Page 85 of The Cajun Doctor

Daniel wanted Samantha, pure and simple. And he wanted her bad. It was all he could think about. Like a seed planted in his brain, it kept growing, and nothing was going to make it go away. (Except for the obvious.) The seed . . . the idea of sex with Samantha . . . had grown into a big honkin’ plant, a vine with tendrils extending to all parts of his body. Like kudzu, it was, and everyone knew kudzu was “the vine that ate the South.” If the South couldn’t overcome the assault, how could he?

Holy crap! Now I’m making jokes with myself about kudzu. And all these stupid analogies: trains, seeds, vines. What next? Rockets?

So, he and Emily went to the storage facility where he hired a couple of high school kids to help him load the double size bed frame and dresser, along with a couple of antique mirrors that weighed a ton. He would come back tomorrow for the rest of the bedroom set . . . an armoire and a dry sink . . . as well as two single bed frames that were lodged in the back of the unit.

And the mental assaults continued. The whole time he was lugging furniture, including the antique rice bed frame (Whatever the hell a rice bed was!), his fool brain kept picturing a bed sitting arranged before open French doors with a soft white down comforter. On it reclined Samantha, reddish hair spread all over the pillow, miles of creamy skin, and freckles. Her arms were raised above her head, and one knee was raised. She was nude, of course, wearing nothing but an old-fashioned ankle bracelet, which in this case was just a thin chain of fine gold. Her nails were unpainted, but her lips were cherry red.

Yes, he fantasized in detail.

And, yes, now he was having sex dreams in the daytime, while he was awake. Walking sex dreams.

Why did ankle bracelets go out of style, anyway? They were sexy as hell, in his opinion. In fact, he and Aaron had talked about it one time. Aaron considered seamed stockings and a garter belt on a woman to be a lost female attraction. Whereas Daniel thought seamed stockings and garter belts were just sort of silly, right up there with padded bras and waist cinchers. Well, sometimes waist cinchers held an appeal, depending on the circumstance . . . or fantasy. But honestly, an eighteen-inch waist and fifty-two-inch hips?

You could tell he’d thought about this a lot. Now that was hopeless!

Emily looked at him, as if to say “I know just how you feel.”

He put a leash on Emily when they got to the Pet Psychiatric Clinic, which was probably unnecessary since she couldn’t trot more than ten feet a minute and stopped to take a dainty dump every other step. While at the clinic, an overweight psychologist with halitosis oohed and cooed over the pig, pretending to communicate in pig language (Pig latin, maybe. Ha, ha, ha!), and proclaimed that Emily was getting better. And handed her a pig treat for being such “a good piggy.”

“That will be fifty dollars,” the receptionist told him. “And bring Emily back in two weeks.”

Yeah, right.

He stopped once at a park where he gave the pig a chance to do its job again. The grass was lush and green here, thanks to the tropical heat and rains, and of course he pictured himself and Samantha lying, naked, on a similar lawn. No, it was a pasture filled with clover. The crushed clover smelled like fresh-cut grass with a hint of basil. When he rolled over, on top of her—

“Oink, oink,” Emily said, ready to return to the truck.

“We need to get you a boyfriend, Emily,” he told the pig, as he adjusted the seat belt around its fat belly.

The pig gave him such a soulful look, you’d think she understood.

When he got back to the mansion, he took the pig to the second parlor with the other animals, then looked for Angus to help him unload the truck. He found him in the first parlor with Lily Beth, slow dancing to some John Legend song playing on his laptop. Which was kind of sweet and comical at the same time, with her pregnancy bump, which was more like a mountain, impeding any real closeness.

Dancing? In the midst of all the danger they faced? He could hardly believe it!

But then, he got a sudden image in his brain (Surprise, surprise!) of him slow dancing with Samantha. Except this time the music was something more intensely sexual, and even more cornball, like Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” He was wearing jeans and nothing else, not even shoes. She was bare-footed, too, wearing that hot sleep outfit, red silky pants and silky black camisole top edged in red. No underwear, he could tell, because he could see her nipples and the curve of her buttocks. She looped her arms around his neck. His hands held her hips, just above her butt cheeks. He wasn’t all that interested in dancing, but they were just swaying, feeling the rhythm of the music. Oh, man! Man oh man oh man!

Just then, a horn honked outside, jarring him from his reverie and Angus and Lily Beth from their dancing. It was the delivery truck from the furniture warehouse. Daniel told Angus and Lily Beth to stay out of sight, just in case.

Samantha came to see what was going on.

“How’s Max?”

“Just great, and the kittens are so cute.”

“I’ll bet.” He was being sarcastic, but at the same time, he was picturing her petting the big cat. Her long tapered finger caressed the feline from nape to tail, softly, like butterfly wings on the skin . . . uh, fur. The cat arched its back with sheer pleasure and—

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

He blinked several times and looked at her. She still wore that blue shorts outfit with the bare shoulders and halter top with a bow tied right between heaven and hell. The things a guy imagined he could do with a bow!

“Earth to Daniel! Why are you looking at me like that?” she repeated.

Busted! “Like what?” He pretended to be confused. Then, “I was just noticing the cat hair on your shoulders.” And all that creamy, freckled skin. He reached over and pretended to flick some stray hairs off the bare skin, which caused goose bumps to rise all over her arms. He took that as a good sign.

She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.

He winked at her. When all else fails, try the wink, he told himself. Lust is turning my brain to mush.