She gasped. Rage turned her brain red.
“It must be fun being a woman sometimes,” Chase said.
“I—what?”
“Well, I have an almost irresistible, maddening urge to just grab you up and kiss you. And I have to control that. But if you gave in to your irresistible, maddening urge to hit me, I’d probably just enjoy it.”
He probably would, too. It made her sizzle with fury. Like nothing she could do could get through the arrogance of certain males.
“Don’t be so sure,” she said. “I fight dirty.”
He bit into his lower lip to control his grin, but it smirked out at the corners. “Me, too,” he allowed, in a deep voice that made the thought of fighting dirty just run over her whole body and heat it up.
“You’re so lucky I haven’t killed you yet,” she said, staring up into those blue eyes and that laughter and arrogance.
He fought to control the twitch of his lips. “If my luck fails, I’ll try to defend myself.”
Annoying jerk. He could probably control her just by shifting his body five centimeters and grabbing her hands. She could feel it all through him, the power, the size, the training, all held off her by his own arms. “I take it you don’t think that would be too hard?”
“Nope.” And just as she started to glare, he said with na?ve pride: “I took karate when I was a kid.”
She blinked. He pushed himself off her, giving her space. “I got to blue belt,” he bragged.
She choked. And then just thumped her head back against the wall as she started to laugh.
“Damn, it’s hard not to kiss you,” he said. “Jesus, you are driving me crazy.”
And he strode out of the walk-in and to the end of one of the lines, as if she actually was. And he considered it his full responsibility to control any urges she created in him, too.
She stared at that broad back. He looked over his shoulder. “So are you in any hurry to get to bed?”
Blue eyes, tan body, that grin and that cockiness, all in her white sheets…
“Or do chefs keep late hours?”
“It, ah, can sometimes take us a little while to come down off the adrenaline,” she said cautiously, not sure she wanted to follow where he was going with this. And not sure she wanted to shut it down, either. She really did usually have a lot of adrenaline to release, and right this second, she was quite sure she wouldn’t calm down for hours. Possibly weeks.
“Because I’m a poor, lonesome tourist in this country.” He looked pitiful.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“And you’re the nicest, most welcoming Frenchman—woman—I’ve met all day.”
She tried to stuff the laugh back inside, she really did, but he was just impossible. “What did the others throw at you? Bombs?”
“They did that—thing—whenever I spoke.” He pinched at his lips with his fingers. “And then they answered me in English. Every time.” He frowned and shook himself, as if shaking off a horrible nightmare. “It was brutal.”
“Poor baby.”
He gave her a disgruntled look. “You know, being a beautiful blonde Frenchwoman who wears leather and stiletto heels has given you a real lack of empathy for victims of snobbism.”
She snorted. “There are plenty of people who try to snob me in Paris.”
An eyebrow went up. He looked her up and down. “And how does that work out for them?”
She smiled.
He smiled back. His eyes were laughing, and heated with interest, but they were also so…warm. As if he really did like her, and not just think she was fuckable. “What do you say, honey? I assume it’s still forty degrees, but the rain has stopped. Would you save your country’s reputation? Be an ambassador for peace? Show a poor, lost tourist the sights? Hopefully on the back of your motorcycle? Maybe even let him drive it once?”
She held up a hand. “You are not driving my motorcycle.”
A heavy, put-upon sigh. “Fine. I’ll ride behind you.”
It was only after he’d settled on the bike behind her that she realized how often he pushed for something really outrageous—the chance to drive her motorcycle, a marriage in Texas, babies—to get the thing he really wanted, which the technique made seem much more normal in contrast.
“I’ve got a knife on me,” she said, as those hot, strong thighs framed hers and his pelvis nestled up against her butt, his arousal very evident.
“If you need to stab me, do you mind aiming above the waist? I’d way rather lose my spleen than my balls.”
Chapter 5
His team was going to make him pay for this for the rest of his natural life, but what else was he supposed to do? Drug her? Yeah, that would be subtle. No way she would wake up from being drugged and not run straight to the police and create an international scandal.