Fever Moon Page 8

  He was teasing her, but she didn’t care. She walked backward, pulling him inside by the hand. “I changed my mind.” Once he was inside, she latched the screen.

  His arms circled her from behind, pulling her against him where she felt again his desire for her. His hands gently captured her breasts, cupping them as he kissed her neck. “I would have called, but by the time I found a telephone I would have been even later.”

  “You want a drink?” She caught his hands and stilled them. Most of the time she was eager for a man to finish, pay, and leave. Raymond was not a paying customer, though. She wanted to make the evening last, to savor the hours they shared. She was playing with fire, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  “I’d like that.” He released her.

  She went to the kitchen and got the ice she’d already chipped and made two fresh drinks. Her body felt both heavy and light. Raymond stirred emotions that she knew were best left alone. Sexual desire was acceptable. That was the boundary Raymond had set for her—clearly set—before he began to see her on a regular basis. He gratified her in a way no other man did, because he could stretch time and sensation in a way she’d never experienced. Because this was more than just sex for her. That was a secret she could not share with him, else he would leave her. In the fantasies of a future life that she wove, he played a starring role.

  By the time she made the drinks her hands were shaking. She took a deep breath and forced a smile as she walked back to the front room where he stood looking out the door at the still, soft night.

  He took the drink and sipped it. “Thank you, Florence.” His gaze remained out the door, at the moonlight filtering through the crooked oak limbs and draping Spanish moss. “It’s twenty-six days until the next full moon.”

  She knew where his mind had gone without being told. “My granny used to tell me stories of the loup-garou.” She put her arm around his waist, content for the moment to drink and talk. Most men had no use for her memories or her dreams. Raymond enjoyed hearing about her past, and she wanted him to know her when she’d been innocent and untainted.

  “Were you afraid of the big bad wolf?” he asked. His hand slipped down her arm, hugging her against him.

  “When I was little, before Mama took a house in Baton Rouge.” She laughed. “Granny was a gifted storyteller. She would gather all of us children into bed with her, five or six of us all beneath the quilts. The house was heart pine, and the flames from the fireplace would dance on the walls and turn them red. Then Grandma would tell us about Pierre, a man who loved money more than anything else.”

  “Tell me the story.”

  She nestled closer to his side, inhaling his scent. “Pierre buried his money in the swamps so no one could find it. He was such a mean man that he left his wife and children hungry. When he went to work in the morning, he put the print of his hand in the flour barrel to be sure his wife used none of it to feed the children. He said they could eat acorns or catch fish, but he wasn’t going to feed them.”

  “Was Pierre a real person?”

  Florence shook her head. “I don’t know. I never knew him, but he could have been someone from my grandmother’s time.”

  “Tell me the rest.”

  “Pierre came home every evening and went by himself into the swamp to bury the money he’d made. He was late going out one night, and he traveled by the full moon, wanting to save the lantern oil. When he came to the right place he started digging, but then he heard something in the woods. He was angry because he thought one of the children had followed him to learn his secret hiding place.”

  “ ‘Come out and take the beating you deserve,’ he said. The only answer was the rustling of the underbrush. He grew angry and lit the lantern and held it up. ‘Come out or I’ll beat you until you can’t move,’ he cried.

  “Instead of a child, a beautiful woman stepped out of the woods. She wore a gown of white with a silver belt. A silver fur tipped in black was draped over her shoulders. He’d never seen anyone so lovely.”

  “This rendition of the loup-garou is different from what my family told. There was no mention of a beautiful woman as I recall the story.” Raymond finished his drink and she handed him hers, swapping glasses.

  “This was how Granny told it.”

  A breeze shifted the tree limbs, scattering the shadows on the ground.

  “What happened to Pierre and the beautiful woman?”

  “Pierre was so taken with her beauty that he forgot about burying his money. He scrambled out of the hole. ‘Are you lost?’ he asked. She said no, she knew exactly where she was. She said she’d been waiting to talk to him. He turned to reach for his lantern, and when he swung the light to better see her face, in her place stood a huge gray and black wolf with a silver belt around its neck-Florence hesitated. She hadn’t thought of the story in years, but she was suddenly transfixed by the image in her mind.

  “Florence?”

  “I remember now that I didn’t like the end of the story.” She tried to shrug off the feeling that settled over her.

  “Will you finish it? I’m taken with this beautiful woman who turns into a beast.”

  “Come inside.” The moon shadows shifting on the ground disquieted her. “I’ve given myself the heebie-jeebies.” She laughed and heard the hollowness in her voice.

  Raymond closed and locked the door. When he turned to her he took her glass and his and set them on a small table. With one sure movement he pulled her into his lap as he sat on the sofa. “Tell me the end.”

  Florence could hear the steady beating of his heart. The sound comforted her. She was a fool to let childhood fears slip around her, she who knew so well how superstitions fed on ignorance.

  “Pierre ran through the woods for his life with the wolf bounding after him. He made it home and rushed to barricade the doors, but he wasn’t fast enough. The wolf leaped into the house and attacked his wife and children, eating all of them. When it was finished, it changed back into the woman. She was covered in blood. It dripped from her mouth. She looked at Pierre and said, ‘Beware that you aren’t consumed by your own hungers.’ And then she ran out into the night.”

  “That’s a twist I didn’t expect.” Raymond was amused, and that more than anything eased the dread that had built around Florence. “Your grandmamma was teaching you a moral lesson about greed, wasn’t she?”

  “I haven’t thought of that story in years, but I guess I always hated it because the innocents were killed. If the loup-garou had eaten Pierre, it would have been justice.”

  Raymond’s hands stroked her bare arms. He kissed the top of her head. “I’ve never heard an account of the loup-garou that comes close to that. Usually the stories are about howling and salivating wolves and lost children that disappear forever in the dark swamps.”

  “Half the town believes Adele Hebert is the loup-garou.”

  His hands stopped moving on her flesh. “People are desperate for a diversion. Anything to turn their thoughts from the war and from the plague of fever. Adele has provided them delicious gossip, but I wonder if they truly believe.”

  “They believe what’s convenient.”

  He lifted her face so that he could look into her eyes. “You’re a bright woman, Florence. That’s why I enjoy your company. That and certain other talents.”

  She touched his freshly shaved cheek. A question burned in her mouth, but she knew not to ask. If she hinted that she wanted more than what he gave her, he would be gone. She hadn’t known Raymond before he went to war, but this much she knew—his mind was as scarred by what he’d done and seen as his body. He kept both hidden from everyone.

  Instead, she closed her eyes and kissed him. She let her body do the talking as she pressed into him, one hand catching a firm hold of his hair and the other working at the buttons of his shirt.

  He held her with one arm while his other hand began a slow exploration up her silk-clad leg. He made a noise of appreciation deep in his throat as he found the top of h
er stocking and then the bare flesh of her thigh.

  His fingers brushed lightly up her skin, barely grazing her pubic hairs and the bare flesh of her belly. His touch, so delicate yet so assured, turned her inside out. She arched in his lap, allowing him better access.

  “Florence, you’re a woman made for pleasure,” he whispered into her hair. “Sometimes I think knowing you is the only thing that keeps me human.”

  His words increased her hunger. If pleasure was what he wanted, she could give that. She was skilled in the ways of pleasing men. She kissed him deeply and then stood up. With a swift motion she reached behind her and unzipped the dress. She let it fall to the floor, revealing the black satin bra and matching garter belt she’d bought in Baton Rouge. He swallowed.

  He reached for her and she stepped back, smiling. “I want you to want me more than anything else in life.”

  His smile hid a near desperate need. “If I want you any more, I’ll embarrass myself here on your sofa.”

  Raymond had more control than he gave himself credit. She knew from past experience. “You can touch me with your hands. Or your tongue. Nothing else.”

  His answer was a groan.

  She stepped close enough for his hands to grasp her right thigh, sliding up the skin, moving to a place where she could barely control her own need for him. But she locked her knees and held herself steady, letting his fingers explore. When she could stand it no longer, she took his hand and pulled him from the sofa. Once he was standing, she unzipped his pants and freed him, satisfied that her merest touch made him inhale sharply.

  This was their game, to tease and tantalize each other to near torture. She liked to make it last, because it was these moments that she thought of when she surrendered her body to the lust of other men. It was Raymond she saw in her mind, replaying his touch, his caress, his teasing suggestiveness. And it made her work tolerable.

  She’d never known a man who enjoyed the art of foreplay as much as Raymond. He could spend hours drawing his fingers along the quivering skin of her abdomen, circling ever closer to the place that would bring her relief—yet veering away at the last moment, laughing at the way he made her body buck and arch toward him.

  And she returned the favor with her hands and lips. Until both reached the end of their endurance and the joining was all that remained to bring about the last and final pleasure. La petite mort was the term her mother had used. So fitting, as they lay exhausted afterward, almost too sensitive and alive for the touch of the sheet, yet exhausted to the point of near lethargy.

  Whatever sexual bond connected them, Florence had never known such complete satisfaction. She loved Raymond. Had no doubt of it. She also knew that to express those three words would end their nights together. It wasn’t that she was a whore. Her occupation had nothing to do with it. Raymond’s aversion to love went much deeper. He would never allow himself to admit his feelings for her, and he would never accept the responsibility that came if she revealed what her heart felt for him.

  As she smiled and led him to the bedroom, she felt the familiar stab of pain in her heart. She would satisfy herself with this moment, with this night, which was more than many women ever knew—based on her experiences with their clumsy husbands. Even if this were their last night together, she had truly loved.

  She finished unbuttoning his shirt and slid it from his body, and then unbuttoned his slacks. He stepped out of his shoes and pants in one fluid motion, and as she knelt to remove his shorts, she let her fingers trace the purple scar that covered his lower back and right buttocks and made an S down the outside of his thigh. Her probing fingers felt the metal still there, and she leaned to kiss it.

  “It doesn’t hurt anymore,” he said, and she knew he lied. She kissed it lightly and then turned her attention to things that wouldn’t remind him of the war or the parts of himself he’d lost in Europe.

  His fingers gripped her hair, massaging her scalp, and she felt true joy as she heard his moan of pleasure. This night would be enough for her. She would make it so.

  Kay-ie!

  Raymond awoke beside Florence, his heart pounding. He’d been dreaming of Antoine. He pulled the sheet over Florence’s taut hip, glad that he hadn’t awakened her. The night had grown chill, and Florence liked to sleep against him nude. At first he’d resisted staying the night, but the only sleep he achieved was beside Florence. Her warm body and the soft movement of her chest gave him more comfort than he cared to acknowledge. But not even Florence was a barrier against the past, against the man he was.

  In his dream Antoine had been standing by the bed. Raymond had reached out to him to beg forgiveness, but Antoine had faded into the night. Then Raymond had heard the hawk’s cry. He sat up and in the moonlight from the window he saw that blood had soaked Florence’s pillowcase. His eardrum was bleeding. Again. She never complained, never asked, and each time he came to her, the bed linens were ironed white perfection.

  He watched the rise and fall of her chest. Her breasts were lush, heavy. Made for a man. Her dark hair spread over the pillow, a froth of curls. The small scar on her face heightened her beauty. He held his hand a millimeter from her cheek, desperate to touch her. Yet he restrained himself. Sometimes, when he looked at her, he imagined he could see her as a child, a perfect, untainted beauty before life had put the pain he sometimes saw in her green eyes.

  He’d known brave men, but none more courageous than Florence. She met life with a smile and a tender touch. Those were her weapons, and she used them as a warrior. He didn’t have to protect her, because her strength was greater than his.

  A wolf’s howl came through the night, distant but clear, and he felt the hairs along his arms stand on end. Trappers had almost eradicated the wild creatures from the swamps—the bear and wolves and most of the big cats. A few survived, though. Had it been one of them that attacked Henri Bastion as he walked along the road? He hoped Doc Fletcher would have some idea of the beast that had bitten Henri.

  Raymond felt the need for action, but Florence slept so peacefully, and it was so little to give her—a night of companionship after the generous bounty of her love. Her feelings for him were strong, but he couldn’t bear to know about them. He came to her two or three times a week, and that told him how much he’d come to rely on her.

  The house he’d bought on the edge of town contained the necessities of life—a bed, a toilet, a lamp. The nights he spent there alone were tests of endurance. Often he didn’t try to sleep, avoiding the nightmares that plagued him and the pain that sometimes claimed his body in the darkness. Florence mitigated those things. Sometimes he vowed to stop seeing her, but he always returned. She was the only thing that made his life bearable.

  Plaintive and chilling, a cry of loneliness, the wolf spoke again. There was no answer, and Raymond wondered if it was a solitary creature whose pack had been killed.

  Adele’s face came unbidden, and he had a sudden surge of worry for Madame Louiselle. Guilt and anxiety made him want to leap up, but he held himself steady, listening to the slow breathing of the woman who curled against him.

  Adele was weak as a kitten, if she were still alive at all. He had his doubts that she’d survive the fever. His worries about Madame were unfounded, and he forced his tense body to relax. His fingers traced the side of Florence’s face, and she snuggled closer to him. Before he went to war, he’d always thought a wife and family were his for the asking. He’d intended to do his duty and come home to resume the rhythms of life he knew in Iberia Parish. His secret dream involved an education—a type of betterment the army had made possible. He’d always been interested in journalism, the writing of facts, a modern-day historian. Journalists dug beneath the surface of things, and he’d always been good at that. Chula, even after their romance had faltered and died, had encouraged him in his dreams.

  The war had changed him, though. He’d lost all ambition for an education. He’d come home and, despite the sometimes intense pain of his leg and hip, had settled i
nto the job of deputy. There was little to dig into, but what digging was done in the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office, he did.

  When the sun came up, he had some tracking to do. He’d failed to find Clifton Hebert, but some of the tidbits of gossip he’d heard had piqued his interest. Clifton lived far back in the swamp—no one could, or would, give an exact location. The one thing that all of his sources had been sure about was that Clifton Hebert kept a pack of savage dogs. Hog-catchers. Dogs so vicious and filled with bloodlust that they would jump the wild boars that roamed the swamps and hang on to the nose and ears until the human hunters could catch up and either shoot the boar or wrestle it to the ground and tie it for domesticating. It was said the meat would lose its gamey taste if the boar was castrated and fed corn or grain for several weeks before slaughter. Catching the dangerous boars alive was also part of the insane excitement.

  Often the dogs were slashed by the boar’s razor-sharp tusks, and the men who hunted boar for sport sometimes didn’t come back alive. Raymond had been on several search parties for missing men where a body was found, the hamstring muscles in the back of the legs severed. Once the boar brought a man down, it didn’t waste a lot of time finishing the kill. Wild boars were dangerous game for men and dogs alike. Clifton Hebert made his living leading such hunting expeditions.

  It had not escaped Raymond’s attention that the wounds on Henri Bastion could have been made by savage dogs. Or hogs. Clifton needed to answer to his whereabouts on the night Henri Bastion died.

  Other things nagged at him. Rosa Hebert, for one. How was it possible that one family could contain such a wealth of misfortune? His compassion for Adele and Rosa, topped off by his suspicions about what had happened to Armand Dugas, had led his thinking down a long and tortuous road. His calls to the state penitentiary at Angola had gone unheeded. His requests for a state-verified list of prisoners sent to work the Bastion farm had been met with amusement by the deputy warden who took his call.

  Strangely enough, it wasn’t Henri Bastion’s ravaged body that kept pricking his subconscious. It was Henri’s daughter, standing by the screen door. She’d clearly been terrified of him.