The fantasy distracted him, her body struggling against his, his hands sliding over her as he tried to control her, maybe her weight in the lunge toppling him backward so she was on top of him. . . .
“People
like
it,” she said. “They grew up with it; they prefer it. It makes them feel—warm. Happy.”
“It’s got a decent mouth-feel,” Christophe allowed. “You’re right: no other vegetable fats,” he told Cade.
The look on her face at being told she was right about the ingredients in Corey Bars was priceless. It almost made up for the fact that Christophe had drawn her attention from Sylvain to him.
Couldn’t the man just go home? Instead of trying to grab Sylvain’s fantasies for his own?
Then Sylvain could go home. And sleep. Instead of sitting here chasing after a woman who had not bothered to break into his
laboratoire
and steal from him the night before. He slouched back in his chair uncharacteristically, letting his legs jostle hers more aggressively. And incidentally bump Christophe’s legs well away from hers. Her boots rubbed against his calf through his jeans, shifting his mind into fantasies again.
“Your professional opinion?” Christophe nudged Sylvain.
He wanted to take a bite of his new bitter chocolate to clean his mouth of the milky, pale, faintly sour flavor—that was Sylvain’s professional opinion. But he also wanted to wrestle and tussle with Cade Corey among his freshly washed sheets, or in his
laboratoire
on cold marble, or in her apartment, or anywhere she wanted. So he tried to be diplomatic. “It’s a mass-produced chocolate for children with a minimal cacao content.” He shrugged. “What do you expect?”
He didn’t know why that earned him such a burning look. How much nicer did she expect him to get about Corey Bars?
“Children and Americans,” Christophe corrected.
Sylvain spread his hands, feeling that any attempt to distinguish the two groups for their gourmet awareness was splitting hairs. He did do a strong business with tourists, expatriates, and a contingent of wealthy Americans who had his chocolates cold-packed and shipped to them once a week, but he had always assumed their appreciation of quality was an exception to the norm.
Cade Corey was definitely an exception, on so many levels that he wanted to grab her and hold her as his prize more than anything he had wanted in a long time. He felt as if he was reliving his days of burning, desperate, high school passions.
Which had never ended well for him. They loved the sex, they loved the chocolate, but women always, always had other things on their mind.
Where had she been last night? How could she have not come?
“People love them,” Cade said. “They write letters to us telling us how much they love them. We’ve got a wall at our headquarters with a collage made of our favorites.”
“Vraiment?”
Sylvain said, disturbed. “They write letters to me telling me the same thing.” Often signed at the bottom by someone very famous, including a French president, an American one, and multiple movie stars on multiple continents. He read them and smiled, shared them with the others in the
laboratoire,
and filed them discreetly away. It had never occurred to him to splash their contents across a wall. Sounded like someone’s desperate desire to reassure themselves.
How was it that Corey Bars were receiving the same kind of letters his chocolate was?
There really were a lot of gustatory idiots in the world.
“It’s fascinating how much you two have in common, in fact.” Christophe smirked.
Sylvain turned his head and glared at him.
At his open resentment of that comment, Cade tilted her head and gazed at her hands on the tabletop. Sylvain caught himself. She looked . . . tired, maybe. Sad?
Merde,
had he hurt her feelings again?
Mostly he seemed to infuriate her, in a way that perversely aroused the hell out of him. But that was twice now he had hit a sensitive spot. She had this fragile side to her indomitability, as if part of her strength was that she cried when she needed to and then picked herself back up and went straight back at it.
“I think I’m going to have to go get something to eat.” She reached for her purse. “Christophe, it was nice to meet you.” She slid a card across the table to him. Sylvain stiffened. Had she just given out her direct numbers and e-mail? To
Christophe
?
He didn’t even have those things. He had chased her out of his
laboratoire
that first day before she got a chance. Note to self: never get so annoyed that you drive a pretty woman away without getting her cell phone number. You might live to regret it. For example, it would have felt awkward the night before to call her secretary and find out why the hell she wasn’t breaking into his
laboratoire
again like she was supposed to.
Almost as bad as the gift of her private contact information, she waited a moment with hand extended until Christophe realized what the gesture indicated and found one of his own cards. Under the table against his thigh, Sylvain’s fist clenched.
Both men stood automatically when she did. Just for a second, as she reached for her jacket, he could glimpse the full effect of her outfit—the gray knit that clung to her slim body, the slender neck so vulnerably exposed and highlighted by those blue earrings, the challenge of the black lace leggings and the high boots, the stretch and flex of her muscles as she pulled on her leather jacket and left only those legs for a man’s focus.
She shook hands with Christophe, in that firm, confident American handshake she had, but only nodded at Sylvain.
Of course, what was she supposed to do? A handshake or
bises
seemed completely false, and a kiss on the mouth gross presumption. It was like the
tu/vous
dilemma. Exactly what were they to each other?
He kind of liked that dilemma. It was exciting. It was a fun edge to play with. But he wasn’t sure how long he wanted to stay there.
“Wow,” Christophe whispered as Cade and her legs reached the door of the café. Sylvain shot him a glare, but the man wasn’t watching her legs. He was staring at Cade’s card, cradled in both hands, held up to his face so that Sylvain couldn’t even get a glimpse of the number on it. “When I wrote my first blog post, I never, ever thought that I would end up here.”
Suddenly, Sylvain had to laugh. If it hadn’t been for Cade Corey, he would have liked the man. “When I made my first chocolate, I didn’t think so, either.”
Mostly because his first try had been a disaster. By the time he had made his third batch, he had known exactly where he planned to end up in life.
He had always had a very good eye for what he wanted. And the persistence and focus to go after it.
Cade Corey had exited the café in the direction of his apartment. He got to his feet, then turned back. “Don’t follow me,” he told Christophe firmly.
The food blogger laughed. “Sylvain, I love your chocolate as much as the next man. But I would be following
her
.”
“You know damn well that’s what I meant.” Sylvain headed out the door.
Chapter 18
S
he had disappeared. Where the hell had she gotten to? He walked up and down the street, checking restaurants and stores and the
épicerie
.
“Coucou,”
a cheerful voice called. He looked up, startled, from his attempts to peer through a plate glass window into the dark depths of the bar a couple of doors down from his building.
Chantal waved from the sidewalk in front of his apartment building and came toward him to give him warm
bises
. “Do you want to grab a drink?”
“I—not this evening, sorry.” He scanned the street. Maybe he should check the neighboring blocks.
Chantal curled a hand around his arm, her delicately plucked eyebrows knitted. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He wanted to wrench his arm away from her and keep hunting. Who else was hunting those legs right now? He would bet she had every loose male in the quarter on the prowl. How likely was she to fall for one of those lame tourist lines about her charming smile and let someone buy her a drink?
She seemed too arrogant and too cool for that type of vulnerability, but then, she sure had been a pushover for him.
Chantal continued to study him. The easy cheerfulness faded from her face. For a moment, she looked somber. Then she arched her eyebrows and gave him a searching, teasing look. “I read about the Chocolate Thief. Isn’t that outrageous? Is it really Cade Corey? That rich American woman from the restaurant the other night? She’s trying to
steal
your recipes?”
“Chantal,
pardon,
” Sylvain said abruptly, bending down to press a quick, apologetic kiss against each cheek. “Let’s have lunch together in a few days. I’ve got to go.”
The teasing expression died. She looked at him very seriously, the way she might look at someone going to a funeral. At the last second, as he moved away, she let her hand slide down his arm and caught his hand. “Sylvain.” She tugged him.
He glanced back, trying hard to be polite to this old friend, to be patient.
Her eyes pleaded with him. “Don’t get hurt. You know you always do.”
He never did find Cade. He checked surrounding blocks, peering through windows until finally he felt so ridiculous and so desperate for sleep that he went back to his apartment. There he fell onto his bed in his clothes, not waking up until the next morning.
Whenever he went to bed without a shower first, his comforter always smelled of cocoa for days.
He came in late to his
laboratoire
the next morning and discovered that his employees had left a wide space of marble undisturbed, like a crime scene. On it sat a very strange concoction: two flat brown
biscuits,
a marshmallow, and a square from a Corey Bar, all sandwiched together. At some point, the marshmallow had been half burned.
His heart began to beat faster. “What is this?”
Bernard, nearest it, shook his head. “We don’t know. We found it when we got here this morning.”
She had been back. Maybe in those leather pants again, or those high boots with those lace leggings. His body temperature rose at least three degrees, and his heart slammed into overdrive.
And he had missed her.
Putain de bordel de merde.
He picked up the weird sandwich and eyed it doubtfully. Had she poisoned it? Why else would she deliberately leave such a ruined effort for him? “I wonder how she managed to burn a
chamallow
?” he wondered, half-aloud.
No one attempted to answer. He wondered where she had even found a marshmallow, or the
biscuits,
in his
laboratoire.
She was bringing in her own ingredients now?
What did that mean? He thought she was supposed to be desperate for his world. A thief who left very strange presents instead of taking anything . . . what was that?
He bit into it carefully and grimaced as crumbs fell clumsily and the marshmallow clung stickily to his lips. “It’s very sweet,” he said. He looked up to find the whole
laboratoire
gathered around staring at it, rather as one might a snake. “I guess, points for creativity?”
He had no desire to take another bite of it, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to throw it away, either. He took it into his office to set it on his desk, then headed straight across the street and up her stairs.
She wasn’t there.
Cade was in Christophe’s apartment, learning how to make the chocolate
tarte
that he claimed he was going to name after her.
La Cade
. It made her smile. He made her laugh. His enthusiasm for everything was so unabashed and infectious.
She spent the morning there, feeling like a child at play, and even let him take a little ten-second video clip of her grinning and tasting his
tarte
for his blog. Then she caught the TGV up to Brussels. Her father wanted her to feel out the Firenze brothers, off the record, about their attitude toward a shared bid for Devon Candy.
Devon Candy. One of their candy bars had a bright pink wrapper. The very thought of it depressed her.
Sylvain, reading the blog post that evening, felt as if the top was going to blow off his head. Christophe had
spent the morning cooking with her
? He had named something chocolate after her? That was Sylvain’s role. And he could do it a lot better.
And in that video clip, which he only played ten or twenty times, she looked so sparkling and happy.
He really might murder the man.
Cade caught the nine p.m. train back, and it got delayed by a problem on the line that had them stopped over half an hour, so it was close to midnight by the time the taxi dropped her off at her apartment.
The taxi pulled away before she even got her code entered. When a shadow detached itself from the greater shadows of the doorway across the street, she nearly screamed.
Relief rushed through her when she realized who it was, but not just relief from that first primal fear. It was relief that he was there, that she was there, that they had not missed each other again. That she didn’t have to try to figure out what she should do—break into his
laboratoire,
stay in her apartment, or do something normal and call him.
Her body could just . . . melt into another dark, intense night, no questions asked. It was melting already as he crossed the street.
Without a word, he put his hand over hers and entered her code for her. Cade just wanted to turn to him and bury her head in his shoulder in overwhelming gratitude that he was there. She didn’t want to have to resist him another night by staying out late. She didn’t want to have to break into his
laboratoire
and have him never show. She didn’t want to wonder or doubt or hope. She just wanted to do.
And be done to.
Over her shoulder, he pushed the door open, his arm and body holding her captive. “You shouldn’t be out so late alone,” he murmured, voice dark and rough. “This is a big city. There have been several break-ins across the street.”
“Why don’t you set a trap to catch the thief?”
“I did once. But I think I made a mistake by not putting her in handcuffs at the time.”
His voice blended frustration, humor, and sincerity so darkly and perfectly that she couldn’t be sure he didn’t have velvet handcuffs in his back pocket, ready for use.
She felt disoriented. She had been working twelve hours straight now: facts, figures, decisions, e-mailing on the train. She was so used to working like that, it had seemed to set her back into her own world, an ocean’s width from a sorcerer’s lair in Paris.
Finding it still there, a world not completely shut to her, she wanted to sink into it completely. She backed up, tentatively, trying to make sure she didn’t open any sudden gap between them to discourage his pursuit.
He came with her, into the dark foyer of the apartment building, his body staying so close, she could not have broken free. He let the door close behind him, its blackness shutting out the pale city light. Only a tiny orange spot of light indicated the button they could push to light the stairs.
She reached for it automatically. He caught her hand. “Just a minute.” He pulled her into his arms, turned and pressed her back against the door, and kissed her.
Her whole body responded to him instantly, tightening, lifting. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, gripping the leather coat. He took a breath and kissed her harder. His pleasure responded to her pleasure, and hers fed his, while the kiss deepened, lightened, changed. Kisses learned each other.
“I can’t believe you’re real,” he breathed, his fingers rubbing over her back and ribs, where her skin yielded to his hands and where it didn’t. It surprised her that there was any point it didn’t; she felt as if her very bones were melting. “And yet you are.”
That was good to know. She hadn’t been sure the last time. But she wanted to be real here. She felt very, very real.
She felt so soaringly, intensely real, it was as if the person she had been until she got on that plane for Paris was some poor ghost finally invested with a life.
And able to taste and feel and touch and breathe and hurt and hate and
live.
The feel and touch and taste of him, and sometimes even the spitting, furious hate of him, was so heady that once again she forgot everything but him immediately. His lean waist, the muscles of his back and torso under her fingers. His thigh pressing between hers. His hair brushing her cheeks. His mouth. His hands.
God, his hands were extraordinary. She had been right to have a crush on them before she even met him.
Today he smelled of chocolate, of course, and rum, and fleetingly, on the fingertips that stroked past her cheeks and pushed her hair back, vanilla.
She rose to his mouth, seeking him passionately, seeking all of him, seeking to absorb him into her in every way she could. He made a rough sound and obliged that need, everything escalating out of control.
She loved the feel of his breaths going deeper and faster, as he pressed her against his chest. She loved the way his fingers flexed and tensed and rubbed as if they could make their winter layers of clothes disappear. She loved—but maybe hated—the fact that he could keep just enough respect for her, or control, to pull his head away at last and look around. Now that her eyes had adjusted, the small windows at the stair landings allowed in just enough dim light from the city to make out, barely, the line of his chin, the shadow of his shoulders against deeper shadow.
He didn’t say anything. He just lifted her up in one easy motion as if she weighed, well . . . no more than a giant pot of chocolate . . . and set her down on the first stair.
Cade leaned into him, liking this new height that made his mouth, his face, more accessible to hers, that brought her hips right on level with his, that . . .
He grasped her hips and rotated her, until she faced up the stairs, his hips now rubbing against her bottom. When she didn’t immediately grasp the message, he nudged her with his hips and his aroused sex.
“Monte,”
he whispered. “Go up.”
She grasped the banister for support, feeling her way up the dark stairs slowly.
As she climbed, his hands began to slide. Over her hips, her legs, as he let her get steps above him. He allowed the distance between them to grow, letting himself get several steps below her, as his hands drifted downward to the very edge of her boots, one finger slipping in, tracing her calf, and then back up. Then he came closer again. She could hear his tread on the stairs, in the dark an even darker presence behind her. He slid under the neat, knee-length pencil skirt and pushed it up, his hands tantalizing the sensitive insides of her thighs.
Cade tightened her hand on the rail and stopped, incapable of forming enough coherent force in her body to go forward. One finger teased just one split second against the crotch of her tights and then withdrew to push her bottom. Push her up, toward her apartment.
She started forward again, and his hands rose for a few steps to unbutton her jacket, to find their way under her sweater, to stroke and stroke her breasts until she was almost in tears of desire for him to do more. To take her on the stairs—she didn’t care.
He did care, though, apparently, because a lightly stinging slap against her bottom made her realize she had stopped moving again, lost in desire. The slap on top of it drove her almost frantic. She wanted nothing so much as to double over the banister, let him spank her mad, do anything to her, as long as his hands returned between her legs, as long as he took her.
And then his hands were gone. Nothing of him touched her at all. She breathed in a gasp of frantic air, as if she had been knifed.
“Continue,”
he whispered. “Or I’ll stop.”
Oh, cruel.
She was nothing but desire. Nothing.
Touch me, take me, feel me, make me, do anything to me, please.