What are you doing?
5:20 PM
Was going to order up and sleep. You?
Sent 5:20 PM
Gage
Same.
5:21 PM
Gage
Just making sure you are resting. Our day starts early tomorrow.
5:21 PM
What day?
Sent 5:21 PM
She was positive there was nothing on the itinerary for three days at which time they would leave the city of love for the next show.
Gage
Don’t worry about what day. Just be rested : )
5:22 PM
Okay. Now she was not going to be able to sleep. She would toss and turn, wondering if Gage had sightseeing planned or all-day sex. Shit. And that was her last thought before she did fall asleep. Soundly!
Gage hadn’t exaggerated about early. Her phone rang while it was still dark outside the hotel window.
“Hey, sleeping beauty. Up and at ’em. Don’t eat. Dress comfortable. For walking.”
“What? Is it tomorrow already?” She yawned and stretched but felt surprisingly rested with each second that passed.
“I’m going to pick you up in thirty.”
“Okay.” She stretched again, feeling a smile curve her lips and then bounded out of bed.
Thirty minutes later, she answered his knock, showered and ready for the adventure—whatever it was. With a twinge of disappointment, she wiped sex-all-day off her mental whiteboard when he didn’t push his way into the room and fling her on the bed.
Instead, he chattered all the way to the lobby about how Landon had roused him every hour or so by coming in and out of the room all night. When she expressed her sympathy, again feeling a twinge of guilt for being the only one in their camp who didn’t share a room, he waved her words off and with a flourish, beckoned her into the back of a waiting Rolls Royce.
Impressed, she took in the shadowy interior and tried to block her senses to the soapy smells wafting from his hair and skin. The same exact scents she had also showered with. Clearing her throat and her mind of shower images, she asked, “You said we’re going to eat, right?”
“First thing,” he promised.
On cue, her stomach growled and they both laughed. The first light of dawn had apparently brightened the sky during the drive over. Now, as they exited the car and followed the guide who met them down a gangplank, the palette colors of sunrise began to streak the heavens.
After Joaquin, who had relieved Jal, went ahead and then nodded them on, they boarded what could be described as a mini yacht. On the deck, she and Gage were seated at a table covered with a white lacy tablecloth. Two place settings adorned with toile-printed china waited.
They dined on fruits, breakfast crepes and, yes, French toast dusted with powdered sugar. An attendant continuously topped off their long stem flute crystal glasses with what tasted like orange juice spritzers as the boat cruised the Seine River.
The man who had met them at the car guided their journey from the helm, which was several steps below deck. He expressed points of interest and condensed lessons of each, his voice slightly amplified through a speaker near their table.
At the base of the Eiffel Tower, the boat idled and Gage held his champagne flute aloft. “To Scarlette Rose. The world is yours.”
Embarrassed, but giddy, she clinked her glass to his.
The boat cruise came to an end, and the Rolls Royce was waiting. Instead of dropping them back at the hotel, it came to a stop in front of a whitewashed brick building. Gage leaned in, presumably tipping the driver and then grabbed her hand as he escorted her inside.
He headed straight to an elevator and closed them inside the antique cage lift. They disembarked on the fifth floor, and took a flight of stairs up to the next floor. Producing a key, he slid it into the lock and after a few clinks, the door swung inward, revealing what looked to be a cozy apartment.
They waited while Joaquin went through each room. She knew the routine and recognized the necessity. Several new hostile emails had been added to the Ketchum folder. The security service had traced the origination, determining they were being sent from within the U.S.A. This was comforting in a small way; as was the fact they had decided to notify the proper authorities. Joaquin exited with a nod, and she eagerly began her own exploration.
Perplexed, she wandered room to room. The lobby they’d entered from the street had no resemblance to a hotel. The space was rustic, from the white brick exterior walls to the huge beams running parallel along the vaulted ceiling. The kitchen was modern down to the polished stone countertops and stainless steel appliances. The floor was terracotta tile with fluffy throw rugs strewn about. The bedroom…
She stopped short of stepping inside this room and was admiring the clean, white linens and antique furnishing from afar when the paned wall of French doors drew her in. An iron balcony was just beyond. The view of the city from it was stunning.
“Okay.” She pushed away from the rail. Feeling him directly behind her, she twisted to eye his expression as she inquired, “Where are we?”
He forked his fingers through his wavy hair, and she noted the nervous gesture. “This is one of Dad’s properties. I figured, well, no one saw us leave the hotel as early as it was. And if we camp out here instead of there while we are ‘doing’ the city then no one is seeing us come and go, and we don’t have to deal with ugly comments.”
“But when we’re both gone together for a long time, they’ll—how long are we staying?”
“As long as you want. We can come and go just today, or we can stay the whole time.” His earnest gaze locked to hers. “Play it by ear?”
“Play it by ear.” She easily agreed, enchanted by both the view of historic Paris and the apartment itself. This was so much better than their hotel on the other side of town.
“I figured we can go walk around. Be tourists. When the city wakes up.”
She covered a yawn with her hand and nodded. When she scooted onto the bed and positioned her pillow to see better out of the French doors, he joined her, spooning and playing in her hair as they dozed.
“I didn’t know you spoke French.” After a day on the town, their feet dragged as they scaled the stairs between the fifth and sixth levels.
Gage remained intent on the giant Chestnut Rum Berthillon ice cream cone he was scarfing down. “Just enough to get by. You know. Offer bribes in exchange for standing in long-ass lines and stuff like that.”
Scarlette giggled but thought of the line at least a hundred people deep they’d avoided and felt guilty. Yet, even here in Paris, she was getting second glances. Logically, she knew they could have been mobbed had they chosen to wait forty-five minutes on ice cream in the midst of a public square.
Pausing for a second on the landing, she faced him and teased, “I feel ripped off. You never spoke the ‘language of love’ to me.”
He swallowed his current mouthful of ice cream and deliberately brushed his body against hers as he passed and began up the last half of the flight. “I get it now. You wanted Pepé Le Pew sexing you up and not some dirty rocker.”
Humming birds took flight in her stomach. Tickling and stabbing. That’s how it felt to think of whatever she and Gage had in the past, as well as whatever was going on now. A pleasurable pang.
She was getting so used to the bodyguard that she barely flinched with embarrassment when he skirted around them with an impassive face. He was in and out of the apartment in less than a minute. With a curt nod, he pulled the locked door closed behind him and headed back downstairs to where he’d stationed himself. Like at the hotel, he used the hallway camera to keep watch.
Picking up their Pepé Le Pew versus dirty rocker conversation, she managed a retort as she followed Gage through the apartment. “Maybe both. You know. Have my ice cream and eat it too.” She finished with a lick of a drip trickling down the side of the waffle cone.
His eyes smoldered liquid fire, and instead of poppin
g the last bit of his dessert into his mouth, he dipped his tongue into the cone first. “So a skunk rocker.” With a crunch, he finished the cone.
“It sounds dirty when you say it that way.” Actually, she was impressed at the quick witty way he’d substituted punk with skunk. Her stomach felt bloated and full from all the food they’d eaten. She dropped the remainder of her cone into a bowl and set it in the freezer.
“Is that a good thing or a bad?” From behind her, he closed in and wrapped her in his arms. “Because dirty is my specialty.” His cold lips nibbling at the crook of her neck and the sandpapery abrasion of his chin initiated an eruption of gooseflesh.
“I knew you had ulterior motives with this apartment…” A sigh of pure pleasure hissed through her lips.
He licked a fiery trail up the cords of her neck. “Not ulterior. Dual.” And then he lifted his lips from her skin. “Is that okay?”
With a groan, she spun to face him, looping her arms around his neck, and using her weight to pull him down to her tiptoe level. His kiss tasted of chocolate, butterscotch, and roasted almonds.
Starved for more than the stolen touches she’d been getting lately, she met each thrust of his tongue with a tangle, twist, and suckle of hers. His arms tightened almost painfully, and she could suck in only shallow breaths in what had become a boa-constrictor embrace. Still, she pressed more tightly against him.
When her lips were throbbing from the friction of his and her tongue had gone from a tickly tingle to a tingling throb, he eased up, and she took in a long dizzying breath. He ran his lips down her jawline and to her neck while his hands tunneled beneath her shirt. His touch on bare skin drew a moan and a desperate need for her own fingers to breach the barrier of his shirt. Earlier today, she’d admired the abnormal sight of Gage’s tucked in shirttails, but now, she let out a mewl of frustration when she tugged at the fabric.
Apparently, he was impatient too. In one swift smooth move, he peeled her shirt over her head and left her arms entangled while his hands slipped into the cups of her bra. She stilled beneath his touch, focused helplessly on nothing except his fingers as they explored and then slowed to play. Her still-tangled wrists fell to rest on the top of her head and then the back of her neck when her chin dropped as she watched. Instead of moving his hands away long enough to undo the back clasp, he’d removed each breast from its silky pocket. When his hands finally abandoned this private playground, they landed on her hips, and she felt her back sliding up the cool metal of the fridge. His mouth clamped on one aching tip, sucking, nipping, and bathing it with his tongue. With a thump, her hand freed itself from the shackle of her shirt and slammed against the fridge before burying itself in his shaggy hair. Her other hand flicked the garment aside and clamped onto his shoulder, her fingers digging into the muscular flesh. The whimpers of pleasure coming from her throat were soon as much from frustration when he didn’t slow down to give equal attention to the achy twin peak.
“The other…” She finally strangled out, and then sighed when it was that easy. His attention switched immediately, and he spent a long lavishing minute before pulling back.
A flick of his fingers undid the bra. He peeled it down her arms, and she accommodated by slipping free of the straps.
His admiring gaze lingered on the area he’d just worshipped so completely. “Damn, I missed this. So much.”
“Me too.” In total agreement, she raked her nails lightly over the scruff of his jaw.
When his eyes lifted to hers, she felt as if she were drowning in their brown vortex. Her legs had wrapped his waist at some point, and he hitched her weight up, adjusting, before heading to the bedroom.
Her back hit the mattress, and she was stunned for a moment to find herself staring up at herself. Mirrored tiling covered the entire ceiling. She swung her gaze over, finding him already stripped out of his shirt and working on his jeans. His eyes were on her, as she lay transfixed by the mirror, and a hint of a knowing smile curved his lips.
Like?
Like.
Again, she felt a simple, unspoken dialogue between them. Instead of joining him in the frantic undressing, she pulled a jeaned knee up and clasped her hands behind her head as she turned her attention back to their reflections on the ceiling.
When all of his clothing lay in a pile on the floor, he crawled up from the foot of the bed, pausing to rid her feet of shoes and socks (and gave the arch of one foot a long lick!) before stretching out. Settling between her legs, he feasted, starting on the areas of her breasts he’d neglected in the kitchen frenzy. The tip of his tongue traced the curving valley beneath each. He nuzzled between them and kissed his way down her body. Above, she watched the ripple of his muscles and salivated on the view of his bare ass. The eye in the sky view of his dark shaggy head between her legs was erotic, intensifying the lightning bolts of pleasure rocketing through her core with each swipe of his tongue.
Chapter 39
Gage could count the times he’d cooked on one hand. Sure, he’d thrown extra toppings like jalapenos on a frozen pizza and dumped canned soup into a bowl. Other than that, he’d scrambled eggs a couple of times. That was it. So surely, he could be forgiven for the state of these grilled cheese sandwiches. He flipped one so that the almost blackened side was face down on the plate and cut it in rectangle halves instead of diagonal so he could distinguish between the not so burned meal and the burned. Careful to drain the juice first, he spooned a few olives onto both plates and then dumped a handful of chips on each. Lastly, he draped a cloth napkin over each plate before picking one up in each hand.
Relocating them through the bedroom, onto the balcony, he deposited them on the table. After a quick check of the sunny horizon, he sprinted to the kitchen and back, and finished the table setting with two wine glasses and a bottle of Beaujolais Blanc.
Glancing through the panes, he stalled, admiring the sight of a nude sleeping Scarlette. She lay on her stomach, her hair spread around her.
They’d seen sights half the day, famous art, and street art, but no masterpiece surpassed the heart shaped ass framed in the windowpane.
All his.
“Scar.” He crawled over her and brushed his lips against the softness of her shoulder and down her arm until she stirred. “Scar, wake up.”
She mumbled into the pillow, and his eyes traveled the expanse of velvety skin from the delicate shoulder blades, the valley of her spine, landing again on the ass that was his eye magnet. Between the tan lines of her waist and thighs, it enticed him, perfect and white.
Other than his wildest imagining when furious with her, why in the reality of her now had he never had the urge to…?
He shook the thought away. But it persisted. An enigma.
As satisfying as he had found his new kink to be, why had he never had the compulsion with Scar to…
His fingers curved…
Smack.
The slap resounded in the room.
In the split second image he had of his handiwork before she flipped immediately over, he hated the pink mark, marring the perfection of his white heart.
“Ouch?” Eyes wide with surprise, her indignant inquiry was a clear ‘what the hell!’
“Sorry.” He stretched the length of his body against her and muttered the earnest apology while sharing her pillow and peering into her eyes.
“Are you?” One of her hands rose, swiping at the hair in her face. “You get off on that?”
“Used to.” The answer came natural. No lies between them like this.
“But not anymore?”
“No promises.” With that light tease, he sifted silky tousled tresses of her hair.
“Hmm…” Her lips quirked in a very interested grin, so intriguing he thought about rolling her over and giving it another try.
Instead, he tugged at a thick strand. “Now, get up. We have reservations.”
“No.” Her expression was now less than enthused. “Really?” He nodded and couldn’t resist brushing hi
s lips to hers. “Can we cancel?” Her fingers splayed the hotness that was her stomach. “I’m still full from gorging all day.”
Thankfully! The meal he’d just served up wasn’t fit for eating. “Can’t cancel. You gotta get up.” Bounding off the bed, he tossed her the shirt he’d been wearing earlier. “Put this on.”
Her brows, knitted together in a pouty frown, shot up when she took in the shirt. “That?” Those beautiful blues roved his face.
“Sure.” He enjoyed teasing her. “It’s not a fancy joint. You don’t even have to wear panties. Just that.”
He pulled her up and ran his fingers down one of her legs, stopping at the knee. Her head turned toward the main apartment area, and she sniffed. “What’d you burn?” Understanding dawned, and she quit fussing, slipping her arms into the shirt.
“Nothing.” He denied. Okay. Maybe little fibs.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The gaping shirt had his eyes glued to her tits and the rest of her barely covered body until she clutched it closed when she stood. With a flourish, he indicated the table just outside the French doors.
She seemed impressed, her eyes widening, but she stepped away, instead of to the threshold. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”
He eyed the streaks of orange in the sky and the beginnings of the setting sun. “Hurry,” he called after her as the bathroom door swung closed. A minute or so passed and she didn’t emerge. Lurking outside the door, he listened to the running tap and rapped his knuckles against the wood. “Scar, you done?”
The water stopped, and a second later, the door swung open. She’d buttoned the shirt, and she spoke while patting her face dry with a hand towel. “What’s the rush?”
“Told you. Reservations.”
Pointedly, she glanced beyond him at the setup on the balcony and curved a silly grin. “Will they go to someone else if we’re late?” And then she screeched when he closed in and picked her up.
“We’re not going to be late.” He deposited her onto the padded iron loveseat and sank down next to her. “Wine?” Holding the bottle aloft, he poured without waiting for her affirmation.
Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance Page 51