Wanderlust
Paris
Part Three
Cassie awoke with a delicious ache in her muscles. It was the kind of ache that reminded a woman how thoroughly, how unreservedly, she had been ravished before she was even awake enough for the memories of the previous night to come flooding back to her.
Sam was still sleeping, facing away from her and breathing deeply. She kind of wanted to wake him, kind of wanted a repeat of last night, just in the shower this time.
But they were meeting Stephanie and Adam today, so there just wasn't the time.
Leaving her husband to sleep for a while longer, Cassie drew back the covers and padded through to the ensuite bathroom. The pounding of the hot water from the shower - the water pressure was truly excellent here - felt amazing on her sated but aching body.
There was no way she and Sam were leaving Paris without making love in this shower. She seriously doubted he'd have any objections about that.
As if he'd read her mind, Sam tapped on the bathroom door and stepped inside the steamy room.
"Good morning," he grinned, making no attempt to be subtle in the way he looked his naked, dripping wet wife up and down.
"Good morning," she replied, her eyes growing warmer as she smiled at him. "I was just thinking about you?"
"Oh, really?" he asked, the very picture of innocence. Well, close enough. "And what were you thinking about me?"
Cassie shut off the water and reached for her towel, Sam tried not to pout when she wrapped it around herself, hiding the delicious curves and planes of her body from him.
"I was thinking," she said, stepping closer to him and holding his gaze.
It was easier for Sam to make eye contact with her now that the towel was hiding most (but certainly not all) of his favourite parts of her body.
"We're not leaving Paris until we've made love in this shower," she whispered, leaning up so her lips were an inch from his ear. "At least once."
"If you'd woken me up, we could have done it once already," he pointed out.
"And explained to Stephanie and Adam why we were late, how?" Cassie asked, amusement dancing in her eyes.
"Ooh, yeah, excellent point," Sam agreed, but at that very moment their friends were the furthest thing from his mind. "But you know I'm gonna be thinking about this all day now, right?"
Cassie had made it almost all the way to the bathroom door, and she threw a glance back at him.
"That'll make two of us."
Damn, Sam thought, the punch of lust surprising him. He needed a cold shower just to extinguish that mental image, and fortunately he was in exactly the right place.
Cassie was dressed by the time that Sam stepped out of the bathroom. She looked very chic, and very Parisienne, in her simple black and white shift dress. She very much did not look like the kind of woman who would enthusiastically participate in sex against the darkened window of their hotel room, and honestly that was sexy as hell.
No one would ever suspect his wife was almost - only almost - as perverted as he was. Not that they'd necessarily think that of him either.
If only the folks back home knew what Mr and Mrs Middleton really got up to when there was no one else around.
"Audrey's got nothing on you," he commented, hunting for the shirt he wanted to wear while she fixed pearl drop earrings.
She watched him buttoning up the blue shirt that brought out the colour in his eyes. It was nice just to be able to stand and appreciate her husband while he did something so simple as putting on a shirt. Back home they always seemed to be in a rush and, as much as she loved them, there were always people everywhere.
"Help me with the necklace?" she asked, handing it to him and sweeping her hair back from her neck.
He moved in close behind her, and if he fumbled with the tiny clasp on the piece of jewellery, who could blame him? She smelled divine.
"All done?" she asked redundantly, feeling his hands on her shoulders.
Sam shook himself out of his reverie and ran through his mental checklist. Stephanie. Adam. Gonna be late. Right, okay.
He had this.
"Ready when you are," he confirmed, smoothing his hands over her arms and finally, finally letting her go.
She smiled at him, giving one backward glance at the windows, Paris now illuminated and bathed in the morning sunshine.
"It is so, so great to see you!"
Stephanie practically vibrated with excitement as she hugged Cassie, then Sam, and back to Cassie again. Sam clapped Adam warmly on the shoulder and they watched as their wives – wives! - caught up on everything they'd missed from each other's lives in the last six weeks.
"So, Paris huh?" Adam asked, with a quirk of his dark eyebrows.
"It's pretty special," Sam agreed.
"Have you and Cassie been able to take in the sights, do the whole tourist thing?" Adam continued, his hands in his pockets as they walked.
Sam felt the faintest hint of a blush as, unbidden, he was powerfully hit by the memory of taking Cassie against their hotel room window, the Eiffel Tower glowing ethereally in the background.
"Oh yes," he agreed quickly, unable to stop the flash of his satisfied smile. "It's a wonderful city."
"I can see why Stephanie wanted to come here so badly," Adam continued conversationally, seemingly unaware of Sam's reaction to his line of questioning. "She's been like a kid on Christmas morning ever since we stepped off the plane."
"I'm glad she's happy," Sam told him, meaning every word. "And I'm glad the two of you found each other again."
"Nothing like nearly losing the person you love to realise how important they are to you."
Sam thought back on the bump in the road he and Cassie had hit not so very long ago, and agreed wholeheartedly with the chaplain.
"Now," Sam said, eager for some levity, and some breakfast. "I'm sure I was promised pastries..."
Over coffee, (tea for Cassie) and croissants, the four of them caught up on the last six weeks of their lives. Cassie and Stephanie expressed their homesickness for Middleton, but Cassie had a good feeling that all was well at home.
"I miss The Bistro so much," Stephanie sighed, eyeing another pastry. "This has been the trip of a lifetime, but I miss the day to day of working there, designing wedding cakes, dropping off lunch to someone who's having a rough day…"
Cassie reached for her friend's hand across the table.
"So, no plans to trade Paris for Middleton on a permanent basis then?" she asked, although she already knew the answer and it hadn't needed any of her Merriwick magic to arrive there.
"Gosh, no! I love it here, but Middleton is home." Stephanie enthused, squeezing Cassie's fingers. "You'll be settling back there once you and Sam have seen all the wonders of the world, right?"
Cassie glanced at Sam. It wasn't something they'd discussed. She had always assumed that they would return to Middleton, but with their kids grown and gone, there was little to tie them to the town permanently.
"We haven't decided yet," she told Stephanie.
"We've still got a lot of the world to see," Sam added, but the slightest frown was puckering his brow. Cassie noticed it, but made no comment.
This was a discussion for later, and one for when they were in private.
"Aren't these great?" Stephanie enthused as the four of them crowded round a bistro table outside the famous Ladurée bakery a few days later.
Their time together in Paris was running out and, in truth, Sam was glad that they'd soon have some time alone, just him and Cassie. He wasn't sure he'd ever spent so much time in Stephanie's company, and it bemused him to think he could have ever considered dating her. Not that she wasn't lovely, he thought as she selected a second colourful macaron, and Adam was lucky to have found her.
"You okay?" Cassie asked him, nudging his foot lightly with her sandal.
How did she do that?
Okay, he knew how she did that. But it still had the power to surprise him.
"Just thinking about how I'd prefer one of your muffins," he replied, holding up one of the tiny morsels.
"Oh, just the one?" she teased, raising an eyebrow.
Stephanie and Adam were too caught up in the honeymoon phase to notice Sam and Cassie's perhaps-not-appropriate-at-teatime-flirting, which was a shame because they could have learned a thing or two.
"Well," he said, clearing his throat and wondering how far Cassie was willing to take this little charade in public. "I'm pretty sure people say that 'a balanced diet is a muffin in each hand'."
Cassie hid her chuckle behind her dainty teacup.
"Oh, and which 'they' would that be?"
Sam shrugged, glancing around. "Parisiennes?"
"What are you two talking about?" Stephanie asked, finally tuning back into their conversation.
"Nothing!" they chorused simultaneously, breaking out into laughter.
"No more macarons for you," she scolded playfully, but in truth she was just pleased to see her friends so happy. The scene between the two of them in The Bistro had shocked her, and though she knew their relationship couldn't be perfect all the time, she had never, ever seen them fight like that, in public, in all the years they'd been together. She was so glad they were past it, and as wrapped up in each other as they'd ever been.
She could only hope that the future was as bright for her and Adam.
"My luggage seems a lot heavier than when we arrived in Paris," Cassie mused, just shy of sitting on the case to get it to stay closed and zipped.
"I think I'm a lot heavier than when we arrived in Paris," Sam replied with a chuckle.
"But you wear it well," she replied with a wink, followed by a satisfied grunt as the suitcase finally obeyed her attempts, both natural and supernatural, to keep it closed.
"I'll need a whole row of seats to myself by time we fly back to Middleton," he said, then paused, looking back at Cassie.
They never did get around to having that conversation, but it was early yet. They still had Grace and Abigail to visit, and they'd still only explored one continent. It was getting easier for him to live in the present, and Cassie had been a great teacher, but sometimes he couldn't stop his medically trained brain from jumping straight into the next thing.
"Ready to go?" Cassie asked, her voice gently breaking through his thoughts.
"I think so," he replied, squeezing her hand as they took one last look around the room that had been their home for the last couple of weeks.
The sun was particularly bright that morning and, if you caught it's glow just right, you might just see a series of handprints on the glass windowpane.
Sam smirked, not able to believe that Cassie hadn't noticed this for herself. Unless she had, and didn't actually mind which was…no, that was just too much for him to process.
They'd picked up plenty of mementoes of Paris to take back to Middleton, but he liked the idea that they were leaving a behind a little souvenir of their own, too.
This is the final chapter of Paris. Next stop: Milan.