My face flushed. “Is there someway you want me to be, or certain things you want me to do?”
He stroked my left cheek. “I just want you to be you, Nora.”
“I’m sorry, but John used to always tell me—”
He placed his finger against my lips. “Forget about him.” He traced his lips up the side of my neck to my earlobe, “Just do whatever feels right,” he whispered.
His lips felt like warm silk against my skin. “I don’t think I ever knew how to do that,” I admitted.
“I’ll show you. Making love is like a dance, darlin’. We must learn to move together as one.” He placed my hands above my head. “Just relax.”
I tried to relax my body against the bed, but when Jean Marc’s teeth scraped the nape of my neck, I shuddered.
“Move with me, Nora.” He reached for my jeans and slowly pushed them down over my hips. After he tossed my underwear aside, Jean Marc ran his hand along the inside of my thighs, urging my legs apart. When his hand came to rest on my delicate folds, I closed my eyes. His lips teased my throat as his fingers slid inside me.
I gasped against his cheek
“Give in to what you are feeling,” he said as he drove his fingers into me.
I gripped the comforter and arched my body against the bed.
“That’s it,” he whispered as he started slowly moving his fingers in and out of me. “Now you’re learning how to dance.”
The tension in my body began to build and I yearned for him to go deeper. A swell of pleasure took over my senses until I thought I could not stand it any longer. When the orgasm erupted, I buried my head in his chest as I bucked against him.
Just as I began to catch my breath, Jean Marc wriggled beside me. When I opened my eyes, he was lying naked next to me. I rolled over and let my fingertips traverse the outline of the thick muscles in his chest, shoulders and arms.
Jean Marc leaned away from me and reached over to a small nightstand next to the bed.
“What are you doing?” I asked while my hands explored his round butt.
He kissed my cheek as he removed something from the drawer. “Just taking precautions.”
Jean Marc spread my legs wide apart and pulled my hips to his. He kissed my breasts, and then teased my right nipple with his teeth as his fingers stroked my sensitive flesh.
I wrapped my legs about him and looked up into his dark eyes. “Yes, Jean Marc.”
He kept his eyes on mine as he entered me in one slow thrust.
Enfolding me in his arms, he began to move inside me. I pushed my hips against his, urging him deeper. He responded by driving harder into me. My hips rocked back and forth with every powerful penetration. I clung to him, and soon we were moving together as one. My body tingled as the climax quickly spiraled up my spine. I bit down into his shoulder as the spasms of quivering rolled through me. When the passion overwhelmed me, I threw my head back and cried out his name.
Jean Marc’s arms tightened around me as he began to arch his back, slamming his hips faster into mine.
I held him against me as the last waves of his climax rolled through him. When he finally settled his head against my shoulder, he turned his face to me and kissed my cheek.
“Now you’re mine,” he softly said.
I ran my hands through his wavy hair and whispered, “I’ve never done that before.”
“What?” he murmured against my skin.
My cheeks burned, but I said nothing.
“What? Tell me, Nora.”
I shook my head. “I’ve never…you know. I always had to fake it before. I never had one when I was with a man.”
He sat up slightly. “Even with John?”
I nodded.
He removed a strand of blond hair from my face. “Why would you want to marry a man who didn’t please you in every way?”
“Because he was there. He wanted me. I figured if no one else wanted me, why not marry him?”
“But I wanted you,” Jean Marc asserted.
“I thought you didn’t like me. You were always so abrupt with me whenever we saw each other.”
Jean Marc’s deep laugh filled the bedroom. “Nora, I was abrupt because I was frustrated as hell every time I saw you. It was driving me crazy, and I didn’t know how to get through to you.”
“You could have just asked me out on a date,” I suggested and sat up in the bed.
Jean Marc sat up next to me. “If I had asked, would you have gone out on a date with me?”
I studied his rugged features and frowned. “Probably not.”
He shook his head. “See my point.”
“I guess.” I curled my body into his broad chest. “Can I ask you a question?”
His strong arms enveloped me. “Can I stop you?”
“Why did you marry Cynthia?”
Jean Marc rested his head against mine. “She reminded me of you. She was smart, funny, asked a lot of questions, and seemed filled with an innocent enthusiasm for the world around her. After we were married, I realized she was a poor substitute for the woman I really wanted. I began to pull away, and she turned to someone else for comfort.”
“When I was a little girl, I always dreamed that one day we would be together. Then you went off to college and I figured it was time to give up on my dream. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I never could forget about you.”
“I’m glad to see your head has finally accepted what your heart knew all along.”
I smiled as I thought of the years we had wasted. “Why do you think it took us so long to finally get here?”
Jean Marc sighed as he settled his body against mine. “Sometimes you have to discover what you don’t want in order to appreciate what it is you really need. Once you have lived, only then can you truly love.”
As Jean Marc held me, I mulled over his words. Maybe we have to suffer through the bad to appreciate the good in our lives. If John had not come along, I might not have discovered my feelings for Jean Marc. The dark trials of life had a way of making the special moments shine a little bit brighter for all of us. Maybe it was not so much that we had to first live before we found love, but that we had to first love before we truly started living.
Chapter 22
I awoke in the middle of the night to find Jean Marc gone from the king-sized bed. I scanned the darkened bedroom, and fumbled to find a lamp on the nightstand by the bed. When I turned the switch, the small bedroom was flooded in a warm light. I took in the plain oak chest of drawers next to the bed and the round nightstand with the white porcelain lamp on top. I spotted the small drawer in the nightstand Jean Marc had reached into earlier that night. After pulling the drawer open, I peaked inside and found a few packages of condoms, and a hammerless .32 caliber handgun. I picked up the gun and felt its weight. I thought back to the .9mm pistol I had seen Jean Marc carrying in his hand earlier that evening. With all I had learned about him, I wasn’t too surprised to discover another gun in Jean Marc’s home. I replaced the revolver in the drawer and climbed out of the bed. To the right of the bedroom was a blue and white-tiled bathroom, but Jean Marc was not in there. Then, through the silence of the night, I heard the sound of a boat motor. A few seconds later, the slap of the screen door broke through the quiet of the house, and I listened as someone came running up the stairs.
“You’re up,” Jean Marc commented as he stopped in front of the bedroom door.
He had on his jeans, but had not buttoned up his rumpled long-sleeved blue shirt, and his muscular chest peeked out from behind the fabric.
I stepped from the bathroom doorway. “Where did you go?”
His eyes hungrily took in my naked body. “I had to take care of some business.” He shrugged off his shirt and hung it on a green wing chair by the door.
I spied the .9mm pistol in the waistband of his jeans. “I heard the boat motor outside. Want to tell me what you were doing?”
He took the gun from his waistband and put it on the chest of drawers. “I had to meet with my
man after his run.”
“Was there a problem?” I asked, staring at the gun.
He came up to me. “No. He was just letting me know how it went. Forget about that. Right now I have other matters to concern myself with.”
I stroked my hands up and down his thick chest. “Other matters?”
He slid his arm around my back. “Yeah, like keeping you satisfied.”
I reached for the fly on his jeans and began to slowly undo the buttons one by one. “Satisfied?” I grinned. “Who said I was satisfied?” I eased the jeans down from around his hips.
He stepped out of his jeans and kicked them away. “That is something I will have to work on,” he mumbled as he kissed my shoulder.
“Then you better get cracking, buddy,” I teased as I slapped his firm backside.
Jean Marc picked me up in his arms and carried me to the bed.
“I’m going to spend the rest of my life making you happy, Nora Theresa Kehoe,” he whispered, lowering me on to the bed.
I placed my hands about his wide shoulders. “I’m already happy, Jean Marc.”
He kissed me and I wrapped my legs around his hips, eager for more of him.
His fingers traveled down my stomach until they came to the mound of flesh in between my legs. “Happy, but not satisfied…yet.”
* * *
The tinkle of the raindrops against the window behind Jean Marc’s sleigh bed roused me from a deep sleep. His thick arms were draped about me, and I could feel his naked body spooned against my back. I listened to the rhythm of his breathing and felt the rise and fall of his chest. It was the most comforting sensation I had ever known.
I slowly wrestled free of Jean Marc’s embrace, trying all the while not to wake him. When I was finally able to climb from the bed, I quickly searched for something to stave off the early morning chill. I found his blue long-sleeved shirt on the wing back chair by the door and slipped it on. The cotton shirt still had his scent on it, and I breathed in the aroma of him as I wrapped it around my body. When I looked back to the bed, I saw his face scrunched against his pillow, looking like a little boy dreaming of cowboys and Indians. Somewhere deep inside me a yearning began. I wanted to spend every morning for the rest of my life gazing down at that handsome face and watching Jean Marc Gaspard dream.
I tiptoed down the creaky stairway to the first floor landing. In the darkness, I fumbled my way toward the kitchen, desperately looking for something to eat. As I trudged along the floor, feeling my way with my bare feet, I heard the grumble of my stomach.
“Serves you right,” I scolded. “I haven’t had a workout like that since playing on the high school volleyball team.” I smiled, remembering the feel of Jean Marc’s hands on my skin, his mouth kissing my flesh, the weight of his body on mine, and the way he moved inside me.
I silently cursed. “Get a grip, Nora.” I wiped a film of sweat from my forehead. “John never did this to me.”
I opened the refrigerator door and began fanning myself, trying desperately to cool my ardor.
“You’ll catch a cold doing that.”
I jumped as Jean Marc entered the kitchen, dressed only in his blue jeans.
“You scared me.” I nodded to the refrigerator. ”I was hungry.”
“You came down here to raid my fridge, or are you using it as an air conditioner?” He came toward me. “I woke up, and thought you had left.”
I inspected the contents of the refrigerator. “Where was I going to go?”
“You could have gone back to the house, or back to John.”
“There will be no going back to John,” I proclaimed.
“No regrets?”
“Regrets?” I stood from the refrigerator and smiled. “‘Regrets only show up in the rearview mirror of life,’ my dad used to always say. The way to avoid them is not to bother looking back.” I reached out and touched the dark stubble on his chin. “I’m only looking ahead from now on.”
“I’m happy to hear it.” He peered into the open refrigerator door. “I’m afraid the only thing in here is eggs, a package of shredded cheddar cheese and.…” He reached in and grabbed some foreign looking green object wrapped in plastic. “This,” he added.
“What is that?”
“I’m not sure.” He turned it over in his hand. “It’s either a very old green pepper, or something that is not of this earth.” He tossed the green moldy thing into the nearby trash. “I’ll make us some omelets.”
“You never get to the store much,” I remarked as he retrieved the eggs and cheese.
He stepped in front of the cooktop. “Never have time.” He placed the eggs and cheese on the black granite countertop next to him. “When I’m not out of town, I usually pick up something on the way home for dinner. Lunch, I always eat out.” He reached for a large frying pan in a light oak cabinet above his head.
“How often do you have to go out of town?”
He placed the pan on the cooktop. “Usually once a month for the business.”
“Doing what?”
“Dealing with clients,” he coolly replied as he pulled out a glass bowl from another cabinet to his left.
“Do you have a lot of out of town clients?”
He nodded as he put the bowl on the counter. “Quite a few.”
“Really?” I folded my arms across my chest. “Like where?”
He sighed and reached for the eggs. “Nora, do you want me to cook for you or do you want to interrogate me?”
“Sorry. I was just curious.” I waved to the bowl on the counter. “You really don’t have to cook. We could sneak over to the house and grab something to eat. Your mother made a big pot of gumbo yesterday.”
He shook his head. “Henri’s home. I won’t go near the place if I have to look at him.”
I stared at him, slightly taken aback by his comment. “After everything Henri has been through, how you can’t still feel such animosity toward him?”
Jean Marc snorted as he broke some eggs into the glass bowl. “There has never been anything emotionally between us. Ever since we were children, we have been distant.” He beat the eggs with a fork. “As far as what my brother has been through,” he added some shredded cheddar to the eggs, “it’s nothing less than he deserves.”
I leaned my hip against the counter next to him. “Don’t you think you’re being a little hard on him?”
“Nora, don’t try and make me look through that rearview mirror of yours when it comes to my brother.” He mixed the eggs and cheese together. “My family is filled with nothing but regrets about Henri. My father bailed him out of a lot of fights, a few pregnant girlfriends who needed abortions, and even a jail sentence or two. I think that’s what drove my father to an early grave. Now it’s my turn to be my brother’s keeper.”
“What do you mean?”
He poured the eggs and cheese into the large frying pan. “Who do you think is paying for all that fancy health care he’s getting at the house? Henri had no insurance. I had to shell out a bundle for the hospital and the doctors.”
“But why are you paying his bills?”
“Mother asked me to. She thought it would help mend fences between Henri and me. She has been trying to get us to make up for years.”
“Make up? I don’t understand, Jean Marc.”
“When I came back from Texas, Henri was supposedly helping our father run Gaspard Fisheries, except I found out Henri was stealing from the company, and was using the trawlers for running drugs through the swamps for some associates of his. Father was ill by this time and I didn’t want to make things worse for him, so I confronted Henri, privately.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “We fought, like always. It got physical and I finally convinced him to leave Gaspard Fisheries and my parents alone.”
I raised my eyebrows skeptically. “You convinced him?”
“That scar down his right cheek.” He traced a finger down his right cheek. “A reminder of our bargain. He ha
s never forgiven me for taking over the business, and I have never forgiven him for almost bankrupting our family.” He placed his arm about my waist and pulled me next to him. “So, don’t feel too sorry for my brother.” He paused for a moment and then frowned. “I want you to consider yourself on notice as far as Henri is concerned. Next week, when cousin Ethel arrives, you are to move in here with me.”
I was stunned by his proposal. “Move in here? And do what?”
“Help me run Gaspard Fisheries, of course. We can build our little empire.”
“What about my life, my job, my home back in the city?”
“To hell with all of it.” He flipped the omelet gracefully over in the pan and then moved toward the cabinet to the right of the sink. “Your place is going to be here with me.”
As I watched Jean Marc searching for a plate, the certainty of last night returned to me. No feelings of doubt ate at me. My stomach was quiet and the only burning I felt was my hunger for food. The inner depths of my being were calm.
“Maybe you should call John right now and tell him of your change in plans,” Jean Marc suggested as he slid the omelet on to a large blue plate. “Better to get the bad stuff over with early.”
“It’s still dark outside.” I said, looking out the kitchen window to the bayou.
“When are you going to tell him?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I should wait a bit.”
“Perhaps I should call him,” Jean Marc grumbled, his merciless eyes probing mine.
“I get the message. I’ll call him today and tell him it’s over. I hope he doesn’t come here to try and talk me out of it.” I paused and thought for a moment. “Maybe I should just wait and go back to New Orleans to tell him.”
Jean Marc shook his head as he placed the plate in front of me. “Not a good idea.” He handed me fork. “What if he calls you before you confront him? Are you going to lie and pretend everything is fine between you two?”
I took the fork and shrugged. “He’s already called, but I’ve been busy with Henri. I could just be busy when he calls.”
“He’ll know something is wrong, Nora. Any man would.” Jean Marc turned away to put the frying pan in the sink.
Acadian Waltz Page 20
