She stared at that broad back. He looked over his shoulder. “So are you in any hurry to get to bed?”
Blue eyes, tan body, that grin and that cockiness, all in her white sheets…
“Or do chefs keep late hours?”
“It, ah, can sometimes take us a little while to come down off the adrenaline,” she said cautiously, not sure she wanted to follow where he was going with this. And not sure she wanted to shut it down, either. She really did usually have a lot of adrenaline to release, and right this second, she was quite sure she wouldn’t calm down for hours. Possibly weeks.
“Because I’m a poor, lonesome tourist in this country.” He looked pitiful.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“And you’re the nicest, most welcoming Frenchman—woman—I’ve met all day.”
She tried to stuff the laugh back inside, she really did, but he was just impossible. “What did the others throw at you? Bombs?”
“They did that—thing—whenever I spoke.” He pinched at his lips with his fingers. “And then they answered me in English. Every time.” He frowned and shook himself, as if shaking off a horrible nightmare. “It was brutal.”
“Poor baby.”
He gave her a disgruntled look. “You know, being a beautiful blonde Frenchwoman who wears leather and stiletto heels has given you a real lack of empathy for victims of snobbism.”
She snorted. “There are plenty of people who try to snob me in Paris.”
An eyebrow went up. He looked her up and down. “And how does that work out for them?”
She smiled.
He smiled back. His eyes were laughing, and heated with interest, but they were also so…warm. As if he really did like her, and not just think she was fuckable. “What do you say, honey? I assume it’s still forty degrees, but the rain has stopped. Would you save your country’s reputation? Be an ambassador for peace? Show a poor, lost tourist the sights? Hopefully on the back of your motorcycle? Maybe even let him drive it once?”
She held up a hand. “You are not driving my motorcycle.”
A heavy, put-upon sigh. “Fine. I’ll ride behind you.”
It was only after he’d settled on the bike behind her that she realized how often he pushed for something really outrageous—the chance to drive her motorcycle, a marriage in Texas, babies—to get the thing he really wanted, which the technique made seem much more normal in contrast.
“I’ve got a knife on me,” she said, as those hot, strong thighs framed hers and his pelvis nestled up against her butt, his arousal very evident.
“If you need to stab me, do you mind aiming above the waist? I’d way rather lose my spleen than my balls.”
Chapter 5
His team was going to make him pay for this for the rest of his natural life, but what else was he supposed to do? Drug her? Yeah, that would be subtle. No way she would wake up from being drugged and not run straight to the police and create an international scandal.
Conversely, now what could she say? A guy broke into my kitchen in the middle of the night. I bought his story, took him off on a motorcycle with me, and…and…then he turned out to be a lying bastard and…
Wait. Stop that negative thinking right there. There was no reason for her to find out that he was a lying bastard. Also, covert operations and being a lying bastard were not the same thing. They’d even had a class on trying to tell the difference.
Just because a man was covert didn’t mean he couldn’t meet a hot girl. Other men met women in the line of their work. It wasn’t like he would be able to tell any other hot French woman what he really did for a living either, and he was deployed here for the next six months.
He, Jake, Ian, and Mark hadn’t been able to believe their luck when they’d gotten their assignment. Holy crap, Europe? Where there were women and, and…Eiffel Towers, and…women.
The weather in July had been a bit of a shock, but the woman part was working out just fine.
Oh, yeah, he was hooked on covert ops. He was so hooked he was freaking effervescent. In fact, his dick was starting to feel like a corked champagne bottle, getting too shaken up.
This whole operation restored his faith in God and Hollywood, that was what it did. It was too bad he wasn’t Catholic, or he’d go light a candle in one of these cathedrals that dominated the city. “Are you going to insist the babies be baptized?” he asked at a light.
She gunned the motor and accelerated so fast from the light he had to grab her tight. He grinned and valiantly managed not to kiss the nape of her neck or squeeze any inappropriate parts of her and mess up her driving.
“It would be okay,” he said soothingly at the next light. “Grandma would be really happy, actually. She’s from one of the old Spanish families there. Tried like anything to get my mom to baptize us.”
“Do you actually know how to be quiet and focus, ever?” she said.
Well. If she put it like a challenge. He’d gotten her out of the kitchens, without having to drug her or kidnap her or do anything else to the restaurant’s top chef that might tip Al-Mofti off to how close they were on his trail. So maybe now he could quit trying to keep her distracted and just shut up and enjoy the view.
And the feel.
Her between his thighs, her in control while he just wallowed in pleasure. That sleek leather-clad body. Her grace and strength, the way his weight on the bike challenged her at first, and how quickly she adjusted to it, back in perfect, sexy control of her machine within a couple of blocks. He was so freaking aroused he was embarrassed at himself, pressed up tight behind her on the bike like that. Hell, he hoped he didn’t really embarrass himself. That might be possible, with the vibration of this bike, the erotic over-stimulus of having her right there in control of him and yet at his mercy, and the fact that she was so freaking hot.
He tried to focus on the city, all the lights shining off its wet pavement and buildings. Aww, she was—that was kind of sweet, actually. She was taking him on the Seine. Cutting left toward all these gloriously glowing buildings, a fountain leaping in front of a magnificent old palace—“L’Hôtel de Ville,” she said, and it looked and felt so different when she was saying it than when he was studying the layout of the city as part of a mission briefing.
He started to…not relax into it, exactly. When pretty much every atom in his body was focused on crawling into her pants, relaxed wasn’t quite the right word. But to enjoy this part, too—the view. The ride.
Maybe he’d been a little harsh on this city. In certain lights, in certain conditions, it was a hell of a view.
Bridges arching over dark water, building after majestic old building glowing magically against the dark. She crossed one of the bridges and slowed for a light, Notre-Dame in their sights, the ancient view oddly…moving. Hell, Grandma, you should get on a plane just to see this, you’d love it.
Vi pulled her form-fitting leather sleeve back to check her watch. “Oh, only fifteen minutes before it goes out,” she said, and shot them left across a bridge and left again and then just bent into the handlebars and gunned it.
In the scarce traffic of the after-midnight weekday streets, she raced so fast he ducked into her and held on, all the already overstimulated cells in his body revved even higher and hotter by the speed. God, she had control of that Ducati. Cutting slick and sleek through what traffic there was, blazing past the long, stately Louvre, the streets sparkling up at her headlight as they sped toward the Eiffel Tower.
They reached the esplanade across the river from the Tower just as it went out. But—“Made it!” Vi exclaimed, jumping off the bike and heading toward the parapet, taking her helmet off as she strode.
Boots on stone. Long, ground-eating stride. Leather. The Eiffel Tower snubbing him by going out just before he got to it, in forty-degree weather in July.
Life was good.
Also, if he got more aroused, he might honestly start trying to talk her into public sex. So there were dozens of tourists around and they’d
end up on YouTube. So his career would be shot. Was that the end of the world?
And just then the black Tower started sparkling like someone had laced champagne with gold leaf flecks and shaken up the bottle.
He rested his hands against the wet parapet beside her, giving himself something solid to hold on to. The sparkles just danced and danced against the shadow of the Tower. Hell, that Tower made him think of…himself, actually. The sparkles would be his sense of humor, and the shadow would be…
He looked away from that shadow down at his own personal, honest-to-goodness Bond girl. Who was pressing her black-gloved hands against the parapet and gazing at the gold-dancing Eiffel with a pride and pleasure that made her look like a teenager. “Damn,” he said. “I should have proposed here. Can I do it over again?”
She rolled her eyes and didn’t even bother to glance up at him. So he had to nudge his body into hers, of course, to get back all her attention.
She slanted a glance up at him, adding ten more degrees to his already overheated blood. Her eyes still sparkled from the Tower, and yet they held this speculative wickedness.
Hell, she was thinking about it.
He’d already gotten lucky tonight, just by her throwing knives at him, but she had a look like he might get Super Duper A-Meteor-Must-Be-About-To-Hit-Me Lucky.
He nudged her some more, using his bigger body to bump her gently around until he could close her in against that parapet. Jesus, he was going to go out of his mind. Even that much contact just sizzled through his brain and entire body and made him want to see if he could rip leather with his bare hands. “I give you full permission to tie me up,” he said.
She blinked. Then she got this smile on her lips that flooded him with red heat and made him want to kneel at her feet and beg.
“If you need to slow me down,” he said.
“Now why would I want to do that?” she purred.
Oh, holy hell. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
“I’m kind of, maybe”—he took deep breaths—“rushing you.”
“That’s the only way to do a one-night stand, isn’t it? Rush into it and enjoy every second?”
A one-night—? His lips parted, and then his dick just roared up in dragon-rage at his brain. Shut the hell up. Just go with it. Don’t argue with a damn thing.
“Definitely enjoy every second,” he breathed, letting his hips settle against hers. Finally. And hell but that was not enough.
She stood on tiptoe, which dragged her body against his as she brought her mouth to his ear. The dancing Eiffel lights behind her turned starry red. Or was that his brain? “You’re very sure of yourself,” she murmured, with that brushed pure-sex accent of hers. He was pretty sure the Rs just reached down and physically started stroking his dick. “Are you that…cocky in bed?”
“I—I can—” Speak. Think. Complete a full sentence. Breathe. “Take direction, too.”
She brushed her lips down the side of his throat. Oh, hell. She really might need to tie him up. It was so hard not to just grab her butt and grind himself against her, the muscles of his arms might snap in the fight against himself. “I’m fully convinced of your ability to come in two seconds as soon as you see my panties,” she murmured.
Hey.
But, hell, that might be true.
“But what I want to know is, do you have any…stamina?” she breathed as her lips brushed back up his throat to the underside of his chin.
Ooh. The nice, loud mental slap of a gauntlet thrown down. He did love that sound.
“Honey, I can promise you one thing.” He curved his hands around that gorgeous leather-clad butt and pulled her up into him so he could bring his mouth to her ear. “If I get you in a bed, you’re for damn sure not getting any sleep tonight.”
“But I have that billionaire’s banquet tomorrow,” she protested. Or it was kind of a protest. She might be just teasing him.
But he didn’t want to risk it. “Fine. I’ll set an alarm and stop at three.”
She pulled back enough to raise her eyebrows at him, biting her lip. Amused, but sexy amused. Like she, too, found laughter erotic. “You’ll set an alarm?”
“A loud one.” He showed her his watch. He was surprised that watch didn’t include a miniature missile launcher for all the damn things it could do. “Otherwise I’ll never notice.” He gave her a slow smile. “I told you I could focus.”
“Yeah, but you brag quite a lot,” she said.
Hey. What? When had he bragged? He’d been staying so humble all evening. He’d barely even flexed a few times.
She rocked her hips ever so gently against his. “So I guess I need…proof.”
There had to be a meteor headed for the Earth. Or an alien invasion or something. Those alien invasions always did attack the Eiffel Tower first.
He was exactly the guy Hollywood would expect to leap into the breach and fight them off if aliens did show up about right now.
But for once in his life, if the bomb dropped, he would love to be the last to know.
“Oh, yeah, honey.” He bent and captured her mouth. “Let me prove myself to you.”
Chapter 6
“I can’t figure out how to do this,” Chase said, and Vi stopped with her key in the lock and looked over her shoulder.
“It’s your first time?” she said blankly. That was…extremely unexpected. But…kind of…wow, that would be kind of…
Chase gave her an incredulous look. “No.”
Oh. Yeah. Probably just as well that was a very short-lived fantasy.
“But it’s my first time with you,” Chase said. “And you’ve got me—so—” He made a gesture as if his head was exploding. “If you tie me up, how am I going to be able to touch you to make sure you have fun? And if you don’t, how the hell am I supposed to not rip your clothes off?”
“They’re leather,” Vi said and opened the door.
“Gnaw them off with my teeth then,” Chase said and, that fast, turned her back against her own door and pushed it closed. He looked like a hunter who had just sprung a trap on an unwary young wolf. Amused and delighted with himself and very, very predatory. He dropped down to a knee, his hands bracing to either side of her hips, still pinning her to the door. “Maybe I’ll start the gnawing—right—here.” He leaned in and pressed his mouth straight to her leather-covered crotch.
Vi made a startled sound and jumped, clutching at the door frame behind her.
“Shh,” Chase murmured, his lips moving against the leather. “It will take me a while to gnaw through this. Just relax.”
“Oh, my God.” So much hot arousal fogged through her she couldn’t see through the red and gold clouds. Oh, God. She pressed her head back hard against the door.
Chase closed strong hands around her thighs and pushed them wider, bracing her. And bit her, right between her legs. A gnawing leather-veiled pressure against the lips of her sex, and she dissolved, slickening her panties.
“Leather and you, wet,” he said and pressed his face straight between her thighs and nuzzled there. “Christ, they should make a perfume.” He nibbled again.
Vi whimpered, trying to crawl backwards up the door.
He tightened his grip on her thighs. “Hold still, honey. You challenged me, now take your throw.” Those teeth, against her leather. “There are worse ways to lose, don’t you think?”
Oh, God. She clutched his head, then grabbed the frame again, bucking as she twisted toward and away from what he was doing all at once. Her brain was lost somewhere. Wasn’t he the one who was supposed to be in her power up here? She was supposed to be smiling wickedly right about now, reaching ever so slowly for the zip on her jacket, lowering it a centimeter at a time as he finally, finally, lost control of that glib tongue of his and just stared.
“It might take me a while to work my way through all this leather this way,” Chase said as he took a long, slow bite of it—and of her with it. “Maybe you could tell me more about what panties you’re wearing under it? Give me s
ome motivation?”
He had not even been conceivable as a person who existed when she put on her panties that morning. She couldn’t even remember. “Black lace,” she said randomly, writhing against the door. That seemed like something that would keep him motivated. “At least—in front. In back there’s not much at all. “
“Yeah?” He loosed one of her thighs to run his one finger down the seam of her pants and up, up the cleft of her butt, where a thong would go, under that leather. She writhed, pressing herself against that finger. “Now that’s a nice goal, right there. The thought of you on your hands and knees on your bed, with nothing but a thong on and me standing right behind you. How we doing on this leather, baby? Am I getting through?”
“No,” she said. “Yes. No. Not enough.”
“Well.” He sat back on his heels and cocked his head up at her. “You have your hands free. You could help.”
She stared down at him—that wicked humor in his eyes, but all that hunger, too. More and more hunger. It made him look…dangerous. Like a man with well over twice her strength, who knew exactly how to use that strength against far bigger and more lethal enemies than a knife-throwing chef.
“I should have known you couldn’t handle me on your own,” she said.
His face just lit in this wicked, wanton way, like a hellion who’d finally broken out of a monastery. “Oh, honey, you like to live dangerously, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she admitted, on the giddy rush of that danger as he slid his grip of her thighs up to the uppermost possible point, his thumbs sliding deep between her legs to pinch folds of leather and her up to his mouth. His elbows came into play, forcing her legs to stay spread.
“I think I’m handling you…just…fine,” he purred, as his thumbs and teeth worked her.
She had an intense level of self-confidence, and she thrived on adrenaline, but she liked to be in control, too. Well, normally, she had to be in control. Even a male top chef had to maintain control at all times in his kitchens, but because she was a woman, running that starred kitchen full of arrogant and physically intense men did not allow her to falter in her control ever. Not for a millisecond.
Chase Me (Paris Nights Book 2) Page 4
