I smirk at him. “Getting laid is a given, Will. You don’t have to be cheeky.”
“Cheeky?”
“Cheeky,” I mouth at him.
“I don’t know anyone who says cheeky.”
“I do.” I smirk again and pick up a warm, fragrant beignet, shake a bit of the excess sugar off, and take a bite. “Holy sweet mother of God.”
He laughs at the mess I make with the white powder and takes a big bite of his own treat. “Good?”
“Dear Lord, I think I need to change my panties.”
“You’re not wearing any.” His eyes heat as he narrows them at me playfully.
“Well, if I were, I’d have to change them because I think I just had an orgasm.” The old woman at the table next to us gasps, but I ignore her and take another bite and throw my head back as I chew, my eyes closed, savoring the deliciousness. The chickaree coffee compliments the beignets perfectly. “I might have to move here.”
“Why?” Will’s voice is quiet and strained, and I find his eyes with mine.
“What’s wrong?”
He looks around, making sure that no one is listening, but one of the things we’ve come to love about N’Awlins is, no one cares who he is. “Watching you enjoy food turns me on,” he whispers.
I grin slowly and brush my foot up and down his calf as I take another bite, making sure I lick the excess sugar off my lips. “Mmm.”
He quirks up an eyebrow and chuckles. “Do you want to play this game?”
“Why, Will? Don’t you want to play with me?” I smile sweetly and take a sip of my coffee, then another bite. “God, these are good. We might need more. I hope you don’t care that I’m about to sit here and get really fat off of this fried goodness.”
He laughs and takes another bite. “I have some physical activity planned later, or maybe sooner, that should burn quite a few of these calories.”
“Thank God.” I surprise both of us and eat more than half the beignets. I can’t stop. It’s like crack. “Seriously, these are crazy good.”
“I’m glad you like them.” He sits back and sips his coffee, looking at me speculatively, suddenly sober.
“What?”
“Just thinking.” He shakes his head and watches me devour the last two small donuts. “You look beautiful today.”
I look down at my orange v-neck sundress and brown cowboy boots. It’s just a typical summer outfit, which seemed to be appropriate for fall in the south.
“Thank you.”
“I love your hair up off your neck like that.”
I tilt my head to the side and stare at him. He’s looking at me like he could eat me alive. Like he’s seeing me for the first time.
Like he loves me.
Holy shit!
He shakes his head, like he’s pulling himself out of a trance and smiles softly at me. “Are you ready to go, or do you want more?”
“I’m done.”
“Let’s go.” He holds a hand out for me and pulls me to my feet, and I follow him back out onto the sidewalk, pulling my sunglasses down onto my face. He’s wearing his own black Oakleys, tight white t-shirt, khaki shorts. He’s just so… big. Tall and muscular and strong.
He does crazy things to my insides.
As we walk up the street, I can hear a saxophone, its sultry notes filling the air. The song is slow and sweet. We turn the corner, and there is a young man, maybe about twenty-two, playing his sax, sitting on a stool, his case open for donations.
The kid is good. Amazingly good. I stop, pulling on Will’s hand so he stops too, and listen. The sax player has dyed black hair, his ears both sporting gauges and his fingernails are black. He’s dressed every inch the rock star.
But the bluesy notes coming out of that sax make him sound like a legend. If he keeps his head on straight, this kid is going places.
Suddenly, Will pulls me against him, curls his arm around the small of my back, pulls our linked fingers up between our chests, and tucks me against him, slowly swaying back and forth, dancing to the sweet song.
I smile up into his blue eyes, surprised. I’m seeing a whole new romantic side to Will this week.
He grins down at me and begins to move more, pushing and pulling us around the wide sidewalk. People are stopping to watch, the old lady from the table next to us at Café Du Monde smiling at us, but we ignore them all and just watch each other.
Damn, he can dance.
Figures.
The kid starts the song over again, not interrupting our dance and I silently thank him. I’m not ready for Will to let go of me; for the look in his eyes to stop.
It’s like it was at the café. His blue eyes are intense on mine, full of happiness. His lips are curved in a soft smile, and I can’t help but lift up on my toes and rest my own on them, breathing him in.
He smells of coffee and sweet, fried dough.
The arm around my back tightens, pulling me closer to him, practically lifting me off the ground, still swaying back and forth in time with the music, kissing me softly, his lips gently sweeping over mine, nibbling the corners of my mouth. He kisses over my cheek and to my ear, and whispers, “I love you, Megan.”
I freeze, and thank the Lord above that he’s not looking me in the face because I know my eyes have bulged and I break out in a light sweat, and it has nothing at all to do with the heat. Every muscle in my body contracts. But Will doesn’t stop moving, he just wraps both arms around my waist and hugs me to him, and I rest my forehead against his chest as I process what he just said to me.
He loves me.
I want so badly to say the words back, but I can’t. Loving means leaving.
Finally, I murmur, “Will…”
“Shh,” he tilts my chin with his fingertips and his eyes are soft and kind and I bite my lip so I don’t make an ass of myself in front of all these people and cry. “It’s okay, sweetheart. I know.”
“You do?”
He nods and kisses my forehead. “I do.”
“Okay.”
He pulls back and smiles down at me, pulls out his wallet, throws a twenty into the sax case, links his fingers with mine, and we wave at the crowd as they applaud and we walk down the sidewalk. My heart is still pounding. I feel… awkward, but Will looks completely relaxed and happy, looking around at the people walking by and the shops we’re passing, and I begin to relax too.
I see a sign in a window for ghosts tours and point it out. “We should take a ghost tour!”
“Why?” he asks with a scowl.
“New Orleans is supposed to be one of the most haunted cities in the country.” I don’t really believe in that stuff, but it could be fun.
“I don’t believe in that shit,” he scoffs and leads me across the street toward another street musician, this one with a guitar, as I feel my phone vibrate in my handbag, slung across my body and resting on my hip.
“Well, then, it shouldn’t bother you to go on a tour with me. You can hold me when I get scared.” I laugh and answer my phone without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”
“So you snagged a rich one.”
I stop dead in the street and my stomach falls to the ground. Fuck fuck fuck!
“What do you want?” I whisper.
“Who is it?” Will is frowning down at me and suddenly horns are honking at us, telling us to clear the street. He pulls on my elbow and leads me to the sidewalk, watching my face. I can’t look away from his eyes.
“What do you want?” I ask more clearly.
“Well, honey, what do you think I want? You have a new rich boyfriend. I want money.” Sylvia’s voice is raspy from too many cigarettes and heavy with bitterness and just plain mean.
“I just sent you money,” I murmur to her and Will’s scowl deepens.
“Yeah, well, you can afford to start sending me more. What you send me barely covers my bills.”
I close my eyes and run a hand down my face.
“I’m not sending you more money, Sylvia.”
> “The fuck you’re not, you ungrateful little bi-“ I hang up on her, turn my ringer off and throw my phone back in my bag.
“Your mom?” Will asks, hands on his hips, watching my face.
“Yeah.”
“Wants money?”
“That’s all she ever wants.” I start to walk away from him, but he grabs my arm and holds me in place.
“So, we’ll send her money.”
“Hold up.” I face him, square on, and refuse to back down on this. “We aren’t giving her shit. Ever. She found out that we’re seeing each other and thinks she can milk it, but I’ll be fucking damned if she’ll ever get a dime out of you, do you understand?”
His eyes are narrowed stubbornly, and I grip his upper arms in my hands, trying to get my point across. “Will, seriously, I don’t want you to give her money.”
He exhales, his mouth set in a grim line. “Okay.”
“Promise me.”
“No, I can’t promise you that. But I hear you, Meg.”
“Will…”
“I fucking hear you. Trust me to respect you and do my best to protect you.”
His face is fierce, and I know he won’t bend on this.
“Okay.”
“So, what’s her deal?” he asks as he takes my hand in his and leads me back in the direction we were heading.
“She’s a junkie, and she thinks I owe her.”
“Why in the hell do you owe her anything?”
“Because she gave birth to me.” I shrug and try to think of something else to talk about. “You know, I’m not wearing any underwear.” Desperate times call for desperate measures.
“Yeah, we’ll get to that. Why do you owe her, Meg?”
“Because after I was taken away from her, I told the cops that she did drugs and sold herself for money and she was arrested and went to jail for a while, and she’s never let me forget that it’s my fault. She’s always been able to find me. Always. So, I give her the money each month and it keeps her in Montana and away from me.”
“Fuck,” Will whispers.
“Look, it’s no biggie. It’s not a lot of money. I don’t need it.”
“That’s not the point. She’s a fucking bully, babe. Tell her to kiss your ass.”
“It’s just easier this way.” I shrug again and stop him when he tries to argue. “I don’t want to fight about her. She’s not worth any of our time.”
He takes a deep breath in frustration and pushes his fingers through his hair. “Fine.”
“Let’s go check out one of the above ground cemeteries.” I bounce up and down in excitement and he can’t help but laugh at me.
“What is it with you and the dead? And why am I just now learning this about you?”
“It’s N’Awlins, Will. Don’t be a spoil-sport.”
* * *
“Damn, you can pack away the food. Where do you put it all?” I ask as we enter our hotel suite. More accurately, the penthouse of an old, gorgeous hotel. The furnishings are grand and sturdy and the tapestries are thick and old.
I feel like we’ve stepped back in time each time we walk inside this vast room. It’s beautiful, and way more space than we need, but I know that Will wanted to make this week special.
And he has.
“Meg, as a football athlete, I have to consume almost four-thousand calories a day to maintain enough energy to train the way we do.”
“All the time?” I ask, stunned.
“During the season. In the off season, it’s closer to three-thousand.”
“Holy shit,” I murmur and feel a little bad for constantly tormenting him about the volume of food he eats.
But then I look at him and remember how he laughs when I tease him, and I don’t feel bad anymore. Teasing him is fun.
“There’s something I want to show you,” he murmurs and pulls me to him.
“I’ve seen that before, stud muffin.” I grin up at him and glide my hands up and down his chest as he throws his head back and laughs.
“Not that. Well, not yet, anyway. Come on.”
He leads me out of the room and to the elevator, but instead of pushing the button for the lobby, we go up to the roof. I look up at him in surprise, but he just smiles smugly down at me.
“What are we doing?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
The doors open to reveal a beautiful rooftop patio, full of plush furniture, large, ornate gold planters boasting cut-leaf rhododendrons, Spanish moss falling down ledges of the balcony, and the tops of banana trees from the courtyard below. We can see across to similar patios on similar hotels, although it’s small enough up here, and the foliage is plush enough that it feels private.
White lights are strung over-head, lanterns are lit on the side of the building, and on table tops, sending a soft glow over the space in the darkness of evening.
There is a sign that reads closed for private party.
“Oh, we’re not supposed to be up here.” I try to pull him back to the elevator, but he chuckles and easily pulls me back to his side.
“We are the private party, sweetheart.”
“Oh.” I smile ruefully as he leads me to a corner of the patio that has champagne chilling in a silver bucket and two silver plates covered with silver domes sitting on a small table before a gorgeous red and gold couch.
“What’s all this?” I ask, my eyes wide, taking in this beautiful scene.
“Just dessert on the rooftop,” Will murmurs and shrugs shyly, like it’s no big thing.
But it is a big thing.
“Thank you.” I raise on my tip-toes and kiss him. “It’s lovely.”
“You’re lovely. Here, have a seat.” He leads me to the couch and pours us each a flute of sparking, gold champagne. “To spontaneous vacations.”
“I’ll drink to that.” We clink glasses and take a sip, Will’s blue eyes are watching me over his flute.
“Did you have fun at the cemetery today?” I ask with a grin.
“It was interesting. Definitely a new experience.”
“I thought it was fun. I still think you should let me talk you into the ghost tour.”
“I can think of better things to do in the dark,” he replies with a half-grin.
“Really? Like what?”
“Are you wearing any underwear under that dress?” he asks instead of answering my question.
“You know I’m not.” I tilt my head and study him. “Why do you ask?”
“Just making sure.” He pours more of the sweet champagne into our flutes and leans against the back of the couch, watching me. “Would you like some dessert?”
“Sure. What do we have?”
He pulls the lids off the plates and reveals little dishes of beautiful crème brule. “Looks like crème brule.”
“Delish,” I murmur and grin as he scoops up a spoonful and feeds it to me. “Mmm.”
“Good?”
“Mmm hmm.” I reach for it, but he pulls it out of my grasp and takes a bite himself.
“Mmm,” he nods. “Good.” He takes another bite and I frown at him and reach for the other dessert, but he blocks me. “I got this.”
“Well then gimme!”
“Impatient little thing, aren’t you?” he chuckles and feeds me another bite, then takes a bite himself. I crawl over and climb in his lap, and he feeds both of us, grabbing the other ramekin when the first one is empty.
“Did you get enough?” he asks as he pushes the dishes aside and wraps his arms around me.
“More than enough. Thank you.”
He smiles against my hair and kisses me, while running his hands up and down my back. “You’re welcome, babe.”
His hand glides down my hip to my thigh and under my dress, and heads back up again. I grin against his chest as my pulse accelerates and I cup his face in my hand. “You know, someone could see us out here.”
“They could,” he mutters and kisses my forehead, that talented hand still exploring under my dress.
/>
“We should behave,” I whisper and kiss his lips gently.
“That’s no fun,” he whispers back, making me giggle.
“What do you want to do?” I ask as I nibble down his neck.
“You,” he whispers and I grin again, spread my legs slightly and guide his hand between them.
“Feel how wet you make me when you say stuff like that?” I whisper against his lips. His eyes flare, his fingers find my clit and rub gently, then slip down and slide easily into my wetness. “Oh, God, honey.”
Finally, he takes my mouth possessively with his own, kissing me deeply and madly, while his fingers continue to wreak havoc on my core. Dear God, he makes me crazy with just two fingers.
Who am I kidding, he makes me crazy by just looking at me.
“Want you,” I mutter between kisses and he groans deep in his throat, lifts me to straddle him, and I reach between us to unfasten his shorts and unleash the hard cock that has been pressing into my hip.
“God, I love your hands,” he mutters, looking down at me pumping his length. Finally I can’t take it anymore, and I raise up and slowly guide him inside me. “Oh fucking hell, babe.”
His eyes are clenched shut, jaw tight, hands gripping my hips like vices and I’ve never felt more sexy.
The skirt of my dress falls around our laps, so even if someone did see us, it just looks like I’m sitting on his lap, and I begin to rock. Not fast, and not so that it really even looks like we’re having sex. I just rock slowly and clench around him tightly.
“Meg, you’re gonna make me come like this, sweetheart.”
“That’s the point, babe,” I lean down and kiss him, bury my hands in his hair and continue the assault on his cock, clenching and rocking, and as I do, it puts pressure on my metal, against my clit and I find myself getting close too, shivering and convulsing around him. “I’m going with you.”
His eyes open and he watches me with hooded eyes and his mouth open, gasping. He cups my face in his hands and pulls me down to him, kisses me tenderly and then whispers, “I love you,” as he surges up and empties himself inside me, growling. The words, the pressure of his orgasm, what he’s doing to my body, sends me over with him, but before I can cry out, he covers my mouth with his to hold the sound down, and I explode in wonder and complete surrender.