CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

A blue and white teapot called out to her. Ceramic, with a line of blue ivy snaking along the top, it was pretty and artsy at the same time. Her hand darted out, carefully avoiding the mass of kitchen items crowding it on a table at a sidewalk vendor. Grabbing the teapot, she held it in front of her, brandishing it for Michael’s opinion.

“I need this, don’t I?”

They were at the marché aux puces at Porte de Vanves, a massive weekend flea market, spread across many blocks.

He gave her an inquisitive stare. “Didn’t you buy a teapot yesterday at a fancy shop in the Marais?”

Busted.

“I know,” she said with a pout. They’d wandered all over Paris the last few days, seeing museums, stopping at bakeries, popping into shops, strolling along the Seine, and flipping through vintage postcards at the street-side dealers. She stroked the porcelain. “But it is so pretty.”

He shook his head, laughing, and squeezed her shoulder. “I would never have pegged you as such a hoarder.”

“I just like cute little objects. If you came to my flat, you’d see. I have all sorts of little trinkets,” she said, nudging his side, trying to convince him.

“Someday,” he said softly, looking away.

She chose not to press. He hadn’t been to her home yet. His trip was only to last for four days. He’d booked a hotel room, and she’d spent her nights there and the days traveling across the city with him. She understood why he didn’t want to stay at her house. He had been upfront about it.

“I want to make new memories with you,” he’d said. “I hope you understand I just can’t step foot in the place where you lived with your husband. Not yet.”

Her home was rich with history, with the story of her time with another man. She couldn’t fault Michael for not being ready to open the green door to her two-bedroom apartment and walk inside. She didn’t want him to feel like a second choice, because he never felt that way to her, so they’d stayed away, enjoying a little vacation in a hotel room.

She set down the teapot and took his hand, threading her fingers through his. He glanced down at their joined hands and dropped a kiss to her cheek. She shuddered at the sparks that raced through her, even from a little kiss like that. He was so affectionate, and he loved touching her. Holding her hand. Wrapping an arm around her. Planting kisses on her face. Anywhere and everywhere. She loved walking through Paris with him touching her so possessively, as if he was telling all the world that she belonged to him.

“My father and mother used to take me here when I was younger. To this flea market,” she reminisced as they wove through the crowds of shoppers along this stretch of vendors. “They loved to bargain shop. My father would come here to buy tools and skeleton keys and dusty old books. Funny thing is, he never actually used them. We had to donate them all when he passed on.”

“Why did he want them?”

“Honestly, I think he loved to haggle.”

Michael nodded. “Now that makes sense. I’m quite good at haggling. You should see me do it. It’s amazing that Ryan thinks he’s the negotiator for our firm, but it’s really me. I make sure we get the best deals.”

She squeezed his fingers. “Will you haggle for me then? For the teapot?”

He arched an eyebrow, and they stopped, other bargain hunters pushing past them, bumping and nudging in hot pursuit of a deal on corduroy jackets, old costume jewelry, baroque mirrors, and more.

He lowered his mouth to her ear. “Will it turn you on so much that it makes you want to fuck me again?”

She shivered in response. “That’s a silly question. I pretty much always want to with you.”

“But will you want to even more?” he asked, his voice gritty, dirty. He ran his fingers down her arm. Since it was November, she wore a jacket, but goose bumps still rose on her flesh.

She stood on tiptoe and leaned in close to him. “I’m already turned on from the question.”

“Let’s get your teapot,” he said, turning around.

Suddenly, the flea market had become foreplay.

They returned to her teapot seller. “Combien ça coûte?” How much?

“Cinquante euros,” the man barked back. A cigarette dangled between his yellowed teeth. Fifty euros.

Michael shook his head, offering twenty. “Vingt.”

The man scoffed. Waved his arm dismissively. Flubbed his lips. “Quarante. Pas moins!” Forty. No less.

Michael huffed. “Ça ne les vaut pas.” That’s not worth it.

The vendor sneered, growled, crossed his arms. Michael rounded on his heel, and Annalise’s eyes widened. He was walking away.

“Revenez,” the man called out. Come back.

Michael turned and waited. The man wrapped up the teapot, and handed it over in a flimsy white plastic bag. His annoyance was part of the game. Michael handed him the bills. “Merci.”

As they strolled away, he whispered to her, “Did it work?”

“Hot and bothered.”

“Let’s see how much.”

She tipped her head to a café across the street, the words Bouledogue painted across the front in red letters, alongside an illustration of a canine of the same breed. Once inside, they took the staircase to the basement where restaurant bathrooms were usually located. Michael rapped on the door. Empty.

He tugged her inside, locked the door, and hung the plastic bag with the teapot from a hook.

He thumbed the hem of her skirt. “I love that you wear skirts with me now.”

“I’ve learned my lesson.”

Wrapping an arm around her, he tilted up her chin so she looked at him. His eyes searched hers, full of so much passion that she heated up all over, her skin tingling. He pushed a strand of hair away from her face and kissed a path along her jawline. Her legs turned to jelly. Her knees went weak, and heat pooled between her legs, dampening her panties. One kiss, one touch, and she was ready.

He ran a hand along the inside of her thigh, and she quivered, melting into him. He gripped her waist and backed her up so she was pressed to the door. Cupping her jaw in his hand, he gazed into her eyes. Her mouth fell open, and the entirety of the universe narrowed to the way he stared at her, drawing out the anticipation. To his beautiful face. To his words as he said, “Now, let me fuck you, my love.”

Her eyes floated closed, and she lingered in the rapturous bliss of his way with her. His need for her was so intense it nearly scared her. Except it didn’t, because she knew precisely how he felt. The same need drove her. Made her want to smash into him, grind her body against his, bring him close and then closer still. Want thrummed between them, radioactive in its intensity. Her hands worked open his jeans, unzipping them, freeing his cock. The aching desire to be filled by him spread to every bone, every nerve, every cell. She ran her hand along his hard length, thrilling at the feel—the skin so damn soft, while he was so incredibly hard.

Then his hands grabbed her ass, and she let go of him. In seconds he’d lifted her, wrapped her legs around his waist, and tugged her panties to the side.

“Michael, do I have to be quiet?”

He shook his head as he rubbed his cock against her wetness, sending an electrical charge through her. “I don’t care who knows that you’re in heaven when I fuck you.” He eased inside her, and that current surged, igniting her, crackling through her being. Her head fell back and she moaned. Loudly.

Heaven.

That was precisely what this was. Sex with Michael was a faraway land of ecstasy, of endless fiery pleasure. “It’s so good, there’s no way I can be quiet,” she murmured.

“Then moan. Cry. Scream. It doesn’t matter to me. Fucking you is something only I get to do, and I don’t care who knows how completely consumed you are.”

“I am. I am consumed.”

His fingers dug into her ass as he thrust. Deeper. Harder. Farther.

He pumped, swiveling his hips, pushing, his cock moving in sharp jabs that sent ripples of desire everywhere. Each one was more powerful than the last. He dipped his face to her neck, whispering her name as he fucked her. Whispering kisses across her skin that made her shiver. That made her burn. “You knew it would be like this with us, right?”

She nodded on a breathless pant as he stroked inside her. “Yes, God yes. I knew.”

“You knew I would need to take you like this.” He growled as his shaft rubbed against her clit, hitting her just right.

“Anywhere. Everywhere,” she said.

His breath came fast, ragged against her skin. “I can’t hold back from wanting you like this. From fucking you against doors. From making you come.”

His hips moved in relentless thrusts; her back slammed against the wood. Her body sought more of him, chasing the release. “Michael,” she groaned. “I need to come so badly.”

“Come on me, my love. All over me,” he said, and she knew from his pace, from the low timbre of his voice that his climax was imminent, too. She knew also from this deep, exquisite ache in her body, and most of all from the mad fury in her heart, that he was fucking her into falling. That his words and his deeds and his care and his love made it impossible not to fall for him again.

With his dirty voice in her ear, alternating between sweet nothings like you’re so fucking beautiful, and harsh growls of get there, fucking come for me, she broke. Her orgasm crashed over her, swept through her, stole her senses.

She cried out.

He grunted, with a deep, powerful thrust. His orgasm followed hers, their bodies shuddering, their hearts beating fast. A minute later he lowered her, holding her waist, letting her find her land legs again.

When she did, she cupped his cheeks and looked deeply in his eyes. “I’m falling.”

He sighed happily, as if she’d taken the weight of the world off his shoulders. His eyes shimmered with something that looked like joy. “Then I’ll catch you.”

She pressed her face to his jawline, rubbing her cheek against his stubble, terrified and elated at the same damn time.

Terrified that now that she loved again, she could lose again, and that her heart couldn’t be put back together a second time.

* * *

They crossed the Seine on the walk to his hotel, stopping to gaze at the slate-gray river and the city unfolding on each side. Fog drifted over the water, curling like smoke as night fell on Paris. Streetlamps cast their halo glow on the sidewalks. He’d only been to Paris once before, for a brief stay during his overseas service. That was a functional trip.

This was a dream come true.

Especially when Annalise tilted her face to look at him, a sweet smile on her red lips. “How are we going to do this, Michael?”

He brushed a thumb across her cheek. Not touching her was impossible. “Like we’ve been doing,” he said, since he wasn’t going to let time zones be an issue.

“Does the distance scare you?”

He shook his head. “Nothing scares me now that you’re back in my life,” he said, though that wasn’t entirely true. He was afraid of something. He was terribly fearful that she’d never love him like she’d loved her husband. That was why he wouldn’t go to her home. He was afraid she only had so much to give, and that he would get the crumbs of her broken heart and always long for more of her.

“I don’t want us to fall apart. I don’t want us to lose touch,” she said, gripping his shirt. “I want a chance with you. A real chance.”

His fears evaporated into the night. Her words were a blanket wrapped around him. “We’ll make this work. You’ll come see me, I’ll come see you, and we’ll meet in the middle.”

She grinned, her bright smile lighting up her emerald eyes. “We will meet in the middle,” she repeated.

They resumed their pace. As they neared his hotel, she stopped and pointed. “That’s my favorite passage. I just want to grab a coffee,” she said, and they headed into the covered shopping arcade, still open in the evening. They strolled past a map shop, and he glanced in the window. “Cool maps,” he remarked.

“We used to love that store,” she said casually, then cut her words off like they’d been sliced.

We.

He winced. The reminder that she’d been a “we.” That she was still, somehow, part of that we.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said, trying to let it go.

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

That was the thing. She probably didn’t. It was simply her baseline, her norm, her we.

And it was his hurdle. His Achilles’ heel. His wish that they could be her we.