CHAPTER NINE
THE PLACE WAS like something out of a storybook and Jasmine couldn’t contain her sense of excitement, excitement that made no sense. Here she was, without a penny to her name, no ID, no passport, stuck on a remote and practically abandoned estate in France with a man who was running from someone, most likely the police.
And yet things had never felt so right.
There must be something wrong with her.
Maybe it was the fact that Luca had almost kissed her in the orchard.
You are getting some tonight! Her inner critic had even traded in her sarcasm for a little bit of excitement.
With a skip to her step, Jasmine followed Luca up to the terrace where the older gentleman waited for them. He spoke rapidly to Luca, pointing inside the house and then gesturing to the grounds. After they finished, the man met her gaze and bobbed his head.
“Bonjour, mademoiselle.”
“Bonjour,” Jasmine said, liking the feel of the French word on her tongue.
“Monsieur Gauthier, this is Jasmine,” Luca introduced them.
In halting English, the man greeted her and welcomed her before turning his attention back to Luca. They ended their conversation with a handshake and the man left by way of a path around the house. When they went back inside, there were three baskets full of staples waiting for them on the kitchen table. Bread, cold meat, cheese, butter, milk, flour, sugar, coffee, and fruit and vegetables that were not in plastic bags but looked like they’d just been pulled fresh from the garden...there was even a box full of pastries.
In addition, stacked in an ironed pile, were freshly laundered linens.
“Why don’t you go make up the beds,” Luca said, “while I put lunch together?”
Beds? Did Luca say beds?
Oh, hell, no. There were not going to be any “beds” for them. One bed. One for both of them. However, that would all be sorted later, so Jasmine took the linens—which smelled like sunshine—to the first bedroom on the main floor. She pulled the dustcover off the queen-sized mattress and got to work. Once she was done, she couldn’t help but lie down on top of it. The mattress was a little firm, but that was okay. She gazed up at the high ceilings with the old beams running across. There was a gorgeous antique chandelier above the bed—a little dusty, but still pretty. The bed had one of those old-fashioned canopies arching up from the headboard, which contributed to her sense of being caught up in some modern-day fairy tale. The furniture wasn’t buffed to a high polish like the furniture in her hotel, but was nicked and worn, as if well used.
She shut her eyes, and just like last night, images of Luca filtered through her brain, though with less clarity than her constructed fantasy.
Luca, damp after his shower.
Luca’s hard body in front of her as they raced through the streets of Paris.
Luca, smiling seductively with the sun dappling his face through the foliage in the orchard.
Luca kissing her in a way no one had ever kissed her.
Luca...just Luca...
* * *
Where had she gone? How long did it take her to make up a couple of beds?
When Jasmine didn’t return, Luca went in search of her and found her curled up in the middle of the bed in the master bedroom. Sound asleep.
Instead of closing the door and letting her rest, like he should have, Luca walked softly into the room and sat on the bed beside her. What was it about this woman that compelled him to do such irrational things, like watch her sleep? He’d only known her for twenty-four hours, yet already he felt the need to crawl up beside her and fit her slight body within the circle of his arms and hold her.
Protect her.
Make love to her.
Then do it again and make her scream in ecstasy...
What the fuck is your problem? You barely know her.
Luca got up carefully, so as not to wake her, picked up the rest of the linens and left the room to make up the bed in the room down the hall. After that was done he went back to the kitchen and ate, though his thoughts were still on his unwanted guest.
Unwanted? Really? Or is it that you want her too much?
With a groan, Luca put together another open-faced sandwich with a thick slice of bread, a slab of meat and some creamy cheese, and decided it was time to get busy. He spent the next hour removing dust covers from furniture, testing light bulbs and fixtures to make sure everything was in working order, and then going to check on the hot water boiler. There was an old bag of wood pellets—he had to get some more soon—that he dumped in the burner before lighting the pilot light. Hot water should be ready in thirty minutes. Then he made his way to the garage.
He spent another couple of hours in the garage and in the boathouse, cleaning and checking the old vehicles and boats. After so many hours working in the dust, he returned to the house and headed straight for the bathroom. After cranking the stiff tap and letting the water run through pipes that had grown rusty from disuse, he stuck his hand under the spray to test it. Scaldingly hot. Perfect.
He dropped his clothes and stepped under the spray, rubbing the dust from his skin and hair. There hadn’t been room to bring anything other than their toothbrushes and a change of clothes, they’d have to pick up toiletries tomorrow.
How long would she want to stay?
How long did he want her to stay?
Honestly? Luca didn’t know. He was completely conflicted over his surprise American guest. His logical side insisted he drive her to Nevers tomorrow so she could catch a train back to Paris.
His physical side?
Luca glanced down, noting the growing evidence of what his physical side wanted. He wanted her naked. On her back. Her legs parted. Her dark hair fanned out on a white pillow. Her lips swollen from having been wrapped around his cock...
He grasped his erection. Jesus, he needed some relief. There was an old cake of soap on a shelf and though it was as hard as a rock, after moistening it, it eventually lathered, giving off a honey and lavender scent. Once he had created some suds in his hand, Luca slid it along his length. He leaned against the tiled wall and shut his eyes, letting his imagination take over as he fisted himself.
Fuck, it had been too long.
“May I?”
Luca’s eyes popped open.
He dropped the soap and stood dumbfounded, his erection pointing straight at the object of his desire.
Jasmine stood just inside the curtain—she was stealthy, this one—completely nude. Luca took in her naked body, as if the vision of her could be absorbed through every pore. Her hair, her sultry gaze, her parted lips, her narrow shoulders and full breasts. Her slim waist and curving hips.
Her bare pussy.
He’d known it.
“Would you like me to?”
“To what?” His question came out as a growl.
“To finish.” Her gaze dropped to his erect penis. “For you.”
Luca fought with himself for all of a nanosecond.
Then she wet her lips, biting down on the bottom one before slowly raising her gaze, a sinful question in her shy smile.
That was it. Battle over.
She had won.
“Yes. Oh, fuck, yes.”
But when she grasped the backs of his legs so that she could lower herself to her knees in front of him, her mouth level with his erection while water sluiced down into her upturned face, Luca realized Jasmine hadn’t won.
He had.
* * *
She’d woken up disorientated. But it hadn’t lasted long. Particularly when she’d padded out into the hallway and heard the water running in the bathroom.
Luca was taking a shower.
This was her fantasy. Except she wasn’t imagining it; it was happening right here in real time.
Fuck fantasy.
It was time to start living instead of spending so much time wrapped up in her imagination. Without wasting one more second, Jasmine had stripped out of her clothes and left them lying in the hallway. She’d thought for sure Luca would hear her coming into the bathroom so she’d moved straight up to the curtain and pulled it back, only to come face to face with the rawest, sexiest thing she’d ever seen.
Luca was leaning against the wall, naked—a fucking Adonis—with the nicest, hardest cock held firmly in his fist.
Pumping.
She’d blurted, “May I?”
The second Luca had opened his eyes and stood there, all naked and proud, she knew he wouldn’t say no.
And he hadn’t.
Without even thinking about what she was doing, Jasmine dropped to her knees in front of him and took him in her hands. He groaned at her touch. Groaned. Like what she was doing felt good to him. Like he liked it.
God. It made her feel so...powerful.
Wrapping her fingers around him—sweet Jesus, the man was well proportioned—Jasmine tried to mimic his earlier movements. She must have been getting it right, because his stomach muscles contracted as he thrust his hips forward and he muttered darkly in French.
Reality and fantasy merged, and Jasmine didn’t even have to think anymore. She just did. She lifted her face to the spray and opened her mouth, catching water until her mouth was full and leaning forward, guiding Luca into the warm bath between her lips. Displaced water gushed down her chin as she took him in.
The harsh, guttural sounds he made encouraged her to take him deeper, and then deeper still, until she couldn’t breathe. Then slowly, slowly, she withdrew until his tip rested against her lips. She circled the head of him with her tongue; he tasted faintly of lavender soap and man, and it was like nothing she’d experienced before.
Better than her fantasies.
Better than—
“Jasmine...”
She’d never heard her name spoken in that tone before, with reverence, like her name could invoke magic...dark magic. Hazarding a glance up through the spray, Jasmine met Luca’s lust-crazed gaze while she played his cock back and forth across her parted lips.
This was what she wanted. What she’d always dreamed about in a lover. Someone to look at her with absolute desire. She couldn’t get enough. She loved the way his penis pulsed in her fist. She loved the way Luca’s hands had found their way to her hair, threading though her damp tresses and holding on with a ferocity that spoke of carnal need.
She loved the savage grunts he made, seemingly against his will.
Opening her mouth wide, she took him inside again, sucking in a way she hoped matched his ferocity. This time, when she withdrew, she gently dragged her teeth along his length, not caring about whether he liked it or not, but simply doing it because she wanted to.
By his reaction—thrusting his hips toward her—he liked it. So she licked and sucked and trailed her nails up the inside of his thighs, beneath his balls and then down his length and Luca cried out.
“Fuck, woman.” He took hold of his cock and turned himself away. Then he reached down and pulled her to her feet. “You’re going to make me lose it.”
“I thought that was the idea.”
“Non,” he said softly.
Jasmine’s heart would have plummeted from insecurity if not for the obvious flame of desire in his gaze.
“I need to make you come first.”