Page 107 of Frankly, My Dear

“I like loose women.”

“I’m not loose.”

“I think you’re driving me mad,” James said on a groan.

“You were already mad before I got here.”

“Do you two always behave like this?” a confused Pierce asked.

“Only when we’re crocked,” Selene observed.

They all laughed then.

“You have a mustache,” James remarked after a few moments, looking at her upper lip.

“Huh?” She raised her fingertips to touch her wet upper lip, and hit her nose, instead. Batting her eyes at him, she asked with drunken candor, “Would you like to lick it off?”

To her supreme delight, James choked on the bourbon he continued to imbibe in startling quantities.

Pierce hooted with amusement, clapping a hand on his knee. “Lord, I haven’t had so much fun since Effie Morgan dropped her drawers at the Magnolia Cotillion.”

“Will you excuse us, Pierce?” James said, dragging Selene to her feet with an iron grip on her wrist. “I have to discuss…the dinner menu with Selene.”

Before she knew it, Selene was standing in the back parlor with James. Through the closed sliding door, she could hear the murmur of Mrs. Baptiste’s voice addressing Andrew and Ellen.

Selene leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes for a second, hearing a low buzzing in her ears, feeling as light as the frothy beverage she’d been drinking. When she opened her eyes, she saw James standing a few feet away, hands on hips, scowling at her, as usual.

“So are you going to lick off my mustache?”

That practically shocked the pants off him.

He inhaled sharply. “No.” Then, just as quickly, he changed his mind. “Oui, perhaps I will.” His pale eyes turned stormy with passion and his lips parted with anticipation as he moved closer and closer. “And perhaps I’ll lick the honey from your hair, as well.”

“What honey?” She raised a hand to her head, then blushed when she realized what he’d meant. “I was just kidding…about licking off the mustache.”

“I’m not.”

“Do you know there’s a whole ad campaign in my time where the models all have milk mustaches?”

“Shut up, Selene,” he said, his lips lowering toward hers, his breath a whispery caress.

“Is this going to be a good-bye kiss?” she asked huskily.

“Merde, how do I know! Hello…good-bye…I’d-liketo-lay-you-on-the-carpet-and-practice-tush-crunches-on-top-of-you…Would-you-stick-your-tongue-in-my-mouth…whatever. Take your pick.”

“All of the above…and then some,” she sighed, putting one hand behind his neck and the other at the side of his face, pulling him closer. The scent of his skin and the heat of his body pulled at Selene’s senses like the most powerful aphrodisiac.

He braced both arms on the wall above her and lapped her upper lip with his tongue, like a cat, with long wet strokes. Then he did the same to the seam and the lower lip. “You taste so sweet, chérie.”

She purred, “Let me see,” and drew his tongue into her mouth, suckling softly. “You’re right.”

With a low growl, James dug one hand into her hair and with the other behind her buttocks jerked her forcefully against his hardness. Parted and hungry, his lips ravaged hers, alternately coaxing and devouring, firm and pliant. She answered his kisses with a matching intensity, trying to show him with her lips, and soft moans, and caressing hands over his neck and back just how much she wanted him.

This was their moment out of time, all that they would probably have, and both seemed to want to squeeze a lifetime of feelings into the little time they had left together.

“I love to kiss you, chérie,” he whispered against her neck, kissing and biting along the curve from shoulder to earlobes.

“I wish it could go on forever.”