Blame It On Paris

CHAPTER THREE

SWALLOWED UP. That's how she felt. Wrapped in Will's arms, absorbed in his kiss, the scent of him. taste of him, look of him.

In some part of her brain, Kelly recognized they were still on the boat, that the music had stopped playing, that the engines had quit, that the other passengers were noisily gathering their belongings and descending the gangplank.

And still, she seemed to be dancing with Will. To unheard music.

To scents she'd never experienced before. To textures she'd never imagined-like his tongue.

His wicked, wicked tongue.

Her fingers fisted around his neck, not clenching so much as holding on. Her balance felt increasingly threatened, as if she was precariously a blink away from falling, awash in silver dizziness.

The image of silver dizziness almost made her laugh. How ridiculous was that? She'd never been fanciful. She'd always been practical, the kind of woman who ran her life on facts, numbers, reality. For darn sure, she didn't go around looking to do wrong things. She suffered enough guilt day by day trying to do the right things.

Only just then her conscience couldn't seem to scare up any sense of doing wrong.

And the silvery dizziness made perfect sense to her.

And so did kissing Will. Being taken in by Will. The scent of him swarmed her. surrounded her, mixed with the silky black water of the Seine and the lights of Paris and just him. Her stranger. Her clean, warm, sexy stranger. Herexotically sexy stranger…

'Monsieur? Mademoiselle?' A staff member patted Will on the shoulder. His expression was tolerant, gentle, as if he was used to regretfully interrupting lovers-this was Paris, after all. The vision of two people lost in each other was nothing new to him.

But it was new to Kelly…and judging from the dazed, dark look in Will's eyes, it wasn't an everyday occurrence for him, either. Finally, Will stopped moving, as if realizing that the only two people still swaying to music were them.

The night had turned downright chilly, midnight chilly, except when she was circled in his arms. And when he dropped his arms, he still didn't look at the uniformed guy, but only at her. His voice was thicker than smoke, lower than blues. 'We're going back to my place.'

'Yes,' she said, as if it were the only word she knew, the only word she could say.

Even at that moment, she knew he wasn't referring to her having no other place to stay. He wasn't offering her his couch.

And she wasn't leaping to offer excuses-too much wine, too much dinner, too much of an exhausting, terrible day, too much Paris.

She knew what he was inviting.

She knew what she was saying yes to.

Where it had taken almost an hour to get to the port where the cruise began, it seemed only minutes before they were back at Will's place, hauling her suitcases from his trunk. He'd left no lights on. She plunked one case right inside the hallway; he dropped the other two. He'd barely closed the door before leaning her against the hard surface and leveling another kiss on her. This one happened to be a whole-body kiss, involving his chest, his knee, his tongue, his hands, his erection. His soul.

And hers. It wasn't totally her fault she couldn't stop kissing him. Lonesomeness poured off Will in waves. This just wasn't about horniness or chemistry or that kind of nuisance stuff. He tugged at something in her. something huge. A loneliness. A yearning. A need to be with someone-someone who filled up the emptiness. Someone who mattered. Someone who touched her. Not on the outside, on the inside.

He did stop for breath once, but only to grumble. 'If you say no now, you'll kill me.'

At that moment, her thin sweater was flying somewhere over her head. His right shoe was gone. Her knee had regretfully connected with a wall. Neither had turned on a light yet. but the glow of streetlights below was starting to infiltrate the darkness. She could see the fierce shine in his eyes. Feel. see. the tension in his body, in his face.

'What if I want to say no?'

'Then say it. Just know, you'll kill me.'

'And what if I say… take me right here, right now, Will. Only love me like no one has ever loved me, or don't mess with me at all.'

He muttered a curse word. Or a prayer. 'Not a smart thing to say if you want a guy to stop, Kel.'

'No?'

'No. So don't say it to any other guys. Ever. Okay?'

Well, hell. He didn't give her a chance to answer. Next thing, he was walking her backward down the dark hall, stopping once to yank his shirt over his head, then to heel off his other shoe. Eventually they bounced off enough walls to pass the bathroom, past all the rooms she'd seen before, into one that she definitely hadn't. Still, even in the dark she knew it was his bedroom. It smelled like his soap. Like the fresh air blowing in the cracked window, like…like him.

Like an exotic, sexy, unbearably masculine man. A fantasy man.

A lover.

She didn't get naked easily. There'd only been Jason for her, and it had taken him four years to talk her out of all her clothes. Her procrastinating hadn't been about morality so much as prudishness. She liked her clothes on. She didn't like messiness.

All in all, she'd long figured out that she just didn't have that big a sex drive. Everybody couldn't, after all. She thought sex was important-like meat and potatoes. A staple of life. Needed. A serious thing.

But certainly nothing on a par with cyclones and tsunamis.

Yet that seemed to be how it was with Will. All explosive risk and wicked need and unbelievably soft romance.

He kissed a slow path all the way down to her toes, then trailed back up again, lingering between her thighs- and embarrassing the devil out of her. He gave her no time to work up a royal prudish fit, which she'd always been very good at.

The feather bed was all rumpled and warm, like him. Beneath, the mattress was hard as a board- maybe it even was a board-but thankfully there were all those soft covers to melt into. Or possibly that was Will she was melting into.

'Maybe you better hold on to the headboard. Kel. I think this could get a little wild.'

'Urn. Did I mention ahead of time that I only do good-girl sex?'

'I don't think you mentioned that today yet, no.'

A breeze fluttered in the dark room, chilling her overheated skin when he flipped her on top of him. They weren't joined yet. but she could feel how it was going to be. Scary. Delicious. 'You get a thrill on roller-coaster rides?' she murmured.

'Nope. But I'm going to get a thrill when I ride you. You ready?' He raised an arm, fumbled in the bedside drawer.

'Condom?' she asked. And got the first serious tone from him she'd heard in hours.

'You don't have a problem with that, do you?'

'Hey, don't insult me.'

A flash of a smile in the dark. And that was it…the last time she had a coherent thought.

A zillion sensations bombarded her senses. The sterling shadows on the wall, the profile of him riding her, the strength and bold, primal sexuality of him. How she felt…beguiled…spun into a whispery web of touch and taste and need. The texture of their skin, shiny as wet varnish, silky with sweat. Her lungs gasping for breath. The howl of a siren outside. A flash of lights inside, deep inside her. when this crazy, lofty, silver-sharp climax took her over, took her under.

When it was over, he fell back, pulling her half on top of him as if refusing to be separated even for an instant. She lay there, slaked, eyes closed, still trying to catch her breath. She felt him pulling up the covers, the stroke of his hand on her back, the cuff of his knuckle when he tucked the sheet around her neck, sealing all the airholes. He murmured something silly and throaty and low, like, 'Who knew?'