by Eden Bradley
“What are you thinking, Catie chere?” Bat asked quietly. “Because you’re safe.”
She hadn’t realized that she’d frozen, was reliving the attack again in her mind, until Bat wrapped his arms around her and held her with a fierce protectiveness she’d never known. “I know. How do you know it was him last night?”
“His tattoo. It’s better that you don’t go anywhere alone.”
“Tell me what he said.”
“It’s not important.”
She saw the clench of his jaw and reached out to touch the bruise on his cheek. “You fought him.”
“Yes. I told him that if he came near you, he’d regret the day he was born.”
“What do I do now?”
“You need to stick close to me. He won’t touch you, he knows better. And then you’ll leave this town and he’ll forget about you.”
He’ll forget about you. She wondered if the same would hold true for Bat. And then she wondered why she cared, because she’d known the man less than two days.
“It’ll be all right. That’s why I’m here. This is a tough enough business for anyone, but especially for a woman with no protection—a woman in a strange place.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful you’re here, but it’s frustrating. I’m used to doing things on my own, getting them done. Here, I can’t make a move without something going wrong.”
“You’ve been on your own for a while now, haven’t you?”
“Since I was eighteen,” she admitted. But really, it seemed longer. Her mother had never been a responsible one—she’d always left that up to Catie. It was something Catie hadn’t minded at the time, but now, looking back, she got a tightness in her throat when she thought about what she’d missed out on all those years, when she was cooking and cleaning and caring for her brother, years she should’ve been having fun.
“After my mom died, things got really intense,” she said.
Art had always been her escape. At times, after her mom died, it had been her only salvation, something to carry her through when she wasn’t sure if she was going to make enough money that month to keep her brother with her, or when she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to make it a second longer working what she knew were dead-end jobs that left her too tired to work on her own art.
“Sounds like you stayed busy,” he said, and she noted he hadn’t let her out of his arms.
“I probably never took the time to grieve properly,” she admitted. “I had to take care of my fourteen-year-old brother. Which wasn’t new, but without the safety net of my mother, I was really on my own.”
She’d worked her ass off to make sure that he’d be able to stay with her and that they weren’t separated. She’d had to meet with social workers and judges, and after a year they’d deemed her responsible and she’d been given continued support from the state.
“Where’s your brother now?”
“College—thanks to scholarships—and on the road to law school.” He was actually her half brother but she never considered him so. He was brilliant. Funny. He’d told her, with all his twenty years of wisdom, that she needed a new beginning.
Before she’d driven out here she’d bought all new art supplies in hopes that would be the case.
It was a step in the right direction. She knew that being in Bat’s arms was another—he was the kind of man mothers warned their daughters about. Every mother except hers, she supposed, because she couldn’t shake the feeling that her own momma would’ve urged her to get as close to Bat as possible, and stay there as long as she could.
For the moment, that’s exactly what Catie would do.
Using the early morning light as her guide, Catie sketched Bat, replicated the shadows along the muscles in his chest and arms and thighs onto the paper, created his form with charcoal smudges and fast strokes.
She took some time to study the various scars on his body—the ones she’d noted in the mirror last night and explored with her fingers and mouth in the moonlight, assumed they were tokens from his work. If they were an indication, he had gotten off easily with the Bon Temps crowd last night.
He cradled the pillow against his face the same way he’d held her when they’d finally both settled to sleep after he’d taken her with his hands and mouth and long, thick cock, filling her up until she was sated and sleepy and strangely pulled even tighter, wanting more. The man was addictive, even while asleep, his breathing deep and comfortable, his body splayed across the bed and tangled in the sheets.
She put down the sketchbook and stretched, went to put on some water for tea in the kitchenette off the smaller sitting room. When she came back into the bedroom, the bed was empty and her sketchbook had been paged through.
She wondered if he had a favorite drawing—if he liked the shadowed sketches of the two of them together in front of the mirror or the ones of him alone, one large arm curled around the pillow.
And then she followed the sound of the shower and waited in the doorway for a second, just watching him.
There was no shower curtain and Bat faced the tile, head under the steady spray, water rippling off his body.
“You slept well, Catie chere.” He didn’t turn around and she wondered how he did that, knew she was there behind him despite the noise of the shower.
“Before you came, I was having a tough time sleeping around here,” she said. “I’m used to a lot more noise. Different noise.”
“Sounds of the night Bayou coming alive,” he said as he continued to let the water pour down over him. “You ever really been out on the Bayou Teche, bebe?”
“I haven’t had time for the grand tour. It is beautiful country, from what I caught on the drive in.”
“I don’t see a car in the parking lot.”
“I had to sell it once I got here, to start in on the bar’s repairs.” The roof had been badly damaged. Now, she’d been assured, it was hurricane proof and she had no mode of transportation except her own two feet.
She wouldn’t need a car once she got back to the city anyway. “Wait, how did you know I slept?” she asked.
“Because I don’t,” he answered, and she wasn’t sure what it meant that he’d lain there in bed holding her while she slept, and then for a couple of hours pretended to be asleep so she could draw him.
“Are you coming in?” He finally turned to face her, his hard body slick with soap and water, and yes, she was coming in. Anything to stay close to the strength of his body.
She stripped out of the shirt and underwear she’d pulled on this morning for working, and climbed into the old claw-footed tub with him. He held her steady, turned so she was under the spray of the shower with him, his arousal hard against her belly.
But he didn’t do what she expected—instead, he turned the bar of soap in his large hands and lathered her back and shoulders, massaging her as he did so. His hands were strong and sure, left soapy trails as they kneaded and probed away tension she hadn’t even been aware of carrying.
“God, that feels good,” she murmured.
“You need more nights like last night.” He’d squirted shampoo onto his palms and now his fingers moved to her scalp, rubbing and pressing. “Good thing I’m available.”
“What did you think of the sketches?”
He smiled, a slow, lazy tug that began at the left corner of his mouth and spread. And he took her hand and wrapped it around his erection. “I thought they were hot. Turned me on almost as much as seeing you naked, under me.”
She’d gotten turned on drawing them, and now she let her hand travel up his shaft to the heavy sac. “Why don’t you sleep?”
“Military trained it out of me. I was a Marine sniper.”
“Where did you get this done?” She traced the outline of the tattoo of the skull and crossbones surrounded by stars on his biceps with a soapy finger, letting her other fingers trail underneath his balls.
“A guy I used to know did it for me, down in Chattanooga. Told me to never
forget my past.”
“Swift. Silent. Deadly.” She repeated each word that was inked around the symbol, as his hands moved over her hips to travel lower, between their bodies, nestling between her legs.
“Does that describe you?” she breathed as his first stroke threatened to undo her. How was that possible?
“What do you think?”
She thought yes. Definitely yes. And she didn’t want him to stop what he was doing with his hand. “So that’s what being a sniper is all about?”
“Yeah. It’s all about precision. One shot, one kill,” he murmured as his finger found the precise spot that nearly made her leap out of his arms. If he hadn’t had her pinned against him, her knees would’ve given out from the quick, sharp orgasm.
She dug her fingers into his shoulders, leaving marks and not caring. He didn’t seem to mind, continued to watch her face carefully as he shifted her, picked her up by her hips so she was forced to wrap her legs around him.
“Let me take you back to bed, Catie chere.” He didn’t wait for her answer before he was carrying her out of the bathroom and placing them both, still damp from the shower, on the rumpled sheets. The cool morning breeze was replaced by a hot, steamy breath of air that escaped from behind the half-drawn shades and the old window screens, but it was still quiet outside.
She pushed his chest and he grinned and complied, lying on his back. This time, she covered his body with hers, and she began to make her way down his body with her mouth. Her hands caressed what her lips left behind, tracing the smooth skin over all that hard muscle, committing it to memory.
She sucked a nipple, hard, until it tightened in her mouth and he groaned, tugged his hand through her hair. “You’re killing me, Catie.”
He shifted under her, his hips rocking into her persistently—he was hard against her and she liked the idea that he was trapped that way, waiting for her. Needing her.
She inhaled the scent of the damp, crisp hairs that trailed down from his abs, let her mouth drag down lower, toward the thick head of his cock.
There was a drop of moisture at the tip, and when she squeezed the shaft, the moisture lengthened, beaded like pearls against the plum-colored head.
“I can’t even get my hand around you, Bat, that’s how big you are,” she murmured before she licked the drops of pre-cum, suckling lightly along the slit, then pulled back to watch her palm move up and down, her fingers unable to encircle him fully.
When he’d first entered her last night, she’d felt stretched to the hilt. Her body was pleasantly sore today, but judging by how wet she was between her legs, she was more than ready to take him inside of her again. Her sex ached for that, contracted at the mere thought, but she wanted more of the heavy sex between his legs first, wanted to explore that unmistakably male part of him that her body craved.
“You were so tight.” His voice was rough, his breathing faster than normal, a flush on his cheeks that wasn’t from the shower or the sun. “Want to be inside you again—want you to come, over and over.”
In response, she moved down to take his balls, one by one, into her mouth, until he writhed up, nearly off the bed. She still had him in her hand, worked him up and down as she felt his restraint in the tense muscles of his thighs.
He shifted, reached down and tugged at her shoulder. “Catie, I want to taste you at the same time. Turn yourself around.”
Her cheeks flushed even as she moved her body so his face could reach between her legs, until his tongue made contact with her already swollen clit. When it did, she gasped around his cock and then hummed in pleasure, which made him jerk in response.
He spread her thighs, pulled her closer so she was actually sitting on his face and he was buried, mouth and tongue, inside of her, his tongue invading her core until she writhed against him helplessly.
He was just as helpless, a prisoner to her mouth—every suck and lick made her do the same to him in kind, every muscle in his body tensed so hard that he shook, but he stopped himself from coming.
She couldn’t; she came on his face with a blinding intensity that shook her entire body, her sex fisting around his tongue. She didn’t even realize that Bat had eased her away from his cock, was taking her from behind before she recovered from her orgasm.
His weight was heavy on her, his chest pressed to her back as they moved in tandem. His hands held her hips fast and she writhed back against him, wanting him deeper, letting his relentless driving bring her over the edge again.
He came quickly as well, pulsed inside of her, and she didn’t know how he’d gotten the condom on as quickly as he had. They collapsed together, his heavy weight pinning her to the bed, and oh, yes, this was the right way to spend a morning.
CHAPTER
Six
Normally, Catie would make the three-block walk to Flo’s—the cheapest and best place she’d found to eat in town—alone. This morning, Bat walked her there and told her to stay put until he returned from the hardware store.
She didn’t argue. Besides, the diner had become her second home, and the namesake of the place was a tall, bleached blonde in her sixties who spoke in a heavy Louisiana drawl and had become a mother hen to Catie.
It made sense, since Flo and Catie’s momma had been best friends growing up, their friendship breaking off completely when Catie’s mom left town. The first time Catie walked into the diner, Flo had paled as if she’d seen a ghost and called Catie Marie.
“You didn’t have dinner last night, did you?” Flo chided Catie as soon as she walked in the door.
The breakfast crowd was large and noisy, thanks to the weekend. Catie moved to sit at the counter on one of the comfortably worn stools, and Flo pushed an iced coffee toward her and called for a special over her shoulder, toward the cook at the grill.
“I need one special to go this morning too.”
“Heard there’s been quite a show over at the Bon Temps these past two nights.”
“Just the usual fights.”
“Uh-huh. And a mystery man who just happened to roll into town at the right time, on a vintage Harley, no less.” Flo winked.
“He’s the new cooler I hired. His name is—”
“Bat Kelly. Yes, I know. He grew up two towns over,” Flo said. “A real wild child, that boy. Drove his momma and daddy crazy until he left to join the Marines. Hasn’t been back since, until now. Heard he’s made quite a name for himself.”
“I heard the same thing,” Catie murmured, flashing back to the morning spent in bed and the delicious soreness between her legs.
“Catie Jane, where’d you go?” Flo was saying as she put a huge plate in front of her on the counter. “Dreaming about your new cooler?”
“No,” she protested, felt her cheeks grow warm and shoveled a forkful of eggs into her mouth so she didn’t have to speak for a few seconds.
“I would. The man is beautiful. And it’s about time Bayou Rouge got some new life to it—it could only help my business. So many people left after Katrina. I can’t blame them, but I feel like the history of this place is going to be lost to that damned bitch of a storm.” Flo sighed, propped her elbows on the counter and rested her chin in her hands. “I remember when the Bon Temps first opened. Your uncle Carl was just a kid himself when he bought the place. Barely nineteen, fresh out of the service and handsome as the devil.”
“Sounds like you knew him pretty well.”
“He was a heartbreaker, but then again, so was I.” Flo smiled.
“So why didn’t you and Carl end up together?”
“Fate just didn’t line us up right. And then my Jimmy roared into town on his motorcycle and I never looked back.” Flo smiled and pointed to a picture that hung on the wall closest to the counter. It showed a much younger version of her sitting on the back of a bike, a tall, handsome man next to her. “I’ve always been a sucker for the bad boy, I guess.”
“Just like my mom.” It was the first time Catie had brought up that subject in front of Flo, and
it made her stomach ache. She pushed the plate of half-eaten food slightly away from her.
Flo pushed it right back. “Your mother always told me that she felt as though she loved your father too much. She always was a romantic, although too dramatic at times to suit people’s tastes. She used to tell me, Flo, I know Ed will break my heart—shatter it into a thousand pieces, and I’ll never get them pieced back together just right.”
“Is…” Catie couldn’t bring herself to call him her father. “Is Ed still around?”
Flo’s face changed, her eyes darkening a little. “Oh, honey, your momma never knew…Ed was killed riding his hog up to New Orleans about two weeks after your momma left town.”
“Would Ed have…I mean, do you think he would’ve stuck around…raised me?” Catie asked.
Flo shook her head sadly. “I think Ed would’ve done just what your momma said he’d do. Maybe that’s why she left—maybe her heart was only broken in five hundred pieces, a little easier to put together.”
“No, it wasn’t easier.”
“It’s a good lesson.”
“Of what?”
“Not to waste time on what might have been. To let what’s supposed to happen just be.” Flo waved her hand. “People these days spend too much time thinking and not enough time just doing.”
Flo’s words hit a little too close to home for comfort and Catie played with a piece of toast so she wouldn’t have to respond.
“Did your momma ever get over him?” Flo asked finally.
Catie’s mom was always running from one place—and one man—to another. Still, she’d been a strong woman, never let anyone hurt Catie or her half brother, but when it came to giving men her heart, her mother seemed completely hopeless.
“You know what, Flo, I don’t think she ever did.”
The thing was, Momma always got her heart broken, but she always seemed…happy.
I’ve lived, honey—lived and loved. If you can’t say that, then what’s the point?
Lived and loved.
“Your momma, she ran. Too far…too far from her family.” Flo shook her head.
