All for You (Paris Nights #1)(68)

Her fingers drifted back up to graze against the hardness of his face, the way his lips defaulted to this firm, you-can’t-read-me line whenever he wasn’t actively smiling at her. “But I don’t really know. Was it brutal?”

“Sometimes.”

She gazed up at him.

He gazed back, somewhere between stubborn and helpless. “Célie. I don’t even know where to start.”

“Start with the diamond ring. Start with when you didn’t buy that and walked away. What happened next?”

He was silent another moment. “Right here? Or can we go somewhere more comfortable?”

“A park? The Seine?”

A tiny pause. “Sure.”

Her face flamed as she thought about what other option he must have been considering—her apartment that was all bed. He lifted a thumb and stroked the blush gently, maybe a tiny touch of color in his cheeks, too.

He pulled her keys out of his pocket and held them up by a single key, around which he wrapped her fingers when he handed them to her. She started to put it in the ignition of her moped, and it didn’t fit.

She looked down at it, puzzled. That didn’t look like one of her keys. She looked back up at Joss, who was smiling.

“I got you a present.”

She stopped smiling. A present that involved a key?

“You know how you always wanted to drive my motorcycle, but I wouldn’t let you, because you were too young?”

“You wouldn’t even let me ride behind you, most of the time.”

“That was for an entirely different reason. It kind of got to me, having you squeeze up behind me and wrap your arms around me to hold on.”


So he’d only let her ride with him if it was either that or ride behind Ludo or another of his friends. He’d never wanted her to ride behind any of them. Ludo was reckless as hell.

“Well.” Joss patted the seat of the aggressive-looking motorcycle parked beside her moped. “I wanted to make up for that.”

Good lord, that bike was for her? She stared at the beautiful machine, all muscle and dark attitude. Part of her leapt in excitement, as if she was some teenager whose parents had given her a car. But she hadn’t had that kind of parents—she hadn’t had a dad at all—and part of her thought, But he’s not my parent.

And … and I bought that moped for myself. With my own money, from my own achievements, to create my own independence.

When I had no one to count on but me.

“You got me a motorcycle?”

“Like it?” Joss looked so pleased with himself.

She rested her hand on the seat of her moped. She didn’t want to throw his gift back in his face. But, but … “I don’t have a license for a motorcycle.”

“I’ll pay for the courses. It’s part of the present.”

“I can afford the courses,” she said, a little indignant. She could afford a motorcycle, too, these days. It was just that she’d gotten attached to her little moped. It was cute, and it made her feel cheerful, and she’d always been able to count on it.

“It’s a present, Célie.” Joss reached out and caught her hand, bringing it to rest on that black leather seat. “I want to do it for you. I wasn’t there to help you as you set out, just as you said.”

Had she said that? She wasn’t sure that was quite what she had meant. Or it certainly wasn’t what she meant now, at twenty-three, grown-up and independent. “I was trying to say something about mutual help, Joss. Doing things together.”

Like … shopping for a motorcycle. Or deciding on the purchase of one.

Of course, they weren’t married or even living together and had barely started dating. As when he had left to join the Legion without talking to her about it, it wasn’t as if he owed her any input into his decisions.

No matter how much they affected her?

“Not just me clinging to you,” she said.

“So you won’t be clinging on behind me.” Joss pushed her hand, still holding the keys, toward the ignition. “You’ll be driving yourself.”

Right. It was a really nice present. Generous, special. Big. Kind of a guy thing to do, really—to give her a beautiful muscle machine, convinced that was the best present any human on the planet could ever want. And she always had liked motorcycles, as he knew.

“Didn’t you need a motorcycle?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I can’t drive two at once. I wanted to get you one first.”

Aww. Wow. Joss loved motorcycles. He rebuilt them. He loved the speed and power and control. And the first bike he bought, once he was free of the Legion, hadn’t been for himself but for her?

Her heart melted. No man she had ever met would have been willing to get his girlfriend an impressive muscle machine in priority over himself. The sweetness of it. Her fingers stroked over the leather seat.

“You don’t like it.”

She looked up quickly. Joss’s face had fallen so low, but at her glance, he immediately schooled it into that neutral expression again.

“Yes, I do!” she said quickly.

He just looked at her, not buying it, his mouth that firm I-can-take-anything line.

“It’s gorgeous. Wow, Joss.”

He searched her face.

“It’s a beast,” she said with delight. “All sleek and aggressive. Driving this thing must be amazing.”