One Good Man

“That’s the fantastic irony, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter that I was carded. The scouts will come for me anyway. But the team can win without me, even though they don’t believe it.”

“They lost today,” I said in a small voice.

Adrien pressed his lips together. “Fantastique. Then I fucked everything up for…”

“For nothing?” I asked, my voice a whisper.

Adrien raised his eyes to meet mine. “Not for nothing.”

I swallowed hard, past my pounding heart. “Your mother told me you hit Olivier because he was talking about…me.”

Adrien glanced away, his hands gripping the edge of his desk. “You should go. I have nothing to offer.”

“I don’t want anything from you, Adrien,” I said, taking another step. “Nothing that can be bought, anyway.”

“No? Not an exposé on the footballer who’s secretly destitute, trying to keep his family afloat? Isn’t that why you’re here?”

I flinched, but took another step. Adrien’s harsh tone was only to protect himself and his family’s reputation…and I loved him all the more for it.

I think I might love him. God help me…

“No,” I said, moving closer, my lips trembling. I was right in front of him now, my body inches from his. “That’s not why I’m here.”

He gazed down at me, his hard defenses crumbling. His hand came up to brush a lock of hair from my face. “Then why?”

“For you.” I swallowed hard, tears stinging my eyes. “I came here to be with you.”

“I have nothing, Janey,” he said, his eyes full of longing. “Women want to be taken care of…”

“Not all women,” I said, leaning in to his space. “Not me. I want to work. I want to have a career. I want to make something of my life. And I think you do, too.” I let my arms go around his neck, my fingers tangling in his hair. “You’re a good man, Adrien. That’s what any woman wants. What I want. I want you…”

Without another word, his arms wrapped around me, hauling me to him, and his mouth crashed to mine. I parted my lips to take his kiss, my knees weakening as his tongue explored my mouth, demanding and urgent. With all the heavy secrets of his life no longer hidden, I knew he was kissing me with his truest self. All of him, all of his goodness was in that kiss, even as it quickly heated into something desperate with need.

Adrien’s hand slid up my back, to my hair, where he made a gentle fist that sent tingles of electricity shoot down my body. He angled my head to deepen the kiss, and held me closer, so that there was no distance between us.

I have everything.

The desperate lust I’d seen with Lucie and Thomas, and the deep emotion between Brigitte and Robert. I felt both from Adrien, and I moaned softly into his mouth.

“Janey…” Adrien broke our kiss with a gasp, like a man coming up for air. He laid kisses along my jaw, my neck, to the hollow of my collarbone. “I want you…”

“Yes,” I hissed in English, as he went lower, his mouth finding one hard nipple under my top. My fingers tangled in his hair as he nipped it through the material. His hand found my other breast, and I gasped as he rolled the ball of his thumb over that nipple too.

“I thought you didn’t like me,” he murmured against the material of my blouse.

“I do,” I whispered back, my fingers raking through his hair. “I always did. I’m just bad at flirting, remember?”

Adrien laughed and then kissed me so that I felt the smile on his lips. Then he lifted my blouse off altogether. I watched his eyes flare and darken with want, as he took in my small, bra-clad breasts. I wasted no time, but found the hem of his T-shirt and hauled it off of him.

“My God,” I whispered, my eyes drinking in the masculine perfection of his body. Planes of smooth skin over his pecs, the tight lines of his abs, and the narrow waist that made a perfect V. His erection strained at his pants, and I stared at that too, amazed at how badly I wanted all of him.

He pulled me to him, enveloping me in the strength of his muscles over warm skin—strength and heat and hard kisses that had the whole of his heart behind them.

“Janey,” he whispered, pulling back to hold my face in his hands. “I need you… Now. But I…don’t want to hurt you. I can go slow…”

“It’s okay,” I whispered back. “It’s not my first time. I wish it were.”

He held my gaze a moment longer, and I saw only myself reflected there. Then he kissed me hard, sweeping me up in the power of his want for me. My words had been the permission he’d needed, though I knew if I’d been a virgin, he would have done everything in his power to be gentle.