Hall, Jessica (29 page)

He's going to take all I am this time,
she
thought, just as her body hurtled up through the darkness to smash through
icy-hot waves of wracking pleasure.
I'm going to give it to him.

"Say my name," he muttered, his mouth hot on her throat
and his hips jerking against her faster.

"Jean-Del." The plastic bag ripped apart in her hands,
spilling beads and gold coins down the front of her skirt.

His grip tightened to the point of pain. "You're never going
to leave me again. Swear to me."

"No..." She writhed against him, trying to hold on while
he buried himself in her, then convulsing as a second volley of fiery delight
rushed in, eager to burn and consume her. The golden coins left in her hands
bruised her fingers as she closed them tight. "I swear, I won't."

"Isabel." He clutched her as he drove into her one
last
time, and then shuddered as he pumped his seed into her. "You're
mine," he rasped against her cheek.
"Mine."

Caine walked out of the police station to see Billy and John
waiting by the curb for him in front of his truck. His former foreman was
grinning like a gator circling a sinking pirogue. Caine could smell the liquor
on him before he got within three feet of the men, but that didn't surprise
him. Jack Daniel's had been Billy's mouthwash of choice since they were boys,
and no amount of threats from Caine had ever persuaded him to give it up.

"Boss." John tossed his keys to him but wouldn't meet
his gaze.

Billy, on the other hand, had only a little difficulty doing that,
and only because he was drunk. The black eye and bruises Caine had given him
were more colorful than ever, but he held out a bottle of beer in an unsteady
hand.

"Where y'at, Gantry?" He looked up at the lettering over
the entrance. "Oh, right, you been in jail this time. Guess what? My wife
left me for a lesbo." He laughed as if that was the funniest joke he'd
ever heard.

Caine ignored him and checked over his shoulder before glaring at
John. "What the hell is he doing here?"

"He showed up at the pier, looking for you." John
shrugged. "I figured, kill him or bring him along."

"What, you think them cops gonna come out here and arrest me?
After they done had to let
you
go?" Billy laughed and weaved a
little as he shuffled
toward the steps. "Lemme take care this. I tell them how it
was. I know all about it."

Caine was familiar with his former foreman's stages of
drunkenness, which ranged from rampant outrage to sodden self-hatred. Evidently
he'd drunk enough to feel guilty about what he'd done. "Not now,
Billy."

"No, I swear, I'll do it right this time." He waved his
arm back at them. "You can have all the money. Cee, too, if you want her.
She'd no damn good in bed, but maybe the two of them'll go at it and let you
watch."

Caine caught Billy around the waist before he could mount the
first step. "We're going to see Cecilia tomorrow, when you're sober."
He took the beer out of his hand and spun him back toward the truck. "We
got to talk about other things first."

The drunken man scowled. "I tried to talk to you and you
wailed the tar out of me for it." He peered up at Caine. "You know I
was only fixing things like you said you wanted them."

Terri or Garcia could come out of the station at any moment, and
Caine couldn't risk them hauling Billy in for more questions. He handed the
beer to John and scanned the immediate area for cops. "We got other things
to fix now."

"Well, shit, if you don't want it, give it to me," Billy
said, swiping at the bottle. "I sure as hell—"

"Take a nap,
chèr."
Caine drove his fist into
Billy's jaw with a quick, snapping punch. The foreman crumpled like a
dry-rotted net.

John helped Caine drag Billy over to the truck and hoist his limp
body into the back of the open bed. "They really drop the charges?"

"I made a deal." Caine went around to the cab and got
inside. "Anyone find the cop or Isabel?"

"Lacy said Hilaire Martin got them out to the lake
on
her boat." John nodded in the direction of Lake Pontchartrain. "Looks
like they were at your cousin's cottage on the north shore for a bit, but when
Darel and Caleb got there, they were gone."

Caine tried to imagine where Sable could have gone. With the cop
helping her, she could be anywhere. "She'll call Hilaire. Tell Lacy we
need to know when she does, but from where." He checked the rearview,
turned around, and swore.

He'd just had her, and all J. D. wanted to do was stay inside
Sable and take her a second time. Thinking of that and all the things he wanted
to do to her made him hard again. But the parade was nearly at the end of the
Quarter, where he knew a small army of reporters waited to film the celebrities
on the lead floats. Slowly he slipped from her body and adjusted himself,
zipping up his jeans.

"Jean-Del." She reached back for him.

He caught her hand and pushed the hoop skirt back down. "We
have to get off this thing."

"I can't—they strapped me in."

He found and released the strap from the support brace, and then
had to grab her as she sagged. He'd been too damn rough with her. "How bad
did I hurt you?"

"I'm okay, just a little dizzy." She regained her
balance but kept a steadying grip on his arm. "Where will we go?"

He looked ahead, and saw an opportunity in a parked delivery truck
narrowing the road. They were too far from his apartment, and it was probably
staked out anyway. "I'll find us a place for the night."

"Every hotel in town is booked solid," she said, biting
at her lip.

He wanted to bite her lip, too, but settled for a quick kiss.
"I know a place. I'm going to get down up there." He pointed to the
truck. "Wait until I'm on the ground before you jump."

She measured the distance to the ground, and then regarded him.
"Don't drop me."

"Never." He touched her cheek, saw the answering flare
in her eyes. "Stop looking at me like that."

She smiled a little. "Then stop touching me."

J. D. watched the street performers anticipate the impasse and
march ahead to make room. As the procession reached the narrow lane and the
float slowed, he dropped down behind the truck. Sable waited until he held his
arms out before she did the same, and he caught her in a bundle of velvet.

"Come on." He set her on her feet and led her around the
truck, concealing them from the eyes of the spectators and the street
performers. "We have to get that costume off you—it's too
conspicuous."

"You ripped off my panties," she reminded him. "All
I have left on underneath is a bra." Then she looked over his shoulder and
gasped.

The driver of the truck, who was balancing twelve crates of fruit
on a hand truck, had stopped to listen in.

J. D. grinned at the man. "Couldn't help myself."

The driver eyed Sable from her tousled red hair to the rumpled hem
of her skirt and sighed with delight.
"Laissez les bons temps
rouler."
He put down the hand truck and shrugged out of his jacket,
holding it out to J. D. "Here—this keep her warm until you can."

"Merci, mon ami."
He quickly wrapped
the over-large jacket around Sable before he pulled her through the crowded
confines of an open bar to the exit on the
other side of the block.
From there it was three blocks to the hotel he wanted.

Sable looked around at the darkened streets and stayed close to
him. "Are you sure about this?"

"I know somebody." He spotted the neon sign for the
Lagniappe Inn, which flashed a red NO VACANCY. "Over here."

"You take me to the nicest places." Her laugh was as
soft and husky as her voice.

"Trust me, baby." He stopped for a moment and cradled
her face between his hands. "In a few minutes you won't even remember what
state you're in."

"You can top making love in the middle of a Mardi Gras
parade?" She looked down as he took out his cuffs and jangled them; then
she drew in a quick breath. "Okay, I guess you can."

The clerk barely glanced up when J. D. approached the shabby front
desk. "We ain't got no rooms, mister."

"Ronnie around?"

The clerk turned his head toward the open door behind him.
"Ronnie! Man out here to see you."

Ronald Porter, a short black man with a woebegone expression,
wandered out. "J. D." His gaze flickered over Sable. "Hey, I
didn't know she was a working girl."

"She's not." He nodded toward the mostly empty key rack
on the wall behind the clerk. "I need a room for tonight."

Ronnie's face went from sad to agonized. "Man, you gotta be
kidding me. I got a busload of coeds due in any minute."

"Have a couple of them double up." When he still
hesitated, J. D. added, "I do a floor-by-floor and find out you got more
than coeds doubling up in here, you go back for a six-month vacation behind
bars."

"No need for that." Ronnie grabbed a key from the rack
and slapped it on the desk. "But you gotta be out by nine a.m., or take in
a coupla roommates."

"Thanks." J. D. nodded toward the back room. "Let
me see your lost and found."

Ronnie brought out a cardboard box full of clothes and turned to
Sable. "You lose something, honey?"

She smiled politely. "You could say that." She glanced
at J. D. "But I'm hoping to get it back where it was real soon."

J. D. nearly dropped the box. "You will." He rummaged
through the pile until he collected what Sable would need for a change, then
handed the perspiring man a fifty. "Order us in some dinner from Tailor's
Dance. Call me when they deliver—I'll come and get it." He guided Sable back
to the door leading to the first-floor rooms.

"What y'all want?" Ronnie called after him.

Sable reached up, putting her lips next to his ear. "You
don't want me to tell him." Then she sucked lightly on his earlobe.

His head spun, his blood roared, and his zipper was about to
castrate him. "Whatever stays hot for a while," he called back to
Ronnie.

They made it inside the room, and he had enough sanity to throw
the dead bolt and turn on the television. Then he dropped the borrowed clothes
on top of the rickety dresser and took her in his arms, filling his hands with
emerald velvet. "How much you think this outfit is worth?"

"I don't know." She pressed herself against him.
"But I'm a good seamstress."

"Thank God." J. D. tore until he got to her skin.
"I have to see you this time—all of you."

He backed her toward the bed, working her bra
straps
down the sides of her arms, watching as the satiny cups peeled away from her
breasts. They were slightly fuller now, but just as smooth and firm as when
he'd first put his hands on them ten years ago. He brushed his fingers over her
pretty, dusky pink nipples and hissed in a breath when they tightened and
darkened for him.

"Jean-Del." She tugged at the bottom of his T-shirt,
trying to drag it up. "I want to see you, too."

"Later." He pushed her back on the bed and tore off his
shirt before dropping down on top of her. If he didn't get back inside her in
the next minute, it wouldn't be for lack of effort.

"So shy," she mocked softly, curling a leg around the
back of his and rolling until he was on his back and she lay spread-eagled on
top of him. With a beguiling smile she propped her hands against his chest and
slid back until the heat between her thighs rested against the rigid bulge
under his zipper. She shimmied against him. "I want to see you now."

He pushed a hand into his front pocket. "Where are my
cuffs?"

"You mean these?" She dangled them over his face, then
snatched them out of reach when he grabbed at them. "Be good or I'll use
them on you."

"I'll be good." He pushed his hips up, grinding himself
against her. "Good and hard and deep for you."

"Oh, yes." Her eyelids drooped as she undulated against
him for a moment. The cuffs fell somewhere beside them on the bed. She leaned
down, brushing the hard tips of her breasts against his heaving chest, then
slid back again. "Later."

Later, hell. "Baby, if s
now
or never."

"Now there are other things I have to do." She
reached
down between them, popping open the button at his waist. "Things that need
my immediate attention." She tugged at the zipper, easing it open over his
erection, and then slowly pulled his jeans and shorts down to the middle of his
thighs. His cock sprang up, full and still damp from taking her on the float,
and as her warm breath touched it he curled his hands into the bedspread.
"Wouldn't you agree?"