Chapter 10 #5
The men who found me.
The fact that Xavier Blackwell now knows my real face and my real name.
Instead, I'm warm.
Full.
Safe.
His coat is folded beside me, close enough that I can still smell him.
My lips are tender from his kisses.
And across the fire, Ghost sits in an armchair watching me like I'm the thing he's spent his entire life trying to find.
The intensity in those dark eyes should make sleep impossible.
Somehow it does the opposite.
My body finally believes I don't have to stay awake.
“Ghost?”
His expression changes at the name.
“Yeah?”
I let my eyes close.
“Still here?”
A pause.
Then his voice crosses the quiet room.
Low.
Certain.
“Still here.”
My chest loosens.
I smile without opening my eyes.
The last thing I see before sleep takes me is Xavier Blackwell in the firelight, elbows resting on the arms of the chair, his dark gaze fixed on me.
Not hunting.
Not questioning.
Just watching.
And for the first time in years, being found doesn't feel anything like being caught.
A log snaps in two.
The crack punches through the quiet room and jerks me awake.
For several seconds, I don't know where I am.
Darkness.
Firelight.
Rain still whispering against glass.
My neck hurts from sleeping at an angle, one hand tucked beneath my cheek. The blanket has slipped down around my waist, and the room is almost completely black except for the low orange glow of the fire.
Then something moves across from me.
Xavier.
Still there.
His jacket is gone. His tie too. White shirt open at the throat, sleeves rolled to his forearms. He sits in the armchair with one ankle resting over his knee, his face mostly shadow.
Watching me.
I blink slowly.
“What time is it?”
“Past midnight.”
His voice sounds different in the dark.
Lower.
Rough.
Like gravel dragged over silk.
I try to sit up and immediately wince when my neck protests.
Xavier is out of the chair before I can complain.
“Easy.”
“I slept wrong.”
“You slept folded like luggage.”
“I was comfortable.”
“You’re lying.”
“Probably.”
His hand slides beneath my hair, fingers finding the back of my neck. He rubs gently once, and my eyes nearly close again.
“That hurts?”
“Little.”
His thumb works carefully along the tight muscle.
I make an involuntary sound.
His hand stills.
The silence changes.
Even half asleep, I feel it.
Xavier’s gaze drops to my mouth.
My heartbeat wakes before the rest of me does.
He clears his throat.
“Let me take you to bed, princesse.”
The French rolls through the dark.
I stare up at him.
“You called me princess.”
“Apparently.”
“That's dangerously close to sweet.”
“Don't tell anyone.”
I smile sleepily.
“I can walk.”
“I know.”
Then he bends and picks me up anyway.
A surprised laugh escapes me.
“Xavier.”
One arm beneath my knees.
The other around my back.
Effortless.
His chest is warm against my cheek.
“Put me down.”
“No.”
“I am capable of walking.”
“You were kidnapped, haven't slept properly, and your neck is trying to mutiny.”
“Still bossy.”
“Sleepy women are easier to manage.”
I lift my head.
“That sounded arrogant.”
“It was.”
I should argue.
Instead, my head falls back against his shoulder.
His heartbeat is beneath my ear.
Steady.
Real.
Ghost has a heartbeat.
There are still moments when that realization feels impossible.
He carries me down the hallway while London sleeps beyond the windows.
I curl one hand into the front of his shirt.
“Tu es impossible,” I murmur.
His mouth brushes my hair.
“Et pourtant, tu m’as appelé.”
(And yet you called me.)
I close my eyes.
“That is going to be your answer to everything now?”
“For the foreseeable future.”
He takes me into a bedroom lit only by the city beyond the windows.
His room.
I know immediately.
Dark wood.
Books stacked beside the bed.
A watch resting on the nightstand.
Nothing staged.
Nothing prepared for another person.
Xavier lowers me carefully onto the mattress.
The robe rides slightly up my legs, and I tug it back down.
His eyes follow the movement.
Slowly.
Heat unfurls beneath my skin.
He notices everything.
That gaze travels over me like a touch before his hands ever move.
“You're staring again.”
“Yes.”
“You don't even pretend anymore.”
“I spent years imagining you. I'm finished pretending I'm not curious.”
My breath catches.
He sits on the edge of the bed.
His fingers move into my hair.
Not the disguise.
Not synthetic strands.
Me.
He lifts one damp curl and lets it slide between his fingers.
“So soft.”
My stomach turns over.
“Xavier.”
He bends.
The first kiss lands beneath my ear.
Barely there.
My eyes close.
Another follows.
Lower.
His lips move slowly along the side of my neck, warm against skin still sensitive from the shower.
One.
Two.
Three.
I lose count after that.
His mouth pauses at the place where my pulse is racing.
He feels it.
I know he does.
“Rapide,” he murmurs against my skin.
(Fast.)
“Your fault.”
“Probably.”
Another kiss.
Lower.
My fingers find the back of his head.
His hair is softer than I expected.
I hold him there.
That earns me a low sound against my skin.
My entire body answers.
He kisses the curve where my neck meets my shoulder, then farther along my collarbone as the robe loosens slightly at the throat.
His hand stops at my waist.
Not moving farther.
Waiting.
Even now.
I open my eyes.
Firelight from the other room barely reaches us, leaving half his face in shadow.
His gaze lifts to mine.
“Tell me.”
The words are quiet.
I know what he means.
Want this?
Want him?
Want more?
I slide my fingers deeper into his hair and pull him back toward me.
“Don't stop.”
Something fierce flashes through his eyes.
Then his mouth returns to my skin.
Slower this time.
Not hurried.
Almost reverent.
As if every inch he discovers proves something he spent years wondering about.
His lips follow the line of my collarbone while his hand stays firm at my waist, keeping me close.
“Crème,” he murmurs against my skin.
I shiver.
“What?”
“Your skin.”
Another kiss.
“Douce… si douce.”
His accent thickens around the French that follows, words that slip warm and low against me while his mouth keeps stealing my concentration.
“Belle. Impossible. Enfin.”
My heart feels too large for my chest.
The knot of the robe gives under the slow drag of his fingers.
Silk parts.
Cool air touches the upper swell of my breasts a second before his mouth does.
He doesn’t rush.
He simply breathes against me first, as though memorizing the heat of my skin, then closes his lips over the soft rise of one breast.
A soft, open-mouthed kiss.
Then another, lower, until his tongue finds the tight peak of my nipple and draws it gently into the heat of his mouth.
My back arches.
A small, helpless sound leaves me.
He hums against me, the vibration traveling straight down my spine.
“Regarde-moi,” he whispers against the wet skin he just kissed.
(Look at me.)
I force my eyes open.
His are dark, half-lidded, watching every flicker of sensation cross my face while he moves to the other breast and gives it the same slow, devastating attention.
Lips.
Tongue.
The light scrape of teeth that never quite becomes pain.
“Tu es parfaite comme ca,” he murmurs, the words pressed directly to my nipple before he sucks again, deeper.
“Soft… warm… mine for tonight.”
The robe falls completely open.
His hand slides down the center of my body, palm flat, unhurried, until his fingers find the place where I am already aching for him.
He strokes once, light, almost testing, and my hips lift helplessly into the touch.
“Ah… mon Dieu.”
The French is rough now, spoken against the curve of my breast while his fingers continue their slow, deliberate circles.
“So wet for me already.
Tu me rends fou.”
He doesn’t push inside.
He simply strokes—patient, relentless, learning exactly how much pressure makes my breath shatter—while his mouth never leaves my skin.
He kisses the underside of my breast, the valley between them, the sensitive place just above my navel, whispering filthy, beautiful things the entire time.
“Je veux te sentir venir.”
(Come for me, princesse.)
Just like this.
“Only my hand… only my mouth…”
The dual sensation—his tongue still teasing one tight nipple, his fingers working that perfect, unhurried rhythm between my legs—builds until I am trembling, half-dreaming and wide awake at the same time.
Every nerve feels too close to the surface.
Every whispered French word against my damp skin only makes it worse.
“Xavier—”
“Shh.
“Je sais.”
(I have you.)
He strokes me through it when the pleasure finally breaks, slow and deep, murmuring soft, filthy praise against my breast the entire time I shake apart for him.
“C’est ca… juste comme ca.”
(So beautiful when you fall.)
He stays with me until the last tremor fades, then kisses his way back up my body—over my racing heart, the hollow of my throat, the corner of my mouth—until his forehead rests against mine.
We breathe the same dark air.
His fingers are still gentle between my thighs, no longer seeking, only soothing.
“Tonight,” he says quietly, the same promise as before, only now it feels different.
Heavier.
Real.
I nod, still half lost in the aftershocks.
He draws the robe closed again with surprising care, then pulls the covers over both of us.
When he settles beside me this time, it is skin to skin where the shirt has come open, his arm a solid weight around my waist.
My cheek finds his chest.
His mouth brushes the top of my head.
And somewhere between one slow kiss against my temple and the feel of his fingers moving through my curls, the last of the fear finally drains out of me.
“Ghost?”
His hand pauses.
“Hmm?”
I smile against his skin, voice barely more than a breath.
“You're very inconvenient in person.”
His chest moves beneath my cheek with a quiet laugh.
“Go to sleep, princesse.”
I close my eyes.
This time, when sleep comes, Xavier’s arms are around me—
and the ghost I’ve been chasing through machines for years is warm, and real, and still speaking soft, dirty French against my hair even as the rain keeps falling outside.