[Bayou Gavotte 03.0] Heart of Constantine

by Barbara Monajem

  He stood, walking away from the writer, and dialed Reuben’s number. “Can we talk?

  “Have to be later, dude.”

  This was only to be expected; Reuben was sticking to Marguerite until relieved of that responsibility. “You think she was lying?” Why else would he text about it?

  “Could be,” Reuben said. “Hard to say.”

  “Thanks, bro.” He hung up, pondering. Lutsky was so desperate for information about Constantine that he might be willing to take it secondhand—although the sex angle was a new one. Lutsky was a lunatic, though, not worth a moment’s thought.

  As for Marguerite, she hadn’t come on to him—in fact, she’d done her best not to.

  It made no sense, but he didn’t have time for it now. He shrugged internally and returned to the interview.

  A while later, Reuben texted again, saying they had run into Zeb and asking whether he should use force to bring him in.

  No, he texted back. Marguerite would never forgive him if he or any of his people harmed Zeb. He texted Lep to be sure Zeb was shadowed at all times and went back to the guy from Rolling Stone.

  “Let’s go,” Marguerite said to Reuben. “I have to talk to Constantine about all this.” She handed him a box of books and papers.

  “Sure,” Reuben said, and opened the office door.

  She gave Zeb a quick squeeze. “I’ll tell him what you said. Come downstairs with us so I can give you an excuse for being here in case we come across your dad. How did you get into the building? You’re not supposed to have a key.”

  Zeb rolled his eyes, and she didn’t push it, wondering how many other buildings—and vehicles—he could open at will. When she tried to return the money he’d given her last night, he told her to keep it for now. “My old man’s pissed off enough as is. He might take it and put it in a savings account for me or something equally stupid. At least I can count on you to give it to me when I want it.”

  “Definitely,” Marguerite said. By the time he took off through the parking lot at a run, the granite had softened a little.

  No paparazzi hovered outside the building. She drove into downtown Bayou Gavotte. Reuben texted Constantine and guided her past a cop directing traffic to the restricted parking behind the Impractical Cat. Constantine lived in an apartment at the top of the building, two stories above the restaurant.

  Reuben’s phone chimed. “Constantine says to bring the mask.”

  “Sure,” she said, opening the trunk for Reuben to take it. She put Lawless on a leash, grabbed some reading material and her backpack, and followed the bodyguard into the restaurant through a private door behind the kitchen. Waitresses bustled by, carrying pitchers of tea and plates heaped with sweet potato fries. Marguerite’s stomach gurgled. “They serve fried oysters here.”

  “Sure do,” Reuben said. “Have some. Share them with Constantine. Maybe they’ll work their magic.”

  She laughed, but she’d been worrying about Zeb, so aphrodisiacs were the last thing on her mind. Reuben poured Marguerite a glass of tea and put in an order for oysters and sweet potato fries to be sent up to the roof garden.

  “Is Constantine still being interviewed?” she asked dubiously.

  Reuben shrugged. “You want to stay down here and face the stampede instead?” He motioned with his chin toward the swinging doors to the dining room.

  She went across the kitchen and peered through. Oh, shit. She backed away. Her voice wobbled. “How does he stand it?”

  “He likes it,” Reuben said with a proud grin. “Bunch of piranhas. They can’t get to the man, but they’d be happy to eat you up instead. Coming upstairs? The dog can come, too.”

  She hesitated. “Maybe I could just stay down here and—”

  A waitress hustled through the doors, and a reporter plunged after her. “Miss McHugh? Is it true you’re going to star in a porno flick with Constantine Dufray?”

  Calmly, Reuben set down the mask. His fist connected with the reporter’s nose. He kicked open the swinging doors and threw him into the dining room. A horde of reporters pinned Marguerite with avid eyes. She shut out their auras before she passed out. The doors swung closed.

  “Only one of them upstairs,” Reuben said. She slumped but followed him up a winding staircase, letting the eager Lawless off his leash. The dog bounded through the door at the top, tail wagging. They entered a vestibule of sorts. To one side an archway led to a living room; that must be Constantine’s apartment. They crossed the vestibule and went outdoors to a wide, flat roof, where a profusion of potted plants, some of them trees, made a charming garden. A vast awning stretched over a couple of tables and a chaise, and the quiet whir of fans mingled with the trickle of a fountain. Constantine and a middle-aged man lounged at a table with mugs of beer. Constantine cradled a guitar, picking in a desultory way at the strings. Lawless greeted Constantine and then threw himself down, panting, in the shade of one of the trees.

  “Be seeing you.” Reuben set the mask down and left, shutting the door behind him. Marguerite steeled herself to be polite.

  Constantine raised his mug and smiled at her.

  Her stomach sighed, uncurling. He knew how to handle the media. She would be all right.

  You’re so beautiful. Constantine’s thought hit her hard and strong. She felt herself flush with pleasure. Had he meant to let that out?

  So are you. But she couldn’t send her thoughts, so she smiled in return. “Hey.”

  “Babe,” he said and introduced the writer from Rolling Stone.

  “Nice to meet you,” said the writer. “I interviewed your dad once. Great guy.”

  Marguerite bristled. The first damned sentence out of his mouth! It might sound sincere, but it never ended up being so. “Yes.” Control the anger. “He sure was.”

  “Interesting to talk to,” the writer said. “The title of my article was ‘Philosopher of Porn.’”

  She hadn’t seen that one. She’d read a few, but the venom had made her so ill that she’d avoided them from then on.

  “‘You don’t want to just make people hot,’ he told me. ‘You want them to feel the glory of sex. To see passion as the physical expression of love.’ Those were his exact words.”

  Marguerite nodded but said nothing.

  “He said that’s why his movies appealed to women,” the writer said.

  “He was a wonderful father.” She let out a breath she hadn’t meant to hold. Judging by a machine on the table, they were being recorded, but this guy’s vibe wasn’t too bad, and with Constantine as her bulwark, she felt almost safe. Constantine put out a hand, and she took it, allowing him to pull her close. As if she’d been doing this forever, she bent and dropped a kiss on his mouth.

  They’d parted on uncomfortable terms this morning, and yet this felt astonishingly right. Painfully so, since it was going nowhere.

  No, damn it. She was going to find out why he was afraid, and she was going to do something about it once she’d had a chance to tell him about Zeb and the torture porn. But for now she had to be cool and play the game.

  “Don’t let me interrupt,” she said, pulling out a paper on sound shifts. “I’ve got course prep to do.” Her heart was practically dancing, which was weirder than weird considering the company and the urgency of the situation. “And if that gets boring, I’ll read this fascinating biography I picked up in the store the other day.” She opened her backpack and waved the book about Constantine, who grabbed it and chucked it off the roof.

  “Hey!” Marguerite cried, and Constantine stood up and kissed her properly.

  That felt right, too. Dear God. She so wanted to make love to this man.

  Constantine showed the writer the mask and described the setup on the mound, laughing it off. A monumental platter of oysters and fries came up on a dumbwaiter, accompanied by lemons, ketchup, and Tabasco. They all shared and joked about aphrodisiacs and thirteen-inch penises, and Constantine and the guy from Rolling Stone chatted about anything and everything while Mar
guerite fed a flock of pigeons bits of fried batter.

  Constantine glowed. If she hadn’t been able to read auras, she would think he was just a regular guy who’d had a rough childhood. Who’d happened to become a rock star and was having a good time hanging out with an old acquaintance. He was doing his best to ignore the turmoil underneath, but it kept nagging at him, in sharp little jabs of uneasiness that gave Marguerite a headache, which must be nothing compared to what it did to him… and yet he just kept on glowing.

  Soon, though, she’d had more of pretending than she could take, so she moved to a wide, striped chaise by a potted palm to read about Old Irish and sound shifts. But she ended up pretending about that, too, because she couldn’t stop thinking about Zeb and torture porn and why an awful marriage would scare a virile man away from sex.

  The afternoon wore on, and she got a little reading done, but even the fans couldn’t do much with the thick, sultry air. She was dozing off for the second time when the writer asked Constantine about the incidents several months earlier when his concerts had erupted into riots and people had been killed. The hiss from Constantine’s aura jolted her wide awake.

  “We’ll stick to impromptu concerts for now,” Constantine said calmly through the turmoil. Those riots had been months ago, but at the mention of them, his aura twisted and seethed, a cacophony of clashing colors. “There was only one minor kerfuffle the other night. Some guy was high and started freaking out, but we had people stationed throughout the crowd. They escorted him off the field and took care of him until he came down.” He shrugged. “A two-minute interruption’s a big improvement on dead people and no shows at all.”

  Marguerite said, “There was an interruption?” and then wished she hadn’t, because now they were both staring at her, and she couldn’t blurt out the blinding truth that had just hit her—and Constantine as well, judging by his aura. His bland expression was a front.

  “Oops,” she said, thinking fast. “I confess. I broke the park rules and went into the woods to pee. Yeah, I know there were port-a-potties, but like most women, I can’t stand using them.”

  The guys were still staring, the reporter amused, Constantine with the touch of a frown.

  “Looks like I chose the perfect moment for a potty break,” she said and went back to Old Irish.

  “I could use one of those,” the writer said a moment later. The second he disappeared inside the building, Constantine clicked off the recorder and sent a text message. His eyes bored into her. “You didn’t really go in the woods to pee.”

  “No, but I had to say something besides what I was really thinking. That disturbance must have happened at about the time I lost consciousness.”

  A dark excitement permeated his aura. He stood, buzzing with energy. His cell rang. “Reuben, the dude who created the ruckus at the concert the other night. Do we know who he was?” He was watching Marguerite while he spoke, giving her a long, assessing look that sent a shimmy down her spine. “Can we find him? Thanks, man.” He ended the call, his aura spitting like it had on the mound the other day. He prowled over to her, projecting a vision of a lean, hungry cat.

  The hunger was intensely sexual, all directed at her. She dragged herself into focus. “If the disturbance was created deliberately to divert attention from me being carried away, wouldn’t it mean two people were involved?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.” He lowered himself to the chaise, placing an arm on each side of her, boxing her in. Almost like a threat, the darkness in his aura swelled and surrounded her. He leaned in and kissed her.

  Oh. She sank into the kiss, ran her fingers up into his hair and held him there, her whole body blossoming under him. Why was he kissing her like this? It was supposed to be over. If he was just going to abandon her again when it got exciting… But she couldn’t make herself stop and warn him when he was opening her so skillfully, when her breasts ached and her body’s demands overrode all else. She was breathless and moaning by the time he broke the kiss. “When’s he going to go?” she whispered.

  “Not soon enough for me.” His voice was rough and full of intent. What had happened since this morning?

  The writer reappeared, and Constantine kissed her again and settled back with more beer and his guitar. Marguerite watched him through narrowed eyes, trying to figure him out, but he was the same as always, layers of arousal, pain, excitement, and beneath it all there still lurked a knot of suspicion and fear. She gave up and had another go at Old Irish. She shouldn’t have agreed to this topic for a seminar, but she’d asked the students for ideas, and this was what they’d voted for.

  She dreamed the delicate touch of feathers, the strength of wings sheltering her as she slept. No, sheltering both her and Constantine, for they were tangled together in sleep. Then she thought she was awake, but the wings remained—great, soft wings that lay across them like a coverlet of love. Evidently, she was still in the dream. She opened her eyes anyway. Constantine was stretched next to her on the chaise; she had draped her arm across his chest. The heat of the day was like a drug, pulling her back under; the palm tree waved gently and ineffectually in the breeze from the fan. No wings. She closed her eyes again.

  Wings.

  She opened her eyes and sat up. The guy from Rolling Stone was gone, the sun getting low in the sky. “My God, how bizarre.”

  “Mmph?” Constantine yawned.

  “Did you just send me a dream?” she asked.

  “Don’t think so,” he said drowsily. “What was it about?”

  “We were covered by a huge pair of wings. When my eyes were closed, I felt wings on top of us, but when I opened them, there was nothing there.”

  Constantine sat up. “No, I didn’t send that.” He pulled her back down on the chaise and covered her, long and heavy and hot. Into her ear, he said, “This is the kind of dream I’ll send you,” and instantly her mind swarmed with visions of them naked and entwined, writhing in hot, slippery, unbridled sex.

  “Good,” she breathed. “But I want the real thing.” She melted under him, her legs spreading of their own volition, twining around his to keep him there. Through his jeans, she felt his penis swell. He ran a hand into her hair and lowered his mouth to hers. His tongue probed, invading her, possessive and undeniable. Desire seared her. Scorched her. She arched into him, thrust herself against his erection, twisting and moaning.

  “Sure you can take it?” The sultry growl of his voice had her in flames.

  “No one-touch orgasms, damn you,” she panted, squirming, running her hand between them to cup his erection and squeeze it through his jeans. “I want you inside me when I come.”

  The whap-whap of a helicopter drowned her out, and she shoved at him with panicked, jerky movements. “Shit,” Constantine muttered, rolling off her. She snapped her legs together, flushed, gorgeous, and freaked out.

  Fuck! “They can’t see us under here,” he shouted.

  “Right,” she yelled back. “I panicked.” When the copter was gone, she wrapped her arms around herself as if she were freezing even though it was sweltering out here. “Oh, God, they would have loved seeing me panic. They would have made me a laughingstock. I don’t know how you stand it.”

  He stood and picked up his guitar. “You know what they say—bad publicity is better than none.” He tapped the guitar gently. “And the security blanket helps.” Too bad he hadn’t figured out a way to have sex and play guitar at the same time.

  Visibly, she stiffened her spine. “Well, I’ll just have to get used to it.”

  “You will?”

  “I don’t have a choice. Some friend I would be if I ran at the first sign of trouble.”

  The first sign? There’d been nothing but trouble since they’d met.

  “I’m thirsty,” she said. “Can you order me some tea?”

  “No need.” He set down the guitar, went into his apartment, and poured her an iced tea, complete with a lemon wedge and a sprig of mint. When he returned, she was s
traightening her T-shirt. He set the tea on the table and turned up the fan, watching hungrily as she smoothed her shorts, running her hands over her hips, tugging at the fabric covering her shapely butt. Strands of damp honey-blond hair clung to her cheeks. She smelled of sweat and woman, and she wanted him inside her when she came. The brain below his waist did a high five with the bird who guided his spirit. Stuck between these two bozos, Constantine took up his guitar and sat at the table, doing his damnedest to stay cynical. He pondered what Reuben had told him about her owing Lutsky. Would she really report back to that lunatic? More important, did Constantine care if she did?

  Usually, he wouldn’t. There was so much crap about him out there that something like this didn’t matter. And yet, when it came to Marguerite… it did.

  That’s love, whispered his guide. Maybe it was right, maybe he was falling in love, but it didn’t feel as good as it was supposed to.

  She took a chair opposite him, dropped the lemon wedge into the tea, and took a long swallow. “We need to decide what to do about Zeb. Did Reuben tell you about the torture porn and what Zeb said?”

  “Sure, but I need to hear it from you, too.” He tried to keep any hint of suspicion from his voice, then remembered there was no point. She probably saw it anyway. “You’re the one who reads auras.”

  She nodded glumly. “It wasn’t much use in this instance. Someone tried to destroy Dr. Lutsky’s reputation by planting torture porn in his office, and Zeb knew about it and retrieved it before anyone found out. Lutsky’s enough of a nut job that he doesn’t need any help looking idiotic, but the porn would make him look like a pervert, too. Zeb says that’s why he’s protecting him in spite of the fact that he hates him, which supports my conviction that Zeb means well.” She picked up the sprig of mint, twirling it back and forth. “It’s just that none of this makes any sense. The logical suspect would be one of Roy’s colleagues in Psych, but we know it’s not Eaton Wilson, and in any case, why would some random Psych prof try to destroy you or kill me?” She snipped one mint leaf off with a fingernail and ate it.