I arch my neck and his fingertips skim along my collarbone, strong but gentle.
He undresses me first, in no particular hurry. But once my skin is exposed to the cool air in the flat and the heat of his attention, I pull at his shirt, fumble with his belt. I want my hands on every inch of him at once, but they always gravitate to the smooth expanse of his chest. Everything in the world I find sexy, I find there: The firm, warm skin. The heavy drum of his heart. The sharp spasms of his abdomen when I scratch my short nails over his ribs. The line of soft hair that always tempts my hands lower.
Even in the small flat, the bedroom feels too far away. His fingers drift down my chest, breezing past my breasts as if it isn’t where they intend to be. Over my stomach and lower, past where I expect him to slide two fingers and play with me. Instead, his hand smooths down my thigh, his eyes watching my face as his fingertips linger on my scar, on skin that’s not quite sensitive, not quite numb.
“It’s weird, maybe, that I love your scar as much as I do.”
I have to remind myself to breathe.
“You thought it was the first thing I noticed, but it wasn’t. I didn’t even pay attention to it until the middle of the night, when you finally lay down on the bed and I kissed from your toe to your hip. Maybe you hate it, but I don’t. You earned it. I’m in awe of you.”
He pushes away from me slightly so he can kneel down and his fingers are replaced by his lips and tongue, hot and wet against my skin. I let my mouth fall open and my eyes flutter closed. Without this scar, I’d never be here. Maybe I’d never have met Ansel.
His voice is raspy against my thigh. “To me, you’re perfect.”
He pulls me with him to the floor, my back to his front, my legs straddling his. Across the living room, I can see our reflections in the dark window, can see the way I look spread around his thighs.
He pets me, fingers sliding up and down the crease of my sex, teasing at penetrating me. On my neck, his mouth sucks and licks until he’s at my jaw and I turn my head so he can kiss my lips, his tongue slipping inside and curling over mine. Ansel pushes his middle finger inside me and I cry out, but he continues stroking slowly as if he’s feeling every inch of me.
Releasing my lip from between his teeth, he asks, “Est-ce bon?”
Is it good? Such diluted words for something I’m sure I need. The word good feels so empty, so plain, like color bleached from paper.
Before I even know I’ve answered, my voice fills the room. “More. Please.”
He slides his other hand up my body to my mouth, pushing two fingers inside against my tongue and pulling them out, wet. Ansel glides them across my nipple, circling in the same rhythm as his other hand between my legs. The world narrows to these two points of sensation—on the peak of my breast and his fingers on my clit—and then shrinks further until all I feel is circles and wet and warm and the vibration of his words on my skin. “Oh, Mia.”
I’ve been helpless before: trapped beneath a car, under the sharp command of an instructor, burned by my father’s heated disdain. But never like this. This kind of helpless is liberating; it’s what it feels like to have every nerve ending rise to the surface and drink in sensation. It’s what it feels like to be touched by someone I trust with my body, trust with my heart.
But I want to feel him inside me when I fall to pieces, and my release is too close to the surface. I lift my hips, take hold of him, and lower myself down his length as we both let out shuddering groans.
We stay motionless for a few seconds, as my body adjusts to him.
I slide forward and up. Back and down. Again, and again, closing my eyes only when his shaking voice—Just . . . please . . . faster . . . faster Mia—breaks away and he slides his hands up the front of my body, to my neck. His thumb strokes the delicate skin at the hollow of my throat.
It shouldn’t be so easy to bring me back to this point again, and again, but when Ansel drops one hand to my thigh, and moves it between my legs, his broad fingertips circling, his quiet, hoarse sex voice telling me how good it feels . . . I can’t stop my body from giving in.
“C’est ça, c’est ça.” I don’t need him to translate. That’s it, he said. That’s him touching me perfectly, and my body responding just as he knew it would.
I don’t know what sensation to focus on; it’s impossible to feel each thing at once. His fingers digging into my hips, the heavy length of him stroking inside me, the feel of his mouth on my neck sucking sucking sucking so perfectly until that tiny flash of pain where he pulls a mark to the surface.
I feel like he’s taking over every part of me: filling my vision with the things he’s doing, reaching into my chest and making my heart beat so hard and fast it’s terrifying and thrilling in equal measure.
He pushes up beneath me, moving so I’m spilled onto my hands and knees and we both moan at the new depth, and the new visual in the window of him braced behind me. His hands curl around my hips, head falls back, and eyes close as he begins to move. He’s the portrait of bliss, the picture of relief. Each muscle in his torso is flexed and beaded with sweat but he manages to look more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him, lazily thrusting into me.
“Harder,” I tell him, my voice thick and quiet with need.
His eyes open and a dark smile spreads over his face. Digging his fingers tighter into the flesh around my hips, he drives brutally into me once, pausing, and then picks up a perfectly punishing rhythm.
“Harder.”
He grips my hips, tilting them, and grunts with effort as he pushes deep, hitting me in a place I’ve never known existed and making me cry out, clutched by an orgasm so sudden and overwhelming I seem to lose the use of my arms. I fall to my elbows as Ansel holds me by my hips, rutting rhythmically, his voice coming out in sharp, deep grunts.
“Mia,” he rasps, stilling behind me and shaking as he comes.
I collapse, boneless, and he catches me, cradling my head to his chest. With my ear pressed against him, I can hear the heavy, vital pounding of his heart.
Ansel rolls me to my back, carefully sliding back into me as he always seems to, even when we’re done, and watching my face with clear, serious eyes.
“It felt good?” he asks quietly.
I nod.
“You like me?”
“I do.”
Our hips rock together slowly, trying to hold on.
Chapter EIGHTEEN
“SO WHAT TIME is this party?” I mumble into my pillow. Ansel rests heavily on top of me, his front to my back, the fabric of his suit pressed against my bare skin, his hair tickling the side of my face. I start to laugh, struggling to get away, but this only encourages him. “Mmpf. You’re so heavy. Do you have bricks in your pocket? Get off me.”
“But you’re so warm,” he whines. “And soft. And you smell so good. Like woman and sex and me.” His fingers find my sides and curl, tickling me relentlessly until he rolls me to my back and then he’s there, hovering above me, his thumb tracing my mouth. “The party’s at seven,” he says, eyes mossy green and filled with a weight that tells me he’d much rather take off the suit than get out of this bed. “I’ll meet you here and we’ll go together. I promise not to be late.”
He leans down and kisses me, making a sound that’s somewhere between contentment and longing, and I know he’s telling himself not to get carried away, that as good as this is, there will be time for more later. After work.
I push my hand beneath his jacket and tug his shirt free from where it’s tucked into the waistband of his pants, as I unapologetically search for skin.
“I can hear you thinking,” I say, repeating the line he’s used on me at least a dozen times. “Wondering how much time you have?”
He groans and lets his head fall to my neck. “I can’t believe there was a time when I used to be up and practically out the door before my alarm even went off
. Now I don’t want to leave.”
I push my hands through his hair, scratching lightly against his scalp. He works to keep the majority of his weight off me, but I can feel him relax more every second.
“Je ne veux pas partir,” he repeats, voice a little rough now. “Et je ne veux pas que tu partes.”
And I don’t want you to leave.
I blink up to the ceiling, wanting to commit every detail of this moment to memory.
“I can’t wait to show you off tonight,” he says, brighter now, pushing up onto his elbow and looking down at me. “I can’t wait to tell everyone how I tricked you into proposing to me. We’ll ignore the pesky detail that you’re leaving me soon.”
“Hide my passport and I’m here for good.”
“You think I haven’t already thought of that? Don’t be surprised if you come home one day and it’s gone.” He leans in, kisses me before pulling back. “Okay, that’s creepy; it’s in the top of the dresser where it belongs.”
I laugh, swatting him away. “Go to work.”
He groans and rolls off me, lying on his back on the bed. “If I didn’t have a meeting today with a client I’ve been waiting months to talk to, I’d call and say I’m feeling sick.”
I prop my chin on his chest, looking up at him. “It’s a big one?”
“Very big. What happens today could mean the difference between this case ending in the next six weeks, and dragging on for months and months.”
“Then you should get started.”
“I know,” he says on an exhale.
“And I’ll be here, waiting for you at seven.” I haven’t even finished the sentence and he’s turned to me, smiling again. “And you won’t be late.”
He sits up, takes my face in his hands before kissing me deeply, tongues and teeth, fingers that slip down my body to brush over my nipple.
Standing abruptly, he does the world’s most hilarious version of the robot beside the bed. He bleats out the words in an automaton voice: “I won’t be late.”
“Did you just do that so I’d think you’re adorable even if you’re late tonight?”
“I won’t be late!” But he robots again anyway, sandy hair falling over his forehead, and then moonwalks out of the room.
“Worst dancer ever!” I yell after him. But it’s a total lie. He has rhythm and an ease in his skin that can’t be taught. A true dancer is fun to watch, whether or not they’re dancing, and I could watch Ansel for hours.
He laughs, calling out, “Be good, Wife!” and then the door clicks behind him.
BUT OF COURSE he’s late.
At seven thirty Ansel bursts into the flat, and becomes a whirlwind of activity: tossing off his work clothes, pulling on jeans and a casual button-down shirt. He kisses me quickly as he sprints to the kitchen to grab a bottle of wine and then pulls my hand, guiding me out of the apartment and into the elevator.
“Hi,” he says breathlessly, pressing me against the wall as he reaches to push the button for the ground floor.
“Hi.” I barely get the sound out before he’s kissing me, lips hungry and searching, sucking at my bottom lip, my jaw, my neck.
“Tell me you really, really want to meet my friends, or else I’m taking you back there to undress and fuck until you’re hoarse.”
I laugh, pushing him away slightly and kissing him one more time squarely on the lips before saying, “I want to meet your friends. You can undress me later.”
“Then tell me a story about Madame Allard, because that’s the only way I’m going to quickly lose this erection.”
MARIE AND CHRISTOPHE’S building is only a few blocks away from where we emerge from the métro and when it comes into view I stop and stare. Ansel’s apartment manages to be both small and airy. There’s nothing over-the-top or pretentious about any of it: it’s an older building, and as easygoing and comfortable as he is. This place . . . is not.
The façade is stone, and while it has an aged look about it—easily blending with the surrounding construction—it’s clearly been renovated, and at no small cost. The apartments on the bottom floor are each anchored by a set of wide steps, capped with red doors and gleaming brass knockers. The second and third floor apartments boast arched windows leading to individual balconies with ornate ironwork of tiny metal blossoms erupting from intricate molded vines.
Trees line the busy street, and beneath the welcome shadow they provide I take a moment to gather myself and prepare for a room of strangers and conversations I probably won’t understand. Ansel presses his palm to my lower back, whispering, “Ready?”
Weeks ago the very idea of doing this—without Lola or Harlow to carry the conversation if I lost Ansel in the crowd and went mute—would have made me shudder in horror. I don’t know what it will be like upstairs, but if the roaring laughter coming from the window is any indication, the party is already in full swing, even this early in the evening. I just hope everyone up there is as nice as Ansel promises me they will be. I catch a glimpse of our reflection and startle slightly. I look at myself every morning, but it’s different in the windows of this place somehow. My hair is longer, bangs swept to the side instead of cutting a straight line across my forehead. I’ve gained a little weight and feel less boyish, more like a woman. My skirt is from a small shop near Montmartre, my face is bare of all but the slightest hint of makeup, but still glowing. It’s fitting that I look different; I feel different. And beside me, Ansel towers above, his arm protectively curled around my waist, and I see in the reflection when he bends to catch my attention. “Hey.”
“I was looking at that cute couple.” I nod to the window.
After studying us for a long, quiet beat, he plants a sweet kiss on my lips. “Come on, Cerise.”
Marie answers the door with a happy yelp, and pulls us into the melee, kissing my cheeks before passing me off to Christophe’s open arms.
“It is Ansel’s Mia!” he yells in English to everyone, and a roomful of people turn and look at me with wide, curious eyes as Ansel hands the bottle of wine to Marie.
“Hi.” I raise my hand, waving lamely, sinking into Ansel as his arm finds my waist again.
“We are so glad to finally meet you!” she says, kissing each of my cheeks again. “You are even more beautiful than your photo.” My eyes widen and Marie laughs, curling her arm through mine and pulling me farther into the apartment, away from my husband, who is nearly immediately swallowed by a circle of his friends. He lifts his chin, watching as Marie leads me down the hall.
“I’ll be fine,” I yell over my shoulder, even if it’s only half true. I really didn’t expect to be separated from him only seconds after walking in the door.
Inside, it’s every bit as elaborate as I had guessed it would be from the street. The walls are papered in muted gold damask and from where I stand I can see two marble fireplaces, each framed with delicate molding. Bookcases bursting with books and small, beautiful vases border one wall; the opposite is lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, all overlooking a lush courtyard. Despite the amount of stuff inside, the apartment is charming and large enough that even with the number of people currently milling about, there’s plenty of space to mingle with some degree of privacy.
We pass a small library, wander down a hall lined with people drinking and talking, who all seem to quiet as I pass—maybe I’m being paranoid but I really don’t think so—and into a wide, brilliant white kitchen.
“I will take you back out there, but they are like wolves. Excited to see him, excited to meet you. Let them accost him first.” Marie pours me a generous glass of wine before curling my hand around it, laughing. “How do you say . . . ‘strength in a glass’?”
“Liquid courage?” I offer.
“Yes!” She snaps her fingers and kisses my cheek again. “There are many nice people here and they all love your husband so they will love you. Look a
round, I will introduce you to everyone in just a minute!”
She jogs off when the doorbell rings again and, after waiting a beat to see if it’s Ansel who has walked into the kitchen—it isn’t—I turn to look out the tall, narrow kitchen windows with a stunning view of Montmartre.
“I bet that view never gets old.”
I turn to find a beautiful, redheaded woman looking out the adjoining set of French doors. She’s maybe a few years older than I am, and her accent is heavy, so thick it takes me several beats to translate what she’s said.
“It’s gorgeous,” I agree.
“You’re American?” When I nod, she asks, “You live here? Or are visiting?”
“I live here,” I answer, and then pause. “Well . . . for now. It’s sort of complicated.”
“And married,” she says, pointing to my ring.
“I am.” Absently, I twist the gold band around my finger. If she didn’t hear Christophe’s boisterous announcement when we entered only five minutes ago, it strikes me as a little weird that this is one of the first things she says.
“What is his name?”
“Ansel,” I say. “Ansel Guillaume.”
“I know him!” she exclaims, smiling widely. “I have known him for many years.” Leaning in conspiratorially, she adds, “Very handsome and the most charming man.”
Pride mingles with unease in my chest. The woman seems nice enough, but a little pushy. It feels as though we’ve skipped a smoother entrée into conversation. “He is.”
“So you are here as a student? Or for work?” she asks, sipping from her glass of red wine.
“I’m just here visiting this summer,” I explain, relaxing a little. My shyness can come off as aloof, I reason. Maybe people often misinterpret her intensity as aggression. “I start school in the fall.”
“Then you are leaving soon,” she says, frowning.
“Yes . . . still trying to figure out the timing.”