Page 81 of The Last Kiss

“Henri, I don’t want to put you out.” We are outside the door to room fifteen. “I’m just on holiday, but you are working. I’ll just fit in around you, do tourist things if you’re busy.”

“Non. Now I’m on holiday too.” With a wicked grin he opens the door to the room. “Starting right about now.”

“Henri! Haven’t we got to get my stuff and check out?”

He kicks the door shut. “You must have a lot of stuff to pack, no, ma petite?”

We both glance at my sprawled suitcase on the bed. The double balcony doors are still open, the curtains fluttering softly. From outside, the shouts and chatter of provincial French life continue, but within the room a weave of magic courses around me. His breath on my skin, the power of his body stood so close to mine, humming its energy in time with mine.

“I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you,” he whispers against my neck. “You’re all I think about, dream about. You must be a witch because the way you make me behave knows no bounds.”

I turn, circling my arms around his neck. “The way I make you behave?”

“I’ve been fighting my conscience. My desire to be with you at war with the responsibility I know I have.”

“Shh.” I press my mouth to his, the bliss of surrendering to a kiss turning me soft and pliable. He really wants to be with me? The reality of that, the huge source of intensity that hits me knowing that fact, it thunders through my body.

“I’m here now,” I whisper. “And I’m yours.”

His lips seek mine, gentle at first but then gnawing with a hunger. His fingers wind into my ponytail pulling at the elastic and freeing my hair down my shoulders. I gasp a breath though when he pulls away.

“Non.” His eyes are dark, drawing me in. “No more hotels. Now you’ll come home with me.”

“I have no problem with hotels.” I start working on the buttons of his shirt. There’s nothing more I want to do than to be lost in his arms with this new version of the sun streaming through voile, and the shouts of the world below. Heaven would exist in the moment like a perfect snowflake or grain of sand, and I’d get lost in the moment too, forever scoring it into my memory for the dark days ahead.

“Non, ma petite. I want to take you home. Show you who I am.” He grasps my fingers, pulling them away from his shirt, and I angle my best pouty lips up to his face.

“I know who you are, Henri Carré, man of secret cheese exploits.”

His broad laugh sparks through my veins. “It seems I need to show you more than I thought.”

“You don’t have to,” I mutter, always seeking a get out of jail card for either of us to use when we need.

He chuckles against my lips: warm breath, lingering notes of coffee, chocolate, and my kisses. “I want to. I want this.”

My kiss seals my lie. I want this too even though it’s not really mine to have, so I do what any woman would who found themselves in an embrace as perfect as this would do. I block the negative and focus on living. It’s all I can do.

20

Cheese Dynasties

The wind blows my hair, streaming it like a scarf behind me. Henri’s hand is on my knee as he weaves his vintage convertible around sun-drenched roads. The fresh scents assaulting my nostrils hit me over and over: sweet flowers, evergreens, deeper more earthy scents like farms, and then a blast of salt brine from the sea, mixing with aged leather of Henri’s car. Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply, as deep as my chest will allow. Over and over, I scorch the smells into my brain. My stupid lungs won’t open enough though, my breath not deep enough.

Damn you body.

“What on earth are you doing?”

“Remembering the smell.” I don’t bother to open my eyes.

There’s a low chuckle mixed with the whip of the wind. “I can understand it smells slightly better than Fleet Street.”

My heart sinks at the mention of work and my conversation with Rebecca. She’d been so pleased to grant my emergency request for holiday leave. Had sat through my futile attempts at training on the print run. But in my heart I knew my request for my more permanent leave would be coming.

“What are you thinking of? Please not work, no?”

“No.” Reopening my eyes, I find him half-watching me, half-watching the road. My fingers find his on the bare skin of my knee and I give a squeeze.

“No, not in the way you think. I’m glad for the holiday. I need it.”