He tilted his head like I was strange. “What?”
All feeling escaped my face. I probably was crazy. The words and thoughts out of my mouth defied the buttoned-up manager I normally was. I tried to shake off this new wanton inside me and said, “Nothing. How you say my name is very different, but I like it.”
He sipped his wine and stared at me again. “You avoided my question.”
I massaged the sides of my temples. The woman in Paris I’d become was a stranger to me. He’d asked me about myself. I let out a breath and just listed my answers, so he understood we were even. “I didn’t mean to. I’m not married, not engaged anymore, either, currently single, and no children.”
His lips curled into a smile. “You didn’t ask me about children.”
I pushed my hair behind my ears. “Do you have them?”
He scooted closer to me and brushed his finger against my leg, and the cells inside me exploded from his exploration. “Not that I know of.”
At least I wasn’t hurting anyone but myself if I flirted with Mr. Wanker. I wanted to strip the man entirely naked, but instead, ignored how he already owned my body when I held out my glass and said, “Well, it seems we can have more of your wine.”
He took my wineglass and put it beside his as he transitioned and took the seat beside me. “And I can find a reason to kiss you again.”
My body shivered in anticipation. “I’d like that—”
His lips captured mine. I curled into him and never wanted this to stop. His hands caressed my body as we made out to the pulsating motor of the train.
Until I lurched forward, and we both almost fell out of our chairs. He held me steady, but I realized the train no longer lugged forward, and I fixed my clothes that were now a wrinkled mess. “Why did the train stop?”
The windows were all steamed, and I realized my hair was a disaster. I tried to straighten it with my fingers.
“Wait here. I’ll find out.”
I grabbed a mirror out of my bag and looked, touching my swollen lips and flushed cheeks.
Until now I hadn’t realized just how badly I craved sin.
Despite the risk, I hadn’t cared to stop. I was so out of character. Maybe the vacation and meeting Quentin had me on fire. I checked myself to be sure I was still me, and the mirror reflected the same brown eyes I’d always had.
He came back and crooked his finger at me. “Come.”
I closed up my bag while he grabbed his bottle of half-empty wine, and I trailed after him. “Where are we going?”
As I deboarded the train, I realized the passengers had already grabbed their bags. I ran my hand through my hopeless hair and trekked to where my own had been stored when he said, “The train doesn’t go to Monte Carlo today.”
I pointed to my black wheeled bag. “Why not?”
He went into the container like he was allowed and grabbed it. I gave him a thumbs-up. When he came out, he said, “There is a strike.”
A what? My mind raced, and I just pointed to the tracks that stopped in the middle of a suburb. “After the train already left the station?”
“Check your things are in order.”
At his words, I quickly unzipped my bag. Everything seemed fine, but I shivered a little and glanced around.
The passengers scrambled everywhere, and I crossed my arms as my mind couldn’t quite wrap around what was happening. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
He bumped into me playfully and brushed against me slightly too intimately when he said, “Well, you have two choices. You can try to find a room around here to rent and wait out the strike, or you can come with me.”
Nine hours alone with Mr. Wanker.
Perhaps I’d find out the girth of my fantasies, but my neck and face flamed when I asked, “Come with you?”
He grabbed my bag and walked with me like he’d decided for me. “Oui. I rented a car.”
I followed him into the rental lot where only one car remained. He opened the trunk, and I asked like I still had options, “And you’ll take me to Monte Carlo?”
He put my bag inside and closed the door. “Oui, and I hope you’ll join me for dinner.”
I needed to take control. I stood in front of the driver’s door and said when he came closer, “Only if you let me drive.”
His eyebrow cocked as he asked, “Do you have a French driver’s license?”
My lips curved to the side of my face, and I shook my head. “No, just my American one.”
He reached behind me to open the door. “I’ll drive off the lot, and you can search Google to see if that’s legal.”
Fair. I walked to the passenger side, and he followed me. Then he reached out and opened my door, like he was a gentleman as I shrugged in defeat. “I need French notarized translation as I didn’t apply a few months ago.” I pressed my shoulders to my chair.
He turned onto the road. “Then I drive the whole way.”
The law was on his side, and I didn’t want to get foreign tickets. I relaxed into my seat and realized I had no idea how to read the signs anyhow. “Well, I’ll pay for the gas.”
He patted my leg and said, “Very well.”
I moved the half-empty wine behind our seats. I didn’t need police thinking we’d been drinking. “Guess it’s good we didn’t have that second glass.”
He laughed like I was joking. “That’s very American of you.”
I fixed my seatbelt and checked to ensure he was wearing his. “You like to comment on my nationality.”
He sped up on the motorways and said, “Until I met you, Kara, I hadn’t been very interested in your type.”
Nine hours with Mr. Wanker might leave me split in half, unable to think about more than just sex. “My type?”
His nose wrinkled a little when he said, “Extroverted—acts before thinking.”
Me? He must have confused me with one of my sisters. I licked my lips unsure how to answer that one but sounded weak when I said, “I’m no— Well, okay, I was with you.”
He pointed to his bag. “Now that we’re alone, feel free to have that second glass while I drive.”
No. I wasn’t getting pulled over and arrested for wine. “We’ll stop somewhere and share over dinner.”
He stared at me a little too long as my skin became jumpy. “You read my mind, Kara.”
As the minutes passed, silence clung to the air. I shouldn’t want to pull over and wrap my legs around him. I was a lady… or at least I thought I was. I heaved my chest under the weight of my own lust. I had no idea what took over my body in this man’s presence. I turned and hoped I sounded normal. “Quentin, why are you going to Monte Carlo?”
“I’m moving home.”
I glanced behind us. The backseat contained one bag. When I moved cross country after high school, my car had been full of boxes and college mementos. I scratched the side of my head and asked, “You’re not from Paris?”
His voice trailed off, a certain sadness overtaking his expression. The agony of loss. “I… lived there for many years now, but it’s time I go home.”
Interesting. I hadn’t expected to spend any time with a man, and now here I was… I wanted to fix him like I wanted to fix Marlon, my ex. I ignored the memory.
“Why are you alone on your vacation?” he asked.
Because I micromanaged my relationship like I was running it as a field office that I quit to get married and expected the fiancé to do more in our relationship than he was capable.
I should have realized his weaknesses sooner and worked around them… or called it off.
Not that my pride would have gone that route.
I let out a long sigh and managed not to cry when I told Mr. Wanker, “My fiancé called the wedding off a week before our big day, so I decided to take the honeymoon I planned, alone.”
“I see.” His lips pressed together like he judged me.
I didn’t want to know his thoughts on the matter. I crossed my arms under my chest and asked, “
And you?”
He glanced at my breasts again until he faced the road and tapped the steering wheel. “And me?”
On the train his story had come out. I lowered my tone. “You said you were engaged.”
He shrugged and said, “We weren’t that far into planning when she called it off.”
“How long were you engaged?” I asked.
He lifted a shoulder then let it drop. “Five years, give or take a few months.”
Wow. The French held different values. I needed to not involve myself emotionally with Mr. Wanker. I knew it. This was at best about proving to myself I still had some sex appeal and nothing else.
And maybe that was all I could offer.
Chapter 4
Quentin
I hadn’t expected to enjoy another woman’s company in a while. I failed at protecting Cecilia when I should have had knowledge on how to cure her. Maybe Kara was okay because she couldn’t possibly want forever with me. What happened between us could never be serious or life altering as she wasn’t here for long.
Both my melancholy and my lust were fueled by the same woman, which was strange. Usually, I fucked the pretty ones I brought home but kept friends at a distance. Maybe if I knew more about Kara, maybe I’d be less charmed.
Right now, all that kept me safe was that she was clearly on vacation from her life, and we were both just a distraction from real life.
However, as we continued on the black-tarred freeway, in the blue Renault Clio which served its purpose, Kara flipped the switch from the silence. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
Blake was the flirt in the family. “Not anymore.”
“That’s too bad,” she said, and her head bopped. “Family is important.”
I let my shoulders relax. “I suppose.”
“It was good to have my family after my parents died, so I understand loss sucks,” she said with a smile.
I tensed. Blake hadn’t been someone I talked about in so long, and today he’d come up in more conversations than I’d had in years. I didn’t dare peek at the beauty beside me as I said, “That sounds hard.”
She pushed her hair behind her ears, and her breasts perked up. “I guess. What about you?”
My cock grew hard. I maneuvered the manual transmission and wished the car vibrations were enough to calm me the fuck down. “I have two parents and one grandmother.”
Picturing my grandma with her silver-gray hair and double chin worked like a charm. I forgot about the alluring sex-like goddess beside me.
“That’s awesome,” she said.
Her sweet smile as she spoke made her magnetic. And the car now smelled like her. I licked my lips and remembered her kiss from the train and how she woke the beast inside me that wanted to claim her.
Fresh air would help. “Would you care to stop in Lyon to see something?”
She took out her phone. “Let me research. What are you thinking?”
I didn’t visit Lyon often, but I did remember a pretty place I visited on a school tour. “Parc de la Tête d’Or is beautiful. The rose garden still has blooms, despite the season, and the zoo is nice.”
She made a non-committal hum as she read her phone. “That sounds nice, but can we see Institut Lumière?”
I think we went there, too. I remembered the gardens and movie reels as I asked, “Do you like movies?”
She lit up like a Christmas tree. “I love to lose myself in movies. Live someone else’s life for a few hours.”
American movies weren’t what I’d consider reality. “Super hero movies leave me pumped with adrenaline.”
She opened her window and took a breath of fresh air. “Those are good, but I’m a sucker for the rom-coms.”
“What’s your favorite?”
Her face went red. “Today, it would probably be When Harry met Sally.”
I followed the signs for the Institut and remembered the movie. Guy with annoying voice gets in car with pretty blonde, insults her for years, they become friends, and end up together on a holiday. “Why today?”
She sucked in her bottom lip and lowered her lashes for a moment. “They met on a road trip, shared a car, same as us.”
Perhaps a peripheral comparison wasn’t that bad. I batted my eyes in mock, though, and asked, “Do they live happily ever after, Kara?”
I followed the last road to bring her to the birthplace of movies.
She crossed her legs, and I realized she had actual muscle mass. Her shape was curvier but stronger than any other woman I’d been with. “They always do in a rom-com. I like that about them. It’s safe, not like real life at all.”
My grip on the steering wheel lessened. “What’s wrong with real life?”
She lowered her head like she needed to pray or something. Maybe I was corrupting a religious girl. I wasn’t sure, but then she said, “My mother died right after my father, and I thought for a long time that love weakened women, but rom-coms preach that love heals. It gave me the courage to get out there and date.”
So, maybe movies healed, too. I hadn’t needed respite from my life until recently. I drove into the parking lot as I said, “And get engaged.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, but that was clearly a mistake.”
I unlocked the door and rushed around to open hers. She’d half opened hers when I reached for her hand. “Your mistakes are harmless enough,” I said. “You survived.”
“I did. Is this the place where movies were invented?”
“I’ve never visited,” I said. I’d stuck with my friends and played frisbee in the garden until the tour had ended. This time I had a beautiful woman beside me. “Let’s go in.”
I quickly paid for two tickets and handed them to the attendant.
Kara sighed almost joyfully. “I always think of Hollywood as the birthplace of movies, if I’m being honest.”
I laughed. That didn’t shock me in the slightest. “Americans love movies, but Louis Lumière created moving pictures—the first movie with a beginning, middle, and end, comedies, drama, documentaries, and of course, the La Sortie de l'usine Lumière à Lyon which was the first movie people paid to see.”
She glanced on the wall and pointed to a sign near the front with the movie on replay as she said, “Oh, the one with people leaving a factory.”
We headed toward the display, and I quickly read the article and summarized. “There are three versions of that. One with no horse, one horse, and two horses.”
She tilted her head to watch the black-and-white feature until we noticed the wagon in all three small reels. “How funny.”
I read the wall that explained and then summarized again, “It says Louis wanted to experiment with changing the seasons on film, and his invention led to the modern movies we see in the theaters.”
She curtsied at the picture like she was meeting the Queen of England. “Well, I thank him then.”
No one else would mock curtsy like that, and I saw Kara was one of a kind as we strolled into the next room and I said, “So do I.”
She bumped her shoulder into mine. “You do?”
I tugged her closer, and a spark rushed through me that wasn’t just sex-filled desire. “Oui. It seems if not for movies, I’d not get the chance to touch you.”
Her eyes widened. “Touch?”
I squeezed her orbs and wished I could rip her shirt off her. “Do you not want to hide behind that tree with me?”
She shook, but her smile told me she was tempted. “Quentin, I’m happy here today.”
I led her out of the beautiful home that had been the set of the first movies and said, “I’m happy to hear it.”
I guessed she wasn’t so free to kiss in public, despite how we met. But she held my hand as we headed toward that tree.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m hoping to hear a few dirty French phrases before we kiss.”
“Dirty?” I asked as my mind raced. I’d already said more inappropriate, like she should have slapped me lines, e
arlier.
Kara was cute, and luckily neither one of us would see each other in a week, but I needed to be more respectful if we ended this as lovers too, now. “Yeah I won’t understand what you’re saying, but I liked what you were saying before.”
I wish I could think of something sexier that somehow made her blush and open her legs for me but also kept her close, at the same time. We made it to the tree, and I said, “Tu veux prendre du bon temps?”
Her gaze narrowed as she stared at my lips, “What does that mean?”
I ran my hand over her curvy, sexy as hell backside. “Do you want to have a good time?”
My other hand took her other butt cheek, and she wrapped her arms around me. “Then the answer is yes, oui, with you.”
Her body must be near perfection under her baggy outfit. I rested my head against hers. “Kara, you came into my life at the perfect time.”
She went up on her tiptoes and said with closed eyes, “Glad to know for once I had that.”
My lips tingled to taste her again, but I blinked and asked, “What do you mean?”
And then I tasted her neck. She smelled so good, and even her skin held her essence that drove me wild. She curled her hands in my thick hair and moaned. “Good timing. I never normally have that. Do you often do this with your tongue?”
Until now, I’d never wanted to mark a woman, but Kara had me out of character. I let her neck go and trailed my lips up her chin. “Only with you.”
She pressed her lips to meet mine but then stilled. “What if someone sees us?”
I laughed. “They’ll assume you’re French if you just say oui.”
“Oui?” she asked, but her eyes were open.
I needed her, so I met her gaze and nodded, “That’s it. Keep saying that.”
I claimed her lips fully. She still had that power that rushed through me like she was my first and only, forever. She clearly knew how to weave her spell, but as the kiss ended, she said, “Oh my—” I cut off whatever she was about to say with another kiss. It was like she had a drug inside her that I needed to survive. She held me tight and didn’t open her eyes. “Oui.”
French Wanker : A Hero Cub Novel Page 3