Drive

by Stephanie Fournet

  After a moment of her helpless — but stifled — cries and his satisfied moans, he released the nipple he’d suckled and licked a trail back up her throat to her mouth and feasted there again.

  “Are you mine?” he growled in her ear, the feel of her fingers tangling into his hair threatening to fracture his control. He’d let himself lose it soon enough, but first she had to know the truth.

  “Yes, yes, I’m yours.” With a swiftness that surprised him, she released his hair and whipped his T-shirt over his head. And then her bare breasts pressed into his chest, and their searing heat was like a fuse that ignited a path straight down his body.

  “Christ!” He backed her into the mattress and followed her down, struggling to keep his focus. “Say it again. Say you’re mine.”

  “I’m yours,” she said with feeling. “I’m yours, Jacques.” Her hands were at his fly, and time was running out.

  “For how long?” he managed, though the telltale strain in his voice gave so much away. But he needed to hear it. He needed to know she wouldn’t give up on him because of his music. Or because of her father.

  Her hands stilled between them, and her eyes, flashes of white in the darkness, met his. She said nothing, only the sounds of their labored breathing breaking the silence.

  “How long, Rainey?” he asked, running the long middle finger of his left hand down her cheek and over her lips. “Tell me the truth.”

  Her breath hitched, and he felt it through his whole body. “Until you let me go,” she answered, her voice shaking.

  His smile stretched so wide, Jacques’s face ached. “I’ll never let you go,” he swore.

  But Rainey didn’t return his smile. He watched her frown instead, the deep crease evident even in the dimness. “But you will.” Her voice was barely audible, but she might as well have shouted the words, her conviction was so strong.

  Jacques shook his head, his smile never wavering. “I won’t because I couldn’t. Don’t you understand, Rainey?” He cupped her face, feeling the supreme satisfaction of holding himself above her as she lay in his bed. The rightness of knowing he’d make love to her again and again before the sun rose, and then he’d awake beside her and want to relive the night and morning for the rest of his life. “I love you.”

  Her gasp was so sharp, so quick, he nearly missed it, and if he had, he might have worried, because she went still beneath him. So still he was sure she wasn’t breathing.

  Then her hands came up and gripped his biceps, and when she finally spoke, her voice was a plea. “Jacques?”

  He heard the fear and knew at once she needed to hear it again. Maybe all night. And that was fine by him.

  “I love you,” he said again. “Rainey, I love you.” He kissed her once. Twice. By the third one, she kissed him back, her hands coming to his sides and moving slowly up and down his body.

  He told himself he didn’t need to hear the words in return. Not yet, anyway. The way she looked at him — when they’d made love for the first time, when their eyes met after she’d confronted her father, when she’d teared up at Kate’s news — let him know what he needed to know. If she didn’t love him yet, she was close enough.

  He could say it now for the both of them.

  “You’re my love, and I’ll always come home to you,” he vowed. “I don’t care if I’m gone two nights or — God forbid — two months, I’ll be counting the hours until I’m with you again. And the whole time I’m gone, I’ll be writing songs about—”

  “Jacques,” she interrupted, her grip tightening on his arm, “stop talking for a minute.”

  He shook his head. “No, I can’t. Because I know you. You’re going to try to deny what I feel. I love you, and I can’t let up until you finally get that—”

  “Jacques—”

  “—this is the real thing. I’ve never felt like this before, and I know you’re afraid, but—”

  “Jacques, damnit, I love you too!” She gave him a little shake, but it was nothing compared to the impact of her words.

  Jacques blinked once, and then his smile grew beyond his control. Soon, he laughed at himself, shaking his head.

  “I’m a fool,” he murmured before covering her face with kisses.

  Rainey pushed at him, frowning. “What? Why? Why are you a fool?” she asked, near-panicked. “For loving me?”

  Laughter bubbled up from his chest. “No, woman,” he said, grasping her interfering hands and pinning them by her head. “For thinking I didn’t need to hear you say it. For thinking I could give you more time. I’m a moron… Say it again.”

  Her smile reshaped the universe. “I love you, Jacques.” She tugged her right hand, and he released it. She immediately brought it to his face. “I love you so much.”

  I’ll never get tired of hearing that.

  He understood what a leap it was — after all she’d been through, after all she was going through — to say the words aloud. Even if he’d said them first. She’d never believe it if he swore under oath, but she was the bravest woman he knew.

  And she was his.

  The thought spurred his desire. The hunger to claim her again with his body now that he’d declared the contents of his heart overtook him. Jacques pushed up on his knees, settling between her legs. His hands landed on the fly of her shorts, and within seconds he’d dispensed with both those and the lace panties he’d one day have to take more time to enjoy.

  But not tonight.

  “Are you tired?” he whispered above her. Smiling, Rainey shook her head. “Good. You heard me say how much I love you, but now I need to show you.”

  Then — with his able body, his poet’s heart, and his wicked imagination — he did.

  Chapter 28

  Rainey’s body shot off the bed as she awoke to a trifecta of noise: an uncommonly loud accordion, a man’s voice lifted in song, and Archie’s incessant and highly disturbed barking.

  Her heart was already in mid-gallop when her eyes peeled open, and she had to blink against the assaulting sunlight that nearly lit the unfamiliar room ablaze.

  Where am I?

  She turned her head to the left where Archie zipped back and forth, barking furiously at a closed door that seemed to blast Cajun music like some kind of South Louisiana hell mouth.

  “Archie!” she scolded. “Hush!”

  As soon as the words left her lips, Rainey felt warm limbs surround her, and Jacques’s gravelly groan centered her at last.

  “Damnit, Pal,” he grumbled, and before Rainey could reply, he yanked a pillow over both of their heads, muffling the painful cacophony.

  “What’s happening?” she pleaded under the shelter of the pillow, and Jacques pulled her into his embrace as though protecting her from the rest of the world.

  “Pal is happening,” he croaked, his voice a low roll of discontentment. “I can’t apologize enough.”

  Beneath the covers, she reached for his hand and brought it to her still-racing heart. “It scared the shit out of me.”

  Jacques pushed himself up, knocking the protective pillow off their heads and looking down at her with a stormy expression.

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, clearly feeling the rapid staccato of her heart. “He’s not trying to scare you. He thinks he’s being funny.”

  Rainey’s eyes bugged. “He knows I’m here? I mean, for sure he knows Archie’s here…”

  Jacques gave her a rueful smirk. “Oh, he knows you’re here,” he said, collapsing on his side next to her.

  Rainey rolled to face him. “But how do you know?”

  His brow arched. “You hear that song he’s playing?”

  Of course she could hear it. Everyone on the block could hear it. The accordion wheezed happily, and Jacques’s grandfather’s voice rose with impressive volume. “I hear it, but he’s singing in French. I can’t understand it.”

  He sniffed a laugh, his eyes twinkling. “It’s ‘Je Suis Tout Pour Toi’.”

  “What’s that mean?” she asked, a
lmost afraid of the answer.

  Jacques licked his lips and appeared to try to tame his smile. Two bright spots of color rose on his cheeks. “It means I am all for you. It’s also known as the Cajun Wedding Song.”

  “Oh, my God!” Rainey groaned, reaching for the discarded pillow. She pulled it over her face as mortification coursed through her. “He heard us?”

  Even with the pillow over her face, she knew Jacques could make out her question.

  “Well, I don’t think he heard everything,” he hedged, tugging her closer. Rainey felt the length of his naked body against hers, and she covered her overheating face with her hands, even though she still hid under the pillow.

  She groaned. “I’ll die if he heard anything.”

  Pulling the pillow off her head, Jacques chuckled. “He probably just heard us come in last night. His bedroom is downstairs on the other side of the house.” He peeled her hands away from her face before pressing a kiss to each cheek. “Besides, my love, you were very quiet.”

  Rainey gave him a squinty stare. “What about you?”

  Jacques shrugged. “I was quiet enough. He is pushing eighty, after all. And, baby,” Jacques said, tipping his head toward the door and the blaring Cajun song, “just listen to that accordion. He’s at ground zero with that thing every day. That’s got to cause some hearing loss.”

  She couldn’t help her laugh, even though her cheeks blushed scarlet, and she didn’t know if she’d ever been more embarrassed. Smiling, Jacques leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose.

  “C’mon. Let’s get dressed and head down. I promise, he’ll love you. It’s impossible not to love you.”

  The heat scalding her face seemed to pour down her whole body. He’d told her he loved her countless times during the night — a night that had lasted into the wee hours of the morning — and whenever he had, Rainey’s heart had executed a triple Salchow and stuck the landing every time.

  But now as the organ settled in its rightful place, she could only heave a sigh of dread. Why had she thought she could spend the night with Jacques and face his grandfather in the morning?

  “Please don’t make me,” she pleaded, making her voice sound like a whiny tween.

  Jacques laughed at her efforts, but he shook his head and pushed himself up in the bed.

  The sight of his bare chest lifted her spirits, but Rainey still didn’t want to go through with facing his grandfather. She tucked the edges of the sheet under her arms and got ready to beg, but before she could, Jacques lowered his chin, and his eyes, softening, met hers.

  “I know you don’t want to, but please come down,” he said, his voice gentle, but even in the gentleness, she heard how much he wanted this. “Right now, he’s all the family I’ve got.”

  His words speared her heart, and Rainey bolted up in bed, shedding her mortification. “Right. Of course.” If meeting his grandfather made Jacques happy, then she wasn’t about to deny him that. Taking the sheet with her, she slipped out of bed and picked up her clothes strewn around the room to the sound of a new Cajun waltz.

  Grinning, Jacques sat in the middle of the bed with the bedspread pooled in his lap. “May I just say how amazing you look wrapped in my sheet?”

  She tried to ignore the flutter in her stomach his grin caused. “In your sheet? No other sheet would look as good?” she teased.

  Jacques pursed his lips as if considering. “There’s no denying you’d look great in any bed sheet, but I think it’s fair to say you look best in mine.”

  Rainey shimmied on her panties while trying to maintain some modicum of modesty. Even after two nights with him, dressing in front of an audience was far out of her comfort zone.

  “You’re beautiful,” he said softly, as though reading her mind. Of course, his compliment only served to make her more self-conscious. She turned her back to him to slip on her bra, but she glanced at him over her shoulder and shook her hips in time to his grandfather’s accordion as she did.

  “C’mon. Get dressed. Let’s go face the music.”

  Jacques held her hand in his firm grip as they crept out of his bedroom, Archie at their heels, the sound of his grandfather’s voice and accordion magnified by the structural megaphone the stairway provided. It was deafening.

  It was also hilarious.

  And old man with white hair and tan coveralls stood at the foot of the stairs, his body arched back and swaying to the rhythm as he belted out lyrics in French she couldn’t possibly understand. His eyes were closed, and he frowned in concentration, but his bellowing mouth was wide with a smile of joy.

  Rainey had to press a knuckle to her mouth to keep from giggling. Jacques’s grandfather was adorable.

  A half-dozen steps from the bottom, Jacques’s foot caused the stair to creak, and his grandfather’s eyes flew open. They fell on her immediately, and though he didn’t miss a beat in his song, his smile widened.

  At this welcoming, Rainey managed to feel just a little less embarrassed.

  The older man stepped aside to let them descend the stairs, but he kept playing his song until Jacques led all of them to the kitchen. Then he ended the waltz with a flourish.

  “Mais, bon matin et bienvenu, jolie,” he said, offering her his hand.

  Rainey took it.

  “En anglais, Grandpere. Rainey doesn’t speak French,” Jacques said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

  His grandfather’s twinkling eyes moved from hers to Jacques’s and back. “We might have to fix dat, but welcome all de same, cher.” His thick Cajun accent and warm greeting made her smile because he was exactly as Jacques had described him.

  “Rainey, this is my grandfather, Albert Gilchrist.” He pronounced his grandfather’s first name with a French accent, and Rainey found it beautiful. “Pal, this is my girlfriend, Rainey Reeves.”

  At the word girlfriend, Rainey’s heart did a little tap dance. Then she remembered his words of love from the night before, and her four-chambered organ danced Swan Lake.

  Don’t get carried away, she warned it. Remember where he’s headed. She took a calming breath.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, Mr. Gilchrist.”

  The old man’s eyes flew open, and he held her hand in a grip that belied his age. “Mais, can’t be callin’ me dat. I’m Albert, or Grandpere, or Pal, me, but we can’t be so formal if you de one T-Jacques set his cap fa.” Then he tugged her forward and leaned in as though he were confiding a secret, but his grumbly, old-man voice held the same volume. “He been pinin’ fa you a good, long while—”

  “Okay, Pal,” Jacques interrupted, grabbing her wrist and freeing her hand from his grandfather’s hold. “I promised Rainey breakfast, and we’re both starved.”

  He hadn’t promised her breakfast, but she didn’t mind the fib or the interruption. Pal’s declaration had left her speechless anyway. Archie, prancing with excitement and the pointed need to go outside gave her the perfect escape.

  “I need to take Archie outside,” she begged off. “I’ll just be minute.”

  Jacques led her through the house to the back yard and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “He likes you already. Just relax,” he said, wearing his lopsided grin. “I’ll get coffee started.”

  And then he ducked back inside the house while Archie set off to explore the yard. Three minutes later when they returned inside, Jacques met them at the kitchen door.

  “Have a seat,” he said, steering her to the table before pulling out a chair. “Coffee’s on, and I started on breakfast.”

  Rainey hesitated before sitting. “I can help with that, Jacques,” she protested.

  “No, cher,” Pal said, shaking his head. He set down his accordion and took the seat at the head of the table. “You let him show you he can put food on da table, yeah. A man dat’ll cook fa ya be one you can rest easy marryin’—”

  “Pal,” Jacques scolded, his expression one of frustration mixed with horror.

  Rainey had to bite her lips not to laugh.

&nbs
p; Pal threw up his hands with startled innocence. “What wrong wit sayin’ dat? You t’ink nobody else was afta Lucille when we was courtin’? If she was alive taday, she’d tell you I was head an shouldas above da res cuz I knew how ta make ma own rice an gravy.” He speared Rainey with a mischievous grin. “And it was good rice an gravy, cher.”

  Her laughter won out. How could it not? Rainey officially loved Jacques’s grandfather.

  At her mirth, Jacques’s look of horror eased, but he gave Pal a glower of warning before leaving them at the table and moving to the counter.

  “Pal, let’s try not to scare her off before she even has a cup of coffee, okay?” he said over his shoulder.

  “I’m not scarin’ nobody,” he said, grinning at Rainey. “‘Sides, I t’ink she’s tougha dan she looks.”

  “I know that,” Jacques muttered.

  The words were so low Rainey almost missed them, but she hadn’t, and they sent a column of warmth down her chest.

  “T-boy tole me y’all went on a mission, and ya didn’ have much luck,” Pal said, giving her a concerned frown. “He said ya sista has somethin’ like leukemia.”

  His sudden change in topic and his candor left her blinking, but Rainey managed to find her voice. “Y-yes. She has aplastic anemia, which…” She shrugged and nodded. “…has a lot in common with leukemia.”

  Pal made a face as if he’d swallowed something bitter. “Not too good,” he murmured shaking his head. “My wife Lucille died a breast canca five years ago… Terrible.”

  Pal held her gaze as he spoke, offering up the sadness in his eyes, and it was then that Rainey recognized the honesty and rawness she’d always found and admired in Jacques. His grandfather had it too. Her heart, already soft toward him, squeezed.

  “Jacques told me,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “Well,” he said, giving her a sad smile. “You have to have somethin’ first before you lose it. Me and Lucille had it good. We was married fifty-three years when she died. Das a whole lotta good.”

  Rainey’s eyes bugged. “Fifty-three years?! That’s incredible,” she gushed and glanced at Jacques.