He buried a hand in my hair, gripping it, holding me in place. “There might be more you should consider.”
I took him into my mouth again, using my hand to extend the sensation of depth. With my lips tight around him, I moved up and down, pulling back to circle the tip of him before plunging him as deep as I could take him.
I brought him to the brink; then I pulled back, found a condom, and threw it at him. It wasn’t subtle, but it gained me what I was craving. He donned it, rolled onto the bed with me, and began his own intimate tease. In his excitement, he was rougher, but not more rushed. His skilled fingers got me as ready as he was. His mouth adored mine, my breasts, my stomach, and lower.
When he finally thrust into me, I called out his name and begged him not to stop.
Then no words, no thoughts, were possible in the face of being taken by him. When he growled “Mine” in my ear, I felt like his. I cried out that I was. Deeper. Fuller. Faster. Harder. We rode the waves of pleasure until they brought us to a sweaty, panting, sated mutual crash.
“Do you want your vibrator?” he whispered.
“Are you trying to kill me?” I whispered back. “I’ve come so many times in the past two days I’m surprised I’m still capable of speech. My brain is mush.”
We shared a laugh and stayed exactly where we were, still joined, with me draped across him. He kissed my temple. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
A thought came to me and popped out of my mouth before I had time to filter it. “How many times do you think it’s possible for a person to come in one day?”
He rolled me off him, cleaned off, and returned with my toy. “For the sake of science, I think we should answer that question.” He turned it on and held it lightly against the lip of my sex, just enough for me to feel the vibration of it. “Unless you’d rather go to the catacombs.”
I spread my legs and gasped in anticipation. “The catacombs can wait until tomorrow. I mean, this is for science.”
He dipped my toy inside me, and a beautiful warmth spread through me. He lay on his side next to me and ran his hand leisurely over my body as the vibrations he controlled brought me ever-increasing pleasure.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
I asked for a glass of water before the fourth.
We cuddled before the fifth.
Each was different. Some intense. Some more subtle. The sixth one ended with me feeling light headed and overdone. I called a halt when he would have started again a few minutes later.
“Six,” I said in a bit of a daze. “That’s my limit.”
“Seven if you count the one we had together; don’t undervalue your stamina.”
I raised a weak hand at him and smiled. Seven. “I love Paris.”
“Paris? That was all me, honey.” He paused, then tossed my toy to the side. “Well, me with the help of your little buddy there. I guess you could name it Paris if you want.”
Do people name their vibrators? I didn’t have the strength to ask the question aloud. Never had I felt so relaxed, so much like I could simply float off the bed.
I closed my eyes—basking in the feeling of oneness with the universe and Mauricio. I’d never tried drugs, but what we’d just done had definitely been mind-altering . . . in the most amazing way.
In the distance I heard his phone ring, then felt the bed shift as he went to answer it. “Early afternoon. I meant to. I’m sorry.” If I’d had the energy, I would have rolled over to ask him who he was talking to, but I was too relaxed. “I haven’t called because there was nothing to share. Yes. No. Please don’t. I love you too. Goodbye.”
I love you too?
I sat up in bed. “You’re married.”
He crawled back onto the bed after tossing the phone onto the bedside table. “Worse, I’m a man with overprotective parents. I didn’t call them yesterday, and it freaked them out.”
I searched his face and replayed the conversation I’d overheard in my head. “That’s the truth?”
He propped himself up on his elbows. “Have I ever lied to you?”
I wanted to say no, but I answered more honestly. “I don’t know. I’d like to think you haven’t.”
He frowned. “I’d like to think you’d be more sure.”
It was difficult to think, but I mustered some of my faculties. “We just met a few days ago. And your friend Felix was a real ass to Cecile.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “I know. I heard. He’s not normally like that, but there were extenuating circumstances. Ones I’m not free to discuss.”
I would have had more of an opinion on that, but I was really, really relaxed. “I can’t imagine anything that would excuse slamming a door in someone’s face, but we don’t have to talk about it now. We don’t have to talk about it at all.”
He looked torn for a moment, then pulled me back down into his arms. “I vote for that.” His smile took the sting out of his words.
I settled against him, the beat of his heart loud in my ear. “I want to trust you, Mauricio.”
He nuzzled my hair. “Trust takes time, Kitten. You’re right. You’re pretty smart, you know that?”
As always, he’d said exactly what I wanted to hear.
I almost wished he hadn’t.
Perfect meant it wasn’t real.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MAURICIO
The next morning I followed Wren down what felt like an endless spiral of stairs. So many I joked, “It’s a long way down to the gates of hell.”
She paused and looked over her shoulder at me. “I don’t see it that way at all. I wonder who drew the diagram for this stairway. How did they determine the width, the materials . . . when they laid down the first step . . . how certain were they that it would stand the test of time?”
The railing was metal. The column in the middle looked like concrete. “It seems reasonably modern.”
She ran her hand along the painted wall. “Which is just as impressive. Someone was entrusted with the challenge of making something accessible that wasn’t meant to be. And they did it. I’m already impressed.”
So was I. I wouldn’t want to see the catacombs with anyone else. With her, we weren’t making our way down a graffiti-riddled stairway—we were bearing witness to someone’s achievement. She made me see how much more enjoyable the world was when it wasn’t taken for granted.
Sidewalks? Someone had to think of designing them.
The pedestrian lights were more than an annoying device that one had to wait on; they were a modern marvel designed to save lives.
And she wasn’t just a woman. She was one I’d woken up beside multiple times and one I wanted to wake up next to tomorrow.
And the day after.
And all the days that followed.
I had no idea it was possible to feel this much for someone I hadn’t known very long.
More importantly, I’d never felt so much for any woman—regardless of our length of acquaintance.
Wren was it—my one.
The enormity of that revelation was next-level unsettling. We were leaving Paris the next day, and I still hadn’t decided how to not get on separate planes. Could I convince her to come home with me? Did I ask to go back with her?
She started walking again, and we made our way into an area with photos and some of the history of the catacombs. I listened to her read the blurbs, but my attention wandered. Hopefully there wouldn’t be a quiz at the end of this tour, because I was more focused on the beauty of the woman before me than the method that had been employed to transport bones.
Bodies moved at night?
There were other things I’d rather imagine happening in the night.
Eventually organized?
I had some organizing to do for tomorrow. When I told her how I felt, I didn’t want to simply blurt it out. It would likely be a moment she’d treasure. It should happen somewhere special.
I could have someone at the airport
simply escort her to my plane instead of hers. That was how every romantic movie I’d been forced to sit through would have done it. Some grand gesture followed by a declaration.
I wasn’t planning a ring-exchanging moment, but it would still be a pivotal conversation for us. Tomorrow I’d show her that what we had didn’t have an expiration date.
I continued to follow her through one empty narrow tunnel after the next. So far the place wasn’t living up to the hype. Wren exclaimed now and then about something she saw through a grate. I tossed out comments in support, but not because I was paying attention to where we were.
My place or hers. My parents or hers first. The perk of having a private plane was that we could change our route accordingly.
I realized just then that I didn’t know where she lived.
I didn’t even know her last name.
How had I not circled back for that? Our time together had flown by so quickly. Still, that was something I should have known. I pictured introducing her to my parents without it. “Mom, Dad, this is Wren. Wren who? Oh, who the fuck knows. We just met in Paris. We haven’t gotten around to things like last names yet.”
We should start with her parents.
Her hand laced with mine, and she clung to it while looking around. “It’s humbling, isn’t it?”
“What?”
She gave me a look that said she hoped I was joking. I smiled to give myself a moment to catch up on whatever I was missing. We had walked into an area flanked with what looked like leg bones stacked one on top of the others almost to the ceiling. Skulls were decoratively placed in a variety of designs, both on the sides and on top. Oh, shit. The scene belonged in a horror movie. Or a mortician’s nightmare. “Humbling. Yeah, that’s the word I was looking for.”
She pulled me farther through the catacombs to where we saw skulls positioned in the shape of a heart. She paused there and studied it. “Do you think whoever did that went home and told his wife he’d spent the day thinking of her? He wouldn’t have taken a photo of it, but maybe he brought her back to see it.”
I made a face. “That’s one way to get laid.”
She hip checked me. “Or maybe it was a tribute to someone he loved and lost.” She looked around. “I thought coming here would make me sad, but it wasn’t like these people were murdered. Each of them lived a life . . . whatever life they’d been destined for. No, they aren’t buried separately, but we don’t live separately, do we? Our lives are just as tangled together and interdependent as that wall of bones. No one is an island. There’s a beauty to this place I didn’t expect.”
I pulled her back against me, linking my hands in front of her stomach. I don’t know if I’d go as far as saying the tunnels were beautiful, but even I couldn’t joke in the face of this display of departed humanity. “I wonder how many of them thought they’d live forever.”
She leaned back into my embrace. “I bet all of them at one time. It’s the quirk of our existence. We know that everyone who came before us ended up just like this, but we rush through life certain there will be time to do everything. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. I wonder how many of them felt they’d lived their life on their terms and how many left wishing they had done everything differently.”
I kissed the side of her head. Her words renewed my conviction to follow my heart with her and trust that doing so would lead me to the answers I was looking for. I pointed at one of the skulls. “When that guy died, I bet no one applauded him for how much money he had in his bank account.”
She smiled up at me, then pointed at another skull. “He worked hard to support his family, but he also made time for them. That’s not easy.”
Even though I knew nothing about the history of the bones before me, I pointed to another skull and said, “Now this woman, she had the heart of a doctor back when no one believed women could. I bet she saved a lot of lives without ever getting recognition for it.”
She glanced up at me again, visibly pleased with my guess. She pointed to another. “See the missing hunk of skull on that one? He didn’t meet a good end.”
“He deserved it. What an asshole.”
She laughed and turned to kiss me on the cheek. “You’re a funny guy.”
“That’s not what I want on my epitaph.”
She waved a finger. “Let me guess . . . you’d like: well hung.”
I nuzzled her hair and moved my hardening cock against her backside. “No need to make everyone else feel bad that they weren’t born as well endowed as I was. No, I was thinking more along the lines of . . .” I stopped. “How did we get on such a morbid subject?”
She waved a hand around toward the skulls.
Oh yeah, right.
I took her by the hand. “Let’s keep this tour going. I mean, I love mountains of human remains as much as the next person, but I’ve heard there are other, equally romantic spots in Paris. Some of them even have food.”
She chuckled. “You and your stomach. How are you not fat?”
“Sex is a great calorie burner.”
She rolled her eyes, but she was still laughing.
We made our way through the rest of the tunnels with a minimum of comments, then up another stairway to the gift shop, because even the catacombs end in one. I held up a lollipop and waved it at Wren. “Hey, is it just me or did seeing all those bones leave you with a craving for a candied skull?”
She shook her head but countered by holding up a skeleton snow globe. “No?”
“No.” I took her hand again, and we walked out onto the street. “Last day in Paris. What would you like to see?” Feeling inspired, I asked, “Have you been to the Pont des Arts?”
She shuddered. “I’m sorry. I know the bridge of locks is supposed to be romantic, but I cringe at the idea of people selfishly destroying an ancient structure just because they want to hook a lock on it. People are crazy. How is that love? And they know the locks can’t stay there forever. Someone will have to cut them off to save the bridge. So their gesture of showing how eternal their love will be . . . is really a demonstration of the opposite. What happens to them a couple months later when their lock is pried off the failing bridge?”
Yes, this was the woman for me. “They go from being completely in love to suddenly experiencing a sensation of being cut away from each other and tossed aside?”
“Yes!” She threw her free hand in the air as she spoke. “If a man wanted to show me our love was forever . . . I’d hope he’d be smart enough to build something rather than tear something down.”
Build something?
What the hell did I know how to build?
“Yeah.”
She blushed. “Sorry. What a ridiculous topic to get on. You asked me what I wanted to do tonight. How about just walking around Paris, maybe by the Seine. I’d love to see where we end up, eat at a restaurant we come across by chance, then . . .”
My body came to full attention. “Then?”
“Then whatever happens . . . happens.” Her sex smile was one I knew well—equal parts innocence and bravado.
I spun her into my arms. “I hear that whatever happens, often happens more than once.”
Her face was happy and glowing as she smiled up at me. “I’ve heard the same.”
I kissed her then, as people walked past, and loved how she wound herself around me. Every old memory I had of Paris faded away. This would be how I’d remember the city—this feeling, this woman.
We started walking again, and there was a lightness in my step that hadn’t been there in years. I was confident that however I chose to tell her how I felt, things would work out. Her parents. My parents. Her job. My current lack of one. We’d figure it all out.
After one more day in Paris.
And one more night in the penthouse.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WREN
I woke early the next morning in the warm comfort of Mauricio’s embrace. He was still asleep, and I took advantage of the opportunity to simply appreciate
the lines of his face.
Today is the day we end it.
How will that go?
Would he drive with me to the airport? Kiss me one final time before the security checkpoint?
Am I supposed to leave before he wakes? Save us both from that awkward final goodbye?
I’ve never had a fling. I don’t know the rules.
Do I thank him?
I let out a shaky breath. I don’t want to leave.
I don’t want this to be over.
I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. I don’t want to cry in front of him either.
The whole week had been perfect. He’d been so wonderful. I couldn’t be angry with him for not wanting more than we’d agreed to.
If my heart was hurting, I’d done that to myself.
My phone beeped from the table beside the bed. I leaned over to check it. There was a message from my mother asking me to call her when I woke up. I’d sent her my itinerary and updates. She might have wanted to tell me she was excited I was coming home.
I slipped out from under Mauricio’s arm, pulled his shirt over my head, and headed into the other room with my phone, closing the door behind me as I went. I called her as soon as I was out of earshot of the bedroom. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“I’m sorry, Wren. I know you’re coming home today.” Her voice was thick with emotion. “Everything is probably going to be fine, but if there’s any way you could get on an earlier flight, could you?”
I swayed on my feet. My mother was the least needy person I knew. If she thought she needed me, it was for something serious. “What happened?”
“Remember Dad’s old army buddy, Trev?”
“Yes.”
“He died yesterday. Your dad left after he got the call. Flat out left. I checked the garage. No one has seen him. I called every bar. God, I even called hospitals. No one has seen him. He left his phone here. I’m scared, Wren. Trev was the one who pulled him out of his depression after he lost his arm. I don’t know what to do. Should I call the police?”
I sat down on a stuffed chair and processed what my mother was saying. I didn’t want to consider the worst-case scenario, but I had to. My father had battled with PTSD for my entire life. He tried to hide it from my mom and me, but if he saw something in the news or heard someone say something, it could trigger him into depression. He’d retreat to the garage, tinker with an engine, and hide from us. Normally, he needed only a few hours.
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