Page 26 of Lulu’s Recipe for Cajun Sass

She hesitated, then stepped aside to allow him to enter in front of her.

He leaned close as he passed her, sniffing. “You smell like roses,” he said. “Have I mentioned how much I like roses?”

He didn’t smell so bad either. Something piney and fresh.

“Seriously, Justin, what are you doing here?”

“Where’s the niece?”

“Sleeping,” she said before she had a chance to lie and say that Adèle was in her room, playing with dolls, and would be out any minute. In other words, a buffer.

He smiled and walked around the room, crouching down a bit to stare at the framed photograph of herself and Phillipe atop a bookcase, taken after Midnight Mass the last Christmas he was alive, picked up a knickknack of her mother’s—a small china cat won in a penny toss game at a church festival many years ago—tapped the head on a little shrine to a statue of St. Jude—she had several around her cottage—and squeezed one of Adèle’s stuffed animals, a long-tailed pussy cat. He smiled at the meow.

She could tell by his actions that he was nervous.

Just as she was.

For some reason, that gave her the impetus to open herself to him. “I’m as nervous as a hooker at Sunday Mass.”

“Hah! I’m as nervous as a porcupine in a balloon factory,” he contributed with a mischievous grin.

Her heart melted a little.

Sometimes, with all the grief and all the responsibilities she’d taken on the past five years, she felt old…like forty, or something…when in fact she was only twenty-six, almost. Young, really. But when was the last time she’d felt free? To be her youthful self? To be a little bit…wild?

And, yes, she was thinking about sex. She was no virgin. And she’d enjoyed sex with Phillipe. Why couldn’t women be like men who dived right into affairs without examining all the what-ifs? Or without guilt…thank you very much, St. Jude. Some women did, obviously. And, Holy Crawfish! What was the sense of Cajun Sass if a gal had to be so rigid and uptight and protective of her virtue? Hah! What virtue I had was lost in the French Quarter’s Maison Rouge hotel to Phillipe Prudhomme five and a half years ago. Gladly.

And truth to tell, Justin Boudreaux was the first man to really tempt her since then. Was it just a question of timing, like she was finally ready to move on? Or was it something more? An old saying of her mother’s came to her all of a sudden: “Happiness sometimes sneaks in through a window you didn’t know you’d left open.” Yep, she’d left a window open all day today to let in the fresh air, but apparently she’d let in a lot more than she’d bargained for.

Justin sat down on her davenport, crossing his legs at the ankles and propping them on a hassock. Making himself at home. Way too comfortable, or pretending to be. He patted the cushion next to him.

Not a chance!

Well, maybe a chance.

“I thought you had to study tonight.” She shifted from hip to hip, wondering what to do, wondering if she had the moxie.

“I did. I do. But I studied so much the words were starting to blur. Decided I need something to refresh my…” He waggled his eyebrows.

She shook her head at his foolishness. “How about a refreshing glass of sweet tea?”

He shrugged. “That would be my second choice, but sure.”

She started to walk toward the kitchen, but then stopped and turned. She dropped her eyes before his steady gaze, but then raised her chin and told him, “I’m not a virgin, y’know.”

It took him a second to realize what she was telling him and why. Quick as spit, he was on his feet. With several wide strides, he closed the distance between them and swung her into the circle of his arms, lifting her off her feet.

She dug her fingers into the strong sinews of his shoulders.

He buried his face in her neck and murmured against her ear, “Louise, Louise, you are precious.”

She wrapped her legs around his hips for balance, which caused him to gasp and then stagger her up against the wall. She could feel his erection press firmly against her core, and a shiver went through her body. Now she was the one to gasp.

His left arm rested under her bottom, holding her up, and his right hand cupped her face. He gazed at her through half-closed eyes for a brief moment before he lowered his mouth to hers.

His kiss was surprisingly gentle at first as he learned her shape and taste, molding for a perfect fit, but then he glided his tongue along the seam of her lips, entreating her to open.

She complied.