But I’m in charge tonight for better or worse, and no direct report of Satan’s would ever let a man change her plan, no matter how warm his skin, no matter how filthy he sounds when he says, “I can feel your need for me soaked through the silk.”

Pushing off his lap, I pull the red fabric down my legs, kicking it onto his lap. He pulls it to his face, watching me with hooded eyes as I sit on the low coffee table. I watch as he circles his cock with his fist, and strokes up once, slowly.

It feels so depraved doing this, but I’m surprised that it doesn’t feel weird. I’ve never seen anything as sexy as watching Ansel touch himself. I pretend he’s alone, thinking of me. I pretend I’m alone, thinking of him. And, like this, my fingers slide over my skin and he begins to pull himself harder, faster, his breath coming out in tiny grunts.

“Show me,” he whispers. “How do you fuck yourself when I’m at work, thinking of you?”

I lie back, turning my head so I can still watch him and start to use both hands. He wants to see me let go. It’s what this is about, after all: the costumes, the pretend. It’s letting ourselves do anything we want. I slide two fingers inside, and use the other hand to circle outside . . . my pulse trips and races when he groans, speeding up and hoarsely telling me he wants to see me come.

It’s a poor approximation of his fingers, and an even worse approximation of his cock, but with his eyes on me and the brushing rhythm of his fist tugging at his length, I feel the rush of blood to my thighs and the heavy ache between my legs build, and build until I’m arching off the table and coming with a sharp cry. With a relieved moan, he lets go after me. I push up on an elbow, watching as he spills onto his hand and stomach.

In a blur, Ansel is on his feet and pulls me down onto the floor, falling on top of me and still hard enough that he can push inside with a steady, hard thrust. He looms above, blocking out even the tiny bit of light from the few candles still burning, and reaches up to pull the strap of my negligee off my shoulder, baring one of my breasts.

“Did you come just now?” he whispers into my skin.

I nod. My pulse was barely slipping back to normal, but the feel of him stretching me even now brings all of my sensation back to the surface. I can feel his orgasm still wet on his stomach pressed to mine, on the hand he has curled around my hip. But feeling him begin to harden in me again so soon gives me a dizzying sense of power.

“If I had been Satan tonight . . .” he begins and then stops, his breath choppy so close to my ear.

The air between us seems to grow completely still.

“What, Ansel?”

His lips find my ear, my neck, and suck gently before he asks, “Have you ever been unfaithful?”

“No.” Sliding my hands up his back, I whisper, “But I did once shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”

He laughs and I feel my body squeezing his as he lengthens slightly, getting even harder.

I pull back slightly to look up at him. “The idea of marrying a killer turns you on? Something is wrong with you.”

“I love that you make me laugh,” he corrects. “That turns me on. Also, your body, and what you did tonight.”

He cups my other breast through the negligee, thumb passing back and forth over the peak. He is strong enough to break me in half, but the way he caresses my skin, it’s as if I’m too valuable to risk hurting.

I thought I might be the only one who noticed the new, fascinating sway to my hips, the heaviness of my breasts, but I’m not. Ansel lingers at my breasts, playing and pushing at them. French cuisine has been good for my body . . . though maybe I’m indulging a little more than I should. It doesn’t matter; I love the feel of my curves. Now I just need to find the Frenchwoman’s secret for enjoying it and still looking like she could fit inside a straw.

“You’re taking care of your body.” He hums into my chest, tongue sliding over my collarbone. “You know your husband wants more flesh on you. I like your hips fuller. I like to be able to squeeze your ass in my hands, feel your breasts move over my face when you’re fucking me.”

How does he do this? His hair falls over one eye and he looks almost boyish, but his words are coarse on my skin. His breath, his fingertips, they brush across my ribs, the bottom swell of my breast, my nipple.

He begins to rock inside me, slowly, lips moving across my neck and up to my ear. My body responds, tensing and thrilled, waiting for the pleasure I know will make me explode. Like I’m made of a thousand tiny beating wings.

“Tonight, Cerise . . . thank you for wanting to save me.” He puts a tiny inflection on the last word.

It takes a beat for my brain to process the inflection but then adrenaline courses through me so fast my fingertips flush, my pulse thunders.

Come to France for the summer.

He knew his life didn’t have space for this but it didn’t matter. He was trying to save me first.

SOMEWHERE IN MY subconscious I sense Ansel crawling on the bed and hovering over me beneath a sun-warmed blanket cave. He wakes me up with the pressure of his stare.

I stretch, frowning up at his neatly pressed dress shirt, white with small purple geometric shapes.

“You’re going in to work?” I ask, my voice still thick with sleep. “Wait,” I add, once consciousness forces its way to the surface. “It’s Tuesday. Of course you’re going in to work.”

He kisses my nose, running a warm palm from my shoulder, down over my breast, to my waist. “I only have a few weeks left of this craziness,” he says.

“Me, too,” I say, laughing. And then my smile drops like a hammer out of the sky and I pout. “Ugh. Why did I even say that? Now I want to eat my feelings in the form of an enormous chocolate croissant.”

“Croissant,” he repeats, kissing me before whispering, “Better this time, Cerise. But we call it pain au chocolat.”

He touches my lip with his index finger. I smile and bite his fingertip. I don’t want him to be frustrated with my impending departure, either. We’re both so much happier when we’re pretending it doesn’t exist.

He pulls his hand back and runs it over my breast again. “I’m pretty sure Capitaux will settle eventually.”

“I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“Me, too.” He kisses me, so softly, so earnestly that something swells painfully inside my chest. It can’t just be my heart because it sucks the air from my body, too. It can’t be only my lungs because it causes my pulse to race. It’s as if Ansel has taken up residence inside my rib cage, making everything go haywire.

“Do you have very important plans for an adventure today?” he asks.

I shake my head.

“Then today you practice speaking French,” he says, resolute.

“With who?”

“With Madame Allard downstairs. She loves you and thinks we’re going to have a baby soon.”

My eyes go wide and I press both hands to my stomach. “I have not gained that much weight.” I look down at my hands and ask, “Have I?”

He laughs, and bends to kiss me. “You don’t look very different from when you arrived. Tell me how you say ‘I’m not pregnant’ en francais. You can go downstairs and tell her yourself.”

I close my eyes, thinking. “Je ne . . . suis pas . . . uh”—I look up at him—“pregnant.”

“Enceinte,” he says. His eyes move over my body, and I stretch under his gaze, wondering what the chances are that he will take off his clothes and make love to me before he goes to work.

He pushes away, but I can see the tight bunching of his dress pants where he’s hard beneath his zipper.

I palm him, arching my back. “Ten minutes.”

I mean it to sound playful, but his eyes grow a little pained. “I can’t.”