“Ansel, it’s nearly three in morning. When was the last time you slept?”
His expression is unreadable in the shadow, but it isn’t so dark that I can’t see how his shoulders seem too heavy for his frame, how tired he looks “You don’t want me to touch you, too? I come on your lips and you’re ready for sleep?”
I shake my head and don’t resist when he reaches for me, slides his hand under his shirt, up my thigh. He spreads me with his fingers and groans. I’m drenched and now he knows it, too. With a quiet hiss he begins to move his hand, bending to suck on my neck.
“Let me taste this,” he growls, his breath warm on my skin, fingers slipping easily over my clit before pushing down and into me. “It’s been a week, Mia. I want my face covered in you.”
I’m shaking in his arms with how much I want him. His fingertips feel like heaven, his breath is hot on my neck, kisses sucking and urgent all along my neck. What’s another fifteen minutes of lost sleep? “Okay,” I whisper.
I wait until he’s finished brushing his teeth and slides into bed wearing only his boxers before I slip into the bathroom after him. “Be right there.”
I brush my teeth, wash my face, and tell my reflection to stop overthinking everything. If the man wants sex, give him sex. I want sex. Let’s have sex! I quietly pad out into the darkness. My stomach is warm, the space between my legs slick and ready and this is it, I think. This is when the fun starts, when I can enjoy him and this city and this tiny slice of life where I don’t have anyone else I need to worry about but me, and him.
The moon lights a path from the small bathroom to the foot of the bed, and I flip off the bathroom light, pulling the light covers back so I can climb into bed beside him. He’s warm, and his soap and aftershave immediately trigger the hunger I’ve missed for days now, that desperate need for the urgent grip of his hands, the feel of him kissing me and moving over me. But even when I slide my hand up his stomach and over his chest, he remains still, limbs heavy beside me.
Nothing comes out when I open my mouth the first time, but the second time I manage to whisper, “Do you want to have sex?” I wince at the stark words, blown free of nuance or seduction.
He doesn’t answer and I shift closer, heart hammering as I curl around his hard, warm body. He’s fast asleep, breaths solid and steady.
HE’S UP BEFORE me again, this time in a charcoal suit, a black shirt. He looks ready for a photo shoot: black and white stills of him caught unaware on the street corner, sharp jaw carving a shadow through the sky behind him. He’s bent over me, about to deliver a chaste kiss to my lips, when my eyes open.
He steers himself from my mouth to my temple, and my stomach sinks when I realize it’s Monday, and again, he’ll be working all day.
“Sorry about last night,” he says quietly into my ear. When he pulls back, his gaze flickers away from mine and he focuses instead on my lips.
I had dreams, though—sexy dreams—and am not ready for him to leave yet. I can still imagine the feel of his hands and lips, his voice grown hoarse after hours over and behind and beneath me. Sleep still clouds my thoughts, makes me brave enough to act. Without thinking, I pull at his arm and bring it beneath the covers with me.
“I had dreams about you,” I rasp, smiling sleepily up
at him.
“Mia . . .”
He’s unsure what I’m doing at first and I watch when understanding dawns as I drag his hand down my ribs, over my navel. His lips part, eyes grow heavy. Ansel meets my hips halfway with his hand, sliding his fingers between my legs and cupping me.
“Mia,” he groans with an expression I can’t quite read. It’s part longing and part something that looks more like anxiety. At the border, awareness trickles in.
Oh shit.
His suit jacket is folded over his other forearm, laptop bag still slung over his shoulder. He was rushing out the door.
“Oh.” The flush of embarrassment creeps up my neck. Pushing his hand away from my body, I begin, “I didn’t—”
“Don’t stop,” he says, jaw clenching.
“But you’re leavi—”
“Mia, please,” he says, his voice so low and soft it drips over me like warm honey. “I want this.”
His arm shakes, eyes roll closed, and I let mine do the same before I fully wake up, before I lose my nerve. What had I thought in Vegas? That I wanted a different life. That I wanted to be brave. I wasn’t brave then, but I pretended to be.
With my eyes closed, I can pretend again. I’m the sexbomb who doesn’t care about his job. I’m the insatiable wife. I’m the only thing he wants.
I’m drenched and swollen and the noise he makes when he slides his fingers over me is unreal: a deep, rumbling groan. I could come with barely an exhale across my skin I’m so keyed up, and when he seems to want to explore me, to tease, I rise into his fingers, seeking. He gives me two, pushed straight into me, and I grip his forearm, rocking up, fucking his hand. I can’t stop long enough to care how desperate I seem.
Heat crawls up my skin and I pretend it’s the heat of the spotlight.
“Oh, let me see,” he whispers. “Let go.”
“Aah,” I gasp. My orgasm takes shape around the edges, the sensation crystallizes and then builds, crawling up from where his thumb now circles frantically against my skin until my orgasm is hammering through me. Clutching his arm in both hands, I cry out, rippling around his fingers. My legs and arms and spine feel fluid, filled with liquid heat, molten as relief floods my bloodstream.
I open my eyes. Ansel holds still, and then slowly pulls his fingers from me, slipping his hand back out from under the covers. He watches me as consciousness eventually pushes sleep completely aside. With his other hand, he hitches his bag higher on his shoulder. The room seems to tick in the quiet, and even though I try to grasp on to my feigned confidence, I can feel my chest, my neck, my face grow warm with heat.
“Sorry, I—”
He silences me with his wet fingers pressed to my mouth. “Don’t,” he growls. “Don’t take it back.”
He traps his fingers with his lips pressed to mine, and then slips his tongue across his fingers, across my mouth, tasting me and releasing a sweet, relieved exhale. When he pulls back enough for me to focus on his eyes, they’re full of determination. “I’m coming home early tonight.”
Chapter NINE
IT SEEMS HARDER to keep track of what I’m spending when euros still feel like play money. Given how different things feel with Ansel from how they did in the States—and even though I’m in love with this place—part of me thinks I should stay for two weeks, see everything I possibly can in that time, and then fly home to make amends with my father so I don’t have to resort to prostitution or stripping when I move to Boston and begin apartment hunting.
But the idea of facing my father now makes my skin go cold. I know what I’ve done was impulsive and maybe even dangerous. I know any loving father in this situation would have a right to be angry. It’s just that everything makes my father angry; we’ve all grown desensitized over time. I’ve been sorry enough times when I didn’t need to be; I can’t find it in me to be sorry this time. I may be scared and lonely, not knowing whether Ansel’s schedule will let up, what will happen with us tonight, tomorrow, next week, or what will happen when I find myself in a situation where I can’t communicate with someone, but this was the first decision in my life that feels like it’s only mine.
I’m still completely lost in my head, overthinking my wake-up call with Ansel, when I step out of the shower. In front of me, the bathroom mirror dries perfectly, clear of any stray water droplets, any streaks, as if it’s been treated with something. I’d offer to clean to pull some of my weight but there’s absolutely nothing that needs to be done. The bathroom window gleams, too, sun shining directly inside. Curiosity prickles at the edges of my thoughts, and I walk around, inspec
ting everything. The apartment is spotless, and—in my experience—for a man, strangely so. Before I get to the living room windows, I know what I’ll find.
Or, rather, what I won’t find. I know I pressed my hand to the glass my first real day here, watching him climb onto his motorcycle. I know I did it more than once. But there’s no handprint there, only more unblemished, crystal-clear glass. No one has been here but us. At some point, in his sliver of time at home, he took a minute to wipe the windows and mirrors clean.
THE OLD WOMAN who lives on the bottom floor is sweeping the doorstep when I walk out of the elevator and I spend at least an hour with her on my way out. Her English comes in fragments, mixed with French words I can’t translate, but somehow we make what could be an awkward conversation into something surprisingly easy. She tells me the elevator was added in the seventies, after she and her husband moved in here. She tells me the vegetables are much better down Rue de Rome than in the market on the corner. She offers me tiny green grapes with bitter seeds that give me goose bumps but I can’t seem to stop eating them. And then she tells me she’s happy to see Ansel smiling so much now, and that she never really liked the other one.
I push this bit of information and the twisting, dark curiosity out of my head and thank her for her company. Ansel is gorgeous and successful and charming; of course he had a life before I followed him to the airport, a life that no doubt included women. It doesn’t surprise me to know someone was with him before. It’s just that I realize I’m still waiting to learn anything about him, other than what he looks like with no clothes on.
I SPEND MOST of the day looking around our neighborhood and making a mental map of the area. Streets go on endlessly, shop after shop, tiny alley after tiny alley. It’s a bit like diving down the rabbit hole, but here I know I’ll find my way out; I simply need to find the telltale M of the Métropolitain and will be able to get back to Ansel’s street easily.
My street, I remind myself. Ours. Together.
Thinking of his home as mine is a little like pretending a movie set is home or learning that euros are real money. And every time I look down at my wedding ring, it only feels more surreal.
I like this view of the street at dusk. The sky is bright high above me, but beginning to fade where the sun has started to slip low on the horizon. Long shadows cut across the sidewalk, and colors somehow seem richer, more saturated than I’ve ever seen before. Buildings crowd the narrow road and the cracked, uneven sidewalk feels like a path to an adventure. In daylight, Ansel’s building looks a little shabby, touched with dust and wind and exhaust. But at night it seems to brighten. I like that our home is a night owl.
As I follow the crooked sidewalk, I realize this is the first time I’ve walked all the way from Rue St.-Honoré to the métro, gotten off at the right stop, and then made it all the way home without needing to check the app on my phone.
Behind me I hear cars on the road, motorcycles, a bicycle bell. Someone laughs from an open window. All the windows are open here, balcony doors and shutters thrown wide to catch the cooler evening air, curtains billowing out into the breeze.
There’s a lightness in my chest as I near our building, followed by a distinct jump in my pulse when I spot Ansel’s motorcycle parked on the sidewalk just out front.
I fill my lungs as I step into the tiny lobby and walk toward the elevator. My hand shakes as I press the button for our floor and I remind myself to breathe. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Keep it together. This will be the first time Ansel has arrived home before me; the first time we’ll actually be in the apartment together without one of us half asleep or vomiting or working into the early hours of the morning. My cheeks burn as I remember him growling, “Don’t take it back,” only this morning after I got myself off with his hand.
Oh dear God.
My stomach erupts into butterflies, and a mix of nerves and adrenaline propels me out of the elevator. I fit my key into the lock, take a deep breath, and swing open the door.
“Honey, I’m home!” I bounce into the entryway and stop at the sound of Ansel’s voice.
He’s in the kitchen, phone pressed to his ear and speaking in such rapid-fire French I’m not sure how the person on the other end of the line can possibly understand him. He’s clearly agitated, and repeats the same phrase, louder and more irritated each time.
He hasn’t noticed me yet and although I have no idea what he’s saying or who he’s talking to, I can’t help but feel like I’m intruding. His annoyance is like another person in the room and I quietly set my key on the table and wonder if I should step back into the hall or maybe excuse myself to the bathroom. I see the moment he catches my reflection in the living room window: he stiffens and his eyes go wide.
Ansel turns, tight smile in place, and I lift my hand, offering a small, awkward wave.
“Hi,” I whisper. “Sorry.”
He waves back, and with another apologetic smile holds up a finger signaling for me to wait. I nod, thinking he means for me to wait while he ends his call . . . but he doesn’t. Instead he nods toward the back of the flat and then moves across the floor and into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
I can only stare, blinking at the simple white door. His voice filters out into the living room and, if possible, is even louder than it was before.
Deflating, I let my bag slip from my shoulder to land in a heap on the couch.
There are groceries on the counter: a bag of fresh pasta, some herbs, and a wedge of cheese. A baguette wrapped in brown paper sits next to a pot of water that’s just starting to boil. The simple wooden table is set in bright red dishes, a bouquet of purple flowers spilling from a small vase in the center. He was making us dinner.
I open a few of the cupboard doors, searching for a wineglass, and try to ignore the words I can still hear in the other room. To a person I don’t know. In a language I don’t speak.
I also try to tamp down the thread of uneasiness that’s begun winding tightly in my gut. I remember Ansel telling me his boss was concerned he’d become distracted, and wonder if that’s who he’s talking to. It could be one of the guys—Finn or Oliver—or Perry, the one who couldn’t make it to Vegas. But would he sound this frustrated speaking to his boss, or a friend?
My eyes dart to the bedroom just as the door opens, and I jump, startling slightly before trying to look busy. I reach for a bunch of basil and search in the drawer nearest my hip for a knife.
“I’m so sorry,” he says.
I wave him off, and my voice comes out a little reedy: “Don’t worry! You don’t have to explain anything to me. You had a life before I got here.”
He leans forward, placing a kiss on each of my cheeks. God he smells good. His lips are so soft and I have to grip the counter to keep myself steady.
“I did have a life,” he says, taking the knife from my hand. “But so did you.” When he smiles it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. There’s no dimple. I miss it.
“Why does your job kill your joy?” I ask him, wishing he would touch me again.
With an amused grin, he shrugs. “I’m very junior at the firm still. We’re representing a huge corporation in a very big case, so I have thousands and thousands of pages of documents to go through. I don’t even think the attorneys who have been there for thirty years remember being this busy.”
I lift a small tomato to my lips, humming against it and saying, “That stinks,” before popping it in my mouth.
He watches me chew, nodding slowly. “It does.” His eyes darken and he blinks once, and then again, harder, his eyes clearing as his gaze meets mine again. “How was your day?”
“I feel guilty I’m out there having so much fun and you’re stuck in the office all day,” I admit.
He puts the knife down and turns to face me. “So . . . you’re staying?”
“Do you want me to stay?” I ask, voice thick wit
h awkwardness and my pulse heavy in my throat.
“Of course I want you to stay,” he insists. With a fumbling hand, he pulls his tie loose and off, dropping it on the far end of the counter. “On vacation it’s easy to pretend real life doesn’t exist. I didn’t consider how my job would affect this. Or maybe I just figured you were smarter than I am and less impulsive.”
“I promise. I’m fine. Paris doesn’t exactly suck.” I give him a bright smile.
“The problem is, I’d like to be enjoying you while you’re here.”
“You mean my sparkling wit and big brain, don’t you?” I ask with a grin, reaching for the basil on the counter.
“No, I don’t care about your brain. I mean your boobs. I really only care about boobs.”
I laugh, relief trickling into my bloodstream. There he is. “Who let you graduate from law school, you oaf?”
“It took some convincing, but my father is a wealthy man.”
I laugh again and he takes a step closer but as soon as he does, the moment explodes into awkward again as I reach for him and our hands collide in midair. We apologize in unison and then stand there, staring at each other.
“You can touch me,” I tell him just as he asks, “Why don’t you ever take the money I leave on the table?”
I pause for a beat before whispering, “I’m getting a weird prostitute vibe from that sequence.”
Ansel bends over, laughing with me. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say everything I’ve been practicing all day.” He runs a hand through his hair and it leaves it sticking up and ridiculous and damn. I want to run my fingers through it, too. “I just have so much guilt that I’m not around much since you arrived, and I want to make sure you’re having fun.”
Ah. Guilt is making him the robot version of the adoraboy I married. “Ansel, you don’t have to take care of me.”
His face falls a little but he puts it back together. “I want to contribute somehow.”