No Time Like Mardi Gras Read Online Free PDF

her seemed to disappear as Colin’s thumb traced circles against her palm. Her free hand came to rest on the outside of his thigh, and she felt the muscles under the fabric tighten.
    Then the crowd moved, sending the guy in front of her staggering backward to bump into her. Drunk and rowdy, he took it as an introduction and made a descriptive suggestion to her.
    Before she could do more than gasp, Colin had released her hand and pushed the guy back with a very succinct suggestion of his own. And while her erstwhile admirer was fueled by testosterone and copious amounts of alcohol, Colin stood a full head taller and several inches wider. The man’s friends wisely pulled him back.
    Colin shoved the rest of the way through the crowd and back into the street, where the people were at least moving. “Sorry about that. You okay?”
    “Yeah.” Although he’d pulled her back against him, the moment had been ruined, and Jamie felt her cheeks burning. She’d been caught in a slow simmer all afternoon, but the overcharged, overindulged raunchiness around her made that moment under the balcony feel slightly tawdry now. She wanted out of the Quarter and back to the earlier mood. “I think I’ve seen—”
    She gasped as a blonde in a very small tank top stumbled over her own feet and the drink in her hand landed all over Jamie. Something slushy and pink covered most of her shoulders and chest, and icy rivulets slid down her cleavage. Against the heat and humidity, the cold and wet drink initially felt refreshing, but Jamie’s eyes watered from the alcohol fumes even as it soaked through her shirt and bra to her skin, replacing that refreshing feeling with clammy stickiness.
    The girl mumbled an apology, but she seemed more upset by the loss of her drink than the fact that Jamie was now wearing it. The way the girl was weaving, the loss of alcohol was probably a blessing, although Jamie didn’t doubt she’d get a refill quickly enough.
    Colin took a look at her and shook his head. “Have you had enough of the Quarter now?”
    Wet, sticky and still reeling from that earlier moment, she gritted out, “Very much so.”
    Colin surveyed the damage. “Come on. Let’s go get you cleaned up.”
    That didn’t seem likely or even possible, and there was something slightly humiliating about the whole thing, but she was now miserable in more ways than she could count, and getting off Bourbon Street seemed like a very good idea regardless. She let Colin lead her through a less crowded back alley she’d never walk into alone, not even for money, and when they emerged on Chartres Street, she realized they were going back to the Lucky Gator.
    She’d come full circle.
    * * *
    He shouldn’t have brought Jamie back into the Quarter—or at the very least, he should have kept her off Bourbon Street. He certainly knew better, even if she didn’t. It was too out of control, with too many people acting like idiots and bordering on dangerous. But there was something about Jamie that made him want to indulge her. She seemed to want to experience everything, give it all at least one try, and she embraced everything with enthusiasm and excitement.
    And he had to admit he was rather hoping she’d indulge him back—hopefully with a bit of that enthusiasm, too. It was getting damn near impossible to keep his hands to himself. What had started off as a lark, a little good deed to show her a good time, had turned into something else. Sure, Jamie was gorgeous and he wasn’t immune to that, but there was also something... refreshing about her as well. Something wholesome and sweet that stood out against the decadence of Mardi Gras and made him see the event through new eyes.
    But playing tour guide today of all days had brought its own issues. He’d had her pressed against him so many times today, felt the soft skin of her inner thigh against his cheek.... All perfectly innocent and understandable in the situation, but what it was doing to him was