Turning Up the Heat (A Novella in the Vie en Roses Series) Read online

  He came to his feet suddenly. She twisted her head on her arms enough to see him stride waist deep in the waves and stand there with his hands locked in fists behind his head, staring out at the horizon.

  She thought about following him, slipping in behind him and slipping her hand around to the arousal against which he was pitting the force of waves too warm to kill it.

  He still stood there, and then suddenly, she didn’t know why she shouldn’t follow him, and she rolled to her knees.

  But he turned at that moment and came back out of the water, still enough aroused under his suit that at first she thought he was coming back to her and she sat back on her heels. But he just gave her a little smile that made her blush crimson, and that made his smile deepen as he ducked his head and crouched down by their picnic basket, packing it with deft, fast fingers into a much better arrangement than the resort kitchen staff had ever thought of. “Let’s go find that waterfall.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They hiked along the stream, a narrow, haphazard footpath that not enough feet had worn, the forest rich and thick around them, birds calling, a tree dripping flowers. Green surrounded them, and rich dark earth, and the stream flowing over dark rocks, leftover from volcanoes lost in the depths of time.

  They could hear the waterfall before they reached it, but still Léa drew a breath of surprised pleasure when they came out beneath it. The stream was small, and the rocks angling above them spread it out fine, so that it fell into the pool below in a wide veil, nearly transparent. The place was a deep, magical secret, compared to the vast possibilities of the ocean. A spill of red hibiscus near the falls brightened the dark, safe colors of rock and water and green, and the waterfall shimmered with white.

  She had hiked to a waterfall the day before, narrower, higher, more pounding, but also beautiful. And it was a sharp, sweet realization, how much more pleasure there was in the moment because Daniel was with her.

  Already waded halfway out to the falls, she turned enough to smile at him, an absurdly shy smile for how long they had been married. But she felt shy. She felt as if she had come out here to find a piece of herself, and he already wanted that piece for himself, and she didn’t even know what it looked like yet much less whether she wanted to give it away.

  And she still felt embarrassed, from earlier on the beach. Soft and sticky and vulnerable.

  His eyes searched hers rather gravely for a moment, and she dipped her head. His eyes narrowed at the evasion, that way she knew, that meant that nothing was going to stop him reaching what he wanted.

  She shifted away from that look, feeling even more vulnerable than before—like she had a chance in hell of protecting that fragile nascence that had brought her to this island alone—and stepped under the waterfall, to wash off her sticky embarrassment over the beach.

  The veil of it was a gentle pleasure to stand under rather than a pounding force. She kept her back to him, stretching up her arms to savor the sensation of the water washing over her.

  Her string-tied bikini top loosened suddenly and washed entirely away. Oh. Her head tilted back sharply to hit a strong shoulder just as hands cupped her breasts, warm hands, and everywhere else the wash of cool water.

  “Léa,” he whispered, squeezing her gently, thumbing the nipples.

  Oh. The pleasure of it washed through her, sweet and intense. But oh, not again. He was taking over every part of her.

  Oh. His fingers handled her breasts so expertly, all that lovely, lovely expertise in her. She swayed back against him, washed by the water.

  His hands trailed all the way down her belly as his body dropped away, her support gone. Hands gripped just the unburned front side of her thighs and turned her.

  She looked down, the water parting over the nape of her neck, to find him kneeling in the water, looking up at her. His black hair was soaked and dripping, but the waterfall parted around her body, partially shielding him.

  “Keep your hands up,” he whispered, and she realized her hands were still where they had been when he first touched her, cupped high above her head, wrists touching, water filling them and then spilling over all around her.

  She shivered all over, shaking her head, and started to lower them.

  “Léa,” he said.

  And her breasts tightened unbearably, her sex melting. She brought her wrists slowly back together again, above her head. That made the weeping of her sex worse, her body already yielded.

  “I’d tie you like that if I could,” he told her, guttural. “So you couldn’t turn away from me. So you couldn’t tell me no.” His hands, gripping the front of her thighs, wedged them apart.

  “Oh, God, no, Daniel,” she gasped, as his mouth met her sex, and her whole body arched into the waterfall. “Daniel.”

  “Don’t tell me that,” he said fiercely. “Say yes, I love it, I love you.” His mouth took her in a hard, hungry fuck, ravaging her, like some starving man at last before food.

  “Daniel.” Her hands tangled in his hair, her body lost under the waterfall. “Don’t, don’t”—She arched back, shaking uncontrollably, losing words as he mastered her pleasure so easily, so expertly, building her and building her, knowing exactly what to do to her. She drew a little terrified breath, drowning in him, and then waves on waves of delight, of utter lost hunger, overwhelmed her as she came, the waterfall streaming into her face, but the pleasure stronger even than it. She couldn’t come down from it, because he wouldn’t let her. Keeping her lost in that pleasure until it became almost pain, and water spilled into her face and choked her. He pulled her free of the falls then, soothing her, massaging the unburned part of her thighs as he lifted his mouth from her. She was still rippling with the pleasure, shaking in little spasms that made her cling to him, as he gently, gently lowered her down into the water, holding her head above it, hand still caressing her.

  Her eyes flew open again, and she stared straight into his brilliant, starved face. “You get up,” she said fiercely, slapping her hand on his chest.

  His eyes widened. “Lé”—

  “You do what I tell you.” She shoved at him, trying to force his much greater weight up.

  “Léa.” He let himself be forced to his feet, reluctantly.

  She pushed him back under the waterfall, her whole body incandescent with some kind of rage or need.

  “Léa,” he said warily, as the water cascaded over him.

  She yanked his swim shorts off.

  He grabbed for them, too late. “Léa, no.”

  “Hold your arms out,” she said fiercely. “Don’t you touch me. You take it.”

  “Oh, putain.” Slowly, his body taut, he held his arms out under the water. He was already violently aroused, frustrated multiple times that day. Her hand curled around him. “Léa. Merde, don’t”—

  “Shut up.” She looked at him, naked under that waterfall, arms out, body so hard, water spilling all around him like an aurora. And then she sucked him into her mouth.

  Eleven years of marriage, and she had never done this. She had played a little around the idea, sometimes, kissing down his belly, hand around him. But making love always left her so overwhelmed with pleasure, and Daniel loved to take charge as she lost herself in him; it satisfied some glittering, hungry need in him. She knew all kinds of little things he liked, when he was close to coming, ways to arch her hips or squeeze her muscles or slide her hand to make him shatter with pleasure. But she had never taken him over. Made him come when she wanted.

  It was harder than she thought, to fit him in her mouth. She retreated from the first effort, her hand coming up to curl around the base of his erection and then curve firmly over his testicles, a touch she knew made him moan. It made him tense sharply now, his head going back so that the water spilled straight into that honed, gorgeous face of his. Exactly as it had into hers.

  She tried her tongue, touching it gently to the tip of him, and his fists spasmed so hard she felt it down the length of
him. She brought her second hand into play and tried again with her mouth, circling her tongue around his tip, sliding herself over him, trying to create a little suction. Maybe her mouth was too small. How did people do this?

  “Putain. Léa.” His hands came down to curve around her head.

  She pulled her mouth away, and he made an involuntary sound of protest. “Don’t you touch me,” she told him fiercely.

  “I can’t help it,” he ground out.

  “Try harder.”

  He stared down at her, his face very flushed, the water pouring over that hard, desperate body. “Léa. Don’t do this.” But he didn’t move away. He didn’t dive into the water out of her reach.

  “Shut up,” she told him again. “And put your hands out.”

  Slowly, very slowly, he managed to pull his hands away from her head and stretch them away from his body again. Not for the first time, she wondered how she had landed such a beautiful man—and then she remembered, the restaurant. Her father’s daughter. And she flushed, to have beautiful perfect Daniel see her like this, kneeling at his feet, clumsily trying to suck him off. She closed her eyes, so that all she could see and think about was the water sliding over his skin, and off him onto her.

  Eyes shut, she felt her way back over him, with a tentative suckle. He groaned. “Léa, please don”—

  She squeezed his testicles just the way he liked it, and he shut up. The water lapped all around her where she knelt, cool against her flushed body. It streamed off him and, because she was so close, slipped from him onto her, washing her in the liquid off his body. Eyes closed, she sank into the sensation of the water, so gentle, and his hardness, so very hard. She let herself get lost in the pleasure of this, like she got lost when he made love to her, no other thought. Nothing but this. All his textures and strengths and what her mouth could do. One hand curling around his testicles, she rubbed him slowly, enjoying the textures of him there, like nowhere else on his body. The hardness of his penis in her other hand. The way she could grip him, just as strongly as she liked, and he would only moan and jerk. The way she could loosen her grip, caress, and he would hiss with protest and try to shut himself up.

  The way her mouth could slide over him…sink deeper…why yes, he would fit. He would fit so very well. Too hard, too big, too much, and she liked it.

  Shh, her hand caressed over his testicles. Behave, her fingers told the base of his penis, as she reduced him to incoherent panicked begging. You’ll do what I tell you. And I like you like this.

  But he cheated. His hands shot down and fisted into her hair with one frantic cry as he came.

  Afterwards, he ducked into the waterfall immediately and then behind it, sinking down into the slim sliver of tormented water between the cascade and the rocks.

  Léa floated, feeling dreamy and sleepy and curiously pleased with herself, smiling at the way he hid himself.

  It had taken her years to realize Daniel was profoundly shy. They must have been near their mid-twenties before it hit her. Before she realized that when he kept his arm around her waist at baptisms and weddings, quiet, letting her do most of the chatting, there were more elements involved than romantic affection. Yes, baptisms and weddings were some of their excuses to relax with each other, and maybe he didn’t want to spend any more time on the other side of the salle de reception from her than she did from him. But where she would be at ease if they got separated, still laughing and having fun even if she would miss the touch of his hand, he would not be. It was counter-intuitive to understand this: the man who could take over a three-star restaurant and its rebellious kitchen staff at nineteen; the man who could go on TV shows and handle flirting announcers with a quiet, confident warmth; the man who could walk into a kitchen in a strange country on the other side of the world and take charge in just the right way, both confident of his own authority and respectful of the other chef. Shy. How could a man who did all that, so well, be shy?

  But if he didn’t know what he wanted, and he didn’t know what people wanted from him, he didn’t know what to do with himself or even if they wanted him around. And it had taken her seven years—six of them married—to realize this because, from the first minute he saw her, Daniel had always known what he wanted.

  He had wanted his chef’s daughter.

  Wanted her body and her heritage and her heart. Wanted her restaurant. Wanted to take that restaurant back to the stars. Wanted to be famous, to be begged for, to be the best, to be the very best.

  He had wanted it all. He had wanted so damn much. His wanting took over his own shyness, stronger than it. It was only in those rare windows of sociability, when he had no goal and others had no goal for him, that it could peek out. That his own wife could slowly realize that he wasn’t bored or lost in thoughts about the kitchens while she laughed with her cousins. He had what he wanted from that situation—his hand around her waist—and he was left rudderless, profoundly uncertain of what anyone could want from him or see in him besides his work.

  Well, I wanted that, she thought at him in defiant firmness, through the veil of the waterfall, and then rolled over to cool her flaming face in the pool beneath the falls.

  Because she wasn’t shy with her cousins. They had played together all their lives. She wasn’t shy when it came to talking to other people. She knew what they wanted from her—they just wanted to laugh and joke, be happy and share their lives and have her be happy for them. But she had always felt a deep streak of shyness with Daniel, the blushing, delicate knowledge that she was so eagerly holding out her whole heart.

  To serve someone else’s life.

  * * *

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  They kayaked back slowly, Léa resting her paddle frequently, her shoulders aching more and more from the unaccustomed motion, aggravated by the fact that she didn’t want to lean back in her seat, the friction against her sunburned skin even harder to stand now that she was tired. Daniel’s shoulders showed no signs of tiring, but then, there weren’t really any muscles in his shoulders or arms or back or core that hadn’t been in constant use, in all kinds of motions, since he was fifteen years old. Half his life.

  “I might be able to tow you.” Daniel eyed the ropes dangling at each end of the kayaks, provided to hook them to the bungalow docks. “Let’s see if we can attach the cords.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Léa said. She didn’t want to be towed. Like she hadn’t wanted to sit in the front seat, being taken wherever he chose. She would rather have her shoulders burn. “You can go on, if you want. I’ll get back eventually.”

  He shot her a look, his eyes suddenly hard again, incredulous, his face tightening. “Thank you, Léa, no. I don’t believe I will go off and leave my wife in a kayak by herself in the ocean, when she’s overtired and having a hard time making it back. We’ll have to try that some other romantic vacation.” And he drove his own paddle into the water, outpacing her for some fifty meters before he turned and paddled smoothly back to her. His face was calm but set again, and for the rest of the trip back, he looked more out over the ocean than at her.

  The sun was setting when they reached her dock, a beautiful wash of orange-pink across the water, a hush falling over the sea. He hooked both their kayaks to her dock and leaped up first to help her out of hers. He didn’t let go of her hands once she was stable, looking down at them, playing with her wedding rings. He didn’t wear a ring. His hands had grown bigger, since the age of nineteen, and it didn’t make sense to get him another one, when he could only wear it while he was asleep.

  She ran her fingers slowly down his, to rub over the base of his ring finger. Maybe she should surprise him with one for their next anniversary. His hand deserved something beautiful.

  His fingers linked strongly with hers and pulled her into his body, holding her against him as tightly as it was possible with hands alone. A frustrating failure at tightness. “I want to hold you so much.” His fingers flexed into her palms. His head bent lower toward her face. “I can’
t hold you, but you could hold me,” he whispered with fierce longing.

  Except that it would be all over for her if she did. She would press her cheek against his chest and hold on so tight and something, some chance she had sought coming here, would be lost. Her fingers returned his pressure, helplessly. She didn’t want to hurt him. But the thought of giving up on her escape made her feel as if she was suffocating herself. Consciously and knowingly squeezing the pillow down over her face, to spare someone else.

  Maybe they could just spend his few days here together like a honeymoon couple, the honeymoon they had never had, and then when he left she could spread back into the space for herself her vacation was supposed to offer.

  Oh, was that what it was supposed to offer?

  Except that if he moved into the bungalow, he wouldn’t leave space behind him when he departed. He would leave a vast hole, and she would be the little sliver pressed against the wall, struggling to deal with his absence. An unreasoning dread filled her at the thought. “When do you have to go back?” she asked.

  Daniel stiffened and stepped back from her. “What do you mean?”

  “How long can you stay?”

  He stared at her. His fingers, still tangled with hers, flexed too hard. “How long can you stay?”

  She shrugged uncertainly. “Eve can probably handle the business management without me for a little while. You could always send a message to the hotel for me, if there’s something you don’t know how to handle.” She so did not want to have to deal with damn numbers and personnel emergencies while she was here. She had never wanted to deal with them. But she probably couldn’t just abandon her responsibilities indefinitely.

  “I could send a message?” Daniel said, as if it was inconceivable that he should need to request any help with his own restaurant.