Page 55 of City of Love

He frowns up at me. “I thought you didn’t like drinking anyway.”

I smile, sitting carefully so I don’t knock anything over. “I don’t,” I say, watching him happily.

Noel is not a picnic man. I know this in my bones. But he brought me on a picnic anyway because he knew I would love it.

“Thank you,” I say quietly.

His eyes soften as he looks over at me. “Of course,chérie. Now”—he scoots closer to me, gesturing at the food he’s laid out—“where do you want to start?”

My answer is immediate. “The cheese,” I say.

He grins. “I thought so.”

We eat our way through the food he brought, which, I discover, he went out and purchased this morning while I was still asleep. The cheese is roquefort, which I’ve never tried before. It’s strong but delicious, and it reminds me of blue cheese dressing. The baguettes are crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, the grapes are flavorful, and I’m in food heaven.

“This makes me very happy,” I say, popping a grape in my mouth and smiling at the sky.

“Which part?” Noel says.

I look over at him. “All of it,” I say, waving to the food and then to the nature around us. “The picnic, the park, the sun—all of it.”

“Speaking of sun,” Noel says, turning to the picnic basket and reaching inside. He pulls out an orange tube of sunscreen and passes it to me. “You should probably use that.”

“Meh,” I say, because I don’t like the smell of sunscreen, but he’s probably right. I burn easily. I squirt some of the lotion into my palm and rub my hands together to warm it up before massaging it into my arms. The streaks of white slowly disappear, and I move to my neck and chest.

“Aren’t you going to use any?” I say, looking over at Noel…

…whose eyes are fixed to where my hands are kneading the lotion over my collarbone. He doesn’t seem to have heard me, and when I begin rubbing lotion on my neck, his eyes darken, his tongue darting out as he wets his lower lip.

I deliberate only for a second. Maybe it’s because I’m in such a good mood; maybe it’s because the way Noel is looking at me has butterflies erupting inside. Whatever the reason, I hold the sunscreen out to him.

“Do my back?” I say, my voice deceptively light.

His eyes fly to mine, but he doesn’t answer me.

So I scoot around on my bum until my back is to him, waiting.

Because this is the perfect opportunity. I want to know—Ineedto know—if I’m really having feelings for this man. It would be nice to know what he’s thinking, too. I could reach my back well enough on my own; we both know it. But if he accepts, it might clear a few things up.

When I hear the click of the sunscreen cap opening a few seconds later, my breath catches in my chest. And when his hands land on my shoulders, chilly from the sunscreen, I shiver.

“Cold?” he murmurs, his voice low.

I nod wordlessly. It is cold, but that’s not why I shivered. And judging by the look Noel gives me when I glance over my shoulder at him—a straight-faced mask that does nothing to hide the darkening of his eyes—I’m not the only one affected.

“So,” I say, my voice hoarse as Noel’s hands begin to massage the lotion into my shoulders. “When are you going to shut down the pickpocketing thing?”

“Luc started tracking down everyone this morning,” he says, sounding a bit distracted. “We’ve got one more drop off lined up for next week that Luc is taking care of—turning over our remaining inventory to our fence—and after that we’ll donate our funds to the homeless shelter and food bank. Our donations have ensured that the shelter will always have or make room for any of the guys that need it, and through Luc’s job at the clinic they’ll still get care when they need it.”

His hands move to the middle of my back, just above the top of my tank top, his fingers moving rhythmically. When he hits the base of my neck, I let my head drop forward.

He pauses, his hands freezing, before he moves up and begins rubbing lotion into the back of my neck. I let out a little sigh of contentment, which causes him to freeze again before resuming his ministrations seconds later.

Honestly, though. This man should be a massage therapist.

“And what are you going to do once all that stuff is done?”

“I’m not sure,” he says musingly. “I actually…”

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