Bayou Bad Boys (4 page)

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Authors: Nancy Warren

BOOK: Bayou Bad Boys
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The high school drama teacher had rescued Gabe from detention when Raul Dupree had come down with flu. She talked him into auditioning for the role of Sweeny Todd in the spring musical, and literally changed his life.
“She's retiring this year,” Emma said conversationally.
“No shit? Isn't she a little young to quit teaching?”
“She's sixty-eight. And she's not retiring, exactly. She's going to volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club after-school program.”
“That sounds like something she'd do.”
Rescuing more at-risk kids. They might not grow up to be Hollywood stars—which to Gabe's mind was a mixed blessing—but they also might avoid going to prison, which is where he probably would've ended up if it hadn't been for the teacher's intervention.
“We're giving her an award after the Jean Lafitte parade on Saturday,” Emma said.
Gabe tensed, sensing what was coming.
“A plaque isn't all that much to pay her back for all she's done for the town.” She paused another beat. “It'd probably make the ceremony a lot bigger deal if you were the one presenting it.”
This time it was he who paused. “I don't think that'd be a real good idea,
chère.
Seems I'd be taking the spotlight off the person who really deserved it.”
It was a not so artful a dodge. “And we both know how you hate the spotlight,” Emma murmured. “Which is undoubtedly why you chose a low-profile career like acting.”
“Got me there,” he said.
“You just want to hide out from the press. Which brings us back to those dates—”
“They weren't dates, in the traditional sense of the word.” The woman was like a damn pit bull. Why couldn't she just let the thing go? “And I was a perfect gentleman.”
She laughed at that idea.
“Hey.” He held up three fingers in the sign of a pledge. “Scout's honor.”
“Funny. I don't remember you being a Boy Scout.”
True enough. Even if he had been able to afford the uniform, which he hadn't, there's no way the other parents would have allowed the kid of the town drunk to have anything to do with their churchgoing sons. Thinking back on the wild, angry kid he'd been back then, Gabe couldn't really blame them.
“I don't remember you bein' so sarcastic.” Or offering him anything less than her unwavering support, including, that one night, when he'd opened a forbidden door he should've just kept locked.
Hell, maybe she was holding a grudge. He couldn't deny she had every right to.
“I'm sorry. The scout remark may have been hitting below the belt. So, don't leave me hanging.”
“Like I did that night?” Gabe decided there was no more point in beating around the bush. “When I left you a virgin?”
A soft flush, like a late summer rose, filled her cheeks as she realized her inadvertent double entendre. “I meant I want to know the rest of the story that brought you back home.”
The woman wasn't just hot. She was damn pretty. And, since he didn't believe people really changed all that much, Gabe suspected that beneath her sexy new attitude, Emma was still that sweet, caring girl who had, for one suspended night in time, made him feel things he'd never thought he'd feel. Wish for impossible things beyond his reach. Ache for the kind of love he hadn't thought a guy like him could ever have.
“Gabe?”
She was looking at him again, her expression quizzical.
“Sorry.” He shook his head, like his old retriever, Beau, used to do when climbing out of the water with a duck. Emma wasn't the only one puzzled by the feelings bombarding him. She'd stirred something in him. Something he couldn't quite put a name to. “Looking at the color in your pretty face got me sidetracked. I can't remember the last time I've been with a woman who blushed.”
He took hold of her hand, which smelled a bit like almonds, and nibbled on her knuckles. “Watching your cheeks go all pink makes me wonder what it'd take to make the rest of you blush all over.”
She shivered. Not, Gabe suspected, because she was suddenly finding the air-conditioning blasting from the dashboard vents too cold.
“You were telling me about those dates that weren't really dates.” She tugged her hand free. Her gaze fixed on a mirage shimmering like a phantom pool on the black asphalt ahead.
“Anyone ever tell you you've got a one-track mind,
chère
?”
“Why am I not surprised an actor would have something against linear thought?”
“Hey, I can do linear thought. In fact, my mind's been pretty much runnin' on a single track since I walked off that plane and saw you standing there lookin' like you'd stepped out of a Gauguin painting.”
The blush he'd found so appealing in her cheeks bloomed across the magnificent cleavage revealed by her neckline. The blouse was silk. Remembering all too well that her perfumed flesh was softer, Gabe was suddenly burning with the need to touch. To taste. To cup those lush breasts in his hands, to stroke her nipples, which, he couldn't help noticing, were pressing against the flowered silk.
They weren't the only thing that had gone hard. No friggin' doubt about it, his cock had taken on a mind of its own. And if it had its randy way, they'd be pulling over to the side of the road, and he'd be lifting that skirt while her long legs straddled him, while she took him deep inside her wet, slick womanly warmth. He fantasized nipping at those pebbled nipples, sucking on them hard enough to make her body tighten around him, as she rode him hard and fast.
“That sounds suspiciously like a line from some movie,” she accused.
“It's no line.” He'd never been one to pretty sex up with sweet words and silken promises. Never had to. But damned if she didn't remind him of the painter's lushly feminine Tahitian subjects. And he should know, since two of the paintings were currently hanging on his bedroom wall. “You ever have anyone film you,
chère
? While you're making love?”
“Of course not.” Her eyes widened; she sounded properly scandalized. But perhaps intrigued?
There was a half beat of silence. Then . . .
“Have you ever?” she asked.
Oh, yeah,
Gabe thought, definitely intrigued. “Filmed someone while you were making love?”
“Not yet. But there's always a first time.” He nodded in the direction of the duffle bag he'd thrown into the backseat when he'd climbed into the car. “I brought along my video camera.” Unable to resist the lure of her soft, fragrant skin, he slipped his hand into that enticing slit in her skirt and began trailing small, concentric circles just above her dimpled knee. “I've been thinkin' of getting into directing, me.”
That was true enough. Although he enjoyed acting, he was beginning to tire of living in some other character's skin for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. And then there was the issue of control. It wasn't that he was a control freak or anything—hell, damn straight he was.
There wasn't much in the movie business under anyone's control. It was, he'd often considered, like playing one of those flying trapeze artists without a net. But directing offered more opportunity for calling the shots than acting ever would.
“How would you like to star in my first film?” Encouraged that she hadn't yanked the slit in her skirt closed, he trailed his fingers up petal-soft skin.
“You want me to star in a porno film?”
“An erotic film,” he corrected huskily, getting turned on by the imagined sight of a nude Emma in his viewfinder. “One with limited distribution. Just the two of us.”
“I don't think—”
“I'll take a page from Gauguin's book and film you outdoors,” he said reflectively, overriding her refusal as creative wheels started turning. The more Gabe thought about it, the more it seemed like a perfect way to while away the days he was going to be stuck out in the bayou.
“Maybe on that old swing at the camp, lying on your back, your hair loose, flowing over your breasts, your rosy pink nipples thrusting through those long wild curls.”
With his free hand, he plucked the clip from her hair, allowing the curls to tumble riotously free, shining like a bright copper penny in the stuttering rays of sun managing to break through the gathering clouds.
“Gabe.” His name shuddered out from between glossy pink lips. “Don't.”
“Don't what,
chère
? Don't touch you?” When his fingers continued their sensual quest, she trembled, but did not pull away. “Don't imagine how you'd look, with the sun setting at your back, your long sexy legs spread over the wooden arms of the swing, your lower lips all lush and wet, and—”
“Dammit, Gabriel,” she complained. “Please.”
“Please,
oui
?” He skimmed a feathery touch back down to her knee, this time on the inside of her thigh, and watched her unconsciously rub her thighs together.
Gabe wanted to be there.
Between those long, wraparound legs.
Inside her.
“Or please,
non
?”
“How am I supposed to think when you're doing that”—she arched her back against his touch as he lightly scraped the warming flesh with a fingernail—“let alone drive.”
Realizing that if he wasn't careful, he could be responsible for them ending up in the water, Gabe reluctantly reclaimed his hand and turned back to the idea of filming Emma in the throes of passion.
“You'll need to be eating something. An apple fits Gauguin's
Eve in the Garden of Eden
theme, but it's too clichéd,” he said thoughtfully, getting into the idea as creative juices stirred along with sexual ones. “A ripe peach.” He nodded, pleased with the notion. “I'll feed it to you. Then lick the sweet, sticky juice off your sun-warmed naked flesh.”
She actually moaned. The same way he imagined she would if he were trailing his tongue down her torso, over the soft feminine swell of her stomach. Then beyond.
He was about to tell her just to pull over to the side of the road, when the front tire suddenly started going
thump thump thump.
“Damn.” The mood was shattered. Emma hit the steering wheel with the palm of her hand as she pulled over to the side of the road. “That's all we need,” she complained. “That storm's getting closer, and this time of day, it'll take the auto club at least an hour to get out here from the city.”
“No problem.” It took all his acting talent to keep his tone even when what he wanted to do was bang his head against the dashboard at the way she'd been yanked out of the sensual spell his seductive words had wrapped around them. “You've got yourself a spare, right?”
“Well, of course, but—”
“I haven't changed a tire since my old days working at Dix's Automotive. But I'll bet it's one of those things you don't forget. Like ridin' a bicycle.” He winked at her. “Or sex.”
Now that the moment had been lost, the thing to do was get the damn tire changed so they could get to the camp.
Where he and the luscious, soft-skinned, sweet-smelling Emma Quinlan could begin driving each other crazy.
Five
As Gabe took the jack from the Miata's trunk, Emma tried to remember her former husband ever doing anything more physical than swinging a golf club and came up blank.
Richard had been too busy stealing money from his employer—who just happened to be his father-in-law—and screwing the bimbo to help out with any chores.
Now, watching Gabe work, she decided that there was something to be said for having a male around the house to do those manly things. Like change a tire. Mow the lawn. Tie you up.
Tie you up? Where had that come from?
From that damn Jean Lafitte movie. Emma had known she was in trouble the minute it had come up in the conversation and was vastly relieved that there was no way Gabe would ever know she'd sat in the dark of the Bijou, popcorn going uneaten, as she'd watched his larger-than-life character throw that woman over his shoulder, then leap from her husband's Spanish galleon to his own ship that was flying the bloodred flag feared throughout southern waters.
His captive had fought like a wildcat, kicking, biting, scratching, her nails leaving a scarlet trail down the dark skin of his back. But she'd been no match for the rapacious rogue. Nor her own rioting female desires. By the time the actress was bucking beneath him, opening herself up to his invasion, Emma's panties had been drenched and her legs so weak, she'd had to stay seated until long after the credits had rolled and the theater emptied.
That night she'd dreamed of being held hostage by a pirate, who, unsurprisingly, looked exactly like Gabriel Broussard. Dressed in a pirate's black shirt, tight trousers, and high black leather boots, he'd tied her to the mast of his ship, his strong hands claiming her body at will, while his low, rumbling voice told her all the things he intended to do to her.
Wicked, outrageous things. Things that shocked her. Shamed her. And, dammit, excited her.
Just remembering that movie, and the dream, along with the scandalous way she'd allowed him to touch her in the car, was enough to make her so hot she was surprised she wasn't liquidizing from the inside out.
Watching him work wasn't helping. Who'd have guessed that changing a flat tire could be such a turn-on? As he crouched down and loosened the lug nuts with a speedy efficiency that a NASCAR pit mechanic might have envied, the faded denim pulled tight against strong, muscular thighs in a way that had Emma imagining naughty things. Kinky things.
She was used to seeing men without clothes on. Her days, after all, were spent with nude men who wore nothing but a towel and a blissful expression as her hands brought them to ecstasy. Or, as close to it as a person could get without having sex.
But, Emma was discovering, there was a huge difference between nude and naked. Nude was when a man wasn't wearing clothes. Naked was when he wasn't wearing clothes and was up to no good.
And, heaven help her, naked was how she wanted Gabe.
When he bent over to jack up the wheel, any lingering desire to kick his butt evaporated. It was a gold medal, world-class butt and what Emma wanted to do, was aching to do, was bite it.
Do it, that devilish Samantha perched on her damp shoulder, advised.
I can't just maul him!
“What world do you live in,
chica
?”
A new voice, sounding a lot like Gabrielle, from
Desperate Housewives,
chimed in.
Terrific. Now they were ganging up on her.
“It's not that easy, dammit.” Emma was appalled when she heard the words come out of her mouth.
“Something wrong?” Gabe glanced back at her.
“No.” She forced a smile. “I was just saying that didn't look very easy.”
He shrugged. “Like I said, some things you never forget. Who'd have thought a past working as a grease monkey would ever come in handy?”
Thunder rumbled ominously on the horizon; black clouds raced in from the Gulf. The dense air was thick enough to drink. As he returned to work, sweat dampened his shirt, causing it to cling to his back, revealing every corded muscle. More muscles bunched in his arms as he pumped the jack.
Lightning crackled across the darkening sky. Emma could taste the electricity on her tongue, beneath her skin, scorching along her nerve endings. She'd lived in south Louisiana all of her life. She was accustomed to the heat and constant humidity. But never had she been so hot she felt on the verge of fainting.
Her head grew light. White spots, like paper-winged moths, fluttered in front of her eyes. She placed a hand against the back fender of the Miata to steady herself. Gabe, who'd replaced the flat with the spare and was tightening the lug nuts, glanced up at her.
“You sure you're okay?”
“Of course.”
If you didn't count the fact that she was on the verge of falling flat on her face. Her hair was clinging to her forehead; more unruly curls had escaped to stick to the back of her damp neck. Swaying a bit, she tried to brush it away with the hand that wasn't holding onto the car for dear life, but her fingers were shaking.
Deep blue eyes framed by long, sooty lashes that would have appeared feminine were it not for the lean, hungry lines of his face, studied Emma with an intensity that did nothing to help clear her head.
“You look as if you're about to pass out,
mon ange
.”
He'd called her his angel that night. When he'd drawn her down onto that mattress and kissed her. A deep, searing kiss that had scorched away a lifetime of inhibitions. A kiss she'd been fantasizing about since she'd been twelve years old. But the reality had far surpassed those romantic, junior high school daydreams.
“I've never fainted in my life.” The spots swirled like snowflakes as she tossed her head.
“There's always a first time for everything.”
He tossed aside the jack, stood up and curled his hands around her upper arms to steady her.
The wind picked up, rattling the sugar cane in the fields on either side of the road. “You're tremblin' like a willow in a hurricane, you.”
Emma was far from willowy, but at this moment, with this man, she felt strangely, uncharacteristically fragile.
“You scared of storms,
chère
?”
“No.” She swallowed.
“You're not scared of me?” His hands were moving up and down her arms, the gesture, which was meant to soothe, made her ache with the need to feel them everywhere.
“No.” She shook her head.
Emma was afraid of herself. Of this dizzying, hot way only this man had ever made her feel. Despite her little internal pep talk about rejection being no big deal, the truth was that while Richard's very public affair had wounded her pride, Gabe's taking off without so much as a good-bye kiss had been like an arrow shot into the center of her heart.
It had taken her a long time to get over that night; now, what she feared was risking her foolish heart again.
She lifted her hand, skimmed her fingers over his face. Even with that scar cutting across his cheekbone, it was beautiful, the face of a fallen angel which could have been washed off the ceiling of a cathedral.
“Should I be? Afraid of you?”
“Mais, non.”
He touched her in turn, his fingertips feeling like sparklers as they traced the line of her mouth, brushed her cheek, her temple, into her hair. “I'd never hurt you, Emma.”
But he would. Oh, he honestly wouldn't mean to. But she could see the heartache coming as clearly as the storm barreling toward them across the bayou.
As she felt herself drowning in the midnight blue of his eyes, Emma suspected that the pain could be well worth the risk.
Lightning forked across the sky, sparking inside her. The rumbling answer of thunder was echoed in Emma's own heart as she stood there, looking up at him, knowing that her wildly foolish heart was glowing, unguarded, in her eyes.
He framed her face with his hands. “I'm going to kiss you now,
chère.
” His deep voice was tender, yet roughened with arousal.
Emma had to remind herself to breathe as his mouth, slowly, inexorably, moved downward, toward hers.
Having never forgotten the last time they'd been together, she braced herself for the heat.

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