Swamp Happens: The Complete Swamp Bottom Series

by Cora Kenborn

  Addie’s breathing became labored as her tongue darted out and traced her lower lip. “I know that. You’ve always had…more.”

  Not touching her was killing me, and whatever fucking game I’d started was over. Screw what Pope thought. I knew what Addie needed, and it wasn’t some big cock display of my world versus hers.

  Bending my finger, I tipped the bill of the baseball hat up then hooked it under her chin. I couldn’t pull her close enough, and sliding my thumb beside her ear, I caressed her cheek as our breaths mingled. As my free hand drifted down to her hip, I tried to convince myself that yes, one kiss would be enough, and no, I wouldn’t lose control and fuck her right here on the open sea.

  I’m also a lying sack of shit.

  Water splashed at our feet as Addie glanced over my shoulder. “Zep, it’s moving.”

  “I can’t help it when you lick your lips like that, Addie. It’s involuntary.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, not that!” Her arm shot out, pointing to the fishing pole behind me. “The line’s moving.”

  Immediately coming out of a lusty haze, my eyes followed her arm to find my fishing pole bent over and ready to snap in two. “Fuck!”

  Crossing the boat in three steps, I jerked it out of the holster, determined to reel it in, but whatever was on the other end obviously had other ideas. Addie stood back, looking like she’d been air-dropped into an alternate universe.

  “Get over here. I need you.”

  “To do what?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “Paint my nails. What the hell do you think? I need leverage.” Nodding in front of me, I let out a grunt as the pole jerked again. “Get between my legs and pull.”

  “Nice try, LeBlanc.”

  “Addie, if I wanted a handjob, I’d fucking ask for it. This isn’t a euphemism. Crawl under here and pull my rod.” Turning my attention back to the task at hand, I just assumed she’d do what I asked. Technically, I wasn’t on duty, but the situation had gone way past payout and was now in man versus wild territory. This was basic caveman type bullshit, and I’d be damned if I’d look like a pussy in front of my woman.

  I pulled hard on the line again when hysterical giggling behind me diverted my attention. Tossing a glare over my shoulder, I shook my head as Addie wiped her eyes and doubled over in laughter.

  “Seriously, what are you, twelve?”

  “Sorry,” she choked out, trying hard to regain her composure. Still snickering, she crawled on her hands and knees before settling her ass between my legs, instantly reigniting my hard-on. “Now what?”

  “Wrap your hands underneath mine and hold on tight. It’s going to jerk but just ride out the tension until I can get it in.” I barely got the words out before she met my eye with a lift of her eyebrow and a grin.

  Shit, she’s right.

  Letting out a loud snort, she finally did as I said, and with both our body weight against it, the fish finally gave in. With one final tug, the line swung backward, knocking the pole out of my hands and sending the fish onto the floor where it flopped frantically.

  Addie stared at it with curiosity while keeping her distance. “What kind is it?”

  “A shark.”

  It wasn’t, but my relationship with Addie was based on three fundamental pillars: love, attraction, and mutual torture.

  “What?” Letting out a scream that could only be described as a dying dolphin, Addie leaped into the air, somehow landing on top of my shoulders with her arms locked around my head and her legs wrapped around my neck like a vice. With every scream, she climbed higher and higher until she perched on top of my head like a spider monkey.

  “Addie! Let go…can’t breathe.” I attempted to pry her off me as we stumbled backward.

  “Get it away from me!” she screamed, clawing my face.

  “Fuck, Addie, I can’t see. Get off!” The light started to dim from a lack of oxygen.

  Digging her nails into my nostrils, she jerked my head back and grabbed a handful of my beard with her other hand. “Get rid of it!”

  Dying of asphyxiation due to a woman’s legs being wrapped around my neck was one hell of a way to go. Dying of asphyxiation because my girlfriend was insane was just poor planning.

  “I was joking, Addie. It’s just a regular fish.” Wheezing, I pinched the sensitive skin behind her knee, trying to dislodge her. “Holy shit, you’re strong.”

  I didn’t realize how close we were to the edge of the boat, and the minute my leg hit the side, my knee buckled. Addie hit the floor first with a groan, and I followed, one knee lodged between her legs while my lips brushed the base of her neck. Desire flared hot in my veins, and I couldn’t stop myself from tasting her skin. She moaned as I trailed my tongue from her collarbone up to her ear, the burning ache that always simmered just below the surface igniting into an insatiable flame.

  As I ran my hand up the length of her thigh, her voice vibrated against my mouth. “Why did you bring me here?”

  I’d never been comfortable expressing my emotions or discussing feelings like I was talking about the weather. I’d always considered myself more of a man of action, showing a woman in bed how I felt rather than throwing meaningless bullshit at her.

  However, there were two major flaws with that formula. One, what I felt for other women was simple lust and nothing more, and two, nothing I said to Addie could ever be bullshit.

  Helping her off the floor, I stood behind her, cradling her against me while pointing to her right. “Do you see that?”

  “No.” Glancing over her shoulder, she furrowed her brows and snuggled closer. “All I see is water.”

  “Exactly. Jean Lafitte’s waters aren’t as commercial as Venice. I’ve been coming here for thirteen years.”

  “Why?”

  “Before you left, you told me you’d see me in hell before you’d ever speak to me again. Addie, you didn’t have to threaten to see me in hell. The minute you walked away, I was already in it. God, just wondering where you were, what you were doing, and who you were doing it with killed me.” Her body shuddered against me, and I closed my eyes, burying my nose in her hair. “Every time the thought of you consumed me, I packed up and spend hours out here alone. It made everything feel less final, and for a while, I could pretend you were still mine.”

  “I thought about you too,” she whispered, swallowing hard. “Roland left me alone a lot. Business trips, nights out with his friends—even when he was home, he wasn’t there, you know? When he looked at me, I don’t think he ever actually saw me.”

  “I see you, Addie.”

  Her honey brown eyes filled with tears as she looked up at me. The mask she wore finally fell, revealing the insecure teenager who stood at the edge of that bonfire and closed herself off from the world. “What do you see?”

  My future. My life. My everything.

  “A second chance.”

  41

  Flags On The Moon

  Zephirin

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  “Eyes up here, Captain Jack.”

  Addie and I sat across from each other at a little bar halfway in between Jean Lafitte and New Orleans. After getting cleaned up at the marina from our time on the water, we’d driven back to town in silence, both of us overwhelmed at what happened on the boat. However, the minute we got out of the truck, she’d grabbed my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. Call me cheesy, but I hadn’t let it go. Even now, we sat with our arms stretched across the booth, fingers entwined like a couple of teenagers.

  It didn’t escape me that we were off the beaten path of our usual hangouts, but I rode such a high, I chose to let it go.

  “You’re wearing white,” I announced, stroking her thumb.

  “Oh, Zep, it’s the way you state the obvious that makes me swoon.” Batting her eyelashes, she puckered her lips and blew me a kiss across the table.

  “You done being a smartass?”

  “Not remotely.” Her eyes crinkled as a slow grin p
ulled across her face.

  “You wore white on our first official date.”

  The waitress dropped off two menus, and Addie politely nodded as she passed me one. “We only had one official date, Zep. Four-wheeling doesn’t count.”

  And that one date carried me through three years of wondering what other man was holding her and a subsequent ten of wishing to hell I didn’t know. Friends wondered what had prompted my sudden reclusiveness, and Ma swore that in time, I’d get over her and find someone else.

  I knew better.

  That one official date was the first and last time I’d made love to any woman.

  “I know. But I’ll never forget the white dress you wore or the song that played the whole time we were together. If I close my eyes, I can still see the way the stadium lights reflected through the windshield and lit up your face like a halo. You looked like an angel,” I said, wondering who the hell was speaking because no fucking way those words were coming out of my mouth.

  Mayday, Mayday, we have a direct hit, sir. LeBlanc has just reached down and ripped off his own balls.

  Addie paused mid-sip of her water, her fingers tightening around her glass. “I vaguely remember that song.”

  “What else do you remember about that night, Addie?” If I was going down in a ball of flames, I might as well go out in a blaze of glory.

  “I told you I’d never played football in my life, so you took me to the stadium and made me play in four-inch heels.” She spread out her thumb and finger to mimic the height of her shoes while laughing. Heat swept across her chest and crawled up her neck before finally staining her cheeks.

  “I’d never been with anyone like you before, Addie. You were just so—”

  “Virginal?” she finished flatly, her eyes cast downward.

  Reaching across the table, I tilted her chin up and searched her eyes. “I was going to say beautiful, but okay, I won’t deny it. Yes, the fact that you were a virgin made me want you that much more. Jesus, just knowing no man had ever touched you before? Fuck, it was like planting a goddamn flag on the moon.”

  “So, I was a conquest?” she sputtered, pulling away from me and focusing on the menu with a scowl. As usual, Addie heard what she wanted to instead of listening, but this time, I refused to back down.

  “I didn’t say that.” Clenching my teeth, I jerked the menu out of her hand and tossed it aside. “I meant that I knew I’d be the first man to know you that way. The first man to know how fucking incredible you feel. The first man to hear you make that little throaty gurgle when you come.”

  A small smile danced on one corner of her mouth. “The only man.” She said the words so softly I almost asked her to repeat them.

  “Well, even though my only competition needs a map to find his own dick, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Throwing her head back, Addie let out a light-hearted giggle, and for the first time, a calmness centered me. It seemed that in the middle of some no-name restaurant on the outskirts of New Orleans, Addie and I had turned a corner.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Addie’s eyes shifted over my head, widening in horror as she made a high-pitched seal noise and dove underneath the table. Pissed the moment we’d created had been destroyed, I glanced over my shoulder, ready to lay fists into whoever had spooked her. Instead of finding a menacing force barreling our way, a sigh settled in my chest as Bam-Bam lumbered over to the bar and slapped a guy in a blue uniform on his back as if he’d been coming here all his life.

  Back to square one.

  Palming the back of my neck, I let out another sigh before leaning down and leveling a stare at her. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Quiet for moment, she suddenly flattened her palm, patting the floor in a ridiculous crouched position as if she expected me to believe her bullshit. “Nothing, I uh, dropped something.”

  “Would it be your dignity? Because I’m pretty sure it’s still up there if you’d like to grab it.”

  Stopping her crazed patting, she slumped onto her ass, her shoulders dropping in defeat. “Shut up, Zep.”

  “Is this really how this is going to go down?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “All right. You want to play it that way, fine.” Resigned to having this conversation sitting on the floor of some dive bar, I slammed a boot on either side of her and slid underneath the table. “This is intimate.”

  “What the hell are you doing?” she whisper-shouted, panic radiating off of her.

  Just as I opened my mouth, a pair of legs in black combat boots shuffled beside us, pausing for a moment before bending at the knees. Throwing a smug wink Addie’s way, I turned my attention toward the shock of pink hair that appeared upside down, the ends of it dusting the floor as our waitress grinned.

  “Do you two need some more time or would you like to order an appetizer?”

  Believe it or not, ordering food from the underside of a restaurant booth like it was an everyday occurrence took skill. “We’d like an order of nachos.”

  The muscles in Addie’s neck corded as the waitress smiled and scribbled across her notepad. “What? No, we don’t want any fucking nachos! What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Undeterred, I gave the pink-haired waitress my most panty-melting smile. “Don’t mind her,” I reassured her. “Cheese backs her up.”

  Grabbing fistfuls of her own hair, Addie let out a growl. “Go away!”

  Once the waitress left, I stared at Addie for a moment, allowing the resentment boiling in my blood to bubble to the surface. “Look, I know you’re under here because Bam showed up. You’re afraid he saw us, but you might as well come out. He already knows.”

  “What?” Climbing to her knees, she waved her hands like a madwoman. How?”

  “Because I told him.” I bit down on my tongue, stopping myself from making a full confession about Josie, Cole, and Michael.

  Addie’s arms came barreling toward my chest in windmill mode. “Why the actual fuck would do you that?”

  “Because I’m proud to be with you, Addie, and I want everyone to know it.” Tired of getting pummeled, I held her arms steady as she seethed. “Besides, Bam’s your cousin for fuck’s sake. It’s not like he can’t see we’re two seconds away from fucking in the office half the time anyway.”

  She lowered her chin, a lock of hair escaping from behind her ear and falling over her face. “I’m just not ready for this.”

  While hiding out underneath a booth with the woman I’d been in love with since I was eighteen years old, it finally hit me. As volatile as we were, there would only ever be full-throttle or nothing at all between Addie and me.

  Briefly closing my eyes, I scrubbed a hand down my face. “When will you be ready, Addie? In ten more years?”

  Recoiling like I’d slapped her, Addie pushed herself against the back of the seat and curled into a ball while hugging her legs to her chest. A conflicted weight settled in my stomach, pitting the man who wanted to reassure her he’d wait forever against the man who respected himself enough to walk away.

  In high school, all the girls used to talk about soulmates this and soulmates that. Most of the time, I was too busy doing shit that mattered to waste time trying to figure out their teenage psycho-babble, but the concept fascinated me. Those chicks had convinced themselves there was one perfect person out there for them and planned fictitious weddings to that one soulmate who was destined only to be with them.

  Ridiculous, right?

  Then Adelaide Dubois turned my world upside down, and those bitches didn’t sound so stupid. I thought maybe destiny wasn’t so far-fetched after all, and there was something to that whole soulmate crap.

  The air between us thickened. Tears welled in her eyes, and I almost wiped them away when a pair of heavy work boots clambered up beside us. The brief intimacy vanished as Bam-Bam’s buzzed head leaned down, grinning as his tree-trunk arms latched onto the edge of the table above him.

/>   “S’up, y’all? Is this a private party or can anyone crash it?”

  Then again, teenage girls are full of shit.

  Pushing off the floor, I crawled out from underneath the booth and tossed a few dollar bills from my wallet onto the table. “Bam, can you make sure Addie gets home safe?”

  The smile faded from Bam’s face, and his eyes bounced from me to where Addie still sat hunched under the table. “Where are ya goin’?”

  “Home.”

  A heavy silence clung to the air. “But you just ordered nachos,” he argued.

  “Cancel them.” Giving him a slap on the back before heading toward the door, I allowed myself one last look at Addie over my shoulder. “I’m sure they’re not ready, either.”

  Kicking at loose gravel in the parking lot, I dropped every four-letter word I knew as I made my way to my truck. I needed to get the hell out of here and put some distance between Addie and me. Maybe then I could figure out how to reclaim the life I had before she came back to town and blew it all to hell.

  The minute I unlocked my truck and reached for the door, frantic footsteps shuffled behind me, stopping inches behind my back. “Zep?”

  I didn’t have to turn around. The smell of candy surrounded me, pulling me back into a memory that refused release me. “Go back inside, Addie.”

  “Please don’t walk away from me,” she begged, her fingers blazing a hot trail over my shoulder. “I know I keep giving you mixed signals, and I’m sorry, but you’ve got to see this from my point of view.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she closed the remaining distance between us, molding her front against my back.

  I wanted to shrug her off and climb behind the wheel, forcing her to be the one to watch me walk away this time, but the heat from her touch lit a fuse in me that sent my need for her spiraling out of control.

  Pride and need weren’t mutually exclusive. Sometimes the line between them blurred, manifesting in an urge to claim someone in the most primal way possible. It’d gotten to the point lately that I couldn’t decipher the need to love her from the need to possess her.