Nights In Black Lace. Noelle Mack

each other to something very different.

      She unlocked the outer door of wrought iron and the inner one, then led him up the curving marble staircase to the third floor.

      “Oh my. Watching you go up the stairs is serious motivation.” A few steps behind her, he reached up to stroke the inside of her thigh. Odette paused, thrilled by the sensual tickle of a male hand on her silk stockings.

      But Bryan didn’t reach all the way up. Or grab. He sighed and let his hand trail down, then patted her calf. “Keep going or we’ll never get there.”

      Odette giggled and continued to mount the stairs, knowing that her short skirt was swishing provocatively only inches from his face.

      She wouldn’t mind if he lifted it and pressed kisses on her bottom, which was mostly bare. He didn’t know that because he hadn’t touched it.

      A young man who wanted to wait, was able to wait, could savor every moment of the foreplay—sex with Bryan Bachman ought to be good. Very good.

      She opened the door to her apartment and motioned him in, switching on a light.

      “Wow. Nice place.” He looked around at the furnishings. “You have interesting stuff.” He ran a hand over an armchair made of slabs of clear lucite that had red roses embedded in it, stems and all. “Is this for sitting in or is this a work of art?”

      “You can sit in it if you like.”

      “That didn’t answer my question.” He turned around and settled himself in it. “Not very comfortable. I prefer upholstery.”

      Odette pointed to a sofa thickly padded in dark green velvet. “Then sit there.”

      “Only if you do.” He looked at the naked nymphs carved on the legs of the low table in front of the sofa before he stretched out. “Now that’s something you generally don’t see on an American coffee table.”

      “Why not?”

      “No bare breasts allowed on the furniture, I guess. They seem to be everywhere in Paris. Even on the billboards.”

      Odette held her breath. The taxi had passed a huge ad for her company screened onto vinyl and attached to the side of a building. Had he noticed the Oh! Oh! Odette logo?

      Apparently not.

      “I just have to get used to it,” Bryan was saying. “I bet you don’t give bare boobs a second thought, not with a job like yours.”

      “Not really, no.”

      He gave the table an admiring look. “So where’d you get this thing?”

      “Les Puces. The flea market. It’s a Victorian piece. Not valuable. I just liked it.”

      “Okay.” He leaned back against the cushions and looked around at the rest of the room. “Works with everything else. I like your style, Odette. I like everything about you. Come here.”

      For some reason, the exuberant compliment and the command that followed it made her nervous.

      “In a moment.” She sauntered into the kitchen, feeling very hungry and needing something to eat that would soak up the drinks they’d downed.

      There was bread, plain bread, but it was exactly what she wanted. Odette extracted the long, uncut baguette from its crackling paper bag and went back into the living room with it, along with a corked, half-full bottle of wine and two glasses held dexterously in her fingers. He’d moved to the couch.

      “You look like an ad for Air France,” he chuckled.

      “Do I? The bread is very good. Still fresh.” She extended the long loaf to him. “Feel it.”

      He gave it a squeeze and looked at her, laughing. “Is this some kind of crazy French sex ritual?” he asked, after she plopped down next to him. He accepted the morsel of bread she tore off and put into his mouth, and didn’t talk for a little while.

      “Yes,” she said. Odette had several bites and so did he before he took the baguette away and set it on the coffee table.

      “Mmm. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou. And a naked table. It doesn’t get better.”

      She planted a kiss lightly dusted with flour on his cheek. “You must be part French.”

      He nuzzled her neck. “Don’t think so.”

      “What are you then?” she asked. What he was doing felt very good.

      “A red-blooded, all-American man,” he growled. “That okay with you?”

      “Bien sûr,” she murmured.

      His lips pressed against the side of her neck for several sensual kisses before he opened his mouth and nipped her. The contact was immediately erotic, almost dominating.

      Odette arched her back and let him do it, wanting only to melt into his arms and let him take over.