Hall, Jessica (28 page)

She couldn't feel a snap or a tie or anything to tug on.
"What did he do, sew me to it?"

Finally the
Gone with the Wind
float bumped over some
potholes and onto the street, and Sable looked down to see the escort of street
performers take position around the floating plantation home. They were dressed
like Confederate and Union soldiers, and marched in double lines while spinning
the rifles they carried.

"Hey, Scarlett!" a man in the crowd shouted. "Down
here!" He wore a mask shaped like a weeping clown. "Throw me
something!"

She plucked one of the bead strings from her forearm and tossed it
to the delighted man. As soon as he caught it, a dozen other voices called to
her and a flurry of hands stretched over the barricades.

"Throw me one!"

"Here, honey, right here!"

"I give a damn, beautiful!"

For a few minutes she concentrated on smiling and throwing her
beads to the crowd; then something jogged her arm and she dropped some of the
necklaces. The cinch strap caught her as she tried to bend over to get them at
the same time that two hands clamped on her hips.

"Don't move."

As soon as she heard his voice, Sable did the exact opposite of
what he said—or she tried to. The strap held her bound to the brace rods.
"Jean-Del. How did you know it was me?"

"I followed you from the cabin." He bent closer, putting
his mouth next to her right ear. "And I told you I was done chasing you,
Isabel."

Renewed anger flooded through her. "I don't need your help.
Your kind of help gets APBs put out on me."

"You need new lines, baby. No, what did Rhett say to her in
the movie? 'You need kissing, and often.'" He used his teeth on the curve
of her ear, biting down to almost the point of pain before kissing the stinging
spot. "'And by someone who knows how.'"

In front of her, people in masks and costumes shrieked and waved,
still calling for her to throw them something.

"Go on." J. D.'s low voice turned harsh. "At least
give
them
what they want."

She felt him press closer, and her hand trembled as she tossed out
several of the gaudy strings. She glanced over her shoulder, shocked to see
that he had donned a mask as well—black edged with gold, a
pirate's
mask. That and his black T-shirt and trousers made him almost invisible against
the black satin backdrop behind them. "What are you doing here?"

"'How fickle is woman.'" His breath touched the back of
her neck. "Why did you run this time? Decide you couldn't go through with
it? Finished using me?"

"I never used you." She twisted against the strap,
straining away from him. "I can take care of myself. I don't need anything
from you."

"Wrong." His hands pressed against the velvet folds of
her skirt, sliding down to her outer thighs. "You're just like her, you
know. 'You're like the thief who isn't the least bit sorry he stole, but is
terribly, terribly sorry he's going to jail.'"

"I'm not Scarlett O'Hara and I am not going to jail. I didn't
do anything wrong." If she got him angry enough, maybe he'd leave her
alone. "But you are. Why don't you run on home, now, before your mama
finds out you're trifling with swamp trash again?"

"Trifling?" He laughed, low and nasty. "Baby, I
don't trifle."

She thought of how he'd touched her back at the cottage, using and
tormenting her to get what he wanted. "If you want to get laid, you can go
pick up someone in the street," she said, making her voice cold as she
threw out another string.

"Why cat around when what I want is right here?" He
reached down and grabbed the back of her skirt hoop, lifting it until the cool
night air washed against the back of her thighs. "You want it as much as I
do. Is that why you ran away? Because you're afraid of this?"

"No." She bucked against his arm, and then went still as
he splayed a hand over her hip and pressed her bottom against the front of his
jeans—which were
open. All the blood in her body rushed in two directions—to her
face, and down between her thighs. "Don't do it, Jean-Del."

"If you hold still and throw your beads," he murmured
against her ear as he pushed his hand under the elastic of her panties,
"no one will see."

"You can't—" She looked around wildly, but the street
performers were watching the spectators, and the other performers on the float
were too busy laughing and tossing out beads to pay any attention to her. Then
she felt his hand yank at her panties, ripping the side seam. "Please. I'm
sorry. I'll do whatever you want."

"'You're such a child,'" he said, still quoting Clark
Gable. "You think that by saying, 'I'm sorry,' all the past can be
corrected.'"

"I'll come back with you."

"You'll come right here and right now." He dropped her
torn underwear, and it landed on her right foot. "And I'm going to make
you scream for me when you do."

She couldn't free herself—she couldn't even turn around. Hundreds
of people were staring straight at them. This was beyond decadent, beyond
insane, and yet she had never felt more terrified—or excited—in her life.

"That's it." He worked his fingers against her, parting
her folds and pressing them up into her softness. "You're wet, baby. Wet
as I am hard." He brought her right hand back behind her, and forced her
palm against the open zipper of his jeans. His erection nudged her fingers, and
she reflexively curled them around the swollen length of him.

A pair of teenage boys gawked up at her. The girl between them
yelled, "Throw me something, lady!"

She flung all of the strings in her free hand to the girl, making
the teens squeal with delight.

"Generous." J. D. pushed through the circle of her
fingers, nudging her legs apart with his knee. "What are you going to do
for the rest of the parade? Besides ride me?"

Sable couldn't believe he would go through with it, even when he
tugged her skirt back to better conceal what he was doing to her under it. Then
she felt the weight of him between her thighs, the full satiny dome of his
penis following the curve of her bottom, hunting until he seated himself
against the elliptical part of her that was already slick and pulsing and
aching to take him.

"J. D." Lights and colors and sound swirled around her
in a dizzy collage. "I can't do this."

"You will." He didn't try to enter her. Instead, he
stroked that silent mouth, gliding over it to nudge the hard knot of her clit
before drawing back to nest against her once more. When she tried to move to
accept him, he used his hands to hold her hips in place.

He wasn't making love to her. He was punishing her, torturing
her—and the whole world was watching him do it. "Please, J. D."

"Please... what? Stop? Go on?" She could feel the throb
of his heart beating in the rigid column, so hard it made goose bumps rise on the
delicate skin of her inner thighs. "Be more specific, baby. You never want
to talk to me—well, now you have to. Tell me you want this."

Would he stop if she said yes?
Maybe.
Would she scream if
he did?
Yes.
"I can't."

"So shy." He licked the tiny beads of sweat from the
back of her neck as he put his hand back under the skirt and cupped her from
the front, still stroking her
from behind. His fingertips spread her,
exposing more of her for quick, glancing prods. "No one will hear you but
me."

If he didn't do more soon, everyone in New Orleans would hear her
shriek. "I want you. I want you to do it. Just do it."

"I can make you come." He used a featherlight touch to
tease her, caressing her clit with a few strokes before easing them away.
"Like this."

She shook her head. People were screaming at her and she didn't
know what to do. Her face was burning up, and she was breathing so fast it
sounded like she was sobbing. "All of it. Please."

He shifted, angling himself against her now. "More. More of
me?"

"Yes." She jerked her hips, but he still controlled her
with his hands. "What else do you want? Do you want me to beg?"

"I want you to tell me what you want." He pushed against
her, insistent. "Tell me everything."

Tears of frustration spilled down her cheeks. "I don't know
what you want me to say."

"You know." He moved his mouth to the side of her
throat. Against it, he murmured, "Say, 'Give me your cock, J. D.'"

"I want you, Jean-Del."

"You're not listening." He breached her a scant inch,
just opening her enough to make her forget to breathe. "Say, 'I need you
to make me come, J. D.'"

Desperate, she dragged in air. "I need you, Jean-Del."

"Last chance." He pushed in another inch. "Say, 'I
want you to fuck me, J. D.'"

"No." She turned her head until her neck nearly kinked,
so she could see into the slits of his mask. What
they were doing was
erotic and dangerous, but it wasn't only lust. Gently she brushed her lips over
his. "I want you to love me, Jean-Delano. I want to feel you inside me,
loving me, I—" A cry jolted out of her as he thrust into her, hard and
fast.

Her vision blurred as one of the street performers came over to
the float. He was saying something, asking her something. Was she all right?
Did she need something?

"Beads," J. D. said against her ear.

"Beads," she blurted out, showing the performer her
empty hands. "I don't have any more... beads."

"Here." The soldier tossed up another packet of
necklaces and golden krewe coins. "Smile, honey— you're the prettiest girl
in the parade."

She couldn't breathe until the man returned to his position in the
line, and then her body clamped down involuntarily.

"No." J. D. used his hands to move her hips as he worked
his way in, past the convoluted, constricted tissues. "Don't you fight me
now."

The burning, stretching ache grew almost too much to bear, but he
didn't stop, even when her cry became a strangled whimper. It seemed to go on
for an eternity, and then she felt his thighs against hers and the coarse brush
of his body hair against her tense flesh.

A low groan rumbled from him as he held her impaled on him, not
moving except for his chest heaving against her back. "God
Almighty..."

Show tunes were blaring, the crowds shouting, the performers
dancing, but the slow restoration of the heat and need inside her made her
blind and deaf to everything but Jean-Delano—and he was shaking now, his
fingers dragging up and digging into her waist as he fought for another kind of
control. She
couldn't see him, couldn't draw his mouth to hers, couldn't
comfort him.

There was only one thing she could do—move.

Slowly Sable lifted herself, stretched up on the balls of her feet
until there was a small space between their bodies; then she lowered herself
again. He didn't try to stop her, and the motion eased a little of the tightness.
She tried it again, biting her Up. Relaxing allowed him to press deeper inside
her but the discomfort ebbed and a different kind of throb began.

"Do you know what you're doing?" His voice grated on the
words.

"No." She made a tiny circle with her hips, adjusting
their fit. "Do you like it?" He muttered something low and filthy in
French, and a strange laugh emerged from her throat as she tore open the bag
with shaking fingers and threw out more beads to the reaching hands beneath
them. "I thought so."

J. D.'s breath went ragged as he moved with her, sliding back by
gentle degrees as she lifted, and moving up into her as she came down again.
She felt herself go liquid around him, easing the way for his return. At the
same time, the pulsing ache intensified, spreading from the gliding friction
created by the moving union of their bodies, up into her belly and her breasts.
She felt smothered by the green velvet dress now, beads of sweat gathering in
the hollow of her breasts and under the confines of her wig.

He tightened his grip at her waist, still moving slowly.
"Does it still hurt?"

Breathless, she shook her head.

"Good." He reached up and took off the hat and the wig,
dropping them to the side before combing his fingers through her damp hair.
"Be better if you were under me."

"I can't wait that long," she whispered, bearing down on
him until he was lodged impossibly deep inside her. She looked down at the avid
faces, wondering how she looked to them. Then he put his arm around her waist
and she didn't care anymore. "I need you now."

"I'm here." And he was, his big frame cradling her as he
pushed into her body, filling her faster, stroking the ache that was now eating
her up alive. "I'll make it better, baby."

He did more than that—he made the Quarter and the tourists and the
city dwindle down to a distant hum as he loved her. Every memory that she had
carried inside her from their youthful affair paled as well. The boy she had
loved had teased and cherished her, but the man he had become gave her more, and
demanded the same.