Hung Out: A Needles and Pins Rock Romance (32 page)

The man who had met us at the car guided our journey from the helm, which was several steps below deck. He expressed points of interest and condensed lessons of each, his voice slightly amplified through a speaker near the table.

At the base of the Eiffel Tower, the boat idled and Gage held his champagne flute aloft. “To Scarlette Rose. The world is yours.”

Embarrassed, but giddy, I clinked my glass to his.

The boat cruise came to an end, and the Rolls Royce was waiting. Instead of dropping us back at the hotel, it came to a stop in front of a whitewashed brick building. Gage leaned in, presumably tipping the driver and then grabbed my hand as he escorted me inside.

He headed straight to an elevator and closed us inside the antique cage lift. We disembarked on the fifth floor, and took a flight of stairs up to the next floor. Producing a key, he slid it into the lock and after a few clinks, the door swung inward, revealing what looked to be a cozy apartment.

We waited while Joaquin went through each room. I knew the routine and recognized the necessity. Several new hostile emails had been added to the Ketchum folder. The security service had traced the origination, determining they were being sent from within the U.S.A. This was comforting in a small way; as was the fact they had decided to notify the proper authorities. Joaquin exited with a nod, and I eagerly began my own exploration.

Perplexed, I wandered room to room. The lobby we’d entered from the street had no resemblance to a hotel. The space was rustic, from the white brick exterior walls to the huge beams running parallel along the vaulted ceiling. The kitchen was modern down to the polished stone countertops and stainless steel appliances. The floor was terracotta tile with fluffy throw rugs strewn about. The bedroom…

I stopped short of stepping inside this room and was admiring the clean, white linens and antique furnishing from afar when the paned wall of French doors drew me in. An iron balcony was just beyond. The view of the city from it was stunning.

“Okay.” I pushed away from the rail. Feeling him directly behind me, I twisted to eye his expression as I inquired, “Where are we?”

He forked his fingers through his wavy hair, and I noted the nervous gesture. “This is one of Dad’s properties. I figured, well, no one saw us leave the hotel as early as it was. And if we camp out here instead of there while we are ‘doing’ the city then no one is seeing us come and go, and we don’t have to deal with ugly comments.”

“But when we’re both gone together for a long time, they’ll—how long are we staying?”

“As long as you want. We can come and go just today, or we can stay the whole time.” His earnest gaze locked to mine. “Play it by ear?”

“Play it by ear.” I easily agreed, enchanted by both the view of historic Paris and the apartment itself. This was so much better than our hotel on the other side of town.

“I figured we can go walk around. Be tourists. When the city wakes up.”

I covered a yawn with my hand and nodded. When I scooted onto the bed and positioned my pillow to see better out of the French doors, he joined me, spooning and playing in my hair as we dozed.

“I didn’t know
you spoke French.” After a day on the town, our feet dragged as we scaled the stairs between the fifth and sixth levels.

Gage remained intent on the giant Chestnut Rum Berthillon ice cream cone he was scarfing down. “Just enough to get by. You know. Offer bribes in exchange for standing in long-ass lines and stuff like that.”

I giggled but thought of the line at least a hundred people deep we’d avoided and felt guilty. Yet, even here in Paris, I was getting second glances. Logically, I knew we could have been mobbed had we chosen to wait forty-five minutes on ice cream in the midst of a public square.

Pausing for a second on the landing, I faced him and teased, “I feel ripped off. You never spoke the ‘language of love’ to me.”

He swallowed his current mouthful of ice cream and deliberately brushed his body against mine as he passed and began up the last half of the flight. “I get it now. You wanted Pepé Le Pew sexing you up and not some dirty rocker.”

Humming birds took flight in my stomach. Tickling and stabbing. That’s how it felt to think of whatever Gage and I had in the past, as well as whatever was going on now. A pleasurable pang.

I was getting so used to the bodyguard that I barely flinched with embarrassment when he sprinted ahead of us with an impassive face. He was in and out of the apartment in less than a minute. With a curt nod, he pulled the locked door closed behind him and headed back downstairs to where he’d stationed himself. Like at the hotel, he used the hallway camera to keep watch.

Picking up our Pepé Le Pew  versus dirty rocker conversation, I managed a retort as I followed Gage through the apartment. “Maybe both. You know. Have my ice cream and eat it too.” I finished with a lick of a drip trickling down the side of the waffle cone.

His eyes smoldered liquid fire, and instead of popping the last bit of his dessert into his mouth, he dipped his tongue into the cone first. “So a skunk rocker.” With a crunch, he finished the cone.

“It sounds dirty when you say it that way.” Actually, I was impressed at the quick witty way he’d substituted punk with skunk. My stomach felt bloated and full from all the food we’d eaten. I dropped the remainder of my cone into a bowl and set it in the freezer.

“Is that a good thing or a bad?” From behind me, he closed in and wrapped me in his arms. “Because dirty is my specialty.” His cold lips nibbling at the crook of my neck and the sandpapery abrasion of his chin initiated an eruption of gooseflesh.

“I knew you had ulterior motives with this apartment…” A sigh of pure pleasure hissed through my lips.

He licked a fiery trail up the cords of my neck. “Not ulterior. Dual.” And then he lifted his lips from my skin. “Is that okay?”

With a groan, I spun to face him, looping my arms around his neck, and using my weight to pull him down to my tiptoe level. His kiss tasted of chocolate, butterscotch, and roasted almonds.

Starved for more than the stolen touches I’d been getting lately, I met each thrust of his tongue with a tangle, twist, and suckle of mine. His arms tightened almost painfully, and I could suck in only shallow breaths in what had become a boa-constrictor embrace. Still, I pressed more tightly against him.

When my lips were throbbing from the friction of his and my tongue had gone from a tickly tingle to a tingling throb, he eased up, and I took in a long dizzying breath. He ran his lips down my jawline and to my neck while his hands tunneled beneath my shirt. His touch on bare skin drew a moan and a desperate need for my own fingers to breach the barrier of his shirt. Earlier today, I’d admired the abnormal sight of Gage’s tucked in shirttails, but now, I let out a mewl of frustration when I tugged at the fabric.

Apparently, he was impatient too. In one swift smooth move, he peeled my shirt over my head and left my arms entangled while his hands slipped into the cups of my bra. I stilled beneath his touch, focused helplessly on nothing except his fingers as they explored and then slowed to play. My still-tangled wrists fell to rest on the top of my head and then the back of my neck when my chin dropped as I watched. Instead of moving his hands away long enough to undo the back clasp, he’d removed each breast from its silky pocket. When his hands finally abandoned this private playground, they landed on my hips, and I felt my back sliding up the cool metal of the fridge. His mouth clamped on one aching tip, sucking, nipping, and bathing it with his tongue. With a thump, my hand freed itself from the shackle of my shirt and slammed against the fridge before burying itself in his shaggy hair. My other hand flicked the garment aside and clamped onto his shoulder, my fingers digging into the muscular flesh. The whimpers of pleasure coming from my throat were soon as much from frustration when he didn’t slow down to give equal attention to the achy twin peak.

“The other…” I finally strangled out, and then sighed when it was that easy. His attention switched immediately, and he spent a long lavishing minute before pulling back.

A flick of his fingers undid the bra. He peeled it down my arms, and I accommodated by slipping free of the straps.

His admiring gaze lingered on the area he’d just worshipped so completely. “Damn, I missed this. So much.”

“Me too.” In total agreement, I raked my nails lightly over the scruff of his jaw.

When his eyes lifted to mine, I felt as if I were drowning in their brown vortex. My legs had wrapped his waist at some point, and he hitched my weight up, adjusting, before heading to the bedroom.

My back hit the mattress, and I was stunned for a moment to find myself staring up at myself. Mirrored tiling covered the entire ceiling. I swung my gaze over, finding him already stripped out of his shirt and working on his jeans. His eyes were on me as I lay transfixed by the mirror, and a hint of a knowing smile curved his lips.

Like?

Like.

Again, I felt a simple, unspoken dialogue between us. Instead of joining him in the frantic undressing, I pulled a jeaned knee up and clasped my hands behind my head as I turned my attention back to our reflections on the ceiling.

When all of his clothing lay in a pile on the floor, he crawled up from the foot of the bed, pausing to rid my feet of shoes and socks (and gave the arch of one foot a long lick!) before stretching out. Settling between my legs, he feasted, starting on the areas of my breasts he’d neglected in the kitchen frenzy. The tip of his tongue traced the curving valley beneath each. He nuzzled between them and kissed his way down my body. Above, I watched the ripple of his muscles and salivated on the view of his bare ass. The eye in the sky view of his dark shaggy head between my legs was erotic, intensifying the lightning bolts of pleasure rocketing through my core with each swipe of his tongue.

G
age could count the times he’d cooked on one hand. Sure, he’d thrown extra toppings like jalapenos on a frozen pizza and dumped canned soup into a bowl. Other than that, he’d scrambled eggs a couple of times. That was it. So surely, he could be forgiven for the state of these grilled cheese sandwiches. He flipped one so that the almost blackened side was face down on the plate and cut it in rectangle halves instead of diagonal so he could distinguish between the not so burned meal and the burned. Careful to drain the juice first, he spooned a few olives onto both plates and then dumped a handful of chips on each. Lastly, he draped a cloth napkin over each plate before picking one up in each hand.

Relocating them through the bedroom, onto the balcony, he deposited them on the table. After a quick check of the sunny horizon, he sprinted to the kitchen and back, and finished the table setting with two wine glasses and a bottle of Beaujolais Blanc.

Glancing through the panes, he stalled, admiring the sight of a nude sleeping Scarlette. She lay on her stomach, her hair spread around her.

They’d seen sights half the day, famous art, and street art, but no masterpiece surpassed the heart shaped ass framed in the windowpane.

All his.

“Scar.” He crawled over her and brushed his lips against the softness of her shoulder and down her arm until she stirred. “Scar, wake up.”

She mumbled into the pillow, and his eyes traveled the expanse of velvety skin from the delicate shoulder blades, the valley of her spine, landing again on the ass that was his eye magnet. Between the tan lines of her waist and thighs, it enticed him, perfect and white.

Other than his wildest imagining when furious with her, why in the reality of her now had he never had the urge to…?

He shook the thought away. But it persisted. An enigma.

His fingers curved…

Smack.

The slap resounded in the room.

In the split second image he had of his handiwork before she flipped immediately over, he hated the pink mark, marring the perfection of his white heart.

“Ouch?” Eyes wide with surprise, her indignant inquiry was a clear ‘what the hell!’

“Sorry.” He stretched the length of his body against her and muttered the earnest apology while sharing her pillow and peering into her eyes.