by Ju Ephraime
This became the pattern of his day. He went to work in the morning for half a day, or until the pain of missing Gabrielle became too much for him, and then he’d leave and either go to Wolfe’s or Foxx’s restaurant to help out. Much as Wolfe annoyed him, Raymond liked going to his restaurant more. He was always minding his p’s and q’s when he was around Wolfe. He didn’t talk about Gabrielle. He avoided any mention of her and went about his day like a horse with blinders on.
He supposed it was too good to last. After he’d been doing this for a week, it was Saturday evening, and the crowd was especially large at Wolfe’s. He was running around—now he pretty much knew the process—when he felt someone watching him. He turned around, and it was Wolfe standing there with one hand in his pocket and the other one rubbing his chin, watching him.
“Ce qui est mon, frère?”
“Don’t what’s up me, Ray. I’ve stood by and watched you throw yourself into something that I know you have no love for—working with the public in the restaurant business. I have not said anything because I’ve waited for you to come to me on your own, but so far, you haven’t. You haven’t breathed a word. You haven’t even mentioned her name. And don’t pretend you don’t know to whom I’m referring.”
“Wolfe, you are my brother. When I’ve had something to discuss with you, I took full advantage of it, no? By the same token, if I don’t want to discuss something with you, I expect you to respect my decision, not only because I’m your brother but because I’m a man, first and foremost—back off.”
“I want you to know that I’m here for you, always, both as a man and as your older brother.”
“You think I don’t know that, Wolfe? It’s just that there’s nothing to discuss. Trust that I’ll come to you when there is.”
He realized he would have to spend some time in his apartment. His family knew him. They knew he always preferred his own company, and the fact that he was constantly seeking them out was working against him. It gave him away.
*****
That night, after he was done at Wolfe’s, he didn’t go to his mother’s home. He went to his apartment. He was so exhausted he fell asleep with the scent of Gabrielle around him as he buried his head in the pillow.
He woke to the alarm and his tune of choice playing on the stereo, Nat King Cole’s “The Very Thought of You”.
That song would haunt him until the day he died. It was just so appropriate to the way he was presently feeling.
He took a quick shower, although even that was ruined for him, but he needed a shower while the coffee brewed. Walking into the kitchen naked, he poured himself a cup of coffee. He needed to eat, so he prepared a bowl of cereal, but unfortunately, he had no appetite, and couldn’t eat a morsel. He poured himself another cup of coffee and sat down to go through the few pieces of mail he had received.
The first piece of mail on the top was a pink flowery envelope that smelled so strongly of Gabrielle he didn’t have to look at the return address to know it came from her.
Why the hell would she not just leave him alone? What did she want from him—blood? He was about to throw the envelope into the garbage when it was as if an invisible hand stayed him.
Placing the letter to the side, he went through the rest of his mail, which turned out to be a couple of advertisement circulars and one bill from the rental company.
He couldn’t keep the letter out of his mind. He picked up the letter again, but then he put it back down without opening it.
The compulsion to open the letter was so strong, he was breathing hard, and he didn’t even know why. Twice he picked it up, and twice he put it back down. What could she have to say to him? He just couldn’t imagine, but the old saying, “curiosity killed the cat” seemed to be talking to him. He was so curious he would very likely get killed, but he had to know. He picked it up again for the third time, and this time he broke the seal.
The letter that he’d received from Gabrielle read like something out of the movies. He couldn’t take it all in on the first read. He had to go over it a second time, this time much slower to grasp the full gist of it.
Although she said she couldn’t tell him the whole story in the letter, the little that she did tell him had him cursing a blue streak. By the time he got to the last line of the letter, he was seeing red. He didn’t like seeing red. He was in a blind rage against her brother, Pierre.
It took him a bit of time to think, before he could put a face to the name—Pierre Brevard. He was a young man who was always in the company of several of the women on campus. He’d had the distinct impression that Pierre was not interested in school. He was just attending the university to pass the time, and it turned out he was right about him. Well, he’d picked the wrong man to mess around with. He wanted to dance? Well, he’d dance with him.
In less than an hour after reading the letter, he had a flight booked, leaving for St. Barth that afternoon. He might as well go, because he wasn’t getting any work done. He debated with himself about telling Wolfe and Foxx, but he didn’t want Wolfe to get involved ‒ he got into worse rages than Raymond did. Also, this was his fight, and he’d deal with it his way.
He picked up his phone and called Gabrielle. She answered on the first ring. Their conversation about the diamonds was very brief. He admitted to having read her letter, and she went on to apologize to him.
“I’m so sorry that Pierre used you like that, but I’ll make it up to you.”
“You will?” he couldn’t help asking. “This I’ve got to see.”
“You’ll see. I’ll be on the first flight out of here. My assignment will be completed today. I have one more shoot this afternoon, and then I’m done.”
“I take it you’re returning to Paris. Is your brother accompanying you back?”
“I don’t know what he’s doing. I’ve not spoken to him since my first day back here—a week or thereabouts.”
“Is he staying on St. Barth permanently?”
“I know he has an apartment here, but whether or not he’s staying for any length of time, I don’t know. But I do know he’ll have to remain here until he’s unloaded his diamonds. I don’t see that happening in a hurry.”
“Why?” he asked.
“This is a huge amount of diamonds to get rid of so quickly. I shouldn’t even be talking about it because the less I know, the better I feel.”
“I think your brother is dangerous and you should stay away from him.”
“He’s really only my adopted brother. We are no blood relation.”
“Oh, I was trying to figure out why you didn’t have the same last name. Now it makes a bit more sense.”
“Can I come and see you when I’m done here before I return home?” she asked.
“No,” he told her
“No?” she repeated with a question in her voice. “I understand, Raymond. I don’t blame you for being angry with me.”
“Stop it, silly. You don’t have to come see me because I’ll be seeing you tonight.”
All he heard was a scream at the other end. “You are? Don’t toy with me, Raymond. I’ve missed you so much. I need you so desperately. I haven’t been able to breathe properly since you walked out of the hotel. There was something big and hard lodged in my throat.”
“I’ll lodge something big and hard in your throat if that’s what you want,” he told her, laughing.
He hadn’t thought he’d ever laugh again. She had him laughing within minutes of talking with her. It was as if his entire world had been helter-skelter, and it had righted itself somehow. It was not his place to question the why. He only knew what was. And his life seemed to revolve around Gabrielle.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gabrielle couldn’t believe Raymond was coming all the way to St. Barth to visit her. She was so thankful to him for understanding and not blaming her for her role in duping him to be a transporter of illegal goods.
She would have understood had he chosen to go the other route and not have
anything to do with her, or even reported her to the authorities. She would have understood, not that she would have been happy about it. She had been so miserable without him, and not being able to talk with him had taken its toll on her. She’d tried, but she had not been able to eat anything. Everything she’d tried had tasted like straw.
Now that she’d be seeing Raymond, all was almost well with her world. She didn’t know how he had become so important to her, but that was just the way it was. Now she was enjoying a sandwich and looking forward to having dinner with Raymond.
She was going to meet his flight in a couple of hours, and she was so excited she had to stop herself from looking at her watch.
She didn’t have a car on the island. She was not comfortable driving on the hair-raising roads that were typical in St. Barth. She had to admire the taxi drivers, although the residents also had vehicles, more power to them. She was not taking her life into her hands, which was what driving up the narrow hairpin bends would entail. No way. She was perfectly content to use the taxi. She had one picking her up in an hour to take her to the airport.
She wanted to be there well ahead of Raymond’s flight. She’d completed her shoot and had all the time in the world to spend with him until she had to return to Paris.
She sat in her room, going over the various things that had taken place since she’d stepped into that taxi with Raymond. It seemed like eons ago. So much had happened since. She had met the love of her life. She had placed him in danger and had found out her brother was a selfish young man. And now she had just found out the love of her life evidently was a wonderful man who loved her in return.
For a few days there she had despaired of her life and the choices she’d made, but it appeared she was being given a second chance.
Her spirit was buoyant. She felt alive, almost pulsating with it. Her phone beeped signaling she’d received a text from Pierre. For a moment she contemplated not texting back, but she needed to know when he was returning to Paris, so she texted him back.
“Are you still on the island? When are you returning to Paris?”
“Don’t know yet. Throwing a party tonight, would like it if you came.”
She had no intention of going.
She texted him back. “I’m very busy can’t come to the party and can’t talk now, got to go.”
He texted her back with the date and time of the party, as well as the directions on how to get there. She didn’t have time to be exchanging text messages with Pierre. She had better things to do. She was in the process of deleting the text when something told her to save it.
Picking up her bag, she went down to the hotel lounge to wait for her taxi.
It arrived on time, and she got to the airport with twenty minutes to spare. After exiting the cab, she stood outside for a couple of minutes, trying to calm her suddenly rapidly beating heart. She was so thrilled at the prospect of seeing Raymond she could barely contain her excitement.
She had no doubt that he was the man of her dreams, her ideal man, and she had fallen deeply and inequitably in love with him. She wanted to think that his coming here to see her was an indication that he felt the same way about her, but she had nothing concrete to go on.
She went inside and took a seat where she could see the passengers as they came off the plane and went through customs.
Sitting with her book opened on her lap, she kept her eyes glued to the doorway from which the passengers would exit through customs.
She gave up the pretense of reading. She wasn’t even seeing the pages, let alone reading the print. Who was she kidding?
*****
Raymond was happy he’d gone with his gut and told Wolfe about his trip to St. Barth. He knew he wouldn’t hear the end of it, and comments such as, “you’re whipped,” would be thrown at him. However, he needed at least one of them to know where he was in the event something went wrong with his plan.
It was true his main reason for going to St. Barth was to see Gabrielle. He was dying to see her, but he also wanted to settle something with Pierre.
He hoped he didn’t have a hard time locating him. He’d only given himself a couple of days on St. Barth to find Pierre. He was needed back at work in three. It was unfortunate he had started this new job; otherwise, he would have more time to play with, a luxury he didn’t have now.
He could feel the afterglow he had been feeling ever since he’d heard her voice on the other end of the line. He was so looking forward to seeing her, to holding her in his arms again. His arms had been feeling empty ever since he had tried cutting her off, hardening his heart against her.
Now that he would be seeing her in a less than thirty minutes, his heart did a strange flip. It actually alarmed him. It was as if his heart had actually moved. He knew he’d be all right when he felt his cock jumping in response to his heart as an undercurrent of electricity snaked through his blood and pooled in his groin. If this was what love did to a man, he didn’t think he would survive it.
It had the power to reduce a man to a blubbering idiot who was ruled by his cock. He didn’t know about any other man, but he was definitely ruled by his. He couldn’t ignore what it wanted, when it wanted it. He’d not realized what a pampered cock he had, but he was beginning to realize that, fast. It wanted no other pussy. It didn’t react this way to any other. It had become fixated on Gabrielle, and he found he was in total agreement with it.
Here comes the nail-biting landing. He found a stick of gum and popped it into his mouth to help with the ear pressure. The pressure came with taking off and landing or any loss of altitude.
Closing his eyes, he prepared himself for the landing as the flight attendant had instructed.
This sure was a strange airport. He couldn’t believe more planes weren’t crashing at this airport than there were. This was a deathtrap. He could appreciate the fact that most visitors to St. Barth landed in St. Maarten. He would have too, but for the fact that he was anxious to see Gabrielle.
*****
Gabrielle saw him before he spotted her. He came striding out of the customs and into the waiting terminal. He was a big man, much like his brother, Wolfe, all muscle with that smooth, fluid way of walking that made her blood run hot. He glided along, exuding confidence, just like all the LaCasses. She hadn’t met his two sisters or his older brother yet, but she was certain this type of confidence was inherent in all of them.
She tried very hard to walk sedately toward him, but she was bubbling like a seething volcano, and if she did burst into a run, she was going to erupt.
Just as she started to run toward him, he looked ahead and saw her, and they both broke into a run. They came together in a collision of bodies. The small bag he was carrying bounced around on his back as they tried to get as much as they could of each other.
It had never felt so wonderful to have her body collide with another’s, and instead of feeling pain, she felt only pleasure.
The first kiss of many, right there in the airport lounge, was heated and hungry. Neither one noticed the other passengers walking around them, trying to give them as much space as the small terminal allowed. It was the voice of a kid that brought them back to reality.
“Jeez, get a room, why don't you.”
“Stop it, Sue, you are not being polite,” her mother reprimanded.
Breaking apart, they looked into each other’s eyes and could not help laughing at the innocence of youth.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Raymond couldn’t believe he was once again holding Gabrielle in his arms. He’d felt so empty in the days following her departure from Martinique. He was as besotted as his brothers with their women. He hoped his would have a happy ending like theirs. He didn’t want to pressure her, but he would have to marry her to keep her from getting into the kind of escapades she seemed to get into. The problem with her was she had a kind heart, and unscrupulous individuals like Pierre took advantage of it. He refused to call that man her brother; no brother would put his sis
ter in such jeopardy.
For a moment, his heart pounded hard just looking at her walking hand-in-hand with him. She was so beautiful, composed, and she was HIS. He had never really considered that he’d find the woman of his dreams, especially, not so soon after returning home, and without him even looking.
She looked like a gift from the gods, and who was he to question the gods? She turned to look at him and gave him one of her dazzling smiles.
“I’m so happy you came, Raymond. I still can’t believe you are really here.”
“Do you want to pinch me to make certain I’m really here?”
“I don’t have to pinch you to know that you're really here. I know exactly what to do to prove whether or not you're real.”
“What’s that?” he asked, schooling his features into a look of innocence, but he couldn’t quite hide his wolfish grin, which caused her to say, “I know just where your mind is going, Raymond LaCasse.”
“Where is my mind going?”
“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer,” she told him, pretending to be offended.
Her mouth twitched, and she covered it with her hand, coughing delicately and then clearing her throat several times.
“What? You have a hair ball in your throat?” he asked her, moving into her space as he covered her mouth with his.
“Let me get that hair ball out for you.” He proceeded to kiss her with deep hungry kisses that only served to whet his hunger.
“Let’s get out of here,” he told her. “I know the French are lenient about matters of the heart, but even they would be shocked if they were to witness the things I want to do to you.”
He set off at a run, taking her with him.
“What are you doing, Raymond?” she asked, as she struggled to keep up with him wearing five-inch heels.
“I’m taking you out of the airport and into the taxi.”
*****
Getting into the taxi, she had to ask him the most important question, because they had to give the taxi driver his address.