A shudder racks my body as I start to move in her. She ropes her hands around my neck and pulls my face closer, kissing me the whole time. Her red lips never stop claiming mine—rough, fierce, demanding.
I hike up her leg and wrap it around my hip, going deeper. She moans, loud and long, noisy, like she promised she’d be. She sounds like she’s getting lost in us again. Like she did every time. Like I want her to do all the time. I want her to get lost with me so I can be the one to find her.
Soon, she’s trembling, and I watch as her pleasure moves through her, as she dissolves into my arms, and before I know it, I follow her there, and we come back together.
“Thanks for the postscript,” she murmurs.
I laugh as I tug her close. “You always get the postscript.”
After another time, and yet another, we flop onto her couch, spent. She plays with my hair, and my stomach growls. “You must be hungry,” she says.
I lift up her skirt. “Why, yes, let’s do it again.”
She swats at me. “Hungry for dinner.”
“Sure.”
Fifteen minutes later, we’re at the café around the corner, where she orders for us then sets down her menu. “So, you’re back in Paris. Did Sophie keep her place for you?”
I shake my head. “She rented it.”
Joy taps her chin. “Hmm. Interesting.”
“Is that interesting?”
“You’ve come back to Paris without a place to live. You must really like me.”
“Hmm. I guess I do.”
“It’s going to be hard living on the streets, isn’t it?”
“So rough. But I’ll make do.”
“I can toss you a blanket if you need.”
“Oh, please, don’t put yourself out. I have a bench I plan to sleep under.”
“That sounds fabulous.” She spreads her napkin on her lap. “But just in case that doesn’t work out . . .”
“You have something else in mind?”
She shrugs as she smirks. “I suppose you could live with me.”
I reach for her hand. “I would love to climb eighty-four steps every day and every night with you.”
She narrows her eyes, stares at me. “You’re not going to run off to Iceland or Russia or the Amazon, are you?”
“I have everything I want right here in front of me.”
“Good. Because I’m not going anywhere. Turns out this city suits me.”
“It suits you perfectly.”
She slides her hand across the table. “Stay with me.”
“I will.”
As we dine, and talk, and laugh, and then stroll back to our home, I’m aware every moment that this is exactly where I want to be.
Here, now, and for always.
Epilogue
Joy
I wrap a ruby-red scarf tighter around my neck and pull a white knit cap over my red hair. December has arrived, bringing snowfalls, nights in front of the fireplace, and the endless need to warm up under the covers.
Now, though, I’m venturing outdoors.
Sometimes, on Saturday afternoons, I surprise Griffin.
I like to show up on the tail end of his tours.
He’s still translating, but he’s also doing something he loves even more. He’s introducing tourists and natives alike to the curiosities of Paris that are hidden in plain sight. He’s not operating boat rides along the Seine, or leading trips through the Louvre. Others can do that better and enjoy it more, he has said.
But there’s no one—not a soul in the whole wide world—who knows the corners of Paris better than him, the spots with unexpected delights that can be found all over this metropolis. A few times a day, he’ll guide travelers to the oddities of our city, showing them the street that runs under a residence in the 17th arrondissement, bizarre sculptures that jut out of buildings, sundials that do work, and sundials that don’t do their jobs at all. At other times, he mixes up his repertoire and takes his customers on tours of the best chocolate shops, always ending at what I call heaven with a cup of hot chocolate.
That was my idea. After all, who doesn’t like chocolate?
Sometimes he leads tours in Spanish, sometimes in French, often in English, and occasionally in Portuguese, since he now knows that language.
That was his dream, and he stayed the course.
Perhaps he was always meant to be an explorer. His journeys have simply become more local, in the city we both now call home. But we’ve managed to break out our passports a few times in the last several months. We’re not world travelers, but we saw the Northern Lights in Iceland, and they were as majestic as a queen’s glittery crown. We flew to Copenhagen last month and wandered through the charming streets, and we’re taking off for Tokyo in a few months to finally see what Griffin calls the neon city.
“It’s more fun going places with you,” he’d said when we watched the stars in the cool night sky near the Arctic Circle.
“Everything’s better together,” I’d replied.
Life has been good here, too. Come What May is rolling out in time for the Christmas season, and I’m hopeful it’ll be a hit. My sister and parents will be visiting for the holidays, and I plan to take them shopping at all my favorite outdoor markets and the most fantastic department stores, too. After that, Griffin and I will take the train to London to see his parents for New Year’s.
Really, what more could an American girl in Paris ask for? I’m speaking the language capably every day, mixing up concoctions in the lab during my working hours, and coming home to a man who makes me laugh, who makes me smile, and who loves to whisk me away. Sometimes, we take a trip around the world and we don’t even have to go anywhere. That’s what making love with him feels like.
I guess I’ve always been a goner for a man with an English accent.
And now I get to
