LaCasse Family Series

by Ju Ephraime

  “Oh, well, I’m cool with it,” she said.

  It turned out to be a wonderful event. Everyone was in a jolly mood, and no one could ever accuse the French of not knowing how to party, and party they did. There was even some dancing going on. Foxx and his wife started it, and several couples followed; even she and Raymond took a go at it. The atmosphere was fun and carefree, nothing like her dinner at Wolfe’s.

  She found that she liked both wives. Wolfe’s wife, Daphne, was a sweet individual with a pleasant personality, who obviously doted on Wolfe. She could tell Daphne was very much in love with her husband.

  The same could be said about Therèse. Although big with child, she never missed an opportunity to touch her husband and he her. It was as if they couldn’t help themselves.

  She had to admit meeting these two wives and seeing how they interacted with their husbands made her decide that marrying Raymond was the perfect finale to her stay on the island. How she would achieve this she had not given much thought to it, but she knew she would do all within her power to try and convince Raymond to marry her.

  The more time she spent with him, the more she examined him and found him to be her perfect match. She loved his looks, his thoughtfulness, the way he interacted and bonded with his family, but topping the list, she adored the way he made love to her. He made her feel not only beautiful but precious, and appreciated.

  Family was important to her, having been an only child for the first four years of her life, until her parents adopted Pierre. Before Pierre, she had been left alone a lot. Her parents left her with a nanny while they pursued their careers.

  The nanny ignored her and left her to her own devices all day. Things changed when they adopted Pierre. He was such a difficult baby, they couldn’t keep a nanny. Her mom had to quit working to take care of him, so, having Pierre changed her life. That was why she was so close to him, and how he was able to get her involved in his schemes. He had done so since they were children. Many were the whippings and scolding she had endured from her parents because of Pierre. But he had made what would’ve been an otherwise boring childhood fun and more tolerable.

  Her parents had always wanted a son. After she’d turned three, and it was obvious that it was not going to happen, they adopted Pierre from the local adoption society. Pierre had been born to a teenage mother, who had immediately put him up for adoption, so her parents were the only parents he knew. He had been a handful from the time he was a baby. She remembered him crying all the time. He would only stop when she sang little nursery rhymes to him. So, she had been taking care of him from day one.

  The funny thing was, the moment she had met Raymond at the airport, Pierre, and his many problems, were no longer a priority for her. This was a different experience than what she’d been used to in dealing with Pierre. He’d always taken priority with her. Even the one brief romantic relationship she had been involved in had taken a backseat to her relationship with Pierre. She supposed that could explain why he still thought he could control her, but enough was enough. This would be his last demand on her if she had anything to do with it.

  She had been so grateful to Raymond for bringing the coat to her she’d not thought about it all evening.

  When the family left the restaurant, it was 2:30 in the morning. She was feeling wonderful because she was with the man she loved.

  “Do you want to go see my new place?”

  “Oh, I’d forgotten you had a new place. With so much going on, that slipped my mind completely.”

  “So, do you?”

  “I’d really like to, but I’m thinking. I don’t have a toothbrush, a change of clothes, or anything to sleep in. I hate sleeping in the nude.”

  “You don’t need anything to sleep in. I love you in your skin. As for a change of clothes, I’ll take you back to your hotel in the morning. How about it? We are very close to my place.”

  “Okay, okay, you're very persuasive. Ever since I met you, I've done nothing but naughty things. Sleeping in the nude will be one more new thing to add to my list.”

  *****

  He pulled her to him and gave her a passionate kiss. That was all it took to bring him back to full arousal. What was it about this woman that got to him so powerfully? He just couldn’t seem to get enough of her.

  It took less than ten minutes to get to his apartment. That could be attributed to the absence of traffic on the road. He still couldn’t get over how much this apartment suited him. It was as if the place had been designed with him in mind. So, he wasn’t surprised when Gabrielle liked it too. She especially liked the bedroom, which he did, also. It was his favorite room in the place.

  The bedroom was painted in a combination of eggplant and a white and silver color palette giving it a fresh, modern look. Adding a bit of excitement to this relaxing, neutral bedroom retreat was an oversized window that overlooked the city lights.

  “I’m going to the bathroom to get ready for bed. I’m not having sex with you again tonight, so don’t follow me,” she told him, tongue in cheek.

  He gave her a wicked grin as he watched her enter the bathroom. “I can’t promise that, but if you tie my hands together, maybe that will force me to keep them to myself. How’s that?”

  “Not good enough,” she said, laughing as she went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

  He glanced at the bathroom door where he could hear the shower running; it seemed to be running for a long time. He needed a shower, as well. Just as he was making up his mind to open the door, the water was shut off.

  She walked out of the shower wearing one of his robes, with her hair wrapped in a towel. His body immediately reacted with urgent demands, as tired as he was. There was no denying it, no hiding it.

  He saw her glance at him as he stood there tenting the towel he’d wrapped around his waist. There was a flare of desire in her eyes before she turned away from him.

  “I’m going to take a quick shower, and I’ll join you in a minute.”

  “To sleep, right?”

  “To sleep,” he agreed.

  “I’m going to sleep now,” she said with a sigh of contentment, as she slipped between the sheets and began rolling around on the bed.

  True to his words, he was in and out of the shower in no time, still hard as ever. Sighing resignedly, he made his way back into the bedroom.

  Gabrielle clearly had fallen asleep. She still had the towel wrapped around her head, the only part of her that was covered. She looked so young and vulnerable, lying there in his bed.

  He slipped into the bed and, wrapping his arm around her, brought her into the fold of his body. She was warm and soft and smelled delicious and clean. He buried his face in her shoulder, inhaling her scent. It was not as strong as it normally was, but it was there nonetheless. He supposed it was a part of her.

  He relaxed, happy just to be with her. She would be the first woman he’d ever woken up with in the morning. Although they had slept together in her hotel, he had left before dawn and before she woke. He was looking forward to the experience.

  With his stiff cock nestled between the firm globes of her butt, he palmed her beautiful breasts. The weight and feel of them was wonderful. He was in breast heaven. It wasn’t long before he was asleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Raymond woke to the music from his alarm going off. He always woke to the sound of Nat King Cole’s “The Very Thought of You”. He was still holding on to Gabrielle, enjoying the warmth and softness of her body. She stirred, pushing back into him.

  Waking in the mornings all jacked up was nothing new to him, but this was a new experience for him—his cock firmly planted against the warm butt of the woman he loved. He didn’t know how she would feel about this, but he was going to start the way he intended to continue. Slipping his bent knee between her legs, he positioned his pelvis and entered her one incremental inch at a time. When he was firmly seated, he began to rock inside her, shallow thrusts to tempt her awake. He was giving
her time to warm up to the feel of him inside her first thing in the morning. For him, it felt wonderful—so good he almost wept from the sensation.

  He took her soft and slowly, applying slight pressure when necessary. He let his body and hers communicate with each other. She pressed back when she wanted to feel more of him, and he, in turn, thrust forward in short jabs, just enough to tease her hunger, but not enough to satisfy it.

  He lost track of time. All he could recall was they were there for a long time making love to each other with their bodies. It was the sweetest sexual experience he’d ever had. It was all sensation. When he finally increased the rhythm and brought them both to orgasm, he didn’t know which he’d enjoyed more, the slow sex or the mind-blowing orgasm that followed. They were each uniquely sensational, and he intended to start each day like this, so he had to make her his wife. He had decided she would have to marry him.

  He rubbed his hand on her butt, leaned over, and brushed a kiss over her temple. The bruise from the accident was still visible. “Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

  He went into the bathroom and brought out a soapy washcloth, which he used to clean his seed off her. He could do this all day, but he had to behave. He wanted to take her around the island as he’d promised.

  Returning to the bathroom, he cleaned up, brushed his teeth, and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. By then she was lying propped up in the bed, her glorious hair all around her in a state of disarray. She looked well loved, even if he said so himself.

  He went into the kitchen where the automatic coffee maker had turned on and the coffee was brewing. He had to have his coffee in the mornings, especially the local coffee. He set about preparing them breakfast. He was not a cook in the class of Wolfe and Foxx, but he could hold his own, and anything he did, he did it to the best of his ability.

  In the breakfast arena, he made a mean beignet. So he set about preparing some, before bringing her a mug of fresh coffee. She was still lying in the bed beneath the sheet. Accepting the coffee, she offered to help him with breakfast.

  “I’m all right preparing breakfast. It’ll be done faster if I’m in there alone. You're too much of a distraction.”

  “I’m a distraction? Speak for yourself, Raymond.”

  *****

  He returned to the kitchen, and she took a couple more sips of her coffee. She couldn’t help thinking, this is great coffee. She had a second cup before going into the bathroom to take a shower. She didn’t have a change of clothes, so she would be wearing her outfit from the previous night until she got back to her hotel.

  She absolutely loved being with Raymond. She loved spending time with him and she enjoyed their love making. And more than anything, she loved talking with him. She’d miss all this when she left, but the good news was, she was invited back to meet his parents and the rest of his family. She saw this as a good thing.

  Raymond did a bang-up job on the breakfast. There were fried eggs, warm beignets, some filled with fruit and blood pudding, a specialty on the island. When they were done eating, she helped him clean up in the kitchen and waited while he took a shower before leaving for her hotel.

  Arriving at her hotel, she wasted no time getting into a fresh change of clothes, and then they were on their way to go sightseeing. There were two messages in her voice mail at the hotel, one from Steven, requesting confirmation that she’d be back in time for her shoot. He had scheduled to resume shooting in a couple of days. The other was from Pierre, calling to see how she was doing.

  Pierre. She had forgotten about him and the coat. Although he wasn’t supposed to call her, Pierre did what Pierre wanted. He had little or no regard for anyone but himself. Sometimes he made her sick.

  She would retrieve it from Raymond’s trunk when she was packing to leave. She didn’t want to leave it lying around in the hotel while she went gallivanting with Raymond.

  They had four stops today. The first one was the old capital of St. Pierre, which had been destroyed by the eruption of the Mont Pelée volcano in 1902. The eruption killed all but one of the 20,000 residents of the town and destroyed the town. The one resident that survived the eruption was a prisoner who was kept in a cell in the city.

  She was surprised to see that, after over one hundred years, the signs of the devastation were still visible. They spent a couple hours looking at the old buildings that survived the eruption and visited the jail cell of the one survivor. The walls of the cell were thick, which could account for his survival.

  The second stop was the Butterfly Garden, called Jardin des Papillons. She was able to observe the butterflies in their natural milieu, beautiful, lush, and pleasant vegetation. There were so many varieties, so much color, she couldn’t decide between a tour of the beautiful flower garden or one of the colorful butterflies.

  By the time they got to the rum distilleries, of which there were a dozen, she was exhausted. She found it interesting to see the rum being made directly from the locally grown sugar cane. After the rum tasting, they had lunch at a beautiful restaurant, where the food was local treats, such as accra, a fried fish fritter and local delicacy, and grilled lambi kabobs.

  There was so much to see and do on the island that she would need weeks to do and see half of them.

  They cut the trip short because Raymond’s foot was not holding up to the stress of all the walking, so they went to his family’s private beach and spent a wonderful afternoon, lazing about and laughing as he told her how Wolfe had met his wife after he caught her spying on him while he took his daily morning swim.

  “What do you mean he caught her spying on him? Was she a spy?”

  “No, silly,” he replied.

  He was laughing so hard it took him three tries before he stopped laughing long enough to tell her that Wolfe swam in his birthday suit.

  Then it was her turn to laugh. They were laughing so hard they didn’t know they were being watched until they heard the growling of a dog.

  That was all the warning they got before the dog was upon them. The only thing that kept the dog from attacking them was the strong hold of the man holding its leash.

  *****

  Raymond was livid. “Qu'est-ce qui se passe?”

  “This is private property,” the man told him. “It belongs to the LaCasses.”

  “I’m a LaCasse,” he told the man.

  “I know all the LaCasses,” the man responded, not giving an inch.

  “I am Raymond. I was away at school.”

  “Ah, Raymond. No one told me you were back.”

  “Who hired you?”

  “Monsieur Wolfe.”

  “Of course.” Raymond was furious. Even though the man kept apologizing profusely, Raymond was so upset he was shaking.

  Turning his back on the man, he took out his cell and called Wolfe. She couldn’t understand but a few words here and there. It was all done rapidly in their native Créole. Hanging up the phone, he told her they were leaving, and the mood was ruined.

  Boy, she thought, French men are volatile, but the Martiniquais take it to another level. She couldn’t believe Raymond was so upset by the man not recognizing him. It had been a simple mistake. He had been away for five years. She saw it as a simple oversight.

  It was only later that she learned Raymond didn’t like dogs walking up on him. As a child, he’d been trapped by a dog until Wolfe found him, petrified and almost incoherent with fear, several hours later. The dog had not bitten him because he had remained still and not moved, but that didn’t lessen the fear he’d felt.

  Having this dog rush at him the way it had on the beach had brought the entire experience back, and to top it off, he had to identify himself to the man. He believed Wolfe had no business hiring a security guard to patrol the beach; all he had to do was wear some swimming trunks when he swam. Ever since the incident with Daphne, he had become paranoid, over-cautious, putting security cameras and live coverage on all their properties, particularly, the ones that were difficult to secure.

>   They went back to his apartment. They spent hours talking and getting to know each other better. They found there was so much they didn’t know about each other, so much to discuss.

  They talked about his plans to open an investment firm on the island and how he’d decided to work with the same firm he used to work with in Paris, who had a local branch in Fort-de-France. That way, he’d get a feel for the local market before finalizing his decision about the job offer. She was curious about his sister, Franchesca, who was still in Paris.

  He told her that Franchesca had completed her doctorate and had accepted a position as a biochemist with a pharmaceutical company right after graduation.

  His parents lived on Les Trois Islets, or Three Islands, on the southern end of Martinique. He reminded her that they had a date to visit his parents when she finished her assignment on St. Barth and returned to the island.

  It was obvious by the way he talked about Franchesca that Raymond loved his sister. They were closer in age than he was with any of his other siblings. He told her how he and Franchesca were always getting into scrapes when they were little.

  She tried to get him to tell her which one of his brothers was his favorite, but he wouldn’t pick one over the other. She could tell he worshiped Wolfe, even if he was domineering and a control freak. According to Raymond, after his father retired and turned over both restaurants to Wolfe and Foxx, it was Wolfe who had been instrumental in making both locations a success.

  Foxx was busy with his soccer. He was a professional soccer player, and when the season was on, it took up a lot of his time. That was one of the reasons he had a full-time manager for his restaurant. So, between soccer and pursuing Therèse, he had no time for the restaurant. Nothing Wolfe said or did could make him lessen his pursuit of Therèse. He’d been like someone possessed. He saw nothing and did nothing that was not around and about her. For a while there, Wolfe had thought he’d lost him. This was one of the reasons he hadn’t liked Therèse, but when he found out what had happened to cause her to turn down Foxx’s proposal of marriage, he had forgiven her, but it took some doing on Foxx’s part.