Then in a voice so low only I could hear, he whispered forgive me.
With the white tablecloth obscuring us, I reached for his hand. He laced his fingers through mine, squeezing tight. I squeezed back, and I let go of the hurt. I let go of the ache. I let go of the past.
“He is not a mistake then,” Gabrielle announced.
“He’s not. He’s the one,” I said.
Gabrielle raised her wine glass, now nearly drained of its contents. “So we drink a toast to love, and we drink a toast to business. You have a deal to buy the padlocks from the city of Paris.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bryan opened the door to the town car he’d reserved. Gabrielle gave him a kiss on each cheek, then got inside. He shut the door, and we both waved as the driver sped off to take her home. We crossed the cobbled street and turned onto the sidewalk running along the river Seine. The muted yellow gaslight from the streetlamps flickered and illuminated our path along the slate-gray ribbon that sliced its way through the city.
“You were amazing back there,” he said.
“Oh, you’re too sweet.”
“I would call you a good luck charm, but I’m pretty sure it’s a hell of a lot more than luck that just went down in there. Brains, talent, beauty, brilliance. Is there nothing you can’t do?”
“I’m not terribly good at cooking or gardening.”
He snapped his fingers as if disappointed. Then he turned serious. “Kat, thank you. Thank you so much for what you did.”
“I’m glad I could be of help.”
Bryan reached for my hand. “Am I allowed to hold your hand? Or does that break the on ice rules?”
“I’ll bend on this one for just a moment.”
We turned onto the Pont du Carrousel that arced over the river. A dinner boat tour floated underneath the bridge, it lights drawing yellow squiggly lines along the water. The Louvre watched over us nearby.
“Would you bend on another one? Because I’d really like to kiss you by the river Seine.”
He gave no room to answer as he pulled me close and dusted his lips on me, leaving a soft, barely wet kiss.
“We should stop. We should be good.”
“We should. But I’m crazy in love with you, and if makes things better, I’ll never stop telling you that. Besides, I have five years of feeling it but not saying it to make up for. So I’ll say it again. I’m madly in love with you, Kat Harper.”
“Fine,” I said with a smile. “That earns you one more kiss.”
He pressed his lips on mine, tracing them with his tongue in a way that made me shiver. I looped my arms around him, underneath his jacket and against his shirt. I walked back a step or two until I met the railing on the bridge and leaned against it. He ran his hands through my hair, moving closer, as the space between us compressed. My body melted into his and I inhaled his cool, clean skin. I wanted to feel him, touch him, taste him, have him. I was crazy to be so close to him. I was foolish to ever think I could have resisted.
Maybe you could say I was selfish. Maybe you could say I was stupid. Maybe you could wonder why I didn’t wait five more weeks.
All of that and more was true.
But I ceased caring. I stopped reasoning. I tossed the rules out the window and threw caution into the river Seine because I was in Paris with the only man I’d ever loved.
I felt fluttery, twitchy, agitated. I didn’t know if it was fear or desire. Either way, there was no turning back. I was going there with Bryan, going to wherever we were going. I didn’t feel guilty, I didn’t feel naughty, I didn’t feel wrong. I stepped into our future as I broke the kiss. “Take me to your hotel room.”
I’d never seen a man hail a cab so fast in his life.
*****
The taxi slowed down for a light on the rue de Rivoli. I peered ahead, noting the clogged street in front of us, the boulevard packed with cars. We wouldn’t reach the W for another ten minutes at this rate, so I closed the scratched-up partition that separated us from the driver.
“It’s like you can read my mind,” Bryan said, and returned for a deeper kiss. But I wanted more than kissing and he knew it. He moved his hand across my leg, his fingers dancing down to my inner thigh. I opened my legs a little bit, an inch or two, enough to let him know to keep going.
He didn’t stop kissing me as he traced the outside of my panties. He’d always made me weak in the knees with his lips alone; now it was like double or triple the pleasure with his kisses and his hand. As I tasted the soft underside of his lips, he dipped his hand inside my panties, first pressing on my pubic bone, then making his way between my legs. He kissed me softly, while his fingers explored me, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, always the right way. I barely moved for the next few minutes, except to subtly push against his hand as his fingers glided over me and inside me and around me. He traced me lightly at first, then harder, pressing down in all the right places, savoring how much my body wanted him.
“Please don’t stop touching me.”
“I have no intention of stopping.”
He’d been a pro on the phone, narrating and guiding me, and bringing me to orgasm with words alone. He was even better in person, his hands like magic hands that knew how to make me moan, or sigh, or cry out as his fingers grazed across me, then narrowed in on the one place I wanted him most.
“Keep touching me like that. I want to be kissing you while I come.”
His hungry lips devoured me as he stroked me. My insides were lava, and my body ached for all of him. I wanted to fall away from his mouth, so I could moan, so I could sigh, so I could breathe heavily and say his name. But he kept kissing me, even as my lips fumbled at his, and I writhed, my breaths coming faster. He zeroed in and I bit gently into his lip, managing to gasp out the words I’m coming, as I finally let go of his lips.