SEALs of Summer 2: A Military Romance Superbundle (64 page)

He was taken aback. Happy? He hadn’t thought about that feeling in a long time. He grinned. “With you this close to me? Ecstatic.”

She kissed him, gently, sweetly. He could taste salty tears on her lips. Emotion overpowered him like a rogue wave and he pulled her closer to keep from going under.

“Hey, none of dat. I am trying to digest my overcooked eggs,” Grann called down the hall.

“Talk about bad eggs,” Luke mumbled, pressing his forehead to Ysabeau’s.

“I have to go to work.” Ysabeau pulled away and gave his arm a gentle squeeze as if to say, “Later.”

At least that’s how he chose to interpret it. He’d fantasize about “later” all day long.

After Ysabeau left for the clinic and Grann mysteriously vanished, Luke got to work on the phone. He spent hours trying to drum up interest in Ysabeau’s clinical trial. If a few investors would take the bait, he might be able to leverage that interest toward other investors and maybe, just maybe save his ass. It was a long shot with a-million-to-one odds that had to work. For Ysabeau. For them.

That afternoon, as he showered and shaved, he started having major second thoughts about taking part in a Voodoo ceremony. What in the hell had possessed him to agree to it? He had to be out of his flipping mind.

He heard voices from the living room.
Ysabeau.
His heart did a little leap-frog jump and he hurried to tuck his shirt in. His palms were sweating and he was probably marching off to some pins stuck in his look-alike-doll-doom, but hell, he was excited to see her. He ran.

She was a vision in virginal white. The scarf tied around her head, the long apron-dress and the tennis shoes were all pure brightness. Not a speck of color. She looked like a Haitian priestess straight off a Hollywood set. This was no movie. It was real life, complete with the animal sacrifices, spirits, and who knew what else waited for him. A shiver of foreboding crept up his backbone.

Next to her were the gruesome priestess twins. Grann gave him the evil eye and Deolina with hands on her hips glared at him with undisguised loathing. One day he’d figure out why they hated him.

“Luke!” Ysabeau’s face lit up when she saw him. She opened her slender arms and came to him. “I missed you today. How’re you feeling?”

Holding her soft body against his, he stopped thinking about Voodoo and focused on how great she felt in his arms. The amazing way her breath softly whispered against his neck only confused things further. Want flushed through his system and suddenly he imagined untying her apron-dress. With his teeth. Followed by kissing the softness of her belly and licking the syrupy sweetness of her delectable skin.

“Ahem.” Grann cleared her throat. “Ready, Mr. Carter?”

This would have been a good time to say,
Hell no!

But Ysabeau linked her fingers with his and smiled. “I’m proud you are open to experience this part of my culture. We don’t let many foreigners see this sort of ceremony. Do you feel lucky?”

“Yeah. Lucky,” he said as they followed the priestesses to the car. “Because I’m with you.”

Her eyes were heavy with feeling when she rose up on her toes and kissed him softly on the lips. “Good answer, Luke Carter.”

“I’ve got plenty of those.” He ran his thumb across the fullness of her lip. “Go ahead. Ask me something else.”

“You two coming?” Deolina called from the driveway. “We don’ wanna keep dem spirits waiting.”

She pulled him close and whispered in his ear, “Thank you, sweet man. For doing this for me.”

He winked, feeling mighty brave for a man on his way to meet his doom.

Ysabeau drove. Grann sat in the front seat and droned on in words Luke couldn’t understand. Deolina sat next to him in the tight backseat and closed her eyes, seemingly asleep. Luke did a few shoulder rolls trying to shrug off the heaviness that had settled between his shoulder blades.

“She is giving instructions about the ceremony,” Ysabeau said to his reflection in her rearview mirror.

He leaned forward, poking his head between the two seats, “Anything I should know?”

“I’ll fill you in when we get there. Don’t worry yourself, Luke.”

“Who’s worried?” He sat back and looked out the window.

After a fifteen-minute ride in close quarters, Ysabeau turned into a public parking lot and pulled into a spot. “We’re here.”

Luke studied the white two-story building, especially the mural bursting with color that spread across a long wall. In one corner of the painting, a group of young people were bent and toiling in fields. Some crying, most dying. Skulls poked out of the ground like sprouting cabbage. Military guards stood by, bayonets in hand, boredom on their faces. Black crows flew overhead. Crosses, candles, and other religious symbols were sprinkled throughout the graphic scene. The whole thing gave him the creeps.

“What is this place?” Luke said, opening the door for Ysabeau.

“We call it the Recreation Centre.”

“You practice Voodoo in a rec center?” Luke shook his head, “Man, I’m not in Kansas anymore.” As if to prove the point, a hairless three-legged dog ran in front of the car.

Deolina woke up and lumbered out of the car like a post-hibernating bear until Gochi showed up out of nowhere and took Gran’s arm. Deolina came alive quickly. With narrowed eyes, she rushed forward and took Gochi’s other arm. Gochi resembled a chew-toy in the middle of two pit bulls.

“Poor guy,” Luke mumbled.

A whole bunch of flying Kreyòl ensued and he was completely lost.

“Want to translate?” Luke whispered to Ysabeau.

She grimaced. “Not really. It’s not appropriate language for two women. Especially mature Voodoo priestesses.”

“Ah. Big money words.”

“When they were little girls, Grann and Deo were best friends until something drove them apart.”

“A man, you mean?”

“My grandfather.”

Luke cocked his eyebrow. Then he looked at the poor old dude being yanked from side to side by two old broads and took pity on him. “Let’s break this up.”

“Gran! Deo! It’s time to go. The sun will be setting soon,” Ysabeau said. “Come, Luke, let us eat.”

“Eat?” Luke asked. “At a time like this?”

“Sure. I’m starved, aren’t you?”

Surprisingly, he was. Ysabeau lead him toward the blacktop at the back of the building, where the carcass of a goat roasted on a large spit. The three-legged mutt had beaten them there, sitting awkwardly on his haunches, chewing on a chunk of discarded meat. A group of small girls, each sporting numerous braids popping out from their scalps, sat a few feet away on the sidewalk playing a game of jacks. A gang of teenaged boys kicked a can across the grass, shooting goals between two spindly trees.

“Ah, just like home,” Luke said. Sort of. If you didn’t count the Voodoo. “It smells good. Is it for us?”

“Yes. It’s the offering.”

“What?” His voice cracked. “I’m not eating an animal sacrifice.”

“Why not?” she smiled, caressing his check with the back of her hand. “It tastes like chicken.”

By the sparkle in her eyes, he knew she was pulling his leg. They loaded up their plastic plates with goat, fruit, and vegetables and carried them to an empty picnic table. A few minutes later the tables were filled with people dressed in white.

“Who are all these people?” Luke asked.

“Serviteurs. Many practioners follow Grann and Deolina. They are quite famous Vodun.”

“Voodoo Priestesses, right?”

“Exactly. Those ladies over there?” She pointed to a group hanging out around Gran. “They are
hounsi
, or serving ladies, they assist with the rituals. All of us together are the
hounfo
, what you might call the parish in another church.”

He swallowed the meat down hard. “What exactly am I supposed to do?”

She smiled. “Dance.”

“That’s it?” He rubbed the shell of her ear with his finger. “Wait, do I have to dance all by myself? In front of everyone?”

“Everyone dances. We can dance together if you like.” She gazed at him in a way that said she was thinking about their first dance in the kitchen. It was the moment he started to fall hard for a brown-eyed Haitian girl.

There was a punch of heat in his stomach. He rested his forehead on hers and stared into those unbelievable eyes. “I like dancing with you. If that’s all I have to do, I can Voodoo all day long.”

“Let us finish our meal so we have plenty of time to get ready.” She ripped a piece of meat off the bone with her teeth. “Yum, not as good as Gochi’s Mahi-Mahi, but this goat is delicious. Do you like it?”

He did. He was starting to think that Voodoo might not be so bad after all.

‡

D
rums beat inside
the building—slow, strong, steady. Unlike Luke’s heart. The nervous chatter ended abruptly and the faces around him filled with anticipation. People got up from the picnic tables and formed a line behind Grann and Deolina. The assistants walked directly behind the priestesses. Ysabeau held Luke’s hand and brought him to the middle of the group behind the last hounsi. The rest of the hounfo followed behind them. Gochi, Ysabeau said, would bring up the rear. Tico hadn’t shown up for the ceremony.

A murmur in the crowd swelled until everyone except Luke chanted in Kreyòl. Up ahead, Grann shook something to the beat of the drums.

“The
Ason
,” Ysabeau explained, “it’s a magic rattle to call the spirits.”

The three-legged mutt took off the moment the drums began. Luke didn’t blame him. He felt like running away with his tail between his legs too. Instead, he straightened his back and made his feet plod along to the beat of the drums and the rattle of the Ason.

The line stopped moving, bottlenecking at the entrance to the Recreation Center.

“What’s happening?” Luke asked, rising up on his toes to see.

“Deolina is making the
verve
,” Ysabeau said softly. “It’s a ceremonial drawing in flour. Oh look, she’s drawing Legba, the old man gatekeeper between the earthly and spiritual worlds.”

“Looks like a phallus from here,” Luke joked.

“Exactly. Legba is the father of reproduction.”

He had no idea why Deolina would be drawing the father of reproduction on the sidewalk. Would the rest of this event would be just as confusing? He wanted to slink around the back of the building and hide out with the three-legged dog.

“We’re going in,” Ysabeau said, taking his arm.

Inside the large Rec Hall, everyone crowded around a pole that held up a rough-looking roof in what resembled a quickly-thrown-together hut.

“The pole is called
Poto Mitan
—the center of the universe,” Ysabeau said softly.

Someone turned up the volume on the drums. The pounding reverberated through the hall, shook the walls and windows and pulsed through the linoleum under the soles of his shoes. Chanting loudly, people began dancing around the pole, like planets circling the center of the universe. So much noise. Luke plugged his ears with his fingers, but could still hear Gran’s voice, strong and commanding over the beat.

He had not a clue what was going on. Ysabeau’s eyes were closed and she swayed to the beat of the drums. As if sensing him watching her, she opened her eyes and wiggled a finger at him to join her.

“I don’t know this dance,” Luke yelled. “Maybe I should just watch.”

Her body moved, rhythmically, sensually. Shoulders rolled. Breasts rose. Hips made slow circles. Her eyes were hooded and her lips parted. Seduction at its finest. When she wiggled her finger again, he came to her. With half-opened eyes, she placed her hands on his hips and rocked him, side to side, hips, knees sliding and bumping.

The drums cranked up even louder. Electricity crackled in the air while the dancers gyrated. Heat flowed from every pore. Moans joined the music. Bodies banged together frantically, otherworldly sexual tension begging for release. Ysabeau was pressed against him, her hips moving faster and faster. Her hands travelled south until she was gripping his ass. She moved against him, setting his imagination on fire.

“Kiss me,” she mouthed.

He obeyed. She licked his lips, playing with him, driving him to the brink. She ran her hand down him and cupped his erection.

“Ysabeau,” he groaned.

Her hand moved on his pants, pressing, squeezing, and driving him insane. White lights shot through his brain. His lips found hers again. Thrusting his tongue into her mouth, he kept up with her rhythm, her incredible dance. The noise, the dancing, the seduction pounded through his brain until he couldn’t make sense of any of it. He held onto her, a buoy in a churning, wild sea. His hands were everywhere, touching her, gripping, rubbing. Her hands remained where they were, taking him to heights he hadn’t experienced in years. Panting, he grabbed her wrist. If she didn’t stop this, he’d explode right here in a room full of people.

She turned around. Ignoring the frantic jungle beat, she pressed her soft body against his hardness and rocked. Slowly, excruciatingly, slowly. He thought he was going to die. He cupped her breasts and hung on as she seduced him to desperation.

“I want you. So damned much.” He spun her around to face her and crushed her lips with his own.