Page 82 of Enemies to French Kisses
The blood in my temples is pounding by the time I reach the front door and find him waiting.
“Laura—”
“Don’t you Laura me!” I stick my finger in his chest. “Just who do you think you are, running me ragged trying to figure you out? I’m an open book! What you see is what you get with a girl like me, and yet at every darn turn you’re flopping like a flapjack. Hot, cold. Kind, jerkface. Considerate, fake-freaking-husband!”
His lips part but he doesn’t speak.
“And now, today, you save my hide, and I saved yours back so we ought to be square, and yet with you, it never feels square. A square peg in a round hole!”
“What?” He tilts his head. “You had me until the last part.”
“You’re a complete freaking French enigma and I won’t put up with it because you’re planting these thoughts in me that have no place. No place, Marc.” Hot tears burn my cheeks as I grab his sleeves. “Why should I fall for you when I can’t stand you?”
“You can’t stand me?”
“I can’t stand you standing there, looking at me with those deep eyes and strong arms as this city plants thoughts in me that have no place, but I can’t stop them from making me think of you all—the—time. I can’t fall in love with you after everything that’s happened. I can’t!”
He doesn’t let me say another word.
Marc’s lips are on mine and all of Paris fades away. I wrap my arms around him and we disappear together, all my thoughts silenced as a new part of me finally takes control. The part who’s known all along that I’m falling in love with Marc Lemaire.
CHAPTER33
Marc
This isthe best and only angry kiss I have ever experienced in my life. I confess to being completely confused by her words, like watching a tennis match of emotions, all the while the intensity growing between us. The tension was so strong I knew something was going to give, either I was going to have to kiss her or else we were going to create an international incident right here in front of her building.
Thank the stars it’s this kiss. I have been desperate to feel these lips ever since they first grazed mine in the night. Desperate to feel her close to me, just like this. The feelings between us are raw and real, and I don’t want this to end.
That’s when she pushes me away.
“I haven’t forgiven you.” She points in my face. “What just happened here, it’s not anything no one shouldn’t be writing home about.”
“Not anything no one shouldn’t…”
“Yes, too many negatives, that’s not the point. You know what I’m saying, Marc. Don’t get into pedantics.”
I hold my hands up. “No pedantics, just Texan as a second language.”
“Don’t be funny!”
“Not trying.”
She covers her eyes and spins away from me. “What am I doing? What am Idoing?”
“You’re giving in to your feelings, at last.”
“Not asking you!” There’s that pointy finger again. “Don’t you see why this is impossible?”
“I don’t.”
“Is it that you’re just used to always getting your way?”
That makes me chuckle. “That’s definitely not it.”
“Oh no.” She points again, but this time it’s subtle as she turns away from the building. I follow the direction of her finger, where several faces are smushed into an abnormally small window on the sixth floor.
“I can’t face them.” She shakes her head. “After the hoo-ha I just caused in there, I am not ready to deal with their told-you-sos.”
