Page 48 of Cognac Secrets

“What she’s doing is beautiful work,” I said. “Someone will pay top dollar for that kind of art piece.”

“Oh, I know. She’s been sellin’ ‘em on that there internet site for artists for a good long while now. You should see the stuff she and Alina collaborate on. Where she roughs up and vaguely carves out some scene or image and Alina goes in with her paints and livens it up. Some real fantastic stuff.”

“I would love to see that, actually,” I said.

“Well, come on; I’m sure the girls got that stuff around here. They’re using part of the club for storage for now, building up a supply and shit.”

“Having stores of product does seem like a logical first step for this kind of thing,” I said.

“I reckon,” he said with a grin and a nod and I let him lead me over to the cook pot and the aforementioned girls.

CHAPTERTHIRTEEN

Bennie…

She was getting along with Alina and Cor like a house on fire, and when Jessie-Lou finally deigned to come down out of her ivory tower of bone and gemstone, she seemed to take a liking to Sandy, too – which was pretty impressive considering Jessie-Lou didn’t warm up toanyoneright away. It just wasn’t her thing.

Sandy fit right in, like a missing puzzle piece, and I thought that was pretty sweet. We ate, drank, cracked jokes and cut up, and generally had a good time late into the evening and by the time I was getting antsy to leave, she was more than relaxed, more than a few drinks in and starting to dance to the music over the loudspeaker back here, sidling up to me with her red solo cup with that sexy and alluring sway to her hips, her arms going around my neck and her body pressing close to mine in that way that got me instantly rising to attention in my shorts.

“Hey, baby,” I murmured in her ear as she let her lips find the side of my neck.

“Hey,” she purred back.

“You happy?” I asked her.

“Very,” she said with a lightness to her tone that made me smile.

“You about ready to get out of here?” I asked low against her ear and I had to say, I delighted in the way she shivered against my body at the sound of my voice. It did some pretty special things to my heart rate and the way that those butterflies took flight in my stomach? Well… I hadn’t felt that sensation in a very long time.

“Where to?” she asked.

I smiled to myself.

“Let’s go for a walk, yeah?”

“I’d go anywhere with you as long as it meant I get more of you,” she said as we swayed in the circle of each other’s arms to the jazz blaring from the speakers.

“Bet,” I growled in her ear and again with that delicious little shiver against me. I steered her around and toward the front, Louie giving me a chin lift from behind the bar as Sandy set her cup on the end and twined both her arms around me as we awkwardly walked, bumping into each other. I laughed, she giggled and we got it together after a few stumbling steps, spilling out the front of the club into the fenced off courtyard out front.

“No, come on, we’re walking,” I told her when she slowed near the bikes.

“Oh?” she asked with faint surprise tinging her tone.

“It’s not far,” I told her. “You trust me?”

“Have you given me any reason not to?” she asked and I smiled.

“No,” I said.

“Then, yes,” she said wrapping both her arms around my one as she let me take the lead.

We struck out into the sultry New Orleans night along the cracked sidewalks out front of the club and Sandy sang wordlessly under her breath. She sounded happy, content, and that mademeboth of those things… and I didn’t quite know what to do with that, except to push those feelings down and away for right now.

I stopped us in front of the shotgun house I’d purchased and she stopped, looking at me, surprise softly taking over her expression at whatever she perceived was in mine.

“Why are you looking at me that way?” she asked quietly and I smiled.

“Because we’re here…”

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