Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 133138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 666(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 666(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
She is wavering. I can taste her surrender, but there’s something holding her back. Something other than the competition.
“What is it? Tell me so I can fix it.”
Her sigh is heavy with weight and doubt. “She told me you’d throw me away and move on to the next woman, breaking my heart.”
Furious, I growl before reassuring her, “Mon amour, ton coeur est à moi. Your heart is mine, Princesse. And no one can take it away. Not my aunt, not even you. I will take the utmost care of you, of your heart.”
She lays her arms over my shoulders, fingering the hair at the nape of my neck. “It was . . . I felt like I’d disappointed her. And that makes me worry about disappointing myself if things go sideways. I don’t want to look back on this and feel like I got played. By you, or by my own stupidity.”
I pull her off the bed and into my lap as I sit back on my heels. Her core is aligned with my dick, her heat through the thin pajama pants a welcoming haven as she holds on tighter. “You won’t.”
I don’t know if she hears me, though, because the promise is made as I kiss along the tendon at her neck, licking up to nibble her earlobe. She tilts her head, giving me more access, and I suck at the tender skin there. Mon Dieu, I want to mark her so everyone knows she is mine.
No, I want to mark her so she knows she is mine. So that every time these doubts creep up, she need only look in the mirror and know.
When I move to lift her camisole, planning to lick her breasts until she is liquid for me, she moans unhappily. “The walls, they’re too thin. The neighbors will hear.”
“I don’t care if the whole world hears you calling out my name.”
She laughs as if I’m joking, which I’m definitely not. “Seriously, if we’re doing this, we need to be discreet. I don’t want to piss off Jacqueline any more than I already have, and she made it sound like she has spies all over the city. I wouldn’t doubt that my neighbor is one.”
A dirty thought occurs to me.
“You do not wish to be seen? You want to go about our business without being discovered?” I ask, heat woven through the inquiry.
“Whatcha got in mind? Because it definitely sounds like something,” Autumn answers with a conspiratorial grin.
I pick her up, guiding her back to the bed, and then rise myself. I find the small wardrobe where her clothes are and open it, helping myself. I hand her a plain black dress with spaghetti straps, a woman’s most versatile LBD, and explain. “You wish to fully experience Paris—the beauty, the ugliness, but how about the naughty? Would you like that, Princesse?”
Holding the dress, she appraises me with narrowed eyes. “We won’t be seen?”
“Simon and Autumn will not be seen, of that you can be sure.”
Wearing the dress I selected and a pair of heels, Autumn looks out the window at the lights glowing over the city as we drive through the night. She looks contemplative, thinking about us or what Jacqueline, said I’m not sure. But she’s with me. That has to count for something.
I make a turn, and suddenly, her face lights up. “That’s the Moulin Rouge!”
“The very same,” I reply, smiling. “Let me guess . . . you know the movie?”
“For a long time, the only French I knew was voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir,” Autumn admits, laughing. “Then I found out what it means. I can’t believe I was going around singing that when I was just a kid.”
I laugh, even as my body thrills at the words coming from her mouth. “Welcome to Paris’s Red Light District. War couldn’t stop it, religious revivals couldn’t stop it, pandemics couldn’t stop it.”
“It’s like Vegas meets Soho,” Autumn notes, looking around. “The glitz and glam have that edge to it, but there’s way too many innocent looking tourists to really make this place dangerous and lewd.”
I pull around to the back of a nondescript building and find a parking space in the private lot. Shutting off the car, I turn to Autumn. “Are you ready for a Paris adventure?”
She points at the building in front of us, which is bland by any standard but particularly in Paris, considering there is no architecture beyond bricks and a door. The windows are frosted over, not allowing anyone to peek inside. “That’s an adventure?”
I pin her gaze with my own, wanting to see every nuance of her reaction to my next words. “It’s an adult playground.”
My tone is clear, and I watch closely as several expressions cross her face. Shock, concern, and surprise all vie for dominance before something else breaks through . . . excitement.