The Red-Hot Cajun Read Online Free PDF Page A

one little piddly unimportant time we were together?
    I hope not.
    He’d done his best over the years to put it behind him, to forget it had ever happened. But a small part of him wanted another shot, to prove he was better. But that would be trouble on the hoof. Totally, absolutely, out of the question.
    “I beg your pardon,” he said with as much lack of interest as he could muster. Two years? Meanwhile his you-know-what jumped to attention with no lack of interest.
    In fact, it was definitely interested. It had been two weeks since he’d had sex, but weeks were like dog years on the male testosterone thermometer. At least, that’s what his older brother Luc always used to say. Luc had been the expert to all the boys in Houma ever since about age twelve when he’d pilfered a copy of Penthouse from the shelves of Boudreaux’s General Store. Two years?
    “Listen, bozo, I haven’t had sex in two years,” she repeated.
    “I heard you the first time,” he grumbled, setting down his chinking tool. Without thinking, he reached for the bucket of water he used to clean his tools, and dumped it over his head, hoping to cool his blistering body... and his other tool. Val’s provocative remark was probably some wiseass lawyer strategy for putting a guy off-balance before coming in for the kill. He was definitely off balance, but he’d be damned if he’d let her win in any battle.
    After he finger-combed his hair off his face, he looked at her. Two years? “And you are sharing this information with me because?”
    She stared at him with seeming fascination as water dripped from his hair and face onto his bare chest. Then she shook her head with a shiver of distaste. That was more like it. Valerie Breaux considered him on the same level with slugs, snakes, and other slimy creatures, and always had. Except for that one time, when her judgment had been colored by pink Slo Gin Fizzes. “I just don’t want you to get any ideas,”
    she explained, leaning her head back to chug down about a pint of fluid.
    “About what?” Two years?
    “Sex.”
    “With you?’ Two years?
    “No. With that toad over there. Jeesh! Maybe you are dumb as a brick, like I always thought.”
    Rene gritted his teeth and counted to ten, then added another five for good measure. Val was still drinking. He watched her long neck with each gulp she took. But he wasn’t looking any lower. Uh-uh.
    She’d taken off her jacket, and her white silk blouse was unbuttoned down to never-never land.
    Never-never for him, anyhow. “I wouldn’t be getting ideas if you hadn’t brought it up.” Get a grip, guy, he advised himself. I sound like a pathetic goofball.
    “You kidnapped me. I wouldn’t put anything past you.”
    “I had nothing to do with this... forced vacation.”
    She stiffened, morphing quick-as-a-lick into lawyer mode. Greta Van Breaux was about to give him a blistering legal dissertation on his choice of words. “Kidnapping, big boy. That’s a federal crime.”
    “I was not involved in that,” he argued.
    “Okay, then. Accessory before the fact. Aiding and abetting. Obstruction of justice. Compounding a felony. Battery.”
    “Battery?” he interrupted her list of charges, some of which could probably stick.
    “I was restrained and bruised. Look at my mouth. It’s still raw from the tape.”
    “Battery by duct tape?” He hooted with disbelief.
    Her face turned pink, but she lifted her chin high.
    Iam in deep shit. “Maybe I’ll just plead insanity.”
    “There you go,” she agreed, way too easily.
    He decided to try to lighten her mood. “How many lawyers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” he asked, then answered himself, “One. The lawyer holds the bulb while the rest of the world revolves around her.”
    “Oh, God! I’m in the middle of hell and I’m being subjected to lawyer jokes.”
    “Do you know what’s wrong with lawyer jokes, honey? Lawyers don’t think they’re funny, and the rest of the world doesn’t