“What happens between us is our business, ma petite.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Guys will slap you on the back and say, go, you. But everyone will look at me and think…”
“Sheri, please look at me.”
She turned to face him fully and lifted those beautiful brown eyes of hers to meet his gaze.
“You are never going to be able to control what anyone thinks about you but you can control how you feel about what happened. Do you regret becoming my lover?” he asked.
She nibbled her lower lip and then sighed. “No. I don’t. Being in your arms was incredible.”
“Then don’t worry about the photos or the press or any of it.”
She arched one eyebrow at him. “That’d be a little easier to do if I hadn’t met that lot head-on this morning. It was a little scary.”
“It is irritating. I will install you at my parents’ house and then take care of the paparazzi.”
“You keep saying that. And I don’t like it.”
“What don’t you like?”
“You taking care of everything. I’m not some doormat. Despite how I might act at the office.”
“You’re borderline insubordinate at the office.” He smiled to show that he was joking.
“Only borderline? I’ll have to work on that,” she said, and he saw the spark of her personality peeking through the sadness that had engulfed her for most of the day.
He knew it was a mistake to want to cheer her up. To care so much about her happiness, and about seeing her smile, but he did. He wasn’t going to be able to offer her anything else, so his protection and her happiness were it.
“I’m not above using discipline to keep you in line.”
“Like what? You going to spank me?” She shook her head and covered her mouth with her hands. “I can’t believe I said that.”
Immediately he had a vivid image of her sweet, bare ass as she lay over his lap. He hardened, then shifted to relieve some of the pressure at his inseam.
She flushed, and he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to keep his hands off her. He wanted her again. If he’d been able to distance himself in Mykonos, take her to the airport and put her on a commercial flight, it would have been different but now…he was going to have her again.
He needed to get her out of his system.
As her words echoed between them, Tristan leaned forward, took her face in both of his hands and kissed her. She closed her eyes and surrendered to the feelings he drew from her effortlessly. She’d been craving this for so long. It felt as if a lifetime had passed, instead of just hours, since he’d touched her like this.
She opened her mouth for his tongue, which teased hers. He ran it along the roof of her mouth and then drew back, catching her lower lip between his teeth and suckling her.
She shifted closer to him on the seat, needing more of him. Shivers of desire coursed through her body. She put her hands on his face, touched his jaw and then slid her fingers into his hair.
It was thick and silky. She tilted her head to the side and he drew her even closer to him as his mouth continued to explore hers.
He drew back from her and she opened her eyes, staring up at him. “I can’t get enough of you,” he said.
“Is that a bad thing?” she asked. Her lips were tingling from the contact with his.
“Of course not. I am French. We live for physical love.”
“And romantic love?” she asked, because she knew deep inside that she was falling in love with him. The seeds had been planted long before she’d known him as anything other than an attractive man who was her boss.
“Romantic love…what about it, Sheri?”
“Do you believe in it, or just lust?”
“I believe that we all get a once-in-a-lifetime chance at romantic love.”
“Once in a lifetime?” she asked. That sounded good to her. “I believe in that, too.”
He gave her a little half smile. She thought about what she knew of Tristan. How he was rumored to still be mourning his deceased wife even though she’d been gone for a long time.
“Did you— Never mind.”
“Go ahead and ask.”
She knew she was prying, but after all they’d shared, and given the fact that she was vulnerable to Tristan in a way she’d tried to not let herself be to any man, she had to ask.
“Did you have that with your wife?”
He looked at her then, and the expression in his eyes made her realize there were layers to Tristan she might never understand. The pain in his eyes took her breath away.
“Yes.”
She nodded. There really wasn’t anything else to say. His one-word answer in that monotone told her everything she wanted to know about where this relationship was heading. Ha, she was kidding herself to call it a relationship. It was a one-night stand, except…he’d just kissed her like he wanted her again.
So she had to decide right now. Was she going to be an affair for him? Could she really deny herself Tristan just because he couldn’t love her?
“Have you ever experienced that?” he asked her.
“Would I be here if I had?” she asked, careful not to let on that she suspected he could be that once-in-a-lifetime love for her.
“I guess not,” he said, stroking his finger down the side of her face and then down the length of her neck. “Why haven’t you?”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know. I don’t trust easily.”
“But you trust me,” he said. “You came to my bed last night.”
“It wasn’t easy,” she said. “But you wanted me….”
“And you wanted me, too.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did? And now you do not?” he asked. He traced the scoop neck of her blouse and then moved his fingertip lower, to the upper curve of her breast.
She shifted her shoulders and had to force herself not to follow his touch when he pulled his hand away.
“Do you still want me, ma petite?”
“You know I do. One night…it doesn’t seem like enough time with you.”
“What would be enough time?” he asked.
She doubted a lifetime would be, but she couldn’t say that. So instead she shrugged.
He smiled down at her. “I want more time with you. Are you willing to continue what we started last night?”
She thought about that. Her first instinct was to say yes. But what would that be like? Hell, she was going to be miserable when things ended between them anyway. Now or later…and later sounded much better than now. So…
“Yes.”
He smiled at her. “Good.”
“You are so arrogant.”
“You say that as if it is a bad thing.”
He leaned over and kissed her so deeply that she knew she’d made the right decision.