by Zoe Dawson
“I have some fun planned for you. Let’s go.” I grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the hall.
She tried in vain to tug her hand away and scowled at me in disapproval, looking toward the backyard. “Your brothers are still out there.”
I gave them a dismissing wave. “They can handle anything. Don’t worry about them.”
“Not even about Boone?”
I stopped and met her snapping green eyes. “Now you’re pushing it, Aubree.”
She rubbed her temple as if she was trying to push pass the confusion I’d created. “You really don’t think this is an issue, do you?”
“No. First we’ll go by and check on your aunt, and then it’s fun time. It’s probably Langston that texted. Just ignore him. Like I said, if he gets a rise out of us, he’ll know something is up.”
“Nothing fazes you.”
Not true. You do.
“Come on, sugar. You can’t statistic yourself to death. There’s more to life than math. And even math would tell you that the reason they made the universe is for you to get out and enjoy it.”
“That’s so surprising. I didn’t know you and math were on a first name basis.”
I grinned and shrugged. Then looked her up and down. “You’re going to need some boots and a pair of jeans. Those, ah…”
“Shorts.”
“Okay, if that’s what you want to call them.” They were as tight as she was uptight.
She raised her brows. “You’re serious about going out?”
“Yes. Believe me, Aubree. If I worried about every dumbass text or phone call or verbal in-my-face threat me and my brothers got, we’d never go anywhere. Learn from a master. If we cower inside from fear, we’ve just let the bastard win.”
“I guess words are not the only thing you’re a master at. You’re more adept at math than you let on. You’re much more interested in my angles, curves, and intersections, I think.”
I gave her a wicked grin. Stone cold busted. I studied her expression for a minute, reading something like fear. Fear of me? Or was it something deeper, more fundamental? Fear of intimacy, maybe. Fear that she might actually enjoy it.
“Yup,” I pointed to my shoulder. “This broad shoulder is a really good place to lean.”
She slipped past me up the stairs. I hoped she covered up that tantalizing pink bra strap, or what I had planned tonight would go much, much slower, and what I shouldn’t even be thinking about would happen much, much faster.
#
We visited with her still-unconscious Aunt Lottie, talking gently to her still form for a half hour or so, then we went on to our next stop.
Aubree was hanging on tight to the door when she asked, “A Jeep, too? How many cars do you have?”
“Three. A truck, the Mustang and this rattletrap.”
We rode down the bayou road, turning off on a narrow, overgrown path.
“Wow. What a beautiful house—all glass and wood. That is one lucky person who lives there. I love this spot on the bayou. I used to come here a lot when I was in high school just to watch the water move and the sun set. It’s so peaceful.”
“Yeah, someone built that house in the fall.”
“They did a great job. It complements the wild nature of this place rather than intrudes on it.”
Thick with trees, the rough and rutted road had me inching the Jeep along. Aubree hung on to the door as the Jeep bounced along, her attention on the scenery. “Do you know where we are?” I asked.
“Blue Bayou, like the song.”
“Yup. Named for the herons that fish and nest around here.”
It was a nice spot, with a narrow, shallow stream, low, muddy banks, and thick growth of water weeds and flowers. “It’s a perfect haven for crayfish.”
“Are you taking me crayfishing?”
“Nope.”
She thrust out her lip. “I love crayfish.”
She seemed to have taken my words to heart. She was still a little tense, but the night air and the beauty of the bayou were already working their magic.
I parked the Jeep and gathered up a bag and a flashlight. When I hefted the gig, her eyes went big.
“Frogging? I’ve never been, and, I can tell you right now, I’m not hitting no cute bullfrog.”
I handed her the flashlight. “Cute? All I know, sugar, is them legs is good eatin’.”
“I can’t argue with that. Frog legs for your party?”
“Brax is going to use his special recipe to fry ‘em up. You game for holding the light?”
“One-third of the unholy trinity cooks?”
My heart jumped in my chest. Did she really buy into all that stuff that was said about us in high school? I turned to look at her, the flashlight frozen in midair. Did my reputation really bother her?
She shifted. “That’s what we called you three in high school in my circle. But I never believed that about you specifically.”
“Some of it was true, but most of it was bullshit.”
She took the flashlight from my outstretched hand. “Yes, I’ll do that much. I love frog legs. Taste like chicken. So, you’re really serving them at your party?”
“Yup, along with a keg of Jax.”
“That sounds so good. I didn’t normally go to parties in high school, but they think you’re a troll in college if you don’t attend.”
I nodded. “Don’t tell me you loosened up enough to drink at parties?”
“Well, I don’t go that far, and I don’t do drugs. They’re bad for your body and mind, but a beer once in a while doesn’t hurt.”
“No, it doesn’t. That Jax goes down cold and smooth.”
She’d changed into a white long-sleeved top with—thankfully—not a pink bra strap in sight, along with a pair of tight jeans that cupped her backside as nicely as those shorts had. She slipped off her shoes and stepped into a pair of rubber knee-boots to wade in.
“So you’ve never been gigging?”
“Nope, but I’ve eaten my fair share of the legs. So, I bet you and your brothers did this when you were kids?”
“Yeah, my old man taught us.” I couldn’t believe that came out of my mouth. I didn’t want to talk about my father. The silence lengthened. “This is tame to some of the gigging I’ve done.”
“Oh, really? Like what?”
“You’ll love this one. Bayou, middle of the night. Pitch black, and the shore is almost obscured. One of my dumbass brothers picks out frogs with his flashlight. Easy to see their bulging eyes reflecting back the bright beam.”
“Is this a true story or are you telling me a whopper?”
“It’s true. I see one and stick it and pop it into my bag. We’re gunning across the water at high speed while trying to lance the little noisy critters. Frogging that way can net you thirty or forty of the suckers in one night, if your aim is true.”
“It sounds like it.”
“One of my dumbass brothers is driving the boat, and he’s downed his third beer, handling this tiny little skiff with its big-ass engine and propeller. I realize I can’t see jack, and he’s blasting across the water at sixty miles an hour.”
“So, the dumbass couldn’t see any better than you could … right?”
I threw back my head and laughed. “So true. When I go gigging on an airboat, I try not to think of what would happen if we hit a tree root or even the shoreline. It’d flip the airboat and we’d be toast. And then there’s all the wildlife. But I’m thinking of a bigger predator…one with a scaly hide.”
She gasped and I laughed again. “Yup.”
“Oh, man.”
“Bullfrogs are not the only eyes reflecting back at you. ‘Gators like to hang on top of the water at night as well. See where I’m going with this?”
“Oh, shit. Really?”
“It’s easy to mistake them in the dark. That’s exactly why my frog-gigging pole is as long as I can make it, because if I spear a ‘gator while shooting across the water faster than the interstate speed limit, I want that s
ucker to be as far from me as possible as quickly as possible.”
“Has that ever happened to you?”
“This one time we’re hauling ass and I go for these eyes. There’s a tremendous jerk and I know, it ain’t no bullfrog. I immediately let it go.” She groaned. “Don’t feel sorry for the ‘gator; Animal Planet wants you to believe they’re endangered, but they’re almost indestructible. A little gigging pole ain’t going to faze ‘em. So imagine that scene. We’ve just ticked off a huge ‘gator that was heavier and longer than the airboat. He came after us, and he was one pissed-off monster. He attacked the side of the airboat. I thought he was going to overturn the fucking thing, leaving us all in the middle of the lake with blood in the water from our gigged frogs.”
“Geez. What did you do?”
“One of my retard brothers threw the whole fucking bag of frogs at him and my other fuckwit brother ran him over.”
When she covered her mouth and laughed, I was enchanted.
“It only stunned him. They’re pretty hard-headed.”
“Wait a minute. Who’s hard-headed? The ‘gator or your brothers?”
I laughed again.
Suddenly, we heard the deep, heartbreaking sound of a slow melody filtering through the dark night. It spoke of loss and sadness, like most Cajun songs.
“What is that?”
“It’s a fiddle. Someone’s playing, givin’ the bullfrogs something to romance the pretty ladies with.”
She laughed. “It’s so beautiful,” she sighed. “But back to your story. You know, it’s no wonder a lot of people from the rural South have a reputation for being a little crazy. That seems downright suicidal.”
“Right. That’s why I prefer to go out after dark with a beautiful woman rather than risk my life with my dumbass brothers.”
The light wobbled and I cursed my stupid tongue, but when I looked at her, the smile she gave me was dazzling. It went straight to my head and exploded into tiny white stars. Her eyes moved over my face and dropped to my mouth. My breath hitched. Our gazes caught, and my internal temperature upped several notches as my blood heated. The two levels of the invisible contact met, meshed, pushed together, rising into another plane altogether.
She didn’t say anything, but her eyes followed my tongue as I wet my bottom lip. Our laughter drifted away, forgotten, on the sultry air, and awareness thickened the humidity around us.
She jolted and looked away. “Oh, there’s another one!”
I speared the frog. Down boy! I ordered my hardened dick. Frog-gigging wood. Freaking A, that was a first.
#
When we reached that beautiful house she’d commented on before, I pulled into the driveway and pushed the remote to open the garage.
She turned to look at me. “This is your house.”
“It is.”
She punched me in the arm. “You really are annoying, Booker.”
I got out of the Jeep chuckling. “Just let me get these frogs taken care of. Come on in.”
She got out and followed me through the door from the garage as I hit the remote again and the door slowly descended behind the three vehicles.
“Oh, man,” she breathed softly as she rushed to the full bank of windows that looked out onto the bayou. “This is so amazing. I’m so jealous of you. Look at that view!—and your deck and garden! The ferns and flowers. Looks like your brother was here, too.”
“Yep. This is where your aunt saw my brother’s work. She contracted him after that.”
“He really is talented. Even my friend, Ashley, who’s studying landscape architecture, thinks so.”
“Yeah, I saw what your friend Ashley thought of my brother, and I don’t think it had anything to do with his artistry.”
She turned, flushing again, catching her bottom lip against her teeth and wincing. “She’s pretty wild.”
“Well, that’s okay. Boone is, too. Recklessly wild. Sometimes I worry about him.”
“Everyone has to find their way, Booker. Looks like you did. So, bestselling author? In what genre?”
“Horror and fantasy.”
“Why horror?” she asked leaning her shoulder against the sliding glass door.
I shrugged. Because I understand it. Because I lived it. It’s inside me. “I guess because it was a good outlet for all my teenaged anger.”
“Teenaged?”
“I wrote the books in high school. Had them sitting on my computer. When this self-publishing craze started, I polished them, got myself an editor and contracted a cover designer. The first book went up last September, and it immediately went viral. I got a lot of press and a lot of offers for the second and third books, but I turned them down. I don’t like being told what to do. Got a problem with authority. And when those next books went up, they’ve been even bigger successes.”
“The rebel author. Why doesn’t that surprise me? What pen name do you write under?”
“O. B. Thomas.”
Her eyes widened and she sucked in her breath. “Seriously? I’ve heard of you.”
“You’ve read my books?”
“No. I…horror scares me. Does the O stand for Outlaw and the B for Booker?”
“Bingo. Thomas is my middle name.”
She just stared at me with admiration in her eyes. I have to say, it was pretty sweet. “I’d better get to these frogs. I’ve got to get them dressed and in ice. Make yourself at home. There’s water, lemonade, and sweet tea in the fridge.”
“I can’t let you do all the work. I helped you skewer the poor things so they could sacrifice their delicious legs to our stomachs. The least I can do is help.”
I looked at her wryly. “This is a pretty messy business. Guts and stuff.”
“Hey, I know you’re not getting sexist on me. I loved biology. Who do you think dissected the frogs?”
“Most girls aren’t keen on skinnin’frogs, sugar. You’re not even eatin’ ’em.”
She gave me a sidelong glance. “I might change my mind about that, depending on what else you’re having.”
“Crayfish.”
She closed her eyes and I heard her stomach growl.
“If you’re having boudin, that’ll seal the deal.”
“Absolutely,” I said. So, the girl loved the Cajun sausage. Boudin hadn’t been on the menu, but it was now. “Okay, let’s go.” I was ecstatic. I felt like a ten year old whose girlfriend was coming to his birthday party.
It took us about thirty minutes to sever the legs and skin them. Once that was done, we washed our hands at the sink. “You got frog guts all over you.”
She shrugged, pulling off the white shirt to reveal a gray cotton tank top. She balled it up and stuffed it in her bag. “So do you.”
“Ugh. Let me take care of that.” I pulled my t-shirt over my head and chucked it into the laundry room behind me. “Do you want something to drink?”
When she didn’t answer, I looked back at her. She just stood there. She had a shell-shocked expression on her face. Then it dawned on me. She couldn’t speak because she was struck dumb by my bare back and chest. I took in a quick breath.
She was so damned beautiful, even when she’d been wearing her frog-gut-smeared shirt. Beautiful in a tousled, repressed, coming-undone sort of way, and up close, in the bright light of my kitchen, her red hair gleaming, her green eyes glazed, she looked exotic.
Every adolescent wish, dream and hope about Aubree and her mouth spiraled down to my dick. But I knew better than to kiss her. So I opened the fridge and grabbed the closest pitcher, the sweet tea. Opening the cupboard, I grabbed two glasses and filled them. I felt her breath on my shoulder and I swallowed. I turned and handed her one of the glasses.
“Thanks,” she said breathlessly. She wasn’t making this any easier. “And thank you for bringing me out here tonight.” She took a sip of her tea. “It helped to get my mind off of, you know, the, ah, text.”
I noticed she hadn’t moved back, even though I’d given her the glass. Her
blush was deepening, and she was having a hard time holding my gaze. Despite her best attempts, her attention kept straying to my chest and my abs, and down the length of my arms.
“We should probably get going with cleaning up the frog guts and all.”
She took a gulp of her tea and set it down. Her eyes honed to a spot on the right side of my face. “Talk about frog guts. You have some on your…” she reached out and clasped the back of my neck presumably to hold me still. She froze me in place, one of those hot freezes, where the sensation of touch, no matter where it started, somehow ended up jolting my balls. Then she brushed her thumb along my cheekbone. Fuck.
I didn’t need this.
Her eyes were on my mouth again, and I’m not some freaking saint, here. That was it. I was toast. I couldn’t go the next five minutes without kissing her. With a soft groan of surrender, I covered her mouth ever so gently. My hands almost circled her tiny waist. I wanted to savor her, drink her in like a fragrant morning air. Kissing her lit up every cell in my body like she was a live wire.
I couldn’t let go of her. I knew I should.
“Should we … I—you, umm…” she said breathlessly, her voice sighing against my mouth as she leaned back far enough to run her thumb across my bottom lip. Her heart pounded against my chest wall as I ran my teeth over her neck, gently grazing her skin.
I understood. I shouldn’t have my hand rubbing gently over her bare midriff, under the band of her shirt. She really shouldn’t be rubbing her face against the side of mine like her life depended on it, but she was trembling, and plastered to me like she needed something solid to hold onto tonight.
And I was solid, all right, like a rock. It had happened so damn fast. She melted against me, easing herself into full-on body contact.
Shit. I knew what I was supposed to be doing—and it wasn’t this—but five minutes.
Or maybe ten.
Because that girl got to me. Everyplace I kissed her she was beautiful, her heart-shaped face, her nose, delicately sculpted and turned up ever so slightly on the end. The almond eyes and the thick eyelashes and the gorgeous mouth I currently and officially couldn’t get enough of.
I was so into her, into her soft curves, and repressed nerves, even her tight ponytail. I loved being this close to her, wanted to get even closer, wanted to be on her, over her, in her.
