One-Click Buy: December 2009 Silhouette Desire

by Susan Mallery

  Driving over to her uncle’s with the top down hadn’t done her crazy, Princess Leia hairdo any good. She looked like she’d sprouted a pair of wild pompoms above each ear. With a smile she remembered watching part of an old Star Wars movie with Noonoon’s granddaughter, who’d wanted to pretend she was Princess Leia after the film was over. Cici had fixed Latasha’s hair and then her own.

  She was still laughing at the memory when she heard the unmistakable sound of a big car on the gravel road. Turning, her smile dissolved the second she recognized the grim, broad-shouldered man in the silver Lexus pulling up beside her Miata.

  What was he doing here? Logan Claiborne was the last person she felt like talking to after the horribly humiliating scene in his office yesterday. He wasn’t welcome here, either. Her uncle held a long-standing grudge against all Claibornes.

  Squaring her shoulders she headed toward the tall man in the three-piece black suit who was swinging himself out of his car while scowling at her.

  Ignoring the acceleration of her heart and his forbidding expression, she said, “Didn’t you see the signs? You’re not exactly welcome here, you know. Tommy told me…”

  Logan shot her a tight smile. “Tommy can go straight to hell.” As always his narrowed, blue gaze lingered a little too long on her breasts.

  She was wearing a tight black T-shirt today with big pink letters that said, Pretty Woman. Not that the T-shirt was anything a Princess Leia clone should be caught dead wearing.

  “You’re not too welcome here yourself from what I hear,” he said.

  “Your being here will make me even less popular, but that’s none of your business. I’ve been reading up on the Butler-Claiborne merger on the Web. Don’t you have big important rich guy stuff to be doing back in New Orleans? Or maybe you could drill up more of the wilderness we both used to love, digging your canals to get to your well heads and thus destroying the natural water flow, your machines throwing so much mud up on the banks, you smother all the vegetation and habitat for good.”

  His eyes climbed from her breasts up her throat to her face with such searing intensity she blushed. When he suddenly smiled, she wondered if it had anything to do with her crazy hairdo.

  “Cici, why did you come home? What do you want? Why are you hanging out with my grandfather and pestering me?”

  “I could argue as to who’s pestering who. This is my home, too, you know.”

  “Is it? Did your uncle ever really want you?”

  She took a deep, painful breath. “That tack won’t win you any points. And as for Pierre, I like him. Ours is a friendship born of mutual need.”

  “I thought you ran away to get away from all this. This place must seem pretty tame to a woman who’s lived like you have.”

  “No, I ran away from you. From how you made me feel, which was cheap and horrible, if that gives you any satisfaction. Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. It didn’t take me long to discover there are worse monsters than you. And by the way, you don’t know anything about how I lived…although I imagine you think I lived wild and loose.”

  “What’ll it take for you to go away again?”

  “Maybe it’s time you learned that I have as much right to be here as you do.”

  “Your uncle doesn’t want you any more than he ever did. I don’t see him opening his damn door. Not even for Noonoon’s gumbo.”

  “He will. He’s just being stubborn.” Her lips curved. “Like a lot of other people…you,” she taunted.

  “He and I are nothing alike.”

  “You say you don’t want me. I don’t think you mean that any more than he does. I think I’m messing things up for you, maybe…maybe because you don’t feel like you pretend—indifferent to me.”

  Logan’s head jerked back as if she’d slapped him. “Shut up,” he whispered even as he stepped thrillingly closer.

  “Okay. Then why did you kiss me? And why are you looking at my lips like you want to do it again?”

  “Stop it.”

  “No. Because maybe I can’t stop what I feel any more than you can.”

  “I can stop it, all right.”

  “Right.” She laughed. “You’re the guy with all the willpower. You probably skip lunch to jog. So, why’d you leave your fancy office and track me here?”

  “I came here to work out a compromise.”

  “No. You didn’t. You want what you want. The problem is maybe so do I. And maybe I’ve finally learned to go after what I want.”

  There was a startled cry from the swamp. They both turned as a blue heron flapped its wide, gray wings and took flight, skimming low just above the brown water.

  “You know what I think, Logan,” she said, turning back to him and finding his eyes glued to her face. “I think we’ve both caught the same fever. If you’re so sure you’re immune to me, kiss me again. Prove I’m wrong about you. About us.”

  “There is no us.”

  “So, prove it, big guy. Kiss me.”

  When he took a step backward, probably to seek the safety of his car, she reached out and grabbed his tie. Reeling him close, she stepped into his arms.

  Stiffening, he stood up straighter. For a second, she was sure he’d push her away and barricade himself in that tank of a car. But he just stood there on the edge of surrender, his heart pounding so hard she could feel it.

  She pulled him even closer. “Kiss me.”

  In the next instant his breath was hot and ragged against her forehead.

  “I don’t want to hurt you again,” he whispered even as she tightened her hold on his tie. “I’m no good for you.”

  And with those words, which were better than an apology somehow, the worst of her anger and hurt that she’d been harboring for so long melted a little.

  Gently, she let go of his tie and touched his thick, dark hair, combing her fingers through it, mussing it a little further. Then she reached up and, framing his face with her hands, she placed her lips gently against his throat.

  “I’ve always liked your hair,” she said. “It’s one thing about you that’s always a mess.”

  He smiled. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  In the next instant his hard mouth was on hers, tasting sweeter than honey and burning hotter than a flame, but then it always had, even if that was a cliché. His mouth sent fire dancing through her veins as she melted against him.

  The kiss was unlike the last one because he wasn’t fighting it, and neither was she. Their lips joined them. Every part of him belonged to her in that primeval man-woman way that felt wilder and more dangerous than the swamp.

  His hungry mouth still locked on hers, he tightened his hold on her, pulling her even closer, his muscular arms binding her to him. Not that she had any desire to run from his kisses or the possession of his powerful embrace. No, like a fool, like before when she’d been a naive kid, she wanted to stay in his arms forever and do all the naughty, forbidden things they’d done before. Was she a fool or what? Yes. Where Logan Claiborne was concerned, the answer was all too obvious.

  Unfortunately, Uncle Bos must’ve been spying on them all along. Suspecting her of having less than wise instincts where Logan Claiborne was concerned, Bos banged his door open and hollered down to her.

  “If you come by for a visit with me, girl, I’m up here waitin’. The door’s wide open. But it won’t be for long unless you get rid of him, yes. If you miss the chance, the next time you see me I might be laying up in my coffin.”

  “Well,” she said, smiling triumphantly up at Logan. “See, he does too want me. And maybe, just maybe I’m right about you wanting me just a little bit, too, yes?”

  Logan pulled her against him and held her close so that she was in no doubt about the hardness or size of his erection. “Maybe a little, but just like always, the old cuss’s timing’s lousy.”

  With a shaky laugh, she raised her hand and smoothed his sensual lips which were still hot with a gentle fingertip.

  “See yo
u,” she promised huskily.

  “Cici, I don’t want to hurt you. This isn’t going to work.”

  Why not, because I come from this hovel on stilts half sunk in rot and muck and you come from your beautiful, charmed Belle Rose? Will I never, ever be good enough?

  Not that she spoke such truths aloud. She wasn’t in the mood for a quarrel or a reality check. No, she had much more appealing ideas about how to spend her time with Logan Claiborne.

  “You really do need to go,” he chided. “I never considered your Uncle Bos a patient man.”

  She smiled, causing him to grin, too. “You have a beautiful mouth,” she said. “Lots of straight, white teeth.”

  “The better to eat you with.”

  “Naughty boy.”

  His eyes glinted as they moved over her face and then down her T-shirt. Tipping her chin with a fingertip, he gently nicked her nose with his teeth. “Naughty girl.”

  “You do have a point.” Fluffing her pompoms, she swished her hips, just to get his mind on her ass where it belonged. Turning, she left him.

  Feeling his heated gaze burning into her spine, she put more swing into her hips and really began to strut.

  Not once did she look back or say another word, not even a sultry goodbye.

  He chuckled out loud.

  It was amazing how well they could get along if they stopped talking.

  The inside of her uncle’s cabin was as dark and musty as ever, maybe mustier. Imagining all sorts of terrible molds, Cici itched to open all the windows and take a scrub brush soaked in chlorine or lemon juice and scour every surface.

  “You knocking on Logan Claiborne’s doors, too? Bringing him gumbo? Trying to win his heart since he be single and the most eligible bachelor in Louisiana again?” Uncle Bos demanded gloomily. “He’s not for you, you know.”

  His expression surly, he was sitting at his rusty dinette set playing with a knife he’d carved out of a razor-sharp alligator tooth while she heated his gumbo over a single flame. His sleeves were rolled so high she could see the beginnings of his many tattoos, which were angry swirls of dragons, snakes and spiders.

  “No, you might say he’s been knocking on mine.”

  He slammed a beer bottle onto the table and violently yanked the top off another. “Well, it would be a mistake to trust him. I hear he’s got a new rich girlfriend.”

  She swallowed against the painful thickening in her suddenly dry throat.

  “Name of Alicia Butler. Her daddy owns a bunch of shipyards. Banks, too. I seen her with him on television.”

  Instead of meeting her uncle’s eyes that were much too watchful, she stared at his crucifix earring. “I know. He told me about her already.”

  He slammed his beer down. “I hear she’s as beautiful and sweet and high class as his first wife, Noelle, who sure was a pretty thing.”

  Glancing away, Cici swallowed and then took a quick breath. She felt trapped suddenly and wished she was anywhere but here.

  “Not that his wife ever smiled or looked happy the few times I seen her.” He kicked back his chair so that he was now sprawled at a disrespectful angle.

  “So, how have you been feeling, Uncle Bos?”

  All four feet of his chair slammed the floor again. “I can’t complain. A little tired since the chemo, but the doctors say they got it all. But then they probably always say that, the bastards.”

  “Maybe they’re telling you the truth.”

  “Maybe,” he agreed gloomily. “Tommy and Noonoon, they showed me all those pictures you took. I tacked a couple up in the front room.”

  “Yes, I saw them.”

  “I like the one where the vulture’s about to eat those starving little girls in the desert.”

  “A lot of people like that one.”

  Everybody except her. She’d won an award for the picture, but it haunted her dreams even though she’d been able to save the girls afterwards. Still, the photo always reminded her that there were too many little girls who wouldn’t be saved.

  “I’ve quit taking pictures for a while.”

  “That’s too bad,” he said. “Why would you stop, when you’re so good at it?”

  Because life could get too scary.

  She didn’t feel like telling him that her hands shook every time she even looked at her camera case. “I needed a rest from it, that’s all. It’s called burnout.”

  “So, what did you come back here for?” he asked, a wealth of suspicion in his gravely tone.

  Again, his narrow gaze was much too keen and hostile for her liking.

  “I’m writing another book about Louisiana.”

  “That’s not what I asked you, girl, and you know it. You’d be a fool if you came back because of him.”

  When she ignored that, too, he said, his tone caustic now, “How long you be staying?”

  “It all depends.”

  “Not on Claiborne I hope. Don’t you know that all he’ll ever want from a girl with your background is to do what he did before, to get in your pants and then dump you?”

  “People can change…sometimes….”

  “Not so much. And not him. I know him and all his kin. And none of ’em have ever been our friend.”

  “Okay. We haven’t so much as spoken in nine years. Can’t we please…”

  “You two aren’t much different than you were back then. Oh, I know you think you’re a professional and all because you write and took all them pictures that made you famous for a day or two. But you didn’t go to college like he did. And he didn’t just go to an ordinary college. He went back East. Ivy League,” he said sneeringly. “He’s rich and powerful and conservative as hell. You’re not. He lives by a set of rules that you could never cotton to, no.”

  “Gumbo’s ready,” she said, ignoring him still.

  He studied her and then looked out the window in exasperation. “I don’t blame you for not listenin’. There was too many times in the past, when I ignored you, too.”

  “I didn’t come here to fight with you about Logan.”

  “Do you still love him?”

  She swallowed tightly and didn’t answer. But his eyes bored into her, and she was afraid that he saw the confusion she was determined to hide from him.

  “Don’t threaten him or hurt him to protect me from being a fool,” she whispered.

  “So that’s how it is,” he muttered. He spit toward a corner in disgust.

  “You’re wrong. I don’t love him.”

  She bit her lips and was silent, and he made no promises to behave. But at least, he made no threats.

  “After we eat some of this here gumbo, you want to take a spin with me in the swamp,” he said at last. “Maybe you could help me with some traps I need to check before it gets dark.”

  For Uncle Bos that was as close as he was likely to come to offering to smoke the peace pipe.

  “There’s nothing I’d like more.”

  “Weird thoughts come to you when you get sick and find yourself stuck in a hospital bed,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “Regrets. I—I wasn’t never much of an uncle to you.”

  “But you took me in. Where would I be if you hadn’t? I wouldn’t have anybody.”

  “Maybe you’d be better off. You wouldn’t have known Claiborne.”

  “At least you’ve always been as hard on yourself as you were on me.” She paused. “Just for the record, I’m glad you opened your door today.”

  “I resented you back then. I was through with females. I didn’t think I needed any little girl messing around in my bachelor life, such that it was.”

  “I know.”

  “You’d be better off to leave this place, to leave me and Claiborne forever.”

  “Probably. But you and me—we don’t always do what we should, now do we?”

  Five

  When Logan arrived at Belle Rose, and a valet parking attendant in a crisp white shirt jumped up from the steps and rushed to open Alicia’s doo
r, he wasn’t surprised by the hordes. Nor was he surprised by the twinkling lights that turned the grounds into a magical fairy land or the least bit amazed when he entered the mansion with Alicia on his arm and found the house blazing with light and filled to the rafters with lively swamp pop, Cici’s favorite brand of music.

  All week Mrs. Dillings had been paying extravagant bills from caterers and florists and making healthy advances to various bands. If he’d raised the slightest objection to the cost of an item, his grandfather had called him, demanding that Cici, who was having the time of her life arranging everything, have her way.

  Logan had done nothing but lose ground as far as Cici was concerned, and he still didn’t know what she was up to. She just seemed to be moving in and taking command of his grandfather and Belle Rose, rewriting their past. In short, she was fast conquering territories that had long been his.

  He was hoping tonight, somehow, that she’d do something so outrageous Grandpère would come to his senses and Logan would once again be able to assume control of his own grandfather and family again.

  Logan ushered Alicia, who looked beautiful in a long backless, gold gown inside the mansion.

  She stopped and glanced up at the swirling staircase and crystal chandeliers that were garlanded with fresh yellow roses. “Why, darling, your old home is even lovelier than I imagined.”

  Frowning because he had Cici to thank for Alicia’s compliment, his gaze swept the tall vases on mantels and polished tables that overflowed with the same yellow roses as well.

  “Yes. Thanks to Cici,” he said.

  “Talented woman.”

  No, dangerous.

  “It reminds me of the parties my mother used to throw,” Logan said. Ironically, in trying to prove her worth, his mother had destroyed it.

  Those parties had stopped abruptly at his parents’ deaths when the Claibornes had found themselves mired in debt and on the brink of financial ruin due to his mother and father. Still, he remembered a younger Cici standing outside on the gallery, peeking through the windows, her round dark eyes awed and made hungry by the splendor of it all.

  Grandp#232;re was seated in the parlor holding court next to a big table stacked high with birthday presents. A dozen older women had pulled their chairs around him and were all vying for his attention. The old man appeared fit. He seemed to be having the time of his life when he looked up and saw Logan just beyond his admirers’ blonde heads.