Page 64 of Craved

Zoe and I glanced at each other. “Let’s take the stairs,” we said in unison.

Our room was barely big enough to hold a queen bed, a table and one chair. But the bed had fresh white linens and the tiny bathroom smelled like lavender. The sole window opened onto a courtyard where four floors below, teenagers played soccer beneath the streetlights, laughing and trash-talking each other.

I shoved our luggage into the closet and gave Zoe an apologetic shrug. “Sorry. It’s not what you’re used to.”

“No.” She’d changed into a white T-shirt and tight black jeans, and twisted her hair into a messy bun. She looked sexy and sophisticated and very French. “But that’s the point, right? No one will look for us here.”

She sat on the bed and took off her boots. Setting her hands on the mattress, she crossed her legs at the ankles and looked up at me from beneath thick dark lashes.

I swallowed something both sweet and bitter. Those yard-long legs had been wrapped around me a few short hours ago, and already, I wanted more.

I had the sinking sensation I’d always want more, that I’d never get enough of Zoe—her taste, her scent, the feel of that glorious feline body against mine. She was the one woman for me, the woman I’d hungered for ever since she’d strode into the Tremblay boardroom wearing an icy smile, a prim black suit and blood-red heels.

I shook my head. “You don’t belong here.”

“Rafe.” Her pretty mouth turned down. “I want to be here. Stop treating me like some helpless, overindulgedprincess. I can survive a couple of nights in a two-star hotel.”

Hell, now I’d insulted her. I knelt down and took her hands.

“Damn it, that’s not what I meant. I want to give you beautiful things, wrap you in softness. Feed you chocolate and paint your body in wine. Instead, your first time was in a lumpy bed in a cheap hotel.”

Zoe smiled. A slow, frankly sensual smile. If I hadn’t already been on my knees, that smile would’ve brought me down.

“And it was amazing.”

“Yeah?” I felt a flush of masculine pride.

And damn the woman for turning me into this needy version of myself, but it was important to me that it had been good for her.

Shewas important to me.

She slid off the bed so we were both kneeling. “It was perfect.” She framed my face in her hands. “You were perfect. I don’t remember the bed. I remember you.”

My arms wrapped around her. Want slammed through me, a vicious blow harder than anything her mother’s enforcers had hit me with.

Want, and hope.

I concealed both emotions behind a you-ain’t-seen-nothing-yet grin. It was too soon to let her see how I felt—we were both still wary of each other.

Better to take things slow, see how they developed.

“Next time,” I said, “will be even better.”

“Is that a promise?” Her smile was wicked.

“You know it is.” I ran my fingers down her silky ponytail. “But you need to feed. We both do. Let’s contact Philippe and Victorine, then go out to that club you told me about.”

“Le Sang Bleu?” She ran a fingertip over my lower lip. “If that’s what you want...”

No, it’s not what I want. I want to lock the door, tie you to the bed and never let you go.

But I rose to my feet and reached for my laptop.

Zoe texted Philippe as Victorine, then sat cross-legged on the bed, watching intently as I used my laptop to route the message to her mother through Japan and on to Montreal. I’d bet good money that next time, she’d be able to do it herself.

I shut the laptop. “That should buy us a few days.”

“That’s all we need,” she said.

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