The Weather Series: Electric Rayne

The Weather Series:

ELECTRIC RAYNE

By

J.J. Massa

© Copyright by J.J. Massa, July 2009

Cover art by Alex DeShanks, July 2009

ISBN 978-1-60394-338-3

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

Rayne tried to ignore the pounding on the door but it wouldn’t stop. Finally, she stumbled to the kitchen door where all the pounding originated.

Stumbling to the door without even opening her eyes, she flung open the door and snapped, “What?” She held one hand, palm splayed in front of her face to deflect the annoying sunlight pouring in.

The man who’d been outside pounding came inside the house. He stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

“Who are you, what do you want, and can it wait?” she grumbled half asleep, turning to slump against the counter. “Thanks for closing the …” she waved her hand at the door. She was home again, nobody here would hurt her--annoy her definitely, but she was safe in her grandmother’s house.

“Your Mamere asked me to check on you today,” the stranger in a sheriff’s uniform growled.

“That old biddy hates me. I know it. She’s hated me since the day I was born.” Rayne couldn’t hold her head up any longer.

When her head drooped into her crossed arms, she slid to the floor and curled up into a ball. She couldn’t help it. She was just so tired.

“Just lock the door when you leave, Monsieur,” she mumbled from the floor. “Feel free to leave me a note. I swear I’ll call you if I ever wake up.”

* * * *

Remy Doucette couldn’t believe this woman. She’d lain down on the kitchen floor and gone to sleep, it appeared. No wonder old Ms. Deveau had asked him to check on her today, specifically.

“Mademoiselle, have you been on a three day bender or something?” he asked, squatting down next to her.

What a curvaceous little heap of woman. She didn’t smell as if she was steeped in alcohol. In fact, she smelled like raspberries, honeysuckle and–rain.

“Took me a week to get out of Malaysia,” she complained. “Would have sold my soul for something stronger than coffee to drink,” she grumbled.

“What the hell did you do there?” he barked, incredulous.

“Instructing the indigenous population in the use of herbs and Homeopathic medicine,” she sighed. She rolled over, facing away from him.

He scooped her up into his arms and held her against his chest, turning toward the upstairs bedrooms. He’d been in this house many times and knew it well. She couldn’t weigh a hundred pounds, he decided. Her head rolled onto his shoulder.

“Which one is your bedroom, Mademoiselle?” he questioned her, heading up the stairs.

“Last on the left. Oh my God, you smell sooo good,” she moaned. She burrowed into his neck.

“Pardon me?” he stopped short, taken aback. His body leaped to attention. He could feel his heart slamming against his chest.

She rubbed her face in the place where his shoulder met his throat. When she touched the hollow behind his ear with her tongue, he groaned aloud. She pressed her lips to the juncture where his upper jaw met his lower.

“What is your cologne, Monsieur?” she whispered, tasting him again. “Mmmm,” she moaned.

“I don’t wear cologne, Mademoiselle,” he told her as firmly as he could manage. She had wrapped both arms around his neck and had buried her face in the collar of his shirt.

“I am so sure I’m going to be humiliated when I wake up. Please, God, let this be a dream,” she groaned, rubbing her nose in the sprinkling of hair below his sternum.

“If you don’t stop that, Mademoiselle…” he choked out in warning. In one second, he was going to rip her feminine lace night gown in half and bury his painful erection into her over and over until she could have no doubt about what was a dream and what wasn’t.

“Please,” she whispered, dragging her lower lip up his skin and inhaling deeply against his throat.

Suddenly, she collapsed back into sleep. Very gently, he laid her down on her bed and pulled the sheet over her.

Her head lifted and she raised her arm toward the half-opened curtains. She swept her hand toward the wall and the curtains slid closed following her hand’s motion. Must be trick curtains.

Remy stood looking down at the small figure curled under the sheet. He’d barely gotten a look at her eyes since they’d been closed during most of their exchange. He had an impression of gray-blue starbursts. Carefully, he pulled the sheet over a dainty foot and calf.

She was a petite package of curves topped by wavy, espresso colored hair. Her face had been like the rest of her, impossibly delicate. From what little he’d seen her eyes appeared large when opened. Right now her eyelids were purpled with fatigue. The lush lips that had explored his throat had been like her curves - sensuous and full.

His body was throbbing. Almost against his will, he smoothed his hand over the crown of her head. Combing his fingers through the length of her hair, he found that the silky soft mass reached to her waist. With one finger, he traced the line of her jaw smoothing it across her lower lip.

Remy was angry with himself for being affected by her. He was twice as angry with her for her overtures to him. Her grandmother had given no hint that this young lady was so free with her affections. The poor old thing bragged on about this little girl nonstop. She must not have any idea.

Remembering that she’d spent all of her adolescence here in his parish, Remy decided that he’d ask around. Some of his officers and deputies were the right age. They’d know her he was sure.

* * * *

When Remy returned to the Sheriff’s office, his dispatcher must have noticed his distracted mood.

“What’s up, Sheriff?” he questioned. “You look a little… funny…” he stumbled. There were several men in the office. It was close to shift change.

“Nothing’s up, Foret,” he started. “I stopped off to check on Madame Deveau’s granddaughter. She was a little – out of it, I guess,” he said.

“She’s back?” Foret squeaked. He called out, “Hey, y’all! Electric Rayne is back!”

“Our friendship is really special to me,” Edouard Larsen, one of the officers, intoned, rolling his eyes.

“I can’t tell you how much I value the time we spend together,” Foret spoke up with a half smile and a chuckle.

“I’d hate to ruin this important relationship…” Officer Antibe chimed in.

“…by involving a fleeting physical thing that could hurt us both in the long run,” the fourth officer, John Spike, finished for them.

“’Scuse me?” Remy asked.

“Do you think there is even one man in three counties who hasn’t asked that girl out and been told he was too special for her to demean by kissing him?” Foret asked.

“How about cologne?” Remy questioned. “She like any of your cologne?”