Page 87 of Frankly, My Dear

They had traveled about a mile from the plantation house, but the sugar fields were only a short distance away. This spot at the curve of the bayou stream was a favorite of his. For some reason, he wanted to share it with Selene…before she left.

Selene put her hands on his shoulders as he put his hands on her waist to lift her from the saddle. When she stood before him, still within his arms, she raised the sweeping lashes of her hazelnut eyes—deep pools of liquid brown flecked with shards of green.

“Why did you say we stopped?” she asked huskily.

Disconcerted at first by the awareness of her soft breasts pressed against his chest, both hearts thumping wildly in sweet counterpoint, he stood speechless with gut-wrenching need. Finally, when he could speak above a croak, he jiggled his eyebrows mischievously, much as his son was wont to do, and said enigmatically, “I’m taking you on a…what did you call it?…field trip.”

Selene’s head shot up with alertness.

Pushing away slightly, she studied James through half-lidded, suddenly suspicious eyes. Was that a flicker of amusement she detected in his brilliantly blue eyes, so like the warm skies that hovered above them? And that slight twitch at the corners of his lips…hadn’t he looked at her in the same way last night when he’d thrown out a challenge to her? “I have never lost a battle once I set my course,” he’d told her when she’d taunted him with sexual fantasies he would never realize because he foolishly chose to send her away.

“A field trip, huh?” she said, stepping agilely out of his embrace. “So you expect to teach the teacher a lesson, do you?”

“Oui,” he admitted unabashedly, taking her hand in his and leading her into a thickly wooded area near a wide curve of the bayou stream.

“Be careful, James, that you don’t get hoisted on your own…petard.”

His only response was a low chuckle and a squeeze of her hand.

When they had almost reached the edge of a bushy screen near the water’s edge, he motioned with a fingertip to his mouth for her to remain silent. Then he sank quietly to the ground, taking her with him. With a few efficient adjustments of their bodies, he had her sitting on the ground between his widespread knees, both facing forward.

“It’s really mean of you if you intend to scare me with more snakes or alligators,” she whispered.

He shook his head vehemently, as if wounded that she would think so ill of him, then indicated once again that she should remain quiet. Tucking her body more closely into the curve of his, he put his mouth near her right ear and whispered, “This is a special place for me. I want to share an extraordinary spectacle with you, chérie.”

Selene felt his warm breath near the shell of her ear, then the heady sensation of his lips grazing the curve of her neck. She looked back at him over her shoulder, almost brushing her lips with his.

His compelling eyes held hers for a long moment. “Just watch, chérie, and learn about my world.”

When Selene turned forward again, she peered through the space he’d made in the brush with their bodies, just large enough for them both to see to the water’s edge. She tried to ignore the dreamy intimacy of their private cocoon, sheltered from the rest of the world, and the tingling path of his callused fingertips as they skimmed the sensitive inner skin of her arms from elbow to wrist, over and over.

Relaxing, Selene drank in the spectrum of vivid colors assaulting her vision, then melding into a portrait of such incredible beauty that she wished she had the artistic talent to capture the image for all time. Even the pungent odors of fecund earth, animal musk, and plant life, living and dead, did not offend her senses, merely contrasted beautifully with the heady perfume of wildflowers.

A cuddly, cinnamon-colored muskrat perched on its hind feet only a few yards away, watching them curiously as it nibbled daintily on a long white root resembling a parsnip. As the creature eventually moved on, James pressed her arm and Selene became aware of the animal at center stage, which was obviously the object of James’s field trip.

A large female heron, more than two feet long, with streamlined body and elongated neck, perched above the water on the projecting end of a dead tree. Rich grayish purple feathers covered the bird from crown to tail, ending in aigrette plumes on the back that resembled silky strands of hair. Her dagger-sharp beak stuck out a good five inches, and circles of lavender skin surrounded her scarlet eyes.

The female bird tilted its skinny neck this way and that, studying the skies expectantly. She bobbed her head several times, as if in approval, as the male heron she’d obviously been expecting dipped and soared several times before swooping down smoothly to perch beside her on the branch. Identical in appearance to the female, though slightly larger, he sidled inch by inch toward the female, who ignored his presence with universal female haughtiness for the randy male.

“Smart lady…ignoring that horny studmuffin,” Selene quipped, and James squeezed her arm softly for silence. At the same time, he laid a palm flat against her stomach and pulled her back flush against the vee of his thighs.

The heron wasn’t the only horny studmuffin in that clearing.

For a long, long time the birds did nothing, just perched next to each other, though Selene sensed their acute awareness of each other. Just as she was aware of every ragged breath James drew, every flutter of his fingertips as they took increasingly bold liberties in exploring her body—her collarbone, her ribs, her abdomen and belly, always avoiding her breasts which swelled and ached beneath the thin fabric of her cotton shirt.

Finally the female shook herself and dropped down to a lower branch and leaned her long neck against the male’s flanks. The gesture was simple and yet so poignant.

“She’s signaling that she accepts him for her mate,” James murmured near her ear. Selene had to fight the compulsion to lean against James in much the same way, and, in fact, did arch her neck so her head rested back against his shoulder, her breasts lifted slightly.

With just the lightest touch, James placed his fingertips on her hardening nipples, and pleasure, pure and explosive, shot through Selene’s body like liquid fire, pooling between her legs in a molten mass of quivering need.

“Mon Dieu!” James muttered under his breath and dropped his hands from her breasts. But Selene felt the involuntary tremors of his arousal in his thighs, which hugged her tightly, and in the hardness which pressed against her backside. With deliberate restraint, he forced her to look back toward the herons.

Once again, the two birds remained almost motionless for an exceedingly long time until suddenly they both raised their heads at the same time. Loud croaking sounds came from their beaks, shattering the stillness of the bayou around them, sounding very much like the groans of lovers driven beyond their control.

And, yes, Selene could sympathize. She, too, was aroused to the point of groaning aloud.

The female stretched and flapped her wings, shuffling from foot to foot as if marking time. Every few minutes, one or both of them would point its beak high, thrust its chest out, and croak hoarsely. Like lovers arching with desire.