That’s why I do my best to make sure the explorer in him is happy. I research places to go that are off the beaten path.
Like the next week when I take him to see antique signs scattered around the city. I snap photos of him under them and make up silly stories, and I show him more angels that I uncover, including an unusually sensual one, clearly female, that almost looks like a precursor to the Victoria’s Secret angels.
“My turn to play photographer. Your turn to pose,” he says, shooing me under the angel.
I give him my best pout, and he shakes his head. “Just be yourself.”
“Fine,” I say and flash a smile.
“Yes. That. Now post it to your feed and use the hashtag sexyasanangel.”
“Please,” I scoff.
He shrugs. “Just send it to me, then.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re sexy as fuck, and I want to look at it tonight.”
A shooting star ignites in my chest. “You do?” My throat is dry.
His eyes seem to blaze with heat as he looks at me. “Yeah, but tug down the neckline just a bit, right? We’ll shoot another.”
I roll my eyes. “Stop it.”
“I’m not joking.”
I guess I’m not, either. I do as he asks, and I send it to him later. I’m not sure what he’s going to do with it. I learn when he texts me at midnight.
Griffin: THANK YOU for the picture. It made my night.
That’s all I need.
Inside my flat, with the light from the moon filtering through my windows, the sounds of the city flitting into my home, my hand finds its way inside my panties, where I ache for him.
Already, with one touch, I’m soft and wet and needy. My knees fall open, and my mind paints the most delicious images.
Griffin over me, licking me, kissing me, sucking me.
His hands traveling everywhere. His tongue painting a trail down my skin. His words whispering across my body.
My mind races. Speeds up. Slips back in time, too, to five, ten minutes ago in a flat across the city. There, a gorgeous Englishman stands in a tiny kitchen, opens his texts, and finds my photo from earlier that day. He hardens and groans looking at me tugging at my neckline. No time to waste, he unzips his jeans, wraps his hand around his cock, and strokes.
I moan out loud. It sounds obscene to my ears. It feels that way as I imagine him.
He doesn’t even go to the couch, or the bed. He’s too turned on. Too aroused. He shoves his jeans to his hips, tightens his grip, his fist tunneling up and down his hard length. He’s never been this aroused. Never wanted someone so much. He fucks his hand harder, and faster, wishing it were my mouth, my hand, me.
He craves the wetness in me, wants to thrust into the aching center of my body, to take me, fuck me, have me, own me.
His thighs tighten, and he groans, a loud, feral sound. A wish for me. My name on his lips. Husky, dirty, filthy. He growls it. It’s not the first time he’s come thinking of me. It won’t be the last.
And as I picture him climaxing in the dark, in his hand, my image blazing before his eyes, I do the same, pleasure blurring my brain.
His name is on my lips.
It’s not the first time I come saying his name.
I don’t think it’ll be the last.
I bend my face to a huge bouquet of pink hyacinths, closing my eyes as I inhale.
“Your turn,” I say when I open them.
He does as I instruct, here at the flower market in front of Palais de Tokyo. “Smells like flowers.”
I swat him. I’ve been doing a lot of that. I can’t seem to resist touching him.
We wander to the next stall, where I snap photos of purple irises, peach tulips, lavender hydrangea, and sunflowers six feet tall. He stands next to one. “Still taller,” he says with a wink.
“Just a little.”
He sniffs the sunflower, crinkling his nose. “This stinks.”
“Sunflowers are not known for their smell.”
“Which is your favorite? To smell?”
“Honeysuckle. But they don’t have that here.”
“Which is your favorite that’s here?” He gestures to the vast display of petals and stems.
I nibble on the corner of my lips and spin, checking out stall after stall, all teeming with flowers, bursting with bouquets that light up my senses.
I point to several buckets with soft purple flowers. “Lilacs,” I say, and we head to the nearest lilac stall, where Griffin guides me through what he wants me to say to the florist.
He makes me ask question after question, likely driving the florist bananas. This isn’t Berlitz with Griffin. This isn’t someone teaching me travel phrases, like Can you recommend a good restaurant?
It’s trial by fire. It’s immersion.
But the language isn’t the only thing I’m becoming immersed in. I’m becoming immersed in him. I want to ask him more about his bucket list. I want to know what else is on it, to know what matters to him. But that feels too personal, too tender, like touching a wound that’s still bruised and hurting.
After he’s exhausted me, he gives me one more thing to ask for. “One bouquet of lilacs to take home. And you’ll want that one,” he says, pointing to the most perfect one.
When the florist gives me the price, I root around in my purse for bills and coins. But once I look up, Griffin is handing the bearded man the euros, and then my teacher gives me the bouquet. “For you.”
“Really?” My heart squeezes.
“Yes, really.”
I hold them to his nose. “What do they smell like?”
He inhales, then steps closer, bringing his mouth to my ear. “Like this woman I’ve been spending all my time with and am dying to kiss.”
I melt from head to toe, my bones dissolving. I’m burning for him, aching to
