His stomach jerked into a quick contraction of silent laughter. “A clown?”
“Yes. A clown with stupid bright clothes and ridiculous orange hair.”
Batiste was encouraged that Angelique was leaking jealousy. “I guess I got lazy and forgot there’s no woman that comes close to you.”
“How’d you get my mother to let you in here?”
“Told her the truth. That I’m couillon.”
He thought he imagined the tiniest smile, followed by big fat tears. “What’s this?”
“I’m ruined, Just. For you. For me. For everybody.”
“Far from it. Tonight I’m gonna make love to you and you’re gonna know it’s good to be alive.”
She was shaking her head. “I can’t.”
“Not in a hurry. We got all night.”
“Oh, well, no pressure.”
“Was that a joke?” He smiled. “See. There it is. My little firework.”
“My pere used to call me that.”
“I know, cher. You used to be his little firework. Now you’re mine.”
She was shaking her head again. “You’re not getting this. Maybe I would have been good for you before. Not now.”
He didn’t answer. He just reached over her, picked up a boudin ball and put it in his mouth. She watched as he chewed and inhaled the burst of aroma that his chewing released. She began to salivate involuntarily listening to sounds Batiste made to convey that the sausage ball was the most delectable treat imaginable. She then tracked his movement as he picked up the long neck bottle of root beer and watched his throat move as he gulped.
“Just take one little bite,” he said. “Just to tell me if I got it right.” She looked at the tray. “And I doan like to see you so skinny.”
“You said I was fat.”
“I never said that. The truth is that I think every single thing about you is perfect. If you take one little bite, I’ll reward you with a kiss.”
“Tu me fatigues,” she muttered. “Have you not heard a single fucking thing I’ve said to you? I’m not kissing you. Not now or ever. Go home!”
She turned away to move the tray and, when she turned back Batiste lips were making contact with her own. Soft and sweet as the kiss she remembered when they were children who might as well have been the last people on Earth, alone in a canoe, with the almost deafening sounds of cicadas and frogs tuning up for evening. For a second she was transported back to that moment, the pure innocence and inexperience of childhood. Before all the good parts of her had been destroyed. For a second she was lost in the smell and taste and utter sincerity of Batiste.
Then she remembered.
Pushing him away, she said, “You can’t fix what’s wrong with me with a kiss.”
“I’m not here to fix you, cher. Just to get your heart started again. A demon tried to take your soul, but you’re not gonna let him. I’m not gonna let him either. We’re gonna win. We’re gonna share millions of kisses. Have lots of babies. We’re gonna laugh and fuck and be faithful to each other. And every day you’re gonna turn to me and say, ‘It’s good to be alive, Batiste’. If you give me enough time, I’m gonna make you feel safe again.”
Tears began falling again, stinging eyes that were already red, swollen, and raw. “I’ll never feel safe again.” It was almost a whisper, but it conveyed a despair so profound that it made Batiste feel like his own heart weighed a thousand pounds.
He pushed himself up and sat with his back against the headboard. “Come, cher. Lay your head here,” he put his hand over his heart, “and let me hold you for a while.”
She swiped at the tears with both hands. “Only if you agree no more surprise kissing.”
He grinned. “Done. No more surprise kissing.”
They stayed like that for a time, no sound but the air blowing from the window unit. Rou had tied bright colored plastic ribbons to the grill when Angelique was a little girl. Those ribbons were aged and certainly sadder than when they were new, but they still danced happily in the manmade breeze. Batiste half focused on that as he let himself mull over possible futures, good and bad.
Angel had been still and quiet for so long, her head on his chest, he wasn’t sure whether she was awake or sleeping when she said, “I don’t think I can be touched. Not like that.” She was fiddling with the half a bear claw that survived a bullet, turning it over and over, using it as a fidget tool.
Taking in a deep breath, he said, “We’ll see. Maybe not today. But some time maybe.”
“What if not ever?”
She felt him raise and lower his shoulders, shrugging beneath her weight. “Then we’ll find other things to do.”
When she looked up, he kissed her long, slow and sexy.
“You lied. You said no more surprise kissing.”
“Count on this. If I ever promise to stop kissin’ you, you’ll know it’s a lie.”
“When I’m able, I’m going to get far away from bikers. I won’t be used like that again.”
Batiste weighed the option of saying nothing against the option of telling the truth. He concluded that, since he’d taken a vow to treat her with the respect of an equal for the rest of his life, that meant not just when it was convenient.
“If you asked me to give up the club, I’d do it.”
She moved her head so that she was looking up at him. “You would not.”
He nodded, looking resolute. “Yeah. I would. I’m not as stupid as you think. I know there’s nothin’ in life more important than you.” She dropped her eyes and seemed to be thinking about that. “But here’s the thing. No matter where you go or what you do, you’re gonna be the daughter of a powerful man who has rough enemies. Goes wherever you go like your shadow. Can’t shake it just ‘cause you say so.”
He paused to let that sink in then he said. “But what happened was rare. We have a code about women. It’s a line that doan get crossed. To reinforce that idea, we made an example that woan be forgot in a hundred years. Not near. Not far.
“Ain’t no more Stars and Bars except for the snake head. But we’ll find him. The Fornights, over in Texas, have got ways to do that. They’re powerful. We’re lucky to be friends with them. But after this, people are gonna think long and hard ‘bout trouble with the Devils. Then they’re gonna decide no. They doan want trouble with the Devils. They’ll cross the street to the other side if they see you comin’.”
He felt her shake slightly like she might have laughed. Just a little. And he felt a thrill travel throughout his body that made even his own nipples harder.
“You gonna stay here in this room forever, bébé?”
She sniffed. “Maybe.”
Okay then. He crossed his ankles and put his right hand to the back of his head in a gesture of settling in. “I can get used to this. Even with the arctic cold.”
She looked up. “You’re not staying.”
“If you’re stayin’, I’m stayin.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Is.”
She gave him a little push. “A few days ago I wasn’t even an occasional thought. Now I’m you’re everything?”
He nodded. “I can’t explain it.”
“Well, that’s not good enough. And besides, I told you, I’m not the same.”
“I’m not the same either.”
“Maybe not, but you’re not broken. If anything, you’re better.”
When she said the word ‘broken’, Batiste’s mind immediately retrieved a vision of the Japanese teacup. Maybe the fact that it had been put back together made it even more museum worthy.
“You’re bruised and roughed up and your pride’s been put to the challenge. Whenever I think ‘bout what happened to you, it makes me want to bring hell’s fury down on those bottom feeders all over again. But Angelique, would take much more than that to break you.”
He wasn’t sure exactly which part of that made her suddenly turn her face into his shirt and begin to sob with a despair that wrenched his
soul.
“Get it out, cher. You have a right to mourn for the part of you that’s changed for good. But you’re not changed for worse. You’re brave and strong and so beautiful. Perfect like you are. And there’s no other woman in the world for me.”
“That’s not pity?” She hiccupped and sniffled.
“Before you left Devils’ Camp, told you we were gonna get together. Told you I’d be comin’ to call.” He petted her hair until she was quiet. “Why don’t you have a bite of dinner before it freezes solid in here?”
“If I take a bite, will you go and leave me alone?”
“Yeah.”
When she looked up at him, he grinned.
“You’re lying. Aren’t you?”
“If I say I’m not gonna kiss you, I’m lyin’. If I say I’m gonna leave you alone, I’m lyin’ ‘bout that, too.”
He punctuated that sentiment by leaning down and stealing another kiss. She didn’t pull back. And he thought he might have heard or felt a little sigh against his mouth.
“Hey. You wanna go dancin’?”
“Dancing!?!” She looked as alarmed as if he’d just invited her to be boiled in oil.
“Yeah. Know you like it. You were teachin’ that outsider.”
“Dev?”
“Yeah. That one.”
“No. I don’t want to go dancing.”
“’Cause you’re weak from not enough food.”
“No. Not because of that.”
“Then why?”
Her first impulse was to say something easy like, ‘Because,’ or ‘I don’t feel like it’. But she decided that, if Just Batiste really thought she had courage, she could manage to be brave enough to look at her reasons honestly.
“Scared.”
He nodded. “Okay. That’s understandable. What scares you?”
She sat up. “Are you serious right now?”
“I am. Just tell me. It’s just us. And I doan judge you poorly. I never will. No matter what.”
“Do you know what happened to me?”
“Some.” He looked at her with a sincerity and soberness that touched her heart. “Not all, of course. Do you want to tell me?”
“You don’t want to hear it.”
“I want to hear whatever you want to tell.”
Angelique looked down. Batiste’s hands were resting on his thighs and she thought, Such beautiful hands. Strong. Muscular. Defined. So different from my own.
“I like your hands,” she said.
He looked down at his hands like he was checking to see what might be found likable. With a small smile, he said, “That’s what you want to tell me?”
Her eyes flew up to his. “I never saw people die before,” she said. His serious expression returned instantly and he nodded to encourage her to continue. “It was horrible. Those were your friends, weren’t they?”
He nodded again, but didn’t speak out loud.
“They didn’t rape me, but the other things they did…” Tears began falling again. “I was so helpless. So… pathetic.”
When she didn’t speak for a time, Batiste said, “Helpless? Yes. Pathetic? No. Prisoners of war are helpless and submitted to… indignities. That doesn’t make them pathetic. It makes them victims.”
“Why would you want me after what they did to me?”
Batiste felt his heart seize as his own tears stung and threatened to fall. When she looked up at him and saw the liquid in his eyes and the effort he was making to be strong for her, every last bit of resistance melted away. He tried to speak, but his throat swelled with emotion and the words wouldn’t come out.
He tried again and again and finally voiced enough wind over his vocal cords to make a sound. “You’re my girl.”
Angelique searched his face. “Yes. I am. Why’d it take you so long?”
“Dumb coonass.”
She pulled up his tank top. “I want to see where the bullet hit you.”
He lay still and allowed her to raise his shirt. Most of Angelique’s injuries had healed completely, but the bruise on Batiste’s abs looked even worse than when the injury was first sustained. The burn was an ugly red. The bruising was black and blue with maroon veins and borders. Gruesome looking.
She leaned over and placed a series of feather light kisses on the gruesome looking wound. His abs contracted involuntarily and his cock swelled to half-mast looking down at her lips gliding over his torso.
“When you do that it makes my dick think he’s gonna get some.”
He thought that statement might have shocked or deterred her, but instead she said, “Does it hurt real bad?”
Batiste barked out a laugh. “Not when you do that.”
She cocked her head. “It makes it feel better for me to kiss it?”
Curiosity about his reaction was plain on her face.
“For true, cher.”
Slightly emboldened by his admission, she continued her path of kisses working her way upward until she made contact with his mouth, initiating a kiss that turned deep with tongues tangling for supremacy. He smiled against her lips thinking there was a chance, a slight chance, that he just might have told the truth about a future with Angelique Bellefeuille.
Gripping her under her arms he pulled her upward so that she was straddling him. As they kissed, his hands began to wander. She was wearing a thin tee shirt and white cotton short shorts.
When his right hand grazed her derriere, she jerked and scrambled backward. In a flash she’d left the bed altogether and was across the room with her back to the wall, arms embracing her front protectively, and breathing hard.
Batiste got to his knees on the bed and held his palms up, facing outward. “It’s okay,” he soothed, talking quietly as he would if it was a skittery, nervous swamp fox. “It’s okay.” He sat back down so that his head was lower than hers hoping that he would appear less threatening that way. “I’m never gonna do anything you doan like, cher. Not ever.”
She shook her head. “See? I told you I’m not okay anymore. You should go.”
Batiste inhaled a deep breath and took up his position, back against the headboard again. “No. You doan like me here. Then you leave.”
“What?” Her eyes were huge. “This is my house. I’m not leaving. You’re leaving.”
“I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
“What is the matter with you?”
“You want to start a list?”
That got the tiniest smile out of her. “Kind of.”
“Why doan you come on back over here and tell me what you doan like ‘bout me? I woan touch anywhere you doan like.”
She stared at Batiste for a long time then said, “I guess there’s nothing I don’t like about you.”
“I’m thinkin’ that’s a good start.”
“Yeah. But maybe that’s not enough. You need somebody who’s okay.”
“Need you, Angel. Okay. Not okay. No difference to me.”
He’d settled in for long term, to be patient as he needed to be, to wait as long as he needed to wait. Even if it was years. Even if it was decades. So when she said nothing more right away, he slid down so that he lay on the bed on his back and closed his eyes.
When she finally spoke, she said, “For true?”
His eyelids opened to half-mast and he smiled in a way that was so sexy it made her think maybe her desire for him wasn’t dead.
“For true,” he repeated. “Come on back over here. You show me what you like and what you doan like.”
“Not sure I know.”
“We’ll work it out together then. You trust old Batiste, cher. Know you do. I’m the one who loves you.”
“You’re the one who loves me?”
“Yeah. You’re the one who loves me back.”
She blinked a few times and didn’t deny it, which Batiste took as a good sign that he was making progress. When her eyes slid to the tray of food, he followed her line of sight.
“I’m hungry. How ‘bout you?” he said.
“Maybe. A little.”
“Why doan you let me see if I can warm some of this up? Will you come in the kitchen with me?” She looked at her bedroom door like there might be monsters on the other side. “Not ready for that?” She shook her head. “Okay. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
She watched him pick up the tray and leave, but didn’t move from her spot. He left the door open, which was a little uncomfortable for her, but she told herself to think of it as a baby step. If she could stand to leave the bedroom door open for ten minutes, there might be other things she could do. Some day.
Batiste returned with heavenly smelling goodies and closed the door behind him. “Woan be as good from the microwave, but it’ll still be better than nothin’.”
He set the tray down on the bed and gestured for her to sit on the other side.
“You left the door open.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That let my air conditioning out.”
“Well, maybe my nose hairs will unfreeze.” She could not help but smile at that. “You doan get over here, I’m likely to eat it all.”
“Thought you made it for me.”
“For us.”
She dropped her arms, walked over, sat on the bed, and picked up a ball with her fingers. Batiste’s satisfaction was immense when he saw that she closed her eyes in pleasure after taking a bite of a boudin ball.
“When did you learn to cook like this?”
“Sometimes when I was growin’ up, everybody would be gone except people on the gate and Saycie. She’s good company.”
Angelique nodded. “I know.”
“So I spent time in the kitchen. Every now and then she’d say, ‘Would you stir that pan there?’ or ‘Would you throw two pinches of this or that in there?’ I guess over time some of it sunk in.”
“Tastes like a lot sunk in.”
He shrugged. “Man needs all kinda skills.”
She snorted, thinking he was sneaking in a sexual innuendo. He wasn’t, but it pleased him that she took it that way and was feeling good natured about it.
Once Angie started eating, her appetite came back in a rush. She ate as much as Batiste which prompted him to ask, “More?”
She smiled. “No. It was good though.”
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