The Red-Hot Cajun (11 page)

“I was afraid you were going to tell everyone how... uh, inept I was.”

And I was afraid you were going to tell everyone how inept I was.
“That’s old history, Val,” he said magnanimously. Meanwhile Rene was giving himself a mental high five.

“You don’t strike me as the type of guy who stands around twiddling his thumbs when a reasonably attractive woman does everything but shout, ‘Come and get me.’“

“Number one, I can’t believe I am standing here carrying on a conversation with a mostly naked woman.”

“So, take your pants off.”

Un-be-freak in’-liev-able!
“Val!” he said, sounding prissier than she ever had. “I am not taking my pants off.”
I
hope.
“Number two, ‘reasonably attractive’ doesn’t begin to describe just how hot you are.”

She smiled. “Really? No one has ever called me hot before. Thank you. Have I told you that I haven’t had sex in two years?”

He groaned at the reminder. There wasn’t a guy in the world who wouldn’t consider that a challenge.

“Number three, I am not standing around twiddling my thumbs.”
Although there are a few body parts I
wouldn’t mind twiddling on you.

“Are we really going to discuss this to death, Rene”?”

“No, we aren’t. You are going to get up, put the shirt back on, and go back to bed with Tante Lulu.

Tomorrow you will wake up and thank the stars that you hadn’t made the biggest mistake of your life.”
I oughta get a medal for this.

“Your aunt is snoring like a chain saw in there. Must be all the wine she drank. I’ll never be able to sleep.”

“Well, you can’t sleep here.”
Although I would really, really, really like you to sleep here.

She smiled again, and he knew it wasn’t sleep she had in mind. That made two of them.

“Listen, if you’re thinking I’m an acceptable bed partner just because you’ve discovered I have a few college credits, forget about it.”

“Well, yeah. There is that.”

Snoots
‘r’
Us. At least you’re honest about it.
“I’m no more respectable than I was last week. I am a low-down, crude Cajun.”

“I hope so,” she said with another smile.

She is pushing my buttons today, big-time. If she keeps it up, I won’t be able to resist.
“So you’re slumming?”
Like I really care!

“I wouldn’t use that word. Look, I’m going to be gone tomorrow. I haven’t had sex in two years.

You’re suddenly not as repulsive as you’ve been in the past.”

You are a piece of work , Ms Breaux.
“Should I be flattered or insulted?” he asked. She didn’t even know or care enough to toss him a few scraps of false compliments, like “You are so irresistible, I’ve got to have you.”

She shrugged, which really did interesting things to her breasts. “Guys do it all the time.”

“Not me,” he lied. In truth, he had had a few one-night stands over the years. At the skeptical arch of her eyebrows, he added, “Not anymore.”

“Grown up, have you?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Okay, how about a little cuddling then?”

He laughed. “You’ve gotta be kidding. I’m thirty-five years old. I do not cuddle with naked women.”
I’d
like to give it a shot, though. No, I wouldn’t. Yes, I would. Hey, Jude, where are you?

As silver is tried by the fire and gold by the hearth, thus the Lord trieth your heart... and libido,
he heard in his head.

Is that from the Bible?
he asked.

Dost thou honestly believe the word
libido
is in the Bible?

He was going freakin’ nuts.

“What
do
you do with naked women?” Val inquired.

He could have wept then at the sheer naiveté of her question. With a sigh of surrender, he tossed the T-shirt at her. She cocked her head to the side, clearly surprised and a little embarrassed at what she presumed was a final rebuff.

“Just put the damn T-shirt on, and then, don’t move.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going to cuddle, dammit... sort of.”

“Sort of?” She sat up and pulled the shirt on over her head, emerging with a grin on her face. “Is that a Cajun thing? Cuddling, Cajun style?”

“No,
chère.
Cuddling my style.”

Start your engine, honey, we’re off to the races .
. .

What was she thinking?

She wasn’t thinking was the answer, and for once in her life, it felt good.

Valerie had never acted so brazen, ever. And she wasn’t drunk, or even slightly drunk, either. She was just so tired of doing the right thing. A childhood of conforming to her mother’s view of what good girls did and did not do. An adulthood of following all the rules on her path to success. Image, image, image.

Well, enough!

For once Valerie wanted to act impulsively. Throw caution to the wind. Do what felt good. Truth to tell, she’d been attracted to Rene for a long time, despite how she’d tried to convince herself otherwise.

What she’d hated was that he didn’t reciprocate her feelings.

But now she was pretty sure he wanted her.

It had been two long years.

She was ready... more than ready.

Her motor was running.

It was only one night, after all.

Let the good times roll, as the Cajuns were wont to say.

But oh my God! What was that dangling from Rene’s fingertips as he returned from the cabin? It was shocking pink and it sure as heck wasn’t a condom.

He came back inside the net tent and twirled the velvet handcuff around a raised forefinger. Then he flashed her a wicked grin.

“I thought you went for condoms,” she choked out.

“No need for condoms. We aren’t going to have sex, exactly.”

He knelt down beside her and secured a cuff around her wrist.

“What does that mean,
exactly?
Is this a Bill Clinton kind of terminology?”

He laughed. “You could say that. Are you game?”

“For what?”

“Near-sex?”

She laughed then, too.
“Is
this a game?” She was withholding her other wrist from the handcuff.

“For sure.”

“Do you play this game often?”

“Never played before.”

“You are such a liar.”

He made a sign of the cross over his heart. “Never had the inclination or the need before. But you give me ideas, sweetheart.”

Oooh, I like the sound of that. If he’s thinking what I’m thinking...
“What kind of ideas?”

“Tsk -tsk -tsk .
Telling you would spoil the fun.”

While she’d been talking, Rene had somehow managed to wrap the handcuffs around a porch post and back, clicking them onto her other wrist. She was still lying down, but now her arms were above her head.

He rearranged the netting so there were no gaps at the floor.

He must have noticed the sudden fear in her eyes because he kissed her softly on the cheek and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll release you the instant you ask me to.”

“Why did you tell me to put the shirt back on if you had these perverted games in mind?”

“Who says they’re perverted?”

“It seems a little... um, childish.”

“Hah! You are about to find out how the big boys play.”

He lay down beside her then, propped up on his left side, on an elbow. Looking at her, he smiled slowly. “Are you as excited as I am?”

“No one could be as excited as I am,” she admitted.

“Good.”

He cupped her chin with his right hand and rasped a thumb over her lips. Back and forth. Several times.

“How do you feel about deep, wet kisses?” His voice was husky now, which made Valerie feel a bit less embarrassed about her brazen move on him and her ensuing overexcitement. Clearly, he was as turned on as she was.

“I’m not sure. Maybe I need a sample.”

He chuckled and pressed his lips to hers. Softly at first—a gentle brushing back and forth as he sought the perfect fit. When he found the right alignment, he deepened the kiss.

“Open,” he murmured against her mouth.

She did. And, oh my gracious, just that one-word request made her melt. And the kiss became something altogether different. Because her hands were restrained and could not touch him . . . because he touched her only lightly at the chin... all of her attention was focused on the kiss. For what seemed like forever, he caressed her with his mouth, he nibbled and nipped with his teeth, he licked and laved with his tongue until finally he plunged inside her mouth. By then, she was moaning for just that, and more.

He moaned, too. She could swear he did. And that made her melt even more.

When he raised his head after a really long time and gazed down at her, she saw that his lips were as swollen as hers, and his eyes were half-lidded with arousal. He leaned down and pressed his mouth against her ear, whispering, “I love kissing you.” His breath against the sensitive whorls of her ears, as well as his words, were intensely erotic. Then he dipped the tip of his wet tongue into her ear, and she arched her hips off the floor in reaction. There appeared to be an invisible thread connecting her inner ear to her breasts and that center of her female folds.
Oh.
..
my... goodness! Oh... my... goodness!
She wasn’t sure if she moaned those words in her head or aloud.

“Uh-uh-uh,” Rene cautioned, pressing a hand against her belly, pushing her back down. He was orchestrating this sex game, play by play. No co-conducting.

“What do you want me to do now?” he asked.

“Touch me,” she said without hesitation.

He smiled. “Where?”

“Everywhere.”

“Oh, baby! Right answer.” And he proceeded to do just that. Whisking his hand over her T-shirt, he traced a path over her breast, the curve of her waist, her flat stomach, the outside of her leg all the way to the ankle, then back up the other side. Carefully he avoided touching her where she most wanted to be touched.

“Lift my shirt,” she said.

“Not yet.”

“Release my hands, then. I want to touch you.”

He made a low sound in his throat that was a combination laugh and gurgle. “Not yet.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“There’s an explanation for all this?”

“Mais, oui!”

He got up off his elbow, knelt astride her body, then sat back on his haunches. His eyes held hers, gauging her reactions as he began to fondle her breasts through the thin cotton of her shirt. He took her breasts in his large hands, kneading and shaping them, the hard points of her nipples pressing into his palms.

He pinched and twisted the nipples, lightly, till they grew and ached.

Hot liquid pooled between her legs, which were held immobile by his weight. She could swear an actual throbbing began there; she became certain of that fact when he leaned forward and took one breast into his mouth, cloth and all, and suckled at her, the whole time playing with the other breast. She was feeling too many sensations all at once. The delicious torment of her breasts. His comfortable weight on her belly. The handcuffs. The white heat that tensed her inner muscles. With each rhythmic pull on her nipples, a throb beat out its own erotic response down below.

She was whimpering her pleasure by the time he switched breasts and continued teasing her, unmercifully. The only thing that saved her from weeping in utter humiliation was his raw sounds of masculine excitement as he ministered to her... not quite growls of triumph, not quite groans of surrender.

The worst part—or maybe the best, her mind beyond logical deduction at this point—was that she was prevented from showing the extent of her excitement. She couldn’t arch off the floor, and she was prevented from taking control of this love play, which would be her norm. Not that anything about this was normal for her.

But wait, wait, wait. He was moving lower, over her shirt, pressing his cheeks to and fro over her belly, nuzzling her navel. Then he went even lower, past her groin area—
darn it!
—to her inner thighs where he began licking her, of all things. His fingertips tickled the back of her knees and then the soles of her feet. She didn’t know whether to giggle or sigh with ecstasy. She settled for the latter.