Page 79 of The Carver

“Give me some time, and I’ll try again?—”

“No more time, Bastien. He’s insulted the Republic of France long enough.”

Chapter 14

Fleur

I hated my apartment.

Not because it wasn’t a three-story villa with a staff of servants—but because Bastien didn’t live there. He’d mentioned once that I could live with him, but I didn’t think he was serious. It was way too soon for that anyway. I had to remind myself over and over that we’d only been together a few months, not a few years.

I threw together dinner in my tiny kitchen, watched some TV on the couch, and then went to bed in preparation to start the day over tomorrow. The curtains were drawn closed over the windows, but light from the nearby buildings crept in anyway.

In Bastien’s bedroom, he had no neighbors because the Seine was directly in front of him, so only the light from the Eiffel Tower was visible—and I didn’t mind that light one bit.

It was also colder in my apartment, and no matter how high I cranked the thermostat, it couldn’t replace the warmth of Bastien’s body beside mine. His big hands on my flesh. His hot chest against my back. The sheets were always cold because there was no heat to absorb.

I lay there on my side and tried to sleep, but then it started to rain. Having a loft apartment meant I could hear everything on the roof in detail, and the rainfall was like a thousand hooves from a stampede of wild horses. I loved the rain and didn’t mind the sound, but it made me think of Bastien…and made me miss him like crazy. There were mornings we lay in bed together and watched the rain hit the window. Nights when he kissed me in it after dinner. Times when he would come over and his shirt would be slightly damp because he’d walked in the rain as if he didn’t care if he got wet. There were times Adrien had come home and he'd smelled like a woman’s perfume or cigarettes, but I’d just assumed it was a crowded room, that the guys had brought their girls. But Bastien only smelled like the rain…and nothing else.

My front door opened and closed down the hall.

I stilled in bed, at first feeling a jolt of fear at the thought of a burglar, but then I realized it wasn’t a forced entry. Someone had let themselves into my apartment like they had every right to be there.

Heavy footsteps were audible on the hardwood floor as he moved down the hall and entered my bedroom. He was a shadow at first, but then he stepped into the strip of light that came through the slit in the curtains. Dressed in all black, his eyes brilliant even in the dark, he looked at me where I lay on the bed.

After a long stare, he undressed, pulling his long-sleeved shirt over his head and dropping his boots and bottoms. Then he crawled up the bed and moved over me.

My arms immediately encircled him and brought him close, my ankles hooking at the top of his ass.

He slid his hand into my hair, and he stared at me hard, his eyes absorbing my look with subtle desperation. He grazed his thumb over my cheek, tracing my bottom lip and the corner of my mouth.

I’d lain there missing him, and now that he was here, my heart ached in the most painful way. Like the emotion of having him there was somehow worse than the pain of missing him. “I missed you, babe.”

His thumb halted mid-stroke, and his brilliant eyes locked on mine like his heart had skipped a beat. He possessed me with his stare before he cradled the back of my head and kissed me hard and slow, his lips moving with purpose, his fingers digging deep into my hair to get an iron grip. He made me feel like his without saying a word, just by gripping me and kissing me. The cold in the sheets was dispelled by his brilliant sun, and the longing in my heart was smothered by his masculine affection.

He reached for my panties and started to pull them off, letting me unhook my ankles from around his waist so he could remove them the rest of the way. He left my shirt on but shoved it up to expose my tits before he squeezed between my soft thighs again. He tilted my hips before he sank inside me, giving the sexiest moan when he felt me, like he wasn’t skipping around town fucking all the women who made passes at him when I wasn’t around. I was the only woman he bedded, and when he was in the mood, he came to my apartment in the middle of the night because I was the only one he wanted.

His mouth returned to mine, and he kissed me again, slowly rocking inside me, our bodies moving together with aching slowness, like we wanted to be together to feel each other, not get to the finish line.

I felt the hardness of his chest, felt the cords in his neck when my fingers grazed by, felt the hard bones in his jawline when I caressed him. With every breath, he breathed new life into me, made me feel secure in a relationship that was still in the early stages of blooming.

Before I’d discovered Adrien’s infidelity, everything had felt right. But my relationship with Bastien made me realize it’d never been what it was supposed to be. We had so much depth, so much honesty, so much foundation. The passion and the desire and the chemistry were what brought us together, but everything else was what kept us together. Even if Bastien was a notorious criminal who was sometimes a drug dealer and sometimes a grim reaper, he was still the best man I’d ever known.

He lay beside me in the dark, the rain loud like falling stones on the roof. He had me pulled close, my leg hiked over his hip, his hand on my ass while his straight arm was my pillow. His eyes were bright even in the dark, his soul the source of their illumination. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” I whispered. “I was just lying in the dark…thinking about you.”

“Wish I could have seen that.” A slight smirk tugged at his lips, like he wanted to walk in and see my fingers between my legs.

I felt a heat flush my cheeks. “Not like that. I was thinking about how much I missed you, even though I just saw you the other day.” I lightly touched his chest with my fingertips, following the line down the center of his chest.

His smile slowly faded. “I always miss you—even when I’m with you.”

My eyes flicked back up to his, fear and joy exploding inside my heart. Our car didn’t have brakes, and it seemed to have unlimited acceleration. Every time we reached a new top speed, we were stuck there. I looked at his chest again and continued my scribbles on his skin. “Me too.”

He didn’t seem like the kind of man to say anything romantic, so when he did, it hit differently. It was authentic and real and straight from his heart. “Live with me.” He hadn’t blinked in nearly a minute, and the intensity of his eyes indicated he was too focused on my answer to do so. “I don’t care if it’s only been a few months. You have no attachment to this apartment. It’s never been home to you, just a placeholder.”

Months ago, he’d said I could move in with him for all he cared, but I’d never been sure if that was just a spur-of-the-moment reaction or an actual invitation. Now, my heart was in my throat, full of excitement and joy and also absolute terror. “Is it too soon?—”

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