DutyBoundARe (19 page)

“You losing yourself. I see it. You let that no-good-woman steal a part of you and you patched it up, but it hasn’t healed.” She lifted her gaze from the pot and stared at him. “You won’t stop picking at it. Let it go, boy. You’ll be happier if you do. And that girl would help you.” One side of her mouth kicked up and her eyes seemed to twinkle with mischief.

He wouldn’t argue with her. He couldn’t, not really. Grandmère was rarely wrong, so if she said he needed to do something, he’d think about it.

Voices from the hall announced Lola and Lisette as they rounded the doorway and entered through the other side of the kitchen.

“You fixed that leak yet?” Lola asked, her lips tightly compressed to keep from laughing.

He glared at her, but there was no heat behind it. They were his family, and as meddling as they were, he loved them. They were all he had anymore.

Lisette’s phone began to ring and she jumped. She hurriedly dug her cell out of her pocket.

“It’s my brother. I’ll be in the next room.” She hurried past him, pressing the phone to her ear.

“You stare any harder you might break her,” Lola muttered right next to him.

He glanced at her, the orchestrator of this mess, and didn’t know if he should thank her or hate her.

“Don’t look at me like that. I know you still have feelings for her. You wouldn’t be so possessive of her if you didn’t.” Lola leaned against the sink next to him.

“She doesn’t need me in her life right now.” He’d just bring her down. Between being tied to New Orleans and his past, she’d never want something with him again. No matter how tangled her emotions became. He felt the weight of guilt for stepping over the line last night. He hadn’t even thought about it in the same light as she had until she pointed it out.

“God, do you want some cheese with your whine? Snap out of it. I did not need to even see you together. Just the way you’ve been talking is enough to see that you like her. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

He mulled her words over. Lisette wasn’t Amanda. She needed help, but she wasn’t a damsel in distress.

“You’re right.” Mathieu pushed off the counter.

“Where you going?” Grandmère asked, tapping her spoon on the pot.

“Home.”

“But you just got here.” She put her hands on her hips and frowned.

“And now we’re leaving. See you this weekend for dinner?” He gave both women a quick hug and peck on the cheek.

“Same time, same place as always,” Lola replied. “Lisette coming with you?”

“Probably.”

And he was okay with that.

Lisette followed Mathieu
into the apartment, sick and tired of the silent treatment. She slammed the front door and stomped after him.

Mathieu went to a knee and scratched Gator behind his ears.

“I’ll take him,” she said, ready to be away.

“It’s still raining outside.”

“I have dry clothes.” She took the leash off the peg near the door. The clasp jingled and Gator shot across the space toward her, wiggling and jumping. “You want to go outside, don’t you? Too much time in that crate, huh?”

Lisette took an umbrella off the same set of pegs and slipped out of the front door, only to be followed by Mathieu.

“You don’t have to come,” she said, wishing he’d just stay put. Gator minded better than his owner.

“It’s late. I’m going out with you.”

“Fine.”

They went back downstairs in silence and struck out down the sidewalk to their normal haunts, not a word uttered between them. Mathieu took the umbrella and held it over both of them. Gator trotted forward without a care to the rain, zipping from scent spot to patch of grass, here and there. Cars whooshed by, but mostly it was a quiet evening.

And Lisette couldn’t even enjoy it. Frustration bubbled up inside of her the longer they walked.

“What did I do to piss you off so much?” she blurted out.

Mathieu’s step faltered and he turned to study her. He blinked several times, his face illuminated by the streetlights.

“I’m not pissed at you,” He replied.

“Then why the twelve-year-old silent treatment?”

“I was thinking,” he replied slowly.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“And so the mature thing to do is to not speak to me, walk off in the middle of dinner and act like I’m a parasite around your family?”

“That’s not how I saw it,” he replied.

“And how did you see it? Please, tell me.”

“I did not handle the dinner discussion as well as I could have. I’ll admit that, but I did need to process and think through what you said. When Mom called, she needed me over there that instant, so it made sense to get up and go. Yes, it was abrupt, but it was supposed to be an emergency. My family…” He paused and sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want you around them, it’s that…”

He stopped, so she had to follow suit. She turned to face him, most of his features hidden in shadows.

“Amanda was someone they related to, at least in the beginning. You’re—you’re like me. It’s different. If they see us together, if they read between the lines, I don’t want them to get attached to you, because when you leave it will be that much harder to move on.”

“Move on from what?” He’d been pretty frank with her that he saw them as friends.

“You’re an easy woman to fall for,
bebelle
.”

Wait—what?

She stared at him, muddling through the subtext.

Gator circled her legs, testing the length of the leash.

Mathieu ignored the dog and edged in closer. He cupped her cheek with his free hand and slowly lowered his face to hers.

Is he serious?

Her heart raced and blood rushed past her ears—or maybe that was a car driving by. She couldn’t tell.

Mathieu’s lips grazed hers, and though it was a gentle, barely-there slide of skin on skin, she felt it down to her toes. She tightened her grip on the leash and held her breath. He dipped again and sealed his mouth over hers, pulling her lower lip between his.

All the warm fuzzy feelings and complicated emotions buzzed about in her head, drowning out the rest of the world. She leaned against him, one hand on his chest, seeking more contact. The hand on her cheek slid back into her hair. His fingers curled into the loose strands, pulling her head back for the perfect angle. Her heart fluttered even at the tiniest show of dominance.

Yes, this was what she wanted.

Rain continued to pelt the umbrella and Gator whined, pulling on the leash.

She sidestepped, pulled along by the dog. Mathieu followed, a smile curling his lips.

“What does that mean?” she asked, unable to contain the swirling emotions and thoughts in her head.

“It means I’m stupid.” He reached for her free hand.

And what did that mean? One kiss didn’t make everything right. It didn’t clear up his baggage and it didn’t make it okay to toy with her emotions. She pulled her hand from his.

“No, I need more than that.”

“Okay.” He held his hand up and sighed. “I tried telling myself you’re like Amanda, but you couldn’t be more different. She was a weak, manipulative woman. You stand up for yourself, you don’t take shit and you don’t allow things to just happen to or for you. I was wrong. I did it because letting myself believe you were just like her meant I didn’t have to like you. Because liking you leads to other things. Change. Wanting something I don’t think I have any business wanting.” He glanced sideways at her. “You.”

Lisette’s brain screeched to a stop. What now? How did she respond? She was still half in love with the man.

“I am not your ex-wife,” she said with force.

“No, you’re nothing like her. I thought I could save her. You don’t need saving, you just need a shoulder to lean on. We all do. It was my mistake to lump you in with her, and I’m sorry.”

“Good.”

“I don’t know if I’m what you need, I don’t know if I can be anything except a shoulder to lean on, but I don’t think we can play together and it not be sexual on some level. It’s part of our chemistry. We go together. We fit.”

A day ago if he’d given her this speech she’d have swooned into his arms. Now, she didn’t know what to say.

“I need to think. Can I finish walking him by myself?”

“It’s too late for you to be out here on your own. I’ll take you back to the apartment if you like.”

“Fine. Yes, please.”

“Okay.”

They turned and walked back toward the front of his building. She wanted to charge ahead, put space between them, but he grabbed her hand. Their fingers threaded together, his warmth enveloping her. She couldn’t run away from him, but she didn’t know if being with him was good for her either.

chapter Thirteen

Terror

Mathieu plodded up the stairs to his apartment, soaked to the bone, and Gator was still as energetic as when they’d gone out. Guilt ate at him. For Gator’s sake alone he had to move on, find someplace where he could install a doggie door at the very least so the pit bull could stretch his legs. It would be good for Mathieu as well. The apartment had become a symbol of everything he’d lost in the divorce, but he wasn’t losing anymore. At least he hoped not.

He’d kissed Lisette. He’d felt the shudder of her body against his and in that moment, he’d accepted everything he wanted. Her. In any way she’d have him.

One more flight.

The ball was now in Lisette’s court. He’d stressed the platonic nature of their relationship, when it wasn’t what he wanted at all. It was what he’d thought was good for them. If she chose to remain pissed at him, he wouldn’t blame her. He felt like an ass for stepping over the line last night, though at the time it hadn’t occurred to him it was something they needed to negotiate. It had felt right, to have her undulating on his hand, bringing her pleasure.

He didn’t know if he could be what Lisette needed, but denying that he wanted to try would only harm them both at this point. And the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her more than what she’d already experienced.

Gator went straight to the apartment door and sat down, twisting to look back at Mathieu.

“I’m here. Hold on. Just hold on,” he muttered to the dog.

He unlocked the door and stepped over the threshold, Gator shooting in before him. He glanced into the living room to see Lisette sitting cross-legged on the couch, wearing her pajamas and a towel wrapped around her hair.

“Hold him. I’ll get a towel.” Lisette got up and hurried into the bathroom, emerging a moment later and going to her knee to wrap the soaked dog and do her best of drying him off.

“If only dogs used boxes like cats.” He sighed and slipped the waterlogged leather coat off, hanging it on a peg to dry out.

“Then think of the mess they’d make kicking up dirt or whatever.”

“Hey, it’s an idea. Maybe not a good one, but it’s an idea.”

She smiled and he breathed easier, the invisible hand wrapped around his ribs loosening its grip.

“There you go; all dry. Well, as dry as you’re going to get without a blow dryer.” She unclasped the leash and handed it to him.

Gator licked her on the face then surged past to do a loop around the living room and into the kitchen to his bowl to lap at the water.

Lisette watched Gator’s antics, her features softer, more at ease than they’d been earlier.

He shifted his weight, bursting at the seams to ask her what the next move was, what she thought. Hell, they didn’t have to speak at all. He could simply hold her for hours and lose himself in her. There was something about her presence that soothed him. She’d salvaged the ravaged shreds of his life already, knitting him back into a man without even realizing what she did. Giving him her submission, trusting him, quietly pushing him to be more.

She glanced at him, catching him staring. The smile faded. Her calmness only made him want to fidget more. Lisette rose, her gaze still locked with his. He couldn’t read her or get a feel for what she was thinking and his head buzzed with questions.

“We need to renegotiate.” He meant it as a question, but there wasn’t one. Regardless of what she chose, they needed better boundaries. Or at least to acknowledge that they were changing. That they couldn’t continue as they’d begun.

She nodded and reached for the front of his waterlogged shirt.

“Tomorrow,” she said and began to unbutton the white discs.

Mathieu stood very still, catching the faint scent of her shampoo. Her hot little hands grazed his chest and he had to ball his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her.

What about tonight?

He wasn’t so sure he could stand here and play the role of gentleman with her stripping him of his shirt. He’d lain next to her last night without acting on what he wanted to do. Another night of that would break him.

She parted his shirt and peeled the wet fabric off his shoulders. Cool air skated over his skin, teasing goose bumps into marching down his arms and chest.

Lisette backed away, his shirt clutched in her hands, her gaze traveling down his body. Her cheeks were slightly pink, but there was no other indication of her intentions or what she thought.

Without a word, she pivoted and stepped into the bathroom. He followed, bracing his arms on the doorway and watched her wring the water out of his shirt before spreading it over the towel rack. She pulled the turban towel off her head and tossed it over the shower curtain before turning once more to him.

She had her lower lip pinched between her teeth, gaze on his chest. He glanced down. Besides the gris-gris he never took off, all he wore were jeans and boots.

Lisette reached out and touched the gris-gris with the tips of her fingers.

“What’s in it?”

She wanted to talk about that? Now?

He gripped the doorframe harder and focused on the color of her eyes. The way the greens went from dark to light, with little shoots of gold. “A bullet that was dug out of my calf my first year on patrol, and other than that, I don’t know. I decided a long time ago I’m better off not knowing what exactly that woman is up to.”

“Oh.” She dropped her hand.

“Anything else on your mind?” He leaned toward her, but didn’t allow himself to touch her.