All for You (Paris Nights #1)(71)

He was silent for a moment, and then said simply: “That’s hard. That’s really, really hard.”

Her arms slid around him and tightened, holding on as well as she could.

Damn it.

Joss stared at the sky. Shit, was she pitying him now? “You know what’s really hard?” he said suddenly. “Doing all that and coming back and realizing I’m still not your hero. I’m just the guy who screwed up with you when I was barely twenty-one.”

Célie’s head shot up from his chest. He watched his words shock across her face, and then the shock slowly subside into something very serious as she stared at him.

He made himself shrug. “But I’ve done plenty of hard things. I told you. I don’t really know how to quit just because it’s hard. You’re the only stop button I’ve got.”

Célie’s forehead crinkled slowly, her fingers worrying at his chest. “I’m sorry, Joss. I think you’re amazing. I always have.”

Frustration tightened in him. “But I’m different now. Can’t you tell that? I couldn’t be amazing then and now. The word doesn’t even mean anything, if you can use it for both men. You’re just patting me on the head.” The incredible frustration, to pack himself with so much power and accomplishment and come back and find himself patted on the head while she wished for the man he’d been before. To be blamed for it. Hell, the only person who’d seemed to recognize what he’d made of himself was Jaime Corey. And maybe, a little bit, the damn big- brother substitute Célie had replaced him with, Dom Richard.

Couldn’t Célie even tell that the man she’d had a crush on at eighteen had been the raw version? That was the man who’d walked off on her. This man, the man he’d forged himself into, would never have to do that.

Célie was silent for a moment. “Joss. Remember all those pastries I would give you, when I was training at the bakery? Did you think those were amazing?”

Just the thought of them made his mouth water, all those warm, buttery, delicious things offered to him, her eyes so bright with the pleasure of giving him pleasure. There had been times out on maneuvers with only rations when he’d missed those flaky, beautiful pastries and the look in her eyes so bad that if he’d been a dog he would have howled. “Oh, yeah,” he said softly.

“And what about these?” Célie picked up his box of chocolates and pried off the metal lid. “Do you think these are amazing?”

He looked at their exquisite, perfect delicacy. “Yeah.” His face softened into a smile. He touched the edge of a chocolate, almost the same tingle running through his thumb as when he touched her cheek. “You did good, Célie.”

“But what I’m doing now is much higher quality than what I was doing then. From an average baker en banlieue to the top chocolatier in Paris—that’s a big climb, Joss.”

He smiled at her, pressing his thumb now into her full lower lip. “You did very, very good, Célie.”

Her face suffused with pride and pleasure just at the words from him. But she persisted: “So you thought I was amazing both times? As an eighteen-year-old apprentice and working as one of the top chocolatiers in Paris?”

“Oh, hell, yeah.” He slid his hand behind her head to sink his fingers into that wild pixie hair. He was so damn glad he got to kiss her when he wanted now. Or at least half the times he wanted. Fine, maybe one-one-hundredth. He bent his head to do it.

“Did you even think about what you just said at all?” Célie asked.

“Yeah.” His mouth closed over all that warm sweetness of hers. “God, I miss those pastries, though. Do you think you could make me some more sometime, just for me?” He spoke against her lips, too hungry to back off, shifting his head to kiss from more angles. Now this was amazing. As much as he loved having her run out of her bakery or her chocolate shop with something special and delicious to offer him, he’d take the deliciousness of her mouth over any other option, if he had to choose.


But knowing Célie, if she got in the habit of letting him have her mouth, she’d never make him choose just that, over all the other ways she liked to lavish pleasure on him.

“Joss.” Célie pulled away enough to thunk her forehead against his. “That was supposed to make your brain wake up to an important moment of understanding.”

He rolled her under him on the grass, claiming her mouth again. Mmm, yes, the hot and the sweet of that … “Célie. I love everything you make. But God, I’d take this any day.”

Célie twisted her face away, about driving him crazy. “Take what?”

“You.” He sought her mouth again. “Just like this.”

“Just me,” Célie said against his lips. Damn, she liked to chatter at inopportune moments sometimes. He parted her lips with his, tasting her gently with his tongue. And she yielded, falling into the kiss. But as soon as he lifted his head for a breath, she got her next word in edgewise: “No accomplishments, just me. You think I’m amazing just like this.”

“Yeah.” He pressed his hands in the grass to keep from doing things in public he’d get arrested for. “Hell, yeah.” He sought her mouth again.

She locked her hands against his chest to hold him back, making his teeth snap together in frustration. “Joss. If you’re really so sex-starved that you still haven’t figured out what I’m saying, maybe we should work some of that starvation out so your brain can turn on again.”