PerpetualPleasure (12 page)

“You are such a romantic.”

“You make it sound like a dirty word. Think it’s unmanly?”

“I think it’s absolutely adorable,” she whispered, her eyes
and tone full of sorrow and what he wanted to believe was hero worship.

Seeing her drop out of character, Mac saw his chance. “I’ll
show you adorable,” he growled and pulled Lucie to him.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. There was no buildup, no hint of
seduction as he held her head in place and raped her mouth with his.

“Don’t be scared, baby,” he whispered against her lips.

“I’m terrified,” she confessed.

He pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes
briefly. “Don’t be. There’s no need to be, Lucie, please. Just let me show you
how sweet it can be. I want to give you reason to live but you gotta let me.
You gotta let me in, tell me how you feel.”

Lucie tried to squirm out of his arms only to have him cage
her in more tightly. “Tell me you felt nothing when you saw me dancing with
Anika. Holding her close, whispering in her ear, laughing. It was all for show.
To make you jealous. Either tell me you don’t give a shit or stop slamming me
for wanting you. All of you. I’m willing to put everything in me into this but
I need for you to do the same. So stop holding out and take it. Take everything
I want to give you. It’s free, you know.”

“But is it unconditional?”

“Wanna know what I talked about with Anika? The passion we
share?”

She snorted. “No.”

“I think you do. I think you’re dying to.”

“Shut up, MacCale.”

“You. We talked about you. About wanting you. Exchanged
fantasies. Surprised?”

He saw it in her face. Anika had told him she’d made no
bones about being interested in Lucie when they had first met at Smoke and
Mirrors nor hidden the fact she dated men as well.

“Want to know what I think and Anika suspects?” he asked.

“Not really, no.”

She looked cornered. Mac felt like a bona fide bastard. And
so close to what he wanted—for Lucie to trust him not only with her past but
with her future as well—he couldn’t back down now.

“I think that under all that poise and charisma of yours,
you’re beaten black and blue. You claim lustful souls, pick on men’s needs
while burying yours but it isn’t working, is it? Tell me you don’t choke on
tears when you’re done because you only feel worse? Admit to me that you’re raw
and small and needy, that you feel something. Anything.”

Lucie remained silent for the longest moment.

Was she relieved? Enraged? Or utterly, irrevocably routed
down to her soul, if she could admit to having one?

“And what kind of feelings would you have me display?” she
spat at him, trembling head to toe. “The empty rage I feel over a fate I can’t
change? The envy I feel toward every normal, mortal human being? The longing to
be just like them? And how about fear? The fear of never finding a cure, of
never being free of this curse, free to love, free to die, free to know peace?

“Happy now? Feeling good and big and almighty? Satisfied?
You have the power to hurt me. Is that what you want to hear? There. I’ve said
it. You have the power to fucking destroy me. Is that your goal? Would that be
the ultimate satisfaction?”

Shaking his head, Mac grunted. “That just goes to show how
little you know about me, Lucie. But you never let me tell you, do you? You
never want to hear me talk about it. All you know from your studies is that I’m
thirty-six, I was born in Portland, my mother’s name is Margaret and my
father’s name is John. I have a brother and a niece, I’ve never been married
but I hope to be one day. You wanna know what else? I’m a stunt performer and
coordinator with thirteen years experience.”

She gasped. “I don’t want to hear this.”

Well that was just too bad.

“I got into it because of Evel Knievel.”

Lucie closed her eyes. “Stop.”

“My nickname is Felix, after the cartoon cat. The man with
nine lives.”

“Stop it.” Her voice fluttered with rage, her lids pinched
tight.

“My favorite color is green,” he calmly continued. “I don’t
tickle under the arms. I like things that go boom and va-va-voom. I don’t mind
a take-charge woman if she doesn’t mind me hogging the driver’s seat every now
and then. I’m falling in love with you, Lucie, and you’re breaking my heart.”

Her eyes snapped open. There was shock there, her whole
expression screaming disbelief and regret.

He’d only told her the truth. Too bad if she couldn’t face
it.

“It’s scary, isn’t it? Gut-wrenching and heart-ripping and
soul-shattering, the hold someone can get on you, the spell they can put on
you. It’s what everyone fears and craves the most. And you know what? That’s
life. That’s living. Deny it all you want but you’ll miss what you felt with
me. You’ll hunt that rush, you’ll hunger for it, try to duplicate it, but I
promise you, Lucie, it won’t be the same. It will never be the same with them
because they don’t know you. Because all you do is use them and let yourself be
used by them. But it isn’t the same. Until your heart is in it too, it will
never be the same, you’ll see.”

For a moment Lucie looked genuinely stricken. He was holding
her tight. She held herself tighter. Then the frustrating air of elusiveness
he’d done his damnedest to break through descended upon her, the blank mask of
mystery slipping back into place.

“You need to leave.” Her regal tone brooked no argument.

So that was how it was gonna be.

“You forgot to say ‘please’. You forgot to say ‘It’s not
you, it’s me’ and ‘Things are moving too fast’. You forgot to pay me for my
services because frankly, I feel like a whore. Well fuck you, Lucie. Find
yourself another fuck buddy to masturbate with.”

Abruptly, Mac released her, sidestepped her and went for his
clothes.

“Excuse me?” Lucie stuttered, whirling around to face him.

Mac started dressing. Working with a fury born out of
frustration he pulled on the items with such force he expected to tear
something at any second.

“You heard me. And if you didn’t, let me spell it out for
you. This sex you’re having, this femme fatale act you have down to a
science—an art—is nothing but masturbation. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let you
use my dick to practice it.”

He understood. He truly did. How to make Lucie understand
his side, Mac had no idea. His bag of tricks was running empty. His
declarations had only made her pull away from him. “Don’t get me wrong, baby. I
like a good time in bed as much as the next guy. And the sex is good. It’s
fantastic. It just isn’t enough.”

He knew the drill. She would say goodbye, do her best queen
of Savannah, dismiss him and try to forget.

Because it already meant something. Because now she knew how
much she already meant to him.

“I can’t make you love me. If you really believe you can’t
or won’t, what the hell am I supposed to do? How do I fight for you when you
don’t want to be won over?”

She slumped in a huge cushioned armchair, looking hopelessly
small and a little bit lost before regaining her posture and poise. It took Mac
everything he had not to go to her but to pull on his belt, pocket his phone
and wallet, and head for the door instead.

“All or nothing, Lucie.”

Silent and unmoving like the Sphinx, she stared past him
through the open door.

“Long live the queen.” He cringed at the hurt and resentment
in his voice, but it was an honest reflection of how he felt. In that moment,
he really hated her.

And he desperately loved her too.

Chapter Eight

Boyd Ferguson’s wife had been a longtime patron of the local
film and theater scene in general and the Savannah Film Festival in particular.
Boyd tried to carry on her work as best as he could. It kept him busy and made
him happy, and when he had asked Lucie to be his opening night plus one, she
had gladly accepted.

His enthusiasm and exuberance was a delight to watch, Lucie
thought, but if she had to listen to one more outsider comment on how charming
and quaint Savannah was, how busy and yet so bucolic, followed up with a “but”
and a string of suggestions on how to further improve things, she would scream.

Outsiders saw the present and envisioned a future, but with
no regard for the past and how very much alive that history was in a city three
centuries in the making. They saw buildings and gardens, trees and statues,
squares and ironwork. Savannahians saw private histories and personal stories,
an ever-present past.

Lucie’s past had been catching up with her all summer and
well into the fall, ever since MacCale Moore had walked out of her house and
out of her life in late spring. All the things he’d said had played in her head
over and over again like a recording she couldn’t mute, like a film that
wouldn’t stop playing. She escaped into work and solitude. She tried meeting up
with people in town. Whatever she did, wherever she went, MacCale gave chase.

He had warned her he could be tenacious. Little did she know
it meant she would one day consider hiring an exorcist. Even if she could
somehow drive him out of her house, nothing short of sweeping her memory clean
would drive him out of her head. She would nap on the sleeping porch and wake
up trembling from a wet dream starring MacCale, Mac making love to her under
the skies with nothing but the wind and the water looking on. She would walk
down Martin Luther King Boulevard and remember being carried up the street in
his arms, how strong and safe he’d felt. She would visit Bonaventure and regret
never making the trip with MacCale. He would have enjoyed it. She would have
enjoyed his company. She missed it. Missed him.

He had accused her of being unfeeling. If only he could see
her now, all emotion, all the damn time. Lucie had been introduced to a wide
range of feelings over the summer. Guilt for the pain she had caused. A
constant worry over his safety. Jealousy over the women he might be dating and
envy over the future he would share with someone someday.

She knew the feeling of longing.

And she knew love. MacCale had given her a glimpse of what
it felt like for lovers, what it felt like to love and be loved, to look
forward to a future together. She had all eternity to look forward to alone.

Myriad feelings she had stomped into submission through the
decades now followed her around like a pesky dog snapping at her heels,
demanding attention and reminding her of him. She had accused him of being
obsessed. Now it was she who felt possessed, her heart, head and home haunted
by memories of him.

And she fed the mindless obsession by draining the internet
of everything she could find on MacCale Moore, a.k.a. Felix. He was strength
and stamina personified. It figured he was some kind of superman. She hadn’t
recognized the name or the face, but when had stunt performers or coordinators
been all that visible even when they did much of the hard work the leading
actors got credit for.

He’d fought aliens in several movies and done a whole
television series built around time travel. No wonder the truth about her life
had made no impact. The thought of an immortal was probably just another day in
the office for him. She had watched every film and show he’d worked in trying
to spot him, read every snippet that mentioned his name. He was a versatile,
experienced and respected performer, that much was obvious. He had an
impressive career behind him and probably many years still ahead of him.

If he didn’t die trying.

She had never had to fear for her life. Lucie found herself
fearing over his. She researched the projects listed as being in production,
imagining Mac crashing cars, being shot at, jumping off bridges and moving
vehicles, and worried even more. It gave her a glimpse into what it was like to
live with the fear of loss. That’s life, Mac had said, the risk people have to
take.

She couldn’t understand how mortals bore it. Her insides
turned to jelly every time she thought of the risks he took. No wonder no woman
had stuck. The feeling of fear wasn’t uncomfortable, it was downright
sickening. Or was he still single because he was always on the move? He talked
about settling down but sounded far from settled. Maybe women gave up on him
when they realized that he was fully capable of climbing the highest mountains
and swimming the stormiest seas for them and that was why he was never home. Or
maybe he just hadn’t found the right woman to climb and swim with him.

And maybe that was none of her business. Maybe she should
find herself a fuck buddy like Mac had suggested and try to forget. Maybe if he
hadn’t stripped her of her defenses and ran away with her act she would have.

If she hadn’t been in love with him, maybe she could have.

Gasping for breath while trying to breathe out the awful
swell of emotion threatening to take over, Lucie searched the crowd for Boyd.
Tall as he was, he was easy enough to spot. Observant as he was, he gave a slow
nod to indicate he understood before turning back to whomever he was talking
to. Lucie noticed Boyd lingered far less than usual while saying goodbye. Was
he tired or just as eager as she was to leave the hustle and bustle behind?

He helped her into her coat before pulling on his own. “Did
you drive here, dear?”

“I took a cab.”

“Excellent,” he exclaimed.

“It is?” He was up to something, she could tell.

“I was wondering if you’d care to join me for a nightcap.”

He was definitely up to something. “I don’t know, Boyd. Your
nightcaps always turn into all-nighter caps.”

He grinned like a mischievous eighteen-year-old, not a
well-preserved gentleman of eighty-five. “And you will miss them when I’m gone,
so why not enjoy them while we’re both still here.”

She did not want to be reminded of how little time together
they had left. “Sold,” she said. His boyish smile widened, if possible.

They stepped out of the Lucas Theatre and onto the street
paved with photographers and movie fans eagerly waiting for a glimpse of the
director and the female lead of the opening drama. Very eagerly. News had
broken they had become an item during filming.

Parting the swarm with a patrician air that commanded
respect wherever he went, Boyd steered her through the crowd, hooked her elbow
in his and took a course toward Orleans Square.

“Are you sure you want to walk?” Lucie asked.

He looked at her curiously. “It’s a ten-minute trek, dear.”

“Very well,” she said, suspecting whatever he was hiding had
to do with his health. Maybe she could get him to open up about it over mint
juleps. She could prompt him by sharing some secrets of her own, feelings she
had been sitting on all summer. If Boyd would swear upon the soul of his late
wife he would never breathe a word of it to MacCale. He would berate her for
not telling him sooner. More likely, he would say that he had been waiting for
her to fess up she had finally done the unthinkable and fallen in love.

“You know what I like most about this city?” Boyd asked,
interrupting her sullen silence.

She already knew the answer since he’d told her a hundred
times or more. “What?” She patted his arm.

“Everything is within walking distance.”

“Almost,” Lucie conceded, thinking of the islands and her
home outside the city center.

“You should move into town,” he said. “I would very much
like to have you closer by.”

Another topic they had covered several times over the years.
“You only want to keep an eye on me. Admit it,” Lucie said.

“When have I denied it?”

Boyd was right. She would miss him and the good times they
had shared when he was gone. He had been a good and loyal friend to her, one of
the few men in all her extended life who had known the truth about her and kept
her secret.

“Will you still visit the house after I’m gone?” he asked
after a while. “It is tradition.”

She had known every owner of the Saville House. Not in every
generation but someone in every family who had owned the house. The three-story
Italianate mansion had been built in the early nineteenth century by a merchant
who had made a fortune in the Cotton Kingdom era and lost everything in the
bust that followed. Hard times hadn’t touched the house, though. It had been
diligently and lovingly kept and the Fergusons had honored the spirit and
history of the house ever since moving in between the world wars.

“May I ask who will be living in it? You’re not thinking of
selling, are you?” she asked, almost as an afterthought.

A very stupid afterthought. Boyd clutched his chest and drew
a melodramatic breath for emphasis.

“Lucienne Marcotte, the nonsense you spout!”

Lucie snickered. “I’m sorry, Boyd. Of course you never
would.”

Huffing in mock indignation, he jerked his chin back up. “I
will have you know,
mademoiselle
, that I’m leaving the house to my
grandnephews on the condition they leave it to their children in turn.”

His grandnephews. MacCale and his brother Ronald.

“I’m sure Ronald and his family will come down as often as
they can, especially in the summer. But I have a feeling that MacCale may end
up living here one day.”

“Oh.”

Oh no.

“Yes. You and MacCale are the same type of Southerner. The
ones who travel far and wide only to be drawn back. And I have a feeling my
grandnephew is reaching breaking point. I would very much like for him to raise
his family in this house. Those walls have gone without the laughter of
children for far too long.”

And she would die inside for good if she had to sit by and
watch Mac live the life they would never have together.

Trying for a breezy tone, lying to Boyd’s face and loathing
herself for it, Lucie said, “I will do my best to keep the tradition going. If
they’ll have me, I’ll visit and visit often. You know I love this house.”

That much was true, she thought as they passed the massive
magnolia tree nearly obscuring the entrance. But if MacCale moved in she would
never set foot inside the mansion again. She would have to leave town just to
avoid running into him. His wife. His wife and children.

She couldn’t think about it now. She had to focus on Boyd,
Boyd opening the door and letting her in ahead of him. Dearest, sweetest Boyd
taking her purse and helping her out of her coat when it was he who needed help
with his.

“Champagne?” he asked.

Mint juleps were his cocktail bravura, but champagne would
work, Lucie thought. “I would love some.” Anything to calm her nerves and stop
her hands from shaking.

Hooking her elbow back in his, Boyd gently turned her in the
direction of the sitting rooms. And brought Lucie face-to-face with MacCale
coming down the entrance hall, dressed in black tie, looking as stunning as
ever, his arm wrapped protectively around a lovely brunette in a flowing coral
chiffon gown.

A very busty, very pregnant brunette.

His family? The family Boyd so dearly wished would one day
live in the house?

Wow
, Lucie thought.
That was fast
.
Something danced in her line of vision, her belly filling up with lead weighing
her down to ground. Boyd now practically dragged her along to meet the happily
smiling couple halfway.

“You missed quite a sparkling spectacle, didn’t they,
Lucie?” Boyd asked. “Their flight was delayed,” he added, looking down at her,
and in that instant Lucie knew with absolute certainty Boyd knew something
about her relationship with MacCale or he would not have kept mum about his
house guests.

And she never would have come had she known Mac would be
there.

Lucie wasn’t given time to ponder further. Instead, she was
given a warm smile by the woman grasping her hands as if they were old friends.

“So this is the infamous queen of Savannah.” The woman
looked her up and down. “Mac has told me all about you.”

Lucie gave a small, strangled laugh. “Oh, I sure hope not.
You can’t believe everything you hear.”

The woman pulled her closer by the arms, smashing her full
belly against Lucie’s.

Awkward.

“You do know he’s a catch?” the woman whispered. “Grab him
before someone else does. I mean it.

“What are you girls whispering about?” MacCale asked,
craning his neck.

“Nothing,” the woman quipped and released Lucie’s arms to
step back. “Girl stuff.”

MacCale stared at Lucie for a moment, his expression blank,
before turning to the woman. “Are you badmouthing me?” His tone was stern but
his eyes shone with warmth.

“On the contrary,” the woman said. “I’m singing your
praises.”

“Oh, okay. Carry on then.” His gaze returned to Lucie. And
forced her to look away. The warmth was gone, replaced by an intense,
disconcerting scrutiny, the same that had drawn her as much as it had terrified
her from the moment they had met.

“Here comes Ronnie,” Boyd said. “Everything okay upstairs?”

“She’s out like a light,” the tall, dark and slender man
fast approaching confirmed, his eyes darting between the party present.

“It worked,” the woman leaned in to whisper again. “The
pendant you chose. It worked,” she said, smoothing her palm over her baby bump.
“Twin girls.”

Pretending she was on the map and not lost in space, Lucie
returned the woman’s smile while frantically putting the pieces together. “Yes.
Like magic, I see.” She winked playfully. “Congratulations to you both.”