Chapter Twenty
The Only Love, Mal Chance Bayou
The mattress dipped as his beloved sat beside him. She stroked his brow, and kissed his cheek. “I am so very glad I left home to find you.”
Luc pushed the coverlet aside, circled her waist with an arm and gently pulled her to lie across his chest. “You talk too much, Grace, my love.” He kissed her, receiving the boon of her kiss in return.
He reveled in the stroke of her hands, The press of her breasts, the heat of her thighs and body. “You also have too many clothes on.”
She lifted her head to meet his gaze, smiling that heart squeezing smile. “Are you planning to do anything about that?” Grace teased.
To pleasure them both, he took his time, yet the ease of disrobing her pleased him. No dress, stays, petticoats, or chemise. Nothing but a few buttons and that amazing invention the zipper. Her breasts filling his hands distracted him. The warm damp at the apex of her thighs urged him.
Grace rose above him, bracing her hands, burning her need into his chest. Dark auburn hair curtained him.
His mouth watered at the sight of her cherished face.
He stroked and plucked the turgid points he longed to taste.
She moaned. Her hips ground against him.
That moist heat stirred him to aching madness.
Luc lifted her, as Grace raised her hips.
Together they plunged to the abyss, sped beyond themselves, rising above the stars, one soul, one heart, only to burst into a hundred thousand pieces.
How long they floated in eternity could not be said.
Yet eternity did end. Not with a sudden rush of cold awareness, but with the soft, glorious caress of one hand on a lover’s face.
The touch of lips blessed the union and sealed the bargain.
“Luc, we have to talk,” Grace whispered in his ear.
He opened his eyes and snapped his head to the side. “Grace? How did you get here?”
Her smile vanished, and she examined his expression. “I used a canoe, and came via the bayou. Did you think I was someone else?”
How do I answer that?
Women, amours specifically, could be prickly about their identity, especially when they shared ecstasy with a lover.
“I wasn’t thinking. In fact, if I were not certain I could not sleep, I’d say I was dreaming.”
“Wrong on two counts. You were asleep, and that was no dream.” The smile, that impossible smile, grew on her delectable mouth. For a moment he stared at two women, one imposed on the other. Although Grace, it seemed, was uppermost.
“Incredible,” Luc whispered. The images, the fact that he’d slept, that he hadn’t dreamed… Which of those was incredible?
“What exactly is unbelievable?” she asked.
“That you are here. That I knew you even in my dreams without even thinking.”
“Good.” The word dissolved the confusing image, leaving only Grace. She sat up, her body gloriously bare and rosy from love making.
“Why?” He tried to focus his mind on something other than the longing to touch her skin, her breasts, revel in her heat.
“Because I wasn’t thinking, either. However, I am thinking now, and we need to talk.”
“As you wish.” Luc levered himself upward, moving to sit against one of the bedposts.
Grainne’s smile broadened on Grace’s face “No man I know, other than you, would use that phrase.”
He caught her staring at his chest and licking her lips. No, he reminded himself. She wants to talk. “My vocabulary choices are the reasons you accosted me in my sleep? The important topics we need to discuss?”
“Silly man.” Grace moved to snuggle against him.
A portion of him rose in demand, and he reached for the sheet. “If conversation is what you want, you’d best sit farther away.”
“So soon?” She mused as she went to the far corner of the bed. “Your recuperative powers are… ah…staggering to behold.”
Luc smiled. “Thank you. It’s a gift.”
She sobered, found a robe at the end of the bed and drew it on. “It isn’t the only gift.”
“Would you care to elaborate?” he asked.
The movement of her lips distracted him as he recalled them moving over his body.
“I will, but I need answers to a few questions first,” she said. Despite the robe the swell of her breasts had his mouth watering.
“I am happy to oblige, as long as I know the answer, and I am able. Do you mind if I find us something to eat while we talk?” He moved to a cabinet on the far side of the room and rummaged within.
“I’m famished, so yes, please. I need to know the details of your curse.
Not just the words but, what your life is like.
What is better, what is worse, what is just different from when you were not cursed.
Also, how the moon and its phases affect you?
” Grace’s voice held an edge of urgency that made his gut quiver.
“That’s a great deal of information.” He placed food and drink on the chest beside the bed. He handed a plate and glass to Grace. Canine barks sounded as he was about to serve his own meal.
“You brought the dogs?”
She batted her eyelashes at him. “They refused to leave me no matter what I said.”
Are those pups aware of her danger?
“I’d better go feed them,” he said rummaging in the cabinet for a couple of doggy meals.
“Thank you.”
“Be right back.”
“I promise not to go anywhere,” she said with a cheeky grin.
When Luc returned, he took up his own meal and resumed his spot against the bedpost. “Now where were we?” he asked.
Grace stared at the plate in her lap. “I could start with where did all this food come from?”
Excellent, the meal was distracting them both. “It’s nothing but some hard cheese and bread. Things easily acquired at the emporium and stored without the need for cooler temperatures.”
Grace raised her head. “You shop for food?”
“Not if I can avoid it, I don’t often venture into Duval Point during a full moon.” He might be hungry and need food, but he still yearned for Grace.
“Then how…?”
“I’m very good at pilfering an item or two at a time, when DeLille receives a shipment for his store.” He lowered his gaze a moment when he made the sheepish confession.
Her brows rose. “You steal?”
“When needs, must. I don’t require much food, since I usually eat only when the moon is full.” He smiled.
“Is that because you are corporeal then?” She tilted her head.
“Almost,” he cautioned. “Technically the moon is only full for one day. However, differences between the gibbous moons on the days either side of the full moon and the actual full moon are invisible to the naked eye. Thus, they seem to be powerful enough for me to be corporeal for the entire three days.”
“You are completely alive for three days every moon cycle.” Her tone was hushed.
“Yes.”
“What are you the rest of the time?” A line formed between her brows.
“Early on, when I was first cursed, my existence varied greatly and not always with the moon. My state of being has been consistent for the last ninety or so years. Any moonlight will make me visible to some degree, but my physical existence is limited to the three days of the full moon. The rest of the time, I am ephemeral,” Luc said.
“That’s why my hand went through your face?” She shivered.
If memory of the sensation unsettled Grace, he didn’t blame her. The feeling unsettled him as well.
“Yes.”
“Do you know what I felt when that happened?” Grace asked, in that same low voice.
“I felt exactly the same thing.” He nodded.
“Oh, my.”
Luc grinned. “Disconcerting, isn’t it.”
“A mild term to describe something that feels like a meteor shower. And…” she grinned. “Nearly as unsettling as watching you eat while you’re naked.”
“Find that disturbing, do you?” He grinned back. Then holding his plate in one hand, he removed the sheet that covered his lower body.
“What other effects do you experience as a result of your curse?” she asked as she bowed her head and addressed her meal.
“I am rarely hungry and can’t sleep.”
“You were asleep when I got here.” She smiled up at him, eyeing his full plate. "And you're eating now."
“I cannot explain that. Existing in two worlds at one time is very painful, like being drawn and quartered, I would imagine. Over the years, I’ve acquired some tolerance.
However, if I travel too far from the Only Love and Sweet Dreams for any length of time, the pain hurts even more.
Sometimes to the point where I must rest before I can continue to function. ”
“Have you been traveling far from here lately?” she asked and set her empty plate aside.
“I’ve had reason to spend some time in Duval Point,” he admitted.
“Why?” Grace cocked her head to one side, shifting the lights in her rich auburn hair.
“I believed I would learn who was behind the trespassers searching Sweet Dreams.”
“A reasonable deduction,” she agreed, and crawled across the bed to sit beside him. “Did you?”
“I did. You are in danger from these people. You should leave.” He hated the idea.
Even less did he like the thought of Grace dead.
“Get away from Sweet Dreams before it’s too late.
” He put his plate aside too then faced her with all the seriousness he could muster.
It wasn’t easy with her warm, sweet-smelling body so close.
She shook her head. “I’ll never leave. Not the way you suggest.”
He lifted a brow.
“We’ll get to that soon enough,” Grace said. “Now, sit back down and cuddle with me, while you tell me what other spectral traits you have, besides changing from corporeal to ephemeral and back with the phase of the moon?”
He hugged her to his side, and she rested her head on his chest.
“I’ll detail my psychic abilities later. Right now, I am very concerned for your safety,” Luc insisted.
“Very well, why?”
Her hair tumbled down his chest teasing and tantalizing along the way.
He ground his teeth against the urge to play with all of her curls. “I’ve spent a great deal of time at Guidry’s tavern. Last night, I learned the source of the danger, when I overheard a conversation between Guidry and DeLille.”