Bayou Nights

by Julie Mulhern

  Her fingers unbuttoned a button. It was as if she’d unbuttoned his ability to reason.

  His mouth went dry. “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” She abandoned her buttons and loosed his tie.

  They had to stop. Had to or… “I thought you were a…”

  “A virgin?” Her cheeks flushed a becoming pink. “I am.” She shifted her gaze to her lap and caught her lower lip in her teeth. “I don’t want to disappoint you.”

  Christine? Disappoint him? Raw need grabbed him and refused to let go. “As if you ever could.” He swallowed. “Are you sure? Do you understand the mechanics?”

  “I grew up in the country on a working plantation.”

  “So, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “You must tell me when things feel good and when they don’t.”

  The flush on her cheeks deepened. “All right.”

  “I don’t want to disappoint you.” He used her words.

  Then she used his. “As if you ever could.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “I do.”

  The need that held him hostage roared its approval. “Then let me take us where you want to go.”

  He waited for her to say yes. He got an uncharacteristically shy nod. That one gesture was enough. Drake reclaimed her mouth. If their first kiss was tender, their second exploring, this kiss was all passion. Two people. Two bodies. Two souls. About to become one.

  He kissed her out of her shirtwaist. Kissing each bit of skin exposed by opening a button. He unlaced her corset, slid her skirt down the length of her legs, then her stockings. Kissing, tasting, and allowing his tongue the pleasure of small whorls on her soft skin.

  She wore nothing but her shift, a whisper-thin bit of linen.

  Even that was too much.

  He fingered the lace edging the bodice. “This has to go.”

  “But you’re fully dressed.”

  “Ah, ah, ah.” He wagged his finger. “You agreed.” Then he lifted the bit of linen over her head.

  Christine naked was a revelation. Certainly she had all the usual womanly parts. But they were hers, meaning they were perfect. His breath caught in his throat.

  He touched the soft pink of her nipple. It tightened under his fingers. Not enough. He bent and took the delicate bit of flesh in his mouth.

  The sound she made—something between a sigh and a plea—shot straight through him.

  Gently, he used his teeth.

  She arched into him.

  His body throbbed with need. His body could wait.

  With slow stokes, his hand traced down the length of her stomach until he reached her clitoris.

  “Drake?” Her body writhed beneath him.

  “Trust me?”

  She looked up at him, her eyes darkened by desire. “I do. I trust you.”

  His fingers brushed across her clit. His tongue and teeth teased her nipples. Christine strained toward him, her body eager for a joining he wasn’t yet ready to give her.

  He lifted his mouth from her breast, replaced it with his fingers, then kissed his way down the length of her torso.

  The first flick of his tongue made her cry out. He pushed her legs apart then took her clit in his mouth. Her back arched off the mattress.

  She would not rush toward completion. He wouldn’t let her. He would take his time. He’d teach her just how exquisite making love could be.

  Slowly, his tongue swirled around her most sensitive spot. Slowly he built tension until her body was taught as a strung bow. Only then did his tongue move faster.

  Her breath came in short pants. Her fingers grabbed his hair. She called out his name. He didn’t stop. Not until he’d wrung the last bit of pleasure from her.

  She raised her head and looked at him through heavy-lidded eyes. “The horses at the plantation didn’t do that.”

  He laughed. He couldn’t help it.

  “What about the mechanics I would recognize?”

  His cock throbbed. Let it. This was Christine, not some woman he’d leave in the morning. “We can stop.” He might have to spend an hour in a cold shower, but they could stop. She could leave his room with her innocence intact.

  “Stop being noble. I don’t want to stop.” She pushed her delightfully mussed hair away from her face. “You have on too many clothes.”

  She was entirely right.

  Christine pushed herself up on her elbows and watched him undress as if she was some sort of erotic princess and he a slave brought in for her pleasure. The lamp next to the bed cast her in gold, gilded her. She was the most beautiful thing Drake had ever seen.

  Her eyes widened. “Are you sure that will fit?”

  Drake glanced down. Grinned. “I’m sure.”

  “Positive?”

  He nodded, fighting another grin.

  “Well, if you’re certain…” She lifted her arms, beckoning.

  She was exquisite.

  “You take my breath away.”

  A naughty smile played across her lips. “I hope so.”

  …

  She’d seen naked chests before, sweaty from working the fields or off-loading a ship, but a naked man, a naked Mattias Drake…oh, my.

  Drake seemed lighter without his dark suit, as if he’d shucked his responsibilities along with his coat and pants. The smile that lit his face as he stared down at her could light a city. Why did he keep that smile hidden? Maybe it was just as well, the radiance on his face made her heart skip beats.

  He advanced on the bed.

  She could still say no. He’d respect her wishes. She knew that.

  She also knew that something had happened to her in the square. She’d thought Drake might be hurt or dying and her world had ended. Drake wasn’t like her father or grandfather. She could trust him. He wouldn’t betray her. Ever.

  “You’re sure?” he asked for the umpteenth time. If there wasn’t very prominent evidence to the contrary, the question might have made her doubt his desire.

  “Come here,” she purred. Did she sound silly? Apparently Drake didn’t think so, his—what was she to call it—jumped.

  His lips reached her first, claiming her mouth. Next his hands, those roamed her body. Then his body, warm and heavy pressed against hers.

  She ran her fingers over the muscles of his chest, his arms, his back.

  “Christine.” The way he said her name against her lips sounded like a prayer.

  His mouth moved to her jaw, to her neck, to her breasts.

  She’d thought herself sated. She’d been wrong. She arched into the feeling of his teeth grazing her nipple. Electric need raced through her veins and her lungs seemed incapable of fully inflating. But more than she wanted the sensations to continue, she wanted him to feel the same way. “I want…”

  “What do you want?” His voice teased.

  She wanted this. She wanted this moment, this feeling, this warm syrup coursing through her veins to last. Forever. “To touch you.”

  He froze for an instant, then pushed away from her, raising himself to his knees. His erection jutted forward like the prow of a ship. She lifted her hand and hesitated—a very large ship.

  With the tip of her finger, she stroked his length, steel covered with skin as soft as velvet. His breath caught at her touch. She stroked again. And again. “You like that?”

  The planes in his cheeks looked harsher than ever. He made a croaking sound deep in his throat and nodded.

  She never would have imagined that the simple act of touching a man could make her feel…powerful. She stroked again.

  Drake lowered his chest, his arms and elbows caging her. “Open your legs.”

  Perhaps feeling powerful was over-rated. There was a lot to be said for the growl of a man who suddenly seemed twice his normal size. She did as he said.

  He rewarded her with a trail of kisses. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t.” She canted her hips.

  His penis nud
ged against her. “You’re sure?”

  “Stop asking me that.”

  Then his tip was inside her. “More,” she told him.

  He slid deeper inside her.

  “More.” She raked her fingernails down his back, down his buttocks.

  He thrust. There was a second’s pain then a sense of fullness, not just the stretching sensation of welcoming Drake into her body but a sense of completion, of rightness.

  He thrust again and she stopped thinking. Instead her body rose to meet his. They created a rhythm. Slow and easy morphing into hard and fast. Hard and fast until the muscles and tendons of Drake’s body stood out in bas-relief and he called, “Christine.”

  He lay on top of her, his lips nuzzling her neck.

  She’d expected more dizzying fireworks exploding in her blood. She’d found a sense of closeness, completion, commitment. “So this is mechanics.”

  Drake raised his head and stared straight into her eyes…straight into her soul. “No.” One of his hands cupped her cheek. He kissed her on the center of her forehead. “This is so much more than mechanics.” A wicked grin curled his lips and the other hand snuck between their bodies and found her nipple. “Now, I owe you another orgasm.”

  …

  If ever there was a woman with whom to awaken in a tangle of limbs and kisses, it was Christine. But she’d wandered too far. Without opening his eyes, Drake hooked his arm across the bed and found it empty.

  He opened his eyes and stared at the vacant spot next to him. Only her scent lingered. He glanced at the closed door to the bathroom. “Christine, come back to bed.”

  She neither came nor answered.

  Drake rolled out of bed and tapped on the door. “Christine.”

  Nothing.

  He turned the handle and opened the door. The bathroom was as empty as his bed.

  He turned. The chair where they’d draped her clothes held not so much as a length of ribbon.

  Adrenaline shot through his system, leaving his mouth dry, his hands and feet cold, and his body primed for a fight. Damn it. She’d gone to find her father without him.

  He jammed his legs into a pair of pants and reached for a shirt. Where had she gone? The shop? Jackson Square? The cathedral?

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Drake yanked open the door. “Where have you…”

  Mike stood on the other side.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Mike planted her hands on her hips and scowled. “Nice to see you, too. Need I remind you that you sent for me?”

  He had? He had. But he’d sent the telegram when the thought of spending another night with Christine was unbearable. He’d needed a woman to watch her and Mike, aside from her name, qualified. Sort of—Mike was too tall, too strong, and too blunt to be considered a regular woman. Mike didn’t need protecting; she was a protector.

  But now—things with Christine had changed. Drake was only too happy to accept the job of protecting her.

  “I got here as fast as I could.” Mike brushed past him, entered his room, and dropped her bag on the floor with a resounding thud. She glanced at the wrinkled bed then shifted her attention to him, paying particular attention to his shirt.

  He glanced down. The blasted thing was on inside out.

  “Am I interrupting?” Since when was Mike sarcastic?

  “Obviously not.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “I was under the impression that you’d asked me down here to guard a woman. Where is she?”

  He flexed his fingers then curled them into fists. Mike had asked the important question.

  Her sharp gaze returned to the tumbled bed. “This woman, she’s Trula’s friend?”

  He grunted.

  “You sound positively Neolithic.” She stepped closer to him and her eyes narrowed. “You look different. What happened? Where is she?”

  He swallowed around the dryness in his mouth. “She’s missing.”

  “And you were going to go looking for her dressed like that?”

  Her question deserved nothing more than another grunt. He crossed to the dresser and withdrew a clean pair of socks.

  A slow smile lit Mike’s serious face. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

  Drake sat on the chair recently occupied by Christine’s clothes. “What?”

  “Nothing.” She looked smug.

  He deliberately ignored her and pulled on a sock.

  “Tell me about her.”

  He pulled on the other sock. Where were his shoes? “She’s missing.”

  “You already told me that. For how long?”

  He shook his head.

  “You woke up and she was gone?”

  Not trusting his voice, Drake nodded.

  “Any idea where she might be?”

  “Several.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “Why?”

  Mike’s expression tightened as if he was testing her patience. “We can cover more ground if we both look for her.”

  Any other woman and he’d hesitate. But Mike had proved herself time and again. And, she was right.

  “Her hair is dark.” And soft. And scented with flowers.

  “How dark? Brown or black or chestnut?”

  “Chestnut. Her eyes look like pieces of amber in sunlight.”

  Mike raised a brow at his description but wisely refrained from comment.

  “She comes up to about here.” He held his hand an inch or two under his chin. “Do you see my shoes?”

  “No. What else?”

  “She twisted her ankle. She’s carrying a cane.” There. He spotted a shoe under the bed and knelt for it. “There’s a sword in the cane.”

  “So petite, dark hair, carries a cane.”

  Drake reached for the other shoe. “She wears ridiculous hats.”

  “You noticed her hats?” Was it surprise or disbelief that colored Mike’s voice?

  Drake looked up. Mike had on a ridiculous hat. Not as ridiculous as Christine’s—no stuffed birds or berries or silk flowers both above and below the brim—but there was a surfeit of feathers. Did Mike always wear such silly headgear? He’d never noticed before.

  Mike settled on the chair where Christine’s clothes should be. “You’ve got it bad.”

  Drake ran a hand through his hair. It stood up in tufts. No wonder Mike was looking at him as if he was some adorable little boy and not a man capable of upending all of New Orleans to find Christine. “Got what?”

  “Love.”

  He rocked back on his heels and stared. Mike sat ramrod straight with her hands in her lap and her ankles crossed. She looked nothing like a woman who’d just lobbed a grenade. Love? Christine? “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  She raised one brow. “In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “And how is that?”

  She glanced around the room, her gaze lingering on the tie hanging from a lamp, his still wrong side out shirt, his hair. “Less than rigid.”

  “I’m not rigid.”

  Mike snorted. “You could teach steel a thing or two. The only time I…” Her voice trailed away.

  “What?” he snapped.

  She lifted her chin a fraction. “The only time I’ve seen you less than rigid was when Bess died.”

  That day, he’d cracked. He’d buried his head on Mike’s shoulder and sobbed. Mike had wrapped her arms around him, stayed with him as he drank his way to the bottom of a bottle of scotch, and been there in the morning when he woke bleary-eyed and devastated.

  This day, he mined his soul for the strength that would help him find Christine. “We have to find her.”

  “Did you tell her I was coming? Does she know about me?”

  He shook his head.

  “When were you planning on telling her?”

  Telling Christine he’d sent for a woman to watch over her would have been welcomed with as much enthusiasm as a bastard at a family picnic. “Never.” />
  …

  Christine’s feet froze to the carpet. Probably a side effect of the ice flowing through her veins. She closed her eyes on the sight of a half-naked Drake. Not so easy to scrub the woman’s questions from her brain. Forgetting his response was an impossibility.

  When were you planning on telling her? Never.

  She forced her feet to move, to back away from the cracked door of Drake’s hotel room.

  When were you planning on telling her? Never.

  Those feet carried her the length of the hallway, down the stairs, through the hotel lobby, and onto the street.

  When were you planning on telling her? Never.

  She drew humid air into her lungs and held it.

  How could she have been so wrong? She’d trusted him.

  She closed her eyes on the children dashing down the banquette, the couples walking arm in arm, and the older gentleman helping a white-haired lady down from a carriage.

  Was this the same pain her grandmother and mother had endured? A knife twisting in her stomach. Her heart splitting in two within the confines of her chest. The tightening of her lungs so that each breath felt more tortured than the last.

  She stumbled, only her father’s cane kept her from falling.

  Remaining on the banquette while her hopes crumbled to dust wasn’t an option. She lifted a foot, put it down, and then forced the opposite foot to do the same. Not walking. Lurching.

  She lurched away from the hotel, away from the man who’d betrayed her.

  She lurched all the way to her shop. The jaunty awning no longer looked elegant, now the striped canvas seemed pathetic. The hats in the windows were silly flights of fancy, nothing but bits of satin and lace and straw that might protect a wearer from the sun but were useless against the pain of living.

  Empty bits of fluff.

  They were all she knew.

  Christine unlocked the door, went inside, and sank onto the pouf, resting her back against its button-tufted velvet.

  She closed her eyes. What now? How had her mother and grandmother found the strength to continue?

  Her jaw ached with the effort of swallowing her tears.

  Minutes ticked by and still she sat, gathering the tools she’d let fall—the sweet smiles, the flutters of eyelashes, and the honeyed tones that had kept her safe from men like Drake.

  The sound of the door opening roused her.