CHAPTER 8
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” Revelator said as he helped Cherie out of the boat. His knowing tone held an edge that sent heat through her.
“What?” she asked, breathless when she stood too close to him on the pier. Or he stood too close to her.
“You’re tempting me. And I don’t know if I should be tortured or tickled.”
“How am I tempting!”
“Are you saying you don’t know you’re braless and your top is see through?”
“I brought an extra shirt,” she cried, defensive.
“Which is around your waist.”
“To be used when other eyes are around that I don’t want to tempt.”
His cock jerked at her grin and full admittance. He stared at her temptations now that he knew she was doing it on purpose. “Why should I want to nurse from them?” he wondered, more to himself, getting her ball sucking laugh. “You realize everything you do keeps me hard? Pretty sure that’s not normal.”
She covered his hard-on with a hand and he closed his eyes, sucking in a sharp breath. His groan came next. “I see you’re telling the truth,” she whispered, the heat in her caramel eyes burning him. “I can fix that right now, if you want.”
He looked around the secluded inlet, his heart a sledgehammer in his chest. He watched her hands, undoing his jeans, unable to think or breathe. He wasn’t supposed to let her but he didn’t have anything in him strong enough to stop her. She lowered to her knees, pulling his cock out.
“Cherie,” he barely whispered, watching her lips encase him as she descended with an aggressive hunger, making him hit the back of her throat. “Fucking heaven,” he croaked, stroking her face with his hands and working his balls out of his jeans. She lowered and sucked them while wrapping his cock in her fist and moving it the way her mouth had. The sight of her on his balls had him hissing and gasping for air. “Cherie,” he begged, ready for the part of the ride that blew his mind. Her desire flowed out in lusty moans, her breaths causing the heat in him to clamp hard and pull with her every suck. She dove back on his cock, and he grabbed her head, pushing deep, moving faster. “It’s coming, Cherie. Oh fuck,” he swore as it boiled his blood till he couldn’t breathe and his insides fought to reach her mouth. He came and his fingers clenched in her hair too hard, he was sure. But if it hurt her, she loved pain by the way she responded, and he was so fucking glad, needing to give her more of that kind of pain. He needed to make her hurt the way she did him.
She was standing before him now, licking her lips like she’d satisfied her famished appetite while smoothing her ruffled hair-do reminding him of a cat licking her fur. The smile tugging at her mouth said she was guilty of everything he’d mentally accused her of. She loved making him burn like this.
After putting himself back in his pants, he let her know, “You’re sowing a lot of things, Ma Cherie. And I will without a doubt, or shred of regret, reap every bit of it back from you.”
The look of surprise on her face came with a hungry fire that silently begged him not to hold back, give her everything he thought she deserved.
Bon Dieu, she was a greater force than all the demons he’d ever battled. All her sexy, sweet, and mostly innocent acts were unravelling his disciplined mind. He needed to find a way to be what she needed. Problem was, everything she did screamed for him to do exactly what he needed to. It even screamed don’t listen to the words she spoke with her tongue but the ones she spoke with her sexy fucking body non-stop.
He realized she was still patting at her hair, distressed. “Did I hurt you?” he wondered.
“Only my hair-do, and without a mirror, I can’t fathom what a mess I must look.”
“Let me help then,” he said, glad for the excuse to touch any part of her. He stroked her face, immediately distracted with the silky feel.
“That’s not my hair,” she complained with a sweet smile.
“Right,” he said, petting at the area he’d messed up while enjoying the feel of the thick, soft silk. For some reason, his mind said her ass would feel the same to him.
“Okay,” she said, removing his hands with a giggle. “You’d make a terrible hair-dresser. You’re too soft.”
He smiled, taking hold of her hand, intending to keep it as an unspoken message to the woman they were helping. She needed to know that Cherie was his and he was not available. “You want me to be hard?” he had to ask.
“Hard isn’t…always bad.”
“Dieu cette femme,” he murmured, amazed.
“Uh-uh,” she said, shaking her head. “No more sneaky French remarks for you. What did you say?”
He laughed. “I said God, this woman.”
She gasped. “You took the Lord’s name in vain!”
“I surely did not. I meant every word.”
“And what about me?” she fussed, while seeming to know good and well what it was.
“Hard isn’t always bad? Explain this to me.”
She tightened her fingers around his. “Well…just…in things of pleasure, hard can be good.”
“Tu me fais bruler,” he said, laughing at her immediate offense. “You speak sneaky English, I speak sneaky French.”
“What sneaky English?” she demanded, laughing. “And what did you say?”
“You say words that mean something else all the time. With English words you say you want me to go slow then in Cherie words, you light fires in all the wrong places that say you want the opposite. More like crave it.”
This brought a big, guilty laugh. “And what did you say?” she wondered, not even denying it.
“I said you make me burn.” He eyed her as they walked. “And you love it.”
She threw her head back, singing her joy with delighted giggles. “I don’t know what it is about watching you burn, Mr. Revelator. But I surely won’t lie to a man of God and say you’re not telling a very difficult truth.”
It was his turn to laugh. “Difficult truth? Ma Cherie, tell me this story,” he said with a huge grin.
She shook her head, swinging their arms between them. “It’s just as I said. The truth is difficult. Liking to see you burn is a terrible stain on my good-girl record and I can’t begin to fathom why I’ve turned into this person.”
His laugh shot out then hers rose above it when she grabbed his butt. He stepped in front of her, blocking her path with a finger in her face. “Miss Cherie,” he said, his voice thick with the instant heat she burned him with. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?” she said with laughter as she brought their joined hands under her innocent chin.
He locked his eyes on hers and lowered their hands, watching her breath suck in sharply at the graze of his fingers over her breast. A dark fear flared around her and he pulled his hand from hers as she lowered her gaze. “Cherie,” he said, spotting the mild shake in her body.
“What?” she barely answered, crossing her arms then uncrossing them, not looking up.
“I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head a little, looking at the ground now. “My fault. Not yours. It won’t happen again.”
He stared at her, not liking that answer at all. Because he wanted it to happen again. Over and over. This went in the wrong direction.
“I need to give you a little background about the woman that lives here. She lost her husband five years ago to cancer. The reason I’m telling you is because the day I met you, Mah-Mah gave me some errands to run. She heard what Maggie told me about living and one thing led to another and she got busy playing match maker.” This had her full attention.
“Wait…so the woman here thinks you’re coming to—”
He cut her off with a shake of his head. “I don’t know what she thinks. I don’t know what Mah-Mah told her if she told her anything at all. My guess is she was just putting me on a path and hoping for nature to help that along.”
“Nature?”
Her instant worry had him second guessing the need for all these details. Maybe Ms. Prejean wouldn’t say or do anything out of the ordinary. Too late, he’d already planted the worry and Cherie made quick work of that harvest.
He suddenly wanted to kiss her and wipe that look off her face. Then he remembered he didn’t even know how and the idea of bumbling the first time while risking scaring her again wasn’t happening.
Maybe he shouldn’t have brought her.
****
Helping Ms. Prejean turned into two hours of pleasure torture for Revelator. How did he not know about her brother living there? While Ms. Prejean kept him busy with plumbing repairs, Cherie and Malcom from up North who was clueless about normal things that defined a man, laughed and chatted on the porch. He’d never finish the job if they were going to do that the whole time. He was constantly listening, torn between making sure he wasn’t being inappropriate and learning more about Cherie. He’d learned a lot. She was from Michigan. Went to college at Michigan State University. Studied law. Quit six months before graduation because of a death in the family and never finished. Came to Breaux Bridge when jobs fell through. He wasn’t sure which parts were true and which weren’t, he only knew it was a mix of both. The one thing he did know was all that darkness he saw when touching her happened between college and Breaux Bridge. He needed to touch her again and get the missing details but his body had other needs anytime he considered touching. Definitely a new issue he’d never had to deal with before. He usually touched, saw, and was done. Not with Cherie. Touching her was like stepping into quicksand. If he didn’t have something to hold on to, he was sucked into a bottomless pit of heaven he never wanted to escape.
He also learned things about himself during their conversation. He wasn’t jealous, that was too weak of a word. More like obsessed. Even possessed if he was being Revelator honest. He had the illogical urge to drop everything, walk out there and drag her to the boat. But it didn’t stop there, he also needed to take her to his bed and do all the things that made her his, and nobody else’s. All of her. Her laughs, smiles, charm, and especially funny wit.
And Ms. Prejean. She surely did not get the memo that Revelator was with Cherie. She dressed in her Sunday best on a Tuesday. Revelator had asked Bishop to spread the word so he could avoid confrontation. Because from what he gathered, Mah-Mah had put a cupid bounty on his head, telling the world his celibacy days were over. Finding a balance between kind and unavailable was proving more difficult than usual. He hadn’t realized how much his celibacy protected him from this problem.
“Need any help?”
He glanced back from inside the sink cabinet. “I’ll be five more minutes,” he said, quickly tightening everything back. After he put the sink back together, he let Ms. Prejean know. “Need to go get a couple parts in town then come back and finish up. We’ll take a ride and do that.” He looked at Cherie. “You ready?”
“Yep, whenever you are.”
The odd tone in her voice piqued his interest. “If it’s not too late, we’ll come back today and finish up,” he said to Ms. Prejean. “If that’s okay with you?”
“Fine with me Samuel. It’s always a pleasure having you here. In fact, you should come back for dinner. Both of you,” she added.
It was pure kindness but he wasn’t about to get stuck in an evening of watching Cherie laugh and chat with another man.
“That’s so kind of you,” Cherie said. “But we do have other plans I think?”
She’d taken the words out of his mouth. “We do. A date, actually.”
“Oh,” Ms. Prejean said, sounding surprised. “So good to see you dating,” she added, maybe sincere, it was hard to tell while thinking of their date. “Who’s the lucky woman?” she asked.
Revelator caught Cherie’s bothered look and stepped up to her, kissing her cheek. “Ma Cherie is the lucky woman.” He eyed her small smile before turning to clean up his mess.
“More like he’s the lucky man,” Cherie said, making him grin as Ms. Prejean laughed lightly.
“Not lucky,” he corrected, storing the tools in her kitchen closet then turning to stare at Cherie. “Blessed.”
“Yeah, ever since I accidentally ran over him, he’s not been the same in the head.”
He made his way to her, ready to leave. “I’ll never be the same again, this I know,” he assured, taking her hand. “Ms. Prejean,” he said, turning to her. “I’ll do my best to return today.”
She nodded a lot with a smile that said she may have been hoping for a different outcome. He couldn’t even feel bad about it. In fact, he was more grateful than ever that Cherie was the one he gave himself to. He just needed to get her to do the same now.
****
“Bishop, I need wheels,” he said, ready to take him up on his offer he’d given him years ago.
“Where you at?”
“Headed to the Dry Dock.”
“Good, that’s where I am. The Le Noir Batard has your name all over it, Rev.”
He grinned. “Good. Been wanting to drive it.”
“You got a hot date?”
“Maybe. And a lot of questions.”
“Oh man, right. How about you text them to me and I’ll get on that. Assuming she’s with you and you wouldn’t want to mention it out loud.”
“Ten four,” he said, chuckling.
“Come get your wheels. You got a full tank of gas. Unless you want to finally claim Le Saint Révélateur.”
He had to laugh at that name. “The holy Revelator will have to wait. I haven’t ridden in a long time. Not a big dog rider like you.”
He laughed. “No big dog rider here, I’m the swamp dragon king. Boats before bikes. But you gonna need to eventually baptize Le Saint Revelateur.”
“I will.”
“Nothing like the feel of the woman you love pressed into your back.”
His words had him speechless and Bishop laughed as if knowing why.
“Send me those questions, Rev. Can’t have you blind in the one thing you definitely want to see in.”
“Amen,” he agreed. “We’ll be there in five minutes. I may need to ask questions in person.”
“Alright. See you then.”
****
Thankfully, the Belle Eveque was at the Land Dock to keep Cherie company while Revelator talked to Bishop about concerning matters. “You asked if I had a hot date,” Revelator said, entering the garage with Bishop. He glanced around, making sure they were alone before eying him. “Tonight she’s supposed to give me lessons.”
Bishop’s eyes widened with interest. “Lessons. Explain.”
“She knows I have no experience, I told her that much. And I told her she’d need to teach me.”
“Did you?” he said, sounding impressed.
“Is there anything I need to be taught by a man instead of her?”
“Well…” Bishop said, turning and leaning his back against Le Noir Batard, thinking. Revelator waited in the silence, hoping it wasn’t anything that required a lot of practice. “I don’t know, this idea of her teaching you sounds like the best way to learn since every woman is different.”
“You think?”
He nodded and shrugged. “Other than go easy on the first round. Don’t want to hurt her if she’s not taken many rides.”
Revelator grinned.
“What?”
“She called it that. Taking me for a ride. But she hasn’t let me take her for a ride.” He shook his head a little. “I don’t even know how to kiss her, Bishop.”
“Yeah, you do,” he assured.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll know when you do it Your body will know, it’s reflexive. Like swallowing.”
“Really?” That would be amazing.
“Most of it is, other than her telling you what she likes and doesn’t.”
That reminded him. “She’s had some things happen to her in the past that might define those tastes.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Nothing she’s told me, just things I’ve seen in passing touches.” Revelator eyed him now. “I need to find out whatever I can about her past without asking her. And touching her for the answers is out of the question.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s hard to see anything when I’m burning in flames.”
Bishop gave a low whistle. “Damn.”
“But I need to know what she’s hiding from or running from.”
“You think she’s in some kind of trouble?”
“I do. Not sure what kind. I know the man she rented from almost got his neck crushed for trying to use her. She stopped me, but not because she gave a hell about him but because she didn’t want heat.”
Bishop nodded and crossed his arms. “I’ll get 8-Bit on it right away.” He cast a glance toward the office where the women visited then back at him. “How’d it go with Ms Prejean?”
Revelator eyed the quirk in Bishop’s brow. “Terrible. She has a brother there and she definitely thought I was available.”
“Damn Mah-Mah,” he muttered with an eye roll.”
“It’s okay. I’m kind of used to it. But I’m not used to…” he paused, considering how to explain it. “…disliking people.”
“Her brother?”
“Definitely.”
He shrugged with a grin. “Totally natural if you ask me. I dislike every dude that even looks at Ma Belle Eveque.”
Wow.
Bishop laughed, eying him. “So you’re really all the way with her.”
“If that means I can’t imagine life without her, then yes.”
“Oh yeah, that’s exactly what it means. Along with a barbaric sexual appetite.”
“Barbaric?”
“Ruthless. Always wanting it. Never not wanting it. Taking, taking, taking, and daring anything to get in its way.”
Revelator eyed him, curious and maybe worried. “Sounds…a little unstable.”
This got the Bishop laughing before he said, “Not a little unstable, Revelator, a lot unstable. Every time I…excuse my French, fuck Ma Belle Eveque, I fear the aftermath. It’s disgusting what I do and yet I do it damn near every time. Can’t stop it and don’t want to when I’m doing it.” He shrugged his shoulders like he’d threw everything at it.
“Fuck,” he whispered or wondered. “Is that the term you use? With her?”
“Mostly.”
“Sounds…vulgar and yet…insanely arousing.”
“Pretty sure sex was the intended use for the word fuck.”
“It’s more than sex.”
“It is,” he agreed with a nod. “I think once you do it, you’ll understand why that term fits the best.”
“What other terms are there?”
Bishop propped his arm on the back of the truck bed. “Make love.” He gave a shrug. “Do it,” he added, with a grin.
“Make love is good,” Revelator said.
“It has its place.”
He considered other things. “What about body parts?”
“Tits, cock, dick, pussy, cunt, ass,” Bishop listed easily, grinning at him. “You don’t approve?”
“I don’t…disapprove, they just sound…crass.”
“Okay, then…breasts… phallus? Uh…” Revelator amazed over his struggle. “Privates? For her?” He shook his head. “Sounds childish. And vagina sounds too medical. Wow, I didn’t realize how limited my vocabulary was in this.”
“How does…your Belle Eveque feel about these terms?”
“She loves them. They’re perfectly nasty,” he said, like that’s what you wanted to go for. Just the word nasty had his cock burning, like the term encompassed everything he wanted, just like her mouth and tongue had on him. “Nasty... I like that word,” he barely muttered, getting Bishops laugh.
“You and me both. I can’t even imagine sex outside of that perimeter.”
Revelator eyed him, a little baffled.
“What?”
“I just thought…things should be more…dignified or reserved in this department.”
“Nothing dignified or reserved about the lust and passion you both share. It’s brute, rude, selfish, demanding, and…Ma Belle Eveque makes it clear she doesn’t like it any less.”
“She told you this?”
“Expressly. With actual words. She wants me insane for her and that works out perfectly since I am.”
“I’m swearing more. Around her.” He didn’t like that and yet… “I can’t fathom why I think that’s okay, but I do.” He eyed him. “You swear this way in front of her? In regards to these things?”
Bishop grinned. “Fighting and fucking, Rev. That’s what little boys are made of. And swearing is the language for both of those.”
It sure felt that way. But what if Cherie was different? She didn’t seem to be offended when he used the words.
“You can always ask her if you’re not sure she likes it.”
Relief loosened his gut at that solution. “Definitely. If she even lets it get that far. She teases me. Baits me. And then tells me she wants to go slow.” He looked at Bishop. “Everything she say s with her mouth—”
“Her body says the opposite?”
“Yes,” he whispered, confounded, getting Bishop’s laugh. “So this is normal?”
“I would’ve said I don’t know for sure, but Ma Belle Eveque is a walking contradiction. Well, she used to be. Now she sees there’s no need to hide her desires from me.”
“Cherie hides this. I wonder why?”
“Likely something to do with her past if I had to guess. Ma Belle Eveque was a virgin, so I imagine the lack of experience made a difference.”
“It would,” Revelator was sure, glancing at the office where Cherie was. “I have to go get those parts. Gonna call Ms. Prejean and let her know we’ll be there first thing in the morning to finish up.”
“Yeah, take the afternoon and night to learn your lessons.”
He eyed Bishop’s grin as heat flashed through him. “She’s…” he lowered his head. “Amazing.”
Bishop patted his shoulder. “Can’t tell you how glad I am for you.”
He met his sincere dark gaze. “I never imagined I’d be where I am. I look back at all the things I’ve seen and I never saw this.”
“That surely makes two of us, brother.”
He remembered the vision he’d given him not long ago. “You ever figure out that message I gave you?”
He put his boot against the body of the truck. “Negative.”
“How’s Belle Eveque doing? And Maggie? Anything I need to know about?”
“If you mean things of a dark nature, we’re still looking into that.”
“While you’re looking, have 8-Bit run the name Lazarus John Gerth. Saw a man when I touched the one you judged at Bastards and Bitches. Then I saw that name when I dreamed about him.”
“Lazarus John Gerth?”
He nodded, angling his head and looking at the truck. “He’s somebody we need but I’m not sure how.”
“Good? Bad?”
He shook his head. “Not sure. He’s…cloaked. My hunch says bad and good.”
Bishop nodded. “I’ll call it in. Hey. I got a proposition for you.”
Revelator eyed him, curious.
“I was wondering if you’d do me the honor of being The Seer for The Twelve.”
Revelator grinned. “Thought I already was? You know my eyes are yours, always have been.”
“I do know. But…I’d like to make it an official position. Paid.”
Revelator lowered his head and shook it. “Still don’t take money for the Lord’s gifts and work.”
“That’s fine, I won’t pay you for the seeing stuff. But if you’re up to it, I need help with running my hatch on this side of the bayou.”
Revelator pushed the brim of his hat up a little, looking at the office where Cherie was.
“Think about it?”
He turned back to Bishop. “Yeah, definitely. Think a paid position might not be a bad idea if I’m going to live a non-celibate life.”
Bishop shrugged. “It was honestly the Belle Eveque’s idea. She’s always several steps ahead of everybody in the cupid department.”
Revelator laughed, nodding. “Her and Mah-Mah will make a stellar team.”
“You have no idea. Those two are cut from the same cloth, that’s for damn sure. But if it makes them happy and benefits the communities, I’m all in.”