“Samira is an amazing person,” he said to Mrs. Smith instead. “As I’m sure you’ve discovered.”
“Oh, I’ve discovered.” Mrs. Smith held his face between her soft hands the way she used to do back when he was little, her smile fading. “Jean-Baptiste…”
He knew what was coming. Didn’t need to hear it.
“It’s okay,” he said quickly. “I understand.”
But she just shook her head and tried to blink back her tears.
“I’m so sorry.” Her voice sounded choked. “I never would have left you like that if I’d had a choice.”
“I know.”
“But your mother felt it was best to make a clean break when you went to Capri that summer and I went home to visit my family.”
Good old Mrs. Smith, he thought with equal parts affection and exasperation.
Always determined to put the best face on things. Always determined—even now! —to protect him from his parents’ never-ending shortcomings, whether they’d traipsed off to Gstaad and forgotten his bedtime call for the tenth night in a row, or fired his beloved nanny because his mother realized, as everyone else already did, that Mrs. Smith was the closest thing Baptiste had to a real mother. That was the thing about dear old Maman, wasn’t it? She’d never wanted him, but she damn sure didn’t want him to have another mother.
But Mrs. Smith rose above all that, didn’t she?
No matter whatever else happened, Mrs. Smith would never badmouth his parents.
Which, he supposed, made her as fine a person as Samira.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Smith,” he told her. “I know exactly what happened—”
There was a knock on the door.
“Oh, no.” Samira, who’d been hovering on the periphery, checked her watch and made a face as she disappeared into the foyer. “That’ll be my parents. They show up early for everything. And they’re dying to give you your present, Baptiste, so you’d better brace yourself.”
“I’m braced.” Baptiste let Mrs. Smith go with a final peck to her cheek and turned to the front door. “I cannot wait to see what else happens tonight.”
“You say that now...” Samira said darkly, swinging the door open.
“Hi, honey!” Rhoda’s cheerful voice rang through the air. “Don’t you look pretty? Give us a kiss.”
“Hi, Mom! Here, let me take your coat—Dad, will you kindly put that thing down before you take someone’s head off?”
“Well, watch where you stick your head.” Joe appeared from the hallway, jacket still on and woolly cap pulled low over his forehead as he beamed at them all in turn and boomed out his greeting. “Hello, everyone! Where’s the birthday boy? This is for you, J.B.! Happy Birthday to you, son!”
And he thrust a fishing pole tied with a giant blue bow into Baptiste’s hands.
Baptiste stared down at it in utter disbelief, his brain working overtime to make sense of the turns in his life since he arrived in Journey’s End.
In the past? He’d been gifted checks for his birthday. Club-hopped. Been the honoree at decadent parties hosted by his trashy friends. Hell, one time he’d even received a Rolex from a girlfriend who’d used his credit card to purchase it.
But this?
A quiet dinner party with friends. A homemade cake. Balloons. Mrs. Smith. Samira.
And now a fishing pole, too?
He experienced another of those embarrassing choked-up moments that could devolve into either laughter or tears. Luckily, laughter won this time.
“I certainly hope this is a better pole than the defective one you let me borrow the other week.”
Joe made a face. “Defective?”
“Well, it only caught one fish, didn’t it? Surely you don’t blame me for that,” Baptiste deadpanned.
They all roared with laughter.
“This is the best birthday of my life,” Baptiste said as he leaned in to hug Joe.
“Did you mean it?” Samira asked later, after the candles had burned low, the guests had gone and they had a minute to catch their breath. Heaving a sigh of unmistakable satisfaction, she sank onto the sofa, kicked off her heels and put her feet up on the coffee table. Their bellies were full of barbecued beef brisket, macaroni and cheese, roasted Brussels sprouts and red velvet cake (a revelation) and, much to his surprise, the kitchen was once again spotless thanks to the many hands make light work attitudes of Rhoda, Zoya and Sean, who had helped Samira with the cleanup. After a childhood spent watching the live-in housekeeper and other staff shuttle dirty dishes into the kitchen for unseen hands to wash them, Baptiste was now Head Dishwasher on the nights Samira cooked, a role he’d begun to embrace, but as the birthday boy, he’d been given the night off. “That this was the best birthday of your life?”
He’d been helping himself to a second slab of cake, but now he set it on the side table and licked the icing off his thumb.
“You know I meant it,” he said quietly.
She beamed up at him, sunshine in a black dress. “And what was your favorite part?”
“Every second was my favorite part. But my absolute favorite part was that you did something so thoughtful for me. I can’t even begin to…”
He trailed off and shook his head, his full-to-bursting heart once again making it difficult for him to speak.
“I’m sorry you didn’t have better birthdays growing up,” she said, sobering. “Every little kid deserves that. My parents did everything but throw me a parade when I was little. Because they adopted me late in life. They made me feel like a princess for a day every year. One time we even had a full afternoon tea in the garden with all my friends in frilly dresses.”
The image made him grin away his lingering emotion.
“I’d like to see those pictures.”
“I’m sure my parents would be only too happy to show them to you.” She looked troubled. “So you were never going to say anything about your birthday?”
Ah. That reminded him.
“No. I was going to observe the tradition of giving gifts rather than receiving them.”
He hurried toward the front door.
“Where’re you—?” she called after him.
“One second.”
He retrieved his brightly wrapped and beribboned package from behind the bushes, came right back and set it on the coffee table, a wave of anticipatory nerves making his cheeks hot.
“For you. I hope you like it.”
She swung her feet down, looking startled but delighted. “This is for me?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you! I love it!”
“Don’t you want to see what it is first?” he asked, laughing.
“As long as it isn’t, say, a toaster oven, I’m sure I’ll love it.” She paused to think before going to work on the wrapping. “Actually, I’d love a toaster oven, too. I’ve seen a couple of recipes—oh, it’s heavy.”
Baptiste, now feeling downright nervous, sat on the edge of the sofa and watched her. “I hope you like it. We can exchange it, of course, if you don’t like it. And I wasn’t sure about the—”
“Oh, my God.” She pressed a hand to her heart. It was a Louis Vuitton red leather rolling carry-on bag, but she gasped and gaped as though he’d presented her with a car. Which made him wonder what she’d do when he replaced her existing car, which had to be at least seven years old, with a new one, as he planned to do in the near future. “It’s gorgeous. This is for me?”
“Oui, ma reine,” he said quietly, not trusting himself to say what was on the tip of his tongue. Namely that he wanted to give her the world, because that was what she’d given him. “It’s for you.”
“It’s beautiful. I love it. Thank you.” Some of the brilliance faded from her smile as she cocked her head and studied him more closely. “But are you sending me away somewhere?”
“Just a little weekend trip.”
“What? Where are we—?”
“Shhh.” He set aside the suitcase, box and wrapping pap
er, then reached for the cake. “All in good time. Right now? It’s time for something I’ve wanted to do all night.”
The new huskiness in his voice seemed to give him away.
She went very still and watched him with glittering eyes.
“Oh? And what’s that, monsieur?”
He reached for his cake. Smudged some of the icing onto his thumb and sucked it into his mouth, maintaining eye contact the whole time.
Her breath stuttered.
“This is special frosting, did you say?” he asked conversationally, dipping his thumb again.
“Ah, yes. It’s called, ah, Ermine frosting.” She cleared her throat, her avid gaze tracking his movements. “You boil the milk.”
“It’s one of the most delicious things I’ve ever tasted.” He paused for effect. “And I want to see how well it goes with the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.”
Color rose over her face as her lids slipped to half-mast.
It took her a long time to speak.
“I see. And it is your birthday. So I have to do whatever you want.”
“Indeed. So I’m going to need your panties.”
Thrilling half-smile from Samira.
She stood. Stared him in the eye as she smoothed her clingy dress over her thighs. Bent to reach under the hem, treating him to a generous display of cleavage as she did. He let out a long and serrated breath that intensified when she turned her back on him and slid the dress up her thighs to reveal the flexing globes of her tight ass. Much shimmying and wriggling followed, at the end of which—he had no idea how she managed it—she pulled the dress back into place, turned to face him and presented him with the scrap of blue lace without ever showing him a glimpse of her pussy.
She handed the panties over, one brow raised and her eyes bright with defiance.
He glowered at her. Adjusted himself before his zipper made him a eunuch.
“On second thought,” he said, pressing the panties to his nose, breathing deeply and savoring the clean scent of her musk before putting them into his pocket, “you should probably get rid of everything.”
“Everything?” she asked sweetly.
“Everything.”
She shrugged. “If you insist.”
“Oh, I insist,” he said huskily.
Planting her legs wide, like Beyoncé striking a pose on stage, she took all the time in the world to lift her dress, sweep it over her head and drop it to the floor. She gave him a second or two to appreciate the sheer lace of her bra (ridiculous as a garment, but absolutely brilliant as a way to drive men insane) before she reached back to unhook it and tossed it aside.
“Come here,” he said, opening his arms to her with tremendous satisfaction.
She straddled him with a throaty laugh, settling with her thighs on either side of him. Wasting no time, he smeared the icing across her dewy lips and licked his way deep into her mouth. Sweet heaven tinged with vanilla. She surged into the kiss, making that helpless cooing sound that made his heart stop and his queue swell every time he heard it.
“Baptiste,” she whispered urgently when he broke away.
He tightened his grip on her hip to keep her in place, then reached out his other hand to swirl his first two fingers in the icing.
“I know where I want to kiss you,” he said, gliding his fingers through the slick cleft between her thighs, making her cry out and her skin leap, “but since I’ve had a great birthday and I’m in a generous mood, I’m happy to also kiss you wherever you’d like to be kissed.”
Breathless and shaky laugh from Samira.
“Well, let’s see,” she said thoughtfully, scooping up a big blob of icing.
His pulse thundered in his ears.
Taking advantage of her captive and enthralled audience, she smeared the white icing on the side of her long mahogany neck. Let her eyes roll closed and her head fall back as she smeared it across the front of her neck, between her full breasts and down to her quivering belly. Trailed her fingers back up and dotted each jutting nipple.
And then, just when he couldn’t take the anticipation for one more second, she rubbed the last little bit of icing across his bottom lip, leaned in and nipped him with her sharp little teeth before eagerly opening her mouth for him.
He made a choked sound of impatience and let the animal inside him run free. Never before had his mood shifted so quickly or his need been so great.
The more desperate he became to own her, the more she owned him.
He’d told her he loved her tonight.
The idea that she might not love him back—might be incapable of loving a man like him—sparked a frenzy inside him. A terror. A bottomless need.
“Samira,” he said, breaking the kiss.
They stared at each other for one startled moment.
He saw how her gaze roved his face and realized that she had questions and uncertainty about this thing between them. Much as he wanted to reassure her, he was drowning in his own questions.
What would it take for this woman to love him the way he loved her? He wasn’t worthy now, of course, having spent his whole life being unlovable and unworthy, but what if he changed? Would she consider the possibility of loving him one day if he promised to change?
There were no answers, but her expression eased, just a little, and some of the tightness in his chest loosened. But he couldn’t take it slow. Not tonight.
With a low growl, he rose up enough to tumble her off his lap and onto her back. It only took him a second to unbuckle his belt and unzip. Then he grabbed her hips and yanked her closer, right where he needed her to be as he levered over her.
“Oh, God,” she said.
And she surrounded him with those silky arms and legs as he lowered his head and licked her neck. Her breasts, sweeping away the white icing to reveal her pointed dark nipples beneath. And her sweet, sweet pussy, savoring the feeling of her plump thighs on either side of his head, engulfing him, as he ran his mouth all over her swollen flesh.
Then he focused in and swirled his tongue around her clit—just the way she liked.
It didn’t take her long to stiffen. To arch against him, her back bowing away from the sofa. To cry out a single high note of surprised ecstasy.
He lived for that sound.
He also lived for this.
Glassy-eyed and limp, with a woman’s sensual smile curling the edges of her lips, she sat up. Pushed him back, so that his head was on the sofa’s arm, but his feet were on the floor. Nimbly dropped to her knees between his legs, pulled down the front of his boxers, trailed two fingers in the icing and, giving him a pointed look—oh, yes, she had his rapt attention—showed him her glistening pink tongue before she sucked those fingers deep into her mouth.
His breath stopped.
Her smile grew.
She reached for the plate again, producing a smaller blob of icing that—merde! —only covered the engorged head of his dick. Then she ran her fingers up and down his length, pouting prettily.
“Look at all this,” she said, wicked amusement lighting her eyes as she lowered her head and stroked him up and down with an appreciative coo. “I think I’m going to need a lot more icing.”
“Fuck,” he said, his hips spasming as she put her mouth on him.
When he woke sometime later, he was stretched out on his back, his clothes in disarray, with Samira on top of him. Their legs were twined. Her head rested on his chest.
He was still inside her.
Much as he wanted to spend the rest of his life like this, he wanted to surprise her more. So he ran his fingers up her spine and kissed the top of her head.
“Hmmm?” she murmured drowsily.
“Wake up. We’re going away for the weekend, remember?”
“Oh,” she said, blinking and propping herself up on her arms. “Are we driving down to the city?”
Baptiste did his best to stifle his grin.
“Something like that.”
9
Par
is.
They were in. Freaking. Paris.
Eating breakfast at a sidewalk café on a street overlooking the Seine, which was a pale and languid jade color beneath a cloudless indigo sky on this unseasonably warm day. Cars zoomed by. French-speaking people walked down the sidewalks and across the bridge catty-corner from them. If she turned her head left, what did she see on the Left Bank, which was on the other side of that bridge? The tops of Notre Dame’s two towers. If she looked right? The Conciergerie, with its distinctive round towers and pointy blue tips. And if she craned her neck just a bit? Why, she could see the Eiffel Tower, of course. Itty-bitty at this distance, but still.
Paris.
And she’d thought she’d pulled off a decent surprise by throwing Baptiste a dinner party and smuggling Mrs. Smith into the house? Ha! She glanced over and watched him sip his coffee while idly flipping a page of the paper. Sunlight shone on the top of his head, streaking his wavy dark hair with gold and copper highlights. His cheekbones were covered with a longer than usual five o’clock shadow, but the harsh planes seemed relaxed, and his full lips turned up in the beginnings of a smile as he read.
As though he felt the weight of her attention on his face, he turned and caught her in that bright green gaze, the one that always stopped her heart. Much as she wanted to return his smile, the moment was far too powerful for that.
“Êtes-vous content, ma reine?” he asked quietly.
Was she happy?
Was Paris the most beautiful city in the world?
“Oui. Très content.”
“Bien,” he said with a tiny wink. He put a hand on her thigh—she automatically covered it with her own—then went back to reading the paper.
She felt deliriously happy.
Crazy, stupid happy.
That was what scared her.
Because this was all too good to be true.
The man.
His mode of travel.
“Could we maybe go to a musical while we’re there?” she’d asked late last night, when he drove the Tesla into a small private airport on the outskirts of Journey’s End. “Do you like musicals? I’d love to see Hamilton. If we could get tickets.”
Beyond Ordinary Love Page 12
