Stephan chuckled and shrugged again. “Top deejays make five and ten times that amount.”
“I’m in the wrong business,” Roselle muttered.
Stephan pointed at Franck. “I know you did this, and I’m gonna get you for putting me on the spot. I should send your uncle an invoice.”
Franck didn’t lose his wide grin.
“I’ll be back. Wish me luck,” Stephan said to Roselle. He tossed his blazer on the sofa, revealing the white shirt that showed off his lean torso and broad chest, and walked away. He took his time going up on stage, moving with lazy elegance like he had all the time in the world.
She watched as he chatted with the house deejay and studied the equipment. A few minutes later, he stood behind the turntables, and the other guy went offstage. Holding the headphones to one ear, an adorable frown of concentration creased his brow as he hunched over the equipment.
As the other song wound down, Stephan spoke French into the mic, and the crowd cheered. Then he spoke in English. “Thirty minutes of hip-hop. Are you ready, Le Rêve!”
The audience screamed.
Roselle didn’t recognize the next song, but the beat had her tapping her feet. If Stephan was at all nervous, he didn’t show it. For the next thirty minutes, he played a mashup of American and French hip-hop artists, moving seamlessly between songs. He was so smooth, his head and shoulders bouncing in time to the beat.
Next to her at the railing, Franck alternated between sipping his drink and yelling out the lyrics to the songs. The partygoers were enjoying themselves, hands in the air, their bodies meshed close together as they moved to the beat and also recited the words to the current song.
At one point, Stephan’s gaze met hers, and he winked at her. It was his way of acknowledging her in the midst of all the partying and the women on stage, several of whom eyed him in a way that suggested they’d willingly sneak back-stage if he asked.
Roselle smiled at him, and then something happened that she didn’t expect. Stephan lowered the volume on the music and spoke to everyone in French, then translated in English. “It’s well after midnight, and there’s one thing I have to do before I leave the stage. I have a friend here with me tonight, and it’s her birthday.”
No, no. What was he doing?
“She doesn’t like attention, so I’m not going to put her on the spot. But if you don’t mind, can I get everyone in here to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her?”
Everyone in the place screamed out their agreement to participate.
“We’re in France, so let’s do it in French. Joyeux anniversaire, on the count of three. Un, deux, trois… Joyeux anniversaire…”
Stephan completely stopped the music, and led the entire club in an a cappella version of “Happy Birthday” in French. Roselle stood at the railing blinking back tears while over a thousand people sang to her. Their voices raised up to the ceiling and filled every corner of the club, in a beautiful serenade she’d never forget.
When they were finished, Franck placed an arm around her and gave her a quick squeeze. Choked up, Roselle couldn’t respond. Stephan was no longer looking at her. He’d put on another song and was in a conversation with the original deejay, who’d returned to the stage.
He had no idea what he’d done tonight. He’d given her one of the best birthday gifts ever.
Carrying two shot glasses of liquor, Stephan returned to the VIP section. Roselle was the only one there.
The set had run longer than thirty minutes because once he loosened up, he didn’t want to leave the stage. Getting back on the controller and mixing songs in front of a crowd had given him such a rush, he might start doing a few shows a year, just for the hell of it.
“Where’s Franck?” He handed Roselle a shot glass.
“He saw someone he needed to catch up with.”
“Female?”
“Yes.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “You didn’t have to have everyone sing happy birthday to me.”
“You want me to have them take it back?” he asked.
She laughed. “No. It was really nice. Thank you.”
The idea came to him out of the blue. Knowing that she didn’t make a big deal about her birthday bothered him, and for a second, he worried he’d overstepped, but seeing her face now, he knew he’d done the right thing. She was glowing, and he felt pretty damn good that he was the reason for that glow.
“What is this?” she asked, holding up the glass.
“Kamikaze—vodka, triple sec, and lime juice. Bottoms up, birthday girl.”
He clinked his glass against hers, and they both tossed back the drinks. Roselle grimaced, but he savored the taste as it went down smooth.
“You’re not used to drinking, I take it?”
Roselle did a little shiver. “Wine, mostly. That was strong.”
“But you liked it.”
She bit the corner of her lip. “I did,” she admitted, almost shyly.
He’d help her loosen up before the night was over.
Stephen rested his forearms on the metal railing and looked down at the dancing crowd. The energy in the club was contagious, with lights flashing over bodies jostling in time to the music.
Roselle leaned her hip against the railing and faced him. “By the way, you did good up there. How was it after a year-long absence?”
“Like riding a bike. I forgot how much fun deejaying was.”
“You plan to get back into it?”
“Nah. It was fun, but I don’t need to do it all the time. Maybe every now and again. It was nice for a change of pace. So, I haven’t seen you dance all night. What’s up with that?” He wanted to see her moves in that little gold dress she wore.
She shrugged.
“Are you going to dance?”
“I’m not.” She ran a finger back and forth along the black metal.
Stephan straightened. “Why, you tired?”
“Surprisingly, I’m wide awake.”
“In that case, dance with me.”
She seemed to shrink right before his eyes. “No way.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t really dance.”
“You will tonight. Let loose and enjoy yourself. You’re in Paris, baby. It’s okay to have a little fun.”
She gnawed the side of her mouth and looked out at the crowd. “I don’t want everyone looking at me up here.”
“Then let’s go down there.”
Stephan didn’t give Roselle a chance to decline. He took her hand and led the way down the steps.
The deejay had transitioned to a banging Afrobeats mix. Dancing backward, Stephan gently drew her into the middle of the dancers. Stiff and barely moving, she glanced around nervously at the nearby clubbers enjoying themselves. Men and women dropped low or gyrated their hips to the music, grinding on each other as they simulated sex acts with their clothes on.
Meanwhile, Stephan and Roselle barely moved, their steps awkward and not in sync. He stepped closer and held both of her hands. With coaxing movements, he directed her attention to him and guided her in time to the beat.
“Relax. No one’s looking at you,” he whispered in her ear. He placed both hands on her hips.
Her fingers curled into the front of his shirt. “You sure?” she asked.
Standing so close, he was playing with fire. Every breath he took was filled with the scent of her skin, her perfume. He’d had a hard time being good all day, watching her enjoy herself. Wondering what her lips tasted like as she licked Nutella from the corner of her mouth. It wasn’t only her physical attributes that attracted him. Her mind was sexy as hell, too. Observing her talking with the reps had been an unexpected turn-on, her intellect on display as she recited numbers and listed the expectations of SJ Brands.
“Positive. I’m the only one looking at you.”
Her expressive brown eyes darkened, and his stomach knotted. Yeah, he was definitely playing with fire.
Stephan directed her steps, and as she relaxe
d, her dancing became more fluid.
He twisted her around and wrapped one hand loosely around her waist, pulling her back against his chest. When her hips moved in a rhythmic, circular motion, he inhaled sharply. She let him grind on her soft ass, and he became as hard as granite, the arm around her tightening and pressing her closer.
“That’s it.” He murmured the encouragement while his heart raced in time to the percussive beat.
Her soft body moving against his weakened his willpower and doused his skin in flames. Curiosity overcame him. What would her lips taste like? He’d wondered ever since he saw her lick the beignet. Maybe before that, when he first saw her outside the SJ Brands building, on the sidewalk, staring at him.
With a hand under her chin, he tilted back her head and gazed down into her hooded eyes. She obviously felt it, too—this burning need to connect. Right then, he made a decision. He knew he shouldn’t, knew what was at stake, but couldn’t resist the need to kiss her any more than he could resist the need to breathe.
“Fuck it,” he ground out.
He captured her mouth. There was no mere pop. No paltry zing. There was an explosion of sensation as heat engulfed him and he momentarily forgot that he was surrounded by moving bodies on the dance floor. He’d anticipated this moment for a long time, and the searing kiss spiked his blood and sent his pulse into overdrive. Time stood still as his mouth moved over hers.
She twisted in his arms, and her fingers fisted his shirt. Their contact deepened with an open-mouthed caress. He drank his fill, satiating the thirst for her kisses.
He kissed her deeper and harder, plunging his tongue into her mouth. One hand lowered and grabbed her right butt cheek. Hungry for more, he lifted his head, breaths coming in short, heavy bursts. Flames of desire licked at his loins.
He wanted all of her. Now. This minute.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said.
She nodded, gazing up at him with those expressive brown eyes and lips swollen from his kisses. No way had she heard him. His voice was much lower than the beat of the loud music, so she must have read his lips.
He clasped her hand in his and led the way out of the club.
Chapter 11
“You smell so damn good,” Stephan said in a gruff voice, standing before Roselle in only a pair of boxers, his eyes darkened to milk chocolate in color.
That’s precisely the effect she’d wanted and why she’d rubbed almond-scented body butter into her skin after taking a quick shower. When they left Le Rêve, their make-out session had continued in the back of a taxi that took them through the streets of Paris to the apartment. Stephan had fondled her breasts and nibbled on her neck, at one point dragging her onto his lap and grinding against her core.
By the time the driver dropped them in front of the apartment building, her nipples had been so hard and the flesh between her legs so wet, she was ready to tear his clothes off. But she’d asked Stephan to let her take a shower first, and God bless him, he’d agreed, though he’d repeated the words Take a shower? in a confused voice, as if they were spoken in a language he didn’t understand.
His warm hands spawned her waist under the nightshirt she wore, and he kissed her slowly, languidly, hungrily. Her nostrils were filled to the brim with the scent of him, a fresh pine scent, because he must have taken a shower, too.
With her pulse drumming a hard beat in her throat, Roselle slid the tip of her tongue to the seal of his lips and nudged them apart, giving him an enthusiastic French kiss. She sucked his tongue and moved hers within the interior of his mouth while his fingers inched below the waistband of her underwear and cupped her bottom.
Moaning softly, Roselle was overcome by all the pent-up desire suddenly allowed to break free. Her fingers roamed over his hard chest and encountered solid muscle.
His half-naked body didn’t disappoint. He was exquisitely male, muscular without the bulk, with narrow hips and a lean waist. His long legs were toned and sprinkled with fine hairs that tickled her palms when she explored his sandy skin.
The kiss turned fiery, and Stephan’s hands went to work. He squeezed her ass and pulled her onto her toes against the hard arousal in his boxers.
He quickly unbuttoned the nightshirt, tossed it aside, and lifted her onto the bed. Lying back on the pillows completely naked, she held her breath while his gaze hungrily assessed her breasts, as if he didn’t know which one to start on first.
He massaged her breasts, lifting and squeezing them both before sucking a nipple into his mouth. The pad of his thumb raked over the other breast, and he squeezed it hard, forcing her to lift off the bed and moan at the pleasure his masterful touch inflicted.
Stephan kissed down the middle of her chest, moving swiftly toward his goal with single-minded determination, unleashing a horde of butterflies in her stomach.
By the time his tongue caressed her inner thighs, she was aching for him and ready to beg. She’d never known this feeling before. This unbearable throbbing. This unbearable wanting that threatened to consume her.
Stephan spread her legs, and the whisper of his breath kissed her damp flesh before he put his mouth to her. With a leisurely lick of his wide tongue, he dragged along her slit and made her grip the bedsheets. She very nearly fell apart at the intimate slide of his tongue along the heated flesh between her thighs.
He owned her sex, taking full possession of it with his mouth. Every time he stroked through the dewy wetness, she let out a soft, helpless cry. Toes tight, she rocked into his mouth, eyelids half-closed as she watched him between her thighs. She held out for as long as she could, but his skilled mouth, the sight of his muscular shoulders, and the soft groans he emitted as if he was loving every minute of his task were too much. The mounting pressure pushed free, and she cried out in ecstasy, her naked body arching toward the ceiling.
She tried to escape him, digging her heels into the mattress and scooting back on the bed, but Stephan held onto her thighs, his face still buried between her legs, focused on wringing every last tremor from her trembling body.
When he was finished, he crawled up on the bed with a satisfied smirk on his face. “I knew your pussy would taste good,” he said huskily.
He captured her mouth and weaved his tongue between her lips, forcing her to taste herself in his passionate kiss.
When he released her mouth and stepped off the bed and removed his boxers, his fully naked body didn’t disappoint. She took inventory of every groove and sinewy muscle and his long, thick shaft, hard and ready to slide between her legs. Her legs fell apart, and his very aroused body settled between them. She ached to give him whatever he wanted, whatever he demanded.
The tip of her tongue grazed his ear, tracing the shell and generating a series of shudders along the length of his body. Her hands learned his shape, trailing over his skin, gliding up his ribcage and smoothing down his abdomen to follow the trail of hairs that ended between his legs and surrounded his sensitive flesh.
Emboldened, Roselle pushed Stephen onto his back and gave him the same sensual treatment he had given her. She nibbled on his hard pecs and sucked on his nipples. His groans were her reward, the inarticulate words he whispered as he gripped her neck were immensely satisfying and ego-stroking.
Kissing her way down his torso, she took pleasure in feeling him squirm under her mouth. Her teeth grated against his pelvis, and her tongue followed with a soothing caress.
She slid a hand over his impressive erection and took him in her mouth, tonguing his length and sucking hard until his arched throat corded with strain and his voice was a gravelly fragment of itself. His hand fastened on the ponytail at the back of her head and urged her to take him deeper. Guttural groans confirmed his pleasure as she let the tip hit the back of her throat. A series of curse words flew from his mouth, and she thought for sure that he was about to come.
But without warning, she was yanked up his body and compelled to lay on him as he caught his breath.
“I want to be insid
e you first,” Stephan whispered, flipping her onto her back.
He picked up one of the condoms he’d placed on the bedside table when he first came into the room and put it over his erection. With a slide of his knee, he pried her legs apart and restrained her wrists on either side of her head. For a split second, she hesitated, an unrepressed memory burned into her brain, shooting forward to cause fear and confusion.
But she looked up into those whiskey-brown eyes and knew that she was safe, and her reservations fell away. This was Stephan. She let him in, eager and ready to explore this intimacy with him.
He advanced into her core with slow, deliberate movements and her body held onto him like the clasp of a satin glove.
“This must be what heaven feels like,” he whispered.
She whimpered his name, begging him to continue. She wanted him to feed her on pleasure until she lost her mind. He absorbed her pleas with whispered words against her lips, his big body claiming and riding into hers.
His hands released her wrists and grasped her bottom. He spread her butt cheeks apart, intensifying the pleasurable sensations as he lifted her hips into the pump of his pelvis. He continued the erotic assault, thrusts coming harder and transforming into powerful drives that pushed them closer to climactic relief.
“I’m not satisfied until you’re satisfied, sweetness,” Stephan whispered.
He sucked on her neck and kicked off the tremors of a powerful orgasm that snaked through her body like a river on steroids. She clung to him, matching his frenzied motion, the strive to completion her whole focus now.
“Stephan,” she cried out on the verge of tears, burying her face in his neck. Unraveling like a spool of thread, she breathed in the mixture of clean skin and sweat, clutching his head and pumping until she had no strength, nothing left but sensation.
With a final squeeze of her ass, he emptied into the condom and shuddered above her. Their bodies remained wrapped together for a long time until their heart rates lowered, and their breathing returned to normal.
Stephan was so confident, walking around naked, his sandy-gold skin on display in the light coming through the large uncovered windows. He had gone into the kitchen and brought back a bottle of water for each of them. He set hers on the table in case she became thirsty later, and guzzled half of his while standing beside the bed.
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