Chapter 20
20
Fleur
I wasn’t sure if it was all the food I’d eaten, or the turkey, or the way he looked at me with those languid, naughty eyes, but an almost sleepy, post-orgasmic haze filled me.
I’d never been more aware of anyone than I was of Max sitting next to me, his large body dominating the small couch. He was close enough that I could just barely smell his cologne—an earthy scent that was so male, so him .
I leaned forward a bit and sniffed, inhaling his scent like a drug. I vaguely remembered reading something about pheromones and attraction in last month’s Cosmo . Whatever it was, my pheromones wanted to jump his pheromones, like, yesterday.
Max’s head whipped to the side, nearly colliding with my face. His lips quirked.
“You okay?”
I nodded, as though I hadn’t just been trying to smell him. I was officially losing my mind.
“Did you just sniff me?”
“Of course not,” I lied.
“You sure about that? Because it sort of seemed like you were trying to smell me.”
“I was not trying to smell you.”
He grinned, wrapping his arm around my shoulders, pulling me tighter. “It’s okay if you were, babe. A little weird, but mostly cute.”
I elbowed him in the side.
He laughed, holding me even closer. God, he did smell amazing. Fuck it.
“Okay, fine. What kind of cologne do you wear?”
“I don’t. It’s Old Spice.”
“Never heard of it.”
He smiled again, and I got the sense that he wasn’t laughing at me as much as he thought I was cute. “I’m not surprised. They don’t sell it at Harrods,” he joked.
I rolled my eyes. “Are you always going to give me shit for being high-maintenance?”
His dimple popped out. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. I like that you’re high-maintenance.” His tone was wry. “And as much as I definitely shouldn’t admit this, part of me kind of gets off when you’re high-maintenance.” He leaned in, and his lips caressed my ear. “It’s a little sexy, in a fiery, passionate sort of way,” he teased.
I blinked. “Are you serious?”
“You in a temper is hot, babe.”
My eyes narrowed playfully. “You didn’t seem to think it was hot before.”
“You weren’t mine before.”
I stilled—at least on the outside. On the inside a flutter started in my belly and spread through my body, a million flutters beating as one.
“Babe...”
His hands drifted to my waist, resting on my hips, holding me in place, anchoring my body with his.
I wanted him. But I wasn’t ready.
I didn’t want him to think I was leading him on or that I was trying to be confusing. I just wasn’t at a point where I trusted myself. Not entirely. I was nervous and scared. Scared that all I was to a guy was sex. In the rational part of my head, I knew that wasn’t true. I knew Max wasn’t Costa and that he looked at me in a way Costa never had. But I’d been burned enough to question my own instincts.
“I need more time.”
Max was quiet, and I waited for the argument, waited for him to try to convince me that I was wrong. Instead, he nodded.
“Okay.”
I waited.
“Okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
Relief flooded me.
“Are you really this good of a guy?”
He laughed at the disbelief in my voice. “I don’t know, Fleur. I’m a guy. I’m hard as a rock sitting next to you right now. I spent half of dinner thinking about how I wanted you for dessert.”
I died.
“I spent the other half thinking about how amazing you are. What you did tonight? Not just the dinner and the surprise of it, but inviting George and Amy, making my best friend feel welcome despite the weirdness between you guys? That means so much more to me than whatever my body wants. I’ll do anything to make this work. If that means we keep taking things slow, then okay.” He grinned. “And to be honest, it’s not that altruistic, because your slow is better than every other girl’s supersonic.”
The last word was swallowed between our mouths as I closed the distance between us, kissing him until we were both breathless with it.
“Do you want to do something totally cheesy and touristy?” I asked when the kiss ended.
“If it means I get to spend the evening with you, yes.”
I stood up, holding my hand out. “Come on.”
Max
Fleur took me to the river, our hands linked.
“What’s the plan?”
She pointed toward a dock and a large boat. “We’re going for a ride on a Bateaux Mouche.”
“What?”
She repeated the words a little more slowly this time.
“We’re going on a boat cruise of Paris.” She flushed a bit, and I was momentarily surprised at the fact that she seemed embarrassed. “It’s touristy. They play ‘La Vie en Rose’ like twenty times, and it’s always packed, but it’s a cool view of the city.”
I blinked. “You’ve been on it before?”
Somehow, this didn’t fit with my view of the perpetually cool Fleur.
She turned a pretty shade of pink. “Yeah.”
I waited for the rest of it. Waited for her to give me more of herself.
“Sometimes I need to think. It’s the kind of place where you can disappear in the crowd. No one looks at you or cares. It’s best at night. The city is beautiful, and there’s something about being on the water, the wind in your hair. You can forget yourself for a while.” She turned an even deeper shade of pink. “And it’s totally a clichéd song, but I kind of like ‘La Vie en Rose.’”
“Why?”
“The words.” She fumbled for a bit, and I let her, because in a few minutes she’d painted another picture of herself, so different from the one I’d had. “It’s romantic.” She shook her head. “It’s stupid.”
“Stop. It’s not stupid.”
Her gaze lifted, met mine and held, and something vibrated between us. Her eyes gave me all the answers I needed.
She wanted—no, needed—romance.
It was surprising, and at the same time I felt like a complete idiot for not realizing it sooner. The thing about Fleur was that her persona was predicated on the idea that she didn’t care what anyone thought. It made her seem like she had a hard shell. But I realized now how wrong I’d been.
There was a softness to her—one you had to crack through layers to get to. It was so deeply protected that it was easy to miss it. But wasn’t that the point?
For all that she acted like things didn’t matter, like she was all flash and no substance, she kept the most important parts of herself hidden away. She made you work for it in a way that had nothing to do with expensive presents or fancy dates.
She wanted romance, because what was romance, really, if not showing someone else that you cared?
She needed to know someone cared about her, and given the way Costa had treated her, and the relationship she’d described with her parents, I doubted she’d ever had that.
I wanted to give it to her more than anything.
Fleur
Somewhere between the Place de la Concorde and the Eiffel Tower, I knew I’d go to bed with Max tonight.
He held me the entire boat cruise. They played “La Vie en Rose” so many times the words ran through my head on a never-ending loop, and still, each time I heard the music and Max squeezed me tighter, I felt like a champagne bottle had exploded inside me.
When he kissed me, I saw fireworks.
I pointed out the sights to him, loving the way he responded. As much as I no longer wanted to live in Paris, the city would always have a piece of me. It was like I was giving him parts of my past, and he loved every one of them.
It was magic.
At Les Invalides we asked a group of German tourists to take a picture of us with my cell phone. The image that stared back at me shocked me.
Max sat behind me, his arms wrapped around my waist, his head on my shoulder pressed against mine.
My lipstick had long since rubbed off from kissing. My hair was a tangled mess, my mouth puffy, my cheeks red from the wind and the cold and the man. My smile was blinding. I looked happier than I’d been in years. Happier than I’d ever been, maybe. And Max looked at the camera like he couldn’t be prouder than he was at that moment with his arms around me.
And just like that, I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
“I love you.”
I wasn’t going to say it first. But then I realized that Max told me he loved me every time he kissed me, every time he held me. With every smile, every look, every word.
So fuck it. I felt it, so I said it.
“I love you, too.”
My eyes closed as I drowned in his words.
My eyes flickered open, and the look shining back at me was beyond anything I’d ever imagined.
“So much,” he whispered, capturing my mouth. “It’s always been you. Always.”
We made out in front of a school group of German students until the boat stopped and people started getting off. Until I was close to getting off.
I grabbed his hand, pulling him toward me.
“Home?” I asked.
He grinned. “Home.”