That brought a one-sided smile. “I’m glad.”
“You know what I mean?”
“Of course I do, and I don’t agree with you. What you call a ‘fit’ doesn’t have much to do with experience.” He touched the side of her face, pushed her hair back.
Bleu kissed his palm, rested her cheek there.
Light in the room was soft, but clear. “I like looking at you,” she said.
“Ditto,” he said softly, and shifted just enough to lean forward and part her lips with his. He put a breath’s distance between their mouths and said, “Looking at you in that mirror was…I’d better shut up.”
They kissed a long time, with Roche using only his hand on the side of her head to hold her. They breathed from each other, their eyes squeezed shut. Bleu’s breasts tingled. The flutters in her belly concentrated and pooled into a low burn.
His other hand settled on her neck, slid beneath her blouse to fold over her shoulder, but only for a moment before he tugged her closer, landed her against him.
Never taking his eyes from hers, he reached between them to unbutton her blouse, his fingers shaking but still moving rapidly. Spreading the front open, he smoothed his hands over the tops of her breasts and inside her bra. He scooped her up and bent to lick the tender flesh, his tongue trailing closer and closer to her nipples, but never quite touching.
Unexpected sunlight through the window struck Bleu’s eyelids and she flinched. She opened them and his head rested against her chest, his hair black against her pale skin.
Roche slid the edges of his thumbnails over her nipples. Bleu gritted her teeth. She stood there, passive, while he touched her. And he made her want him to do it, and do it.
The sunshine washed over them, over the office.
“No!” She was strong and she shoved at his shoulders, pushed his head away from her.
She wrapped her blouse over wet, reddened nipples and turned her back to Roche. She shook, not outwardly, but inside, and her teeth wouldn’t stay together.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“It’s not your fault. I let you think I wanted it. I came to you.” Never in daylight. “It won’t work. Darn, it won’t work. I can’t change everything about me quickly enough.”
“Quickly enough for what?” He sounded gruff.
“You aren’t going to wait for me to deal with my hangups. I’ve got them, Roche, and I’m fighting as hard as I can, but it’s going to take time. I still can’t believe…. When I think about us, together at my place, I wonder if that was me, or someone who took my place.”
“That was you,” he said. “I’ll sign an affidavit if I need to.”
She began buttoning her blouse.
“Start talking about the hangups.”
“No.” Bleu shook her head. There was nothing familiar for her anymore. She had promised herself a fresh start far away from things she knew—and detested—but she felt adrift, without foundations.
“We can take as much time as you need. You don’t have to worry about anything happening quickly enough. What set you off just now?”
“The sun,” she said, before she could decide not to tell him. “The sun in my eyes.”
“Go on.”
She didn’t want to. “I’m not comfortable doing some things in the daylight.”
He settled an arm across her shoulder. “Talk to me, Bleu.”
“I’m not your patient.”
He sighed. “No, you’re not. You’re far more than that. Look at me.” Gently, he turned her toward him. “I do know you’ve had a hard time. Not why or how or most of what’s going on now. But you have issues.”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
“Yes. But we’re talking about you. You cover yourself up.”
She opened her mouth but couldn’t respond.
“Is that it? You aren’t comfortable being undressed around me?”
Forgetting that he was trained in these things would be a mistake. “I want to drop this now.”
“Nothing doing, Bleu.”
“Okay, then!” She flung away from him. “I’m not comfortable with it. Not in the—daytime.” She sounded crazy. “I’m not ashamed of my body, just—awkward.”
“C’mere.”
He couldn’t make everything better by holding her.
“Come here,” he repeated, but didn’t wait for a reaction. “If you’ll let me share this, we’ll work through it. If you want to.” He guided her to a chair.
She sat down and crossed her arms.
Roche turned on a lamp beside his desk and went to the wall spanned by a row of high windows. There were louvers and he tapped switches to close out the light electronically. “More comfortable?”
He didn’t understand. But how could he? “I’m fine. I need to get to the rectory.”
“When you go, I want you to take my car.”
“Thanks, but no.”
He smiled. “Are you afraid people will talk?”
“You know exactly how to pull my chain. No, I’m not afraid of that. I don’t accept charity, that’s all.”
“For God’s sake.” He bore down on her. “Borrowing a friend’s car isn’t charity, but have it your way.”
“Thanks anyway.”
“Did you enjoy sleeping with me?”
“Don’t.” She blew out a gust of air. The office was filled with shadows; even Roche seemed a shadow. “I told you, I don’t understand what happened. But yes, I did enjoy sleeping with you. I loved sleeping with you.”
“And before it got light, you put on your pajamas.”
“I expected you to bring that up.”
“I have to, Bleu,” he said. “But then I undressed you—”
“Please—”
“Just listen to me. Try to stop closing down. You were shy when I undressed you, but you let yourself go. You loved it, sweetheart. I know what I felt with you.”
“I did love it,” she whispered. “I want to feel that way again. All the time, when I’m with you. But I can’t control when the other thing comes over me.”
“Take off your clothes.”
“What?” She gripped the arms of the chair.
“It’s called immersion therapy. If you’re afraid of snakes, get to know a boa, intimately.”
She glanced behind her at the door, and freedom.
“I didn’t say I was going to grab you and rip off your clothes,” Roche said. “I just want you to do it.”
“Just? I’ve never had a conversation like this.”
“Will you let me make love to you again?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Roche said. “We’ll take things really slowly. But please kiss me again before you leave.”
“I want to make love.” And she did. She couldn’t leave at all without loving him.
And there was the sex—she wanted that, too. Not just holding and joining, but learning more about that wildness he’d mentioned when he wasn’t watching his words closely.
She stood up, unbuttoned her blouse again and took it off. The lacy demi-bra she wore didn’t cover a lot, but she must be in the same shadows as he was.
Keeping her eyes on him, she slipped out of her shoes—and her arms fell to her sides. She couldn’t go on.
“You’re lovely, Bleu,” he said, standing so close she could feel him. “Don’t be uncomfortable in your own skin.”
Again she crossed her arms, knowing she was closing him out.
“I’m going to give you a hug and go take a shower,” he said. “I wish you’d use my car. I’ll ride the bike—I like them.”
“So do I,” she said, and tried to laugh. “I’ve never…I never learned there could be different ways to make love until you. Can we try something else?” If she did much more shaking, she might never stop.
“Soon,” he told her.
“Now.”
Roche rested a forearm on either side of her neck. “No. Please give yourself mor
e time.”
“Now.” If not now, then maybe never.
Muscles flicked beside his mouth.
“Do what I’m asking, Roche. Do it any way you want to.”
She heard his breathing grow heavier.
Catching her by the waist, he lifted her from her feet, unzipped her pants and peeled them off. He set her down, still in her bra and panties, against the front of his desk and trapped her there with his spread legs.
His shirt had buttons, too, but he shucked it over his head, undid his belt and slid it from the loops. Looking steadily into her face, he unzipped his slacks and pushed them down. His shorts went with them.
Bleu looked at him and her skin tightened. She was wet and aching—and disoriented.
Roche’s features were hard, the skin and flesh tight to the bones, his eyes feverish. With a forefinger, he drew a line from the center of her forehead to her chin, down her neck, between her breasts, to her navel and on to the moist place beneath the scrap of nylon barely covering the center of her.
“You’re still sure?” he murmured. His chest rose and fell, and his body shone a little in the lamplight.
Bleu nodded.
“Here, or in bed? There’s a bedroom—we can go there. Whatever you want.” He barely parted his teeth when he spoke.
“Here.”
“Your choice or mine?”
She didn’t understand and shook her head.
“You choose the position or I will?”
“You.” Her legs were weak but excitement mounted. She copied him, drawing a line down the center of him, stopping in the black hair where her finger met the root of his stiff penis.
He drove his teeth into his bottom lip, took her by the waist and spun her around. With one hand he bent her across the desk, with the other hand he parted her legs.
Bleu prepared herself as best she could.
He held her down by the neck and stimulated her, stroking, sliding over her clitoris. She bobbed at every touch, clutched the far side of the desk’s top and jerked.
She shouldn’t like it. She shouldn’t feel that she would die if he stopped.
A climax split her, arched upward and outward. She pushed up on her hands, tried to face him, but he was relentless. He would not let her look at him.
Before the searing ripples faded, she felt him against the opening to her body, pushing slowly just inside. Very slowly into her vagina. He had swelled so much, yet they had been a perfect match the previous night.
But he was huge. He bent his knees, smoothed himself back and forth and tucked just inside her again.
He wouldn’t fit.
He would be angry. Then he’d leave her. Hit her and leave her. Call her names and leave her.
Bleu screamed. She heard the sound bloom from her without deciding to make any sound at all. Again, she cried out and kicked at his shins, beat him with her elbows.
Then she struck at nothing but air.
He was gone.
Collapsed on the desk, her tears scalding, she curled her fingers over the far edge again. The echoes of throbbing hadn’t left the folds between her legs.
She had disappointed Roche. Disgusted him. And he had left her alone.
Chapter 32
Many more showers and he might shed a skin.
Roche stood under a hard stream of lukewarm water. He was pretty damn sure he’d have a heart attack if he hit his skin with anything ice cold.
He’d had no choice but to walk away, stagger away, and come in here. Bleu Laveau was wounded, far more so than even he had guessed. But her courage humbled him. She was scared stiff, but forced herself to try—because she wanted to please him.
He turned up his face and the spray felt like needles jabbing his skin.
No. Not to please him, or not only. There had been two of them who wanted to test her capacity for sex.
And she’d almost made it there—past the inhibitions, or the shame or whatever it was that tore a scream from her. That scream had knocked him away from her as her feet and elbows never could have.
Roche faced a wall and braced his weight on his arms.
He heard the shower door open behind him and waited, his gut contracted hard.
At first she didn’t touch him, but when she did it was tentatively, as if she expected him to reject her. A slow caress from shoulder to shoulder. The fingers of both hands pushed into his hair, kneading his scalp.
She reached past him for the soap and began to wash him.
He shuddered, ecstasy hadn’t taken a holiday after all. His back, his chest, she rubbed circles over him, while he remained facing the wall. His butt, his hips and around to his belly. Circles on circles. She used her knuckles sometimes, pressing harder. She scrubbed the hair on his chest with her fingertips and kept on scrubbing, following the diminishing line of hair until it flared again over his pelvis. Then her hands closed around his scrotum. Little movements, weighting beneath his penis, feeling and shifting him around, the warm soapy massage destroying any chance of his holding back, or of denial. Not that he could have seriously considered denial.
She stroked him, firmly, smoothly, and brought him to the brink of letting go.
“Stop,” he told her and when she didn’t, took her hands from him and turned around.
For the first time he saw her naked in the light.
Had he known from the moment he saw her that she was perfection? Yes.
They kissed beneath the water, drank from each other’s mouths, swallowed the spray. And he passed his palms over all of her.
“Roche?” she said, and he scrubbed at his eyes to look at her. Her eyes were dark, but she smiled and reached her arms around his neck, pressed herself against him.
He kissed her again, taking as much time as he was able, and lifted her. “Put your legs around my waist,” he told her.
With her back on the tile, they made love.
She would be sore later, but he didn’t think she’d care.
For moments she slumped against him, then she looked up. “We don’t have a chandelier,” she said. She wasn’t smiling.
“Maybe next time,” he told her.
“I’m not through. Think of something else.”
The thrill he felt could be dangerous. It mounted and the blood pumped to a beat in his veins. He was stiff again.
Giving her no time to get the breath for a scream, Roche pushed Bleu’s head to her knees, gripped her by the waist and shot her upside down. He lifted her until a very interesting part of her was on a level with his face.
“Roche!” She shrieked now, and grabbed for him with slippery hands.
“Yes, love. I’m here.” He licked her thighs.
“The blood’s going to my head.”
“That’s good for you occasionally. Hook your knees over the top of the shower.”
“What? You’re mad.”
“Me? You wanted more excitement. Do it, and be quiet.”
Fumbling, banging the door with her feet, she accomplished the task and he made sure she was safe in his arms.
Ignoring her protests, he buried his face between her legs and started a leisurely tongue massage where she was least likely to forget the event.
“Roche! Stop the slow motion. I’m dying here.”
“No, you’re not.” But he tongued her harder, faster, nipped her clitoris and sweated over the unbearable clamoring in his own body.
Sounds he couldn’t control jolted from his throat. Her arms were around his hips.
A great shudder racked her and her hips met his face in a greedy demand. Then Bleu’s muscles softened. He rested the side of his face against her thighs and loved it.
Her mouth, sucking him in, came without any warning. For an instant, he tried to stop her, but her teeth let him know that would be at a cost to him.
“I’ll drop you,” he yelled.
She didn’t take the bait. Didn’t answer.
He didn’t want her to.
The climax bowed him. With his ey
es shut, panting, he turned Bleu in a sideways cartwheel motion until her knees rested on the shower floor. Still she held his penis in her mouth. She drank him in.
“Don’t ever leave me,” he said, when she was done, sinking down slowly to kneel with her gathered into his embrace.
Bleu looked drunk, like a happy drunk. “We’re not finished,” she said.
He laughed and managed to turn off the shower. “We are, until I get you into bed.”
Chapter 33
That evening
“Could be the Knights of Columbus weren’t our best choice for the decorating committee,” Madge said. “This is—different.”
She stood with Bleu, Roche and his twin, Max Savage, at the edge of the dance floor at Pappy’s Dance Hall and Eats. Few guests had arrived yet, but the Swamp Doggies, with Vince Fox curled over his fiddle and stomping a foot, got the toes tapping.
“It’s eclectic,” Bleu said. “It’s got a kind of disorganized charm.” She glanced at Roche.
Felt banners hung from the ceiling, each trailing lengths of tasseled gold rope. Backed by Pappy’s stuffed, nine-foot-long lacquered alligator and dressed in their tuxedos, some wearing their feathered cocked hats, the Knights hovered in a line at the front of the restaurant. They welcomed each arrival.
The place vibrated with activity. Max’s wife, Annie, who managed Pappy’s, ordered people in different directions with quiet authority.
It felt to Roche as if he and Bleu had been together for hours. She had gone to work at the rectory during the afternoon, and he had been at Green Veil, working with clinic patients. But she hadn’t been out of his mind.
Bleu wasn’t smiling, but she was staying close and watching his face.
Looking for his reactions, trying to read what he was thinking—he didn’t need help figuring that out.
Anyone with a little perception would only have to look at them to see how they couldn’t keep their eyes off each other.
Annie, small, blond and confident, came over and propped her hands on her hips. “Me, I’m grateful Pappy said no way to any potluck,” she said. She looked only at Max. “The parish ladies still keep making excuses to get into the kitchens.”
Max laughed and put an arm around her shoulders.
“They’ve decided they’re going to have lunch in the parish hall after noon mass on Sunday,” Bleu said. “They say they’ve got the food and they’re going to use it.”
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