by JoAnn Ross
That Emma had followed him around like a puppy, and although it probably had been selfish of him, he’d let her. Emma had been the only person he could talk to. The only person he could share his impossible dreams with. The only person, besides Nate Callahan—who’d been struggling to start up his construction business and take care of his dying mother in those days—whom Gabe trusted.
And, although there’d occasionally been times when he’d felt a little sexual tug, and known that she would have been more than willing to let him do anything he wanted, getting naked in the backseat of his Trans Am with a friend would’ve been just too weird.
Like their one night together hadn’t been?
Shit.
“What are you going to do for a car out at the camp?”
“Can’t see that I’ll need one. Nate stocked the place with groceries and the pirogue’s there. It’s not like Blue Bayou’s got a lot of nightlife I’m going to be missing out on.”
“You might be surprised. We’re celebrating Jean Lafitte Days this weekend.”
“Yeah, Nate mentioned something about that. But as much as I hate to miss all the fun, I think I’ll pass.”
“You don’t have to be sarcastic. A parade and a dance probably don’t seem that big a deal to a jet-setting movie star,” she said. “But people enjoy it. And the money from the tickets goes to an after-school recreation program for the kids of the parish, so it’s all for a good cause.”
“I’m not sayin’ it isn’t. In fact, I’ll write you a check. I’m just not feelin’ real sociable right now.”
“Speaking as deputy mayor, I’ll be happy to accept any contribution you’d like to make,” she said stiffly, sounding, Gabe thought, uncomfortably, like her mother.
“I’ve gotta admit to bein’ surprised you’re not still pissed off at me.”
“About what?” Her tone was casual enough, but the slight tightening of her fingers on the steering wheel gave her away.
“My last night in town. The one we spent together.”
“It may come as a huge surprise to your movie star ego, but it’s been years since I even thought about that.” She kept her gaze directed out the windshield. “Besides, it wasn’t as if anything happened.”
“That’s not the way I remember it.”
Her skirt, colored in a bright tropical print, was calf-length. Which was the bad news since it had him salivating like one of Pavlov’s pups for a look at her long legs.
The good news was that it was cut like a sarong. As she stepped on the gas to pass a minivan, the silk parted, giving him a view of thigh that caused his insides to tingle and heat up.
Speaking of heating up . . .
“I recall you bein’ hot as a Mardi Gras firecracker, you.”
“You were so drunk I’m surprised you remember anything about that night.”
“I might have been tanked, sure enough. But it’s hard to forget giving a girl her first orgasm.”
Her deep, rich laugh sent the heat in his belly traveling south. “You are so full of yourself, Gabriel Broussard. What makes you think that was my first?”
He’d tried to forget most of the things that had happened that night, but one thing had remained vividly etched on his mind: the memory of Emma writhing beneath his plundering mouth, her bare back bowed off the soft, Spanish-moss stuffed mattress, the breathless cries—almost like keening—that were ripped from her ravished lips as he drove her higher and higher until she’d come, screaming his name.
Even now, ten years later, the mental picture of her, flushed and uncharacteristically wanton, was so vivid, it was all he could do to keep from licking the pale flesh exposed by that sexy slit in her skirt.
“Solo flying doesn’t count,” he said.
A corner of her mouth turned down in a frown, but she didn’t deny his point that he’d been her first. First man. First orgasm.
“Speaking of flying, along with all that booze, you also had enough Demerol in your system to fly to the moon.” She tossed him a look. “Solo.”
She’d warned him against mixing drugs and alcohol. But had he listened? Hell, no. He’d been on a crazy, self-destructive binge that night and by the time they’d reached the camp after the emergency room visit, he’d had to lean on her to stagger into the cabin.
He’d fallen onto the bed, taking her with him in a tangle of arms and legs. Her dress—an unflattering, black taffeta—had crackled when he’d delved beneath it. That sound had, for some inexplicable reason, generated such a hot spurt of lust that years later, while filming the scene in The Last Pirate, where Jean Lafitte attends a ball in the French Quarter, the sound of all those rustling petticoats the costume designer had put the actresses in caused him to walk around with a boner for two days.
His reaction had not gone unnoticed; several conservative religious groups had had a field day posting close-ups of his groin on the Internet as yet another example of the erosion of the national morality.
“I sure as hell wasn’t feeling any pain, me.” Not when he’d left the ER anyway. And certainly not later, when he’d been rolling around on that fragrant mattress with Emma. “Like I said, I don’t remember much about that night. But I’ve got the feelin’ I never thanked you for all you did.”
“We were friends,” she said simply. “You would have done the same thing for me.”
The bitch was, Gabe wasn’t real sure he would’ve. He’d been a pretty self-centered bastard in those days. A ’90s James Dean retread. Rebel without a clue.
Gabe sighed.
“So,” he said, deciding to change the topic, “I guess you heard about the little mess I’m in.”
“Which mess is that?”
“Excuse me. I hadn’t realized you’d been away on Mars the past week.” Of all the topics he could have chosen, why the hell had he brought that one up? What was wrong with the weather? That was always a safe topic. Or sports.
“So, do you think the Saints are going to be able to capture the NFC South this season?”
“I’ve no idea.” Her tone suggested she didn’t give a rat’s ass, either. “Football isn’t real big up on Mars—it’s hard to mark the yardage lines in all that red dust—so I’m a little out of the loop.” They were crossing the old iron bridge over the Mississippi. “So, what mess are we talking about?”
“The one about my so-called engagement.”
“Ah.” She nodded in a way that told him she’d known exactly what he’d been referring to. “The one your little television star fiancée called off.”
Gabe ground his teeth and felt his penis, which had gotten semi-hard at the memory of Emma lying beneath him, deflated like a three-day-old balloon. Timing, he thought, was effin’ everything. “Tamara Templeton was never my fiancée.”
“I see.” She nodded again, obviously not buying his denial. “And you bought her that ten carat Tiffany diamond why?”
“I didn’t buy it.”
That captured her attention. She glanced over at him. “Mary Hart said you did.”
“Mary Hart may be one helluva television personality. She’s also fairer than most of her breed.” Because for some reason it was important that Emma understand he wasn’t a total son-of-a-bitch, he yanked off the shades and looked her straight in the eye. “She’s been known to get her facts wrong.”
He watched the wheels turn around in her bright head as she processed that little bit of information. Then she turned her attention back to the narrow road. “If Mary Hart’s so fair, why didn’t you tell her what you’ve just told me? That you weren’t really engaged?”
Good question. “Dammit, because it’s fuckin’ complicated.”
“You don’t have to shout at me, Gabriel. After all, you’re the one who brought it up,” she reminded him.
“You’ve not only gotten damn sexy, chère. You’re a helluva lot tougher than you used to be.” Sassier. And damned if it didn’t look good on her.
“From necessity.” She shot him another look. “Do you have
a problem with tough women?”
“Actually, I like them.” He especially liked picturing Emma wearing only a pair of black leather thigh-high boots and a wicked smile. “Under the right circumstances.” Like in his bedroom with flames crackling in the fireplace, and some slow, sultry tenor jazz flowing from the Surround sound speakers. “When they play fair.”
“And your fiancée didn’t?”
“She wasn’t my goddamn—”
“Right. Tamara Templeton wasn’t your real fiancée. Just your fake one. Which is funny—”
“There’s nothing funny about this.”
“Funny odd. Not funny ha-ha,” she corrected calmly. “Although I’m admittedly no expert on precious gems, that Texas-size rock weighing down her left hand sure didn’t look like a fake diamond.”
Gabe could tell from her tone that she wasn’t ready to suspend all disbelief. Hell, he didn’t blame her.
“You’re right. It was real. But I didn’t buy it.” He yanked off his Ragin’ Cajun cap and dragged his hand through his hair. “Hell, we’d only gone out twice. Both times set up by our agent to maximize press coverage.”
“I wouldn’t think you’d need that.”
“It wasn’t really my choice. But Tamara was hot to change her image—”
“So she figured the best way to do that would be to go out with Hollywood’s bad boy?”
Okay, now they were back to dealing with major disbelief.
“That reputation is overrated,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “It’s typecasting. Because I tend to choose roles that look at the dark side of human nature, people figure I’m a son of a bitch in real life.”
“If you say so.”
He still wasn’t convincing her. Gabe mentally added a whip to the image of her wearing those dominatrix boots. “My agent asked me to accompany Tamara to a couple public events. Since Caroline was the first person in the business to take me seriously, and stuck with me when I refused to play the teen idol card after the pirate flick, I figured I owed her one.”
“I can see why you wouldn’t want to be typecast as a teen hunk. But The Last Pirate was a very good movie.”
“You saw it?” Gabe found himself liking that idea.
“Of course. It played to a packed house at the Bijou for five weeks. I doubt there was anyone in the parish who didn’t see it at least once.”
“Which is surprising, since I’m sure as hell not Blue Bayou’s favorite son.”
“Jean Lafitte was from around here. That gave it a local connection. Plus, I think a lot of people were curious to see how Blue Bayou’s favorite juvenile delinquent turned out.” Her plump, made-for-sin mouth curved in a smile that sent a lightning bolt of heat straight to his groin. “You were very good. Not that I ever had any doubts.”
“That made three people in town who thought I might have a future other than landing my ass behind bars.”
He wondered what she’d thought while watching the erotic scene where the pirate ravished the Spanish ship captain’s wife. Had she gotten turned on by the forced seduction? Had she watched the pirate take a jeweled dagger and cut open the woman’s bodice to gain access to her breasts and remembered when he’d torn open her dress and taken her soft and yielding flesh in his mouth?
And when his dark and dangerous character had surged between the woman’s fleshy white thighs that had opened willingly for him, had Emma remembered how he’d pinned her to the mattress and, using his mouth, his teeth, his tongue, made her come?
The view outside the window became hazed with the red lust shimmering before his eyes as he imagined lashing Emma’s wrists and ankles to his bed and fucking her hard and fast and deep. But only after he’d driven her crazy enough to beg for it.
Jesus. If he kept on this runaway sex train of thought, he was going to come in his jeans before they even got to the camp.
“Three people,” he repeated, his voice raspy with pent-up lust. He would have cleared his damn throat, but didn’t want her to realize that somehow, when he hadn’t been paying close enough attention, she’d captured control over not just the situation, but his damn mutinous dick, as well. “You, Nate, and Mrs. Herlihy.”
The high school drama teacher had rescued Gabe from detention when Raul Dupree had come down with flu. She talked him into auditioning for the role of Sweeny Todd in the spring musical, and literally changed his life.
“She’s retiring this year,” Emma said conversationally.
“No shit? Isn’t she a little young to quit teaching?”
“She’s sixty-eight. And she’s not retiring, exactly. She’s going to volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club after-school program.”
“That sounds like something she’d do.”
Rescuing more at-risk kids. They might not grow up to be Hollywood stars—which to Gabe’s mind was a mixed blessing—but they also might avoid going to prison, which is where he probably would’ve ended up if it hadn’t been for the teacher’s intervention.
“We’re giving her an award after the Jean Lafitte parade on Saturday,” Emma said.
Gabe tensed, sensing what was coming.
“A plaque isn’t all that much to pay her back for all she’s done for the town.” She paused another beat. “It’d probably make the ceremony a lot bigger deal if you were the one presenting it.”
This time it was he who paused. “I don’t think that’d be a real good idea, chère. Seems I’d be taking the spotlight off the person who really deserved it.”
It was a not so artful a dodge. “And we both know how you hate the spotlight,” Emma murmured. “Which is undoubtedly why you chose a low-profile career like acting.”
“Got me there,” he said.
“You just want to hide out from the press. Which brings us back to those dates—”
“They weren’t dates, in the traditional sense of the word.” The woman was like a damn pit bull. Why couldn’t she just let the thing go? “And I was a perfect gentleman.”
She laughed at that idea.
“Hey.” He held up three fingers in the sign of a pledge. “Scout’s honor.”
“Funny. I don’t remember you being a Boy Scout.”
True enough. Even if he had been able to afford the uniform, which he hadn’t, there’s no way the other parents would have allowed the kid of the town drunk to have anything to do with their churchgoing sons. Thinking back on the wild, angry kid he’d been back then, Gabe couldn’t really blame them.
“I don’t remember you bein’ so sarcastic.” Or offering him anything less than her unwavering support, including, that one night, when he’d opened a forbidden door he should’ve just kept locked.
Hell, maybe she was holding a grudge. He couldn’t deny she had every right to.
“I’m sorry. The scout remark may have been hitting below the belt. So, don’t leave me hanging.”
“Like I did that night?” Gabe decided there was no more point in beating around the bush. “When I left you a virgin?”
A soft flush, like a late summer rose, filled her cheeks as she realized her inadvertent double entendre. “I meant I want to know the rest of the story that brought you back home.”
The woman wasn’t just hot. She was damn pretty. And, since he didn’t believe people really changed all that much, Gabe suspected that beneath her sexy new attitude, Emma was still that sweet, caring girl who had, for one suspended night in time, made him feel things he’d never thought he’d feel. Wish for impossible things beyond his reach. Ache for the kind of love he hadn’t thought a guy like him could ever have.
“Gabe?”
She was looking at him again, her expression quizzical.
“Sorry.” He shook his head, like his old retriever, Beau, used to do when climbing out of the water with a duck. Emma wasn’t the only one puzzled by the feelings bombarding him. She’d stirred something in him. Something he couldn’t quite put a name to. “Looking at the color in your pretty face got me sidetracked. I can’t remember the last ti
me I’ve been with a woman who blushed.”
He took hold of her hand, which smelled a bit like almonds, and nibbled on her knuckles. “Watching your cheeks go all pink makes me wonder what it’d take to make the rest of you blush all over.”
She shivered. Not, Gabe suspected, because she was suddenly finding the air-conditioning blasting from the dashboard vents too cold.
“You were telling me about those dates that weren’t really dates.” She tugged her hand free. Her gaze fixed on a mirage shimmering like a phantom pool on the black asphalt ahead.
“Anyone ever tell you you’ve got a one-track mind, chère?”
“Why am I not surprised an actor would have something against linear thought?”
“Hey, I can do linear thought. In fact, my mind’s been pretty much runnin’ on a single track since I walked off that plane and saw you standing there lookin’ like you’d stepped out of a Gauguin painting.”
The blush he’d found so appealing in her cheeks bloomed across the magnificent cleavage revealed by her neckline. The blouse was silk. Remembering all too well that her perfumed flesh was softer, Gabe was suddenly burning with the need to touch. To taste. To cup those lush breasts in his hands, to stroke her nipples, which, he couldn’t help noticing, were pressing against the flowered silk.
They weren’t the only thing that had gone hard. No friggin’ doubt about it, his cock had taken on a mind of its own. And if it had its randy way, they’d be pulling over to the side of the road, and he’d be lifting that skirt while her long legs straddled him, while she took him deep inside her wet, slick womanly warmth. He fantasized nipping at those pebbled nipples, sucking on them hard enough to make her body tighten around him, as she rode him hard and fast.
“That sounds suspiciously like a line from some movie,” she accused.
“It’s no line.” He’d never been one to pretty sex up with sweet words and silken promises. Never had to. But damned if she didn’t remind him of the painter’s lushly feminine Tahitian subjects. And he should know, since two of the paintings were currently hanging on his bedroom wall. “You ever have anyone film you, chère? While you’re making love?”
