Wanderlust

by Lauren Blakely

  I squeeze her shoulder, hoping a bit of contact will deflect her interest. But she’s no cat, distracted by a laser pointer. She’s a brilliant woman, hungry to know the truth.

  “Evasive much?” she says.

  “I’m not evasive.”

  “Is it private? Is it a secret? It’s okay if it is. I’m just curious, since it’s literally the most important thing to you.”

  The rain slaps against the streets like a persistent, wet drumbeat. Like it’s the soundtrack to this decision, urging me to open up more to her. She’s helping me with the list. I suppose the least I can do is tell her what else is on it.

  “I don’t think you’ll like all of them.”

  “You might as well tell me now, then.”

  “The first is live in Paris.”

  “You mentioned that. You said Ethan had wanted to. So you’re doing that.”

  “And you know the ‘run a marathon’ one, so I’m working on that. Then there’s ‘help someone with a dream.’”

  “And you’re doing that.”

  “There are a few others I’ve done already, too.”

  “And those are the ones I’d dislike?”

  I shake my head. “No, but you might like this one. Number five. Have six-pack abs.”

  Her eyebrows wiggle. “Oh là là.” She eyes my stomach. “You’ve accomplished that?”

  I pat my belly. “You’re welcome to check for yourself.”

  She darts her hand sideways, patting my abs over the fabric of my shirt. She slow claps. “Well done, Griffin. Well done.”

  I stop to take a quick bow then keep walking.

  She nudges me. “And yet, I don’t think that’s the one I’d dislike.”

  I steel myself then say it. “The second is ‘sleep with all the French girls.’”

  She jams an elbow into my side. “What a little piggy.”

  I laugh as the rain hammers the ground, and we take refuge under an awning. “I told you that you wouldn’t like it.”

  “Did you do that? Sleep with all the girls?” The question seems to taste bitter to her.

  “Do you really want to know?” I toss back.

  “That’s a yes, then.”

  “Why are you asking if you don’t want to know?”

  She huffs. “Just say you didn’t.”

  I narrow my eyes, trying to figure her out. “Are you jealous?”

  She scoffs. “Not at all.”

  I hold up a thumb and forefinger. “A little?”

  “Not in the least.”

  I smile. “Good. Because I didn’t.” Then I add, “Not all of them, at least.”

  “Oh, you’re awful.”

  “I swear, I didn’t go overboard on that. Obviously, it’s an item you follow to the spirit not the letter of the law. But cut me some slack. I’m a thirty-year-old single guy living in Paris.”

  She stares at me with narrowed eyes. I wrap an arm tighter around her. “Would it make you feel better knowing you’re the only one I want to sleep with now?”

  She blinks. “Really?”

  “This surprises you?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “You think I want to sleep with other women?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want me to want to sleep with other women?”

  She breathes out heavily then whispers a no.

  A jolt rushes through me. God, how I want to touch her. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted to get you naked since I met you?”

  “No. How much?”

  “So much you really ought to stop asking about other women. I don’t think about other women. I think about you. All the time. So much it drives me crazy. So much I want to say screw the friendship rules and kiss you senseless.”

  “Would you? Kiss me senseless?”

  Life is short. Events can change everything in the blink of an eye. Plans can crater. You have to take your chances. This is the chance I most want to take. “I would absolutely kiss you senseless.”

  She leans against the wall under the awning, the red umbrella still over our heads as the rain pounds down. With my free hand, I reach for her face. She shudders when I touch her—a beautiful, sensual shiver that seems to move through her whole body.

  From this. From my hand on her face, cupping her cheek.

  I’m keenly aware that I want this first kiss to be spectacular for her. I want it to be everything for her. A kiss she remembers for all time. When I’m gone in some far-off land, and she’s still here, I want her to linger on this kiss.

  I take my time, memorizing every second. The way her lips part. How her eyes stay locked with mine. They darken, shining with desire, with longing. A flush crawls up her neck—that delicious, seductive neck I’ve been dying to kiss for so long.

  Once you have a first kiss with someone, you don’t get a do-over. You have to make it count. Make it worth every second of anticipation. “I don’t just want to sleep with you. I want to kiss you. Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted to kiss you?”

  Her hand darts out, curling around the fabric of my shirt at my belly. “How much?”

  I inch closer. Our bodies line up. I press against her, so she knows the answer to the question. “So much that it’s all I think about. So much. I’ve wanted it for so long.”

  When I dip my head toward her, her eyes float closed with an expression of both utter contentment and rampant longing.

  Here, under the umbrella, as the rain drums on the streets of Paris, I brush my lips to hers.

  And it’s everything I’ve imagined it would be.

  She melts into my touch, and I take my time, my lips tracing hers, her breath ghosting over mine. Our bodies slide together. We are what we’ve wanted to be: lovers who can’t wait to touch. She tugs me even closer, and I know this kiss is about to blast through the atmosphere. I’m sure I can’t hold back any longer. The moment for slow and sweet has passed, and now that we’ve touched, a dam is going to break.

  I’m going to devour her lips.

  She’s going to consume mine.

  We’re going to skip the rest of the day, stumble to her apartment, fall against the door, and at last come together. I can feel the pressure building inside both of us, like a gasket about to burst. As I clasp her face harder, my lips eager and urgent, her teeth clicking against mine, a loud trill sounds from my pocket.

  “Ignore it,” she murmurs.

  But it’s the ringtone from my boss.

  I groan. “Fucking hell.”

  I separate from her, and it’s like an affront to the fabric of the universe.

  “Hello?”

  “Glad I caught you. Can you come see me?”

  19

  Joy

  * * *

  I stopper frustration. I bottle longing. I mix sensuality.

  My afternoon is bathed in replay of a kiss that ended too soon, so I do what I know how to do. I try to capture it. To reproduce a moment in time. What is the scent of a kiss you desperately need more of? What is the smell of something that tempts you too much?

  You tell yourself you’ll resist.

  You believe so heartily that the past mistakes will ground you. They’ll keep you from even tiptoeing into something risky. Relationships are fraught with danger, after all. They lead to closeness, and closeness leads to losing yourself. But when you’ve refrained and restrained, and you’re twisting and turning and wanting so much . . . at last, you give in.

  You surrender to it.

  It’s not that I can’t fight it. It’s that I no longer want to.

  That kiss is still on my lips. I run a finger over my bottom lip absently as I work. I’m both here and there. Both in the lab and under the umbrella, the rain pattering around us.

  I’m daydreaming about his lips brushing against mine as I combine odorant molecules like a chef might do with spices, trying to craft the illusion of wandering down the street in the rain, the scent of possibility heavy in the drops. A little of this, a littl
e of that, some molecules from an earthy mix, some more from a citrusy, airy one, another from the essence of jasmine.

  I draw a deep inhale.

  It’s not yet there, but it’s something.

  There’s a knock on the door. I look up to see Marisol in the window. I motion for her to come in. She enters, a thoroughly professional smile on her face. “How’s everything going? I’ve been sending progress reports to the corporate headquarters raving about you.”

  “Thank you,” I say, speaking in French. “I am grateful.”

  She nods appreciatively and gestures to the vials and tubes in front of me. Switching to English, I give her a quick update on what I’m working on.

  “May I smell it?”

  “It’s not finished yet.”

  “I don’t mind.” She strides to me, and I offer her the little tester. She wafts it under her nose and murmurs, “C’est fantastique.”

  The fact that she said that in French—a perfectly au naturel reaction—gives me a little thrill.

  “You need to keep working on this,” she adds.

  “I will.”

  We chat more, and she thanks me again for my time and leaves. When she’s gone, I daub the tiniest bit on my neck, then I head out for the night. I’m meeting Elise for a drink. Wine is a requirement at times like these. When a man kisses you breathless, then takes off before you can make any plans, you’re legally required to drink buckets of vino.

  At a brasserie, I order two glasses, and Elise nods her approval at my choice and my efforts to speak the language with the waiter.

  “Your French is much better. Your classes must be working,” she says, sketching air quotes. Her brown hair is twisted high on her head in a bun, and since she came from the office, she’s sleek and elegant in a pencil skirt and a clingy white blouse. Her stilettos are a foot tall.

  “They seem to be,” I say.

  “And I can tell you’re actually taking classes. I’d have thought you were spending all night fucking.”

  My eyes widen. “Elise.”

  She tuts me. “Oh, please. You know that’s what you want to be doing. I’m amazed you’re learning anything beyond the best positions for multiple orgasms.” She winks, looking librarian-sexy in her black glasses. “Seriously, tell me what’s going on with the Brit.”

  I give her the quick version of the last several weeks then detail today’s turn of events. She sighs delightedly. “And you swooned, and now you want to know what’s next?”

  “Yes.”

  She scoffs. “Men are so frustrating, but even so, please tell me you’re not going to play the ‘will he call me, won’t he call me’ game?”

  I furrow my brow. “No. I know he’ll call. I was more concerned—”

  She grabs my cheeks, cupping them. “I love you. I absolutely love you.”

  “What was that for?” I ask when she drops her hands.

  “For being bold. For knowing you’re not going to play a waiting game. Women spend too much time waiting for men. When you want something, you should go for it.”

  “I’d like to think I’m done with games. I suppose the only real question is—how risky is this? He’s still my translator, and I want everything to go well while we work together for the next month until the assignment ends.”

  The waiter brings our wine, and I thank him, then Elise offers her glass to clink with mine. “To friendship, and to the possibility of a new lover for you.”

  “I’ll happily drink to both,” I say and take a sip.

  Elise sets her glass down. “This is what I think about the level of risk. You’re going to have great sex with him, right?”

  A ribbon of heat unspools in me as I imagine the kind of sex we’ll have. “Of course.”

  “Then, by my estimates, great sex should keep you going for a full month. You have nothing to worry about. By the time the shine is off, the job will be ending and you’ll be able to look back without regret.”

  But I don’t like the ending she’s writing for our story. In a wobbly voice, I posit what may be the truest risk of all. “What if I want it to keep going?”

  She draws a deep breath. “Then, you’ll need to let him know you want a full-time lover—personally, I’m partial to the part-time ones. Until then, you simply enjoy every second of the time together, and you live for the moment. Moments are all we truly have.”

  Her voice downshifts to a tune I’ve never heard before. It’s almost melancholy, and it’s so unusual for my outgoing and daring friend. I raise my glass, trying to lighten the mood. “May some of the next moments in life contain fantastic orgasms.”

  Elise tips her glass to mine. “Those are my favorite moments.”

  But as she drinks, I swear I see something else in her eyes. Something sad. Something that makes me wonder why Elise believes so strongly in living for the moment.

  I’m not sure I’ll garner the answer today, so I reach into my bag for a tiny tube. “Pilfered it from the lab,” I whisper, handing it to her.

  “Naughty girl.” Her eyes twinkle, the sadness wiped away.

  “Something new I’m working on. Tell me what you think.”

  She uncaps it, and runs the top under her nose. “Mmm.”

  Her murmur makes my heart do a little jig. That’s the sound of someone pleased. She closes her eyes. “It’s a summer evening, when I waited for a man to meet me at the fountain. The sun dipped lower in the sky as I checked my watch. The water and the stones behind me were damp and earthy, and my heart filled with longing, then desire, when he arrived and kissed me like the world disappeared.”

  When she opens her eyes, she offers a wistful smile. “He’s long gone, but this perfume is here to stay.”

  20

  Griffin

  * * *

  Getting called into the boss’s office is never a good thing.

  It’s not like I have a history of being some sort of hooligan at work. I just find the less the boss needs to see me, the better I’m likely doing.

  Especially since Jean-Paul pushed off the meeting. Shortly after he called me away, he messaged to say he couldn’t meet till five. Now it’s five, and all I’ve been able to think about for the last few hours is that he’s reassigning me. Or Joy’s company is sacking me. Or Marisol found out I’m crazy for Joy, and she thinks our relationship is inappropriate.

  Which doesn’t sound likely at all, but my brain is a Tilt-A-Whirl, whipping through scenarios. All of them start with this tension in my chest and this pit in my stomach and this stupid fear that I’ve put Joy and myself at risk.

  Even though nothing has happened.

  Even though there are no explicit rules forbidding a relationship between us.

  Still, the mind slapdashes where it fears to go the most.

  I take a seat in Jean-Paul’s office.

  “Glad you could make it even in the rain. It’s brass monkeys outside today, isn’t it?” He winks, clearly proud of himself for dropping that Britishism into his conversation with me.

  “It’s absolutely brass monkeys.”

  “And I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

  No, nothing. Just the best kiss in my entire life. Just my entire afternoon where I sat in a café and stared at my phone constantly as I worked on written translations and contemplated what the hell to say to the woman I’m mad about, all while I worried about my FUCKING job. “Not at all. Always happy to chat. What can I do for you?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” he says with a wink, as if he’s going to tell me Today’s Tawdry Tale. Leaning back in his chair, he clasps his hands behind his head and parks his feet on the desk. “Tell me about your work at L’Artisan.”

  I raise an eyebrow, wondering why he’d need to know those details, since I send him regular reports. Unless Marisol has complained. I sit up straighter and give an overview of my work, from the team meetings, to Joy’s one-on-one conversations with her scientists, to the translations in the lab.

  “And would you
say your work has helped?”

  I furrow my brow, almost wishing he’d toss out one of his inappropriate comments about a wife of his so I’d know this conversation was normal. But it doesn’t feel normal. It feels like a precursor to bad news. “Absolutely. The company has embarked on a number of new projects. It’s introduced new processes through the woman I work with. Her staff is doing well at implementing the protocols, she tells me.” Maybe I’m selling it too hard. Maybe I’m like a credit card peddler in a shopping center now. But hell, I’ve witnessed the changes Joy has brought to her company in eight short weeks. She’s fantastic. “Plus, Joy is doing well and conversing, and she’s actually learning French now, too,” I add, though I don’t say that she’s getting special lessons.

  “Interesting.” Jean-Paul hums, looking mildly impressed. “Most of them just want someone to be their mouthpiece. She must be a sharp lady.”

  “She is.” I try to tamp down the personal pride I feel.

  “My second wife was like that. A pretty little American. She was dying to learn French. Good thing I was willing to introduce her to all the joys of our language.”

  I nearly groan inside.

  Be careful what you wish for. Now he’s going on and on about how he taught his second wife more than the language. How he taught her the spice of life. When he’s done, he slaps a palm on the table. “But you know how it goes with women. She wanted more and more, and it all just went to bollocks, right?”

  Second idiom in five minutes. I’ll have to tell Christian our boss is in rare idiomatic form today. “Totally bollocks.”

  He wags a finger at me. “Right you are. Too right,” he says, affecting an English accent on the last one. I decide to award him a third point. “Anyway, I don’t mean to be cheeky”—and a fourth now—“but I wanted to share some good news. I checked in with the client, and my contact there indicated they were so thrilled with your work that they’re going to hire Capstone for more work as they bring on new American employees, so thank you for being a great ambassador.”

  I swallow down my surprise. “Is that so?”