by Tricia Lynne
Declan grinned, taking it in stride. “Coconut and peaches. Went down so easy. Something that old should be hard to swallow, but it was smooth as silk. Made me think of tropical beaches and sun-kissed skin.” He chuckled and my breath caught in my throat. The man was something to behold.
“It’s different for everyone.” Geneviève turned her eyes on me. “Now give, girl.”
My voice came out in a stunned whisper. “Cinnamon candy…like old-fashioned Red Hots. Spicy and sticky, with just a little hint of sweet.” I glanced back and forth between Declan and the chef.
The strange and wonderful Geneviève smiled, threw her head back, and laughed with her whole body. “Grand’Mère…she always knows.”
When the server returned with the bill, Declan waved me off, handing over a black card before the check touched the table. Apparently, Declan had money. We made our goodbyes at the enchanting Grand’Mère and I checked a new text.
“What’s so important it can’t wait?” Declan nudged my arm with his.
“Sorry. It’s my friend. I’m supposed to meet her at The Old Absinthe House?”
“It’s not far from here. I’ll walk you.”
As we passed one balcony, I stopped to watch as revelers left over from last week’s Mardi Gras took up the flashing tradition. My face heated as I imagined what it would be like to have that kind of confidence. To just whip out the girls and show ’em off when and wherever I saw fit.
“You want some beads, sweetness? Aren’t you supposed to flash your tits for beads on your first trip?”
Damn. His front was so close to my back I could lean into him, and his breath, sweet with wine, tickled my hair as he spoke next to my ear. After the comment at dinner about seeing his bed, we’d fallen back into polite conversation. I’d clammed up, unsure of myself. Declan couldn’t make up his mind about me. Did he want me or not? He’d flirt a bit, then back off. It was starting to annoy the hell out of me.
“Sure, dude. Soon as you whip out your junk and jiggle it around for everybody to see. Tell me, Declan, will they be throwing the cheap-ass beads at you that you can buy at the grocery store, or the really nice ones that the good tits get?” When he didn’t say anything, I turned around to look at his face, and what I saw there was…not polite. A lot of surprise, his teeth on the edge of his lip, and…was that heat in his eyes?
“Christ. There she is again.” His lips spread into that fuck-me grin as he brushed a palm over his head.
Whatever that look was, it was better than polite, so I kept on with exactly what came to mind, unfiltered. “Honestly, one look at me in this tank top and any guy here pretty much knows what I’m holding without me having to flash my tits. Isn’t it only fair if I know what you’re working with? Tell me, are you a shower or a grower, Declan?” I crossed my arms under my breasts and waited for a response.
Declan’s gaze roamed to my mouth to my chest, where I’d inadvertently pushed the twins front and center. He slid back up to meet my eyes. Had I imagined that? The way his lips parted and his pulse kicked up at the base of his neck? Apparently, Declan was a boob man.
He grasped his nape and squeezed. “Jesus.” It was nearly whispered and said in a way that sounded reverent. “I uh…”
I waited, eyebrows raised.
“I wish I didn’t, but I gotta take off or I’m gonna be late for my gig.”
My eyes fell from his face, landing on his chest as the disappointment stole over me much worse than it had at the restaurant. Thankfully, I saw Kat getting out of a taxi.
“Yeah, sure. Well, thanks for dinner; it was sweet of you.” I glanced up and forced a smile, pulled my lip between my teeth. “I’m sorry I almost lopped your balls off earlier.”
“Why don’t you—”
I cut him off, trying for casual and playful instead of disappointed. “I see Kat and I don’t want to lose her in the crowd. It’s all good, Declan. I had fun, but now I’m going to find some trouble with my girl.” I gestured behind me as I backed away.
“Guessing it usually finds you,” he said with a tilt of his head.
“Mmmm, I am trouble, baby.” I winked, turned, heading to the bar at a clip. I thought I heard him mutter “That’s for damn sure” before I was out of earshot.
Nope, men like Declan didn’t go for women like me.
Dammit. I had to stop thinking like that. It was just dinner, and I sure as hell didn’t need Declan to find trouble. Though, it would have been nice if he’d offered to help me look.
Still, I wasn’t about to let this ruin my night. I had a feeling that I was standing on some precipice, my toes hanging over the edge of a vast abyss. I was afraid, but also had an undeniable urge to swan dive, headlong, into the dark and see where I landed.
Laissez les bon temps rouler.
Chapter 4
Standing on the corner of Bienville and Bourbon, I marveled at the remnants of Mardi Gras that still lingered in the brightly colored beads draped over anything that stood still. The trees had few leaves but for the multicolored plastic swathing, and street signs and balconies were gussied up in jewel tones like a bunch of women out looking for trouble. The crowd was thick up and down Rue de Bourbon. The bright lights, the jumbled sounds of competing music pumping from bars, the smells of street food, booze, and yes, a little bit of vomit, overloaded my senses.
Obnoxious strippers ran up and down the street, pawing at tipsy businessmen trying to get them into their clubs. Equally as irritating was the frequency with which sidewalk bars poured overpriced well drinks into two-foot-long neon cups. Kat seemed to have an obvious disdain for this part of the city, and I didn’t blame her after seeing the drunks groping strangers and the strippers motorboating each other for tips.
“Why are we here?” I asked as she led the way through the crowd. She obviously didn’t want to be.
“You cannot come to Nawlins and skip Bourbon Street. You may do it only once, but there are things you gotta see. It’s not the place I hate; it’s the drunk tourists who use it as a free pass to act like assholes.” She stopped on the corner outside The Old Absinthe House. “You wait here. I’m gonna get us drinks and then you’re gonna tell me about dinner.”
Kat disappeared inside and I took in the crowd. The freaks had turned up and were flying their flags proudly. A man painted head to toe in gold spray paint over a dime-store tuxedo held court on one corner, collecting change for his simple existence while a few feet down the street a group of fifty-something women in pink feather boas danced with two police horses. The officers moved the reins of their mounts back and forth and the horses danced from foot to foot, shaking their heads, giving the impression the beasts were boogying with the ladies.
Drunk frat-boy types ran around in neon bracelets and beads with plastic tits attached, but there was also a musician sitting on a stoop playing classic Spanish guitar while he collected tips in a hat. Strippers rubbed strangers’ faces in their glittery boobs, but farther down the street I saw an actual burlesque club, where women stood out front, practicing crafts they’d honed, like fire swallowing and contortion, as well as the tease. Splendid and sultry, they dripped with sensuality like the fine iron scrollwork cascading from the balconies above.
Movement in the shadows across the street caught my eyes and I watched as a couple in their forties lingered at the mouth of an alley, locked in a kiss. The man pressed the woman’s back against the brick wall with a broadcloth-covered chest. Her hand slid around his neck, toying with his nape as his palm traveled up the outside of her thigh and pushed up her A-line skirt.
I should have looked away, but they were alone on the planet except for each other; their tangle of limbs and mouths in the shadows unseen, as hands found carnal treasures inside sweat-damp fabric that stuck to heated skin. Suddenly, I was aware of the perspiration between my own breasts, my shoulder blades, my thighs, as my fingers teased the
skin of my collarbone and my teeth pulled at the edge of my lip.
My eyes met hers; she mimicked my lip-biting before she smiled and I couldn’t look away. What would it be like to have that kind of passion? The kind of desire that can’t wait until you have the privacy to act on it. How would it feel to have a man crave me so much, he’d lift my skirt in an alley because he couldn’t wait for four walls and a bed?
Declan’s sexy grin pushed into my thoughts. His calloused hands moving up my outer thigh as he pushed me against an alley wall to take what he wanted.
Subtly, the woman began slipping up and down, a leg thrown over the man’s hip, his ass clutching and relaxing as her skirt obscured the view. They were hypnotic. Not because she was the most beautiful woman in the world, or he the best built man. But because of the need in her eyes, the wildness of his thrusts, as I watched them both race for the edge.
She dug her nails into his neck as he quickened and her eyes broke with mine. A few more thrusts and he shuddered, kissed her with devotion as her leg slid from his hip. Clothes were righted before they strolled, hand in hand, toward the crowd, a streetlight catching the glint of diamonds in her wedding band, her eyes meeting mine with a secretive smile.
I realized, at that moment, that New Orleans wasn’t the place where you built dreams from hopes and ideas, but the place where fantasies took their form and flight as living, breathing entities. It was gritty, yes, but sultry and fluid. The grit, a necessary evil for the city’s sensuality to materialize, and Bourbon Street was the collective of exotic spices, sweat, and sexuality, both overt and covert, where the city coalesced into a fiery gumbo…best eaten when you didn’t know the ingredients.
It was easy to understand why people, drawn here for the hedonism, never left because of the raw beauty. Why Kat loved this city above all others. I knew I would find myself here if I searched hard enough. I just hoped that I’d like who I was.
“Avery!”
“Hmmm?”
She looked at me like I had an extra head. “I said your name three times. Did somebody give you a mushroom or something? Are you trippin’ out?” Her look morphed from annoyed to concerned. “Are you all right? You’re all flushed.”
“No, no. I’m fine…just taking it all in.”
“Here.” She shoved a drink at me. “This is called a Sazerac, but I’m not sure you should have it now; you look a lil’ bit fucked up. You sure you’re—”
“I’m fine, Kitty. Promise. No mushrooms, not from strangers anyway. Though, I wouldn’t be opposed to ’shrooms from someone you know.” I grinned, took the drink, and swigged as we strolled down Bourbon. “Although that gold man over there did give me a hit of something funny smelling and offered to show me his golden ticket.”
“Tell me about the date.”
I filled her in on the evening, from dinner to the rum and our walk back. The more I thought about it, the less I could blame Declan for cutting bait when he had. I knew I ran hot and cold all evening. I was so sure he had me in the friend zone that I’d treated it like a business dinner until my mouth got the best of me.
I’d never had trouble being accepted as one of the guys, and it had its merits. I’d climbed the ladder at work and hidden the sting of rejection with men by pretending friendship was all I was after. When I’d finally started to relax at dinner, however, and forgotten to keep my guard up, the titty bar comment slipped out.
At least Declan hadn’t gravitated to Kat. I’d take my little victories where I could.
In fact—
I’d stopped, nearly in the same place I’d stood with Declan.
“Well, screw him, sweetie. It’s only our first night here and it’s still young. Bet he didn’t have the right equipment to handle a woman as hot as you anyway.” Kat was nearly yelling, and I had to smile. How much had she drunk at dinner? “Why did we stop?”
“You ever flashed before?” The crowd had nearly doubled since earlier.
“Yeah, but I’ve got no boobs to speak of. Ass for days, though.”
“You do have boobies, Kitty. You got some perky lil’ sweater puppies.”
She rolled her eyes. “Huh, if I have sweater puppies, then you have sweater mastiffs, baby. God gave you the best pair of boobies I’ve ever seen.”
“They’re pretty good, aren’t they?” I couldn’t help the smile. My boobs were good. Every woman has her thing, a little something about her looks she likes more than the rest. Great hair, nice ass, gorgeous legs, or perfect complexion…I had an awesome set of God-given double Ds. When Kat saw the contemplation on my face, her eyes started to twinkle. “Think I’d get any beads?”
“Holy shit, Avery! Yasssss! In fact, if you’re gonna do this, then we’re gonna do it right. You in?”
I answered before I could back down. “Yep. Fuck it. I’ma YOLO up in this bitch ’cause it’s my motherfucking vacation!”
Her smile was enormous. She wasted no time; Kat grabbed my jacket sleeve and pulled me into the street between the two adjacent balconies. The woman had a big mouth and she loved to use it. “Excuse me. Woohoo. Excuse me, gentlemen?” Of course, both balconies stopped and gave her their undivided attention. Unbelievable.
“I know that I don’t have much tits to speak of.” She looked down at her chest. “But I can offer you something no one else can.”
“Show us your cooter!” someone yelled. She flipped him off without skipping a beat.
“I can personally assure you, gentlemen, that these”—she gestured to my boobs like Mardi Gras Vanna White, turning back and forth between the adjacent balconies as her voice rang out—“are the most amazing set of hooters you will ever see. Women pay for tits like these and they still aren’t this good. I’ve seen them myself, many times, and I can promise that they are one hundred percent natural, made by God, and completely real.
“Now, guys, Avery doesn’t do things like this often, so this is one night only. You will never see the likes of knockers as fabulous as these again. You will NOT be disappointed. But you have to anti up your best beads to make it worth her while.”
Murmurs ensued.
“Let’s start the bidding, shall we? The balcony with the best beads wins the peep show,” she yelled, dazzling smile in place.
It was a three-ring circus with Kat as the ringmaster and me as her lion act. Lovely.
“Great. Now you’re my pimp,” I mumbled.
“Yep, now be a good girl and take the jacket off.”
I did, heart beating a rapid staccato against my breastbone. No way was I backing down after that buildup. Yellow wasn’t my color.
Kat took my jacket, slinging it over her arm. “Have a look, fellas, did I lie?”
I stood stock still, scared shitless, in my racer-back tank while Mardi Gras Vanna palmed one of my boobs and jiggled it.
And the bids started to fly.
“We have ten strings of beads worth dollars each.”
“We’ve got fourteen, over here.” The opposite balcony shouted.
“You’re gonna have to do better than that, guys. That’s not worth the effort for her to take off the bra.” She leaned into me whispered, “Take your bra off.”
A fine tremor worked through my hands as I unclasped my bra and pulled the straps through the armholes of my tank while more and more people, drawn by the commotion, stopped to watch.
“We’ve got twenty-four strings of high-quality beads.”
I pulled my bra free, handed it to Kat. The attention we were drawing was a hell of a high, and a nice little confidence booster. I felt daring and empowered. Brave even. Moreover, Kat was amazing; she had managed to turn what was essentially a male-run peep show into a display of girl power and the men were eating out of her hand.
Bolstered by the attention, I turned to the balcony opposite the last bid did a little shimmy, and whistles followed
.
“Thunderbeads, we’ve got two sets of thunderbeads, too,” someone yelled behind me.
“Eww,” but I turned and gave them a wiggle, too.
“Haven’t got all night, guys,” Kat bellowed, as she turned to the opposite side of the street. “Can you beat thirty-six strands of the high-quality beads and two sets of anal beads, or are the guys over here getting the show?”
“Wait, wait, wait. We can see your beads…and raise you…” They scrambled. “…every set of beads on this balcony not already worn by a female.” Kat tapped her foot and a pause ensued as the guys bent their heads together. “And nine of us will drop our pants and go full-frontal in return. But only for a good, loooong look at those tits, Avery.”
“Shit, Kat. You said my name out loud.”
“Winner, winner, chicken dinner.” Kat pointed to the balcony and a cheer went up along the rail. She leaned into me. “All right, sweetie. Now, when you show ’em the Teletubbies, make sure to pull your shirt over your face so the pictures can’t identify you.”
Shit. Pictures. I couldn’t believe I was about to do this. My palms started to sweat. “Okay.” I failed to keep the nerves out of my voice.
“We want tits! We want tits!” The chant started up right after Kat declared a winner but was reaching critical mass. With a last look at my best friend, I turned to the winning balcony. Not giving myself time to think, I grabbed the hem of my tank, called up my “liquid courage,” and flipped my shirt over my face.
Fuckityshitfuck. My heart raced. It took every ounce of strength I had to keep from pulling my shirt down and running for cover. But then a cheer went up on the balcony and in the bar below, and I could see the smartphone flashes going off through my ribbed cotton. Laughing at the absurdity, I felt the girls jiggle and the cheer turned into a roar.
I stood there, topless, giving them their beads’ worth. Until a decidedly more feminine cheer went up.
Pulling my shirt down, I peered at the balcony above. Several sets of chests, abs, peckers in various states of arousal, balls, and thighs of varying sizes, shapes, and colors were thrust over and through the wrought-iron railing. Most, but not all, had thought to cover their faces. Some stood still, others swung their junk about. One particularly proud guy grabbed his dick and stroked it to full mast.