Twenty

 

Celina had never felt more aware of being alone with a man than she did now, here in Jack’s home, and with the knowledge that he knew she was there because she’d wanted to be with him.

He’d shown surprise when he’d opened the door to her, but then she’d been almost certain he was pleased she’d come. But people often saw what they wanted to see.

As on her two previous visits, he settled her in his study, but the phone in the hall had rung before anything could be said, and he was talking to someone. She felt more gratified than she should that he’d made no attempt to find privacy for his conversation, but she soon realized he was talking to Tilly about Amelia. Why would he want privacy for that?

“Put her on,” he told Tilly after a series of exchanges, then he said, “Hi, squirt. You havin’ a good time with your grandmother?”

Celina eased out of the chair and went to study photos on Jack’s desk. They were all of Amelia—at various ages—apart from one of a very young woman who was so like Amelia that she was obviously the child’s mother.

“I have told you not to go up there, young lady,” Jack said. “No. And I am not amused that you’re makin’ a scene like this in front of your grandmother. She looks forward to seeing you, and it isn’t kind to make up stories to try to get home the minute you get there.”

He’d raised a little girl who, understandably, adored her daddy and didn’t want to be with anyone else. He was also responsible for her storytelling penchant.

Looking into the older version of Amelia’s face made Celina deeply sad. How could someone with so much decide to leave it all behind?

“Amelia Elise Charbonnet, there are no witches in this house—no, no, right, no witches across the street, then. And no ghosts with binoculars either. Sweetheart, I have told you to stay out of the attic. You could fall and hurt yourself up there.’’

Celina glanced at the windows. It was dark outside, but the moon iced grillwork on galleries overhanging sidewalks across the street. She moved closer.

“You haven’t seen the people who live there because they’re very old.’ Jack sounded less patient. “Two old ladies who never go out. No they aren’t witches, Amelia. And that’s enough. What? No, you don’t turn into a ghost when you get real old, and their food must be delivered. Now— You imagined little red lights, squirt. That’s it, Amelia. Now be kind to Tilly and your grandmother. I love you. Good night.”

It took Jack several more firm instructions before he could finally hang up.

Celina parted the curtains and stared at the windows opposite. They were all dark. “I couldn’t help overhearing,” she said when he returned to the room. She nodded at the buildings they faced. “They do look closed up, don’t they? I expect Amelia’s been practicing the skills she’s inherited from you.”

“Why don’t you come and—”

“Sit down?” she finished for him. “And stay away from the windows, maybe?”

“I didn’t say that, you did.” He sounded aggrieved.

“So I did. I have absolutely no right to intrude upon you, and I’m not going to dream up an excuse. You get the truth. Cyrus has decided to try to please our parents by going to the Lamars’ party, and I didn’t want to stay in Royal Street on my own. I left a note to say I’d be here with you and asked him to call when he gets back.”

“I wanted you here with me.”

She smiled nervously. “Thank you.” Since Rose left, there hadn’t been a moment’s respite from the struggle to decide what to do about the information she’d been given, the evidence of bestiality she’d been shown.

“Antoine’s wife was a surprise.”

Celina was startled. She said, “She wasn’t what I’d expected.”

“What’s the excuse for Antoine’s absence? Is he ill? Did she say anything about his visit to Dwayne—or about what he thinks he saw?”

She could tell him, ask him what she ought to do. “I’m still not sure about why he wasn’t at work today.” Her mouth was dry. Rose had been so adamant that Celina not tell anyone anything.

“The woman was edgy. I thought maybe she was afraid of something.”

“I don’t think she liked coming to me. She...she didn’t say anything much.”

Celina saw the instant when Jack lost interest in Rose. He said, “Are you hungry?”

“I’ve eaten. And I’ve had juice and milk. And I took some vitamins.”

“You need prenatal vitamins.”

He made her smile again. “You aren’t my daddy, Jack.”

“Thank God, chère. I am your future husband, your soon-to-be husband. And I’m going to be that child’s father.” He indicated her stomach. “That’s part of the deal. I’m not takin’ it on lightly. But I am in a hurry. I have to think of Amelia. She needs to be made part of the whole baby sibling thing, and I don’t want it sprung on her a couple of weeks before you give birth.”

“You are so matter-of-fact.”

“What...sorry. I’ve been organizing my own life for a long time.”

Celina shivered a little without knowing why. She crossed her arms. “You were going to ask me what I expect other than a no-nonsense approach to this. And you’re right. I’m going to keep on being direct, Jack. If you’re sure about this marriage, then I’m sure. Part of me keeps whispering that I want you because you’ll give me and the baby safety. And that’s true. But I can be good for you too.”

His sudden wicked grin confused her. “I know you can be good for me, chère,” he told her. “I know we can be good for each other—and with each other.”

Men were unbelievable. “You aren’t talking about sex again. You can’t be.”

He shrugged and appeared the slightest bit abashed. “I might be, Indirectly, of course. But it was accidental, honestly.”

“Of course it was.” To hide her smile, she turned back to the window. She shouldn’t be having a moment’s rest or cheerfulness when she knew Antoine was being held prisoner by some depraved creatures and Rose was beside herself with worry over her husband. The bloody shirt had been terrible, but the tooth had reduced Celina to trembling horror.

“Would you like to see the rest of the place?” Jack asked.

Rose had made her promise not to tell anyone what she now knew. Talking to Jack about it would be such a relief. Surely she should ask someone for help.

“Celina? Can I show you around? I think it’ll work out just fine. There’s plenty of room, and with Tilly’s quarters upstairs, I don’t see any problems.”

If she broke her word to Rose and something happened to her, and Antoine...and their boys... She couldn’t say anything, not yet. Maybe Cyrus was the one to talk to. He was accustomed to keeping confidences.

She didn’t know Jack had come up behind her until he touched her back and turned her to face him.

“Do you want to share what’s on your mind?” he asked.

This was the time to tell him. “No. Except that everything is so strange. If we go ahead with this, it’ll be a modern-day marriage of convenience, won’t it?”

“Not entirely. Not anymore. And we are going ahead with it. I asked you. You’ve accepted. By sometime next week you’ll he my wife. I expect you’ll want to keep your own name.”

“Moving right along?” Somehow she didn’t feel like laughing. “Would you prefer that I keep my own name?”

He raised his brows. “Isn’t that back to front? Aren’t you supposed to ask me if I’d prefer you to take my name, then politely suggest you’re a thoroughly modern woman who would never consider such a thing?”

No more games. “I think Charbonnet is a lovely name. If you feel comfortable, I’d like to take it. And I’ll expect to sign a prenuptial agreement. It shouldn’t be hard to get it drawn up. I have no right to anything of yours. You’re already giving me a great deal.”

“I’m getting a great deal,” he said, silencing her entirely. “But I appreciate your being sensitive to sensitive issues.”

She would speak to Cyrus. Perhaps she should return there now, just in case he’d got home and hadn’t seen the note.

“Celina?”

“Yes,” she said sharply. “Yes, Jack. Thank you. Whatever you say.”

He became quiet and the lamp on his desk picked up the gold flecks in his eyes. No man she’d ever known could look quite as serious as Jack when he was serious.

“Well, if we’ve covered everything, I should get home.”

“This is going to be your home. And you’re waiting for Cyrus to call, remember?”

“I was. I’ve already intruded long enough.”

“Not nearly long enough. Tilly and Amelia are gone until tomorrow.”

“And you must be looking forward to a little peace. We all need that from time to time.”

“I hated that discussion we just had.”

For an instant she wasn’t sure what he meant. She watched his face and suddenly knew exactly what he’d been talking about. “It’s necessary for us to cover these things sensibly. I understand that.”

Jack bowed and tapped the end of her nose with a forefinger. “It’s not necessary to be cold about something that should be warm. I’m attracted to you. If I weren’t, I would be worried about what we’re going to do. I’m not worried.”

She considered only a moment before saying, “I’m not worried either.” This should all feel outrageous. Perhaps it did, but she wasn’t backing away.

“Would you stay here with me tonight, Celina? Please?” He asked her a question, a particularly personal question—just like that?

“I want us to be very comfortable together. This weekend will be the only opportunity we have to get a little used to each other before you move in permanently.”

Dithery. Α simple question from a mature man to a mature woman, and that woman’s response was to feel like a dithery kid. “Perhaps we should put it off until Amelia’s had more time to get used to the idea.”

“If things were different, I’d agree.”

“If things were different, we wouldn’t be doing this.”

He put his hands in his pockets. “I’m not so sure we wouldn’t eventually have been doing something together, Celina.”

She had known her share of uncomfortable reactions, but Jack’s ability to make her throb beneath the skin ranked at the top of the intensity scale.

“Surely, adversity threw us together,” he persisted. “Now. But I couldn’t have remained blind to what you really are forever.”

“You don’t know what I really am. That kind of thing takes time.”

“I’m terminatin’ this discussion. We are movin’ on. The front door is locked. There’s just you and me, chère. What do you say? Shall we see how we are together?”

Celina cast about. She needed to sit down, to think, to regroup.

“I am too cold,” he told her. “I am an ass. Tell me I’m an ass and you wouldn’t stay with me if I were the last man on earth. Shall we see how we are together? I’m sorry.”

His frown revealed the vulnerability he usually hid completely. His frown and the worried set of his features, the way he ducked his head to study her face.

“I’m not sorry, Jack. I’ll leave a message for Cyrus so he’ll know I’m not coming back tonight.”

Once Jack Charbonnet hadn’t known a moment’s uncertainty with a woman. He didn’t feel uncertain now, did he? Strange, because the situation was strange, maybe, but not uncertain.

He felt uncertain.

In a quaint, old-world way, the two-floor apartment delighted Celina. She’d dutifully allowed Jack to show her around—more quickly than she would have preferred tonight—before ushering her into his bedroom. Two small rooms separated the master bedroom from Amelia’s little-girl-feminine domain. Celina had acknowledged to herself that she’d calculated the layout of the rooms because she worried about sleeping with Jack and having his small daughter very near. The rooms between relieved her.

Sleeping with Jack.

They’d kissed. Danced in a courtyard in the sun. Held each other a couple of times. He’d “talked dirty,” to shock her—she smiled at that, while she observed how he drew heavy bronze-colored draperies over the windows. Their shared experience was almost nothing, yet he’d coolly asked her to spend the night, and she’d coolly accepted. Not coolly, but she had accepted.

Jack faced her across the bed and thought that the colors in his room might have been chosen for her. Against the browns, beiges, and dull golds her skin took on a bloom, and the red in her hair became more obvious.

“I haven’t been sleeping too well, Celina.”

“It’s hard,” she told him. “We’ve been through so much.”

“I wasn’t talking about what happened to Errol. I’ve spent plenty of time thinking about him, but you’ve been the one on my mind at night.”

Her eyes were the kind that held a person’s soul. And if they were hiding a whole lot, he’d be surprised. She was full of hope, hope that they’d pull off a miracle and form a great relationship from the bones of a disaster. She wanted him to care about her, not just for her. And she wanted to care for him. He was sure those were the hopes he saw in her eyes. She’d give this thing her best shot.

And he was turning into a romantic fool at the age of thirty-seven, when any man ought to know better.

Romantic? Or had he deprived himself of a woman for long enough to make him mistake hormones for emotions. Dangerous stuff.

He looked away.

“I’m afraid to hope for anything,” she told him quietly. “I’m afraid we’re making a horrible mistake. I— From the first time I met you I’ve felt something. That thing you feel when— You took my breath away.” She laughed, and he returned his eyes to hers. “This should be taped and given to women in danger of making fools of themselves over men. It would save them.”

“If it was taped and given to men who thought they didn’t need or want someone in their lives, it would change their minds.” He was stepping in too deep to climb out, but, hell, he was a big boy. If this was a giant error, he’d survive.

Celina felt light-headed. Not the kind of light-headed she’d come to dread, but the kind she’d only read about. He didn’t have to say these things. “We won’t be the first couple to decide to make a marriage work, Jack. We’ve both got good reasons, the best reasons.” She refused to examine all her own too deeply. A pregnant woman was known to be susceptible to her emotions, and hers were trying to lead her around.

“I don’t have anything to wear to bed.” An instant flush suffused her entire body. She blushed entirely too easily these days. “Perhaps I could borrow something?”

The brilliant twinkle in his eyes only intensified the heat she felt. He spread his arms and said, “What’s mine is yours. Anythin’ that appeals, just appropriate it, chère. I don’t expect anythin’, you know. Just your company, to hold you, and feel you. I’ve become a very lonely man and I didn’t know it until I suddenly knew I was going to have you.”

Either he was the most talented seducer in the world, or he was saying the only things she needed to hear to feel she could be in love with him and like it. “You’re being very kind to me. she said, plucking at braided piping on the quilt. “We both know you don’t have to be lonely for one second unless you want to be.”

“A warm and willing body doesn’t guarantee you aren’t lonely,” he said, and he blessed the words that came to his aid so easily tonight. The right words, or so he thought from the gently accepting expression on Celina’s face. He would have to be very careful with her. She was so damn fragile. “Would you feel more comfortable if I slept on the couch?”

She glanced at the couch in question. Books and magazines covered one end. Dull marks on the table in front of it were evidence that he’d spent hours reading there with his feet propped on the wood.

“A reading man,” she commented. “You already told me that. I wouldn’t hear of you disturbin’ your books. I can tell you know exactly where every one of them is.”

He chuckled. “I surely do.”

They had fenced long enough. She went to the open bathroom door and looked inside. The brown marble was probably original. It was rich. Towels the color of chocolate were heaped on a low rattan cabinet.

“There’s a new toothbrush in the top drawer on the left,” he said behind her. “Do you want a T-shirt, or one of my regular shirts?”

“I don’t like being restricted when...anything.”

“I’ll pull out some things for you to choose from.”

He could have made a crack about what would offer the least restriction in bed. She admired his sense of the appropriate.

Appropriate? Her life was the most inappropriate life imaginable, yet she was dissecting this man’s behavior?

“Would you like to take a warm shower? It might relax you.”

“I showered before I left Royal Street.”

“Well, I’ll put out the shirts. I should check some things out before I come to bed.”

Come to bed.

The simplest comments took on intense significance when you were about to...She wasn’t an innocent kid anymore. “You mean you think you should go away and give me a discreet amount of time to get ready for bed. It’s not necessary.”

Deliberately avoiding eye contact, she turned back to the bedroom, where he was tossing shirts on the bed. “That’s enough, thank you. Anything will do. Just throw me one.”

He shouldn’t feel so triumphant that she didn’t intend to procrastinate. He shouldn’t feel so damnably turned on either, should he? She’d been right when she said this was a convenience thing. “Will a long T-shirt work? It’s huge, which should mean it’ll be comfortable.”

“Great. The bigger the better under the circumstances.” She laughed.

Jack didn’t.

As she’d suggested, he threw the shirt to her and she caught it one-handed.

Celina Payne put that T-shirt on the end of the couch and commenced to strip. She kicked off her brown sandals, stripped off her baggy white gauze pants, took her loose white top off over her head.

She obviously had no intention of looking at him while she executed her brave performance, and he identified it as brave. This woman might have been Miss Louisiana—and that was no surprise right now—but he was increasingly certain she was shy in some ways.

And some bastard raped her.

He took a deep breath and forced away the images he’d started having, images that made him sweat with rage.

Her belly was more than gently rounded, her legs very long and perfectly shaped. She folded her pants and put them on the couch cushion that wasn’t covered with books. Then she folded the matching top and added it. The sandals she placed precisely beside each other.

Jack came close to commenting that he hadn’t noted her being particularly tidy in her own bedroom.

Standing before him in only her white bra and panties, she caused the kind of erection that wasn’t going away without some satisfaction. His question about red hair was answered. He could see the triangle clearly through thin nylon. “You are the stuff of wet dreams,” he said, and looked at the ceiling. “I’m losing it. That was unforgivable.”

Her laugh made him smile. She said, “I don’t think either of us has rehearsed this particular scene too many times. Some of the lines are coming too smoothly.”

“Thank you,” he told her. “For bailing me out.”

Her smile disappeared. “I thought I might—I thought this might be hard after what happened to me. So far, so good.” She reached behind her to undo her bra and take it off.

“I would never force you, Celina—do anything—or hurt you.”

She nodded.

Jack couldn’t look away from her breasts. Large, undoubtedly larger than usual, they were round, the big, honey-colored nipples just a little uptilted. A faint tracing of blue veins traversed very pale skin.

He unbuttoned and took off his own shirt. And he didn’t decide to approach her, he just did. Approached and framed her face, turned it up to his. “Are you still okay?” he asked her quietly. “I don’t ever want to do something to frighten you—or put you off.”

“I’m okay, Jack. Very okay.”

Restraining the fierceness that would have made him wild, he kissed Celina. With his tongue he eased her mouth open, then tasted the moist flesh inside.

She kissed him back, stood on tiptoe, slipped her arms around his neck, and kissed him as if she needed the kind of meal he had in mind.

Still he held himself back. The time to let go would come, but not tonight.

Her breasts pressed his chest. He felt each nipple, hard and more erotic than anything he ever remembered. His breath started to come in shorter bursts. He moved his hands from her waist, upward between their bodies until he could spread his first fingers and thumbs on the undersides of her breasts. Not enough. He pushed them upward.

Celina gasped, and he remembered. “Tender, still? I’m sorry.”

“No,” she murmured. “It’s so great. I didn’t think ...”

He pulled his head back and looked down into her face. “You didn’t think pregnant women were supposed to be interested in sex. Yeah, you already said somethin’ like that. And I told you this was the way it would be. At least, I think you may not mind.”

He looked down at his hands on her breasts. Tanned skin on white flesh that never saw the sun. He would have to control himself if he was going to last. Very carefully he plucked at her aroused nipples, and she moaned.

“Did you want to clean your teeth?” he asked, fighting for a shred of composure. “I don’t want you to think I’m a complete animal”

Her eyes were glazed. Slowly they cleared. “Come with me,” she whispered. “I want you with me.” She surprised him by taking his hand and tugging him into the bathroom with every sign of not caring that she was all but naked in front of him.

Jack found her a toothbrush and took it from its package.

And all the time she touched him, his shoulder, his chest, a nipple, his jaw, his mouth. He was dying a great death, but dying nevertheless. And loving it.

He let her go on touching him and put toothpaste on her brush before handing it to her. She turned to the sink and turned on the water, and looked at him in the mirror when she bent over.

Her panties were cut high and showed off a firm bottom that punched the wind out of him yet again. Jack’s attention went back to her breasts. They were incredible.

“Hold them,” she said.

Α liquid sensation hardened the muscles in his thighs. He was hard everywhere that mattered, everywhere that had nerves he particularly valued.

“Jack?”

Praying for self-control, he traced her spine vertebra by vertebra, stroked her sides, tucked his fingers under her bottom, and ran his thumbs down the cleft while her muscles tensed and she jerked upright.

“Sorry,” he said, not sorry at all. When she bent to brush her teeth some more, he put his arms under hers and obeyed her command to hold her breasts. “Such a sacrifice,” he managed to mutter. “Oh, chère, I must have been waitin’ for you.”

With her mouth full of toothpaste, she couldn’t answer him, but she grazed her bottom back and forth over his distended penis. He squeezed her breasts in automatic reaction, and she strained to rub him harder.

“Finish the teeth,” he said through his own. “They’re as clean as they need to be.”

She rinsed her mouth, still bumping and enticing him with her sweet derriere.

Jack took a hand from her breasts, rested it on her belly for a second, then slipped inside her panties to find the wet, distended spot buried in springy little red curls. He stroked her clitoris softly, insistently, and smiled—with his teeth still gritted—when she let out a keening sound and locked her elbows to gain some stability.

He kissed her back and kept on stimulating her. Her breasts swayed against his hand, and her pelvis moved rhythmically, making sure his fingers didn’t err. He dipped into the slick essence inside her, and continued his task—his pleasure, and hers.

“I’m.. . Jack, I can’t say what I am. Or what I want. Ah! Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”

“Oh, I’m not stoppin’, darlin’. Give yourself to me. Just let me take you where you want to go.”

“I’m going. Yes, yes, I’m going!”

“Coming.” He smiled against her smooth back. “Come, sweet thing. Come to me.”

The intensity of what he made her feel ripped through Celina. He slid his fingers inside her repeatedly, making the entry a prelude to stoking the fire that hovered ready to explode.

His penis pressed against her bottom. She wanted her panties off. Holding on to the counter with one hand, she worked them down but couldn’t get them off entirely.

She climaxed. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her head back against his shoulder. And she shuddered, and abandoned herself to voluptuous wanting.

They had only just begun this night.

Celina turned in his arms and brushed her breasts slowly from side to side on his chest. The grazing of his hair on her nipples was an exquisite torture. Her tentativeness when she went to touch his crotch surprised her, but she quelled any remaining fragment of hesitation and slipped both her hands under him. His scrotum was drawn up, tight and hard and heavy. Squeezing, she watched his face. He nodded, and Celina squeezed him again. She was overwhelmed with the need to give him as much pleasure as he’d given her.

Her fingers dealt with his pants as if she undid men’s clothes every day. She didn’t even fumble. Sliding around to test the hardness of his buttocks was irresistible. She found the intensity of his stare, the repeated flexing of muscles in his jaw, a total turn-on.

There was danger in that stare, the most irresistible danger. “Okay,” she told him. “You’re impatient. I can take a hint. Your turn, Jack.” She pushed him away enough to allow her to kneel, and she tugged his pants down far enough to let him spring free. He made a sound she thought was a protest, but she shut it out and took him deep into her mouth.

Lust. She lusted for him. It sang in her ears and pulsed in her veins, this lust for a man, something she’d never guessed herself capable of experiencing.

“Celina, I’m goin’ nuts, chère. Oh, God, you’re drivin’ me mad. Oh...oh, yes.”

She clung to him when he would have bucked her off with his pelvis, and swallowed, and couldn’t believe she was this kind of woman—without inhibitions—with this man.

He could have fallen to the floor so easily. She’d sucked him dry while she revved him up at the same time. There had never been anything like this for him. He couldn’t even summon another experience of any kind at this moment.

“Now, lovely lady,” he said when he could speak. “Now we have played enough. You will allow me to decide on the rest of our entertainment, yes?” He heard his own tendency to summon up more of his French roots when he was close to losing all control. And he was close in the best possible way.

“Jack,” she said, her face turned up to him.

He bent to kiss her, and used the advantage of her upraised hands to capture and sweep her into his arms.

“I’m heavy,” she protested.

“You weigh nothing.” Not that he’d notice if she did. “I’m going to settle for lamplight.”

“Lamplight?”

“You probably didn’t notice there’s no sun at the moment.”

He kicked aside his trousers and shoes and carried her, pushing against him and making sounds of protest, into the corridor outside his bedroom.

“Jack! We’re naked. What if someone comes?”

“They’d have to break down the door. I’d hear them. Or they could fly up to the gallery. I don’t believe in flying people.”

“Where are we going?”

“To find a table.”

“Oh, Jack. Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes,” he said, pushing open the kitchen door with a shoulder. “Tell me, oh, yes, Jack.”

“I’m not myself.”

“I surely hope you are very much yourself. I like yourself exactly as it is.”

“I’m a pregnant woman.”

“Uh-huh. I think we should keep you that way permanently. It’s sooo sexy. You’re so sexy.”

“Isn’t it bad for the baby?”

“No, it’s not bad for the baby. Forget the tales, and concentrate on what I say to you. Sex does not harm an unborn baby. And this baby needs to get the picture that he’s going to have a mama and daddy who love each other, and love him.”

“Her.”

“Him or her. It will probably be one or the other. Do you like the tablecloth, chère?”

She peered around. “Very nice if you like a lot of flowers.”

“I’m going to pretend I’m taking you in a green field among lots of little white daisies. First I have to spread you out for an examination.”

Celina squealed. He was amazing. There was nothing about him in this mood that remotely resembled the austere man she’d known. “I don’t want to be spread out, thank you.”

He deposited her on top of the table. “Need a pillow?”

She waggled her head, no. “I guess I’m just a wanton and I never knew it. Isn’t that the word, wanton?”

“Lovely word.” He bent over her and proceeded to kiss her to silence. He kissed her silly and she loved losing her mind.

Holding her head, he gave those kisses his all, and his all was really something. No man had ever chewed her lips with a gentle persistence that pulled on her insides until her breasts ached and the place between her legs started to throb without any help at all. He nibbled and sucked, and lifted his head enough to look into her eyes, then kissed the place between her eyes before standing up.

She made to get off the table, but he stopped her, and how he stopped her. Taking her nipples into his fingers again and pulling repeatedly, made sure she wasn’t going anywhere. He pulled and when she flopped back on the hard surface he bowed over her to suck in first one, then the other nipple. And he pulled her bottom to the edge of the table. She felt him between her thighs, felt him touching her with parts of himself that undid her completely.

Torn apart by his every touch, she drew up her knees. They fell helplessly apart. “I want you inside me,” she managed to tell him. It’s too much, Jack.”

“Really?” he murmured, his mouth full. “Don’t quite believe you yet.”

Soft brushing over her sensitive genitals brought her back off the table. “Jack! Oh, you can’t do that. Oh, Jack, no.”

“No?” What he did with the tip of his penis was designed to make sure she begged for a whole lot more.

Her head dropped back and she thrust out her breasts. “You are drivin’ me to distraction, Jack Charbonnet. Ι can’t believe I’m lettin’ you do this to me. You are an evil tease.”

His laughter was deep and rumbly. “I thought you’d love it. Say the word and I’ll stop.”

“Don’t stop.” Not that she thought he would anyway. His mouth fastened on one of her breasts again. The gentle stimulation, over and over again, drove her wild, made her thrash. She brought her knees together, but missed what he was doing at once and parted them again.

Jack said, “I hope this old table is as solid as it’s supposed to be.” He moved her fully onto the table again and vaulted to straddle her hips. Parts of him rested on her belly, and she took hold of them without particular finesse.

He winced, and closed his eyes, and promptly went to work with his little brushing strokes on other parts of her body.

Celina grabbed his wrist and held on. “Okay, okay. You have phenomenal control. Guess what? Tonight I’ve discovered I don’t.”

His control was pretty fantastic, Jack decided. That was the last really clear thought he did have. She pushed his bursting penis to the entrance into her body, swung her very limber legs up until she could lock her ankles behind his back, and pushed him all the way home. Almost before he could start to move, she worked her hips back and forth, and a sob came from her throat. The sob jarred with each impact of their bodies, with each thrust.

She managed to grasp his balls, and he yelled.

Her response was to squeeze.

His response was to go for it like a mini-jackhammer out of control. So much for control.

“Jack,” she panted, and squeezed again.

“Chère,” was the only word he could form, and it was a hoarse whisper. “Do that. Do it.”

She milked him, and he drove into her until his open eyes saw nothing but shifting shapes, her swollen, moist lips, her sweat-wet hair, her sweat-slicked skin, her jiggling breasts.

Celina had to release her hold on him. She clung to the sides of the table and raised her hips to receive each stroke. She was sore, but it was the kind of sore she’d like to suffer regularly.

“Jack! I’m coming. Jack, you’ve got to—”

“I am, chère, I am.” His voice broke. He spilled his warm flood of the stuff of life into her, flooded her, and still he moved and kept on moving until she cried out and threw her hands above her head, gave herself up to Jack and what she was with him.

Gradually, in the moments that followed, their breathing slowed a fraction, and sweat cooled on their bodies. Gently, Jack pushed her until he could lie with her. Wrapping her in his arms, he rotated until she rested on top of him, her face in the crook of his neck, her chest on his, her sticky stomach on his, her legs on his.

“We should go to bed,” she told him, although she nestled as close as she could.

He mumbled nothing coherent.

“You’ll wish you hadn’t spent time on this table soon,” she warned him.

Jack chuckled and found her breasts once more.

Celina struggled to push him away. “Don’t, you beast. I’m sensitive all over.”

“Good. Because I’m never going to wish I wasn’t on this table with you. I’m just resting between courses.”