The Frenchman (Crime Royalty Romance Book 1) (3 page)

Marie’s apartment did have a nice view of the Toulon port. But, had she lost her mind? I would not want Marie to come home from work to an orgy scene from the
Spartacus
TV series.

“Marie might come home,” I protested.

“Text her,” barked Jess. “It’s France for God’s sake, Fleur. We’re not in Texas anymore. She won’t mind.”

I stared at Jess. This is when she would be telling me, “Cut ’em loose, baby.” But that wouldn’t work on her. If I tried that, she’d flip a lid.

I pulled my phone out of my bag. Besides, I had no grounds to deny her her pleasure.

Are you home yet?
I texted Marie.

No. Why? Are you okay?

Yes.
I bit my lip and typed:
Jess has invited a man up to see the view.

I waited three extremely long seconds staring at my phone.

And you?

I breathed out.
No one.

Have fun,
ma belle
. I will not be home until tomorrow.

My eyes opened wide. Maybe Jess was right. All of my life, my mom had pretty rigid ideas about sex before marriage. That Marie was so encouraging was . . .
bloody terrifying
.

Jess grabbed my phone out of my hand before I could lie.

Dammit. She read the text.

“Let’s go, boys,” she said, winking at me, passing me back my phone.

I reminded myself that Jess was a big girl, certainly bigger than me. She’d lost her virginity at sixteen. Regretful I’d not anticipated her determination, I turned around and hit a wall of chest.

As my eyes roamed up, heart thudding loudly—more danger, more danger—Louis glanced behind my shoulder, presumably at Jess’s entourage, pointedly, and back down at me.

Those eyes were smoldering field fires, igniting my insides.

“Invite me up,” he said, in clear, perfectly enunciated English.

My mouth popped open, and it took me a second of concentrated effort to shut it.

He spoke English, with only a slight accent.

So . . . why hadn’t he chatted me up?

My brows knit so hard together they threatened to cramp.

I mean, I like to be wooed.

Chatting up a woman is part of the game. And he hadn’t even tried to flirt with me. Now there he stood, demanding to be invited back to the apartment. Enough was enough.

A glint in his eye, a hint of smile, made my stomach drop.

He wasn’t going to take the “no” about to come of my mouth. But I got the sense he might like me to say it anyway, just so he could show me who was boss, when Jess announced, loudly, “The more the merrier.”

I tore away from him to shut her down with a stare, but Louis deftly maneuvered me out the door, his giant mitt on my elbow, the shouts of another guy who thought he had been invited, too, making me panic. I couldn’t host a party!

I was about to say so when Louis let go of my arm. I watched him push the tag-alongs backward, friendly but firm, murmuring in fast, hushed French.

Whatever!
I bolted across the street. A car honked its horn but it had plenty of time to stop. I stepped over the cobblestones and onto the newly-paved section.

Maybe I could shake him.

I was scared. Not of him. But of how he’d made me feel. How he didn’t follow any of the rules.

I gasped when a large figure appeared at my side just outside the building’s door.

How—

I exhaled and sucked in air but oxygen wasn’t reaching my brain fast enough.

How could someone so large move that fast?

Louis stared down at me sideways, intent. I was beginning to decipher the silent language: Need.

Raw. Pulsing. Need.

I could hear Jess and her two men closing in.

My chest was fluttery and my fingers trembled over the lock.

His large hand covered mine, sending electric shocks straight downtown, making me want to squeeze my legs together. He helped me slip the key in the slot and turn it. I was surprised to read confusion on his face as he roamed over my no-doubt frightened face.

I swallowed, and he pushed open the door, holding it as I entered under his arm. The others followed us in.

Jess had argued forever that I shouldn’t fumble my virginity (she loved college football). And by the knowing look she’d just given me as we waited for the elevator, where she checked him out and quietly mouthed “hawt,” she clearly thought he was the one to deliver the touchdown.

With shock, it dawned on me just how much this Frenchman was not my type. I had always ended up flirting with guys who asked “How high?” when I’d said “Jump.”

As Jess giggled like a schoolgirl with Françoi
s
and Philippe, I stilled in my head, unable to properly process anything with Louis’s large hand spanning the entire width of my lower back.

Walking down the hall to Marie’s apartment, I felt distinctly like what my mom would call a brazen hussy on her way to sin, my foot hovering just over the brake pedal.

Inside, Jess wasted no time pouring drinks, Louis declined, and, my mouth hanging open, I watched her vanish down the hall with her new friends to the room we’d been sharing.

I turned back to Louis, closed my yap, and nervously tugged at the short side of my dress.

Louis sat, poised on the edge of Marie’s sofa, like a giant silent panther, watching me.

I had had enough. He needed to play the game or leave. “Are you really not going to say anything?” I challenged him, crossing my arms over my chest, unable to bear his silent, intense scrutiny a second longer.

I was saucy with a dash of sass, as my mom liked to say.

His eyebrows flickered ever so slightly.

Was he deaf as well as rude?

“Okay, well, I’m ready to hit the sack, er, go to bed, so . . .” I tilted sideways on the spot, suggesting the hall foyer might be the way for him to head. I was standing in front of the kitchen bar.

“What do you want to speak of, Fleur?” he asked, quietly. I couldn’t get over how perfect his English was. His eyes traveled wherever they pleased over my body. He could at least try to be discrete.

“Well, um . . .” Surely this Frenchman didn’t expect me to give him a lesson in small talk, or charming the pants off of a female? No. No, probably not. It hit me then that such a man existed: one who could lure women in on sex appeal alone. No compliments. No frivolousness. No beating around the bush (literally). This was a major problem because I’d only
ever
flirted with men.

He raised his arm and flicked something off of his eyebrow.

“Okay, well,” I tried to lower my voice back to normal. “Um, how long have you lived in Toulon?”

“All of my life.”

“Do you like it?”
Lame
.

“Yes, very much.”

I exhaled, frustrated, frowning at him. The only movement he gave me was a small smile forming on those lips. God, they were great lips, not too full but not too thin either. A slight hint of dimples formed on either side, and I longed to see him smile fully.

I swallowed. Dammit, why wouldn’t he play?

“Okay, see, here’s when you ask something like, what’s your favorite part of living in Austin, Fleur?” I applied my cheeky-flirtatious tone, which I had perfected over the past year. His smile disappeared. He rose up to his full height and began to prowl toward me.

“I know everything I need to know about you,” he said softly.

My brows shot up. I stepped back. “Oh really—”

“You study books and plays,” he spoke over me. “You don’t eat red meat. Fish is okay. You have a food blog. You have lived in Austin most of your life but, I think, there is a mystery about why you are here,
non
? And most important”—I loved how he said impor
tant
—“you know nothing of my sport rugby or Toulon.”

He’d moved into my space and was gazing down at my mouth, which was shaped in a perfect
O
. So he had been listening the whole time at the bistro.

“I know all that I need to know about you, Fleur.” His pointed stare nailed me to the spot.

Oh—meaning, he wasn’t interested in knowing more about me. “Well, just put all your cards on the table why don’t you. Who needs charm anyway,” I muttered, checking for the space available to dodge left and right: not much.

“
Non
. I do not need charm.”

I nearly choked on the air I sucked in. Holy cow, is he something. Staring up at his amused face, I gathered all at once: he likes shocking me.

Even so, I believed he meant what he’d just said.

Why would he have to work at getting women? Given his sporting popularity, my eyes scanned over his chest, his pants, his hugely expensive watch, I mean, he probably has women falling at his feet. He—

Wait a minute. I glanced back down. Oh my God. A
giant
trouser-straining hard-on. Just as I looked back up, his tattooed forearm flashed by, and rough fingers clasped the back of my neck, tilting my face up. His nostrils flared, and his lips were wet where he’d just licked them.

“I also know you want me to kiss you.”

The way he pronounced “kiss,” it created a shocking throb in my girly bits that sent explicit instructions, “Clear for Entry.” I’d never, ever felt that kind of instant physical reaction before. My heart was pounding super fast. I did. I did want him to kiss me, very much.
Très magnifique
.

But . . . I stared up into his unfamiliar eyes and my stomach dropped. I hardly knew this man. I mean I didn’t know if he could take a good teasing, or laugh at my jokes, or what his favorite diner food was at the end of a long night of dancing and flirting. He had skipped right over all of my very specific tests for measuring up potential cherry-pickers.

All I knew was he was in the driver’s seat. I was just a passenger along for the ride.

My hands were tingly.

“
Non
?” he asked with a half-smile, my chest clenching at how heart-droppingly handsome he was.

“Ah, well, I—”

Holy crap. I was all talk this past year. I’d been a big tease, leading all of those men on, deliberately finding ways to get rid of them, or counting on Jess or Tammy to do so.

Well this man wasn’t going to allow that, or wait for my answer.

The way he’d moved in I expected, no, I anticipated, a soft first kiss.

But he took my mouth suddenly, hard, demanding, like a starved animal. He eased open my lips quickly, slipping in his tongue, his erotic taste and a scent of his cologne mingling, enveloping me, and . . . I froze.

It was no kiss.

It was a sensual pillaging.

I responded, standing on my tiptoes, focusing on his bottom lip, but . . . he wouldn’t let me contribute. He was completely and utterly in control and only interested in tasting me, deeply, God help me, expertly.

I sighed, okay more like moaned, and gave over. This resulted in a firmer grip on my face. His free arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me into his hard, warm body, scooping under my butt, lifting me right off the ground. I wrapped my legs around him, our mouths still attached.

He carried me down the hall this way—trapped and tongued. One arm held my head attached to his, probably so I couldn’t change my mind and shout for help, and the other held me effortlessly.
One arm
. While I’m slender, I’m also tall, which means I’m not light.

It was freakin’ exhilarating.

I thought about squirming or protesting in this man’s mouth, but deep, deep inside, I wanted this, which was probably why I helped direct him to Marie’s bedroom.
This
was what I’d been chasing in Austin. I’d just never come close.
He
made me feel utterly female, desirous
and
desirable, and so ready. I was wet. He’d made me wet with one kiss and carry. Now I just needed the courage to follow through.

Louis slammed the bedroom door behind us. He put me down, released my mouth, and stared down at me. My stomach flipped. I took two steps back. He was one big—I swallowed—bad-looking wolf. I didn’t want to use Marie’s bed, but before I could think of a way to solve the dilemma, Louis came at me.

I forgot what I was worried about, caught up in a tornado of desire. I’d never been so wanted before. I’d never wanted so badly before.

My hands gripped his biceps (
holy guns!
) and my breasts pressed into his chest. In that moment I would have leaped off a cliff for more. More of the naughty excitement. More. More. More. So what if we’d barely spoken. So what if this was clearly just about sex. It was now or never. Do or die. Yes, I was going to have a one-night stand, I’d finally decided in that moment. No one could say Fleur wasn’t an all-in girl (once she’d made up her mind).

I was going to match him move for move. I was going to best him. In a move of frenzied lust—I still can’t believe I did it—I tugged his shirt up and out of his pants, and tore it open like a starved co-ed who’d found the last bag of microwavable popcorn in the dorm kitchen. Buttons scattered across the room with surprising velocity, including one that clinked off my front tooth.

He gasped. I didn’t care. I was too awestruck, or rather, ab-struck. His stomach . . . his chest . . . My eyes roamed. He was perfect
. Score!
I flashed on every angle, like paparazzi on a porn set. I wanted to remember it for later.

As I reached out to touch the god before me, I could barely regulate my breathing. Didn’t help that he grabbed my hand sharply just before it made contact.

“C’est pas toi qui dirige, l’Américaine
,” he snarled.

His tone . . . something was wrong. My horny brain went on alert. Glancing up, a darkness had blanketed his face. What had he said? I scrambled to sort it out, staring at him. He’d said, “You are”—um—“not . . . in charge, American girl.”

When he stepped forward, hands outstretched, I should have stepped back. But I didn’t. He grabbed the shoulders of my dress and in one thread-ripping tug, yanked it, bra included, down.

Oh my God. I was bare. He’d exposed my breasts entirely and, to my shock, as I tried to move, the straps of my dress, tugged down, had locked my arms in place.

I watched his lips turn up, satisfied like he had taught me a lesson, and then—