10. Elise

10

ELISE

The next night I receive a text, asking me if I want to go to a tea salon on Friday night.

I laugh out loud, writing back as I take a break from tending to the garden in my small front yard.

Elise: You’re actually inviting me to tea?

Christian: Yes, since you’re avoiding date-like things.

Elise: And a tea salon is unromantic?

Christian: I think it’s about as unromantic as we can get. Otherwise, I could take you to the grocery store. But as much as I like you, I don’t really want to go to the grocery store.

Elise: Why do you like me so much? Is it because you haven’t had me?

Christian: Do you expect me to like you less after I have you?

Elise: Of course not.

Christian: I like you for many reasons, but you’ve made it clear you have no interest in romance, and I want to give you what you want.

As I sit cross-legged in the soft emerald grass at my home on a curvy street in Montmartre, I trace my finger over the message, letting those last few words linger. What do I want from a man? What do I want from this man?

I’ve told him I don’t want romance. I’ve made it clear I don’t believe in fate. I can’t let myself go to those places. They are cities where I’m no longer welcome, towns where I can’t find my way. If I went there, I might get lost and never be found again.

But what do I want from him?

I sigh, turning to the sunshine-yellow tulips that frame my home. They’re bursting with color, making peacocks of their golden hues, their bright orange tones, their summer shades.

These flowers seem certain. They’re so deliberate in their colors, so spectacular in their showiness. But I don’t know how to capture that kind of certainty anymore. I do want something from him. But is it merely physical? Is it simply that I feel a delicious spark every time I’m near him? Lord knows the man drives me wild. Being near him is a complete and absolute turn-on, and his flirtiness melts me from head to toe.

Is that what I want? A naughty, wild fling? Is that enough? Is it ever enough?

I trim the garden more, but as I ensure no petal is out of place, I’m not sure I have any answers to my questions.

Or rather, the only answer I have is a simple one.

I want him. He entertains me. He makes me laugh. He keeps me on my toes. But he also hasn’t asked more of me than I’m willing to give.

I won’t scoop out a portion of my heart or mind that can be stolen again. As a woman who slid into the full-blown madness of a wild, dangerous love not so long ago, I don’t know that a fling could be enough. But I also know it’s all I’ll allow.

I want borders, and I bet he’s a man who respects the boundaries on a map.

I grab my phone and write back.

Elise: I like everything you’ve given so far.

Christian: Fantastic. Then, would you rather I take you to the bank? I suppose I could see if the post office is open on a Friday night. Maybe we could pick up toiletries at the pharmacy as another option.

I crack up as I sit in the grass, tapping a reply.

Elise: You forgot laundry. We could do laundry.

Christian: Ah, but that sounds dirty.

Elise: Dirty, but not romantic.

Christian: I’m trying to behave. And look at you, being naughty.

Elise: I suppose I shouldn’t wear that short red skirt I had in mind, then.

Christian: How short?

Elise: So short it should be illegal.

Christian: Can you hear me groaning all the way across the city?

Elise: No, but I suspect I’d like that sound. Where do you live? I want to picture you groaning.

Christian: So you can imagine me in my flat tonight? You dirty woman. I live in the sixth, just off rue de l’Ancienne Comédie.

Elise: That’s a fitting place for you.

Christian: Why?

Elise: That arrondissement is quite fun. And I believe fun was how you introduced yourself to me.

Christian: There’s so much more I want to introduce to you.

Elise: I suppose the same is true for me when it comes to you.

And on that note, I head inside, set down the gardening shears, and curl up on my couch. There’s something I need to see.

No, something I want to see.

I click on the photo album on my phone, searching the archives for a certain series of shots I captured a little more than a year ago. When I snapped the images from the boat, the naked handstander was merely an amusing—no, outrageous—sight on a tourist attraction. Like a photobomber, but for the canal tour. Now, I know a little of the man behind the nude acrobatics.

I like what I know.

Perhaps that’s why a tinge of heat splashes across my cheeks as I click open the first shot. I know who that upside-down flasher is. I know him, and I like him. And I suppose as I hold my phone at an angle, then as I slide my thumbs across the image to widen it, I feel a little like I’m perving on Christian.

Okay, a lot .

But that feeling doesn’t stop me.

No, it drives me on.

I trace my finger along his naked frame, wondering how everything looks when he’s right side up.

When he’s stripping for me.

When he’s stalking over to the bed, aroused and hard, his eyes blazing with desire.

When he’s pinning me, climbing over me, giving me what I imagined I’d have that night in Copenhagen.

And now, I truly am imagining him groaning.

Because I’m doing the same.