The Chocolate Touch (8 page)

Again the compliment seemed to glance off that absorbed focus of his. Okay, if
that
didn’t please him, what about her could? Hero-worship was pretty much the only arrow she had left in her quiver.

His gaze roamed all over her face, seeing every bit of that blush. Thank God she had pulled on a scarf, so he couldn’t see the way it swept over her throat and breasts, too. “I’ve got to go,” he murmured. “I promised to do this stupid cooking show session.”

Oh. She would have pulled back in acceptance of the rejection, but she couldn’t pull back. She was in a corner between glass, stone, and him.

“Are you doing anything tonight?” he asked very softly.

The blush swept back through her so hard she felt as if she would burn up from the inside out. Burning oh-so-particularly in all the parts of her body that she wanted to have pressed against him.

She was—she was probably supposed to go have dinner with her sister, so Cade could worry about what she ate, but she could cancel. She wobbled her head uncertainly.

“Can I come pick you up?”

She nodded unsteadily and every muscle of his body surged in response. And a very quiet rabbit looked up and realized she was cornered by a tiger.

And shivered in helpless delight at the fact that he wanted to eat her.

“Where are you staying?”

Staying
. Not
Where do you live?
So impermanence was one of the base assumptions here.

“I’ll, ah—” She dug into her purse for pen and paper. She turned toward the glass as a writing surface, his breath on the nape of her neck as she tried to make the pen work at that angle. Excitement kept licking over her skin. And yet at the same time, he smelled so deliciously of chocolate she could curl up in him like a comforter. She felt a deep, intense sense of coming home after too many years away. He leaned over her as if he couldn’t help it, watching her write hungrily.

His hand closed carefully around the paper when she gave it to him. Not crushing it at all. He took a long, long breath, staring down at her. Then he turned his body like a heavy, reluctant gate that had not had its hinges oiled in some time. If she hadn’t handed him her address as a password, would he have blocked her in that corner with his body forever, until she yielded?

Damn. Maybe she should have written more slowly. Dropped her pen a few times. Gotten their bodies tangled as they both reached for it.

Any second, and she would just lean into him, layer her weight onto him, let him do with it what he would.

Fighting resistance, as if trying to get her body into motion through thick melted chocolate, she forced herself to take a half step. It was either that or look so desperate he would retract the invitation.

“Seven thirty, then?” He checked as her body brushed his. She could have gotten past without brushing him, but . . . why miss an opportunity? He might never even show tonight, and then she would regret it.

Would
he stand her up? She glanced over her shoulder at him. He was staring at her with an intent, dazed look as if he was trying to see her through a fever. Maybe he was coming down with something that was making him act insane. “I would like that,” she said, and he grinned, fast and hard.

That grin warmed every part of her body, even the stubborn achy one that usually refused to be warmed. It kept her warm, a golden, hopeful glow inside, as she forced herself to leave that source of heat, that scent of chocolate, and go out into Paris in the springtime.

 

As soon as she was out the door, the
laboratoire
erupted.

“Whoot! Whoot!” yelled Célie, clasping both hands and shaking them over her head in victory.

“Chef, you did it!”

Someone catcalled. Amand gave a long wolf-whistle.

“Oh, shut the hell up,” Dom said, rubbing the piece of paper between his fingers over and over as if it was silk. He couldn’t entirely suppress a grin, even though he was flushing.

Célie propped one
fesse
on a marble counter. “So what’s her name?”

“Oh,
putain de bordel de merde.
” Dom looked down at the piece of paper. A number, a street. No name. “I still don’t know.”

I
t turned out it was a good thing Jaime had to wait nine whole hours for Dominique to come get her, because she had to go shopping. And she had no idea how to go shopping. She hadn’t done it in years, dressing herself entirely from market stalls, or else old clothes out of her closet whenever she visited home. Most of what she was wearing now had been picked out by Cade, while Jaime was still in the hospital. Jaime had added the hats and scarves herself, and expanded her selection of long-sleeved things that hid her arms, but that was about it.

What did you
wear
for a date with a man like Dominique Richard?

Her first instinct was to call Cade, but she absolutely could not stand to have Cade teaching her the ropes of something so basic, as if she was the goof-off,
helpless
baby sister. Magalie Chaudron had a killer fashion sense, but Jaime didn’t know her well enough to call her. Anyway, she would have had to get her number from Cade.

So she was on her own.

Exactly as she was used to, so it would have to do.

She felt more helpless before this task than before any number of things, although a feeling of helplessness seemed to be her predominant trait right now, didn’t it? At least this was a much more pleasant way to be helpless than some. Walking the streets of Paris with no limit on the money she could spend to get ready for a hot date, unable to make up her mind. It sounded like most women’s dream. She reminded herself of that, tried to let it be a dream for herself, too—just pleasure. This was all about pleasure. No guilt, no regret, just pleasure.

The shop windows were full of things that did not look as if they would flatter her nearly as well as they did the mannequins. What kind of thing was she supposed to wear? What would
he
wear?

It didn’t matter what he would wear, she reminded herself fiercely. For God’s sake, she had been a major socializer in college. The woman set the tone. The man could wear jeans, what did it matter?

She wanted to wear a dress, but it was cool in the evening, and what if he drove his motorcycle? And she was still working on the muscle tone of her too-thin legs. Finally, after
seven hours
of shopping and because she was desperate, she forced herself to settle on patterned thin leggings and a long tunic top of midnight blue, loose enough to soften her body, with a heavy metal belt to draw attention to the Parisian-worthy thinness of her waist. Loose, super-soft knit sleeves narrowed to close-fit wide cuffs that stretched partway up the back of her hands, ending not so much in a ruffle as in the faintest hint of a ripple.

On her short hair, she tried a pageboy hat and glared at it, because she didn’t look at all like the pictures of movie stars in magazines. Besides, having it on just seemed to emphasize the bareness of her neck, and she
hated
having her nape exposed.

Maybe Dominique would make it feel less exposed. The thought of him being right beside her seemed to still all the cold chills down her spine, stroke the hair on the nape of her neck back down with one warm hand.

She finally left the hat off and very carefully coiffed her short, expertly feathered hair, using a little sapphire butterfly barrette to make sure the left side stayed in place the way she wanted it.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she felt . . . unprotected, and she reached for a scarf, clenched her fist and drew her hand away, reached for it again, pressed her hand to her thigh . . .

And the buzzer sounded.

 

Dom didn’t worry about what to wear because it never occurred to him. Even at award dinners and on cooking shows, clean jeans and an untucked pressed shirt were the height to which he aspired in terms of fashion. He would have felt a complete fool showing up in a suit, but since he had always seen his unknown in simple clothes, it never crossed his mind.

His main goal for the evening in terms of
her
fashion was to get her damn hood off her head.

So when she came downstairs with her hair naked, he was knocked off his feet from the start. He was waiting for her, tense and eager, trying not to stand too intimidatingly close to the door, and when he saw that reddish-caramel hair feathered around her face, he nearly muscled her right back through it, backward straight up the steps, and into her apartment. After which, a wall would probably do fine. All he wanted was a closed door between him and her and the rest of the world.

No, a bed,
he told himself severely.
Don’t even
think
about anything else.

So his mind did focus, obediently, on beds, but that might not have been the most helpful direction for it to head right at the moment.

“You look beautiful,” he said involuntarily, and then cringed because he sounded like he had at sixteen, back when he had still thought he could get someone to love him despite everything.

Her eyes shot to his, skeptical even while she flushed a little. He caught his hand just short of her hair, realizing he had been about to stroke the fine feathery cut. It was too short for her face, really. Maybe that’s why she hid it. Maybe it was a recent cut she was less than satisfied with. Maybe he could convince her to grow it out a little more, until it curved under her jaw.

He had to stop losing his mind. It took time to grow hair, and she had made it clear she was a visitor here.

Would it be a good time to ask for her name again? But if she said no, he might have a hard time not getting pissed off, so instead he took her hand firmly in his and headed them down the sidewalk.

Her lips parted, and she looked up at him with eyes big enough to drown in. No, skydive in, the cloudless twilight sky of them, float and float and float until you forgot to open your parachute and slammed into the ground.

He hadn’t held a woman’s hand since—well, ever. It hadn’t worked out at sixteen. He
liked
it, that slim cool feel of her fingers entrapped in his. God, he hoped his hand didn’t seem like some monster enclosing hers.

“Is there anywhere you would like to go?” he asked.
Merde,
maybe he should have put on a suit after all. His name could get them in anywhere, even without reservations, and it would have been a great chance to impress her. But he didn’t really want to be in some elegant, hushed place with everyone watching them tonight.

“Not fancy,” she said. She had not made one single effort to free her hand from his. “Just some place small, and warm, and . . . fun.”

“Fun?” His eyebrows went up. Did she want him to take her someplace wild? If he got in a fight and got arrested, it would ruin the false impression he was trying to cultivate.

She had to lift both hands to illustrate what she meant, but he just let her carry his hand with her, not about to let go. She pushed the free hand toward the one he held, apparently trying to gesture closeness. “Warm,” she said again. And then she did something that undid him to the last faint whisper of his soul: she gave his hand a squeeze with fingertips that could just barely reach around his, apparently using
him
to indicate what she wanted to say. He meant warmth. He meant this word she couldn’t find.

He turned and kissed her. Wrapped her up in his arms, scooted her back into a green doorway with his body between hers and the brush of passersby, and kissed that full mouth of hers.

He met closed lips, because she hadn’t been prepared for him at all. But he slanted his mouth over hers, too hungry to give up, and anyway, he had forced a hell of a lot of doors to open in his life. No force here, no force, just your mouth . . . please . . .

Her muscles loosened to him, her weight sinking onto his arms, her lips parting. Her fingers came up to close around his shoulders through the leather, and he wished it was already off his shoulders, trampled on the ground, who cared, just so he could feel her hands.

Her mouth, letting him in. After all those days eating everything he made, did she like the taste now of
him
?
Please take me, too.

He couldn’t say
please,
he couldn’t, but . . . he said it with his mouth. Coaxing hers. Taking hers. God, she didn’t need much coaxing.

It went through him like fireworks, the way she opened for him, and his arms tightened and lifted her higher on his body, and—

“Excellente technique, jeune homme,”
a middle-aged woman said acerbically, walking past, and he brought his head slowly up and gave her straight back an annoyed but grateful look. You could always count on a fellow Parisian to let you know when you were making a complete fool of yourself.

“Pardon,”
he whispered to
the woman whose name he still didn’t know,
turning his head back to rest his forehead just gently against hers. “
Pardon.
I couldn’t help—” He stopped himself just in time, because he despised men who said they couldn’t help things.

All her weight lay still yielded to him, her face flushed, her lips parted, her eyes clinging, her body his to hold. Oh, God. He looked back toward her apartment building, only a few doors away.

He had promised her dinner, hadn’t he?
Not
fast-food sex.

And just because she
looked
as if he could lower his mouth back to hers and nibble her lips and turn her body entirely limp and take her straight upstairs didn’t mean he . . . he shouldn’t . . . he—

“We had better keep walking.” He straightened so roughly she stumbled, and he cursed himself. He never could wash those six years of brute hacking out of him, could he? He closed his hand around hers again, more tentatively.

She didn’t say anything at all, but she curled her fingers around the edge of his palm—all she could reach from the inside of his hold.

 

She wasn’t wearing a jacket, he realized when he shrugged off his own at the bistro. He grinned with heady anticipation. It was going to get cooler by the time they left the restaurant, and he would be able to give her
his
leather jacket, wrapping her up in his warmth for all the walk back to her apartment.

“Do you like it?” He smiled down at her, enjoying deeply the fact that he could now use
tu
with her, as they waited at the bottom of the steps for the waiter to arrange a space for two in the crowded little place, its room set just a few steps down from the street. He had brought her to one of his favorite bistros, on the edge between the Marais and the République area. The kind of place where you could get a good steak, fresh cut
frites,
and lather it with
sauce Roquefort,
all of which he was planning on talking her into ordering.
Were
the bones on her wrists just starting to soften a little, after ten days of his
salon
?

Her smile warmed him all through.
“C’est parfait,”
she said shyly. She had grown very shy since that kiss.

That shyness put him in power, and he felt corrupted by that power already, inclined to lure her into his clutches and keep her there forever. Surely it wasn’t a very smart thing for her to do, to let him have the power here.

Any woman who let a man have power over her was a complete fool, but when he was the man in question . . .

Well. She wasn’t here for very long, he reminded himself. He could surely manage to be a decent person for as long as she was in the city.

“What are you doing in Paris?” he asked, holding her hands across the table because he didn’t want to lose the privilege in case she recovered some shred of sense, and sliding his fingers under the close knit of the cuff of her sleeves to stroke against the inside of her wrists. He wasn’t really trying to manipulate her, he just couldn’t stop himself. He loved the feel of her skin, he loved that access, he loved the way her eyes grew dazed and dreamy.

But his question made her pull her focus back in, her eyes clearing and growing distant. “I have family here.”

It hit him like a slap that there was some lie there. Here he was, her melted marshmallow, and she could keep herself together enough to lie to him. He had thought he had the power? “But you’re not staying with them?”

Like, whose apartment did he need to direct them back to, in order to have her all to himself?

She shook her head. “I like to have my own space.”

Great. That unshared, private space of hers was not very far from this restaurant at all.

“What family do you have here?”

“My—sister,” she said reluctantly, watching him, for what he didn’t know. “My father and grandfather, sometimes. My family has always liked Paris. My mother used to get us all to come here sometimes when we were little. It’s where she and my father had their honeymoon.”

He smiled. He didn’t have many privileges of birth, but he did at least have that one: he was born in a city that made women’s hearts mushy and romantic just by whispering its name.

Well, he hadn’t been born quite
in
it. Even with that privilege, he was on the outskirts, the muddy hem of the elegant gown. But he had claimed Paris fully now. “Is that why you speak French?”

“Mmm. Partly. My mother died when I was ten, and my father didn’t want to come back here after that. But I guess my sister and I always had a—tie to Paris, because of her. We both studied French in school, and my sister just recently moved here. But most of my practice is from development work in French-speaking countries. That’s what I”—she seemed to hesitate a long time over her verb tenses—“I’ve been doing.”

Bon Dieu
. An infinitely better person than he was, then. “How long have you been doing that?”

“Since college.”

College. So she had about ten years more education than he did, too.