As I give Anne my details and she chatters on about all the sightseeing and restaurants I need to visit, I see Ryan seething, clearly disappointed that Anne has taken a liking to me and he hasn’t managed to ruin this evening. I’m glad Chris hasn’t confronted his brother, but from the corner of my eye I see his jaw is clenched and he’s unsettled. I don’t know the entire history between these two, but it’s clear I’m Ryan’s latest pawn in the spiteful game he’s playing with Chris. While I enjoy the rest of the evening, planning our Paris itinerary with Anne and loving the feeling of Chris’s hand gently rubbing my back, I feel Ryan’s eyes on me, noting everything I say, every move I make. When dessert is cleared from the table and Chris asks me if I’m ready to leave, I practically dash for the door.
How is this my life? That’s what I keep repeating when I plow through my apartment after dinner, searching for my passport and throwing clothes into a suitcase. It’s what I literally say when I leave Kate a voicemail and tell her to make a reservation for me and Chris at her restaurant. And when a black town car pulls up to my building on Monday morning, I may ask the driver who takes my bags and holds the door open for me. How is this my life?
But when I slide into the backseat and see Chris sitting there, a folded newspaper in his lap and two cups of steaming coffee in the cup holders, I don’t wonder anymore. I just sink into it. Today this is my life, I think. I’m heading to Paris for a week with Chris and I’m not going to ruin it by questioning it.
I fly first class for the first time in my life, and at first, I feel awkward, trying to hide my excitement when I drink the complimentary mimosa and read the menu of breakfast choices. But when I can’t decide between the poached eggs or crêpes with fresh berries, Chris asks the flight attendant to bring me both and then wraps his arms around me, laughing. He tells me he loves my excitement and experiencing everything through my eyes. He’s grown so used to these perks, that he takes them for granted. Not with me. Not this time.
I doze off in the car from the airport to Paris, so when I step out of the car in front the hotel, I don’t realize where we are. I’m in awe of the hotel he’s chosen, Le Pavillon de la Reina. It’s covered in ivy and looks like a seventeenth century mansion right in the heart of Paris. But when I turn to look around me, that’s when my breath catches, because right across the beautiful square of Place des Vosges, I see the slightly rundown building where I rented a stuffy studio months before. Where Chris and I spent our first night together.
After he pays the driver and hands off our bags to the bellboy, he wraps an arm around my waist and leads me through the fairytale courtyard. “What can I say?” he says. “Your boyfriend thinks of everything.”
The room itself is rustic. There are wood beams crisscrossing the gabled ceiling and a giant marble fireplace across from the king-sized bed. Despite the traditional French touches like an old chandelier hanging in the center of the room, the wall paper and bedding are contemporary, in bold patterns of yellow and grey. I open the door to our private balcony, and looking across the Place des Vosges, I can just make out the small dormer window from that studio apartment. The one I stared out of four months before falling asleep with Chris, then a stranger, beside me.
The light is coming in through the casement windows, and it warms my face. I’m lying on my side, perfectly cozy in the luxuriously soft hotel sheets and thick duvet, and barely awake. It’s not the sun on my face that’s woken me; it’s Chris’s fingers, trailing up and down my spine. Every morning I’ve woken up after him, and every morning I’ve caught him staring at me, touching me, waking me up with his kisses and caresses. This morning is no different.
He nestles closer to me, pulling me back up against his chest. He moves my hair aside and kisses my neck, so softly. It’s a game we play: how long can I pretend to sleep while he turns me on? I feel his erection nudging into my ass, and his hand slides down my thigh, his fingers swipe at the smooth skin behind my knee, and then up again to rest on my hip. I feel him touching his cock underneath the sheet, and then a soft grunt escapes his lips before he’s lifting my knee and placing my leg over his. Then his fingers, I feel them sliding through my folds, still wet from his cum just hours before when we fell asleep. He slides up and down, and I try to stay perfectly still, continue the allusion that I’m sleeping. But then his finger slips inside me and starts pumping, and I know I can’t keep up the ruse much longer. I feel his breath coming in faster bursts over my ear, and his kisses on my neck are getting rougher, more frantic. When he takes his finger out of my pussy and starts sliding it over my clit, I can’t stay still any longer. My hips start rocking back into him, and I speak for the first time.