Chapter 20: Rémy's POV

Rémy's POV

I have sold pralines for eleven years, and I know what wanting looks like across a counter.

It looks like someone staring at the case and pretending to read the labels.

I had never been the one being stared at, with my hand under a woman's shirt in her kitchen.

Aimée had her fingers fisted in my collar.

She pulled my mouth down to hers again, hard, and the counter edge pressed into the small of her back.

I lifted her onto it.

She made a sound I will hear when I am old, a little breath of surprise that turned into a laugh against my lips.

"You're strong," she said.

"I carry fifty-pound sacks."

"Show me."

I kissed her throat.

She tipped her head back to give me more of it, and her hands went to the buttons of my shirt.

She didn't fumble them. She was a cook; her hands knew what they were doing.

She opened my shirt to the waist and pressed her palm flat against my chest.

"You're shaking," she said, softly.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I'm afraid you'll wake up tomorrow and think I was just the first man who was kind."

She stopped.

She took my face in both hands.

"Rémy. Look at me."

I looked.

"You were not the first man who was kind. You were the first man who answered me in my own language, and gave me the good spoon, and shut the shop."

She held my eyes.

"I know exactly who I'm kissing."

Something in me came loose then, and I didn't try to stop it.

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