want you.”

  “Jaime.” He drew her hard against his body, turning her so that her back was to his chest and his arms were wrapped around her in a hard embrace. She loved that embrace, but her body twisted, bereft at the withdrawal of his finger.

  “You can have me,” he whispered to the top of her head. “Jaime. Let me just make sure of one little thing first.”

  “What?” Her body writhed against him, loving the friction created between their skin but trying for so much more.

  His hand pressed hard against her sex, holding her pelvis back against his, still veiled in jeans. “Just one little thing, Jaime.”

  He slipped his thumb over the tiniest center of absolute power on her body. She jerked and sagged back against him, flowering helplessly as he stroked the nub of her sex. “There it is.” His rough, gentled voice was like sex itself, more powerful even than the stroke of his hands. “Cette petite chose. Do you like that, sweetheart? Do you like it harder? Do you like it . . . just right here? There you go, m
inette, there, I’ve got you, give it to me, give me . . . you’re so beautiful . . . yes, oh, yes . . .”

  She came so fast for him it would have been embarrassing if she had any thought left. Her body flew straight into him as if he were the sun. She shook in his hard hold uncontrollably as she rose. He held her so completely as the world dissolved around her. Her body arching, shaking, against the hard muscles of his arms.

  “Yes.” There was no mistaking the triumph in his voice, the hand actually closing into a fist of victory against her sex. He rocked his knuckles against her, gently, riding the orgasm out, letting her enjoy the lingering waves of it. Until at last she was still, rubbing her face against him weakly, and he rolled away from her long enough to push off his jeans and dig in one of the pockets and come back. Of course he had come to pick her up supplied with condoms. That had been what they were both after, right?

  He knelt on the bed between her legs and drew her tunic over her head. When he threw the dress on the floor, he had to take a minute, his hands fisted hard on his thighs. She didn’t think she had ever seen a man so violently aroused.

  He breathed hard, his knuckles pressing into the muscles of his thighs. “Will you—will you take it off for me, Jaime?”

  He was staring at her bra. Still shaky with the aftershocks, entirely malleable, she pushed herself up on her elbows enough to reach behind her and undo the clasp. When she relaxed back onto the bed and slowly pulled the straps off her shoulders and lifted the bra away, she felt as if she was making some kind of sacred vow. The virgin sacrifice. The offering.

  “Oh, God.” His voice harsh, he came down over her, wrapping her thighs around him, and managed a fleeting grin. “See, this is why I had to make sure. But you did promise me—” He pushed slowly, just his blunt tip, inside of her. “You did—do you like that, Jaime? Would you like some more?”