The Bar Next Door

by Rose, Katia

  5AM. I didn’t get home until 5AM. The cops had dozens of pointless questions for me and then wanted inside my bar to investigate the damage. I don’t know what there was to investigate; a couple drunks smashed a few windows. It must happen every weekend somewhere in the city.

  By the time the investigation concluded, it was too late for me to get a hold of Cavellia’s staff and see if I could offer them enough overtime pay to come help me board the windows up. By some miracle, a few good Samaritans from Taverne Toulouse showed up with a tool kit and some cardboard.

  Monroe wasn’t with them.

  “Câlice de criss,” I mutter, borrowing a curse from the Québécois. No one curses quite so emphatically as the French Canadians.

  I was an idiot for thinking this time could be different, for believing that after all these years of telling myself otherwise, I was ready to try again.

  I’m thirty-two. There’s no time for trying again. I’ve reached the age for settling down, and what I should be settling down into is the understanding that I’m not cut out to be with someone.

  I should be grateful for what happened with Monroe. It seems I needed a reminder, and she was the perfect one. She woke just enough of me up to remind me how much safer it is to stay asleep, how much easier it is to live in dreams where you can wish someone else’s pain away instead of being forced to watch it eat them from the inside out.

  I shut the water off and grab a towel before making my way to the bedroom. I’m just about to drop onto the mattress when the soft rap of someone’s knuckles on my door sounds through the apartment.

  Madame Bovary lifts her head up in her luxury dog bed on the floor. I freeze and strain my ears to listen. Enough time passes that I think I must have imagined it before the noise comes again, louder this time.

  I don’t know who could have gotten in without buzzing me. If it’s the bloody police, they’re going to have one pissed off Frenchman to deal with. I pull my sweatpants on and trudge over to open the door, my fearless watchdog opting to stay put in her bed.

  I yank the door open, and everything in me goes hot and cold all at once.

  She’s already turned away, like she wasn’t expecting me to answer. Her eyes go wide with surprise when she whips her head around at the sound of the door. I take every detail of her in as if time has slowed down just to give me the privilege. Her hair is damp and a few shades darker than it is when it’s dry. It hangs straight and heavy over her shoulders, drops of water collecting at the ends and seeping into the fabric of her coat. She doesn’t have makeup on like she did earlier tonight, and her eyes are tired even as they brighten with the shock of seeing me. Her lips part, colour slowly flooding her sleep-deprived pallor. Even after a night from hell, she’s stunning.

  It’s only then that I realize I’m not wearing a shirt.

  Despite the difference in clothing, it almost feels like we’ve returned to the end of our date. I can feel her mouth again, so gentle where it pressed against my cheek, hot and soft and glossed with the promise of more.

  I forget all about what was said on the sidewalk tonight. I forget that it’s past five in the morning. I forget everything except the need to have her where she belongs: on the other side of this door, preferably with her back against the wood and her legs around my waist.

  “I...I, um...” she stutters. There’s something intimate about watching her lose her words. I get the sense that it doesn’t happen often. “I...Someone was leaving, down in the lobby. They let me in. I didn’t...I didn’t think you’d answer if I buzzed.”

  “Why are you here?”

  The words come out colder than I intend. The steel they’re laced with is meant for me, not for her. I have to get a grip, or I really will try to kiss her. That can’t be what she came here for.

  “Because...I lied to you.”

  “About working for Taverne Toulouse?”

  “About wanting more.”

  I brace my hand on the doorframe, hoping she’ll go on. She has to go on. She has to say more than that, or I won’t be able to stop myself from trying something she’ll reject and I’ll regret.

  “I do want more. I...There is a me and you. There shouldn’t be, but there is, and I couldn’t fall asleep without telling you.”

  “So you came to my apartment?”

  I sound like a dickhead. I can’t come up with the right words, mostly because I’m not thinking with words at all. I’m thinking with breath. I’m thinking with skin. I’m thinking with blood and heartbeats and the flex of muscles that beg not to be restrained.

  Monroe’s face hardens, her vulnerability arming itself with contempt. “Clearly this was a mistake too. I’ll just go.”

  “Wait.”

  I lunge forward but force my hand to drop to my side just before I can grab her wrist. I won’t touch her, not unless I know she wants it.

  I don’t know what she wants. I don’t have a hope of figuring out what’s going on behind those bright brown eyes. All I know is that I want a chance to try, to sip and savour and let the flavours play out on my tongue.

  God, I would give anything to make her stay.

  “I’m sorry,” I urge. “It’s five in the morning, and I woke up at six yesterday, but that’s not even the reason everything I say is coming out wrong. I just...I’m scared to mess this up. I’m scared to watch you go. When I look at you, I see this—this chance. I know I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting it if I don’t take it, which is complètement fou considering I didn’t even know you existed a few weeks ago, but you...you make me feel things I forgot I knew how to feel.”

  “Julien...” She hovers in the hall, still poised to head for the elevator. My name sounds like it hurts her to say it. Already, I’ve put her in pain.

  I want her to stay. I know she should go.

  “But maybe you’re right.” I drop my gaze to the carpet. “Maybe it was a mistake.”

  “Fuck it.”

  She’s right in front of me before I have time to notice her move. Only a few inches of space separate her chest from my bare torso. I could wrap an arm around her waist and her body would be flush against mine. She stares up at me, breath heaving, eyebrows pinched with determination.

  “If this is all a mistake, then fuck it. Let’s make one more.”

  She’s so close we’re breathing the same air. I inhale her exhale as her fingers brush my knuckles and then tangle themselves with mine.

  “Julien?”

  My name is a question, a prayer tossed up to fate, and there’s only one way to answer it. I take my free hand off the doorframe and reach to cup the back of her head, threading my fingers through her hair to cradle her skull. Her eyelids droop, pupils narrowing to glittering slits, daring me to go on. When I tug her head back to tilt her chin up toward me, she lets out the faintest of gasps.

  That sound pricks my skin like the bite of a needle—the jab of pain before the bloom of the drug erases all memory of discomfort, of doubt, of reality, and leaves my synapses chasing the thrill.

  She’s the thrill. Her lips, her skin, the arch of her bones beneath my hands—that’s what I’m chasing.

  I hover over her mouth. I have to bend nearly double to get to it. She pushes up onto her toes, until the distance between our lips is down to millimetres and her chest is pressed to mine.

  I can feel her heat. I can taste her need, so close now I can’t distinguish it from my own.

  “Fuck it.”

  I only just have time to mutter the words, and then all restraint is gone and our mouths are on each other, taking and taking and rioting for more. Her hands search my chest and dig into my back as I tighten my grip on her hair and finally get a handful of those curves with my free hand. The flare of her hip makes me weak the first time I feel its swell under my palm. She shifts into my grip, and I make a sound that’s close to growl.

  The door barely has time to slam shut before I’m pushing her up against it. Our kisses are breathless now, ragged as I grab her waist and
lift her up while she wraps her legs around me. The angle gives her control over the kiss, and she takes it. Her fingertips dig into my scalp as her tongue slips inside my mouth. I press myself harder between her hips, and she turns her face away to muffle a groan against my neck.

  Then she starts kissing me there, sucking and nipping at my skin, and it’s like the fires of damnation flare up around us. There’s no going back now.

  “You have far too many clothes on,” I mumble, fixing my eyes on the ceiling and begging for the control to take this slow.

  “What was that?” she asks, the question coming out on a panting breath.

  “I said—oh.” I spoke in French without even realizing. I repeat myself in English.

  She lets out an exhilarated laugh. “It sounds sexier in French.”

  I put on an exaggerated accent. “Everyzhing does, Mademoiselle. It eez zee language of love.”

  She smacks my shoulder. “Never mind. I’m leaving now.”

  I give her thighs a squeeze. “Not a chance.”

  Some of the heaviness slips from the moment as we laugh together, but the heat doesn’t fade. I keep her wrapped around me as I move us away from the wall and start heading for the bedroom. She taps on my ass with her feet as we’re passing the kitchen.

  “How rude. You haven’t even offered me a drink.”

  I forgot to put away the bottle of Merlot I pulled out after getting back to the apartment tonight. It sits on the kitchen island, condensation beading the glass.

  “Would you like a glass of wine, Mademoiselle?”

  She grins at me. “Maybe I would.”

  I don’t know how it’s possible for a woman to be so sexy and so damn cute at the same time.

  I set her down on the edge of the island, kissing her a few times for good measure before I step away to get a glass. When I turn back, I realize there was no need. She has her lips wrapped around the bottle. My cock instantly becomes more jealous of that bottle than of anything else in the world.

  Monroe takes a swig and makes a show of swishing the liquid around her mouth before swallowing. Again, my dick would give anything to trade places with that Merlot right now.

  “Very full-bodied, this one,” she muses, full on bull-shitting now. “An interesting...nose, with notes of...floral...stuff.”

  “What a unique description.”

  I move close enough to grab hold of her foot. She’s still wearing her boots, and I pull one off and then the other as she continues to sip the wine. I start on her socks and then knead the soles of her feet with my hands. She groans.

  “Good wine?”

  “Mhmm.” She squirms on the island. “Very.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  I step between her legs and plant my hands on either side of her. She tips the bottle neck in my direction.

  “You want to try it?”

  “Oh, I want to try it, all right.”

  I move my hands to the edge of her shirt and then up sides of her body over the slippery fabric. Her back arches, chest thrusting toward me. I pop the top button open.

  “By all means, keep drinking,” I order. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

  She takes another sip as I work my way down the buttons. Our fight for self-control is palpable, every movement tense with restraint, breaths hitching at the flex of muscles. When I’ve got the shirt undone, I stare down at the few inches of her exposed chest and stomach. Her skin is pale and creamy, just a few shades lighter than the plain peach fabric of her bra, and if the sight of that cleavage actually killed me the way it feels like it’s about to, I would die a happy man.

  As slowly as I can manage, I push the shirt off her shoulders and slide it down her arms.

  “Sorry.” I manage to yank my eyes away from her chest at the tentative sound of her voice. She worries her lip with her teeth and stares down at the floor. “I didn’t know we would be, uh...Like, my bra isn’t very nice, and I’m—”

  “Perfect,” I interrupt. “You are so. Fucking. Perfect. I...I don’t even...” My over-stimulated eyes slip to her chest again. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Will you kiss me again?”

  I make myself look at her, really look at her this time. I see the hesitation there, the self-doubt, and I want to kiss it all away. I never want her to feel it again. I cup her cheek with my hand and tilt her head back, teasing her lips with the ghost of mine until the insecurity in her eyes is replaced with desire.

  “I’ll kiss you for as long as you let me.”

  I work her mouth for a few long, hungry moments before I start to trail kisses down her neck and along her bare shoulder, sliding her bra strap out of the way as I go. Her hands press into my back, and mine trace the edge of her jeans, thumbs dipping beneath it every so often to make her hiss.

  I take my time and make sure she’s ready for it before I start to undo the clasp of her bra. I shift back so she can pull it off herself, and then all hope is lost.

  The string of French curses hasn’t even finished leaving my mouth before I have her back flat on the marble of the island as I lean forward and try to explore every fucking inch of those tits with my mouth. She’s exquisite, soft and flushed in all the right places. She makes little mewling sounds as she claws at my back.

  I brace my forearms on the island and lift my head. “We need to slow down.”

  “Slow down?” she repeats, like I’m speaking another language again.

  “As much as I want to fuck you right here and now, I’m going to regret not taking my time.” I dip my head down and flick one of her nipples with my tongue. “I’m going to regret not savouring this.”

  Which gives me an idea.

  “While I did appreciate your assessment of my Merlot,” I begin, watching the skin beneath me prickle with goose bumps as she picks up on the teasing threat in my tone, “I think I’d like to make one of my own.”

  I reach for the bottle, and her eyes go wide with shock as I begin to tip it over her chest.

  “Julien, you’re not actually going to—”

  The rest of her sentence gets lost on an exhilarated laugh as I let a few drops of the crimson liquid splash between her breasts. I trail my finger along the path of the wine before bringing it up to my mouth.

  “Well?” Monroe asks, lifting her head slightly to look at me. “Are you about to give me a wine lesson?”

  “I think I’ll need to taste more.”

  Her smirk mirrors my own as she settles back down on the island.

  I let a stream of wine trickle onto her chest, ducking my head down to lap it up with a few long, slow strokes of my tongue before it can spill over the sides of her body. She curses under her breath, hands scrabbling along the marble in search of something to hold onto.

  “You were wrong about the florals.”

  “Was I?” She sounds more than a little distracted, and it gets me more than a little turned on.

  “This wine—”

  I tap my fingers against her ribcage.

  “—is chocolate.”

  I kiss her sternum.

  “And cherries.”

  I lick her collarbone.

  “Mocha.”

  I brush my lips over her breasts.

  “Candy, even.”

  She smacks her hand down on the top of the island when I flick my tongue against her nipple again.

  “God dammit, Julien Valois. I can’t even think. What the hell are you doing to me?”

  I smile against her skin. “I’m teaching you to appreciate wine.”

  I shift back enough to splash the Merlot onto her stomach this time.

  “Now let’s talk about the texture.”

  “Oh, g-g-god,” she stutters when I start to lick her again, as low down her torso as her jeans will allow.

  “I’ve always been partial to Merlot,” I continue, doing my best to sound unfazed. In reality, it’s taking an almost supernatural amount of self-control not to strip her naked as fast as I can. “Th
e flavour is bountiful—generous even, in all that it offers, but the texture...It’s what makes Merlot truly...sumptuous.” I pop the button of her jeans and slide them half an inch down her hips. “You tasted it, didn’t you? How smooth it is? Like velvet. Like silk...”

  The hint of bright red fabric under her jeans flashes like a danger sign. If I get any closer, I’m not going to be able to slow down. From the way she’s got her eyes screwed shut and one hand braced on my shoulder, I can tell Monroe probably wouldn’t object to that, but I want to make her wait just a little longer.

  “That’s why you have to take your time with wine like this,” I explain. I straighten up so I can begin shifting her jeans down her legs. Every second reveals another inch of perfect pale skin, another sweep of her curves. “So much of what makes it enjoyable is in its presence, its shape, the weight of it in your mouth. It’s a very physical wine.”

  “Physical, huh?” Monroe squeaks as I let her jeans fall in a heap on the floor.

  I can’t even find the words to answer. The only thing keeping her from being fully naked in my kitchen is a red scrap of fabric that I’m going to have her begging me to rip off.

  “Spread your legs, chérie.” My voice has gone hoarse. “Feet on the marble. I want to see you open for me.”

  She hesitates. “Is that part of the wine lesson?”

  I catch the nervousness she’s trying to hide under her joke. I’ve never seen her unsure of herself before tonight. Even when she has a choice to make, she always seems so in control, poised to weigh the options. She’s a leader, but lying here, exposed to me like this, that all seems to fall away. She’s caught between what she wants—what her body is begging me for—and whatever shackles are holding her back in her mind.

  She doesn’t like to put herself first.

  The realization hits me as I watch her struggle with the urge to snap her legs shut. She’s used to looking out for other people, to fighting their battles and championing their causes. I saw the way her staff looked at her tonight, like she was the voice of reassurance rising above all the chaos. Monroe is a provider, and so of course that would translate into how she feels about sex.