Griffin

I cross the street, wild excitement stirring inside me. It’s the thrill of hope. It’s the rush of a brand-new start. It’s everything I feel when I see her face—exuberance, desire, and this great and wild love.

She stands, dazed, in front of her pink doorway, eyes wide open. My Joy, framed by the boldest of bold colors, just the way she likes it. A vision in peach and pink and all that red spilling over her shoulders.

When I reach her, I say two simple words. “Bonsoir.”

“Bonsoir.” It comes out breathy, full of wonder.

Her lips part as if she’s trying to say more, but no words come. Instead, she raises her hand, tugs at my shirt, then flings her arms around me. I reciprocate, pulling her close.

She melts against me, and it feels spectacular. This is a welcome home the likes of which men climb mountains for. I’m not sure what I did to deserve it, but as she draws her nose down my neck, inhaling me in the way that only she can, I know I’ll take it.

Every day.

She lets her arms fall from me, places her hands on my chest, and looks in my eyes. Her gaze is curious, quizzical. “Did you get my email?”

I nod. “About an hour and a half ago, when I landed. There was no Wi-Fi on the seventeen-hour flight.”

Her brow furrows. “Wait. What? You only got my email an hour ago and you’re here?” She points to the ground, as if she needs to make sure I know where we are.

But I know. Hell, do I ever know where I am and where I want to be.

“I was already on my way,” I say, running a hand up her bare arm. I’m a starving man. I’ve gone too long without touching her. I need contact. Need to feel her skin. She shivers as my fingers reach her shoulder. “I thought you were in Texas. I was sure you’d taken the job there, and I was about to buy a ticket all the way from Bali to Austin.”

“You were?” she whispers.

“I was. I was going to find you wherever you were.”

“In Texas?”

“You say that like it’s the height of insanity.”

She shakes her head as if she’s shaking off water. “I’m just surprised.”

“Joy, if you’d gone to Mount Everest I’d have purchased a ticket there. If you were in the Arctic Circle, that’s where I’d have traveled to.”

A grin crosses her lips and seems intent on staying there. “How’d you wind up here, then?”

I brush my fingers back down to her wrist. “I figured it would be wiser to call a friend before I bought a ticket, so I rang Christian and he told me you’d decided to stay, so I came back.”

“Because of me?” Her voice wobbles.

I thread my fingers through hers, clasping tight. She squeezes back. “Yes. Because of you. It’s all because of you. You were right on the train, and I wasn’t ready to hear it then. I had to fly five thousand miles and run another twenty-six before I was whacked with the it’s-so-damn-obvious stick.”

“Did it hurt?” she asks playfully, and that pitch-perfect dry sense of humor is part and parcel of why I’d fly five thousand miles again and again to see her.

“It felt good. Sometimes a man needs to be whacked with the sheer obviousness of his life. It was so crystal clear, and now I have a new list. Do you want to hear it?”

“I do.”

I let go of her hand, take out a sheet of paper from my pocket, unfold it, and clear my throat.

She throws her arms around my neck once more. “I do believe you can have it all.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Are you saying you want to have your cake and eat it, too?”

“Cake is always a good idea.”

“So is falling in love. So is staying in love. So is staying together. What do you say we do that?”

She quirks up her lips, and her bright green eyes twinkle with mischief. When she answers me, she’s not speaking the language she knows best. “I’d say you have yourself a deal.”

I cup her cheeks, hold her face, and kiss her. Like that, we make the world disappear. It’s us, kissing on the street, coming back together.

Coming home.

She’s who I always want to return to. Every night.

When at last we pull apart, she’s breathless and flushed. It’s a look I like seeing on her. It’s a look I want to make sure she always wears.

She nibbles on one corner of her lips and glances at her watch. “Elise is waiting for me. I should go tell her you’re having me for dinner.”

I laugh. “She already knows.”

“What?”

“I might have been impulsive in surprising you. But I’m not stupid. I called my mate, he called your friend, and they made sure you’d be home when I was arriving.”

“You clever man,” she says appreciatively as she unlocks the pink door. “I guess she’s not waiting for me at the café on the corner.”

“No, I don’t think she is.”

“So, seventeen hours on a plane,” she muses as she tugs me to the staircase. “You must be exhausted.”

“Yes. I want to go to sleep straight away,” I say drily, since nothing could be further from the truth. I slept soundly on the plane. “Any chance I could crash here?”

She laughs. “Yes, feel free to crash on my couch. I’ll be quiet.”

“You’ve never been quiet,” I say, and I smack her ass as she heads up the steps.

“You’re the one to blame for all my noise.”

“I’d like to always be the one to blame for that.”

Soon, we’re up all those damn stairs. The door bangs shut, and our hands grab at each other. I can’t stop kissing her, can’t stop touching her.

“I don’t know how I thought I could do without you,” I say.

“Don’t then.”

I push up her skirt, tug down her knickers, and press her hard to the wall. In seconds, my jeans are undone, and I push in as her body welcomes me. I still when I’m inside her, letting the fantastic reality of my life set in. I’m back where I belong.

A shudder racks my body as I start to move in her. She ropes her hands around my neck and pulls my face closer, kissing me the whole time. Her red lips never stop claiming mine—rough, fierce, demanding.

I hike up her leg and wrap it around my hip, going deeper. She moans, loud and long, noisy, like she promised she’d be. She sounds like she’s getting lost in us again. Like she did every time. Like I want her to do all the time. I want her to get lost with me so I can be the one to find her.

Soon, she’s trembling, and I watch as her pleasure moves through her, as she dissolves into my arms, and before I know it, I follow her there, and we come back together.

“Thanks for the postscript,” she murmurs.

I laugh as I tug her close. “You always get the postscript.”

* * *

After another time, and yet another, we flop onto her couch, spent. She plays with my hair, and my stomach growls. “You must be hungry,” she says.

I lift up her skirt. “Why, yes, let’s do it again.”

She swats at me. “Hungry for dinner.”

“Sure.”

Fifteen minutes later, we’re at the café around the corner, where she orders for us then sets down her menu. “So, you’re back in Paris. Did Sophie keep her place for you?”

I shake my head. “She rented it.”

Joy taps her chin. “Hmm. Interesting.”

“Is that interesting?”

“You’ve come back to Paris without a place to live. You must really like me.”

“Hmm. I guess I do.”

“It’s going to be hard living on the streets, isn’t it?”

“So rough. But I’ll make do.”

“I can toss you a blanket if you need.”

“Oh, please, don’t put yourself out. I have a bench I plan to sleep under.”

“That sounds fabulous.” She spreads her napkin on her lap. “But just in case that doesn’t work out . . .”

“You have something else in mind?”

She shrugs as she smirks. “I suppose you could live with me.”

I reach for her hand. “I would love to climb eighty-four steps every day and every night with you.”

She narrows her eyes, stares at me. “You’re not going to run off to Iceland or Russia or the Amazon, are you?”

“I have everything I want right here in front of me.”

“Good. Because I’m not going anywhere. Turns out this city suits me.”

“It suits you perfectly.”

She slides her hand across the table. “Stay with me.”

“I will.”

As we dine, and talk, and laugh, and then stroll back to our home, I’m aware every moment that this is exactly where I want to be.

Here, now, and for always.