Once Upon a Rose(63)

She peeked at him through her lashes, and a little, utterly delighted-in-herself pleasure curled her mouth. All smug and happy to be her and to be driving him crazy.

It was funny, because he’d been manipulated by a woman who thought she was so sexy that sex was her power over him and she could use that power to do anything she wanted. So he should be offended by that smug delight, or at least wary.

And instead he just wanted to kiss her. Give her a little bit more to be delighted about.

Actually, he wished to hell he was standing like this in her doorway back in the valley, instead of out in a sheltered, quiet, but still public street, with neither his bed nor hers anywhere near.

He bent down and bit that little delighted smile—very gently, just a tiny warning graze of his teeth. You’re messing with me. I might know how to mess with you, too.

She made a little sound that tightened his hands against the doorframe until he thought he might snap stone. So he had to kiss her again, right? Had to show her how he could mess with her with his tongue, too. How he could slip himself into her body. How he could take her over, make her his. Get her to melt and yield and…

One of his hands loosed its hold on the stone to sweep down her body to her butt and pull her into him. He rubbed his hand down to her thigh to lift it to his hip, so his hips could fit better between hers. The bareness of her thigh in her shorts shocked through him, in contrast to his tux. Made her seem practically naked and yielding to all his darkest demands.

Oh, merde, yeah, he would like to lay her back on a bed naked to his clothed body. Oh, yeah, he would. Just lay her out there and say, You are in my bed now, and you are all mine.

Footsteps sounded against stone, and a child’s chattering, and he wrenched his mouth away and locked both hands against the stone again, this time on the walls to either side of her. Layla clutched fistfuls of his white shirt, breathing hard, looking dazed and…oh, yeah, if only he had a bed nearby right this second…

He kept her body framed and as hidden as possible with his, trying not to look at the mother and child who passed, but of course he knew the woman who was discreetly turning her head away, a little smile on her mouth. He knew everyone in Sainte-Mère. Hell, he knew everyone around Grasse. In this case, she owned the inn across from Gabe and Raphaël’s place.

“Maman.” The child’s clear voice sounded back down the stairs. “Why did he have his hand on her bottom?”

“Shh,” the mother whispered. “I’ll explain later.”

Always fun to know he was going to be the prime example in an early lesson on the birds and the bees.

“This is so not a good place for this,” he managed, gazing down at Layla, who still looked so dazed and soft, her lips so damp and reddened and her eyes so dark and heavy, that it about killed him.

She blinked up at him in that way that sent every bit of his sex drive into conquering mode. I’ve yielded, that blink said. Pick me up and carry me off somewhere.

Damn it. The Rosiers had an unused apartment in this town, too, now that Jolie had moved in with Gabe. If only he had the key on him.

“Okay, I’ve got to pull myself together,” Layla said and covered her face with both arms.

See? What a damn shame, to have all that fallen apartness of hers get sturdied back up into something sensible. He looked down at those slim, tan forearms, pressed together over her face, and couldn’t help himself. They were just so much smaller than his, so much more vulnerable, such flimsy and endearing self-protection. He ran his thumb gently up the little gap between them. The size of his own hand against her arms sent unexpected pleasure through him. Yeah, he liked being this much bigger than she was. He liked it when he heard her take a soft breath behind that shield of her arms, and he liked it when he bent his head to rub his jaw over her inner wrist and kiss the palm.

“Please, please stop,” Layla whispered. “You’re too much. It’s too much. I can’t handle it.”

He hesitated a long second with his face still brushing against her fingertips. Damn it. He closed his eyes. If there was one reason in the world a man didn’t want to stop, it had to be that one—that she liked it too much.

Shit.

He wanted to suck one of those fingers into his mouth so damn bad. See how many more things she couldn’t handle without falling apart.

He used the wall to leverage himself away from her, and yes, fine, maybe he growled in protest as he stepped back.

She parted her arms just enough to peek out at him from between them. Aww, hell, she was so cute. “This is not a raft, Matthieu.”

Hell, and her accent around the ieu in his name. The only people who ever called him Matthieu were his aunts and, before she died, his grandmother, when he was in trouble, and Layla’s reproachful tone suggested he was in some kind of trouble right now, too. But all he wanted to do about it was kiss her again and see what that little tongue that couldn’t quite shape the ieu right did with his.