Twelve
Emma was not having a good day. She’d mixed up her oils, using Mr. Lamoreaux’s sandlewood and juniper on Mrs. Breaux, who preferred the relaxing scent of lavender. Rather than appearing unhappy, the elderly lady assured Emma that it was occasionally a good idea to get out of a rut. While Etienne Lamoreaux, who wore a gold hoop in his ear and rode an old chopper Harley, seemed to take smelling like a little old lady’s sachet in stride.
All day long she jumped every time the phone rang. By closing time, she’d been forced to wonder if she wasn’t putting too much importance on what had probably been to him nothing more than a convenient, one-night stand. Especially since that polite, green as spring grass deputy had informed her that he had instructions to follow her back from the camp to her house, which meant Gabriel had been aware of her sneaking away.
How difficult would it have been to keep her there, if he’d wanted her to stay? He wouldn’t even have to use force. All it would’ve taken was a few kisses, some touches . . .
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Roxi asked.
Emma crossed her arms. “Absolutely.”
“Because I can sure as hell think of worse things than daydreaming of that hot Cajun Gabriel Broussard.”
“That’s just the point,” Emma argued. “I don’t want to dream of him.”
Her blood began to swim at the thought of Gabe touching her. Tasting her. “He’s like a fever in my blood, Roxi. I can’t concentrate. He’s all I think about. I want him gone.”
A moonstone ring, larger than the diamond one Gabe professed not to have bought for Tamara Templeton, glowed as Roxi tossed her long black hair over her shoulder. “You do realize, of course, that most of the time people want me to bring love to them. Not send it away.”
“We’re not talking about love. This is lust. Pure and simple.”
Although, in truth, there was nothing simple about her feelings for Gabe. He stirred her up. But at the same time, during supper, she’d felt strangely relaxed with him. Okay, maybe not relaxed. But comfortable. As if she could be herself.
“Oh, God,” Roxi groaned. “You went and did it, didn’t you?”
“I told you we did. Several times.”
“You said you had mind-bending, multi-orgasmic sex. You didn’t tell me you did a pair bonding with him.”
“There wasn’t any bonding going on.” At least not on Gabe’s part. If there had been, wouldn’t he have called by now?
Hell. She really wasn’t any good at casual sex.
“Haven’t I told you that you have to keep your emotions and your orgasms separate?”
“Easy for you to say. You haven’t had sex with Gabriel Broussard.”
“More’s the pity. Though unfortunately, he’s not my type.”
Emma snorted disbelievingly.
“Really,” Roxi insisted. “I have, when it comes to men, one steadfast rule: I refuse to sleep with any guy who has the whole package. The best way to keep sex a no-strings affair is to stick to only going to bed with a man who’s got a below-the-belt package.”
“Gabe has that, too.” Emma was feeling feverish just remembering him inside her. Filling her. Loving her. “Oh, God, Roxi.” She leaned her elbows on the table and dropped her face into her hands. “I love him.” So much, it hurt.
“It’s too bad I’m not into black magic, or I’d put a curse on that Hollywood stud muffin for seducing you.”
“He didn’t seduce me.” He hadn’t forced her to go buy that sexy outfit, that barely there underwear, those damn fuck-me-big-boy shoes, which had definitely lived up to their name. “I seduced him.”
It was Roxi’s turn to snort. “From what I’ve read, the guy doesn’t need a lot of convincing.”
“He’s not like that.”
“Not kinky?”
Emma thought about the way he’d taken her on the table. And later, the whipped cream. And she hadn’t even realized that some of the things he’d done to her in the shower were physically possible. “Define kinky.”
Roxi shook her head. “Shit. It just gets worse.” She stood up, went over to the kitchen and took out a small wooden chest. “Short of putting a stake through Gabriel Broussard’s manly chest, this is the most powerful ‘go away, lover’ spell I know.” She paused as she took a small glass vial of essential oil from the box. “So, I’m asking one last time—you sure this is what you want to do, chère?”
Emma had entered into their one-night stand with her eyes wide open. She’d known Gabe would hurt her. And he had.
So, the downside was that her heart was broken. Shattered, like the white shards of pottery that had covered the wood plank floor after he’d swept their coffee mugs off the table.
The upside was that she’d experienced a night of passion few women would ever know. With the sexiest man alive.
And that was worth remembering.
Now the thing to do was to get rid of Gabriel Broussard so she could move on with her life.
She nodded. “Absolutely.”
Gabe missed Emma.
And not just for the sex, which had been blow-your-mind incredible, but even before People magazine had named him the sexiest man alive, sex had been easy to come by. And, too often, easily forgotten.
Which was not the case with Emma. It was as if the woman had burned herself into his mind. Having given her mixed messages ten years ago, he spent all day and evening out on the gallerie, trying to logically sort out his feelings. Which wasn’t that easy to do since his mind kept returning to last night, rerunning every thing they’d done in Technicolor and Surround sound.
Every little detail about her was scorched onto his mind: her scent—tropical flowers blended with womanly arousal—as he’d dragged her down onto the bed; the flame silk of her hair draped over his thighs as she’d taken him deeper, with more enthusiasm, than any woman had taken him before; the rosebud shaped birthmark at the base of her spine; the satin of her legs wrapped around his hips, the soft little sounds she made when he kissed that sensitive spot behind her ear; the way she screamed his name when she came.
But there was more. Much, much more. He liked the way her smile lit up her eyes; he admired the way she’d taken those lemons her ex had dumped on her and turned them into day spa lemonade. He enjoyed her enthusiasm when she talked about her business; got a kick out of knowing that she’d seen all his movies, and liked the fact that her opinions of each role were honest, even if they weren’t always flattering. Such as her belief that he’d made a mistake with that comic action hero flick, something he’d figured out on the first day of filming.
He’d also been damned relieved that she hadn’t seemed to hold a grudge against him for having taken off to California.
Which reminded him—he still owed her an explanation.
No time like the present, he decided.
Conveniently overlooking the fact that it was eleven-thirty at night, he flipped open his cell phone.
While Regan Callahan didn’t sound all that thrilled to be awakened for the second night in a row, Nate remained his typically unflappable self.
“No problem,” he said.
That little matter taken care of, Gabe left the cabin, climbed into the pirogue tied to the dock, and headed across the wine-dark water toward Blue Bayou.
And Emma.