Once Upon a Rose

by Laura Florand

  “Matt!”

  He raised his head, his eyebrows drawn together in pseudo-worry as his fingers trailed uncertainly back and forth along the line of her panties in the most maddening way. “I don’t know.” His eyes gleamed. “Do you want me to pull over and let you drive this thing?”

  “You’re a beast!” she said incredulously. She might have made a mistake waking up this man’s sense of play.

  “Well, I mean…” His fingers slid strong and hot and oh-so-charily a half centimeter under the line of her panties into her curls. “If you can do it better…”

  “I’ll show you what I can do!” She twisted, trying to reach down toward his own sex, far past her arm’s length at this point. “You’re so going to pay.”

  He caught both her wrists and surged up her body to pin them with one of his hands above her head. She twisted them to try to break free, and his eyes gleamed as he didn’t let go. “It must be hell to be a puny girl right about now.”

  “Matthieu Rosier.”

  “God, I love the way you say my name.” He kissed her, hot and deep, until she was gasping, her hips twisting and bucking against that entirely uncooperative hand of his down there.

  “You let go of my wrists right this second!”

  His grin was so wicked. “What are you going to do if I don’t?” His free hand stroked down farther, until the long, strong middle finger was just shy of exactly where she wanted it to go so badly. “Tell me to stop the car?”

  “You, you, you—oh, God.” As that callused finger rested quite gently on her clitoris and very, very gently stirred.

  “Yes, Bouclettes?” His hand slid farther, his thumb taking the place of his finger as those long fingers slid through the slick lips of her sex. “You were saying?” His thumb began a gentle, unhurried rhythm.

  “Hush.” She turned her head into the pillow, her eyes closing. “Let me concentrate.”

  “But I’m having so much fun,” he complained. “I mean, wow…” A finger probed deeper into her slickness. “I wonder where this goes?”

  “I’m going to kill you,” she promised, wetting her lips, her hips bucking up to his finger.

  “Yeah, I know. But still…” That finger began its sure slide deep into her. “Let’s find out.”

  All her inner muscles tightened on his slide, first at the foreignness of his entrance into her body and then at the desire to have more of it, bigger, harder, faster.

  “That’s going to feel so damned good on me in a minute,” he said hoarsely. “Shit, Bouclettes.”

  “Hurry up!” she begged, trying again to break her wrists free so she could grab for his hips.

  “Isn’t that just like a woman?” His thumb moved over her clitoris again as he slipped a second finger inside her. “I’m the one waiting on you.”

  “Ma-tt.” The word broke and shattered out of her, in little lost huffs.

  His thumb kept moving in such sweet strokes, firming just barely. “Think I’m going to have to wait much longer?”

  “Matt.” She couldn’t keep her eyes open. She wanted to cover her face with her arms and hide what she looked like right then, shut out everything but the sensation of his hand, but she couldn’t, because he wouldn’t let go of her wrists.

  “You look so damn beautiful,” he said incredulously, and pressed his thumb down just…just…right as the waves of pleasure mounted in her, as they swept over her, as that raging river caught her up and bore her away. As she fell apart.

  ***

  She came back to herself almost ready to cry, from that beautiful shattering feeling, from how exposed she had been during it, all her heart laid out there once again.

  His hand cupped her face a second, stroking her curls out of her eyes, and that threat of tears eased into the security of his hand. His thumb stroked her cheek again, that way she was growing to love so much. Then he twisted away a second, tearing open the little box of condoms.

  “I ripped your little Paris souvenir,” he said, as he came back over her. “I never did get along with that city.”

  “Come here.” She reached for him and this time he didn’t stop her, as she gripped his bare butt. God. “Nice butt,” she said involuntarily, her fingers trying to sink in and meeting muscled resistance.

  “Merde, you’re generous,” he said roughly. “You just say things. Do things. You’re just about to let me right in, aren’t you?”

  She nodded, gripping his butt and pulling.

  “In here.” He rubbed her still over-sensitized sex. “Where you’re all soft and vulnerable.”

  She was more than a little afraid that she’d already let him into a much more vulnerable part of her than her body, but she just gripped him and arched her hips up, twisting to try to fit herself onto him since he was still bracing himself off.

  “Hell.” He surged into her, hard and deep.

  “Oh.” She went very still, taking deep breaths.

  He did, too, braced off her, his chest moving in great pants. “Okay?”

  “I think I need to just—” She shifted her hips a little, and pleasure relaxed all through her as they found their fit. “Oh. Yeah. That…yeah.”

  “You let me know.” He held her eyes. It about killed her, how tense his body was and how deep his breathing, and the way he took time to make sure he was taking care of her, still. “I’ve got you, chérie.”

  “Actually, that is factually incorrect.” She squeezed him as hard as she could with all her inner muscles and grinned up at him. “I’ve got you.”

  His body jerked a little in her. He caught it, all his muscles rigid, still trying so hard for control. “Easy for you to be full of yourself. You already came.”

  “Again I have to correct your word choice here.” She shook her head chidingly. And squeezed again. “I’m full of you.”

  Breath rushed through his body, and his hips surged. “You’re still messing with me,” he said incredulously.

  “I know,” she agreed mournfully. “I can’t seem to help myself.” And she winked at him. “Besides, admit it. You like it.”

  “You really are going to kill me,” he muttered.

  She liked killing him. She liked driving him crazy. It made her feel giddily, hungrily powerful. She gripped him hard, pulling herself into his body, pressing her lips into his shoulder, kissing and nipping. The roses on his skin had entirely faded. He’d showered when he changed into that tux, hadn’t he? But even though he came from a fragrance family, it hadn’t occurred to him to put on any scent, to be anyone but him. His life was the fragrance.

  “You know what I would like?” she whispered fiercely into that strong joining of his neck and shoulder. “To make love to you when you’ve just left the rose fields, when you smell of them all over and I can follow the scent all over your body.”

  His eyes closed, his expression strained, as he moved inside her in one long thrust.

  “And then you could leave the scent of them all over my body,” she breathed, enraptured with this vision.

  “Oh, bordel,” he said. “You’re—you—be quiet. Let me concentrate.”

  “On this?” she asked innocently, arching her body and squeezing. “Or this?” She slipped under her legs to cup him.

  His breath hissed. His eyes opened, and he stared down at her, as he pulled slowly almost out and slid deep again. “On all of it. On every single second.”

  That intense gaze speared her, held her, almost as deeply as his body did. She stared back up at him, caught—by that sensual lower lip, by the upper one that couldn’t get the lower one to behave, by those long lashes that so passionately defied the strong, stubborn bones of his face, by those dark eyebrows drawn together. By the hard, bronze body, by the gauze that showed that he could be hurt, too, by the dark hair on his chest and the way his stomach muscles flexed with each movement of his hips. The way that movement into her body rippled out all through her. “You are so gorgeous,” she breathed wonderingly.

  “Bouclettes.” His eyes
tightened closed again and he turned his head away, hips surging. “Please don’t—not now.”

  “I can’t help it,” she whispered. “You really are.”

  “Hell,” he muttered, cupping one hand under her butt to pull her in tighter to him as he braced with his wounded arm.

  “And you feel so good inside me,” she confessed. “Can we do this again sometime?”

  “Oh, merde.” His hand hardened on her butt, his movements growing stronger, faster. “Bouclettes. Yes. Now will you please shut up and let me get it right this time?”

  “You already got it right.” She rubbed him, flexing her hand gently as she tightened all her inner muscles as hard as she could. “Now you should just focus on having fun.”

  He opened his eyes again and gazed down at her, shaking his head wonderingly. “Fun?”

  She flopped back on the bed, arms spread wide. “Fun. Yes. Here I am. I dare you. Have all the fun with me that you can.”

  “Oh, bon sang.” His body shuddered. “You don’t know what that does to me. You look so—so—”

  “Do it,” she whispered. She cupped her own breasts, pressing them together and up, an offering. “Do it. Do it.”

  “Merde.” He bent and kissed her as his body began to move faster and harder.

  “Yeah,” she breathed wickedly and bit his lip. “Oh, yeah. Like that.”

  “Merde, Layla, please—”

  “Yeah.” She squeezed. “Harder. Faster.”

  “Shut up—” He was losing himself in his own movement, his eyes going blind.

  “Oh, yeah. I love the way you feel.”

  “Oh, bordel.” Big arms engulfed her, wrapped her in tight, tight, tight, into his body, into his strength and darkness, as he growled hard and low as he came.

  Layla wrapped her arms tight around him and held on, so pleased with herself that the only thing she could do was grin like a cat in cream. She was still beaming later when he came back from the bathroom and slipped into bed beside her. He tried his best not to take over the narrow space, but the whole mattress dipped toward his weight, tumbling her body against him. He propped himself on his side to gaze down at her, his face oddly solemn, one hand framing her face, stroking back curls. She smiled and curled on top of his body to leave room for him on the mattress, draping her arm over his chest as he tucked her in close. Still smiling, she nuzzled her face into his chest, falling gently into a dream of roses.

  Chapter 16

  Calm down. Matt rubbed a grimy hand on his T-shirt, over the left side of his chest. You’ll be all right.

  In the quiet gray of early dawn, his hands sank again into dirt, digging up the old fountain’s pump. He might have to follow the old buried wood pipes up into the hills to solve this particular problem, but he was hoping the failure of the fountain really lay in the modern pump someone had installed in the fifties or sixties to add a decorative lion fountain here to the old system for bringing water to the houses above the valley.

  The moist, old scent of fountain earth rose around him, and a little movement in the doorway onto the patio lifted his head.

  Layla leaned sleepily against the doorjamb, barefoot, in soft knit yoga pants and a gray hoodie, her hands in her pockets, her head resting against the doorjamb, too, as if those curls were too heavy at this hour for her to hold them up.

  And his heart did ease, at the sight of her, as if something as soft as her bare footfalls had brushed across it. He sat back on his heels, rubbing his dirty hands against his jeans automatically. Maybe his hands wanted to make themselves a little more eligible to touch someone if the opportunity arose.

  “It’s official,” she murmured. “Our sleep schedules are not compatible.”

  “Is that a big deal?” Matt asked warily. His last girlfriend had made everything a big deal. Casual friendliness to another woman. Not noticing if she painted her toenails. Taking a deep breath. Of course, she’d been famous, and famous women obviously weren’t for him. He couldn’t handle the narcissism. Layla, in contrast, was so down-to-earth and human, his girl next door.

  Layla gave a dreamy shrug, as if she was barely awake, and smiled at him. “Thanks for the rose.” Her voice was almost a whisper, this husky blend with the softness of dawn.

  He flushed a little. Him and his stupid roses. Why he had to go leave one on the pillow beside her, he did not know.

  “I put it in the vase,” she said.

  Had she? Taken care of it just like the others? He bent his head, trying to focus on the pump while his mouth kept wanting to curve ridiculously.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve been meaning to fix this fountain,” he said.

  That smile she sometimes had for him made him feel so confusedly and vulnerably happy, as if he was a teddy-bear she was about to pick up and squeeze. He had never in his life felt very squeezable before.

  “And that’s the only thing you could think to do at—what is it, five in the morning?” she said.

  “I was afraid working on your showerhead or your car would wake you up.” He rubbed his hands on his jeans again, really wishing he could get more of that dirt off. “And I didn’t want to get too far away.”

  Her sleepy smile made him feel as if she was stroking him everywhere—long, generous strokes. He looked down at the pump again, scared to take a deep breath in case it accidentally overfilled his body and all those emotions pressing up in him exploded. “And nothing other than fixing something occurred to you, at this hour of the morning?”

  He shoved a dirty hand through his hair, confused about what she wanted from him. “It’s my valley,” he tried to explain.

  Her smile broke into something radiant.

  He stared at it. “And…I don’t really fit in your bed. I was making you uncomfortable.” He’d been afraid to fall asleep, in case he rolled over and knocked her out of bed. Or snored. Or sweated, with her hot body smashed up against his like that. Or did, really, anything a big male body in a tiny bed could come up with to do to make the woman in it crinkle her nose and wish he was elsewhere.

  She rubbed her shoulder, still smiling. “I do have a crick in my neck.”

  His gaze zeroed in on her rubbing. His palms itched. He could rub there better than she could. He rose, then remembered how dirty his hands were.

  “I bet your bed is a lot bigger.”

  It was, yes. And it was his bed. She’d fit perfectly in it.

  She blinked heavy, smiling eyes up at him. “I don’t suppose that offer’s still open?”

  He couldn’t remember what she was talking about, so he played it safe. “All my offers to you are still open.” To take care of her, to make sure she didn’t get lost, to fix her shower…oh, shit, as long as she didn’t mean that offer to buy this house back. Could they not talk about kicking her out of this valley this morning?

  “To carry me,” she whispered, lifting her arms to him. “Through the roses to your house. I’d like that so much.”

  Of all his offers, it seemed by far the least practical. But then again, she was a musician. He lifted her, and her weight felt just right in his arms—something he could carry, but heavy enough that he knew she was worth the effort.

  “Sorry,” he muttered, as he saw his hands against her gray hoodie and yoga pants. “I’m getting you dirty.”

  “They’ll wash.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Am I hurting your arm?”

  He shook his head. Nobody ever worried about whether he could take a little pain. With the five wild cousins, all of their elders had assumed they would tough it up when they got hurt. Sometimes, he had vague, sweet memories of his own mother’s tenderness, but it was so long ago, and he’d been so young, that maybe he’d just dreamed those memories up.

  “I’m pretty tough,” he mentioned. He didn’t usually have to point that out to people.

  Her arms tightened around his neck as she tried to lift her weight off his arms. “Oh, no, I am?”

  He tightened his hold. “The cut’
s on the outside, Bouclettes. I told you. I’m fine.”

  She searched his face, her arms still holding her weight off his.

  He jostled her body gently. “I’m fine.”

  She relaxed slowly, watching his face, and as he failed to flinch, she slowly curled back into his chest, easing back toward that dreamy, sleepy state.

  So he carried her between those last two rows of roses, from the house she’d stolen from him to his, in the soft dawn. She mostly snuggled into him, but once she stretched out an arm and let it trail over the rose petals, still wet with dew. When she brought her hand back, she drew the dew droplets down his cheek, a cool freshness against his morning stubble.

  And she did fit absolutely perfectly in his bed. By the time he came back from washing his hands, she was already nearly asleep again, all the honey shades of her nestled into his white sheets. He sat on the edge of the bed, sneaking a caress of her hair and shoulder. Her eyes blinked open, and she reached for him, pulling him down with her and kissing his chest, her hands running with this dreamy softness over his arms, down to his wrists.

  “I think you’re in my dreams,” she whispered.

  He leaned over her, on a surge of hungry pleasure at the way his body now caged hers in his big bed. “What do you want me to do in your dreams?”

  A sleepy, sleepy smile, as her lashes fell against her cheeks and her face lifted to him. “Growl like that,” she murmured. “And do whatever you want.”

  So…he did.

  ***

  It was going to be a tough day. Having to deal with rough men, and machines, and his grandfather, and probably his cousins, with all his shields torn wide open like that, so that anyone could see all his vulnerable spots at the slightest glance. Matt had to dig his hands into his back pockets to keep from folding his arms over those vulnerable spots so that he could at least cover them with something.

  “I’ve got to go,” he told Layla. “I need to get the crews started.”

  She nodded, dipping her Nutella-spread baguette in her milk and nibbling on it, a little chocolate smear on her upper lip.