Page 73 of Je T'aime, Actually

“I am,” Chloé whispered.

Her lips found Monroe’s—hungry, deliberate, deep. The kiss was less about sweetness and more about need, built ofanticipation and a night of teasing glances and touches that lingered just long enough to ache.

Without breaking contact, Chloé guided Monroe backwards, step by slow step, until the backs of Monroe’s knees hit the edge of the sofa. She dropped down with a soft exhale, the dress riding up her thighs, and pulled Chloé towards her. Her legs parted in silent invitation, her breath shallow and wanton.

Chloé dropped to her knees in the space between.

Her dark eyes never left Monroe’s face. “Let me worship you,” she murmured, her voice thick with reverence and desire, hands sliding up the length of Monroe’s thighs like a prayer, dragging her underwear back down like a sin.

Monroe shivered, her chest already rising and falling, breath fast. “God, yes,” she whispered. “Please…”

There was nothing tentative in Chloé’s touch. She leant in, her breath ghosting over Monroe’s slick heat before her mouth met her—open, warm, sure. She kissed her with intention, with purpose. She knew this body intimately and loved every part of it.

Monroe gasped, hips lifting as pleasure jolted through her. “Fuck— Chloé—” Her fingers found her lover’s hair, threading through the silken strands as she held her there, desperate and trembling. “Don’t stop. Just like that. Please.”

Chloé obeyed, smiling briefly against her. Her tongue stroked and circled with maddening precision, lips sealing around her clit in a rhythm that was both skilled and instinctive. She devoured Monroe like she’d been waiting her whole life for the chance.

Monroe’s head fell back against the cushions. Her moans slipped out between breathless curses, every nerve ending focused on the slow, building pleasure curling low and hot in her belly.

It didn’t take long.

She shattered with a cry, thighs trembling, fingers clenching in Chloé’s hair as waves of pleasure rolled through her. Her whole body slackened, boneless and undone.

Chloé rose slowly, cheeks flushed, mouth glistening. She leant over Monroe, brushing a kiss to her lips, soft this time.

Intimate.

Sharing the taste of what they’d just created.

Monroe’s arms wrapped around her, greedy even in her afterglow. She pulled her close, breath warm against her cheek. “You’re not done,” she said, voice low, still wrecked.

Chloé grinned, her voice velvet. “Non, mon amour.We’re just getting started.”

sixty

Monroe wandered into the kitchen in one of Chloé’s shirts, hair tousled, skin still charged from the night before. She’d slept in as instructed. But the sight that greeted her made her pause.

Clothes. Everywhere! She’d noted the disarray as she passed through the lounge. Her dress draped over the arm of the sofa. Chloé’s suit jacket hanging from a chair. Heels kicked into opposite corners of the room and underwear strewn across the floor where it was flung and forgotten. Wine glasses still half full.

And on the counter, a note:

“Gone to work. Didn’t want to wake you. Last night was…incroyable. You’re trouble…the good kind. xx C.”

Monroe rolled her eyes. "I’m trouble?" she muttered. “Says the woman who left this place looking like a lingerie hurricane hit it.”

She gathered the glasses first, then the bottle, sighing at the state of the living room. It wasn’t the mess itself—it was the assumption she’d sort it. Again.

Later that evening, when Chloé walked in the door all smiles and kisses, Monroe raised an eyebrow. “Had a good day?”

Chloé nodded, dropping her bag and reaching for her. “Missed you.”

Monroe leant in but didn’t return the kiss. “You left the living room looking like the aftermath of a fashion shoot in a wind tunnel.”

Chloé blinked, taking in the now-spotless space. Guilt flickered across her face. “I thought you were sleeping in. I didn’t want to wake you.”

Monroe sighed. “So instead, you left me a love note and a domestic crime scene?”

Chloé laughed, sheepish. “I meant to clean it up later.”