Part-Time Lover

by Lauren Blakely

  Her phone hits the path with a clatter. Her eyes widen, zeroing in on me as I close the distance, bend to pick up her mobile, and hand it back to her.

  I smile because I can’t not. She’s here. Her brother deserves a medal for telling me where to find her, and for keeping her in one place until I could arrive. She takes the phone, drops it in her purse, and blinks. “You’re here?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Why?”

  I step closer, cup her cheek, and run my thumb along her jaw. “I came here to tell you something.”

  “What is it?” Her voice is like a feather.

  “My brother doesn’t have a clue how I feel. Well, now he does, since I set him straight.”

  She nibbles on her lip. “What did you set him straight about?”

  “I do like you. He was right about that,” I say, since a part of me can’t resist having fun with the woman I love. “But he was wrong about the rest of it.” I raise my other hand and hold her face in my palms, taking a moment to gaze into her beautiful brown eyes. They shine with a look that feels so familiar—because it matches my own heart. “I am in love with my wife.”

  She gasps and shudders at the same time. “I’m in love with my husband.”

  And this, right here, is why I flew across an ocean. Why I took this chance. Elise sneaked up on me. I thought we were only fun and games when we started, but then, unexpectedly, she took my heart. She can keep it. She’s the only one who gets to have it. “Then, I really should kiss my bride.”

  She laughs and whispers, “Yes. Please. Now.”

  I kiss her softly, brushing my lips over hers, savoring what feels like a first kiss. Taking my time, I breathe her in. I linger on her mouth. I want to remember this moment, when everything has finally been said. Our kisses, our touches have always felt real, but now we’ve sealed our kisses with words.

  She kisses me back with such desire, such love that it erases any earlier concerns I had about whether this trip would be worth the risk. She is worth it. She is the risk and she is the reward—the reward I want every day of my life.

  When we separate, I press my lips to her forehead. “I thought you were going to break my heart.”

  Laughing, she wraps her arms around my waist and tilts her face to me. “Why would you think that?”

  “Maybe because I wanted you so much from the start. You nearly did break me. I thought you wanted it to be over.”

  “God, no,” she whispers, desperately.

  “Yeah?”

  “I thought you didn’t feel the same.”

  “Because of my brother?”

  She shrugs and nods. “Yes.”

  “He meant well. But he didn’t know the truth. The truth is I’ve been falling in love with you since the day you agreed to marry me. In fact, I’m pretty sure the first time we slept together, I was already making love to you.”

  She trembles, and a flush crawls up her neck. It’s so alluring, and I want to kiss her all over. “When you came back from London . . .”

  The memory of that night blazes before me. “The club, you mean?”

  She nods. “I knew it then. I felt it then. That night, our connection—it was the most intense thing I’ve ever felt.”

  “Me too, and it wasn’t just the sex.”

  She nods and dusts her lips across my jaw. “I know. It was so much more.”

  “It can be more. It can be more forever, Elise.”

  She pulls back and gives me a quizzical look, and that’s when I finish what I came here to do. I drop down to one knee and take the box from my pocket, flipping open the lid.

  She shrieks and clasps both hands to her mouth.

  “Will you stay married to me?”

  Her answer comes swiftly. “Yes.”

  She joins me, pushing me to sit as she climbs on my lap, wraps her arms around me, and smothers me in kisses. “I want to be Mrs. Elise Ellison for always.”

  I laugh as I tug her close, pressing kisses along her neck. “You never took my name, sweetheart.”

  “I will now.”

  I pull back to meet her eyes. “You will?”

  She nods. “I want to.”

  “Do you want your ring?”

  “Yes, please.” She holds out her hand, and I slide a diamond ring next to her wedding band.

  She sighs, and it’s a beautiful sound. It sounds like happiness. It sounds like everything I never expected from this marriage of convenience that’s now like air to me. Her.

  “I love it, and I love you, and I want you to read my blog,” she says.

  “You wrote a blog post?”

  She nods, grabs her phone, and shows me a post from fifteen minutes ago. As I read it, my smile can’t be contained. I point to the screen. “You posted that as I was walking over to you?”

  She nods and grins like a fool. “I did.”

  I give her a look. “Elise, admit it.”

  “Admit what?”

  I point from her to me. “This is fate. We’re fate.”

  She laughs. “Yes. I believe in fate. But mostly I believe in you.” She plants a searing kiss to my lips that makes me want to do very dirty things to her.

  I grip her hips, lift her off me. “Let’s go to your hotel.”

  We leave the park and hail a taxi.

  “By the way, how did you find me?”

  “I tracked down your brother’s number and asked him to find out where you were. He seemed quite eager to make sure you’d be here to meet me.”

  She laughs. “I’m so glad it was you instead of him.”

  I run a finger over the hollow of her throat, touching her new Eiffel Tower charm. “We need to get you a necklace for the gardens now. You don’t have one. Do you need a flower charm?”

  She shakes her head and holds up her hand. “I have a diamond instead.”

  * * *

  We waste no time when we reach her room. Clothes come off at record speed, and our bodies become reacquainted with each other. It’s only been a few days since I’ve seen her, but it’s been too long since we’ve touched.

  When I climb over her, and she raises her arms to loop them around my neck, I look into her eyes. “I want to make love to my wife.”

  She doesn’t say yes. She doesn’t say, “Make love to me.” Instead, she says, “Consume me.”

  And I do. That’s how I make love to her. Like there’s a fire inside me, and the only way to quench it is to have her. To take her. To bring her to the edge of pleasure again and again.

  I lose track of time. I lose track of her orgasms. She twines around me, her skin hot, her eyes glossy. My hands tug on her hair, and my lips crush hers, my teeth nipping at her neck, her earlobe, her jaw. The sounds she makes send me into another realm. My mind is a blurry haze of desire and love and passion.

  And at last, after we come together one final time, I pull her close and whisper in her ear, “I love you. I’ve wanted to say that for so long.”

  She runs a hand down my chest. “I love you. And I feel like I belong to you, and you belong to me.”

  “That sounds about right. There’s something pretty spectacular about falling in love with your wife.”

  * * *

  A little later, after I rummage through the hotel fridge, I announce that we must go out to eat. “I’m starving, and I can’t subsist on peanuts.”

  We dress and head outside on a summer night in Manhattan. “Show me around New York City, Mrs. Ellison.”

  She does, and we extend our trip, staying for the weekend, taking in the sights. I meet her brother and his wife and kids, as well as her parents, since they’re back in town after a holiday. We get along fantastically. So well, in fact, that I make sure they know that when they’re in Paris next month, we want them at our wedding.

  Epilogue

  Elise

  * * *

  Twilight drapes over Montmartre. Strings of flickering lights hang from the iron posts that hug my courtyard.

  That’s all I have fo
r my wedding decorations, and that’s all I want. With the soft light fading above us in the sky, and the curving cobbled street beyond the front yard, this is the ideal setting.

  Christian taps a spoon against a champagne glass, and all our guests quiet down. I stand next to him at the top of my steps, my arm around his waist. “Thank you so much for coming today and for joining us as we tie the knot again,” he says.

  Our friends and family cheer, and the ceremony begins. There is no aisle to walk down, no flower girls tossing petals, no string quartet playing tunes. This is a simple ceremony, but already it’s my favorite one.

  Because everyone who matters is here. Gathered in my small front yard, which blooms with August’s soft pink and pale-yellow snapdragons, are all the people who matter most to us. Joy holds hands with Griffin, Erik stands next to Veronica, my family is gathered close, and Christian’s mom is here as well as his father and his wife. Christian’s not close to his dad, but it still feels right that he’s present.

  The officiant clears his throat and marries us once again. This ceremony is nearly as fast as our first one, but it’s better because we can finally say out loud how we feel.

  “I promise to love you, cherish you, and adore you for as long as we both shall live,” I tell him, and Christian says the same words to me.

  “Kiss the bride, finally, will ya?”

  Christian laughs at his brother’s directive, then says to me, “I’ll keep doing that for the rest of my life.”

  He kisses me under the twilight sky on our street, in front of my home, where we now live together.

  I loop my hands around his neck, and I’m still holding a bouquet of flowers, tied together with a slim rope. It’s a true hodgepodge, with a few roses, some stargazer lilies, a couple of daisies, and some zinnias. This melting pot of petals is courtesy of my new blog readers, the ones who follow my occasional posts about flowers. They didn’t send me a perfume bottle, and I didn’t want one. Instead they chose the flowers for my bouquet. Lilies for beauty, daisies for innocence, roses for love, and zinnias for lasting affection. I love that it’s completely haphazard and completely meaningful in a whole new way.

  Most of all, I love that the promise of the zinnias feels possible as I kiss my husband once more.

  * * *

  Later that night, we all go out to dinner down the road, where we pretty much take over the five-table bistro, toasting with endless glasses of champagne and wine. At one point, Christian grabs me as I walk by and pulls me into his lap. He wraps his arms around me and nuzzles my neck. “At last. I can finally be a kept man.”

  I laugh and drop a kiss to the end of his nose. “You know what that means, if you really want to be my trophy husband?”

  “What does it mean?”

  “It means you have to service my needs, any night, any time I request.”

  He puffs out his chest. “I believe I do that already.”

  “And I think you’re pretty damn good at it.”

  Christian is anything but a kept man. He’s his own man, carving out the life he wants, picking up the jobs he wants, whether it’s talking all day for dignitaries or businessmen, or advising top companies on entering new markets. He makes his own choices, and most of all, he doesn’t let it demand all his attention, like he did in his twenties. He’s learned how to take in work at a pace that makes him happy.

  As for me, I’m still working hard, and hope to for a long time, since I love my job and taking care of my employees. Most of all, I love having the kind of relationship that consumes me at night and brings me peace during the day.

  I suppose it was fate that brought Christian into my life one fine summer day on a boat tour, but it’s not going to be fate that keeps him in it.

  It’s going to be me, loving this man, and giving him my heart all the days of my life.

  Another Epilogue

  Christian

  * * *

  “I have one final question.”

  “Hit me up with it,” I say as I walk along the avenue with today’s translation client. I expect the Swedish DJ to ask me the fastest route to a new underground club or how to find an out-of-the-way record store.

  “Would you happen to know where the best sweet shop is in Paris?” He cups the side of his mouth as if what he’s sharing is oh-so-secret. “I want to pick up a little gift for the lovely lady.”

  I laugh because do I ever know the answer to that. “Fortunately, I know exactly where to send you.”

  I point him in the direction of Veronica’s nearby shop, and he thanks me, then nabs a taxi.

  He was a fun client, an interesting guy with a toddler back home in Stockholm, and a wife he couldn’t stop talking about. As I shuffled him from meeting to meeting with French music execs, he showed me pictures of the little blond tyke and his equally blonde mum.

  Weirdly, I didn’t mind looking at kid pictures, and that’s never been my thing, per se.

  After I dart to Le Marais for a quick meeting, I’m finished for the day, but I can’t seem to stop thinking about sweets.

  It’s not that I have a sweet tooth. But I do have a wife who loves to shower me with gifts, and thus I like to shower her with them too.

  I head to our neighborhood then stroll through the winding streets of Montmartre as the sun dips low in the sky. I duck into Veronica’s candy shop, ready to nab a small bag of something sweet and tarty for my little mermaid, but I jerk my head back, startled to see someone I know.

  Someone I know quite well.

  My brother.

  He’s tapping his fingers along the counter as he chats animatedly with Veronica, smiling as he tells her some sort of story about a funny incident down by the Seine involving a cyclist, a police officer, and a loaf of bread.

  She laughs from her post at the counter, her eyes twinkling then widening when she spots me.

  She covers her mouth and gives Erik a pointed look.

  He turns to me, startled. “Oh, hiii.”

  “Well, hello,” I say, with a wide grin. “Fancy meeting you here.” I’m curious if the glances exchanged between them on my wedding might last month have turned into a little something more. “Anything interesting happening here?”

  Veronica smiles coyly. Erik shrugs sheepishly.

  “So that’s a yes.” I turn to Veronica. “What do you want me to say when my wife asks how long this has been going on?”

  Veronica pipes in. “We’ve just been talking. We’ve been having a lovely chat.”

  Erik smiles. “I also asked her out to dinner and she said yes.”

  “And I’m going to text Elise any second,” Veronica adds hastily.

  “Good, because I’d be in a world of trouble if I knew and said nothing.”

  “I promise I’ll save you from her inquisition, and even smooth the path with some candy,” Elise offers with a smile.

  “That’s exactly why I’m here. Can you put together a little bag for her?”

  “Of course.” Moving her tongs across pink, lavender, and periwinkle candies, she assembles a quick gift bag for the woman I love.

  I say good-bye, leaving the two of them behind to continue their flirting, presumably. As I head home, I fervently hope Veronica’s text arrives soon.

  * * *

  Later that night, I hear the squeal from Elise that tells me I don’t need to keep this little nugget to myself anymore.

  She rushes into the living room, arms flapping, smiling as wide as the sky. “Your brother asked Veronica out, she said yes, and now we can all get together.”

  “Maybe we ought to let them go out on their own before we do a double date?”

  She scoffs. “Please. Ever since our wedding I knew this would happen, and now I want a double date.”

  “I know you do, little mermaid, but don’t you think we should see if this sticks first?”

  “It will. They’re perfect for each other. Plus she’s not a stroppy cow.”

  “She’s not a stroppy cow in the least.”
>
  * * *

  One month later, we embark on the double date, since Veronica and Erik have been seeing each other for the last few weeks and it seems to be going well. So well in fact, we make our way to a nightclub in Oberkampf, the four of us laughing and chatting as we walk through the Parisian night.

  Once inside the club though, I lose track of Veronica and Erik because the woman in front of me commands all my attention. My wife captivates me as much as she did when she was my part-time lover. We dance closer, and I slide my body against hers, feeling the heat from her skin. She leans her head back, exposing the gorgeous column of her throat, and I press my mouth to her soft skin then travel up to her ear, nipping the lobe.

  A low moan tells me she’s already starting to let go, to surrender to how we are. This is how I want her. This is how I need her. And later, back at our home, that’s exactly how I have her.

  When we’re finished and sated, I lazily run my fingers down her belly, then I stop. An image of her stomach growing bigger and rounder pops into my head.

  Not sure where it came from.

  Well, I am sure. We just fucked wildly.

  But it’s not as if I spotted a toddler on the street as I walked home. It’s not as if I’ve been thinking about babies. Then again, maybe the idea has been lingering since my DJ client.

  Either way, as I run my hand over her soft flesh I can’t get the idea out of my head. Nor do I want to. It’s not just that she’d look magnificent pregnant. It’s that I want to have a family with her. I want us to be more than two. “What would you say to stopping birth control?” I ask.

  She props herself up on her elbows, fixing me with a serious gaze. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  I grin. “Yes, I’m saying I’d really like to knock you up and raise babies with you.”

  Her lips quiver and her smile stretches. “I’d say let’s get working on this project straightaway.”