“What if I arrest you tonight ’n make you stay in my personal custody?”
She held his forearms and laid her head against his chest. He was relentless. She caressed his chest, being sure not to brush against his nipple. Damn, she would love to play with his nipple the way he teased and pulled on hers. She shook her head and damned the thoughts.
“I can’t stay, Eloi. This is just too much for me to handle in one night. You have to let me go and give me time.” She reached up and touched his cheek. He kissed her palm but still held her by her ass cheeks. He was husky and muscular, and a bit different than his brothers. His dark, crew-cut hair and mysterious look in his eyes made her feel like she better not make a wrong move with him. He was thick Cajun male, and it took all her willpower not to stay.
“If I promise to come by this Wednesday to the community center, will you drop the charges and let me leave tonight?” she asked while holding his gaze.
“Come visit tomorrow and have lunch with us?” Armand suggested, and she turned to look at him and the others. They all looked hopeful.
“I have to work. I’ll fall behind and that means I’ll lose money. I need to work,” she told them, and they were quiet a moment as if debating how to respond to that.
“I’ll come get you from work for lunch. Where do you work?” Marcel asked this time. She exhaled in frustration and tried to pull away from Eloi. That just wasn’t happening until he was ready.
“You are making this hard on me. It isn’t fair at all,” she told them.
“Stay tonight and then leave early in the morning to get to work. Then come back Wednesday,” Remy suggested.
They had it all planned out, and it seemed so simple and doable. She thought about it, but she was scared. This was moving fast, and after the bad experience she had, the only choice was to go slow. She had to be sure that these men were for real.
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“You stay the night and you won’t need anything anyways,” Armand replied.
Eloi caressed her ass cheeks and thrust his hips against her lightly. He kissed her neck and sucked along the sensitive valley of her collarbone.
“Stay,” someone whispered behind her. Remy. It was Remy.
“We want you,” Armand added then rubbed her back and ran his fingers through her hair.
“Come home with us now,” Marcel stated, and Eloi lifted her into his arms and began to carry her out of the gazebo.
“Wait, Eloi, please. This isn’t fair, four against one.”
Eloi stopped a few feet from her car.
“You stay.”
“I can’t, Eloi, please. Listen, you know I like you. You know I’m attracted to all of you. I feel weak when I’m close to any of you. Feeling weak can tire a woman out. This is all new to me, and I don’t understand how it can work. I have to process it and understand what this is about, Eloi. I have reservations that I need to deal with from my past. Please,” she begged as she pressed her hand against his chest.
He eyed her suspiciously but looked to his brothers.
“It is a lot to handle. You’re meant for us, though, and we’re going to have you,” Armand told her.
“You make me feel crazy, and I don’t like feeling crazy,” she stated, hearing the frustration in her own voice.
“You come back tomorrow then?” Remy asked.
“I’ll try, I will, but if not tomorrow then Wednesday. I volunteered to paint then at the center.”
Eloi pulled her tighter to him. His lips were close to hers when he whispered.
“Tomorrow.” He kissed her softly at first, but then the kiss grew deeper. She was kissing him back and caught in the moment before she realized just how hot and heavy they were getting.
She tried to pull away, and Eloi resisted a second then slowly released her lips. They panted for breath until Armand pulled her from Eloi’s embrace and hugged her to him. He covered her lips, kissing her just as thoroughly as Eloi. He caressed her hips, her thighs, and then her ass until he had her pressed against her car. He lifted her thigh and wedged his thigh between her legs while their kiss grew wilder. Her heart was racing, and she wanted more. She wanted everything with them. He moved his lips from her lips and continued to kiss her neck and her shoulder. She felt so damn sexy and desirable she curled her leg around his calf as he squeezed her ass cheek then cupped her breast. This was getting crazy.
“Armand, please,” she whispered then held his head to make him settle down and focus.
His eyes were wild and smoldering. His cheeks were red, and he kind of appeared disappointed. But he was a gentleman.
“Damn, woman, you got the voodoo in you.” He slowly lowered her leg and gave her a hug. As he released her, Marcel took his place and hugged her to him. He inhaled against her hair as he caressed her back. His lips spread tiny butterfly kisses along her jaw then to her mouth.
“I’ll miss you, sugar,” he told her before he kissed her long and thoroughly. She was dizzy from their kisses when Marcel relinquished his hold to Remy. Remy and his dark green eyes, so sweet yet filled with mischief as he looked her over and winked. She felt herself blush. He was such a tease. She smiled and opened her arms to him, welcoming his embrace and his kiss. Her petite height didn’t seem to bother any of them as Remy lifted her into his arms and kissed her as he held her off her feet. When he released her, she saw that Marcel had her car door open for her.
“Drive safely. Call me when you get home,” Armand stated.
“Night,” she whispered then looked them over one last time. They were everything she ever wanted in one man, but instead there were four.
Chapter 7
“Hey, I hate to be the one to tell you the bad news, but someone told McCoy lumber that you’re behind on your payments with other contractors. They’re afraid to make the delivery of the other load of sheetrock and plywood we need to finish the job unless you pay seventy five percent of the cost up front,” Earl told Armand over the phone. Armand swore under his breath.
“Are you shittin’ me? What the hell is wrong with Marcus McCoy? He’s known my family for years. His damn father is friends with my dad and he knows we always pay our bills.” Armand raised his voice but he didn’t really yell. This had to be some kind of misunderstanding.
“I’ll call McCoy right now.” He hung up the phone, looked up McCoy number and the personal cell phone of Marcus McCoy.
As soon as Marcus’s voice came through the phone, Armand began to explain the situation.
“Yeah well, Armand, I have to be real careful. I’ve been stiffed out of money for deliveries a lot lately,” Marcus stated in his slow, thick Cajun accent. Armand could practically picture Marcus standing there in his dirty overalls and dark navy blue shirt, sliding his fingers up the suspenders while he held the phone in his other hand.
“You’ve known my family for ages. We pay our bills on time and before the due dates on most, so where the hell is this bullshit about us not paying coming from?” Armand asked.
“Beats the hell outta me, Armand. Listen, I’ll make that delivery today if you can pay half now.”
“I’ll give you the twenty percent that’s on the paperwork I signed when I ordered the load from you. Mark my words, Marcus, the Lafont family pays their bills, and a promise and a handshake go a long way.”
Armand heard Marcus release a sigh then accept Armand’s statement.
“I’ll be there later today. See ya then.”
Marcus hung up the phone, and Armand wondered what the hell this was all about? No one ever questioned their company’s ability to pay their bills. It had to be some sort of misunderstanding.
Being the one with the most business sense in the family, Armand Lafont had looked over the paperwork and blueprints for the continued construction of the Lafont children’s center. He was writing out some checks when he came across Marcel’s description of the damage to the main building where the truck had crashed. Immediately he felt the pounding in his ch
est and the anger build inside of him. Angelique could have been killed. How the hell did something like this happen? All their workers were qualified to handle every bit of operating equipment, and any volunteers wouldn’t have access to machinery. It just didn’t sit right with him, nor did it sit well with Eloi. He clenched his fists then took a deep breath. He tried to relax and concentrate on getting the work done so he could move on to other business. But then he thought of the look of fear on Angelique’s face and the minor scratches she had gotten. She was lucky, and those scratches had healed quickly. It could have been a lot worse.
As he thought about Angelique, he thought about his brothers. Each of them wanted her as much as he did. She admitted that she knew about ménage relationships but didn’t give any details. She also was successful in getting Eloi to smile, which wasn’t an easy task. He half laughed at that. Eloi was such a hard-ass. He was straight faced all the time and the most feared Lafont around, never mind lawman. He chuckled. Who would have thought a five-foot-five-inch woman would take him down a few notches? He had never seen Eloi so wrapped up before. He couldn’t even imagine how the sex was going to be. He felt the tightness in his chest. Eloi had never shown such an attraction to a woman. The four of them had never shared a woman at the same time, just one after the next in a bit of wild experimentation. Would they be able to do this? Was he going to be able to share Angelique with the rest of them? Was Eloi? Fuck.
He never expected to find that perfect woman. He never expected to fall in love, and damn it, he was doing that already. He just knew it because he was never in love before. How the fuck could he fall in love with someone he hadn’t even had a date with or fucked yet!
Armand threw down the pen and stood up from his desk. He was pacing the room and feeling like a caged animal. What the hell was coming over him? In his mind he had flashbacks of Angelique hanging from the windowsill, Angelique with her top off as he and his brothers tended her wounds. He thought about how beautiful she looked when she exited their mama’s house with Remy and other men took notice and watched her. He thought about that jealous feeling in the pit of his stomach as she talked with those businessmen. He could feel the tightness and the jealousy all over again. Armand ran a hand through his hair. desperate for some control of these strong feelings. Suddenly he could smell the scent of her perfume, feel of her hot, wet pussy gripping his fingers, and taste her cream. Holy shit, he was obsessed with her.
He looked at the clock. Three o’clock, Monday afternoon, and he had yet to hear back from her. He’d called her in the morning and had gotten her voice mail. She didn’t call yet. What if she never did? What if she had a secret life wherever she came from? Was there another man, maybe a boyfriend she was with? Who had hurt her? Who struck her or made her distrust her own feelings and desires? What was she afraid of? Fuck! This was so unlike him. He was the levelheaded one. He was a boxer. He knew how to control his emotions and focus on the objective to win. He ran this business like a pro, just like the championship fighter he had been. If he could just hear her voice, he would calm down and stop overreacting. If he acted like this in front of Angelique, she would think he was some crazy lunatic. What the heck? The sound of his cell phone ringing saved him from further irrational thinking. He grabbed it off the desk and looked at the caller ID. Eloi.
“Did you hear from her or what?” Eloi asked, sounding just as crazy as Armand felt.
Armand laughed. “You sound like I’m feeling right now. No. I haven’t heard from her yet, and I don’t like the ideas that are going through my head,” Armand replied.
“Well, I don’t like that report from the accident at the site none either. It doesn’t seem possible that no one saw a thing. She could have been killed, Armand.”
“I hear you, Eloi. I was looking the damage report over. It was an accident ’n’ she’s fine. We seen her, took care of her, and touched her, too.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the other thing bothering me. Why does she want to be so secretive? The way we all seduced her yesterday, she should still be in bed with one of us right now.”
Armand agreed, and he could hear the upset in his brother’s voice.
“I hate to admit this, but I think I got it bad for her,” Armand admitted. He and his brothers were close. They shared everything, and if they were going to share Angelique, then they would have to be honest and upfront.
“She must got da voodoo in ha’.”
Armand laughed.
“She has something in her that I want more of.”
“We should all meet before she comes tomorrow. It’s obvious she isn’t coming today.”
“It’s a Monday, bra. No one visits on a Monday because it’s bad luck.”
“I feel like I have bad luck already without her here. Could our luck get worse?”
“I suppose not. We meet tonight at the house after work. Hopefully she calls by then.”
“Later, bro.”
“Later,” Armand replied.
* * * *
Angelique was trying to focus on the conversation between her sisters Ellena and Angelina over their lunch. They were both involved in relationships that happened under crazy circumstances. Both men were jerks, but the Aubert sisters worried about being old maids and never meeting their Prince Charming. They would probably freak out about the ménage relationship and what she was going through right now. But she couldn’t talk to them about the Lafont brothers. Not yet anyway. It could be just a phase she was going through, or they could just want to fuck like most New Orleans men, and any men for that matter, liked to do. She thought about that most of the night, which kept her so hyped up and sexually aroused that she couldn’t relieve the need she had. Even her vibrator failed. She was doomed, and she knew it. Mama Cherise Laveau, the local voodoo woman, had passed by her on her way here and eyed her over. Oh yeah, the woman knew what she had been up to. Mama Cherise mumbled something to her about five hearts being stronger in danger than one. What the hell did that mean?
She wanted to call Armand, Eloi, Marcel, and Remy. There wasn’t one she wanted to talk to more than the others, and that would mean a lot of time on the phone. She did have work to do. Her sisters had been insistent that they meet for lunch, but she just couldn’t focus.
“Hey, Angel, what is up with you?” Angelina asked, snapping Angelique out of her thoughts.
“Not a thing. I just have a lot of work to do, that’s all.”
“You get orders for that stuff you stocked up on in New Orleans?” Ellena asked as she took a sip from her tea.
She hated to lie to them about her online business, but she just wasn’t ready to face them with it. When she was financially successful, she would.
“Yeah. Got most of it sold.”
“That means another trip to the city?” Angelina asked.
“Yeah, probably Wednesday or so. Not sure about it yet.”
Just then, they heard some commotion going on in the street. The roar of engines coming from an ATV echoed in the streets. In a flash they saw Clovis Guidry driving the ATV, dragging his brother Gaston by a rope with a boogie board attached to it. Three other crazy guys followed doing the same thing. The women laughed as they watched the scene before them.
An hour later they decided to head back to work, and Angelique finally had a chance to look at her voice mails. As she drove home, she heard messages from all four Lafont men and five messages from customers and one of the men she met at Maw Maw Lafont’s party. They wanted to have lunch with her tomorrow in New Orleans to discuss Secret Pleasures. She was stunned because their conversation at the party seemed to focus around her personality and theirs. Maw Maw told her that these men were billionaires and only worked with people they got along with and felt a connection to. Her curiosity was getting the best of her as she wondered what they would discuss at lunch. Then she thought about the Lafont brothers. If she went to town again, then they would want to see her. She wasn’t sure what she was more nervous about. Seeing the men or having l
unch with the business tycoons. Maybe she could push the lunch date off until Wednesday and take care of seeing the men at the construction site after she did the lunch meeting in town. If she could get these new orders finished between today and tomorrow, then she could do this.
Angelique called back the businessmen and set the lunch date for Wednesday. She would call Armand tonight. She figured they would all be at home around eight o’clock or so. Immediately she went to her house, lit some candles, and put on some light jazz music to begin sewing. She had a lot to do in twenty-four hours if she wanted to go to town on Wednesday.
* * * *
The Lafont men finished cleaning up from dinner then sat on the porch drinking beers and listening to the high-pitched sounds of insects in the night. The sky was clear and bright, and their conversation had remained on the same subject since supper. Angelique.
It was nearly eight thirty when Armand guzzled down his beer. “I don’t get why she hasn’t called yet. It’s making me crazy,” he admitted.
“She hasn’t called any of us back yet,” Remy offered, taking a slug from his bottle of beer.
“You really think she got some other man?” Marcel asked.
Numerous curses were exchanged throughout the porch.
Eloi shook his head. “There is no way she is involved with another man. And even if she did, he’s done now after us,” Eloi stated confidently.
“How do you know, Eloi?” Remy asked.
“It was all in the body language, Remy. She came really hard in my arms, and a woman can’t fake it that good,” Eloi stated.
“Yeah, and no woman who can fake kisses like that or orgasms like she had,” Armand added.
“Fuck, why do we have to start talking about this when she isn’t here?” Marcel complained, and they all grunted.
“Damn, we got it bad,” Armand admitted just as his cell rang. He looked at the caller ID and smiled at his brothers.
Dwyer, Dixie Lynn - Angelique [Orchidea: Love on the Bayou 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 10
