The Love Potion (13 page)

“It’s just the love potion,” she assured him.

“Maybe.” He licked his lips. The way he was staring at
her
lips, as if he wanted to kiss her, was enough to melt Sylvie’s bones…if they weren’t already butter soft. And the way the crotch of his jeans brushed against her as they danced was already melting some significant portions of her anatomy.

“How do you explain your wanting me?” His one hand was still planted against the small of her back, but the palm of the other was distractedly stroking
—Be still, my heart!—
up and down her back, from shoulder to waist.

“The bourbon,” she answered quickly, but she
really wasn’t sure about that. Still, she sought for logic in what was becoming an increasingly illogical situation. “Luc, don’t try to make this more than what it is. It’s chemistry, pure and simple…whether it comes from a love potion formula or alcohol. You’ve never been attracted to me in all the years we’ve been acquainted.”

“Sylvie, Sylvie, Sylvie.” He shook his head hopelessly at her. “I’ve had a thing for you since we were kids…just like my brother René pointed out so annoyingly earlier today.” She could tell that he immediately regretted his admission.

“A
thing
? Oh, Luc, you are so full of it.” She had to laugh. “Apparently I remember better than you do just how attracted you were to me then. I distinctly recall the time you said I was the Southern belle who was never going to be tolled.”

He grinned at her. “I said that? When?”

“I don’t know…when we were ten years old or so, I guess.”

“Oh, now I remember. That was the time you sniffed at me, like you always did, as if I stunk like day-old roadkill.”

She blinked at him in confusion. Then comprehension dawned. “You, fool! I had an allergy in those days. I was always sniffling.”

They stared at each other then. Could they both have been so wrong?

“Is that why you’ve been tormenting me all these years?” she demanded. “Because I sniffed, for heaven’s sake?”

“No…well, not totally,” he said, ducking his head sheepishly. “The incident that’s stuck in my mind is the time you refused to dance with me.”

“Now, that I do recall,” Sylvie conceded. “We were sixth-graders at Our Lady of the Bayou School, and it was our first boy-girl dance.”

“Yep.” He nodded. “Do you have any idea, Sylv, how much nerve it takes for a twelve-year-old boy to ask a girl to dance? And to be refused?
Mon Dieu!
Talk about humiliation!”

“Oh, Luc, I was sooo shy, then.”
Still am, in many ways…though you’d never know it tonight
. “Having the best-looking, wildest boy in class ask me to dance…calling attention to me…well, I was the one humiliated. But it had more to do with
my
shortcomings than yours.” That had been the first time he’d ever brought up the nude-dancing business, but she wouldn’t mention that now.

“Really?” He grinned at that disclosure, then homed in on one part of what she’d said. “You thought I was good-looking?”

She punched him playfully in the shoulder and he pretended to be hurt, even as they swayed to the music. Without being coerced, or even asked, she returned her hand to the back of his neck. Then they smiled at each other. Just a smile. But it connected them in a way that constricted Sylvie’s heart and made her yearn for something just beyond her reach.

Luc looked a little misty-eyed, too.

If Sylvie didn’t know better, she would swear she was the one under the influence of a love potion, not Luc.

The band ended its song, and René stepped up to the microphone. “We’ve got to take a break soon, folks.”

There was a communal groan. The dancers were all having too much fun.

“But, first,” René shouted, trying to keep the crowd’s attention, “I notice that my brother Luc is out there. I just happened to write a new song today, and this one’s dedicated to you, big brother…and the
sweet thang
standing next to you.”

“Uh-oh,” Luc murmured.

“Uh-oh,” Sylvie said at the same time.

“This one’s gonna be slow and sexy, everyone…like my brother.”

“I am going to cut out his tongue,” Luc muttered under his breath.

René chuckled into the microphone. “So grab your favorite gal,” he told all the men, “and enjoooy. The name of this song is…”

Luc hadn’t released her yet; so, they were already in dance position.

“…‘Cajun Knight.’”

“Oh, my God!” Sylvie exclaimed. “Did you put him up to this?”

“Hell, no!” Luc glowered up at his brother, who waved at him and grinned. “Forget the tongue. I swear, I’m gonna kill him.”

“Don’t be so hard on your brother. It’s kind of cute that he would write a song about you,” she said, smiling.

“Creole flower?
Creole?
Is…is he referring to me?” Sylvie sputtered.

“Still think he’s cute?” Luc asked with a lifted eyebrow.

The crowd laughed uproariously at the suggestive lyrics while René did a flourishing trill on his accordion that involved spinning on his feet in a 360-degree turn, then waggling his eyebrows at a frowning Luc and red-faced Sylvie.

The crowd joined with much enthusiasm in singing the refrain:

Sylvie gasped. “You told me earlier today that you would be my Cajun Knight. Did you say something to René?”

“Would I be crazy enough to divulge
that
to my brother? I guess I’m just not all that original.”

It was original to me
, Sylvie thought.

Hooting with laughter, the crowd joined in again on the refrain:

“He’s awful, isn’t he?” Luc commented.

“Yes…no…I mean, his lyrics leave something to be desired, but his theme is kind of touching.”

“Touching? You are definitely under the influence of alcohol if you think references to my rusted
lance
are touching. And you can’t be naive enough to think the honey he mentions comes from a bee hive.”

“Moat? Moat?” Sylvie sputtered. “Is he referring to what I think he’s referring?”

“He is.” Then Luc seemed to remember another part of the lyrics. “And my
warrior
is definitely not little.”

“Withering on the vine? Who says I’m withering on the vine? Oooh! You don’t need to kill him, Luc. I’ll do it for you.”

Luc had to pull her back from going up on the stage after René. The crowd clapped in encouragement.

“Let’s get out of here before he moves on to
other body parts with his cockeyed metaphors,” Luc suggested, pressing his lips against her ear.

The crowd was singing the refrain so loud the floor was vibrating. Or was that the rippling effect of Luc’s breath against the inner whorls of her ear, reverberating all the way to her toes?

Panic overcame her suddenly at the prospect of leaving the crowded bar, where she was somewhat protected from her own overactive hormones. “I thought you wanted to dance with me,” she complained over her shoulder as Luc steered her off the dance floor and toward the exit with a hand pressed to the small of her back. “It’s what you’ve mentioned every time we’ve met up in the past twenty years.”

He stopped abruptly and pulled her around to face him. “More than anything in the world, I want to dance with you,” Luc told her in a low, husky voice. His head swooped low to nip her bottom lip, which was no doubt hanging open. The little biting kiss was over before it began…too little time for her to savor how infuriatingly delicious it had felt.

But, wait, Luc was still talking to her in that sexy half-whisper. “You’d better believe I want to dance with you, darlin’,” he was continuing, “especially dancing the way you promised this morning.”

Oh, Lord!

“But right now, I want much more from you than dancing, chère. Much, much more.”

He chuckled at the dazed expression on her face, and made a great show of using a forefinger to tip her chin up to shut her gaping mouth.

“Babe, I’ve been suffering like a tomcat in heat
with what your chemistry has done to my libido,” he informed her. “It’s time to make some of my own chemistry.”

Outside the doors of Swampy’s, Luc inhaled and exhaled for strength. He hadn’t wanted to alarm Sylvie when he’d suggested they leave the tavern, but her love potion was having a powerful effect on him.

Not only had his erection become a living entity, but explosive currents of escalating excitement were ricochetting through his body like short circuits on a hot wire. Given the chance, he could probably outdo that rat Samson. For a certainty, he had a craving to nibble something…or someone.

And, for a certainty, his arousal was affecting his thinking.
Was I crazy…making such suggestive remarks to Sylvie?
Luc wondered, cringing at the memory of the words he’d whispered a few moments ago: “Much, much more.”

As they stood on the porch, he released her fingers.

“Let’s walk,” he told Sylvie, keeping a good two feet from her. No way could he link hands with her now…not in his condition. No way could he return to the close confines of the houseboat with her and not jump her bones like a raving lunatic.

She gazed at him questioningly through eyes that were big and blue and sexy as hell. When she blinked…once, twice, three times…he felt blood rush to his heart. Or was it to another organ? Hard to tell. Luc was so aroused he felt disoriented. Without thinking, he groaned.

“Luc?” Sylvie inquired with concern, putting a hand on his arm. “Is something wrong? Your teeth are clenched.”

He shrugged off her hand, which felt hot on his fevered flesh…even through the sleeve of his shirt. Words failed him.

“Are you suffering from the effects of that one oyster shooter, like I am…though of course I had two…but then two for me is probably comparable to six for you, right?” She was blathering aimlessly. Clueless…the woman was clueless as to her effect on him. “I have to admit, Luc, I feel really, really strange.”

“
Strange
doesn’t begin to express how I feel, babe.” He emphasized his words with a short, strained laugh. “And if you’re feeling the same way I am, fasten your seat belt, because we’re both in a hell of a lot of trouble.”

“Hmmm,” she said. “Would you wait here a minute? I want to go get my notebook and pen.”

“No!”

“No?” She was gazing at him as if he’d flipped his lid…which he had, of course. “There are a million questions I want to ask you, and I need to
start taking notes or else I’ll…” Her words trailed off as her eyes drifted over his body, did a double take back to his crotch, then widened.

It was probably the first time any woman had ever reacted with saucer-wide eyes to his “virility,” even when he’d gone full monty with them for the first time. Oh, he had more going for him in that department than the average guy, in his not-so-humble opinion…but he couldn’t remember one single time that a woman had gone wide-eyed on him.

But wait, his own personal testosterone booster was chatting away blithely. “…and if we’re going to be away for more than two days, I really must insist on getting a supply of graph paper. A laptop would be great, too, but I can make do with a half-dozen more notebooks. The most important thing is that I absolutely need a thermometer, a blood pressure gauge, and a tape measure.”

“A tape measure?” he choked out.

Her only answer was a deep, deep blush.

“Unbelievable,” he commented, and stomped off ahead of her, down the steps of the tavern porch, and over toward a path that ran beside the meandering bayou.

“There you go…overreacting again,” she called after him.

I’d like to show you overreaction
, chère.
And maybe I will…if I’m as dumb as I seem to be…and as reckless…and as turned on. Aaarrqh!
As he walked briskly away from her, the neon glow of the tavern was soon left behind, but there was a full moon, which illuminated his way with pools of light. He sensed Sylvie’s presence just behind him as she half-skipped to keep up with his much
longer strides. Fortunately, she’d opted for silence, having no doubt realized how foolishly she was pushing him.

Finally, he stopped just around a bend, leaned back against the ample trunk of a live oak tree whose vast limbs were draped with Spanish moss, and closed his eyes. Inhaling and exhaling repeatedly, he tried to calm his nerves. When that didn’t work, he lifted his head, raised his eyelids, and slowly scanned his surroundings, hoping that the bayou setting would seep into his soul and give him respite…as it had so many times as a child when he’d fled his turbulent home, or as an adult when people and life in general seemed to demand too much of him.

Luc loved the bayou. Many people got their spiritual energy from church. Well, the bayou was a church of sorts to him. In fact, it even resembled a church in places where the live oak trees on both sides of a stream formed an archlike canopy…not unlike a cathedral. In the ethereal, mysterious gloom, there was an air of spirituality and sanctity.

A warm breeze wafted, causing the
barbe espagnol
, or “Spanish Beard,” to undulate. The breeze carried the rank metallic smell of the slow-moving water and fish, mixed with the pleasant scents of verbena, honeysuckle, and pine. Nearby, some egrets and herons floated by on their way home to nests where they would roost for the night. In the distance, he heard a series of alligator bulls roar…a sure sign that rain was on the way.

Many people didn’t realize that there was a nocturnal food chain in the bayou, as important as the daytime one. Some of the night-feeders were cat
fish, salamanders, frogs, and snakes. It didn’t take a biologist to witness the big water snakes feeding on small Blue Gills, which fed on Mayflower nymphs, which relished good mosquito larvae, which sucked up the infinitesimal one-celled protozoa. Nature in all its glory!

More calm now, Luc looked over at Sylvie, who stood a good five feet away. She was clearly wary of him in his present dangerous mood.
Smart lady
. “I hate what you’ve done to me,” he said abruptly. “I mean, I love it, but I hate it, too.”

Her head jerked up, as if he’d struck her. “Huh?”

“Sylvie, I’m out of control here. Everything you do is turning me on.”

“Really? Everything?”

Is that a look of pleasure on her face, or alarm?

Probably both
.

“Yeah, everything,” he answered with disgust. “The way you breathe…”

She held her breath.

“The way your blouse shifts over your breasts when you move, and I can see your nipples harden…”

She glanced downward, gasped, and folded her arms over her chest.

“The way your heart-shaped butt swings from side to side when you walk…”

She would probably spend the rest of her life trying to walk in a prissy, tight-assed way. No more shaking her bootie, for sure.

“The way you look at me with a frown on your face and sweet invitation in your eyes…”

She used the fingertips of one hand to smooth the frown from her forehead, and she shut her eyelids, refusing to make further eye contact.

“The way you tossed back those oyster shooters. The way you go all blushing shy one minute, and hot, hot, hot the next. The way you moaned when I kissed you. The way you—”

“Enough!” She put up a halting hand to stop his discourse. “Luc, I feel bad about the love potion…and that’s all this is…a chemical reaction. It wasn’t entirely my fault, though. Nobody asked you to eat my jelly beans.”

“Are you trying to say you’re sorry? If so, it’s the most defensive apology I’ve ever heard. You’ve heard of faint praise, haven’t you? Well, I’d say that was a faint apology.” His lips turned up in a slight smile.

She shot him a glare. “What I’m trying to say is that I understand the awkward position you’re in.”

“Awkward? Are you nuts?” This conversation was going nowhere fast. “Listen, it’s not so much the effects of the love potion that I hate. Hell, I like being turned on as much as the next guy. I might have even taken the jelly beans willingly if you’d informed me of what they were. I’m game for most anything.”

She lifted an eyebrow in question. “So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is the lack of control. I loathe this feeling of being unable to put the reins on my lust or my love…if you can call it that. You really need to rethink the ethics of this love-potion business, Sylv. It’s not fair to manipulate a person who doesn’t want to be attracted.”

She tapped her chin pensively with a forefinger, as if considering his words. “You have a point, except that the love potion was never intended to be given blindly to an unsuspecting partner…
even though people throughout time have been trying to come up with the perfect aphrodisiac, with no qualms whatsoever. No one criticizes perfume manufacturers, or lingerie designers, or the makers of tight jeans.” She looked pointedly at his jeans.

He had to smile at that.
So, Sylvie noticed the fit of my jeans, huh?

“I see my love potion as a prescription, given by a medical doctor under careful supervision. Heck, we at Terrebonne haven’t even gotten to the point of discussing the exact market. Married couples who’ve fallen out of love, maybe. Research studies on male-female chemistry. I wouldn’t want JBX to be thrown into the marketplace with any fewer restrictions than, say, Viagra. But, yeah, it could be used as a tool to seduce an otherwise uninterested partner. As I was explaining to Blanche just a few days ago, there are a lot of lonely people in this world who think their perfect mates have to have certain physical characteristics. They don’t give themselves a chance to see beyond the exterior. Maybe JBX could help.” She shrugged in the end, not having all the answers.

He nodded, “You know what bothers me the most about your love potion and how I’m feeling? It’s that you’ve turned me into my father.”

She stiffened. Even she apparently knew of his father’s reputation. “That’s not true, Luc.”

“Yes, it is. My father has always been an oversexed tomcat who would screw any woman willing to spread her legs. The younger the better. He even did it when my mother was alive. Look at all the illegitimate kids he’s had. There’s ten-year-old Tee-John; Amelie, an executive with Cypress Oil; Char
maine, whom you’ve met; and LaVerne, a home-maker down in Morgan City. And those are only the ones I know about.” He clucked his tongue with disgust. “My father was a walking penis. He was led by his cock his entire life. Maybe I’m the same.”

“Oh, Luc, don’t say that. You and I have never gotten along particularly well, but I’ve never put you in the same class as your father. Nobody does. You’re wild and outrageous and downright crude at times, but you’re also kindhearted and giving and committed and ethical when it comes to the generally offbeat, poor clients that you represent. People in Houma know that it’s you who raised your younger brothers, not your father. And one has only to look at you and your aunt to know how much you cherish her. Don’t you dare put yourself down like this, Lucien LeDeux. Don’t you dare.” Sylvie stopped her long-winded response with a loud exhale, then put a palm to her mouth with embarrassment at the vehemence of her defense of him.

Sylvie’s constant ping-ponging back and forth, in and out of shyness, intrigued him. His heart tightened then with the most incredible emotion, and warmth flooded through him. “Is that how you really feel about me, Sylv?”

She nodded. Her innate honesty was more appealing than she could possibly imagine.

“Even before this love-potion crap?”

She nodded again. “At least you don’t have any illegitimate kids running around, right?”

He felt a roil of nauseousness in the pit of his stomach. All he could manage was a shake of his head.

“See? Give yourself some credit, Luc.”

He knew he was lost then. Holding out a hand to her, he said in a voice huskly with need, “Come here,
chère
.”

Without hesitation, Sylvie stepped forward and into his arms. He turned so that her back was to the tree, and he faced her.

She put a hand to his face tenderly.

He lurched at her mere touch.

Wrapping both arms around his waist, she tugged him forward so that his body pressed against hers, and she nuzzled her face bashfully into his neck. Instinctively, his arms wrapped around her, pulling her even closer.

Oh, God, it felt so good. Just standing there with Sylvie in his arms. It was more than a sexual experience. All his senses were involved, and most important of all, his heart, which thundered against his chest walls as if to mark the fervor of his long-withheld emotions.

Luc was afraid to move or speak for fear the wonderful mood would shatter. Feeling as if a precious jewel was within his reach, if only he did nothing wrong, he wanted to hold this moment with Sylvie forever.

But he always did things wrong, Luc reminded himself. Hadn’t his father told him so, over and over? Hadn’t classmates, teachers, and community members given him the appellation “bad boy of the bayou”?

Really, my imagination is going off in some strange directions
.

Putting a hand on each side of Sylvie’s face, he held her back slightly. Then he smiled at her. He intended it to be a smile of thanks. She was the
first person in many a year who’d shown such confidence in him…maybe the only one since his mother…and he wanted her to know that he appreciated her kindness.

“Don’t smile,” she said.

He tilted his head to the side. “Why?”

“Your smiles make me…”

When she refused to go on
—that blasted shyness again—
he prodded, “My smiles make you what?”

“Breathless,” she confessed.

He groaned. Then it was Luc who could barely breathe.

No longer fighting his longing, he decided then and there that he would kiss her. Not just a kiss, though. Luc loved kissing…long, short, slow, fast, deep…yeah, especially deep…and gentle, and devouring; it didn’t matter which. And he was a damn good kisser, as a result. He knew he was. Yeah, he’d like to give Sylvie one unending kiss to show her his feelings. He wanted her to become one with his body, through the kiss.
Now, there’s a thought
. Then she would know, as well as he, how it felt to be under a love spell. Payback was gonna be hell.