Welcome to Temptation: A Romantic Comedy (3 page)

Michelle, draped in her raincoat, hurried out back in search of Gator. The rain fell in sheets. The wind slapped her coat against her legs and spit mud onto the slacks of her nurses’ uniform. She cautiously crossed the backyard, trying not to slip in the wet grass. She found Gator sprawled beneath the back of the house. For a moment, all she could do was stare. His slicker had worked its way up around his waist, exposing his jean-clad body from the hips down. And how about those hips, she thought, her gaze fastened to the taut muscles. Her eyes lingered just a moment before moving downward to his lean thighs and calves. And then all at once, those hips started moving, sliding from side to side like a rattlesnake in reverse. There was a loud grunt, and the rest of his body emerged, his big fists gripping several sheets of plywood.

“Well, don’t just stand there,” Gator said, once he’d spied her. “Help me get this plywood out. And when we’re done with this batch, there is more beneath the other side of the house.”

“You don’t have to be mean,” she said. “I’ve done nothing to deserve it.” She set the hammer and box of nails under the house so they wouldn’t get wet. She stooped beside him and pulled the plywood out. It was going to be a long day, she thought.

Several hours later, Michelle and Gator had managed to board up the largest windows on the back of the house, although it was next to impossible to work against the fierce wind. Several times Michelle found herself flattened against the house, unable to move because of the wind’s force, while the screens billowed and strained with each gust. One tore loose and spit rain into her face, almost blinding her. Finally, Gator gripped her around the waist with both arms and literally shoved her toward the back door.

“Go inside,” he yelled, “before the wind picks you up and tosses you into the bayou.”

Michelle didn’t argue. She knew she’d only hinder him further because of her inability to fight the wind. She managed to get the back door open, but another wind gust sent water spraying onto the wood floor and onto Reba, who helped close the door behind Michelle.

“Where’d Gator run off to?” she asked, wringing her frail hands.

“He should be here momentarily,” Michelle said, gasping for breath. “It’s bad out there, Grand. Real bad.” Michelle noticed for the first time that Reba’s hound was standing beside her. “What is Mae West doing out of bed? Shouldn’t she be with her puppies?”

“The wind scared her.” Reba said. “She can’t sit still. And Mister Ed is going bananas.” She motioned toward the parrot, whose claws gripped the side of his cage as he squawked.

“I need all the masking and duct tape you can get your hands on,” Michelle told her grandmother. “While I tape the small windows I want you to look for candles. Oh, and a couple of spare flashlights would help.”

Michelle shrugged out of her raincoat but didn’t bother to get out of her wet uniform. She went right to work, taping windows as fast as she could. Gator came in a few minutes later and assisted. By the time they ran out of tape they’d managed to secure most of the windows on the first floor, as well as the larger ones on the second.

Gator backed away from one of the large plate-glass windows in an upper-story bedroom and surveyed the big X’s they’d made on the glass with masking tape. “I suppose that’s the best we can do on such short notice.”

Michelle saw that he was literally soaked to the skin. His jeans were plastered against his thighs and calves in a way that made her mouth go dry. His shirt was drenched as well and hung open to his waist, exposing his wide chest, where black hair glistened wetly. His thick hair was slicked to his scalp, giving him a rakish appearance. Michelle realized that she didn’t look much better. Her uniform was saturated, and it molded to her body like a second skin. Her nipples, erect from the cold rain and chafing the cotton material of her uniform, were clearly visible as they strained against the wet fabric. She blushed profusely when she caught Gator staring. But if she was uncomfortable before, it was nothing compared to the unease she felt when those hooded black eyes locked with her own.

“We need to get out of these wet things,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her in an attempt to hide herself. She shivered as Gator continued to stare. He still had the power to make her body go berserk when he looked at her that way, she thought. Those glittering black eyes didn’t miss a thing. It was as though he were capable of seeing past flesh and bone to her inner workings, all of which shook at the moment as violently as the tree limbs outside the window. She was certain he knew what that look did to her—what it did to every female, for that matter. He had it down to an art. And if it had had a powerful effect on her at sixteen, it was doubly so now at thirty-two.

“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Gator said, shrugging out of his shirt. It was cold and felt like wet seaweed against his skin. He mopped his brow and chest with it and ran it across the back of his neck.

Michelle wondered if he had any idea how sensual that simple act was. He was all rippling muscles and taut flesh. Goose pimples stood out on his shoulders and his nipples puckered from the chill in the room. His arms were lean and as brown as the rest of him. The room seemed to shrink in size. Michelle had seen enough male bodies in her job to know that the one before her was one of the best she’d ever laid eyes on.

Gator would have had to be blind not to notice her perusal. The grin he shot her was brazen. “Like what you see, Mic?”

Michelle’s head snapped up with a force that almost sent her reeling. Her face flamed. “I was just … just …”

“Staring?” He looked faintly amused.

He was laughing at her, she thought angrily. She fought the urge to race out of the room. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said.

“You’ve still got the prettiest green eyes I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the cutest rear end. I’d say you have improved with age.” He slung his damp shirt around his neck and stepped closer. “So you’re a nurse now. I remember the first time you told me you wanted to go into nursing. Do you?”

Michelle fought the urge to back away from him. To do so would have been cowardly, and she would sooner bite off her tongue than show Gator she was afraid of him. “How can I forget,” she said. “You suggested we play doctor so I could practice on you.”

He chuckled. “But you refused.”

“That’s because I knew what ailed you and didn’t want any part of it.”

“I think you did. Had we been older maybe things would have turned out differently.”

“I see you haven’t lost your arrogance,” she said.

“You’re still crazy about me, aren’t you?”

She almost laughed, because at the moment it was just like old times, with Gator trying his darnedest to get a rise out of her and her tossing his words or innuendos right back in his face. Gator Landry had always been able to make her blush and feel things that other boys couldn’t.

“I was only sixteen years old at the time. I’m twice that age now, and I hope I’ve got twice the sense I had back then when I acted on hormones instead of common sense. Besides, you weren’t the first man to kiss me; nor the last.”

He cocked his head to the side, as though pondering the thought. “Maybe not, but I’ll bet I’m the one you remember best.”

She wished he wouldn’t stand so close. Every nerve in her body was alive with anticipation, and if that anticipation had been sweet at sixteen, it was even more so now that she fully understood where all those feelings and sensations led. She was sensitized to his every move—the way his chest rose and fell, the way his dark lashes fluttered when he blinked, and the way his warm breath felt on her cheek.

“You know we could all die out here, Mic,” he said, his dark gaze resting on her lips. “In about another hour, this storm could blow us clear to kingdom come. What d’you say we give each other a little present?”

Michelle didn’t know if he was serious or not, but her mouth flew open in surprise at his blatant request. Gator took it as an invitation, and his own mouth suddenly opened over hers, capturing it in a warm kiss. His big arms snaked around her waist and pulled her close, so close that she could feel the hard muscles of his thighs pressing against hers, the wall of his chest crushing her breasts.

The years had not erased the taste of him from her memory. His tongue coaxed her mouth open wider, making gentle forays between her lips that sent her head spinning. His palms slid down the small of her back, cupped each hip, and pulled her tighter against him, cradling her against the base of his thighs, where his arousal was more than evident. Had another man done the same thing, it would have seemed indecent and out of place, but for a man like Gator, it was as much a part of the kiss as his lips. Gator did nothing halfway. And Michelle could only stand there and hang on for dear life, praying her knees would not buckle beneath her.

When he finally raised his head, he was smiling.

“Nothing has changed between us, Mic,” he said with his voice soft with invitation. “After all these years, I still want you. Just as badly as I did when you were sixteen and didn’t really know what you were doing. Its better when you’re older, you know. But this time I refuse to stop after a few hot kisses.”

Michelle realized she was gasping, and she had to wonder if Gator’s kisses were more dangerous than anything the storm could do to her.

By noon, the fierce wind howled and shrieked like a wild animal, and the house shuddered with each violent gust. Dressed in dry clothes that Reba had pulled from an upstairs closet, Gator dickered with a battery-powered radio that produced a great deal of static. He’d muttered a few curses under his breath when he realized he’d left his police radio back at the shelter. Not that it would have done much good anyway since he was so far out in the bayou country. He was going to insist that Reba get a telephone after this thing was over. At her age, with her car running only half the time, she had to have some way of contacting people. It was too easy to forget about her living out here all alone, and he wouldn’t always be around to remind folks.

Michelle, wearing pants that were too big and had to be pinned at the waist, gazed through a partially boarded window where the trees outside shook and swayed, as though some great Pandora’s box had been opened and had unleashed something awful and evil. Tree limbs and debris were tossed against the house, and then sucked in another direction. Her ears popped suddenly, signaling a change in pressure that was as frightening as the wind outside.

Gator stepped closer, still holding the radio at his ear. “Better come away from that window,” he said. He’d barely gotten the words out of his mouth before something hit the house with force; it felt as though it had been lifted momentarily from its foundation. Reba, who’d been rocking in her chair frantically for the past hour, stopped and glanced up as the lights flickered once and went out. They were shrouded in near darkness.

“The water is rising fast,” Gator said, going to the window he’d ordered Michelle away from only seconds before. Reba joined him..

“It looks like the end of the world,” she said softly, holding a small calico kitten. She looked from Gator to her granddaughter and back, and she appeared to be on the verge of tears. “You were right. We shouldn’t have stayed. If anything happens to the two of you, it’ll be all my fault.”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Gator said, anchoring his hands on her frail shoulders reassuringly.

Michelle would’ve had to be deaf not to catch the gravity of his voice. Once again, she stepped closer to the window. They were drawn to it like moths to a porch light. She tossed Gator an anxious look over her grandmother’s head and found him watching her, a thoughtful expression on his face. She wondered what he was thinking. Was he sorry now for staying? She suddenly remembered the kiss they’d shared and glanced away quickly. She returned her gaze to the window, where the bayou, usually without current, was now a pulsing, moving thing with ripples and whitecaps. It reminded her of the way her stomach pitched about each time Gator looked at her with those black eyes.

Gator finally insisted they move to the center of the room, away from the windows. For the next couple of hours they waited and listened as reports filtered in on the radio although some of it was interrupted with bouts of static. They lunched on ham and cheese sandwiches and spice cake and made small talk as they listened and waited. Time crept by slowly while Reba rocked and quietly hummed church hymns. Gator tried to pull Michelle into conversation.

“Remember the time we got caught in that storm at the swimming hole?” he asked.

Michelle slid her gaze in his direction and felt her face grow warm at the memory. “No.”

The smile he gave her told her he knew she was lying. “Think for a minute. It’ll come back to you. It started lightning, and we had to leave the water.”

How could she forget, she wanted to rail at him. She had ended up in the front seat of his old pickup truck,
alone
with him, wearing only her bathing suit and smelling of suntan lotion. Something in her stomach fluttered as she remembered how he’d looked in his bathing trunks that day.

Gator had matured much faster than the rest of the boys his age, and that day, with his naked chest glistening with oil and his wet trunks clinging to him, Michelle had been convinced of that maturity. That was the day Gator had kissed her for the first time, though heaven knew he’d tried a dozen times before. She couldn’t remember exactly how it had begun, but all at once she’d found him close, his mouth touching hers tentatively, as if he were half-afraid she’d scurry away like the squirrels had when the rain had begun. But she hadn’t. She had raised her lips to his eagerly. That one kiss awakened everything in her body, those gentle stirrings that he had aroused in her the first time she’d seen him. She had touched his chest, had drawn tiny playful circles in the light coating of oil that covered him, and had watched in wonder as his nipples had contracted. She had lain in bed that night for hours, thinking about it, wondering what it would have been like had she not put a halt to the kissing that in just a few minutes had grown hot and frantic. And then she’d buried her head under her pillow and squeezed her eyes tightly closed, trying to convince herself that no sixteen-year-old girl should ever feel the things Gator had made her feel.