Taking the Belle: A Shapeshifter New Orleans Romance (Her Big Easy Wedding Book 1) Read online

  She smiled up at him and inched in closer. “Does that mean we’re officially a couple? Or are you one of those guys who is all ‘I don’t want to define this thing, let’s just have fun’?”

  Ash put his arms around her and hugged her close against the cold. “Baby, if I can’t make myself exclusive to the girl who makes me come four times in one night and asks for nothing in return, then I ain’t worth the salt on the rim of my mommy’s margarita on the night she and Daddy made me.”

  He felt Rosemary snuggle in closer. “You sure have a strange way with words. But I like the way you say them.”

  Ash kissed the top of her head. “And I like the way you press your little tits up against me. Makes me want to grab you up and kiss you all over. And taste you.” He bent lower and placed small kisses on her ears and down her neck. She tugged herself closer into his embrace and snuggled her face into his chest.

  “Baby, can I please kiss those lips? I’ve been thinking of nothing but that sweet mouth of yours since I left you the other night.”

  She sighed and her body relaxed against him.

  “Yes, you can, but I have to tell you something.”

  “Chlamydia?”

  “Gross!” She slapped him with the edge of her fringed scarf. “No…I’ve never been kissed before.”

  Ash could have been knocked over with not just a feather but with a flea on that feather.

  “Let me get this straight. You’ve never even kissed a guy, but you know how to give a blowjob to send a guy through the roof?”

  She looked up at him sheepishly and he watched her blush. “Well, you know there’s this thing called the Internet.”

  “Wow. I’d say you’re a damn quick study,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her nose. It was cold, and he pulled her in even tighter against him.

  She breathed, “I just didn’t want you to think I was a freak.”

  He chuckled and kissed the tip of her ear. “Oh, you are most definitely a freak. In an incredibly amazing way.”

  “Oh Ash, that feels good. Kiss me.” She looked up and Ash saw the flush of blood plumping her lips. She was past due for a kiss.

  He leaned down and their lips met with a soft, interlocking bliss. Ash felt her sigh, and it sent an erotic little spark all through him. Her lips tasted like a delicious secret only he was privy to. Whatever she was hiding, he wanted more of it. He pressed a little harder and her lips opened up. He slipped in his tongue to meet hers. Like a pair of eager teenagers, the two of them stood there exploring each other’s lips and mouths like they were the only two people in the world.

  When they finally pulled apart, Ash could not stop his mouth from spilling it all. Well…most of it. “All right. Let’s do this, baby girl. I’m serious. I’m not talking about dating, I’m talking marriage. Now’s your chance. Marry me, or cut and run. It’s your choice. It won’t hurt me if you run.” Yes, it would, but she didn’t need to know that.

  Rosemary looked shocked, surprised, pleased and a little scared all at once. He waited for her to say something. He desperately wanted to know what she was thinking.

  “All right, Ash, let’s do this. And I mean now. I want a short engagement.”

  Even better. “Anything you want.”

  “Because, as you’ve probably guessed, I’m a virgin. Can you handle that?” She stared into his eyes and rained that velvet voice all over him, giving him eyes that were so bedroom he felt like he was already there.

  “I can handle it. What I can’t handle is not having your lips on me for another second longer.”

  Ash’s shirt was off and he was leaning up against the cold marble inside an old mausoleum. Interesting, how that can happen on a simple stroll around the grounds of a cemetery. Rosemary was saying, “I think we ought to get to know each other better if we’re going to be married.” Then she inched down ad pressed her soft lips against his pectorals. “What’s your favorite color?”

  “That smeary part of the sky at sunrise where you can’t tell if it’s pink or if it’s orange. It’s like, rose gold or something, but better. It’s what I imagine your skin will look like on our wedding night after I’m finished with you. What about yours?”

  “Icy grayish blue, like your eyes,” she said, kissing his other pectoral.

  “Where did you go to school?”

  He answered, running his fingers through her hair, “Jefferson High School, then Tulane for a year. Couldn’t make it. Left and went to Europe for a while. Came back and went to work for Daddy at JB’s. Now I’m writing copy for an ad firm. I’m kind of a savant in the business. The JB Chicken jingle? I did that.”

  She suddenly stopped kissing and licking his abs and met his eyes. “Are you kidding me? ‘JB Stands for Just the Best.’ That was you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I love that jingle!”

  “That’s it, I’m leaving.” He pretended to try to get out of her embrace, but she shoved him back with an impressively strong hand.

  “I’m not kidding. I’ve driven my parents crazy with that ear-worm ever since it came out on TV! I thank you for that, sir! I’m in the presence of a genius! Don’t you get it? We were meant to be together!”

  Ash did believe in fate. He was happy to see that Rosemary did too. But was he any closer to telling her the whole story about who he was? Maybe later.

  “And what about you, baby girl? Where did ol’ Lionel send his princess to school?”

  She had been traveling lower, and lower, planting kisses down his stomach to the pleasure trail, rubbing her hands through his chest hair. She gave a quick tug that sent a blast of pain through his chest. “Ow!”

  She stood upright and smirked. “That was for the princess comment. Holy Family Prep,” she said, tracing kisses along his shoulders from one side to the other as she spoke. “Then I went to Wellesley for a while, got bored stiff. Nobody likes to have any fun up there, and also it was too cold. So against my parents’ wishes I finished up at Florida State. I got my degree in elementary education and now I teach kindergarten.”

  “A teacher,” he said. “That’s hot.”

  “Is it?”

  He winked. “Sure is. I can see some serious role playing with a ‘Hot for Teacher’ scenario in our future.”

  She smiled and licked his earlobe. “Glasses, bun, miniskirt?”

  “Nah, pencil skirt.”

  “Ooh, a man who knows what a pencil skirt is, now that is hot,” Rosemary said, raking her teeth over his nipple.

  He sucked in his breath and then gave a laugh. “Shut up, I got five sisters plus a best friend who’s a girl, gimme a break.”

  “Ash, you didn’t tell me your family was also Catholic.”

  He grinned. “Hell, nah. We’re just…rambunctious folk.”

  That was the closest he got to telling her about the beast, but he soon got distracted with some seriously hot petting. He opened her coat and squeezed he delightful little breasts through her top. His hands explored her ass, her legs, and her core through her jeans. He was drawn so hard to her pussy. Her scent told him she was totally creaming her jeans the more he squeezed her with her clothes on. Ash massaged her between her thighs until she moaned.

  “Oh Ash, unzip my pants, please.”

  “Here? Babe, we’re nearly bumping uglies in public.”

  “Oblige me, darlin’.”

  Well, he would be ungentlemanly if he did not. Ash unfastened her jeans and slipped his hands down over her ass. He worked his lips down her front until his face was level with her tummy. He lifted her shirt and saw a delicious-looking navel. He kissed her there and inhaled deeply. There it was. Her spice of sandalwood and lavender. She was pampered but strong.

  He knew all he had to do was tug her jeans down, push aside her lacy panties and start pleasing her clit with his tongue. Public or not, there would be no way she could push him away. She would not say no. He knew this to be the truth. It would be a surge of pleasure like nothing she’d ever had before. Surely she
knew that. If she had been looking up oral sex on the Internet, then she knew how he might want to please her in return. But with her somewhat limited experience, he let her take the wheel. “What do you want me to do for you, baby doll?”

  “Make me come with your hands.”

  Without a word, he moved his hand inside her panties and felt her bare pussy. Slipping his fingers between her velvety folds, he found her aroused little clit. Rosemary sucked in her breath. She was already soaked for him.

  Ash worked her hard little nub as he watched her face. She was enjoying it, but she also looked tense.

  “Relax your face, baby girl, and enjoy it. It’s just you and me.”

  She relaxed her face into a smile and circled her arms around his neck.

  Ash reached further into her depth and found her sheath, sinking a finger in slightly. Her bare pussy and her wetness combined with the look on her face, her lips parted, was giving him the biggest, hardest boner. The fact that she was a virgin who wanted him to be the first added an extra layer of arousal for him.

  “Don’t break it, not yet, Ash.”

  He leaned in and kissed the place where her swan-like neck met her shoulder, and then said, “I won’t, baby girl. I’m just getting you ready for what comes later. Trust me, this will make it a lot more fun.”

  Ash thought he might’ve heard a quiet purr coming from somewhere deep in her throat. It was an odd, inhuman noise, but it doubled his desire for her.

  She let go of the tension in her hips and rocked her pelvis closer to him, begging him to go harder, faster, deeper. Ash exploited every inch of her body that his hands could reach while not removing her clothes. His hand was thoroughly soaked from her. Lord, he was going to really enjoy fucking his future wife, very soon.

  She must have been thinking the same thing, because she moaned, “You have magical hands, darlin’. Keep going.”

  Ash ramped up the intensity of his strokes and sank his middle finger a little deeper. “We ain’t stopping until you say uncle.”

  She smiled. “Well, see, Uncle Trev is in the other crypt just a stone’s throw away. We can do it in there next time, if you want.”

  He didn’t know if she was kidding and he could not have cared less. How can a human be so close to coming and still make jokes? He leaned down and bit her hard little nipple through her shirt.

  Rosemary let out a startled cry of pleasure. “Oh Ash!”

  “That was for being a wise-ass while I’m about to make you come.”

  She gasped and ran her fingers through his hair. “Well, if that’s the case I got a whole bucket full of one-liners about my family.”

  He smiled. “Oh you like the biting?”

  She whispered hoarsely, “So much.”

  Ash grinned mischievously and worked his teeth across her collarbone, down to her nipple and bit down gently, repeating until he felt her breath catch. He worked his teeth in sync with his strokes at her soaking wet core until he felt her body start to buck.

  He didn’t want to miss this moment and so he gave her hard bud one last little bite through her shirt and then straightened up so they were face to face again. He didn’t let up his strokes and, finally, the “Big O” crossed her face as she cried out. Her eyes closed and she yelled out his name. More like roared, like some kind of damn ferocious feline. Lordy, what a pleasure it was to know he was the cause of all her commotion.

  He felt the tightening of her sex, but he kept going until the spasms of pleasure finally calmed down and her heart rate began to return to normal.

  She fell against him and sighed. “I always wondered what an orgasm would feel like. I’m so glad it was you who gave it to me.”

  He felt less surprised and more honored by the distinction.

  “I feel like we should seal this moment with a kiss.” Ash gently removed his hand from her panties and showed it to her.

  She hesitated. “I don't know.”

  “Who’s your daddy?”

  “You are,” she said, her eyelids heavy with pleasure.

  “Kiss my fingers.”

  Rosemary looked at his eyes and then his hand.She closed her eyes and kissed first his pinky finger, slowly worked her way across, tasting each of his fingers with reverence. “I love this hand. Make sure you bring this hand to our wedding night.”

  But Ash was in no mood for jokes. He was about to explode into his drawers. When she’d kissed each of his fingers on that hand, he then rubbed her scent all over his chest and down his washboard abs.

  “What are you doing?” she asked lazily.

  He was dead serious. “Putting your mark on me. I’m going to wear you on me until you’re in my skin, in my blood. You’re already in my head and my heart.”

  Chapter 6

  Rosemary

  “I have absolutely nothing to wear.”

  Penny stared into the colossal dressing room that was Rosemary’s closet.

  “Rosemary, you have more clothes in this room than I have ever had in my life, combined.”

  Rosemary was making good on her promise to bring Ash to dinner. She was fully aware of the ramifications of bringing a Boudreaux into her daddy’s house. And she was nervous.

  “I need something modest. Virginal. Daddy will have a fit if he sees any of my little love bites.”

  “Understood,” said Penny, who then told Rosemary to take off her top to give her an idea of how much coverage was needed.

  “Good lord!” Penny was astonished.

  This was not helping Rosemary feel any less nervous. “Penny, I need you to not act shocked. That’s not gonna calm my nerves.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  The nervous edge was replaced by excitement at the thought of Ash’s mouth, his tongue, his teeth…focus, Rosie, focus.

  “I asked him to do it.” Rosemary shrugged. “It’s kind of our thing. I’m surprised this never came to your attention with any of Ash’s previous girlfriends.”

  Penny started digging through the sweater section of the closet. “He hasn’t had that many girlfriends. We stuck close together since we were kids. We sort of share…a trauma, I guess you could call it—and there wasn’t much time for girlfriends. I think if he ever dated anybody casually it was when he was working his way through Europe. Most recently he was with Valerie, but it didn’t last long. She cheated on him so we don’t talk about her much.”

  Rosemary watched as Penny draped three different sweaters over one arm and pulled out two skirts with the other. “I think one of these sweaters with a wool skirt. It’s cold out and it looks very schoolmarmish. And you should wear either boots or low heels, I think.”

  Rosemary wanted to broach the next subject with some tact, but it just wasn’t in her blood. “Ash and I are getting married.”

  “Huh?” Penny swirled around. “What?”

  “In June. We’ve decided. We don't have a ring yet, but we talked about it. He wants to give me his grandmother’s ring.”

  Penny turned white as a sheet. “Has he told you…anything about himself?”

  “What do you mean?” Rosemary feared from the look on Penny’s face that she meant he had some incurable disease or that he was a secret assassin or something. Those would be the only things worse than her own feline secret.

  “Ash is…different. It has a lot to do with this trauma that we all went through in high school. That’s why all of us are still so close..”

  “You’re being really vague.”

  “I think he ought to tell you himself. In fact, he will have to, because unless he plans on eating and dashing off, he’s gonna start acting weird at dinner tonight.”

  Rosemary wondered if Ash and Penny’s secret was actually not all that different from her own.

  “I wish you could explain more to me.”

  Penny patted her friend on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine. Just try to keep an open mind.” Then she hugged her. “I’m so happy for you. I’m excited to have brought you two together. I wish I could stay a
nd chat a little bit, but I do have to scoot off myself. Just remember that the only thing that matters is you and Ash love each other, and everything else will fall into place, even those stubborn DuChamps. OK?”

  Rosemary was sad that Penny was running off so quickly, but she felt a little better knowing she had an ally.

  As soon as Penny left, she got a text from Ash.

  Hey, baby girl. I am so sorry but is there any way we could reschedule the dinner? I’m a big dummy and I forgot to look at my calendar and I have a thing tonight. It’s kind of set in stone once a month. I am so sorry.

  She already knew the answer to that from her parents. A big fat no.She texted him back.

  Uh, no, they won’t like that one bit.

  Then the reply came a few seconds later:

  OK, I might be able to eat, but I’ll have to skip out before dessert. I hope that won’t be seen as rude.

  She replied:

  I’ll ask them to bump everything up an hour if that will help.

  That should do it. You’re a doll and I know I’m a giant child for doing this to you. Sure you still want to marry me?”

  She smiled and typed:

  You’re an idiot if you think I’m letting you off the hook that easily.

  Rosemary had followed Penny’s advice: low-heeled boots, knee-length wool skirt and navy-blue turtleneck sweater. Though she thoroughly enjoyed carrying around Ash’s marks on her body throughout her daily life, she was less than comfortable letting her daddy see the things this interloper had done to her. Her shoulders and her breasts were looking more like a spotted wildcat’s these days than a panther’s. Wildcat shifters? Please! Those were more of a Baton Rouge thing.

  When she arrived at the DuChamps mansion, she was surprised to see how elaborate a dinner had been planned. The Limoges plates were out, in all their fine gilt-edged glory. The cut crystal water goblets, the good wine glasses, and every piece of silver, from shrimp forks to dessert spoons. Well, shit. This was going to be a long night.

  Ash