French Quarter (6 page)

“I can’t wait, baby,” he murmured against her ear, dragging kisses down her neck. “Office is too far away.”

He pushed one strap of her dress off her shoulder, and she leaned her head back, wanting to make her sensitive skin totally accessible to him. His kisses sprinkled across her shoulder and down onto her chest until he freed her breast from the fabric concealing it. He licked at her beaded nipple, then suckled it, making her moan. Was anyone else around, anyone watching this? She didn’t know and hardly cared. All that existed were her and Jack. All that mattered was that she wanted him inside her, deep and long. All that mattered was relieving the needy ache between her thighs. All that mattered was fucking him.

Chapter 3

Still kissing her breast, Jack’s hands dropped to her hips, lower, inching her dress up. He had to get to her, had to have her, had to thrust his hungry cock deep inside her before he died of frustration. He leaned her back against the brick wall, found her round ass with his hands, all while he nibbled on her beautiful breast. She was wearing a thong and while he squeezed her ass in one hand, he used the other to pull the elastic from the center. He dug into the panties from behind to find her deliciously wet pussy, and then pushed two fingers up inside her. God, he loved the way her warm passage took his fingers.

She cried out and he moaned. She moved on his fingers, so warm and slick he could barely stand it. From the front, he ground the hard column of his lust against her soft, hungry cunt, his body working from need rather than decision. She rubbed herself against him just as urgently, thrilling him with her aggression. She got wetter and wetter, fucking his fingers, filling him with a gratification that came with getting her hot, keeping her hot.

He shifted the hand on her ass upward, all the way up into her hair, pushing it back, so he could see her face. “You drive me fuckin’ wild,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Unh!” she cried suddenly, pumping harder against his hand, her sobs of release echoing through the alley and filling him with a supreme satisfaction until they finally faded into the night. God, he’d made her come again, that fast.

“I need you, Jack,” she breathed afterward, kissing him as she talked. “I need you in me.”

Then her hands were at his belt, his zipper, fumbling, working fast, finally freeing him. He yanked hard on her thong and it tore free. She cried out again and he knew ecstasy was just a heartbeat away.

He thrust his cock into her warm, tight little hole and found heaven. “
Ca c’est bon,
” he breathed.
It’s so good.

It wasn’t as if Jack hadn’t been with a lot of women. He was about as far from a choir boy as you could get—he was a guy, after all, and he lived in a very hedonistic city. But he couldn’t remember a time he’d felt this desperate to have a woman, this needful, this crazy to get his cock inside her. And now that he was there, damn—it was like he’d just won the race, climbed the mountain, reached a place where he belonged.

He fucked her slowly at first, looking down into her big green eyes, whispering, “You’re so hot,
chere
. So wet for me.”

She looked back, her face weak with passion, seeming only able to whimper the word, “Yes.”

“I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you. Did you know you made me hard that day? So hard, baby.” He thrust deep into her warm pussy, to make her feel
exactly
how hard she made him. “You got me so stiff that day I had to get myself off, and while I did it, I imagined somethin’ just like this—me inside you, fuckin’ you so slow, so deep. But it’s even better than I was able to imagine, darlin’. So damn good.”

He tried to keep their sex slow, make it last, make her feel every inch of him sliding in and out, but his dirty talk had their desire reaching the same fever pitch as when he’d first plunged into her and before he knew it, she was crying out with each deep thrust, and he was matching her groans, and she was so warm and wet around his cock that he knew he wouldn’t last long. He pounded into her soft, slick cunt with all the strength he had, wanting to own her—
thrust
—wanting to make her scream—
thrust
—wanting to make her feel thoroughly well-fucked when they were through.

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?”