“Jessie.” I sighed, bringing my hand to her cheek and turning so I was leaning over her. For a moment I just stared at her, her pretty face soft with sleep and a look in her eyes I thought might be love. It scared me—terrified me—but it also filled me with an aching wonder. I took the feeling inside myself, storing it deep in my heart. Even if I couldn’t keep it, I could take it out and look at it, remember what it felt like. And in that way it would always be mine.
I leaned in, kissing her and drinking in the familiar taste of her mouth, moaning with the way it caused my heart to leap and my body to tighten. She brought her arms around me, and when my mouth moved to her breast, she wove her fingers into my hair and wrapped her legs around my hips.
I guided myself inside her, lifting my head from her nipple momentarily as I hissed out the bliss of her body’s tight grasp. Pinpricks of light exploded in my mind, clearing away thoughts of anything other than her as I began to move and thrust.
I brought my mouth to hers again and we kissed, our tongues dancing as we moved together, slowly at first, gently, and then faster, almost frenzied. Our skin slickened and the room filled with the wet sound of sex, of Jessie’s moans and my panted exhales of breath. It was life. It was beautiful and primal and euphoric, and I gloried in it, in her touch, her smell, the way our bodies fit together as if we’d been made for only each other.
The pain, the doubts, the echoes of the words that had once sliced like knives, the scabs that still bled so easily, all that hurt faded away and there was only her. Her heartbeat, her scent, the sweet clench of her inner muscles as they massaged me with such warm, delicious friction.
“Jessie, oh God, the things you make me want,” I panted.
“Take them. They’re yours,” she said breathlessly right before she cried out, her inner muscles contracting around me and bringing on my own orgasm, almost shocking in its intensity. I thought I called her name, but I couldn’t be sure as my head reared back and I pressed myself into her, milking every drop of intensity from my climax, circling my hips and then falling forward on a strangled moan of pleasure.
Take them. They’re yours.
Goddamn, that had been…incredible. Mind-blowing. I’d never felt anything like that. I…I stilled.
I didn’t use a condom.
Ah, fuck. It was the first time I’d ever had sex without one, even during my far-too-frequent drunken interludes, all the poor choices I’d made, I’d never gone without a condom—at least…at least that I could remember. I shut my eyes in self-disgust, thankful I’d received a full bill of health right before I’d left for France and sickened that I even had to think about that in reference to my pure, sweet Jessie. I blew out a harsh breath against Jessie’s neck, trying to expand my lungs, trying to calm my racing heart. I could feel hers pounding, too, and I put my hand over it, her life blood pumping beneath my palm, our bodies still connected intimately. “I didn’t use a condom,” I said, and her fingers, which had been running down my arm, stilled. “I’m clean, Jessie, I promise.” I couldn’t hide the shame in my voice. “The timing…is it okay?”
“Yes, I think so,” she whispered.
Jesus, I hoped so. Didn’t I? For the breath of a moment, I felt a burst of powerful euphoria, but I forced it down, extinguished it before it could grow and spread. No, I’d decided the day before that to trap Jessie in any sense would be wrong, the most selfish thing I could possibly do to her. But to trap her this way would be the worst of all because she couldn’t ever extricate me from her life even if she wanted to. She wouldn’t only be trapped, but she’d be trapped forever because she’d be the mother of my child. Our child.
I pulled out of her, regret filling my chest over the possibility that I’d just gotten her pregnant, that even now life might be blossoming inside her. I rolled away, but I couldn’t help reaching for her and pulling her back to me. I wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet.
* * *
The Sunday morning air was warm and fresh, and everything smelled clean the way it does after days of rain. We’d woken early and showered, dressing and packing up the room somewhat somberly. There was a sort of quiet awkwardness between us, and I wasn’t sure if it was just the fact that our weekend was wrapping up or if Jessie had regrets about what we’d done.
“It feels like saying goodbye to a magical place we’ll never see again,” she murmured as she turned back toward the room one last time. I let out a breath, happy to know what her morning reticence had meant. She was going to miss this room as much as I was.
I smiled. It was magical, and we wouldn’t return. The sadness of that thought swept through me as I picked up our bags and closed the door to the room where I’d first made love to Jessie Creswell. My Jessie. We had only a handful of days left now, and they wouldn’t be here. They’d be back in the real world, where things were not the same.
Madame Leclaire checked us out, smiling warmly as we said goodbye. As we were opening the door, Jessie looked back and asked a question in French. Madame Leclaire laughed, her chest shaking with her movement as she answered. Jessie grinned and said something else, and then we left.
“What’d you ask her?”
“I asked if there were really any other guests staying at her inn.”
“And?”
“There weren’t.”
Huh.
Jessie glanced at me and smiled bashfully. For a moment it looked as if she were deciding whether or not to enlighten me, but then she said, “Madame Leclaire said sometimes the beginning of love is just a simple matter of proximity.”
Love.
Was it possible? Could Jessie really love me? For a second, just one quickened heartbeat, I let myself question the possibility before forcing my mind to move on. I couldn’t let myself hope for that. I couldn’t. Still, I smiled, thinking of the small room, the tiny bed. Close proximity had made for an amazing weekend. Good lighting hadn’t hurt either. I pictured the way the dwindling twilight had shone in the window, showcasing Jessie’s slender curves beneath the white nightgown, the way her skin had glowed like satin in the yellow light of dawn. The visions of her that way would stay with me until my dying day.
The car had mostly dried out in the few days we’d been at the inn, but it had a slightly mildewed smell that made Jessie scrunch her nose up. I laughed and put the top down. Hopefully the fresh air would help dry it more completely. Either way, I was glad I’d said yes when the man at the rental company had asked if I wanted the insurance.
Jessie sighed. “I’m excited to get back to work, but I don’t want this weekend to end.”
I took her hand, squeezing it. “I actually planned one more stop on the way back.”
“Where?” she asked excitedly.
“It’s a surprise.” I followed the voice of the GPS to the sign for the turnoff to Domrémy-la-Pucelle, the town where, I’d learned, thanks to Nick’s help once again, Joan of Arc had grown up. Jessie obviously knew, too, because when she saw the sign, she sucked in a breath, squeezing my hand.
“Oh my gosh, how did you know?”
“I did my research.” I grinned, pleasure radiating through me to see the delight on her face. “But if there are bikes involved, I’m out.”
She laughed. “Deal.”
We made a series of turns through the town, parking and walking hand in hand to the small, slope-roofed farmhouse where Joan of Arc had been born and raised. The main room was the largest, featuring a fireplace, tiled floors, and wood-beamed ceilings. I glanced around with minimal interest, mostly just wanting to watch Jessie as she wandered, trailing her finger over things in that way she did and leaning close to study the details. Every once in a while she would look up and smile with such joy, and it made my heart wrench with happiness. For now I’d enjoy every look of wonder that crossed her pretty face.
When we left, Jessie seemed to be reflecting on something, but I left her to her own thoughts, figuring they were focused on the work she was doing, the history surrounding her area of study.
We made one final stop, an ancient-looking church a short drive away from Joan of Arc’s birthplace.
“The Church of Saint Rémy,” Jessie said, a note of reverence in her voice. “This is where Joan used to come and pray. She was baptized here.”
We went inside, the interior silent, the scent of candles and some sort of pungent oil in the air. Jessie looked up at the high, arched ceilings, and I took in the dark, hand-carved pews and the colorful stained-glass windows. I wasn’t a religious man by any stretch of the imagination, but there was something in the air here, something…weighty that I could feel pressing on my chest when I closed my eyes. Here I could almost believe that a place could contain centuries of prayers, confessions, joy and grief, that pieces of those calls to God still hung in the air and had taken on a life of their own.
“It feels…different in here, doesn’t it?” Jessie asked, voicing what I’d been pondering.
I almost said yes, but I didn’t want to talk about a god I couldn’t believe in, a god who, if he did exist, had abandoned me when I’d needed him most. “I think it’s that smell, whatever it is, going to our heads.”
Jessie glanced at me, her eyes lingering on my face for a moment before she smiled. “Chrism oil,” she murmured, looking away. “It’s the balsam you smell.”
I put my hands in my pockets and followed her as she made her way to the front, where there was a stand with tiers of small candles. She lit a match and leaned forward, igniting one of the candles. She looked over her shoulder at me. “Do you want to say a prayer for someone?”
I shook my head. “No.”
She nodded and then walked toward one of the panes of colored glass nearby. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“What?” My voice sounded strained, and I cleared my throat.
Jessie tilted her head, still staring at the colorful glass featuring a woman in armor, who I assumed to be Joan of Arc, astride a horse and holding her battle standard. People gazed up at her in prayer, a mother holding her baby toward the warrior saint. “That a little girl who came here to pray once upon a time would one day be depicted in the stained glass. That a young, illiterate peasant girl inspired a nation.”
“Illiterate?” I asked, my voice cracking again, my heartbeat sounding loud in my ears.
“Mmm,” Jessie hummed. “Farmers’ children weren’t generally taught to read in the fourteen hundreds.”
“Oh.”
At the single utterance, she turned her head, her expression concerned, as if she’d heard something in that one word that gave her pause. “It’s why stained glass became so popular in the Middle Ages. So the people sitting in the pews—many of whom were illiterate—could understand biblical stories.”
“Huh. Interesting.”
Jessie nodded. “Yes, and that’s why the writings I’m translating are so fascinating. Joan of Arc had a few letters transcribed at different points, but she wouldn’t have been able to keep a diary, would have no way to record her personal thoughts back then; nor would she likely have had someone else write them down for her. And so to see her through this girl’s eyes is…just an amazing window to the past and an incredible insight into the mind of a young woman who couldn’t have left behind her own story. We’re very lucky she had someone to help her do what she couldn’t do herself.“
Her eyes had lit up as she spoke, the passion for her work obvious, and I loved seeing her that way. But it also caused a lump to settle in my throat because it confirmed what I already knew: there was no place for me in her life. She was a woman who deserved everything good life had to offer, including a man she could look up to and feel proud of.
That man wasn’t me, and damn if I didn’t feel a small piece of my heart crack every time I was reminded of that fact.
“I’ve never, uh, been much for the church.”
“No?”
“No. I prefer to confess my sins to the bottom of a bottle of bourbon.”
She laughed softly. “I’m not much of a churchgoer either. My family wasn’t religious.”
I studied her as she gazed at the window again. I’d noticed the reverence in her eyes as she looked at the statues, the pews, the etchings in the wooden pictures hung on the walls. She might not be religious, but she seemed to be spiritual. “Do you believe in God, Jessie?”
She tilted her head, not answering for a moment. Finally, she said, “There’s this story I heard once about a religious man who got caught in a flood. He climbed onto the roof of his house and trusted that God would rescue him. A neighbor came by in a boat and said, ‘The water is rising. Get in my boat.’
“But the religious man replied, ‘No thanks. I’ve prayed to God, and I know he’ll save me.’
“A little while later, a rescue team came by in a boat. ‘The water is rising. Get in our boat.’
“But, again, the religious man said, ‘No thanks. I’ve prayed to God, and I know he’ll save me.’
“A short time after that, a police helicopter hovered overhead and threw down a ladder. ‘The water is rising,’ they said. ‘Grab the ladder, and we’ll fly you to safety.’
“But the religious man replied, ‘No thanks. I’ve prayed to God, and I know he’ll save me.’
“All this time the water had continued to rise, until soon it reached above the roof and the religious man drowned. When he arrived in heaven, he demanded to see God immediately. When he was standing before him, he said, ‘Lord, why am I here in heaven? I prayed for you to save me. I trusted that you would rescue me from that flood.’
“‘Yes, my child, you did,’ replied God. ‘And I sent you two boats and a rescue helicopter. But you sent them away.’”
I stared at her, a strange feeling swirling inside me, the sensation that tiny ants were crawling on my skin. I gave Jessie a wry smile.
“Anyway,” Jessie said, smiling back, giving a bashful chuckle. “That’s sort of my spiritual belief summed up in a story. Maybe there’s such a thing as God or fate, but ultimately, I believe that if there is a God, he helps those who help themselves.”
I didn’t comment. God had never helped me. God took my mother away and left me with a monster. God had always left me to drown. “Should we go?” I asked. “I’m sure you have things to do to get ready for your day tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I do.” She walked the few steps to where I stood and took my hand. “Thank you, Callen. Thank you for this weekend and all the thought you put into it for me.” She glanced down, her lashes fluttering against her cheeks, and my heart flipped slowly. “I’ll never forget it.”
“I won’t either, Jessie.” And no truer words had ever been spoken.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jessica
My heart dropped just a bit when Château de la Bellefeuille came into view. As magnificent and breathtaking as the structure was, it signaled the end of this glorious weekend, and even more heartbreakingly, the dwindling time we had together in France. Five days and Callen would be gone. Was there any chance at all that he’d want to make our relationship more permanent? And if so, how would that work exactly? I hardly wanted to allow my mind to try to work out solutions, but somehow it kept wandering there. He could work from France as well as anywhere, couldn’t he? He’d have to uproot his entire life to do so, but—
“Here we are,” Callen said, pulling up to the curb. I wasn’t sure if I imagined the disappointment in his voice or if I was merely transferring my own emotions onto him and hearing things in his tone that weren’t actually there.
The valet opened my door, and I stepped out, meeting Callen on the sidewalk after he’d collected our bags from the trunk and tipped the valet. We entered the château and walked toward the elevator. I wasn’t sure what to do. Was this where we parted, or should I ask him if he’d like to go to dinner? I did need an early night so I’d be well rested for work tomorrow, but Callen and I had so little time, and I wanted to take advantage of every moment we had. And I’d grown used to his body next to mine as I drifted o
ff to sleep, the scent of his skin as he held me tight against him.
Oh, Jessica, you’re in for so much heartbreak.
“Jessie,” Callen said, stopping as we stepped inside of the main foyer. “I know you have things to do and that you have to work tomorrow, but…stay with me tonight. I’ll let you sleep. I promise. I—”
“Yes.” I nodded, exhaling a relieved breath. “Yes.”
The relief that washed over Callen’s expression made my heart jump, and I gave him a kiss.
His body seemed looser beside me as we walked the short distance to the elevator and then rode to the top floor. The hallway carpeting was soft beneath my feet, and I could hardly wait to use that tub of his and soak my muscles after being in the car half the day. Maybe Callen would join me. A secretive smile tilted my lips, and Callen glanced over at me, raising his brows as we got to the door of his suite and he set our bags down to root in his pocket for the key. “What exactly are you thinking right now?”
I leaned against the wall, watching him as he put the key in the lock. “I was just thinking about that big tub of yours.”
His eyes flared, and he grinned as he pushed the door open, picking up the bags and nodding toward the suite, indicating I should enter ahead of him. “I like where that thought is going. Let’s talk more about it,” he said as he closed the door behind him. I just grinned, heading toward the bedroom, where I stopped suddenly, inhaling a shocked breath of air.
There was a half-naked woman lying on his bed.
My blood chilled in my veins as she sat up and lifted one thin blond eyebrow, her full red mouth raised in an amused smirk, the skimpy black bra and panties she wore leaving nothing to the imagination.
“What the hell are you doing in my room, Annette?” Callen growled from behind me.
My limbs felt frozen, and yet my heart was beating a mile a minute. Who the hell was Annette? And why was she practically naked and lying in his bed as if she had every right to be there?