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  Apparently, her sense of professionalism had deserted her in the two weeks since she’d arrived in Gauthier, because there was not a single ounce of her being that wanted to stop his lips from touching hers. In fact, of its own volition, her hand came up and cradled Matt’s cheek as his lips descended upon hers.

  His touch was light, his incredibly soft lips gently meshing with hers. He peppered her with feathery touches, just the tip of his tongue slipping out to tease her.

  After a few moments, he became bolder, his kiss more ardent. He scooped his hand around, stroking the small of her back as he pulled her closer to him. Tamryn melted. Then and there, her insides liquefied into a warm puddle. She allowed him to pull her even closer as both his hands traveled up and down her spine.

  His tongue traced along the seam of her lips before pushing inside. He stroked with subtle passion, a low groan crawling up from his throat.

  Embolden by the sound she’d elicited from him, she sucked his tongue into her mouth, caressing it with her own. But then Matt took full command. He was both gentle and insistent, his tongue surging and retreating, exploring her mouth with bold strokes while his hands inched farther down her body, until they found a place to rest on her backside.

  Matt tugged her closer, pulling her body flush against his and groaning with a pleasurable, painful sound.

  Tamryn knew she had to put the brakes on this. Not only had she declared this a tingle-free trip—and her body was feeling nothing but tingles right now—but several of the people cleaning up Heritage Park had seen her enter the law office with Matt. If she didn’t leave this office soon, Tamryn had no doubt that news of her and Matt’s tryst would be the talk of the town.

  “Matt,” she said against his lips.

  “Hmm?”

  His deep moan sent delicious shivers down her spine. Delicious, dangerous shivers. She brought her hands up to his chest and gave him a gentle push. “Matthew.”

  “Don’t ask me to stop,” he murmured against her neck.

  “Matt, please,” she breathed. Maybe it was her please that caught his attention. He released her and took a step back, running a hand down his face.

  Tamryn pulled in several deep breaths to clear her head. It felt as if she’d been deprived of oxygen.

  After a few moments, Matt grabbed both of her hands and brought them to his lips. “Can you at least acknowledge what’s happening here?” he asked.

  “My skin is still tingling,” she said. “It would be pretty hard to deny it.”

  His mouth curved in another of those half grins that only fueled those relentless shivers that continued to travel from the top of her head to the tips of her feet, stopping at all the interesting points in between.

  “I wish I could deny it,” she continued. “This wasn’t a part of the game plan when I decided to come to Gauthier for the summer.”

  “Sometimes even the best-laid plans have to change, especially when something so good is waiting on the other side.” Matt’s forehead met hers again. “Whatever it is that’s happening between us started the minute I pulled up to your broken-down car on the side of the road, Tamryn. It makes no damn sense to let all this chemistry go to waste.” He kissed the tips of her fingers. “Let’s just see where this leads.”

  “I’m only here for the summer.”

  “That means we have the summer.”

  “You just kicked off a campaign, and I’m in the middle of an intense research project.”

  “There’s twenty-four hours in a day. I’m pretty sure we can both find a couple of hours we can spare. I promise you it will be worth it.”

  She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, contemplating.

  “Any other excuses you need me to shoot down with cold, hard logic?” Matt asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Does that mean I can kiss you again?”

  She nodded.

  Matt smiled.

  And then he kissed her.

  Chapter 6

  Matt braced his hands against the granite countertop and lowered his forehead until it touched the cold stone. He longed to bang his head against it until he knocked himself unconscious, but then he’d just have to clean up the mess when he woke up.

  He’d been on a conference call with Ben and several donors for the past forty-five minutes, and if it went on a minute longer he would have to find some way to put himself out of his misery.

  As the men yammered, Matt walked over to the wet bar and, in a show of supreme strength, managed to bypass the scotch. As he poured himself a glass of mineral water, he let out a deep breath and tried to pull it together. These donors were eager to donate to his campaign, and for that alone they deserved his undivided attention.

  Yet for most of the call his mind had been focused solely on Tamryn. She had been in town for just over two weeks, but Matt could barely go two minutes without having her face pop up in his head. For the past three nights he’d fallen asleep thinking about that kiss they’d shared after his campaign rally Friday night. He couldn’t think of a single thing that was sweeter than her kiss, but it hadn’t been enough to sustain him. He wanted so much more.

  For days Matt had tried to pinpoint just what it was about her that turned him on so damn much, and last night he was sure he’d finally figured it out. Despite the fact that she had initially contacted him specifically because he was a Gauthier, when it came to the undeniable attraction simmering between them, she saw beyond the name.

  He’d spent a lifetime dealing with women who were more interested in the clout they erroneously believed came with being a member of the Gauthier family than they were in getting to know him as a person. But Tamryn didn’t look at him that way. She saw just Matthew. It was different. Refreshing.

  The fact that she was sexy as hell didn’t hurt, either.

  “Matt? Matt!”

  Ben’s irate voice knocked him out of his musings.

  “What?” Matt answered.

  “You want to provide some input?” Ben asked. “What did you think of Donnelly and his partner?”

  Matt had no idea the other men had left the conversation. He’d pretty much tuned them all out shortly after the conference call began, but it had been long enough for him to come to his own conclusions about Alfred Donnelly.

  “I think he would be waiting outside the door to my office in the state-capitol building the morning I take the oath of office, ready to list his demands,” Matt answered, walking over to the fridge and retrieving the cold pizza from last night. “I don’t want donors who are looking for favors, Ben. I want people to support me because they believe in the work I want to do.”

  “You’re in Louisiana. Don’t think you can have a life in politics without doling out a few favors.”

  Matt squelched a sigh. How had he ended up with Ben as his campaign manager? Their philosophies were totally different.

  He checked the time on the microwave and decided that he’d had enough of this for today. “Look, Ben, can we finish this a bit later? I have an appointment I’m late for,” he lied.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ben drawled. “Oh, I forgot to tell you that I talked to your dad yesterday.”

  Matt’s spine went ramrod straight. “Why are you talking to him?”

  “Because he knows what it takes to run a successful campaign,” Ben answered.

  Matt took the phone off speaker and put it up to his ear. “You can put that out of your head right now,” Matt said. He started to pace between the kitchen island and the refrigerator. “There’s no way in hell I’ll allow any part of this campaign to be influenced by Leroy Gauthier. He has zero say in how my senate run operates, you hear me, Ben?”

  “I don’t get this, Matt. What in the hell do you have against your father? He’s a respected appellate-court judge who won his seat
by one of the biggest landslides in the history of the courts. Most candidates would kill to have an ace like that in his back pocket.”

  “I’m not most candidates. Leave him out of this.” His tone brooked no argument.

  “Fine.” Ben’s exaggerated sigh was like that of a twelve-year-old who’d been told to clean up his room. “If you don’t want to take advice from someone who’s been in your shoes before and came out victorious, that’s your choice. I personally think it’s the wrong choice—”

  “I don’t care what you think. Not when it comes to this.”

  “You’re the candidate. But when you come to realize how much of a mistake this is, you take full ownership of it,” Ben said. “Tomorrow we’re doing prep for the first town-hall meeting. Remember that.”

  “It’s on my calendar,” Matt said. He ended the call with Ben, but continued to pace for several minutes in an attempt to calm down.

  It wasn’t working.

  “Dammit,” Matt whispered.

  He’d told Ben from the very beginning that he didn’t want his father anywhere around this campaign. Leroy Gauthier might have fooled the people in this town into thinking he was a stand-up, trustworthy pillar of the community, but Matthew knew him for the deceitful, cheating fraud that he was. His father was a Gauthier through and through, an amoral bastard who didn’t care about anyone but himself.

  He sure as hell had never cared about his wife or son.

  Matt had made it his goal in life to never be like his father. The only thing the two of them had in common was practicing law, and Matt vowed to do everything he could to make sure that it remained the only thing they ever shared.

  Once his father had moved out of the Gauthier mansion and Matt had moved in, he’d made it a point to erase as much of Leroy Gauthier from the home as he could. His first order of business had been relieving Marion Samuels of her duties as the Gauthier family’s longtime housekeeper and cook. For years Matt had suspected that Marion’s son, Leon, was his half brother.

  Suspected?

  Matt huffed out a laugh, shaking his head as he returned the pizza, uneaten, to the refrigerator. Leon looked more like his father than he did.

  He wondered how many other bastard children Leroy had sired.

  It took a moment for him to unclench his jaw. Matt ran a frustrated hand down his face, cursing Ben for bringing up his father and putting him in this mood. He wasn’t up for dealing with this right now. He needed a distraction.

  And he knew exactly where to find one.

  This desire to see Tamryn bordered on ridiculous, but he couldn’t help it. He had to see her.

  Matt made his way to Belle Maison. Maybe he could surprise her with a picnic lunch and a drive out to the Chalmette Battlefield. He would be bored to tears, but as a history professor she would eat up the chance to visit the War of 1812 site.

  Matt’s hastily concocted plan was annihilated when Phylicia met him on the porch at Belle Maison and told him that Tamryn was in New Orleans today, researching in the library at Xavier University. Matt shot a quick text message to Zeke Marsh, who hadn’t batted an eye when Matt asked him to keep him abreast of the research Tamryn was conducting this summer.

  Today, however, Matt didn’t care about whatever it was she was seeking within the tomes of the university library. His only concern was making sure she was still there before he made the hour-long drive into New Orleans.

  Did he really intend to drive all the way out there just on the off chance that he could convince her to have lunch with him?

  “Hell, yes,” Matt said as he slipped his sunglasses on and backed out of the driveway at Belle Maison.

  He knew he had it bad. And he didn’t give a damn.

  * * *

  Tamryn ran a hand along the back of her neck, rubbing the kinks and knots that had taken up residence there. She’d been hunched over this table for the past three hours, unable to tear herself away long enough to even use the restroom. It had been this way for over a week. She was completely enthralled by every single article she’d come across.

  She’d read about the history of the slave uprisings along the Mississippi River while researching her dissertation, but she’d never had the chance to delve as deeply as she’d always wanted to. She could spend months in this library and still not satisfy the curiosity that grew with every new text she pulled from the shelves.

  “But if you don’t get up from here soon, your bladder will burst,” she mused.

  She managed to leave her work long enough to use the restroom and grab a quick drink of water. When she returned to the archives room, Ezekiel Marsh was standing at the table she’d occupied since eight o’clock this morning.

  “Hello there,” he said as she made her way back to the table. “How’s it going so far?”

  “I could not be more jealous of you,” Tamryn said.

  He laughed. “I am very lucky to have this at my disposal.”

  “Beyond lucky. I was just thinking that I could spend a month in this room and not make a dent in this. The archives here at Xavier are absolutely remarkable. Thank you so much for allowing me such unrestricted access.”

  “My generosity is not entirely altruistic,” he said. “I’m curious about your findings. Once you explained your research, I knew this was something I needed to hear more about. Are you making any progress?”

  “I’m sure I would make a lot more if I wasn’t sidetracked by every fascinating article I run across. And knowing that most of these places are just a short drive away is too tempting.”

  “You should definitely schedule a few day trips while you’re here. There’s living history up and down the river.”

  “I plan to take advantage of it whenever I can over these next few weeks. I cannot express enough just how much I appreciate this. I’ll have to thank Matt for calling in a favor on my behalf.”

  “You can thank me with lunch.”

  Tamryn turned and spotted Matt coming through the door.

  “Speak of the devil,” Ezekiel said, pulling Matt in for a one-armed hug. “I was just about to say that I need to get together with you, but unfortunately I’ve got office hours in ten minutes.” He pointed to Tamryn. “Remember, if you need anything, just call or stop in at my office.”

  “Thank you,” she said. She waited until Ezekiel exited the archives room before turning to Matt. She should not be so excited to see him, but she had a better chance of stopping a freight train with her bare hands than stopping the flutters flickering throughout her stomach. They had been there since the moment his lips had touched hers in his office on Friday night.

  No, that was a lie. That tingly sensation had bombarded her the moment he’d pulled up to her disabled car, and it had only intensified with every encounter they’d had since her arrival in Gauthier.

  She folded her arms over her chest and gave him a chastising frown. “Tell me you didn’t come all this way just to take me to lunch.”

  “Only if you want me to lie,” he said. He tugged her arms loose and captured her hands, pulling them around his waist as he buried his head against her neck.

  Tamryn’s eyes fell closed as her head tilted back.

  “Matt,” she said on a weak sigh. “Matt, you have to stop doing this.”

  “Not really,” he murmured against her skin as his lips traveled along her jawline. “Three. No, four,” he said. “That’s how many times I had to stop myself from getting in my car and driving to Belle Maison last night, just so I could get another taste of you.”

  Tamryn told herself to put an end to this before things went too far. Anyone could walk into the archives room and discover them together. But her weak mental protests were no match for Matt’s exquisite kisses. His hands gripped her hips, pulling her to him as his mouth continued its foray along her neck, his teeth nipping at
her skin.

  “Matt, please,” Tamryn purred. She should have been asking him to stop, but instead it sounded like a plea for more.

  Just as she was about to ask him to stop—for real this time—her stomach made an indelicate hungry growl.

  Matt’s deep chuckle resonated along her skin. “I guess that means you really want some lunch.”

  Tamryn’s eyes slid shut again, this time in abject mortification. “I’m trying to think of the last time I was this embarrassed. I think it was back when I forgot all my lines during my third-grade Christmas play.” She peered up at him, her face hot with humiliation. “I skipped breakfast this morning, and the granola bar I found buried in the bottom of my purse stopped being effective a long time ago.”

  “A granola bar?” Matt’s brow narrowed with his censorious frown. “Now I see why your stomach is arguing with you. You’re in a city that’s known for its cuisine and you feed it a granola bar?”

  “What can I do to persuade you to never bring up my noisy stomach again?”

  His grin was pure sin. “You really want me to answer that?”

  He didn’t have to. The answer was more than obvious from his heated stare, and an answering heat flashed all over her body. Why did she have to meet this incredibly sexy man at a time when getting involved with him was the very last thing she needed? It was as if he was determined to keep her in a state of perpetual lust, and it was becoming downright impossible to fight it.

  “I can tell by the way those cheeks are getting even redder that you don’t need an answer. I love the way your skin blushes, by the way,” he whispered against her lips. “It makes me want to come up with a bunch of other ways to make you blush.”

  “Oh, God, just stop,” Tamryn said with a deep sigh. Irresistible didn’t even come close to describing this man. She was in so much trouble.

  “Come on.” He laughed against her lips. “Let’s get some food in you. And then I’ve got a surprise.”

  Tamryn looked up at him.

  “Trust me. It’s something your little history-loving heart will adore.”