Nobody has ever paid me a compliment about my body before.
Despite the craziness simmering beneath every moment of this exchange, I can’t help but let my lips twitch into a smile, a smile that somehow gets wider despite how impossible this should all be.
He drops into his seat, running a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean to tell you like that,” he sighs huskily.
“Forrest,” I murmur. “You said you want us to have babies together?”
He nods, meeting my gaze, holding it in that intense way of his.
The whole world could burn and he wouldn’t look away.
“Yes,” he growls. “That’s what I said. That’s what I feel. Yes, Fiona.”
“But … But …” I say fish-mouthing, trying to find the right words, but I’m not sure there are any for this situation.
Shock bounces through me.
The waiter approaches from the side, but Forrest turns and shakes his head in a slight movement, the way a man moves when he knows he’s going to be obeyed without question. I can imagine him shaking his head like that in boardrooms, with the same gleaming self-confidence.
He turns back to me, his eyes hard, his lips somewhere between a smirk and a lip-curling growl.
“I own you, Fiona,” he snarls.
“Own me?” I whimper.
“Yes,” he growls, reaching across the table and taking my hand. “I own your smile and your beauty and your talent and your curvy hips. I own those creamy tits of yours. I own that special soaked place between your legs. I own you, all of you. I wanted to wait a little longer before I told you, but it’s out there now, and I won’t apologize for it.”
I stare, squeezing onto his hand, waiting for the punchline to drop like a hammer.
There must be another angle to this, some cruelty lurking in the wings of this conversation.
Is this even a real restaurant, or are all the patrons hired actors?
He’s a billionaire.
He could afford to do something like that.
But why?
“You belong to me,” he goes on. “I’m claiming you, today, this week, this month—forever. You’re never going to be with another man. You’re never going to talk to, or even look at another man in a way I don’t like. And yes, my sweet firecracker, we’re going to have children together. I never knew I wanted a family until I laid eyes on you.”
I blink back tears, running my thumb over the harness of his knuckles, shaking my head, and biting my lip.
“I want to believe you,” I murmur.
“Does that mean you feel the same?” he breathes, his husky tenor more like a beast’s possessive rumble than a man’s voice.
I turn my face away, taking a deep breath. It’s bad enough that I’m in this fancy Parisian restaurant so underdressed. The last thing I want to do is add a blubbering outburst into the mix.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’ve been having crazy thoughts about you, Forrest. I thought they were silly thoughts. I thought they were impossible. And then you came to me last night and—But you have to tell me.”
I turn to him, cutting myself off.
His eyes narrow.
“Tell you what?” he asks.
“Why you’re doing this to me,” I say. “Why you’re tricking me. Why you’d be so cruel.”
He stands up.
For a second, I think he’s going to turn and stalk away, laughing as he swaggers across the room.
She almost believed it, I hear him yelling so that everybody in the restaurant can hear. What a gullible foolish girl.
He walks around the table and slides into the booth next to me.
When he wraps his arms around me and pulls me close to him, it’s hard not to melt into a sob as I collapse against his chest. I fight the urge as I look up at him, biting my lip.
He gazes down at me sternly, his powerful gaze pinning me in place, his jaw pulsing as though rage is mixing with whatever else swirls inside of him.
“You need to tell me, Fiona,” he snarls.
“Tell you what?” I murmur.
“What he did to you,” he says.
“Who?” I say, my gut twisting.
Surely Forrest can’t know.
We only met last night.
Last night, and yet I’m ready to give myself to him, wholly, if I could only believe he’d really take me.
“I don’t know who,” he says. “But the way you’re talking, the fact that your first thought is that I’m tricking you, some bastard did something cruel, something unforgivable. And I need to know what, and who.”
I lean back, shaking my head.
The lights are too bright in here, both the glinting of the chandeliers and the sunlight glowing through the tall windows. The music seems too loud and the patrons’ conversations seem somehow louder, rising into the air like a thousand vindictive gossipers.
“I don’t think I can,” I murmur. “Not here.”
“Okay,” he says, sliding out of the booth. He offers me his hand, staring down at me with a plea making his lips flat, his eyes imploring.
“Come with me, Fiona. I’ll take you someplace private.”
Part of me screams to listen to my instincts, to accept that this could all be a trick.
I don’t know this man.
I shouldn’t go anywhere with him. We’ve already gone far enough.
But there’s another part – a naïve, glittering, unbroken part – that tells me if I don’t take Forrest’s hand, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
Taking a bolstering breath, I reach up and take his hand, squeezing tightly as the past flares brightly across the landscape of my mind. It burns, but not, in the same way, Forrest’s touch burns.
It scorches and makes me want to run.
“I’m here,” he whispers close to my ear. “You never have to be afraid again.”
I wish I could believe that.
I stand at the edge of the rooftop, gazing over the city, everything sparkling in the afternoon sun.
Forrest stands behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me close to him so I can feel his thundering heartbeat against the back of my head.
I feel so small in his arms, so delicate, something I never dreamed I’d experience.
We’ve been standing here for a while, simply existing in the closeness of each other, melting into one another as Paris glitters below us.
I keep expecting him to prompt me, but he waits patiently, the same way a jungle cat waits.
“It’s so silly,” I murmur into the sounds of the city, the traffic, the music, and the life far below. “It all happened when I was in high school. I should be over it by now.”
“Nothing you feel could ever be silly,” he rumbles in my ear, his chest vibrating as though he’s barely withholding his rage.
His words dance around my mind, about claiming me, needing me, wanting to have children with me.
I stare at the sun-specked city, wondering if it’s all going to warp and twist like a fever dream and I’ll wake up on the airplane, minutes before touchdown. The man next to me will glance over and frown. Maybe I was making silly noises in my sleep, whispering impossible phrases.
“You need to tell me, Fiona,” he growls.
“Why?” I whimper.
“Because we’re going to be together forever,” he says firmly, squeezing me a little harder. “We belong to each other. We own each other. Honesty is our foundation. It’s our rock. And I can’t tolerate the idea of you suffering through this alone.”
I turn in his arms, our bodies grinding together with the movement.
He stares down at me, as firm as his muscles, his eyes narrowed and his lips twisted into something between a grimace and a smirk.
It’s a just-Forrest expression. I can’t imagine any other man looking the way he does right now.
“Promise this isn’t a trick,” I say, “and then I’ll tell you.”
He smirks, chuckling deeply.
“Oh, my little firecracker,” he says. “I’d never trick you. I’d die before I tricked you. Tell me what I can do to prove it to you, eh? Do you need me to bungee jump off the Eiffel Tower, wrestle a bear, write you a love song?”
Love.
The word stabs into me.
That’s the reason I’m here, after all, in the most romantic city in the world.
I’m supposed to be writing my romance novel, not getting swept into a romance of my own.
“Promise,” I murmur.
He strokes hair from my cheek, tucking it behind my ear, my skin tingling wonderfully.
“I promise,” he snarls. “Now—tell me.”
I sigh and wander over to a sitting area, sitting down and crossing my arms over my middle.
“It was in high school,” I say. My voice seems so far away, as though I’m calling to him over a great distance. “Like I said, I should be over it. Anyway, there was this guy, Jacob. He was the cool guy. He was the guy all the girls wanted to be with.”
“Captain of the football team?” Forrest mutters.
I giggle and nod. “Am I that much of a cliché?”
“No, no,” he says, sitting next to me and wrapping his arm around my shoulder. He kisses the top of my head and tingles sizzle down over my face like hot rainwater. “It was just a guess. Go on, Fiona.”
“He started writing me letters,” I say. “Love letters. I’ve always been a bit of a romantic, I guess. Not in terms of boyfriends. I’ve never even had one. But I’ve always enjoyed love stories. I’ve always loved losing myself in tales where everything ends up all glittery and happy and perfect.”
“And he made you feel that way,” he says, voice husky with dormant anger.
“Yeah, he did,” I sigh. “He’d give me secret looks in school—looks we’d talk about in the letters. He’d smile at me sometimes. It meant a lot to me. And then one day he told me to meet him under the bleachers, after class, when the school was deserted. He …”
“It’s okay,” Forrest growls when I trail off.
He kisses my forehead and gives my shoulder another squeeze.
I cough back a sob. “It was summertime. It was warm. He’d sent me this lingerie set, left it in my locker. He told me to wear it. I felt so silly, but I didn’t want to disappoint him. So I went under there in a coat with the lingerie on underneath, and then he appeared.”
“The jock?”
“No,” I murmur, my voice acid-sharp. “The letters were never from Jacob. Those secret looks I mentioned, I imagined them. The boy who wrote the letters was named Zack Sykes, and he was … I don’t know, a bit weird, I guess. He used to skip class to smoke joints on the loading dock, but the teachers never stopped him. There were rumors his dad was involved in organized crime.
“He started saying all this crazy stuff like even though he’d lied to me, he loved me. He said I had to do what he wanted. I had to take off the jacket and … and show him. My body.”
I shudder and grip my knees, letting out a tortured, tangled cry.
“It’s okay,” Forrest murmurs. “You don’t have to say anymore.”
“I want to,” I say. “I need to. I’ve got this far.”
“So what happened next?” he asks, his voice surprisingly soft, even if there is a tremor beneath it.
“I put my hand in my pocket and clicked send on my phone. I’d told Kelly – she’s my twin sister, but non-identical – what I was doing. She didn’t approve, and she made me promise I’d text her if anything happened. She was waiting nearby and she came running over.”
I laugh at the memory, shaking my head.
“Kelly is so different from me. She was waving this baseball bat around, yelling at him. She scared him off. After that, he wouldn’t quit. He kept sending me letters. One time he even left a freaking dead rat in my locker. We had to move in the end.”
All the heartache of the story explodes out of me and I turn to him, pressing my face against his chest. I can feel the muscles of his chest through the fabric, the solidity of his skin.
I grip onto his shoulders and squeeze tightly, digging my fingernails in.
“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping my face and leaning back. “I’m getting your shirt all wet.”
“Hush,” he says. “You don’t have to apologize. Thank you for telling me, Fiona. But I’m not like that. I’m not like him. I’d never do such a pathetic, sad thing. This bastard, this Zack Sykes, he better hope we never cross paths.”
“His dad’s in the mafia,” I murmur.
Forrest laughs, a growl bolstering the sound.
“That doesn’t mean a damn thing when my lady’s involved,” he snarls.
“Forrest,” I murmur, as we clasp hands and Paris sparkles beneath us.
“Yeah?”
“There’s something else, you know, while we’re getting it all out there …”
“Go on, firecracker,” he urges.
I lick my lips, taking a deep breath.
I have to tell him.
There’s no way I can’t, not after what we did last night.
“I’m a virgin,” I say, bowing my head.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Forrest
I like to think I’m good at keeping my cool.
I have to be for my work, never letting anything faze me in business meetings, never letting other people see the swirling tortured oceans swimming behind my calm eyes.
But now it’s like there’s a volcano in my gut, rumbling, getting ready to explode.
This Zack Sykes bastard, Fiona’s virginity, my secret – the secret that could shatter her – it all smashes together with the violence of an asteroid hitting land.
I turn to her and tip her chin, moving her gaze up until we’re looking into each other’s eyes. Hers are wide and brimming with heartache and naivety with virginal trust searing beneath it all.
“That only makes me want you more,” I growl, my cock throbbing despite all the emotion dancing in the Parisian air.
“What?” she gasps.
“It makes me want you more,” I growl, sliding my hand behind her head and gripping her hair, softly and yet possessively.
I could guide her to my aching manhood right now, fuck that pretty little young mouth until she’s creaming from that alone.
I need to calm the beast inside of me.
I have to wait until she’s ready.
But my balls pulse like my seed is rebelling against that notion.
“Are you serious?” she moans.
“Yes,” I growl. “I’m claiming you, Fiona. That means you’re not allowed to be with other men. You’re not allowed to flirt with them. I own you, completely. You belong to me. So of course this makes me want you more, you sexy fucking thing. This means I’m going to own your pussy, truly own it.”
I pull us both to our feet and then loop my arms around her waist, squeezing onto her hips as I crush my lips against hers. She gasps as I push against her, as all the desire and need in my body tries to explode out of me.
I slide my hands down to her ass, squeezing her sweet round juiciness through the gossamer-thin fabric of her dress, palming her perfect flesh.
She moans and shivers against me, all her virginal want coursing through her, telling her to give herself to me as badly as my predator’s instincts command me to take her.
I break off the kiss, which is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
My own words ricochet around my mind.
Honesty is the most important thing.
I have to tell her.
I can’t keep her in the dark.
She deserves the truth.
I can’t trick her like that motherfucker Zack Sykes did.
“Forrest,” she murmurs. “Is something wrong?”
“I hope not,” I sigh, smoothing my thumb over her reddened cheek, still blossoming from her tears.
I don’t want to make her cry.
I don’t want to hurt her.
Fuck, I’ve gotten myself in
to a mess here.
“But I need to tell you something,” I sigh. “You’ve bared your soul to me, Fiona. It’s only right I do the same.”
“Okay …”
She tilts her head at me, trying to keep her lips flat and neutral, but she can’t hide the way her eyes shimmer with a thousand unspoken fears and desires.
I can almost hear her thoughts dancing in the air.
What now? she’s thinking. What could it possibly be?
“The first time I saw you,” I tell her, “I knew I had to have you. I knew I’d die if I didn’t get to be with you if I didn’t get to put my offspring in your womb. But the idea scared me. It terrified me. I tried to fight it. I’ve never felt like this before. It’s like there’s another force inside of me, Fiona, something massive and impossible to ignore. With you, I don’t feel in control.”
“But that’s how I feel,” she says, moving forward and gripping onto my side. “I know it’s crazy. We only met yesterday and we feel like this? Yeah, people are gonna say it’s crazy. But who cares what people think?”
“I don’t give a damn,” I tell her. “It’s not that. It’s just …”
I sigh, turning away from her, my chest getting tight like there’s a boulder pressing down on me.
“I tried to fight my need for you … For three months, I tried to fight it.”
“For three months?” she says, as though she misheard me.
“Yeah,” I say, glancing at her.
She’s biting her lip, her eyebrows quirked in a question, her cheeks shiny with sunlight and heartache.
“I walked by the café every weekend on my way to the office,” I tell her. “The café where you sit at the window with your laptop and your beautiful hair all messy around your shoulders—or tied up in a bun with a pen slotted through the middle. I was captivated by you, and I made sure to walk by that same café every Saturday for three months. I tried to stop myself. I was scared of the way I felt, that’s the damn truth. I was terrified of how badly I needed you.”
She stares, her mouth falling open. I can’t read her expression.
Does she hate me?
“You knew that … just by looking at me?”
I nod, wanting to reach across and take her hand.
But something about the way she’s standing – with her hand across her belly, slightly turned to the side – tells me she doesn’t want me to touch her right now.
Paris With The Billionaire: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance Page 5
