Wished

Chapter 21

21

In my mind Paris is a series of snapshots, a camera held aloft while Max kisses me breathless. Each kiss draws me tighter, so that as the blue sky shifts to a rosy, flower-petal hue, I’m practically shimmering in the last rays of the setting sun.

Generations of lovers have walked hand in hand through the city of love, and I’m wrapped in the magic.

Max strokes my cheeks under the Arc de Triomphe, nibbling on my bottom lip with surprising gentleness.

He teases me beneath the Eiffel Tower, his fingers threading through my hair, his body hard against mine. He plies open my mouth and draws out little gasps and quick breaths at the stinging pleasure.

Then he feeds me hazelnut and chocolate macarons from the famed macaron bar on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. He wipes my mouth of the hazelnut crumbs and then, with hungry eyes, devours the flavor from my lips.

In Montmartre we climb the 222 steep stone steps through the garden to the Sacré-Coeur. The steps are lined with pretty lampposts and leafy green trees shaded gold and pink in the dusk. Below lies a sprawling view of Paris, with street musicians playing an evening serenade, the romantic notes flowing in and out of the cool breeze and winking in time with the lights of the city flickering to life.

Montmartre is full of charm. Narrow, winding cobblestone streets, sex shops and cabarets, trinket and T-shirt peddlers, and caricature artists, and at the crowded steps where people climb to the basilica or drink wine in the grass as the light falls to night, flirty men chat up pretty women, and all the while, musicians play romantic songs.

On each stone step Max kisses me, or I kiss him.

Step.

Kiss.

Step.

Kiss.

It’s a game at first, a laugh.

222 kisses to the top.

But then, after ten quick steps and ten quick pecks, Max stops, grabs my hips, and presses me against him for a languid, tingling, hang-on-or-your-legs-will-give-out kiss.

At step twelve, I pull his lower lip into my mouth and bite his soft smile.

At fifteen, his hands roughly span my hips as he moans into my mouth.

At thirty, he kisses the length of my collarbone.

Fifty through sixty, he kisses the tips of every one of my fingers. The press of his lips burns into them, leaving them glowing like the light of a firefly.

In my whole life I’ve had perhaps thirty or forty kisses. We pass that number and then keep climbing. The further we rise, the more all those other kisses are buried and forgotten, and all that’s left is Max’s mouth on mine, over me, on me.

At 112, I drag my mouth over the rough stubble of his jaw and then suck on the pulse beating wildly in his neck.

At 160, he kisses my closed eyelids.

At 200, he’s tired of stumbling up the steps, his mouth on mine, so he lifts me in his arms and settles my legs around his middle.

My dress falls around my legs. Max’s fingers dig into my thighs, pressing hungrily into my flesh as he takes another quick step toward the Sacré-Coeur.

For step 212, my hands dig into his shoulders, his fingers massage my thighs, and his tongue tangles with mine, thrusting then withdrawing.

At 222, he’s kissed every bit of me. My fingers, my palms, my wrists, my collarbone, my neck, my eyelids, the shell of my ear, the backs of my knees, the insides of my thighs. My mouth. Goodness. My mouth.

Anywhere that is bare and uncovered by my dress, he’s kissed.

Most of his kisses were chaste. Just his mouth on my skin, his gaze direct and watching as he lowered his mouth to me. Those chaste kisses chased over my skin and combined to drag me down into a whirling maelstrom of need.

With each step up, he dragged me further and further, heightening the sensations running over me and through me.

And now, on the last step, beneath the white rounded tours of the Sacred Heart, Max stares into my eyes. His mouth is wet, his lips red and slightly swollen. His gaze is glowing with the same heady, drunk-on-kisses, I-want-to-climb-inside-you feeling that is overwhelming me.

I reach up, thread my fingers through his thick hair, and pull his mouth to mine. His mouth is hot, still tasting of hazelnut and chocolate and thick desire. I press myself closer to him, my legs wrapped around his middle. He’s hard against me, and as he strokes my mouth and we attempt to imprint ourselves on each other, a tight tingling travels down my spine and pools at the space where we connect.

“Take me to bed,” I whisper against his mouth. “Please.”

His arms flex and he drags me closer, a ragged breath escaping hot against my mouth. “You still haven’t kissed me in front of City Hall, Palais Garnier Opera House, on the bridges spanning Canal Saint-Martin?—"

I clutch his shoulders and stare into his eyes. “Max.”

“Anna?” The corner of his mouth lifts, his gaze burning hotter. My lips tingle and ache for him to set his mouth back on mine.

“I’ve seen enough. Now I just want to see you.”

The rest of his mouth lifts into a wide, happy smile. “You don’t want dinner first?”

“Max!”

He laughs and then carries me back down all 222 steps.