Kicks for a Sinner S3

by Lynn Shurr

  “The second part of that is good I think. This girl has a rather sordid past. Deep down, she may feel unworthy of a nice boy like you. And I do think she noticed what you did to save her life, hence the spate of jealously.”

  “Evidently, she feels worthy of Joe.”

  “We both know Joe has his own lurid past—all those women, the love child. He’s not a clean-cut guy like you.”

  “Women like bad boys. I’m not one.”

  “Come on and tell Uncle Brian how you lost your innocence. In high school with a cheerleader under the bleachers? Am I right?”

  “No, I had a girlfriend, everyone on the team did. We went to the same Baptist church. She wanted to remain a virgin until marriage, so she did.”

  “Ah yes, I remember those days. I had a high school girlfriend, too, and she also remained a virgin. College?”

  “I got through freshman and sophomore year untouched, but then I became the ace kicker for the Sooners. I save a championship game with a field goal, and the rest of the team takes up a collection for a trip to Mexico to buy me a whore.”

  “You had no whores in Norman, Oklahoma?”

  “We had a tough season. The team wanted to party down somewhere Coach wouldn’t find out what they did. And they did it all, tequila and blow and the best whorehouse in town.”

  “You said, they. I take it you did not participate.”

  “Not in the first two. Well, someone had to be the designated driver. We rented a van. They gave me a load of bail money to hold just in case.”

  “Howdy, Howdy, Howdy, what can we do with you?”

  He contemplated the last sugar-coated donut. “You know, Brian, sex is better than beignets, and that’s saying a whole lot. By the times that senorita got done with me, I could hardly walk back to the rented van. Spent every weekend there I could after that.”

  “Same whorehouse?”

  “Same whore. She taught me a lot. Like how to take my time, same way as I kick, as long as I paid for the minutes.”

  “Incredible. You were loyal to a whore.”

  “Until I graduated. Just told the guys and everyone else I had a girlfriend in Mexico. Got ragged a lot about that. I hadn’t quite figured out that sex and love are not the same thing. But being a Sinner is full of temptations. I quit going down there because the way Joe sheds women since he married, there are plenty to go around the team. Most of them don’t interest me much though. Next time I got to Mexico, Lupe had moved on and so did I.”

  “You do have sordid past. Wonderful! When do you see Cassie again?”

  “No telling. I guess she’ll call when she wants to see me again. The way I chewed her out that might be never.”

  “No, no, no. She has seen your gun-toting, Mexican whore lovin’, I don’t take crap from women side now. Do not fall back into being her nice guy friend. You call her. Make it clear you are asking for a real date. Act now!” Brian handed him the phone.

  Howdy took it with sugar-sticky fingers and regarded the phone much like the rattlesnakes in his dream. He had the urge to run before he got bitten where it would hurt the most—in the heart, not the heel.

  “Want me to dial for you?” Brian offered.

  “No, I can do this.”

  Cassie answered as groggy as he had been an hour ago. “Howdy, what? Has something else happened?”

  “No, it’s just I think we should celebrate Tommy coming home safely. Just you and me. No Brian. We hit the clubs, tear up this town.”

  “It’s pretty hard to tear up New Orleans. Happens nearly every night.”

  “Good. Is it a date?”

  “I guess so. What time?”

  “Seven. I’ll pick you up.”

  Brian gave him the thumbs up sign, gathered the soiled, empty bag and paper cups, and headed for the doorway. He paused by a tall saguaro cactus in a red crackle-glazed pot. The cactus wore Howdy’s cowboy hat. “I like the whimsical touch.”

  “Oh, I don’t wear my hat much in the city. People stare and make comments.”

  “As would I if I didn’t know you well. Wear it tonight. It might provoke a brawl. Then you could really impress Cassie with your manliness.”

  “Right. Punching another guy does that. Seems she might be worried I’d punch her one of these days.”

  “Oh, she already knows you better than that. Call anytime night or day when you get in and spill. Ta-ta.”

  The smoke lay like a fog bank inside the bar. While New Orleans restaurants had gone smoke free, no one seemed to care if bartenders or musicians got second-hand lung cancer. Despite the dim lighting, Howdy, hunched over his second beer, recognized the fruity scent of the cologne when the Brian took a seat next to him.

  “I thought you were staying out of this. How did you find us?”

  “You two always wind up here. I’m afraid I was too curious and too bored at home. I waited until Cassie left for the powder room to make contact, and I will silently slip away before she returns. How goes it?”

  “Fine, I guess. The music is good. We did some dancing. Band is taking a break, so now would be a good time to talk, but I can’t seem to spit out what I really want to say.”

  “Barkeep, this man needs a shot of whiskey for courage,” Brian said to the young man behind the counter. He whispered in Howdy’s ear. “He’s new and kind of cute, don’t you think?”

  “No.”

  The slim young man in the tight black T-shirt revealing a Celtic tattoo around one bicep asked, “Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, Old Grandad, Old Crow…”

  Howdy cut off the listing. “The first, I guess.”

  “Water, ice, straight up?”

  “Ahhh…”

  Brian winked at the bartender and waited a beat to see if he’d get a response. Nothing. “Straight up. Make his a double.”

  The drink appeared in a flash. Brian paid with a big bill and let the bartender keep the change. Howdy downed it in two quick swallows, coughed, and slapped the shot glass back on the speckled black granite counter.

  “Okay, thanks Brian. I think I’m drunk enough now.”

  “Not nearly for what you have to do.” His luminous dark eyes followed the bartender’s firm and shapely ass as he walked away to tend to other customers. Distracted, he failed to notice Cassie’s return or Howdy’s reaction.

  The kicker shoved his cowboy hat to the back of his head and turned to watch her cross the barroom’s checkered floor. She moved through the smoke like a siren in the mist, the pools of recessed lighting picking up the red in her hair, not the blonde streaks. Oh, the way she walked in that tight gold dress, sinuous, leading with her full breasts, heading directly for him. A red-furred arm with an anchor tattoo etched on its forearm waylaid her.

  “Hey, Red. Wanna dance the next set?”

  “Not with you.” Cassie shook off the arm that locked around her waist.

  “Why not, doll? We could make beautiful red-haired babies together.”

  “Smooth, Shaun,” his table buddies razzed.

  “Because you are a big, obnoxious, drunken jerk,” Cassie answered. “And I already have a date.” She pointed a finger at Howdy grinning at her from the bar.

  The rest of the man emerged from the shadows and joined her in the puddle of light. He was truly big, very drunk, and definitely a jerk. “The cowboy? He’s with that fag. Baby, I got what you need if you’re dating him.” He grabbed his crotch and gave it a squeeze in case she missed the point. Cassie slapped his orangutan arm away again when it attempted another possession of her waist.

  “Now, Howdy, now!” Brian urged, pushing his friend away from his seat.

  The bartender floated over. “He need another?”

  “No, but I do. What time do you get off, handsome?”

  “I thought you were hitting on him.” He nodded his pretty head at Howdy.

  “Howdy, no, he’s straight as they come, though he does have a nice derriere. We’re with the Sinners. He kicks. I punt long ones.”

  “Thought I recognize
d you. I get off at two.”

  Howdy heard Brian’s banter with the bartender in the back of his mind like the buzz of a dying fluorescent light, not something he was concerned about as he approached Cassie and her rough admirer.

  “Leave her alone.” Okay, not very witty, but the only phrase he could come up with as his brain seemed to be going numb.

  “Who are you, the guy in the white hat coming to her rescue?” Shaun knocked the Stetson to the grubby dance floor.

  “Last time I checked, it was gray,” he answered with a bit more wit. “My grandpa gave me that hat.”

  Shaun raised a steel-toed, work-booted foot to come crashing down on the crown of the Stetson, but it did not reach its destination. Howdy’s punch to the jaw sent him sprawling into his mates’ table, overturning their drinks and sending the free bowl of peanuts skittering underfoot. Outraged, his buddies raised up in anger as Howdy bent to retrieve his hat. Coming up, he took one sucker punch to the stomach, defeating the blow by hardening his muscles, but he stayed doubled over feigning injury and head-butted his second assailant.

  A third approached him from the side, but Cassie caught the man with a full slam in the face from her lethal little purse covered in sharp, metallic disks and strangely weighty. With his face suffering from myriad bleeding small cuts, the guy staggered back clutching his bloody nose. “I think the bitch broke it!”

  “Watch your language around her.” Howdy gave him a strong, two-handed shove that set him on his butt among the peanut hulls. Unfortunately, the main cause of the brawl had gotten to his feet again.

  “Oh dear, three against two and one of them is a girl,” Brian remarked to his new friend. “Excuse me.”

  He took three running steps forward and with the elegance and accuracy that were his trademarks, placed a kick directly into the orangutan’s nuts with his rather pointy Italian leather shoe. Three down, fight over—except for the two brawny black bouncers heading their way in a cloud of peanut dust through the maze of chairs and tables. The bartender gestured to him and his companions, pointing out a rear exit. “Two, remember,” he said as Howdy pushed Cassie to the backdoor and Brian brought up the rear. Running into the bartender who feinted right, then left before they got by, the bouncers pounded after them

  In the alley piled with reeking shells from the oyster bar next door, they made a quick decision. “You go left, we’ll go right. Get in the first cab you find. I’ll pick up my truck later,” Howdy ordered.

  Brian, light on his feet, rounded the corner and turned left without the tiniest hesitation. Howdy dodged the always-creeping traffic of the French Quarter shielding Cassie with his body. He tugged her, skittering on high heels, toward the bright lights of a hotel marquee where taxis in abundance waited to be signaled forward by the doorman and bypassed them all. At the entrance to the cream and gold lobby, he tucked her arm under his and entered.

  Breathless, she said, “We don’t have to wait on the doorman. Just take the last cab in line, and we can get out of here.”

  He spun her to face him. “Tonight. You, me, here. Let’s get a room,” he said, the two shots of whiskey and the adrenaline still pounding in his head.

  Cassie considered the intensity of his blue eyes, the serious look on a face usually caught grinning, and found herself loving that sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of his nose. Joe had never looked at her in that way, never would.

  “I think…yes,” she said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The desk clerk didn’t so much raise a brow when the young man dressed in cowboy casual threw down a platinum credit card like the ace of spades in a poker game. Nor did the night clerk make any remarks about the swollen condition of the guest’s right hand as he awkwardly signed the printout of the hotel registration. Obviously, he encountered odder guests staggering out of the French Quarter at this time of the evening on a regular basis.

  “Upgrade that to a suite,” Howdy said. “And send along a bucket of champagne.”

  “Certainly, Mr. McCoy.”

  As the clerk made the adjustment and phoned in the order to the bar Howdy glanced over his shoulder to make sure Cassie still sat waiting on the gold brocade banquette and had not changed her mind and gone outside to take a cab home. With her legs crossed and draw to the side the way fashion models placed their long legs, she hadn’t moved. Men passing through the lobby from the bar eyed her as if she were a high-class prostitute. The red-gold hair down over her bare back and the short metallic dress worn with killer high heels might have given them that impression, but they shouldn’t be staring at her that way. He felt an unfamiliar surge of possessiveness rise from his groin all the way to his suddenly jittery stomach.

  “Your key card,” the clerk said for the second time. “Enjoy your stay.”

  “Here we go then.” He offered his arm to Cassie like an usher at a wedding.

  She accepted his gesture with a funny little smile on her peach-painted lips. Whatever she used to cover her freckles tonight had a glitter to it, or the whiskey had affected his vision as well as his good sense. The dress draped down low in the middle. His eyes followed a sparkly trail to where her breasts came together held up by some kind of miracle bra that allowed her back to remain bare almost to the waist. The elevator moved them slowly and soundlessly upward without a single jolt. He wanted to crush her against its cool, stainless steel wall and slide his tongue between those peaches. That’s what Joe would do and exactly the reason why he shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t.

  So, he stayed in his formal pose, her arm resting lightly on his until the elevator doors opened with a discrete chime. He led her to the suite, but fumbled with the key card putting it in upside down, then backwards until he finally got it right, and the green button lit. Inside, the place was vast, full of spindly chairs, draped with heavy curtains, and decorated with vases of tropical flowers so lush they put Brian’s roses to shame. The king-sized bed must be behind the ornate paneled door to the right.

  “Oh, Howdy, this is—this is so unlike you.” Cassie moved to the swagged draperies and opened them. They looked down upon low-slung New Orleans, a city built for the most part on unstable swampland and so it spread out, not up. A cruise ship ablaze with lights moved down the Mississippi headed toward Cozumel or Cancun.

  “You mean I’m kinda rustic. That’s what Brian says about my place.”

  “I wouldn’t know. You’ve never taken me there. We always seem to meet at Brian’s condo or you pick me up.”

  “Guess I didn’t want you to feel pressured by being alone with me—or to make fun of my cactus.”

  “Your cactus? Is that a euphemism for…?”

  “No. I have a cactus, a really big one, a saguaro that hardly ever needs watering, the perfect plant for a man on the road a lot the decorator said.”

  “I’d like to see it sometime soon.”

  A brisk knock announced the arrival of the champagne in a silver bucket on a linen-bedecked trolley. Howdy tipped the server and said he’d open the bottle himself to get rid of the guy as soon as possible. He didn’t do too badly peeling back the foil and getting prying off the wire. He worked the cork out slowly with his thumbs, though one was sort of sore, and released it with a jovial pop and no spillage.

  “Nicely done, no waste,” Cassie remarked, holding out her flute. “I thought you only drank beer.”

  “And wine with Brian. He taught me the correct way to open champagne. It shouldn’t spray all over the place if you go at it easy. That’s how I do most things.”

  “Really, you have to show me.” Her brows, almost the same shade as her hair but darkened a little, arched.

  “I will as soon as we drink some of this.” Howdy poured, chugged his first glass, and suppressed a burp.

  Cassie sipped hers. “Brian didn’t tell you how to drink it though. Take your time. We have all night.” She turned down the lights and returned to her seat on one of the spindly chairs across a tiny, bandy-legged table from Howdy.

&nb
sp; They sat watching the glimmers on the river and slowly finished most of the bottle before Howdy stood, moved behind her, raised that red-gold hair, and kissed her neck. He felt light in the head and light in his heart. He moved his kisses down the curve of her spine to her waist and worked his hands under the bodice of her dress where he encountered something very rubbery.

  “Ah, what’s this?”

  “That’s what’s holding my breasts up. Say, why don’t I see if they have a spa robe in the bathroom? Bet they do.”

  “Sure.” He watched her move off to the lavatory for the sheer pleasure of it. “Ply with champagne, be gentle, go slow,” he repeated to himself. He was forgetting something.

  “Durn it!” The words came out louder than he intended.

  Showing only her head, Cassie peeked out of the bathroom. “Something wrong? Does your hand hurt? Put some ice on it.”

  “I forgot to bring some protection. I mean I didn’t think we’d end up here.” For gosh sakes, he bet Joe never forgot condoms in his heyday. “I have to go out.”

  “In my handbag.” She closed the door again.

  Howdy upended the small, bulging purse. Two lipsticks, a comb, tissues, a twenty-dollar bill, a driver’s license, a credit card, and quarter of a brick fell out with two condoms wrapped in foil stuck to its bottom.

  “You know you got a brick in here?”

  “Sure.” Cassie emerged swathed in fluffy white terry and nothing else as far as he could tell. “I took this self-defense course. You know a purse or a high heel can be a weapon. Look how well it worked tonight. As for the condoms, Nell told me always to be prepared when I left for college.”

  “Remind me to thank Nell next time I see her.”

  “You want to change, too? There’s another robe in there and the most gorgeous bathtub I’ve ever seen.”

  “Later, I think.” No way a terry robe would hide the hard-on he had right now.

  “Should we go into the bedroom?”

  She led the way. He scooped up the two condoms and followed her like a hound dog on a scent. She turned on the bedside lamp that gave a pink glow to the room, turned, and dropped the robe. “Well, what do you think?”