Sylvie hung her lab coat on a wall hook, then rolled down the sleeves of her long-sleeved shirt and buttoned them at the wrists. The lab technicians had already left for the day, and she had completed her own official duties an hour ago. She would close up soon, once she took a few more notes. She stooped forward, clipboard in hand, to observe more closely the activity in the glass cage.
“Hey, chère, you wanna dance?”
Lucien LeDeux, Sylvie thought instantly. She’d recognize that voice anywhere… the plague of her life… the man most likely to dampen her good mood.
“Slooow dancing?” he added as usual, chuckling.
The Cajun clod! Uh-oh! What if he’s looking at my lab rats? What if he suspects what I’m doing here? We can’t let news of this project become public yet. God, he’d like nothing better than to spread the word from one end of the bayou to the other, giving his own twisted spin to my project. He’d make me a laughingstock. Sylvie, the hard-up spinster with the horny hamsters, or some such nonsense.
She peered back over her shoulder at the jerk, and could have died. His dark eyes weren’t planted on the animals after all. He was staring, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at her behind, where the denim fabric stretched taut due to her bending.
She’d always adhered to that womanly adage, passed down through the ages: Never bend over in front of a man. Especially not one with the instincts of a bad-to-the-bone connoisseur of females like Lucien LeDeux.
“Man, oh, man! You have the sweetest heart-shaped ass this side of Opoulousa, darlin’,” he murmured begrudgingly. Then he shook his head, like a shaggy dog, seeming to realize belatedly that compliments, even crude ones, were not his usual M.O. when dealing with Sylvie.
Oooh, it’s just like the lech to say the opposite of what he thinks. Heart-shaped? As if! Instantly, she straightened with affront, and banged her head on an open cage door in the second tier. “Damn!” she swore as her clipboard fell to the floor with a clatter and papers scattered everywhere.
Luc hunkered down at the same time she did to help her gather up the mess, and they knocked heads.
“Nice running into you, jolie fille,” he drawled.
The lazy grin that tugged at his full lips was the last straw. “Go away,” she said.
“Am I sensing a little hostility here?”
Sylvie gave him a hard shove in the chest.
Taken by surprise, he fell backwards. But, to her dismay, the idiot grabbed her by the upper arms and took her with him. She landed flat on top of the laughing lout.
In all the years she’d known Luc, he’d never once actually touched her. Odd that she would recall that now. That must be why she was so disconcerted by the light pressure of his fingertips on her arms, when he’d only been trying to break her fall.
She tried not to notice the silky texture of his unruly, overlong black hair… or the dancing amusement in his dark, dark, brown eyes… or his even, white teeth. Instead, she frowned at his well-worn, form-fitting jeans and at the logo on his T-shirt with its self-deprecating slur on his ethnic origins—Coonass. If she, or anyone else, ever referred to him as such, he’d probably fly into a rage.
Then, the worst thing of all happened. Luc stopped laughing as his attention was caught by the sawdust flying in one of the cages, where Samson and Delilah were still at it. She saw the instant he comprehended what she’d been observing on his arrival.
“Ah, chère, if I’d known you were into… perversions,” he teased, “I could have introduced you to this place on Bourbon Street. They have two-way mirrors and—”
Feeling her face heat, she tried to squirm away, but his arms were locked around her waist.
“A blush, Sylv?” he whispered huskily. “At your age, you can still blush? You give me faith, darlin’. You give me faith.”
“I’d like to give you something, you dumb dolt,” she snarled, and scrambled to her feet. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“I need a favor, bébé.” He had the good sense to duck his head sheepishly.