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Authors: Dita Parker

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“No. I mean, I’ll take it but you don’t have to bother. I’ll
have it sent to Boyd’s, no problem.” She most certainly couldn’t have him
coming anywhere near her house. It would only end up bad. In bed. With her
demanding he do what he had suggested.

“Okay. Thanks,” he said, his tone bright and maybe a little
on the tight side. “It was good seeing you again, Lucie.”

It was the second time they were saying goodbye. Would this
be the last? The thought pained her more than she cared to look into.

It was good seeing you too.
She wouldn’t say it. She
settled for a forced smile and a teasing tone that came no more easily.
“Goodbye, Mac. Tell Em the queen wishes her a belated happy birthday and that
if she ever visits Savannah she is welcome to come have tea and cake. I have
quite a collection of vintage clothes and accessories I bet she would love to
play with. We could make a weekend of it, just the gals.”

“Hogging my goddaughter?” he asked.

Caught in the act, feeling like pouting, Lucie shrugged.
“You started it with the whole queen of Savannah business.”

“That I did. And we just might take you up on that. I’d
score so many points with Em and give Ronnie and Hannah an amorous weekend all
to themselves.”

For a second he looked as if he wanted to say something
more. What it was, she would never know. Boyd hollered for him to hurry up.

“And that’s my cue.” Regret shone plain on his face. Or
that’s what Lucie wanted to think she saw.

“I’ll see you around,” he said.

She sincerely hoped not. For her own sake, for his. Because
if they did, heaven help them both.

Chapter Six

 

Lord, she was tired. Tired of working sixteen hours a day to
make sure she slept like the dead only to wake up wearier by the morning.

Lucie had taken out her journals. Thousands of pages she
never bothered reading because she hadn’t forgotten the highs and the lows, the
joys or sorrows. She could bring it all back as any mortal could.

Or so she had thought before taking down the ones marked
with S for Savannah from the bookshelf in her office, stacking them on the
leather blotter of her desk and idly thumbing through the thick volumes before
bed. The life and times of
mademoiselle
Marcotte, MacCale had called
them.

And then some. She had recorded the excitement of the
Savannah Road Races and the first time she had ridden in a car. How could a
century feel as if no more than a decade had passed?

She found hastily scribbled notes on how the city had lost
most of her original structures in the fire of 1796. In May 1791, she hadn’t
been in town, but apparently George Washington had been. A ball had been held
in his honor and he had gone sightseeing the next day. If her memory served her
right, the central squares had been surrounded by empty lots back then. What
had they shown the president? Specs and promises of future glory?

She came across countless entries on Tybee. How many summers
had she spent on the island? Sure, it was an easy trip now, a stretch of
highway. The early attempts to flee the summer heat of the city had been
perilous and sluggish adventures done by sail, later by steamer.

There was a hilarious account on the commotion caused by the
pelvis of young Elvis. She’d seen a risqué cabaret or two by the time Presley’s
hips and hops had shaken the old Sports Arena. The city had been a hub of the
most incredible music with an impressive string of artists performing in town
on a regular basis. She had heard Ella Fitzgerald sing and Louis Armstrong
play. Duke Ellington and Count Basie, big names and traveling musicians, they
packed in the crowds night after night.

The old City Auditorium was where she had first met Boyd
Ferguson and Frank Hunter. Frank had never learned the truth about her, only
wondered at her interest in history in general and the wars in particular. God,
she really missed their conversations and their fishing expeditions. He’d been
such great company. Boyd still was. But soon, she would lose him too.

Pushing the thought aside, she had jumped into The Gay
Nineties. The old DeSoto Hotel had opened on New Year’s Eve 1890. There was a
picture of her taken seventy-seven years later during the last ball, before one
of the most beautiful hotels she had ever set foot in was leveled in the name
of progress. She was wearing too much makeup around the eyes. It went perfectly
with the flashy Oscar de la Renta gown made of silk brocade with a copper and
gold Aztec print on a chocolate-brown background. A big bun balanced on the
back of her head and on the front rested a Boucheron tiara made from yellow
gold and canary diamonds, a gift from Prince Felix Yusupov and the most
expensive piece of jewelry she had ever owned.

Lucie thought she looked like someone attending a fancy
costume party. To Mac’s niece, she would probably look like a true-to-life
princess, so she had sent the picture to Boyd and addressed it to MacCale.

She had gotten the picture Boyd had taken at the Games in
return. No note accompanied the glossy shot, nothing but an inscription at the
back of the picture, written in Boyd’s neat longhand.
Lucie and MacCale
Moore
.
She stood stiff as a statue looking up at him, Mac’s arm
wrapped around her as he stared down at her. Lucie and MacCale Moore. As if
they were an item.

She had taken one look at the picture and shoved it in the
drawer. She had taken it out only to shove it back again until, furious and
frustrated with herself, she’d propped it on her desk. The sense of closure she
waited on never came. Nothing but the unwanted feelings of longing and
loneliness as her glance stole to the shot time and time again while she
worked.

How could such a fleeting moment have such a lasting effect?
Why did she feel she hadn’t seen the last of him? Why did nothing feel
finished?
Because heat courses through your body every time he crosses your
mind.

MacCale was more than thought. He was a physical reaction.

A plague, that’s what he was. She had kicked him out but he
was far from gone. He haunted her house by day and he haunted her bed by night.
He lingered in every room he had set foot in and every inch of her body he had
touched. And there wasn’t a patch of skin he hadn’t covered.

Why had she let her guard down with him?
Why?

She hadn’t heard from him since their rendezvous at the
Games. Bruno on the other hand had called her every other night enticing her to
come out of hiding and on Friday he was so persistent Lucie caved in.

“You won’t regret it,” Bruno had promised, but Lucie didn’t
feel like carousing. She felt like cursing a blue streak every time the
magnificent Mr. Moore invaded her thoughts.

And stepping into Smoke and Mirrors, cruising her way
upstairs, Lucie cursed again.

“Brutus!”

MacCale sat at the bar chatting with Bruno. Had he spent all
his evenings there? Again? Had he taken a shining to the place? Obviously so.
God damn shame about it since she had already marked the place as hers.

Lucie stormed to the men, glaring at Bruno while she
addressed MacCale. “You really need to find yourself another gin joint,
Mac
.
I saw this one first.”

He flashed her an impish smile before touching her cheek
with his fingers. Lucie shrank back from the heat and tenderness they radiated.

“It’s a free country,
Luce
, and I happen to like the
place. Besides, sweet Anika over there and I share an interest we’ve been
mulling over on the dance floor for days. Haven’t exhausted the topic yet, so…”
He shrugged, smiling so sheepishly she could very well imagine what that common
interest was.

Mulled over on the dance floor, her ass, Lucie thought.
Rolled all over Anika’s bed more likely. Lucie glanced at the statuesque blonde
waiting for MacCale at the same table he had sat at last time. He already had a
table of his own? But of course.

“I suggest you don’t use the word ‘sweet’ around her. She’ll
take it as an insult.”

“What will she do?” he asked. Then in a hushed, husky tone,
“Punish me?”

Lucie found herself under mental attack, scenes starring
Anika and MacCale flashing through her mind. Anika raking her nails all over
his chest and abs as she rode his cock wildly. MacCale fucking her from behind
as she mewled for him to give it to her. Harder, faster, please oh god oh god.
Now!

He downed the remains of his drink and stood. “Must not keep
a lady waiting. Thanks for the chat and the shot, Bruno. Wish me luck, Lucie?”

“Break a leg,” she chirped. “Both of them.”

Bruno snickered. MacCale laughed outright before walking
over to Anika and letting her draw him to the dance floor. With a final salute
Lucie’s way, MacCale pulled Anika to him and let the pulsing music take them
into what anyone with eyes would have called vertical simulated sex.

Lucie wanted to look away. She really did. She didn’t want
to see the blonde beauty melt into his arms and plaster her soft curves on his
hard muscles, her body following every move he made, flowing over him as if
they were fucking. She really didn’t want to watch MacCale whisper into her ear
and witness her eyes go wide, her mouth opening in a raspberry-red O of shock
before she pressed her cheek against his, no doubt to counter whatever dirty
talk he had thrown at her with some naughty words of her own. What she needed
even less was the thought of everything that would happen after the pair left
the club and put those words into action.

Turning her back on the sexy couple and things bound to go
bump in the night, Lucie turned to Bruno.

“I need a drink.”

* * * * *

“What. The. Fuck. What the hell did you give her?”

The icy rage in the man’s voice made Lucie whirl around in
her stool and crash into a steely wall of hot man.

“Only what the lady ordered.”

“In a bucket?”

Lucie tried to look up at face of the man with ice chips in
his voice but his hold on her was too tight. She decided to lean closer and
press her cheek to his chest where his heart hammered fast and strong.

“So she’s had a few more than usual. The lady can hold her
liquor so stop bitching, MacCale. She’s a big gal.”

MacCale. Her tasty and tenacious MacCale.

My?
Now where had that come from?

“No, she’s small and wasted,” he fumed. “And I’m taking her
home.”

“I don’t know where she lives,” Lucie heard Bruno stall.
“She refuses to tell me.”

“So stop asking.” MacCale’s voice was so deep and soothing
Lucie concentrated on the rumble in his chest. Someone tucked a strand of hair
behind her ear, probably mistaking her sagging form for lights out.

“She can sleep it off in the office. I’ll put her in a cab
after closing time,” Bruno said.

“The hell you will,” she registered the mighty Mr. Moore
saying before he scooped her up.

Lucie tried to push at his chest and tell him that she still
had legs, but MacCale’s strength and resolve killed her protest. And it got
Bruno all worked up. “You’re not taking her to your place, if that’s what
you’re thinking, so put her down.”

“I know where she lives.”

Looking up, Lucie saw Bruno’s eyes light up in realization
then blaze in anger.

“Put her down,” Bruno said, “or I’m calling the cops.”

“Go right ahead and explain to them why you serve people in
no need of another drink. We’ll let her do the talking and see how it goes.”

Lucie tried to wiggle out of his arms then conceded defeat
as MacCale’s hold tightened on her again. “Good girl. Now let’s get you home.”

“I’m calling her, first thing,” Bruno said as MacCale turned
to go.

“Whatever gets you up in the morning,” Lucie heard him throw
over his shoulder as they took off. MacCale maneuvered them through the swaying
crowd and down the stairs with ease. After seeing him barely break a sweat at
the Scottish Games, she wasn’t really surprised, only curious.

She didn’t see the bouncer’s face as Mac shouldered the door
open, but she heard C’s subdued, “Miss M, Mr. M.” MacCale had to be a serious
tipper for the verbal bouncer to usher them out once again without his usual
protests and demands of a speedy return.

“Your car where you left it last?”

“Hmm, yes.” He wasn’t seriously thinking of carrying her
several blocks?

“Why don’t you go get it,” Lucie said. “I’ll wait right
here.” One last time, she tried squirming out of his hold. His arms were like
iron bars around her, never yielding or dropping an inch.

“Of course you will,” he said calmly, and started down
Martin Luther King Boulevard.

A fireman. Maybe he was a fireman. Calm, strong and
commanding. Felix the firefighter.

“I knew a Felix once. He was a real prince.”

“I bet he was,” MacCale muttered.

“No, he really was. An honest-to-God prince. Picture Oxford,
1910— Mac?”

“Yes. It’s Oxford in 1910.”

“No. People. They’re staring,” she said through clenched
teeth as several couples and not a few passersby turned around to have another
look.

“Ah. It’s the purse.”

The purse? Oh god, he had thrown her purse over his shoulder
at some point, the sleek vintage Chanel 2.55 bag swinging gingerly at his side.

“Because last time I checked, it was still legal for
gentlemen to carry damsels in distress in these parts.”

For the love of— “I am not a damned damsel and I’m not in
distress.”

“And I’m not a gentleman?”

“I didn’t say that,” she grumbled. His legs ate pavement at
unbelievable speed considering she was no waif. “Put me down, Mac. What is
this?”

“This is me proving I’m a gentleman.”

“Certifiable is what you are,” she muttered. “You’re a
gentleman. Tried and true. There. I said it. I believe you. Now put me down.
Please?”

Smiling, he glanced down at her and finally stopped.

And planted a butterfly-light kiss on the corner of her
mouth.

“No.”

Giving up on a loud sigh, Lucie suffered in silence the rest
of the way. Christ, he was strong, the fact and the evidence heating her on a
primal level she had thought no man could touch her on.

Arriving at her car, he let her down by the passenger door
and extended his hand. “Keys?”

“Young man, I’ve been driving for a hundred years. I think I
can handle it.”

“Is that what you’re telling the police if we get pulled
over? Keys.”

“I am not drunk,” she insisted.

“And I’m not joking.” He pressed her against the door and
caged her inside his arms. “Unless you want me to carry you the rest of the
way, keys, please. And don’t you roll your eyes at me, sigh or give me any kind
of grief on the way over, or I will make your cheeks blush. And you can take
that any way you like. And I promise you, baby, not only will you like it, you
will beg for more.”

His eyes and stance were steely but his voice was sheer
silk, the combination making her reach for the purse he’d pressed into her
hands, before caging her in, and dig out the keys as if hypnotized.

“Good girl, Lucie.” Rounding her waist with one thick arm,
he tugged her against him, moved her to his side and opened the door for her.
As soon as she was seated, he leaned over to buckle her up.

Deciding she had been coddled enough for the night, Lucie
tried to push away his hands. “I’ll do it myself, thank you very much.”

MacCale gently pinned her hands to her sides and proceeded
to take care of the seatbelt. “My services are all inclusive, ma’am.” He closed
the door, rounded the car and took the driver’s seat. Before long, they were
cruising down the highway with the top down, Lucie breathing in the open air
with greedy gulps.

BOOK: PerpetualPleasure
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