In the Midnight Hour

by Kimberly Raye

  “You’re sweet, Danny.”

  Sweet? Man-o-man, he’d sunk even lower than pathetic. Sweet. That was the kiss of death, coming from a hot babe.

  Dehydrate? What the hell was wrong with him? He had the attention—both eyes, he might add—of a beautiful woman, the beautiful woman, and all he could manage was a piece of his grandma’s advice?

  No wonder Wanda thought he was sweet. He was sweet—too sweet to tell her what was really on his mind, to drag her into his arms and kiss the daylights out of her, for fear she’d reject him. Or worse, pity him.

  Then settle for sweet.

  Like hell. He was going to make a move. Soon. He just had to think of one, to work up his nerve and come up with a surefire method of wooing Wanda.

  He was a smart guy. A sweet, smart guy, true, but he had brains nonetheless. If man could send another man to the moon, then anything was possible. Including Wanda Deluca falling into Danny Boudreaux’s bed.

  He just had to come up with a plan. A strategy. One that didn’t involve him losing his ability to speak at the sight of her green eyes, or peach-slick lips, or that body.…

  Okay, maybe he needed more than a plan. Shock treatment. A heavy dose of nerve pills. A bucket of ice water.

  Maybe all three.

  Chapter Eight

  “Tracing your family tree?” Delta asked as she walked by the main circulation desk shortly before closing time and saw Ronnie checking out a stack of genealogy books.

  “Helping out a friend. He’s trying to find out about his great-great-great-grandmother, so I thought I’d do a little research on the subject.”

  In the interest of her own grades, of course. No way did she feel the sudden need to sit up all night with a load of genealogy books just because she’d read the desperation in Val’s gaze. Okay, so maybe the desperation was a teeny, tiny part of it. But helping Val also qualified as helping herself.

  “Ronnie, sugar.” Delta gave her a nudge, startling her out of her thoughts. “Check out those two.”

  Ronnie shifted her attention to the two attractive men who’d walked in the door. They wore Dockers and white button-down shirts and she knew they were business majors. Handsome business majors, but brunets.

  So? Brunets were hot. Her first boyfriend in the third grade had been a brunet; her fiancé, Raymond, had had the blackest hair she’d ever seen—one of his few redeeming qualities; and she adored a host of movie stars, all brunets.

  Brunets were her thing—up until a few days ago when she’d set eyes on Val and his mane of hair in all its long, whiskey-colored glory.

  Her attention shifted to one of the men, still a brunet but his hair was lighter, with pale gold streaks from the sun. Mmm, now here was a cutie. Strong hands grasped a book bag as he made his way to the row of computer terminals.

  “I don’t think they’re ready to check out yet.”

  “No, I meant check them out. Cute, huh? Especially the tall one.”

  When Ronnie turned a grin on the older woman, Delta shrugged. “There might be enough snow on the roof to warrant a snowplow, sugar, but there’s still a fire blazing in the cook-stove. While I might be old enough to be their mother—” At Ronnie’s raised eyebrow, she added, “Make that their grandmother, I can still appreciate the scenery.”

  “What about Professor Gibbons?” She indicated the seventy-something-year-old man perched in his usual corner in the magazine section reading an issue of Creole Cuisine. With a shock of snow-white hair on his head and a matching beard, he looked more like Santa Claus than a retired political science professor. He wore his usual white dress shirt and slacks, with bright red suspenders and a matching bow tie. “He’s awful cute, if you ask me.”

  “You want me to stare at an ancient, dried-up, old cypress when I can eye a couple of healthy, sturdy oak trees?”

  “He likes you.”

  “I’ve known Cassius Gibbons for twenty years—he headed his department here up until he retired—and the only thing he likes are those food magazines he’s always looking at. I swear, the man should have been a cook instead of a political science teacher.”

  “So take him up on his dinner invitation. He did offer to cook for you, right?”

  “He’s old.”

  “He’s cute.” Since Delta’s husband had died three years ago, the woman had realized her own mortality, and she’d waged war on it. No more birthdays, she’d told Ronnie. She simply wasn’t getting a day older or a minute closer to kicking the bucket.

  It was a great theory. The trouble with theories, though, was that they didn’t always prove true when put to the test.

  Speaking of tests… While she might not intend to get intimate with anyone other than her stubborn houseguest, Madame X really did need to put Val’s theories, at least the nonphysical ones, to the test.

  Now was as good a time as any, she told herself as the tall cutie approached the circulation desk. Here was a guy who could get most any girl. The type of guy who never gave average-looking Ronnie a second glance.

  Not that she cared. She much preferred it that way.

  Usually. But this was in the interest of science.

  She closed her eyes and summoned her dream. The sweet scent of leather and apples and that unnameable something filled her nostrils. Cool sheets slithered down her legs. A warm mouth touched her throat and slid lower, to her throbbing nipple.…

  Ronnie licked her lips and opened her eyes, and stared at the tall man with the sun-kissed brown hair. As if he sensed her gaze, his head snapped up. His eyes met hers and he smiled.

  A full-blown, I’d-like-to-get-together smile.

  Ronnie did the only thing she could think of at that moment. She gave a loud whoop, hugged Delta, grabbed her backpack, and started for home to tell Val the good news.

  “It worked! It really worked!” Her excited voice bounced off the walls of the apartment when she walked in just minutes before midnight.

  “What worked?”

  “The internally attractive thing. I saw a megacute guy, closed my eyes, pictured the dream and how I felt in it, then bam. I looked at him, just looked at him, and he smiled at me.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What guy?”

  “Somebody I picked out for an experiment.”

  “How cute?”

  “Really cute, but that’s beside the point. It worked.” She whipped out her notebook. “I have to write this down. Madame X nabs her first victim.”

  “Madame X?”

  “The woman I’m profiling for the paper. I’m going to do a journal of Madame X’s Fifty Steps to Ultimate Sexual Fulfillment.”

  “Who is this Madame X?”

  “Me—a fictitious me.” Madame X might be on the prowl for available men; Ronnie, however, wanted only an available ghost.

  A very angry looking ghost.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “You were out looking at men.”

  “Just one man, and so what? You told me to experiment.”

  “Of course I did, but I didn’t mean … Merde, I didn’t mean for you to rush right out and stare at the first man you came across.” The air charged with tension as his voice rumbled in her ears. “This simply will not do. You must exercise more caution.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re jealous.”

  He speared her with a glare. “Moi? Do not be ridiculous.” He said the words, but his expression didn’t ease. If anything, he looked fiercer. “I simply do not want you giving encouragement to some poor simpleton whom you are not the least bit interested in. You must be more careful. What if some man were to become infatuated with you? A man you had no real interest in? I will not have you put in danger while under my tutelage.”

  “Danger?”

  “Have you not seen Fatal Attraction?” He shook his head. “Bon Dieu, it can be disastrous to attract the wrong person’s interest, not to mention a man will be inclined to think you are simply out looking for a good time.”

  She grinned. �
�‘Looking for a good time’?”

  “On the prowl. Hungry for a man. Walking the walk, talking the talk.”

  “I know what it means. But how do you know what it means? I don’t think the phrase was coined back in the nineteenth century. Come to think of it, Fatal Attraction wasn’t around back then either.”

  His expression eased as he explained, “I watch a great deal of television. It has been my one link to the outside world. When I was stuck in that stuffy old museum, the night security guard used to bring his television to work. It is a wonderful invention. A god-send.”

  “Yeah,” She motioned to the TV screen. “Half-naked babes dancing to rock music videos. I’m sure the good Lord had plenty to do with that. And cable. I bet he’s getting a great big commission on cable.”

  “I realize that television can be exploitive, but it is also very empowering. In my time, few women would have been allowed to bare their bodies in such a way, and those who did would have been instantly dubbed whores. But now …There is such freedom. If a woman wants to show her body, she can without being looked down upon.”

  “Most men I know,” Ronnie said, “at least those traditionalists back in Covenant, think that’s why society is going to hell in a handbasket.”

  “I am not most men.”

  He wasn’t a man at all, but for a brief moment, Ronnie forgot that. She saw only him, smelted only him, felt only him, and he felt so… real.

  “You’re from the past, but you’re not stuck in the past,” she said, marveling that a man from yesteryear could be so up with the times. “You see women as people, not as the inferior sex.”

  “Inferior? Pas du tout. Women are by far the superior sex. I admire them.”

  She thought of the love letters, and admiration gave way to a prickling heat she could neither soothe nor explain. “Now that’s a new word for it.”

  He grinned, “It sounds like you are the one who is jealous now.”

  “Moi?” She copied his look of outrage, then shrugged. “It’s just hard to imagine you being with so many women.”

  “I wasn’t with them all at the same time, chérie. Except for that one time with a set of triplets…” He caught the pillow she tossed at him and gave her a full-blown smile.

  White teeth flashed, his lips curved just so, and his eyes danced with a blue fire that scorched her nerve endings and made her blood zing through her veins.

  “So what’s next?” she asked, eager to ignore the strange feelings stirring inside her. More than simple physical attraction. She was starting to like Val. His sense of humor, his teasing, his charm—

  Lust, she told herself, plain and simple.

  She forced her attention to learning the finer points of flirting with a man using her eyes, her body language. Val taught her how to accidentally brush her hand against a man’s, how to lick her lips just enough to get his attention—small gestures that communicated I want you.

  By the time they finished, she’d successfully mastered steps two through ten… and she definitely wanted him.

  They stood facing each other, so close. A whisper away. She felt the heat rolling off his body, read the hunger in his dark gaze and it called to something deep, deep inside. A wantonness, a desperation.

  She took a deep breath, gazed at him from beneath lowered lashes, and trailed her tongue across her bottom lip provocatively.

  His eyes burned brighter, hotter, and the air charged around them. Score one for Madame X.

  “How was that?” she managed, her voice suddenly breathless.

  “Perfect.”

  “Really?”

  “Unfortunately,” he muttered, closing his eyes as if by blocking the sight of her, he could break the spell surrounding them. Ignore the want.

  He was determined, she had to give him that.

  “You had better document tonight’s lesson.” He turned away, but Madame X wasn’t about to give up so easily.

  She caught one of his hands. “We could keep going.”

  “No, we couldn’t.”

  “Sure we could. We’ve got over an hour and I’m not the least bit tired and—”

  “We’re stopping.” He tugged free of her grip. “Now. Before I do something I’ll regret.”

  “But that’s what I was hoping for.”

  He stared at her for a full moment before a grin tugged at his lips. “You’ll be the death of me.”

  “You’re already dead.”

  “Write.”

  “Yes, boss. Speaking of writing…” she began to say as she retrieved her pen. While Madame X might be far from satisfied, Ronnie wasn’t about to push her luck and kill the smile on Val’s face. She was starting to like his smiles almost as much as her dreams.

  “I need more information if you want me to find out about Claire,” she went on. She grabbed one of the genealogy books she’d brought home from the library and flipped to a page she’d previously marked. “This is a sample page of information needed to do a thorough search on someone. Fill out as much as you can.”

  Ronnie took a deep breath, forced her attention to her notebook, and concentrated on writing about Madame X learning the finer points of flirtation while Val pondered the questions in the book in front of him. More than once, she felt his gaze on her.

  “What?” she finally asked when her nerves refused to settle down. “Is my hair messed up? My shirt on inside out? Do I have ink on my chin?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you staring?”

  “I was merely thinking that you don’t look like a virgin.”

  “I usually wear a shirt with a big red V, but it was dirty today.” She’d meant to draw a smile out of him, but his serious expression didn’t crack. “You’ve really got a hangup about this virgin business, don’t you?”

  “Claire was a virgin.” His words were quiet, strained. “And the only daughter of the town minister. He was none too happy when he found out she was pregnant.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “He came after me.” His gaze caught and held hers. “To see that I paid for that one night with his daughter.” He shook his head. “If only I could remember.”

  “It’s all right, Val.” Her hand closed over his. Heat pulsed beneath her fingertips, his skin so warm and real.

  A ghost, she reminded herself. Not a man.

  “I need to know,” he said.

  “You will.” She tried for a smile to lighten the suddenly tense mood. “We’ll both come out of this with all the answers we need.” And a few we didn’t bargain for, a small part of her whispered. That same part that wanted to touch him again, not for education’s sake, but for her own.

  Which was all right, because she’d decided to blow off a little sexual steam and Val was the perfect one to do it with. If only he would cooperate.

  A thought struck her. “For the record, how many women have you slept with? I counted one hundred and sixteen letters.”

  He stared at the hand she’d touched, flexed his fingers before shaking his head, as if to shake away the feeling. His fingers curled and he turned his attention to the genealogy book.

  “Come on. Tell me,” she pressed.

  “Enough.”

  “Enough as in… one hundred and fifty? Two hundred? A thousand?”

  “Enough not to answer that question.”

  Wrong thing to say to a woman who didn’t take no for an answer. “You’re my tutor. How am I supposed to know whether or not you’re qualified if you don’t give me a full list of references?”

  He stared pointedly at her. “Do you really want to know, Veronique?”

  No. “Yes.”

  His mouth seemed to work at an answer before he shrugged. “Three hundred and sixty-nine.” A bitter laugh burst past his lips. “All for a worthy, if not futile, cause.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  The number echoed in her head. “Wow. I can’t imagine knowing three hundred and sixty-nine men, much
less having sex with them. How did you keep count? Notches carved into your bedpost? A sign-up sheet? What?”

  “This.” He tapped his temple. “I kept count here.”

  She cast a skeptical glance at him. “You mean to tell me you remember three hundred and sixty-nine women?”

  He nodded.

  “Names.”

  Another nod.

  “Faces.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’ve got some swampland in Arizona.”

  “I remember each and every woman, and there is plenty of swampland here in Louisiana. Why would you want swampland in Arizona?”

  “Forget it. It’s a figure of speech.” She folded her arms, leaned back in the kitchen chair, and eyed him. “And if you’ve got such a great memory, prove it. Name ten women from your past.”

  He grinned. “Is that all?”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Okay, there was…” His mouth opened, and his grin faded as words seemed to fail him. “Her name was…”

  “Come on. Spit it out,” she prodded.

  “I know this.” His forehead wrinkled as he seemed to search his memory.

  She smiled. “You can’t do it, can you?”

  “Of course I can.” He glared at her. “It’s just a little difficult to concentrate with you sitting there half-naked like that.”

  She glanced down at the hem of her nightshirt, which reached all the way to her knees, the sleeves that ended at her wrists, the throat buttoned up to the top. “I’m fully clothed.”

  He slapped the book closed. “It’s practically see-through.”

  She fingered the red plaid material. “It’s flannel. No one can see through flannel, not even Superman. It’s worse than Kryptonite.”

  “And much too clingy.”

  “But it’s flannel.”

  “All of this yacking is pointless.”

  “Yacking?” She matched his glare. “Forged what I said about you being different. You just earned your male chauvinist merit badge.”

  He smiled at that, as if pleased that he’d displeased her.

  Pleased to be fighting? Men. Who needs ’em?

  You do, her hormones insisted, but Ronnie wasn’t listening. She was writing, her energy focused on taking objective notes about the lesson that had just transpired rather than worrying over why Val ran hot one minute, cold the next.