Chapter 9

Paris was magical. Paul had replaced her original reservations at an inexpensive hostel with reservations for a grand suite in an old hotel that looked like something out of the movies. Everything was so decadent and richly done, that she felt like she was in a fairytale. They visited museums and fine restaurants by day, traveling through the Louvre and cuddling on benches in open French markets. They saw the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, taking funny pics of her squishing the latter between her fingers at a distance.

At night, they ate French pastries and drank wine, just chatting and enjoying one another’s company. She learned all about how Paul had grown up in a wealthy family and had inherited everything when his parents passed away within a year of one another. His father had died suddenly of heart failure, and his mother’s health just seemed to slowly deteriorate without explanation until she finally succumbed to death. Many claimed she died of a broken heart, but Paul said the autopsy revealed she had been slowly poisoned, and further investigation revealed she had done it to herself, not wanting to be there without her husband.

“How horrible for her and for you!” Susan exclaimed.

“My parents married young. My father was all she had ever known as the center of her life. She loved us children and was a good mother, but my father was the most important thing in her life. She lived for him, and when he was gone, she saw no reason to remain. My sister and I were grown and off doing our own thing by then,” he said.

“And your sister? Where is she now?” Susan asked.

“Off in some third world country, no doubt. She is a physician with Doctors Without Borders. I never know where she is from one month to the next until I get a postcard. Usually by the time it makes it out of whatever remote location she is, she is already back home again. When she is home, she doesn’t live far from me and checks on me quite often. She has been a good sister, especially in recent years,” he said.

“Why in recent years?” Susan asked, wondered if this something he kept dark about himself was the thing that made her wonder about what was happening between them.

“Nothing we want to discuss over crepes and wine,” he told her, taking another bite from his plate and smiling happily at her. Susan didn’t push. He would tell her if he felt there was a need for her to know. In the meantime, she would do her best not to assume the worst. Still, her curiosity was peaked.

Back at the hotel, they climbed between the luxurious sheets, cuddling together as they kissed lazily beneath the covers on the large, four-poster bed of their suite. Susan felt the familiar burn of skin that felt like it was on fire each time he touched her. Every touch was sensual, careful, designed to stimulate the heat already rising like a volcano to the surface of her body. His breath on her ear as he nibbled his way gently around her lobe and moved downward, placing soft kisses gingerly along her neck and shoulder was inviting her in to this little world that existed only between the two of them.

A low moan escaped her throat almost involuntarily as he pushed her forward, softly pinning her face sideways onto the bed and resuming his featherlike kisses down her spine. Shockwaves rushed through her system and seemed to echo through each digit and shoot back inward, resonating between her legs. Her clit hardened as it pressed into the sheets, and his mouth made its way down to the rounded slopes of her backside. He touched her intimately, sliding his fingers between her legs to seek out her wetness. She gasped as he found the already aching nub between her legs and teased it slowly, causing her to squirm and coo beneath him.

Then, he was inside of her, pulling her bottom toward him and filling her with his throbbing need. Her moans grew louder as he plunged slowly into her again and again, moaning her name as he held her firming around the waist with his hands. The friction was intense as he sank deep inside her again and again, finally sliding his hands forward to cup her breasts and pulling her torso back toward him until her back was against his chest. His hips continued to grind into her from behind, hitting all the right angles as she cried out with the force of the orgasm that overwhelmed her without warning.

“That’s it. I love the sounds you make when you come. Keep going, love,” he moaned against her ear.

Susan let herself go, allowing her body to take control and just feel what was happening to it. She wasn’t sure if it was this place they were in or how their feelings for one another had begun to change, but she had lost all self-consciousness and begun to really appreciate the incredible beauty of how their bodies melded together to create such intense explosions. Then all thought was gone as she became lost in wave after wave of climax that echoed and escalated until she had nothing left to give.

It was like this for the entirety of their stay. They wandered the streets of Paris, enjoying the people and the places during the day and went to galleries or find restaurants at night, making love every night in their wonderful hotel suite before falling asleep in one another’s arms. It was too incredible to put into words how it felt to be with Paul. He was older, though just how much older, she still hadn’t really determined. It wasn’t as if it mattered. She was in falling in love.

If Susan had any doubts about Paul, they were laid to rest after their wonderful getaway to Paris. Though she had not yet gotten up the gumption to say it, she knew she loved him, and it felt like he loved her, too. Saying “I love you” always seemed to change things between people, and she just wasn’t ready for that yet. Plus, there was always that little fear that she was wrong about his feelings or that she might say it too soon, and he would be put off by how serious things had become. When it came right down to it, there was so much she didn’t know about Paul, and how could you really say you love someone if you don’t know all there is to know about them?

When things continued to go well between them, she forgot all about her qualms and just let their relationship go wherever it would. So far, that had been only wonderful places, but as they sat at the shop drinking lattes one morning before he went to see a client, she found herself wondering something that had only occurred to her just now.

“Paul, why haven’t I ever been to your place?” she asked, feeling she should just be direct with her concern.

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. Your place is so much cozier, I suppose. Mine is this big structured building. All cold marble and steel. We can go there if you like,” he said, seemingly nonplussed by her curiosity.

“I would. I’d like to at least just see what sort of place you live in,” she replied, glad that he didn’t seem upset by the inquiry.

“Say no more, we will have dinner at my place tonight. I will call Honey and ask her to whip up something special, just for my love,” he said.

Susan was suddenly torn between the elation she felt over being referred to as his love – even though they had not yet exchanged those three little words – and the twinge of jealousy she felt over him having someone he referred to as “Honey” in his house.

“Honey?” she parroted back to him.

“Yes, she’s got to be a thousand years old, but not a streak of gray, a headful of honey-wheat colored hair. Everyone that I have ever met refers to her as Honey, probably at her behest, considering that her given name is Gertrude,” he laughed, seeming to miss her momentary disdain altogether.

“Oh,” Susan laughed. She found that she was already looking forward to spending an evening at his house, seeing how he lived when he wasn’t with her.

“I have to run for now. I will stop by and pick you up at closing time. I’ll have the car service take us home so we won’t have to walk,” he told her.

“No, you don’t have to do that. It’s not that far,” she objected.

“I know, but I also know how tired you are after all day in this shop, and I have to have the car for a meeting, so I’ll just hang on to it long enough to pick you up and take you home with me. See you in a while,” he said, kissing her on the cheek as he got up to leave the shop.

“See you tonight,” she responded, watching him walk away.