I don’t even remember if he kissed my forehead again before he left, but a very large part of me wants to text him and ask, because I’m starting to think the answer to that question will tell me if I should stay, or book the flight for my return trip home.
It’s easy to distract myself and fill my second day alone in Paris: I wander around the exhibits and gardens at the Musée Rodin, and then brave the interminable lines at the Eiffel Tower . . . but the wait is worth it. The view from the top is unreal. Paris is stunning at street level, and hundreds of stories up.
Back in the apartment Sunday night, Lola is my companion. She’s sitting on her couch at home in San Diego, recovering from whatever virus we both got, and replying to my texts with reassuring speed.
I tell her, I Think he regrets bringing me back with him.
That’s insane, she replies. It sounds like work sucks for him right now. Yes he married you, but he doesn’t know if it will last and he has to take care of the job, too.
Honestly, Lola, I feel pretty moochy, but I don’t want to leave yet! This city is ahhh-mazing. Should I stay at a hotel, do you think?
You’re being sensitive.
He slept on the COUCH.
Maybe he was sick?
I try to remember if I heard anything. He wasn’t.
Maybe he still thinks it’s shark week?
I feel my eyebrows inch up. I hadn’t considered this. Maybe Lola is right and Ansel thinks I’m still on my period? Maybe I really do need to be the one to initiate some sex-type things?
OK that’s a good theory.
Test it out, she replies.
Forget the T-shirt. Tonight, I’m going to sleep naked, no covers.
I WAKE, GLANCING at the clock. It’s nearly two thirty in the morning and I immediately sense that he’s not home yet. The lights are all out in the apartment, and beside me, the bed is empty and cold.
But then I hear a shuffle, a zipper, a tight moan coming from the other room.
I climb out of bed, pull on one of his T-shirts he’s left in the laundry bin and which smells so acutely of him that for a beat, I have to stop, close my eyes, find my balance.
When I step into the living room and look to the kitchen, I see him.
He’s bent over, one hand braced on the counter. His dress shirt is unbuttoned, tie hanging loosely around his neck and pants pushed down his hips as his other hand flies over his cock.
I’m mesmerized at the sight, the sheer eroticism of Ansel pleasuring himself in the dim light coming in from the window. His arm moves quickly, elbow bent, and through his dress shirt, I can see the tension of the muscles in his back, the way his hips begin to move into his hand. I step forward, wanting to see better, and my foot catches a squeaky board. The sound groans through the room, and he freezes, his head snapping to look over his shoulder.
When his eyes meet mine, they flash with mortification before slowly cooling to defeat. He lets his hand fall away and his head drops, chin to chest.
I approach him slowly, not sure if he wants me, or wants anything but me. Why else would he be out here doing this, when I was naked in his bed?
“I hope I didn’t wake you,” he whispers. In the light coming in through the window, I can see the sharp line of his jaw, the smooth expanse of his neck. His pants are slung low on his hips, his shirt unbuttoned. I want to taste his skin, feel the soft line of hair that travels down his navel.
“You did, but I wish you had tried to wake me if you wanted . . .” I want to say “me” but again, I’m not at all sure that’s what he wanted. “If you needed . . . something.”
God, could I be less smooth?
“It’s so late, Cerise. I came in, started to undress. I saw you naked in my bed,” he says, gaze fixed on my lips. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
I nod. “I assumed you would see me naked on your bed.”
He exhales slowly through his nose. “I wasn’t sure—”
Before he finishes the sentence, I’m already lowering myself to my knees in the darkness, moving his hand away so I can lick him, bring his need back to life. My heart is beating so hard, and I’m so nervous I can see my hand shaking where I touch him, but fuck it. I tell myself I’m channeling Harlow, confident sex goddess.
I tell myself I have nothing to lose. “I went to bed naked on purpose.”
“I don’t want you to feel obligated to be with me like this,” he croaks.
I look up at him, flabbergasted. What happened to the delightfully pushy guy I met only a week ago? “I don’t feel obligated. You’re just busy . . .”
He smiles, gripping his base and painting a wet line across my lips with the bead of moisture that appears at his tip. “I think we’re both being too tentative, maybe.”