And, more than all of that, the way she pulls back to gaze at me now.
And how her endless greens sting me all over again.
As the rest of her face contorts with so many questions…
As if she senses it too. As if she feels it all, along with me.
Everything that is not the here and now…
“Bastien.” Her sough is fortified by a sharp breath. “Bastien?” But again, naught but sparse air for that incredulous query. Perhaps one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard. “Wh-What’s going on? Why do I feel so… Monsieur le Duke? Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”
All her frantic blinks are good for countering my wide stare. I want to smile and kiss her doubly as hard as before, but the horror that conquers her face has me scrambling to simply keep her in my arms.
“Mon amour—”
“No.” She shakes her head as if a thousand bees are swarming around it. “Don’t!”
“All right. All right. Be calm now. I am here and you are safe, ma chérie. Just—”
“No.” She shoves away and stumbles back. I have not stopped to notice her small-heeled shoes, but they make significant clatters across the pristine floor. “No! Stop it! I’m not your amour or your chérie. I just…can’t be, okay? I’m me. I’m Raegan Karlinne Tavish, and this is not seventeen eight-nine. But I still have no idea what’s happening. What the freaking hell is happening to me?”
CHAPTER NINE
RAEGAN
I should’ve eaten breakfast.
I should’ve listened to all the preachings of every lifestyle blog I know and had a proper combination of fruit, starches, and protein. Lots of protein.
I seriously wish I was kidding about it. Because right now, in this dizzily insane moment, it’s the only explanation I can find in my mind’s panicked whirl. The only viable reason to connect to the French I’ve never heard in my life, let alone spouted as if it were my second language. No. My only language. I can’t even think of an instance, during the time I was there for Allie’s birthday last year, that it got in subliminally.
“Raegan. My sweet little lily. Can you pause and take a breath for me? I cannot help you if I do not know—”
“Don’t touch me! Oh God, I’m sorry.” The first part accompanies my flinch; the second brings my new grimace. “Bast. Bastien. Just give me a second, okay? Maybe more than one.”
I can’t verbalize more than that any more than I can welcome his touch back to my body. Not because I can’t bear it. Because I can’t bear the thought of being without it. This feeling, so overwhelming, that collided with the moment our bodies did. The flood of longing and lust, as massive and beautiful as a seventy-foot evening gown train, that took away my air with matching majesty. That made me crave his skin all over mine, his flesh inside of mine. That had me wondering if I could reach down and free us both that way, without anyone knowing…
Until the second I remembered actually doing it.
But not here. Not in this way too public kitchen or anywhere in this city.
Not in this time.
In the vision, we were at someone’s wedding. Someone of stature, I think, because the garden was abundantly decorated with flowers and ribbons. I don’t remember a lot of everything else, except that he was the picture of fuckable in his velvet finery. The Prussian blue fabric made the gold in his buttons, and his intense eyes, stand out like fine jewelry.
Oh, yes. Fuckable.
And I did just that.
In another kitchen—if it could be called that. An old-fashioned place of stone and damp, though we could still hear the bride and groom laughing outside. We listened to the musicians striking up for a contredanse, just before he swiveled his hips enough to drive me to the edge of ecstasy. As I decided the edge wasn’t enough, so I reached for the buttons at his crotch…
“Oh my God,” I choke out, fighting for why that doesn’t feel like a fantasy at all. Instead, why it feels like…a memory. “Oh my God!”
“Raegan. S’t plait, Laissez-moi vous aider. Let me help you. What do you need?”
I duck my head and quip beneath my breath, “Nothing more than what I needed at that wedding.”
Suddenly, he stumbles backward too. His breath audibly snags. “What did you say?”
I straighten with as much urgency. “Nothing. Forget it.” Because that’s what it is. Absolutely nothing. “I just need to eat. What time is it? Ohhh yeah, definitely time to eat. No wonder I’m dancing with all the boo-boo bears.”
“There are bears nearby? How do all the horseless wagons not hit them?”
Thankfully, I don’t get a chance to decide on a reaction to that. Someone’s swinging open the kitchen’s back door with comforting intensity. Never have I been more grateful to see Drue, but never has she seemed more wigged about seeing me.
“Whoa. What’s happened? You’re whiter than bleached cotton but more worn than this T-shirt.”
“Thanks,” I deadpan as she produces a massively sized souvenir shirt from Spiderman: Turn off the Dark. The garment is way more faded than it should be. “Okay, wow. That’s worth either ten thousand bucks or ten cents.” Inwardly, I’m leaning toward the latter. “I still can’t believe what you always find at that place. You probably forked up a twenty and walked out with change.”
She bites her bottom lip. “Hrmmm, not this time.”
“Wait. What?” My gaze bugs. “You paid more than twenty for this? On consignment?”
“No. I paid more than twenty for this.”
Her emphasis overlaps with my louder-than-acceptable gasp. Can’t be helped it. “Drue. Are you serious?”
She smirks. “Would you speak to me again if I left this behind?”
As I take the denim jacket from her, with its rear panel covered by a hand-painted Moulin Rouge windmill and the words Come What May in elegant lettering, I almost tear up. “Now I really officially love you.”
“I know.” She preens. “Especially because this should complete things perfectly.”
After she unpins the beret from her wig and hands it over, I tackle-hug her until we’re exchanging loony giggles. “Thank you, woman,” I say with soft sincerity. “This is going to help in more ways than one. I’m starving, so that means we’ve got to grab something on the way back to Allie’s place.”
It takes her less than three seconds to fully stiffen away from me. “Ah, no,” she says at once, earning my answering glower. “The more I think about it, definitely no. Logan has no way of quickly tracking Agents Lautrec and Degas, but how long before he wonders if this De Leon is related to the guy on the main marquee of the Hemline Studios building?”
“Shit,” I mutter. “I didn’t consider that.”
Bastien’s reaction is blessedly more reserved. “Maximillian,” he murmurs, seeming to connect more facts for himself. “So…he is here too? In this time period? Is he thriving?”
I reach for his hand, reacting to the stress it clearly took to get both questions out. “Yes to both. He’s happy and in love with our friend Alessandra.”