Sandra Hill - [Jinx 03] (13 page)

She sighed.

He smiled.

Celine had that out-of-body feeling, as if she were standing above, watching, not a real participant. It was odd, really. She and John didn’t even like each other, but here they were, about to have wild monkey sex, and that’s what it would be, too, no doubt about that. In that blip of a second while her mind had wandered, John was down on his knees, and he’d managed to slip off her shoes, socks, and jeans, slicker than a cat burglar. A remarkable feat when you considered that she usually had to lie down to get into this particular pair of jeans.

“Spread, baby.”

She did, a little bit.

And now . . .
oh, my God! . . .
he was kissing his way up her legs, slowly, instep to knee to thigh, bypassing her bikini-brief clad groin, then down the other side. Before she could say, “Do that again,” he was behind her, doing strange things to the back of her knees . . . licking, blowing, nipping, kissing. Over and over ’til her knees started to buckle. A gurgling, incoherent sound came from her mouth.

Chuckling, he rose and yanked her T-shirt up and over her head. Then he stepped back and studied her body.

Her underwear was nothing fancy. Just white silk with an edge of lace. But he looked at her as if she were a Victoria’s Secret model.

Her bra and panties joined her other clothes on the ground under his deft fingers. He let the backs of his fingers brush over her breasts ’til the nipples pearled, then he stepped back again. “I want to make love to you so bad my bones hurt. If I touch you again, I won’t be able to stop.” He tilted his head in question at her.

She tried to laugh, but it came out a gurgle. “John, I think we crossed that line back with the slow dancing.”

The smile he gave her then was so sexy it was her bones that ached.

“Undress me,” he urged.

Oh, boy!
“I’m not sure I can maintain my composure that long.”

She hadn’t realized that she’d spoken aloud ’til he said, “Oh, darlin’, composure is the last thing I want from you.”

With a lack of inhibition she’d never shown before, Celine removed John’s clothing in the same way he had hers, starting at the bottom, kissing his legs, even the back of his knees, encouraged by soft compliments and words of advice. By the time she’d removed his boxer briefs, his erection was something to behold, and she told him so.

Laughing with pure delight, he fell back onto the blanket, pulling her with him. Then he rolled so that she was under him. “Are you as excited as I am?”

“I don’t know. Let me check.” She pretended to be glancing down at his body.

That was the last time she joked for a while.

She reached up to caress his chest, and he swatted her hands away, instead arranging her arms above her head. “Not yet. Let me go first.”

Any notion she’d had earlier of an out-of-body experience evaporated then. She’d already accepted that John LeDeux kissing her had been quite an experience. John LeDeux suckling her breasts was beyond bliss. But John LeDeux going down on her was a Holy Moly!-screaming-hell-pounding-body-arching-two-orgasm experience.

“Are you ready, sweetheart?”

Her eyes shot open from where she lay splatted out like a spread-eagled pancake. “For what?”

“The main event, baby. The fuckin’ main event.”

Her eyes probably rolled back in her head. She hoped she wasn’t drooling. She for sure was having trouble concentrating through the erotic haze that surrounded her. Did he just use the F-word to her? During foreplay? Did she care?

But then he knelt between her legs, slipped on a condom, and pulled her up and on him. On . . .
him
! Celine was being bombarded with so many sensations, she felt as if she was in the midst of an erotic whirlpool. Totally out of control.

“Don’t move,” she ordered him as he filled her and then some. “I need to concentrate.”

“Concentrate all you want.”

He didn’t exactly move. But the brute did flex inside her.

And Big O number four slam-dunked through her, or was it five?

He started slow by rocking her. Then he pushed her onto her back again and began long, long, long strokes.

Celine had read a sex study a few years ago that said in the average sexual encounter the man thrusts one hundred and ten strokes. She’d pooh-poohed the idea at the time as mere male delusion, but now she wasn’t so sure.

He stopped suddenly, embedded in her farther than any man had ever been. “Tell me how you feel,” he husked out. “Tell me what you like.”

She put both hands to her hot cheeks. She’d never been into verbal sex play, but . . . but suddenly the idea excited her . . . a lot.

“C’mon. Show your wild side.”

Like I have a wild side!
“Okay,” she agreed, wetting her lips nervously. “I like . . . I like how you fill me so much I stretch.”

He put a forefinger under her chin and lifted so that she was looking at him. As a reward for her honesty, he drew back, then slammed into her.

She gasped and rippled around him.

“I like the way you clasp me so tightly,” he told her.

She squirmed from side to side to show how much she appreciated his compliment. To her immense satisfaction, he trembled with the tight rein he was attempting to hold on his arousal. When he got himself under control, he said, “Continue.”

“I like your stamina.”

He choked out a laugh. “I’m not feeling much stamina right now.”

“Really? Believe me, your staying power is phenomenal. I haven’t had that many experiences, but I’ve never had sex last this long.”

“Me neither.”

Was he trying to say that they made a good combination? Or they were a fluke? Or maybe he just hadn’t had sex for a while. But, no, he would probably not be able to hold out very long in that case. She had no chance to ask those questions because John said, “Brace yourself, Celine,” and they were off to the races. Or rather the finish line.

Soon John strained his shoulders back, the cords standing out on his neck, and he released a long, loud masculine howl of satisfaction. She joined him in the end.

Sated, he fell asleep on her, his face nuzzling her neck, his penis still half-erect inside of her.

She was stunned. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. The amazing sex had to be an anomaly. She wasn’t sure what it meant, if anything, and her brain was too fuzzy, her body too exhausted, to think right then. One thing was certain, and it was not good: she was starting to care for the lout.

John’s weight was heavy on her, but it was a pleasant heaviness. She could take it . . . for a short time.

There was something important she needed to discuss with John. They were not going to engage in an affair. This was a one-time thing. No regrets, but no return events, either. She would wake him in a minute and set the record straight.

But first . . . she fell asleep.

Chapter
12

John was so embarrassed.

He’d never conked out on a woman after sex before. But Celine Arseneaux had knocked him for a loop, in more ways than one. Every cell in his body felt satisfied. The endorphins in his body must have gone haywire, but he was supremely relaxed now. Like a wet noodle.

Well, not entirely relaxed or not entirely a wet noodle, he realized in amazement as his dick sort of raised its head . . . the dick that was still inside Celine, for the love of
Dieu!
. . . and gave him a silent high five, with the message, “Rev up the engine, big boy! Time for the next lap.”

Carefully, he raised his eyelids to see if Celine was laughing at him for falling asleep . . . or too crushed by his weight to speak. But, no, she was thank-you-God asleep.

He smiled to himself, inordinately pleased that he could have knocked her out like this. Forget about the fact that he had been knocked out, too.

Man, I am good!
With that brain-dead thought in mind, he let Mr. Happy go to town. Just a twitch and some swelling . . . damn, he loved the swelling.

Celine’s eyes shot open, disoriented at first. But it didn’t take long for her to realize one of her least favorite men was on top of her with his cock practically up to her tonsils, ready to party again.

It was like a slideshow, watching the changing expressions on her face. First, surprise . . . to see him. Then, shock . . . at what she had just done . . . done well, if he did say so himself. Then, embarrassment . . . at what she had just done. Pretty soon she would be phasing into the “What was I thinking?” mode. Preempting her, he leaned down and kissed her lightly on the lips.
Holy shit! I don’t want to be around when she gets a look at her kiss-swollen lips. Or the bite mark on her shoulder. Or the fingerprints on her breasts.

“You were amazing,” he told her.

She looked doubtful. “You’re the one who’s amazing.”

He liked that; so he wiggled his hips a little, just to show her he still had a little more “amazing” on tap.

Her eyes widened and she gulped. “Listen, John, this was great, but we can’t—”

“You have the neatest breasts,” he remarked. “They’re all puffy areolas with hardly any nipples showing . . . until you get excited, then they rise like small, pink peas.” He started to play with her nipples to demonstrate.

A full-body shiver ripped through her, and he could swear he saw the goose bumps rising in slow motion. Shaking her head to clear it . . . not a good thing, according to his man dictionary . . . she tried again, “Seriously, John, I don’t have the strength to do this again.”

“That’s all right, baby. Just lie back and let me do you
.” Man’s eternal last words! Adam probably said it to Eve a time or two.

“You said the same thing last time.”

“Okay, if you insist.” He rolled over on his back, holding onto her waist so he didn’t slip out. By now, his half-hard-on was full-blown and anchoring Celine to his body by nicely straddling his hips. She sat up straighter, realized the position she was in, then groaned with another full-body shiver which even he felt, inside. Shiver-sex, that was a new one for him.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I’m happy. We are good together, Celine. Really good.”

“That doesn’t mean . . . yikes! What are you doing?”

He was strumming her in a really important place . . . important for her, anyway. And him, too, truth to tell. “Wanna play a game, darlin’?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Mais oui, chère.”

“And that game would be?”

“Cajun cowgirl?”

“I can pretty much guess who the cowgirl would be in this game. What would you be?”

“The horse, of course.”

At one point, Celine, to her later embarrassment, might have said, “Giddiup!”

At another point, John, with no embarrassment, might have said, “How do you like my saddle?”

They were both laughing by then.

And then they were not laughing . . . for a long time.

Later . . . much later . . . as Celine slept with her face against his chest and his arms around her, he could swear he heard thunder in the distance. Hmmmm, the weather forecast hadn’t called for rain.

An alarming thought occurred to him. It couldn’t be . . . no, it couldn’t be Tante Lulu’s thunderbolt of love. No way! Impossible! He was too young . . . not ready. He and Celine were practically enemies.

The strangest laughter echoed in his head then, and he had a really creepy feeling it was St. Jude.

By 8 A.M. the next morning, they had a quick washup in the stream, a not so quick dirty swim, a quick pot of coffee, and a quick test to see how much weight the folding table in the kitchen tent could take. Who knew you could do that with cane syrup!

The rest of the Pirate Project team should be here any minute.

As a result, Celine was sitting sedately before the computer, uploading all the digital pictures she’d taken the day before.

John was sedately reading the manual for the magnetometer which had been acting up.

“Don’t give me any of your looks when they get back,” she ordered. “I don’t want anyone to know about . . . you know.”

“What look? I don’t have a look.”

“Hah! You have a look all right. And it goes without saying, you won’t be discussing . . . you know.”

“No, I don’t know. Me, I’m just a dumb ol’ Cajun. Do you mean the fact that we made love four times . . . five, if you count your attacking me when I was pretending to be asleep. Man, you were on me like a hobo on a hot dog. Or . . . ” He drew his lips in thoughtfully. “Ah, now I know. You mean your thirteen orgasms.”

“Oh, oh, oh . . . ” she sputtered. “I never attacked you.”

He arched his brows at her.

“And I never had that many . . . oh, what’s the use!”

He was outright laughing at her now.

She threw a notebook at him.

He ducked and said, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. One would think you were trying to provoke me to toss you over my shoulder and have a little caveman sex with you.”

“Caveman sex? What the hell is caveman sex? No, don’t tell me. Listen, you idiot, last night was great, but—”

“This morning was great, too.”

“—but my brain freeze is over. No. More. Sex. Is that understood?”

“What? You don’t want a little lagniappe later . . . a matinee, maybe?”

“Get real! Read my lips, you—”

“Very nice lips, too, I must say. Yep, you’ve got a hootchie mama mouth.”

She growled. “No. More. Sex.”

“Define sex.”

“Aaarrgh!” She pulled at her own hair.

“Don’t worry, hon. I’m out of condoms anyhow. Of course, I could always ask Tante Lulu for some. Believe it or not, she carries them in her tote bag . . . for emergencies, she says. Do you think this is an emergency?”

“Don’t you dare! You are not taking this seriously.”

“Yeah, I am. To tell the truth, I agree. We are not a couple. We never will be. You are high maintenance and not just because you have a kid. I suspect that affairs aren’t your idea of a relationship. I’m too young for responsibility. End of story.”

She nodded, though, perversely, now she was disappointed. “We had to know from the get-go that this train wreck of an attraction between us was doomed.”

“Easy to say, sugar, but the train has already left the station. Five times.”

“Yoo hoo!” someone yelled.

They both looked over to the stream where two pirogues pulled up, one carrying Adam and Tante Lulu, the other carrying Caleb and René. No Brenda.

They got up and walked toward the stream.

“Brenda got morning sickness real bad and went back home. René come to take her place, temporary like,” Tante Lulu said, even as she was bending over to pick up a bag of greens. The sight of her little butt in red stretch jeans was something to behold, especially when it was topped by a scooped neck shirt that had the logo, “Born to be Wild.” The woman must be registered at Kids Klothes.

Caleb and Adam were “beaching” the two pirogues, and René, cursing under his breath, had just picked up five grocery bags full of Tante Lulu’s supplies. Then the four of them glanced up at her and John. As one, their jaws dropped.

Tante Lulu was the first to speak. “Hot diggety damn! You two are cuter’n speckled pups with all those bug bites. But, Lordy, Lordy, how’d yer mouths get so bit up?”

Adam grinned. “If I had known there was going to be a party, I would have stayed behind.”

René was shaking his head at John and laughing. “I am so gonna enjoy your pain as you get pushed and shoved down that thunderbolt road.” He rolled his eyes toward Tante Lulu in some meaningful way.

“Guess yer gonna hafta call off the engagement,” Tante Lulu said to her.

Oh, God! What is it they say about lies coming back to bite you in the butt?

“No, no, no,” John protested. “No thunderbolts. We’re just . . . friends.”

“Friends with benefits?” Adam inquired in his usual oily manner.

“Lots of benefits,” René agreed.

All Caleb said was, “Hoo-yah!”

“I cain’t wait to call Luc and Remy and Charmaine. Payback is gonna be so sweet, little brother.” René was already pulling out a satellite phone.

“I don’t know what you all mean,” Celine tried to say.

But John cut her off. “Chill, Celine. It’s best to ignore them.”

With feet dragging, she followed Tante Lulu up to the food tent and asked, “Do you have a mirror?”

Without speaking, the old lady dug into a huge tote bag and handed her a small cosmetic mirror.

It took only one glance in the mirror for Celine to see what everyone else had seen, and this was only her face and neck. Her lips were pink and puffy. There were whisker burns everywhere. God only knew what she would discover under her shirt and pants.

She handed the mirror back to Tante Lulu, then stomped out to confront John. He was talking to his brother. Right off, she shoved him in the chest. “You rat! Why didn’t you tell me how I looked?”

He studied her for an extended moment, head to toe. “Ah, well, me, I think you look great.” Then he had the nerve to wink at her.

She shoved him again, then warned, “You are so screwed.” She immediately regretted her choice of words, but it was too late.

John smiled at her and said in an undertone, for her ears only, “And very well, thank you very much.”

Celine flung her hands out with disgust, spun on her heels, about to go to the equipment tent to prepare the camera and tape recorder for today’s activities.

“Do you think she’s upset with me?” John asked his brother, who was laughing like a stupid hyena.

Meanwhile Tante Lulu, who was cooking up a batch of couche-couche, a form of Cajun fried cornmeal, for breakfast, stepped outside and yelled, “Holy catfish! What happened to all the cane syrup?”

At first, there was silence, then everyone turned to look at her and John.

Did life get any better than this?

Tante Lulu was alone, all the others having gone to the work site. Everything was going according to plan. If she had her druthers, there would be a wedding before Christmas.

When they’d returned this morning to the project site, she’d been delighted to see that Tee-John and Celine had made a love connection. She could practically see the thunderbolts snapping between the two of them.

Deep in thought, she stirred the pot of spicy red beans and rice on the camp stove, which she would add to white rice at the last minute. The red beans and rice, a recipe of her mother’s, had been a traditional Monday morning meal on the bayou because Monday was wash day, and this particular dish could cook unattended all day. Plus, it utilized the leftover ham bone from Sunday’s dinner. No one ever said the Cajuns weren’t practical.

Would her mother approve of the way she’d lived her life? Not many people knew it, but Louise Rivard had once been engaged to a young soldier from Lafayette . . . Phillipe Prudhomme. He died on D-Day on a Normandy beach. Oh, how she had loved that handsome brown-eyed boy!

Her mother had urged her to move on after a year or two of mourning, but her life had taken a different path, especially after Adèle married Valcour LeDeux, bore him three sons, then died when she was barely twenty-five. Tante Lulu had stepped in to help care for the children and shield them from their alcoholic father.

Yes, a different life path, but no regrets.

She checked the cooler then. It held six big muffulettas, a New Orleans version of the Italian sub. She’d prepared them early this morning, before dawn. They were best served at room temperature, but she would wait to take them out when she saw the team returning from upstream. It was only eleven o’clock now. The key to a good muffuletta was the olive salad dressing which she would let everyone put on themselves, to avoid the crisp bread getting soggy.

Having a little time to rest, she sat on a folding lawn chair and sipped at a mug of strong chicory coffee. The caffeine would probably keep her up tonight, but that didn’t matter. When you were two years older than dirt, there would be plenty of time for sleeping way too soon . . . the eternal sleep.

This would be one of her last big projects, she reckoned. Not the Pirate Project, though that would be fun enough. No, it was the Tee-John Project. She had to get him settled before she went to her final rest.

Celine Arseneaux wasn’t the one she would have chosen for Tee-John. All along she had thought the rascal would one day marry a really beautiful woman. Oh, Celine was pretty enough, just not flashy. But that was okay. Tante Lulu was more bothered by her uptightness. The girl needed to loosen up. And she needed to flesh out her Cajun roots, add a little
joie de vivre
to her blood. Then, too, there was the fact that she was already a mother, not what Tante Lulu would have expected for her wild boy . . . becoming an instant father.

But then, if Celine was the one St. Jude had picked for her nephew, well, there was no arguing with
that.