Nights With Him(41)

She was easy to talk to. No surprise, though, given what she did for a living. Maybe what was so surprising, if he only studied the surface, was how that openness extended to the bedroom. She didn’t hold back in bed. She turned over her body to him every night, and every time he had her he found himself wanting more of her. Wanting that sexy vulnerability he saw in her eyes. That gorgeous desperation he felt in her body. That dirty mouth that begged for him to fuck her to yet another release.

During the day, they’d text and email. He looked forward to her notes in between work and meetings and product launches, and the damn updates on Denkler’s campaign that was still struggling. At the end of a long day, there was her. She was his letting go.

But every night ended the same. With a goodnight kiss at her door, at a town car, at the curb.

Like a shopkeeper slamming down the gates after midnight. That was Michelle. She had a closing time, and he understood why. Protecting her heart, and all.

She’d erected the sturdiest walls, but he wanted to knock them down.

* * *

Ten nights of Jack Sullivan was like some kind of voodoo magic. If the first third of these thirty nights was anything to go on, she’d be living in a bubble of bliss for the rest of the month of September and on into October. Her body seemed to be 100 percent okay with that kind of cocoon. Her mind seemed amenable, too. Because Jack was stimulating on all fronts. She’d just finished updating him on the details of her Paris trip later next week. Her flight had been booked, her hotel reserved, and the conference organizers had even sent her a box of French chocolate to say thank you. She’d brought them over to share, and she popped a raspberry-filled dark chocolate square in her mouth.

“Good thing I have a business trip to California that week to distract me from not being able to have you while you’re in Paris,” he said.

“Yes. Thank God. I’d hate for you to miss me.”

“Oh, I’ll miss you. Have you been to Paris before?”

She nodded as she chewed. “A few times.”

“Do you speak the language?” Jack asked and held up the bottle of wine, offering her another glass as she smoothed her skirt and adjusted the buttons on her shirt. They were in his kitchen, his gorgeous, brick and wood kitchen in his penthouse apartment, though he admitted the shiny Miele appliances were rarely used. He was takeout all the way, he’d said. She shook her head at the offer of the wine.

“No to French?”

“No to another glass of wine.”

“Damn. I was hoping to loosen you up enough to discuss something I want to do with you,” he said and raised his eyebrows suggestively.

She rolled her eyes in response. “You don’t need to get me drunk to discuss something you want to do to me. And to answer your question, I speak French. I studied it in school.”

He looped an arm around her waist, then whispered something in her ear in French.

“Perhaps someday,” she said suggestively in answer.

“Someday soon, I hope,” he said, squeezing her butt, then shifting gears. “What do you love most about Paris?”

“This chocolate is pretty good,” she said, then reached for another one and handed it him. “For you.”

He took the chocolate and rolled his eyes in pleasure. “That is pretty damn good. But I know it’s not what you love most about Paris. What is?”

“That’s not a fair question,” she countered, running her fingers through her hair. She’d have to keep a brush here, but then that also would be too intimate. She didn’t plan to leave any evidence of all these nights with him. Evidence led to memories, and memories led to closeness. That’s what they both desperately needed to avoid. True intimacy. “It’s impossible to pick one thing.”

“I like impossible choices, though,” he said, flashing her a wicked grin.

She placed a hand on his chest, moving in close. “Why?”

“Because they force people to show who they really are. I thought you’d appreciate that, being a shrink.”

“Fine. I’ll answer,” she said, counting off the potential options on her fingers. “What I love most about Paris isn’t even in Paris. It’s Monet’s Gardens, but that’s outside of the city. So if we’re talking purely Paris, I might choose the food. I might choose the museums. I might even say the cobblestoned streets, or the rich history, or the way the French don’t care if you like them. But if you really want me to choose, my favorite thing about Paris is the beauty. And the way the French love beauty for its own sake.”

A smile tugged at his lips as she continued. “I love the beauty in the every day. I love the glow from the streetlamps. I love that you’ll find a store in Montmartre that sells glass perfume bottles with gorgeous designs on them, and they’re things no one needs, but they exist solely because they’re pretty. I saw a sapphire one once that I wanted, but the store was closed that day. So I just stared longingly through the window. Because that’s the other thing—even the shop windows are beautiful, and full of gorgeous displays, whether of cakes or candies or jewelry or clothes. Doesn’t matter. The French find beauty in the magnificent and in the seemingly mundane.”