Once Upon a Rose

by Laura Florand

  But then, post grocery shopping, she had had the brilliant idea of trying to find Antoine Vallier’s office in Grasse without Google Maps and also maybe a store where she could buy a new phone, and she had gotten so hopelessly lost that dusk was falling now, and the cheese she had bought had stunk up the whole car.

  And it was official—she hated spaghetti-thin, twisty cliff roads. Especially the fourth time she crept down the same one, in a cycle of lostness.

  Her chocolate had probably all melted, too. After she’d bought half the aisle. (Well, what? A well-traveled woman knew when to take advantage of her host culture. A whole aisle of chocolate bars was not something one found in a supermarket in the U.S.)

  God, she was glad to be back home. That was…back in the quiet and roses of the valley. Obviously not her home home.

  Stepping into the old farmhouse kitchen, she started to set the ten-pound bag of chocolate bars on the worn old table.

  And then saw the body sprawled across her kitchen floor.

  She screamed, jerking backward, sack in hand. The sack dragged at her arm, and she hefted it, ready to do battle with chocolate if she had to, as the body came to life.

  There was a thump, a curse, another curse, and then a huge form lunged upright in the kitchen, giant wrench raised high to—

  She screamed bloody murder.

  “What?” a deep voice boomed over her. “What? What? Merde, what’s wrong?” He lunged for her.

  She swung the bag with all her might, and ten pounds of chocolate collided with a broad shoulder and unfortunately only glanced against the head. The bag split, and Matt staggered against the counter under the rain of chocolate bars, dropping the wrench.

  It hit the floor and maybe something else because he cursed again, jerking one foot up. “Bordel de merde.”

  “What the hell are you doing in my kitchen?” she yelled, grabbing for the next grocery sack. Cheeses. She should have chosen stinkier ones.

  “I—the kitchen sink was leaking!” Matt yelled, rubbing his head. “Aïe! Damn it.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “It’s my valley!” he roared so loudly she fell back against the counter.

  She took a deep breath and stared at him—and then abruptly dropped the cheese and pressed her hands to her face. “Oh, holy crap, you scared me to death.”

  “I told you I was going to fix it! And I fixed your putain de fusible!” His arms folded across his chest.

  Yes, a light was on in the kitchen. The refrigerator was humming again. Little things she should have noticed before she even came into the kitchen, except she was so tired. And he had mentioned the kitchen sink that morning, hadn’t he? She’d been too busy thinking about his shoulders and what they would do if she touched them to pay much attention.

  She took another deep breath, her skin still jittery from the shock of it. “Shit,” she said, heartfelt.

  Matt glowered, his arms tightening. “Where the hell have you been anyway? The store is only twenty minutes away!”

  “I got lost!” she snapped, the whole day of frustration piling up on her.

  “You did not get lost with my directions!” he said, affronted.

  “I decided to risk going farther afield.” She glared back at him. Tears stung ridiculously, trying to turn the glare into something else. She’d had a hard day. She’d actually been having a hard few months, full of this endless cycle of pressures and expectations she couldn’t meet, like twisting forever on those damn cliff roads and never getting anywhere she could rest.

  And her whole body wanted to collapse now in relief, nestling itself against a big, strong man in gratitude for him saving her from an axe murderer. A wrench murderer. Whatever. Saving her, in this case, just by not being the axe murderer in question, nor a dead body, nor all the things that had flashed through her mind as she’d reacted instinctively.

  “You went somewhere else? Why the hell did you do something like that without checking with me?” Matt demanded.

  She gaped at him. “Excuse me,” she said dangerously. “I’ve traveled by myself all over Europe and the United States, and you, some random stranger with a temper problem, want me to check with you before I go anywhere?”

  “That’s not what I meant!” He looked ready to pound his head against something. “Check with me for directions! And how the hell did you manage to travel all over Europe if you can’t even get from here to Grasse? What happened on your last trip, you got lost trying to get from London to Paris and ended up wandering through Istanbul and Prague before you could figure out where you were?”

  “Okay, you know what…” She folded her arms and glared at him. “You can go now.” She’d used train passes back then, for God’s sake. Only on this trip had she had the brilliant idea to buy the little blue van off a friend in Berlin and use it to get around. Much easier to carry her instruments that way, right? Plus, it reminded her of the old days, when she’d driven that old beat-up van her mother had helped her buy all over the U.S., chasing festival opportunities in the summers between school terms. Music had just flowed out of her, back in those days. That had been who she was.

  “Not if you want to be able to use your kitchen sink, I can’t.” He dropped back down to the floor and stretched out, scowling at her one last time before his head disappeared into the cabinet. From under the sink came a muttering stream of curses, like a bear grumbling in his cave.

  She stared down at him. Now that she knew it was alive and didn’t belong to an axe murderer, that was one really nice body to have stretched out there on those worn tiles. Big, half-filling the kitchen. A very reassuring strength to have around, to fight the lingering ghosts of axe murderers. He couldn’t even see her ogling it either. As long as he kept working on that sink, she could ogle it a long time.

  One knee drawn up, jeans hugging lean hips, a T-shirt clinging softly to stomach muscles drawn in extra tight with the work he was doing. Wide shoulders, the undersides of muscled arms visible as he used the wrench. “I see you got your T-shirt on,” she said regretfully.

  Then clapped her hand to her mouth. Oops. That regretful tone must be due to the shock of the moment.

  He made a low, growling noise, clearly still grumpy.

  Damn, she loved the growling noise. It just hummed through the air and through her bones. Her hands actually curved, fingers shifting to press down strings and strum, as if she could capture the sound, caress it, play it.

  Be one hell of an instrument that could capture that sound. Her fingers flexed into the air, in frustration over all the moments that her music could never capture. And her gaze scanned the real instrument of that sound, that broad chest and that stretch of tan throat, and her fingers—all by themselves, she swore her brain knew better—thought about ways they could play more growls out of him. The tickling way they could run up his ribs right this second, get him to growl in protest, then maybe test the resilience of those chest muscles and see what other sounds he made when he was…

  She curled her fingertips tightly into her palms and tucked them behind her, locking them between her butt and the counter to make them behave.

  It was hard to make them behave. Her gaze drifted to where his drawn-up knee pulled the jeans against his crotch, and her impish, idiot fingers all the sudden thought about what sound he might make if she touched him there, and—

  She smashed her butt harder against her hands, pinching them against the counter.

  Probably be one hell of a sound, though, her brain thought wistfully.

  Oh, fine, now her brain was going to turn idiot, too.

  Yeah, but…admit you want to hear that sound.

  “I’ll just, ah…clean up,” she said, and crouched to start collecting the chocolate bars that were scattered all around his body. A couple of them were even tucked half under his butt. She smiled a little, and then gave her fingertips a little rap against the hard tiles to try to knock some sense into them.

  The hard stomach drew in even tighte
r. She followed that tightness up his torso—and started when she found that, in the shadow of the cabinet, he’d curled his head up enough to gaze at her.

  “Nice T-shirt,” she said dreamily. It was, too. This lovely golden-brown, fine cotton that kindly clung to all the definition of the muscles stretched out before her. The scent of roses came off him, mixed erotically with dirt and grease and sweat. “Although not as good as being naked.”

  The breath whooshed from him. A small thump as he hit his head on the pipe.

  She clapped her hand to her mouth. Oh, good God. She had not just said that, had she? If this is your newest way of procrastinating on that album, Layla Dubois, you have lost your mind.

  “Uh—don’t get any ideas!” She held up a hand hastily, as if that could really ward off someone his size.

  “Hard not to, now,” he growled, low and deep. Oh, yeah. Already a promising sound there. One that vibrated through her whole body. He pushed himself out from under the cabinet enough to half sit up, one arm looping around his knee and the other hand rubbing his forehead.

  She stared, still crouched on the floor close to him, really not wanting him to get any ideas and…really wanting him to. To just reach out and grab her and…show her some of his ideas.

  Good lord. This must be where those repairman-housewife stories got started. And she’d always judged those poor women. Hot stranger, in one’s house, fixing things…she could suddenly, utterly see the temptation to turn that into intense, stolen sex.

  She slid back a bit, the movement shifting her out of her crouch to her knees. “I don’t know why I said that.”

  Dark brown eyes tracked over her body. His voice went so deep the rub of it in her nipples hurt. “Want me to see if I can find out?”

  “Oh, I—” She pushed herself back more. But in the process, her knees spread just a little. “No.”

  His gaze tracked back down over her body and lingered a second at the seam of her jeans, then trailed back up her torso, stopping like a hot stamp on her breasts before it reached her eyes again. As his gaze locked with hers, she flushed suddenly, all through her. “Sure?” His voice burred so deep she wanted to beg for it.

  To just wallow in that sound, all over her body.

  “No,” she said. “I mean—yes! Yes, I’m sure.”

  Wait, had she said yes or no now? Those brown eyes caught on hers, clearly not sure either and intently hoping for the best.

  She held up both hands. “No.”

  He took a long, slow breath, holding onto that upraised knee as if it was his own lifeline, and just watched her. Waiting.

  Waiting for her to maybe change her mind, she realized. Or make it up.

  Oh, hell, the crazy, stupid, intense arousal that pressed through her at his waiting.

  “Please don’t,” she said. Because if he did reach for her, if he tested her response at all, she might just…go with it. Be swept away. And then where would she be?

  Besides satisfied? protested her rebellious body.

  Matt frowned just a little. “Bouclettes, you already said no. You don’t have to add a ‘please’ to that for me.”

  She drew a breath and forced herself to break his gaze, blurrily eyeing instead the scattered chocolate bars.

  “You don’t have to add a ‘please’ to a ‘yes’ either.” That deep voice rubbed over her.

  She wet her lips.

  “Yeah.” A rumble like thunder. “You could just say it like that.”

  She pressed her lips together and shook her head, not daring to look at him. She desperately wanted to do something stupid.

  He reached for a rag and very carefully, very thoroughly, wiped his hands clean.

  Oh, lord.

  “I said no.”

  “I’m not touching you, Bouclettes.”

  Damn. Why was that so hot? To not be touched? Why did it make her want to be touched so badly?

  “That’s good,” she managed.

  The deep vibrations of his voice just wrapped her up and caressed her, easing into a tone so gentle it was all she could do not to curl up in it. “Why is that good, chérie?”

  She scrubbed her hands over her face, trying to rub some sense into herself. “Because I don’t know what I’d do if you did,” she confessed.

  He drew one hard breath in, his fist clenching on the rag. Their gazes locked and sizzled. “That is a hell of a thing to tell a man while you keep asking him to do nothing.”

  “I know.”

  He shook his head slow and hard. “No. I bet you think you know. You think you can imagine it. But I bet you have no idea how hard it is to not just…do.”

  She drew another breath and scooted herself to the other side of a table leg. A flimsy, silly barrier for all it was a sturdy old table. But she could hold onto it and stare at him from its pseudo-refuge.

  She felt more like a lion caging herself so she wouldn’t attack her prey rather than, say, prey hiding from the lion.

  But maybe he misinterpreted, because he frowned and looked down, releasing all that delicious pressure. He took his own deep breath in and let it out now, heavily. “So…you like chocolate,” he said randomly, picking up a few of the bars. And then a few more. A smile started to curl the corners of his lips. “A lot.”

  “They had all these flavors!”

  Just that hint of amusement did the most amazing things to his mouth—easing the pressure that firm upper lip kept on the full, sensual lower one. Letting a hint escape of how much sensuality was there waiting to be freed. That lower lip, when the upper one relaxed, looked—vulnerable. Erotic. Looked like something a woman could lick and nibble and…

  Stop it already.

  His smile deepened, and he rose, setting the bars on top of the table. “I think you pierced my eardrums. Merde, but you’ve got a voice on you.”

  Ah...yes. That had been commented on before.

  He reached out a hand for her, and she hesitated one second to gaze at the size and strength of it before she put her hand in his. It closed with just the right firmness, entirely engulfing hers as he pulled her easily to her feet.

  She sighed, gazing up at him. He didn’t look the least bit grumpy now. Intrigued, alert, ready. But…there was a gentleness to that alertness, a patience. He didn’t move in on her with that big body. She could tell he wanted to. But he let her keep the corner of the table between them.

  “I think you’d better give me your key to this house,” she said regretfully.

  Oops. She had meant to say that firmly.

  That smile warmed the brown of his eyes to the most amazing color, rich with gold. “I’ll leave the door unlocked on mine.”

  Hey. She started to blush. “That will not be necessary.”

  He laughed out loud, and pleasure leaped through her, to have made the grumpy bear laugh. “No, it will be something a lot more fun than necessary.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Seriously. Don’t leave your door open. I’m not coming.”

  “All right, Bouclettes. I got it. You didn’t mean to go that far.” He moved away to turn on the faucet and let it run a moment, checking under the sink. Then he nodded and started packing up his tools. A little color showed on his strong cheekbones and a little smile still curved his mouth while he cleaned up, just this sexy, happy curl.

  She liked it.

  Of course, she liked the scowl, too. It made her want to poke him and pet him and see how easy it would be to make that scowl disappear.

  Men with hot bodies had it so easy where women were concerned, she thought with a sigh of despair at herself. They could get away with just about anything as long as they flexed their muscles from time to time. She’d burned herself on a couple of hook-ups like that before, post performance at a festival, when everyone who had been on stage was feeling kind of high with the glory of it, all wide open from having poured their hearts out to the crowd. But then you woke up in the morning wondering what the hell you had done, and why you had been so careless with your o
wn heart. The music circuit was a small world, and you ran into those guys again, and saw them hooking up with some other high-on-performance woman, and…yeah, it felt crappy.

  In other words, if starting something with him was her subconscious way of avoiding working on that album, it was a really bad idea. Oddly, though, she didn’t feel as if she was avoiding the album. She actually kind of wanted to sit down and play with bass notes all evening. Drift some silken sweet sounds over them like a fall of petals. Let the breeze from the pines blow through. See what happened to them when night fell…

  Matt glanced down at her as he headed out of the kitchen with his toolkit, his step slowing as if he might just stop and not leave. But he kept going. Outside the house, he set the toolkit down and turned to face her in the doorway.

  “You still have the key,” she said.

  He braced his hands on the doorjamb, on either side of her above her head. That moved him into her space—caging her in with his size, and all his body wide open to her. But of course, she could always take one step back and shut the door. “It’s in my back pocket,” he said. That little smile as he held her eyes, and that deep, deep voice. God, a smile was a gorgeous look on him. She wanted to play with it, run her fingers over it, nurture it. “And I think my hands are dirty.”

  His jeans looked as if they’d been through a lot more than dirty hands. And, anyway, he’d just wiped his hands off so carefully she’d been sure he was about to touch her with them. But now they gripped the doorjamb above her, not touching her at all.

  Meaning she would have to touch him, if she wanted any touching to occur.

  His back pocket. Her palm itched to slide over the curve of that taut butt. “If I—if I got it out, what would you do?”

  The biceps to either side of her face grew more pronounced. He gazed down at her, eyes not grumpy at all, oddly quiet. Intent. “What would you want me to do?” His voice didn’t boom. It slid over her, textured, strong and rich, entirely reassuring.

  “N—nothing,” she admitted. Well, that was kind of what she wanted. With, like, the only two neurons that seemed to be functioning in her brain right now, that was what she wanted. The other two hundred billion seemed to want something entirely different.