She looked down at her arm. “What about it?”
“What’s it mean? Why’d you pick that particular one?” He let his eyes roam over her from head to toe, making sure she noticed. “Why only that one?”
She arched a brow but rolled to her side and propped her head on her hand. “It represents a path that’s like life. Twists and turns, a few thorns mixed in with lots of areas of beauty along the way. It’s all tied together along my strongest side, which also happens to be the side where my heart is.”
Bennett wasn’t sure why he was surprised by her serious, insightful, lovely answer. It was probably because she was usually a smart-ass with him. But yet, even then she was clever and witty and intelligent.
He nodded. “It’s beautiful.”
She smiled. “Thanks. And, as you’ll see, the biggest flowers are near my pussy, beside my breast, and over my heart.”
Bennett knew she was trying to rattle him. And it worked. Whether it was the “as you’ll see,” which sounded like a promise he was, by God, going to hold her to, or it was hearing her say “pussy,” he wasn’t sure, but he had to swallow hard.
“Ask me why, Bennett,” she said. Her voice was a little husky.
It was clear from the way she was looking at him that she knew the effect she was having.
“Why?”
“Because those are the parts of me that make me the most feminine and the most powerful. The biggest blooms are there because it reminds me that even if those parts are the most hidden, private parts, they are also the parts that make me most beautiful and that I don’t have to show those parts, or any parts, to anyone to be judged worthy.”
He stared at her for a few long moments. He didn’t need to reassure her. He didn’t need to tell her she was right. She knew. She didn’t need him to tell her anything at all.
“That’s pretty fucking hot,” he finally said. He didn’t mean the roses inked where they were. He meant the reason they were where they were. And he knew she knew what he meant.
She gave him a slow smile.
“And is this sexy payback for some romantic thing I did without realizing it?” he asked. “Because it’s working.”
She rolled back to her back and crossed one long leg over the other, getting comfortable on the couch. “Whisking me off to a fancy weekend party on a private plane? That’s some Pretty Woman stuff there, Baxter.”
“I didn’t mean it to be romantic. It’s efficient.”
“Well, you’re screwed if the romantic stuff just happens without you even intending it.”
She stretched. He gave a little groan. She grinned.
But so did he. He loved that she was comfortable here with him, with their sexual chemistry, and the inevitable result of that chemistry once they had a bed and a long night at their disposal. And because making Kennedy smile had become one of his favorite hobbies about five minutes after meeting her.
The rest of the flight was spent with casual conversation on a variety of ordinary topics. She’d paged through a magazine. He’d looked over some work papers. She’d curled up with her phone and headphones to watch a movie. He’d pretended to read a book while trying not to watch her the entire time like a creepy stalker.
“Do you have any ink besides that tattoo on your shoulder?” she asked as they pulled out of the airport parking garage in the back of the huge black SUV that had been sent by their car service to pick them up.
“Oh, you noticed that?” he asked her.
She’d seen him without his shirt when he’d been down in Autre to help put the new dock in the water. She’d pretended to be annoyed with him because he’d ended up needing first aid on his arm, but she’d fussed over what was nothing more than a small cut as if he’d almost lost the limb, and he had to wonder if she’d been just a tiny bit worried about him for a few minutes there.
“If you’re asking if I checked you out from the office window while you were stripping down and parading around in nothing but your boxers, then yes. Yes, I did,” she said. “And I gotta say, I’m in favor of you keeping up that gym membership and listening to your trainer.”
“You think I have a trainer? That I don’t just take care of myself?” he asked.
She gave him a look and he laughed.
“His name is Greg,” Bennett confessed with a grin.
“Yeah, tell Greg I’m making him cookies as thanks,” Kennedy said. “Oh, wait, he probably doesn’t eat cookies. I’ll make him…” She frowned. “Fuck, I don’t really make anything that you could call health food. I guess I’ll buy him a new gym bag or something.”
Bennett laughed. “You just stay away from Greg. I’ll tell him that you’re appreciative.”
“I can’t meet Greg?” she asked. “Why’s that?”
“Because you’re hot and into guys with big muscles who can lift cars over their heads and shit. No way am I introducing you.”
“First off, he can lift a car over his head? I mean, I’m not sure how useful that really is. Then again, if he can lift a car, he can lift an airboat and that could be handy,” she said, clearly teasing him. “Second…are you jealous of the idea of me with another guy?” She braced her hand on the seat between them and leaned in a little.
Bennett knew she was setting him up for trouble. She had that little glint in her eye.
But the bigger problem than her being trouble was him liking that about her. A lot.
“Nah. I know what you really want.”
“Stuffed mushrooms,” she said with a nod. “And pigs in a blanket. If you’ve got mustard. But not honey mustard.” She mimed gagging. “I want hot mustard.”
She also wanted a guy who wasn’t easy. Who she couldn’t figure out with only a half-assed effort. Someone who made her think a little bit. That’s why she was attracted to Bennett. He was different. She couldn’t quite put her finger on him. The bayou boys were good old chocolate chip cookies. Solid. Enjoyable. A staple in her life. But he was crème brûlée. Or, he supposed, Bananas Foster, if Leo insisted. He’d just have to warn her about the itching and hives that went with that.
“Hot mustard and a guy who can make you forget that his hands ever do anything other than make your pussy throb with need, then drip with sweetness, and stretch you out for his cock to fuck you into the hardest orgasms of your life.”
Her mouth literally fell open. He fought his smug smile. Maybe she would eventually realize that she was not going to keep the upper hand with him, even if she did get it once in a while.
But he kind of hoped she wouldn’t realize that.
He leaned in, took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and brought her ear to his mouth. “And that’s not even including what he’s going to be able to do with his tongue.”
She blew out a long slow breath. Then asked, “Have you ever had a blow job in the back of one of these cars on the way to your parents’ house?”
He sat back and let her go. “No.”
“Awesome. I love firsts.”
She reached for his pants, but he caught her wrists. “What are you doing?”
“Dirty stuff every time you get romantic, remember?”
“I was just dirty.”
“Talking about all that foreplay? Making sure I’m throbbing and dripping and stretched out—” She said each word slowly and huskily, “—before you take me hard and give me the best orgasms of my life? Dude, that is romantic. You realize most guys are just about getting off themselves, right?”
She sat back on her side with a self-satisfied smile he wanted to kiss off of her lips. Badly.
Bennett shook his head. He was hard and aching listening to her. Even though he’d started it. And she knew it. “You’re trouble.”
“Yep. And you’re stuck with me for the whole weekend.” She looked very pleased with herself.
“Well, ’til Tuesday.” Bennett looked down at his phone, fighting his smile as he pretended to check for texts.
“Tuesday?”
“I mean, yes,
it will be the whole weekend. Too. But also Monday and Tuesday.”
“We’re staying until Tuesday?”
He glanced over. “I didn’t mention that?”
She lifted both brows. “No, no you didn’t.”
“Huh.” He looked back down at his phone. It might be a long five days, but he was already having more fun than he’d had in the five months before he’d met Kennedy.
“Well, I didn’t pack for two extra days. Guess I’ll be going without panties for a couple of days,” she said, settling back in her seat.
There she was getting the last word again. And making him hard again.
And there he was not minding it a bit. Again.
“Okay, so Dad’s side of the family bought this house,” Kennedy said, as they pulled through the iron gates and started over the cobblestones that led to the “house” that Bennett Baxter called home.
It was a small castle. She’d fight anyone who tried to tell her otherwise.
“That’s right.” Bennett sounded amused. “This house has been in the family for a hundred years.”
“Woo-boy, I’ll bet there are some ghosts with good stories in there,” she said. “My grandma would love that.”
“No hauntings. Sorry.”
Kennedy looked over at him. “Oh, that’s not true. They’re just not showing themselves to you. That doesn’t mean they’re not there.”
He lifted a brow. “That house is not haunted.”
“It is. It’s gotta be. There are definitely spirits that wanted to hang around this place.”
The car pulled up in front of the huge doors. She started to reach for the door, but he grabbed her elbow.
“The house is not haunted, Kennedy.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
“Seriously. Never heard of a single ghost sighting.”
“Okay.”
“Really.”
“Okay.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve seen a ghost?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Of course, I live on the bayou.”
“Come on.”
“You come on. There are spirits all over. Good and bad.”
Good and bad. Right. Was she messing with him? It was about fifty-fifty, he figured. “You don’t worry about the bad ones?”
“Well, not when I’ve got the gris-gris bag my grandma made me. But that’s back home in Autre.”
Bennett sighed. He didn’t know if the Landrys actually dabbled in voodoo or not. He knew they went to the local church so it wasn’t their primary religion or anything, but voodoo seeped into many of the Louisiana traditions and legends. It wouldn’t surprise him a bit if there were talismans or charms to be found around the homes and businesses. He had no doubt that Kennedy had a gris-gris bag—a traditional voodoo charm that consisted of a small cloth bag filled with herbs, stones and personal items that would ward off evil spirits—that Ellie had made for her. “Of course.”
“But if you get scared tonight, I’ll be happy to come sleep in your room.”
“You’d scare the ghosts off?”
She snorted. “How would I do that?”
“Then how are you going to protect me?” he asked, his grip gentled and he ran his thumb over the sensitive skin of her inner elbow.
“If I’m with you in your room tonight, you’ll be too distracted to notice anything else going on.”
That wasn’t a bad point. “We’ll talk about the sleeping arrangements later,” he told her as the huge front door swung open and his mother stepped out onto the porch.
“Oh, let’s not. Let’s sneak around,” Kennedy said. “That’s way more fun.”
He gave her an eye-roll. “Stay right there. I’ll come around and open the door for you.” He started to get out.
“I can open my own door.”
“I know.”
“So that’s stupid.”
“Humor me.”
“I might consider it romantic,” she warned. “Which means I’m totally going to feel your ass as we walk up those steps to greet your mother.”
He ducked his head back into the car. “Well, the joke’s on you,” he told her. “You’re trying to give me a constant hard-on with that stuff? Thing is, I’m already hard for you just seeing you smile and hearing you talk about gris-gris bags.”
“That’s pathetic,” she told him, but she was clearly fighting a smile.
“I know.”
“And kind of romantic.”
“Yeah.”
“So I’m definitely not wearing panties to dinner tonight and I’m hoping that you’ll pull me into a dark corner and finger me.”
Bennett dropped his head and blew out a breath. “You’re going to kill me.”
“That’s a nice change,” she said. “Usually, people want to kill me.”
Bennett opened the car door for her, which wasn’t really that romantic—it was more a stupid patriarchal tradition that she really wished would die—and then threaded his fingers with hers as they climbed the wide stone steps to the porch.
She suspected the hand holding was to keep her from pinching his ass. But it was also nice—and yeah, a little romantic—and she liked it more than she should.
When they got to the top, though, she was fully focused on Bennett’s mom.
She was a Cajun. Kennedy hadn’t been expecting that. She felt more comfortable instantly just knowing that.
“Hi, Mom,” Bennett greeted, leaning in to kiss his mother’s cheek.
“Hello, Bennett.” His mom gave him a little smile then turned her attention to Kennedy. “Hello.”
“Mom, this is Kennedy Landry. Kennedy, this is my mother, Maria,” Bennett said.
“Kennedy,” Maria Baxter said with a smile as her eyes traveled from the top of Kennedy’s head to the toes of her combat boots. “I’ve heard a lot about you and your family.”
“Hi, Mrs. Baxter! Thank you for inviting me.” Kennedy stepped close and put her arms around the other woman’s shoulders, giving her a quick hug.
When she stepped back, she realized that Maria looked stunned. Okay, not a hugger. Kennedy made note. She wasn’t really, either, but it seemed everyone else was, so she’d decided to make a good impression with Bennett’s mom.
Might have miscalculated that.
“Okay, then. Please come on in.” Maria turned and preceded them into the gigantic house. She wore wide-legged white pants with a baby blue sleeveless tunic, all in a silky material that moved in a flowy way that made Maria seem to glide over the stone porch and through the door.
Kennedy felt Bennett’s hand on her lower back. “Oops,” she said quietly to him.
“Don’t worry about her,” he said. “She’s just surprised to see you.”
Kennedy glanced up at him, then realized what he’d just said. She stopped short and elbowed him in the side. “What?” she hissed. “She didn’t know I was coming?”
“No.”
“Ben—”
“Is everything okay?” Maria asked, turning back in the middle of an enormous foyer.
Kennedy was not pleased with Bennett and she was going to let him know all about it, but she wasn’t going to add any tension to this moment. For some reason, she didn’t want Maria to think there were any problems between them. There was something about how Maria looked at her that made Kennedy feel like she was back up on the pageant stage and something inside her clicked into place. That something that reminded her that at any point she had the option to walk out. She could have walked off that stage and left the whole thing behind her. When she decided to. Which she’d eventually done.
She had been there by choice, and she got to decide how far she went with everything.
And the same applied here. Maria Baxter didn’t control how long Kennedy was going to be standing next to Bennett. No matter how many times she looked at Kennedy’s tattoos with a mix of curiosity and dismay.
“Everything is fine,” she told Maria with her best pageant smile. Then she looked
up at Bennett with that same smile.
He also wasn’t in charge here. He might like to think he was, or that they were partners in deciding how this relationship went or some stupid shit like that, but it wasn’t true. Kennedy got to decide what she did, when she did it, and how she did it. She wasn’t going to become a Leo, hanging onto someone even long after she should let go just because of some crazy idea about romance and love.
“Right, honey?” she added, snuggling closer to Bennett’s side.
Bennett was a smart guy though. Wisely, a flicker of apprehension crossed his face before he nodded. “Right. Totally fine.”
Yeah, he knew that wasn’t true. Which was perfect.
5
Bennett’s hand slipped from Kennedy’s back to her ass.
Kennedy gritted her teeth. She supposed that in his mind she should appreciate the obvious signal that they were together. If his mother hadn’t already realized what all of this was about. But this all seemed a little on-the-nose.
Maria sighed. “Your grandmother is also staying here. Just so you know that you and Kennedy will not be sharing a room. At least not…obviously.”
“I’m thirty years old,” Bennett said mildly. “I don’t think Grandmother would believe that I was a virgin even if we had Father Brad tell her so.”
“Father Brad would never say that,” Maria said, rubbing the middle of her forehead with one perfectly manicured finger. “He’s been hearing your confessions since you were a little boy.”
Bennett grinned.
Kennedy shook her head slightly. This had hints of Landry craziness to it. They were almost teasing about sex. She couldn’t quite tell if Maria was actually teasing or was trying to bite back the urge to tell Bennett that he was grounded for the next two weeks. It was as if him being a grown man and immune to her scolding was giving her the beginnings of a migraine.
“And unless you’re going to propose to Kennedy and have the wedding ceremony in the backyard this evening, then you will not be sharing a room as far as your grandmother knows,” Maria said. She dropped her hand. Then she narrowed her eyes. “And so help me, Bennett, if you propose to her and tell me to throw together a wedding in the backyard tonight, I will disown you.”
Crazy Rich Cajuns Page 7
