Easy Going

by Erin Nicholas

  That was probably a good question. But he did want a next time. Already.

  Maybe because there would be a break between their “dates.” Inevitably. And there would be a definite, distinct ending point. She’d go back to New York. There’d be no need to do anything different in his life or routine. There’d be no question about what they would do the morning after. She’d be getting on a plane and leaving.

  There was no risk here. No complication. No disruption. She’d be in town a couple of days and then gone. Really gone. It would be so…easy.

  “Well, here’s the deal,” he told her. He rested his hand on her lower back and nudged her forward to cross the street to the café. “I’m a really nice guy. And when you come back to Trahan’s next time and beg me for a repeat, I won’t be able to say no.”

  Her eyebrows rose and she laughed. “Wow. So sure of yourself.”

  “Yeah.” And sure of her. Of them. Together. It was going to be explosive.

  They got to the front of the line quickly. There was almost always a line at Café du Monde, but this time of night it moved a lot quicker. During the day, the wait could be nearly an hour, but things settled down after dark a bit, when Bourbon and Frenchman’s Street and the jazz clubs picked up.

  A table opened up a minute later and Gabe took Addison’s hand to weave between the wrought iron chairs and tables toward the far outer edge of the outdoor café.

  As was typical, the table, chair seats, and ground under them were sprinkled with powdered sugar. The stuff was, literally, everywhere. If you didn’t leave Café du Monde with some sweet, white dust on you, you hadn’t done it right.

  Which was why Gabe paused and watched, amused, as Addison took wet wipes from her bag and began to clean off the chair seat and table top.

  “You want one?” she asked, glancing up to find him watching her.

  “I’m good.” He pulled his chair out and sat. The rain and wind did most of the cleaning around here. The tables turned over almost too quickly, with people seating themselves, for the wait staff to keep up with wiping them clean and, again, if you didn’t get a little sugar on you before eating beignets, you definitely wouldn’t be leaving without some.

  Addison sat down across from him with her purse in her lap. She dug inside until she pulled out a hair clip.

  Gabe watched as she secured her hair at the back of her head and spread a napkin over her lap. Then added a second one.

  Finally she looked up at him. Totally prepared. To stay neat and tidy while eating beignets.

  Yeah, now he didn’t just want to cover her in powdered sugar, he needed to.

  “What can I get you?” the waitress asked.

  “Two orders of beignets. And a café au lait for me,” Gabe said. “You drinking coffee, Addison?”

  She nodded. “Need to be able to stay up late.” She gave him a smile that shot straight to his cock.

  “Oh, you won’t have any trouble staying awake,” he told her as the girl moved off.

  Addison laughed. “Lots of big promises being made here.”

  “Yes. Huge.” He gave her a wink. “But hey, you’re the one who sent the elephant emoji.” She’d sent it to Elena in regards to his cock. Not that she knew that at the time. But now she did.

  She blushed, but met his eyes directly. “This is easing in?”

  “Yes. If I was going…hard…I’d be asking if you’ve ever come on a man’s tongue while on a balcony with a wrought iron railing that is over two hundred years old.”

  Addison didn’t say anything at all for a moment. But when she did reply, Gabe’s cock hardened painfully.

  “Easing in is overrated.”

  He gave a little groan. “I need to kiss you.”

  She nodded. He leaned over the table and took her chin in his hand. He looked her directly in the eye as he took a moment to appreciate this first kiss.

  But Addison didn’t let him pause too long. She lifted out of her seat and met him partway over the table.

  The kiss was hot and sweet and deep. It was all just lips and tongues, mingling breaths, and his hand cupping her face. No other body contact. But they didn’t need it. Gabe felt like his entire body was tightening like a spring and he could sense a similar tension in her. She opened her mouth as he opened his. It was impossible to tell who tilted their head to deepen the kiss first. Impossible to tell whose tongue stroked whose first. Impossible to tell who moaned first. They were all in together.

  They even pulled apart at the same time. Their eyes met. They hesitated with only centimeters between their lips. Then they both took a deep breath and sank back into their chairs.

  “And no. I haven’t,” she said as she replaced the napkins on her lap.

  “Haven’t?”

  “Come while on a balcony with a wrong iron railing that’s over two hundred years old.”

  Surprise and lust coursed through him in equal measures. He cleared his throat. “That’s excellent information to have.”

  “And please tell me that I won’t be able to say that by this time tomorrow.”

  The lust tightened every cell in his body. “Addison—”

  Whatever the hell he’d been about to say to that was interrupted by the waitress.

  “Here you go.”

  “We’re going to need a to-go bag,” Gabe said without looking away from Addison.

  The waitress rolled her eyes and started to turn away with the tray. But Addison reached up quickly. “Well, maybe just one now.” She plucked a beignet off the plate. Powdered sugar cascaded over her hand and onto the table in front of her.

  Gabe grinned as the waitress took the rest away. Addison gave him a little smile, then bit into the fried dough. Again white powder burst into the air around her, but she closed her eyes and chewed.

  “Oh my God,” she said after swallowing.

  Unable to keep from touching her, Gabe took her empty hand. “Yeah, keep practicing those oh-my-Gods.”

  Addison opened her eyes. “You might have miscalculated this beignets-before-sex thing. Now you have a lot of pleasure to live up to.”

  “Addison,” he said sincerely. “You have never and will never eat a beignet with as much enthusiasm as I’m going to eat you.”

  Her mouth stopped chewing, her eyes widened, and she stared at him.

  He smirked. “Easing in is overrated.”

  She swallowed hard and picked up her cup of coffee, taking a big swig.

  “Guess we really are going to get personal.”

  “I don’t need to know your birthday or favorite color,” he said. “But I do need to know if you like your morning sex in bed or the shower.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t really like morning sex at all.”

  “Yet.”

  She blew out a breath. The waitress set their to-go bag down. Gabe handed her a twenty and told her to keep the change. Addison grabbed the bag, dropped the rest of her beignet in, rolled the top down, and stood.

  “Done easing in?” he teased, feeling cocky…and like his balls were about to explode.

  “Let’s go hard.”

  Gabe Trahan was about to rock her world. Addison could feel it in the air around them. And if her being the one who took his hand and pulled him across the street and then across Jackson Square at a ridiculously obvious I-can’t-wait-any-longer pace made her a hussy or something, so be it.

  Gabe’s only hesitation was when he paused at the corner, greeted the sax player with a “Hey, Ernie,” handed him fifty bucks and asked him to move to the corner across the square, closer to Trahan’s, and the balcony over it that had a wrought iron railing. Addison felt her whole body heat.

  “Any requests?” Ernie asked.

  “Ad?” Gabe asked.

  She shook her head. She had no idea what to request be played while a hot bartender did deliciously dirty things to her on a balcony. “Anything.” She doubted she’d be paying much attention to the music, but she did love the idea of the jazz music adding to th
e overall ambience of hot sex on a balcony in the French Quarter of New Orleans. And she couldn’t forget the powdered sugar from the beignets. She almost couldn’t believe that she’d contemplated having a New Orleans fling without jazz and powdered sugar.

  As Ernie launched into “I’ve Got a Crush On You,” Gabe pulled her around the corner of the tavern and paused to unlock a side door. Emboldened by the dirty talk at the café and the sheer New Orleans vibe swirling around her, Addison dropped the bag of beignets onto the sidewalk beside them, then ran her hands around Gabe’s torso, flattening her palms over his hard abs and rubbing back and forth over the soft, warm cotton of his T-shirt. She felt his muscles tense under her touch and she put her nose against his shoulder, pulling in the scent of laundry detergent, bourbon, and man. Her new favorite scent combination. She’d always been a fruity drink girl, but the rich sexiness of bourbon was so tempting. And different.

  That was it. This was all so different. So far removed from her regular world. A dream. A moment. Something that would be a decadent memory almost as soon as it started.

  And she intended to replay it over and over and over.

  He got the door unlocked but instead of pushing it open, he pulled her around in front of him, her back against the roughened wood. He took her face in his hands, stared down into her eyes for a moment, then kissed her.

  Decadent indeed.

  Gabe’s mouth was hot and hungry but he kissed her slowly, thoroughly, as if he was trying to memorize the details. Addison wanted to do the same. Without a table between them, the kiss became a whole-body event. She fisted his shirt in her hands, arched closer, relishing the feel of his hardness against her, and opened her mouth.

  Gabe stroked his tongue against hers, deep and bold, his hands sliding down her sides to her hips where he squeezed. Then his hands were cupping her ass and bringing her up against him fully. His mouth moved to her ear. “Your ass fits in my hands perfectly.

  “I noticed that too,” she managed breathlessly. “Everything seems to fit perfectly.”

  “I’ve never wanted to fit with someone this much,” he told her.

  A shiver went through her as his mouth traveled down the side of her neck. Goosebumps danced over her arms and her nipples tightened. The sultry air around them caressed her skin and the lazy notes from the saxophone seemed to swirl around them. Addison was aware of the rough brick on either side of the doorway, the flickering flame of the lantern overhead, and the clip-clop of horse hooves on the street. It was as if she’d been transported to another time. And she hoped like hell that this heightened awareness would follow her into Gabe’s bedroom. She wanted to notice everything, tune in to every sensation, and remember every detail.

  “I think the fit might be even better upstairs,” she said. “Without clothes in the way.”

  She felt him take a deep, shaky breath.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, looking down at her intently.

  “Is the wrought iron railing you were talking about up there?” she asked.

  He half groaned, half laughed. “It is.”

  “Then I will beg you to take me up there,” she said sincerely.

  He full-out groaned at that.

  Addison felt a streak of desire unlike anything she’d ever experienced go through her. This man had a woman in his arms, possibly against this very door, any time he wanted. She knew that. And she wasn’t his type. Because she wasn’t this woman. She wasn’t spontaneous and fun and what-the-hell. She thought about every possible consequence from every possible angle to everything she did. She had to. Because her life in New York wasn’t just about her. In New York she looked like the woman Gabe was studying as if he’d already covered her in powdered sugar and couldn’t figure out where to start licking. But in New York, she would have been thinking about how hard that powdered sugar would be to clean up. And about how she’d have to be the one doing that cleanup.

  But here in New Orleans, for this weekend anyway, she was responsible for herself only. She could go powdered sugar crazy and no one would know. She could go Gabe crazy and no one would know. There would be no consequences. She could walk out in the morning and not worry about the mess.

  And if the idea of making a mess, literal or figurative, and just walking away bothered her a little, Gabe’s mouth against her ear saying, “We’re doing the railing, but I’m starting on your nipples,” made her certain she could get past the urge to be in charge. For one night. Maybe even for a weekend.

  For the first time in a very long time—nearly five years if she was keeping track (and she was always keeping track of everything)—she wanted to just let go and follow someone else’s lead.

  “You can start anywhere you want to as long as that powdered sugar is used equally,” she told him, running her hand up and down over his ribs.

  Gabe’s hand cupped the back of her head and his fingers gripped her hair gently, but firmly. “Do you want to lick powdered sugar off my cock, Addison?” he asked roughly.

  She tried to nod, but he held her hair. “So much,” she breathed.

  He reached behind her without another word and pushed the door open.

  She stepped back through it as he bent to pick up the bag of beignets. Then he turned her with his hands on her hips and nudged her toward the staircase that was ten feet in front of her.

  Addison climbed the stairs to a landing with two doors. Gabe directed her toward the one on the left and reached past her to turn the knob. The door swung open to reveal a living room area with a couch, recliner, and a big screen TV arranged around a brick fireplace. Behind the couch was a small kitchen area with a bar and two stools separating it from the living room. The ceiling was easily twelve feet above them with a huge ceiling fan turning lazily.

  Gabe gave her no more time than that to take in details. He pulled her through one of the two doorways leading off the living room. Into the bedroom.

  And Addison almost orgasmed right there. The room had exposed brick walls, the high ceiling, and hardwood floors. All of which were amazing. But it was the French doors that led to the balcony that overlooked St. Peter Street, complete with a wrought iron railing, that made her gasp.

  “This can go absolutely any way you want,” Gabe told her. “But I’ve got an idea, or twelve, if you’re interested.”

  “So interested,” she said, her mouth dry and her whole body feeling like it was melting. She was immersed in New Orleans here. Jackson Square, the jazz, the two-hundred-year-old building, the hot Louisianan boy looking at her like she was the best thing he’d ever seen. This was exactly how she should be spending this night. A night she’d never forget.

  Part II

  “Open your shirt.” The bag from Café due Monde crinkled as he opened it, reaching inside for a beignet. He let the bag drop to the floor as he pulled one out and held it up.

  Addison felt adrenaline surge and her hands were a little shaky as she started on the buttons of her silk blouse. The shirt gaped and then fell open.

  As he watched her, Gabe wet the tip of one of his fingers with his tongue, then dragged it through the sugar on the beignet and licked it off. Addison’s nipples tightened at the sight.

  “Now the bra,” he said, taking a step closer.

  She started to shrug her shirt off, but he stopped her. “No. Leave it all on. Just unhook your bra.”

  Addison followed his directions, reaching behind her to undo the tiny hooks. The bra stayed in place but loosened.

  Gabe took the final steps that brought him right in front of her. He curled his index finger under the little bow in the center of her bra and gave his wrist a flick. Her bra slid up over her breasts.

  His breath hissed out as he took in the sight of her partially undressed, her nipples hard, and the look of lust on her face. She had no doubt that she looked completely at his mercy.

  “What’s this?” He traced a finger over the script she had tattooed under the curve of one breast.

  She was breathless when she
said, “Mark Twain.”

  “But it is lightning that does the work,” he read out loud. He looked up at her.

  She nodded. “The full quote is “Thunder is good. Thunder is impressive. But it is lightning that does the work.”

  He traced the words again, watching his finger. “Fucking beautiful,” he finally muttered. Then he lifted the beignet over her chest and shook it slightly. Powdered sugar fell onto her skin, clinging to her breasts. He met her eyes, then lifted a hand, cupping one breast, his thumb rubbing over the tip. Addison made a soft moaning sound. She’d never played at sex like this. It had always been very straightforward and sure, pleasurable, but it had never been drawn out like this.

  Gabe’s hand spread the sugar into white streaks. Then he dipped his knees and licked the upper curve of one breast. Addison took a deep breath as heat shot through her. The simple touch of his tongue on her skin made her pelvic muscles clench hard with need. He made his way around the outside of her breast, then worked his way to the center. She gasped when he licked over her nipple, but he quickly sucked it into his mouth making her feel like she was going to lose her mind. Her hand came up to the back of his head, curling into his thick dark hair.

  “Gabe.”

  “Oh yeah, talk to me.”

  “That’s…so good.”

  He switched to her other nipple and she gripped his hair a little tighter.

  “Are you wet for me, Addison?” he asked, looking up at her as he thumbed her nipple. “Are you aching to take me deep?”

  “Oh, God,” she groaned. “Yes.” She’d never felt this needy about sex before.

  “Well, I gotta feel your sweet mouth around my cock first,” he told her, trailing kisses up her chest and throat as he rose to his full height. He cupped her head and said against her mouth, “And I’ve gotta taste your pussy. Bet it’s better than powdered sugar.”

  She made a soft whimpering sound that she typically would have been embarrassed about, but she couldn’t quite work up any true mortification when she looked into his eyes. His gaze was hot and hungry and she knew he was feeling everything she was. Maybe even the same amazement about how strong this chemistry with a near-stranger was.