by Hill Sandra
By nine p.m. that night, Louise was about ready to call it a day. She had the kitchen radio on low volume, playing some soft Cajun ballads from a new band, The Swamp Kickers, headlined by Kate Benoit. Most of the Cajun bands were male only because the dance halls where they often performed weren’t considered suitable places for decent women. Pfff! Things like that were beginning to change since the war, but the process was slow. In any case, it was a refreshing change, hearing the traditional songs from a female viewpoint.
She was in her herb pantry, off the kitchen, putting away all the plants and seeds she’d gathered that day. Some were hung from the ceiling to dry out. Others were put in labeled jars. A few were put in hot water to steep, like a tea. Instead of warring with each other, the various scents melded together into one delicious aroma that said home and ancestry and bayou. The fragrance of comfort. Too bad she couldn’t bottle it like a fine perfume or an air freshener.
She also wrote down what she’d found that day, and where, in one of the dozen black-and-white marbled notebooks she’d purchased at the Woolworth’s five and dime after her mother died last year and she took over the business. She’d already filled four of the notebooks. It was important that she complete this recording of data as soon as possible, lest she forget the details if she waited too long. Which happened way too often.
Adèle had been asleep for the past hour, having been worn out from her day with her friend, even though their activities had been limited to indoor playing. After putting Adèle down, Louise had taken a leisurely bath with her favorite rose-scented bubble bath, also a Woolworth purchase. Despite the long day, some of it strenuous and outdoors under the hot sun, she wasn’t tired. Her mind kept dwelling on her companion of the day…that blasted Justin Boudreaux.
Had she misread him totally? She could have sworn that his goal for the day had been to put the make on her. Instead, he hadn’t even kissed her good-bye. Or made a specific date for the future. So much for his sexy banter through the day about her owing him kisses. Maybe his interest had been in learning about the healing arts, after all. Maybe her Cajun Sass wasn’t as strong as she’d thought. Maybe the fact that she hadn’t sassed herself up for the day had turned him off, like their first meeting.
Just then, there was a knock on her door, which caused her to jump. “What? Who would come calling at this time of night?” Must be it was an emergency with one of her customers…someone who needed a particular remedy real bad. That happened sometimes.
But it wasn’t a needy patient.
It was a needy Justin.
Who was leaning against the doorjamb, obviously having recently bathed, if wet, slicked-back hair and a clean-shaven face was any indication. He wore a short-sleeved white T-shirt over khaki walking shorts and loafers with no socks. He had hairy legs which were oddly attractive.
Suddenly, a voice in her head…St. Jude, no doubt…said, Beware, fair maiden, betimes the devil comes knocking on thy door.
With all due respect…shut up, she replied.
“Who are you talking to?” Justin asked.
“St. Jude.” She hadn’t realized she’d spoken her thought aloud.
He smiled.
“Justin, what are you doing here?”
At first, he said nothing, just grinned lazily as he perused her body. Slowly. Head to bare toes. She wore a knee-length, sleeveless, pink cotton nightgown, her hair piled on top of her head into a loose knot. Her attire wasn’t sheer, but still she folded her arms over her chest.
“Would you believe I happened to be driving by and saw your light on? No? Actually, I’m here because I owe you an explanation.”
“For what?”
“The way I left.”
She tilted her head in question, but she knew what he meant. How abruptly he’d left, with no kiss, and only a weak promise of another date. The very bone she’d been gnawing on.
“I was going to play hard to get…” he started.
“And…?”
“I decided that was ridiculous when I’m clearly easy to get. By you, anyhow.”
“That is such a line.”
“Nope. True.” He made a cross over his chest. “Are you hard to get, Lou-ise?” he drawled.
“For you?” She made a scoffing sound at his outrageous banter. “Hard as a brick wall.”
He ran a fingertip down her arm, from shoulder to wrist, raising the fine hairs in its wake. “Feels soft to me.”
She slapped his hand away.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
She hesitated, then stepped aside to allow him to enter in front of her.
He leaned close as he passed her, sniffing. “You smell like roses,” he said. “Have I mentioned how much I like roses?”
He didn’t smell so bad either. Something piney and fresh.
“Seriously, Justin, what are you doing here?”
“Where’s the niece?”
“Sleeping,” she said before she had a chance to lie and say that Adèle was in her room, playing with dolls, and would be out any minute. In other words, a buffer.
He smiled and walked around the room, crouching down a bit to stare at the framed photograph of herself and Phillipe atop a bookcase, taken after Midnight Mass the last Christmas he was alive, picked up a knickknack of her mother’s—a small china cat won in a penny toss game at a church festival many years ago—tapped the head on a little shrine to a statue of St. Jude—she had several around her cottage—and squeezed one of Adèle’s stuffed animals, a long-tailed pussy cat. He smiled at the meow.
She could tell by his actions that he was nervous.
Just as she was.
For some reason, that gave her the impetus to open herself to him. “I’m as nervous as a hooker at Sunday Mass.”
“Hah! I’m as nervous as a porcupine in a balloon factory,” he contributed with a mischievous grin.
Her heart melted a little.
Sometimes, with all the grief and all the responsibilities she’d taken on the past five years, she felt old…like forty, or something…when in fact she was only twenty-six, almost. Young, really. But when was the last time she’d felt free? To be her youthful self? To be a little bit…wild?
And, yes, she was thinking about sex. She was no virgin. And she’d enjoyed sex with Phillipe. Why couldn’t women be like men who dived right into affairs without examining all the what-ifs? Or without guilt…thank you very much, St. Jude. Some women did, obviously. And, Holy Crawfish! What was the sense of Cajun Sass if a gal had to be so rigid and uptight and protective of her virtue? Hah! What virtue I had was lost in the French Quarter’s Maison Rouge hotel to Phillipe Prudhomme five and a half years ago. Gladly.
And truth to tell, Justin Boudreaux was the first man to really tempt her since then. Was it just a question of timing, like she was finally ready to move on? Or was it something more? An old saying of her mother’s came to her all of a sudden: “Happiness sometimes sneaks in through a window you didn’t know you’d left open.” Yep, she’d left a window open all day today to let in the fresh air, but apparently she’d let in a lot more than she’d bargained for.
Justin sat down on her davenport, crossing his legs at the ankles and propping them on a hassock. Making himself at home. Way too comfortable, or pretending to be. He patted the cushion next to him.
Not a chance!
Well, maybe a chance.
“I thought you had to study tonight.” She shifted from hip to hip, wondering what to do, wondering if she had the moxie.
“I did. I do. But I studied so much the words were starting to blur. Decided I need something to refresh my…” He waggled his eyebrows.
She shook her head at his foolishness. “How about a refreshing glass of sweet tea?”
He shrugged. “That would be my second choice, but sure.”
She started to walk toward the kitchen, but then stopped and turned. She dropped her eyes before his steady gaze, but then raised her chin and told him, “I’m not a virgin, y’k
now.”
It took him a second to realize what she was telling him and why. Quick as spit, he was on his feet. With several wide strides, he closed the distance between them and swung her into the circle of his arms, lifting her off her feet.
She dug her fingers into the strong sinews of his shoulders.
He buried his face in her neck and murmured against her ear, “Louise, Louise, you are precious.”
She wrapped her legs around his hips for balance, which caused him to gasp and then stagger her up against the wall. She could feel his erection press firmly against her core, and a shiver went through her body. Now she was the one to gasp.
His left arm rested under her bottom, holding her up, and his right hand cupped her face. He gazed at her through half-closed eyes for a brief moment before he lowered his mouth to hers.
His kiss was surprisingly gentle at first as he learned her shape and taste, molding for a perfect fit, but then he glided his tongue along the seam of her lips, entreating her to open.
She complied.
His tongue slid into her mouth, filling her, then pulled back, slowly. Teasing.
She drew on his tongue, to halt his withdrawal. Teasing.
He made a low guttural sound in his throat
She smiled, even though their lips were still molded together. A smile kiss.
Sensing her silent laughter, he pinched her buttock.
She arched her head back and laughed.
He looked at her with a lazy smile. Then he came in again, this time with serious intent. His kisses hardened, demanding a response, insisting on her surrender but with an inventive, consummate skill that had her not only opening to him, but making her own demands.
He was obviously a man who loved kissing, not just as foreplay to better things, but as a goal itself. What woman could resist a man like that?
She was also a connoisseur of fine kissing, as taught by Phillipe. Not that she was thinking about Phillipe now. In truth, she wasn’t thinking at all. Just feeling.
While his kisses went on and on, changing patterns, alternating between coaxing and ravishing, his hands were busy as well, caressing her back, cupping her bottom. Then he began slow thrusts and retreats of his tongue into the moist cavern of her mouth, emulating the undulation of his hips against her center.
She combed her hands into his hair, trying to hold him in place. She was being hit by so many sensations, above and below. Heat unfurled, and she didn’t want to think or reason. She wanted all this and more.
His head shot up abruptly and through ragged breaths he gasped out, “Bed?”
She pointed to the hallway, and he walked them both, her still hugging his hips with her legs, to the open doorway. Once inside the small room with its single bed up against one wall and not much else, he pushed the door shut with his foot. Moonlight shone through the single window, but it was hard to see clearly. Not that she needed light. She knew her way around in the dark.
Justin stilled for a minute while they both listened for Adèle. Luckily, she didn’t wake up. Which prompted Justin to toss her onto the bed and come down on top of her. More noise, but again, luckily, Adèle slept on.
He reached over and turned on the lamp on the bedside table, giving the room a soft glow. “I like to see what I’m doing,” he said with a grin, kissed her quickly, then stood, staring down at her. There was lust in his eyes, and a bulge in his pants. Both pleased Louise, but she had a concern. “Justin? I can’t take a chance that…”
“Shh!” He understood immediately and reached into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet, from which he took a flat metal tin marked Ramses which he tossed onto the bed beside her.
Protection. Good!
She opened her arms to him, but he shook his head. “Let me.” He leaned down, and with her help lifting her body, he removed her nightgown. She was naked underneath.
“Oh, boy!” he murmured, then added with a rueful grin, glancing downward, “Down, boy!”
She felt kind of shy being bare naked while he was fully clothed. “Your turn,” she urged, waving a hand from his neck to his knees.
“Your wish is my command, sugar.” He waggled his eyebrows at her and shucked down to his skivvies in no time flat, and then they were gone, too. He stood, hands on hips, legs spraddled, and asked, “Well?”
She stared, a bit bemused by his lack of shyness, and thought about repeating his comment of “Oh, boy!” but assessing the size of his erection, she smiled instead and said, “Oh, man!”
“I take that as a compliment,” he said.
Under his continued scrutiny, she began to grow insecure. She had no idea what kind of women Justin was accustomed to, or even if he had a lot of experience, though his readiness with those prophylactics might be a clue. The bottom line, though, was that she knew her own shortcomings. She was not a voluptuous woman, and she wasn’t tall and leggy—far from the Hollywood ideal of the perfect female body. Like that new actress Sophia Loren in Quo Vadis, who had legs up to her armpits and a bust that turned men into drooling baboons. Now that was va va voom! On the other hand, Phillipe had always said she had a hot-cha-cha hiney, the perfect shape and size to fill a man’s hands. She’d forgotten about that supposed asset.
It was crazy how she had to continually remind herself that Cajun Sass was not about physical appearance, or not totally; so, instead of reaching for a sheet to cover herself, she extended her arms above her head, and raised one knee. A perfect pin-up pose, not unlike the one she’d done for a photo she had made for Phillipe one time. A going-away Christmas gift. Of course, she hadn’t been nude then. Instead, she’d worn a red silk robe, but with a neckline so low you could see to the promised land, if a person were so inclined. Phillipe had been. And he’d made her recreate the pose in person. Several times.
Justin gasped and his you-know-what grew a little bit longer and wider, which she took for a sign of appreciation.
This is fun, Louise thought, liking the feeling of power she had. No, power wasn’t quite the right word. More like control, like steering a car. You could go as fast or as slow as you wanted, or slam on the brakes, or press the accelerator to the floor and go all out wild and free.
“Why are you smiling like the cat that swallowed the cream? Are you hiding something?” Justin asked as he eased himself down onto the narrow bed, shoving her with his hip so that she was against the wall. Then he rolled on top of her and braced his elbows on either side of her head to ease his weight. He used his knees to spread her legs and settled himself dead center with his rigid penis aligned with her moist channel.
She was the one who gasped then, or swallowed a gasp, not wanting him to know how turned on she was so quickly. “Me?” she inquired then, in answer to his question, fluttering her eyelashes. “What would I have to hide, and where, with all my secrets exposed?”
He waggled his eyebrows back at her. “Not all your secrets, darlin’. I’m lookin’ forward to discovering every single one of them, including the ones you don’t know about your sweet self.”
She felt a wave of excitement pass over her at his words. But, not to be outdone, she undulated her hips a few times, up and down, giving his no-doubt favorite organ a little slippery slide. “Was that a threat or a promise, cher?”
He took hold of her hips and held her firmly down on the mattress. “Mon Dieu, Louise! Do you want to end this before it begins?”
“Me, I doan know what you mean.” She fluttered her eyelashes some more.
“Vixen!” He pinched her buttock, then rubbed it in sweet, sensuous circles. “You’ll be makin’ me sing Hallelujah before the Gospel.”
“Tsk-tsk! You shouldn’t be making religious jokes during sex.” She reached to the bedside table and turned over a framed picture of St. Jude.
He laughed. “How many of those things do you have?”
“Dozens,” she replied.
“Are you serious?”
“I am. Because of how much St. Jude has done for me, I feel an obligation
to pass out his relics and tokens of adoration to as many people as I can, without appearing to be a religious fanatic. I’ll give you one before you leave.”
“This is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had with a woman in bed.”
“I know, and we better stop talking about him now, or he’ll appear in my head and nip this whole wild ride in the bud.”
She could tell that he wanted to ask her about a saint talking in her head, or what she meant by a “wild ride,” but he saved those questions for later, Thank God! Instead, he leaned down and whispered against her mouth, “I love kissing you.”
“Good,” she whispered back, “because I love your kisses.” With that, she put her hands on both sides of his head and tugged him closer, kissing a line along his jaw, taking the lobe of one ear into her mouth and nipping it slightly, then putting the point of her tongue into his ear, stabbing several times till it was wet. Then she did the same to his other ear.
“Do you like that?” she asked, lifting his head to stare up at him.
“Are my eyes rolling back in my head?” he asked. “Of course I like that. Can’t you tell?” He pressed himself tighter against her down below.
“Yep, you like it,” she concluded saucily.
“Vixen!” he said again, then used the hair on his legs, which she’d noticed earlier, and the hair on his chest, to abrade her skin. Lightly. Teasingly. “Do you like that?” he repeated her question back at her.
Her moan was her only response.
“Now lie still and let me do my thing.”
“Your thing?” She laughed. “You have a thing?”
“Shhh,” he said and kissed her thoroughly, using his lips, and teeth, and tongue to turn her pliant and open. Then he moved his kisses to her cheeks and ears, paying her back in spades for what she’d done to him. Once she was mewling with pleasure, he kissed his way down her body. Down the center of her chest, bypassing her breasts, over her abdomen and belly, around her pubic hair, and down her thighs and calves. He even kissed the bottom of her feet, the inside of her wrists, and raised one leg, then the other, to kiss the back of her knees. By the time he returned to her mouth, she was writhing beneath him and whimpering.
