“Yes. Mon dieu, yes.” He backed up and then hurried to her room. I took a second to gather myself, then I gathered my shoes, underwear and jeans and tiptoed up the stairs. I knew we still needed to talk. And me sleeping with him right now didn’t mean we didn’t still have a lot to work out. I mean, was he moving here? Did he really buy out the developer just for me to teach my old boss a lesson? Did he mean to actually build a hotel? I thought, due to his father, that he didn’t dabble in construction. Or was he expecting me to go back to France with him? My mind tumbled around, and I felt weird and exposed standing by his bed waiting for him while naked on the bottom half.

The second level of the suite was an open loft with a half wall hiding us from below, and the bed was king-sized and sumptuous. But there was no door, nor walls, and should we really be having sex when his daughter could come up here any time she woke up?

Feeling utterly self-conscious, I slipped my underwear back on, and then sat to pull my jeans on. We should be talking realities not tumbling into bed.

Xavier jogged up the stairs. He got to the top bare foot, took one look at me, and growled.

“Non.” He shook his head and prowled toward me. Leaning down he grabbed my face and covered my mouth with a hungry kiss, then he slipped my shirt over my head and undid my bra. He pushed me back on the bed and grabbed my jeans, yanking them off the one ankle I’d managed to slip on and sent them sailing over the loft wall to the level below. “Je veux te baiser, Joséphine,” he whispered.

“W-What does that mean?” I asked.

“You’ve already heard it. It means I want to fuck you, Josephine.”

“Xavier!” Heat flashed through me.

“Oui?” he asked, then with one hand tore my underwear off.

I gasped in shock. “Did you seriously just rip my underwear off?”

“I think I have finally run out of patience,” he said, and standing up, and with one hand behind his head, pulled his shirt over and off.

My eyes devoured this strong, beautiful, loving father of a man. My gaze trailed down his defined chest, sprinkled lightly with dark hair, and moved down over his flat stomach to the vee that disappeared into the tops of dark blue low-slung jeans. I looked back up at his face, but his eyes roamed over my nakedness and ended pinned between my legs.

He knelt down at the end of the bed and with a hand on each ankle, pulled me down toward him. “Still want to get dressed?” he asked.