Nathan tongues me like I’m the world’s most delicious ice cream.

His fingers stretch and probe.

I tangle my fingers in his hair as I moan.

He abrades my sensitive skin with his evening stubble, and I love it.

When my legs begin to tremble, he wraps his big hands around my bottom and squeezes, his mouth still doing its magic between my legs.

In a rush of heat and exquisite pleasure, I shudder. Then another wave, and one more. Barely conscious of my surroundings, I hear myself making strange noises, mumbling between groans and whimpers. “Oh God… Nathan… I can’t… Oh God.” It’s too much. I want him to stop.

I don’t want him to stop.

As I ride the last aftershock, he strokes my hips and trails his tongue up to my stomach. He rises and leans his forehead against mine.

I encase his face between my hands and kiss him deeply.

A long moment later, we break the kiss. Nathan stares at my face and then at my bared sex, his gaze scalding me.

“Still hungry?” I tease.

He doesn’t respond, doesn’t even smile back.

Heat creeps up my neck and cheeks.

Who knew being selectively undressed like this would make me feel more bared—and more turned on—than full nudity?

My heart quickening, I lower my gaze to his enormous shaft. I want it as much as I’m apprehensive about it. What will I do when he presses its tip against my entrance? How will my body react? Can I stretch enough to receive it without pain?

But he said I didn’t have to decide yet.

He said we could just fool around.

Gingerly, I palm him and begin to stroke up and down his hot length. He groans, one hand on the column next to my head, the other on the side of my neck. I rub a little harder, curling my fingers around him. He throbs against my palm.

I look up into his heavy-lidded eyes. “May I?”

A nod.

Finally.

I’ve been burning to press my lips around it since I first saw it. As I explore its hard shape, its cordlike veins and the softness of its skin against my lips and tongue, I feel like an ancient priestess performing an act of worship.

If that phallus on the wall is life-size, then the man it was attached to must have had quite a following. I envy his groupies who were no doubt sturdier than I am and more apt to accommodate him.

Were all the women Nathan slept with able to take him in? Would he tell me the truth if I ask him? It’s damn tempting to ask.

Except, I won’t.

Asking him about his exes might give him the wrong idea. Regardless of how he makes me feel or what happens here tonight, I’m not going to date a farmer from Verlezy. We belong in different worlds, and the only bridge between those worlds is our lust.

Lust fades away. Complications remain.

OK, if tonight is all we have, I’d better shut that chatterbox in my head and let my hair down.

I increase my pace and the amount of pressure, feeling him grow even harder, thicker and bigger than he already is. Wetness pools again between my legs. My core is heavy, empty, wanting to be filled.

“Rissa,” he murmurs. “Careful, or I’ll come.”

I lift my eyes to him.

He smooths his hand on my cheek, his eyes drilling into mine, searching.

With my hands tight on his shaft, I pull back a little and bite my lower lip. “That’s the plan.”

“Really?” He searches my face. “You don’t mind the mess?”

“I have tissues in my purse.”

“You sure?”

“Oh yes, I always carry a pocket pack—”

“I mean, are you sure you want me to come on your face?”

It takes me a moment to adjust to the rawness of his words. I’m not used to that. The men I’ve dated before I got too busy—and too picky—would never talk to me like that. They’d use euphemisms and avoid crude words at any cost. But they never went down on me with so much passion… if they did go down at all.

Slowly, I nod.

He trails the pad of his thumb over my mouth. “You know, you’ve done that already in my fantasies. Many times. But I had no idea you’d be up for it in real life. I thought you’d be squeamish.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” I say, omitting to mention I’ve never actually tried a facial before.

The mere thought of such an act had appeared distasteful. Degrading, even.

Except, with Nathan, it doesn’t.

He grips the nape of my head and guides me gently back to his groin. A few enthusiastic minutes later, his face contorts in pleasure and pain. I find that both beautiful and empowering.

“Shut your eyes,” he prompts, visibly struggling to hold his peak off a little longer.

I do just before his warm seed hits my face.

He growls, pumping.

When he’s done, I lick my lips to taste him and laugh nervously, feeling a little awkward.

“Don’t move,” he says. “And don’t open your eyes.”

Noises, steps, then his voice again. “I have your purse here.”

He opens it so I can dip my hand inside and find the tissues. Taking the pack from me, he wipes my eyes, my forehead, and my cheeks.

“Do you mind if I use some of the water from the bottle in your purse?” he asks.

“Please.”

He wipes my face again with a wet tissue. “All clean.”

Smiling, I open my eyes.

He collects the tissues and tosses them in the trash can next to the bench. “You must be thinking this was crazy.”

“It was fun,” I say, standing up.

I pull the hem of my skirt down, ignoring the aching and clenching in my center.

One can’t have everything. He’s too big for me.

But even without penetration, I just had the sexiest time in my life, and that will have to do.

Nathan picks up the now-flickering flashlight and offers me his hand. Back at the bench, we sit down next to each other, our knees touching.

He turns to me. “Will you come sit on my lap?”

“I thought you’d never ask!”

The frankness of my reply startles me.

Nathan looks a little surprised, too. And happy.

The moment my butt touches his thighs, he puts his arms around me and pulls me closer. “Rissa.”

That moniker, said in a deep, gravelly voice feels like a caress. Loving. Tender. Doing unwanted things to my heart.

Watch out, Clarissa.

I trace his firm jawline. “I have a nickname for you, too, you know.”

“Tell me.”

“Cowboy.”

He laughs. “Did you just come up with it?”

“No, that’s what I’ve been calling you since your fourth visit when Nina told me what you did for a living.”

“I’m afraid what I do is a lot less romantic than what you see in movies,” he says, before cocking his head. “So, you spotted me a while ago.”

I nod, caught red-handed.

He gives me a long look, and I know what he’s thinking even if the question never comes.

I give him an apologetic smile. “I didn’t want to give you a chance to ask me out.”

Wow. That came out a lot more brutal than I intended.

“I figured that much,” he says.

“Why didn’t you ever ask me a question during the tour?” I smooth the back of my hand against his cheek, enjoying the prickliness of his stubble. “Everyone else did, but you never said a word. You just stared.”

He shrugs. “I had lots of questions, but I thought they were dumb. I didn’t want to ruin my already slim chances with you.”

“The questions you asked tonight, and the observations you made were anything but dumb,” I say. “Even my parents would concede that much.”

“I take it they have lofty standards?”

I roll my eyes. “You have no idea. I’m a fourth-generation archeologist on both sides, so they expect me to be the next Champollion.”

“The name sounds familiar… Who’s that?”

“The guy who cracked Egyptian hieroglyphs in the nineteenth century.”

He nods. “That’s a tall order.”

I skew a smile. “Not for Penelope Clarissa Muller. They seriously expect the Nobel Committee will one day have to add a new prize category in archeology just to celebrate my achievements.”

“You’re lucky,” he says.

I draw my eyebrows together. “Is that a joke?”

“Nope.” He kisses my hand as I trail it across his mouth. “You have parents who believe you’re super smart and can do anything.”

“Do you realize the pressure that puts on me? I feel that no matter how hard I work, I’m bound to disappoint them.”

“Right,” he says. “I hadn’t considered that part.”

I peer at him. “What about your parents? I bet your mom thinks you’re a national treasure, and your dad must have been very proud of you.”

“It’s hard to know what Ma thinks of me,” he says with a smirk. “Except that it’s my sacred duty to make sure it’s handed down to the next generation.”

I frown.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he adds quickly. “Ma has a great personality and she loves me. It’s just… well, let’s just say she may not be convinced I’m the brightest pea in the pod.”

My jaw falls. “Why would you say that?”

“Maybe because she and Pop took me out of regular school at sixteen and sent me to an agricultural lycée.”

“It wasn’t what you wanted?”

“I didn’t really have time to stop and consider what I wanted. Dad had been so sick, and then I had to deal with the funeral and all the paperwork because Ma was too devastated. She could barely make herself get up in the morning… And then we were hit by the milk crisis.”

“I remember seeing angry farmers on TV,” I say. “They blocked roads and dumped manure in front of administrative buildings.”

“Yeah, well, you’d be angry, too, if you had to pay 45 percent in taxes when the milk price was pushed down to two hundred euros per ton.”

“I believe I would.” I kiss his nose. “Do you think you would’ve gone to college, if circumstances had been different?”

He slips a hand under the double layer of our jackets and cups one of my breasts over the blouse. My lids drop with the joy of his warm, big hand on my petite breast.

“Honestly,” he says. “I’m not sure I would’ve gone to college. I did OK at school, but I was never an A student.”

I caress his strong neck. “Few boys are at that age. They just take longer to grow up than girls.”

“Anyway,” he says. “It wasn’t in the cards. The year Pop died, his friend and our neighbor—my bestie Celine’s dad—took his life. Several farms went belly up… But for Ma, selling our farm was out of the question. It was Pop’s legacy. He’d sacrificed himself for it.”

“What do you mean?”

“He died of cancer caused by pesticide exposure. You see, he’d been in charge of spraying since he was ten, and he’d never used a mask or gloves.”

“How awful!”

He nods.

“You loved him very much, didn’t you?” I ask.

“I worshiped him.”

We stroke each other in silence for a while.

I wonder if Nathan will ask me if he can see me again. For his sake, I hope he doesn’t. He won’t like my reply.

“Do you have a boyfriend in Paris?” he asks.

I shake my head, dreading the next question.

But when it comes, it isn’t what I expected. “How long has it been since you had sex?”

“A long time.” I hesitate. “Eighteen months.”

He sucks in a breath, but says nothing.

The flashlight battery dies a few minutes later.

When Nathan moves to turn his phone on, I grab his hand to stop him. “We should try to get some sleep.”

“Yes, we should.” He picks me up and lowers me onto the bench. “Put your head on my lap, and lie down.”

“What about you?”

“I can sleep sitting,” he says. “I’ve done it before.”

I stretch out on the bench and fall asleep within minutes with my face to his groin and his hand in my hair.

* * *

Anne-Chantal’s laughing voice wakes us up in the morning. “What a picture!”

I sit up and look at my watch. It’s seven in the morning.

Thank God, she showed up to work an hour early!

When I glance at Nathan before I return his jacket, he’s peering at her, eyes narrowed and eyebrows lowered. That prompts me to pay closer attention.

The cashier doesn’t look shocked to discover us here.

She doesn’t even look surprised.

In fact, she looks mighty pleased with herself.