“We have plenty to discuss. Now come meet my grandfather.”
Morgan crossed her arms over her chest, refusing to budge.
Any satisfaction she got out of watching Jack grind his teeth came to a halt when he stalked across the room, his intent to grab her and drag her to the door written all over his face. If he touched her, she would only want him more. The scalding desire inside her was already too hot, too dangerous. And it made her so angry she could spit.
“Don’t touch me.” She jerked away from him. “I can walk on my own.”
“Then get your pretty ass moving before I paddle it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”
He snorted. “Wanna try me?”
No. No, she didn’t. His hard intent to lift her purple skirt and spank her ass was etched into the dark challenge of his eyes, into the hard lines of his aggressive stance.
The thought outraged her. Unfortunately, it aroused her, too. More of the cream from her arousal soaked the little thong she wore, coating her sex thoroughly with every step she took. She prayed he couldn’t tell.
“You’re a bastard,” she muttered as she walked past Jack and into the cottage’s main room.
“If you were expecting Prince Charming, I’m sorry. He’s with his boyfriend,” Jack quipped as he sailed by her and pulled the front door open.
An old man entered, carrying two shopping bags in hand. Instantly, she saw what Jack would look like in fifty years. Tall, lean with thick silver hair and dancing dark eyes, the man ambled into the cottage with a smile teasing the corners of his lips.
“Jack,” he greeted with a nod. “Your aunt Cheré sends her love and a loaf of homemade bread.”
He reached into one of the sacks and retrieved a plastic container. Morgan smelled the yeast of the bread blend with the spice of the swamp’s vegetation lazing in the temperate February day. It was unlike anything she’d ever smelled. Which fit. Nothing about being with Jack was anything like she’d ever experienced.
Before she could process the thought, the old man approached her, wearing a mischievous smiled. “Morgan, I’m Brice Boudreaux, Jack’s grand-pere on his maman’s side.”
He stuck out his hand, and she clasped his to shake it. Instead, he brought her hand to his lips and gave her a gallant kiss. Despite her discomfort in meeting an old man while wearing skimpy purple leather, Morgan couldn’t help but smile. She’d bet in his day that he had a lot of luck with everything in a skirt.
“Morgan O’Malley.”
His sharp brown gaze lifted to her hair. “A bonny Irish lass with fiery tresses. Jack loves red hair, don’t you?”
She didn’t dare look at Jack, not when she felt a flush climbing up her cheeks. Did he have a thing for redheads? That would explain the odd conversation she’d overheard earlier.
“Grand-pere…” Jack warned. “Stop making mischief and give her the bag.”
A glance at the bag told Morgan there were clothes inside it. She itched to get her hands around it, to wear something besides a get-up that encouraged her recklessness and made her more aware of her sexuality than mere garments should.
Brice was in no hurry to hand the bag over.
“In due time. Can’t an old man sit down for a minute and talk to a pretty girl?”
He cast Jack a challenging glance, then shuffled over to the sofa, making a big show of easing his weary bones down onto a cushion. Then he set the bag on the floor between his feet and patted the spot beside him.
“Come,” he said to Morgan. “Sit next to an old man, yeah, and let him remember the days he could have asked such a jolie fille for a dance.”
Morgan sliced her gaze to Jack for translation, brow raised in question.
“Pretty girl,” he supplied in a long-suffering sigh. “And don’t be suckered in by his old-man routine. He’s sharp as a tack, that one.”
Brice harrumphed. “Boy forgets I’m eighty-two.”
“Grand-pere forgets I’m no idiot.” Jack said with a fond smile.
Morgan watched their byplay with an awareness of their love and affection for each other—and not without a bit of envy. Her biological father had never wanted anything to do with her, so she’d bet his parents knew nothing of her. And her mother’s parents had disowned Mama when she’d become pregnant while unmarried. They’d died shortly before Morgan’s tenth birthday, the rift unmended. She’d never had a grandparent, much less a character like Brice in her family.