French Quarter (4 page)

“Live
here?” she asked. “Is that what you mean, you want to live here?”

“No.” He laughed. “I got my own place. Like my own place. I show it to you and you come when you like.”

Then why did he want a job here?

“And I be here to give you surprises when you bored, yes?”

No,
she wanted to shout, but he was tightly wound, a steel coil of energy inside, and she’d be a fool to risk unleashing the cold rage he’d already shown himself capable of.

The pressure on her back became a rhythmic bumping. He darted his tongue in and out of her ear and bared her breasts. “Great tits,” he said, scraping the edges of his thumbnails over them until she tossed her head restlessly. She burned from her breastbone to her knees, and throbbed heavily where her labia swelled.

“You like it hard, maybe? Fast? You tell Ben what you like.”

Her breath came in pants now. Apart from beads of sweat on his brow, he seemed in control. “You tell me what you like,” she countered. “I want to make you happy.”

“Oh, I’m gonna be very happy, Mrs. Lamar. I gonna plan so many surprises for you. So many new things.”

Why had she picked him out? Because he’d been everywhere she looked yesterday, and because he was the kind of beautiful she couldn’t resist. Even as his hands and body sucked at the last vestiges of reason, she struggled against panic. Rather than what she was accustomed to, an exciting, forbidden encounter quickly forgotten by both parties, she was threatened with a tough opportunist who knew how sexy he was, and who was sharp enough to also know he might have hit pay dirt with
Mrs. Lamar.

“You tell that Opi he hire me to take care of the pool, yes? And Mr. Lamar’s aquariums, of course?”

With no effort he spun her to face him and bent to suck at first one, then the other breast. He took his time, took long, heavy drags, and eased the gown up to her waist. His thumbs settled in the cleft of her bottom and he held the cheeks, forcing her against his jeans once more.

She looked at his thick black hair, his slanting black brows. He didn’t close his eyes while he worked over her breasts. Sally had never seen a man who didn’t close his eyes for that.

He was menacing.

But he was so damn good.

“What you say?” His blue eyes rose to hers. “We gonna have a whole lot of fun together, Mrs. Lamar?”

She stopped herself from asking,
What 1f 1 say no?
Instead, she passed her tongue over her lips and nodded. Her breasts felt bruised, but she wanted more of what he’d bruised them with. “We’re going to have lots of fun, Ben,” she said in the husky voice she could summon at will. “I’ll speak to Opi.”

“Good. You tell him I come recommended, me. And you not satisfied with the pool, huh?”

“You bet,” she told him. “I’m going to tell him exactly that.”

His intent expression became immobile. Concentration drew his mouth down at the corners again. “You never bored, Mrs. Lamar. I promise.” With that he sank to kneel, parted her thighs, and used his tongue. A tongue that wasn’t practicing a thing. A tongue that was a well-developed muscle like a small jackhammer whipping back and forth until she came. And she came so fast, there was no step between the start and the finish line.

“Hush, you,” he said, clapping a hand over her mouth when she screamed. “You a lady who need a lot of attention, a lot of surprises.”

On his feet again, he shrugged out of his shirt, unsnapped his jeans, and turned her to face the counter again. “Hold on, lady,” he muttered, laughing very deep. He tipped her forward and she clung to a faucet while he pushed inside her.

“Oh” was the only word she could speak. She hadn’t stopped throbbing from his tongue. “Oh, oh.” Twenty-three, huh? Thank God she’d kept her body in the kind of shape that still made men drool.

Long, deep strokes became faster until he crossed his arms around her and held on to her breasts—and rested his face on the back of her neck.

His control wavered only with his own release, and even then he gave just a single keening moan before spilling into her.

Ben knew how to play a woman who was a connoisseur.

They breathed hard, and together. Slowly Sally became aware of how short a time had passed. He hadn’t wasted a second. He’d made his demands—not that she intended to grant them—and then he was in, and out. But she would want him again once she could figure out how to do so and still call the shots.

“Nice,” he said, stepping away from her. He stripped off his jeans—under which he wore nothing—and his shoes and efficiently removed the gown that was twisted around her waist. “When do I start here?”

Her stomach turned. “I’ll have to talk to Opi.”

“Opi make decisions like that? I don’t think so. I think if Mrs. Lamar say she want Ben, Ben get the job, yes?”

She gave him a modest smile. “Probably.”

His mouth covered hers so unexpectedly, she had no time to take a breath. Still kissing her, he lifted her, wrapped her legs around his waist, and carried her into the shower. Placing her head immediately beneath the pounding water, he ensured she kept her eyes squeezed shut.

“Probably, yes,” he said. “I come tomorrow and Opi expect me. Your good friends recommend me.”

He couldn’t do anything to her, could he?

Ben showed just what he could do to her at that minute. He jerked into her again and held her around the waist to pump her up and down on him. When she squirmed, and whined, “I’m too sore,” and meant it, he wrapped her against him and gave her his first complete surprise. A finger where she least expected it, massaging, horrified, then thrilled her. He sent her exploding over the edge while he laughed some more, or, more accurately, while his chest moved with silent laughter.

“Don’t stop,” she begged. “Oh, damn, oh, yes. Don’t stop.”

When Sally went back into the master suite, she avoided looking at Wilson and went directly to her dressing room.

“Get out here,” he told her, his voice angry. “Now. Shit, this is a goddamn mess.”

She looked at herself in the dressing room mirror. Even after toweling off and combing her hair, she still looked used. She’d left the gown hanging in the shower to dry and put on the robe. Now she grabbed a pair of orange cotton sweats and dragged them on over her still red and chafed skin. She trembled inside. Pulling her hair back, she secured it at her nape with a piece of ribbon, then pushed her feet into gold flats.

“Sally! Get here!”

“Sure, lover,” she said, going as briskly as possible to his side and kicking the shoes off again to lie beside him on the bed. “What’s eating you, Wilson?”

“That.” He pointed at the television screen. “What the fuck do I pay all these people for?”

Sally looked at the set and saw the front of a familiar building in the Quarter. “Royal Street. Was there an accident?” There was always something going on in the Quarter, some drama.

“For God’s sake, Sally, shut the fuck up.” Wilson snatched up the phone and dialed. He waited, still naked but sitting up and leaning forward. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. And you know why I’m calling anyway. Yeah, so why not let me say my piece fast? The faster, the sooner we hang up and pretend you never heard from me today, right?”

Not just Royal Street, but that Errol Petrie’s place. Sally strained to hear what was being said, but Wilson had turned down the sound while he made his phone call.

“Okay,” Wilson said. “Maybe I need to speak to someone else. No. Shit, no, I’m not being funny. There’s nothing funny about this. What’s all the fuss about Petrie? Why the big TV splash? You’re supposed to make sure this doesn’t happen.”

Sally got an unaccustomed tightening in her chest. Breath stuck in her throat. Even if she didn’t know Wilson almost as well as she knew herself, she’d be able to see how angry he was, and how scared. He was more scared than angry, and that frightened her He never let weakness show.

“Save it,” he yelled into the receiver. “If you want to keep on getting the bennies, just do it.” He hung up, snatched the remote, and turned up the volume again.

“Wilson,” Sally said tentatively. “What’s happened? Did something happen to that Petrie man?”

He slid her a pitying look. “That Petrie man is dead.”

“Oh.” Her heart thudded. “I didn’t think you knew him well. Just from casual things.”

“You don’t know anything.” He gripped her arm and jerked her face close to his. “And now you’re going to forget what you just heard.”

“Who were you talking to?”

“I haven’t talked to anyone today.”

“But—”

“Sally, I haven’t—”

“No,” she said quickly, trying to draw away from him. “You wanted to talk to me about something, Wilson? You called me.”

He smiled, but his mouth quivered. “Good girl. You were always quick on your feet. Claude taught you that. Quite a guy, your old man.”

The announcer’s voice caught Sally’s attention. She opened her mouth and shook her head. An aid car stood at the gates into the courtyard of Errol Petrie’s house on Royal. Gradually she began to hear what the reporter said. And she watched medics carry out a loaded gurney and slide it into their vehicle.

“Dead?” she said, thinking fast. “That’s sad. He did so much for children.”

“Remind me to cry for him,” Wilson said. “Maybe I’ll play the friggin’ harp at his funeral.”

She hardly dared look at him. His reaction confused her.

“...
found early this morning by his old friend, Jack Charbonnet. Authorities haven’t yet released details of exactly how he died, or when.”

“Charbonnet,” Sally said, recalling the several times she’d met the man who was getting so much publicity because he was a principal in the biggest, flashiest riverboat casino ever to open. She remembered him because no woman would ever forget him. “Is he invited tonight, Wilson?”

“Charbonnet wouldn’t come near this house,” he said. “He’s made his affiliations more than clear. Not that we want or need him. He’s no gentleman, and his money’s dirty. Dirty money, we do not need, honey.”

She noted the subtle change to the almost conspiratorial tone Wilson occasionally used with her—another cause for concern, since it inevitably meant Wilson was feeling insecure.

“Why is his money dirty?” she asked, aware that Wilson had never met as much as a dollar bill he considered “dirty.”

“Never mind. I don’t have time to give a local history lesson now. I’ve got to think. It could be okay. It could all blow over.”

“Mr. LeChat” the reporter said. “Mr. LeChat could you give us a few words about what you saw in there.”

A man Sally didn’t recognize tried to push past the reporter but was stopped by the microphone that was pushed into his face. “I do not have a word to say to you nasty people,” Mr. LeChat said. “Ask Mrs. Payne. Come along, Mrs. Payne, your cab will wait for you. This gentleman needs an informed view of what happened here today.”

“Oh, my God!” Wilson fell flat on his back and put the back of a hand over his eyes.

No explanation for the reaction was necessary. “What’s Bitsy doing there?” Sally said. “Wilson, this is awful. How could she get herself in a position like this? Call Neville at once.”

Wilson shook his head from side to side.

“I guess Mrs. Bitsy Payne—would that be Mrs. Neville Payne?” the reporter asked Mr. LeChat, who appeared to be amused by the woman’s ducking and turning away.

“That’s right,” LeChat said. “Mrs. Neville Payne, who doesn’t feel like commenting. Any more than I do. We’ve both had a very distressing time of it. The unexpected death of a friend, and a truly good man, isn’t likely to be a time for celebration. Now, excuse me, please.”

Several policemen could be seen walking in the central courtyard at Errol Petrie’s house. A man in plainclothes appeared and stretched yellow crime scene tape between the pillars of the tall metal gates.

The reporter duly noted the development and publicly dedicated himself to pursuing the truth of the situation for a public that “deserved to know what had happened at the heart of their own city, and to a philanthropist, an upstanding man respected by all.”

“Crap,” Wilson said behind his hand.

“It’s sad,” Sally said. “But you’re just too softhearted, Wilson. You feel for everyone and you feel too deeply.” The mixture of fear and fabulous sex must have gone to her head.

“I told you to shut your mouth,” he muttered. “If the phone rings, answer it. Don’t put anyone through to me unless I say I want to speak to them.”

A flipping in her stomach joined the unpleasant thundering in her heart. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to. Just do as you’re told. Remember that what affects me affects you—that should keep you from making any careless calls—or careless comments.”

On the screen a man identified as a detective emerged from the courtyard and made for an unmarked car parked at the curb. The reporter cut him off and got a “No comment” for his pains.

Then the avid camera closed in on a woman with curly, dark red hair being escorted from Petrie’s property by a tall man Sally instantly identified as Jack Charbonnet.

“Mr. Charbonnet, Mr. Charbonnet,” the reporter shouted, closing in again. “We understand you found the body.”

Jack Charbonnet aimed a glacial stare at the man.

“Ooh,” Sally said, and shuddered, with deep excitement rather than any negative emotion. “I used to laugh when people said he looked like the devil when he was mad. But he looks like the devil. Look at him, Wilson.”

“Get out of my way,” Charbonnet was saying.

Undeterred, the reporter cleared his throat and said, “We saw the crime tape. People are speculating that we may be looking at a foul play situation.”

“You’ll have to get your information elsewhere,” Charbonnet said, trying to walk on.

“Mr. Petrie’s dead. Was he murdered?”

“Get out of my way,” Charbonnet said, trying to shield his companion.

“So he was murdered.”

The camera jerked and the picture swung wildly. “He pushed the cameraman,” Sally said. “Wilson, Charbonnet pushed the cameraman. Won’t he be arrested for that? Who was it who got arrested for that?”

“Stop this,” a woman’s voice said clearly. “Errol was a peaceful man. There’s no call for this behavior. It’s disrespectful.”