“The usual,” Merrick said. “I’ll sneak into the offices and snoop. Hopefully I won’t find naked pics of your mom. Again.”

  “Nice plan, but someone’s always at our house,” Remi reminded him. “And my family doesn’t like you or trust you.”

  “My parents work from the house too,” Julien said. “One of them is always at home. But I can try to dig around their home offices at night.”

  “Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?” Merrick sounded skeptical.

  “Well…no,” Julien admitted.

  “You know anything about gambling?” Merrick asked. “Anything about business, finance, or record keeping?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a computer hacker and/or know your parents’ passwords to their bank accounts so you can see if you they perhaps have received payments from mysterious sources?”

  Julien sighed. “Okay, you got me there.”

  “Then I have to do it,” Merrick said. “I just have to get into your house. Is it alarmed?”

  “Not when we’re home.”

  “Cool. We’ll need to get everyone in your house out of your house and we have to make sure they’re in such a tizzy-”

  “A tizzy?” Remi repeated.

  “A hardcore stone cold motherfucking tizzy,” Merrick said. “They need to be gone for several hours with no chance of them returning and walking in on me à la the Christmas Party four years ago. I computer hack naked. It’s just a thing. Don’t ask.”

  “Then what’s the plan?” Remi asked. “You have one, yes?”

  “Yeah, and it’s a fucking good one,” Merrick said. “It’s also insane and horrible and you’re probably not going to go for it.”

  “Let us decide that,” Remi said, although she truly dreaded whatever was about to come out of Merrick’s mouth. If even he thought the plan was insane and horrible, she could only imagine her reaction to it.

  “I’m not telling,” Merrick said.

  “Why not?” Remi narrowed her eyes at him. Of all times to be abstruse.

  “Because you’ll kill me,” Merrick said, wincing. “I’ll be worm food.”

  “Stop being a drama queen and tell us the damn plan,” Julien said. Remi heard a note of command in his voice and liked it. He might be young but he wasn’t weak.

  Merrick raised his hands in surrender.

  “Fine. Stop pressuring me. I feel violated,” he said. “So…the plan.”

  “Yes…?” Remi waved her hand to encourage further words.

  “First of all,” Merrick said, “do either of you know a really naughty priest?”

  Santa Claus and the Banana

  Paris with Julien was one perfect moment after another.

  Perfect Moment #1 – Julien kissed her under the Arc de Triomphe, which led to a crowd of tourists applauding them.

  Perfect Moment #2 – Julien took her to the Musee de l’Orangerie where they stood in silence holding hands as they stared into the deep blue of Monet’s Water Lilies. They didn’t say a word in the room. Words would have been an insult to the lilies. Remi realized that day she enjoyed being silent with Julien as much as she enjoyed their conversations. She’d never been able to say that about anyone else before.

  Perfect Moment #3- All four of them—Remi and Julien, Merrick and Salena—spent hours and Euros galore in Shakespeare & Company. They bought more books than they could possibly fit in their suitcases. Salena bought French novels. Julien bought history books. She bought a little bit of everything. And Merrick bought erotica. All of it. The entire section. When she lamented her books wouldn’t fit into her suitcase, Julien told her to leave them at his place since she would need reading material when she came back to visit him again. That simple statement “When you come back” gave wings to her heart. They had a future together and it was so certain he was already encouraging her to leave things at his apartment.

  Perfect Moment #4 – Remi and Julien’s last night together before she left Paris. While Julien was inside her he whispered things into her ear they never taught her in Sophomore high school French class.

  J’ai envie de toi.

  I want you.

  Fais-moi l’amour.

  Make love to me.

  Je veux passer la reste de ma vie avec toi S’il te plâit?.

  I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Please?

  To that Remi had only one answer—“Oui.”

  On Friday morning, Remi kissed Julien goodbye un, deux, trois times, and she and Merrick boarded their return flight to Lexington. She was leaving the City of Light and Julien for the Horse Capital of the World and her parents. She did not consider this a fair trade. Julien and Salena would wait a few days before following them back to Kentucky to avoid unnecessary suspicion.

  Remi and Merrick barely spoke on the flight back, but he held her hand for part of the trip—a much-needed show of support and comfort..

  “This is crazy,” she whispered to him as their plane began the descent.

  “I know,” he said, and gave her that broad wicked grin that sent women either running to him or away from him at top speed. “And that’s why it’s going to work.”

  “I can’t believe I got-”

  “Don’t stress,” Merrick said, squeezing her fingers. “Just tell yourself it’s not real. That helps. Now deep breaths. Focus. Eyes on the prize. We got this.”

  “The pep talk is not helping,” she said.

  “Would you rather have a hand job?”

  Remi glared at him.

  “Don’t say I never tried to help you,” he said, shoving his sunglasses down on his face.

  Remi did her best to play it cool on Wednesday. Luckily her father was busy enough he didn’t interrogate her about the unplanned horse-hunting trip she’d taken, seemingly on a whim. The irony of it all was that he trusted her implicitly, and she no longer trusted her father at all.

  She tried to concentrate on her work that day—bills, invoices, ordering supplies, scheduling races, meeting trainers—but Julien had taken over her mind. She thought of his face, so angular and striking. She thought of his skin—so young and smooth and warm. She thought of his body and how it belonged on top of her, inside her, underneath her, and every other sexy position she could think of. She missed the light citrus smell of his sheets on her skin and his arms that had held her as she’d fallen asleep during the all-too-brief nights she’d spent in his bed.

  On her way to her small house that sat on the edge of her parents’ thousand-acre property, Remi’s phone buzzed with a text message.

  Here, the message read. Remi grinned at her phone.

  Where? she wrote Julien back, desperate to see him again.

  My family picked us up at the airport, he wrote. Trapped with them. That’s why I’m texting instead of calling.

  Remi stared at her phone as she unlocked her door and walked into her house. She’d lived in the house for three years now and never before had it felt empty or lonely to her. And it didn’t feel empty or lonely now. But it needed something, someone else here. That someone else unfortunately was trapped at his parents’ house.

  I need to see you, came the next message from Julien. Five little words that made Remi’s heart dance, her stomach trip, and her feet flutter.

  Tell me when and where and I’ll be there, she wrote back.

  Mom won’t let me out of her sight for a couple days. We’re visiting my grandparents in Ohio. I’m being smothered.

  Your fault you’re so damn cute.

  I love you, came Julien’s reply.

  That too, she replied and then added an I love you of her own. She wasn’t used to writing those words, saying those words, feeling those words. But the more she wrote them, spoke them, felt them, the better they fit onto her fingers, her tongue, her heart.

  She went to bed alone and cursed the cold sheets. She had loved sleeping with Julien. Every night after sex, he’d rubbed her back while they’d talked. Their very last night together had been their best night. They’d dared to discuss the future, a future they could share. Remi had asked Julien what he wanted to do with his life.

  “I never had a dream job before I had leukemia,” he’d answered as Remi curled up on his chest. She’d gotten so used to his scar by now she rested her head over it without a second thought. “So maybe one good thing came out of being sick. Now I know what I want to do with my life.”

  “Which is?”

  “Help teenagers with life-threatening illnesses. I don’t want to be a doctor. That’s not my thing. I want to help them the way Salena helped me—by getting me out of the house. I don’t know what to do with that dream yet, but at least I have one now. You? Do you always want to work at Arden?”

  “Not anymore,” she’d confessed. “The place seems tainted now by what my parents did. I still want to work with horses, but I want to find a way to be around horses and do something with them other than running them into the ground. The best part of my job is the charity work we do at Arden, the people we help. I just want to find a way to do that as a full-time job.”

  “You dreams good dreams,” Julien said, kissing her on the top of the head.

  “You’re my best dream.” They’d made love again after that and fallen asleep tangled in each other. Five nights ago was the last time they’d been together. Five nights and an eternity.

  She wouldn’t survive another five nights and she told Merrick exactly that when he shuffled into work an hour late the next day with a big smile on his face.

  “Did you spend the night at Salena’s?” she demanded.

  “Yup.”

  “You’re fired.”

  “For getting laid?”

  “Yes.”

  “My aren’t we sexually frustrated this morning,” Merrick said, handing over her coffee.

  “Five days,” she said. “I’m not going to make it.”

  “You’ll make it. If I can last five days you can last five days.”

  “Have you ever gone five whole days without sex?”

  “Sure. Of course. Oh, you mean five consecutive days?”

  “It’s ridiculous. This isn’t medieval England or Renaissance Italy. Families shouldn’t be feuding.”

  “Tell that to Steve Harvey.” Merrick asked, sitting on her desk in front of her. “It must be awful for you. Julien’s forbidden fruit. Taboo. Off the menu. Verboten. The scandal? The lies? The sneaking around? Terrible.”

  “Awful,” Remi said.

  “Horrible.”

  “Shameful.”

  “It’s hot, isn’t it?” Merrick asked.

  “So fucking hot.” Remi dropped her head to her desk and groaned. Merrick, knowing what was good for him, didn’t laugh at her. Not too much anyway.

  Remi knew she’d tear Julien’s clothes off the second she saw him again but when that would be she didn’t know. Salena was still working out her end of the plan. Remi didn’t want to rush things, but if she didn’t see Julien again soon, she couldn’t be held responsible for her actions. When she texted Merrick at midnight on Thursday, she knew that was a symptom she’d reached the end of her rope.

  You awake? she wrote him.

  No. I’m dead.

  I’m thinking about the plan, she wrote him.

  Stop thinking. Just go fuck him and let me sleep, Merrick wrote. And then for some reason added emoticons of a grey alien, a skull, a bee, the flag of Japan, and seventeen eggplants. She should never have let him download the Emoji app on his work phone.

  But it wasn’t a terrible idea, sneaking over to Julien’s for an hour or so. Well, no. It was a terrible idea and she knew it.

  She wrote Merrick back.

  What if I get caught at his house?

  Merrick replied with a ghost and a Santa Claus.

  WTF?

  Be quiet as a ghost, he explained. Get in and out like Santa.

  I was supposed to get that message from two emoticons?

  Duh, he wrote back. Go get it.

  And he punctuated his text with a rather phallic-looking banana emoticon, and that was logic that neither she nor her vagina could argue with.

  She threw on her clothes again and got into her car.

  Capitol Hills, Julien’s family’s horse farm, constituted twelve-hundred acres near Frankfort, the state capital. This late at night with no traffic to contend with, Remi made it to the outside of the farm gates in thirty minutes. She parked her car on a side road and carefully climbed over the white wooden fence.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this…” she whispered to herself as she crossed the dark manicured lawn. Julien had said his family only alarmed the house when no one was at home. She hoped he was right about that. “How horny am I?”

  Horny enough to risk a B&E conviction obviously.

  “Julien, Julien…” she breathed, “where the hell are you, Julien?” The windows of the three story colonial mansion were mostly darkened, but light glowed from two second-floor windows.

  Did you get a fancy corner bedroom? she typed on her phone.

  What? Julien replied. Yes. Why?

  I’m looking at your window, she wrote back.

  She counted only two seconds before Julien’s face appeared in the window. He opened his window and stuck his head out.

  “You’re crazy,” he whispered. In the clear night air, the words carried right down to her. Her heart, already pounding from sneaking to his house, now leapt at the sight of him.

  “Crazy for you. Will your mom let you come out and play?” She smiled up at him.

  “It’s sixty degrees out. You come in and play.”

  “Where?” she asked. She’d never been to the Brite family home before. He held up his finger in the universal sign of “wait right there.”

  Remi glanced around while she waited, hoping the Brites didn’t have any rabid killer attack dogs wandering near the house tonight.

  She heard a whistle and peeked around the corner of the house. Julien stood on the back covered porch and waved her in. She ran to him and he caught her in his arms. In a frenzy of silent kisses, Julien pulled Remi into the house and shut the door behind them. He kissed her mouth, her neck, her earlobes and throat while she ran her hands all over his bare chest. He must have been getting ready for bed because he still had on a pair of jeans and a shirt but his shirt and the top button of his jeans were already unbuttoned. Good. Less work for her.

  “I missed you so much,” Julien murmured as he nuzzled her hair.

  “I really shouldn’t have come, but I couldn’t wait anymore.”

  “It was killing me too,” Julien said, his hands sliding under the back of her shirt. He unhooked her bra and pulled her even tighter to him.

  In the dark she could barely make out what room they were in but it seemed to be a large office or a small library. Didn’t matter what it was. They were alone in it and that’s all she cared about.

  Julien dragged her skirt up to her stomach as he kissed her wildly. Blood pounded through her. Her thighs felt tight and her stomach knotted itself up as Julien slid his hand into her underwear.

  He found her clitoris with his fingertip and rubbed the swollen knot until she had to bury her mouth against his shoulder to keep from moaning audibly. She dug her nails into his back, holding onto him with everything she had. She shuddered hard in his arms when he pushed two fingers up and into her. Wet as she was, he slid right into her.

  “I won’t make it to my room.” Julien rasped the words into her ear.

  “Then just do it here.”

  Julien was fantastically good at taking orders—one good quality among many. He wrenched her panties down her legs and turned her back to him. During their nights in his Paris apartment, she’d done everything she could to help him make up for all the time lost while he was sick as a teenage boy. She let him try any sexual position he wanted. Quickly they discovered together that Julien loved entering her from behind. She loved it too but at this point she wanted him so much she’d strap them both to roof of a moving car if that’s the only way she could get it.

  “What if your parents walk in on us again?” she teased. She heard Julien behind her unzipping his jeans.

  “I locked the office door.”

  “What if they break in?”

  “I’ll tell them to wait their fucking turn then.”

  He pulled her skirt up again and pushed his fingers into her. Remi arched her back and braced herself against the wall as he opened her up for him. Behind her Julien guided himself to her entrance. She pushed back and she felt the head bumping her g-spot. Remi sighed with the sheer relief of feeling Julien inside her again. She arched her back even more to take all of him inside her. He bottomed out and started thrusting. This was exactly what she needed.

  “I can’t get enough of you,” Julien said as he pulled out all the way to the tip and crashed back into her. She forced herself to stay silent as he emptied her and filled her with each thrust. He slid his hands under her shirt and cupped her breasts. All Remi could do was hold herself still against the wall as Julien slammed into her again and again, the sounds of her wetness and his labored breathing accompanying his every move.

  Her climax built quickly and she came hard, her inner muscles fluttering and clenching tightly around Julien’s still thrusting length.

  She went limp in his arms, and he pulled out of her. He turned her to face him and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He kissed her again, delving into her mouth with his tongue. He was backing her up as he kissed her. She didn’t know and she didn’t care where he was taking her as long as he was taking her.

  Something hit the back of her legs, and Julien lowered her down onto a leather sofa. He yanked her shirt up to expose her breasts and sucked hard on her nipples. He hadn’t come yet and she wanted him to, needed him to. For six beautiful nights she’d fallen asleep with his semen in her and on her, a privilege she’d never granted any man before. They didn’t use condoms simply because he’d been a virgin and was sterile. She’d known the moment she saw him that she wanted to give him everything she had and keep nothing from him.

  Julien kissed his way down her stomach.

  “Julien-”

  “I have to taste you,” he said. He held her by the back of her thighs and Remi obediently opened her legs for him. If he had to, he had to. Who was she to argue?