[Bayou Gavotte 00.0] Back to Bite You (5 page)

She hadn’t admitted it to herself until now, but the catastrophic state of the house had really gotten her down. She didn’t have the money for a contractor right now, and together they could repair the upper roof in a couple of days, and besides . . .

Might as well admit it to herself: she wasn’t going to let him go just yet. Fine, but she had to protect him. “If you’re planning on going to the club tonight, we’ll have to arrive and leave separately.”

His frown returned. “I’m not going to the club.”

Right
.
Stick up his rump
. Again, she found that hard to believe. His mixed messages were becoming seriously confusing.

“I’m having dinner with a friend,” he said, and then added stiffly after a beat, “A guy I knew from summers here as a kid.”

“Great,” she said, wondering about the implications of that afterthought. “After you move the truck, wait until dark and come in by way of the alley and the back door.”
She took a key off a hook by the pantry door and gave it to him. “I suppose I’ll have to leave the porch light on for you.”

“I would appreciate that,” Gerry said dryly.

Immediately, she regretted her irritable tone. She couldn’t expect him to know about the excellent night vision bestowed by her vampire gene. “Keep all the curtains closed, and don’t look outside with a light behind you.”

He raised his brows incredulously, but all he said was “Okay.”

She bit her lip. He wasn’t taking her seriously enough. “
Please
be careful.”

“Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

Typical, stubborn, patronizing male, but in this instance she could hardly blame him. Mentally, she threw up her hands. “I’ll buy more shingles before I go to the club,” she said. “And I’ll order plywood for delivery tomorrow.”

“Let me take care of the supplies,” Gerry said, and when she went for her pocketbook to write him a check, he added, “You can pay for them later.”

He was making it all very easy. Sure, he was nice, but there was nice and then there was ridiculous. What was his ulterior motive? Oh, come
on
, she told herself. He was just horny. Like any virile, sweet-blooded guy, he hadn’t given up hope of getting her into bed.

She needed to steer his thoughts in another direction. She couldn’t handle two guys obsessing over her at once. “If you’re not busy tonight, you might want to go through Arthur’s bedroom. He said there’s more Mardi Gras stuff in there. He planned to give it to the museum, along with any personal papers that seemed relevant. I’m a history buff, so we talked about it a lot.” Not as much as she wanted, but deep down, Arthur had
been a private sort of guy. Like, for example, when she’d asked him about the Mardi Gras celebrations of 1941, the last before the hiatus during the war. She knew he’d been to a particular ball—the curator at the museum had found his name on a list of attendees and prodded her to ask him about it—but Arthur had immediately clammed up, so she’d respected his privacy and let it be.

Gerry was watching her, a smile hovering at the edges of his mouth. He had a humorous mouth, with lips that promised fun and games in bed. They weren’t the lips of an uptight guy.

But now more than ever, she shouldn’t let herself think about kissing him.

She did anyway. Their eyes met, and those lips twitched as if her mind was transparent.

Damn. She wrenched her thoughts back to Arthur’s belongings. “There may be mementos of your mother.” That should get Gerry’s mind off sex. “And letters and so on. You may prefer to have another family member go through them, but . . .”

“But?”

She took a breath. “I don’t like having to say this, but he didn’t want any of his personal stuff to go to April and June. I think he hated them.”

“Yes.” Gerry sounded indifferent. “He did.”

She had to ask. “Do you know why?”

“Nope.” Gerry drained his coffee. “I learned not to bring up that subject when I was still a kid.”

Don’t you care?
She did—way too much, considering it was none of her business, or at least not really, but she was nosy by nature and not about to change. “He knew his
time was short, and he was trying to go through everything before he died. But he didn’t get it all done, and . . .”

“I’ll take care of it,” Gerry said. She could see he didn’t want to discuss this. At all, just like Arthur.

Which made her more curious than ever about Arthur’s past.

And now Gerry was looking at
her
mouth.

She shooed him out the door and fled for the safety of the Pie Club.

* * *

Gerry ran through various scenarios while he bought the roofing materials and worked out at a dojo with his friend, at whose house he parked his truck.

Mirabel might be a prude. She might be pretending to be prudish to discourage his advances. She might have an aunt or grandmother nearby who would give her grief about a male guest. She might have a boyfriend who would suspect her of cheating.

The last explanation seemed most likely, but he thought he would have heard of a boyfriend by now. If it came down to it, he would just have to ask her. He couldn’t have sex with someone else’s woman.

He was getting way ahead of himself here. Still, he went to the drugstore for condoms, just in case.

After a leisurely dinner, Gerry left his friend and walked to Grandpa Arthur’s house, arriving circumspectly by the alley as Mirabel had asked. She had drawn all the curtains and left on a few low lights. He made a tour of the house to see what needed to be done. Her bedroom and Arthur’s, both at the back of the house, were intact. The room
above the living room could use some work. As for the bedroom above the dining room where his mother and aunts had slept . . .

He opened the door and flicked on the light.

The ceiling was gone, and through a hole in the roof above, the waxing moon shone indifferently down. Debris covered the three twin beds. There was a hole in the badly buckled, partly rotted floor. This was way worse than he’d imagined.

What the hell had Grandpa Arthur been thinking to let this happen to his beautiful old house?

Vengeance, Gerry thought with a sigh. He didn’t know what had caused the breach between Arthur and his two remaining daughters, but it had been fierce and enduring. There’d been no one else to give the house to, since Gerry didn’t want it, so he’d decided to leave them a ruin that they would have to spend a fortune on to fix—either that or sell it for a pittance.

Shaking his head, Gerry shut the bedroom door and brought some boxes from Arthur’s closet down to the kitchen. He brewed a pot of coffee, made a few calls, and set to work going through them. Two hours and four boxes later, the front door banged open.

“Gerry? Are you all right?”

The panic in Mirabel’s voice brought him leaping to his feet, even as she slammed the door and dashed down the hall to the kitchen.

They collided in the doorway. “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

She slumped against him, shaking all over. He couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d wanted to. He gathered her into his arms.

* * *

Oh
. Mirabel leaned into him and closed her eyes. “I forgot to lock the door of the ruined bedroom. Arthur almost fell through the floor. I saw the light on up there, and—”

“It’s all right, darlin’.” He held her close and pressed a kiss on her hair. “I took one look and shut the door again. I must have forgotten to turn off the light.”

“Thank God.” She swallowed the threat of tears. She meant to push away, but her arms went around him instead.

He wasn’t hurt or dead, and he smelled marvelous. His hands rested warm and hard on her back. She shuddered against him.

He pulled her closer, his hands shifting slightly. Tentatively—because he was that kind of guy—but it wouldn’t last long. He would lose control. They all did.

She shouldn’t let this happen.

But she didn’t want to let go, not yet, so she laid her cheek against his chest and said, “Arthur was— Before he met me, he was planning to leave the house to April and June.”

His lips rested lightly on her hair. “What was left of it.”

“It’s awful. Every time I think of it, it makes me sad.”

“Don’t think about it, then,” Gerry said. Typical guy; no doubt he wanted to think of something else entirely.

So did Mirabel, but . . . “People are supposed to
love
their families,” she said. “Arthur was such a darling. He loved you, and he loved your mother. He had lots of friends, and his employees at the club adored him.”

“Mmm,” Gerry said, one hand splayed across her back, the other hot on her waist. Oh,
God
, it felt good. She closed her eyes.

And popped them open again. “So the way I see it, April and June must have done something really terrible to get him so upset.”

“Yep,” Gerry said. “But he wouldn’t talk about it, and neither would my aunts.” He chuckled, his chest vibrating against her cheek. “Sorry, honey, but I dealt with all this by the time I was twelve. Sometime after my mom died, Arthur stopped speaking to April and June, and they did their best to poison my mind against him. I decided long ago it was their problem, not mine.”

He was right, she supposed with a long sigh. She turned her head and laid her forehead against his chest, inhaling deeply.

Big mistake!
Desire—hot, heady, and powerful—shot through her. She shuddered again, and the vampire allure she’d kept clamped down broke free, swirling unchecked.

She curled her hands into fists and reeled the allure back inside. “No,” she said. “This isn’t supposed to happen yet.”

Her body disagreed. Her nipples tingled, and her fangs quivered expectantly; in fact, she was practically drooling, and . . .

“Nothing has happened,” Gerry said. He took her by the shoulders and moved her gently away. “Maybe that’s as it should be.”

He
was thinking of refusing
her
?

* * *

It about killed him, but he stepped back from Mirabel and dropped his arms to his sides.

She turned away. Judging by the clenched fists and the flicker in her cheek, she was upset. Hell, so was he, shaking like a scared, horny teenager with his first girlfriend.
He took a few steps toward her again, aching with the effort to hold himself in check. “Mirabel, I—”

She rounded on him, glowering. “You think I was sleeping with your grandfather, right? I can see why that might be a turnoff. Well, I wasn’t. We were just friends.”

She shivered, sucking in a breath. Her nipples jutted inside her tank top, but when she caught him staring, she whirled away once more. She went to the window and parted the curtains to look out, but she quickly closed them again. Who did she think might be watching?

“No, but you might be sleeping with someone else.” His voice sounded harsh and way too judgmental, but he had to say it. “I don’t cheat, and I don’t sleep with cheaters.”

“Neither do I.” She ran her hands down her thighs, stopped abruptly, and took another quivery breath. “I don’t have a boyfriend right now.”

Sternly, he quelled his rising hope. “What is it, then? A disease?”

She shook her head.

“A vow of celibacy? A bet?”

“No, no!” She choked on a giggle. “It isn’t a good time for a new boyfriend, okay? But I really like you.” She retreated behind the couch.

He’d prowled after her like a lusty tomcat without even realizing it. He halted. “I like you, too, Mirabel, but I don’t make a habit of sleeping with women I’ve just met.” Not that his current behavior supported that statement. He grasped the arm of the sofa to keep himself still. “I like to know who I’m getting involved with.”

Mirabel glared at him. “I don’t jump into bed with random men, either.” She was gripping the couch, too. “I evaluate them first.”

His suspicions surged. “For their assets?”
God, why did I say that?
If anything might drive her away . . . Her eyes rested appreciatively on the bulge in his jeans. Evidently, she thought he meant another kind of assets. Desire shook him so violently he swayed.

She giggled again. “No, silly. For their emotional stability.”

“Oh.” He blew out a breath. “I’m very stable.” Most of the time. Fortunately, he was still holding onto the couch, or he’d be all over her, and she’d never believe him.

“I’m not always right,” she said, “but you’re . . . Oh, you’re incredibly appealing.” She closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “You’re
such
a turn on.”

I am?

She was killing him. He couldn’t resist any longer.

But he had to. “Still . . . nothing you’ve said explains the secrecy thing.”

“Unbelievable,” she muttered. Now she was doing the prowling, a tigress to his helpless tom. She put her hands on his shoulders and lifted her hot, sweet mouth to within an inch of his. “Can we discuss this some other time?”

Well. It wasn’t like he really wanted to talk anyway.

“In exchange, I promise not to mention your grandfather or your aunts.” She laughed.

Now he was laughing, too. He tumbled onto the sofa with Mirabel on top.

* * *

She straddled him and went for his mouth. He tasted dark and lusty and all male. His tongue danced with hers. With a deep, rich murmur of pleasure, he licked at her mouth. “Delicious,” he said. “Wine of the gods, you are. How did I know?”

A quiver of unease went through her. For now her fangs were quiescent, biding their time, but she wouldn’t be able to keep them at bay forever. She could work him, get him so hot he wouldn’t even notice when she bit him . . .

Damn it all, she
wanted
him to notice. What was the use of fangs if you couldn’t play with them? She really liked him, and he said he liked her, but he might freak out when he saw them. With uptight guys, you never knew. Not that she’d encountered many; most of the fools who beat each other up over her knew exactly what they were fighting for.

“Hello?” He drew away. “Something wrong?”

“No.” She nipped at his upper lip. The rough brush of his five o’clock shadow zinged all the way to her clit. “No, of course not.”

“You weren’t with me,” he said, kissing her gently. Tenderly, startling her. She didn’t get tenderness from most guys. “Having second thoughts?”