Bare Devotion

  Cover Copy

  Sweet and sultry, hot and wild…that’s desire, Louisiana-style. And there’s no one better to explore it with than one of the Bayou Bachelors…

  Returning to her flooded New Orleans home to face Henry Boudreaux, the man she jilted at the altar, is the hardest thing attorney Sonja Bosco has ever done—even before she discovers she’s pregnant. Sonja backed out of the marriage for Henry’s sake. He wants to be part of his father’s law firm, and his parents will never approve of an interracial marriage. Better to bruise his heart than ruin his life.

  Henry can’t forgive Sonja, and doubts that he can trust her again. But learning that they’re going to be parents means there’s no avoiding each other. Springtime on the bayou is already steamy enough…now they’re living in the same small space while their damaged house is repaired. And with each passing day they’re getting a little more honest. A lot more real. And realizing that nothing—not even New Orleans at Mardi Gras—glows brighter than the desire they’re trying to deny…

  Also by Geri Krotow

  Fully Dressed

  BARE DEVOTION

  A Bayou Bachelors Romance

  Geri Krotow

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Table of Contents

  Cover Copy

  Also by Geri Krotow

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  About the Author

  Teaser Chapter

  Lyrical Press books are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by Geri Krotow

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

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  Lyrical Press and the L logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  First Electronic Edition: September 2018

  eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0602-8

  eISBN-10: 1-5161-0602-4

  First Print Edition: September 2018

  ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0603-5

  ISBN-10: 1-5161-0603-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  Chapter 1

  Sonja Bosco’s grip on the leather-covered steering wheel lessened when she saw the empty driveway in front of the house that had been more than her home for the past three years. It had been her very heartbeat. Henry’s car could be in the garage, of course, but she doubted it. According to what she’d ascertained from their shared receptionist, he was hard at work in the New Orleans office of Boudreaux Law. She’d gathered the courage to call into the main office in Baton Rouge, run by Henry’s father, late last week. The senior Boudreaux knew she planned to report back to work later this morning. Three weeks and two days after she’d left NOLA, left St. Louis Cathedral, and more significantly, left her ex-almost-husband-to-be, Henry, on said altar.

  Of all the degrees, positions, and dreams she’d aspired to, runaway bride had never made the list. The tug of remorse at her emotionally cataclysmic decision was strong, but her will to jump into her new routine, whatever that was going to look like, was stronger.

  She parked her BMW in the driveway for what would be the last time. Her finances as a single woman demanded she sell the once cherished Beemer, and her status as Henry’s ex meant she’d never again live in the house they’d built together. If only it didn’t still feel like home. As much as she dreaded seeing the devastation the flood had done to it the last two weeks, maybe it would crack the code on the invisible signal that made her body home in on this place as if it were her last grasp for freedom. Hell, it wasn’t just her body. Her soul had planted roots here, damn it all to hell.

  The graveled drive felt so familiar under her sandaled feet she almost wept. Home. She’d needed to be here, by herself, licking her heart wounds these past few weeks, instead of holing up in a close elementary-school friend’s backwater cabin. She hadn’t had Wi-Fi and had refused to check her phone, save to let her parents and family know she was still breathing, and was safe from the flooding rains that pummeled so much of the bayou two weeks ago. The flooding had been so extensive she couldn’t get back to the river house if she wanted to, not without a boat and the help of Henry or his brother Brandon.

  She’d only gone out twice, each time to the tiny local grocery store.

  Where the third pregnancy test she’d purchased gave her the same result as the previous two, before the wedding. She was pregnant, newly so. Not only was Henry Boudreaux her ex-groom and ex-fiancé, but he was also her baby daddy. She couldn’t muster the tiniest of smiles, much less a giggle, at the humor of it. She, Sonja Bosco, didn’t think she’d ever laugh again.

  The heavy wooden front door opened with a single turn of her key. It stuck a bit in the frame, and she wondered if it might still be swollen from the devastating rains that soaked the area the week after the wedding. So much so that Poppy, her best friend and appointed honeymoon house sitter, had had to leave for higher, drier ground. And had promptly fallen in love with her rescuer, Henry’s brother Brandon.

  At least some people still believed in love.

  Sonja sucked in a huge breath and faced the house she’d lived in with Henry for the past couple of years, where they’d planned their wedding.

  “The un-wedding,” she muttered to the empty house as she entered. It was worse than she’d thought it would be. The main floor had been flooded during the storm, and Poppy and Henry had done a quick storm prep by moving as much as possible to the second floor of the custom-built riverfront home.

  Streaks of dried mud led the way from the living room to the French doors where the water had come in. Shadowed stains on the previously ivory cream walls indicated that the water had risen to at least eighteen inches, maybe even two feet, in the house.

  Her and Henry’s dream home had drowned. Not unlike their hopes for a future together. Certainly her tears that first week after the wedding that never happened were enough to drown her crushed dreams. She thought she’d cried out all the pain of her broken heart, but as she gazed at the storm’s destruction, waves of anguish rushed up from her sto
mach and she turned around and ran back out of the house. The crepe myrtles had survived the storm, and she took shelter behind them as her morning sickness left her helpless until her stomach was emptied.

  “Son of a bitch.” She ran a shaky hand across her forehead. “Nothing personal, baby. You’re sweet, don’t worry. Mommy’s just getting used to you is all.” Sweet Jesus and iced lemonade, she sounded like her grandmother. Grandma Edwina had made her opinion of Sonja marrying a “white gentleman” clear. “I’ll support whomever you choose, sweet girl, but you have to know that you’re making your life harder than it needs to be.”

  Sonja had blown her maternal grandmother off, assigning the words to a generation that had marched on Selma. While Loving v. Virginia had been decided within two years of Selma, there was still such a long way to go, and Sonja’s grandmother never let her forget it. Grandma was as protective of her as could be and didn’t want to see Sonja risk the extra pain that an interracial marriage could bring.

  Sonja had fallen for Henry as he had her—flat-out soul mate attraction. But the reaction from his parents was some kind of 1950s flashback. They thought the marriage was doomed before it started simply because Sonja was black. She’d been sad for Henry because she knew his relationship with his parents was going to suffer. Had suffered.

  But had it been enough? She still wasn’t sure that if he’d drawn a firmer line with his folks she’d never have run.

  The doubt and guilt that had scratched at her conscience after each altercation with Henry’s parents came screaming back, and she paused in her damaged house survey. Worry that she could be wrong; that it might be possible that somewhere underneath all of his wonderfulness Henry had at least the teeniest bit of bigoted asshole in him, like his folks. And guilt that she’d never mentioned any of the confrontations to him. They’d been almost non-events to her; racism wasn’t anything that surprised her. And the Boudreauxs were so subtle, their passive-aggressive skills so finely tuned, that it would have been hard to explain her point of view without coming off as having a huge chip on her shoulder.

  The best bigots were like that. Cunning.

  She stood under the large arched threshold into the great room, and the memory of Henry standing next to her at this spot, over which they’d hung the mistletoe last year, immediately shifted her morose thoughts to sadness.

  Her parents had been thrilled she’d finally shown an interest in something besides law and studying. And they adored Henry. Their disappointment at her decision to not follow through with her vows had been keen, but they’d get over it. Especially when they found out they were going to be grandparents. Her sisters and brother had always been on board with her marrying Henry and were still sending her texts to “Quick, beg him to take you back.” They meant well, but their words were starting to wear.

  The French doors opened up, and she breathed in the brackish breeze, allowed the strength of it to move across her face. Her hair was going to frizz to all get-out but what the hell? The wind helped her nausea. She had her hand on her nape, giving herself a massage as best she could, willing her stomach to settle. It wasn’t easy, seeing how the deck was strewn with debris that Henry obviously hadn’t taken the time to clear.

  Or maybe he hadn’t come back, either?

  A definite thud stiffened her spine and made her grip the door handles. She was alone in the house, vulnerable. If it was an unwelcome visitor she could escape from the back deck, over to their neighbor’s. As quietly as possible she turned around and looked into the living room, across to the open space’s huge granite-topped counter, to the kitchen. No one. Nothing. Maybe the wind had forced the front door open. But she’d closed it tight, she was certain.

  “This is a far cry from the cathedral.” An unmistakable voice, the sexiest timbre on the planet, rocked her.

  A startled gasp left her lips before she had a chance to even know she made the sound. She faced him, looked into the brilliant blue eyes whose look always felt like a caress. Right now it was more like a harsh slap of hail on her bare cheeks.

  “I didn’t see your car in the drive so I thought it’d be okay to come in.” Her defensiveness surprised her. She’d practiced how she’d behave when she saw him again, and this was nothing like the detached air she’d hoped to project.

  “Why wouldn’t it be okay? It’s your house, too.” Tall, lean, and with the lethal stare he usually reserved for his toughest courtroom cases, Henry stared at her from the foyer. As imperious as ever but without his usual air of humor. The self-deprecation that had endeared him to her. He wore his best attorney mask without any sign of the warmth she’d gotten too used to. He was guarded, prepared for battle.

  She drank in his presence anyway. Glugged it down as if he were a tall glass of iced ginger ale, soothing her belly, easing the tight restrictive cords she’d wrapped her heart back together with.

  He stepped into the living area, and sunlight from the open French doors reached him. His eyes seemed brighter than she remembered, more aquamarine, though at closer inspection they had shadows hanging over them. Clouding them.

  “It’s impolite to stare, Sonja.”

  She licked her dry lips. “Sorry. You startled me.”

  His short laugh was surgically strategic as it knifed through her. “Oh, I believe you’re the one with the element of surprise under your belt. What’s next, Sonja, are you going to tell me you ran off to Vegas to marry someone else?”

  “You know I didn’t.”

  “Do I? Let’s go over the facts, shall we?”

  She held up her hands. “No. No, Henry. I can’t.” She moved as if to walk past him but reconsidered. She didn’t want to risk coming close enough to touch him. Her fingers tingled with his nearness, and she didn’t trust herself to walk on by without reaching out to him. As much as her head knew they were done, that he wasn’t her prince on a horse, not even her life’s partner on a bayou dugout, her heart was not to be trusted.

  “Can’t what, Sonja? Tell me why you felt you had to wait until the last possible minute to run out on me? Tell me why you led me on so long, right up to the goddamned altar, mind you, before you took off? Thanks for helping me tell our guests, by the way.” Henry’s words were harsh as he relaxed into his stance in the middle of the room. He’d shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and his open-collared long-sleeved shirt was rolled up to his forearms.

  “Wait—aren’t you working? Why aren’t you in a suit?”

  One side of his mouth lifted in challenge, and it was so much like the expression he gave her before he was about to go down on her that she wanted to weep with sorrow over her loss. She’d never feel the pressure of his most talented tongue on her again.

  Buck up. You’re the one who ran.

  “You’re not the only one who can change their mind, Sonja.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You think you know everything about everyone. Even now, you’re looking at me like I’m crazy, standing here and not measuring up to what, who, you think I should be.” He pulled his hands out of his pockets and gestured at his attire. “Maybe I’m tired of all of the bullshit, Sonja. Not just you, not just the sham of a relationship we had, but of it all. I’m done playing the perfect corporate lawyer. I’m good enough at what I do. I’ll wear suits in the courtroom, but why should I in the office?”

  That stung. So he’d lumped her in with bullshit. He still didn’t get it, and she had zero hope he ever would. This wasn’t about her betrayal. This was about being able to trust him. Too painful to go there.

  “You think loosening up your dress code will loosen you up? Take the stick out of your ass?”

  His eyes narrowed, and she knew he wanted to tell her to fuck off. Before, when they’d been so in tune, he would have bent her over the sofa that usually was in the center of the living room, and they would have fucked themselves to the oblivio
n of the priceless chemistry they’d shared. And then laughed about it later, sprawled out on the same sofa.

  “Maybe I’m not the one who needs to loosen up, Sonja.” His drawl was pronounced, the way he knew she liked it.

  Against her mind’s best advisement, her body reacted in the only way it knew to. She crossed her arms across her chest, hoping he hadn’t seen her nipple hard-ons. It had to be baby hormones. No way would she feel attracted to him like this, after all she’d done.

  Would she?

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She stood her ground as he took one, two, five steps toward her. They were no more than two feet apart. Too close, too soon.

  “You were always so quick to place the role of the uptight legal beagle on me, sweetheart, but did it ever occur to you that you’re the one with the rigidity issues?”

  “No.” It came out as a goddamned whisper even as she straightened her spine. As if he were turning her on as quickly and effectively as ever. As if she could forget the betrayal at finding out there was so much he’d never told her about himself and throw herself at him, beg him to make love to her.

  He made a show of looking her up and down. His gaze lingered on her breasts, covered by her arms, before sweeping to her hips and back up to her face. “You’re looking as hot and luscious as ever, Sonja. Who would know that underneath it all lies a woman who was able to leave her fiancé of two years at the altar?”

  * * * *

  Henry saw her intake of breath before he heard it—her chest rose in a decisive move of shock, and he waited for the satisfaction to curl through him.

  Instead he couldn’t take his gaze off her liquid brown eyes, eyes he’d drowned in every single time they’d made love. Had a conversation. Shared their lives for over three years.

  “You have no moral high ground here.” She looked around the wrecked bottom floor of their house. The house they’d built together, long before she ever agreed to marry him. “The entire time we were a couple, you told me that you’d had a few relationships before me. You neglected to mention your engagement to a college classmate, or how she’d never learned how to let go of you.”