Frenched Series Bundle (29 page)

I shook my head. “What?”

“You’ve had this idea in your head of the perfect man for so long. I bet he didn’t look like me, sound like me, or act like me. I’ve been putting off admitting—even to myself—that I want to live together because I’m hiding this fear that once you’re with me all the time, you’ll realize that I’m not what you want. I guess, in the back of my mind, I felt like it was safer to keep you at a distance. But now I’m all messed up, because I love you too much to keep you at a distance any longer.” He exhaled, leaning back against the headboard. “Fuck, it feels good to say this stuff out loud.”

I scooted closer to him. “Lucas, I’m scared too. My life has taken this crazy turn in the last year and nothing looks like I thought it would. I’m not where I thought I’d be. And no, you are not who I pictured when I fantasized about my perfect husband. Or the perfect wedding, the perfect home, the perfect family.”

He blinked. “Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

“Yes. Let me finish.” I pulled back the sheet—holy crap, I’d almost forgotten we were naked—and straddled his hips. “What I’m trying to say is, there’s no perfect life without you. In fact, I no longer dream about a “perfect” life. I only dream about a life with you.”

Lucas sat up and kissed me hard, threading his fingers through my hair. “I dream about a life with you too. I want to make you happy, Mia. And if a ring means that much to you—”

I stopped him with two fingers over his lips. “I don’t need a ring right now, Lucas. I don’t need a marriage certificate. I don’t even need you to promise I’ll get those things in the future—right now, I’m happy just to hear you say you want a life with me. We can take that life one day at a time and see where it leads us.”

He kissed me again, and as he moved his lips over mine, his hands cradling my head, I realized the words I’d just said were true. I’d come here with a question about what our future would look like, but Lucas’s mind worked differently than mine. He didn’t know what the future looked like; he just knew he wanted to build one with me. He’d even been willing to put a ring on my finger to reassure me of his commitment.

But surprisingly, I didn’t want that—not now, anyway.

If and when he ever proposed, I wanted the question to come from a place other than fear.

“Let’s be fearless, Lucas,” I murmured, running my hands up his chest. Blood was surging through my veins, and I felt more alive, more exhilarated, more aroused than I’d ever felt before. Not in a purely sexual way—although his cock was hardening beneath me, and my body was sizzling in all the right places—but in all ways, as if there were cells in my body that had lain dormant, and now they were awake, alert, electrified.

“God, I love you.” He kissed his way across my jaw and down my throat. “But I do have one deadline I’d like to meet.”

I tilted my head, arching my neck like a swan as his tongue danced over my skin. “What’s that?”

“You need number three before the sun rises.”

“Trust me, love, that won’t be a problem.” I rocked my hips over his, gliding along his thick shaft. “I don’t know if it’s your body or the conversation, but I am so fucking turned on right now.”

“I hope it’s both, but guess what—conversation over.” Reaching between us, Lucas positioned his hard flesh between my legs, where I was already wet and aching for him. I lifted myself up and took his cock from his hand, rubbing the tip on my tingling clit before easing it inside me. I loved to watch him when I slid down his flesh like this, taking the time to savor every inch. Loved the catch of his breath, the rigid set of his jaw. With my hands on his shoulders, I leaned forward and kissed his lips lightly, teasing them open. He inhaled through his teeth as I finally lowered all my weight onto his hips, taking his cock to the deepest hidden place inside me.

“Mmmm,” I purred, writhing above him. “I love being on top.”

“Oh, fuck.” Closing his eyes, he ran his hands up my thighs. “I love you on top too, because I can watch you move.” He looked at me again, a warning in his eye. “But you have to go slow.”

Raising my eyebrows, I took my hands from his shoulders and lifted my hair up, piling it on my head, keeping it pinned there with my hands. Then I circled my hips, slowly and sensually. “Slow like this?”

“Oh, you’re such a bitch.” He groaned, his fingers digging into my leg muscles. “Fine, go ahead. Put on your little show. But when you move like that, you know I can’t control myself.”

“You want a show?” I teased, letting my hair fall. “I’ll give you a show.”

Bringing my hands to my breasts, I snaked my body above his, letting the movement roll through me like waves from shoulder to hip. Lucas’s mouth dropped open as I played with my nipples. “You like that?”

“Yeah. God, I love that.” He sat up taller, away from the headboard, and brought his mouth to one breast, licking a circle around one hard nipple. I took his head in my hands and watched, gasping when he took the pebbled peak into his mouth, sucking long and hard.
Jesus, that feels good.
I moved my hips, tiny little thrusts that had my walls tightening around him within a minute.

“Move down,” I demanded. “Now.”

For a second I thought he might take offense to being bossed around like that during sex but to my immense relief, he slid onto his back, breathing hard.
He’s just as close. He wants it as badly as I do.
Falling forward, I held onto the headboard and let my hair graze his chest as I moved over him, grinding my clit against the base of his cock. “I’ve been wanting to fuck you like this all day,” I said, riding him harder with every word. “And it feels so good to get you right where I want you.”

“Oh my God.” Lucas grabbed my hips and held me tight to his body as I thrashed above him. “You’re gonna make me come so hard. You want it?”

“Yes, I want it. Now. Now!” A anguished cry escaped my lips as I felt him begin to throb inside me, flooding my pussy with liquid heat. Each pulse of his cock tossed me higher, pulled me tighter, pushed me closer, until finally I barreled right over the edge of Now, sailed off the cliff of Yes Yes Yes, and drowned in a sea of Oh My Fucking God.

“So.” Lucas sat back in the booth of the little diner we’d chosen for breakfast. “Now that we’ve decided to cohabitate, we need to tackle some big questions.”

“Agreed.” I sipped hot black coffee from a thick handled mug, the best coffee in the entire world, as far as I was concerned. Was it possible to feel happier than I did at that moment? Ever since last night, I’d been wired, filled with an insanely joyful energy that seemed to feed on itself, multiplying every time good things happened.

And a lot of good things had happened.

In addition to Lucas being the one to suggest living together, Coco had texted that the DAC was available on Karen White’s chosen date and she was already moving forward on the details, my mother had left a voicemail that she had decided to stay in a hotel rather than my condo when she visited me next month (I love my mother, but we get along much better when we don’t share a roof), and best of all, Jessica was gone.

When Lucas checked his phone this morning, she’d already left him a message saying that she was accepting a job on a cruise ship and would be staying at a hotel until she left the following week. He’d wanted to call her back and demand an explanation for her behavior in the bathroom, force her to admit she’d lied and make her apologize to me, but I told him to forget it. I had everything I wanted, and I didn’t need her flimsy excuses or phony apology. And the cruise ship job? How fucking perfect.

Bon voyage, Little Mermaid.

“Number one,” Lucas went on. “Where are we going to live?”

“Well, what are the choices?”

“New York? Detroit?”

“Paris?” I said wistfully.

His eyes smiled at me over the rim of his cup. “You want to move to Paris?” Setting down his coffee, he looked at me thoughtfully. “You wouldn’t be able to work there unless you got a permit, which is next to impossible to get.”

“Oh.” I wrinkled my nose. “Work. I forgot about that.”

Lucas laughed. “We can visit though. Any time you want, once school is out in May. Actually I have a week off in March too, which I was planning to use to come see you in Detroit, but Paris is nice in March, too. We can go then.”

Clapping my hands like an excited toddler, I squealed. “Can we really?”

“Sure. But that’s not helping us decide where to live.”

“Right.” I leaned back as the waitress served our plates full of eggs, toast, potatoes, and bacon. “Should we flip a coin?”

Lucas choked on his coffee and set it down so abruptly it sloshed over the side. “Flip a coin! To decide where to live? Who are you and what have you done with my Mia?” I laughed as he went on. “Don’t you want to make a list or something? Pros and cons of each city? Compare and contrast the cost of living? Check some kind of Happiness Index?”

I wadded up my napkin and threw it at him. “Ha, ha. No. Actually,” I continued, picking up a forkful of my Greek Omelette, “I’m being honest when I say I could be happy anywhere with you. I do have a business in Detroit, so I have to think about that. Coco and I started it together, and while I think she could run it on her own, maybe with help, it would be hard for me to up and leave.”

“Hmm.” Lucas used my napkin to mop up the coffee he’d spilled. “And I have a teaching position here, but my graduate work is done. I could look for another position somewhere else. Or…” Taking a bite of toast, he chewed for a moment before going on. “Or I could do something completely different.”

“Like what?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately about opening up my own place.”

“What kind of place?”

“A bar, but not the usual corner hangout or even the average cocktail or wine bar. Something a little different.”

I bit into a strip of bacon. “Talk to me.”

“Well, the Count recently invested in an old distillery not far from the villa, and they’re producing absinthe, which is now legal to import to the US again.”

“I’m liking this story already.” The Count was an actual French aristocrat who owned a beautiful villa and vineyard in Provence, which I’d visited with Lucas last year. He was formerly married to Lucas’s ex-movie star French mother, and he was father to both Lucas’s half-brothers, although it turned out he preferred men. His longtime partner Henry ran the vineyard, and in a strange circle of friendship that made my head spin, all parties got along fairly well. Lucas’s mother Mireille and her current husband (also not Lucas’s father) often vacationed at the villa, and I’d met them all when I was there. “Go on.”

“The product they’re making is the real deal. Authentic nineteenth century recipe, high-quality botanicals grown in the Loire Valley, and it’s entirely hand-crafted at their distillery using historically accurate methods. Nothing industrial or synthetic added.”

“Wow. But can they do that? I mean wasn’t the original absinthe the stuff that made you see green fairies or pink elephants or whatever?”

“That’s actually a myth. Absinthe will make you drunk if you over serve yourself, but it won’t make you crazy. And you’re not really supposed to get drunk on it—it’s not like beer or wine or even vodka, where you sit around drowning in it all night.” He grimaced. “This is why I don’t know that my idea will fly with Americans.”

I made a face too. “Give some of us a little credit. What’s your idea—import it?”

“It’s already being imported, but the audience for it is still growing. It’s expensive, because of the ingredients and methods used to make it, but it appeals to the upscale market, people with discriminating taste who don’t mind paying more to have the real thing.”

“So what would you do with it?”

“I was thinking of opening an absinthe bar in the French style, but it would also serve other craft cocktails. Something totally different than The Beaver,” he said, naming his brother’s sports bar in Paris where we’d met.

“Hey.” I held up a warning finger. “Don’t beat on The Beaver.”

Lucas’s mouth hooked up on one side, but I could tell he wanted me to take this seriously. Last summer in Paris he’d mentioned that one thing he thought he might do in the future was open a bar, maybe in Paris, maybe in New York, but he wasn’t anywhere near as committed to the plan as he sounded now. “Nothing wrong with The Beaver. I love that place. But this would be something else—smaller, more intimate, more expensive, but more exacting in terms of what I’d serve.”

“I like it. Actually it sounds kind of like The Sugar House in Detroit—remember we went there for a drink one night? They do craft cocktails too.”

“I do remember. And that place has been in the back of my mind ever since. My place would be sort of like that, but with more emphasis on absinthe. I’d serve it the traditional French way and use it in other cocktails too.”

“Are there absinthe bars in Manhattan already?”

He nodded. “A couple. We could check them out.”

“So would you open it here? Seems like it might not be the best place, I mean, how many absinthe bars can one city support?”

“New York’s a big city, and my place would be small. But I’m not convinced it has to be here.” He took a bite of his eggs. “What about Detroit? Could a place like I’m talking about work there?”

Swirling the remains of my coffee in the cup, I thought about it. “Hard to say. I mean, The Sugar House does well. It’s always busy. In fact, it can be really hard to get in there sometimes. They don’t take reservations, and it’s not that big. Long waits on the weekend.”

“Right.”

“You know,” I said, setting my cup down. “It could work, Lucas. I could help you.”

“Yeah?” His eyebrows arched. “How so?”

“I have a business degree, experience designing all kinds of events as well as running them, and I know the city. I could help you research the best location, plan the décor, build buzz, stage an opening event…and you’ve got bar experience.” I bounced in my seat a little. The more I said, the more excited I got. “I could even work for you, hostess or something. This way, I’m not totally abandoning my business. Coco could take on a more active role at Devine Events while we get your place off the ground.”

Lucas shrugged. “I guess it’s worth considering. We’ll have to do some serious research though. Sketch out some preliminary plans.”

I flattened my palms on the table with a bang. “Make…some lists?” I shivered. “I think I just had an orgasm.”

Laughing, he picked up his coffee. “I’ll drink to that.”

Scooping mine up too, I clinked it against his. “Do you have a name in mind?”

“Several. But the one I like best relates to the history of absinthe in Paris.”

I winked at him. “God, I love Paris.”

He smiled. “What we call happy hour now, about five PM, was called the green hour in Paris in the late nineteenth century because of all the absinthe consumed during that time. Apparently the wine crop had suffered some kind of plague, so the supply was short. People turned to absinthe instead.”

“A wine plague? Just kill me.”

“Very funny. Anyway, I was thinking about The Green Hour.”

Nodding slowly, I mulled it over. “I like it. I’m thinking about the look of the place. I like the idea of nineteenth century vintage with a Detroit twist. Like Art Nouveau meets industrial chic.”

Lucas rolled his eyes. “Industrial chic? That’s a thing.”

“It’s totally a thing.”

“God help me.”

We finished our meals and talked a little more about possible locations in Detroit and even outside the city. I liked the idea of keeping it downtown and using a nineteenth century storefront in an old neighborhood, but I knew we had to consider all options. “Lucas, do you have the money to open a place like this?” I asked as we bundled up to face the cold. “I’m not sure what rent is like for those old buildings but it could be pricey.”

He nodded, tying his scarf around his neck. “Not compared to Manhattan, I bet. And I have money saved, plus the Count and Henry want to invest as well.”

“That’s perfect.” We made our way to the exit. “So now what?”

“I guess we start our research.” Lucas pushed the door open for me, and I stepped out into cold, gray morning. Snow was still falling, although today it was big fat flakes, drifting slowly to the ground.

I shivered. “Are we sure we don’t want to consider moving somewhere warmer? Detroit’s just as cold as New York, if not colder.”

Lucas put his arm around my shoulders. “I’ll keep you warm no matter where we are.”

Resting my head briefly on his shoulder, I fell into step with him and slipped an arm around his waist. “So do you want to move into my condo if this works out?”

He kissed my head. “If what works out—you and me?”

“No, silly. The bar in Detroit.”

“Oh,
that
.”

I hit him in the stomach with my free hand. “Yes, that.”

“I could, if you think it’s big enough.”

“It’s got two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and I like the location. Plus I already own it.” I looked up at him. “When is your lease up?”

“End of May.”

My spirits sank a little—that was three months away. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that long to wait, but I was so excited, I couldn’t help being disappointed that we’d have to wait at all. My reaction must have been transparent, because he squeezed my shoulder.

“Hey. Those three months are gonna fly. And I’ll be coming to Detroit at least two or three times during those months to check things out.”

“I know. I’m just so excited about everything. And impatient!” Laughing, I hopped up and down a little bit. “I want all the good things, and I want them now!”

Lucas laughed too, pulling me in close to kiss my forehead. “You will have all the good things, Mia, I promise. Any of them that I can give you.”

I wanted to make another joke, say something flirty, or even just tell him I’d do the same for him. But my heart had jumped into my throat, and I couldn’t speak. Instead I put my gloved hands over his ears, rose on tiptoe, and pressed my lips to his. We stood kissing on icy cement in bone-chilling cold, snowflakes dusting our wool coats, our hair, our eyelashes.

But our lips were warm.