French Quarter (7 page)

He chuckled his reply. “No,
chere
. Just thinkin’.”

She smiled. “Thinking what?” Her naughty expression told him she’d already figured out the answer.

He lowered his chin and hoped she saw the hunger in his eyes. “Thinkin’ I want to fuck you again.”

She cast a coquettish look, took the last bite of a donut, washing it down with the milk he’d supplied, and quietly got up from the chair where she sat, meandering to one end of the balcony. She faced the breeze, putting her back toward him, and he understood that the simple gesture was an invitation.

Jack approached behind her, stepping up close enough for his erection to rub against her ass through their clothes. She wrapped her fists around the top of the wrought-iron railing, waiting.

Reaching around, he skimmed fingertips up her thighs, under her dress.

He leaned near her ear. “Is your sweet little pussy wet for me, baby?”

“Why don’t you check?” she whispered, turning her head to draw him into a kiss. As he pushed his tongue into her mouth, he cupped her mound full in his hand, glad he’d torn off her panties earlier.
Oui
, she was wet, nearly dripping.

He pressed his fingers to her center, where he knew she was pink and aching for him. With his other hand, he reached around to toy with her nipple through the fabric, sliding his hard-on more fiercely against the delicate crack of her ass.

Liz heard her own breath come heavier until she was panting, writhing against him. She wasn’t sure she’d ever felt anything so exquisite—every move brought pleasure, from his sweet stroking fingers in the front to his stone-hard rod in the back.

“Fuck me,” she heard herself whisper on the breeze.

“Tell me again,” he said softly in her ear.

She said it louder. “Fuck me.”

She kept moving against his hand, the pleasure there mounting. Was he rubbing her harder or was she grinding more intensely against his fingers?

He didn’t ask her to say it again, but she did anyway, wanted to, this time with more force. “Fuck me, baby. Fuck me.” His fingers, moving in hot circles, were so good, so perfect; she was getting so close,
so close
… “Oh God, baby, fuck me.”

“I’m fucking you with my fingers,
chere
.”

She moaned and thrust against his touch, harder, harder, his fingers seeming to sink deeper against her clit as they stroked her—warm, swift, sure. The pleasure grew and gathered inside her, working itself into a hot, tight little ball that—oh God, yes! —finally exploded, breaking over her like a tidal wave, making her cry out over and over, without a thought to the attention it might attract. Each heated vibration was more shattering than the last, so powerful that her body spasmed and if Jack hadn’t wrapped his other arm around her waist she might have collapsed on the balcony from the sheer intensity of her bliss.

He kept rubbing her, slowing when she began to slow, letting his fingers go still when she stilled, too. She finally panted her exhaustion, numbly leaning her head to one side when she felt Jack’s kisses on her neck. “So sweet, baby,” he whispered. “So sweet.” Then his voice changed, got deeper, more forceful. “Now I’m gonna fuck you with my big hard cock.” And he did—using both hands to slide her dress up to her hips and holding her there while he thrust inside.

“Oooh,” she moaned at the entry. God, he filled her. With his…cock. Yes, his cock. Another word she’d never used before, but Jack was changing her, uncovering something in her she’d never known, some part of her that brought the raw and primal to the forefront, that made such words sound as natural and hot and loving as any others.

His voice was back to breathy when he spoke into her ear. “Tell me how you want it.”

“Hard,” she said. “Fuck me hard.” She was getting good at this. Good at saying exactly what she meant, at talking a little bit dirty.

His thin, masculine chuckle was laced with arrogance. “Think you can take it?”

“Oh yes.”

And mmm, did she ever take it. Jack pounded into her with hot, powerful thrusts, each one making her release a small cry. She felt each brutal stroke all the way to her fingers and toes. She loved the feeling of being fucked with such primal abandon, loved the way each sweet plunge seemed to fill her with him more and more. Her cries involuntarily turned into a word that came on each thrust. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Fuck me. Yes.”

Her legs grew weak with the force of his sex and she gripped the rail even tighter lest she crumble to the balcony floor. Never in her life had a man fucked her with so much power, with such driving force that it seemed to be turning her inside out, numbing her mind to any thought but the pleasure that each deliciously rough stroke delivered. He never stopped, just kept fucking and fucking and fucking her, filling her with his cock again and again, and her pleasure was just beginning to be laced with weariness, a sense that she might soon collapse from the sheer force of his thrusts, when he said, “Baby, I’m comin’. I’m comin’ in you.”

His deep strokes slowed just slightly as he pumped his release into her, and she almost
felt
the thick pleasure of his orgasm through his long, throaty moans. Finally, they went still together, and he was hugging her from behind, resting his head on her shoulder, whispering, “So good, baby. You’re so fuckin’ good.”

She barely had the strength to reply, but managed to look over her shoulder and cast a small smile before saying, “I’m so fucking
tired
. You’ve worn me out.”

She relished his satisfied little grin. “Mmm,” he growled, squeezing her body closer to him, “then let’s go to bed.”

* * * * *

The following morning, Liz took a taxi to the home she and Todd shared, but she waited until she thought he’d be gone to work. Her biggest fear was that she’d pull up and find him still there, frantic, with FBI agents and SWAT team members and God knew who else, because she was missing. Jack had offered to go with her, just in case Todd
was
still there, but she’d refused. She’d gotten herself into this mess by being a complacent do-gooder for the first thirty years of her existence—now she’d get out of it by taking charge of her life.

To her great relief, when the cab pulled up outside the Greek Revival home, the driveway was empty—Todd was gone. Once inside, she got undressed—very aware that she wasn’t wearing any panties—and took a long, luxurious shower. She’d never spent as much time thinking about her body in her whole life as she had the last few days, so while showering, she paid attention to it. She watched the soap sudsing on her breasts, felt her own sensual response as she ran the bar over her smooth stomach, up her arms, down her thighs. She thought about how sticky her inner thighs had gotten at various points last night—both from her juices and Jack’s. Suddenly, every touch to her skin felt brand new.

After calling her boss to claim she’d overslept and would be right in, she chose her work clothes for the day carefully, as she had plans to meet Jack for dinner. So while on the outside she wore a conservative plum-colored suit, underneath she put on a lacy demi-bra of lavender along with a matching thong and garter belt with nude stockings.

As she caught the streetcar on St. Charles and took a seat, she felt positively naughty. The sensations of the tight, binding lace beneath her professional clothes felt like a delicious little secret she kept from the other passengers, a secret she couldn’t wait to reveal to Jack.

Unfortunately, though, she had a long day ahead before seeing him, so she’d just have to think of it as a reward, something to look forward to. Luckily, she liked her job and thus far had been a model employee, so coming in late today wasn’t a big deal. The event she truly dreaded was calling Todd. And she couldn’t put it off. In fact, now that the time had come to do it, she didn’t want to postpone breaking up any longer—she wanted to close that chapter of her life and get back to having fun with Jack. So as soon as she got caught up on her morning tasks, she picked up the phone at her desk and dialed his office.

Damn, voicemail. But then, maybe that was a blessing in disguise. She hadn’t planned to actually break up on the phone anyway, only to arrange a meeting with him. So she said, “Todd, it’s me. I need to see you. Meet me at noon today at the Red Rooster.” It was a small downtown diner where they sometimes grabbed quick meals together.

At twelve o’clock sharp, Liz was seated in a booth with a cup of coffee. Todd walked in looking hurried and a bit frantic, but she supposed she couldn’t blame him, considering that she’d been out all night, had left a cryptic message not bothering to explain why, and that he had no idea she knew about his extra-curricular activities.

He spotted her immediately and took long strides to the booth, sliding in and placing both palms on the table, as if to keep his emotions down. “Where the hell have you been?”

“That’s not important,” she said calmly. “What matters is that
I
know where
you’ve
been.”

His pale brown eyebrows knit. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw you last night, Todd.” She kept her voice void of emotion, and it wasn’t difficult—she suddenly felt so indifferent toward him. She couldn’t believe she’d ever agreed to marry someone who clearly held her in such little regard. “I saw you at Club Venus.”

His mouth dropped open. He ran a hand back through his hair, took a moment to think. “Okay, yes, I was at Club Venus last night. A little happy hour with some guys from work—no big deal. We finished the project we were working on, so decided to reward ourselves. I was going to tell you when I got home,
but you
weren’t there
.”

Liz released a tired sigh. What a liar. She’d have to be more direct. “Okay, how about this? I saw you pay a woman to dance naked in your lap. And I know that two nights before—and probably
every
night for the last two months—you indulged heavily in that particular pastime. I know because I thought you were having an affair, so I hired someone to follow you.”

Now his eyes were as round as plates, gaping at her blankly. She decided to take the opportunity to press onward.

“I’m breaking off the engagement, Todd.” She’d taken off her ring before last night, but she’d worn it to work today specifically so she could return it to him. Slipping it off her left hand, she laid it in the center of the table.

“Let me get this straight,” he finally said, sounding a bit manic. “You’re breaking off our engagement because I’ve gone to a strip club a few times to unwind after work?” He said it like she was crazy and unreasonable, as if he hadn’t lied to her, as if it had indeed only been a
few
times. And as if getting lap dance after lap dance without having mentioned it was a perfectly acceptable way to run an engagement.

“Well, actually, there’s more to it than that,” she said. “For one thing, I’ve realized I don’t love you, and for another, I’ve met someone else. But neither of those things probably would have happened if you hadn’t started lying about working late so that naked women could wiggle around in your lap, so I guess that going to a strip club to ‘unwind’ did indeed lead to this.”

Todd looked absolutely livid. “You’re seeing another man? Cheating on me?”

She gasped her disbelief. “Not before I found out what
you
were up to, so don’t act as if you’ve been wronged.”

“Who the hell is it? I’ll kill him.”

She rolled her eyes. Compared to Jack, Todd was scrawny. “That doesn’t matter,” she said, getting back her composure. “The important thing is that our engagement is over.” She looked at the ring she’d placed between them. “You’d better put that in your pocket before it gets lost.”

Todd began shaking his head. “No, I won’t accept that ring, Elizabeth.” She cringed—she’d always hated that Todd insisted on calling her that, and she suddenly hated it even more now; it sounded so Puritan. “Because we’re not breaking up.”

Another sigh of exhaustion escaped her. “We just did.”

“No, you can’t break up with me, I won’t let you. We’re going to have the perfect life together and I still intend to have it. We’ll be fine, you’ll see. You’ll just have to be patient with me.”

She had no idea what he was blathering on about. She shook her head. “What? Patient with you?”

He nodded. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m having trouble not wanting other women. But you’ll just have to be patient while I get those feelings out of my system. That’s why I’ve been going to Club Venus, darling, for
you
. So that I can go into our marriage with a pure heart and won’t ever have to cheat on you.”

“Dear God.” She almost laughed. Did he actually think that explanation would make things better?

Then again, maybe he was so accustomed to the old, complacent Liz that he’d thought he could get away with
anything
.

Well, she was tired of arguing with him about whether or not he “accepted” her breaking up with him. She’d hoped they could have a civil discussion about this, maybe work out living arrangements over lunch, but clearly she’d been too optimistic. “Look, Todd, we’re through. Understand?”

He shook his head vehemently. “No, we’re not. We’re going to have the perfect life, you and I. You’re supposed to be my perfect wife.”

“What?” she said, confused by his rambling.

“The first night I took you home to meet my parents, my dad pulled me aside and said, ‘She’s the one, son, the one who’ll make a perfect wife for you.’ And I realized he was right. You’re going to make a wonderful mother to our children, Elizabeth, and you always handle every situation appropriately, and you listen to what I say and do what I want…” His eyebrows knit tightly again. “Or at least you used to.”