“If I thought y’all would give up without me, I might consider tossing in the towel,” Luc said. “It’s a losing battle fighting these oil behemoths anyhow, as you well know.”
“Hey, haven’t you ever heard of David and Goliath? That’s who we are… a bunch of Davids.” René grinned at Luc, trying to make light of a situation that was getting darker by the moment.
“Dammit, René, I know you and your lamebrain friends. You’ll ditch the idea of legal representation and try to fight Cypress Oil with your own half-ass methods. When the almighty dollar’s involved, human beings are disposable roadblocks to the bottom line. Believe me, slingshots don’t count for crap with these people.” He looked pointedly at the back of René’s jeans when referring to slingshots.
“Yeah, but if there are enough slingshots, and if the Davids have extra ammunition, as in The Swamp Solicitor”—René shrugged—”well, who can predict what will happen, eh, big bro?”
Luc chuckled and shook his head. Sometimes it was hard for him to remember that his brother was thirty years old and not the gap-toothed urchin tagging after him in the bayous. In truth, Luc had been playing the big brother to René and Remy for so long, he wouldn’t know how to stop now. And René knew it.
They stepped onto the houseboat and René held the screen door open for him, then unlocked the door, before Luc eased himself inside, sideways, with the wide tray. He set the food down on the table of a corner vee-shaped booth in the galley area.
“I’m thinking about leaving Sylvie here with you,” Luc said in a low voice, not wanting to awaken the woman, who was napping on a narrow cot attached to the far wall of the large, one-room residence. The events of the past few days had taken their physical toll on her, and she’d barely protested an hour ago when he’d left her to go over to the restaurant and talk with René and his fishing comrades.
“No way!” His brother shook his head vehemently. “I’m going to be on the run the next few weeks as things get hot and heavy. I can’t have my movements hampered by a chick. Not that Sylvie’s a chick… I mean, she’s attractive enough, and I may fancy myself a David, but let’s face it, she sure as hell isn’t any hot-to-trot Bathsheba. Too strait-laced, if you ask me.”
They both looked toward Sylvie, who was sleeping soundly, her Happy Meal container at her side. For once, there was no rustling inside the box.
Mickey and Minnie must be all screwed out.
If René’s assessment of Sylvie was intended to be a criticism of her allure, Luc had to disagree. Her right arm was thrown over her head in abandon, causing her breasts to be uplifted and clearly outlined under her silk blouse. Her legs in their black slacks were parted. It was an uninhibited, inviting position that Sylvie would normally never take when awake, at least not in anyone’s presence. Certainly not his.
Worst of all—or best of all, from my perspective—her left hand lay loosely over her flat stomach, low down. Was it an unconscious caress?
Like a rush of erotic adrenaline, Luc felt that imagined caress through every inch of his own body. And his overactive imagination zoomed into sensual overload.
Did Sylvie ever touch herself in the absence of a lover?
Had she ever touched herself in the presence of a lover?
His brother was wrong. Sylvie Fontaine could be a Bathsheba any old day. Looking at her, Luc felt his heart soften and another part of his body harden. Correction. Harden even more.
“Holy shit!” René remarked in an undertone. Then he softly sang the words to that old Queen song “Another One Bites the Dust.”
Luc came back to the present with a jolt. “What? What’s wrong?”
“You!” René hooted. “You’ve fallen for Sylvie Fontaine. Mon Dieu! I never thought I’d see the day that you’d tumble for the L-word.”
“You’re crazy,” Luc protested.
“You should see your face when you look at her, Luc. I wish I had a camera. You’re a freakin’ Cajun Hallmark moment.”