Wedding Favors by Sheri Whitefeather Read Free Book Online Page B

firmly.
    Bordel de merde.
    He slung his tux jacket over his shoulder and stalked to the garage for his car. He should probably take a taxi, but on an impulse he decided to head out to the plantation after the reception. Spend a couple of days up there, thinking about his life and the future.
    Being with Tessa last night, a woman he could actually picture a life with, and having his luck turn so abruptly this morning had triggered something inside him. A certain knowledge that things could not go on the way they’d been going for much of his life.
    Something had to change. He’d known it for years, but suddenly it felt more urgent. As though if he didn’t put his life in order right now, the chance would vanish, and he’d be condemned to live this way forever, as his father and his grandfather had before him. There was nothing wrong with being the owner of the most exclusive private sex club in New Orleans. But he no longer wanted it to define him as a man, as it had until now. He’d worked hard at getting the establishment to the point of the quasi respectability the club enjoyed now.
    Tout quoi vous voulez, the Jaillissement’s inscription promised. Anything he could ever desire. Endless pleasure. But Shay already had all that. You couldn’t be the rich, good-looking owner of a club like Chez Duchesne and not have an embarrassing wealth of sensual pleasures thrown at you every night of the week. Could that really be all there was to his life?
    Impossible.
    He wanted more. He was ready for a new challenge. Something different.
    Had that been what that totally out-of-character ritual fuck this morning at the foot of that accursed fountain was all about? A cry in the darkness to a magic he didn’t believe in, a desperate attempt to bring about the change he so wanted but had no idea how to accomplish?
    Non, he thought as he drove to the church and the wedding that symbolized all he longed for. Wishes and voodoo would not fulfill his greatest desire.
    What he really wanted was to find someone special to share his life. To love and cherish and grow old with. That would change everything, make all his efforts with the club worthwhile ... because he could leave it in Piron’s capable hands and turn to more important, fulfilling things. Like raising a family of his own.
    At which point, his thoughts returned to Tessa. Lovely, seductive Tessa.
    Sa belle obsession ...
    Was she the one he was seeking? Why had he let her go? He should have kept her! Taken her upstairs to his suite and hand-cuffed her to his bed so she couldn’t leave.
    Hell, at least invited her to the damn wedding.
    Anything but let her walk out of his life again. What kind of an idiot was he to let her slip through his fingers? For the second time. The first woman in years who had stirred his body and fired his imagination. The perfect combination of beauty and intelligence, strength and submissiveness.
    He wanted her back.
    Foutre de merde, he wanted her back!
    He got to the church, a small but stately stone affair on the edge of the Garden District, parked, and hunted down the back dressing room that had been reserved for the groomsmen.
    After a round of backslapping greetings, Shay produced the generous flask of bourbon he’d tucked into his tux pocket and poured a round in four conical paper cups from the water cooler.
    “To the future Mrs. Gardet,” the four best friends toasted.
    “Speaking of whom ... You two have fun at the maison last night?” Shay asked Etienne with a grin. He and his adventurous fiancée were regular guests at Chez Duchesne, enjoying the openly sexual atmosphere and sophisticated fantasy play on offer there. Although Shay hadn’t seen them, he knew they’d planned to spend their last night as singles indulging in decadent behavior at the maison.
    “Oh, yeah,” his friend answered with an even bigger grin. “As always. But what’s this I hear about you and a certain lady in blue?”
    “Tessa,” he said, and threw back a