Acadian Waltz (26 page)

“I’m sorry, but
John used to always tell me—”

He placed his
finger against my lips. “Forget about him.” He traced his lips up the side of
my neck to my earlobe, “Just do whatever feels right,” he whispered.

His lips felt
like warm silk against my skin. “I don’t think I ever knew how to do that,” I
admitted.

“I’ll show you.
Making love is like a dance, darlin’. We must learn to move together as one.”
He placed my hands above my head. “Just relax.”

I tried to relax
my body against the bed, but when Jean Marc’s teeth scraped the nape of my
neck, I shuddered.

“Move with me,
Nora.” He reached for my jeans and slowly pushed them down over my hips. After
he tossed my underwear aside, Jean Marc ran his hand along the inside of my
thighs, urging my legs apart. When his hand came to rest on my delicate folds,
I closed my eyes. His lips teased my throat as his fingers slid inside me.

I gasped against
his cheek

“Give in to what
you are feeling,” he said as he drove his fingers into me.

I gripped the
comforter and arched my body against the bed.

“That’s it,” he
whispered as he started slowly moving his fingers in and out of me. “Now you’re
learning how to dance.”

The tension in
my body began to build and I yearned for him to go deeper. A swell of pleasure
took over my senses until I thought I could not stand it any longer. When the
orgasm erupted, I buried my head in his chest as I bucked against him.

Just as I began
to catch my breath, Jean Marc wriggled beside me. When I opened my eyes, he was
lying naked next to me. I rolled over and let my fingertips traverse the
outline of the thick muscles in his chest, shoulders and arms.

Jean Marc leaned
away from me and reached over to a small nightstand next to the bed.

“What are you
doing?” I asked while my hands explored his round butt.

He kissed my
cheek as he removed something from the drawer. “Just taking precautions.”

Jean Marc spread
my legs wide apart and pulled my hips to his. He kissed my breasts, and then
teased my right nipple with his teeth as his fingers stroked my sensitive
flesh.

I wrapped my
legs about him and looked up into his dark eyes. “Yes, Jean Marc.”

He kept his eyes
on mine as he entered me in one slow thrust.

Enfolding me in
his arms, he began to move inside me. I pushed my hips against his, urging him
deeper. He responded by driving harder into me. My hips rocked back and forth
with every powerful penetration. I clung to him, and soon we were moving
together as one. My body tingled as the climax quickly spiraled up my spine. I
bit down into his shoulder as the spasms of quivering rolled through me. When
the passion overwhelmed me, I threw my head back and cried out his name.

Jean Marc’s arms
tightened around me as he began to arch his back, slamming his hips faster into
mine.

I held him
against me as the last waves of his climax rolled through him. When he finally
settled his head against my shoulder, he turned his face to me and kissed my
cheek.

“Now you’re
mine,” he softly said.

I ran my hands
through his wavy hair and whispered, “I’ve never done that before.”

“What?” he
murmured against my skin.

My cheeks
burned, but I said nothing.

“What? Tell me,
Nora.”

I shook my head.
“I’ve never…you know. I always had to fake it before. I never had one when I
was with a man.”

He sat up
slightly. “Even with John?”

I nodded.

He removed a
strand of blond hair from my face. “Why would you want to marry a man who
didn’t please you in every way?”

“Because he was
there. He wanted me. I figured if no one else wanted me, why not marry him?”

“But I wanted
you,” Jean Marc asserted.

“I thought you
didn’t like me. You were always so abrupt with me whenever we saw each other.”

Jean Marc’s deep
laugh filled the bedroom. “Nora, I was abrupt because I was frustrated as hell
every time I saw you. It was driving me crazy, and I didn’t know how to get
through to you.”

“You could have
just asked me out on a date,” I suggested and sat up in the bed.

Jean Marc sat up
next to me. “If I had asked, would you have gone out on a date with me?”

I studied his
rugged features and frowned. “Probably not.”

He shook his
head. “See my point.”

“I guess.” I
curled my body into his broad chest. “Can I ask you a question?”

His strong arms
enveloped me. “Can I stop you?”

“Why did you
marry Cynthia?”

Jean Marc rested
his head against mine. “She reminded me of you. She was smart, funny, asked a
lot of questions, and seemed filled with an innocent enthusiasm for the world
around her. After we were married, I realized she was a poor substitute for the
woman I really wanted. I began to pull away, and she turned to someone else for
comfort.”

“When I was a
little girl, I always dreamed that one day we would be together. Then you went
off to college and I figured it was time to give up on my dream. But somewhere
in the back of my mind, I never could forget about you.”

“I’m glad to see
your head has finally accepted what your heart knew all along.”

I smiled as I
thought of the years we had wasted. “Why do you think it took us so long to
finally get here?”

Jean Marc sighed
as he settled his body against mine. “Sometimes you have to discover what you
don’t want in order to appreciate what it is you really need. Once you have
lived, only then can you truly love.”

As Jean Marc
held me, I mulled over his words. Maybe we have to suffer through the bad to
appreciate the good in our lives. If John had not come along, I might not have
discovered my feelings for Jean Marc. The dark trials of life had a way of
making the special moments shine a little bit brighter for all of us. Maybe it
was not so much that we had to first live before we found love, but that we had
to first love before we truly started living.

Chapter 22

I awoke in the
middle of the night to find Jean Marc gone from the king-sized bed. I scanned
the darkened bedroom, and fumbled to find a lamp on the nightstand by the bed.
When I turned the switch, the small bedroom was flooded in a warm light. I took
in the plain oak chest of drawers next to the bed and the round nightstand with
the white porcelain lamp on top. I spotted the small drawer in the nightstand
Jean Marc had reached into earlier that night. After pulling the drawer open, I
peaked inside and found a few packages of condoms, and a hammerless .32 caliber
handgun. I picked up the gun and felt its weight. I thought back to the .9mm
pistol I had seen Jean Marc carrying in his hand earlier that evening. With all
I had learned about him, I wasn’t too surprised to discover another gun in Jean
Marc’s home. I replaced the revolver in the drawer and climbed out of the bed.
To the right of the bedroom was a blue and white-tiled bathroom, but Jean Marc
was not in there. Then, through the silence of the night, I heard the sound of
a boat motor. A few seconds later, the slap of the screen door broke through
the quiet of the house, and I listened as someone came running up the stairs.

“You’re up,”
Jean Marc commented as he stopped in front of the bedroom door.

He had on his
jeans, but had not buttoned up his rumpled long-sleeved blue shirt, and his
muscular chest peeked out from behind the fabric.

I stepped from
the bathroom doorway. “Where did you go?”

His eyes
hungrily took in my naked body. “I had to take care of some business.” He
shrugged off his shirt and hung it on a green wing chair by the door.

I spied the .9mm
pistol in the waistband of his jeans. “I heard the boat motor outside. Want to
tell me what you were doing?”

He took the gun
from his waistband and put it on the chest of drawers. “I had to meet with my
man after his run.”

“Was there a
problem?” I asked, staring at the gun.

He came up to
me. “No. He was just letting me know how it went. Forget about that. Right now
I have other matters to concern myself with.”

I stroked my
hands up and down his thick chest. “Other matters?”

He slid his arm
around my back. “Yeah, like keeping you satisfied.”

I reached for
the fly on his jeans and began to slowly undo the buttons one by one.
“Satisfied?” I grinned. “Who said I was satisfied?” I eased the jeans down from
around his hips.

He stepped out
of his jeans and kicked them away. “That is something I will have to work on,”
he mumbled as he kissed my shoulder.

“Then you better
get cracking, buddy,” I teased as I slapped his firm backside.

Jean Marc picked
me up in his arms and carried me to the bed.

“I’m going to
spend the rest of my life making you happy, Nora Theresa Kehoe,” he whispered,
lowering me on to the bed.

I placed my
hands about his wide shoulders. “I’m already happy, Jean Marc.”

He kissed me and
I wrapped my legs around his hips, eager for more of him.

His fingers
traveled down my stomach until they came to the mound of flesh in between my
legs. “Happy, but not satisfied…yet.”

*     *     *

The tinkle of
the raindrops against the window behind Jean Marc’s sleigh bed roused me from a
deep sleep. His thick arms were draped about me, and I could feel his naked
body spooned against my back. I listened to the rhythm of his breathing and
felt the rise and fall of his chest. It was the most comforting sensation I had
ever known.

I slowly
wrestled free of Jean Marc’s embrace, trying all the while not to wake him.
When I was finally able to climb from the bed, I quickly searched for something
to stave off the early morning chill. I found his blue long-sleeved shirt on
the wing back chair by the door and slipped it on. The cotton shirt still had
his scent on it, and I breathed in the aroma of him as I wrapped it around my
body. When I looked back to the bed, I saw his face scrunched against his pillow,
looking like a little boy dreaming of cowboys and Indians. Somewhere deep
inside me a yearning began. I wanted to spend every morning for the rest of my
life gazing down at that handsome face and watching Jean Marc Gaspard dream.

I tiptoed down
the creaky stairway to the first floor landing. In the darkness, I fumbled my
way toward the kitchen, desperately looking for something to eat. As I trudged
along the floor, feeling my way with my bare feet, I heard the grumble of my
stomach.

“Serves you
right,” I scolded. “I haven’t had a workout like that since playing on the high
school volleyball team.” I smiled, remembering the feel of Jean Marc’s hands on
my skin, his mouth kissing my flesh, the weight of his body on mine, and the
way he moved inside me.

I silently
cursed. “Get a grip, Nora.” I wiped a film of sweat from my forehead. “John
never did this to me.”

I opened the
refrigerator door and began fanning myself, trying desperately to cool my
ardor.

“You’ll catch a
cold doing that.”

I jumped as Jean
Marc entered the kitchen, dressed only in his blue jeans.

“You scared me.”
I nodded to the refrigerator. ”I was hungry.”

“You came down
here to raid my fridge, or are you using it as an air conditioner?” He came
toward me. “I woke up, and thought you had left.”

I inspected the
contents of the refrigerator. “Where was I going to go?”

“You could have
gone back to the house, or back to John.”

“There will be
no going back to John,” I proclaimed.

“No regrets?”

“Regrets?” I
stood from the refrigerator and smiled. “‘Regrets only show up in the rearview
mirror of life,’ my dad used to always say. The way to avoid them is not to
bother looking back.” I reached out and touched the dark stubble on his chin.
“I’m only looking ahead from now on.”

“I’m happy to
hear it.” He peered into the open refrigerator door. “I’m afraid the only thing
in here is eggs, a package of shredded cheddar cheese and.…” He reached in and
grabbed some foreign looking green object wrapped in plastic. “This,” he added.

“What is that?”

“I’m not sure.”
He turned it over in his hand. “It’s either a very old green pepper, or
something that is not of this earth.” He tossed the green moldy thing into the
nearby trash. “I’ll make us some omelets.”

“You never get
to the store much,” I remarked as he retrieved the eggs and cheese.

He stepped in
front of the cooktop. “Never have time.” He placed the eggs and cheese on the
black granite countertop next to him. “When I’m not out of town, I usually pick
up something on the way home for dinner. Lunch, I always eat out.” He reached
for a large frying pan in a light oak cabinet above his head.

“How often do
you have to go out of town?”

He placed the
pan on the cooktop. “Usually once a month for the business.”

“Doing what?”

“Dealing with
clients,” he coolly replied as he pulled out a glass bowl from another cabinet
to his left.

“Do you have a
lot of out of town clients?”

He nodded as he
put the bowl on the counter. “Quite a few.”

“Really?” I
folded my arms across my chest. “Like where?”

He sighed and
reached for the eggs. “Nora, do you want me to cook for you or do you want to
interrogate me?”

“Sorry. I was
just curious.” I waved to the bowl on the counter. “You really don’t have to
cook. We could sneak over to the house and grab something to eat. Your mother
made a big pot of gumbo yesterday.”

He shook his
head. “Henri’s home. I won’t go near the place if I have to look at him.”

I stared at him,
slightly taken aback by his comment. “After everything Henri has been through,
how you can’t still feel such animosity toward him?”