by BETH KERY
He wished he could have given it all to her.
Impossibly, desire tickled at his balls and moist shaft.
“Damn you, Elise,” he muttered thickly, annoyed by his insatiable lust.
A heavy sense of the inevitable settled upon him as he used several tissues to mop himself dry. He stood next to the windows and stared out at the descending night.
It was not an option, for him to be at her mercy. She was too skilled at playing a man, too perfectly suited to Lucien’s lust. She was an unacceptable risk. An infuriating temptation. An undeniable delight.
No. He wouldn’t deny himself. Not this time.
The sun was just rising over the lake when Elise got off the bus on inner Lake Shore Drive and started walking west on Division Street. The slow ascent of the fiery orb seemed to match the inevitable rise of her anxiety as she neared State and Division . . . and Lucien. She’d seen little of him over the past few days as she was absorbed with her duties, and was nervous at the idea of spending one on one time with him. If only he’d suggested she go with Evan or Javier, she might have been able to disguise her relative ignorance on the topic of marketing. As things stood, she was bound to make a fool of herself in front of Lucien.
She sensed him watching her from where he stood beneath a storefront awning, sipping a cup of coffee.
“Good morning,” he said when she approached. His gray eyes looked especially light in the shadow of the awning. They lowered over her appreciatively.
“Hello,” she returned, feeling a little shy beneath his warm stare. He looked very sexy in a pair of well-fitted jeans and a dark red T-shirt that showed off a lean, muscular torso and powerful arms to eye-catching effect. The casual apparel had the effect of making him seem a tad more approachable but every bit as appealing, reminding Elise of a sexy rock star instead of his typical businessman persona.
His T-shirt was partially tucked in to his jeans in the front, revealing a thick black leather belt with silver buckle that rode low on his lean hips. She belatedly realized he was handing her a cup of coffee. Her cheeks heated. She’d been caught in the act of staring at his thighs and the way his jeans cupped his sex.
“Thank you,” she murmured, grateful for the coffee at such an early hour. She immediately took a drink. Her eyes widened in pleasure.
“Café crème,” she said, grinning. “You even remembered how I take it.”
His smile made something hitch in her chest. “I remembered that you took it practically with equal parts coffee, cream, and sugar as a girl. Do you really still like it that sweet?” he teased.
She took another sip, her sigh of satisfaction his answer. He chuckled and put his hand on her elbow, urging her to walk.
“Did the cab drop you off in the wrong place?” he asked as they made their way toward the bustling outdoor market.
“What? Oh, no,” she said, realizing he’d probably seen her walking toward him from blocks away. “I took the bus.”
He blinked. “The bus?”
She dug into the pocket of her small backpack and pulled out a card. “My CTA pass. Do you have any idea how convenient these things are? Between buses and the L, I can go anywhere in Chicago,” she said, the amazement in her voice genuine. Learning to navigate around had been an oddly liberating experience for her, invigorating, to jump onto a vehicle and blend anonymously with the vibrant flow of humanity, to become a single cell in the lifeblood of the city.
His eyes gleamed in amusement. “You hold it up like it’s a badge of honor.”
“It is.”
“Étoile would make quite the headline out of that,” he murmured, referring to the French tabloid she hated with a white-hot passion for sensationalizing her life and using it as fodder to sell papers. “Fair-Haired Heiress Caught Slumming It,” he quoted an imagined headline.
“Screw Étoile,” she said succinctly. She hitched her chin at the crowd of people bustling around them, intent on their marketing in the early morning light. “I’m willing to bet they don’t even know what Étoile is, and nor would they care. They could care less about who my father is. They’ve never gobbled up the slop about my supposed love life. Most of them wouldn’t remember my mother’s movies—”
“Or have ever heard of my father’s name, let alone his crimes.”
She came to a halt, startled that he’d mentioned his father. He paused as well and touched her cheek, as if to erase her amazed expression. Her breath caught at the unexpected, tender caress. His fingertips lingered, warm and firm against her skin.
“We are both fugitives here, I think,” he murmured.
“I prefer to think of myself as an adventurer,” she replied in a hushed tone. His flashing smile was like an injection of adrenaline straight into one of her veins.
“You look beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze lowering over the floral sundress she’d donned for the warm summer day.
“Thank you, but I’d rather just look like a chef.”
“An adventuresome chef?” he asked, looking amused and . . . warm. She smiled, fully enthralled.
The delicate, charmed moment fractured when he begun to dig in his jeans pocket, the motion distracting her. He withdrew a wad of bills and handed them to her. “Just get a receipt for whatever you purchase, please.”
She nodded, eyeing the money with an appreciation she hadn’t possessed for most of her life. It took not having something to really get the value of it. She’d learned that much in the past year.
She tucked the money carefully away in her backpack and they continued walking, Elise staring with interest at the colorful vegetables and fruits and smiling at the vendors, suddenly feeling like a kid in a candy store. The smell of wild onion entered her nose, then a delectable, sweet fragrance that she inhaled deeply. A farmer had sliced one of his melons. Her mouth watered as they passed his booth.
You can do this, she told herself.
She’d been marketing with her fellow students and an instructor while at school, hadn’t she? Of course this was different. Lucien was affording her the status of chef. She was in charge, she thought with a thrill of excitement.
“Do you have your list?” he asked.
Her eyes widened in panic as she stared at some brilliantly green Granny Smith apples. She was the chef. She should have made a list.
“I don’t need a list. I’ve memorized the menu,” she said honestly. “And I’ll pick whatever is nicest and freshest for the special next week.”
“All right,” he said. She sighed in relief that he seemed to have accepted her reply. She wanted to convince him of her expertise at all costs. “We usually buy from Jim Goddard over there.” He pointed to a booth with a thickset, gray-haired man sitting behind a table. “He’s got a way with heirloom lettuce and arugula, and his peppers are usually good. If you trust me to do it, I’ll pick up the avocado and snow peas from Mort Sanger over there. I’ll rent a cart and bring it over when I’m finished.”
Elise glanced to the booth where he pointed a quarter of the way down the block. She longed to see, touch, and taste the lovely produce there as well, but she thought it best to handle her bartering without Lucien coolly observing.
Twenty minutes later, she’d forgotten about her anxiety—and even Lucien, momentarily—as she chatted with Jim Goddard and sank her teeth into a fleshy San Marzano tomato.
“Délicieux,” she exclaimed, eyes wide as the sweet, intense flavor flooded her mouth. She grinned widely at Jim. She took another bite and wiped the juice off her chin with the back of her hand. “I don’t understand you Americans,” she chastised Jim teasingly after she’d chewed and swallowed. “How can you put all that awful salad dressing on your salads when you have vegetables like these?”
“I don’t make the salads; I just grow the vegetables,” Jim said, looking a little dazed.
“And you do it extremely well. What’s your price for these delectable gems?” she queried, holding up another pepper-shaped tomato near her mouth and eyeing it hungrily,
all too aware of Jim watching her every move with stunned amazement.
Two minutes later, she had finalized the deal with Jim, and he walked away to pack up her order.
“You bargained for the tomatoes, but you were angling for a good price on the lettuce the whole time, you little minx,” a deep, delicious voice murmured near her head, causing a tingling sensation to go down her neck. She twisted her chin and saw Lucien standing closer than she’d expected. His gaze was fixed on the back of her neck like he was considering taking a bite out of her there. Her nipples tightened against the tank top she wore beneath her sundress.
“How do you know that?” she asked innocently.
“Because I watched you eating one of those tomatoes a moment ago, just like Jim Goddard did.” She watched his ungodly sexy lips move as if in a trance until she realized what she was doing and turned away. “After that display, the poor man probably would have thrown his farm into the deal in order to make the sale on those tomatoes. What’s a few crates of lettuce to him, when he gets to witness you turning his vegetables into certifiable sex fruit?”
“You shouldn’t complain. I saved you money,” she said breezily, still not turning because she loved the feeling of his warm breath on her neck, the vibration of his deep voice in her ear.
“It’s just a little hard not to feel for the rest of the helpless men on the planet when I see them so easily seduced by you.”
“Seduced? I didn’t do anything improper,” she insisted, turning to face him.
He shook his head. “You breathe improper, Elise. You could make taking out the garbage an X-rated affair.”
Her breath stuck and burned in her lungs when she saw the heat in his gray eyes.
Did she really know what she was doing, putting herself at risk with Lucien Sauvage?
She stilled, the question evaporating from her brain, when he reached up and carefully wiped juice off her chin.
They loaded all their purchases in the largest black pickup truck she’d ever seen. “These Americans do everything so big,” she muttered as she helped him close the tailgate. She could just imagine what she was going to look like trying to peer over the dashboard of the enormous truck when she took over marketing next Saturday. The brutish truck hardly compared to the Bugatti Veyron she used to fly around Paris in. Oh well. At least she’d earned the right to climb behind the wheel of the behemoth vehicle. She’d never done any such thing for the cars her father gave her.
Lucien checked the platinum watch on his wrist. “Come on, we have time before the lunch preparations. I’ll take you for something else the Americans do big.”
“What?” she asked, her heartbeat escalating when he took her hand in his.
“You’ll see,” Lucien said elusively.
She gave him a doubtful look when he led her to a small restaurant nestled innocuously among expensive Gold Coast town houses.
“The House of Pancakes?” she asked dubiously.
Lucien just smiled knowingly and led her inside. The delicious aromas of ham and maple syrup made her mouth water.
“Is there a party going on?” she asked, bemused as she took in the crowded restaurant and rambunctious atmosphere.
“No. This is a typical Saturday or Sunday morning here. The Americans love weekend breakfast. It’s an occasion for them,” Lucien explained quietly before the hostess greeted them cheerfully and seated them at a small Formica-topped table.
“Look at all the families . . . the friends,” Elise said, examining the diverse crowd, everyone talking amiably or diving into mounds of syrup-drenched pancakes or fluffy omelets. In France, breakfast consisted of coffee and a croissant and was hardly an occasion. The first meal of the day was the least important, and definitely the least social, in her opinion.
She opened the plastic-covered menu and stared in wonder at page upon page of decadently rich food. Lucien must have noticed her amazement because he was smiling when she looked up.
“It’s like culinary Disneyland.”
“I’m always telling people, when it comes to cooking, the Americans do one thing like no other: weekend breakfast. Look at them,” he murmured. He grabbed her hand on the tabletop in a gesture that seemed entirely natural on his part but made her heart jump. She followed his gaze.
“And people say Americans will never understand the true meaning of a French meal,” he murmured under his breath to her, eyeing the tables of happily relaxed people, friends and families talking about their week in a non-pressured manner while they sipped steaming coffee or indulged in a doctor-prohibited meal for one precious moment during a busy week. She saw a teenage boy showing his dubious but interested grandfather something on his iPad, a man reading his International Business Times while his female companion perused a self-help book, their hands held fast on the Formica tabletop. Kids colored on the restaurant-supplied kid’s menu, looking adorably like they’d just rolled out of bed with uncombed hair and sweatpants, shorts, and occasionally even pajama bottoms.
“I find,” Lucien said quietly across the table, “they’re at their best at breakfast.”
She looked at him and they shared a smile.
“I admire the chef,” she said.
Lucien chuckled. “I imagine it’s more of a cook than a chef. It hardly compares to the complexity and nuance of what you do.”
“Thank you, but I meant I admire him because he gets to bring all these people together. These families,” she added, once again studying all the relaxed, happy people with longing. “You miss having family around, don’t you?”
“I miss having a family. Period.” She was surprised when he reached across the table and squeezed her hand. She saw something in his eyes—something she understood all too well.
We are alike, you and I. Both alone. Both misfits.
But not alone when we’re together, she added in her head. A powerful feeling swelled in her chest.
“How is your father?” he asked quietly.
She grimaced. “He’s growing more stubborn in his old age.”
“He always could have used being a bit more stubborn when it came to you,” Lucien said with dry amusement.
Elise rolled her eyes, even though she actually thought Lucien was right. She hadn’t minded half as much as she thought she would have when her father cut her off financially. Maybe part of her had been waiting for someone in her life to show a little backbone; although, when it came to her father, she suspected he wouldn’t hold out if she begged him hard enough. She’d just been tired, too worn out to exhibit the required amount of wheedling and bargaining to get him to relent.
“Other than his newfound cantankerous streak, he’s much the same as always. Still gay, and pretending to all the world that he’s the Heterosexual Bull of All of Europe.” She saw Lucien’s small smile and matched it sadly. “Bless his heart. If only he realized it wouldn’t matter a bit to most of us. It hasn’t mattered to those closest to him for forever, if only he’d step outside of his brilliant head for a moment and notice. Although if he declared himself, my mother would be lost. How could she possibly justify all her affairs then?”
Lucien grunted softly in understanding. “A lie disguised by a mask wrapped in yet another façade. That’s how I thought of my childhood.”
“How is one ever to recognize the truth?” Elise replied softly.
Their stares met. She felt a little bereft when the waitress came and he released her, leaning back in his seat.
Nearly an hour later, she groaned in a mixture of discomfort and supreme gustatory satiation as they left the restaurant.
“Those carrot cake pancakes were soooo good,” she said, rubbing her stomach as Lucien held open the door for her. “So was the bacon and cheddar omelet.”
“Don’t forget the hash browns or blueberry waffle,” Lucien said dryly as they walked onto the tree-lined street, the sidewalk separated from the green lawns by a low, iron-gated fence. She saw his amusement and laughed. She’d asked to try far too many items fro
m the menu, her culinary curiosity piqued by the cheerful, packed crowd and Lucien’s description of American breakfasts.
“How could I forget them? All the ingredients were fresh, and it was so delicious.”
He nodded in the direction of Division Street and the farmers’ market. “They buy the produce right there.”
“It was brilliant. This was a wonderful morning. Lucien, can we do a breakfast at Fusion?” she asked, enthralled by the idea. “I’ll put a spin on it you’ll never forget.”
He glanced swiftly back at her and caught her dreaming about her breakfast. His expression went hard. He turned and she found herself in his arms.
It happened so suddenly, she didn’t have a chance to exclaim in surprise. One second they were walking down the sidewalk and she was teasing and dreaming, and the next she was pressed against his hard body, her chin just below his nipple line, and he was lifting her face to his. She got a glimpse of the fierceness of his gaze before his mouth claimed hers.
His tongue pierced her lips, agile and possessive. His taste permeated her consciousness and she melted against him, her body going soft and supple against his solid length, their tongues sliding together in a manner that made her forget where she was. Lucien’s kiss on a Chicago sidewalk on a shiny new day was the most delicious thing she’d ever experienced in her life.
She moaned in regret when he lifted his head a sensuous moment later.
“You’ve already got me spinning,” he said quietly against her lips, his intensity stealing her breath. His gaze moved over her face, narrowing.
“I’m sorry. I told you I wasn’t going to do that. What kind of a model for self-control am I?”
“Don’t be sorry. I liked it. A lot,” she finished on a whisper, pressing her body closer to better feel his heat, his masculine contours. She grinned. “Who cares about self-control?”
His nostrils flared slightly. His expression went flat. He stepped away, keeping her hand in his.
“I do. Come on,” he said. “We should get over to Fusion.”