Man-oh-man, her hatches had always been weak where Rusty was concerned. All he had to do was wink at her, and she melted. He wore faded Wrangler jeans with battered, low-heeled boots, a long-sleeved denim shirt, and a cowboy hat. He was six-foot-three of gorgeous, dark-skinned, dark-haired Cajun testosterone. Temptation on the hoof.
Good thing she was a born-again virgin.
Women are the root of all trouble, guar-an-teed!
Finally, after a month of off-and-on bird-dogging Charmaine, Raoul had finally caught up with her. She wasn’t going to escape.
“Ladies.” He took off his hat and nodded a greeting, first at Charmaine, then at Tante Lulu, who together made an odd couple, with Charmaine being so tall at five feet nine and the old lady such an itty-bitty thing at barely five feet. And Tante Lulu was wearing the most outlandish outfit. Looked like a belly dancer suit or something. But then, Charmaine wasn’t any better. She wore her usual suggestive attire designed to tease, which didn’t bear close scrutiny in his present mood. Not that he wasn’t teasable, especially after two years in the state pen.
But, no, he couldn’t blame his reaction to Charmaine on his two years of forced celibacy. She’d always had that hair-trigger arousal effect on him. When she’d dumped him ten years ago, he’d about died. Quit school for a semester. Lost his football scholarship. A nightmare. Every time he’d heard about her remarrying, he’d relived the pain. He couldn’t go through that again, especially not with all the current problems in his life.
Steel yourself, buddy. She’s only a woman, the logical side of his brain said.
Hah! the perverse side said.
He pulled up a chair and sat down, propping his long legs, and crossing them at the ankles on the edge of Charmaine’s side of the booth, barring any hasty departure on her part. He was no fool. He recognized the panic in her wide whiskey eyes.
After taking a swallow from the long neck he’d purchased at the bar, he set the bottle down, noticing for the first time the line of oyster shooters in front of Charmaine. Holy shit! Had she really drunk four of them already? In the middle of the afternoon?
“What are we celebrating, chère?” he asked.
“We aren’t celebrating anything,” Charmaine answered churlishly.
Hey, I’m the one who should be churlish here, Ms. Snotty.
“We’re celebrating Charmaine’s virginity,” Tante Lulu announced.
“Is that a fact?” Raoul said with a grin.
Charmaine groaned at Tante Lulu’s announcement and downed another oyster shooter, first the oyster, then the bourbon. Gulp-gulp! He watched with fascination the shiver that rippled over her body from her throat, across her mighty-fine breasts, her belly, and all her extremities, including her legs encased in skintight black jeans. Then his eyes moved back to her breasts, and her nipples bloomed under her sizzling red hooker T-shirt. Charmaine watched him watching her and groaned again.
Was it possible he still affected her the way she affected him? Don’t go there, Raoul, he advised himself.
Tante Lulu chuckled. “Yep, Charmaine’s a born-again virgin. She’s joinin’ a club and everything. Might even have her doo-hickey sewed back up.”
Raoul wasn’t about to ask Tante Lulu what doo-hickey she referred to. Instead, he commented to Charmaine, “Hot damn, you always manage to surprise me, darlin’.”
He immediately regretted his words when Charmaine batted her eyelashes at him and drawled, “That’s my goal in life, darlin’.”
He gritted his teeth. He was so damn mad at her, not because she was being sarcastic now, but because she’d made his life miserable the past few weeks… in fact, the past ten years.
Tante Lulu giggled. He glanced toward the old lady, not wanting to rehash old—or new—business in front of her. “Charmaine and I shouldn’t be squabbling in front of you.”
Tante Lulu just waved a hand in front of her face, and said, “Doan you nevermind me, boy. Squabble all you want. Jist pretend I’m not here.”
Right. Like everything we say isn’t going to be broadcast on the bayou grapevine by nightfall.
“Was you framed?” Tante Lulu asked him all of a sudden.
He hesitated. Getting sent to Angola for drug dealing was a sore subject with him and not one he was ready to discuss. “Yes,” was all he disclosed in the end.