Five
As Gabe took the jack from the Miata’s trunk, Emma tried to remember her former husband ever doing anything more physical than swinging a golf club and came up blank.
Richard had been too busy stealing money from his employer—who just happened to be his father-in-law—and screwing the bimbo to help out with any chores.
Now, watching Gabe work, she decided that there was something to be said for having a male around the house to do those manly things. Like change a tire. Mow the lawn. Tie you up.
Tie you up? Where had that come from?
From that damn Jean Lafitte movie. Emma had known she was in trouble the minute it had come up in the conversation and was vastly relieved that there was no way Gabe would ever know she’d sat in the dark of the Bijou, popcorn going uneaten, as she’d watched his larger-than-life character throw that woman over his shoulder, then leap from her husband’s Spanish galleon to his own ship that was flying the bloodred flag feared throughout southern waters.
His captive had fought like a wildcat, kicking, biting, scratching, her nails leaving a scarlet trail down the dark skin of his back. But she’d been no match for the rapacious rogue. Nor her own rioting female desires. By the time the actress was bucking beneath him, opening herself up to his invasion, Emma’s panties had been drenched and her legs so weak, she’d had to stay seated until long after the credits had rolled and the theater emptied.
That night she’d dreamed of being held hostage by a pirate, who, unsurprisingly, looked exactly like Gabriel Broussard. Dressed in a pirate’s black shirt, tight trousers, and high black leather boots, he’d tied her to the mast of his ship, his strong hands claiming her body at will, while his low, rumbling voice told her all the things he intended to do to her.
Wicked, outrageous things. Things that shocked her. Shamed her. And, dammit, excited her.
Just remembering that movie, and the dream, along with the scandalous way she’d allowed him to touch her in the car, was enough to make her so hot she was surprised she wasn’t liquidizing from the inside out.
Watching him work wasn’t helping. Who’d have guessed that changing a flat tire could be such a turn-on? As he crouched down and loosened the lug nuts with a speedy efficiency that a NASCAR pit mechanic might have envied, the faded denim pulled tight against strong, muscular thighs in a way that had Emma imagining naughty things. Kinky things.
She was used to seeing men without clothes on. Her days, after all, were spent with nude men who wore nothing but a towel and a blissful expression as her hands brought them to ecstasy. Or, as close to it as a person could get without having sex.
But, Emma was discovering, there was a huge difference between nude and naked. Nude was when a man wasn’t wearing clothes. Naked was when he wasn’t wearing clothes and was up to no good.
And, heaven help her, naked was how she wanted Gabe.
When he bent over to jack up the wheel, any lingering desire to kick his butt evaporated. It was a gold medal, world-class butt and what Emma wanted to do, was aching to do, was bite it.
Do it, that devilish Samantha perched on her damp shoulder, advised.
I can’t just maul him!
“What world do you live in, chica?” A new voice, sounding a lot like Gabrielle, from Desperate Housewives, chimed in.
Terrific. Now they were ganging up on her.
“It’s not that easy, dammit.” Emma was appalled when she heard the words come out of her mouth.
“Something wrong?” Gabe glanced back at her.
“No.” She forced a smile. “I was just saying that didn’t look very easy.”
He shrugged. “Like I said, some things you never forget. Who’d have thought a past working as a grease monkey would ever come in handy?”
Thunder rumbled ominously on the horizon; black clouds raced in from the Gulf. The dense air was thick enough to drink. As he returned to work, sweat dampened his shirt, causing it to cling to his back, revealing every corded muscle. More muscles bunched in his arms as he pumped the jack.
Lightning crackled across the darkening sky. Emma could taste the electricity on her tongue, beneath her skin, scorching along her nerve endings. She’d lived in south Louisiana all of her life. She was accustomed to the heat and constant humidity. But never had she been so hot she felt on the verge of fainting.
Her head grew light. White spots, like paper-winged moths, fluttered in front of her eyes. She placed a hand against the back fender of the Miata to steady herself. Gabe, who’d replaced the flat with the spare and was tightening the lug nuts, glanced up at her.
“You sure you’re okay?”
“Of course.”
If you didn’t count the fact that she was on the verge of falling flat on her face. Her hair was clinging to her forehead; more unruly curls had escaped to stick to the back of her damp neck. Swaying a bit, she tried to brush it away with the hand that wasn’t holding onto the car for dear life, but her fingers were shaking.
Deep blue eyes framed by long, sooty lashes that would have appeared feminine were it not for the lean, hungry lines of his face, studied Emma with an intensity that did nothing to help clear her head.
“You look as if you’re about to pass out, mon ange.”
He’d called her his angel that night. When he’d drawn her down onto that mattress and kissed her. A deep, searing kiss that had scorched away a lifetime of inhibitions. A kiss she’d been fantasizing about since she’d been twelve years old. But the reality had far surpassed those romantic, junior high school daydreams.
“I’ve never fainted in my life.” The spots swirled like snowflakes as she tossed her head.
“There’s always a first time for everything.”
He tossed aside the jack, stood up and curled his hands around her upper arms to steady her.
The wind picked up, rattling the sugar cane in the fields on either side of the road. “You’re tremblin’ like a willow in a hurricane, you.”
Emma was far from willowy, but at this moment, with this man, she felt strangely, uncharacteristically fragile.
“You scared of storms, chère?”
“No.” She swallowed.
“You’re not scared of me?” His hands were moving up and down her arms, the gesture, which was meant to soothe, made her ache with the need to feel them everywhere.
“No.” She shook her head.
Emma was afraid of herself. Of this dizzying, hot way only this man had ever made her feel. Despite her little internal pep talk about rejection being no big deal, the truth was that while Richard’s very public affair had wounded her pride, Gabe’s taking off without so much as a good-bye kiss had been like an arrow shot into the center of her heart.
It had taken her a long time to get over that night; now, what she feared was risking her foolish heart again.
She lifted her hand, skimmed her fingers over his face. Even with that scar cutting across his cheekbone, it was beautiful, the face of a fallen angel which could have been washed off the ceiling of a cathedral.
“Should I be? Afraid of you?”
“Mais, non.” He touched her in turn, his fingertips feeling like sparklers as they traced the line of her mouth, brushed her cheek, her temple, into her hair. “I’d never hurt you, Emma.”
But he would. Oh, he honestly wouldn’t mean to. But she could see the heartache coming as clearly as the storm barreling toward them across the bayou.
As she felt herself drowning in the midnight blue of his eyes, Emma suspected that the pain could be well worth the risk.
Lightning forked across the sky, sparking inside her. The rumbling answer of thunder was echoed in Emma’s own heart as she stood there, looking up at him, knowing that her wildly foolish heart was glowing, unguarded, in her eyes.
He framed her face with his hands. “I’m going to kiss you now, chère.” His deep voice was tender, yet roughened with arousal.
Emma had to remind herself to breathe as his mouth, slowly, inexorably, moved downward, toward hers.
Having never forgotten the last time they’d been together, she braced herself for the heat.