All for You (11 page)

He stopped smiling. “Damn it, now I can’t even sleep on a bench?
Merde
, Célie. It’s a nice night.” Nice night to be alive, nice night to be out of the Legion, nice night to gaze up at an apartment window and contemplate his goal and how he was going to get to it. He sure as hell had spent nights in far worse conditions contemplating his goal and how he was going to reach it and, ideally, survive.

Of course, in those cases, sometimes he had to
kill
his goal, which was another of the contrasts that was so nice here.

She jerked her hands down from her head and folded her arms across her chest, a look he didn’t like on her at all. It closed her off. “And that’s a load of bullshit,” she said stiffly.

Oh, really? He clasped his left wrist behind his back in parade rest. “What is?” he asked coolly.

“That you
did it all for me
. First of all, if you did it all for me, I’ll kill you. And second, you damn well did not. You must have just started some fantasy thing about me to get you through.”

One thing a man learned fast in the first four months training in the Legion was when to keep his mouth shut, no matter what someone said or even yelled in his face. Just because somebody said something completely idiotic and insulting didn’t mean you had to react to it. Plus, she’d put him in the typical drill sergeant lose-lose situation there—damned no matter what point he argued.

“Just like some—some calendar pin-up girl or something,” Célie muttered.

Joss grinned before he could catch himself, a sneak escape out through his neutral expression, at the idea of Célie as a pin-up girl. “You’d make a rather unique Playboy bunny.”

Her hands dropped to her hips. There you go. He liked that position, too. Much more open than the arms folded one, and, yes, yes, getting in trouble with her
did
give him a hot erotic charge. Made him want to just … mess with her. Get her more riled up until they were wrestling on a big bed and he was proving to her exactly how much she liked the kind of trouble he could get into. He’d never done it in real life, but always in his fantasies, that was a familiar tussle, one they got into a lot.

But Célie was scowling. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He imagined that scowling position naked, perhaps with some skimpy erotic lace covering certain bits. His grin snuck back out. “You’d definitely be different than their norm.”

Hurt flashed across her face before she covered it with a deepened scowl. “Well, now you’ve dashed all my hopes of building a career out of exposing myself so that perverts can jerk off fantasizing about me.”

Pervert
seemed a little harsh there. What else was he supposed to do, find a brothel?

“I always kind of liked the idea of you being unique to me,” he said apologetically.

She stared at him.

He tapped his temple. “My, ah, pin-up girl in here. No one else gets to see.”

Her lips parted. She licked them, and then pressed them abruptly together, stiffening her stance. “I’m going to hit you now.”

He laughed. Damn, she was cute. All those fantasies had gotten so faded and worn-out over time, and her real-life presence recharged them
hard
.
As if they’d been hit by lightning and most definitely needed some kind of surge protector to keep from shorting out his whole system. “Okay. Am I allowed to duck and block, grab my attacker and subdue her, or do you want me to just stand still?”

Grabbing his attacker and locking her in right up close to his chest while she wiggled …

Her hands went back to her head again instead, and she gripped her skull as if to keep it on. “Joss, I
can’t
put you up in my apartment. It’s basically just a bed with walls.”

Oh, wow, hell. Definitely needed a surge protector there.

“I mean, you can barely squeeze around in it, without falling on the bed.”

Holy shit. His brain fried. His breaths started to come in long and deep, as his whole body went hot and hard.

“You have to go to a hotel.”

He frowned, and his hand tightened around his wrist behind his back. Damn it, she just didn’t get it, did she? How much easier it was for him to be a little uncomfortable than to get far away from her again. He’d already screwed up once by committing to five years away from her. “I think I’m more used to roughing it than you realize. I was enjoying being outside. It’s a nice night. It’s Paris. I suppose you’re used to it being Paris.”

She nodded uncertainly, her arms back across her chest. She just couldn’t stop moving, could she? He’d always loved that contrast with himself, with the way he knew how to be still. And wait for her. “Joss—can you not afford a hotel?” she asked cautiously. “You know I’d help you out, if you needed it, right?”

Right, because that was the whole point of joining the Foreign Legion—coming back to sponge off an old semi-friend’s little sister, helpless to take care of himself. “I’m fine, Célie. I’ve actually got enough for—well, it depends where you want to live, but a nice house in some places or a down payment here.” He nodded at the expensive Paris streets.

She gasped, one hand flying to her lips as she stared at him.

Now what should he not have said? Shit, the Legion lessons were right—a man was really better off, in all circumstances, just keeping his mouth shut.

“A—a house?” she whispered. “For you and me?”

“Not a house
here
. It’s the Legion, not a millionaire’s club. Here it would have to be an apartment.”

Her head bent. She looked as if she might be on the verge of tears again. He wanted to touch her, but it was night in a romantic city just below her apartment that was
all bed
, and his body was already so freaking charged up. He tightened his hold on his wrist, struggling to ride out the urge.

“Joss…I know letters aren’t your thing,” she said low, desperate … and angry, too. She lifted her head. “But five years saving up for a house together and you couldn’t have
written
? Found a phone once in a while and called? Come see me on leave?”

“That wouldn’t really have been fair to you. To ask you to wait for me.” Plus, he hadn’t proved he deserved her yet. Lots of men failed out of the Foreign Legion. And it made his stomach jittery to even think about how much it would have cost him to come see her on leave and then turn around and say good-bye again.

Her hands sank convulsively into her fairy-punk hair. “Oh, my God, I’m going to kill you.”

Well … if she ever did actually go through with that plan to kill him, he couldn’t say at this point that he hadn’t been forewarned.

“Joss.” Her eyes were anxious, confused, pleading. “Please go to a hotel.”

His hand tightened on his wrist behind his back until it hurt. Fine.

So he went to a damn hotel. Some cheap place that was the closest he could find to her apartment, where he looked out the window at the wall of the other building across the alley and some guy deliberately exposing himself to the hotel guests, instead of up at Célie’s window. He tilted his head back to catch a glimpse of Paris night sky, a tepid darkness compared to the black and starry sky in Mali or Afghanistan. Hell. Now
those
were real skies.

He’d like to take Célie to see a real sky sometime. Not in a war zone, but somewhere safe. She’d
love
it.

But meanwhile, she was in her apartment a couple of blocks over, and he was here, closed in, with this stupid, empty bed behind him and some guy mooning him from the fourth floor across the way.

What a boring letdown for his first night back.

“Everything all right?” Jaime asked.

Célie straightened guiltily from Dom’s in-progress sculpture of a lioness. No, she had
not
been thinking of biting that other ear off. “You’re back again? Already? I thought Dom had started sleeping in later.”

“You’re here pretty early yourself,” Jaime said.

Dom came up the stairs, his short delay after Jaime suggesting he’d taken care of a couple of things downstairs on the way in, and gave Célie a disgruntled look at having to share his space so early, but otherwise didn’t say anything, moving to hang up his leather jacket.

“I promised to come in early,” Célie said. Plus, she’d needed the reassurance.
Here I am. All these things I made of myself
.

Her card from Joss was still tucked in the corner of the counter in the ganache room.
I would wait more than five years for you.
With a heart over the
I
in her name.

“Did you ever feel like knocking Dom’s head against a wall?” Célie asked.

“No,” Jaime said.

Oh. Now Célie felt guilty.

“I wouldn’t want to hurt him,” Jaime admitted. Dom gave her a wry look as he moved to double-check his lioness. He seemed pretty darn big and hard to hurt, especially in contrast with Jaime’s size.

Célie scowled. “Fine. I’m a bad person.” Didn’t that just figure?

Jaime smiled. “You’re maybe just more physical in your mental imagery. That or Dom’s less frustrating.”

Dom’s eyebrows rose a little at that, his lips curving ruefully, and he ran his hand over his lioness, exactly like someone petting an actual lion. Well, someone like Dom petting an actual lion. Célie liked the
idea
, but was worried she might cop out about actually touching a lion in real life.

“It’s just—I mean, it was bad enough when he was just my brother’s friend, whom I had a secret crush on, and he went off and joined the Foreign Legion. Then, you know—well, having a crush on a guy a few years older than you who doesn’t reciprocate, you just have to tough it up and get over it, right? But when he tells me he did it
for me
, I—” Célie’s teeth ground together, and she grabbed a big bag of chocolate blocks and slammed it against the counter to break them up, helping relieve the stress.

Dom frowned at the noise, sighed, and focused on his lion again. He really did hate sharing his space at this hour of the morning.

“Seriously?” Jaime said. “He abandoned you for five years for your sake? No wonder you want to hit him over the head.”

“Yeah, Dom might be an idiot about wanting to wait until he’s proven his worth, but at least he’s being an idiot
at your side
,” Célie said.

Dom gave her a look. She stuck her chin up at him.

“True,” Jaime admitted. “You’re doing much better than Célie’s guy,” she told Dom approvingly.

Hey. Both Célie and Dom gave Jaime indignant looks, for opposite reasons.

Dom focused on his lioness, picking up a small knife, working on detail. Célie had dumped her chocolate chunks into a bowl before Dom suddenly spoke, without looking up. “Of course, I’m older.”

Célie blinked. Had Dom just defended Joss? Dom? Of all people?

“How old were you when you first started working for me, Célie? Eighteen?” Dom shaved a long, fine strip of chocolate off the lion. “So that made him, what? The same age? A couple years older?”

“Twenty-one,” Célie said stiffly. Hey … hadn’t it been Joss’s birthday a couple weeks ago? She’d gone out with another guy, to better ignore the date and embrace her happy life without him, but the guy hadn’t inspired in her any desire to invite him up or curl against his side.

“And still stuck in the
banlieue
and in love with you?” Dom nodded, still focused on his sculpture. “Yeah, that would do it.”

Both women stared at him.

“Do what?” Célie finally asked between her teeth.

“Motivate him.
Merde
, Célie, a man’s either an idiot or very determined to change his life, to join the Foreign Legion.”

“Or both,” Célie said tightly.

Dom shrugged acknowledgment. Jaime picked up the sliver of chocolate that had come off the lion and nibbled at it. A little smile flashed across Dom’s face as he glanced at his chocolate on her lips.

“I didn’t ask him to change his life for me,” Célie said. “Maybe if he was in—in—in—if he had a crush on me, he should have talked to me about it before he did something so asinine. Maybe we could have come up with some mountain we could have climbed
together
.”

“Yeah,” Dom said, almost absently, focused on shaping the leg of the lion. “Men don’t always think that way.” He gave Jaime an apologetic look. “We’re kind of raised to want to go out on quests to earn the princess’s hand by becoming a hero. It’s, ah, hard for us to wrap our minds around a princess who wants to do all that dirty work with us. Makes us feel—insufficient. Not man enough. Not good enough.”

Jaime reached out suddenly and rested her hand on Dom’s biceps, flexing as he worked.

Dom met her eyes just a second and then focused again on his lioness. But the line of his lips was softer, a little vulnerable. “And, you know, he was barely out of his teens.”

Célie scowled. “I was
in
my teens.”

“Exactly. Still time for him to get worthy of you while you were growing up.”

Oh, for God’s sake. Men were so annoying. Célie went into the “hot” room, where all the burners were, from which she could still see Dom working on his sculpture and Jaime leaning against the counter on which the sculpture was posed, out of his way but still close.

“Did anything else happen just before he joined?” Dom asked, eating a bite of his own chocolate and then offering the other half of his bite to Jaime as a peace offering or an apology. Or just to get her to kiss his fingertips, as she did. For crying out loud, those two were so mushy.

“My brother got arrested for drug dealing,” Célie said bitterly. Yeah, it had been a
banner
year for her. First her stupid brother and then Joss, both gone. Her on her own.

“There you go,” Dom said. “It makes sense to me.”

Jaime’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “Does it?”

Célie thumped her wooden spoon down in her melting bowl of chocolate, muttering about maybe just taking Joss’s and Dom’s heads and knocking them both together. Knock sense into two idiots in one go.

“Well …” Dom eyed his fiancée with cautious apology. Jaime was the only person in the world who could make Dom look cautious. “Yes.”

“Maybe I can see your point,” Jaime told Célie. “Maybe I could be tempted to knock some sense into somebody, in your shoes.”