All for You (16 page)

It was all Joss could do not to jump to his feet and start patrolling the area, and he missed the feel of a FAMAS under his hand like an itch of panic.

Anyone
could be carrying a bomb, or a gun. That man in his young twenties approaching them right now, for example, with a backpack on his shoulder and a leather jacket still zipped despite the warm summer evening. Joss surged to his feet as the younger man reached toward his backpack—and caught himself as the greetings from Célie’s friends rang out.

Ah. Yes. The young man was pulling out baguettes and wine, kneeling on the edge of the picnic blanket now, unzipping his leather jacket which he’d almost certainly been wearing because he’d gotten here on a motorcycle or moped like Célie.

Joss took a deep breath.

“Who is he?” he heard someone else ask Célie. A girl with loose black curls and a bronze tone to her skin. “He looks like he’s CRS or something.”

Ouch, really? The national police force was less than popular among those of them who had grown up
en banlieue
. Also, these days, he liked the Gendarmes much better, after being in a couple of training courses at their facilities, and they and the Legion cooperated well together, but … well, no offense, but one Legionnaire could eat five CRS for breakfast and still be hungry.

“Umm …” Célie’s blush deepened. “Foreign Legion.”

Her two friends turned as one to stare at her. The blonde’s jaw had dropped. “
Foreign Legion?
Are you kidding me?”

The black-haired friend’s eyes narrowed. If her golden skin came from any of France’s former colonies, then her parents and grandparents might have adamant opinions about the Foreign Legion.

“He just got out,” Célie said.

“Are you sure it was the Foreign Legion he just got out of?” the black-haired young woman asked dryly. “It would be easy for a man to claim that instead of prison, say. Or just running off for five years.”

Joss sighed.

“He wouldn’t lie to me,” Célie said firmly, and some tension in his chest relaxed. He wouldn’t, actually. He was glad she still knew that. Glad she still believed in him.

Her friends both gave her pitying looks.

“He got my cards there! The Legion couldn’t have passed them on to him if he wasn’t a Legionnaire.”

Her friends looked disappointed at having their cynicism dashed. Then the black-haired one brightened. “Aren’t they psychopaths in the Foreign Legion?”

“Lina!”

Psychopaths now. Great. He went over to Célie before this conversation could get any worse, and also just because he couldn’t stand lounging on the blanket anymore and needed to move.

Her gossiping friends grew quiet, their eyes widening as he approached, checking him out. “Damn, Célie,” he heard the blonde mutter, with a nudge into Célie’s ribs, just before he reached them, and he worked valiantly not to let himself smile, as he took Célie’s hand.

Certain looks from women just did a man good.

Célie was bursting at the seams with smugness, too, and that did his heart even better. He smiled down at her, tugging her into him, enjoying immeasurably that he could do that now, flirt with her with these little invitations of his body to come in closer, rather than always, always, be the good guy maintaining barriers between them.

“Joss, this is Vi. Violette.” She indicated the blonde. “And Lina.” The black-haired woman. “We met when we were the junior team for France, in the International Chocolate and Pastry Competition.”

“Nice to mee—hell, Célie.” Joss stared at her. “You represented France?”

She nodded, her pride radiating out through all the cracks in the shell of her effort to contain it.

Damn, and he’d
missed
it. He hadn’t even known. “Sweetheart.” He grabbed her before he even thought about it, squeezing her so hard he lifted her off her feet. “
Good
for you.”

“We won,” Célie said, that shell of attempted modesty bursting wide open, her pride in herself like a sunburst. She reached past his shoulder to give a fist-bump to Vi and Lina. “We
won
, Joss. First place. First all-female team ever. For France.”

His arms tightened on her, and he lifted her up, spinning her around once to try to express all his frustration at missing it and all his pride. “Damn, I wish I’d been there.”

“Yeah.” A shadow across Célie’s bragging.

“Good for you.” Joss lowered her down his body. “
Good
for you.” He nodded to the other two women, who were trying not to look smug but who had angled their chins at a proud, of-course-we-take-this-level-of-success-for-granted angle. “And good for you. Congratulations.”

“It was three years ago,” Vi said.

Ah.

Three years.

And he hadn’t even known.

She hadn’t sent him a little card to tell him, for example. But then, why would she?

“Vi’s about to take over her first starred kitchen now,” Célie said. “We’ll never see her again.”

“Yeah, after I’m jailed for murder over all the male chauvinist crap I’m going to have to squash, it’s going to really cut down on my social life,” Vi said darkly.

She and Lina both gave him dark looks, too. Possibly having spent the last five years as part of a military service that was so notoriously macho it didn’t even allow women to join might put him on bad ground here. “Do you need help?” he asked Vi.

“No,” Vi said calmly. “I need to do it myself.”

Yeah, and she probably did at that. Women had it crappy. They had to handle men his size, and they had to do it with half his physical strength. “Still,” he said, “if you need backup …”

Vi gave a sweet smile. “I’m really good with knives.”

Nice to know he wasn’t the only pseudo-psychopath on Célie’s side. “I like your friends,” he told Célie.

“You relieve our minds,” said Vi dryly.

“Infinitely,” Lina ageed, in a tone that clearly communicated:
You can kiss up all you want, but we’re still reserving judgment about you.

He smiled. Yes, Célie definitely picked out better friends for herself these days. He looked down at her, his fingers flexing into the curve of her hip, enjoying that possession. Enjoying his arm around her, and the fact that she hadn’t pulled away.

“Want to dance?” He bent to whisper in her ear. “I’ll try not to act too psychopathic.”

Célie put her free hand on her hip, turning to face him and raising her eyebrows in laughing challenge. “You can dance the merengue now? Boy, they really do teach you guys everything in the Foreign Legion.”

She might be surprised by all the talents Legionnaires could produce in their down moments—art, dancing, guitar, piano. Hell, Captain Fontaine actually knew how to waltz, and Adjudant Valdez—Delesvaux—one Christmas had cooked them a dinner that would make a tough man cry.

But Célie, of course, thought he didn’t like to dance, because he’d refused all her sassy attempts to get him to as a teenager. He’d known better than to let his body get pressed up close to hers while she teased him. His attempts to stay her big brother substitute would have shattered like car windows when riots broke out in their old
banlieue
.

So he just smiled, which eased his tension. He could handle this crowd for her sake. It wasn’t a restful evening, but he’d had plenty of non-restful evenings, and she’d brought him here to share in her fun. “No, but I figure if I can do some of the things we did, I can manage to figure out how to wiggle my hips.”

She laughed, a rainbow shimmering of all that old saucy happiness of hers, and grabbed his hips, pulling him toward the dance space. “I’ll teach you.”

He smiled down at her, letting her position their hips close together.
Sure, sweetheart. You want my hips to do something with yours? Feel free to grab them and pull them as hard as you want.
“You teaching me how to wiggle my hips the way you like it sounds like a fun evening to me.”

She stilled just a second, gazing up at him. “I can’t get used to you
flirting
with me.”

“Well, that’s why we’re dating, isn’t it? So you can get used to it?” So
he
could get used to it?
She’s not eighteen anymore. I’m not her substitute big brother. No holding back. Unless she says stop, I can go all out for her.

She flushed a little with vulnerable pleasure, and then caught herself and tried to cover it with that sauciness of hers. “All the times I tried to flirt with you and you acted as if flirting wasn’t even something that ever crossed your mind.” Her eyes narrowed.

“I was trying to be good,” he said apologetically. He hated to bring it up again, given how badly she had reacted so far to the fact that he had protected her from him until he grew big enough to deserve her.

She sighed despairingly. “Joss. What am I going to do with you?”

It sounded like a sincere question. As if she genuinely believed she needed to figure out how to pick up his twice bigger body and fit it onto the proper shelf or make him behave the right way.

He bit the inside of his lip to prevent a doubtless infuriating male grin and bent to whisper in her ear. “Maybe you should be wondering what I’m going to do with you.” Sliding a firm hand against the small of her back, he pulled her hips in snug against his, so that he could let his glad-to-be-alive dick just glory in that sensation.

She flushed crimson.

He laughed as the heat of her blush ran through him and twirled them around in complete inconsistency with the music, enjoying the power his size and fitness gave him over her body, enjoying the press of her hips to his and the way she allowed it and seemed to enjoy it, too.

Even if she was pretending to narrow her eyes at him.

They didn’t stay narrowed, though. As he set her on her feet and made an exaggerated attempt to rock his hips side to side like the nearest other couple, she started to laugh, too. She gave him a part of her happiness, with that laugh. He still wanted to take her happiness away from all this crowd of people where he could keep it safe, but at least it felt like something his.

“Like this.” She resisted the pressure of his hand in order to wiggle her own hips in a different rhythm than his, which slid their hips in opposite ways across each other deliciously.

So deliciously that he let himself be utterly incompetent at mastering this physical task for a little while, his hips shifting again and again just off rhythm of hers. The sliding grind was probably going to kill him, but it would be such a better way to go than all the other possibilities he was used to having to consider.

She couldn’t quite figure out whether he was doing it on purpose or not, checking his face. He tried to look helpless and clueless, not an expression he got to try out very often around anyone but her.

Her eyes narrowed. It made him laugh out loud, a reckless happiness bubbling up inside him. In the moment of laughter, his hips fell into the rhythm of the music, and he realized how much he’d been missing. Moving in sync was
far
better than moving out of it.

Oh, yeah. Just let him replace that side-to-side sync of their hips with a backward and forward motion and he would die happy.

“So you’re having a good time?” Célie’s eyes searched his. He turned their bodies yet again, so he could keep checking their surroundings.

“Mostly.” He let his hand slide down from the small of her back to the curve of her butt. Oh,
yeah,
that butt. Round and perky in his hand and begging to be squeezed. “It’s nice to meet your friends. And it’s a beautiful evening.”

“And … ?”

He grinned down at her. “And I’m really enjoying this merengue.”

“But … ?” Célie pushed. “You said ‘mostly.’ What are you not enjoying?”

Careless slip of the tongue, that “mostly.” He should have known better, after watching his tongue so long in the Legion. “Nothing.” He made his voice surprised. “What’s not to enjoy?”

“You tell me,” Célie said, exasperated.

He looked down at her. She was getting frustrated with him again, and he probably should never tell her how much he enjoyed that. At least half of him, whenever she started simmering, got all excited that she might actually put her hands on him and try to work her frustrations out.

But another part of him worried about it quite a bit. She’d asked him what was wrong. He’d said nothing. Why was she frustrated about that?

She never used to get so annoyed with him. She’d … hero-worshiped him too much, maybe.

Which was all backward, because
now
she was supposed to be able to properly hero-worship him. He should be able to
relax
into it. Feel as if he finally deserved it.

And instead he didn’t seem to be getting much of that hero-worship at all.

“I’m enjoying everything,” he repeated. “Except maybe that you’re frustrated with me, but, to tell the truth, I’m even half enjoying that.”

There. He’d been honest with her.

She gave him a look that was apparently supposed to make him quiver in fear. He’d probably better not tell her the parts it really made quiver. She might be able to feel them herself, with this damn merengue. “Joss Castel.”

He smiled, on a kick of pleasure at his name in that minatory tone.

“Joss.” She sighed in exasperation. “I can
tell
something’s wrong.”

Seriously? How the hell had he let it slip?

“Will you just tell me!” she snapped.

He sighed, looking down at her as their hips rocked together.

He’d gone through the Foreign Legion so he’d never have to disappoint that hero-worship in her eyes. But he missed talking to her. Missed the way she bounced her laughing and teasing off him, but also missed just those quiet, easy conversations about anything and everything except, of course, the most dangerous anything and everything back then—that he didn’t have a platonic bone in his body, when it came to her.

“I can’t relax,” he admitted.

Her hand pressed over his chest, where his heart beat too rapidly, keeping him primed for anything. She searched his face.

“It doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself that I don’t need to keep an eye on everyone in the crowd, I can’t turn off the instinct, and I keep doing it. Checking every movement, every person carrying a backpack or wearing loose enough clothes to conceal a gun or explosives. This is about ten times worse than any market I ever had to patrol. It’s okay, it’s not a big deal. It’s good practice for me to get used to being back in civilian life, and it’s a beautiful evening. It’s just … tense.”