The Carver (Fifth Republic #2)

3. Fleur

Chapter 3

Fleur

When I woke up, he wasn’t there.

I felt the cold sheets beside me and knew he’d been gone a while. My tired eyes peered through the darkness to the crack of light between the doors that led to the sitting room. Then I heard his voice, like he was speaking to someone on the phone. I couldn’t make it out, not when he spoke quietly and the doors blocked out most of the sound.

I turned to look at the time on my phone.

It showed 4:08.

Bastien didn’t seem to have a sleep routine like the rest of the world. He slept whenever he slept, whether that was in the middle of the day or the middle of the night. It’d been a rough week, and I’d found myself waking up in the middle of the night because of bad dreams and general depression. Those moments were always hard because the loneliness was so fucking bitter.

It was nice to wake up and know he was there—even if he was in the other room.

Knowing that I’d fixed what I’d destroyed.

He finished his phone call then gently opened and closed the door, doing his best not to wake me up even though it was too late. He was in his boxers, his muscled frame a shadow in the dark as he came to the bed.

When he moved under the sheets, he realized I was awake. “Did I wake you?”

“No. I just do that sometimes.”

“Makes two of us.” He got comfortable and placed his forearm under his neck.

I moved into him, using his shoulder as a pillow, my arm snaking over his hard stomach. Even when he was relaxed, his entire torso was solid like it was always flexed. He was warm, as if flames burned underneath his skin. I tucked my leg between his knees and snuggled into him under the sheets, peace settling into my bones when I felt him beside me.

He circled his arm around the small of my back as he hugged me to him, his lips resting against my hairline.

I was dead tired but wide awake, not wanting to let this moment slip away, enjoying the safety of his arms and the comfort of his affection. When I went to sleep, my dreams would contradict reality, and I would suffer in the misery of the lie—that he hadn’t taken me back.

But I had work in the morning and needed to get some sleep so I wouldn’t have raccoon eyes all day. I needed to go by my apartment and change because I couldn’t go to the office in jeans. But all I wanted to do was stay awake and savor the man beside me.

He seemed to be wide awake too, judging by the way he breathed.

I pulled away and propped myself on my elbow, trailing my hand up his stomach and over his hard chest. I looked down at his tattoos, studying the dark imagery he wore across his skin, a scythe from the undertaker, a phrase in Latin, the Roman numeral for five, all kinds of stuff that made sense to him and no one else.

He watched me stare at him, moving his hand up to brush my hair out of my face. “You’d look hot with ink.”

“I don’t think I could pull it off like you can,” I said with a slight smile.

“Something small behind your ear. A little something on your hip, like a flower or my name…” He moved his fingers down my back, trailing right over my spine until he slid them up again, grazing the skin.

I looked into his face and expected to see a playful smirk, but he was dead serious.

“Would you get a woman’s name tattooed on your arm?”

“Absolutely.”

My fingers stilled on his chest because I hadn’t expected him to say that. “Do you have a woman’s name on your body already?”

Now, he smirked. “Jealous. I like it.”

“Not jealous, just wondering.”

“Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

“How would you feel if I had a man’s name tattooed somewhere?”

The playfulness remained in his eyes. “Why would I care about a dead man’s name on your body?”

“Dead?” It took me a second to follow what he meant, and once it dawned on me, I gave a sigh. “Yes, that’s your solution to everything.”

“It’s a great solution.” His fingers continued to stroke me. Sometimes he would slip his fingers into my hair, touching me with a gentleness that seemed impossible for someone like him to execute. “Fixes everything.”

“Maybe I’ll get a tattoo someday…but probably not.”

“I’ve left some room on my arm for my wife. If I ever get married, I know that’s something I would want.”

A lot of things happened in that nanosecond. I was touched by the sweet thing he’d just said, surprised that he’d even pictured a future where he was settled down with a single woman—and I was also jealous. Jealous of whoever it was if it wasn’t me. I never wanted to remarry so my rage was senseless, but it dropped like an atomic bomb. “That’s romantic.”

“I can be pretty romantic when I’m not killing people.” The playfulness was still there while he caressed me, looking at me with those blue eyes like he never wanted to look away. His eyes drank me in like I was the Mona Lisa.

“You seem like the kind of man that wouldn’t be interested in that.”

“There you go again, making assumptions.”

“Do criminals care about a house with a white picket fence and kids running around?”

He smirked like I’d made a joke. “No.”

“That’s all I meant.”

“I’m not the kind of guy that says never. I’m not looking to get married and have kids, but if I happened to meet a woman I can’t live without, damn right, I’m making her my wife. If she wants to do the kid thing, fine. I’m not going to take that away from her if it’s important to her.”

“In that scenario, would you leave your line of work?”

“No.”

“What if she wanted you to?”

“She would never do that.” His fingers stopped brushing me once the conversation shifted. “She wouldn’t be my wife if she did. I wouldn’t marry a woman unless she accepted all of me, exactly as I am, and trusted me to protect her.”

He was deeper and more complex than I’d originally thought, but he was also stubborn and set in his ways. He was like a mountain in that regard. Not even an earthquake would change his position. I didn’t want to live in this dangerous world with him, but I didn’t want to live in a safe world without him more. “Is that normal? For men like you to have families?”

“It’s more than normal—it’s common. You think these guys are pushing drugs on the street and moving arms because they want to sit on a pile of money by themselves? They do it because they have a family like everyone else. Want to send their kids to the best schools, leave an estate that will take care of their descendants for generations to come. The line of work is questionable, but the quality of the men behind it is not. There are exceptions to that, obviously, but a lot of men just want to support their families, buy their wife a diamond necklace and maybe one or two for their mistress.”

“Because quality men always have mistresses.”

“Some of them do, but most of them don’t,” he said. “I may personally disagree with it, but I’m not one to judge.”

I continued to graze his chest with my fingers, marveling at the strength underneath his warm skin. “So, when does the job end? When does a man like you retire?”

“I’ll know when the time comes.”

“You obviously don’t need any money, so you must enjoy it.” I wasn’t really asking him anything, talking aloud to myself, mostly. It must be the adrenaline, the power, the lifestyle. Bastien didn’t seem like the kind of man that could work for someone else. I couldn’t see him being a police chief or something along those lines either. He was one of a kind.

My shoulder felt stiff from being propped up during the conversation, so I lay back down and rested on the pillow. “I don’t want to go to work tomorrow.”

“Then don’t go.”

“I can’t bail. I just got the job.”

“You can’t get fired, so do whatever you want.”

“Well, I like my boss and don’t want to let him down. And it was nice of you to get me that job—and let me keep it.” Let me keep it after I’d left him in that restaurant. “Blowing it off is a shitty way to show my gratitude.”

“You can show your gratitude in other ways.” He moved into me under the sheets, pressing his chest against my back as he hooked his arm around my waist and pulled me in tight like I was drifting away. He pressed his face into my hair, and he went still, like he suddenly felt tired enough to fall asleep.

I lay there and felt his chest rise and fall against my back, felt his breaths fall on the back of my neck. Through the crack in the doors, I could tell there was a hint of dawn in the sky, faint but distinct.

I had to wake up in just an hour or two and leave this cozy bed and the sexy man who slept in it—the last thing I wanted to do.

My boss was Robert, a nice guy who wore a different-colored suit to work every day. His desk had a few pictures of his husband and their kids. He liked his coffee black, made small talk but not too much of it, and sent me an email every morning with the tasks he wanted me to complete.

It was way easier than being a bartender.

There were other investment guys in the office too, loud and obnoxious. If I ran into them in the hallway, they chatted with me far longer than they should. After office meetings, they would invite me to lunch, which I always declined. I suspected they had no idea who owned this company and the fact that I was fucking him.

I’d never say anything to Bastien, though, because I still wasn’t sure if he would walk in there and kill them all.

I was dead tired with bags under my eyes, but I pushed through the day. I’d only gotten paid once so far, and it was substantially more than I had been making before. For the first time since I’d left Adrien, I actually had money in my account I didn’t have to use.

So, I showed up, because I needed this job.

I had access to a lot of accounts to do my job, and it was abundantly clear on my first day that there were a lot of rich people in Paris. And when I say rich, I didn’t mean millionaire-rich, but billionaire-rich. Whenever clients would come into the office to meet with Robert or the other investment suits, I knew they were somebody.

It was almost the end of the day, and I kept glancing at the time in the corner of my computer screen, desperate to go home and take a nap. A shower would be nice too because I hadn’t had the chance to do so after I’d left Bastien’s. My makeup was thrown on in a rush and my hairstyle was a day old, so I didn’t look my best. I would be more self-conscious about it if I weren’t so fucking tired.

I just wanted to go home.

I was at my desk when I heard a familiar voice outside my office. A voice I’d recognize anywhere because I heard it every night in my dreams. “Half in the Caymans and the other half in Panama. I sent the transaction number to you.”

I stared out the open door and listened to his voice. He’d never shown up at the office before. I hadn’t thought that was unusual, but since he owned the place, I guess it was. An email remained open on my screen but ignored because I continued to look out the door into the hallway.

Heavy boots against the hardwood were audible, growing louder as he approached my doorway, and then he rounded the corner and appeared, in a black bomber jacket with a black shirt underneath, dark jeans and boots, the black ink of his tattoo visible up his neck. He was the hardest man I’d ever seen, but god, he was so pretty.

He sauntered into the small office and stopped before my desk, his head cocked slightly as he watched me stare at him.

My ass remained glued to the chair because I was paralyzed by how fine he looked. Light came in from the window behind me and brightened his face with a gentle glow. It made the hardness of his jawline more prevalent, his cheekbones more distinct, like they’d been contoured by a makeup artist.

“I’m your man, right?”

I stilled at the venom in his voice.

“Then get your ass up and show it.”

I snapped out of my reverie. “Sorry…you’re just so hot, I lose my mind a little bit.”

The signs of anger left his face, and that handsome smile melted over his mouth like butter. “That’s fair.”

I left the chair and came around the desk, wearing the black pumps that I’d kicked off under my desk because they hurt like a bitch. I moved into him, sliding my arms over his as they encircled me. I caught his lips with mine and kissed him, really kissed him, not afraid of being caught because the only man who could fire me was the one gripping my ass.

His smell made me lean into him, the scent of rain and body soap, the scent in his sheets, the scent that absorbed into my skin and made me smell like him. The second he was in my presence, my life felt calm, like a slow river outside a cabin in the mountains of Norway, simply tranquil. “I missed you.”

He yanked my skirt up over my ass so he could grip one of my cheeks with his bare hand. His massive size blocked the doorway, so if someone walked by, they wouldn’t be able to see my bare ass in my black thong. “That’s better.”

“That’s not clingy? I just saw you this morning.”

“No. And you better step it up a notch because I’m still mad as hell.” He dug his fingers into my ass, and he seemed just a step away from spanking me hard on the ass. “And I’ll be mad for a long time.”

“Then how about I make you dinner tonight?”

He looked into my eyes so intensely, it was as if he hadn’t heard what I said. “I don’t want you to cook dinner. I want you on your back and coming around my dick.”

A flush erupted through me and seared my flesh like a steak on the skillet. No other man could pull off a statement like that so effortlessly.

“I’ll pick you up for dinner at eight. Whatever dress you wear tonight, there better be nothing underneath it.” He finally released my ass and pulled the skirt back down over my thong before he gave me a playful spank.

I swallowed, my exhaustion gone when he lit a fire that burned me alive.

He started to move away, like his visit was over.

“What brings you by?”

“Business.”

“Why do you have an investment company?”

“A lot of reasons, too many to discuss now.” He leaned in and gave me another kiss. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Alright.”

He gave me another hard look before he stepped into the hallway and disappeared.

I wore a little black dress, two narrow straps over my shoulders, and black heels, with a coat to keep warm from the cold night air. My nipples were visible through the thin, tight material. Even when my nipples weren’t hard, you could still see them, but I suspected when Bastien said he wanted me to wear nothing, he meant literally nothing. It was common for French women not to wear bras, but I always did for the support and the warmth. I did not wear panties either—and I was very aware of that fact.

I approached the curb at the road, my coat buttoned to keep the warmth against my body. The SUV pulled onto the street and came to a stop where I stood. The back door opened, and the behemoth of a man emerged in a buttoned-up shirt with the sleeves pushed to his elbows.

It was the first time I’d seen him in anything but a t-shirt—except for the tuxedo he wore to the gala.

“Hey, sweetheart.” He squeezed me to him with a single arm and kissed me. “Get in.” He stepped aside and offered his hand to help me inside.

When I stepped up, my dress rose up automatically, and I quickly pulled it down before I took my seat.

Bastien took the seat beside me and looked out the window. “You followed my directions. Good girl.”

I felt the smile stretch my mouth as I buckled my safety belt, feeling my face heat, feeling warm everywhere. Aware that I’d flashed my pussy to the entire street, I crossed my legs to give her some dignity.

His hand went to my thigh, his fingers underneath the hem of the dress, lightly caressing my skin. He looked out the window ahead and said nothing more about it, probably because of the presence of the driver.

After a five-minute drive, we arrived at our destination and stopped in front of Septime, a restaurant so close we could have walked, but I was glad we hadn’t because I was cold, even in the coat. A Michelin-star restaurant that served dinner in seven courses with wine pairings, it was a fancy place to eat for a weekday evening.

Bastien opened the door for me, helped me out of my coat, and pulled out the chair for me when we got to the table before he sat across from me. The waitress arrived immediately and discussed the menu with us. “Any allergies or aversions?”

“I eat anything,” Bastien said. “What about you, sweetheart?”

“No bell peppers, please.”

The waitress left to get the meal started.

Bastien sat with his back to the window, his elbows on the table, his ink visible with his sleeves rolled up. “Allergic?”

“No. Just hate them.”

He smirked like that was amusing. “I’ll remember that.”

The waitress arrived with a bottle of water for us to share, along with our first glass of wine for the evening. The first course was served, white asparagus in a cream sauce with a fennel mixture on top.

I didn’t touch my food because I was absorbed in the man across from me. His shirt was dark blue, the perfect color to complement his gorgeous eyes. I didn’t feel a particular way about tattoos, but he looked so good in them, like a piece of artwork.

His eyes were on mine, maintaining eye contact like it was a sport and he’d already won the gold.

“You’re the sexiest man I’ve ever seen.” I felt obligated to explain my stare, to explain what I was thinking. I didn’t have that quiet confidence he possessed. I probably just looked like I lacked manners.

He smirked slightly before drinking his wine. He didn’t acknowledge the compliment but seemed pleased by it.

“I know you must hear that all the time.”

“Actually, I never hear it.”

My face tightened as my eyebrows furrowed, because it was so ridiculous it had to be a lie. “What?”

“I’m not around a woman long enough for her to have the opportunity to say anything, and there’s not a lot of talking going on anyway.” He kept his elbows on the table, the backs of his hands covered in ink too. “And the rest of the time, women like to play hard to get, like that will get my attention. You don’t do that—one of the reasons I like you.”

“You like the fact that I have no class or game?” I asked incredulously.

His eyes were locked on mine, a hint of amusement there. “I like that you’re real. No bullshit. No games. Straight to the point—like me.”

It was a compliment I didn’t deserve, not after I’d walked out of Jules Verne and left him behind. “I don’t know about that.”

His stare continued without wavering in intensity. “There’s a difference between intentionally misleading someone to get the outcome you want and trying to figure out who you are and what you want when you start your life over.”

“For still being mad, you’re awfully kind.”

“My kindness is volatile and unpredictable. Be grateful when it’s here.”

My legs were crossed under the table to make sure my girl was tucked in and hidden, but I was aware of the way my nipples felt against the material of my dress. It was a lot warmer inside than it was on the street, but when I wore practically nothing, it wasn’t enough.

He glanced down at my chest, as if he could read my thoughts. “Your tits look incredible.”

“Because you can practically see them through the dress.”

He finished his wine then devoured the first course in a single bite.

The rest of the courses were served, along with the wine each was paired with. Bastien said nothing about any of it, so it was unclear if he enjoyed anything he ate. He normally ate steak when we dined together, but this menu was mostly vegetarian-based. Maybe he’d brought me here because he thought I would like it. If so, that was awfully romantic for a man who ruled a criminal underworld that operated in plain sight.

“Thank you for taking me to dinner.”

He drank his wine.

“How long are you going to be mad at me?”

“That depends entirely on you, sweetheart.” When the bill arrived, he had his card ready and slipped it inside.

“We don’t only have to go to fancy places, you know. I’m fine with something more casual.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, Bo and Mie, McDonald’s.”

He stilled at what I said, like it was blasphemy. “McDonald’s.”

“What? It’s good.”

“I’m not taking you to fucking McDonald’s.”

“You have me, Bastien. You don’t need to impress me with fancy dinners.”

“You think I’m trying to impress you?” He cocked his head slightly, on the verge of a scoff. “Boys impress girls with nice dinners. Men impress women by making them come. I take you to places like this because I don’t eat horseshit—and I’m not taking my woman to eat horseshit.”

“Spoken like a true snob.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

The waitress came over and grabbed the bill to process in their machine across the room.

Bastien adopted his quiet confidence again and stared at me in silence.

“Why do you have that investment company?” I wanted to change the subject because I didn’t enjoy it when he was angry with me. Right now, I needed to do some damage control so he wouldn’t change his mind about taking me back. I was also interested in the topic, too, now that I worked there and realized it was a substantial company.

“I make money from criminals through the Fifth Republic. And I make money from wealthy non-criminals through the company. They can put their money in the stock market, but they can also put their money in commercial property, skyscrapers in London, Dubai, New York, places like that. The dealers may avoid prosecution from the government, but they still have to clean their money. The government can steer clear of territories, but they can’t hide those kinds of money-related crimes from financial institutions. Other countries and the United Nations would quickly catch wind of what was happening, and that would be bad for business. So they use my company to clean their money, while ordinary citizens use it to grow their wealth. Making the money is one part of the business, but transferring it into usable funds is a separate sector.”

I gave a nod in understanding. “I’ve quickly learned it’s a huge enterprise.”

“How’s Robert treating you?”

“I like him. He’s easy to work for.”

“He knows you’re my woman.”

“What does that mean?” I asked playfully. “You threatened him?”

“Just let him know what he’s dealing with.”

I gave a slight shake of my head. “You didn’t need to do that?—”

“I offered to make you my whore, but you declined.”

“I’m not going to fuck you for money when I’d gladly fuck you for free.”

“First rule of business, if you’re good at something, never do it for free.” The waitress came back with the tab, and he quickly signed it before he shut the folder. “If you’d taken that offer, you’d have the best job in the world—if you ask me.” He pulled out his phone and texted his driver.

“As tempting as that sounds, I want you for you, not your money.” And at some point, that position might be eliminated, and I would be back to square one. But I didn’t dare say that, not when I’d already pushed him to the edge once. My job at the company was solid, and if things didn’t work out, he could still do his business without seeing me if he wanted to avoid it.

He rose from the table and grabbed my coat from the coat rack. After he helped me bundle up, he got me into the back seat of the SUV, and we headed toward the Eiffel Tower, where his house was located.

It was a quiet drive, and he was on his phone, texting people, probably about work. Rain pelted the windows and streaked down. I watched the statues and monuments in the streets as we passed. The Eiffel Tower stunned as it danced under its lights.

We arrived at his home and took the elevator to the top floor. The fire was already alive in the hearth like Bastien had told Gerard to prepare it on the way home. I wasn’t ready to let go of my coat yet, not when I was still cold, even with the heater on full blast in the back seat.

Bastien entered his bedroom and removed his jeans and button-up. He had a watch on his wrist, and he ditched that too. He returned in his natural state, in gray sweatpants and nothing else.

He came up behind me and locked his thick arms around my body, one over my chest and the other across my stomach. He squeezed me tight against him before he peeled the jacket off my body, exposing my skin to the heat of his body and the flames from the hearth. He dropped the jacket on the floor before he bent his neck and kissed my shoulder, kissed it with a hungry mouth and a demanding tongue. His arms formed bars to a cage that locked tight around me, and he kissed my neck, nipped at my collarbone, devoured me like the cream inside a cannoli.

He pulled down one strap and then the other before he shoved the material down to expose my tits. His big hands gripped them both and squeezed just the way he squeezed my ass, his mouth pressed close to my ear so I could listen to the quiet moan he made as he grabbed me.

I’d fucked around in my early twenties and had the time of my life, but a man had never made me feel as desirable as Bastien. Like he would starve without my kiss, he would writhe in pain if he couldn’t make me his. He would howl at the moon in grief. He was a man who could have anyone he wanted, women younger and hotter than me, but his hands shook as he clutched me, as if he was afraid I was the one who would leave.

He grabbed the hem of my dress and yanked it up to expose my ass. Now my dress sat at my waist, just a strip of material that looked like a belt, and he grabbed one of my tits with one hand, while he moved the other between my legs and played with my clit like a pick on a guitar string.

My hips instinctively bucked, and I let out a gasp I’d never heard myself make before. I squirmed in his grasp because it wasn’t a slow start to the heat, the stovetop set to low. Instead, it was cranked all the way to high.

He kept me in place, his lips near my ear, playing with me hard and making my knees tremble. “Coke. Heroin. Acid. Nothing compares to this.”

I continued to tremble in his hold, continued to gasp because he pushed so hard on my clit that I already wanted to burst. It was a climax he didn’t earn, just took. I felt it be ripped from my body like tape from the skin. “No…”

His fingers slowed way down, gently rubbing my nub in circular motions, but that was torturous for the opposite reason. “You want me inside you, sweetheart?”

“Yes.” I held on to the arm that was locked over my chest.

“Say please.”

“Goddammit, Bastien?—”

“ Say please .”

“How long are you going to punish me?”

“As long as I feel like it.” His fingers continued the slow torture. “Now, say it.”

I lacked shame, only possessed desperation. “Please…”

“Attagirl.” He struck my ass cheek hard with his palm.

I cried out as he lifted me, one arm under my knees with the other behind my shoulders. He hoisted me up, and I was airborne for a second before I landed back in his arms. He cradled me to him and carried me to the bed before he threw me on it.

I bounced before I rolled, not used to being thrown across the bed like a rag doll.

His bottoms were off, and he grabbed me by the ankle, dragging me to him at the edge of the bed before he hooked his arms behind my knees and folded me underneath him like a hot pretzel from the mall. He pushed inside, sheathed in the arousal that had overflowed and seeped to my inner thighs while I’d stood in front of the fire. He gave a victorious moan when he reaped the reward of his labor. He sank fully inside before he ground into me, rubbing his pelvic bone against my clit.

It hurt to take all of it, but his hot skin against my clit lit me up like a firework.

I gripped his wrists and held on as he started to fuck me at the foot of his bed, hard and fast, like a stallion at the beginning of a race.

I lay there and did nothing except take it, watching this six-foot-three monster of a man do all the work, like it was an honor to fuck me when I was the one who should have been fucking his brains out.

I’d been at the finish line when it was just his fingers, but this gorgeous man’s fat dick was like magic and pounded pleasure into me with every stroke. I was already there, a mess of tears and tremors, writhing from both the pain and pleasure. “Bastien…”

He moaned as he watched me come for him, his dick just a little harder because he wanted to join me.

“Come inside me.”

The cords in his neck tightened like I’d just murmured some dirty talk that turned him on, but I meant the request. Flushed in arousal, his skin shiny with sweat, he gave hard thrusts as I came, and once my high started to fade, he began his final pumps, filling me with a load of his seed.

After a beat, he pulled out then kissed my stomach and the valley between my tits. He sucked each nipple into his mouth then abruptly headed into the bathroom. The shower came on a moment later.

I slowly unfolded my body and felt the strain in my muscles and joints. I turned over, lying on his made bed, my knees toward my chest, ready to fall asleep but too cold to do so. I’d done nothing since we’d walked into his bedroom, but I was exhausted, like I’d been the one on top. It took a surge of strength to leave the bed and step into the bathroom.

His bathroom was far beyond average. His walk-in shower had two showerheads, and his vanity had two sinks and lots of counter space, so much that there was room for a huge vase of flowers between the two sinks. The toilet was in a separate room with a door, away from the shower.

I watched him stand under the warm water and rub the bar of soap over his skin, easily a star in female-friendly porn, and then I stepped into the toilet to do my business. When I came out, I admired the tub, which looked more like one in a spa or a hotel. With gold marble for the foundation and a gold-plated faucet designed in the shape of a rose, the bathroom alone was worth more than a modest apartment in Paris.

The water turned off, and he stepped out and gave himself a quick towel-dry. “Use it if you want.”

“Would you join me?”

“The game is coming on, and I’ve got some work to do.”

“Okay. I’ll head home.”

He’d just wiped down his legs and his stomach when he heard what I said. He stilled and gave me a look that said he was about to snap. “Did I ask you to leave?”

“But you just said?—”

“I did not ask you to leave. We can do different things but still be together. Take a bath. Gerard can bring champagne and strawberries.”

That sounded heavenly, to sit there in that big tub and not worry about a single thing, listening to the sound of the game, knowing Bastien was just in the other room. But I still felt like I was infringing on his space, and the last thing I wanted to do was overstay my welcome. “I?—”

I only got a single word out. Because he looked like he was about to lose it. He didn’t say a word, but the hardness in his face was distinct, like fire and lava lurked behind the stare, about to burst free. He’d never yelled at me before, but it seemed like that was about to change.

“Champagne and strawberries would be great.”

His temper was immediately sheathed, and he turned to the vanity and the mirror to comb his damp hair and brush his teeth. “Good.”

I sat in the tub for an hour, drinking champagne and eating the chocolate-covered strawberries that his chef made or Gerard had run out and purchased. I wasn’t sure which happened, but they were damn good.

The more time I spent at Bastien’s place, the less I liked my apartment. There wasn’t a big tub in a beautiful bathroom, and there wasn’t a beautiful man in it either. Sometimes I heard him yell at the TV when the ref made a call he didn’t like. It was abrupt and angry, but hearing his voice from the other room was somehow soothing, just being close to him.

Once all the champagne and strawberries were gone and my skin was pruned, I drained the tub and dried off with the towel he’d used on himself. I returned to his bedroom and realized I didn’t have any panties to wear to bed.

I helped myself to one of his t-shirts and grabbed a pair of boxers too, rolling them several times at the waist so they would fit. I had work in the morning, so I should get home to make tomorrow easier. But I didn’t want to leave, and I suspected Bastien would snap if I tried.

I moved into the sitting area and saw him blanketed by the light of the TV, his open laptop on the coffee table, a glass of scotch beside it. He was relaxed on the couch, arm over the back of the cushions, his expression hard in consternation because he was into the game.

I stepped into the room, and his eyes immediately shifted from the TV to me. “How was your bath?”

“Fucking heavenly.” I took the spot beside him.

His arm immediately dropped around my shoulders, and he pulled me into him, one of his bare feet propped on the coffee table. He held me to him like a teddy bear and watched the rest of the game. There were only a couple minutes left, so I stayed quiet and let him see the outcome.

He seemed to be rooting for Manchester United, because when they won, he said, “That’s right, motherfuckers.” To avoid the commercials and the commentary, he grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. The fire continued to burn, the flames low because it hadn’t been fed in a while.

“You don’t strike me as a big sports guy.”

“I’m not, but I like to gamble.”

“You had money on this game?”

“Ten dimes.”

I looked at the fire, unsure what that meant. “Like a dollar?”

A sexy chuckle came from his lips. “A dime is a thousand euros, so ten thousand euros.”

“Why gamble when you’re a billionaire?”

“It’s not about the money but taking money from my boys. I’m a sick fuck like that.” He had me cradled into him, my body propped against his hard torso, my cheek on his neck.

When I’d worked as a bartender, I had nowhere to be in the morning, and now I missed that. I didn’t have to wake up to an alarm clock and rush out of his house to get to work. I could take my time, have some pancakes and dick before I went home. “I borrowed your boxers…hope you don’t mind.”

I knew he smirked because it was audible in his voice. “You can keep them as long as I get to keep your panties next time.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“That’s my business.” He started to get up, and like I was a child who’d fallen asleep in front of the TV, he scooped me up and carried me to bed. Instead of throwing me on the bed the way he did when we were in the heat of the moment, he gently laid me on my side before he dropped his sweatpants, turned off the lights, and joined me under the sheets.

I propped myself up and waited for him to put his phone on the nightstand and get into bed, eager to take my favorite spot—tucked into his side.

His smirk was visible in the dark as he got into bed beside me, opening his arms to accept me against him.

My cheek went to his chest, my leg between his knees, my arm draped over his hard stomach. My apartment was usually cold, so I slept in pants and a sweater because the bedding wasn’t enough to keep me warm. I didn’t have that problem in this palace, with a man who acted as a furnace, the floors warm from the radiant heat.

I’d never snuggled with Adrien. We always slept on our opposite sides of the bed once our bodies were untangled. We were affectionate in other ways, but cuddling wasn’t something we did. His breaths distracted me and I was uncomfortable in some way, but Bastien felt like my favorite pillow.

He lightly trailed his fingers down my back, like he wasn’t ready to sleep just yet. “Goodnight, sweetheart.” His deep voice was like a purr in the dark, an invisible comfort that made me feel the safest I ever had.

“Goodnight.”