Cajun Two-Step- The Complete Series

by Leigh Landry

  She looked around the noisy, crowded taproom and actually felt disappointed. She wasn’t going to drink, but, to her surprise, she didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want this afternoon with Eric to end. “Actually, could we sit outside for a bit? You should get something, though. I don’t mind.”

  He paused and looked back at the register, then put a hand on her lower back, sending tingles up her spine. That gesture used to be so familiar and comforting, but she’d long forgotten the soothing yet invigorating feel of it.

  They sat across from each other on one of the picnic benches in the shade of a colorful umbrella. He removed his dark, metal-rimmed sunglasses from the brim of his hat and placed them over his eyes, creating a barrier to his emotions. He was fun and easygoing and everyone loved him. But Kelsey could always see the real Eric in his eyes.

  “You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a long day. I guess I’m tired from the gig. It’s the sun, I guess.”

  “Yeah, you got a little color in your cheeks today.” He grinned. “I can see a few extra freckles.”

  She felt herself blush and was thankful for that extra color to hide it. She looked down at the table and picked at the edge of the wood.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to make you self-conscious or anything. It’s cute.”

  With her head still aimed downward, she raised her eyes to give him a look.

  He laughed, that deep soothing baritone that set her insides on fire like no other sound could. “Okay, fine. I won’t talk about how cute you are anymore. Promise.”

  She stifled her own laugh, but felt herself relaxing. As much as she didn’t want to welcome any compliments from Eric, she also couldn’t help having a good time with him.

  It had been so easy to fall for him. Again and again and again. Every time. No matter how different they were. No matter how different their backgrounds were. They always seemed to fit somehow.

  And maybe those differences were exactly why she fell so hard for him. Maybe he and his solid family, with their loving bonds and deep connections, were exactly what was so shiny and attractive to her. Even if she couldn’t imagine letting herself get pulled into something like that, because those kinds of connections made the risk too great. They made the inevitable letdown that much harder.

  If only she’d remembered that and stayed away from Eric in the first place.

  Still, even if they never got back together, even if she never got to spend another moment with him after this, she couldn’t regret one single second. Her time with him had all been worth it.

  “You ready to get to work?” she asked.

  He let out a tiny sigh of disappointment. No one else would have noticed, but she knew his movements well enough to catch it.

  “Sure.” He stood from the picnic table and held out a hand to help her up. “You excited to show off those self-proclaimed crappy lyrics?”

  “Crappy right now or crappy an hour from now,” she said with a smile as she took his hand and stood. “Let’s get this crap show on the road.”

  He laughed again, and her heart ached over how much she’d missed being the one to make him laugh.

  They walked together toward his van. Within a few steps, she felt his hand once more against her lower back, and those welcome tingles ran up her spine again. A few steps later, he removed his hand and dug his keys out of his front pocket, leaving Kelsey’s back cold and the rest of her desperate for more of his touch.

  By the time they reached his van, her brain was once again second-guessing all of her carefully laid-out plans. Doubting her doubts.

  Kelsey climbed into the front seat. She had a fifteen-minute ride back to her car, then another fifteen minutes to Eric’s house. Hopefully that would be enough time to put her brain back in check. And the rest of her.

  Chapter 6

  Eric straddled the piano bench beside Kelsey and watched as she flipped through the pages of a purple notebook. When she found the right page, she bit her lip nervously. It was adorable, and he felt privileged any time he got to see her vulnerable this way. It wasn’t a side of her that she let many people glimpse.

  As cute as she was biting her lip all shy like that, he wished she wouldn’t worry so much. Whatever she wrote was amazing. He had no doubt. And whatever she shared was safe with him. Always. He’d never laugh or criticize or judge any creation of hers.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  Kelsey read a few lines of the first verse while she patted the driving waltz rhythm on her leg. She paused here and there, noting that she needed to change up a few words to get the beats right. The song detailed a Mardi Gras ball, much like the one they’d played at last month. The easygoing lyrics painted a beautiful picture of the glitz and laughter of the event, but the honesty of those words also portrayed a darker undercurrent of loss and pain and longing. He didn’t dare to hope that longing was for him.

  She paused the patting on her leg, but didn’t look up from her notebook. When she continued a few seconds later, her voice quivered, but somehow she plowed through her fear and read the chorus.

  More than a dance floor between us,

  years of pain repeating.

  But your smile as always

  sweet as a strawberry harvest.

  Oh the expanse between us

  brings the truth in clearer.

  You're not mine.

  You're not mine.

  Once she finished reading that chorus, she exhaled deeply, her eyes still glued to the page. As tough and stoic as she was about everything else, she was still anxious when it came to her writing. She needed to be liked and accepted, to have that praise and encouragement she’d missed out on as a kid. He wished there was some way he could heal those wounds for her.

  But something else was going on with her now, too. Something he couldn’t put his finger on. Something she couldn’t blame on too much sun that afternoon.

  She was more serious. More deliberate. More…everything.

  And she wasn’t ready to open up to him about whatever was going on with her. He hadn’t earned that yet. She wasn’t pushing him away anymore, which was a start. The start of long road he planned on continuing down.

  Losing her…losing the pregnancy…losing the illusion of a life together had nearly destroyed him. They had stopped being careful. They were talking about marriage. Kids had always been in their talks about the future anyway. They’d just stopped worrying about it. He had stopped worrying about everything when they were together, because everything felt right when he was with her. And when she’d gotten pregnant, they didn’t even know how much they should have worried.

  He’d handled it all so horribly, and yet here she was, looking expectantly at him, waiting for his approval. He didn’t deserve it.

  But he was going to work his damnedest to deserve her from now on. And that began with taking things slow. Making Kelsey feel safe. No matter how much he wanted to be close to her, he had to let her take the lead here. Or at least give him very clear signals.

  “That’s beautiful, Kel.”

  “Stop, I’m serious,” she said. “What do you think? Too cheesy? Should I shorten the first verse?”

  “I’m serious, too. It’s perfect.”

  “Stop bullshitting me. We have to play this next month.”

  “I’m not bullshitting you about this. I’ve never bullshit you about anything. And I swear I never will.”

  She flashed him a nervous glance, then averted her eyes again. “Eric, about what you said the other day…”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  “You didn’t,” she said. “Well, a little. But the point is you just got out of a relationship. I can’t be some rebound for you.” Her shoulders raised and slumped with the deep breath she took, and she stared off absently at the lamp on top of the piano. “Or at least I can’t be that for you again. Not anymore.”

  “You were never ju
st a rebound thing for me. Never.” Still straddling the piano bench, he put his hands gently on the sides of her arms to turn her toward him as he looked directly into her misty eyes. “I always wanted more from you. I just never knew how to get back to where we were. To make up for…everything.”

  A tear formed in the corner of her eye and slid down the side of her freckled nose. She wiped it away and through sniffles said, “I don’t know if I can forget that. I know I shut down for a while, and I’m partially to blame for pushing you away, but I can’t forget that you left me to go through that pain alone.”

  And that was the knife twist.

  After the miscarriage, he couldn’t bear the idea of her thinking she was somehow the source of his pain. Everyone—Eric, her doctor, her friends, even his family—reminded her there was nothing she could have done to stop that loss. That it was this awful random thing she couldn’t have prevented. But he could see the edges of guilt behind her eyes. She fought to keep it away, but it was always there, waiting for some crack in her stoicism to take over and bring her to her knees. He didn’t want any part of that, so he’d pulled away. It felt wrong now, but back then he hadn’t known how else to help her.

  He’d been paying for it ever since. He paid for it every time he saw her and couldn’t be near her. Every time she looked at him, the disappointment evident in her eyes. Every time he thought about a future without her.

  He hung his head and closed his eyes, too ashamed to look at her, but he kept his hands on her arms and squeezed gently. “I’m so sorry. I swear, I never meant to hurt you more. I thought I was helping you.”

  Her muscles tensed under his palms. “How could you think that abandoning me after a miscarriage was going to help?”

  It sounded so stupid now, hearing those words come out of her mouth. But he hadn’t been in his right mind back then. He’d been as overcome by grief as she’d been, and he’d made mistakes. Mistakes he probably could never make up for.

  “I wasn’t running away from you to save myself. Not consciously, at least, although I’m sure there was probably some self-preservation somewhere deep down. But you have to believe all I wanted was to be with you after that.”

  “Then why did you bail?” Her voice was soft, small, broken.

  He did that to her.

  “I thought I was saving you,” he said, and she scoffed. It did sound pretty ridiculous now. “I know, I know. But I did. I thought if you didn’t have to see me grieving, you wouldn’t feel guilty. I couldn’t take away your pain, even if I stayed, but I thought I could at least take myself out of the equation so I wouldn’t cause you more.”

  She frowned. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

  “I do now.”

  “No, you couldn’t take away the pain, not any more than I could take away yours. But we could have gone through it together. Shared in our grief. That would have helped.”

  His face was hot with shame, and his stomach tightened the knot it had formed. Looking at her now, he had no idea how he ever walked away in the first place. Over and over. Like he’d been repeatedly punishing himself. “That would have helped me, too. I think. I don’t know if I can ever make you understand just how sorry I am.”

  She sighed. “I know. But it isn’t just that. I’m not angry or holding that against you or anything. And I realize my part in pushing you away. Believe me, I know I have ownership in what happened to us, too. I just…I don’t know if it’s a good idea to try to recreate something that was broken between us.”

  “We were never broken.” If he knew anything, he knew that. They were the one thing in his life that was right. Always. Every single time they were together. And not just physically. Being in a room with her, playing beside her, laughing over whatever ridiculous joke he’d cracked, all of it. It was always right.

  Redness rimmed her eyes, and tears brewed at the edges. “You say that now, but I was never enough for you.” She paused. “I’ll never be enough for you.”

  He pulled back and looked at her, his knees still touching her as they shared the bench. “You were always enough for me. The other people I slept with after we broke up? They were just a distraction. They were me trying to fill the emptiness when you weren’t around.”

  “It isn’t just the others. I mean, that stung, I won’t lie. Every time. Seeing you with other people killed me. But I’m not holding that against you. You had every right to sleep with whoever you wanted to when we weren’t together.”

  “So what is it?” For the life of him, he couldn’t figure it out. She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. When it was clear she couldn’t find the words, he took her face in his palms and said, “You were always enough. I have always loved you, Kelsey. And I will always love you. Whether you give me another chance to make this right or not.”

  She took his hands in her own and removed them from her face. “Love was never the problem.”

  “No, it wasn’t. I was. And I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make up for that, if you’ll let me.”

  She looked deep into his eyes, like she was trying to discern the truth in his statement. And he stared back. Letting her see everything. Whatever she wanted to see, it was hers.

  Satisfied with her search, Kelsey leaned forward and kissed him. It was a small kiss. Affectionate. Grateful. The comfortable kiss of two people who’ve known each other for a very long time. It meant everything to him. If that was the only kiss he ever got from her again, it was worth it.

  She looked at him again, then leaned forward for another kiss, this one lingering much longer, but still soft and tender. He inched his body along the piano bench, closer to her, and wrapped a hand behind her, holding her steady, fearful she might run. She opened her mouth wider and welcomed him. The lingering tang of lemon candies on her tongue sparked through his mouth, awakening all of his senses with a rush of awareness.

  He was kissing Kelsey.

  Kelsey was kissing him.

  And she was making it incredibly difficult to remember his plan to take things slow.

  He slid his other hand up the curve of her neck and grazed his thumb over the cool, smooth skin there, kissing her with a hunger fueled by so many lonely days without her. She returned his attention with passion of her own, gripping his shirt and holding him against her with a desperation that matched his.

  As their hunger for each other grew, they pulled and yanked at each other’s clothing in between greedy kisses. He reached up and threw his flat cap across the room while Kelsey unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off. Then he pulled her T-shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor so he could get his hands back on her. He caressed her supple stomach and sides, every inch of her that he’d been denied when they’d been apart, reveling in her shivers at the soft, gliding touch of his fingers.

  She grabbed his face with both hands and held him there, kissing him long and hard, their tongues intertwined as their mouths pressed against each other. When he slid both thumbs beneath the wire of her bra and grazed the underside of her breasts, she pulled back from their kiss and took in a long gasp of air, staring at him like she hadn’t done in so long. They’d had sex several times after their breakup, but there’d always been a sadness in her eyes. In his own, too, probably. They’d tried to medicate with each other, and it never worked. But this time they weren’t trying to mask pain. This time she was his again. And by God, he was hers for as long as she’d have him.

  He gave her a light kiss on the lips, then kissed down her neck and shoulder. He lingered there and kissed along her collarbone as they fumbled from the bench to the living room floor. He kissed down her chest while he reached behind her and unhooked her bra. Her skin still held a hint of the spices from the crawfish boil—he could almost taste the kick of cayenne as his tongue and lips moved over her skin.

  They were normally so talkative and playful, but this was different. There was a reverent silence between them this time. A silence he didn’t dare break.

  Eve
n without words, she confirmed that she wanted this as much as he did. Once she removed the last of his clothing, she lay back onto the carpet while he slipped on a condom, then she eagerly helped guide him inside her.

  But something wasn’t right. She grimaced, and he froze.

  “I’m sorry. Does that hurt?”

  She shook her head. “No, it’s just…” She looked lost.

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  He started to pull away from her, but she squeezed his arm. “No, wait. Let me try something else.” She nodded to the side, and they rolled over together. He let her take the lead, as she straddled his legs and positioned herself just right until she slid down and filled herself with him. This time, her face softened with pleasure.

  “Better?” he asked, hoping to heaven the answer was yes. She was so wet now, and his cock throbbed inside her.

  She closed her eyes and tossed her head back as she moved against him with agonizingly slow strokes along the full length of him. “So much better.”

  It was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen, Kelsey on top of him, experiencing pure satisfaction, her body naked and glowing under the soft twinkle lights in his living room. He gripped her thighs and watched her move, wishing he could freeze this moment forever.

  But time passed too quickly, and the speed and fierceness of Kelsey’s sudden wave of pleasure surprised both of them. She pressed her hands hard against his chest as she tightened and spasmed around him. He followed her over the edge a moment later and embraced her as she collapsed on top of him.

  They lay there in stillness and silence for a few minutes that felt like a lifetime. A lifetime he wished they could live together, just like that.

  He held her close, grazing his fingertips along her bare back while they matched their breath. Only the hum of the air conditioner echoed through the room.

  Too soon, she rolled to the side and placed a tiny kiss on his ear. While she slid on her panties, he couldn’t help think how nice it was to watch her do that move. Watching her do anything half-naked was something to appreciate.