The Chocolate Temptation (Amour et Chocolat) Read online

  The woman who, even removed from the kitchens that gave them such different status, even in her most beautiful, elegant dress, would have watched him seriously from the shadows, without the slightest idea how to work her way into the aura of that golden warmth with which he so easily enraptured everyone who came near him.

  And he had never been flirting with her. Not really. Just interacting with her the way he interacted with everyone. Breaking her heart because it had never even occurred to him that she might have one that was so easily breakable.

  They came out before the Opéra Garnier, a view that always made her heart leap with joy. Glowing in the night, the opulent, colonnaded Second Empire façade promised fabulous opulence for those who passed its doors. Night darkened the copper dome of the main gable, making an odd play of shadows and glowing gold over the Pegasus statues and the gilded figures that looked down on passersby from the roof.

  Patrick paused beside her to look up at it, continuing to massage her hand with diabolically absent skill. Again, just for one second, the lights from the Café de la Paix cast over him strangely, making him look so ruthless and relentless that shock rippled through her and an atavistic thrill.

  “Have you ever been inside?” he asked suddenly, pushing up under the sleeve of her coat so that both hands could climb up her forearm in a firm, gentle, opposing twist motion that turned her body inside out with pleasure.

  It was all she could do not to moan. How was she supposed to manage that casual intern-and-friendly-mentor tone? “I did the tour once,” she said wistfully. She had thought about what it must be like to sweep in amid all that gold and marble on the arm of some handsome man, in a beautiful dress. To be not an envious, awed tourist but part of that beauty. Belonging in it. “One day I want to go there. Before I leave Paris.”

  Patrick pulled her glove on and tucked her hand snugly back into her pocket, switching to the other side and taking her other hand. Shivers ran up and down her spine, bowing her head.

  He led them on gently but with authority, as if he knew very well she was entirely in his hands now. “Which do you like better? Ballet or opera?”

  She was embarrassed to admit to a Parisian that she had barely any experience of either of them. But it didn’t occur to her to lie, either. It rarely did. “I don’t even know,” she admitted, looking away from him so she didn’t have to see his reaction to her lack of sophistication. “I don’t – it’s just that I’ve been so busy. Studying in high school. Caltech. Then pastry school. Then – you.”

  He smiled oddly. “You mean the Leucé.”

  “I – right. Yes.”

  “You like to challenge yourself, don’t you?”

  “Do I?” She wrinkled her forehead. It seemed normal behavior to her.

  “Mmm.” A car swished close to the sidewalk, and Patrick pulled her in to his side, the gesture presumably automatic, because the car hadn’t shown any signs of endangering her by plowing through the black posts spaced regularly along the edge. For one delicious second, she felt all the muscles under that easy grace. The open coat left his chest just a lift of her hand away, and the thin cotton shirt and T-shirt that were all he wore under it against the winter cold made her palm itch even more to cover it. To zip that coat closed and keep him warm. Not that she could do that, of course. He could pull her into his side so casually, but she couldn’t touch him.

  A thumb pressed between her eyebrows. Her gaze tried to fly to Patrick, but almost all she could see was his big hand. The thumb rubbed deeply across the space over the bridge of her nose, a callused, luxurious swirl, until all the muscles in her face seemed to release like a rubber band. She patted an involuntary hand over her cheek, her temple, astonished at the feel of that relaxation.

  “Stop stressing, Sarah.” Patrick trailed his hand past her temple to tuck away strands of hair frayed loose in the hard day. “I’ve got you.” And just as her heart lurched at those words – in that weird, thrilling hope she could never get rid of, no matter how many times he flirted with her carelessly en route to a more pressing focus – he gave her a sweet smile and dropped his hand.

  I hate you, she thought hopelessly.

  He paused at an intersection, his head bent to hers, so much taller he seemed like a shelter from the very fine drizzle that started. “Why don’t you give me your address and I’ll take all control from here?” he asked, amused, low, warm. “You must be tired.”

  Sarah blinked and looked around. “This way.” The fine winter drizzle felt refreshing against her face after all those long hours in the kitchen, after the flush brought by Patrick. Like splashing her face with cold water after too much sun. She turned her face up to it at the next light, closing her eyes so as not to meet Patrick’s. His thumb rubbed extra long and slow into her palm. She shivered, letting the drizzle lay its fine spray across her eyelids.

  His fingers grew very, very gentle, the barest whisper of a massage. The barest whisper of heat on her hand, contrasting with the barest caress of chill on her face.

  The streets grew narrower and quieter and darker as they wound their way uphill into her neighborhood, at the approach to Montmartre. She didn’t want to admit how nice it was to have Patrick’s size and confidence next to her at this hour of the night. The adrenaline that kicked up as the space grew more intimate, less visible, was different with him there. More eager for whatever dangerous thing might happen. His clever hands never stopped the massage, even when she stumbled sometimes from the heaviness of her body, the need to become nothing but submission.

  “Here,” she whispered finally, before her blue door darkened by the night. Patrick’s thumb curled around the inside of her elbow and withdrew slowly down the inside of her forearm in a last stroke that seemed to run over her nipples and part her sex, leaving her wide open for him.

  “You don’t have an umbrella I could borrow, do you?” he murmured, leaning over her as she entered her code, sheltering her from the drizzle as it thought about becoming rain. Her heart thudded helplessly at the closeness of his body, the angle of a protective boyfriend or a man who had intentions for the night.

  An umbrella. So he could continue on his way. She swallowed and looked in her little backpack. Odd. She always carried the compact umbrella there, a safeguard against Paris’s winter moods. “I must have left it in my apartment.”

  “I’ll run up with you to get it,” Patrick said easily. “So you don’t have to come back down.”

  Sarah flushed at the thought of him being in her tiny apartment. But what was she supposed to do? Say no?

  ***

  Patrick followed two steps behind Sarah up the stairs, his eyes level with the back of her neck. A coat collar protected that nape. Cute, really. Like a princess hiding from a ravaging dragon behind a spiderweb.

  The narrow, worn staircase had timed buttons for light that had to be pushed at each level so that the two of them winked their way up the floors, like someone signaling smugglers offshore. She lived right under the roof, a tiny apartment with a view out over the slate rooftops and chimneys of Paris that reminded him of his own place at fifteen, down the hall from Luc, the two of them trying to scrape by with each other’s support, their independent poverty far preferable to their foster home. Its angled walls and her bed took up most of the space, a tiny table tucked against one window beside a little kitchenette with only a stovetop, no oven, a refrigerator that wouldn’t even hold enough food to feed him two meals straight.

  He reached to slip off her coat, as if he had been raised with sweet manners, which was kind of funny considering his raising, but he liked giving those gestures to her. It was amazing how many acts of gentlemanly “manners” were really just stamps of possession. I’ll pay your restaurant bill and pour your drink, so that you know that everything you eat, everything you drink, comes through me. I’ll walk behind you up the stairs, to make sure you know that you can’t walk without me. I’ll take your coat; you are mine to dress and undress.

  He put up a ha
nd to grasp one of the beams in the ceiling, to make sure he wouldn’t hit it with his head. Oh, that serious, delicate face of hers, the way her gaze tracked up his body, all the length to the hand that held the beam. Who did you just let into your apartment? Sarabelle, you should be more careful. You don’t know me at all.

  He grinned at her. “I used to have a place just like this when I started out.”

  She tore her gaze away from him, looking around, and for a moment he forgot why. “I can’t find it,” she muttered.

  The umbrella, right. That was because it was in his jacket pocket. Nice and compact, safely hidden, so easy to slip out of her backpack while they were looking at the Opéra Garnier. He would leave it for her in the morning so she didn’t get caught in the rain.

  Hunger rammed in him at his inner statement of intent, this giant, mad hunger, and fear. That precipice he was about to go over was so damn high; could he stand the fall?

  He drew a breath, wishing he was decent enough to focus on what this apartment said about her. “Did you have a bigger apartment, in the U.S.?”

  “Of course,” she said, puzzled. “This is Paris. Plus I was earning twenty times more.” Her mouth twisted, and she added defiantly: “I was probably earning nearly as much as you are. Maybe more.”

  I should go, some whisper managed to make itself heard in his brain. She’s giving up everything for this dream. Don’t break it.

  But he wouldn’t go. He would eat her dream alive, take all of her for his. He couldn’t stand this anymore.

  He sat on the bed, as the only space to sit in that room, sat right in the center of it, legs splayed. My bed, now.

  And that anxious, perfectionist furrow formed between her eyebrows, as if she didn’t know what to make of him. I’ll show you, chérie. I’ll show you exactly what to make of me.

  And, oh, God, am I going to make some things out of you.

  She shrugged out of her coat, still focused on him, and he loved that, he loved her automatic undressing while all her concentration bent on him. He could get used to that – coming home with her every evening, until she undressed so automatically around him that she stripped right down to her toes, all while thinking about him and what he might do to her and what she might want to do to him.

  She hung the coat in the closet, frowning at the empty net pockets inside the door that probably sometimes held an umbrella. When she closed the closet again, she spotted herself in the mirror on the door, and her hand touched her fraying hair in a kind of despairing self-consciousness.

  It was hard for him to lay a truth about himself out there, but he was doing so many terrible things tonight, he thought maybe he should force himself, for her sake. “Do you know you’re one of the prettiest women I have ever seen?” he asked, far more quietly and honestly than he usually let himself speak.

  Her head whipped around, and she stared at him with her lips parted, completely stunned.

  He shrugged funnily, to minimize his self-exposure. “It works for me.”

  “Patrick.” She pressed back against the mirror, sounding wary. “You just got in a fight over Summer Corey.”

  “Luc got in a fight over Summer. I got in a fight because I’ve been wanting to get in a fight for some time now, and he’s by far my favorite candidate for it.” And that was probably enough honesty for one month, wasn’t it? “Could the umbrella be under the bed?” He looked down vaguely, not lifting the comforter himself to check because he would far rather she come closer and bend over herself.

  “No,” she said definitely. Ah, an organized woman. But then he knew that about her already. He knew so many, many things about her. Sarabelle, let me find out all the rest. God, his skin was going to split with the need.

  “Do you mind if I wait just a few minutes to see if the rain lets up, then?” he asked, shrugging out of his jacket with enough care to make sure her umbrella didn’t fall out of his pocket.

  She didn’t answer, her forehead crinkled, but she moved to her tiny stovetop, filling a kettle with water and setting it on the burner, opening a little canister of crumbled leaves whose peppermint scent reached him through the small space. She must do this every evening, he thought. The little ritual she defaulted to even when he was here to disturb it: take off her jacket, make her little herbal tea. Kick off her shoes, curl up in this bed. He bet his presence was all that was keeping her shoes on right now. And his own toes curled with the desire to see her feet bare. Padding toward him. Oh, sweetheart, you are going to curl up in this bed with me. Yes, you are.

  He looked at her feet, just willing those little street tennis shoes off with everything in him, and looked up to find her trying not to watch him. Her slightly tilted eyes so very serious, in that way that seemed to just run little fingers everywhere all over his body, tickling him unmercifully.

  Could he stand up again yet and lean into her? Would her eyes widen and her head tilt back for him? Could he reach out a hand and pull her between his legs? He flopped back on the bed instead, sinking into it with the ease of a man who had had a very long day. “Mmm.” He smiled at her sideways, his eyes barely open…just enough to see every single reaction she made.

  Her eyes did widen, and she took a breath and bit her lip, looking back at the tea leaves she was spooning out. If he “fell asleep” on this bed, would she wake him and kick him out or let him smile up at her sleepily and pull her down to him as he kissed her? Or would she let him sleep and eventually just have to creep to the bed and tuck herself on the edge of it, too tired to resist, so that she fell asleep and he got to wake her? He knew exactly how bone-tired she must be, how much she must long to curl up in this bed right now. The way he knew he could get her to do things just because she was so used to doing exactly what he told her, to letting him take over her body until she got everything exactly the way he wanted it. Patrick, you are such a fucking bastard. Un vrai enculé.

  But, oh, God, I want her, I want her, I want her. I can’t stand this anymore. I can’t. The ache of it was going to swallow him whole.

  He smiled at her, under drooping eyelashes. “Make me some, too?” And he blew her a long, slow kiss just before he “dozed off.”

  ***

  It would be so easy for him, Sarah thought despairingly, staring at her tea leaves. Making tea wasn’t helping her, and the umbrella had gone off and hid, and she kept wanting to kick off her shoes and just give up.

  If being in a woman’s apartment suddenly put him in the mood, all he would have to do was curl one little finger. And there she would be.

  Easy, automatic sex, at the beck of his fingers. That was probably how it always worked for him. He probably didn’t even know what difficult was.

  No, that can’t be right, Sarah, she reminded herself, not for the first time. He does the same job you do, a million times better. He has to know what hard is. He just never shows it’s hard.

  But still…difficult with women? What woman could resist that wicked grin of his? If any did, he probably yawned and turned without a second’s thought to the next, non-resisting woman.

  The kettle woke, and she turned it off before it could whistle, pouring water over peppermint leaves, something oddly warming about doing this for two instead of one.

  Wouldn’t her life be wonderful if Patrick really thought she was as special as those winks of his sometimes made her feel, if she made tea for him while he blew her kisses every evening? She would almost be willing to share this minuscule space, to give up her last tiny slice of the introverted time she missed so much, if that person were Patrick.

  She warmed her hands on her cup, as she always did, watching the warm body that cup had always been a substitute for, evening after cold evening. “Patrick,” she said, but he didn’t wake up. “Patrick.”

  Still no movement. Those tawny lashes of his lay so innocently against his cheeks. He should have looked like a tired child, but he didn’t. He looked like a tired man.

  She carried the cup across to him and touched his thigh. �
��Patrick.” He didn’t move, doubtless exhausted. She was, and he did ten times as much as she did. That perfect, sensual aristocrat’s mouth was relaxed, the cleft in the strong chin somehow like a chink in his armor.

  “Patrick.” She had to crawl onto the bed to reach his shoulder. She kicked her shoes off, because she hated wearing her street shoes in the house, much less letting them come into contact with her actual bed. Her mother had never allowed outdoor shoes on indoor floors. Her socks went with them automatically, as they always did, and then she regretted it, her feet now as vulnerable as the rest of her. She shook his shoulder a little. “Patrick, wake up.”

  Before she just curled up against his shoulder and went to sleep, too. She was so tired. All the tension in her body seemed to pull toward him, like filings to a magnet, as if he could drain it out of her and turn it into something else. Something golden and warm and easy.

  “Sarabelle,” he murmured, and as always the name cascaded over her skin, making her feel so special. “It’s my favorite dream.”

  What?

  Gorgeous blue eyes opened and fixed on her. He gave her a lazy, lap-her-up smile. “Did you know I dream about you every night?”

  How could he say these things to her? He couldn’t know how much they would hurt. He couldn’t understand someone like her, could he? Someone to whom things mattered.

  “And most of every day,” he added, with that low, easy, sand-scratched voice of his, as if he was going to tuck her under a palm tree and keep her there for a while, at least until the next big wave.

  He always toyed with her heart so damn carelessly. As if his own heart was so impervious, he didn’t realize anyone else’s could be hurt.

  “And do you know it always starts like this?” he asked. “With you wearing too many clothes.”

  Her heart thudded. Her breasts tightened unbearably. He rolled onto his elbow, and his eyes tracked fast over her body, where she knelt with his tea in one hand, his gaze this ravenous thing that ate her all up and then zoomed in on her bare feet tucked under her butt.