by Blake, Toni
“This guy bothering you?”
They both turned to find a tall, thin, dark-skinned man. Ironically, the guy trying to come to her rescue carried neon pink flyers for the Playpen. “No,” she said, “he’s fine. We’re fine.”
“You sure?” Concern colored his deep voice. For such a skinny man, he looked deadly bent on defending her. She supposed all he could see was a woman in tears racing away from the man chasing after her.
“Yes! Please. We’re fine,” she insisted.
The man offered one last worried look before finally going on his way, and Jake muttered, “Asshole” behind him.
“He was trying to be nice.”
“He thinks I made you cry.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She peered up at him, guilty for making him look like a bad guy.
His eyes were fraught with worry as he gazed down on her. He stood only a few inches away, closing both hands warm around her elbows. “What is it, chère?” he asked, his voice softer. “What’s makin’ you cry?”
She shut her eyes, trying to squelch the flow of tears before meeting his gaze again. She could barely speak past the lump in her throat. “The girls in there . . . are like objects. Not people. I felt that.”
He looked sympathetic, worried. His fingertips caressed her arms. “Not much different than at Sophia’s, beb. It’s not pretty, but surely it’s not a surprise.”
Yet that was just it. It was a surprise. She’d heard all her life about such places objectifying women, but she’d never really understood it so deeply as she did in this moment. “I just . . . somehow felt like an object, too. By default.”
He glanced down, then raised his gaze again. She read in his expression how hard he was trying to understand. “I’m not sure I completely get it, but I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have talked you into goin’ in there if I’d thought it would upset you so much.”
She could only look up at him and nod.
His hands rose to her face, his fingertips playing about her ears before skimming down onto her neck. His touch made her heart beat faster as he blotted away the wetness on her cheeks with his thumbs, then smiled gently into her eyes. “Let’s dry up those tears now, chère, hmm?”
She nodded again, hating that she was crying in front of him. “I guess it’s just . . . everything. Worrying about Tina. She’s my little sister. When I imagined it being her in there, having guys look at her the way those guys looked at those girls . . .” She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothin’ to be sorry for,” Jake said softly, remembering a time when he, too, had held all women in such high esteem. Working behind the bar at Sophia’s had hardened him to such emotions.
But no—it wasn’t just Sophia’s. It had happened before that.
He’d quit caring, or had tried like hell to and was still trying like hell, and maybe he’d come real close to succeeding—because this was the first moment he got it, really got it. Tina was her sister. Her little sister.
He’d never had a sister, but there’d been women in his life whom he’d loved, and the very thought of any of them having sex for money or stripping on a stage made his heart threaten to explode in his chest as he stood here before prim and pretty Stephanie Grant, who was getting initiated into this world the hard way.
He’d met her at the bar, masquerading as an escort—and yet even then he’d felt in her that primness, that sweetness that flowed so freely from her now. Maybe that was how he’d known she wasn’t what she claimed.
It was the wrong time, he knew, but her face was so close to his, her lips so ripe and pretty, that he wanted to kiss her. Just to make her feel better. A comfort kiss. Hold her, kiss her, make the bad stuff go away for a minute or two—maybe for both of them.
It was more than the wrong time; it was a terrible time. She would think he’d gotten turned on in the club. But the dark arousal expanding from his gut was about so much more than anything he could see on a stage—it grew from someplace deep inside him he couldn’t fully understand.
Which made it unstoppable.
Not a decision. A compulsion.
He bent his head, brought his mouth gently down on hers. A soft, sweet melding of lips.
When it was done, he leaned his forehead against hers. “Wanna make you feel better,” he whispered.
He felt more than saw her nod. Heard her soft murmur. “I know.” Her voice trembled. It made him need more.
Slanting his mouth back over her tender lips, he kissed her slow, deep, felt the power of it moving through him like a warm drink of alcohol spreading through his chest, arms, downward. Just to comfort her, that’s all. Just want to comfort her a little more.
A lot more.
Don’t think about the depths of it, where it’s coming from, how much you feel it—it’s only comfort. Simple comfort. Keep telling yourself that and it’ll be true.
The next kiss was just as slow, but it went hot on him, too—gut-wrenchingly, uncontrollably hot. He felt it in his groin, a sharp bolt of pleasure. He let his mouth linger over hers, hungry, so tempted, wanting to devour her the same way he’d wanted to in the red room.
Her fingers curled into the cotton on his chest as he quit fighting the heat and lowered a scorching kiss to her responsive mouth. He wanted her so badly. Wanted to touch her, to taste her. Wanted to bury himself inside her and stay all night long.
His hand drifted lightly over her breast and she let out a ragged sigh just before he gripped her waist in a firm, slow caress. He needed to feel her curves, everything that was soft and female about her.
He pressed into her, hip to hip, the contact dragging a ragged moan from her lips. She’d turned him rock hard and he wanted her to feel it, crave it, the same way he craved her. His fingers curved around her ass, pulling her tight against him, and she began to move, grind, press the soft juncture of her thighs against the solid stone between his legs. He tried not to groan at the sensation, not wanting to attract the attention of anyone on the street, and wishing they were someplace else, alone.
When he dropped his kisses to her neck, she arched for him, inviting his mouth lower. He kissed a line down the pale expanse of skin to her shoulder, then let his lips travel downward, along the neckline of her dress. He yearned for it to be cut lower, hungry for a taste of the feminine flesh he knew hid underneath.
In response to his craving, he skimmed his hand upward, to the side of her breast. She trembled harder at the intimate touch, her arms locked around his shoulders, her hands in his hair, her breath labored above him. He pressed gently on the malleable flesh until the top curve of her breast swelled from the neckline—beneath his kiss. Mon Dieu, yes.
His erection thickened, his chest throbbing with hot desire. He rained a trail of kisses across the soft ridge, knowing that if they were anywhere else, he’d be tempted to just rip the damn dress off her, straight down the middle.
By the time his kisses returned to her lips, he felt ready to combust. He stroked his tongue deeply into her accepting mouth, loving the tiny whimper that escaped her, then pulled back to look at her—sweet, prim Stephanie Grant, who was responding so eagerly to his every touch and kiss.
She bit her lip, appearing spent and passionate as she gazed up at him.
He kissed her again, quick and hard, on impulse, because the very sight of her mouth had made him need to feel it under his once more.
“My place isn’t far,” he breathed. “I want inside you. Wanna make you come.”
Chapter Eight
STEPHANIE WAS DROWNING. High school, college—no passion she’d ever experienced had been like this. Utterly consuming. Her breast pulsed at Jake’s touch, her sex ached at the heavy sensation of his hardness there, their bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces. Her flesh turned liquid in his grasp, even as her skin sizzled at each point where he kissed her.
The way they moved together
was as steamy as the night itself and nothing mattered but the searing pleasure that begged for more. His words echoed through her. I want inside you. Wanna make you come.
It was the red room all over again, but not a game this time. What was it, then?
To think of where they’d just been was like a hook scratching at her heart. Was this happening because they’d just watched women dancing out of their clothes? How had they gone from that to this—pressing against each other in a shadowy doorway in this dark city of debauchery that seemed so adept at turning her into something she wasn’t? It didn’t seem real, couldn’t be real. She couldn’t be straining against this sexy man she barely knew, her body taking over her thoughts.
His lips still whispered across her skin—her neck, shoulder. His hand closed gently over her breast, making her gasp. He murmured something French, and despite not having any idea what he’d said, she pooled with wetness just from the sounds.
His kisses rose, skimming up her neck like an electric current until he nipped at her earlobe, his teeth capturing the sensitive flesh with a searingly tender bite that made her release a rough, hot breath. “My God,” she whispered.
“Come home with me, Stephanie.”
Why did that sound so intimate it made her flinch? Because he was inviting her deeper into his world, his life? Because she wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him call her by her first name before? Or was it just his hot, deep voice delivering the words in that sexy Cajun accent that seemed to reach inside her and twist her soul into something unrecognizable? Something hungry. Something lonely. Lonely for what this man could give her tonight.
She clawed at his chest, drinking in his musky scent laced with the softer odors of alcohol and Deep South perspiration. It turned him so human to her—no longer just the hot, unattainable man behind the bar who seemed to know all her secrets the moment their eyes had met. He was human, just like her.
His tongue pushed past her lips as he stroked his thumb across her nipple. “So good,” she breathed without quite meaning to.
“Let me make it better, chère. Let me take you all the way.”
Say yes. Let him show you exactly what “all the way” could feel like. She knew instinctively it was a place she’d never been before, and she wanted to go there with him.
His hands sank to her bottom as he pushed against her in a slow, ancient rhythm. She’d never felt more captured by a man, enclosed by all he was—and she’d never dreamed such an experience could be so fraught with pleasure.
“I wanna sink deep into you, beb. Like this,” he murmured, low, as he thrust slow and firm against her. “But no clothes, nothing between us.” Each hot drive of his hips sent heat diffusing through her.
Say yes, her body begged her again. Just say yes.
Except then panic struck. Panic, reality; everything that existed outside this dark alcove where he’d nearly made her climax just from kissing and moving together. She pressed her hands flat against his chest, pushing him a step back. “We have to stop.”
He didn’t get it. “I know. Not here. Let’s go.” His voice was a warm whisper; his big hands still rested cozily on her hips.
Her next words came out shaky. “I can’t.”
He pulled back slightly to look down into her eyes—even in the shadows of their private doorway, she could feel the intense heat burning in them. “Why not?”
“I just can’t.” She shook her head, suddenly feeling unaccountably afraid. Not of him exactly, but of what she’d been so tempted to do with him.
His sigh of frustration weighed on her. “You got a husband I don’t know about or somethin’, chère?”
She bit her lip, made herself look up at him, and shook her head.
“A boyfriend then?”
She hesitated at that, but shook her head again. Curtis wasn’t the reason she’d said no. In fact, he was so far off her radar screen that now guilt pummeled her, too.
Jake’s expression still brimmed with seduction. “Then what’s wrong with you and me gettin’ together?”
Good question. She couldn’t explain it, even to herself. “I don’t know. I just . . . can’t.”
He ran one hand back through his thick hair as another sigh left him. She thought of apologizing, but caught herself—reminding herself there was nothing wrong with turning a man down for sex.
Even if you want it just as much as he does?
Confusion, frustration—too many indecipherable emotions swirled in her head. “I should go.”
“Where?”
“Back to my room.” She broke away from him and started toward the street.
He caught her wrist. “Where’s that, chère?”
“The LaRue House, on Esplanade.”
“You can’t be walkin’ that far by yourself.”
“Why not?”
He looked dumbfounded by her protests. “I’d think a big-city girl would have the common sense to know you don’t walk on dark streets alone at night. And you especially don’t do it in the Quarter, beb. I’ll walk you.”
“No.” She yanked her arm away, too hard, and he stared. She just . . . needed to be away from him, right now. She met his gaze and tried to act as if she hadn’t just done something uncalled for. “I’ll get a cab. I’ll be fine. Really.”
He tilted his head. “You don’t seem so fine.”
No, she seemed like a woman who was afraid of her own shadow, afraid of a man who’d done nothing but make her feel good. Too good.
“Look,” she said, trying to sound more rational than she felt, “things just . . . went too fast for me. And I’m worried about my sister, more now than I was before. I just want to go back to my room and unwind.”
Their gazes met and she was sure he knew there was more to it than that, but after a long moment he simply said, “Okay.”
She bit her lip, a hint of regret rolling over her because she was peering up into those incredibly sexy eyes of his, where temptation still beckoned.
That meant now would be a good time to go, so without further delay, she turned and started up Bourbon, headed back to where the streets weren’t closed off and she could find a taxi.
She plodded quickly, her low heels clicking on the pavement as she wove through the decadent crowd, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she turned a corner to find a cab sitting curbside. She opened the door and slid in, then grabbed for the door handle, only to find Jake’s imposing body in the way.
Utterly shocked, she flinched. She’d been walking so fast that she hadn’t even realized he’d followed her.
“Where we going, miss?” the elderly driver asked in his rearview mirror.
“The LaRue, on Esplanade.”
“I’ll do some more work on locatin’ your sister, chère,” Jake said, still leaning in the open door. “I’ll call you at the LaRue.”
She blinked, gazing up at him. “You’re still going to help me find Tina?”
“I said I would, didn’t I?”
She simply nodded, amazed. Somehow she’d been sure his help was over—because he’d tried with no luck, and because she’d just let him kiss her senseless before haring away from him like a madwoman. “Thank you.”
“Nothin’ to thank me for yet. You can thank me when we find her. And beb?”
“What?”
“Don’t do anything stupid like go lookin’ on your own again. Wait to hear from me.”
She drew in her breath, tempted to argue, but then remembered the ugly scene on the balcony at Sophia’s. “All right.”
With a short nod, he closed the door tight and stepped away from the cab. As the car started up the narrow street, she found herself peering out at him until he faded into the darkness of the French Quarter.
IT WAS LIKE a replay of two nights ago. She lay in bed, aching for Jake Broussard’s touch. She was an idiot to have den
ied herself the pleasure she knew he could bring her.
She was thirty years old, old enough for a night of casual sex if that’s what she wanted. And yet, as things had grown more heated, as she’d grown more lost to his hands, his lips, the hard planes of his body, something unexpected had risen within her. Apprehension.
It was akin to what had made her push him away in the red room, but at least then, she’d had a reason—he’d thought she was a prostitute.
Now, though, there were no misconceptions or lies standing between them. And she’d been sure she would give in if they got close again. Yet as she’d gotten dangerously near to saying yes to all he had to offer, something had injected that irrational fear into her head. What was she so afraid of?
Was it him? This sexy Cajun ex-cop who wouldn’t tell her why he wasn’t a cop anymore? There might not be lies between them now, but secrets still existed, and maybe that was a good reason to worry. The possibility still existed that he’d done something wrong and been kicked off the force—maybe he’d even committed a crime. Underneath his gruffness, he seemed like a decent man, but what if that was just one part of him? Hadn’t she just been telling herself people had more than one side to their personalities? What if Jake had a dark side? What if he was capable of doing something truly wrong? Maybe your instincts are holding you back; maybe some sixth sense is telling you he isn’t a good man.
All of that made sense as she lay in the darkness, watching the shadows of thick tree branches dip ominously through the pale moonlight shining in the window. And even as frustrations continued to rack her, it made her glad she’d had the strength to resist him.
Except that one other possibility hung in the back of her mind, and she couldn’t not ask herself the question: what if you’re just afraid of the things he makes you feel?
In the beginning, he’d been a stranger. But now she knew him better and she trusted him more. She kept telling herself she barely knew him, but here in the darkness, she realized that was only a wall she was erecting between them, a reason to say no. If he was the good man her heart told her he was, well . . . it would be more than just two strangers grappling around in his bed. It might not be meaningful and lasting, but he was no longer just “the bartender.” So why did it feel as if having sex with a man she deeply desired would be some sort of betrayal to herself?