Eventually, they’d return to their wild nights and wicked ways. For now, Kingsley was more than content to enjoy these sunny, sensual mornings with her. He pulled out and she rolled onto her side, propping her knee up on a pillow. He slid back into her from behind this time, spooning her. While kneading her intensely swollen clitoris, he fucked her. Her breathing quickened, and her head fell back against his shoulder. It was a uniquely satisfying experience to make Juliette—pregnant and dressed in her innocent white cotton maternity nightgown—come so hard he felt her vagina clench around him like the grip of a strong hand, and so loudly, half the French Quarter heard her orgasm. As she was riding the wave of her climax, he pushed into her with ragged breaths and short, shallow thrusts and came hard himself—spending himself until there was nothing left to give her.
Panting and empty, he pulled out and rested his chin against her shoulder. Another soft warm breeze blew through the apartment and rustled the sheer white curtains across the room, making them sway like shy ghosts at a party.
“It’s January,” she said, laughing like it was a joke. “It’s January, and we have the windows open.”
“You missed that?” Kingsley asked.
“Warm winters? Oh, yes. This is heaven. You may have to go back to New York without us. We’ll see you again in June.”
“Coco isn’t even here yet, and you two are already ganging up against me.”
“Nothing against you,” she said. “Only against winter. Ice is not a pregnant woman’s best friend. But it’s fine. I’ll buy some of those spikes climbers put on their boots. What are they called in English? Tampons?”
“Crampons,” Kingsley said.
She giggled like a girl. “That’s it. Tampons wouldn’t do much good on my shoes unless I walked through a puddle.” She reached for her phone. It had buzzed while they were making love. “Lord,” she said and groaned.
Kingsley took the phone from her. She had a text message from Brad Wolfe—that asshole—asking her out to dinner. “May I?”
“Please,” she said.
Kingsley texted a reply.
This is King. Stop asking Juliette out on dates. She is pregnant with my baby.
He thought that would do it. Brad Wolfe—that asshole—wrote back immediately.
The more, the merrier.
Asshole, Kingsley replied, then blocked Wolfe’s number before returning Juliette’s phone to her.
“Not to blame the victim,” he said, “but it’s your fault you’re so beautiful.”
“It’s a curse, I know.” She laughed again, and he pulled her closer and gently cradled her belly.
“You think we woke Coco up?”
“I felt a little wiggling in there.” Juliette placed her hand over his and moved it. “There. Feel it?”
He did feel it, the little hand or foot pushing against the walls of the womb. Sometimes Juliette would balance a small cup of water on her belly and wait for the water to dance in the glass. She would say, Oh, no, the T-Rex is coming…
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“Not really. Coco is a good roommate. Lots more dancing since we came here, though. I think Coco likes the French Quarter.”
“Coco likes all the beignets you’ve been eating.”
Juliette gasped dramatically. “Beignets? What a wonderful idea…” She rolled over to face him, a maneuver she liked to call a walrus pirouette. “That’s exactly what we should have after breakfast.”
“After breakfast? What are we having for breakfast?”
“Blueberry waffles, coush-coush, and omelets.”
“That’s it?”
She poked him in the center of his chest. “Extra powdered sugar on the beignets, remember.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He dressed quickly. Before leaving, he paused in the kitchen doorway and watched Juliette cook. She was singing “Parlez-Moi d’Amour” to herself as she sliced onions and mushrooms, massaged olive oil into the flesh of bright red bell peppers. She’d bought a New Orleans-themed cookbook on their second day here, and every morning she tried a new recipe. In the two weeks they’d been here, Juliette had bloomed like a rose. He hadn’t realized how much the cold of Manhattan’s bitter winters bothered her until he watched her come alive under the January sun of New Orleans.
“I have a present for you,” he said.
She glanced at him, gave him that sly smile he always loved to see. “Another one?”
“I saved the best for last. I’ll give it to you after breakfast.”
“We’re taking the streetcar tour after breakfast.”
“I’ll give it to you on the streetcar.”
“Ah, then it’s not what I thought it was.”
“Maybe it is,” he said, “and I just want us to get kicked off the streetcar.” He kissed her soft cheek. “I’ll be back with beignets. Extra powdered sugar. Decaf coffee for you.”
“Kink and caffeine—the only two things I miss from BC.” Before Coco.
“I promise, after the baby’s here and you’re ready, we’ll drink espresso and have kinky sex all night.”
“That’s all I ask,” she said.
Kingsley turned to leave, and she gave him a playful pinch on his French derriere on his way out of the kitchen. Really, she was a changed woman here. Relaxed, giggly, walls down, as if the city had gotten her drunk. He was falling in love with her all over again. The first time he fell for her, it was for her sorrow. Now he found himself falling even harder for her joy.
If this is what life would be like when they moved to St. Bart’s, then he was ready to pack up today and leave the empire dismantling to the lawyers. Only, he knew it didn’t work that way. And even if it did, he’d promised Søren one last Christmas. How could he take that back? Especially since he hadn’t made that promise for Søren’s sake, but for his own.
He strolled along the breezy sunlit streets of the Old Square, sunglasses on, which made it easier to note the appreciative glances he received from the female tourists that morning. Every sundress that walked past him did a double-take or, even bolder, shot him a smile. He was wearing his favorite jeans with a loose white button-down shirt half-tucked in, collar open, sleeves rolled up. He knew he looked like he’d just rolled out of the bed of a beautiful woman—which was accurate. When he passed the hostess at a French café, she smiled broadly at him. “Bonjour,” he said, forgetting to switch to English. He and Juliette always spoke French when alone together.
The waitress replied, “Bonjour, Monsieur. Voulez-vous vous joindre à nous pour le petit déjeuner?”
“Not today,” he replied—Pas aujourd-hui—hoping his look of surprise was hidden behind his sunglasses. “Maybe tomorrow.”
She smiled broadly. A sure sign she was American, not French.
“Your French is very good,” he said to her. She looked about twenty, a young Black college girl wearing the classic hostess uniform of a black skirt with a white blouse. “You’ve been to France?”
“Not yet. I graduated from the Ecole Bilingue last year,” she said.
“It’s a French school? Here?” He hadn’t realized they had French immersion schools in New Orleans. He assumed it was as French as Boston was Irish—in symbol and spirit, but not really.