The Chocolate Kiss

CHAPTER 25



As she poured milk into a pot, and cream, Philippe took a small carton of raspberries out of his refrigerator, allowing Magalie a glimpse of fruit, yogurt, and not much else inside it. He bit into one of the raspberries, and her mouth watered at the thought of the sweet tartness on his tongue. Her breasts tingled as if he were closing his teeth around her. Satisfied with the flavor, he selected the largest, reddest raspberry in the flat and placed it exactly in the center of the macaron. It took him almost no time, as if he were a laser beam, so focused, so fast, and the result—once again stunning.

She had to tear her gaze away. She so desperately wanted to bite that macaron right out of his hands.

She dropped the cinnamon stick and vanilla bean into the liquid and added a quick grating of nutmeg, turning on the stove, and Philippe came to stand with one palm on the counter, watching her from less than arm’s length away. He pressed the side of his head against the cabinet, his eyes slumberous and utterly focused at once. “I think this is the most erotic thing I’ve ever done.”

She flushed and fumbled with the spoon. He just watched with lazy eyes that were not lazy at all.

“Or had done to me,” he clarified.

She wanted to say something about taking things for granted, but when she met his eyes, she saw that he didn’t take this evening’s outcome for granted at all. All of him—every muscle, every nerve, every bit of intellect and instinct—was concentrated on making sure that outcome was what he wanted.

“It’s as if I fastened my own wrists to a bed with silk scarves while you looked me over,” he breathed.

The flush spread to her breasts and filled them with so much desire that it had to find an outlet downward through her body, spearing through her, heating her.

“But the advantage is, I still have my hands free.” His low voice brushed her whole body up and down like fur.

She tried to concentrate on the stick of cinnamon, bobbing helplessly in the sea of white she was bringing to a simmer. The scent warmed her face.

He shifted with the same easy, deliberate movement she was using to stir the pot and came up behind her. One of his hands rested on the counter to one side of her, his other curled over the edge of the unused part of the stove. His body did not actually touch hers but was held so close to it with such a fine control that any shift on her part would mean she touched him.

She could feel his heat running all through her body, crossing that minute space. She shivered with it. It felt so very much like coming in out of the cold. The shiver brushed their clothes against each other.

“May I take your sweater?” he murmured, each word a glide of warm air over the part in her hair. “These sleeves.” He fingered the open material draping from her wrist. “You know you can’t work in them properly.”

She hesitated a long moment, head bent, his breath drifting over the back of her head, her exposed nape. Absorbing the feel of him, just there but not touching. Absorbing the moment. Then she released the wooden spoon and stretched both arms at an angle behind her. Yielding him the sweater.

He could have pulled the cardigan over her head. He didn’t. His arms circled around her enough to reach the buttons. Just enough. Still he did not tighten his hold into true contact. Very gently, the sweater tugging against her, he worked each button free—over her breasts, under her breasts, just over her navel so that her belly sucked in and the cinnamon-nutmeg-vanilla scents filled her lungs, down to the last one, just over the mound of curls hidden by her pants.

She swallowed the scents and bowed her head so far that the skin stretched taut over her nape.

He did not kiss her there.

The sweater glided down her arms with the gentlest of tugs, no hurry. He knew exactly how long it took to infuse cream so that a flavor permeated every part of it.

There was a soft sound, a puff of breath against her nape, when he saw what was under the cardigan. She shivered all over at that puff.

“Magalie. Silk?” He stopped tugging, the sweater pulled down to her forearms, her arms caught behind her back. One hand trailed delicately up her back over her top, the silk transparent to his touch. “You did it on purpose,” he breathed roughly, but there was no accusation in his voice, only delicious, husky praise. “An impractical sweater for cooking. If I hadn’t taken it off, would you have, Magalie? Complained it was getting in your way, and . . . and under it . . . you wanted to be able to feel my slightest touch?” He breathed on her nape. All the hairs on it rose to him.

His fingers skated up her back again—the slightest touch. Her spine arched helplessly.

He laughed suddenly, a rough, confounded sound. “Surely you weren’t worried that it would only be slight?”

Not exactly. Her worries and desires were far too complex to say.

He pulled the sweater free of her arms and tossed it aside. His right hand closed hers around the spoon, as if he was giving her a lifeline. “Don’t let my chocolate burn, Magalie.”

Of course she would not let it b—

“How long do you let it infuse?”

“Fifteen minutes.” Her voice was a thread of a whisper. Why did she let him steal all her authority?

He gave a small, exultant laugh. “You might want to set a timer.” And his mouth pressed to her nape.

She made a small sound of such intense pleasure that his left hand closed around her left wrist and tightened there as if he had to squeeze something desperately or lose all control. “Pardon,” he said and released her before she could even protest the pain, closing both his hands instead around the oven door handle on either side of her.

While her spoon trembled its path through the infusion, sending cinnamon and vanilla rocking in a stormy white sea, he kissed his way down her spine. He never touched her with any other part of his body. Just pressed his mouth through the silk inch by inch, until he was kneeling behind her, his lips at the small of her back, just above the low waist of her pants.

She sagged over her infusion, making soft, helpless sounds. He laughed out loud, the triumph making her pride rear its head, the joy in it making her softer still and puzzled with wonder.

He surged up, his body brushing the length of hers in a burst of power as he came to his feet. “Is it ready yet?” He was grinning as if he couldn’t contain his exultancy, but behind the warm fire in his eyes was still that intense, controlled focus.

“I—I don’t think that was quite fifteen minutes,” said Magalie, who had no idea. It had felt as if she had gone to heaven for all eternity while it lasted, but now that he had stopped, her whole back was begging for more.

His grin sharpened into something feral and hungry, but the blue eyes were rich with pleasure at what she had just asked for.

“Well, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you must never stint on any preparatory step,” he allowed and teased the spoon out of her hand with a long stroke of his index finger down the heel of her palm and under the curl of her fingers. Keeping her fingers peeled back, he lifted her wrist, wickedly exposed, and grazed his faintly rough jaw all along the exquisitely sensitive inside of her forearm from wrist to elbow.

And purred roughly with delight when she gasped.

“Your wrists handcuffed to the bedposts?” she managed dryly. She was so proud of that dry tone. It felt like holding onto a little bit of herself. “Really?”

Again he laughed, a soft, joyous sound, intimate and dangerous. “I don’t seem vulnerable to you, Magalie? Submitted to your every desire?”

She twisted and for the first time gathered the strength of will to study his face, head-on, for a long moment. He just looked back. Her body was so much smaller, her position by far the more exposed and defenseless. And yet for that one long moment while he held her eyes, he did look vulnerable, almost as if he was tied naked to her bed, of his own volition, gazing at her as she prepared to undo him.

Arousal flooded her. Arousal that undid her. That had always been the problem. He undid her. And her was all she had.

She twisted back to the infusion fast, like a fencer might twist to avoid a killing thrust. She scooped the cinnamon stick and vanilla bean out of the milk with the spoon, dropping them onto a small plate on the counter. What had she thought she was doing, coming here? As she sat up there in her creamy tower gazing at his “heart,” what burst of idiocy had said, Yes, you can do this. You can give up yourself.

Philippe brushed the faint prickle of his jaw over the nape of her neck.

Oh, God. She had never known that her perfect, pseudo-careless chignons could leave her so vulnerable. She had never known that she could love it, that vulnerability. That she would be willing to just bow her body forward over the glass stove and beg him to do anything to her he wanted to.

The hot burner kept her straight. She scooped the ovals of chocolate with trembling hands and dropped them into the pot.

The milk spattered at her abruptness. With his jaw still at her nape, circling sleepy and sensual like a cat, sparkles from it running through her everywhere, his hands closed over hers, and he rubbed every burning drop of it away with his palms.

She had often felt those little burning drops while she made hot chocolate. She had never before had anyone there to smooth them away.

She linked her fingers through his and lifted one of his hands to her mouth. She kissed his knuckles, holding his hand cradled against her lips for a second. She couldn’t help it.

Behind her, his body went very still. The cheek against the nape of her neck stopped moving.

When she brought her hand back down to stir the chocolate, he turned his head and kissed her nape, just the silk touch of his lips, no prickle at all. His palm slid slowly away from the back of her hand, a leisurely wandering path up her arm, over skin and then silk that whispered between his calluses and her skin, up to her shoulder.

She added a spoonful of bittersweet Valrhona cocoa, darkening her usual chocolat even further for him, and whisked the mixture into smoothness.

His thumb came up to trace the corner of her lips, which from his position behind her he could not see. The touch of his thumb made her want to nuzzle her face into his hand, to whimper and beg. “You’re not smiling,” he whispered.

No. What she felt was too intense to smile.

“I like the smile.” His thumb teased at the corner of her mouth as if he could coax one to life. “It makes me feel in the most erotic danger.”

A slow one grew, from some deep and powerful place in her belly. No smile before over her chocolate had ever felt like this one. Slowly she stirred the chocolate three final turns.

“What are you wishing for me, Magalie?”

To render him completely and utterly helpless with desire for her.

She shook her head, refusing to answer.

“You’re going to make me drink it blind, aren’t you?” His thumb traced over that dangerous smile, end to end and back, then stroked down, over her chin, down the length of her throat, to nestle in the hollow there.

“Do you have a chocolate pot?” she asked.

He did, sitting high up on the back of a top shelf of his cabinets, someone’s idea of a Christmas present for a top pastry chef. He stretched up over her head for it, all the long strength of his body against her back, and brought it down for her.

She poured the chocolate into the pot, then slipped the moulinet in and rubbed the rounded end of the thick wooden stick between her two palms, hard and fast, frothing the chocolate to give it an exceptionally smooth richness.

A low, growling sound vibrated from his chest through her back as he watched the movement of her hands on the wood. Her hands slowed involuntarily, as she stared at the form of the wood and realized why. Her blush took over her body, and her hands faltered. She couldn’t froth it properly. She was burning up.

She reached blindly for a cup, and he moved away from her to stand just a couple of feet beside her, watching her as she poured his fate. For a moment, the silence was so absolute she could hear the liquid flowing from the pot, then the clink of the pot as she set it down.

The scent of chocolate now filled his apartment. As if she had made the place her own.

She swallowed and stared at the dark liquid in the white cup for a moment. All around them the apartment was dark, lit by nothing but the utility light over the stove and the illumination coming in from the street through the great expanse of windows.

She curved her hands around the cup, its heat against her palms, and offered it to him.

His breaths lifted his chest in long, deep movements. He raised his eyes from the chocolate to hers. Keeping his hands at his sides, he made a motion of submission with his chin. “Vas-y,” he murmured. “From your hands.”

He was right. This was the most erotic thing she had ever done. Not that she had much for comparison. She suspected it might also be the most erotic thing she ever would do. What could match this?

She started to lift it to his lips, hesitated, then brought it to hers to blow on it a few times, making sure she would not burn him.

He made a sound, his hands tightening into fists at his sides. His blue eyes in the light looked almost black.

When she brought it back to his lips, he sat down suddenly at the little table near the window. His eyes as he tilted his head back to accept it clung to hers as if he was willingly drowning.

She watched the smooth, rich chocolate pass his lips, clinging to the sensual upper bow. He swallowed once. Twice. His eyes closed, and a long, slow sigh left his body, as if he was abandoning all fight.

He curved his hand around the cup, his fingers caressing its smooth heat and her fingers, and drank again. She stared at the chocolate clinging to his lips. What was going through his body? She had never been able to feel the power of her own chocolate.

Abruptly he pulled the cup out of her hands and set it on the table, then pulled her down on top of him. She tumbled into him, but because she tried to keep her feet planted firmly on the floor, her body stretched like a bow, her legs straight, her back arching so that her chest pressed against his. He spread his thighs so that her pelvis pressed against his, forced hard by the arch of her spine. “Magalie.” How could her name on his lips sound like ma chérie?

His fingers skated up her spine through the silk again, arching her helplessly. He brought his mouth to her exposed throat. Not a gazelle, not a gazelle, not a gazelle, she reminded herself as he ripped not her throat but her heart out with a hungry little growl.

All her will dissolved under the feel of his mouth, his barest graze of teeth, the touch of his tongue, the burr of his jaw, against her skin. Maybe she could be a gazelle, just here, just for tonight. Maybe she could be completely weak. It was so dark, and he was so warm, and despite those great windows, no one could see.

“What did you wish on me, Magalie?” His voice was as dark as her chocolate, as if it had possessed him. He trailed his lips and rough jaw down toward her breastbone, arching her back over his arm. “Doom? Utter destruction? Complete helplessness at your hands?”

Was he going to show her how powerless she was, that what she wished on him in vain was what he could so easily do to her?

“I don’t feel any different.” He pressed her breasts apart with his chin, forcing a little space for himself in her cleavage. The prickles from his jaw ran all through her body, chasing after one another until they settled into her nipples and her sex, dancing and dancing there.

“It probably doesn’t affect you,” she said bitterly. Bitter as the chocolate she had used on him.

“Perhaps you wished something that was already true.”

That he was completely helpless with desire for her?

She tried to pull her head back enough to get a good look at him, but the arch of her back didn’t leave much room to maneuver. He made a pleased sound at the way the attempt thrust her breasts more prominently against his face. Then he lifted his head, and there was nothing for her mouth to do but meet his.

She sipped her chocolate off his lips. She opened her mouth over his and tasted it on his tongue. The chocolate that was supposed to render its drinker helpless with desire. He buried his hands in her hair, knocking the clasp free with the thrust of his fingers, and held her head as he took her in.

And by opening her mouth to take his, she let him in to take hers. His mouth moved over and in hers, slow and thorough, as if he was savoring something delicious. Something he wanted to roll around on his tongue, breathe in deeply, pull back to sip slowly . . .

He brought his hands to her ribs and lifted her suddenly, settling her across his lap. She kept kissing him through the move, and he kissed her back, as if he could kiss her forever.

But both his arms didn’t hold her. One left her. Stretched across the table. And came back with his heart in his hand.

She wrenched her head away, burying her face in his neck. “Can’t we just have sex?” she whispered. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t.” The hand still in her hair tightened, showing his anger. “Do you have to be so strong that you’re stupid?”

She straightened a little away from him, eyeing that dessert with longing even while her mouth set mulishly. She had promised him the trade. She had come here with the intention of it. What was wrong with her to want to balk now?

“What do you think you have to lose, Magalie?”

She gave him an incredulous look. “Me.” As if he didn’t know.

“Vraiment.” His palm rubbed a wandering path from her hip up her ribs to one tense shoulder blade, where it settled into soothing circles. “Not your pride. Not your anger. Not your strength. You.” His tongue seemed to caress that last word, drawing it out the way one might draw out a slow, savoring spoonful of a luscious dessert.

If he was eating her in two bites, he was enjoying his meal. She wriggled resentfully.

“What do you think I have to lose, Magalie?”

She blinked. Frowned. “Nothing, probably. You said my chocolate didn’t even have any effect on you.”

He stared at her. The anger in him tensed the muscles in the thighs under her butt, pressed his palm against her shoulder blade, tightened the abs against which her arm was pressed. “Bon sang. Quel imbécile.”

Was she really? In her witches’ lair, surrounded by clients who couldn’t quite get their lives together, she had always thought that she was the smartest person in the room. Her life was together. Nicely packed up and invincible. Until him.

“Here.” He brought the macaron so close that the armor of raspberries protecting its insides brushed her mouth with their faint, silky, beaded texture, and the gloss of the macaron shells glided smoothly over her lips.

She opened her mouth and bit, snatching for it with her teeth like a starved animal snatching food out of the air. But as her teeth broke the fine crust of the macaron shells, her whole body slowed, the energy of the bite dissolved into a dream. The most secret, delicate crunch, the blissful, soft inside of the shell, and then, sinking down, the burst of raspberries, the luscious cream. Sex between two wings of heaven. Bliss and paradise, if the paradise was the kind that featured infinite debauchery.

An orgasm in one bite. As if hands ran all over her body. But more. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever tasted in her life. Made for her. It was so beautiful that tears stung her eyes, and she opened them to find Philippe’s gaze consuming her face with a feral, starved triumph.

She stared back at him, from only inches away.

He rotated the macaron a half inch and proffered it to her lips again.

She couldn’t describe what it did to her to take another bite under that savage victory. She almost couldn’t not, her ability to resist more of that exquisite pleasure reduced nearly out of existence. And yet she could have. She was strong enough. She could have drawn from somewhere deep that resistance. She chose not to. It was as if she chose to strip herself naked at his snapped fingers and give all power over her body to him.

It was so erotic that she could barely breathe from it, from the desire to have him take her, then and there, laid across the chair.

He didn’t. He fed her, holding her eyes. Grazing his palm over her throat as she swallowed him. Watching her shiver and her whole body clutch helplessly as she bit into that secret, intense, tart heart beneath the silk ganache.

He fed her every last bite. He stroked the rose petal over her lips and slipped it inside to lie on her tongue. He brushed the crumbs over her lips and made her lick them off his fingers.

He had tied his hands to a bed? His power over her was so absolute that it could not have been greater if she had put a slave collar around her naked throat and handed him the chain.

In fact, her erotic submission was so great that as soon as the thought came to her, she longed for it, to be stripped naked and used for his every desire.

He dipped the thumb she had just sucked clean into the cup of her still-warm chocolate and slowly, deliberately sucked it himself, still holding her eyes.

And then he slipped that thumb in through the tight fit of her still-zipped pants, finding her *oris. With the first brush, she whimpered and writhed, clutching at him. Her eyes closed, but his didn’t. She felt them on her, blazing dark. He pressed his thumb hard, and she came almost in the first second, shattering helplessly, curving her face into his arm and biting at his biceps.

And he laughed. He laughed in pure, utter triumph. A savage sound, a conquering sound as her body rocked and rocked to its rhythm.