Longarm and the Voodoo Queen (7 page)

After a few minutes, the carriage reached Chartres Street and rolled through an open gate of black wrought iron onto a circular drive paved with flagstones. It led up to the entrance of a large, three-story brick house. Wooden pillars bordered a veranda that ran the length of the house. The pillars supported a balcony with moss dripping from its railing. The mansion was old but well kept, Longarm saw with a glance as the carriage came to a stop.

He opened the door and stepped down, then turned back to assist Annie. As she took his hand, she whispered, "Come in with me."

Longarm wasn't particularly surprised. All during the carriage ride, if not before that, he had been able to tell that Annie was attracted to him. The feeling was mutual. But he murmured softly, "I told the driver to take me back to the hotel."

"Ask him to return to the Brass Pelican and wait for Paul," she said. "Tell him that you will walk back to the St. Charles."

The lie seemed pretty apparent to Longarm, but at least it would allow Annie to keep up appearances. He moved to the front of the carriage and looked up at the driver. "You can head on back to the club and wait for Mr. Clement, old son," he told the man. "It's a nice night, so I think I'll walk over to my hotel from here."

"As you wish, suh," said the driver as he took up his reins once more. "Good evenin' to yuh."

With a gentle flick of the reins, the driver got the team moving again, and the carriage rolled on around the drive and back through the gate onto Chartres Street. Longarm turned around and looked at Annie, who was standing at the door underneath the small lamp that had been left burning there. In its soft yellow glow, she looked incredibly lovely. She lifted a hand, held it out toward Longarm.

He went to her, clasping her hand, and she led him into the house.

Inside, the mansion matched its opulent exterior. Hand in hand, Longarm and Annie moved through a foyer with gilt-edged mirrors on both walls that opened into a large, airy room with a high ceiling. When Longarm glanced up, he saw that the chamber extended all the way to a large domed skylight in the mansion's roof. A curving staircase with an alabaster rail led up to a balcony that ran completely around the center of the room. He could see a third-floor balcony as well. Annie tugged him toward the stairs, a little impatient now.

"I thought I was supposed to walk back to the St. Charles," he said dryly.

"Don't toy with me, Custis," she said. "We both know why I asked you to come in. My bedroom is on the third floor."

"Usually in cases like this, it's the lady who says something about how things are moving sort of fast."

She laughed, a liquid, sensual sound. "As I told you, don't toy with me. I want you, Custis Parker, and I intend to have YOU."

As they reached the bottom of the staircase and Annie took a step up, Longarm said, "Your brother..."

She whirled back toward him, her features taut and unreadable. "Don't talk about Paul," she said. "Don't even mention him. Not tonight."

Longarm frowned. He wasn't sure what had come over Annie. Earlier in the evening, she had seemed devoted to her brother, even though she was a little bored by his gambling. Now she acted almost as if she hated him.

But that was none of his business, Longarm told himself. He had been lucky enough to meet this beautiful woman, and now she wanted him in her bed and was completely unabashed about her desires. His chance acquaintance with Annie and Paul Clement had already paid a considerable dividend in the job he had landed with Jasper Millard. Now he seemed to be on the verge of collecting another dividend.

The fact that she was standing on the first step while he was still on the floor brought their faces close to the same level. Suddenly, Annie leaned forward, and her lips found his in an urgent kiss. Longarm slipped his arms around her waist and pulled her to him.

His tongue darted between her lips as she opened herself to him, and he explored the hot, wet cavern of her mouth for several moments. Her tongue replied in kind, circling his, fencing with it. Her breasts prodded softly against his chest, and her arms tightened around his neck as she hugged him.

They stood that way for a long moment, straining against each other. Then Annie broke the kiss. "Come!" she said urgently. She reached down to catch hold of his hand. "Come with me."

Longarm went.

A few minutes later, he found himself in an elegantly furnished bedchamber on the third floor of the mansion. There were lace curtains on the windows and a thick rug on the floor. The room was dominated by the large, four-poster, canopied bed that was its main piece of furniture, but there was also a long dressing table with a mirror above it and a tall wardrobe with gold handles on its doors. Annie tugged him eagerly toward the bed.

Longarm stopped her and turned her around so that her back was toward him. His fingers went to the buttons of the gown and began unfastening them. With all the buttons behind her like this, he knew she hadn't done up this gown herself; she must have had help, and that made him wonder about servants. He leaned closer to her and whispered into her ear, "Any hired help in the house?"

She closed her eyes and leaned back against him as she shook her head. "They've all gone home for the night. None of them stay here. We have the house to ourselves."

Longarm went back to what he was doing, which was unfastening the final button in the row that ran down her spine. He spread the dress open, revealing the smooth, honey-colored expanse of her back all the way down to the sensual twin dimples just above the cleft of her buttocks. He gathered up the thick masses of her hair and lifted them to expose the nape of her neck, and that was where he planted his lips in a long, lingering kiss that slowly slid down her back. Annie shivered and made a noise deep in her throat. He heard her whisper his name.

When he reached the small of her back, he stopped and let his tongue play over the smooth skin and downy hairs he found there. After a moment in which her breathing became noticeably heavier, Annie moved a step away from him and turned. Longarm stayed where he was, kneeling on the soft rug beside the bed. He looked up at her as she pulled the dress over her shoulders and then slowly lowered it in front of her. Her firm, apple-shaped breasts came into view. They rode high and proud on her chest, and the large brown nipples were pebbled and erect.

She pushed the gown on past her hips, taking her petticoats with it. As the frilly undergarments fell around her ankles, she stood nude before him. Longarm gloried in her loveliness, his heart beating heavily in his chest. He stood slowly and stepped over to her. She held out her arms to receive him. He kissed her again, savoring the erotic sensation of cradling her naked form against him while he was still fully dressed.

That situation didn't last long. Her fingers fairly flew over his body as she began taking his clothes off, unbuttoning here, tugging there, her movements becoming more urgent as she stripped away the layers of fabric separating his skin from hers. Finally, her hand closed around the huge pole of flesh that jutted out from his groin, and she sighed as her eyes widened in wonder.

Her back was to the bed, and as Longarm rested his hands on her bare shoulders and pressed down gently, she went eagerly, reclining and pulling him down with her. Her thighs parted and his hand found her core, which was already drenched in her juices. She clutched his shaft with both hands, making milking motions along it as his fingers delved into the wet folds of feminine flesh. The ball of his hand was resting on her mound, and he pressed down gently but insistently. She took one hand away from his erection and caught hold of his hair as he lowered his head to one of her hard, demanding nipples and sucked it into his mouth. His shaft was like a rod of iron, throbbing almost painfully as she caressed it and used her thumb to spread the moisture that pearled from its tip all around the flaring head.

"Now, Custis!" she gasped. "Oh, God, now!"

He had already moved between her widespread thighs, balancing there on his knees. His manhood was only inches away from her fiery center. He drove forward with a thrust of his hips and found the gates of her womanhood open wide for him. She gasped again as he entered her, filling her deeply and completely. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and held on to him with surprising strength. The muscles of her femininity clenched on him as well, their grip so hot and tight that he almost lost control right away.

With a groan of effort, he exerted his iron will and forced down the reaction that was building within him. Neither of them were ready for this to be over yet. His hips began to move as he withdrew almost all the way, then plunged into her again.

"Harder!" she panted. "Harder!"

Longarm drove in and out, filling her to the brim, then pulling back. Both of them were breathing fast now, and Longarm could hear the thunder of his pulse inside his head. Annie plastered her mouth to his and her tongue shot into his mouth, plundering him as he was plundering her down below. The rest of the world had retreated, leaving only the two of them, and the only sounds to be heard on the entire planet were the rasp of their breath, the liquid movement of heated flesh within flesh, and the faint slapping of belly against belly.

Then Annie tore her mouth away from his and began to make a small, keening sound as her head thrashed from side to side on the bed. Longarm knew she had reached her culmination, so he held back no longer. He plunged deeply within her again, as deep as he could go, and held his shaft there as great, shuddery spasms shook him. His seed exploded from him in spurt after spurt, draining him and filling her in the eternal siphon of passion. Finally, with another shudder and jerk, the last of it welled from him. Sated, he slipped from her and rolled to the side, because he knew that if he didn't get off her, his weight would crush her as his muscles turned to jelly and he could no longer support himself on his elbows and knees.

Annie snuggled against his side, resting her head on his chest as he looped an arm around her and held her to him. Breathlessly, she said, "I am... so glad you... came to New Orleans, Custis."

He brushed his lips against her hair and murmured, "So am I."

In truth, his first day here had gone stunningly well. He had made progress on the job that had brought him to the Crescent City, and he had bedded a lovely, passionate woman whom he hadn't even known when this morning dawned. Too much good luck?

Longarm wondered how that trip down to the Delta country with Jasper Millard was going to go the next day.

CHAPTER 6

Longarm said, "Damn!" and swatted at the mosquito busily feasting on his neck. Beside him, Jasper Millard laughed.

"You stay down here in this country for very long, Parker," said Millard, "and you'll get to where you don't even notice those little bastards."

"That one wasn't so little," Longarm said as he studied the squashed insect on the palm of his hand. Its death had left a smear of blood on his skin. His own blood, thought Longarm, which the varmint had just sucked out of him. "These things get much bigger, they're liable to start carrying off dogs."

Millard chuckled again. He and Longarm were riding side by side along a road that followed the twisting course of a bayou. It was mid-morning and already quite hot, even though the cypress trees that bordered the road cast quite a bit of shade. Long strands of Spanish moss dangling from the branches brushed against Longarm's face from time to time. A warm breeze that was as lazy as the almost imperceptible current of the bayou brought a mixture of pungent smells to Longarm. The most prominent was that of the rich brown earth, but he also smelled the sweetness of honeysuckle and bougainvillea as well as the sharper tang of rotting fish. All in all, it was a blend that took some getting used to.

He had left his coat and vest behind today, though he still wore the string tie around his neck. His white shirt was already soaked with sweat. He had rolled the sleeves up for a while, but exposing his brawny forearms just gave the mosquitos more places to bite him. The sleeves were rolled down now. He wore brown whipcord pants and his usual black stovepipe boots. Millard had complimented him on the high-topped boots. "They're good for tromping around the bayou country," Millard had said. "Helps keep the rattlers and the cottonmouths and the copperheads and the coral snakes from biting you."

What kind of place was it, Longarm wondered, that had so many venomous snakes? Weren't one or two kinds enough?

The area was teeming with wildlife. So far he had seen deer and squirrels and skunks and opossums. A couple of times he had spotted what he first thought were logs floating in the water, and then he had seen the tiny black eyes protruding from the surface of the bayou. Those were alligators out there, he realized, gators just like the one that had chomped half of Douglas Ramsey's body. Maybe one of them was the same gator, for all he knew. A chill went through him at the thought, but he managed not to shudder.

From time to time, Longarm and Millard passed shacks with palmetto-thatched roofs. The shacks were built of unpainted, weather-bleached boards and were set atop stilts, and many of them leaned a little--whether from shoddy construction or the hurricane winds that sometimes blew from the Gulf, Longarm didn't know. Beside the shacks were small patches of garden. Cows and pigs and chickens were confined in ramshackle pens. Some of the shacks backed up to the bayou or even extended over the water on their stilts, and pirogues were tied up at these. The lightweight canoes drew very little water, Longarm knew. He had heard it said that they could float on a heavy dew.