I pointed out the sights to him, loving the way he responded. As much as I no longer wanted to live in Paris, the city would always have a piece of me. It was like I was giving him parts of my past, and he loved each and every one of them.
It was magic.
At Les Invalides we asked a group of German tourists to take a picture of us with my cell phone. The image that stared back at me shocked me.
Max sat behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist, his head on my shoulder pressed against mine.
My lipstick had long since rubbed off from kissing. My hair was a tangled mess, my mouth puffy, my cheeks red from the wind, and the cold, and the man. My smile was blinding. I looked happier than I’d been in years. Happier than I’d ever been, maybe. And Max looked at the camera like he couldn’t be prouder than he was at that moment with his arms around me.
And just like that, I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
“I love you.”
I wasn’t going to say it first. But then I realized that Max told me he loved me every time he kissed me, every time he held me. With every smile, every look, every word.
So fuck it. I felt it, so I said it.
“I love you, too.”
My eyes closed as I drowned in his words.
My eyes flickered open, and the look shining back at me was beyond anything I’d ever imagined.
“So much,” he whispered, capturing my mouth. “It’s always been you. Always.”
We made out in front of a school group of German students until the boat stopped and people started getting off. Until I was pretty close to getting off.
I grabbed his hand, pulling him toward me.
“Home?” I asked.
He grinned. “Home.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Fleur
I made it to the front door before I began stripping, my need for him overwhelming. It was late and the staff was likely sleeping, and even if not, I just didn’t care anymore. I was too far gone.
My coat landed on the marble floor as I walked down the hall toward my bedroom, looking over my shoulder at Max behind me, staring at me like he wanted to eat me up in big, all-consuming bites.
My sweater joined my coat a few steps away from my door. The cold air hit my skin, sending a chill through me that had my nipples tightening. I reached back to unhook my bra when Max’s body collided with mine, holding me against the door, surrounding me with his warmth.
He pressed my front into the cool wood, his chest rubbing against my back, his erection pressing into me from behind. His hands on either side of my hips, he pulled me toward him until I could feel every inch of his desire. His head came down, his face buried in my hair, his lips caressing me. We stayed still like that for a moment, the night silent around us.
Max lifted my hair, gathering it in his hand and pushing it forward, exposing the bare skin at my nape. He bent his head, his lips stroking down my neck. His fingers glided against my back, and then my bra came unhooked and slid off my arms.
His big hands covered my breasts, heating my skin, his palms brushing my nipples as he held my body to his. I fumbled for the door handle, my fingers slipping against the cool metal as Max teased me with his lips and tongue, tracing the path his mouth had taken. A tremor slid over my skin and crawled inside me.
I turned in his arms, grabbing the collar of his coat, pulling him toward me, over the threshold and into my bedroom. Without breaking away, Max kicked the door behind him with a thud. He cupped my bare breasts, his thumbs rubbing my nipples, sending sparks through me as he kissed his way down my chest, his mouth leaving a trail of goose bumps in its wake. I arched into him, craving his touch, needing him closer, wanting to take him into my body until he filled me completely.
His mouth closed over my breast, and my head rolled back as I gave myself over to pleasure. His tongue stroked me and I swear I saw fucking stars. The warm, wet tug of his lips, the feel of his teeth grazing my flesh . . . Incredible.
We stumbled over to the bed, our bodies wrapped around each other. My hands dove under his shirt, stroking at the muscles there, at the skin I’d spent hours exploring. He groaned against my breast, the sound sending another tremor through me. Despite the cold outside, he was burning up, and suddenly I was, too, and I needed the rest of our clothes off.
Now.
I moved out of his grasp, another shiver ripping through me at the desire that darkened his eyes. I fumbled with the button of my pants, dragging the fabric down over my legs, working my boots off my feet. I sank down to the bed, on a mission to get undressed, and then suddenly I was bare before him except for my lacy blue thong.
Max stood in front of me, still wearing his shirt and jeans, staring down at me.
“Are you going to get naked?” I asked, my voice slightly breathless from the stripping, and the kissing, and the way his mouth had felt on my breast.
He blinked, and then his lips curved, slowly, lazily.
“Yeah.”
I tried to stifle the frustration. I figured it would look bad if I threw myself at him, but it had been a few months of foreplay, and a couple years of celibacy, and I was kind of dying here.
“Soon?”
Max grinned. “Yeah.”
I waited.
“Tu me rends fou.” The French came out before I even realized it, but in my defense, he was driving me crazy.
He shook his head as if he were looking at something he couldn’t believe.
“I’ve thought about this a lot. Dreamed about it.” His voice set off another pull of lust. “I couldn’t have imagined this. You blow every fantasy out of the water.”
Tension slammed into me as each word gutted me. I’d made the mistake of assuming that after a while he’d stop looking at me like I was special. That eventually I’d just be another girl.
I’d been wrong.
“You’re not supposed to get everything you ever wanted.” His voice was thick now, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or thinking out loud.
Emotion filled his eyes and flooded my heart. “I love you, Fleur. So damn much.”
He knelt down in front of me, and my arms wrapped around his body as if they belonged there.
“Je t’aime,” I whispered back, my eyes welling up with tears as the words spilled out in the language of my heart.
And then I got it.
This was what had been missing from sex. This was what I’d always wanted and never found. I’d had good sex; I’d had bad sex. I’d had orgasms and spent more time chasing them than I’d like to remember. But I’d never had this. I’d never seen love shining back at me, and I’d never felt it bursting through my body like a light that couldn’t be contained. I’d been so empty and dark for so long, and with three words Max lit me up like a Christmas tree.
The air simmered with emotion, and then it swelled, cresting to a breaking point.
My mouth found his, my heart taking over when my mind ceased to function.
His clothes came off in a blur, and then his body—the body that I’d gotten to know almost as well as my own—was pressing me back against the mattress, covering me with his warmth.
He kissed me while we explored each other, while our hands traversed now well-traveled paths. He tore sighs from my lips and took them into his mouth as easily as he pulled my heart away from me.
Although it wasn’t really taking when I gave it away as though he’d won this part of me—every other part, too.
Max peeled my thong off my hips, and then his fingers slipped inside, stroking, possessing. I was so wet, so ready, and yet the feel of his hands against me was enough to send me into a whole other state of need.
“I love touching you,” he whispered against my mouth. “Love driving you crazy. Nothing has ever been like this.”
I couldn’t. I tried. Tried to put words to the emotions raging inside of me. And then just when they seemed out of reach, I realized I had all the words I needed. He’d given them to me.
“I
love you.”
I sobbed it, my voice full of want, and need, and love.
I’d never understood why Maggie made such a big deal about being a virgin or waiting for the right guy. I didn’t get the American puritanical view on sex. It felt good, and it was life, and that had always been enough for me. But now I understood that while that was fine, and even hot at times, it wasn’t everything.
This was everything.
It was scraping out a part of yourself—the barest, most intimate part—and handing it to someone else with an unspoken plea . . .
Please don’t break my heart.
It was amazing, and terrifying, and still really fucking hot. But this time my orgasm came with the knowledge that I’d given my heart to the one person I trusted to keep it safe.
Max rolled off me, grabbing his discarded jeans from the floor. He fumbled with his wallet, pulling out a foil packet.
His cheeks turned red. “I’m not a douche who always carries a condom around. It just seemed like it was a good idea to have with us. Just in case. Not that I was expecting—”
I couldn’t have kept the smile off my lips if I tried. “Max?”
“Yeah?”
“Come here.”
He moved so quickly, I barely registered it. One moment he was standing in front of me, condom in hand, the next he was there on the bed, hovering over me, in between my legs, yanking his boxers off his hips, ripping the foil packet open.
God, he was beautiful. So fucking beautiful.
He rolled the condom on, and then he was naked against me, each touch of skin leaving a kiss of fire in its wake. He reached out, grabbing my hand, our fingers linking, and my heart clenched. And then he slid inside of me in one smooth stroke, and my hips arched to meet him.
For a moment we were still, Max buried deep inside me, hard, and thick, and big. It felt right and oh so good. So much foreplay, and now we were actually here, and it was better than I’d ever imagined.
Our gazes locked.
“I love you,” he vowed, his eyes fierce.
I shivered, my body clenching around him. A groan escaped his lips. And then he began moving, and I knew what he meant by “heaven” when we’d talked about bases.
It wasn’t technique. He didn’t have any crazy moves, and the feel of his body sliding into mine wasn’t the feel of a body that’d had one hundred women and knew exactly what it was doing. It was the feel of a man who only cared about pleasing one woman—me. And while it took a few moments for us to adjust to each other, to mimic the motions of each other’s hips, to learn the rhythm of what worked, we did.
Max held my hand the whole time he thrust into me, his body filling me, stretching me. Sweat covered his skin, and I leaned forward, my mouth on his shoulder, needing to taste him. My teeth sunk down into his flesh as his hips jerked, and he hit the right spot, and I felt the beginning of an orgasm coming on strong.
His hips kept moving, hitting that spot every single time, and my head rolled back, my hand squeezing his as my back arched, pressing my breasts into his chest, our bodies colliding until I came with a shudder, my body tensing and then falling into the delicious slide of oblivion.
When he came, buried deep inside me, he came with my hand in his, and his gaze locked with mine, love between us. And then his eyes closed, and his body collapsed, and we came off the most incredible high I’d ever had, joined . . .
One.
###
Max
I couldn’t stop touching her. Or looking at her. It was as if I was afraid that if I did anything to break the connection between us, she’d disappear. She felt more like a mirage than a flesh-and-blood girl, and yet her breath against my chest, her lips brushing against my skin, her head over my heart, told a different story.
“I love you.” I’d never get tired of saying those three words to her.
“Love you, too,” she answered, her voice sleepy, her hand trailing down my chest.
I’d just had her, and yet that lazy caress was enough to have my body waking up again.
“We were kind of amazing at that, weren’t we?”
I bit back a laugh. Trust Fleur to be arrogant about how good we were at sex. Although in all fairness, she was right.
“Yeah, we were.”
She kissed my pec, her tongue circling my nipple, and I began to wonder just how tired she really was.
“Did I ever tell you how much I love your muscles?” she murmured against my bare skin.
I grinned. “No.”
“Well, I do.” She lifted up on her elbows and pressed a swift kiss on my mouth. “I’d always thought boys who spent all their time in libraries would have scrawny bodies. I am so glad I was wrong.”
I laughed. “I did. I wasn’t big when I was younger. I spent all my time in the library or playing computer games, so the guys at school started giving me a hard time. I got sick of getting picked on and I started working out, tried out for some sports teams. Bulked up.”
Anger flared in her brown eyes at the words hard time and my heart clenched. I loved how protective she was over the people she cared about. God, she was intense in the best possible way.
“Babe, it was a long time ago. It’s okay now.”
She sniffed. “I don’t care. Assholes.” She broke off in an angry burst of French before her face calmed slightly. “Well, look at you now. You’re hot, and smart, and everything they’ll never be.”
“And I have you.” Which made everything better.
“And you have me.”
Fleur shifted, wrapping her long legs around my waist, her arms locked around my neck.
“When did you know?” she murmured.
My body was definitely waking up.
“When did I know what?”
“When did you know you loved me?”
I thought about it for a minute, trying to remember when this feeling had begun. She’d been such a part of me for so long, I wasn’t even sure.
“I think I’ve been falling in love with pieces of you since the first moment I saw you.”
I knew how it sounded, and I struggled to string the words together to make her understand how I felt. She was like a puzzle, and I’d loved each piece as it came to me, even if I hadn’t been able to see the whole picture or understand it. But with each one, I’d gotten a clearer sense of who she was, and I’d fallen more as each part slid into place.
“I fell for each piece you gave me. In the beginning, it was just a crush, but you stole my heart as soon as you walked into that classroom freshman year. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I didn’t know you then, but I loved the idea of you first.”
Her gaze clouded slightly. “I’m not the girl you thought I was.”
“No, you’re not. I fell in love with the image first, but that’s only part of you, and that changed as soon as I got to know you. I fell in love with your attitude, even when it was driving me nuts. The first time you kissed me, I loved your passion.
“I fell in love with the girl who cared enough to make sure I had a nice suit for my job interviews, the girl who played cupid for Maggie and Samir, who cooked Thanksgiving dinner for me because I was homesick, the girl who likes to go on boat rides to clear her mind. The girl who apologized to my best friend because she didn’t want either of us to get hurt. The girl whose mind fascinates me because it works so differently from mine, who makes every day an adventure. I’ve been falling in love with you all along.”
She didn’t speak. I tipped her chin up, studying her face. Tears shimmered in her eyes.
“Don’t cry,” I whispered, kissing her cheek. A tear fell, trickling down until it hit my lips on her skin. My tongue darted out, licking the moisture, taking that part of her inside me.
I held her tight, showering her face with kisses until our mouths found each other, and her lips devoured mine.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” Fleur whispered between kisses as another tear fell. “And I’m afraid I’m going
to lose you. Afraid you’re going to meet some girl who reads comic books and has, like, a genius IQ or something.”
I laughed. I didn’t know how she could ever think she was in danger of me falling out of love with her.
“I’m not going anywhere. Are you going to leave me for some tool who wears designer shoes and spends twenty minutes doing his hair?”
She grinned. “No.”
“Good. I feel the same way. Whatever I had in the past doesn’t compare to what I have now. Doesn’t compare to you.”
Fleur shifted on my lap, kissing her way down my chest. I played with a handful of her hair, reveling in the feel of silk in my hand. She grabbed a condom and rolled it on me, adjusting until her body was positioned just over mine, and then she sank down until I was buried to the hilt, filling her, surrounded by her warmth.
Her hips began to rock, her body moving in a slow rhythm that had me unable to do anything but watch her, following her lead as she rode me. Her brown hair spilled over her shoulders in a tumble of thick curls, her back arching, her tits thrust forward. I reached out, capturing her hand, locking our fingers together as her hips rocked faster and faster, taking me over the edge until we both exploded and her body collapsed on top of mine, our hearts beating against each other.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Fleur
November blurred into December, and the end of the semester neared, and things with Max continued on better than ever. I kept waiting for something to happen, for the novelty of each other to wear off, and yet, surprisingly, it didn’t. Things were perfect. For the first time I was in a healthy relationship that felt right. Max was solid and he was always there—steady and reliable. It was everything I never knew I needed.
When we’d come back from Paris there’d been no doubt in anyone’s mind that we were together. We were pretty much inseparable, studying together and spending most of our free time hanging out. I still saw Maggie and Mya, but it was different now. They were still my best friends, but our lives were changing, going in different directions.
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