Farrah Rochon - Yours Forever

Just picturing the way the slim black skirt conformed to her delicately curved hips and nicely rounded butt had his skin warming. She had the kind of legs you usually saw in lady-shaving-cream commercials, her calves toned and smooth. She stood about a half foot shorter than his own six feet three inches—just the right height. Their bodies would line up perfectly.

Whoa. That was an image he definitely didn’t need in his head right now. He was having a hard enough time getting his body under control, especially after sitting here for the past twenty minutes watching as Tamryn wrapped her plump lips around her fork and moaned in pleasure with each bite.

Matt couldn’t hold back his chagrin at the irony of it all. The woman he’d spent the past six months dodging every chance he could get was sitting across from him right now, eliciting the kind of wet dream–worthy fantasies he hadn’t experienced since high school.

Eyeing the plate, Tamryn said, “One more bite,” before picking up the fork and scooping up more étouffée. She shoved the plate away again and tossed her linen napkin over the remnants of her lunch. “Okay, I’m really done now.”

Matt lifted an amused brow. “You sure about that?”

“Yes. No more.” She picked up her pen and notepad. “So, you’ve worked in your family’s law practice since you finished law school?”

Matt squelched his disappointed sigh. He’d forgotten for a moment that, for her, this was a working lunch. If he used even an ounce of his common sense, he would accept that it should be the same for him. He’d already decided that any romantic interest in her was now off the table.

Although the longer he sat across from her, the harder it was to remember just why he could no longer pursue her.

“So?” she asked.

Matt straightened and blinked several times. “What?”

She sighed. “These questions are not that difficult, Mr. Gauthier.”

“It’s Matthew,” he said. “Or Matt. And forgive me for being difficult.”

“I didn’t say that you were being difficult. I said that these questions were not. But now that you mention it, you are being rather difficult.”

He grinned. “That’s what happens when you strong-arm someone into an interview they didn’t want to participate in.”

She choked out a shocked laugh. “Strong-arm? Look at you and look at me. There is no way I could strong-arm you into doing anything you didn’t want to do.”

He folded his arms on the table and leaned toward her. “You don’t need physical strength when you have that smile.”

Matt didn’t think it was possible for a person’s cheeks to turn such a deep shade of crimson so quickly. He had to suppress the instant, overwhelming urge to taste the demure smile that formed on her lips.

“Thank you,” she said, her cheeks still impossibly red, her face still impossibly gorgeous. She pointed to her notebook. “Can we get back to my list of questions?”

Suppressing his annoyance over her insistence on working, he made a circling motion with his hand. “Please proceed, Professor West.”

“It’s Tamryn,” she said. “And I asked if you’ve worked in your family’s law practice your entire career.”

“For the most part,” Matt answered, sitting back in his chair. “I clerked for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans for a few years while still in law school.”

“Your father is on that court, isn’t he?”

“Yes. I guess you have done your research.”

She waved him off with a flick of her wrist. “I was able to find out everything I needed to know about your father with a two-minute internet search. Leroy Gauthier has made some interesting rulings during his first few years as an appellate judge.”

“If by ‘interesting’ you mean controversial, then yes,” Matt answered.

“I was trying to be tactful.”

Matt laughed. “Tactful and Leroy Gauthier. I doubt those words have ever been used together in a sentence before.”

The corners of her mouth dipped with a curious frown, and Matt could practically see the wheels turning in her head with questions he wasn’t up for answering.

“Anything else?” he asked. “You want to know about my mom? She died of cancer ten years ago.”

“I read that, too,” she said. “Her obituary was in the online archives of the local paper. I’m sorry about her passing.”

Matt did his best to pull off an unaffected shrug. “She was more than ready to go. She’d suffered for years.”

The suffering his mother faced during her short bout with ovarian cancer was probably nothing compared to the misery she’d endured at the hands of her neglectful, adulterous husband. But that was something he certainly wasn’t about to share with Tamryn West.

“I’m not really sure why you requested this meeting. It seems as if Google has told you everything you need to know.”

“I want to know the things that Google can’t tell me,” Tamryn said.

Matt fingered a petal on one of the daisies in the slim vase in the center of the table. “And what is that, exactly?”

“Well, for instance, Google can’t tell me what it was like being a member of the founding family of Gauthier. The town is named after you, for goodness’ sake. Don’t pretend it’s not a big deal.”

“The town is named after my great-great-uncle Micah Gauthier, not me. And I already told you that I’m not all that knowledgeable about my family’s history.” Matt shrugged. “I just don’t have much interest in it.”

Tamryn flattened her open palm to her chest. “Do you know how much that breaks my heart?”

“Sorry to be such a disappointment.” Matt knew his grin contradicted his words.

“Once I’m done with my research I will probably know more about your family than you do,” she said.

Her prediction caused an arrow of alarm to shoot down Matt’s spine, because that was exactly what he most feared. There were things about his family that he didn’t want anyone to know. He’d come from a long line of bootleggers, gamblers and worse. The town’s founding family wouldn’t be so revered if Gauthier’s residents knew of his predecessors’ past misdeeds.

If they knew of his misdeeds.

Matt leaned forward again and in a lowered voice said, “You know, there are better ways for you to spend your summer than researching my family.”

The sexy smile that drew across her face had him thinking for a moment that he’d distracted her from her quest, until she said in an equally hushed voice, “I beg to differ. Your family is fascinating. You just don’t understand because you haven’t taken the time to delve into their history.”

Matt sat back and released a defeated sigh. She might look like sex in high heels, but her prying was still a giant pain in his ass.

He held his palms up in a you-win gesture.

“I don’t know much about the Gauthier family’s history, but I know the basics,” he said. “Uncle Micah, who was part white, by the way, apparently won a bunch of land in a card game. I guess he was pretty self-important, because he decided there should be a town named after him. Thus, the town of Gauthier was born.”

“From what I’ve read, Micah Gauthier was very generous. Calling him self-important doesn’t seem fair.”

Matt shrugged. “Never met him, so I can’t be sure.”

“You are absolutely no help at all.”

“I told you I wouldn’t be.” He chuckled as he squeezed lemon juice into the iced tea the waiter had just refilled. He set the long teaspoon on the linen tablecloth and returned his attention to Tamryn. “Look, the history of this town is pretty much like the other towns in this area. I’ll bet if folks look hard enough, they’ll find other rooms like the one that was found in the law practice.”