All for You (Paris Nights #1)(67)
Every single other bouquet Célie had ever held in her hands, she had bought for herself, on the way home from work. She reached for it, forgetting the kiss, and found herself blocked by the box of chocolates she held. “I brought you something, too.” She lifted it to him.
“In that case, maybe I’m the one who owes you a kiss.” He bent his head again, and she parted her lips for him, so utterly, terrifyingly happy at the heat of his, at the reality of this fantasy, that she felt lost in it.
He got lost, too, his arm sliding around her, the bouquet pressing against her back as he deepened the kiss, until a wolf whistle sounded from one of the casement windows above. Joss lifted his head and raised an eyebrow in the direction of the window, and Célie twisted around to try the extra-mean-Foreign Legion look on Amand.
Amand laughed and blew her a kiss. Then his expression grew just a tad more careful, and he withdrew.
Célie twisted back toward Joss, gazing at him suspiciously. “Don’t threaten my friends.”
“What?” Joss asked, surprised. “I only looked at him.”
She narrowed her eyes and tried to give him that Legionnaire look.
“God, you’re cute.” He pressed the bouquet into her hand, taking the chocolate box. “Let’s trade.”
So Célie found herself gazing down at the sweetest, most beautiful, most romantic bouquet, and her lips trembled again.
“Do you like them? There were so many beautiful ones I had a hard time making up my mind. All those flowers,” Joss said, rather wonderingly.
She stroked the flowers, thinking of Joss without chocolates, without softness, for five years. “Not so many flowers in the Foreign Legion?”
He shook his head.
“Tell me about it.” She took his hand as they walked toward her moped. Dom’s big black motorbike was parked beside it, and somebody had parked another aggressive, built-for-speed motorcycle on the other side, but her little moped was refusing to be intimidated.
“Not sure what to tell. It was … challenging. And interesting. And sometimes hideously boring.” He fell silent. “Tough a few times, too,” he finally allowed.
She waited, but by the time they got to her moped, it was pretty obvious he wasn’t going to elaborate.
“Joss!”
He shrugged.
“Where were you posted?”
“Afghanistan, quite a bit. Mali.” He shrugged again.
She stood by her moped, waiting.
He ate a chocolate, his lips softening around the flavor.
“Joss!”
“Ah, this is where you got that chocolate on your skin.” His gaze moved over her face and lingered on her lips. “There’s a kick to it.”
She put her hands on her hips. “You never, ever talk to me.”
He studied her that way he always had when he wasn’t going to let her get away with any melodramatic bullshit. “Never, Célie?”
See? And right there, she remembered all the times they’d talked, all the times she’d bounced around him while he sat on a wall listening to her and occasionally sharing something quiet and true about his own thoughts. “Not about anything important!” she said defiantly.
Hazel eyes just held hers, stubborn and green and gold. “None of those things were important to you?”
Darn it! Joss always did that to her. Won arguments just by highlighting the truth and putting her on the spot with it. “You didn’t tell me you were thinking about joining the Foreign Legion!”
“Nobody ever tells his family and friends he’s going to join the Foreign Legion. Too damn independent-minded and proud, I guess. Plus, you can’t do something like that, if you give someone you care about the chance to talk you out of it.”
“You think I could have talked you out of it?” Célie immediately fantasized a time machine, just jumping into it and catching Joss before he stepped onto the train south and …
“You would have cried. I always wanted to hit someone when you cried.”
She gaped at him. “Oh, so it’s fine if you’re making me cry by myself behind my bed but not if you have to see it?”
His gaze lowered.
She knuckled her forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know I have to let that go.” She rested her hand on his chest, taking a deep breath.
He covered her hand with his. “I didn’t … imagine any of that, when I was thinking about it. I imagined me coming home covered in glory, that kind of thing. I guess you’re right that despite how well I thought I knew you, I never really imagined what it was like for you at all.”
Her lips twisted, this rueful blend of pain and a genuine desire to forgive.
His fingers tightened gently over hers. “And you imagined what it was like for me all the time, didn’t you?”
She shrugged, her mouth turning down.
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her palm.
Oh.
Oh.
The incredible sweetness of that.
“But I don’t really know what it was like,” she whispered. “I can see a little bit of it.” Her fingers traced lightly over his biceps, the muscles of his forearms, his ridged abs. He’d always been in great shape, always determined to be one of the strongest guys in their cité, but he was so much harder now, with this mean leanness to all that muscled strength, as if he hadn’t always gotten enough food to support all the effort his body was making.