All for You (Paris Nights #1)(27)

But Célie was scowling. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He imagined that scowling position naked, perhaps with some skimpy erotic lace covering certain bits. His grin snuck back out. “You’d definitely be different than their norm.”

Hurt flashed across her face before she covered it with a deepened scowl. “Well, now you’ve dashed all my hopes of building a career out of exposing myself so that perverts can jerk off fantasizing about me.”

Pervert seemed a little harsh there. What else was he supposed to do, find a brothel?

“I always kind of liked the idea of you being unique to me,” he said apologetically.

She stared at him.

He tapped his temple. “My, ah, pin-up girl in here. No one else gets to see.”

Her lips parted. She licked them, and then pressed them abruptly together, stiffening her stance. “I’m going to hit you now.”


He laughed. Damn, she was cute. All those fantasies had gotten so faded and worn-out over time, and her real-life presence recharged them hard. As if they’d been hit by lightning and most definitely needed some kind of surge protector to keep from shorting out his whole system. “Okay. Am I allowed to duck and block, grab my attacker and subdue her, or do you want me to just stand still?”

Grabbing his attacker and locking her in right up close to his chest while she wiggled …

Her hands went back to her head again instead, and she gripped her skull as if to keep it on. “Joss, I can’t put you up in my apartment. It’s basically just a bed with walls.”

Oh, wow, hell. Definitely needed a surge protector there.

“I mean, you can barely squeeze around in it, without falling on the bed.”

Holy shit. His brain fried. His breaths started to come in long and deep, as his whole body went hot and hard.

“You have to go to a hotel.”

He frowned, and his hand tightened around his wrist behind his back. Damn it, she just didn’t get it, did she? How much easier it was for him to be a little uncomfortable than to get far away from her again. He’d already screwed up once by committing to five years away from her. “I think I’m more used to roughing it than you realize. I was enjoying being outside. It’s a nice night. It’s Paris. I suppose you’re used to it being Paris.”

She nodded uncertainly, her arms back across her chest. She just couldn’t stop moving, could she? He’d always loved that contrast with himself, with the way he knew how to be still. And wait for her. “Joss—can you not afford a hotel?” she asked cautiously. “You know I’d help you out, if you needed it, right?”

Right, because that was the whole point of joining the Foreign Legion—coming back to sponge off an old semi-friend’s little sister, helpless to take care of himself. “I’m fine, Célie. I’ve actually got enough for—well, it depends where you want to live, but a nice house in some places or a down payment here.” He nodded at the expensive Paris streets.

She gasped, one hand flying to her lips as she stared at him.

Now what should he not have said? Shit, the Legion lessons were right—a man was really better off, in all circumstances, just keeping his mouth shut.

“A—a house?” she whispered. “For you and me?”

“Not a house here. It’s the Legion, not a millionaire’s club. Here it would have to be an apartment.”

Her head bent. She looked as if she might be on the verge of tears again. He wanted to touch her, but it was night in a romantic city just below her apartment that was all bed, and his body was already so freaking charged up. He tightened his hold on his wrist, struggling to ride out the urge.

“Joss…I know letters aren’t your thing,” she said low, desperate … and angry, too. She lifted her head. “But five years saving up for a house together and you couldn’t have written? Found a phone once in a while and called? Come see me on leave?”

“That wouldn’t really have been fair to you. To ask you to wait for me.” Plus, he hadn’t proved he deserved her yet. Lots of men failed out of the Foreign Legion. And it made his stomach jittery to even think about how much it would have cost him to come see her on leave and then turn around and say good-bye again.

Her hands sank convulsively into her fairy-punk hair. “Oh, my God, I’m going to kill you.”

Well … if she ever did actually go through with that plan to kill him, he couldn’t say at this point that he hadn’t been forewarned.

“Joss.” Her eyes were anxious, confused, pleading. “Please go to a hotel.”

His hand tightened on his wrist behind his back until it hurt. Fine.

So he went to a damn hotel. Some cheap place that was the closest he could find to her apartment, where he looked out the window at the wall of the other building across the alley and some guy deliberately exposing himself to the hotel guests, instead of up at Célie’s window. He tilted his head back to catch a glimpse of Paris night sky, a tepid darkness compared to the black and starry sky in Mali or Afghanistan. Hell. Now those were real skies.

He’d like to take Célie to see a real sky sometime. Not in a war zone, but somewhere safe. She’d love it.

But meanwhile, she was in her apartment a couple of blocks over, and he was here, closed in, with this stupid, empty bed behind him and some guy mooning him from the fourth floor across the way.