All for You (Paris Nights #1)(74)

“I’ll do anything physical you want with you now.” He rolled them over, bracing himself above her on the bed.

Such a glorious body to have braced above hers. But that wasn’t what hit her the most. It was this purity in his eyes, this truth and fidelity through everything he had been and seen. “I love you,” she whispered suddenly. “Not … not like a brother.”

He drew a sharp breath. In the slanting late light through her windows, his eyes were gorgeous.

“You’re amazing. And”—her voice dropped very soft, and shy—“you’re my hero.”

That brilliance in his eyes, as if she’d crowned him king after an impossible quest.

“You always have been. And you still are. Even more.” Her hands ran over his arms. “If you asked me to, I would wait more than five years for you. I would be proud to.”

“Célie,” he breathed, luminous in that light that turned all his hard, sun-darkened body to gold.

“But don’t leave me again.” She wrapped her arms around him abruptly. “Don’t take me up on that. Promise not to.”

“I won’t leave you,” he said, low and final.

The promise vibrated through her, as if a seal had been stamped down on her, of ownership, of home.

“Célie,” he said suddenly, combing his fingers through the tufts of her hair. “You know I love you, don’t you? You figured that out?”


“I—I—” It was too beautiful to believe or even think about straight on, and she almost couldn’t say it. “You seem to.”

“I seem to.” He shook his head. “You’re a hard woman to convince.”

Stay with me. Include me. That convinces me. But she had to take what he offered. She ran her hand over the muscles of his arms, one manifestation of all his efforts.

“Célie. I think you’re my heroine.”

It sounded beautiful, at first, and yet she hesitated. “Like … the heroine tied to the train tracks? Who needs saving? The princess in a tower?”

He ran his thumb over her cheekbone in a delicate stroke of callus. “Like Wonder Woman. The woman I look up to. The woman I think is amazing. I can be what’s-his-name, the Air Force pilot.”

Her nose crinkled against the sting in it. “Really?”

He looked up to her?

“All that life and courage in you, Célie. That way you stick your chin up and challenge the world and tease it. The way you … sparkle. You’re like the Eiffel Tower. You don’t even notice all the rain and the cold and the gray skies, you just sparkle away and refuse to let them put you out.”

Her fingers stroked their way to his shoulder, kneading it like a cat might a very hard pillow. “You know, when it’s cold and rainy in Paris,” she murmured, feeling silly and shy again, “it’s just exactly perfect weather for curling up with someone. And, and … maybe making him hot chocolate.”

His face broke into the most brilliant grin. “God, I love you.” He rolled them over so that she was on top of him. “Hell, you make me actually wish it was winter.” He ran his hands up her arms. “Maybe with a fireplace.” A little gleam in his eyes that she couldn’t interpret. “I bet you’d like that.”

Hard to find an apartment with a fireplace these days. She shrugged funnily. “S … summer’s nice, too. You can go skating along the Seine. Stay out late. Maybe … maybe go somewhere on vacation in August and explore a whole new world together.”

“I bet the whole year is nice,” he said softly. “I bet every day of the year, with you in it, would be beautiful.”

Oh. She wanted to hug herself, to hug the words to her, but their bodies were so close she could only hug him.

He stroked her hair. “Célie. I don’t ‘seem to’ love you. I really do. I would do anything for you.”

As long as that “anything” demanded he grow bigger, meet hard challenges, and didn’t demand he shrink, she thought, with sudden insight. He had a compulsive need to be better, never lesser.

But that was okay. As long as he included her, as long as he trusted her, she could be that person, who had a big enough heart to let him grow as big as he needed and still fit in it.

“I would, too.” She pushed herself up to hold his eyes. “Do anything for you. Except ask you to be less than you are.”

His face broke into that rare, brilliant smile. “I knew there was a reason I loved you.”

“Only one?” She tried to put her chin up. But sometimes she wondered how there could even be that many. She was so quick-tempered, and she flew off the handle. She knew he was amazing, but somehow she beat her head against him anyway, wishing he would be a little less amazing in exchange for letting her in.

His face softened, his eyes so true. “Célie. There are so many reasons I love you. As many sparkles as there are on that Eiffel Tower. But that one, that you won’t ask me to be less for you … that one’s like the whole iron frame that holds those sparkling lights up.”

Yeah. It did kind of feel as if she was trying to grow as strong as the iron of the Eiffel Tower, in order to be strong enough to honor the best that he could be. She took a deep breath, stretching herself, trying to get her heart used to being that big and strong.