B00CACT6TM EBOK Read online

  The door didn’t have a peephole. But faced with a lady or tiger choice, Jolie wasn’t the type to stand around dithering. She was across the room in one leap, yanking the door open. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she hissed at the man looming over her with one forearm braced on the doorjamb, the other hand still raised to knock.

  He stared down at her. His eyes ate her entire body up in one look, then ate it again, then fixated on her chest. Belatedly, she remembered that she was wearing only a cotton camisole sleep top and a lace-edged girly version of boy shorts. And no bra. “Putain.” He sounded strangled. “I’m not supposed to notice you’re attracted to me, right?”

  If she could have roared, she would have. As it was, her outrage strangled her. What a loathsome man. “I was dreaming. Not about you. It’s midnight. What are you doing here?”

  “I asked you if you went to bed early. Didn’t you say no?”

  She remembered how in the summer she would get into the habit of staying up until two in the morning, natural instinct for a teenager anyway, just so she could hang out with her father when he came in and talk to him as he unwound. “Midnight isn’t early by most people’s standards.”

  “I can’t sleep after we close.” He pushed his way into her room. “Too much adrenalin. So I had an idea.”

  Ooh, adrenalin to use up. She clenched her fists quickly. “I’m not an outlet for your adrenalin,” she hissed. What was wrong with her?

  He stopped and stared at her. “Is that all you ever think about when I’m around, me throwing you down on that bed and having sex with you?”

  Jolie’s vision turned red. Yes, damn him. God, the man was such a beast.

  “And you’re going to think I’m rude if I tell you that I find nothing at all wrong with that and would be more than happy to oblige,” he double-checked, energy running through his muscles. “I’m not supposed to reassure you that it’s completely reciprocal or anything.”

  She opened her mouth and closed it a few times, strangling. Completely, utterly, outrageously rude, yes. “You’re suing my father!” And her, but she was just the name in tiny font in this scenario. And she knew it damn well.

  “I can see how that would be embarrassing for you, then, to have all those things I’m not supposed to be talking about happening to your body when I’m around.”

  And while outrage choked her, he shifted closer, a prowling grace in his movements. His closeness kicked her body into wild excitement. She should have felt afraid, but she didn’t. Even though she barely knew him and he had just invaded her hotel room at midnight, while she wore two skimpy bits of cotton. How did he short-circuit her brain that way?

  “Can I kiss you?” The purr burred down her spine. “So you won’t take it as a rejection when I tell you why I really came here? Just because my mind is capable of working on more than one track, unlike yours, doesn’t mean your current obsession is one-sided.”

  If she gave into the urge to smack that smugness off his face, she was never going to convince him to drop that lawsuit, was she? “I wouldn’t get involved with a three-star chef in a million years. My mom warned me about men like you.”

  He scowled abruptly, defensively. “Yes? And what great insights into my character did she give you based on your damn father?”

  “That you’re temperamental, arrogant, you live on your emotions, and your work is the god you think everyone in your whole life should worship. None of that fits?”

  His scowl deepened. “What’s wrong with all that? Anyway, you do worship the same god. You’re a cookbook writer! I should be your wet dream! You certainly act as if I am!”

  Oh, she would so utterly kill him. She sniffed. Loudly. And wrinkled her nose. “Next time you come straight from thirteen hours of working like a madman in hot kitchens, you might want to take a shower before you lean in quite so close and tell me you’re my dream come true.”

  He drew back, startled. It was impossible to tell if he flushed, in the darkness, but he rubbed a hand over his three-day growth again in what could have been a self-conscious gesture. “Good idea,” he said finally. “Thanks.”

  And turned and walked straight into her shower, closing and locking the door behind him.

  Jolie gaped at the white door. On the other side of it, the water started running.

  He had locked the door.

  Not only assuming she might come in after him, but choosing to keep her out if she did.

  That made her so mad, she almost declined to put her clothes back on, but decided that continuing to strut around nearly naked when he got out of the shower might not be the best way to make him respect her. Or to keep herself from getting involved with a chef.

  Insisting on respect from a man instead of wallowing in his bestial instincts was a bitter, hard, thankless road.

  Normally, a shower was one of Gabriel’s key steps to relaxing after he left the restaurant. First the walk through the quiet, jasmine-scented streets to his apartment and that tired climb up his stairs, knowing that soon he could let everything slide off him. Then the shower. Then maybe some inane late-night show or browsing the Internet while he finally unwound enough to eat for the first time in thirteen hours and at last crash into his bed.

  But knowing Jolie Manon was out there in her little white cami and boy shorts while her hot water was sluicing over him was enough to keep his blood pumping harder than when fifty of the same order came in at once and they only had plates prepped for half of them. Harder than the rumor that a Michelin reviewer was in the house, during that year before he got his third star. His second third star, the one that nobody else could steal from him.

  Nearly as hard as when he had seen that putain de livre de cuisine with PIERRE MANON stamped over his Rose.

  Warm water slid over his shoulders as he savored how much more luscious this heart-pounding was than any of those. Putain, but he loved pushing her and seeing what she did.

  What might she be doing out there? Calling the police? Disappearing into the night while she had the chance? Waiting for him in a sexy pose on the bed, with her butt in the air?

  He ducked to fit his head under the hotel showerhead, and his hand scraped over his face.

  Hmm.

  “Jolie!” he called through the door.

  No answer. If she had chosen to disappear into the night, he was going to so enjoy chasing after her to save her. He could hardly let a woman run around the streets in that cami-boy short outfit.

  Her pink trousse de toilette sat on the edge of the sink, so he stretched out a hand to the unopened bag of pink disposable razors. Not every man would have the guts to shave himself with a woman’s disposable, but Gabriel had nineteen years experience working in starred kitchens, and his hands could do anything he wanted them to.

  He tossed the razor in the trash, sniffed his T-shirt, hesitated, then finally pulled on just his jeans. She was probably going to complain about him appearing without a shirt, but there were only so many ways she could have him. All right, an infinite number of ways she could have him, but only one didn’t include a day’s worth of male perspiration. He hadn’t carried a change of T-shirt with him this morning on the off-chance that a woman made of pistachios and sweet golden-brown would walk into his life and beg him to eat her up.

  That was just so wrong, for a woman to look at you like that and then get mad every time you opened your mouth to actually do it.

  He came out of the shower thrumming with anticipation. Damn, no butt in the air on the hotel bed. Jolie sat on the terrace, studiously ignoring him. In jeans and a short-sleeved top. And a bra on under that top, too.

  Merde. That skimpy pajama thing had played a key role in all his visions of what she might do while he was in the shower. In fact, in the disappearing-into-the-night option, he had gotten to the point in the fantasy when bad guys circled around her and she threw her vulnerable body into his rescuing arms, and he picked her up and hauled her somewhere safe . . . and warm . . . and when he taught her exactly
how vulnerable she was, instead of telling him he was a beast, she wrapped her trembling, fragile body around his in panicked gratefulness for the lesson.

  It had been a great fantasy. He was quite sorry to relinquish it to real life.

  She kept typing into a tablet, refusing to look at him. As he got closer and closer. As her fingers faltered all over the place.

  He put one knee on her lounger and bent over her, placing a hand by her head. The tablet screen showed complete gobbledy-gook. He smiled, revealing his teeth. The better to eat her with my dear. Picking up her hand, he laid it against his smooth jaw. “This better?”

  The shiver ran from her palm against his skin all through her body. She tried to look up. But her gaze got stuck as soon as it hit the waistband of his jeans. Her lashes took a long, long time rising up his naked torso to his shoulders. Her fingers, still held captive by his against his jaw, flexed infinitesimally over his fresh-shaven skin, an elusive scattering of rain on parched earth. He had to fight not to rub his face against that caress like a cat begging for more.

  She wasn’t breathing. He gave a low growl of triumph at the look in her eyes. “Dream come true, Jolie?”

  She shivered all over, her eyes dilating still further as she tilted her head at last to look up into his.

  His heart pounded with the desperate desire to kiss her until that tablet computer slid off her lap.

  But she didn’t seem to like it when he was polite enough to show her how much he was attracted to her, too.

  So let her wallow in it by herself for a little.

  See if that improved her opinion of his manners.

  He straightened and moved to the wall of the terrace, almost positive he heard a frustrated puff of breath behind him. Looking down over the fountain Sainte-Mère had built in his honor when the town’s tourism economy quintupled after he got his third star, he took a moment to stretch. Hands locked high over his head, he arched his back into it, rolling his neck, his shoulders. What started as a deliberate calculation was such a relief after the past seven hours without a break that he sank into it, taking his time, muscles easing. Putain, but that felt good. It would feel even better if slim little hands added their pressure.

  He glanced back at Jolie Manon, who had her knees pulled up so he couldn’t even see her chest, staring at him. Her fingers rubbed slowly back and forth over her jeans-clad knees, as if she needed texture.

  Don’t hold back, chaton. I’m happy to be your texture.

  He sat on the edge of the terrace wall, stretching out his legs, bracing his hands against its edge so that his torso was long, lean, fully exposed, the muscles of his arms and shoulders flexing a little.

  Putain, but he liked it, when she had to bite on her lower lip.

  He had so many things he could do with that mouth of hers. Make her lose not only her worries but her entire mind, tangling with him desperately in a—

  A beast, though.

  A beast. Was he really that bad?

  Would one of those civilized men who paid a fortune to eat at his tables sit here in front of that slim, vulnerable, adorably delicious little body, those eyes so wide and dark on him, and not do anything about it?

  And just because some men were des putains d’idiots, did that mean he had to be? In order to live up to their standards? Something was screwed up, there.

  “About that other idea,” he said firmly, because, well—he would like to be a prince. If it was remotely possible and didn’t require him to ignore her screaming body language indefinitely. “I think you should give me fifteen percent of the royalties. Since fifteen percent of the recipes are mine. Of your father’s royalties,” he added, as he saw her eyes flicker in calculation.

  She bit her lip. Wait, had that not been a princely thing to say? Damn it.

  “Not yours. You did the same amount of writing, whether you knew you were writing up my work or not.”

  She worried at her lip.

  Putain, would she quit doing that? It appealed to every heroic instinct he had—and he had a lot more of them than she gave him credit for—the thought of swooping in and protecting that lip from her cruelty. Offering himself to her teeth in its place. . . .

  He shifted, wondering what her head was doing with his increasingly obvious arousal. Anyone would think she would like it, since he aroused her, but apparently it couldn’t be that easy.

  “And I want subsequent editions to acknowledge me under each recipe that’s mine. Created by Gabriel Delange works fine. For the remaining print run of this first edition, you can just insert one of those slips of paper that corrects errors. It’s not ideal, but it’s either that or make you destroy the entire run.”

  That lower lip got more punishment. Her physical awareness of him faded as her worry rose. Merde. You’re not the knight in shining armor, you’re the beast, remember? She’s never in a million years going to think of you as the hero. Women never did. “I’m just starting out as a food writer,” she said, low. “If I have to get my publishing house to do all that, they probably won’t ever work with me again.”

  Gabriel sat still for a moment, his fingers pressing into that rough stone. He tilted his head back, closing his eyes, concentrating on the distant sound of his fountain, below in the square. “I’m never going to get any damn justice, am I?”

  She said nothing. When he opened his eyes again, she had her arms wrapped even more tightly around her knees, and she was watching him with a mixture of worry and apology.

  Bordel. “It is so like that salaud to have a stroke just before that cookbook came out.”

  “As if he did it on purpose!”

  Yes, all right, she loved her father. Le connard. He got three daughters to love him, even though he didn’t deserve it, while Gabriel lost his girlfriend of six years—sixteen to twenty-two—and had had a really lousy success rate when it came to long-term relationships ever since.

  How did Pierre Manon always manage to manipulate his situation to get everyone else to give him their all, so much more than he deserved?

  “Forget it,” he said roughly, shoving to his feet. “Don’t mess up your career with your publishing house. I’ll think of something else.”

  He headed back toward the hotel door and paused in front of her. Her eyes ate him up, making him very conscious of his naked upper body, of the way his shoulders blocked out her moonlight. Chaton, you don’t have to just look. I know what I make might mislead you, but I myself am more than happy to be devoured like junk food. “Do you have a boyfriend or something? Fiancé? Married?”

  Her eyes went enormous. She tightened her computer over her breasts, a defensive shield, but he saw her throat work again. “No,” she whispered.

  He shook his head, feeling heavy, puzzled. Like some damn beast who had wondered out of the woods and gotten lost, baffled, in society. “Then I don’t understand why, when you want me to kiss you so damn badly, you’ll get so mad if I do.”

  He strode out before he could crack and try it anyway and heard her tablet smack onto the stone terrace behind him.

  Fallen out of her lap as she lost herself in dazed arousal? Or just poorly aimed at his head?

  Why was he so bad at this? Surely no other man had to sue a woman just so he could make her put up with him long enough that he had a chance to figure out how to talk to her.

  Chapter 7

  Gabriel was standing doing bicep curls at the crack of dawn the next morning when he recognized the financier-colored ponytail and sleepy face of one of the women doing deep breathing in the early morning yoga class. Her eyes looked so heavy, he wondered why she had dragged herself out here.

  So disciplined she sought out a gym the first morning traveling? Or had she lain awake all night, tossing and turning in hopeless arousal, and now needed the calming influence? He grinned wickedly, thinking of all the ways he could help—eventually—calm her down.

  The class moved to all fours, and for about the fifteenth time in the past twenty-four hours, Gabriel found
himself staring at that little butt in the air. This time clad in skin-tight leggings. She arched her back, her head and butt rising higher, then flexed it like a cat, butt dropping. Then arched it again. Oh, that was . . . that was . . . there was only so much a man could take, here.

  One of the bodybuilders who spent half his life in this place walked by, with a sardonic look for Gabriel, who realized he had been frozen watching the yoga class for a good five minutes.

  “I was ogling someone specific!” Gabriel muttered, shifting to a machine, which just happened to keep that little corner of the yoga room in view. “Not the whole class!”

  The bodybuilder rolled his eyes and moved on to his own weights. Easy for him to be judgmental. Gabriel had caught the other man ogling him a few times, and occasionally the serious bodybuilder women, so clearly big muscles were where his sexual interests lay.

  Gabriel on the other hand—in the class, Jolie flowed again, hips lifting higher, chest pressing to the ground, little body seeming to grow longer, her back one supple arch—Gabriel was all about flexibility.

  Jo stopped at the top of the narrow stone staircase that led into the vieux village from the more modern town that draped below it like a skirt, which was where the closest gym had been. It was a perfect morning, just the first hour of dawn, the scent of jasmine releasing all around her from the brush of her hand along the vine that crawled over the old railing. Gabriel’s fountain played softly in the empty place, shaded by the plane trees with their peeling bark. For now, it was cool, a brief respite before the day’s heat began to bake down.

  She felt strong, supple, centered, at peace, after the hour of advanced yoga. As if she could handle anything, even a beast, with serene assurance and without that ridiculous attraction. Really, stress must have awakened some biological instinct to search out strength no matter what the cost to herself. There was no other explanation for how much he had drawn her.