THE TEMPTING

by D. M. Pratt

  “Your nose is perfect,” Beau said.

  “Thank you, suga. Besides, you, my dear friend, are a very tough act to follow,” she said flirting but not meaning to … not really.

  Cora looked up and stared into Beau’s eyes. Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t want it to, but there it was. That spark of whatever had attracted them in the first place. Both of them felt the rush and then, both turned away. She stood to get the wine and pour herself another glass.

  “Maybe I should call her again,” he said, pulling his cell phone from his pocket to hit speed dial.

  “Well, suga, if you do, the only thing that’s gonna happen is that little ol phone she left over there on the table will just ring again and annoy the hell out of me,” Cora said.

  “Who walks off and leaves their cell phone?” Beau said, shutting down his phone.

  “Oh she used to do it all the time. Made me crazier than a bug. I fussed at her, but did she listen? Never. You, darling, as soon as you get that ring on her finger, must train her in instant communication etiquette.”

  “Train her,” he said adding a chuckle.

  “Absolutely, Beauregard Gregoire Le Masters. Make that little renegade of your understand that the days of the electric leash are in full swing!” Cora said.

  Again they laughed. She made him smile. She liked that she could do that. He had been looking so sad the past few times she’d seen him. She set the bottle down and walked to the little desk, sipping and thinking. There was no question Cora cared about him. They’d become friends because of this whole situation with Eve. They were both bred, born and grew up as members of the New Orleans social elite. They had a number of mutual acquaintances and a few good friends in common. Beau was a few years older than Cora, but by the time age difference didn’t matter he was off in Europe and lost to her and her world. Somehow they’d never really talked until the night of Eve’s accident. Then there were all those months in the hospital. Days and nights sitting by Eve’s bed waiting for her to awaken, looking like some sleeping beauty who just needed a good goddamn kiss. Then one night the doctor said Eve was deteriorating and both she and her unborn child would die. Cora and Beau sat together in the waiting room listening to those dreadful words.

  It was too much to accept. She and Beau wept in each other’s arms for her dearest friend and the one woman who, in an instant, made him want to change his life and start over—with her. He told Cora that he and Eve were kindred souls. From the first moment he saw her he knew she was the one he’d searched the world to find. How ironic to discover her literally in his own backyard. Beau got angry about how unfair the world had been to him, taking his sister, mother and father and now he was about to lose Eve and their unborn child. He told Cora he had never felt more alone. Saying the words made him weep harder and the thought of a world without Eve in it made Cora weep with him. She held him and he held her. Neither one could remember the precise moment it happened, the moment their tears turned into gentle, loving kisses, which built into desperate, hungry waves of passion neither could or wanted to resist. They surrendered to each other completely.

  They made love in the empty guest room on the third floor where families were allowed to spend the night. It was summer and humid hot the way only the bayou can be. The window hung open and the cool night breeze carried on its back the sweet scent of gardenias and night blooming jasmine from the hospital garden. The cool air covered their nakedness with sweetness and kindness and love, not for each other but for Eve. They made love first through the sadness and tears and then through the anger of losing her. Cora could feel his anger in every thrust and it took her pain away and gave her pleasure. They made love again and again. Their sad desperation transformed them into ravenous animals, devouring each other in a feast of unbridled passion that for the next four hours took them away from everything but pleasure. He needed to be loved and kissed and caressed as he fantasized about the memory of his and Eve’s one night together. The past had happened and could not be erased. Delia had been conceived. Eve had lived. Eve came back to them and they had been loving and honest friends and together grown past their one indiscretion, vowing never to succumb to each other again. But here they were, warmed by the wine, vulnerable to each other. His hands touching hers made Cora realize that right now, she needed one more kiss. Her friend would understand. What was one kiss?

  Cora wanted him. The memory of their one night of passion weakened her self-control. She knew her life was dull and painful without him, but would never have admitted it to anyone, especially herself. She wanted to stop herself, but the wine mixed with the scent of flowers blooming behind her on the table, ignited her senses. Their scent changed from light and sweet to heavy, spicy and tantalizingly pungent; red peppers, cooking in the hot summer sun, blended with exotic spices and mixed with warm honey. Their seductive aroma mixed with the wine swirling in her head. Combined with his touch the room blurred. Cora turned from him in a desperate attempt to get away. She reached out for the arm of the couch to steady herself, but as she did, she slipped forward and began to fall. With the tears that stung her eyes, the wine and the sadness, she didn’t care if she fell into an abyss until his arms caught her; strong, warm, powerful. This wasn’t the past memory; this was the present and she was in his arms once again.

  “Cora! Are you okay?” Beau said.

  He lifted her to the couch and sat down next to her. She looked away, tears flowing in crystal rivulets down her face.

  “I’m so sorry,” Cora whispered. “I need to go home.”

  “No you don’t. You’re staying right here,” Beau said taking her glass and setting it down. He wiped the tears from her cheek. “Talk to me, Cordelia Belle Bouvier.”

  Her name sounded like music when he said it. Her mouth began to water as Beau lifted her chin and turned her face to his. Their eyes met. The spark she’d felt that first night, that first time they had surrendered to each other, shot through her entire body and for the first time in a very, very long time she felt alive.

  “Sometimes I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if we’d met first that night,” she whispered, the words spilling from her lips. Her breath mingling with his.

  She saw a hundred emotions flash in his perfect, azure eyes.

  “I … I love Eve, Cora,” he said.

  “So do I,” Cora said.

  “It’s the wine and …” he started to say.

  “I know,” she said.

  The song Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman wafted through the Bose speakers. The intricate Spanish guitars played and its sweet, lilting melody washed over them while the lyrics whispered in their ears, “And when you find yourself lying helpless in her arms, you know you really love the woman.”

  The space between them vanished. Their lips met. Cora’s body was no longer hers to command, it belonged to the moment. She felt his lips against hers, his breath mingling with her breath. She parted her lips and his tongue slipped inside. Her hands moved under his shirt. She’d forgotten how hard his pecs were and ripped his stomach was. His hands slipped under her blouse. The chemistry, the energy, the rush and flow of emotions swirled around them. His hand pulled her breast from her bra and his lips searched for her nipple. Cora felt her legs spread apart as her hand slipped down inside his pants. Her fingers wrapped around him, long, hard as blue steel and smooth as hot silk. His erection pushed against her. She heard him speak, but the words didn’t make sense.

  “We have to stop,” Beau said, but he didn’t.

  He pulled her underpants off with one hand and opened her blouse and popped her bra off with the other. He knocked the lamp to the floor. It shattered behind the back of the couch, plunging them into darkness except for the light from the entry hall and the last of the candles.

  They slid to the floor in front of the couch as the wine, the music and their passion blended into one. Their bodies intertwined and their clothes fell away as if some spell of passion possessed them and carried them int
o bliss. In a few breathless moments they were naked. Flesh touched flesh and with each caress, each breath, each pulsating moment their sensuality heightened and every nerve sparked in waves of passion that surged through them. His mouth covered hers in a myriad of blistering kisses, each one more passionate and fiery than the one before. His hands caressed her breasts and his tongue flicked against her nipples. She stroked his cock and the electricity of her touch made him harder. He kissed his way down her chest, over her belly until he found her clitoris. He licked and sucked until it was as hard as his cock and rose erect and throbbing against his tongue. He lunged up and forward. His hands scooping under her ass and lifting her as if she weighed nothing, he parted her legs wider, lowered her, wet and hot slowly down onto his cock. He was on his knees with her legs wrapped around his back. He lifted her up just enough so that the head of his cock licked her clitoris. He sucked on her nipples and lowered her down, pressing himself deeper into her. He brought her up and slid her down repeatedly, each penetration slow and deliberate; each thrust more scintillating than the one before.

  Time vanished. It could have been hours or seconds; the pleasure kept building. Cora unwrapped her legs and pushed him back on the floor. She straddled Beau, twisting her hips, slowly grinding him into her. She rode him, cupping and scooping her hips with the grace of a rider on a finely trained stallion executing a course of graceful high jumps, but with much more pleasure. She rocked him into her opening and relaxed her muscles around him. Each time he pulled out she tightened herself, clamping down around him, sliding herself down harder and taking him deeper. Beau moaned, losing himself, losing control, losing his mind. Faster, harder, sweeter. At that instant before orgasm, when he couldn’t take another rush of pleasure, he twisted and flipped her over onto her hands and knees reinserting himself into her from behind. Now it was Beau riding into her. He grabbed her hair and hips and drove into her with a wild, fierce abandon. His entire body shuddered in waves of pain and pleasure. Cora’s body followed. One body became the other, neither knowing who was whom … neither caring as the flood of perfect rapture bound them together in passion … lust … total abandonment.

  Cora pushed back, meeting his every thrust with a hunger that defied words. Again their pleasure grew, exponentially intensifying with every motion. Cora and Beau merged into one entity. Their emotions, minds, their very physical bodies blended and transported them to a place beyond time and space. In a single graceful movement, he flipped her back onto her back. The room seemed to vanish. There were no floor or walls - only a hot, pulsating pleasure that surged through them, piercing every pore and vibrating every cell of their collective being. Suddenly, she was fucking him - hard. His cock was hers and each thrust she pounded into him gave her pleasure. He could feel her nipples as if they were his with wild sensations coursing down into his clit and stimulating the muscles that wrapped around her cock. Everything that was his belonged to her and then it was his and then it was not. The rhythm of their love making spiraled into a throbbing, hot, sweating, creamy wet, volcanic frenzy and just when they thought they couldn’t stand another second of pleasure, their eyes met and in a gasping cry of pleasure they exploded in a rush of orgasms that built into feral convulsions of unadulterated bliss. This wasn’t animalistic eroticism; this was the godly rapture, perfect ecstasy. Even if they’d wanted to, they couldn’t stop. They didn’t want to. Beau took her again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Eve stood at the door to the parlor, purse and keys still in hand, watching. What she saw in the play of dark shadows, caught intermittently inside the wide streak of light from the hall that stretched across the floor, was not human. She watched horrified and captivated, unable to move or look away, both terrified and exhilarated by this … thing writhing on her floor. It twisted and rolled over and over, undulating and moaning as it rose and fell upon itself. It emitted guttural sounds of erotic pleasure so primal they called to her as Sirens must have called to the sailors on the Argos. Eve knew its voices weren’t human yet she thought she’d heard it before, a distant memory from another lifetime. It’s provocative, haunting voice bellowed to her and she felt her body being pulled uncontrollably forward. Eve watched mesmerized, unable to look away.

  Eve was captivated by the creature’s undulating movements and how its skin shifted between shades of pale gold and flushes of burgundy. It was hard to see details of the form that moved before her in the dim light. She stepped closer and thought she could make out a head, arms and legs and even a tail … no two tails, wrapping around the thing, stroking and caressing its body sensually again and again. To her surprise, a vibrating rush of pleasure surged through Eve. Her body was resonating in harmony, feeling the rhythm with what was happening on the floor. Waves of energy wafted across the room and washed over her again and again as gentle and caressing as a warm, easy sea might lap over her body as she lay naked on a beach. She felt her nipples become erect, her skin tingle, aching to be touched. Another rush of warm wetness released between her legs. Eve’s breathing changed, deeper and faster, matching her breath with the breath of the creature on the floor. It commanded her to walk in for a closer look … to touch, to become one with whatever was writhing on the floor.

  The voice that lived somewhere deep in her mind screamed at her: NO! STOP! TURN AROUND AND RUN BEFORE ITS TOO LATE! The words hit her like a bucket of ice water and slammed her back to reality. Philip. Her first instinct was to get her son out of the house and then to find Beau. But as the creature moved itself into the light, she could see glimpses of Beau in the creature. Beau was part of “it.”

  Eve stepped back. Her heart ached. Everything in her wanted to deny what was happening, but it was there and it was Beau. She slowly and quietly stepped back away from the parlor room door and tip-toed across the polished wood floor of the entry. Just as she made herself turn to sneak up the stairs, she looked back. In that moment she understood why Lot’s wife, Ildeth, looked back that one last time on Gomorrah as it fell. Again, she saw it wrestling with itself in the shadows. The view from the stairs changed her perspective and, as she watched, the thing divided and transformed into Cora and Beau naked on the parlor floor screwing each other’s brains out. What she was witnessing took her breath away and she felt it rip her heart from her body. Seeing them, the man she loved and her best friend, locked in passion, weakened her knees and made her eyes well with tears. No. He couldn’t. She wouldn’t. This… is a hallucination. It’s not real. She thought. Which part? The voice in her head whispered back. She looked again at the thing that had become Cora and Beau and watched as it melted back into and out of two things: one dark bloody red and the other deep gold.

  Eve grabbed the banister and pulled herself up, leaning on the wall to steady her feet. Step by step she made herself climb. She didn’t know what to believe; she didn’t know what she wanted to believe. Could it have actually been Beau and Cora? Her fiancé and her friend? Or was there some unearthly entity in her house? She moved past the room that she and Beau shared. It was dark and empty. Maybe he was out, she tried to tell herself. She shook her head knowing the truth. She needed to get her son and get out.

  Eve slipped out and down the hall into Philip’s room. She grabbed the big diaper bag that was always ready for any situation and crossed to the crib. What she saw made her heart ache. Delia and Philip lay together sleeping, which could only mean that Beau and Cora were here … somewhere in the house … together. If they were in the parlor then …. Eve heard another low moan bellow up from downstairs. Her body responded with a rush of desire that flushed through her and made her head spin. It was calling to her. The primal side of her desperately wanted to respond, to race down, rip her clothes off and join the rapture of pleasure that pulsed inside the room beneath her.

  What the fuck is this feeling! she thought with a shiver. Eve shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair, pulling it to rip from her mind the insane thoughts and erotic sensations that beckoned her. She needed to focus
on the children. They slept next to each other: peaceful angels, best friends. Even in the dim glow of the little unicorn night light that shined over the changing table, she could see the children had grown. It was as if over the five hours she’d been out the two had become four year olds. How was it possible? How could they have physically changed … aged in a matter of hours? Before she finished her thought Philip and Delia woke. Delia put her arms up for Eve to pick her up. Eve put down her purse and keys and threw the strap of the diaper bag over her shoulder and lifted Delia up into her arms. She could feel the weight of this little girl to easily be twenty-five pounds.

  “Come on Philip,” Eve whispered.

  How could she carry both of them? Philip looked into her eyes and smiled his mysterious enigmatic, Mona Lisa smile and suddenly Delia weighed nothing in her arms. It was as if Eve held a pillow with a cute sleepy face. When she took Philip’s weight into her arms, he too weighed no more than a pillow. Eve heard the moans from downstairs. She closed her thoughts to it and raced out of Philip’s room. Once in the hall, her only thought was to get out, but not down the front stairs; that was too dangerous. The servant’s stairs were at the far end of the second floor hallway. They led down into the kitchen and from there she could slip out the back door and take Beau’s SUV from the garage. As she took her first step the sounds from downstairs fell silent. She held the children tighter and took another step praying that the old boards of the upper hallway wouldn’t creak and give her away. With each stride that followed, she held her breath. Finally, Eve and the children reached the top of the back stairs. She started down, careful not to let the old, oak boards creak under her weight. Just as she reached the bottom she saw Zamara, Cora’s nanny, and Aria standing in the kitchen. They both turned and just as she was sure they would see her they turned back to look at each other.