Page 128 of Frankly, My Dear

He did, then shrugged. “It’s the same.”

She stepped down and began to wail. Again. “Oh…oh,” she gasped out. “I’ve gained fifteen pounds. Fifteen pounds! I must look like a tub of lard. I must look like a…a hogs-head, whatever that is.”

“Enough! I’ve had enough of this nonsense about your beauty, or lack of it.” He pulled her over to the far side, away from the door and windows. Bracing his hands on the wall on either side of her head, he told her, “I’ve told you I love you. Repeatedly. Some of those times were in the dark. I think you’re beautiful, but I think I would love you even if you were homely as a…a…”

“Warthog,” she offered, apparently remembering that he had called her that at one time. Mon Dieu, her memory was entirely too sharp.

“Precisely. Now, there is something I must teach you about sugarmaking.” He dipped his head and whispered against her lips, “Do you know what the two sweetest occupations are in the world, chérie?”

“Is this a riddle?” she asked, then moaned as his lips brushed back and forth across hers in delicious temptation.

“No, it is not a riddle.” He put his left hand on the smooth column of her neck, holding her in place for his kiss, and swept his right hand lower, cupping her full breast.

She sighed and parted her lips under his, inviting his plundering tongue.

He pulled away, teasing. “The two sweetest occupations in the world are making sugar and…”

“…and?” she purred, arching her chest as he rolled her nipple between his thumb and forefinger through the fabric of her blouse.

“…and making love.”

“And you’re an expert at both, I suppose,” she choked out, allowing him to ease the hem of her gown up to her waist and pull down her drawers. Belatedly she added, when his fingers were already parting her moist folds, “Do you think it’s wise to make love here? Someone might walk in.”

“No one will walk in,” he gritted out, unbuttoning his trousers and adjusting himself between her legs. “Just try to restrain your moans so the workers don’t think I’m beating you.”

“Hah! I know a saying, too, about making sugar.”

“Tell me later,” he grunted out, unable to restrain his roiling need.

She laughed. “I’ve heard that the longer the cane stands, the sweeter the sugar. Maybe you should think about holding onto that cane a bit longer.”

“No!” he asserted, wrapping her legs around his waist and plunging himself into her hot depths. “This cane is about to be cut. Now!”

A very short time later, Selene commented with a gasp, “I think the cane was pretty damn sweet anyhow.”

He made a low rumbling sound of male approval as he adjusted his clothing.

“You think you’re hot stuff, don’t you, James, darlin’?”

He eyed her suspiciously.

“Did you hear about the blonde whose lover rolled off her and asked, ‘Do you smoke after sex?’?”

“Not another joke!” he groaned.

“And the blonde said, ‘I dunno.’ Then the blonde looked down her body and added, ‘I never looked.’”

“You are impossible, Selene,” he said, pulling her to his side as they walked toward the doorway. “But, oui, it is true.”

“Huh? What’s true.”

“You do smoke.”

Two weeks later, Selene still floated on a cloud of bliss. She had never been happier in her life and had absolutely no regrets about staying in the past.

She leaned her head on James’s shoulder under the keelboat shelter, and sighed with contentment. Etienne slept on his father’s lap, exhausted from the day’s mind-boggling events.

To celebrate the boy’s sixth birthday the day before, Selene, with Blossom’s help, had given Etienne a party he would never forget, complete with improvised tomato and cheese pizzas and a homemade book of illustrated E.T. and Casper stories. James’s gift had been today’s trip to the visiting circus in St. Martinsville.