Emma was hot, hot, hot.
So blisteringly hot she was on the verge of melting into a pitiful puddle of need right here in front of a display tower of Mean Devil Woman Cajun Hot Sauce.
“What do you say we blow this place and get started?” Gabriel suggested, lowering his head until his mouth was hovering just above hers. So close she could feel his hot breath against her lips.
Some faint vestige of reason in Emma's mind managed to break through the hormones that were jumping up and down, screaming yes, yes, yes! to remind her that this was no longer her own private erotic fantasy.
The game she was playing with Gabriel Broussard was all too real. What on earth made her think she was up to playing in this man's league?
Still, the part of her mind that was still functional asked, what was the worst that could happen? That he might reject her? So? Wasn't it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all?
Not that they were talking about love.
It was lust. Pure and simple.
What would Samantha say?
It'd be his loss
.
Good answer.
“So,” she asked brightly, with renewed confidence, “do you have luggage?”
“Just this.” He held up a scuffed leather duffle bag that looked as if it'd been around the world at least a dozen times. Emma wondered if it was the same one he'd packed before leaving her sleeping in his bed.
You're a survivor. You can do this
.
“I'm parked outside,” she said.
Duh! Where the hell else would she be parked? A blonde with a cotton candy mass of frosted and over-teased hair and a dangerous spark in her overly made-up blue eyes was headed toward them. If they hung around here any longer, any opportunity to escape unnoticed would be lost.
“We'd better get going before we draw a crowd and you end up on the front of some tabloid.” She turned and started walking toward the exit.
“Wouldn't be the first time.” He smiled like an unrepentant sinner and fell into step beside her, shortening his stride to match hers.
His response brought to mind Tamara Templeton's alleged reason for breaking her engagement to Gabe. Which, in turn, had Emma wondering what kind of kinky situation she was getting herself into, driving this man out to that isolated camp in the bayou.
This was insane.
Amazing.
Insanely amazing.
Heat, thick with moisture, hit like a fist as they left the terminal. Emma could feel her hair, which she'd spent twenty minutes this morning blow-drying to a smooth, auburn sheen, spring into a mass of wild, unruly curls.
It figured. Even her hair couldn't control itself around Gabriel Broussard.
Four
What the hell had he been thinking? Coming on to Emma Quinlan that way? Christ, Emma, of all people.
As he'd followed that magnificent J.Lo butt out of the terminal, to the sporty, cherry red Miata convertible that fit the bold, adventurous female Emma Quinlan seemed to have metamorphosed into, Gabe was having trouble reconciling this lushly curvaceous, sexy, incredibly hot female with the shy, plump girl who'd so openly adored him back in high school.
That Emma had followed him around like a puppy, and although it probably had been selfish of him, he'd let her. Emma had been the only person he could talk to. The only person he could share his impossible dreams with. The only person, besides Nate Callahanâwho'd been struggling to start up his construction business and take care of his dying mother in those daysâwhom Gabe trusted.
And, although there'd occasionally been times when he'd felt a little sexual tug, and known that she would have been more than willing to let him do anything he wanted, getting naked in the backseat of his Trans Am with a friend would've been just too weird.
Like their one night together hadn't been?
Shit.
“What are you going to do for a car out at the camp?”
“Can't see that I'll need one. Nate stocked the place with groceries and the pirogue's there. It's not like Blue Bayou's got a lot of nightlife I'm going to be missing out on.”
“You might be surprised. We're celebrating Jean Lafitte Days this weekend.”
“Yeah, Nate mentioned something about that. But as much as I hate to miss all the fun, I think I'll pass.”
“You don't have to be sarcastic. A parade and a dance probably don't seem that big a deal to a jet-setting movie star,” she said. “But people enjoy it. And the money from the tickets goes to an after-school recreation program for the kids of the parish, so it's all for a good cause.”
“I'm not sayin' it isn't. In fact, I'll write you a check. I'm just not feelin' real sociable right now.”
“Speaking as deputy mayor, I'll be happy to accept any contribution you'd like to make,” she said stiffly, sounding, Gabe thought, uncomfortably, like her mother.
“I've gotta admit to bein' surprised you're not still pissed off at me.”
“About what?” Her tone was casual enough, but the slight tightening of her fingers on the steering wheel gave her away.
“My last night in town. The one we spent together.”
“It may come as a huge surprise to your movie star ego, but it's been years since I even thought about that.” She kept her gaze directed out the windshield. “Besides, it wasn't as if anything happened.”
“That's not the way I remember it.”
Her skirt, colored in a bright tropical print, was calf-length. Which was the bad news since it had him salivating like one of Pavlov's pups for a look at her long legs.
The good news was that it was cut like a sarong. As she stepped on the gas to pass a minivan, the silk parted, giving him a view of thigh that caused his insides to tingle and heat up.
Speaking of heating up . . .
“I recall you bein' hot as a Mardi Gras firecracker, you.”
“You were so drunk I'm surprised you remember anything about that night.”
“I might have been tanked, sure enough. But it's hard to forget giving a girl her first orgasm.”
Her deep, rich laugh sent the heat in his belly traveling south. “You are so full of yourself, Gabriel Broussard. What makes you think that was my first?”
He'd tried to forget most of the things that had happened that night, but one thing had remained vividly etched on his mind: the memory of Emma writhing beneath his plundering mouth, her bare back bowed off the soft, Spanish-moss stuffed mattress, the breathless criesâalmost like keeningâthat were ripped from her ravished lips as he drove her higher and higher until she'd come, screaming his name.
Even now, ten years later, the mental picture of her, flushed and uncharacteristically wanton, was so vivid, it was all he could do to keep from licking the pale flesh exposed by that sexy slit in her skirt.
“Solo flying doesn't count,” he said.
A corner of her mouth turned down in a frown, but she didn't deny his point that he'd been her first. First man. First orgasm.
“Speaking of flying, along with all that booze, you also had enough Demerol in your system to fly to the moon.” She tossed him a look. “Solo.”
She'd warned him against mixing drugs and alcohol. But had he listened? Hell, no. He'd been on a crazy, self-destructive binge that night and by the time they'd reached the camp after the emergency room visit, he'd had to lean on her to stagger into the cabin.
He'd fallen onto the bed, taking her with him in a tangle of arms and legs. Her dressâan unflattering, black taffetaâhad crackled when he'd delved beneath it. That sound had, for some inexplicable reason, generated such a hot spurt of lust that years later, while filming the scene in
The Last Pirate
, where Jean Lafitte attends a ball in the French Quarter, the sound of all those rustling petticoats the costume designer had put the actresses in caused him to walk around with a boner for two days.
His reaction had not gone unnoticed; several conservative religious groups had had a field day posting close-ups of his groin on the Internet as yet another example of the erosion of the national morality.
“I sure as hell wasn't feeling any pain, me.” Not when he'd left the ER anyway. And certainly not later, when he'd been rolling around on that fragrant mattress with Emma. “Like I said, I don't remember much about that night. But I've got the feelin' I never thanked you for all you did.”
“We were friends,” she said simply. “You would have done the same thing for me.”
The bitch was, Gabe wasn't real sure he would've. He'd been a pretty self-centered bastard in those days. A '90s James Dean retread. Rebel without a clue.
Gabe sighed.
“So,” he said, deciding to change the topic, “I guess you heard about the little mess I'm in.”
“Which mess is that?”
“Excuse me. I hadn't realized you'd been away on Mars the past week.” Of all the topics he could have chosen, why the hell had he brought that one up? What was wrong with the weather? That was always a safe topic. Or sports.
“So, do you think the Saints are going to be able to capture the NFC South this season?”
“I've no idea.” Her tone suggested she didn't give a rat's ass, either. “Football isn't real big up on Marsâit's hard to mark the yardage lines in all that red dustâso I'm a little out of the loop.” They were crossing the old iron bridge over the Mississippi. “So, what mess are we talking about?”
“The one about my so-called engagement.”
“Ah.” She nodded in a way that told him she'd known exactly what he'd been referring to. “The one your little television star fiancée called off.”
Gabe ground his teeth and felt his penis, which had gotten semi-hard at the memory of Emma lying beneath him, deflated like a three-day-old balloon. Timing, he thought, was effin' everything. “Tamara Templeton was never my fiancée.”
“I see.” She nodded again, obviously not buying his denial. “And you bought her that ten carat Tiffany diamond why?”
“I didn't buy it.”
That captured her attention. She glanced over at him. “Mary Hart said you did.”
“Mary Hart may be one helluva television personality. She's also fairer than most of her breed.” Because for some reason it was important that Emma understand he wasn't a total son-of-a-bitch, he yanked off the shades and looked her straight in the eye. “She's been known to get her facts wrong.”
He watched the wheels turn around in her bright head as she processed that little bit of information. Then she turned her attention back to the narrow road. “If Mary Hart's so fair, why didn't you tell her what you've just told me? That you weren't really engaged?”
Good question. “Dammit, because it's fuckin' complicated.”
“You don't have to shout at me, Gabriel. After all, you're the one who brought it up,” she reminded him.
“You've not only gotten damn sexy,
chère.
You're a helluva lot tougher than you used to be.” Sassier. And damned if it didn't look good on her.
“From necessity.” She shot him another look. “Do you have a problem with tough women?”
“Actually, I like them.” He especially liked picturing Emma wearing only a pair of black leather thigh-high boots and a wicked smile. “Under the right circumstances.” Like in his bedroom with flames crackling in the fireplace, and some slow, sultry tenor jazz flowing from the Surround sound speakers. “When they play fair.”
“And your fiancée didn't?”
“She wasn't my goddamnâ”
“Right. Tamara Templeton wasn't your real fiancée. Just your fake one. Which is funnyâ”
“There's nothing funny about this.”
“Funny odd. Not funny ha-ha,” she corrected calmly. “Although I'm admittedly no expert on precious gems, that Texas-size rock weighing down her left hand sure didn't look like a fake diamond.”
Gabe could tell from her tone that she wasn't ready to suspend all disbelief. Hell, he didn't blame her.
“You're right. It was real. But I didn't buy it.” He yanked off his Ragin' Cajun cap and dragged his hand through his hair. “Hell, we'd only gone out twice. Both times set up by our agent to maximize press coverage.”
“I wouldn't think you'd need that.”
“It wasn't really my choice. But Tamara was hot to change her imageâ”
“So she figured the best way to do that would be to go out with Hollywood's bad boy?”
Okay, now they were back to dealing with major disbelief.
“That reputation is overrated,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “It's typecasting. Because I tend to choose roles that look at the dark side of human nature, people figure I'm a son of a bitch in real life.”
“If you say so.”
He still wasn't convincing her. Gabe mentally added a whip to the image of her wearing those dominatrix boots. “My agent, asked me to accompany Tamara to a couple public events. Since Caroline was the first person in the business to take me seriously, and stuck with me when I refused to play the teen idol card after the pirate flick, I figured I owed her one.”
“I can see why you wouldn't want to be typecast as a teen hunk. But
The Last Pirate
was a very good movie.”
“You saw it?” Gabe found himself liking that idea.
“Of course. It played to a packed house at the Bijou for five weeks. I doubt there was anyone in the parish who didn't see it at least once.”
“Which is surprising, since I'm sure as hell not Blue Bayou's favorite son.”
“Jean Lafitte was from around here. That gave it a local connection. Plus, I think a lot of people were curious to see how Blue Bayou's favorite juvenile delinquent turned out.” Her plump, made-for-sin mouth curved in a smile that sent a lightning bolt of heat straight to his groin. “You were very good. Not that I ever had any doubts.”
“That made three people in town who thought I might have a future other than landing my ass behind bars.”
He wondered what she'd thought while watching the erotic scene where the pirate ravished the Spanish ship captain's wife. Had she gotten turned on by the forced seduction? Had she watched the pirate take a jeweled dagger and cut open the woman's bodice to gain access to her breasts and remembered when he'd torn open her dress and taken her soft and yielding flesh in his mouth?
And when his dark and dangerous character had surged between the woman's fleshy white thighs that had opened willingly for him, had Emma remembered how he'd pinned her to the mattress and, using his mouth, his teeth, his tongue, made her come?
The view outside the window became hazed with the red lust shimmering before his eyes as he imagined lashing Emma's wrists and ankles to his bed and fucking her hard and fast and deep. But only after he'd driven her crazy enough to beg for it.
Jesus
. If he kept on this runaway sex train of thought, he was going to come in his jeans before they even got to the camp.
“Three people,” he repeated, his voice raspy with pent-up lust. He would have cleared his damn throat, but didn't want her to realize that somehow, when he hadn't been paying close enough attention, she'd captured control over not just the situation, but his damn mutinous dick, as well. “You, Nate, and Mrs. Herlihy.”