FrenchQuarter.htm Page 5

  And then with a giant stroke he came—shooting off long and hard inside her and releasing a deep moan into her shoulder, where he buried his head for the length of the orgasm. Ah, merci, cher petite fille.

  When he came back to himself, he lifted his head, looked down into her eyes—pretty, strangely innocent. He leaned his forehead against hers. “How ya doin’?”

  Her voice was light, soft. “Good.”

  For reasons he couldn’t explain, he suddenly wanted to be gentle with her. “Sorry I couldn’t make it all the way to the office.”

  She shook her head. “This was … good.” She gave another head shake and laughed. “I’m usually more eloquent, but …”

  He grinned. “But I just fucked your brains out so you can’t think clearly?”

  She returned the smile. “Something like that.”

  “Come home with me.” He ran his fingers through the strands of her silken hair and wondered why he’d said that. He’d meant it—he’d wanted her to come to his place, fall asleep with him—but it wasn’t his common reaction to sex, no matter how hot. He was real good at keeping things distant, being aloof. Usually.

  “I think,” she began slowly, “I should probably go home and…break up with Todd.”

  “Fuck Todd,” he said. “Give him a night to worry.”

  He gazed down on her pretty face, watched her thinking it over. Finally, she looked up at him. “Do you always invite women you barely know back to your place? I thought guys liked to be careful about that sort of thing.”

  She was right—guys did. He did. Always. Before now.

  He told himself this meant nothing, then tilted his head. “Look, I’m thinkin’ you don’t know this idiot fiancé of yours as well as you thought, and for all we know, he’s some kinda maniac. He probably went home a little drunk, and if you come in lookin’ like you’ve been out with some other guy…I just don’t think it’s a great idea.”

  Thinking it over, Liz nodded. Jack made some good points. Breaking up with Todd wasn’t going to be pleasant, but doing it late at night when she probably reeked of sex, and certainly looked like a woman who’d gone out seeking that kind of action, probably wasn’t the wisest move. “All right,” she finally said.

  “We can pick up some donuts at the all-night bakery on the way.”

  “Donuts?” she asked with surprise, putting her dress back into place while Jack zipped up and tucked in.

  “Mais, I dig carbs after sex,” he said, laughing at himself.

  Liz laughed, too. How the hell had this happened? She’d behaved like the total slut she wasn’t, and still she felt incredibly happy and alive—and this man had even invited her back to his place? As they exited the alley hand in hand, she said, “I don’t usually…do the things I did tonight.”

  “I know,” he said as they started up Bourbon.

  “How do you know?”

  “The sexy clothes and sultry looks are very seductive, chere, but as the evenin’ progressed, your innocence showed.”

  She protested in mock anger. “I’d hardly call myself innocent.”

  “Not after tonight,” he offered in retort, laughing.

  “By the way,” she said, “just so you know, I’m on the pill.”

  Next to her, his eyes fell shut and he looked as if he’d been caught at something. “Yeah, about that.” He lowered his gaze to her. “I definitely should have taken the time to get out a condom, but …”

  “But what?”

  “But my only thought was gettin’ inside you as fast as humanly possible.”

  Her face flushed with heat as her eyes met his.

  “Anyway, no worries. I’m safe. I’ve always been real careful about that sort of thing.”

  “Up to now, you mean,” she said.

  He gave her a soft grin. “Yeah, up to now.”

  They talked more as they walked toward Jack’s place and Liz thought of all the years she’d kept this wild, sexual side of herself hidden—perhaps even from herself. Yet tonight she’d driven Jack to the same heights she herself had experienced. She wasn’t sure where things with him would go or how long they would last—hell, maybe by tomorrow he’d be ready to say ‘so long’—but no matter what the outcome, she was incredibly glad she’d found this hot sexy man who could set this side of her free.

  * * * * *

  Upon reaching Jack’s place, they sat out on the wrought iron balcony overlooking the quieter end of Bourbon Street. A sweet night breeze blew over them as they ate the donuts they’d picked up on the way and talked more. Liz used the opportunity to tell Jack a little about her family’s expectations and how set they were on her marrying Todd. “Frankly, I think if I’d have moved away from Maryland on my own or with anyone in the world other than Todd, they’d have done everything in their power to make me stay. But since it was Todd’s idea, they were all for it.”

  Jack also told Liz more about himself. He’d been raised in nearby Terrebonne Parish, and his mother was a tenth generation Acadian whose family traced its roots all the way back to French Canada in the 1700’s. “My grandemaman, she lived in a little house on stilts back in the bayou—couldn’t get there without takin’ a pirogue. She knew all the old Cajun stories and traditions. But my maman wanted to leave the swamps, so she and my dad packed us up and moved us into town.”

  Jack had trekked to the Big Easy to attend Tulane at the age of eighteen, he then told her, where he’d majored in Accounting. “I loved the city, but by the time I graduated from college, I was disillusioned by big business and decided I wouldn’t be happy in the corporate world, so I started my detective agency. Been in the same location since day one. I’ve got a lucrative business and could afford to fancy things up if I wanted, but I think in a place like the Quarter, people don’t always like flash. The tourists maybe, but the tourists aren’t the ones payin’ my bills. The folks who live in New Orleans are drawn by things that are old and authentic, traditional, so that’s how I keep my business.”

  “What about your parents?” Liz asked, taking the first bite from a big glazed donut.

  “What about them?”

  She grinned. “What are they like? I told you about mine—controlling and rigid. Tell me about yours.”

  “Not a lot to tell,” he said, tearing a chocolate frosted donut into two pieces. “They divorced by the time I was twelve. I was an only child, and I stayed with my dad. Saw my maman on weekends, but she wasn’t a typical mom. By the time she left us, she wanted to leave more than the swamps—she wanted to leave Lou’siana altogether. So she took off for New York around the time I started at Tulane, and I haven’t seen her since.”

  Liz was stunned, saddened, but now all the more impressed with Jack’s success and obvious sense of confidence. “What did your dad do?”

  “Before we left the bayou, he was a fisherman—brought in crawfish and redfish and whatever the restaurants would buy. Later, he started drivin’ a bus.” He grinned. “Not a lot of dough rollin’ in for me and pere, but we did all right together.”

  “See?” she said. “There was something to tell.”

  Yep, Jack thought, there was, but this was a good time to stop. He wanted to be with her, touch her, take her to bed—and yeah, talking was okay, could be a part of that, but not too much. Another rule he lived by. And he might have already broken his rule about sex and clients, but he wouldn’t break this one. If his dad had taught him anything, it was about self-preservation, never giving up control. Jack could almost hear his father’s voice even now. “You let a woman get to you, son, and you end up without any control, over you, over her, over your whole damn life.”

  Jack had watched the heartbreak his dad had gone through during the divorce, and though he knew he shouldn’t let the fate of one marriage govern his whole life, he had. Because it had been easy. Because Jack had never met a woman he’d had a particularly hard time keeping at a distance. He respected women—hell, he was crazy about women, from their bodies to their brains—but he made
it a point never to open up to a woman too much lest she think it meant he wanted a relationship.

  And he didn’t. Relationships worked great for plenty of people, but he wasn’t interested. He liked his life fine the way it was—had always liked it. His job was his life, and femmes were like…a hobby, a pastime. If his work was his sustenance, women were dessert.

  As for why he’d invited this particular female home with him, it was like he’d told her—it didn’t seem smart to let her go home to her fiancé right now. And hell—he wasn’t ready to be apart from her just yet, and he didn’t think she was ready to be apart from him, either. That simple. Sitting there studying her in the dark, his mind drifted back to the intimacies they’d shared together tonight. God, what a woman. First writhing against that sexy stripper at the club, and then fucking him in the alley. He wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced sex so gritty and raw, his desire rising from deep inside him like some twenty-first century caveman. His cock began perking to life in his pants again at the memories.

  He got caught grinning at her across the little table where they sat. “What?” she said. “Glaze on my face or something?”

  He chuckled his reply. “No, chere. Just thinkin’.”

  She smiled. “Thinking what?” Her naughty expression told him she’d already figured out the answer.

  He lowered his chin and hoped she saw the hunger in his eyes. “Thinkin’ I want to fuck you again.”

  She cast a coquettish look, took the last bite of a donut, washing it down with the milk he’d supplied, and quietly got up from the chair where she sat, meandering to one end of the balcony. She faced the breeze, putting her back toward him, and he understood that the simple gesture was an invitation.

  Jack approached behind her, stepping up close enough for his erection to rub against her ass through their clothes. She wrapped her fists around the top of the wrought-iron railing, waiting.

  Reaching around, he skimmed fingertips up her thighs, under her dress.

  He leaned near her ear. “Is your sweet little pussy wet for me, baby?”

  “Why don’t you check?” she whispered, turning her head to draw him into a kiss. As he pushed his tongue into her mouth, he cupped her mound full in his hand, glad he’d torn off her panties earlier. Oui, she was wet, nearly dripping.

  He pressed his fingers to her center, where he knew she was pink and aching for him. With his other hand, he reached around to toy with her nipple through the fabric, sliding his hard-on more fiercely against the delicate crack of her ass.

  Liz heard her own breath come heavier until she was panting, writhing against him. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt anything so exquisite—every move brought pleasure, from his sweet stroking fingers in the front to his stone-hard rod in the back.

  “Fuck me,” she heard herself whisper on the breeze.

  “Tell me again,” he said softly in her ear.

  She said it louder. “Fuck me.”

  She kept moving against his hand, the pleasure there mounting. Was he rubbing her harder or was she grinding more intensely against his fingers?

  He didn’t ask her to say it again, but she did anyway, wanted to, this time with more force. “Fuck me, baby. Fuck me.” His fingers, moving in hot circles, were so good, so perfect; she was getting so close, so close… “Oh God, baby, fuck me.”

  “I’m fucking you with my fingers, chere.”

  She moaned and thrust against his touch, harder, harder, his fingers seeming to sink deeper against her clit as they stroked her—warm, swift, sure. The pleasure grew and gathered inside her, working itself into a hot, tight little ball that—oh God, yes! —finally exploded, breaking over her like a tidal wave, making her cry out over and over, without a thought to the attention it might attract. Each heated vibration was more shattering than the last, so powerful that her body spasmed and if Jack hadn’t wrapped his other arm around her waist she might have collapsed on the balcony from the sheer intensity of her bliss.

  He kept rubbing her, slowing when she began to slow, letting his fingers go still when she stilled, too. She finally panted her exhaustion, numbly leaning her head to one side when she felt Jack’s kisses on her neck. “So sweet, baby,” he whispered. “So sweet.” Then his voice changed, got deeper, more forceful. “Now I’m gonna fuck you with my big hard cock.” And he did—using both hands to slide her dress up to her hips and holding her there while he thrust inside.

  “Oooh,” she moaned at the entry. God, he filled her. With his…cock. Yes, his cock. Another word she’d never used before, but Jack was changing her, uncovering something in her she’d never known, some part of her that brought the raw and primal to the forefront, that made such words sound as natural and hot and loving as any others.

  His voice was back to breathy when he spoke into her ear. “Tell me how you want it.”

  “Hard,” she said. “Fuck me hard.” She was getting good at this. Good at saying exactly what she meant, at talking a little bit dirty.

  His thin, masculine chuckle was laced with arrogance. “Think you can take it?”

  “Oh yes.”

  And mmm, did she ever take it. Jack pounded into her with hot, powerful thrusts, each one making her release a small cry. She felt each brutal stroke all the way to her fingers and toes. She loved the feeling of being fucked with such primal abandon, loved the way each sweet plunge seemed to fill her with him more and more. Her cries involuntarily turned into a word that came on each thrust. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Fuck me. Yes.”

  Her legs grew weak with the force of his sex and she gripped the rail even tighter lest she crumble to the balcony floor. Never in her life had a man fucked her with so much power, with such driving force that it seemed to be turning her inside out, numbing her mind to any thought but the pleasure that each deliciously rough stroke delivered. He never stopped, just kept fucking and fucking and fucking her, filling her with his cock again and again, and her pleasure was just beginning to be laced with weariness, a sense that she might soon collapse from the sheer force of his thrusts, when he said, “Baby, I’m comin’. I’m comin’ in you.”

  His deep strokes slowed just slightly as he pumped his release into her, and she almost felt the thick pleasure of his orgasm through his long, throaty moans. Finally, they went still together, and he was hugging her from behind, resting his head on her shoulder, whispering, “So good, baby. You’re so fuckin’ good.”

  She barely had the strength to reply, but managed to look over her shoulder and cast a small smile before saying, “I’m so fucking tired. You’ve worn me out.”

  She relished his satisfied little grin. “Mmm,” he growled, squeezing her body closer to him, “then let’s go to bed.”

  * * * * *

  The following morning, Liz took a taxi to the home she and Todd shared, but she waited until she thought he’d be gone to work. Her biggest fear was that she’d pull up and find him still there, frantic, with FBI agents and SWAT team members and God knew who else, because she was missing. Jack had offered to go with her, just in case Todd was still there, but she’d refused. She’d gotten herself into this mess by being a complacent do-gooder for the first thirty years of her existence—now she’d get out of it by taking charge of her life.

  To her great relief, when the cab pulled up outside the Greek Revival home, the driveway was empty—Todd was gone. Once inside, she got undressed—very aware that she wasn’t wearing any panties—and took a long, luxurious shower. She’d never spent as much time thinking about her body in her whole life as she had the last few days, so while showering, she paid attention to it. She watched the soap sudsing on her breasts, felt her own sensual response as she ran the bar over her smooth stomach, up her arms, down her thighs. She thought about how sticky her inner thighs had gotten at various points last night—both from her juices and Jack’s. Suddenly, every touch to her skin felt brand new.

  After calling her boss to claim she’d overslept and would be right in, she chose her work clothes for the
day carefully, as she had plans to meet Jack for dinner. So while on the outside she wore a conservative plum-colored suit, underneath she put on a lacy demi-bra of lavender along with a matching thong and garter belt with nude stockings.

  As she caught the streetcar on St. Charles and took a seat, she felt positively naughty. The sensations of the tight, binding lace beneath her professional clothes felt like a delicious little secret she kept from the other passengers, a secret she couldn’t wait to reveal to Jack.

  Unfortunately, though, she had a long day ahead before seeing him, so she’d just have to think of it as a reward, something to look forward to. Luckily, she liked her job and thus far had been a model employee, so coming in late today wasn’t a big deal. The event she truly dreaded was calling Todd. And she couldn’t put it off. In fact, now that the time had come to do it, she didn’t want to postpone breaking up any longer—she wanted to close that chapter of her life and get back to having fun with Jack. So as soon as she got caught up on her morning tasks, she picked up the phone at her desk and dialed his office.

  Damn, voicemail. But then, maybe that was a blessing in disguise. She hadn’t planned to actually break up on the phone anyway, only to arrange a meeting with him. So she said, “Todd, it’s me. I need to see you. Meet me at noon today at the Red Rooster.” It was a small downtown diner where they sometimes grabbed quick meals together.

  At twelve o’clock sharp, Liz was seated in a booth with a cup of coffee. Todd walked in looking hurried and a bit frantic, but she supposed she couldn’t blame him, considering that she’d been out all night, had left a cryptic message not bothering to explain why, and that he had no idea she knew about his extra-curricular activities.

  He spotted her immediately and took long strides to the booth, sliding in and placing both palms on the table, as if to keep his emotions down. “Where the hell have you been?”