Two hours later, Tamryn found herself seated in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, the beautiful animal’s heavy hoofs clopping along the narrow French Quarter streets. She tried to engage Matt in a discussion about the various historical structures, but his enthusiasm for history was pathetically lacking.
Once their tour was done, the carriage pulled up to the front gates that surrounded Jackson Square in the very center of the French Quarter.
“I think it’s been long enough since lunch,” Matt announced. He gestured with his head to the open seating area covered with a green-and-white awning. “No visit to the French Quarter is complete without a stop for beignets at Café du Monde.”
“After the huge lunch we had at Antoine’s? There’s no way I can fit in more food. I think I’ve eaten more in the few weeks I’ve been here than I would have in two months back in Boston.”
Matt took both of her hands in his and tugged her gently. She didn’t resist nearly as hard as she should have.
He seated her at a wrought-iron table overlooking Decatur Street. A few minutes later, he joined her, placing a plate of the powdered-sugar-dusted French doughnuts, along with two cups of café au lait, on the table. Tamryn bit into the light dough and groaned. “Oh, my goodness, this is good,” she said.
Subtle, sexy humor lit up Matt’s eyes. “You’re very vocal when you eat,” he teased.
Her cheeks warming with embarrassment, Tamryn set the doughnut on the plate and dusted off her fingers.
“How very ungentlemanly of you to point that out,” she said.
“It has to be the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.”
His gaze fell upon her lips, his eyes suffused with smoldering heat. Anticipation tightened her skin as Matt leaned forward. He reached across the table and swiped the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb. “Sugar,” he murmured.
Tamryn released a shaky breath. “Thank you,” she answered.
In that same low, seductive voice, he said, “Using my finger wasn’t my first choice.”
The current arcing between them was electric. The air? Magnetic. The sights and sounds of the noisy French Quarter faded away as they stared into each other’s eyes.
Tamryn gazed at him, completely mesmerized. “You’re dangerous, Matthew Gauthier.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But don’t let that stop you.”
She leaned forward, her lips inches from his.
And his phone rang.
* * *
Dammit.
Before he even knew who was on the other end of the line, Matt had already made the decision to murder him. He pulled the phone out and frowned at the number.
“I need to take this,” he told Tamryn. He had to turn away because that dazed, sultry look on her face sent his concentration to hell. “Hello,” Matt answered.
As he listened, his eyes slid shut. Corey Anderson, former major leaguer and current baseball coach of the Gauthier High School Fighting Lions, described the scene at the home of his wife’s grandmother, who was the head of the Gauthier Civic Association. This was just what he didn’t need right now.
“Dammit,” Matt cursed. “I’ll be there in an hour. Try to keep the pitchforks out of their hands.”
He ended the call and had to refrain from letting out another curse. Tamryn’s face no longer held that sensual, kissable look. He wanted her face to hold that look all the time.
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
“You can say that.” Matt rubbed the back of his neck. “Apparently, a member of the Gauthier Civic Association discovered that a group in Maplesville is planning to hold a carnival during the same week as Gauthier’s African-American Heritage Festival.” He brought his hands forward and massaged his temples. “There’s been some...tension between the two towns ever since Maplesville got a new outlet mall.”
Matt’s stomach tensed every time he thought about that damn outlet mall. He cursed the day he’d ever contacted those developers. If it wasn’t for him luring them to this area, that outlet mall wouldn’t be here and he wouldn’t have this secret weighing so heavily on him.
“Sounds like something the future state senator needs to get a handle on,” Tamryn said. “I guess that means I’ll have to get that tour of the Cabildo some other time.”
“Sorry about that,” Matt said. Then he grinned. “Actually, that’s a lie. I’m not sorry at all. I remember going there on a field trip back in junior high school. I was bored out of my mind.”
Tamryn’s brows narrowed with exaggerated censure. “This lack of respect for all the wonderful history surrounding you is so disappointing.”
“Maybe if I had a hot professor teaching me, I would have learned to appreciate it more.” He walked around to her chair, but instead of pulling it back, he lowered his head and trailed his lips up the side of her neck. “I think a couple of lessons are in order. What do you think, Professor West?”
“I think if I had you as a student, I wouldn’t get a bit of teaching done.”
“That’s the point,” he said against her neck.
They returned to the university so she could pick up her car, only to discover that it had a flat tire. Matt’s brows rose in surprised amusement as he listened to her light into the rental-car company’s customer-service rep.
“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” he said when she’d finished the call.
“I should have gone with another car-rental company after the busted radiator,” she said, getting back into his car. “I’ll call around tomorrow.”
“Or you can borrow one from me,” Matt offered. She twisted in her seat, her mouth agape as she stared at him in disbelief. Matt shrugged. “I have an old Toyota that’s just sitting in the garage. It needs to be driven anyway.”
“I cannot borrow a car from you,” she said.
“You can if I insist,” he said. “Consider it my apology for the hell I put you through dodging your calls and emails these past six months.”
“Well, when you put it that way...”
Matt chuckled, shaking his head as he maneuvered onto the Pontchartrain Expressway and headed north. He steered the conversation toward Tamryn and her days of growing up in Charlotte, thinking that the less she talked about her research, the less chance there was of her bringing up something that he wasn’t willing to share about his past.
It wasn’t long before Matt realized that getting her to talk about herself had less to do with keeping the spotlight off of him. The more she talked, the more he wanted to know about her.
“Do you get back home often?” he asked.
“At least once a year,” she said. “My parents make the drive up the eastern seaboard every fall. They love the changing of the leaves. They come up to Boston, then take the drive with the other million tourists up through Vermont and Maine.”
“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Matt said. “The only seasons we have down here are hot and hotter.”
“Tell me about it,” she said with a laugh. “You should come to Boston. It’s beautiful up there.”
“Well, I know for a fact that there’s at least one beautiful sight in Boston.”
Her cheeks turned that adorable shade of pink again. It was so easy to make her blush. For what had to be the thousandth time, Matt cursed the fact that her lovely, inquisitive mind posed such a huge threat to his future. What he wouldn’t give to have her be just a regular tourist visiting Gauthier because she wanted a taste of small-town life.
But she was here for a specific purpose—a purpose that could shatter everything he held dear. He could not allow himself to lose sight of that.
Matt made the drive back to Gauthier in less than an hour. He pulled up to the white picket fence surrounding Eloise Dubois’s yard. There were a least a half-dozen cars parked along the road leading t
o the wood-frame house. The setting sun sat just beyond the lush vegetable garden on the side lawn, turning the stalks of corn a brilliant orange.
Tamryn brought her clasped hands to her chest. “Oh, my goodness, I love the garden. I swear everything in this town just oozes charm.”
As they walked up the porch steps, raised, agitated voices could be heard from within the house.
“Yeah,” Matt said with a cynical snort. “I can feel the charm oozing out from every nook and cranny.”
They entered the house and a hush fell over the den as a dozen wide-eyed stares traveled back and forth between him and Tamryn. The chatter went from quiet to a fever pitch as the older women bombarded them with questions while trying to stuff both him and Tamryn with homemade sweet-potato pie and finger sandwiches.
“We can get the skinny on what’s going on between these two later,” Margery Lambert said. “We’re here to discuss this festival they’re planning in Maplesville. Now, what are you going to do about this, Matt?”
The din of angry voices started up again.
Matt stood in front of the television and raised his hands. “Let’s just calm down,” he said. “What exactly is the problem?”
“From what I hear, it’s the same group who convinced their chamber of commerce to allow the outlet mall to be built. They’re planning some kind of customer-appreciation weekend. And they’re trying to use the same carnival company that we were renting rides from for our festival. I want the Tilt-A-Whirl here in Gauthier.”
That set off another round of heated arguments. Matt listened attentively to their grievances while he simultaneously tried to come up with a way to smooth this over so that constituents in both towns would be satisfied. The fact that he’d been so instrumental ushering in the thing that had driven such a huge wedge between the neighboring communities demanded that he come up with a solution. More and more, Matt wished he’d never heard of the Lakeline Group and their damn outlet mall.
“Ladies, please. Give me a minute to look into this. I’ll call Councilman John Devereaux tomorrow. He just took over as president of the Maplesville City Council. We should be able to come to some sort of compromise. I won’t stop until we do.”
Eloise Dubois walked up to him and patted his cheek. “I knew we could count on you, Matty. Your mother would be so proud.”
Her words caused the guilt eating away at him to mushroom, filling every bit of him with shame. Matt could only imagine the disappointment in his mother’s eyes if she were alive to witness her son turning out to be just like the calculating manipulator she’d been married to.
Matt left the Dubois house with a promise to contact the civic association as soon as he had an update for them.
As they drove to Belle Maison, Tamryn regaled him with conversations she’d had with several of the women at Eloise Dubois’s home. Her voice heavy with amusement, she maintained that he had Gauthier’s entire female population wrapped around his little finger.
Matt listened with only half an ear as his mind toiled over the challenge he faced in trying to keep his part in bringing the outlet mall to Maplesville under wraps. He’d hoped that by now people’s anger would have dissipated, but if the arguments he’d heard tonight were any indication, some in Gauthier were prepared to carry this resentment to their graves.
Not for the first time, Matt wondered what would happen if he just came clean about his role in this debacle. He quickly squashed that idea. Despite how popular he was with the people of Gauthier, Patrick Carter was a household name to the citizens in the other areas. If he was going to win this election, Matt needed every single vote he could muster from Gauthier’s residents. If he lost any support at all with the people of his hometown, he could kiss that senate seat goodbye, and along with it, any chance he had of making it up to the people of Gauthier for all the strife he and his family had caused them.
That was the true catalyst for his desire to represent District Twelve. He couldn’t turn back time and stop that outlet mall from being built, but as a state senator he could fight for Gauthier’s residents. He owed it to them.
“Matt? Matt, what’s wrong?” Tamryn called.
He glanced over at her. “What?”
“I asked you about your upcoming debate, but I think you’ve zoned out on me.”
Without taking his eyes from the road, Matt reached over, grabbed her hand and brought it to his lips. He placed a gentle kiss upon her soft fingers.
“I don’t want to talk about the debate, or the campaign, or any of that other stuff. In fact, I don’t want to talk at all. I’d rather just listen to you.”
“You weren’t listening to me,” she pointed out.
“I was,” he lied.
“Really?” She twisted slightly in her seat. “What did I say about the conversation I had with Mya Dubois-Anderson?”
“Um, that her baby is teething, or cooing, or whatever it is that babies do?”
“Wrong.”
Matt shrugged. “I figured new mothers can’t help but talk nonstop about their babies.” He brought her fingers up to his lips again. “I apologize for not listening. I was trying to figure out what I can do to smooth things over between Gauthier’s and Maplesville’s residents. Believe it or not, the two towns actually got along at one time.”
“Is there any way I can help?” she asked.
He glanced over at her. “You can tell me to keep driving past Belle Maison and come home with me.”
Her sexy, throaty laugh rippled across his skin. “How is that supposed to help soothe the tension between Gauthier and Maplesville?”
“I don’t know just yet, but give me a minute. I’m a politician now. I know I can come up with some kind of spin.”
Tamryn leaned over and trailed a kiss along his jaw. “I’m not coming home with you tonight, but I have to admit that I’m tempted.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes,” she breathed. Her voice was thick with what sounded like the same kind of desire that was rushing through his veins. “I haven’t been so tempted in all my life, even though getting involved with you is the last thing I need right now.”
Matt pulled up to Belle Maison, but left the car running. He unbuckled his seat belt and turned slightly toward her. “Come home with me,” he said.
“I can’t, Matt.”
“Yes, you can.” The words came out like a plea, but Matt didn’t care. He needed the distraction she would provide the way he needed air.
He angled his body over the center console, shoving his fingers into her silky, wavy black hair.
“Come home with me,” he whispered against her lips.
“Matthew, I can’t,” she said. Placing a chaste kiss on his mouth, she opened the car door and got out.
Matt shut his eyes briefly before exiting the car and walking over to the passenger side where Tamryn stood.
“Thank you for this afternoon,” she said. “I had planned to tour the French Quarter, but it was much better having you as a tour guide.”
“I think you have that twisted around,” he said, capturing her by the waist and turning around. He spread his feet apart as he leaned back against the car, creating a space for her. “You were the one who played the role of tour guide.”
“True, but I still enjoyed having you with me.” She stepped up to him and gave him another of those quick kisses. They weren’t nearly enough to satisfy him.
Matt pulled her closer and murmured against her lips, “It was my pleasure.” He traced his tongue along the seam before thrusting it inside her mouth.
God, she tasted good. She tasted so damn good that, if he could, he would do this for the next twenty-four hours straight without ever once coming up for air.
A seductive whimper escaped her throat, stoking the fire that had exploded inside of him. Matt used one
hand to cradle her head, holding her steady as his tongue dipped inside the warmth of her mouth. Over and over again his tongue plummeted, thrusting in and out, swirling around. Her sweet flavor drugged his senses, making it hard for him to think about anything but tasting more and more of her.
Dammit, but he wanted to taste more of her. He wanted his tongue on her body—in her body—licking and biting and sucking every delectable inch.
He grew hard; his fight to halt his arousal was no match for the desire building inside of him. His hips thrust forward of their own accord, matching the rhythm of his tongue.
She released another soft moan. The sound slid down his spine, caressing his skin, causing it to pebble. Matt dragged his hands down her sides and around to the small of her back. His palms dropped to her backside, and he pulled her closer, the need to feel her pressed up against him all but consuming him.
“God, Tamryn,” he growled into her mouth.
Matt swallowed the shallow whimper that poured out of her.
“Matt. Matt, stop,” she pleaded.
He could tell by the way she clung to him that she didn’t want him to stop, but she’d said the word, and that was all it took for him to put the brakes on. His mother had raised him to always heed a woman’s request to stop, no matter what he thought she meant.
He released her lips, but not her body. His eyes closed, he dropped his forehead to hers and sucked in a deep, calming breath.
“I’m sorry,” Tamryn whispered. “I just...”
“I know. You can’t,” Matt said. He ran a hand down his face.
“I won’t be able to fight this much longer.”
“But you’re able to do so tonight,” he stated.
She nodded. “I’m not even sure how, but yes, tonight, I’m able to put up a fight.”
Matt blew out a breath and braced both of his elbows on top of the car’s roof. He was as hard as a horny teenager on his first date.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Stop saying that.” He trailed his fingers down her cheek and along her delicate jawline. “You don’t have to apologize. I don’t want you to do anything you’re not ready to do.”
Yours Forever Page 10
