Chapter 6 #2
“Speak of the devil,” Ezekiel said, pulling Matt in for a one-armed hug. “I was just saying that I needed to get together with you, but unfortunately I’ve got office hours in ten minutes.” He pointed to Tamryn. “Remember, if you need anything, just call or stop in at my office.”
“Thank you,” she said. She waited until Ezekiel exited the archives room before turning to Matt.
She should not be so excited to see him, but she had a better chance of stopping a freight train with her bare hands than stopping the flutters flickering throughout her stomach.
They had been there since the moment his lips had touched hers in his office on Friday night.
No, that was a lie. That tingly sensation had bombarded her the moment he’d pulled up to her disabled car, and it had only intensified with every encounter they’d had since her arrival in Gauthier.
She folded her arms over her chest and gave him a chastising frown. “Tell me you didn’t come all this way just to take me to lunch.”
“Only if you want me to lie,” he said. He tugged her arms loose and captured her hands, pulling them around his waist as he buried his head against her neck.
Tamryn’s eyes fell closed as her head tilted back.
“Matt,” she said on a weak sigh. “Matt, you have to stop doing this.”
“Not really,” he murmured against her skin as his lips traveled along her jawline. “Three. No, four,” he said. “That’s how many times I had to stop myself from getting in my car and driving to Belle Maison last night, just so I could get another taste of you.”
Tamryn told herself to put an end to this before things went too far.
Anyone could walk into the archives room and discover them together.
But her weak mental protests were no match for Matt’s exquisite kisses.
His hands gripped her hips, pulling her to him as his mouth continued its foray along her neck, his teeth nipping at her skin.
“Matt, please,” Tamryn purred. She should have been asking him to stop, but instead it sounded like a plea for more.
Just as she was about to ask him to stop—for real this time—her stomach made an indelicate, hungry growl.
Matt’s deep chuckle resonated along her skin. “I guess that means you really want some lunch.”
Tamryn’s eyes slid shut again, this time in abject mortification.
“I’m trying to think of the last time I was this embarrassed.
I think it was back when I forgot all my lines during my third-grade Christmas play.
” She peered up at him, her face hot with humiliation.
“I skipped breakfast this morning, and the granola bar I found buried in the bottom of my purse stopped being effective a long time ago.”
“A granola bar?” Matt’s brow narrowed with his censorious frown. “Now I see why your stomach is arguing with you. You’re in a city that’s known for its cuisine and you feed it a granola bar?”
“What can I do to persuade you to never bring up my noisy stomach again?”
His grin was pure sin. “You really want me to answer that?”
He didn’t have to. The answer was more than obvious from his heated stare, and an answering heat flashed all over her body.
Why did she have to meet this incredibly sexy man at a time when getting involved with him was the very last thing she needed?
It was as if he was determined to keep her in a state of perpetual lust, and it was becoming downright impossible to fight it.
“I can tell by the way those cheeks are getting even redder that you don’t need an answer. I love the way your skin blushes, by the way,” he whispered against her lips. “It makes me want to come up with a bunch of other ways to make you blush.”
“Oh, God, just stop,” Tamryn said with a deep sigh. Irresistible didn’t even come close to describing this man. She was in so much trouble.
“Come on.” He laughed against her lips. “Let’s get some food in you. And then I’ve got a surprise.”
Tamryn looked up at him.
“Trust me. It’s something your little history-loving heart will adore.”
Two hours later, Tamryn found herself seated in the back of a horse-drawn carriage, the beautiful animal’s heavy hoofs clopping along the narrow French Quarter streets.
She tried to engage Matt in a discussion about the various historical structures, but his enthusiasm for history was pathetically lacking.
Once their tour was done, the carriage pulled up to the front gates that surrounded Jackson Square in the very center of the French Quarter.
“I think it’s been long enough since lunch,” Matt announced. He gestured with his head to the open seating area covered with a green and white awning. “No visit to the French Quarter is complete without a stop for beignets at Café du Monde.”
“After the huge lunch we had at Antoine’s? There’s no way I can fit in more food. I think I’ve eaten more in the few weeks I’ve been here than I would have in two months back in Boston.”
Matt took both of her hands in his and tugged her gently. She didn’t resist nearly as hard as she should have.
He seated her at a wrought-iron table overlooking Decatur Street.
A few minutes later, he joined her, placing a plate of the powdered-sugar-dusted French doughnuts, along with two cups of café au lait, on the table.
Tamryn bit into the light dough and groaned.
“Oh my goodness, this is good,” she said.
Subtle, sexy humor lit up Matt’s eyes. “You’re very vocal when you eat,” he teased.
Her cheeks warming with embarrassment, Tamryn set the doughnut on the plate and dusted off her fingers. “How very ungentlemanly of you to point that out,” she said.
“It has to be the sexiest sound I’ve ever heard.”
His gaze fell upon her lips, his eyes suffused with smoldering heat. Anticipation tightened her skin as Matt leaned forward. He reached across the table and swiped the corner of her mouth with the pad of his thumb. “Sugar,” he murmured.
Tamryn released a shaky breath. “Thank you,” she replied.
In that same low, seductive voice, he said, “Using my finger wasn’t my first choice.”
The current arcing between them was electric. The air? Magnetic. The sights and sounds of the noisy French Quarter faded away as they stared into each other’s eyes.
Tamryn gazed at him, completely mesmerized. “You’re dangerous, Matthew Gauthier.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But don’t let that stop you.”
She leaned forward, her lips inches from his.
And his phone rang.
Dammit.
Before he even knew who was on the other end of the line, Matt had already made the decision to murder him. He pulled the phone out and frowned at the number.
“I need to take this,” he told Tamryn. He had to turn away because that dazed, sultry look on her face sent his concentration to hell. “Hello?” he answered.
As he listened, his eyes slid shut. Corey Anderson, former Major Leaguer and current baseball coach of the Gauthier High School Fighting Lions, described the scene at the home of his wife’s grandmother, who was the head of the Gauthier Civic Association. This was just what he didn’t need right now.
“Dammit,” Matt cursed. “I’ll be there in an hour. Try to keep the pitchforks out of their hands.”
He ended the call and had to refrain from letting out another curse. Tamryn’s face no longer held that sensual, kissable look. He wanted her face to hold that look all the time.
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
“You can say that.” Matt rubbed the back of his neck.
“Apparently, a member of the Gauthier Civic Association discovered that a group in Maplesville is planning to hold a carnival during the same week as Gauthier’s African American Heritage Festival.
” He brought his hands forward and massaged his temples.
“There’s been some…tension between the two towns ever since Maplesville got a new outlet mall. ”
Matt’s stomach tensed every time he thought about that damn outlet mall. He cursed the day he’d ever contacted those developers. If it weren’t for his luring them to this area, that outlet mall wouldn’t be here and he wouldn’t have this secret weighing so heavily on him.
“Sounds like something the future state senator needs to get a handle on,” Tamryn said. “I guess that means I’ll have to get that tour of the Cabildo some other time.”
“Sorry about that,” Matt said. Then he grinned. “Actually, that’s a lie. I’m not sorry at all. I remember going there on a field trip back in junior high school. I was bored out of my mind.”
Tamryn’s brows narrowed with exaggerated censure. “This lack of respect for all the wonderful history surrounding you is so disappointing.”
“Maybe if I had a hot professor teaching me, I would have learned to appreciate it more.” He walked around to her chair, but instead of pulling it back, he lowered his head and trailed his lips up the side of her neck. “I think a couple of lessons are in order. What do you think, Professor West?”
“I think if I had you as a student, I wouldn’t get a bit of teaching done.”
“That’s the point,” he said against her neck.
They returned to the university so she could pick up her car, only to discover that it had a flat tire. Matt’s brows rose in surprised amusement as he listened to her light into the rental car company’s customer service rep.
“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” he said when she’d finished the call.
“I should have gone with another car rental company after the busted radiator,” she said, getting back into his car. “I’ll call around tomorrow.”
“Or you can borrow one from me,” Matt offered. She twisted in her seat, her mouth agape as she stared at him in disbelief. Matt shrugged. “I have an old Toyota that’s just sitting in the garage. It needs to be driven anyway.”
“I cannot borrow a car from you,” she said.
“You can if I insist,” he said. “Consider it my apology for the hell I put you through dodging your calls and emails these past six months.”
“Well, when you put it that way…”