Trust Me (Paris Nights #3)(58)

She turned to face him, his face once again hard to read in the one low lamp on the table by the couch, left on so she didn’t have to come back to the dark. He gazed down at her, from shadow.

“I asked you how you felt about being used for sex,” Lina said softly. Jake took a harsh breath, stiffening. She lifted a hand to his chest. “I never asked you how you felt about sex that wasn’t using. That asked for more and offered more.”

Jake said nothing for a moment, then took her hand and shifted it to the left side of his chest, pressing it down, so that she could feel his heart. Thumping like mad. “Well outside my area of expertise.”

“Scared?” she teased very gently. Because she wanted to see if that might be true.

He hesitated a long moment. “You ever been surfing?”

Funny he should think about waves, too. She shook her head.

“When we were in Hawaii for training one time, we took up surfing in our down time and we hung out with this guy, a world champion surfer.”

Of course they did. They were exactly the kind of world-class, self-confident athletes who would hit it off with a world champion in another field. “Even though you’re not an adrenaline junkie?”

His lips curved, but he didn’t lose his focus. “He said he always felt fear when he faced a forty-foot wave. Every time. But you could either push through or pull back. Pushing through was courage—you got to ride the wave. Pulling back only meant regret for the chance you had lost.”

Yeah. She pressed into him, her head tucking into his chest, just holding on for a moment to savor exactly how he felt against her. And then she framed his face in her hands, went up on tiptoe, and kissed him.

No regrets on me.

Not ever. She’d always been one to seize her chances, even before she’d learned how ephemeral a chance could be.

Jake made a hungry sound, his palms running down her arms until he held both her hands, kissing her. For one moment he seemed to hold himself back, like a man on a brink, and then he sank into it, his hands loosing hers to slide over her butt and back, pulling her into him.

The heat of him wrapped all around her. Perfect. To be facing him at last, to be able to wrap her hands around his shoulders and pull her body flush against his, crush her breasts against his chest. How fragile she had been that day she had suggested sex only, when she had been too afraid even to trust in this.

And he was there. When I was fragile and could easily have been broken by a harsh stranger, he held me carefully.

Her kiss deepened, her hands running over his shoulders and biceps, up his back, down over his butt, trying to absorb the shape of him. Lean and powerful and perfect.

She didn’t know how long they kissed, learning each other, learning kissing. But Jake’s shoulder holster kept getting in the way of her stroking hands, as did the knife along his belt line at his lower back, and he pulled away to strip those off.

His grip tightened instinctively on the holster before he could set it down, though. “Just a second,” he murmured. “Sorry.”

It took him only a minute to efficiently check out every possible corner of her Parisian-size apartment, and a few more minutes standing against the wall by the windows, studying the street. “Sorry,” he said again, turning back to her.

Ah, yes. That compulsion to make sure he had everything possible under control and right. She knew it well. Had built her career on it, as he must have.

She came up to him and tucked herself against him, gazing down the street from that shelter. She used to love this view. It made her feel so happy to live in Paris, to be her—sufficiently successful in her field that she could afford a place in Paris with a good view. Now she wondered if she might rather find an apartment whose windows only gave onto the courtyard.

Jake shifted suddenly and scooped her up in his arms. She gave a startled laugh, clutching at his shoulders, distracted from the view.

He gave her that slight and this time rather wicked smile. “It’s fun to be the biggest in the room.”

Ha. “Don’t let it go to your head,” she said, but she was laughing now. “Most of the guys in my kitchen are bigger than I am, and I still rule.” She grinned up at him.

“I noticed,” he said. But he didn’t seem to feel in the least threatened by a woman who could rule. With the gun and knife still held in their holster and sheath in one hand, he carried her into the bedroom. Set her down. Set his weapons down on her dresser and turned on the lamp, its golden glow warming the whole room against the dark.

Then he turned back toward her and studied her up and down with a gleam in his eye that made all her nerves dance with excitement. He took a step forward, and then another, backing her up to the bed.

She lost all patience, grabbed his shirt, and pushed it off his shoulders. But of course he had to go and dress in layers. So she grabbed his T-shirt next and pushed it up his body.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Those hard abs tightening under her hands. Those freckles everywhere. That taut belly of his had even been protected enough from the sun that the little dots separated into individual brown and reddish points against the paler skin. She spread her fingers over them, trying to catch as many as she could.

Sandy brown chest hair, maybe a hint of the reddish tones in his hair. Not too thick. Just perfect. She ran her fingers through it, tested the strength of his pecs. He grabbed the edge of his T-shirt and ripped it the rest of the way off his shoulders, dropping it.