Authors: Hailey North
Daffy tipped her face up to his. “You lead beautifully,” she replied.
The band struck a note and Hunter heard the crowd start to shift into dance mode as the two guys playing the spoons hammered on their metal-washboard breastplates.
But Hunter wasn’t moving, not except to lower his hands to Daffy’s waist.
She wriggled against him and all he could do was thank the stars they were in full public view or he would have taken her then and there.
With a soft sigh, she parted her lips and Hunter forced himself to pull back, to fight the temptation to taste that beautiful, inviting mouth. Too much too fast was not the right recipe for success with Daffodil Landry. “Ready for the Gospel Tent?”
Daffy rocked back. “Gospel Tent?” Her voice was dazed from desire.
Hunter grinned. She was his for the taking. “Sure, let’s go get some of that old-time religion.” Some vocal amens might be just what he needed to cool his own hard-on.
His hands back on her shoulders, he guided her from the mass of dancers. They were halfway to the Gospel Tent before she seemed to come back to earth.
“You should probably be labeled with a warning notice,” Daffy said.
That made him smile. “And what would the label say?”
“Danger. Do not touch.”
“And if you were labeled, what would yours say?”
Immediately, she answered, “Danger. Explosive.”
He laughed, but then realized that with all the warnings he’d been given, laughing was the last thing he should be doing. Running in the opposite direction from Daffy was no doubt the recommended option.
“Ooh, Hunter!”
He stopped. He’d know that female voice anywhere.
“Friends of yours?” Daffy said, a wicked smile on her face as she repeated his own words to him.
Emily, with Roger in tow, descended in a flurry of cheek kisses that put Tiffany Phipps quite in the shade. Hunter performed the introductions, hiding his reluctance behind the company manners his mother had drummed into him. Emily was one woman he refused to call friend. Roger he actually felt sorry for.
“You were naughty to skip my party,” Emily said.
Daffy picked up quickly on Hunter’s tension. She also noted the woman’s wedding ring—a carat at least. She had no business gunning for Hunter.
Turning to Daffy, Emily said, “Hunter, Roger, and I go way back. Only now that he’s rich and famous, he doesn’t have time for us folks back home.” She pouted in what was supposed to be a becoming fashion, Daffy supposed, and lay a possessive hand on Hunter’s forearm. Daffy was pleased to see Hunter shift his arm free.
“Where’s home?” Daffy asked the question, realizing she’d never asked Hunter. Well, it wasn’t as if she’d spent much time with him. Yet.
“Ponchatoula,” Hunter answered before Emily could. Daffy noticed he didn’t apologize for missing her party.
“And fancy running into you way down here in the city at Jazzfest,” Emily cooed. Roger nodded, more bored than threatened. “I know,” Emily continued, “now that we’ve bumped into each other, let’s make up for that missed party. We’re heading over to the Acura stage.”
“That’s going to be a great performance,” Daffy said, almost surprising herself by how swiftly she thought up the lie, “but we’re going to have to miss it. I’m on my way to visit my aunt in the hospital and we were just heading to the exit.”
“Your poor, dear aunt will be wondering what happened to you,” Hunter said.
“Oh. Well.” Emily appeared stymied; then her sharp gaze sharpened even more. “But, Hunter, surely you can join us later. We’ll be at the House of Blues, at the private party Aaron Neville is throwing.”
What a name-dropper. Daffy could have rolled over her playing that game but decided not to lower herself. She also could have told Emily that Aaron Neville would be nowhere near that party but his record label had thought it prudent to toss a bash for his fans flocking to Jazzfest. Smiling sweetly, she tapped her watch and glanced up at Hunter.
“Sorry, Emily,” he said, “but I already have plans. Emily, Roger, see you next time. Mustn’t keep Daffy’s aunt waiting.”
And with that, he guided the two of them clear of the pesky Emily.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Hunter said, “You don’t really have a sick aunt, do you?”
She shook her head. “And do you really have plans for later?”
Hunter looked at her, that slow, head-to-toe scrutiny that laid her open to him—body and soul. Daffy tried to quell a quivering tremble of desire that coursed through her. She touched her upper lip with the tip of her tongue, yearning to feel his mouth on hers.
He leaned toward her, his body shadowing hers. “Oh, do I have plans,” he murmured.
D
affy had to bite her tongue to keep from asking, “With me or with someone else?” Instead, she answered, “That’s nice,” leading the way to the edge of the standing-room-only Gospel Tent. “I’d hate to think of you all alone on a Friday night.”
“I have problems,” Hunter said, “but that’s seldom one of them.” He grinned and then positioned himself behind her.
The music surged around them, led by a black choir with a male lead singer who mopped his face even as his voice reached the heights and far corners of the tent with a power Daffy had seldom heard. She swayed and clapped along with the others in the crowded tent, surprisingly content.
A group of joyous celebrants had formed a second line and was parading up and down the aisles of the tent, waving everything from gaily decorated umbrellas to hankies to something Daffy would have sworn was a Pampers. Hunter’s body brushed against her as she moved with the music. Amen. Amen. She wanted him. Careful, Daff, she tried to say, but she didn’t feel one bit like exercising caution.
She’d wrecked enough hearts and lives without damaging another. But he’s tough and he’s out to get what he can, she argued back. Like that makes anything you do okay?
The leader of the band was working up the responsive crowd. “Say ye-ah!” he cried.
“Ye-ah!”
“Say ye-aaaahhh!”
“Oh, ye-eah,” Hunter said, his voice speaking only to her sounding oddly quiet in the tent full of thunderous music. “You know something?”
“What?” Daffy wet her lips and waited for his answer. She sure knew how on fire she was for him.
“Time to go.”
Any other trip to Jazzfest and Daffy would have protested. They hadn’t yet sipped a strawberry lemonade or savored a crawfish pie. Tonight, though, she was ready to leave.
The crowd had surged to its feet, responding to the gospel rhythms. The second line had grown, with more people joining in than were left standing in many of the rows of seats. Oh, ye-ah! Daffy slipped out of the tent with Hunter.
By the time Hunter took the turn that led to the parking lot at her office, Daffy was beginning to wonder if she was imagining Hunter’s heated interest. Was it only her own desires creating the need she’d felt in his casual touches, his searching, searing glances? That would certainly explain his pulling up beside the only car left in the lot at
The Crescent
.
“Yours?” He turned toward her, his right arm on the back of her seat, close enough for her to sense his heat, yet not near enough to answer her tingling need to be touched by him.
Daffy nodded. She couldn’t make herself reach for the door handle. Why hadn’t they gone to his place? Or hers?
He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “Okay if I follow you to your place?”
She was so relieved she almost yelled. Instead, she nodded, shyly enough, and said, “If we get separated, my address is 6302 Perrier.”
“Uh—”
“I forgot. You’re not from here. Perrier runs parallel to St. Charles on the riverside. My house is on the last block before Audubon Park.”
He grinned. “I do know what riverside means.”
She smiled in return and before she could say “Thanks” or “I had a great time” or anything else equally predictable, he was out of his seat and around the car, opening the door for her. He stood back and watched as she climbed into her BMW, then hopped back into his Jeep.
No kiss. No touch. Daffy gunned her engine and headed for the street. Was he trying to drive her nuts? If so, he was certainly succeeding!
Heading toward her Uptown home, she lectured herself on behavior, morals, and propriety. Hunter was behaving like a perfect gentleman; she on the other hand, closely resembled a cat in heat. Take a chill pill, she advised herself, and determined then and there, at the red light at Louisiana, not to have sex with him on the first real date, no matter how much he entreated her. Denial whetted one’s appetite, a lesson he’d been trying out on her all afternoon and evening.
Oh, ye-ah, did it ever!
Hunter followed Daffy in her dash out of the lot. She drove the way she approached life—like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Boy, did she have style, he thought. And unlike those friends of hers, Daffy was Uptown but somehow grounded to the real world in a manner he hadn’t expected, given her background. Aloysius, in between warning Hunter away from Daffy, had given him a clear enough picture of her privileged upbringing. She’d been a maid in several Carnival courts—the ones that counted in the pecking order of New Orleans’ society, according to Aloysius—though never Queen of Carnival. After what he’d learned about Daffy’s mother, Hunter wasn’t too surprised about that. Surely people who flaunted society’s rules couldn’t carry the scepter.
Daffy’s background was a world away from his own childhood and adolescence. But some elements were universal. He grimaced as he thought of Emily and Roger and the social order of the much smaller town he’d called home. There were the haves and the have-nots and ne’er the twain should cross paths.
He stopped at the light at Louisiana and admired the view he had of the back of Daffy’s head. He couldn’t see much as his Jeep rode higher than her BMW, but he could have sworn she tossed her head in a most determined fashion. Grinning, Hunter moved forward with the green light and wondered just how she’d take his next move in this chess game of attraction the two of them were playing.
Sixty-three-oh-two Perrier was blessed by the presence of a driveway, a luxury often missing in New Orleans’s neighborhoods. Hunter pulled in behind Daffy and climbed out of the car, moving in tandem with her. He could almost feel her body brushing against his as he turned and closed his car door at the same moment she closed hers. Yet they stood a car length apart. Puzzled at the intensity of his feelings, Hunter paused for a long moment before he walked toward her and crossed the short sidewalk leading to her front porch.
She waited, unruffled, calm, completely in control. Or was she just really good at pretending? Hunter let his arm brush against hers as they climbed the steps to her porch, but refrained from taking her hand again. He wanted her on edge—hanging over the edge, gasping with need—before he made his move. After that miscalculation with the candy corn, he wasn’t risking a second misstep in the same day.
“Tonight was fun,” Daffy said, stopping beside one of two oversized rocking chairs near the front door.
She had her key in her hand, but she hadn’t reached for the door. Suddenly Hunter got the oddest feeling that she wasn’t going to ask him in. After all the signals she’d given off, why put him off now? Why, when he wanted her to ask him in so he could be the one to stride away?
Moving closer, he said, his voice huskier than before, “Tonight isn’t over yet.”
She was standing so near to him he could feel her breath moving in and out. “No?” As she asked the question, she lifted one hand to his shirtfront.
Dammit, now she could feel just how fast his own heart was beating. He clasped one hand over hers and tipped her chin gently upward. Smiling into her eyes, he said, “Thanks for my best trip to Jazzfest ever.”
“But we were hardly there.” She curled her fingers a bit more and he could have sworn his heart speeded up just from that gentle gesture. “And we didn’t eat. Eating is a big part of Jazzfest.”
Hunter cupped a hand behind her head. “Food isn’t everything,” he said, forcing himself to wait when all he wanted to do was to take her mouth like a starving man—the way he’d been dying to taste her lips all day.
He stroked the back of her head with his thumb. Her eyes had grown even larger; her lips had parted, inviting his touch. “Company is much more important,” he said, shifting so only a whisper could pass between their bodies.
She moved in response and he almost swore as a jolt of desire tore through his groin. She wasn’t exactly rubbing against him. He couldn’t describe Daffy that way. But the merest of pressures of her shorts-clad legs against his had set the blood rushing.
To everywhere except his brain.
Which probably explained why, when she rustled the keys she held in her hand, he nodded and, bodies almost locked together, they moved toward the front door.
Go in and you’re doomed
.
The voice came from out of nowhere, overpowering any other thought, even his blatant horniness. Spend the night with Daffy and he’d be just like all the other guys she’d used and discarded.
Who cares
? cried his baser instincts.
Hunter stopped her hand in his before she could stick her key into the lock. “Allow me?”
Surprise clear in her expression, Daffy said, “Sure. That’s a lovely old-fashioned gesture, but one I appreciate.”
He nodded. If she only knew. He slipped the key into the lock, then turned back to face Daffy. Oh, she was hot for him. Her chest rose and fell rapidly and the tight-fitting Lycra of her top did a great job of highlighting the puckered state of her generous nipples. He bit back a groan and leaned forward. Cupping her head again, he held her gaze, then lowered his mouth to hers.
As kisses went, it was brief. Modest, almost. More of an appetizer than a first course.
But it shook Hunter to the core. Her lips had opened, had invited him in. The breathy moan she uttered as he lifted his mouth from hers almost undid him. He loved women who made noise during sex. But more than that, his own reaction to her touch shocked him, as not only desire but an unexpected wave of tender protectiveness hit him.
If he hadn’t been planning to leave her there on the porch, he might have turned tail and run anyway. Hunter wasn’t ready to be rocked by any woman.
“Wow,” Daffy murmured. “This is going to be a beautiful evening.”
“Has been.” Hunter said, stepping backward one very long pace. “I actually do have to be somewhere else. Go on inside so I know you’re safe.”
“Excuse me?” She sounded stunned.
Well, he understood that reaction. But now that he’d maneuvered the situation to achieve exactly that response, he sure wished he could just bundle her into his arms, kick the door open, and march inside to her bedroom.
“Gotta go,” he said.
She rallied, somewhat slowly. “You did say that. Earlier you said that to your friends from Ponchatoula.”
He nodded. “Yep.”
She smiled and lifted one hand in a wave. “Don’t let me make you late,” she said, sounding almost cheerful as she stepped into the entryway of her house.
“Right,” Hunter muttered, bounding down the steps, his movements awkward due to the inevitable reaction she aroused in his body. How did she do it to him?
Daffy leaned against the interior of her front door and closed her eyes. Pressing her knees together, she cursed herself for her flush of desire. The touch of his hand on hers had already caused her to thaw even while she tried to fool herself she was only playing at his game of attract and pounce. But that kiss! That kiss not only had melted her thin veil of self-control but had puddled her insides.
She stood there longing for him, yet knowing she’d done the right thing, despite her frustration. Even her panties were damp, and he’d kissed her only once. Lightly she banged her head against her own front door.
She forced her head from the door and straightened up. The evening was yet young. She’d think of some new way to outwit Hunter at his game of driving her crazy.
Oddly enough, she heard an echoing knock to that which she’d made with her head.
Daffy stared at the door. Could it be? Had he been unable to resist and turned right back around?
A smile formed on her face, widening as she considered what she’d say when she opened the door to Hunter.
Make him beg.
Tell him you’ve got another date.
Don’t even answer the door.
The knock sounded again, this time a bit louder. It would be just like Hunter to demand admittance.
Her hand on the doorknob, Daffy remembered her common sense. Never open the door to a stranger. She leaned toward the peephole to verify it was indeed Hunter.
Not Hunter.
Jonni.
Daffy opened the door, happy as always to see her twin. And if Hunter did come back, Jonni would keep her from making a fool of herself over the man. “Hi, sis, this is a nice surprise.” It was unusual for Jonni to stop by on a Friday evening.
“I’m sorry to barge in on you like this,” Jonni said, following her to the back parlor, Daffy’s favorite and most soothing room.
Jonni dropped into an overstuffed chair and said somewhat softly, “I am glad to find you at home.”
Home and not in bed with Hunter. Perhaps things worked for the best, Daffy thought wryly. “Me, too. Is something wrong?”
Jonni smiled wanly and said, “I’m not sure anything’s wrong, but David’s working late and the au pair is with Erika and I was just feeling, oh, you know, lonesome.”
“Lonesome?” In the chair next to Jonni’s, Daffy kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet under her. Getting a straight story out of Jonni could be tough under the most ordinary of circumstances. Tonight was clearly going to be even more difficult. As close as the two of them were in many ways, each guarded her own privacy in a peculiar but set fashion. For instance, they rarely talked about Jonni’s choice of husband. And Jonni’s matchmaking was done so subtly—until Hunter.
Hunter she’d shoved right at her. And at the same time they had discussed David. Maybe they were not only growing up but also growing even closer.
Jonni had started playing with her watchband.
Knowing there was more to come of this story, Daffy said gently, “Shall we have some tea while we talk?”
“Yes. No.” Jonni sat up straighter and said, “David said he was working late tonight.”
Daffy stayed where she was. The tea could wait. She checked the clock on the mantel. Almost eight, which made sense because Jazzfest closed at seven and she and Hunter had slipped out before closing.
“How late?” Many of the lawyers Daffy knew frequently worked till seven or eight or even later. David was no exception as far as she knew.
“How late isn’t the point. I called his office to ask him a question. I don’t even know what it was now. Probably something like would he rather have asparagus or broccoli for dinner.” At that she started crying softly.