“The way you make me feel,” I uttered finally. Oh, Josie. You did not.

His body stilled. His breathing faltered. “Again.”

“What?”

“Tell me again,” he growled in my ear.

“I’m scared of the way you make me feel,” I said louder. “It’s not … it’s—”

“Oui,” was all he muttered. Yes. The fingers at my throat, flattened into a hot palm against my chest. “Oui,” he said again.

I blinked as my breath stuttered. Okay, this was happening.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

My fingers found Xavier’s waist, the soft nub of his linen shirt, and then curling into the tense muscle beneath, hard lines that trembled at the contact.

He trembled as I touched him. What sorcery was this?

The darkness of the club and the loud beat of the music seemed to channel all my senses to feel the scent of him. Telling him I was scared of the way he made me feel might have been the most reckless thing I’d ever done. Until I’d started touching him. But I couldn’t make my hands stop.

Against my ear, I heard his breathing falter as my fingers moved. Then my name tore through his lips in his French accent. “Joséphine,” and my insides spontaneously melted.

I turned my face, my mouth finding the rough skin of his jaw. I wanted, no needed, him to kiss me.

A tremor snaked through him under my palms.

And slowly, deliberately, our bodies moved and pressed closer.

I breathed calmly, consciously, trying to slow this heady rush that felt like I was plummeting downward. I had to keep my head, but it was almost impossible. I was giddy, flying, and pinned to the ground with lust and panic all at the same time.

His palm slipped up my throat and around to cup my nape. My skin burned.

A rough, denim-covered knee touched mine and pressed slowly, insistently, parting my legs. A hard thigh slipped between mine.

Oh my God.

My body arched, my mouth opened, and a whimper escaped. His mouth was so close, a slight turn of my face pressed against the sublime roughness of his jaw, and I could have it. But his mouth remained stubbornly out of reach. He was going to kiss me, right?

What was this torture? And when had I lost all control of this situation?

The hand against the wall by my head was suddenly an arm, hard as steel around my waist, locking me against him as heat blazed through me.

He growled in what I thought was a French curse, and his hand drew my hair into a tight fist, tilting my face up.

I was trapped. Unable to move.

His eyes in the dark seemed fevered and low-lidded. And then our mouths were there, millimeters apart. We breathed together. My heart hurled itself against my ribcage. My body throbbed and ached. And my hips made a small movement against him beyond my control.