He fit behind the wheel of that car, driving her home. He was in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.
In the privacy left by her sleep, he brought a hand to the left side of his chest and rubbed the spot she had rubbed earlier. Calm down. You’ll be all right.
One of us is being an idiot, his heart sighed despairingly.
A cliff drop came up, and he took it, easy and smooth. Layla never even stirred in her sleep. He could handle this road.
Yes, he could.
Layla blinked her eyes open when he parked in front of his house. Probably should have stopped at hers. He smiled at her, relaxed by then enough to tease her again. “Want me to carry you to bed?”
She shook her head. But then she smiled at him. “You can walk me to my door, though.”
Merde, yes. He liked having her between him and a door. That had been working out really well for him so far.
“It looks so shorn,” she said of the fields, as they walked the couple hundred meters on that upper terrace of rose bushes. “All green, only these dots of pink now ready to come back.”
“They seem to have done a decent job,” Matt agreed grudgingly, looking out over his valley. He picked a rose that had been missed.
She smiled up at him, this little sparkle of warmth and affection he could not get used to. It tickled in random spots all over his skin, as if he was being taunted by pixies. “Did you really doubt they would?”
“No,” he admitted. Raoul and Damien and Tristan between them, with his grandfather there? No. But then he shrugged. “Enfin—” It was his valley. He had to make sure.
She laughed, green eyes indulgent, as if it was perfectly reasonable for him to be—unreasonable. Wary. Possessive. All those growly defaults of his character.
Damn, she was cute.
He turned her against her door, tucked under that fuchsia climbing rose, and leaned in over her, so hungry for more of those doorway adventures he could hardly stand himself.
“Dinner was incredible,” she breathed, tilting her head back against her door to let those delighted, happy, wondering eyes cling to his in the dimness. It was too dark in front of her door. He needed to install a motion-sensor light for her, didn’t he? But right now, it felt just right. “Thank you so much. That rose for dessert…wow. Thank you.”
“I didn’t make that one,” he said, shrugging uncomfortably. And even though he had her locked up by his looming body against a doorway and she was liking it, even from that position of intensely sexual power, even after all that evening with her, he still felt a little stupid and vulnerable to lift the rose he had picked on their walk to her door. And he still…he still wanted to brave the risk and see what she did with that vulnerability. “I made this one.” His voice came out rough again.
“Oh.” Her soft sound of pleasure rushed through his veins as she reached for it.
He held it away from her, and then pressed his knee into the door beside her so he could still angle his body in close to hers and keep her his as he used both hands to strip it carefully of all its thorns.
“You’re so sweet,” she said wonderingly, reaching for it again.
No, he wasn’t, damn it. He wasn’t sweet. It made him feel stripped naked in front of a crowd, bare as this poor little rose without its thorns, every time she said something like that.
Only…there was no crowd here. And he really, really wouldn’t mind if she reached for the buttons of his shirt and started genuinely stripping him naked.
Oh, no. The whole thought of the morning after, when he’d wake up naked, was scary, but right this second…he wouldn’t mind at all.
He pulled the rose away from her reaching fingers, watching her expression flicker in confusion and then this kind of trusting question, like she never for a second suspected him of messing with her.
She was so damn cute. He touched the rose to her cheek and then trailed the petals down to those rosebud lips.
Which parted, on a little gasp. He smiled, playing the rose over them.
Her eyes drifted closed and her head sank back against the door. Power and pleasure rushed through him. There you go. Yield yourself to me.
He stroked the rose down over her chin and then oh-so-gently and thoroughly over her exposed throat. Her breathing started to shatter into this short, fluttery thing, and his own breath grew deep and hot, his body trying to drive him forward. All that need to kiss her, bite her, thrust his hips up against her—he braced one arm over her in the doorway to hold it back. All his strength, his muscles clenching in their fight against each other as he kept that rose easy…so easy…trailing now into the hollow of her throat…down to her neckline.