by Meg Ripley
“Oui,” I reply. “Et…” I press my lips together, trying to parse out how to say what I want to say. “Je ne l’ai pas rencontré, pas vraiment. Je ne sais pas son nom.” I didn’t meet him, not exactly. I don’t know his name.
“Ah,” Jacques says, nodding. We start up the stairs. The building doesn’t have an elevator, but fortunately, I’m only on the second floor; he looks back to make sure I’m following closely enough.
“Rouen c’est très sûr,” Jacques says. “Ne t’inquiète pas, d’accord?” I have to laugh at that once I figure out what he’s saying. Now that I’m not full of adrenaline, it’s a little easier. Rouen is very safe. Don’t you worry, okay?
“Non, je suis…” I don’t know how to say what I want to say. “Je n’ai pas de souci.” No, I’m not worried.
Jacques grins at me.
“C’est bon,” he says. That’s good. We reach my floor and he gestures to my apartment door with one eyebrow raised. I nod and he unlocks the two locks, opening my door before the light goes out in the hallway.
“Tu veux rentrer prendre une verre? Je veux te remercier,” I say, feeling a little shy. Do you want to come in for a drink? I want to thank you. One of the great things I’ve discovered about Rouen—about France, in general—is that there is an abundance of decent, cheap wine. My first trip to the grocery store, I overburdened myself with a good four bottles of wine that had cost me a little less than 12 euros. I feel a little weird offering the guy a glass of wine, but I have to express my gratitude somehow.
“Si ça ne te dérangeras pas,” he says with a shrug. If you don’t mind.
I step through the door and kick off my shoes, reaching for the light switch and gesture for him to follow me into the apartment.
“Pas de tout,” I say. Not at all. “Now where are my glasses?” I mutter, looking around the kitchen, trying to remember where I put everything away.
“Là?” Here? Jacques gestures to a glass-fronted cabinet on the other side of the kitchen, and I realize that he must have understood what I said. There they are, lined up neatly: white and red wine glasses, along with the juice glasses I’d bought, four of each.
“Ah, oui, merci,” I say, smiling at him. Yes, thank you.
Okay, so now, how do I ask him if he wants white, red, or rosé? My poor, already-drunk brain is having a hard time parsing through grammar, and in spite of the fact that I’m feeling more relaxed, now that I’m in my apartment and the guy who attacked me is safely away, I can feel a little flutter in my chest.
Up close, Jacques is even more attractive than he’d been when I’d seen him across the alley. He almost seems too big for my kitchen, and in the light, I can see that he has crystal-blue eyes. He’s so much taller and broader than me that I should feel intimidated, but instead, I have to admit, I’m a little turned on.
This is a guy who just came to my rescue, after all. And up close, I also find that he smells good: not the way that Ethan did, with a weird blend of some Axe-type body spray and deodorant, but like sandalwood and an old-fashioned sort of cologne I can’t identify. I’ve already learned that American-style deodorant isn’t really popular here, so underneath his scents, I catch just a trace of his natural body smell, but it’s not bad—not like the guys I’d accidentally ended up next to on the bus back from the bar with Jess, who absolutely reeked.
“Tu veux le rouge? Blanc? Rosé?” That’s the closest I can come to formulating how to ask the question, and thankfully it’s good enough.
“Comme tu veux,” Jacques says with a shrug. Whatever you want.
I have a bottle of red open, and I show it to him for his approval; he nods, and I take two glasses down. Even though I’ve had a bit too much to drink already, I decide to have a glass with him to be a good hostess.
I get the cork out of the bottle and fill the two glasses a little more than halfway, pushing one along the table towards Jacques. He picks it up and looks around my kitchen for a moment, and I’m at a loss for what to do while we drink our wine. If we were both equally fluent in the same language, we’d obviously talk to each other. But as I raise my glass and Jacques clinks his against mine, it occurs to me that I have no idea what to talk about, much less how to say anything worth talking about.
I take my first sip of wine and try to think of something, anything, that I can say to this guy who might have just saved my life.
Chapter SEVEN
Jacques
I sip the wine Nora gave me and think about what I should do. I don’t think she thought through inviting me up to have a glass with her, even if it was a perfectly kind—and very French—thing to do.
“I hope you aren’t still afraid,” I say.
She looks at me quizzically for a moment and then shakes her head.
“No—no, I’m not...not too afraid,” she replies, hesitating over the words as she does her best to say them in broken French.
“Do you like it here in Rouen?” I take another, bigger sip of the wine. It’s not bad; a middle-of-the-road red, the kind you can get just about anywhere.
“Yes, I like it here very well,” Nora says, sounding a little more certain of herself.
“Are you able to find everywhere in town okay?” I set my glass down, realizing I’ve already had more than enough to drink. When I ran into Nora tonight, I was just getting back from drinking with the guys after practice.
Nora looks confused for a moment before her eyes widen with comprehension and she nods. “Yes—yes, I am finding everything fine,” she says.
“And you like your apartment? The city?”
Nora gives me a small smile and takes another sip of wine.
“I like my apartment very well,” she says slowly. “It’s small, but comfortable.”
“Claude seems excited to have an American tenant,” I say, and realize my mistake: too many words she doesn’t know. I slow down and repeat myself.
“He seems very nice,” Nora says. She looks down into her wine glass, and I can see her thinking hard; obviously, she is having as much trouble figuring out what to say as I am.
“So, do you…have a boyfriend back home?”
“Um, no, not right now. And I’m not looking for one, either,” she replies. “I’ve...sort of…” she catches her bottom lip between her teeth, and for a second, I suddenly feel like I want to kiss her more than anything else in the world. “How-to-say...I’ve made an agreement with myself?”
“A pact?”
This is getting interesting.
“Sure, if that’s the word,” Nora says, nodding. “I’ve made a pact with myself that I won’t date any men for at least six months.”
My eyes widen. “Oh yeah? Any reason?” I ask.
“It’s not important,” Nora says quickly, fidgeting in her seat. She drinks down some of her wine and I do the same.
Up close, Nora is even sexier than I thought. She’s maybe 20 centimeters shorter than I am, with long, shiny dark hair and big, brown eyes, and the curves of her body practically scream to be touched. Looking at her in her tee shirt and skirt, it’s easy to imagine slipping my hands up her thighs, touching her; kissing her until she’s like warm wax melting in my hands.
“We should get a coffee sometime,” I suggest, finishing off the wine in my glass.
“Oh?” Nora drinks the last of her own wine and sets her glass down. “I think that that sounds...nice.” She smiles and inclines her head to me.
I lean down a bit to catch her gaze. Nora is blushing, and I think about Christophe’s assertion that American girls are easy. I don’t know if they all are, but Nora doesn’t seem to be.
Right now, my bet with Julienne is a million miles away from my mind.
“Would you mind if I kissed you?” Between the booze I drank earlier, the wine Nora gave me and the adorable flush spreading over her cheeks, any inhibitions I might’ve had have gone right out the window.
“You want to…kiss me?” Nora looks up at me wide-eyed, and I’m not sure if it’s fear or con
fusion that I see on her face.
“There’s nothing I’d want more right now,” I tell her with a little smile.
Nora’s lips are parted, and I take the risk that I might be making a bad choice. I lean in and kiss her, just lightly, barely touching her lips with mine. I pull back and her eyes are still open, the pink in her cheeks deepening.
“Mmmm…that was really nice,” I smile at her, only centimeters away from her face.
“So nice…I think we need to do that again,” Nora replies, breathless. I go in for another kiss. This time I’m a little more aggressive, letting my hands go to her waist, pulling her closer to me slowly. I slide my tongue along her lips and Nora opens her mouth, letting me in. I deepen the kiss, pressing her body against mine, hugging her tightly, and Nora starts to respond, kissing me back, her hands moving up to my shoulders. I love the feeling of her body against mine, and all I can think of is what it would be like to pick her up and carry her into the bedroom, pin her to the bed and take her.
I hold myself back and stick with just exploring her body a bit with my hands. Her breasts are every bit as full and lush as I had thought, just a little bit more than I can fit in my hand, and I can feel her nipples beginning to harden through her clothes. I nip at her bottom lip, and nibble at her tongue, and Nora moans against my lips, trembling in my arms.
I dip down to her neck, kissing the spot where I can feel her pulse fluttering, and give her tits a quick, firm squeeze. Nora gasps, arching into my touch, and I have to decide whether or not to go ahead. She’s just been attacked, and she said something about not wanting to date anyone for six months. We’re not that different, I think, coming back up to her lips to kiss her once more. I can feel my cock starting to get hard, and I know I need to make a decision—should I try and press forward, or should I back off?
“Are you okay with this?” I pull back and look into Nora’s eyes. She’s dazed-looking and furrows her brow in confusion.
I try and think of the words in English—obviously, she’s had a lot to drink, but I can tell she wants me. “I...continue?”
I let my hand slide down to her hip to give her an even better idea of what I mean. Please say yes. She says something—it isn’t yes or no. “Encore?” Again?
“I’m not sure,” she says, in French this time, and I know I can’t push forward. She’s too drunk and too vulnerable; even if she’s totally hot for me, I can’t make myself do it. If she’s not sure, I’m not going to press her.
I start to pull away more fully, but Nora grabs at my shoulders. “What?” I look down at her in confusion.
“Do you think…” she takes a breath and I see her eyes moving, as she considers how to say what she wants to say. “Do you think you could stay the night?”
“I don’t understand,” I tell her. Nora looks irritable for a moment and I see her mouthing words soundlessly.
“Would you like to stay here, but not have sex?” she presses her lips together, looking up at me with such hope and such worry in her eyes that I take a few seconds to parse through what she might mean.
“I can do that,” I tell her, leaning in to kiss her on the lips again, just for a second.
Nora teeters slightly in my arms and smiles. “I think that I’m too...what’s the word?”
“Drunk?”
Nora considers that, and nods. “I think that I’m too drunk to decide to have sex with you,” she says. “But I don’t want you to leave.”
“I understand,” I say, brushing my lips against her forehead. She takes me by the hand and leads me through the kitchen, past the living room, and towards the bedroom of the apartment.
When she turns the light on, the bed looks a little small to me; I think I might just barely fit on it. Nora totters slightly as she pads over to the bed, and I try to keep myself from reaching out to grab her.
Nora starts taking her clothes off, and I wonder if she’s rethinking the issue of having sex with me. For a few seconds, I definitely have some real trouble keeping my resolution not to push forward with her as her bra comes off underneath her tee shirt, and I see her unrestrained tits against the fabric and the almost see-through lace of her panties, but then she turns to look at me.
“You...sleep in all your clothes?”
I give myself a shake and take off my jacket, kick off my shoes, and start on my jeans. Normally, I sleep naked, but I’m pretty sure that will be too much for Nora. I pull my feet free from my jeans and haul my tee shirt over my head. When I’m done, I can feel Nora staring at me, and I look around to see her sitting on the edge of the bed, her eyes wide.
“Something wrong?”
She blinks and then shakes her head, smiling at me shyly. “You have so many…tattoos. They’re beautiful.”
I laugh and cross the room to the bed. “I’m a tattoo artist,” I tell her.
“Ahh, I see,” Nora says.
I lean down, and I can’t help myself; she looks so delicious. I kiss her lightly on the lips and then we’re moving onto the bed together, and I try to hold myself back but it’s so hard; my cock is throbbing in my shorts, and all I can think is that the tiny bed would force us to get creative with the positions.
Finally, I make myself pull back, and I climb out of the bed. “I’ll turn off the light and we can get some sleep,” I say quickly.
“What?”
I repeat myself more slowly.
“Oh! Yes, okay,” she mumbles, laying back on the bed.
I shut off the light and find my way to the bed where she’s waiting. Nora cuddles up close to me, which just makes it that much harder for me to relax, but as I breathe in the smell of her and feel her fall asleep cradled in my arms, I finally begin to unwind.
After a few minutes, I’m fast asleep.
Chapter EIGHT
Nora
When I wake up, wrapped in Jacques’ huge arms with my cheek pressed to his chest, the throbbing in my head is actually the least of my concerns. The crazy turn things took last night after the guy attacked me in my doorway comes back to me in a flash. Not only had Jacques been there to defend me with perfect timing, but when he kissed me, he’d backed off and actually asked if I wanted to keep going. Even on his best days, Ethan never asked.
Jacques shifts in the bed, and the feeling of his hard, muscular body pressed up against mine is so appealing, that it’s making me more than a little aroused. The sight of his tattoo-decked chest, ribs and arms from the night before had shocked me, and as Jacques started waking up, I saw them again: a few words in French, detailed scrollwork, and motifs that I could recognize from ancient art. He was like a living canvas, and I longed to pore over every detail.
“T’es réveillée?” Are you awake? he whispers.
I blink, remembering after the fact that Jacques doesn’t really speak English. “Oui,” I confirm.
Jacques’ big, strong hands start to move on me, and I shiver at how good he feels. I can remember—in a vague, blurry way—how they felt the night before, pawing at my breasts and drifting down to my hips. I pull myself up and kiss him hungrily, and instinctively, I’m on top of him.
Any hesitation I might have felt the night before is completely gone now.
I feel his hands slip up under my tee shirt, and his fingers begin twisting and rolling my nipples, sending little jolts of sensation straight to my pussy.
“Tu l’aimes?” You like that?
Jacques breaks away from my lips to nibble along the column of my throat, and I say the first word that comes to mind.
“Oui.” Yes.
I straddle his lean hips and I can feel the ridge of his erection in his boxers. It feels enormous, but surely, that’s just my imagination—or maybe some wishful thinking. I rub up against him, and Jacques moans against my neck, his fingers squeezing my nipples a little tighter, his hands kneading my breasts in a way I never would have thought I would like—until that moment.
Jacques pulls my tee shirt up over my head, and a noise somewhere between a moan and
a whimper escapes my lips. I’m so wet already, so turned on, and it’s only been a few moments since we both woke up.
“C’est bon de faire l’amour à la réveil,” Jacques murmurs against my lips, and then something else that I can’t quite make myself translate. It’s good to make love when you wake up.
I have to say, I can’t agree more.
“Oui, c’est—c’est bon,” I murmur. Yes, it’s good. Jacques nips sharply at my neck and I cry out; it feels so good, so strangely right. He pushes his hips up against me, and I’m getting wetter and wetter by the moment. We stay like that for what seems like an hour, pawing, touching and rubbing against each other until I almost can’t stand it. I’ve never just made out this long with anyone—not even Ethan, who always seemed to want to get right to the main event.
Jacques tumbled me around onto my back, and I looked up at him in surprise. “Tu aimes le cuni?” I blink in confusion—I can make the first part of the sentence out, but definitely not the second part.
“Quoi?” What? Jacques reaches down between my legs and begins to stroke me through my thin panties.
“Le cuni?” Jacques looks at me and flicks his tongue, then raises an eyebrow and rubs me more firmly. When I’m still confused, a look of concentration comes over his face. “How you say… ‘eat out’?” I’m not sure what shocks me more: the sound of Jacques saying “eat out” in his thick French accent, or the fact that he’s apparently asking me if I like being gone down on.
“Oui—oui, je l’adore,” I reply, blushing at the question itself. Yes, I love it. Ethan only ever went down on me maybe three times in our entire relationship, but of course, the asshole expected me to blow him whenever I was on my period and he wanted sex, or whenever he was ‘stressed out’ and ‘didn’t feel like going to all the trouble and fuss’ of actually having sex with me.
Jacques hooks his fingers in the waistband of my panties and pulls them down over my hips, along my legs, and I shiver at the slightly cooler air hitting my drenched, soaking wet pussy.