Going Down Easy (Boys of the Big Easy #1)
Erin Nicholas
Chapter One
It was still amazing to Gabe Trahan how well Addison Sloan’s ass fit in his hands. It was as if it had been made specifically for him to cup and squeeze as he pressed her close while he kissed her. Or when he was dancing with her. Or when he was thrusting deep and hard.
His body stirred at the thought of doing just that as she pushed her fingers into his hair and arched against him as if he hadn’t just given her two—count ’em, two—orgasms upstairs before she’d gotten dressed for work. But they were standing on the sidewalk in front of his tavern, and her cab was waiting. This was supposed to be a goodbye kiss, not a get-her-hot-and-ready kiss.
The problem was, not only did her ass fit his hands perfectly, but the rest of her fit against the rest of him pretty damned well, too, and it was extremely difficult to stop fitting against her once he started.
Addison pulled back a minute later, breathing fast, her pupils dilated. “I have to go.”
Yeah, he knew that. It was the second Monday of the month. That meant she was headed across town to the architectural firm where she was consulting on a once-a-month basis, to do whatever she needed to do there, and then she’d head to the airport to fly back to New York, and it would be another month until he’d see her again.
He leaned in, putting his nose against her neck, inhaling her scent. It was his favorite thing about her. And considering he knew every inch of her intimately, that was saying something. This woman had a lot of really nice inches.
“I know,” he said. “Just give me a minute.”
She sighed, her fingers curling into his scalp. The sound was almost wistful. “Shit,” she said softly. “This goodbye thing was supposed to get easier.”
Yeah, he would have thought so, too. In fact, he would have expected that by the sixth weekend with her, he would have been over her. Especially considering they didn’t really have a relationship. They had sex. And beignets. And jazz.
When she was in town, they stayed up all Saturday night having the hottest sex of his life. Sundays, they woke up late and spent the day in the French Quarter, eating and shopping and people watching. Then Sunday night, they burned up his sheets all over again. He loved showing her the classic New Orleans stuff—the café au laits and po’boys, the jazz bands on the street corners, the riverboats and the French market. She was addicted to it all. She couldn’t seem to get enough. And seeing it all through her eyes was like rediscovering it for himself.
But they didn’t talk about anything too personal, and they didn’t communicate at all in between her trips to New Orleans. All he knew was that she was a restoration architect from New York who had been consulting with a local firm on a big project in the Garden District. She came to town once a month on Friday morning, showed up at Trahan’s, the tavern Gabe owned and operated with his brother, Logan, on Saturday night, spent the rest of the weekend with him, and then went to the architecture firm again on Monday before heading back to New York that night.
When they were together, they talked about the food, music, and people around them at the moment. Occasionally they dipped into their interests and hobbies, their work, their friends to some extent, but nothing else. They kept it all in the moment, in the present, no talk of their pasts or their futures.
He had no idea if she had siblings, what her favorite color was, when her birthday was, or what kind of car she drove. But he knew that she loved sex against the wall, that she had a particular fascination with his abs, that jazz music made her horny, and that the sounds she made when he sucked on her nipples were the hottest things he’d ever heard.
And that was enough.
Or at least that should be enough.
She was a fling. A once-a-month diversion—that he thought about far too often in the time between her trips to New Orleans. A very fun way to spend thirty-six hours or so every once in a while.
She didn’t even live in New Orleans. They barely knew one another. He had no desire to go to New York City.
And yet, it was definitely getting harder and harder to say goodbye to her.
Hell, after the first night she’d come to Trahan’s with her friend and local architect Elena LeBlanc, and Addison had ended up in his bed for the weekend, he hadn’t expected to see her again. But the next month, almost to the day, she’d been sitting on the stool at the end of the bar. And he’d been shocked by how happy he was to see her.
“Quit your job and come waitress at the bar,” he told her now, pulling back and looking into her big brown eyes.
She laughed lightly. “You mean, quit my job and spend my days giving you blow jobs behind the bar while you serve drinks?”
It would have been playful and funny if he didn’t suddenly want that with an intensity that freaked him out. “Hell yeah,” he growled, lowering his head for another kiss.
It was, as always, long and hot and not nearly enough.
He started to back her up against the side of the building when her cell phone started ringing.
She pulled back and dragged in a deep breath. She stared up at him. “Damn, you’re good at that.”
“We’re good at that.” This was like nothing he’d ever felt before.
Addison continued to watch him as she dug her phone from her purse and lifted it to her ear. “Addison Sloan.” She paused. “Yes, that’s fine. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She disconnected and smiled at him. “I have to go.”