Say You Love Her Page 7

  “You could say, ‘I’m not a doctor.’”

  “Well she knows that.”

  “And, ‘I’m not in medical school.’”

  She shrugs one shoulder. “Now that’s the truth.”

  I pet her thigh without realizing it. It was a good call. She puts her hand on top of mine, and we stay like that as I drive into the city.

  “We’re going to the French Quarter?” I ask, and decide to ignore the way my voice croaks. I rub the outside of her thigh with my thumb.

  She hesitates. “Yes.”

  I exit on Esplanade Avenue and head up to Frenchman. Angelina compliments me on knowing my way around. That’s when I tell her that if I’ve been somewhere before, then I never forget how to navigate the area. She’s impressed. I’m lucky to find a parking space along the main drag in front of a tattoo parlor. I take my hand from her thigh and immediately can’t wait to touch her again.

  Some of the small cafés are open. Hunger has finally caught up with me. The smell of coffee and fried pastries makes my stomach grumble. Angelina mumbles the address on the front of the envelope. The sun is beaming down on us. The humidity makes it feel hotter than it is.

  “This is it,” Angelina says.

  I look through the window. “It’s a bar.”

  “That’s what it looks like.” Angelina seems just as confused as I am.

  I step back and look up. “Maybe it’s up there?” There’s a second level.

  “Maybe.”

  “It looks empty though,” I say after closer examination.

  “I should just open it.” She lifts the flap on the envelope.

  “I think so.” The sooner we get this over with the better.

  Angelina takes the slip of paper out of the wrapper and reads. “What the…” she whispers.

  I move close to look over her shoulder. “It’s an invitation.”

  “From seven o’clock until whenever, the Real Deal Down Dirty Jamboree, invite only,” she reads. “Why would she send us to a party?” Angelina shakes her head as she ponders.

  “I don’t know, but we have four hours until we can find out.” I raise my eyebrows suggestively.

  “Of course,” she says.

  I wrap my arm around her waist without even thinking about it. “Let’s eat.”

  We walk over to Cafe Rose Nicaud for a late breakfast made complete by alligator sausage. Angelina names friends she has in the area as we eat, and we discover that we have three in common, one of whom is always playing with an ensemble on a stage around Jazz Park.

  “So Charlie Lord knows Chuck Moon?”

  “How good of friends are you?” I ask, hoping like hell they never slept together.

  “Pretty good. He drives out to Karina’s parties every now and then. He doesn’t go as much as he used to since he started booking more gigs around here.”

  “I remember Chuck Moon being an unrepentant ladies’ man.”

  “He still is,” Angelina says. “At least that’s what he wants everyone to think.”

  “Has he ever tried to sleep with you?”

  “A billion times!” she says, laughing. “But I’m more discriminating than to get down with him. Although I bet we can catch him if we leave now.” There’s an adventurous dare in her eyes.

  “Sure, as long as he doesn’t ask you to sleep with him for the billionth and one time.”

  “He will.” She winks. “But I’ll turn him down. He’s used to hearing ‘no’ from me.”

  We share a laugh, then I pay and we head out. We decide to walk since I found a good parking spot that more than likely will not be available later. It’s a small hike through the old and charming neighborhoods on our way to Decatur Street, but Angelina still lets me put my arm around her waist. Her bare skin is soft and warm against my hand. Neither one of us has mentioned what’s going on between us, but something has definitely happened.

  “I love how it feels in the French Quarter. I swear if New York falls into the ocean tomorrow, then this place will be my next stop.”

  “I could live here too,” I say.

  “Do you know what’s funny?”

  “What?”

  “Your house in Malibu doesn’t fit you.” She motions toward a white Queen Anne cottage with a colorful stained-glass window in the triangular gable. “That does.”

  “I like it,” I say.

  “I know. It’s you.”

  “Too bad it’s not for sale. A rich guy like me would throw his money around and buy it on the spot—all cash.”

  She laughs. “Oh, Charlie… What am I going to do with you.”

  “I can think of a few things.” I pull her hip against mine. I would pull her front side against mine, but my dick is hard.

  “You are a bad boy.”

  I snicker, but I do wonder if that’s what she really thinks of me. I’ve done some awful shit to women in my not too distant past. I’m pretty sure Monroe would second that. The way I fucked her and hit the road makes me a jerk—I get it.

  “But it almost feels as though we’re in a different country,” she says.

  “Have you been to Savannah, Georgia?” I ask.

  “No. Never.”

  “Will you let me take you one day?”

  She glances shyly at my face, grinning. “Yes.” I ogle her tits as she reaches up to twist her hair into a knot. “Gosh, it’s hot.”

  “We can stop and get something to drink if you like.” I want her to be comfortable.

  “I’m fine now. It’s just that all of this damn hair overheats me sometimes. I can’t wait to cut it off.”

  I examine her, picturing her with shorter hair. “I’d like to see that,” I say.

  Angelina blushes. “Perhaps you will.”

  We reach Jazz Park. An ensemble band is playing on a stage in a wide-open patio with one-day-early weekend tourists eating and drinking as they enjoy what they think is a free concert.

  “Another thing I love about New Orleans,” Angelina says as she pulls me by the arm, leading me towards the stage. “It’s never hard to find what you’re looking for.”

  Chuck Moon still looks the same. He has red hair and freckles all over his face. Despite looking like Ronald McDonald, he’s a good-looking guy and charismatic enough to attract shitloads of chicks. Like me, he plays the guitar. Right now he’s playing the bass guitar. A big smile comes over his face when he sees Angelina, but it quickly morphs into a weaker one when he sees me. I guide her into me as we look on together. My dick had gone down, but with her this close it’s steadily rising. I wish I could control it more when I’m around her. Then she spins around and puts her tits against my chest and that does it. I’m as hard as a rock. Her breasts are soft and firm and asking for it. Shit, she takes a step back to gyrate her hips. Angelina is dancing in front of me. I can only stand here and study her hip action, but I am vibing with the tune. I slide my hand down her waist and move my shoulders to the beat.

  Then she puts her hands on my waist and her mouth to my ear. “Your moves are cool, Charlie.”

  “And you’re sexy,” I say.

  Our bodies are clasped together, and we’re staring into each other’s eyes. The song comes to an end. There’s applause.

  “Oh, Angel…” Chuck says into the microphone.

  She smirks seductively and then turns around. My dick is still against her ass, and I’m very mindful that my hands are against her abs and only a squeeze away from her tits.

  “Oh, Chuck!” She calls back.

  “Oh, Angel!” He sings this time.

  She cups her hand around her mouth, “Oh, Chuck!”

  He breaks out into a jazzy rap about how Angelina’s giving him a fever “in this fucking heat.” The keyboardist and saxophonist join in. Angelina smashes her hands over her ears after he says something about an angel with a sweet ass and equates himself to an ant. On that note, she grinds her sweet ass against my dick, and I have to stabilize her hips to keep myself from blowing. I wonder why she did that—per
haps to reassure me that her ass is mine and not his.

  Angelina likes to play games, that’s for sure, but it’s not enough to turn me off. While the saxophonist who I know as Cassius collects tips from the audience, Chuck sits down with us. He pulls Angelina onto his lap and does exactly what I’ve been aching to do. He squeezes her tits whenever the urge strikes him, and, fuck, she lets him.

  “The party was big last night. Everybody was there. Are you going to be here for a while, Charlie?”

  I’m focusing on the way he’s massaging her ribs. “No, I’m just here today.”

  “He’s with me. So don’t try to infringe on my time with him,” she says.

  “Shut the fuck up, woman.” He squeezes one of her tits and she goes up and down on his lap, which means he’s humping her.

  Angelina laughs and fucking love taps him on the arm. “Stop it,” she says. But who the hell’s going to take her seriously when she says it like that?

  “There’s another one tonight on Frenchmen. The old-dogs are up.”

  “Is it the invitation-only party?” Angelina asks. He squeezes one of her tits again, and I’m fucking seething. I think she notices my reaction because she finally gets up to sit in the chair next to mine.

  Chuck looks down at his dick. “You made him lonely, Angel.”

  She shakes her head. “I humored you for too long as it is. But really, is it the invitation-only party?”

  “Yeah. You got one?”

  She glances at me. “My mother just gave it to us without telling me what it was.”

  “Madame Beauchamp… How is she doing?”

  Angelina rolls her watery eyes up as she shakes her head. “I don’t know. My father—”

  He cuts her off. “Wait. Charlie, do you know who her father is?”

  “She’s my sister-in-law’s sister, so yeah, I know who the fuck he is. Plus, we were jamming out on the porch all last night.” I decide to add that just to make him as jealous as he made me by sitting Angelina on his dick and groping her right before my eyes.

  “Get the fuck out of here!”

  “Yeah, my father has a man crush on Charlie,” Angelina says.

  “Fuck!” Chuck slams his foot against the ground. “Fuck! I would give Jacques Blanchard my ass if he would let me play with him.”

  “Well—he doesn’t do man ass, but he does do raw talent,” Angelina says. “That’s what Charlie has.” She smiles at me.

  My heart is pounding so hard that I can hardly breathe steadily. Am I falling in love with her?

  “So you two are related by marriage?” he asks.

  “Yes,” Angelina replies before I can.

  “So why the hell did you have your hands all over her?” He exaggerates rubbing himself all over his body. “Ain’t that some incestuous shit?”

  “What hands, all over what?” Angelina asks, feigning ignorance.

  Chuck draws back and narrows one eye curiously. “Are you two fucking?”

  I snort cynically. “It’s kind of too late to ask that now,” I say. “You’ve already fondled her and dry humped her in front of me.”

  “Didn’t like that?” Chuck reaches across the table to squeeze one of her breasts, but this time Angelina slaps his hand away.

  “Told you. I’m done humoring you,” she says.

  I want to get on my knees and thank her for doing that. If he had fondled my tits one more time, I probably would’ve punched him in the throat. What a dick.

  “Then I’ll have to wait until the next time you want to humor me,” he says.

  Angelina glances at me. I’m still frowning. She puts her hand on my thigh.

  Chuck and his band play another set. He keeps singing songs to Angelina, and it’s making me fume. I’m not sure Angelina is focusing on the music though. It looks as though she’s gazing past them and out at the Mississippi River in the background.

  “Are you ready to get out of here?” I ask.

  She nods. I take her hand, and Chuck starts singing, “Where you going, Angel love?” as we leave. I’m glad she ignores him.

  We walk through the French Market holding hands. I see that she likes to take her time and browse shit that I would never stop to look at. I end up buying her a crème-brulée-scented candle. We stop off at Café Du Monde to buy two beignets and eat them while sitting on a grassy hill along The Moonwalk as we gaze out over the river.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask. She’s been quiet for some time.

  “Nothing. Well…” She lies back on the grass and her nipples are sticking straight up in the air. “It is something, but I’d rather not say.”

  “Is it about me?” I stretch out on my side and fight the urge to free one of her tits from her top and suck it.

  “No. Just thinking about my mother. It finally clicked. She didn’t look well when I saw her this morning, and I think she didn’t want me in the house because she’s having a bad day.” She circles her finger around her belly button. My dick is throbbing.

  I check my watch. “It’s almost seven. You want to start walking back?”

  She sits up, and her tits pass before my eyes. The skin of her back is flawless. “Yeah,” she whispers.

  Since it’s late and we’ve walked a lot, we take a cab to Frenchmen. Angelina lets me hold her hand the entire way. I still have her hand when she gives the guy at the door the invitation.

  “Ah, Madame Josephine Beauchamp,” he says.

  “I’m her daughter,” Angelina says.

  Of course he stares at her tits in that halter-top before looking into her eyes. “You’re fine as hell, just like your mother.”

  Angelina frowns in a perplexed kind of way. The guy looks at me and tells us to go in, but asks Angelina to stay close because he has something for her. The party is filling up and the old-timers are on the stage playing some classic New Orleans jazz with the trombone and all.

  Suddenly the song turns slow and sultry.

  “You want to dance?” I ask Angelina.

  She smiles. “That’s the one pick-up line that always works on me.”

  I embrace her tightly and rub one of my hands against the skin of her back and the other against her waist. She’s clinging to me, and I wonder what she’d do if I kissed her neck. I’m this close to finding out when the guy from the door returns and hands Angelina an album.

  “This is for your mama,” he says.

  She takes it and flips it from the front to the back to study it. “Did she know I was going to come get this?” she asks.

  “Yeah. Rusty Williams talked to Jacques last night, and he said you and him”—he points to me—“were coming to get it.”

  Angelina sighs as though she just dropped a gorilla off her back. “Thank you.”

  “Hey, I’ve seen you before you know,” he says. He’s gazing at her with stars in his eyes.

  Shit, here’s another guy attempting to hit on her right in front of me. What the hell, am I invisible?

  “It’s her first album ever,” she says, ignoring him. “Look.” She runs a finger over an autograph. “She signed it.” She gazes up at me. “I’m ready to go. I want to get this to her before she goes to bed.”

  That’s all she has to say. We head out. Angelina and I are never lost for words. She listens attentively while I tell her why I like Martha’s Vineyard so much. I even divulge how I went into the charter business and lost a lot of cash because I lost interest and let the entire business go downhill.

  “Wow, how negligent of you,” she says.

  “I know. I figured I won’t do that with the film.”

  “What do you love, Charlie?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you love to do?”

  I’d love to do her, but I can’t say that. “I don’t know.”

  “You should figure that out.”

  I nod. It’s turned quiet between us. “I do have something to ask you though,” I say.

  “Ask me anything.”

  I take a moment to w
onder if I should forget about it.

  “Go ahead, Charlie, ask me,” she says as if she’s able to read my mind.

  “I just wanted to know why you let Chuck grab your tits like that.”

  “Oh,” she says, seeming relieved. I think she thought I was going to ask something else. “It doesn’t get me excited or anything. He doesn’t even get hard when I sit on his lap. Chuck doesn’t really like girls, so he overcompensates and I let him.”

  “Get the fuck out of here. How do you know that?”

  I turn to glance at her in the dark car. She’s smirking. “His secrets will always be safe with me, but he will fuck me if I let him.”

  “Then he does like girls?”

  “He likes me. He probably likes you, too.”

  We laugh. It seems as though the drive back takes less time. As soon as we get inside, Angelina hugs me good night, says she had a great time in New Orleans, and then runs upstairs with the album.

  And just like that, I’m aching from blue balls for another night.

  Chapter 7

  At Last

  I don’t know if I’ve been asleep for a while or if I ever went to sleep, but I hear, “Charlie,” in a whispery voice.

  I flip over and Angelina is standing at my bedside. She has nothing on but black panties and a white tank top. And they’re the silky kind of panties. “What’s going on?” I whisper. I sound spastic. Something must’ve gone wrong for her to come to my bed like this.

  “I can’t sleep. Can I lie with you?” she asks, her voice still soft.

  I look at her pussy print on those panties. Shit. I don’t think it would be a good idea, especially since I can already feel my dick growing. “Sure,” I say like an idiot.

  I pat the empty side of the bed, and she lies on her back beside me. Her nipples are hard. My mouth is craving a taste.

  “Charlie?”

  “Yeah.” Shit, I’m too jumpy.

  “Will you hold me?”

  “Sure.” I raise my arm, and she slides up against my body. She asked for it, so I’m going to give her a feel of what she’s inspired. Maybe it’ll clue her in. She settles her ass right against it. This is becoming a common thing for us. It’s high school shit, and we should’ve been fucking two days ago. I’m waiting for her to say something. I’m breathing heavily against the back of her neck. I’m going to come just from being so damned turned on.