One-Click Buy: December 2009 Silhouette Desire

by Susan Mallery

  Cici was eating a sandwich for supper at her kitchen counter while she watched the news on her television. The breakup of the merger between Butler Shipyards and Claiborne Energy was such big news, it was on every channel.

  She was grabbing her purse on her way out to T-Bos’s Bar when her cell rang.

  “I want to see you,” Logan said, his voice so deep and dark, the energy in it charged her.

  “I saw the news about the merger. Sounds like you had a rough day. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you busy tonight?”

  “What am I? Your consolation prize.”

  “Hell, I don’t know.”

  “What kind of answer is that?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  All day she’d thought about his kisses and lovemaking until she’d felt he’d branded her as his own. And he didn’t even know why he was calling her.

  “I was on my way out when you called,” she said.

  “I can’t quit thinking about you.”

  She couldn’t, either. “So what? Bad habits are hard to break.”

  “Cici…”

  “So, how’s Alicia?”

  “I haven’t spoken to her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she won’t talk to me, that’s why. But you might say she sent a message to me through a friend. It’s over between us.”

  “Oh, you’re feeling lonely and vulnerable as a result. Which is why you’re calling me. And like a stupid sap I answer. So, you think maybe I’ll make myself available to you again?”

  “No. That’s not it.”

  “Of course, you won’t admit it. You’re a man. Last night turned you on. If this is about sex…you wanting it…thinking you can get it from me…and not being able to get it from your fancy girlfriend…and nothing else…”

  “Cici, I do want to see you. Forget Alicia. Like I said—that’s over.”

  “Look, you didn’t call me all day. So, it’s a little late now, okay?”

  “I thought about you all day…all the damn day. Does that count?”

  “Why should I care?”

  “I thought about you until I’m sick of thinking about you! I couldn’t call because I was dealing with Mitchell Butler and his unreasonable demands. Which were many. Then I was stuck in meetings with the board doing damage control after he trashed our merger.”

  “Poor little rich multimillionaire. Or is it billionaire? Well, I can’t see you. Okay? Not tonight. Because I’ve made other plans. My uncle’s sick, and I promised to help him out.”

  “Tomorrow, then?”

  “Not tomorrow, either.”

  “Why?”

  “I have a life, you know, and so do you as you clearly demonstrated this morning. Oh, and there’s my deadline. You should thank me. I’m letting you off the hook. I’m trying to be smart and logical for a change. And that’s not easy for me.”

  “Cici…”

  “Goodbye!”

  She hung up on him. When her phone rang again, and she saw it was him, she leaned against her counter with clenched fists. She felt all mixed up, wild to see him on the one hand, but scared to death where it would lead.

  All day she’d felt almost sick with longing for him, and then he’d finally called. But what was different between them? He wanted her for sex, and she was afraid she was already too involved to resist him.

  Better to stop now, if she still could.

  A least ten minutes passed before she got herself together enough to walk into her bathroom and splash cold water onto her hot face. After bemoaning the fact she looked absolutely awful whenever she was this upset, she carefully touched up her makeup. Then with a swish of her blue skirts, she marched down her stairs with her head held high.

  Nobody at T-Bos’s could know that her heart was breaking tonight. Not for Logan Claiborne. They’d think her a fool, which she probably was.

  Eight

  Logan pulled up beside Cici’s Miata which was of course parked squarely in the middle of at least thirty or more big black motorcycles. His gaze drifting over cobras and rattlesnakes and angry streaks of red flames painted on the various bikes, Logan cut his engine. Not that he was eager to get out of his Lexus and face these bikers from hell.

  Logan swung himself out of his car and took the stairs two at a time. Then he pushed the rough, un-painted door open. Hard rock music slammed him. Just as he was about to step inside, the meaty claw of a biker’s fist shot toward him through thick waves of cigarette smoke.

  “Not so fast,” Tommy snarled.

  Logan smiled. “Hello, Tommy. Is Cici around?”

  “What’s it to you if she is?” he bellowed. “What in the devil makes you think you’ve got the right to set foot in here, Claiborne?”

  Logan stared into the bloodshot blue eyes of T-Bos’s bouncer. A dozen members of Tommy’s little gang, all squatting around their dirty tables or leaning against the bar slammed their longnecks down and scowled at him.

  Not that Logan recognized any of the hulking figures through the haze of smoke. Except for the neon beer signs, strings of colored lights decorating the bar, television sets mounted in every corner of the building and the flickering strobe lights, T-Bos’s Bar was dimly lit. This was probably a good thing.

  “Where’s Cici?” Logan repeated.

  Two bikers kicked their chairs over and stood up, stretching their brawny arms before crossing them menacingly over their wide chests and beer bellies.

  “What business you got with Bos’s Cici?” Tommy demanded.

  “I called Bos, and Bos told me she was here.”

  “You talked to Bos?” Tommy relaxed visibly.

  “He sent me.”

  “He damn sure didn’t tell me.”

  “So call him, why don’t you? Ask him.”

  “Bos don’t like me botherin’ him when he don’t feel good, that’s why.”

  When cockfighting had been legal, Logan’s grandfather had pressured T-Bos to close his bar and his cock-fighting establishment. Ever since the pit had been closed by new legislation, the Claibornes hadn’t been the most popular people with Bos and his biker clientele.

  “Cici’s out back,” Tommy finally said through gritted, yellow teeth. “You better not be lying about Bos sending you.” Then with a meaningful shrug, Tommy disappeared. As his biker buddies crashed back in their chairs, even as their gazes pinned him, Logan heard him yelling for Cici.

  A new song began to play that was even louder than the one before. Strobe lights began flashing to its beat.

  In less than a minute Cici waltzed in looking like an angel in a pretty blue dress, the like of which Logan had never seen her wear before. Ablaze in the white light, she held a tray of glittering amber beer bottles high over her head.

  Logan shoved a chair aside and loped through the throng of angry bikers to her. He felt embarrassed, nervous with so many tense gazes tracking him. When her shining eyes fixed on his face, she lowered her tray.

  “You’re crazy…coming here,” she said. “Tommy’s not too crazy about you.”

  “I had to see you. It doesn’t make sense, but there it is. I had to see you. Ever since you came back, nothing in my life makes sense anymore.”

  She smiled, but tentatively. “You—being here—makes zero sense.”

  “I missed you today,” he said.

  “You said that on the phone. Why should I believe you?”

  Her smile softened her expression, and something in her eyes welcomed him at least a little. Did she look dazzled? Or was it just the strobe lights? Well, a man could hope, couldn’t he…maybe, just maybe it was him that had made her face go so soft and radiant.

  Desire for her and some other emotion raced along his veins, lighting his nerves. The bikers’ sharp gazes were drilling holes in his back. He should have been embarrassed or maybe scared to death. But suddenly he didn’t care what any of them thought.

  He caught her hand, pulled her nearer. It was simply too good to see her again after th
e long hours apart. Everything else he’d done today, Mitchell, Hayes, Alicia, the merger, Jake, seemed so unimportant. Which was crazy.

  Although it was dark, he could detect her cheeks flush just as he felt himself washed with similar heat. Gently, he intertwined his fingers with hers and brought her hand to his lips. Then he gripped her fingers tightly and just held them against his cheek for a minute or two. It felt good, and so damn right, just to be with her.

  “When do you get off work?” he asked finally, letting her go.

  “Two hours.”

  “What can I do to help? I can wash glasses. Wait tables.”

  “No. You’re to stay away from these guys. Pull up a stool behind the bar and just stay out of trouble. No conversation. Don’t even look their way.”

  “You’re letting me off too easy.”

  “If we get out of here without you getting into a fight, I’m happy. You’re not too popular around here, you know.”

  “As long as you’re glad I’m here….”

  “I’m not making you any promises, Claiborne.”

  “Fair enough,” he said.

  When Cici left the bar on Logan’s hard arm, her heart beat thunderously at the base of her neck.

  “What do you want to do now?” she asked when they stood before their cars.

  “First we kiss. Just once.”

  “Here? No way. We need to beat it.”

  “Here,” he whispered sharply.

  His tanned face lowered toward hers. His blue eyes flamed. Then his mouth touched hers as tenderly and innocently as he’d kissed her that first time, so many years ago when he’d made her realize it was him she wanted, not Jake. His body barely brushed hers. Even so, she felt his heat and wanted more.

  Afterward, when he pulled away, he gazed down at her for a long moment. “Can we go somewhere and talk?” he asked.

  It was harder for her to concentrate after his kiss. He was standing so close, and he felt so deliciously warm. Yet she couldn’t let herself trust him.

  “We could drive to Belle Rose. Make a pot of coffee and then drive into New Orleans,” he said.

  “Look, it’s been a long day. I’ll bet you’re every bit as tired as I am. I think you should spend the night at Belle Rose. Not with me. In the big house across the hall from your grandfather. You should have breakfast with him. Pay attention to him.”

  “Okay, if I follow you home tonight, so I can make sure you don’t have a breakdown?” he said.

  She nodded. “I suppose that’s allowed.”

  He opened her car door for her, and she slid inside.

  “I’m glad you came tonight. I wanted to see you again. You know me—the wild swamp girl with the self-destructive streak.”

  “Cici, I want it to be different this time.”

  “I’m not sure I want…a this time,” she replied. “I’m not sure I could ever trust you again.”

  “I don’t blame you for feeling that way. All I can say is that ever since last night… I’m not myself.”

  “Right, you lost the merger and your girlfriend. So, you’re feeling a little vulnerable.”

  He was about to argue, but she pressed a fingertip against his warm lips. “Cheer up. This too shall pass. You’ll be your old killer, ambitious self in no time. I promise.”

  “Maybe that’s not enough for me anymore.”

  “One night of sex with me and you’re a changed man? Forgive me if I can’t quite buy into the new, reformed Logan Claiborne. I know I’m good, but that would take a miracle worker.” With a laugh she turned her key in the ignition and revved her engine. “Better hop in your car. You’re going to have to drive pretty fast to catch me.”

  As she roared out of the parking lot, the last thing she saw was his headlights flash on and leap forward through the darkness after her.

  The scent of freshly brewed coffee and cooked toast filled the high-ceilinged kitchen that had been used as the prep room in the olden days. Back then the large brick ovens in the real kitchen had been outside.

  Through the open double doors, Cici could see the lovely dining room as she leaned against a long table, munching toast and sipping coffee. And for a moment, the room with its glittering crystal and silver seemed as fantastic as it had when she’d been a child, standing outside peering through the windows.

  “Belle Rose was always a magical place to me,” she said. “I used to love helping Noonoon cook. But most of all I loved hearing her stories about you and Jake.”

  “You were so infatuated with Jake back then.”

  “I did have a crush on him for years and years. He was so reckless and wild. Always doing something like chasing gators to get a girl’s attention. You were so serious.”

  “You mean dull.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. I was dull because Grandpère was always throwing my father and mother up to me. Besides, one twin had to pay attention to business. I was ten minutes older and, therefore, the older, more responsible brother.”

  She laughed.

  He opened the refrigerator. “There’s leftover crawfish étouffée, dirty rice, yams and some gumbo. Are you hungry for more than toast?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “It was wrong of me to come between you and Jake that last summer,” he murmured, his voice growing darker as he shut the door. “Wrong to justify my actions by saying I was saving Jake from you. Wrong to give in to my grandfather’s grudge against you.”

  “Are you finally apologizing?”

  “For what it’s worth, yes. But saying I’m sorry can’t undo the past.”

  “You’re right about that. But we wouldn’t be here now, if you hadn’t wooed me then.” She faltered, not wanting to say more.

  “And we wouldn’t have had last night,” he said.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I’m not sorry about last night.”

  “Not even if it cost you the merger…and Alicia?”

  “No. I’m not sorry.”

  She took a deep breath. “That’s saying a lot, then.”

  “But do you believe me?”

  “It’s too early to tell. But I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Cici…”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Eat your toast.”

  He flushed darkly as if he suddenly felt shy around her.

  She laughed. “Tongue-tied?”

  “What’s with the new, subdued look?” he asked. “The hair…brushed and tied back so neatly? The demure dress?”

  “Maybe last night changed me, too. Although not as profoundly as you claim to be changed. But I’ll be honest enough to admit that I was thinking about you when I bought this dress, thinking maybe I should try to tone my image down.”

  “Cici, I’m not asking you to change. You can even go with the Princess Leia look if you wish.”

  “Who said I was changing just to please you?”

  “Nobody, but I do like the dress. Not that it matters.”

  Smiling, she set her empty coffee cup in the sink. “I guess I’ll go out to the garçonnière now. Catch up on my beauty rest…”

  “Would you like to go dancing first?” he asked. “Maybe at Rousseau’s. That’s not so far. And we wouldn’t have to stay long.”

  He was smiling, and his eyes were sparkling. She was tired; she should be wary. But being wary was not in her nature.

  “Maybe I wouldn’t mind a little dancing,” she said archly. “But only if we go in my car…and you let me drive…with the top down.”

  “I like a woman who likes to be in charge once in a while,” he whispered.

  “Well, don’t you dare try to be a backseat driver.”

  His white teeth flashed as he put his arm around her and led her outside onto the gallery and then down to her Miata. Then he stopped and quickly wrote his grandfather a note telling him he’d found Cici and that they were driving to the well-known dance hall. After placing the note in the kitchen, they raced out to her car.

&n
bsp; She put the top down and said, “Buckle your seat belt.”

  Once behind the wheel, she drove fast, maybe to scare him a little or maybe because that’s the way she always drove. Not that he acted the least bit scared.

  As the humid darkness flew by, he talked about how for years his life had been nothing but business. He told her that running Claiborne Energy was so challenging he often worked seventy-hour weeks, sometimes even more.

  “I guess I thought I had to work like that because my father let Grandpère down, and maybe because Jake had walked out because of me. I think I thought I had a lot to make up for.”

  “Or maybe you were simply ambitious.”

  “Maybe.”

  Petrochemical plants along the river lit up the darkness from time to time, their smokestacks belching noxious fumes, but other stretches beside the levee were edged thickly with trees. They rushed past a stand of willows that streamed eerily in the breeze.

  The moon was high and golden, but she paid it no attention. She was too busy watching the road and listening to him. When she saw the sign for Rousseau’s, the wildly popular dance hall since the 1930s that was located on a tiny piece of sinking land beside the bayou, she pulled over.

  “You were married,” she said, after they found a picnic table on the plywood porch outside the dance hall, because his marriage interested her more than his work did. “Surely, even someone as ambitious as you didn’t work all the time.”

  “But I did. I was never home.”

  “I’m sure she understood,” Cici lied, hoping for more as she nibbled a cracker and watched a pair of elderly dancers through the windows as they slowly glided past them.

  When Logan ordered beer and crawfish tails and an-douille, a spicy, smoked sausage, she wondered how a man could eat so much and remain in such good shape.

  “I guess I told myself she did…at the time,” he said.

  “I have to confess I’ve read about you and Noelle through the years. I poured over every glossy picture of you and her in front of your Italianate mansion in the Garden District I could find. Even when I was overseas I kept up on the Internet. I was still curious to know how the glamorous Claibornes lived. About how you lived.”