Blame It On Paris

'Yeah, well. It's totally my fault, not yours.'

But he wasn't playing scorekeeper on the guilt record. 'I don't do guilt. It's one of the best things about giving up Catholicism. Truth is, I don't think people need guilt to keep them in line anyway. Most people seem to get up every day. trying to be the best people they can be at that moment in time.' He ran his fingers through her hair, looking thoughtful, as if confused how that bit of philosophy had sneaked out of him. In other ways he was being careful, like in not touching body parts. More, he was keeping in touch, with that finger-light caress. 'So I don't know how to draw conclusions about what's going on with us…except to say that you and I seem to fit. To be right together. I wasn't looking for it. wasn't expecting it. But that's sure how it is. At least for me.'

'For me, too.' Since he was doing that finger-caress thing, she did. too. On the slope of his shoulder, gleaming in the rain-light. 'In fact, that's exactly what's scaring me. What's confusing me. I've never done casual relationships. Ever. It's not possible. If you just knew me…'

No smile. But he suddenly loomed over her, an expression on his face that she'd never seen. Tenderness. And something else. Something…that invoked a soft shiver all through her.

'I do know you,' he said. 'I know you like this…'

And he showed her.

WILL FIGURED it had to be around three in the morning. If there was a fire, he doubted he could find the energy to move. Not that he'd say it out loud, but he'd always considered himself a good lover. Certainly he'd never had a problem with some eloquent sustaining action, so to speak.

But they'd made love how many times?

His legs were limp. His body was limp. Even willie was limp. He could have slept naked in a snowstorm. He was that wiped. His eyelids were too tired to open.

But Kelly was still talking.

'Okay,' she said. 'So self-discipline didn't work for us. Or denial. Or pretending this wasn't going to happen again. Or guilt. And I know you don't do guilt. Will, but I do. And it doesn't seem to make a lick of difference. I still want to be here, right here. With you.'

He managed to find the energy to open one eye. 'Do you have to sound so miserable?'

'I'm not miserable. That's the whole problem.' She shifted on top of him. her elbows digging into his shoulders, using his body for her own personal mattress. But then she bent down and kissed him. And even though willie was wiped, even though he was too tired to breathe, he felt her soft skin from breast to tummy to thighs, layered against him. As if she had the right. As if he did.

When she lifted her head, her lips still just inches from his, she murmured, 'You know what you taste like?'

'What?'

'Hot sex. Love. Wonder. Magic.' She sighed. 'I can feel him. You'd think he'd be tired by now.'

'He is, he is.'

'Yeah, right.' She let out a long-suffering sigh, but there was something in her eyes. A gleam. A wickedness. The way she wiggled her hips was hardly the act of an inhibited, guilt-ridden, goody-good kind of woman. And then she took a nip out of his neck. Not a big one. Not drawing blood or anything like that. Just a nip. With her teeth, then her lips, then her tongue. She whispered, 'You'd better hold on to the headboard, because I think this could be a real rough ride.'

He said primly. 'I don't do bondage with women I barely know.'

'You'd do bondage with any woman who'd let you get away with it.' she corrected him.

Well, hell, she already had his number. There was no point in fighting with her, when making love with her was so much more fun.

WHEN THE ALARM CLOCK BUZZED at seven, the word work entered Will's brain… welcomed on a par with tetanus shots, cavities, the flu. It couldn't be Monday morning. It just couldn't be.

He pried open one bleary eye. Then the other.

There seemed to be a naked woman standing in front of him. holding a steaming mug of coffee. Hazelnut. He could smell it. He lurched out of the bed, nose-first, realizing at that instant that he was hopelessly in love.

The first sip of joe confirmed it. 'I can forgive a woman anything who makes outstanding coffee,' he told her.

'Oh, good. Then you don't mind if I empty out your bank accounts, trash your place and decorate your living room pink?'

'You're going to still make the coffee, though, right?'

She chuckled. There was no way, no possible way, she could be this perky. Neither had had any sleep. Her hair was messy, and she was sashaying around the room naked as if she had the cutest boobs, the sassiest butt, the skinniest legs this side of the Atlantic.

Which she did.

Damn, but she did.

'What'd you do with all your Catholic guilt?' he asked her a few minutes later…which was after a shower, after he'd finished the first cup. after he'd yanked on a starched shirt and pants and found-ye gods-breakfast waiting for him in the minikitchen.

'It hasn't disappeared. I just figured this whole thing out.'

'Uh-oh.' He didn't mean to say that aloud, but it slipped out. He wasn't thinking that coherently when he saw her lift the skillet and plop a light, fluffy omelet on a plate for him.

'I'm just going to be part of your life until the money gets all straightened out. And my passport. The stuff I have to have to survive again.'

'And then…' He motioned, waiting for the next part.

But apparently there was no next part. 'That's it. The end of the plan. You're in Paris. I'm going back to South Bend. We're not hurting anyone if no one else ever knows anything about this. I mean, you and I could hurt each other. But it's just about you and me. No one else.'

He took another bite, but he was watching her bright eyes. She'd pulled on a shirt by then. His shirt. A blue one. It made her look like the most feminine bit of fluff ever born. Times ten. Something made him want to argue with the plan, but he couldn't put a frame on it. It should be exactly what he wanted- sneaky, free sex-yet somehow, the last bite of delectable omelet didn't want to be swallowed.

'You're going to shake the fiance when you go back.' Will didn't phrase it like a question, although it was. For whatever reason, he needed to know.

She bounced up to refill both their mugs. 'Well, that was my theory, too, when I tried to call him on Saturday morning. But now I think that stinks. It would be plain wrong and cowardly to try to say anything serious to him in a phone conversation. So there's nothing I'm going to do about Jason until I get home.'

He put down his fork altogether. 'But then you're going to shake the guy.'

'Hey. This is the deal. You and I are going to be our own personal Vegas. What's between us this week stays between us. But there's no point in doing before-and-after analyses. I mean, you're not coming home to South Bend, right?'

'Right,' he affirmed.

She nodded, as if to say they were both in agreement.

Only they weren't.

Will couldn't very well babysit her all day. She had a ton of stuff to do, all of which was fraught with peril-for a tourist, an American, an adorable woman who was an American tourist, and specifically for Kelly, who didn't seem to have the directional sense of a stone. But he left her maps. He left her lists. He left her money, his cell phone, his telephone number at work and instructions to check in every two hours so he'd know she was okay.

At the doorway, when he was leaving for work, she interrupted all his considerate help to say mildly. 'You really think you're a lazy, live-for-today, happily irresponsible, completely recovered Catholic, huh?'

Which just went to show, he thought when he climbed into his Citroen, that you could make love to a woman for three days straight and still, she didn't know you at all.

Twenty minutes later, he parked the car-feeling victorious when he fit into a spot smaller than a dime-and ambled into the office with a lazy stride.

The building was older than the guillotine, dark, crowded and drafty. 'Bonjour, m'sieur,' said Marie, of the Antoinette temperament. She ran the place, something he'd realized the day he