I wish I was what he clearly thinks I am, some fun loving woman who can jump into bed without a moment of self-doubt.
I get up and walk into the ensuite, take a quick shower, and then change into a long summer dress. My phone tells me the day’s going to be unseasonably warm, the perfect weather for my first full day in Paris.
I respond to texts from Mom and Kelly, and then I walk out of my room and head out to the balcony.
I want to take a look at the city in the glistening daylight.
“Finally,” Forrest says as I walk onto the balcony.
I flinch and look down at him, though he’s so tall, even when he’s sitting, we’re almost eye to eye.
He’s wearing a steel-colored suit, his hair swept back, his eyes intense.
Shimmers move through me as I automatically undress him, remembering how his muscles bulged last night, how his manhood pushed against his boxer briefs and became a savage thick outline.
“I thought I was going to have to eat breakfast alone,” he says, waving a hand at the table.
My legs feel ridiculously shaky as I take the seat opposite him. In the bright spring daylight, with the Eiffel Tower, well, towering over us, last night feels even more difficult to believe.
He smirks across at me. “Sleep well?”
“Pretty good,” I murmur.
“I didn’t,” he says, his eyes gazing into me. “I was too distracted by you, my firecracker.”
“I thought you’d be mad,” I murmur, looking down at the table.
I flinch when he reaches across, touching my chin with his thumb and forefinger and directing my gaze back to him.
“I’m not mad,” he snarls. “I’m disappointed I didn’t get to feel you, really feel you, but that can wait.”
“Really?” I murmur a shimmer in my voice.
He nods. “Let’s order breakfast. What are you in the mood for?”
I giggle, shaking my head.
“What?” he smirks, voice husky and full of unspoken wants.
“It’s just … I’m in Paris, with a billionaire I met last night, and we kissed—and we did other things. It’s just a whole lot to take in. I still don’t know why you’re even interested in me.”
He sighs heavily. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that, Fiona. You have so much to offer. You’re beautiful. You’re modest. You’re curvier then I could dream up in my wildest fantasies. You’re passionate.”
I state at him, my mouth falling open.
“You’re not making any of this easier to believe when you say stuff like that,” I tell him.
He smirks and smooths his hand from my chin to my cheek, cradling my face.
“Believe it,” he growls.
He snatches his hand away, his jaw pulsing. It’s the same way it pulsed last night when he abruptly strode from the room. He told me I had nothing to be sorry for, but the way he left made it seem like the opposite.
I was sure he’d be mad.
Or that he’d disappear from the suite this morning, perhaps leaving a note behind telling me he wants me out by the end of the day.
“What?” he says.
“What?” I murmur, and then I smile and he smirks.
Something hums between us, something unspoken but no less real.
“You’re looking at me funny,” he grins, wolfishly.
“I was just wondering why you snatched your hand away like that, I guess.”
He leans forward, his biceps bulging in the suit jacket. His shirt creases against the shape of his pectoral muscles.
“If I didn’t move away,” he growls, “I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from losing control. I’d bend you over this table and pull that gorgeous fucking dress up, and then I’d slam into you rough from behind as you scream and whimper and tell me you can’t take it—even as your pussy sends rivers of come down my cock. That, my little firecracker, is why I had to let you go.”
I repress a breathy sigh that starts deep in my belly and tries to work its way up my throat, tickling every part of me it passes. I feel that weird pulsing deep inside of me again, as though some primal piece of me is screaming to throw myself at this man, to mount him, to shift my hips until he’s gasping and exploding inside of me.
“I still can’t believe—”
“Believe it,” he snarls. “It’s real. It’s never going to stop being real. So you might as well start accepting it.”
I nod, biting my lip, shock at his rioting rage shivering through me with the same intensity as his words.
Curiosity moves through me as I study the fire in his eyes, the sharp, strong cut of his jaw.
Why me? I want to scream. What do I have to offer you?
But I sense he’s growing tired of those sorts of questions, and maybe I’m growing tired of asking them, too. Maybe it’s time I tried to accept the impossibility that a man like Forrest Ford could want a naïve girl like me.
I just hope that doesn’t change when he knows the truth.
“So,” he says with a smirk, “what are you thinking for breakfast?”
“I don’t mind,” I murmur.
“We’re in Paris,” he says. “I think it’s only right we order some pastries and coffee. What’d you think?”
I smile at the words.
We’re in Paris.
There’s something I can’t deny, no matter how much uncertainty ricochets through me. The Eiffel Tower is right there, looming, seeming almost close enough to touch.
“After breakfast, how about I take you on the river in my boat?” he says. “That is, of course, if you don’t have any other plans.”
I move my hands over my belly, even if my curvy body is the last thing I want to draw attention to.
And yet, he didn’t seem to mind last night, when he was claiming me with beastly tongue-strokes and possessive fingers.
My womb pulses and sings from deep within.
“I was going to hitch a ride on one of those tour boats,” I murmur. “But traveling in style with you, Forrest? That seems a whole lot better.”
I want to reach across and touch his hand, but something stops me.
Forrest smirks and darts his hand across the table, holding mine firmly, staring deep into my eyes.
“You don’t have to be nervous anymore,” he growls. “We’ve found each other. You never have to be anxious again.”
I smile, and my smile gets wider and wider until I feel like my cheeks are going to burst.
Please, please, don’t let this be a trick.
CHAPTER SIX
Forrest
I handle the wheel casually, guiding us down the Seine as the sunlight sparkles off the water. My woman stands at the railing, her light spring dress fluttering in the caressing breeze, causing the fabric to hug tantalizingly close to her body.
I can’t stop my eyes from flitting from her legs up to her ass, framed gorgeously in that dress, like a personal slice of heaven just for me.
She gazes up as we glide under the Pont des Arts, the Louvre off to our right. She turns to me with light glistening in her eyes, a smile on her face that makes me almost smile in return.
I can’t remember the last time I even nearly smiled, let alone actually did it.
But for her, my woman, maybe I could.
I haven’t even told her that she’s mine yet, that she belongs to me, and it seems like we’ve silently agreed not to discuss how she freaked on me last night.
I’m content to let that sit for now, but as I greedily consume the sweet redness of her cheeks, I know I won’t be able to hold myself back forever.
I know that part of me is going to shatter and crumble and my defenses are going to come falling down.
Even now, the urge to leap across the deck is almost overwhelming.
Her breasts are weighty and round in the dress, begging me to pull down the fabric and make them spill free like they did last night, bouncing for me, her nipples going hard.
“Say it, firecracker,” I smirk.
“What?” she giggles.
“You can’t believe we’re really here …”
She rolls her eyes, a glint of sassiness in her expression.
“I would say it,” she murmurs. “But I know how crazy it makes you.”
“You make me crazy,” I snarl. “Nothing else.”
She bites her lip in that mind-fucking way, the gesture causing a thousand wolves to toss their snouts to the moon and howl, howl because the primal beasts inside of me need to taste her, to feel her, to explode inside of her.
She’s going to make such an incredible mother, passing on the enthusiasm she brings to life in everything she does.
When should I tell her?
What if I scare her away?
“Come here,” I say.
“Why?” she murmurs.
I smirk, captivated by the way the wind dances through her hair, causing waves to shimmer down the length of it, radiant, compelling, mine.
“Because I told you to.”
She walks across the deck, her arms at her sides.
I rush forward and loop my arm around her waist, doing my best not to grab a handful of her luscious hips. The river traffic isn’t as busy as in the summer, but it’s not light, either, and on the stone walkways there are plenty of onlookers.
I don’t trust myself to explore my fantasies under the gaze of anybody else.
I don’t trust myself not to explode ferociously if another man dares to drink in the sight of her.
I lead her over to the wheel, sliding my hands down her arms until they rest atop hers. Her skin goose-pimples and I can feel the need in her, as potent and as hungry as the need flaring through me.
But she’s being a good girl and containing it, just the same as I am.
“Do you trust me?” she mutters. “What if I crash?”
“You won’t,” I tell her firmly. “I’ll be right here.”
I’ll always be right here, for the rest of our lives, I want to roar, but something rises up inside of me and blocks the words.
I’ve never felt this way about a woman before.
The last thing I want to do is give her too much too fast.
And yet the urge to tell her the full magnitude of her importance to me is starting to bubble and hiss like a volcano on the verge of exploding.
“Whoah, okay,” she laughs, as she takes control and guides us steadily down the river.
Another boat passes by, and I raise my hand and wave.
“Aren’t you going to wave?” I whisper in my woman’s ear, tickling her side softly.
She giggles. “I can’t take my hands off the wheel.”
“You’re so damn cute, you know that?”
“Really?” she says, turning to face me briefly, before snapping her gaze back to the water.
There’s so much in that brief look, an entire universe contained within the intimacy of her expression, sparkling and teasing and begging me to kiss her.
I wrap my hands around her waist and lean down, kissing the top of her head softly, inhaling the sweet scent of her hair.
She wriggles against me. “That’s very distracting, you know.”
“Tell me to stop, then,” I chuckle.
“You know I can’t,” she whispers, with that shy-sassy moan in her voice, a mixture I will never tire of hearing.
“Then you must know I can’t, either,” I smirk. “Careful. There’s another boat coming up.”
“No, you go,” she laughs, stepping away. “I don’t trust myself.”
“You should,” I tell her fiercely, stepping forward and taking the wheel. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
“How can you say that when we just met?” she murmurs.
I keep one hand on the wheel and reach across with the other, cradling her cheek, staring at her.
“Because I see you, Fiona,” I growl. “I see all of all. All the little pieces that make you, you, I see them. I respect them. I cherish them. I …”
I trail off, turning back to the Seine.
This is exactly what I wanted to avoid, coming on too strong like this.
I need to maintain my poise the same way I do in business meetings, but right now I feel as though I’m constantly on the edge, ready to grab my woman and tell her all these crazy things at any second, things that might push her away.
“Thank you,” she whispers from beside me. “That means a lot, Forrest.”
I press my hand against the small of her back as we ride the elevator up. She’s sweaty and hot through the thin fabric of her dress, her skin alive with all the life inside of her.
My hand is right above her ass, so I can feel the way it flares.
I bite down in an effort to stop myself from smoothing my touch down and palming the juicy bulbs of her ass, squeezing, caressing.
“You have to let me pay for lunch,” she says.
I laugh. “This again, firecracker?”
“It’s the least I can do.”
“All you have to do is sit there and look fucking gorgeous,” I snarl. “Now stop talking about money.”
She never has to think about money again. For the rest of her life, whatever she wants to do, she can do. She can pursue her writing career without having to stress herself about whether or not she can pay her bills.
She can dedicate herself to her talent completely, enthusiastically, like I know she wants to.
I glance down at her as we ascend higher and higher, as though we’re going to fly away from Paris and into some separate plane, a place that belongs just to us.
I wonder if I should tell her the truth—all the truth.
I wonder how she’d react.
I don’t want to lie to her.
The very notion of it sends jagged blades of resentment into my belly, twisting and stabbing and hating. But if I told her now, she might run. She might be scared.
I’ve never felt this certainty before. This woman is the future mother of my children.
I can’t frighten her away.
I only want the best for her.
Or is that just a lie I’m telling myself as well as her?
Am I just being selfish here?
“Forrest,” she murmurs, looking at me from the open elevator door, standing with her arm raised to stop it from closing.
I nod and stride forward, taking her hand and feeling the warm belonging of it, her palm searing against me.
She whimpers when I squeeze onto her too hard. I relax my grip, even though I want to squeeze and keep squeezing until we’re fused together and she becomes a part of me and I become a part of her.
I lead her down a corridor of golden wallpaper, nodding casually to the host at the desk and striding into the restaurant.
Several people waiting for tables exchange looks, and I think one man might even mutter something. But he knows better than to challenge me directly.
Maybe I’m a jackass for cutting the line like this, but there’s no way I’m going to sit around wasting time when I could be having lunch with my woman.
I guide her through the restaurant, across the hardwood floor, and under the chandelier-lit ceiling. The tall windows show the Arc de Triomphe in all its glory. A few people whisper as we walk by, clearly recognizing me, but I don’t give a damn.
I only care about my queen.
I take her to the top of the restaurant and to a booth in the corner, cordoned off with a golden rope.
I unhook it and bow with a smirk on my face.
“Mademoiselle,” I say.
Fiona’s cheeks glow and she walks by me, brushing close enough that I can smell her skin, the tanginess of it, the promise of her heat, and her womanly odor.
The base of my cock twinges, my mind a rising tsunami of impossible-to-ignore images.
I remember the texture of her nipples in my mouth, how pert with want they were.
We both slide into the booth.
Fiona gazes around at the majesty of the restaurant, biting her lower lip a
s if she doesn’t know how feral that’s going to drive me.
“Did you see the way they were looking at us?” she whispers.
“Who?” I say.
“Everyone,” she sighs. “They were all thinking, What’s that fat girl doing with him?”
“What the fuck did you just say?” I snap, standing up and laying my fists on the table.
I glare down at her, my jaw pulsing.
She whimpers and stares up at me with her wide eyes. Her mouth falls open like she wants me to drive the thick length of my manhood deep into her throat and fuck her as she chokes and moans to prove how attractive I find her.
“What?” she whispers.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” I snarl. “Never put yourself down like that. Fiona, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”
I’m doing it again.
I’m going too far.
But I can’t stop.
She brings out something primal inside of me.
“Your curves only add to your beauty,” I tell her. “Do you have any idea how fertile and gorgeous you look? Do you have any idea how sexy I find that? Why do you think I’m going to put babies in you, firecracker? Why do you think I’m going to claim you every day for the rest of our goddamned lives?”
She gasps and we hold each other’s gazes.
Her lips quiver.
Fuck.
It’s all out there now.
I’ve got no clue how she’s going to react.
I’ve been thinking about this moment for three months, ever since I first laid eyes on her.
It was never supposed to come out like this.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Fiona
I grip the edge of the table, the force of his words slamming into me.
I thought all the grandiosity of the restaurant was too much – the high ceilings, the chandeliers, and the women in their fancy dresses, with Paris seeming like a screensaver in the tall windows – but this is something else entirely.
This must be a trick.
Or is it a joke?
“What do you mean?” I murmur, my chest still light and airy from the compliments he paid me before he hit me with this revelation.
He said my curves make me more beautiful.
He said that’s part of the reason he’s attracted to me.
Paris With The Billionaire: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance Page 4