Shaking his head, he moved in close, curling his finger into the waist of my pants and tugging me in. He brushed his lips against mine and said, “I’m only teasing,mon monstre. You were sleeping so hard I thought I’d grab us a bit of breakfast to go.”
He held up the paper bag with a flourish, grinning proudly. I hadn’t even noticed he’d been carrying anything, which was another mark on my get-it-the-fuck-together list.
I must’ve still been glaring, because Benoit’s smile faltered a little. It was so brief that I thought I’d imagined it, because then he reached into the bag and held up a pastry.
“I thought a deliciouspain au chocolatwould put at least a hint of a smile on your face. Are you trying to prove me wrong this morning?”
The flicker of jealousy that had ignited my temper burned out at his offering, followed by a feeling I wasn’t used to: guilt.
I was so quick to jump to conclusions. To believe the worst. But that was my way, how I’d grown up and been trained. Strike first, ask questions later.
Benoit wasn’t the enemy, though.
So calm the fuck down and eat the damn pastry.
I lowered my head and took a bite of the croissant he held, keeping my eyes on his as the chocolate melted in my mouth. It was still hot, like it’d just come out of the oven, and perfectly crisp on the outside.
“Almost as delicious as me,” Benoit said with a smirk.
“Not even close.”
As I lifted my head, he ran his finger along the edge of my mouth, where a bit of chocolate had escaped, and then painted his lips with it.
“Care for another taste?”
Wrapping my arm around his waist, I hauled him against my body, a surge of possessiveness overtaking all rational thought, licking and sucking, diving into that delicious mouth that had no business being as sweet as it was with such a sinful tongue.
Benoit’s hum of approval vibrated against my lips as he wrapped his arms around my neck, our bodies pressed so close together that nothing could get through.
“Now this is a much better greeting,” he murmured. “Next time I’ll paint my whole body in chocolate so you can go wild.”
“Why do I have a feeling you’d actually do that?”
“Because you know I would.” Benoit nipped along my jaw as I lowered him back down to the ground. “And you’d enjoy every single inch.”
“I look forward to it. But it’s going to have to wait,” I said, as the train eased to a stop and a voice came over the loudspeaker,announcing our arrival at a station. “We’ve got somewhere to be.”
THAT “SOMEWHERE TO be” was Venice, Italy, a city I’d traveled to for work on several occasions. While I’d never gotten a chance to fully enjoy all it had to offer, with Benoit maybe I’d at least dip a toe in.
But as we stepped off the train, it wasn’t a mild, sunny day that greeted us, but a thick fog along with a chill coming off the Grand Canal. While it wasn’t the several feet of snow we’d left in Prague, it was still a gloomier welcome than I’d anticipated.
Benoit lifted his sunglasses and squinted. “Arewe in Venice? I can’t tell.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. With the view obscured past the few feet in front of us, we could’ve been anywhere.
I didn’t like not being able to see. It made my hackles rise, my defenses go up as I scanned the perimeter. My guards moved in front of us, keeping the train at my back, and directed the staff to load our bags into the private water taxi we’d hired.
The taxi I couldn’t even fucking see.
“I suppose I’ll have to put away my skimpy little swimsuit,” Benoit said with a pout, sliding the sunglasses back down onto his face. “What a shame.”
“You’ll do no such thing.”
“You think you deserve another show, huh? Want to take my briefs off with your teeth this time? I won’t complain.”
As stoic as my guards usually were, that comment had one of them pressing their lips together to keep from reacting.
“There goes that mouth again.”
