The King of Bourbon Street

by Thea de Salle

She nodded and smiled, and they left the restaurant hand in hand, which was such a simple gesture of fondness, but it pleased him all the same.

  They sat side by side on the trolley, too, her leaning into him with a familiarity he didn’t deserve, his arm anchored on her shoulders, both quiet as the car rolled down the tracks. They debarked at Canal Street, the night warm but lacking the day’s humidity. The gas lanterns were on in the French Quarter, and near the river they could hear the echoes of jazz music booming from the piano bar on Chartres.

  She hobbled awhile, her heels not conducive to jaunts. He wished he’d suggested she wear good walking shoes for their date—she had tall sandals again—but once they reached the Woldenberg Park walkway, it didn’t matter anyway. She removed them, looping the ankle straps around her finger. She didn’t seem to mind her bare feet on the pavement, which was still wet from an earlier squall.

  The river whispered as it passed, its spits and hisses reserved for another night.

  “You’re a little old to be a runaway,” he said in opening. She tilted her head up and back—he had just over a foot on her and he hadn’t realized it until she’d gone flat-footed.

  “I’m not really a runaway. My mother told me not to leave, I left. I’m guessing by the seven messages on my phone, she’s perturbed.” She paused. “Okay, she’s not perturbed. She’s pissed off. Pardon my French.”

  “Aren’t you a bit old for that?”

  “I just got my master’s, so yes, but she treats me like I’m six.”

  “Where did you graduate from?”

  “I got my bachelor’s in psychology from Wesleyan. My master’s is in social work from Boston College.” She sucked in a deep breath, her glance furtive, like what she was about to confess would somehow diminish his esteem. “I want to open a women’s shelter and provide free services for low-income communities. Multiple shelters if I can.”

  Many moneyed women dabbled in charity. Hell, his mother was on about three charity boards in Dallas, but Rain sounded like she wanted to make a career of it, like it was a lifelong calling. It was just another thing to add to his growing list of pleasant surprises about her. She was more than she appeared, and maybe, if he was lucky, he’d get to strip away the candy coating and get to the gooey nougat center.

  “I bet your mother loves that,” he said with a smirk.

  “She thinks it’s a waste of time, though I suppose she has her reasons. My father was involved in a situation with four escorts and a mountain of cocaine in Myrtle Beach eight years ago.”

  “I think I remember that. Did it involve Senator Reed?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Talking about her family embarrassments wouldn’t endear him to her, and so he quieted, his hand on the small of her back, brushing the soft fabric against her softness. She really was like a kitten—adorable, squeaky, and a skosh awkward, but appealing in every possible way.

  They walked along the Moon Walk, a promenade along the Mississippi popular with tourists, their two bodies occupying a single space. She paused across from Jackson Square to enjoy the play of lights across the front of St. Louis Cathedral.

  “It’s the oldest cathedral in America,” he said idly, stepping behind her, his hands daring to settle on her hips. His chin dropped onto her head, and he smiled into it, inhaling the sweet vanilla of her shampoo.

  “How old are you?” She tipped her head back, not moving away from him, but settling against his shoulder like it was second nature. Like it was where she belonged.

  He brushed his lips across her forehead. He couldn’t not. It was right there, by his mouth, and it demanded kissing. She didn’t move away.

  “Older than you, I’d venture. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four. Well, almost twenty-four. Next month.”

  “How, at twenty-four, has no one snatched you up?”

  Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks, and he lifted his hand, bolder now, his fingers tracing along her jaw.

  She gave me an inch. I’m taking my mile.

  “I dated some. It never worked out. People always seemed to want something from me. Or they found me weird. I say peculiar things sometimes. I don’t mean to, it just happens. Vaughan says I lack a filter. It’s hard to know who actually likes me for me, and who sticks around because of who my family is.”

  That hit painfully close to home—not the social awkwardness part, but the uncertainty of whether people liked you or just liked what you could do for them. Sol was never one to bemoan his privilege, but there were people out there who saw money and would do anything to have it. It was understandable, but it did leave the one holding the purse strings somewhat jaded. You became an object. A thing to be used to fulfill a purpose and then discarded when you had nothing left to offer.

  “Well, I hope they were good to you for the time they had you.”

  His fingers glided along her cheek, over the curve of bone, to the fringe of hair above her ear. So delicate. So soft. So ripe. So willing. He knew what was going to happen even if she didn’t, and by the befuddled expression on her face, she was blissfully unaware she was about to be kissed as his lips lowered to hers.

  SIX

  HE’S GOING TO kiss me.

  She was inexperienced, not stupid, and the look on his face and the angle of his neck and the . . .

  Oh, that’s nice.

  Warm pressure, his lips fitting to hers. Gentle. Satiny. He adjusted so their mouths interlocked, two puzzle pieces slotting oh so right. His fingers stroked her hair, and then plunged into the thick tresses, his palm cradling the back of her head. His other hand slid from her hip to her belly to stroke over the silk of her dress, featherlight caresses sending ripples through her body. Her breath caught and her nipples hardened, pebbling inside the lace cups of her bra.

  The kiss was slow and thorough, like he had all the time in the world to get to know her that way. And for all the times she’d been kissed before, it had never once been like this. The other boys had been too tepid, too slimy, too . . . something. This was just right. She was Goldilocks with Baby Bear’s porridge, and she wanted to gobble it all up. It didn’t matter that they were out in the open for everyone to see. He obviously didn’t care, so neither did she.

  Her groan—greedy and sexy and sounding like it belonged to another woman—was met by his. He grew bolder, more insistent. Teeth, a nip on her bottom lip before he pulled open her mouth and laid claim to everything she had to offer. His tongue teased at hers, tasting, receding, stroking again. Slow at first, but as she responded, her insides drizzly like warm caramel, he pushed his advantage until he was mouth-fucking her, letting her know with every lash of tongue that she was expected to follow wherever he led.

  And oh, she was eager. It wasn’t rational—she barely knew this blond man with the crooked smile and perpetually delighted eyes—but it didn’t matter.

  Nothing matters except how I feel right now.

  He growled before turning her in his arms. Her body pressed to his, her breasts yielding to his lean chest, her hands settling around his back and clutching for dear life because Holy God I’m swimming. The suit coat bunched in her fists, and for a moment she worried about wrinkling something so fine, but then his hands wandered and she forgot to breathe, never mind think. One to her ass, squeezing and then kneading it lewdly, fingers digging into the fat. The other slid up, from her waist to the side of a heavy tit, foisting and cupping as he robbed her of sense with his lips and teeth and tongue.

  She could have stayed like that forever, absorbing his onslaught like a sex-starved sponge on the promenade, but he jerked his head back to stare at her. He was flushed, a crease pressed into his brow, eyes intent. No smile, not even as he lifted the hand from her chest to her face to hold her chin so she couldn’t turn away.

  “I’d very much like to have you, kitten, if you’re inclined.”

  She was drunk,
even though she’d only had one glass of wine at dinner. He’d become a heady, needful thing. She’d never thought herself a passionate creature before, but he’d stirred something hot and wanton inside her that demanded release. She couldn’t stand still, her hands wandering over his back, her feet shuffling on the wet concrete.

  I want him.

  Mama’s going to kill me.

  The thought of her mother threatened to quench the fire he’d stoked, but he sensed the shift, like he was in tune with her biorhythms. Like he understood the ache in her stomach and the throbbing between her legs without needing to be told. He dropped his mouth to her ear, skimming over it with his lips, his tongue. She melted into him, pressing restlessly. He answered by sucking her lobe into his mouth and rolling his hips at her with a soft moan.

  She could feel his hardness through the front of his pants, pressing into her stomach for a half second before pulling away. She wanted to chase it, to haul him back and demand he stay with her and feel how she felt, but then he was gone. Sol’s hands roamed over her still, from her sensitive spine to her hips to her ass and up to brush the backs of his knuckles over the exposed skin of her chest. She gasped and pressed her legs together, utterly enchanted.

  He laughed quietly against her.

  “Is that a yes, kitten?” He placed a gentle bite on her neck and then stepped back, his hands sliding from her body to sink into his pockets. He perused her body, from her burning cheeks to her heaving chest and down, down, down.

  I can’t get enough air where did all the air go?

  “I . . . yes?”

  “Are you sure?” He sounded amused, but still, there was no smile.

  Is this supposed to be a hard decision?

  “Yes. I’m sure. Yes.”

  He reached for her hand. She thought to hold it, but then he pulled it down over his crotch, over a straining cock pressed against linen.

  “You want this?”

  “Oh my God.”

  It was bold. Granted, the moonless night afforded them a modicum of privacy, and no one who passed by seemed to be looking, but it was a public place nonetheless, and it occurred to Rain that perhaps she should be scandalized. But she wasn’t. Instead, she felt the heady rush of doing something she oughtn’t in plain view of strangers, and she liked it. So she followed his lead. Her fingers curled around him, forcing the trousers taut against the inches. She massaged him, gently rolling her hand over him, acclimating herself to his dick. Her fingers traveled, brushing against his head and milking him for an appreciative sigh. He snatched her wrist and pulled her hand away, squeezing her but not hurting. Just instructing. Running the show. Leading.

  Only then did he smile.

  “Maybe, if you’re an extra good kitten, I’ll let you have it.”

  The walk back to the hotel was a blur. He held her hand and pulled her along, moving briskly through the gaslit shadows of the French Quarter. An interesting dichotomy was at play—for all that he never looked at her or talked to her after St. Louis Cathedral, she had the sense that he never lost sight of her, either. That she was his entire focus. It was in the constant, casual touches to her hair and back and the squeezing of her fingers. It was how he slowed his pace whenever her own flagged because of her ridiculous shoes.

  It was, when they returned to The Seaside, how the attentive hotel owner beelined past his gawking staff to make for the elevator.

  She stepped in ahead of him, to the center, her purse clutched so tightly in her hands she expected she’d find dents in the leather later. He moved in behind her, an arm wrapping around her middle to anchor her to his body as he punched in not the third floor, but the fourth—the private suites. The second the doors closed behind them, he shoved his hips at her, grinding that hard cock against her as if to remind her that I’m right here, you did this to me, and I have plans.

  She gave a tentative shove back, her ass colliding with his insistent rod. His free hand dropped to her hip and squeezed. It didn’t hurt, but it did startle, and she stilled, apprehensive that somehow she’d displeased him.

  I want his smiles. I like them.

  “You’ll earn that, kitten. I promise.”

  His voice was soft but the command was there, flinty and not to be questioned. She went as still as stone as the elevator climbed to the penthouse. There was a soft ding, but before the doors would open, Sol had to press his thumb to a pad above the numbers, unlocking his security system.

  She’d expected to walk out into a supersize suite, but she was greeted by an elaborately decorated hall reminiscent of her own floor save for the floor-to-ceiling cherry paneling with burgundy and gold flourishes. The art here was different, too, some of it behind glass and lit from above, the placards to the side detailing the title, artist, and year of creation. There weren’t as many rooms, maybe half of what the third floor claimed, and beneath the room numbers were mail slots with embossed golden nameplates.

  Nash DuMont. Alex DuMont. Serena DuMont. Cylan Powell. Brutus Hammerford.

  She scanned them all as they passed, Sol at her back, steering her toward the door with his name on it. Things looked homier at this end of the hall; they passed a bookshelf, a decorator table with a Tiffany lamp on top, and a rocking chair with a petite wooden footstool. She approached his door, heart beating so hard she could feel it in her ears, but before she got too close, his hands clamped on her hips and pulled her backward.

  She swung around, twirled like a ballroom dancer until she was ninety degrees off from where she’d been, her back to the wall beside the chair. Startled, she dropped the purse, and Sol kicked it away, snatching her hands and pinning them by her ears. He closed in on her again, pasted along her front, rekindling all that thick, savory tension from Jackson Square with a few lurid humps, still as hard as a rock against her belly.

  He leaned in, his face so near hers she could smell the after-dinner mint on his breath.

  “Have you ever come?”

  She hadn’t expected such a personal question. Heat rushed to her face, burning her from neck to cheek, but she managed a nod all the same. “Y-yes.”

  “Tell me how he did it.”

  The words tangled around her tongue, the slow, steady rocking of his hips robbing her of thought. She leaned into him, pushing her pelvis against his and enjoying the friction of their bodies and the way her clothes rubbed against her most sensitive spots.

  Oh God. I want this. Him.

  Her silence was met with him stretching her arms up higher, his fingers curling over the backs of her hands, their palms flush.

  “Tell me, and don’t make me repeat myself,” he said.

  He’s bossy. I think I like bossy.

  “By myself. No him. Me.”

  He stopped pushing at her to cock his head to the side, his slow-oozing smile revealing a flash of brilliant white teeth.

  “Has anyone else ever gotten you off?”

  “No,” she croaked, unable to look him in the face. She felt like she’d dunked her head in a vat of boiling water. To hell with that, her whole body felt like it was on fire, and by his arrogantly pleased expression, he knew it. He adjusted her arms, locking both her wrists in his left hand. His right hand dropped to her bare shoulder, skimming over it and then to the base of her throat, his fingertips caressing the jumping pulse.

  “You’re going to come for me, kitten. Right now.” He followed the declaration with a dip of his head, his mouth replacing the fingers, lips soft, teeth pressing against her but not biting. She mewled and shuffled her weight between her feet before kicking off her shoes. When she sank those inches, he followed her, never giving quarter.

  His free hand traveled along her side, over the curve of her breast, the indentation of her waist, and then the flare of her hip. He nuzzled at her neck, and then sucked, tongue lashing at the sensitive flesh just below her ear. She rolled her head to the side, g
iving him free rein to taste her as his hand continued its slow journey, no longer at her side, but at her thick thigh. He squeezed it and then grabbed it, jerking it up so her knee was bent and pressed aside.

  She was in no danger of falling, and yet she felt dizzy as he stretched out his own leg, the toe of his shoe hooking the leg of the footrest and dragging it over. Another kick and it was in place beneath her foot, hiking her up on one side. The dress pooled near her waist, giving him access to everything. Everything. She was exposed without being exposed, open and sodden, the peach panties she’d so carefully chosen glued to her flesh with her own wet and riding up between her lips. His fingers danced along her thigh, climbing closer and closer to her heat. His mouth sucked and nipped and kissed, from her ear to her shoulder and back again.

  Touch me. Please touch me, her mind screamed, but a part of her sensed that wasn’t the right thing to say. He ran the show, he made the calls, and so she held the plea back, mouth open, breath coming hard.

  “What do you want, kitten? Tell me. I want to make you feel good,” he purred into her ear, the drawl in his voice as rich as chocolate and probably just as fattening.

  “You,” was all she managed.

  He stiffened, and for a moment she feared she’d said the wrong thing, but then he growled and his hand was on her, cupping her sex through the fragile lingerie, palm pressed to her. Those too-long fingers stroked, gently prodding at her through the fabric, nudging at her wanting hole and then coursing forward, to her clit, brushing over blood-engorged flesh. She whimpered his name, and she could feel him smiling against her throat, could feel the tilt of those beautiful lips as he delved beneath the barrier between man and eager cunt.

  Two fingers, sliding around in her wetness. Her eyes fluttered shut and she slapped her head back, striking the wall and not caring. He didn’t stop. She didn’t want him to stop. He toyed with her, never quite sliding into her, never quite rubbing her sweet spots, but slicking his hand over with her juices, to the point she could smell her own desire.