DISHING UP LOVE

by Robichaux, KD

  “I’m so tired I probably could,” I say, and he reaches over to rub my back in soothing circles. I fight with all my might not to purr like a fucking cat in heat.

  “How about… another drink? This one with a pick-me-up,” he suggests, and I nod. When the bartender makes his way over to us, I order a Red Bull and vodka, even though I can’t stand the taste of the energy drink.

  “Which flavor?” the bartender asks.

  “Flavor? You mean which flavor vodka?” I ask, confused.

  He shakes his head. “No. Red Bull.”

  I sit up straight, my eyes widening. “Red Bull comes in flavors now? O-M-G, this is a game changer.”

  “Did you just say O-M-G out loud?” Curtis questions next to me, and I use my fingertips to gently pinch his lips closed.

  “Shhh,” I direct at him, but my eyes don’t leave the bartender’s. “What flavors do you have?”

  “Well, there’s original…” He opens the sliding door on the refrigerator in front of him behind the bar and takes a closer look at the cans inside. “Cranberry, grapefruit, blueberry, tropical fruit, orange, kiwi-apple, coconut berry—”

  “That one!” I interrupt his list.

  “Are you sure? I have a few more.”

  “Yep. Positive. Nothing beats out coconut,” I reply, and I feel and hear Curtis sniff out a chuckle, his breath coming out of his nose and hitting my fingers where I still have them clamping his lips closed. I let him go, take a moment to gently pat his cheek before reaching for the drink the bartender was kind enough to pour for me quickly.

  “So coconut, huh? I’ll have to remember that. I have a damn good coconut cake recipe that will blow your mind,” Curtis murmurs close to me before turning to order another Hurricane.

  “You shut your filthy mouth, Curtis Rockwell. Don’t you talk dirty to me in public,” I scold, taking a sip of my drink. My head tilts back and I close my eyes. “Holy shit. This is amazing. Can I get one of these in a to-go cup please, good man?”

  “Sure thing, dollface,” he says, grabbing a large plastic cup from the wall behind him and mixing me up another Red Bull and vodka. I pour the rest of my glass I’m working on into the cup and mix it all up with my straw.

  “That’s one thing I could definitely get used to about this place,” Curtis tells me, and I lift a prompting brow at him. “Getting to walk around with open containers of alcohol. So weird, but oh so cool.”

  “But you’re a California boy. Don’t you make frequent trips to Las Vegas? You can do it there too,” I ask him.

  “Nah, I don’t go to Vegas much, and if I do, I don’t really do anything but cook for celebrities who flew me in for a special dinner or something,” he responds.

  “Not a big gambler?” I take a sip of my drink, toying with the straw as I look into his eyes while he speaks.

  He shakes his head. “Not a gambler at all. I’m actually quite the hoarder when it comes to spending money all… willy-nilly.”

  “Willy-nilly?” I laugh.

  “I don’t blow what I earn on senseless crap,” he explains. “I have this… fear, I guess. As quickly as I was able to earn it, I’m scared I could lose it just as easily.”

  I lean closer, taking a sip from my straw. “If we were in my office, this is when I’d pull my reading glasses down off the top of my head and start making notes,” I whisper, and when he looks at me with a raised brow, I smile at him jokingly.

  “There are no cameras, sugar. Whatever you want to know about me, just ask. I’m an open book… at least, with you I am,” he confesses, and for some crazy reason, it makes me want to open up to him as well.

  What. The. Fuck?

  The drinks must give me loose lips. “Probably because you know you’ll never see me again after tonight. And you’ve caught on I’m a good person who would never sell your story to a magazine or some shit, so you find me safe to vent to.” I nod in conclusion.

  Next thing I know, my drink is no longer in my hands, and I barely have time to let out a squeak of protest before I’m letting out a silent scream as my body flies through the air, floating… floating… before I’m suddenly facing Curtis, my ass no longer on my bar stool but perched upon his muscular thighs. I’m incredibly aware of the way the zipper of his jeans lines up perfectly with the seam running up the center of my denim shorts, and it all presses right up against my clit that is more aware of the situation than my mind is. Because it takes me a moment for my brain to catch up with the arousal I’m feeling, finally figuring it out that it’s because I am sitting on Chef Curtis Rockwell’s lap in a crowded bar… not in a dark corner we’ve snuck off to, but right. Fucking. Dead. Center. Of the bar itself. People surrounding us on all sides. I can only imagine the bartender’s face right now.

  Who am I kidding? He’s a bartender in New Orleans. Nothing probably fazes him anymore.

  But back to the situation at hand.

  My pussy throbs at the closeness of his now extremely hard cock. The poor guy has had so many boners today from our horsing around I feel sorry for him. Blue balls are no joke, I’m told.

  Before I can continue assessing my new position, Curtis’s deep voice in my ear as he leans forward to press our bodies flush against each other brings me back to the conversation we were just having.

  “If you think I’d never see you again after the day we’ve had together, you are mistaken, sugar. I’ve already made the decision for us,” he murmurs, and my head jerks back to look him in the eye, a haughty expression on my face, I’m sure.

  “You’ve made a decision for us?” I sass. “Sorry to inform you, homeskillet, but no one makes decisions for m—”

  He cuts me off with a single, subtle pump of his hips beneath mine, the seam of my shorts rubbing against me in the most delicious way, making me gasp and forget what I was saying.

  “Tell me when you’ve ever felt this way with another person. Tell me, and I know you’ll be lying. Because I know for a fact that I’ve never come close to feeling like this before.” He leans ever closer, one of his big hands going to the edge of the bar behind me before he pushes my body against the back of his hand. Even in the heat of this intense moment, he thinks of everything to keep me safe, even if it’s just from a bruise.

  He pulls only his head back and just enough to look into my eyes. And it’s the stormy look I see there, the complete seriousness I’ve yet to see in this usually lighthearted and carefree man’s eyes until now, that stops me from blowing off his words.

  The joke I had locked and loaded dies in my throat, and my words come out almost strangled as I can’t look away from his beautiful irises. “I… I can’t.”

  His other hand tightens on my hip, sending sparks up my side. “Don’t tell me you can’t, Erin. There is nothing stopping you from being mine—”

  I shake my head at his misunderstanding. “No, I mean… I can’t. I can’t tell you I’ve felt this way with someone before. Because I haven’t. And it’s scaring the ever-loving fuck out of me,” I tell him honestly, and his tight hold on my hip relaxes just a smidge.

  He dips his head to press his forehead against mine, a lazy smile pulling up a corner of his lips. “Nah, sugar. That’s just the haunted tour we’re on getting to you. Because you have nothing to be afraid of with me.”

  And with that line floating through my mind on repeat, the entire bar… street… city… fuck—the world… disappears around us as he makes good on his promise and presses his lips to mine. With my body trapped between the bar top and the solid brick wall of his torso, my legs dangling on either side of his hips, I feel his free hand wrap around my lower back to pull our lower halves ever closer before it briskly moves up to bury his fingers up the back of my hair. He tugs on my ponytail just enough to make me gasp and swiftly dips his tongue inside my mouth for a taste, his groan rumbling inside his chest and tickling my nipples pressed against him.

  I let go of all control, allowing him to tilt and bend me whichever way he wants, and the limper I become ag
ainst him, the better it feels, just letting him mold me into a ragdoll of pure desire.

  I don’t do this. I don’t make out in public. I don’t straddle laps of men I just met out in the open for the whole Quarter to see. And I one hundred percent do not give up control of a sexual nature. I keep that shit on lock so I can stay completely focused on the physical aspect of it, the pleasure it brings my body, never allowing it to penetrate my mind or heart.

  But with Curtis, in this first kiss we share—which was absolutely no lie when he swore it would be unlike any I’ve ever felt before—I relinquish my hold on all power and give it all over to him. And by God, it’s the most addictive feeling in the world. I melt against him, my body feeling heavy and like it’s floating all at the same time. And when he lifts his hips just a little, it’s instinct, not my conscious mind, that has me grinding against him, making me whimper at the sheer pleasure of it all.

  He overtakes every one of my senses—the sound of his breath and light groans, the scent of his intoxicating cologne, the taste of his Hurricane-laced tongue, the feel of his perfect body against my much smaller one—as the kiss goes on and on, and I never want it to stop.

  How long has it been since I’ve made out like a teenager? Probably not since I was an actual teenager more than a decade ago. But Curtis’s kiss is the best sexual experience of my life thus far, and he has yet to even touch me intimately with his tongue, hands, or cock.

  If I rocked forward just a tad… as his tongue continues to glide against mine… as I continue to breathe in his amazing scent… as I continue to listen to his unconscious sounds of desire while he brings me unsurmountable pleasure with just the press of his lips and dance of his tongue, I have no doubt he’d make me come, right here and now, in front of everyone in this bar. And at this point, with just the little bit of alcohol floating through my veins, I wouldn’t care one bit.

  Dear God, this man has turned me into a dirty little exhibitionist with just one kiss.

  I pant as his steel pipe of a cock pushes my seam against my aching clit, and just as the last star is about to align and make me explode in the bar of a haunted hotel, I nearly scream in both terror and frustration as a heavy hand lands on my shoulder, and Ronnie’s voice says loudly, “Time for our next stop! Girl, damn. Get a room. We’re in a hotel, after all.” And as I pry my lips from Curtis’s, I glance over his shoulder to see my tour guide buddy shaking his head and chuckling as he makes his way out the front door.

  “Motherfucker,” I exhale, as the entire world slowly comes back into existence. And it’s then I realize Curtis still hasn’t spoken a word. I timidly look into his eyes, and what I see there is completely breathtaking.

  He looks like a man possessed.

  And I know my assessment is spot on when the first words out of his mouth after our first kiss are “Never letting you go, sugar. Not. Ever.”

  My whole body goes warm thanks to the heat in his eyes, and something in me believes him. In this moment, I truly believe he’ll never let me go.

  But a little voice in the back of my mind warns me, Don’t get your hopes up. He’s saying that without knowing the whole truth.

  Yet, I can’t help but think this is different. Curtis is different. This feeling between us—different. Could this man possibly accept me, just me—broken, imperfect, Woman Card rejected… me?

  I have no time to ponder it further before he wraps his arms around me and stands, allowing my smaller frame to slide down his deliciously rigid front until my feet are planted on the floor. I breathe in his scent when he leans into me to reach behind me and grab our drinks, and when he hands me mine, I smile up at him, feeling more drunk from his kiss than the alcohol we’ve consumed.

  “We’ll continue this later, little one,” he purrs, and the promise in his eyes sends an excited shiver of anticipation through my every nerve ending. He takes hold of my free hand and guides me through the packed hotel bar until we make it out onto the sidewalk with the rest of our group.

  Chapter 10

  Curtis

  “IS THERE ANY voodoo on this tour?” a woman asks while we’re walking to the next stop.

  “Actually, no. There is a specific voodoo tour you can choose to take, because there is just too much information and too many places to see that pertain to it. But it’s guided by an actual practicing voodoo priestess if you’re interested. Also, if you sign up when we return to our home base, you get fifty percent off a second tour. I highly recommend that one and also the cemetery tour, because it is now the only way you’re allowed into St. Louis Cemetery #1, which is where Marie Laveau’s tomb is.”

  Erin nudges me with her elbow, and when my eyes meet hers, she winks up at me. “It may be where her tomb is, but it’s not where her body iiisss,” she sing-songs, making me grin.

  “Why, Erin. Are you referring to a certain discovery your best friend made with her now husband slash baby-daddy?” I put my hand to my chest as if I’m clutching my pearls.

  Her jaw drops. “You know? But… it’s totally classified. Only the people who were at their ceremony in Paris know exactly what they found. And we all had to sign non-disclosure agreements.”

  “I was there, sugar,” I tell her, and her head jerks back in surprise.

  “How the hell…? I certainly would’ve noticed you. At least, I think I would’ve. Well, that was actually before I watched your show, since it wasn’t until after that when Emmy joined No Trespassing,” she ponders aloud.

  “Did you like the food?” I ask nonchalantly.

  “Oh my God. Yes! It was seriously delicious. I was a little nervous, since it was traditional French dishes, not the creole and Cajun yumminess we have here, but for real, I ate all of mine and most of Emmy’s, since she wasn’t hungry. She gets a nervous belly,” she explains enthusiastically.

  “Good to know. I catered that dinner. As well as Dean and Emmy’s wedding reception,” I tell her, and she slaps my arm.

  “Shut. Up. Are you serious? We were in the same place twice and never met.” She pouts, and I chuckle. This second drink and that world-shattering kiss must be loosening her up a bit if she’s not hiding the fact that she’s disappointed we could’ve known each other this whole time.

  “Everything in its own time. I guess we weren’t meant to meet until today,” I tell her, taking a sip of my drink.

  We listen as Ronnie gives in to the woman who clearly really, really wanted to hear a story about voodoo as we continue walking.

  “Voodoo is likely the most misunderstood and misrepresented religion there is. It came to New Orleans from the slave trade from Africa and also from ten thousand refugees sent here from Haiti. Since France owned us and they also owned Haiti, when the Haitian refugees got here, there was a large number of free people of color. There are three types of voodoo here in New Orleans. There is African voodoo, there is Haitian voodoo, and there is what is known as New Orleans and plantation voodoo. The last one is a combination of both Haitian and African voodoo mixed with Catholicism.”

  “Catholicism? Those don’t seem like they’d mix very well,” the woman inserts, and Ronnie nods.

  “Misunderstood and misrepresented, remember? New Orleans was the most Catholic place in the United States. At the docks when everyone would be getting off the boats, there would be priests there to convert everyone coming into the city to Catholicism. It’s the only religion people were allowed to openly practice at the time. Voodoo has just one all-powerful being, one creator. It is a monotheistic religion. But much like Catholics and their saints, voodoo people have their ancestral spirits. For the people whose religion was voodoo, in order for them to practice, they had a genius idea to disguise their spirits as the Catholic saints.

  “You might’ve heard of a woman named Marie Laveau. She is hands-down the most infamous voodoo priestess who ever lived. She was a Catholic her entire life, brought up her children as Catholic and everything. They were all baptized at St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square. To this day, eighty
percent of all voodoo practitioners here in New Orleans and in Haiti are Catholic.”

  “No way. That was so smart of them!” the woman says, and before she can ask any more questions, we all come to a stop as Ronnie turns to face us and holds up is hands.

  “Now, here is probably the one most of y’all have been waiting for.” He gestures toward the massive corner mansion we’re standing next to, and everyone starts to mumble to each other, obviously confused.

  Erin winks up at me, smiling and elbowing me gently as she lifts her chin toward Ronnie, who begins his tale.

  “Looks a little different than the home they used in American Horror Story, no? If you look just across the street there—” He points to a familiar looking building. “—that is actually the place they used as Madame Marie Delphine MacCarthy Blanque LaLaurie’s house in the show. Easily one of the cruelest and most sadistic women in American history, she was played pretty much spot-on by the amazingly talented Kathy Bates in Season 3, Coven.” He drawls out the last word, and I get chills of excitement, glancing down at Erin with a giddy grin on my face like it’s Christmas morning.

  “The real Madame LaLaurie was born in 1787. She was part of New Orleans’s elite, wealthy beyond compare. As many manipulative sociopaths are, she was known to be kind and sweet. That is, to her social equals. According to British writer Harriet Martineau, The lady was so graceful and accomplished, so charming in her manners and so hospitable, that no one ventured openly to question her perfect goodness.

  “Not too long after her third marriage to the less wealthy Dr. Louis LaLaurie, she had built a lavish, two-story mansion on Royal Street in New Orleans in her own name. This home—” Ronnie sweeps his arm out to the gray monstrosity next to us. “—which is actually the rebuilt version, quickly became known as the grandest in all of the French Quarter. But on the opposite end of the spectrum, her slaves were noted to look haggard and sickly.

  “Rumors started to spread about her cruelty to her slaves, and not long after, multiple complaints were filed. This happened across several years. One infamous story about her was when she flew into a rage when a twelve-year-old servant girl named Lia accidently pulled on a tangle while brushing Madame LaLaurie’s hair. As Lia ran from her uncompromising, whip-wielding owner, Lia chose to jump from the roof to her death.”