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Her knees went a little weak and she sagged against him as he exhaled near her ear, and the warmth of his breath caused gooseflesh to rise on her neck.
The noise and the lights and the crowd surrounding her seemed to disappear as Colin’s thumb traced circles against her palm. Her free hand came to rest on the outside of his thigh, and she felt the muscles under the fabric tighten.
Then the crowd moved, sending the guy in front of her staggering backward to bump into her. Drunk and rowdy, he took it as an introduction and made a descriptive suggestion to her.
Before she could do more than gasp, Colin had released her hand and pushed the guy back with a very succinct suggestion of his own. And while her erstwhile admirer was fueled by testosterone and copious amounts of alcohol, Colin stood a full head taller and several inches wider. The man’s friends wisely pulled him back.
Colin shoved the rest of the way through the crowd and back into the street, where the people were at least moving. “Sorry about that. You okay?”
“Yeah.” Although he’d pulled her back against him, the moment had been ruined, and Jamie felt her cheeks burning. She’d been caught in a slow simmer all afternoon, but the overcharged, overindulged raunchiness around her made that moment under the balcony feel slightly tawdry now. She wanted out of the Quarter and back to the earlier mood. “I think I’ve seen—”
She gasped as a blonde in a very small tank top stumbled over her own feet and the drink in her hand landed all over Jamie. Something slushy and pink covered most of her shoulders and chest, and icy rivulets slid down her cleavage. Against the heat and humidity, the cold and wet drink initially felt refreshing, but Jamie’s eyes watered from the alcohol fumes even as it soaked through her shirt and bra to her skin, replacing that refreshing feeling with clammy stickiness.
The girl mumbled an apology, but she seemed more upset by the loss of her drink than the fact that Jamie was now wearing it. The way the girl was weaving, the loss of alcohol was probably a blessing, although Jamie didn’t doubt she’d get a refill quickly enough.
Colin took a look at her and shook his head. “Have you had enough of the Quarter now?”
Wet, sticky and still reeling from that earlier moment, she gritted out, “Very much so.”
Colin surveyed the damage. “Come on. Let’s go get you cleaned up.”
That didn’t seem likely or even possible, and there was something slightly humiliating about the whole thing, but she was now miserable in more ways than she could count, and getting off Bourbon Street seemed like a very good idea regardless. She let Colin lead her through a less crowded back alley she’d never walk into alone, not even for money, and when they emerged on Chartres Street, she realized they were going back to the Lucky Gator.
She’d come full circle.
* * *
He shouldn’t have brought Jamie back into the Quarter—or at the very least, he should have kept her off Bourbon Street. He certainly knew better, even if she didn’t. It was too out of control, with too many people acting like idiots and bordering on dangerous. But there was something about Jamie that made him want to indulge her. She seemed to want to experience everything, give it all at least one try, and she embraced everything with enthusiasm and excitement.
And he had to admit he was rather hoping she’d indulge him back—hopefully with a bit of that enthusiasm, too. It was getting damn near impossible to keep his hands to himself. What had started off as a lark, a little good deed to show her a good time, had turned into something else. Sure, Jamie was gorgeous and he wasn’t immune to that, but there was also something...refreshing about her as well. Something wholesome and sweet that stood out against the decadence of Mardi Gras and made him see the event through new eyes.
But playing tour guide today of all days had brought its own issues. He’d had her pressed against him so many times today, felt the soft skin of her inner thigh against his cheek.... All perfectly innocent and understandable in the situation, but what it was doing to him was far from understandable or innocent.
And while part of him wanted to believe that Jamie would want to cross that line, he wasn’t entirely sure the signals he was seeing weren’t just figments of a hopeful imagination. Hell, he was sorely tempted to press her up against the alley wall and offer to lick every drop of that drink off her skin.
Maybe Fat Tuesday wasn’t the best day to meet someone new. At the same time, the clock was ticking. At best, she might be in town only a day or two longer—he’d have to ask—and the knowledge of a deadline only made the need to touch her more acute.
The hand holding his was sticky, which was one of the main reasons he was taking her back to the Lucky Gator. They slipped in the back door, past a long line of people waiting for the restrooms, and stopped in front of a door marked Private.
“Just stay here for a second.” Jamie looked bedraggled, but she nodded. It took a bit of time to make his way to the bar, where Teddy and his staff were moving at high speed to keep up with the crowd that now spilled out the doors into the street, and even longer to get Teddy’s attention. “I need your office keys.”
Either Teddy trusted him or was simply too busy to care, because he tossed the keys Colin’s way without question or comment.
Jamie was where he left her, doing her best to brush the worst off, and she looked at him questioningly as he unlocked the door. “We can get you a dry shirt from Teddy’s office.” Looking her over, he saw the slush ran down her leg into her shoes. That wasn’t going to be much fun to walk around in. “Not sure there’s much we can do about the shoes, though.”
“It’s fine. I’m going to burn them tomorrow anyway.”
At least this hadn’t dampened her spirit.
The hallway was quieter as the door closed behind him, and he grabbed a couple of clean bar towels off the shelf. After wetting one in the mop sink, he handed both to her as he unlocked the office and led her inside. It was small and untidy, and Jamie looked uncomfortable being in there. “You can get the worst of it off with those, and I’ll see about finding you a shirt.”
“Thanks.” Taking the wet cloth, she wiped it over her arms and hands, then closed her eyes and sighed in pleasure as she wiped her face and the parts of her neck not covered in beads. “Oh, that feels so good.”
He swallowed hard as he watched her. Jesus, he really was on edge, if that simple action was enough to send his blood running south.
Shirt. Find her a clean shirt. He rummaged through the boxes of Lucky Gator T-shirts under Teddy’s desk until he heard her curse quietly. Looking up, he saw her fighting with the huge stack of beads around her neck. “You okay?”
“I suddenly feel like I’m being strangled.”
“Here. Let me help. Lean forward.” She gave him a look, but then did as he said. “All the way.” He slid his hands along the sides of her neck, under the plastic strands and lifted them away from her skin. “Now just drop your head forward...more. That’s it. Now pull back.”
The mass slipped onto his arms and Jamie stood up. “Oh, my God. I feel ten pounds lighter all of a sudden.” She ran her hands over her neck and grinned. “Overaccessorizing is a bad thing.”
He dropped the beads onto the desk and went back to the box of T-shirts. “Let’s get you a dry shirt. You’ll have to wear a gator across your chest.”
“Thanks. This one is beyond help.”
“It’s probably going to be big on you...”
As he turned around, the rest of the sentence died in his throat. Jamie was already matter-of-factly peeling her shirt up, exposing a flat stomach and a bra so barely there that he could see the dark shadows of her nipples through the fabric. As the shirt cleared her head, she noticed him staring. He expected her to cover herself, to turn around, but instead, her movement slowed to a crawl. He looked up, expecting to see shock, or even outrage, but her eyes met his evenly as her shirt hit the ground.
Just like that, the mood shifted, and the air felt close and tense. The noise just beyond the walls faded until Jamie’s shallow breaths and the blood pounding in his ears blotted it out completely.
Unable not to, Colin let his fingers glide gently over the plane of her stomach, tracing the indentation that ran from ribs to navel, enjoying the little gasp and the way the muscles contracted under his touch. Jamie never broke the stare, even as he retraced his path up between her breasts, to the hollow at the base of her throat that fluttered under his fingers.
Jamie swallowed and her breath began to stutter. Her hand reached for the hem of his shirt, fisting in the fabric, pulling him closer to her until he could feel the heat from her skin. There was a moment where she seemed to inhale, her pupils dilating, and then Jamie rose to her tiptoes to press her mouth to his.
The sensation rocketed through him as if he’d been hit by lightning, causing his knees to buckle as he pulled her close and her tongue slid inside his mouth. He grabbed onto the filing cabinet with one hand and slid the other around the firm curve of her butt, steadying them both. Jamie moaned deep in her throat, and the sound nearly sent him over the edge right then.
Jamie’s hands tangled in his hair, holding him when he moved to taste her neck, the skin on her collarbone, the soft spot behind her ear, and her leg rubbed restlessly against his.
He’d just wanted to touch her, nearly convincing himself that would be enough, but now... He wanted to explore her, devour her, lose himself in her.
The bra strap marred the smooth skin of her back, but a quick twist of the clasp allowed him an unimpeded sweep from neck to waist. She dropped her arms, allowing it to fall the rest of the way to the floor, and leaned back against the door, giving him access to small, perfectly formed breasts. Jamie hissed as his thumb brushed over her nipple, and her whole body quivered.
She pushed his shirt up until it caught under his arms, and he let go of her long enough to remove his own beads and pull the shirt the rest of the way off. He tried to capture her lips again, but Jamie’s head dipped to his chest, pressing hot kisses against his skin. He was having trouble breathing and then couldn’t breathe at all when Jamie’s tongue flicked over his nipple. He pressed his palms against the door hard, gritting his teeth as the pleasure seared through him.
Then she was kissing him again, hitching herself up to wrap her legs around his waist, her hips writhing against him. Any hope he had of rational thought or restraint was lost.
A tiny voice in the back of Jamie’s mind was trying to send out a caution signal, but the rest of her was able to ignore it completely. She’d known she’d go right over if Colin so much as touched her, but she hadn’t realized she could spontaneously combust in someone’s arms or that it could feel this incredible when she did. It was better than her imaginings, more than her hopes. Colin was a freakin’ gift from the sex gods, every inch of him designed to tempt and to please, and she didn’t care if it was a good, bad or indifferent choice; she was going to take every bit she could and enjoy it.
Colin coaxed her legs back to the floor, then slid to his knees, hands grasping her hips as his mouth caught her nipple. The lights went dim as he sucked her, and without his support, she’d have collapsed altogether. Hot, wet kisses on the sensitive underside of her breast and across her ribs left her trembling. Then his tongue traced a path to her navel and beyond, inch by torturous inch until he finally reached the snap of her shorts.
He paused, his breath hot against her skin, and she looked down to see him watching her face, as though he was looking for permission to cross this last barrier. At the same time, his fingers were tracing along the hem of her shorts, teasing over her inner thighs, so close but yet so far from where she really needed them.
She reached for the snap and the zip, letting them sag from her hips. Colin surged back to his knees, his hand clasping her neck and pulling her down for a hot, wicked kiss at the same time his hand slid inside her panties.
Breaking the kiss, she gasped for air, holding onto his shoulders to steady herself. Colin’s fingers circled and teased, wringing tiny moans from her. Just as she was about to scream in frustration, his hand twisted and his finger slipped inside her.
This time her knees did give out. Colin caught her in his lap, rolling to his back and then lowering her to the floor, never letting up on the sensations that had the edges of her mind fuzzy. She was panting, writhing, clawing at his back and the floor as he redoubled his efforts until she climaxed hard and fast.
She was vaguely aware of Colin reaching over her head, rummaging through desk drawers while she fumbled with the zipper of his shorts and palmed him. He stilled, his breath hissing out in pleasure, the muscles in his thighs shaking slightly as she worked her hand, trying to give him even half of what he’d given her. With a groan that sounded nearly painful, Colin grabbed her hand, planting a kiss in the palm and placing it on her stomach while he turned his attention back to the desk.
A second later, she heard a mumbled, “Thank God,” and the distinctive sound of a foil packet being ripped open. Suddenly desperate, she shimmied her shorts down over her hips, letting Colin help push them to her ankles as he knelt between her thighs.
Dear God, he was absolutely gorgeous, eyes hooded and burning as he slid a hand from her pelvis to her neck, then met her eyes with a smile that was somewhere between pleased and predatory. It sent shivers of desire slicing though her, and she kissed him almost desperately as he slid slowly inside until their hips finally met. The sensation sent tiny shocks through her system, causing tremors she couldn’t control. Bracing himself on his elbows, Colin held still as he kissed her, keeping the tremors going until Jamie began to buck and arch under him, demanding more. Slow and teasing quickly gave way to hot and frantic, and Jamie lost control, the intensity of it all both scary and exhilarating.
* * *
Jamie’s breathing took almost a worrying amount of time to return to normal, but then, so did his. He’d come with a force that should have blown the top of his head off, so Colin was having a hard time gathering thoughts—any thoughts.
He heard Jamie sigh. He mustered enough strength to turn his head toward her and saw her staring at the ceiling. She sighed again. “Wow. That was...unexpected.” A little smile tugged at her lips and she faced him. “Can I ask how you knew there’d be condoms in the desk?”
According to Teddy, one of the perks of owning a bar in the French Quarter was what happened after closing time. But he didn’t really want to share that information with Jamie. “Um...”
She laughed. “On second thought, maybe I don’t want to know.”
He pushed up onto his elbow. “No, you really don’t.” Quite a bit more of her hair had come loose from her braid, and he toyed with a piece. Jamie leaned up and kissed him, a sweet, basking-in-afterglow kiss that had almost the opposite effect, reawakening his blood just when he thought he was half-dead.
He deepened the kiss even as the phone on Teddy’s desk began to ring. It was annoying, but ignorable, even as the ancient answering machine picked up and the Lucky Gator’s outgoing message played.
Teddy’s voice was also the incoming message. The bar noise in the background was loud as Teddy shouted into the phone. “Dude, I don’t know what you’re doing in there, but I need change. I’m trying to run a business, for God’s sake.”
Jamie collapsed into giggles. “Busted.” With a satisfied groan, she pushed to her elbows and sighed as she reached for her clothes. “Did you say something about a fresh shirt?”
Silently cursing Teddy—but applauding his timing nonetheless—he dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder. “Oh, yeah, that’s why I brought you back here. I got a little sidetracked.”
She took the shirt and slid it over her head. “Now we match.”
“Consider it a Mardi Gras costume.”
As he dressed, Jamie stuffed her ruined shirt and bra into the trash can and managed to untangle a few of her beads from the pile on the desk to put back around her neck. Holding the hopelessly tangled mound of remaining beads over the trash, she hesitated. “This seems wrong, somehow. I worked so hard to get them.” With a shrug, she dropped them in.
Dressed now, Jamie tried to push the strands of hair that had fallen out of her braid back from her face. “I don’t even want to know what I look like right now.”
“You look amazing.” Although Jamie rolled her eyes, as far as Colin was concerned, it was true. Her eyes were bright, cheeks pink and glowing, lips slightly swollen from his kisses. It was enough to make him decide to ignore Teddy’s eviction attempt.
But even as he reached for her, Jamie had the door open and reality rushed right in.
“So what are we going to do now?” she asked.
Go back to my place? “Whatever you want.”
“You know, I’m kinda feeling like I should give the French Quarter experience another try.” She seemed to have a fresh burst of confidence—as well as a burst of energy he couldn’t quite claim for himself.
“Are you sure?”
“Well, maybe we should start on Chartres and work our way back up to Bourbon Street.”
It wasn’t quite what he’d hoped to hear, but she wasn’t heading back to her friends just yet and the night was still young.
This time Jamie followed him into the bar, only blushing slightly when Colin tossed the keys back to Teddy and Teddy gave her a knowing wink along with a couple of beers. “Great shirt. It looks much better on you than Colin. Y’all go have fun.”
Jamie looked up at him and smiled. “I intend to.”
THREE
Okay, now she saw the attraction to the celebrations in the French Quarter. Maybe it was afterglow, maybe it was the fact that she wasn’t so uncomfortably conscious of Colin now—although she was still very conscious of him, it was different now and definitely not uncomfortable—but regardless of why, Jamie was truly enjoying herself and exploring that bit of her that was just a little on the wild side. There was an anonymity to being in a crowd of strangers that downright encouraged her to explore it. Anonymity was something she hadn’t had in a long time anyway, and it felt so damn good.
Colin’s mood seemed to have shifted, too. More sure of her now, his charm was on full display, and he’d quit his best behavior, leaving her to discover he had a very wicked—and sometimes dirty—sense of humor. He’d kept it under wraps most of the day, making her question her initial judgment of his bad-boy tendencies, but they were there. Oh, yeah, they were there.
But she’d worry about all of that tomorrow. Tonight, she had a bit of a buzz going, a gorgeous man on her arm and absolutely no reason not to enjoy them both.
The entire Quarter was heaving with people, but she felt a part of the crowd, a part of the experience. She danced to the music that drifted out of the clubs and bars into the street, caught beads tossed from the balconies above, marveled at the costumes on display and in between enjoyed the feel of Colin’s arms around her, the press of his body against hers and the occasional kiss he’d drop on her lips or neck.
It was the best night of her life and she was unwilling to let it end, even as Kelsey texted her repeatedly, wanting to go home now that she’d realized David wasn’t all she’d hoped he’d be. She’d delayed and stalled until Kelsey had gone home without her, and now Jamie felt a bit bad. But Kelsey had ditched her first—figuratively, at least, by fawning over David—so Jamie didn’t feel really bad about it for long.
Colin returned with their drinks and caught her frowning at her phone as she typed. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” She hit send and stuffed the phone back in her pocket. “Kelsey’s going home.” She was pleased to see disappointment flash across Colin’s face. “I told her I’d meet her there later.”
Colin moved closer, a finger hooking in her pocket to tilt her hips toward his. “There’s not a lot of later left of tonight.”
She smiled up at him in what she hoped was a seductive manner. “Then I really need to enjoy what there is of it.” Now would be a good time for you to suggest we go back to your place, get a shower... “What do you suggest—”
The question was interrupted by an earsplitting siren wail. She saw more than heard Colin curse as he grabbed her hand.
“What’s going on?” she shouted, wanting to cover her ears as the siren wailed on and a surge of people pressed toward them.
“It’s midnight. They’re clearing the streets.” Colin pulled her against his chest as he tried to move sideways through the crowd toward the sidewalk. More sirens and honking horns joined the din, and her head began to throb from the noise. Jamie peeked over her shoulder to see a horizontal line of mounted police officers visible above the crowd and the strobe of red-and-blue police lights as they moved down Bourbon Street, instructing people by loudspeaker that Mardi Gras was over and they needed to clear the streets.
She was tripping over her own feet, being jostled from all sides, and only Colin’s grip on her kept her from falling. The noise, the surge of people...it was the first time all evening that she’d felt scared, and she worried what would happen if she did fall. She gripped Colin’s wrist with her free hand and trusted him to get them both through the melee.
At the corner—Jamie wasn’t sure of which street—an influx of people caused a moment of gridlock. A girl bumped into her, and Jamie felt the heat of a lit cigarette against her arm. She jumped, trying to get away from the burn, and opened up a few inches of space between herself and Colin.
Those few inches, though, were all it took, as someone tried to move into the opening between them, forcing them farther apart. Colin’s grip on her wrist tightened as he tried to shove the person out of the way and pull her back to him. Now she was trapped: a surge of cross traffic pulling her one way as Colin was pushed in the other direction, and the idiot who’d started it all was pressing against the arm Colin held, causing pain to shoot up from her elbow to her shoulder as though she was being stretched on the rack.
She could barely see Colin’s head above the crowd. His lips were moving, but the sirens and crowd noise drowned the words out. Her grip on his wrist began to fail and while Colin’s grip tightened more, pressing her watch painfully into her skin, his hand began to slip, too, until the connection was broken.
Jamie had no choice but to go with the flow. Her ears were ringing, her wrist was burning and her shoulder felt loose in the socket. Unable to see over the shoulders of those around her, she followed the crowd blindly, figuring eventually it would have to break. It was a slow-moving crowd, but a very thick one, and with all of her attention required to remain on her feet, she lost track of how long she’d been in the surge. There was a scuffle to her right and she caught an elbow in the head, causing her to see stars, and she began to panic a little.
The panic actually motivated her and she began to elbow her way out of the pack, finally reaching clear air and less congestion. Nothing looked familiar, and the street signs didn’t help much beyond their distinctive style telling her she was still in the French Quarter.
There was no way in hell she was going back the way she came—even assuming it would be a straight shot back to familiar territory. About two blocks to her left, she could see a traffic light and figured that had to be Canal Street, so she headed that way.
Her head hurt, her ears were ringing, her heart was still pounding and her wrist was burning. She looked down to see that her watch was gone, the skin scratched and raw. It must have come off when Colin lost his grip.
Colin. She nearly turned around, but good sense prevailed. The exodus from the Quarter would be nearly impossible for her to fight against, and if the police were clearing the streets, did that mean she could get in trouble by going back in? She really didn’t want to get arrested again.
