Once Upon a Rose (25 page)

Apparently there wasn’t a word for her, there was only a touch. Both his hands, coming to cup her bared breasts, both his callused thumbs, rubbing gently over her nipples.

She couldn’t bite back the little moaning sound of pleasure, any more than she could stop herself from reaching for him, pushing at the panels of his shirt that fell to either side of her, finding his bare shoulders, then sliding up his neck to bury her hands in his hair and pull his head down.

“Yeah,” he muttered, bending willingly. “I’m on my way.” He opened his mouth over one nipple, kissing and sucking, gentle at first, then testing how much she wanted, until she writhed and gripped, until she said no, no, that was too much that almost hurt until she said…

“Yes.” Her head pressed back into the pillow, chest lifting up for more of this. “Yes, yes, yes.”

“I love that sound in your mouth.” He reared back, shrugging out of the white shirt and dropping it, revealing that tan, muscled torso and the white gauze still around his left forearm.

She came after him, his bared torso irresistible, stroking everywhere, testing muscles and smoothness of skin and the texture of his hair across his chest. It was all good. Every single inch of him was touchable. She pressed her ear into his chest and tried to think of a way to make him growl, but her brain was all fogged.

Finally she just pressed her hand down, down, down his stomach, flat and tense under her touch, and curled it over his jutting sex.

He growled.

Her hand squeezed in involuntary delight as she shivered, pressing her ear harder into his chest.

He growled again. She wrapped her other arm around his waist and hugged herself in closer to that strength and that sound and squeezed again. “I like this position,” she said mischievously.

“You’re asking for trouble.” He pulled her hand off him and then lifted it and completely unexpectedly kissed it before he stood free of the bed, reaching for his pants.

She curled her fingers wonderingly into that kiss of her palm, watching him as he unbuttoned his pants. He reached for the waist and froze. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” Layla sat up, wrapping her arms around her nakedness, startled and not very concerned. Right about then
everything
seemed fixable, as long as she had Matthieu Rosier in the same room with her, with that muscled torso bare.

“I don’t have anything.” He thunked his head against the slanted wall. “It’s Gabe’s tux, and I was right in the middle of a workday when this all started, and I…I can’t
believe
I forgot—” Thunk against the wall again. “Usually I would have—” He broke off abruptly.

Layla’s eyes narrowed a little. “Eternal optimist? Or are you just used to getting lucky?”

“It’s not that.” He turned his head, still pressed against the wall, to meet her eyes. “It’s just that—it’s my responsibility. To take care of you.”

She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, naked except for her panties. “Of course it is,” she said softly. “Everything’s your responsibility, isn’t it?”

“Will you give me ten minutes? I’ve got some at my house.” He winced. “That spoils everything, doesn’t it?” He closed his eyes.

She stood up, baring her naked body suddenly as easily as she sometimes bared her heart. “No, it doesn’t,” she said quietly and walked to him, sliding in under his bowed body and wrapping her arms around him, pressing her head against his chest. “You taking care doesn’t spoil anything at all. I like it.”
I actually think I might be doing something way more than “liking” here.

His body curved around hers as the despair eased off his face into something intense and almost wondering. “Come with me,” he murmured, or that growly thing he did that passed for his murmur. “I’ll carry you all the way through the roses. You won’t even have to put your shoes on.”

“
Oh.
” She had been about to propose another solution, and now her original idea wavered. “That sounds incredibly romantic.”

“Really?” He looked completely surprised. “Not just desperate?”

She shook her head and went up on tiptoe to whisper a secret. “I have some, though.” She halfway wanted to not mention them, so she could get that ride through the roses.

He frowned a little.

She held up a finger. “Are you going to have a double standard?”

“No.” But that frown settled into a scowl.

“They were giving these out at a festival I was at in Paris.” She left him to dig around the edge of her still-packed suitcase until she found it. “And I thought the package was really funny, so I kept it as a souvenir.” She showed him the little packet of three condoms, stamped with the image of a very phallic Eiffel Tower covered with latex.
J’aime à Paris.

He completely annoyed her by double-checking to see if the package had been opened and smiling when he found the box still sealed.

But he was so damn sexy standing there, with that light heating again in his eyes as he realized this evening could keep going, that her annoyance melted. “So you see,” she said. “Maybe once in a while, I know how to take care of things, too.”

He hefted the little package. “This wasn’t you taking care of things, this was your sense of play. And I got lucky.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “All right, if you’re going to start complaining about your luck right now—”

He growled and pushed her back on the bed. “No.” He came down over her. “No, I’m not going to complain about my luck.”

She turned her head away as snootily as she could. “I might be losing my sense of play.”

“Oh, no, you sure as hell aren’t. Let me fix that problem for you.” His hand ran down her body, leaving a path of pleasure and hunger in its wake.

“Maybe you can’t fix it,” she challenged, holding his eyes in provocation.

“Oh, don’t worry.” His eyes gleamed as his thumb taunted its way over that ticklish crease of her thigh, making her hips twist and jerk a little, half toward that tickle and half away. “I can fix anything.”

“Maybe,” she said haughtily, “you’ll get lost and need directions.”

Laughter and arousal leapt in his eyes in equal proportions. She loved the blend of it. “I never get lost.” His hand slid unerringly to exactly where she wanted it to go, proving his claim, a firm cup of her panties and a press of the heel of his palm against her clitoris through them.

She turned her head away, a resigned princess. “Well, I suppose if you do, we can always find an app for this on your phone.”

He laughed out loud, this great shout of happiness and desire, and she turned her head back to him, grinning with triumph. His eyes were alight with humor and arousal as he lowered his head to her. “You’re going to pay for that, you know,” he growled, removing his hand from between her thighs. Uh-oh.

“God, your voice should be illegal.” She hugged him hard, trying to crush his body to hers or hers to his.

“Don’t talk to me.” He began to drag his body down hers. “I’m concentrating on the road.”

“Hey.” She grabbed for him, her fingers sliding through those glossy half-curls as he paused above her chest.

“
Merde
, I don’t know,” he said, with the most ridiculous semblance of anxiousness on that big and dominant a man. One large finger touched just above her breastbone and hesitated. “Should I go here?” His fingers walked their way up one breast, and then, just as he was about to reach the aureole of her nipple, his upraised index finger paused…and he turned and retraced his steps. “Or here?” He walked them up the other breast.

“Hey.” She tried to grab his hands and press them fully to her breasts, but he dragged them down her ribs as easily as if she hadn’t been resisting him at all, leaving her poor abandoned nipples quite desperate for that failed contact.

“I am so confused,” he said. “I definitely need a damn phone about now to tell me what to do. I mean, what the hell is this?” One flat palm paused dramatically just at the edge of her panties. “A road block? Where do I go from here?”

“Matt!”

He raised his head, his eyebrows drawn together in pseudo-worry as his fingers trailed uncertainly back and forth along the line of her panties in the most maddening way. “I don’t know.” His eyes gleamed. “Do you want me to pull over and let you drive this thing?”

“You’re a
beast
!” she said incredulously. She might have made a mistake waking up this man’s sense of play.

“Well, I mean…” His fingers slid strong and hot and oh-so-charily a half centimeter under the line of her panties into her curls. “If you can do it better…”

“I’ll show you what I can do!” She twisted, trying to reach down toward his own sex, far past her arm’s length at this point. “You’re so going to pay.”

He caught both her wrists and surged up her body to pin them with one of his hands above her head. She twisted them to try to break free, and his eyes gleamed as he didn’t let go. “It must be hell to be a puny girl right about now.”

“
Matthieu Rosier.
”

“God, I love the way you say my name.” He kissed her, hot and deep, until she was gasping, her hips twisting and bucking against that entirely uncooperative hand of his down there.

“You let go of my wrists right this second!”

His grin was so wicked. “What are you going to do if I don’t?” His free hand stroked down farther, until the long, strong middle finger was just shy of exactly where she wanted it to go so badly. “Tell me to stop the car?”

“You, you, you—oh, God.” As that callused finger rested quite gently on her clitoris and very, very gently stirred.

“Yes, Bouclettes?” His hand slid farther, his thumb taking the place of his finger as those long fingers slid through the slick lips of her sex. “You were saying?” His thumb began a gentle, unhurried rhythm.

“Hush.” She turned her head into the pillow, her eyes closing. “Let me concentrate.”

“But I’m having so much fun,” he complained. “I mean, wow…” A finger probed deeper into her slickness. “I wonder where this goes?”

“I’m going to kill you,” she promised, wetting her lips, her hips bucking up to his finger.

“Yeah, I know. But still…” That finger began its sure slide deep into her. “Let’s find out.”

All her inner muscles tightened on his slide, first at the foreignness of his entrance into her body and then at the desire to have more of it, bigger, harder, faster.

“That’s going to feel so damned good on me in a minute,” he said hoarsely. “Shit, Bouclettes
.
”

“Hurry up!” she begged, trying again to break her wrists free so she could grab for his hips.

“Isn’t that just like a woman?” His thumb moved over her clitoris again as he slipped a second finger inside her. “I’m the one waiting on you.”

“Ma-tt.” The word broke and shattered out of her, in little lost huffs.

His thumb kept moving in such sweet strokes, firming just barely. “Think I’m going to have to wait much longer?”

“Matt.” She couldn’t keep her eyes open. She wanted to cover her face with her arms and hide what she looked like right then, shut out everything but the sensation of his hand, but she couldn’t, because he wouldn’t let go of her wrists.

“You look so damn beautiful,” he said incredulously, and pressed his thumb down just…just…right as the waves of pleasure mounted in her, as they swept over her, as that raging river caught her up and bore her away. As she fell apart.

***

She came back to herself almost ready to cry, from that beautiful shattering feeling, from how exposed she had been during it, all her heart laid out there once again.

His hand cupped her face a second, stroking her curls out of her eyes, and that threat of tears eased into the security of his hand. His thumb stroked her cheek again, that way she was growing to love so much. Then he twisted away a second, tearing open the little box of condoms.

“I ripped your little Paris souvenir,” he said, as he came back over her. “I never did get along with that city.”

“Come here.” She reached for him and this time he didn’t stop her, as she gripped his bare butt. God. “
Nice
butt,” she said involuntarily, her fingers trying to sink in and meeting muscled resistance.

“
Merde
, you’re generous,” he said roughly. “You just
say
things. Do things. You’re just about to let me right in, aren’t you?”

She nodded, gripping his butt and pulling.

“In here.” He rubbed her still over-sensitized sex. “Where you’re all soft and vulnerable.”

She was more than a little afraid that she’d already let him into a much more vulnerable part of her than her body, but she just gripped him and arched her hips up, twisting to try to fit herself onto him since he was still bracing himself off.

“Hell.” He surged into her, hard and deep.

“Oh.” She went very still, taking deep breaths.

He did, too, braced off her, his chest moving in great pants. “Okay?”

“I think I need to just—” She shifted her hips a little, and pleasure relaxed all through her as they found their fit. “Oh. Yeah. That…yeah.”

“You let me know.” He held her eyes. It about killed her, how tense his body was and how deep his breathing, and the way he took time to make sure he was taking care of her, still. “I’ve got you,
chérie
.”

“Actually, that is factually incorrect.” She squeezed him as hard as she could with all her inner muscles and grinned up at him. “I’ve got you.”

His body jerked a little in her. He caught it, all his muscles rigid, still trying so hard for control. “Easy for you to be full of yourself. You already came.”

“Again I have to correct your word choice here.” She shook her head chidingly. And squeezed again. “I’m full of you.”

Breath rushed through his body, and his hips surged. “You’re still messing with me,” he said incredulously.

“I know,” she agreed mournfully. “I can’t seem to help myself.” And she winked at him. “Besides, admit it. You like it.”

“You really are going to kill me,” he muttered.

She liked killing him. She liked driving him crazy. It made her feel giddily, hungrily powerful. She gripped him hard, pulling herself into his body, pressing her lips into his shoulder, kissing and nipping. The roses on his skin had entirely faded. He’d showered when he changed into that tux, hadn’t he? But even though he came from a fragrance family, it hadn’t occurred to him to put on any scent, to be anyone but him. His life was the fragrance.