Frenched Series Bundle (22 page)

“It was more than an idea! It was real. At least, it felt real…most of the time. But what do I know?”

Her voice had quieted as the fight left her body, and I let up a little. “Want to know what I think?”

“No.”

I held up my hands. “Fair enough.”

She snapped her credit card onto the bar. “I want to pay my bill and leave.”

Fuck. “The wine is on the house.”

“Because you feel sorry for me?” she snapped.

Stop. Tread softer.
“Yes. Originally, I felt sorry for you because some asshole treated you wrong. But now that I know a little more, I think he did you a big favor. Now I feel sorry for you because you’re going to let one bad day ruin a dream that you’ve had for such a long time. You know, if you leave tomorrow, I bet you never come back. I bet you’ll always think of Paris as a miserable, lonely place.”

She opened her mouth like she was about to tell me to go to hell, but then closed it again.

Tell her now. Don’t let her go.
“But I’d also bet you’re stronger than you think.”

Her eyes got suspicious. “Were you a psych major or something?”

Ha—busted. I grinned at her. “Double major—music and psychology. Graduate degree in psych. Look, I know we just met, and I do tend to analyze people and open my big mouth when I should probably just keep my opinion to myself. But when you walked in here alone and looked around, I thought, There is a woman who knows what she wants. That confidence is sexy.”

“But I’m not confident,” she whined, looking at her fingers.

“Yes, you are. You’re just a little scared right now.”

She sighed and looked up at me again. “You argue with everything I say. It’s really annoying.”

I fought off a laugh and remembered the offer I’d wanted to make. “Sorry. Let me make it up to you.”

“How?”

“Well, let’s make a deal. You agree to give Paris one more day, and I’ll agree to spend the day being your tour guide—no psycho-analysis, I promise. If you’re still miserable even when you have a friend by your side, you can grab a flight home the next day. I’ll even call the airline for you.”

She looked dubious. “A friend, huh?”

You want to be more than friendly? We can do that too. “You think about it.” I turned away from her and filled a few drink orders at the bar, trying not to let the thought of being more-than-friendly with her take over my brain. Or my body.

The next time I saw her, she was standing next to her seat, looking a hundred times more sure of herself.

She held up two fingers. “I have two conditions.”

I folded my arms across his chest, trying not to grin. “Name them.”

“You have to quit arguing with everything I say about myself. You don’t even know me.”

I couldn’t resist. “Yes, I do.” At her outraged intake of breath, I burst out laughing. “Sorry. But you’re cute when you’re mad, you know. It’s going to be hard for me to resist poking at you just a little.”

Her pretty round mouth hung open a moment while she appeared to decide whether she should be offended that I’d flirted with her. And maybe I shouldn’t have said it, but damn, I was attracted to her. And life is short.

The other bartender called to me, and I held up one finger over my shoulder to put him off a moment. “So? What’s the second condition?”

“There must be wine.”

“Deal.”

She put out her hand, and instinctively I pulled her toward me and leaned over the bar, kissing each of her warm cheeks once and then the first one again. The feel of her skin under my lips sent blood rushing to my dick again. Fuck, I was going to have to work very hard to keep my thoughts to myself tomorrow. She’d agreed to spend the day with me, but she hadn’t given me any indication she was interested in messing around.

Be a gentleman, Lucas. No tying her up on the first date.

Ahem. What was I saying? Oh, right.

“Nice to meet you, Mia. Welcome to Paris.”

Watching Mia climb the stairs from behind would make any man hard.

So many delicious details to take in. The mass of chestnut hair pinned to the top of her head, revealing the pale back of her neck. The bare skin on her shoulders, dusted with the tiniest constellations of freckles. The sway of her hips as she moved. The bare legs disappearing beneath the flirty blue dress—and I knew she wasn’t wearing panties. The little tease had whispered those words to me during dessert, and my cock had been standing at attention ever since.

And those goddamn fuck-me heels with all the straps criss-crossing over her feet and up her ankles, as if I needed any more inspiration to bind this gorgeous firecracker of a woman and make her submit to my will, punish her a little bit for taunting me. Nothing too extreme, of course.

Not the first time.

When we reached our room at the villa, I shut the door behind me and left the light off. Did she jump just a little at the click of the lock? The room was so dark I couldn’t be sure, but the thought of it made me smile.
She’s nervous. But she wants it.
I warned her this afternoon that there were consequences for teasing me this way.
And here she is…alone with me in the dark.

She wandered over to the window, where moonlight slanted in through the open window, and voices from the party carried from the pool deck below.

“We can hear them,” I said quietly. “They could hear us.” On the nightstand I set the ice bucket and bottle of scotch I’d brought up. Then I took a piece of ice from it and moved behind her, pressing close. In her heels, she stood nearly as tall as I did, and I made sure she could feel my erection on her sweet round ass. “So you can’t make any noise.”

She nodded, almost imperceptibly, and I sensed her trepidation growing.

Be easy with her. She doesn’t know this side of you yet.

I kissed the back of her neck before whispering in her ear. “If you want me to stop at any time tonight, just tell me. OK?”

She remained silent, which I took as her permission to proceed.

I stepped back slightly and swept the ice cube across her bare shoulder blades.

She gasped, and I immediately put a hand over her mouth. “Shhhh. I said quiet.”

When I was confident she would obey that command, I unzipped her strapless dress and let it fall to the floor.

Jesus. The crotch of my pants got even hotter and tighter at the sight of her naked back, her curvy little ass, her long slim legs. There wasn’t any part of her I didn’t want to possess.

I put a hand back over her mouth. Then starting at the nape of her neck, I dragged the ice down her spine, over each vertebra, beyond her tailbone and lightly between her buttocks.

She shivered, gooseflesh blanketing her arms.

Reaching around her stomach, I rubbed the ice cube against her pussy, slipping its tip briefly inside her. “Don’t move,” I whispered.

Releasing her, I walked over to the nightstand, poured myself three fingers of scotch and dropped the melting ice cube into it. Taking a sip, I let the flavors roll over my tongue, savoring them. Scotch and Mia. The perfect fucking blend. And the sight of her over there in front of the window, her back to me, naked but for those heels…something hot and dark flared inside me.

“I want to taste you all the time, Mia. I want the flavor of you on my tongue every fucking minute of the day. And you know it. You shouldn’t tease me by telling me you’re not wearing panties when I can’t have my mouth on you.”

After another swallow, I set the glass down and approached her again, pressing my lips to the back of one shoulder and dragging them up the arc of her neck. I felt her tremble slightly, and the forces compelling me to both please and punish her battled ferociously inside me.

I slid one hand down her stomach and between her thighs.
Fuck, she’s dripping wet.
My fingers glided easily inside her, and she gasped and tightened around them. I brought my other hand to her breast, and she moaned.

I pinched her puckered nipple. Hard.

She gasped again, and I wondered if I’d hurt her, but then she began to move in a way that let me know she liked it, writhing against the hand between her legs.

She wanted me to fuck her. That was good. She had to want it badly in order for me to take pleasure in denying her.

“You want something from me?” I asked, my voice quiet and calm, belying the raging storm of lust inside me.

She nodded.

“Good girl. You have to stay quiet if you want it.” I shoved my fingers deeper into her pussy, desperately wanting to bend her over the windowsill and take her right here. But I clung to my control. “Can you do that?”

“Yes,” she whimpered.

“Good.” I let her go and backed up to the bed. “Now turn around.”

Her bare backside had been tempting enough, but Christ—the way she looked from the front, her naked form bathed in moonlight, her hair still up and shoes still on, her dress pooled around her feet, those big eyes looking at me like she might charge…she was testing me.

“God, you’re so fucking beautiful.” Lowering myself onto the bed, I picked up my scotch from the table and took a drink. “Here are the rules. You speak only when I tell you to. You only do as I say. Understand?”

She nodded.

“Good. Come here.”

She stepped out of her dress.

“Take your hair down.”

Reaching up with both hands, she pulled the pins from her hair and let it cascade over her shoulders and down her back. That hair—it did things to me. I wanted to pull it. Hard.

“Now lie across my lap. On your stomach.”

Rather than come right to me, the little minx walked to the foot of the bed and then crawled up the length of it and over my legs on her hands and knees, her perfect ass in the air. My dick jumped, as if it sensed the nearness of that glistening pussy. And she was licking her lips, looking over her should at me.

Asking for it.

I yanked my tie from around my neck. “Put your hands up here.”

She grabbed one of the vertical bars of the headboard, one hand above the other. As I bound her to the bed, I spoke to her in low, even tone.

“This is what happens when you tease me, Mia. When you make me feel helpless to resist you. I have to make you feel helpless too.”

For fans of
Frenched
who asked for more.

Thank you.

In the eight months Lucas Fournier and I had been dating long distance—me in Detroit, Lucas in Paris and now New York, I’d learned there was only one good thing about a long distance relationship.

Phone sex.

Needless to say, I had never had phone sex before. In fact, I’d spent much of my sexually active life with Tucker Branch, a man who thought “changing things up” meant fucking me on his side of the bed instead of mine, after which he’d immediately insist on changing the sheets due to his aversion to bodily fluids. One time I tried to flip around so my head was at the foot of the bed just for some blessed relief from the monotony of his two Approved Positions, and he looked at me like I might need an exorcism.

What I needed was an orgasm.

I finally got one after Tucker called off our wedding (thank you, God), and my two best friends convinced me to take the all-expenses-paid Paris honeymoon by myself. It was there I met a sexy half-French, half-American bartender who taught me about wine, cathedrals, and simultaneous O’s.

But I digress.

Phone sex—I was a virgin.

Lucas claimed he was as well, although he’d always had a dirty mouth—it was one of the things that turned me on most about him. He was unafraid to articulate even the most graphic of his thoughts and desires. I, on the other hand, had to teach myself not to be inhibited by the shape of certain words on my lips. The sound of them in my girlish voice. It was one thing to think them, but saying them out loud took a fearlessness I hadn’t learned.

I was a quick study.

Soon, I began to enjoy the way such raw words empowered me. At work during the day I’d think of new ways to piece them together, new fantasies to describe to him, new descriptions of what he did to my body and what I wanted to do to his.

And then there were the outfits.

Lucas always liked to know what I had on, and I knew he enjoyed seeing me in lingerie—beautiful lacy things in pink or white or black, classy with a hint of kink. He’d sent me a few gifts, but I also shopped a bit for what I thought of as my Phone Sex Wardrobe, and he loved it when I’d message him a picture of me in something new.

OK fine, once,
one time
, I told him I was wearing a corset, thong, and high heels when I really had on flannel pants with bunnies on them and a gray Detroit Tigers tee shirt with the neck cut out. I was unprepared, all right?

But mostly, our conversations went like they did tonight.

“So. What are you wearing?”

“Mmmm, nothing too sexy, I’m afraid.” Sometimes I teased him, let him think I had nothing but good-girl intentions when I picked up the phone.

“It’s sexy if it’s on your body. Tell me.” His voice had dropped to that low, distant-thunder pitch that told me he was turned on. Sometimes we’d talk for hours before he’d use that voice on me—other times, like tonight, only a minute or two would pass between “Hello” and “What are you wearing?”

“White panties. Black lace around each thigh. Little black bow at the top.”

“That’s it?”

I laughed softly. “Yes.”

Silence, during which I imagined him starting to get hard. It made my nipples tingle, my breath catch.

“Are you in bed?” I pictured him in his New York apartment, lying in bed, shirtless, blankets thrown back, stroking himself. Arousal licked at my insides when I pictured his hand wrapped around his solid cock—God, I wanted it.

“Yes.”

My right hand drifted to my inner thigh. “Are you hard?”

“Yes.” His breathing grew heavier, as did mine. “Touch yourself through your pretty little panties, Mia. Drench them.”

I shimmied down onto my back, let my knees fall open, and rubbed slow circles on my clit until the sheer material grew damp beneath my fingers. “I’m thinking about your cock,” I whispered. “It makes me so wet.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” I closed my eyes, imagining him above me. “If you were here, you would get inside me so easily.”

“My tongue first.”

“Fuck. Yes, your tongue first.” I moved my hand faster, pressed harder, encouraging the low hum building between my legs. “Lucas, it feels so good. Can I take my panties off, please?” I was already working them down my legs, but I knew it turned him on when I asked permission like that. Hell, it turned me on too.

“Such a good girl to ask, Mia. To say please.”

Oh my God.
His accent had crept beneath his words, and it nearly pushed me over the edge. Although he spoke perfect English most of the time, sometimes a trace of his French upbringing revealed itself when talked to me like this. He once told me it was because he can’t think straight when he’s so turned on and his two languages mingle in his head. I love that—his dirty thoughts about me run through his mind
en fucking français
.

“I
am
a good girl.” I flung my panties off my foot into the middle of the room and brought my fingers back to the silky heat between my legs.

“You are. And I like to kiss that sweet good-girl pussy of yours. I like your taste in my mouth, like candy. I like to make you wetter with my tongue.”

“Mmm…” I listened to his words and closed my eyes again, imagining my fingers were his mouth and tongue on me, licking, swirling, sucking. I loved the way he used his hands to spread me open, the unabashed way he buried his face between my legs and fucked me with his tongue before sliding up my body and—“Oh God, I want you there,” I whispered. In my mind I saw his dark, tousled hair between my pale thighs, I felt his scruffy jaw against my bare, sensitive skin. My entire lower body tightened and thrummed. “And I want to suck your cock, I want you to watch me do it. I love when you put your hands in my hair, pull me to you and fuck my mouth. I love to feel you come that way, right at the back of my throat.”

“Jesus, Mia. I want to be inside you. I want to come inside you.” The words tumbled out between strangled breaths.

“I want it too. Right now.” Even though I didn’t want to come too quickly, my hand moved as if my mind wasn’t in control of it. Patience was overpowered by lust. I was close already.

“Are you ready for me to fuck you?” His voice was gruff and tense.

“
Yes
.” More than ready. “God, I want you so deep. I want to wrap my legs around you and pull you into me. I want you to fuck me until we explode.” I let the phone fall onto the bed next to my ear so I had two hands free, one to touch my aching breasts and one to rub my clit. I was beyond the point where I could form a coherent sentence anyway, but I could still hear him.

“You want to make me come. Right now. You want me to.” His voice trailed off and I knew he was on the verge.

“Yes. Lucas.
Lucas
.” His name fell from my lips over and over as I imagined him above me, pounding into me so hard it hurt, but making me so delirious with desire all I wanted was more. I’d dig my fingers into his ass so hard I’d leave bruises to match the scratches on his back, the teeth marks on his shoulders. “Yes, yes, yes…”

“Fuck…oh God…” His groan of pleasure burst me wide open, and I cried out as I came, knowing how he loved to hear my abandon in that moment.

As the pulsing pleasure subsided, my breaths came in ragged gasps, and I couldn’t seem to close my mouth or open my eyes.
Jesus, that was so intense. How can it be so intense when he’s not even here?

“Mia.”

I’d never get tired of the way he said my name after an orgasm, his voice flavored with awe, contentment, tenderness. “Yes.”

“I love listening to you when you come. I know just what your body does and how it feels on mine. I want it all the time.”

I smiled, even though I felt a little sad—I wanted it all the time too. But I lived in Detroit, had a business here, and he lived in New York City, taught college there. At this point, neither of us could just pack up and leave our lives, not that we’d ever really talked about it. In the eight months we’d been dating, we’d actually only seen each other six times—he’d come to Detroit three times, I’d flown to New York twice, and one magical weekend last fall, we’d met each other in Miami.

At least I think it was Miami. My memories from that trip are a bit hazy.

Five Things I DO Recall

About Vacationing With Lucas

1) The way the high thread-count sheets felt fisted in my hands. (Divine)

2) The view off our balcony as Lucas pinned me to the railing and fucked me from behind. (Stunning)

3) The way one of my high heels poked a hole in the upholstered headboard. (Oops)

4) The incredible taste of crispy room service bacon at four in the morning when you haven’t been to sleep yet. (Mmmmmm)

5) The way it felt to sit on Lucas’s lap and rest my head on his shoulder as we watched the sun rise on the balcony, and how he carried me inside afterward, closed the drapes, and held me as we fell asleep, our fingers linked against my chest. (Perfection)

“I want it all the time, too,” I murmured, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Yes, it would. Give me a minute to clean up, OK?”

“OK. Me too.”

A few minutes later, I got back in bed, dressed in cotton panties and a soft blue tee shirt of Lucas’s I liked to sleep in. Pulling the comforter up to my shoulders, I turned onto my side, the phone under my ear. The plantation shutters on my bedroom window were closed but the slats were open, and through them I saw lazy snowflakes drifting to the ground.

Lucas picked up his phone a minute after I did. “Hi.”

“Hi.” I snuggled deeper into the bedding, hugging my knees to my chest.
If he were here, he’d wrap me in his arms and keep me warm. We’d watch the same snow fall and breathe the same air and rest our heads on the same pillow.
“Is it snowing there?”

“Not yet. I think it’s supposed to hit us tomorrow. Snowing where you are?”

“Uh huh. We’re supposed to get another six to eight inches during the night.”

“You love getting eight inches at night.”

“Ha, ha. Only when they’re yours. The snow is pretty right now, but I’ll hate it in the morning when I’m trying to drive to work.”

“I worry about you driving on icy roads. I wish I were there to take you to work tomorrow.” The concern in his voice made me smile. “Or better yet, insist the weather is too horrible for you to leave the house and demand you play hooky.”

I laughed. “That sounds perfect. I wish you were here too. Actually, no, I wish we were both in Miami again. I’m so damn tired of this cold.”

“So let’s go. Meet me in Miami for a long weekend.”

“Ha. Right.”

“Why not? All that cold snow under your boots tomorrow morning could be warm sand under your toes tomorrow night.”

“Mmm, so tempting.”

“So give in. I’m serious.”

Was he? I squinted into the darkness of my room. “Hello! Have you forgotten who you’re talking to here? It’s me, Miss I-Plan-Everything-In-Advance. I can’t take a vacation without making at least ten lists about it.” I said it jokingly, but it was pretty much the truth. I was not a last-minute travel kind of girl, especially not on a plane. Just the thought of it made my left eyelid twitch.

Lucas sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Spontaneity is not your thing.”

He sounded so disappointed, I felt bad. “I’m sorry. You know I want to…I just can’t. I have to work this weekend.”

“You don’t have to apologize, it’s OK. I know who I’m talking to. I just miss you is all.”

“I miss you too.” I closed my eyes, melting into the slow, warm hush of his breathing while the icy wind whistled by outside my window.
If he were here, I’d roll over and lay my head on his bare chest, listen to his heartbeat.

“You know,” he said softly, and I fantasized that I could feel the vibrations from his voice on my cheek, “sometimes I just want to leave our phone connection open all night just so if I wake up, I could hear you breathing.”

“Really?” Warmth pooled deep in my belly. “That makes me happy.”

“Good. I want to make you happy, Mia. Every day.”

My eyes flew wide open. Every day? What did that mean? I chewed on my bottom lip and wondered how to respond. Was he hinting at something?

Don’t get too excited. Maybe he’s just planning to visit more often.

Which was totally fine, I’d love that and all, but I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t looking for a little more reassurance about what the future held for us.

When we’d agreed to make a go at a relationship, I’d had to basically give up my dream of being married and starting a family by the time I was thirty. That had always been my plan, but Lucas had been very open about his aversion to marriage, his ambivalence about having a family, and his frustration with what he called my “life deadlines.” Because I was so crazy about him and we had so much fun together, I’d agreed to stop worrying about the future and simply enjoy each other when we could.

But eight months later, it still didn’t come naturally to me. Every time we were together, I fell deeper in love and silently wished he would reconsider discussing the future. Because even though he’d said in Paris that “anything was possible” for us, I felt a little uneasy about such an open-ended relationship. We didn’t date other people, but I had no idea what he actually thought of…
us
. Where this was headed. And since our time was so limited on visits, I’d never brought up the subject of the future again, unwilling to risk spoiling our precious days together with heavy conversations or, worse, an argument.