Griffin

There’s one word a woman can utter that gets a man’s blood flowing south instantly.

Okay. That’s not true.

There are about twenty thousand that produce that effect, because when you fancy a woman, nearly anything remotely sexy can drive you crazy with desire for her.

Imagine if she says, I’m going to take off a sock.

Boom. Implied nudity. Hard as a rock.

Perhaps she asks, Do you like strawberries?

Obviously that means she wants me to eat them off her breasts. Flagpole raised.

But then there are some that are so direct, so spot on, she might as well be saying, I’d like you to fuck me hard all night long.

Which, for the record, might possibly be my favorite thing a woman could ever say to me. In fact, I might need to make that my own personal addendum to the bucket list.

At the moment, though, the word is proposition.

As I walk to the restaurant Joy has chosen on Rue de Bac, I keep replaying that deliciously inviting message.

I have a proposition for you.

What could it possibly be but some fantastic arrangement where we shag all night and still get along for work? No strings, no pain, no heartbreak. Sign me up right-the-hell now. That would be fantastic. A promise of orgasm-drenched nights, capped off by an uncomplicated good-bye when I take off for Indonesia in a few more months, finally visiting the places around the world Ethan and I marked on a map when we were younger.

As I round the corner, Christian’s words have the temerity to appear in the forefront of my brain.

Don’t you make the same mistake. You can’t mix business and pleasure. We’re lucky to have the jobs we have.

We are lucky to have our jobs. I don’t disagree with his basic premise, but I doubt Joy’s proposition will jeopardize mine. Besides, I really only need to keep my job for the next two and a half months. That’s all she needs me for at her company, and then I’m gone. Who knows where I’ll end up after I take off on my great adventure? We made so many marks on that map. If I found it, it’d be full of pinholes, I’m sure.

Travel everywhere, Ethan wrote.

He can’t. So I must.

There’s simply no way that Joy’s have hot sex with me every single night starting now will interfere with my bigger plans. I can juggle business and pleasure. I can enjoy the woman, the gig, and the checking off of each item on the bucket list.

When I reach the door of Gabriel’s, a restaurant started by a French-Brazilian cook who’s now become a rock star chef in New York City, I’m more certain than ever that I can have my cake and eat it, too. Preferably off Joy’s soft, supple belly.

With that enticing image front and center, I smooth a hand down my black shirt, push open the door, and head inside.

* * *

She lifts her glass of wine in an elegant hand, and all I can think is the proposition is coming now. She’s going to hit me with her take me to bed and do very bad things to me offer this second. She’s been cagey and she’s been coy, insisting we order drinks first and then appetizers. What an alluring vixen. In return, I’m going to have so much fun torturing her exquisitely in bed. Driving her wild, touching her everywhere, putting my mouth all over that enticing body.

I raise my glass and tip it to hers, clinking. My eyes drift to her hands, picturing how inviting they’ll look above her head as she writhes on the bed.

She takes a sip, and I can’t stop looking at those lips now. Those red, pouty, full lips I’ve wanted to get to know since the day I met her.

Oh yes. I’m going to get my wish.

She murmurs, “Mmm. This wine is so good.”

I take a drink, too. “It’s fantastic.”

She runs her finger along the rim of the glass. “I do love a good wine. My friend Elise says I should take more advantage of the pleasures Paris has to offer.”

“You really should,” I say, shifting an inch or two closer in my chair.

The restaurant is small, and the tables are lit with low candles, shimmering faintly. Exposed brick walls give the eatery a cozy feel. The weather outside has turned chillier, as it often does in April. Maybe Joy is thinking I can warm her up.

She arches an eyebrow playfully. “You also think I should partake of all the pleasures? Wine, food, dessert?”

“I think your friend Elise is brilliant, and I think you could even expand that list of pleasures.”

“And what else should I put on my list? Maybe languages?”

I blink. That’s not what she’s supposed to say. “Languages?”

She smiles, big and wide. She sets down her glass and spreads her hands on the table. “As I said, I have a proposition for you. Here it is.”

“Yes, hit me up.” Obviously, it’s the language of sex she wants me to teach her. The words and phrases that will take her straight to O-town every night. Funnily enough, I’m pretty damn fluent in that language as well as the many others I speak. “I’m conversant in many tongues.”

She laughs, tossing her head back, her throat long and inviting, her red hair curling in lush waves over her shoulders and down her chest, curtaining those fantastic breasts. I nearly growl with the realization that I will finally get properly acquainted with those beauties.

“You and your talent with tongues.” She shakes her head, amused, then clears her throat. “That’s actually what I want to talk to you about.”

I was right. Fist pump.

I’ve never answered an implied question faster in my life. “Yes. The answer is yes. We can start tonight if you want.”

She furrows her brow. “We can?”

“Absolutely. After dinner?”

“Really? You don’t want to start, say, now?” she asks, stammering a bit as if she didn’t expect my response.

I’m surprised, too, since I didn’t peg Joy as the get-it-on-at-a-restaurant kind of woman. But I pride myself on being flexible. I glance around the room, scanning for an opportunity. French bathrooms are notoriously tiny. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. I can make it work. Or maybe she has something else in mind. The tablecloths do afford some nice coverage. A little under-the-table manual fun? Count me in.

“Now works for me.” Just so she knows I’m game for anything, I reach a hand under the table and gently stroke her knee.

She flinches for a brief second, then her eyes go hazy and she inhales sharply. “Now for wha . . .?”

“Whatever you want,” I say, running my hand up her thigh.

Her breath catches, and a faint pink flush runs up her neck. Jesus. She’s so incredibly sexy. She’s so responsive, and I’m going to get to play her beautiful body like an instrument.

“What I want . . .” She says it as if she’s mesmerized, like she can’t form words because she’s already so turned on.

“Anything you want.” My fingers travel higher up her thigh, and her eyes flutter closed. Her breath seems to come in a rush.

She swallows then says in a bare whisper, “I want . . .”

She doesn’t finish. She lowers her hand under the table, and her fingertips graze against mine. Electricity surges in me, sparking through my veins. Lust vibrates everywhere as my dirty mind spins so many possibilities. Places, positions, times. How she’ll look as a flush crawls up her chest and she arches beneath me, losing control, letting go.

I lace my fingers through hers with agonizing slowness, making it clear I’ll savor her, make her feel so good. I clasp them around hers possessively, so she’s keenly aware of how we’d come together. When our hands lock, she opens her eyes, and her hot gaze meets mine. Those green eyes of hers are flooded with lust, and a desire that matches mine.

“Have you decided what you want?”

The voice of the waiter snaps her focus from me.

I look up at him, silently cursing him with my eyes.

Joy snatches her hand away and sits tall. She fumbles with the menu then orders the Nicoise salad with salmon, and I choose a roast chicken dish.

“Very good. More wine for you?”

I nod. “Another glass, please.”

Joy nods.

He fills our glasses and leaves.

I practically rub my palms together because we can return to the main attraction.

But when I meet her gaze, her jaw is set, her focus dead-on professional. “Griffin, I need to learn to speak French. Will you teach me?”

I freeze. What the hell did she just say? My hand tightens around the stem of the wineglass. “Excuse me?”

Her eyes widen, an apologetic look crossing them. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. That’s why I asked you to dinner,” she says quickly. And holy balls, she did proposition me. But it’s not for sex. It’s for words. I’d like to say my heart sinks, but it’s another part that deflates. Along with my ego, which has been massively punctured, too.

“That’s why?” I ask cautiously, making sure I don’t completely cock this up, too.

“My proposition is that I’d like to pay you myself for you to spend more time with me, actually teaching me the language.”

So yeah. I basically felt her up under the table, and she wants me to teach her how to say table, fingers, and hands, instead.

“Foolishly, I thought I would learn the language simply by being here,” she explains. “I figured I’d pick it up the way young people do, through TV or whatnot. Except, I hate television. I suppose I could find some French language school, but I thought maybe if you wanted to pick up any extra work or hours . . . I can pay you well.”

Her voice rises at the end of her explanation, almost as if she’s embarrassed to be asking. Or maybe she’s embarrassed that I came on so strong.

But, in my defense, she sure as hell did seem responsive under the table.

I blow out a long stream of air, trying to reroute my errant, filthy thoughts. I reach for the glass of wine and take a hearty drink. I give myself another moment to adjust to the shift in plans, and in my pants for that matter, as well as the fact that I hit on her like a total wanker sidling up to a woman at a bar.

She keeps going, hastily adding, “It’s been a dream of mine to know another language. I took some French in school, but I didn’t learn enough to do much more than order food. I can’t get by in this country simply knowing how to say how much does that cost and I’d like a salad, hold the ham.” She stage whispers, “I hate ham.”

“That’s understandable,” I say absently before it hits me like a whack upside the head. I’ve embarrassed her by coming on to her. Now she’s chattering on and on because I’ve made her feel stupid. Time to fix this problem. “Ham is awful. Simply dreadful. You need to be able to converse about ham.” I bang a fist on the table to emphasize this critical point and try to defuse the discomfort.

She smiles and laughs lightly. “Yes, exactly. I need to have conversations every day—about ham or synthetic vanilla or when the next train is coming or what I’m doing this weekend or whatever else comes up,” she says, sounding natural again, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Perhaps I haven’t totally scared her off with my hand-under-the-table routine. The routine she loved, the devil in me says.

“Absolutely. Couldn’t agree more.”

“Right? You get it. I know it’ll take time, but I thought if you could help me, and I can truly immerse myself in the language, then I can start to feel like I belong here. I can make the progress I want to make in my career, and I can potentially achieve one of my dreams. To speak another language.”

My spine straightens. All the noise in my head disappears as I key in on that word. Dream.

An image of the sheet of paper I keep in my wallet snaps into crisp focus.

6. Help someone you care about achieve their dream.

That item from Ethan’s list has always been a tough one for me. I haven’t been quite sure how to tackle it, so I’ve put it off. Now I know. Now I get it. This is how I fulfill that wish. This isn’t Christian’s satirical commitment to find a rich vixen. This is real. This matters to Joy. And this mattered to my brother.

“Yes,” I say, clear and confident.

She beams, her eyes sparkling, her smile stretching wide. “You will?”

“Under one condition,” I add.

“Okay,” she says, curiously.

“You can’t pay me.”

“What?”

I swallow thickly and look her in the eyes. “It’s an item on my bucket list.”

“Are you sick?” Her tone is laced with concern.

I shake my head and steel myself to tell her. “No. It’s my brother’s list.”

“Is he ill?”

“He was. When you asked me about him the other day, and I said he’s very funny, that wasn’t entirely true.” I take a breath, remembering Ethan toasting me when I landed the job at the aquarium several years ago, saying the job sounded great but a little fishy. I’d rolled my eyes, telling him to try again with a better pun. He never stopped the fish jokes, and I’d do nearly anything to hear another one. “He was funny. He died more than a year ago.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says, her hand stretching across the table. She threads her fingers through mine, and I can tell I’m forgiven for my wayward action before. This isn’t a prelude to seduction. It’s the gesture of a friend. Perhaps I need that more at the moment. Maybe we both do.

“Yeah, me, too. Sorry I didn’t say anything the other day. I guess I should have but . . .”

She shakes her head, dismissing the notion. “We only say things when we’re ready. You weren’t ready then.”

Her response warms some cold, brittle part of me. The part that’s been on ice for the last year. “I think I just wanted to enjoy that day with you. I didn’t want to bring anything sad into our Île de la Cité adventure.” I take a breath then dive into the deep end. “He was in a car accident four years ago. Hit by a drunk driver, and wound up in a wheelchair. Couldn’t walk. Could barely use his hands. I helped take care of him. Which is a really weird thing to say—that I took care of my adult brother.”

“Why is that weird?” Her voice is soft, and her hand squeezes mine.

“You just don’t expect to be in that position. Maybe I was Blaze Dalton, in a way.”

A faint smile tugs at her pretty lips. “Were you?”

I shake my head. “Not really. He had carers, or aides as you call them. But, you know, they’re not family. And we don’t live in a castle or on an estate. We all helped. Mum. Dad.” I shrug. “What else can you do?”

“You can’t do anything else.” She swallows roughly. “I’d do the same for my sister, Allison. You just have to help.”

“I was getting ready to move to Paris shortly before the accident. We’d even talked about going together maybe, Ethan and I. He was keen on the idea . . .” My voice trails off momentarily, as the memory of our plans sharpens, images of those days, jogging in London, plotting our next steps, snap before my eyes. “But that didn’t happen. I stayed in London, writing marketing materials for the exhibits at the aquarium and doing translations of them for French visitors. That old marine biology degree came in handy after all, since it enabled me to have a job near home, which meant I could help out, along with my parents. Ethan was so tough, though. Sturdy in his own way. Not saying he was happy about it, but he didn’t let it get him down. At least, not like you’d think it could get you down.”

“That’s incredible. It takes a lot of internal strength, I imagine.”

“He had that.” I sigh. “And the rub is, he was actually managing well enough with his lot in life before he came down with an infection. That’s what did him in.” I shake my head. “The damn irony of it. He died because he couldn’t fight off a basic infection. But before that, he’d even managed to still work.”

“He did?”

“He was an online DJ, so he was fortunate to be able to keep doing a job. Set up a home studio and all that. He drew some contentment, I suspect, from having a modicum of independence. His voice still worked, after all. But he was always very physical. An athlete. And he wanted to do so many things—travel, explore, run more marathons.”

“That’s why you’re training for a marathon,” Joy says, like something has clicked into place for her.

I nod. “Exactly. It’s on the list. Third item. He desperately wanted to do another, so there’s a race in Indonesia I’m planning to do in a couple months. I’ve always wanted to go there, spend some time wandering around when I’m done.”

“I hear Indonesia is beautiful.”

“And warm.”

“Always a plus.”

“He wanted to do other things, too. He wanted to zip-line. Skydive.” I shudder at the last one. “I told him that I loved him to the depths of the ocean and back, but there was no sodding way I was skydiving for him, so he’d better keep that off his list.”

“Did he?” she asks with avid interest.

“Thank the Lord, he did. You couldn’t get me to skydive if you paid me. But ‘live in Paris’ is on the list, so I’m doing that. And so is ‘help someone achieve their dream.’ And that”—my voice softens—“that I can do, too.”

“You really don’t have to do this for free,” she says, her voice thin, like it pains her to accept that there’s no fee.

I lean closer, locking my eyes on hers. “But I want to, Joy. Don’t you see?”

“You’d be doing something massive for me. This isn’t just a let’s be friends and eat ice cream and sniff flowers and perfume request.”

That reminds me how very much I like sniffing her neck. “But I’ll gladly do that for free, too.” I wink.

She laughs but then erases the humor a second later. “I really want to be fair and compensate you for your time.”

“This is fair to me. This is immensely helpful. You’d be doing something vital,” I say, my tone intensely serious, brooking no argument. “I need to do this.”

“Griffin,” she says, but I can tell she knows she’s not winning this debate.

I shake my head and squeeze her hand tighter. “Let me.”

She shrugs, her lips curving in a soft grin. “Okay.”

“Let’s start now,” I say, switching to the language she wants to learn. I do what I’ve been doing for her all along. Translating. But this time, I make her say the words back to me. Then I do something that’ll drive her crazy. I don’t speak English first anymore. During our meal, I talk to her in French about simple things, making her answer in her best stitched-together attempts, correcting her every time she needs it.

By the end of the dinner, she looks exhausted.

She lays her head on the side of the tablecloth. “May I take a nap now?”

I pat her hair. “Poor Joy. Dreams aren’t always easy.”

When the bill comes, she reaches for it.

I do the same.

But she has the check in her fast little fingers already. “No,” she says, quickly standing. “If you’re teaching me French for free, I’m paying for dinner.”

“You can’t pay for dinner.”

She scoffs. “Try and stop me.”

She bolts from the table, bag in hand, and strides to the waiter, who’s clearing another table now. “Voilà. Merci.” She hands him her credit card.

She returns to me, a smug smile on her face. “Oh, by the way, one of the things we American women are quite good at is getting what we want. And sometimes that means blowing through a restaurant like a bull in a china shop.” She shimmies her hips in some kind of victory dance that’s no doubt supposed to be in-your-face, but it makes me want to kick back and watch her move that lush body.

I laugh and hold up my hands in surrender. I should be more devastated that I’m not taking her home to screw her tonight, and an hour ago, I was. But oddly enough, I’m not feeling that way any longer. Maybe because I’m one step closer to something even more important—finishing the list. Getting out of town. Wandering across the world, as I’ve always wanted. I’ve stayed still in London and Paris for the last few years. My innate wanderlust is calling to me. Ethan knew it was a strong force in both of us and perhaps fulfilling the travel wish would be the easiest one for me.

Since we were lads, we wanted to see the world. We’d stay up late, poring over maps and atlases, looking up photos of the craziest, wildest places, then we’d plot how we’d eventually make our way around the globe. We wrote endless lists of our eventual conquests. We pushed pins into maps of the world, intrepid explorers plotting our trips. The Northern Lights in Iceland, the crystal-blue waters lapping beaches in Thailand, the neon streets of Tokyo. We’d sleep under the stars when we had to and when we chose to, as we traversed South America, checking out the tip of Argentina after we traveled through Buenos Aires. We’d hit every continent. We’d avoid the Amazon on account of anacondas, and we vetoed Mount Everest, too, after reading Into Thin Air, one of the many adventure stories we tossed back and forth, its pages dog-eared many times over.

“I’m not going to die on a snow-capped mountain with icy air blasting me,” he’d said when we were in school. “When I go, it better be on some tropical island, surrounded by women in bikinis, serving me drinks.”

“When I go, they won’t be serving me drinks,” I’d said, always upping the ante. “They’ll be serving me.”

“In your dreams.”

In the end, that’s all they were to him.

But not forever, since I’m still here to live them. Some have already come true, and more will. Including another one now, thanks to the woman smiling at me by the door, waiting.

We leave the restaurant, strolling down the avenue as the soft golden lamplight bathes the streets.

“The lights in Paris are different than anyplace else,” Joy says, pointing to the lanterns. “There’s almost a magical sort of glow to them.”

“That’s true,” I answer in French.

She shoots me a smirk. “You’re a very strict teacher.”

I laugh, shifting to English so nothing is lost in translation. “Be a good student or I’ll bend you over the desk and spank you.”

Her eyes light up. “Maybe I want to be bad now.”

I nearly groan, wanting that, too. Wanting all of that. Maybe I do still wish she’d made the other proposition, but for now I’ll have to be content with being her friend, her translator, and her teacher.

“When should our lessons begin?” she asks.

“What are you doing tomorrow after work?”

She points at me. “Learning French with you?”

I nod and smile. “You’re correct. And that does sound like an excellent recipe for a perfect Friday evening activity. The only thing that might make it better is where it takes place.”

I slow my pace, and whisper my idea. Joy’s green eyes turn bright and glittery.

“Elise did say I should partake in all the pleasures in life. She says I need more fun.”

As I wander home later, I find myself wondering why she needs it.