How she ended up on the bed she couldn’t say, but when his mouth left hers she looked at him, foggily realizing that she was somehow flat on her back completely naked, while he stood there, staring at her.
“You are every bit as beautiful as I’d fantasized you’d be,” he said. “Looking at you takes my breath away.”
If that was true, then neither of them had much of an ability to breathe at the moment.
“My turn to look at you. Strip, please.”
Those bold words coming out of her mouth shocked her, but he just laughed. “Your wish is my command.” His gaze stayed on her as he quickly yanked off his shirt, and her breath caught at his lean but muscular torso. As he shoved off his pants, his erection became fully, impressively but all too briefly visible before his body covered hers, hot and deliciously heavy.
“You didn’t give me much time to look at you,” she managed to say.
“Sorry. Couldn’t wait to feel all your gorgeous, soft skin against all of mine.”
Well, if he put it that way. She had to admit it did feel amazingly, wonderfully, delectably good.
Was she really doing this? Lying naked with a man she barely knew? The feel of his body on hers, his mouth pressing sweet kisses to everything within reach of it, his smooth, warm skin beneath her hands told her the answer was yes, but to her surprise she didn’t feel tense or strange or regretful. All she felt was toe-curlingly excited and turned on.
His hands and mouth roamed everywhere until she found herself making little sounds and moving against him in a way that would have been embarrassing if she hadn’t been so totally absorbed in the sensations and how he made her feel. Nearing orgasm more times than she could count before he backed off and slowed things down, she was close to begging him when he finally rolled on a condom, grasped her hips with his hands and pulled her to him.
Instinctively, she wrapped her legs around his waist, inviting him in, and the way they moved together made her think, in the tiny recess of her brain that could still function, that it seemed impossible they’d met only that morning. That this dance they danced hadn’t been etched in both their bodies and minds many a time before.
And when she cried out, it was his name on her lips and hers on his as they fell together.
“JUST SO YOU KNOW… it’s really true that I don’t usually do this.” Her pulse and breathing finally slowing to near normal, Avery managed to drag the sheet up to cover her breasts. She glanced over at Jack, whose head lay on the pillow next to hers, eyes closed, looking as sated and satisfied as she felt. She wasn’t sure why the words had tumbled out, but once they had, she wasn’t sorry. She didn’t want Jack to think she routinely picked up men, showed them around, then dove into bed with them.
“Do what?”
The expression on his face was one of bland innocence, completely at odds with the amused glint in the eyes that slowly opened to look at her. She couldn’t help but make an impatient sound. “You know very well what. Sleep with men I’ve just met. Heck, I’ve never even kissed a man I just met.”
He rolled to his side, his warm body pressing against hers. “I believe it was I who kissed you. Figured it was a Parisian tradition. The city of romance and everything. And what’s more romantic than a rainstorm in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower?”
“Well. There is that.” Though she was pretty confident that if it had been any other man she’d invited to breakfast that morning, there wouldn’t have been any kissing on their trek around town or any rolling around in the sheets, complete with a lovely afterglow. And, to her surprise, no feelings of regret at all. Maybe because she knew it would happen just this once.
The moment she’d stepped off the hotel elevator that morning, her attention had gone straight to him like a magnet. Tall, lean and obviously American, with an adorably befuddled expression on his handsome face as he’d spoken to the maître d’, she’d moved toward him without thinking, inviting a stranger for coffee and breakfast as though she did it every day. Which he doubtless assumed she did.
“I hope you’re not regretting it. Our kiss, and now this.” He propped himself up on his elbow and slowly stroked his finger down her cheek. “I know I don’t. Being so close to you under that umbrella, there was no way I could stop myself. And once I’d kissed you, all I could think of was kissing you more.”
No way she could have resisted his kiss, either. Or the bliss that had come afterward. Not that she’d tried at all. “Well,” she said again, as though the word might somehow finalize the whole crazy afternoon, “we’ve shared le petit déjeuner, walked a bit of the city and gone up the tower. Kissed under an umbrella and made love while it rained outside. I guess it’s a good time to find out a little about each other. I hope you’re not married?”
She said it jokingly, but a small part of her suddenly wondered if he possibly could be. If he was the type of man who philandered when working out of town. Her stomach clenched at the thought. After all, she knew that type way more intimately than she wished she did. Would Jack admit it if he was?
“Not married. Never have been. Remember, I told you, all I do is work. Which probably makes me pretty boring.”
Whew. She looked at him carefully and managed to relax. Surely no one could lie about a wife so convincingly. “Don’t worry, you’re not completely boring.” His twinkling dark eyes and devilish smile proved he knew he was darned exciting to be around. “Tell me something else about you. What’s your favorite food? Besides espresso, that is.”
“Sorry, coffee definitely is number one on my list of life’s sustenance. Though I’m sure anything licked from your lips would qualify, too.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I don’t have to ask you about talents, because I already know a few of them. Blarney being one.”
“And my other talents?” His eyes gleamed as his wide hand splayed on her back, pressing her close against him, and the heat of his skin on hers made her short of breath all over again.
“I’m not stroking your ego any bigger than it already is.”
“How about stroking something else, then?”
“Already did that. And I see I’ll have to watch what I say around you.”
He chuckled as he kissed her shoulder, and she found herself thinking about his mouth and those talents of his and wasn’t sure if it was that or his body heat making her feel so overly warm. Again. “So what are your hobbies?” he asked.
“I don’t know if I’d call it a hobby, but I like to run. Helps clear my mind when it gets too busy. And I like marshmallows. A lot.”
“Marshmallows?” He laughed out loud at that. “You’re kidding.”
“Unfortunately, no. I pop the little ones when I’m working on the computer. Which is why I have to run. Don’t want to become a marshmallow.”
“You’re about as far from a marshmallow as anyone could be.” His hand stroked feather-light up her arm and across her chest to slide down the other, making her quiver. “I’d like to run more than just on a treadmill, but my work just doesn’t leave me that kind of time.”
“So what is this work you spend all your time doing?”
“I’m a cardiologist.”
Every muscle froze, and her breath stopped as she stared at him. A cardiologist? Cardiologist? Could this really be happening?
He was probably used to women swooning when he announced that, but not her. She’d worked with more cardiologists than she cared to think about, and being arrogant and egotistical seemed to be a requirement