The Art of Sin Read online

  Chapter 2

  Urged on by the gnawing in his stomach, Grady strolled along the shady sidewalks of Esplanade Avenue, heading toward the Mississippi River and the famous French Market. When he came to an open-air market by the riverfront, he turned to the collection of stalls and the flurry of people inspecting the various goods for sale.

  Navigating through the tables of crafts, antiques, and second-hand clothing, he stopped along the way to take in knick-knacks that caught his eye. The hum of activity around him was infectious as people laughed, socialized, and marveled at the European style open-air market.

  Leaving the flea market behind, Grady soon found himself standing before long trays of fresh fruits and vegetables. His stomach complained louder than before when he caught sight of an appetizing row of rich red strawberries from the nearby city of Ponchatoula. While searching for the perfect carton of big, round berries, his mouth watered. Further down the long aisle, he spied apples, oranges, and raspberries with equal appeal.

  “They’re three ninety-nine a carton,” a very short man with gray-sprinkled brown hair and a white apron clarified next to him.

  Grady held up two fingers. “I’ll take two.”

  “Good decision,” a melodious female voice uttered behind him.

  Grady slowly pivoted around and saw a petite blonde with her long hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing dark sunglasses, and her thin lips were curled back in an intriguing grin.

  She nodded to the display. “Best berries around.”

  Grady was taken aback by her confident stance, and then he noticed her green medical scrubs. She was attractive and had a toned body, but it was that grin that was getting the better of him. He felt that stirring of excitement in his cock while images of taking her, and her sassy grin, from behind inundated his mind.

  “The best around?” He eyed her small breasts. “Really? I find that hard to believe.”

  Her grin stretched into a hearty smile. “I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

  “Eight fifty-six,” the merchant said, distracting him.

  Grady pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and hastily handed the merchant a ten-dollar bill. When he spun back around to talk to the blonde, she was gone. He eagerly scanned the market area, but there was no sign of her.

  “Hey, you want your change?”

  Grady took his change and a brown paper bag of berries from the merchant’s outstretched hands.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled, still surveying the aisle.

  A finger tapped his right shoulder.

  “She went into the flea market,” the merchant pointed out with a wink.

  “Thank you.” Grady took off toward the flea market.

  Right after he crossed the threshold that separated the produce section from the flea market, he spotted the woman’s long blonde ponytail as she perused an assortment of old postcards on a vendor’s table. He hastily walked up to her, formulating an opening line that would grab her interest. Reaching into the brown bag he had clutched to his chest, he came alongside her, and poised a red berry in front of his lips.

  “You were right. Juicy and sweet,” he proclaimed in a sultry voice.

  Nonplussed by his comment, the slender woman continued to search the postcards on the table before her.

  “You were right about the strawberries,” he said a little louder, hoping to get her attention.

  She turned to him, but he could not read the expression on her face behind the dark sunglasses. All he could detect was the slight smirk on her thin, pink lips.

  “Yeah, they are pretty good this year.” She went around him, heading to a table displaying homemade scented candles.

  Grady followed her, taking in the way the green scrubs clung to her small, tight ass. He liked her ass. It was the perfect size … for him, anyway.

  “Are you a doctor?”

  “Hardly.” She removed her sunglasses.

  When he saw her eyes for the first time, Grady felt as if the air had been sucked out of his lungs. There was something captivating and disturbing about her deep gray orbs. It was not their round shape or the way they complemented her pale skin, high cheekbones or round chin … it was how they looked at him. It was an intense expression of distrust that almost seemed to contrast the welcoming smile on her lips.

  “Where are you from?” she asked, scrutinizing his snug blue T-shirt, jeans, and dingy tennis shoes.

  “Connecticut.”

  Grady tried to figure out how old she was, but her appearance exuded an interesting blend of youthful charm with a hint of worldly sophistication, as if she were an old soul cloaked in a little girl’s body.

  She replaced her sunglasses on her face. “Connecticut? Interesting. What brings you to New Orleans?”

  Grady froze. It was the one question he was not prepared to answer. Plenty of women got turned on when they discovered he was a male stripper, but more often than not, the women he was attracted to were repulsed by his job. He always found it an interesting irony in his life that the women who appealed to him were never the kind to frequent his clubs.

  “I’m working on my MBA at Tulane,” he lied, knowing that would be a whole lot more alluring to a woman like the one before him.

  She tilted her head to the side and studied him for several seconds without saying a word. Grady’s antiperspirant was failing him miserably as he began to sweat beneath the scrutiny of her sunglasses.

  “That’s funny?” she finally spoke up. “I don’t see you as a grad student.”

  “Well, I’m only going there part-time. I also work as a bartender in the city while I’m getting through school.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “Bartender? Where?”

  He remembered what Suzie had told him about another tenant in their building. “Pat O’Brien’s,” came out of his mouth before he could stop it.

  Grady knew he was only getting in deeper trouble, but like so many times in the past, he could not help himself. He never liked telling anyone what he did for a living, feeling any lie was more palatable than the truth.

  He gave her one of his well-rehearsed smiles and held out his hand. “My name’s Grady.”

  The smile fell from her lips. “Grady?” She took his hand and gave it a curt shake.

  Instantly, he sensed the change in her. It was as if her dislike for him had taken a turn for the worse.

  She removed her sunglasses and carefully scrutinized his body with those disconcerting eyes. Grady found he liked the feeling he got from her intense scrutiny. Puffing out his chest slightly, he wanted to make sure she got a real good look at him.

  “Sure you’re not a male stripper? You definitely have the body for it,” she voiced in a condescending tone.

  Grady’s stomach shriveled to the size of a walnut. His blue eyes furiously darted about the flea market.

  Shit! How did she know?

  He suddenly wanted to get away. Searching for an excuse, he nervously checked his watch.

  “I should get going. Thanks for the tip about the strawberries.” He turned to go.

  “Grady Paulson, isn’t it?”

  Grady slowly faced her. Her smile was back, but now it resembled more of a coy smirk than a heartfelt gesture. That long held fear, of being recognized from his shows hit his gut with the force of a high caliber bullet.

  “Ah, have we met?”

  She took a step closer to him. “I’m Al Wagner, your new landlord.”

  Relief tunneled through him, making Grady let go a light chuckle.

  That would explain everything.

  He dropped his grin and raised his head to her. “I was given the impression that you were never seen by any of your tenants, Ms. Wagner, and only communicated via notes slipped under your door.”

  Al folded up her sunglasses and looped them over the waistband of her green scrubs. “I see Suzie exaggerated everything, as usual. I hope she at least gave you the ground rules.”

  Grady nodded and held his bag of stra
wberries against his chest. “Forgoing my weekly animal sacrifice may be a bit hard, but I think the rest of your ground rules should be pretty easy to follow.”

  “A comedian and a stripper. How unique.”

  He took a few steps back from her. “I try my best to entertain the ladies.”

  “I guess that’s part of your job description.”

  Grady muted his desire to be sarcastic, and tried to remember that this woman was going to be his landlord for the next four months. “I should thank you for the extra amenities, like the towels and bed linens. Most rentals I’ve stayed in don’t provide you with anything but a bed and cable television.”

  “I know a lot of people in your business are on the road most of the time and having a place feel more like home than a hotel helps.”

  He dipped his head to her. “It was appreciated.”

  She came alongside him. “Are you heading back to the house?”

  He viewed the setting sun over the rooftops of the French Quarter cottages. “Yeah, I’ve got to go to my new club and check in.”

  “I’ll give you a lift. My car is right over there.” She motioned to a line of cars parked next to the flea market.

  “That’s all right. I can walk.”

  He was about to turn away when she reached for his arm. “I’m sorry, but I suspected it was you from the moment I saw you standing in front of the strawberries. I should have said something sooner.”

  Her touch ignited his curiosity. “How did you know it was me?”

  Her hand fell away. “Burt Conroe, your agent, emailed me a publicity picture of you. He does that with all the renters he sends me. He likes to give me some info on his people. About you, he told me very little.”

  “Well, what did he tell you?” Grady questioned, with a hint of aggravation in his voice.

  “That you were straight, clean, and a little bit lost.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Lost? Why would Burt say that?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” Al headed to a red BMW 325i, parked next to a table of antique mirrors.

  He followed her to the car. “Look, I don’t know what Burt told you, but I’m not lost. I’m simply here for a job.”

  She put her hand on the driver’s side door. “If that’s the case, then why hand me that bullshit about studying at Tulane?”

  Grady eased right up to her, taking in her shrewd gray eyes. “Because a lot of women may like going to see a male stripper dance in a club, but they don’t want to associate with one.”

  “Did you think I was one of those women?”

  He contemplated her green scrubs and white clogs. “I thought you were the kind of woman who would be more impressed by someone going to Tulane, rather than stripping on Bourbon Street.”

  Her pink mouth turned downward into an impish frown. “That’s rather prejudicial, don’t you think? I might have thought your being a male stripper was pretty damned sexy. Ever consider that?”

  An excited fluttering gripped Grady’s insides. Great, this was all he needed. Not even two hours in the city, and he was already getting turned on by his landlord.

  He tried to picture cold showers and fat female strippers to cool his ardor. “Let’s just forget it.”

  “No,” she persisted, opening her car door. “Why did you lie? Or does lying about what you do make it easier to forget their names in the morning?”

  He leaned back from her and redirected his eyes to the crowds in the flea market. “Maybe I should just jot down my reasons on a Post-it note and slip it under your door, Ms. Wagner.”

  The smug grin on her face was disconcerting as hell. Grady always loved a bit of mental sparring with a woman, but something told him tangling with this woman was a real bad idea.

  “I’m sure all those reasons would just about fit on a Post-it note,” she shot back. “Tell me something, Grady Paulson, are you always this way with women?”

  “What way?” he cautiously returned.

  “Angry.”

  Grady suppressed the urge to laugh out loud; instead he simply narrowed his blue eyes on her. “Thanks for the tip about the strawberries.”

  Undeterred, she casually removed the sunglasses from the waistband of her scrubs. “Avoiding my question only confirms my suspicions about you.”

  He let out an aggravated sigh. This was going nowhere. “Your suspicions? Look, Ms. Wagner, I just came here to get something to eat, not get evicted on my first day in the city, all right?”

  “Fair enough. And it’s Al, for the record. No one calls me Ms. Wagner, unless they’re trying to hustle me.”

  “Which I would never do … Ms. Wagner.”

  Al shook her head, appearing amused. Pushing the sunglasses back on her face, she said, “One day, I would like to know why you didn’t want to tell me the truth about being a stripper.”

  “The truth?” Grady fought like hell to stay mad at her, but he couldn’t. She was just too damned adorable. “Quintus Septimius once said, ‘The first reaction to truth is … hatred.’”

  “Is he a stripper?” she posed with a straight face.

  “No, he’s a ….” Grady snickered, shaking his head. “Forget it.”

  “You know, Grady, I might have been different from all the other women. If you never give a woman a chance, you might never know how she really feels.”

  “How do you really feel about me, Ms. Wagner?”

  Al nodded to the passenger side of the car. “Get in and perhaps I’ll tell you.”

  Blowing out an irritated breath, Grady went around to the passenger side door and opened it. Remembering to play it cool, he climbed in the car, still clutching his bag of strawberries.

  While Al turned over the engine, he took in her profile. “If you hadn’t known it was me, would you have still talked to me?”

  She put the car in gear. “No. I don’t make it a habit to talk to strange men.”

  “What about talking to men you’re attracted to?”

  She waited a few beats before saying, “I’ve never run across one of those.”

  Her words were like an automatic challenge to him. Instantly, he was desperate to learn all he could about her. Grady kept his eyes on her profile as she drove.

  “Al is short for Allison, right?”

  She nodded and merged with the traffic at the end of Esplanade Avenue. “I detest the name Allison. So if you want to stay on my good side, don’t call me that.”

  “Who called you Allison?”

  She gave him a wary side-glance. “What do you mean?”

  “I find if someone detests a name, it’s usually because someone they disliked either called them that or had that name.”

  “What are you, a stripper moonlighting as a psychologist?”

  Putt off by her wisecrack, he shifted his gaze to the large homes along Esplanade Avenue. “I minored in psych at Yale. I was even considering going on to do some graduate study in it.”

  “Yale? I’m impressed.”

  “Are you going to tell me who called you Allison?”

  She returned her eyes to the road ahead. “My father called me Allison until I was seven, then he walked out on me, my mother, and my older sister, Cassie.”

  “After that you insisted on being called Al. I understand.”

  She pulled to a stop at a red light. “Tell me something. How do you go from being at Yale to dancing in a strip club in New Orleans?”

  “What, that wasn’t in the info Burt sent you?”

  Her hands tightened on the black leather steering wheel. “I shouldn’t have made that crack about Burt saying you were lost. He actually said you were a real stand-up guy, hardworking, and had run into some bad luck after the economy fell apart.”

  Lowering his defenses, Grady relaxed in his seat, and his grip on his bag of strawberries eased. “I was working at Lehman Brothers as a stock analyst, prior to the crash.”

  The light turned green and the car eased forward. “How did you get into stripping?”
<
br />   “My roommate at Yale was working as a stripper for a club close by the campus. He introduced me to the owner. The money was great and all the girls from the college went there.”

  She veered the car toward the right as the deep yellow mansion appeared just up ahead. “You ever try to go back to Wall Street?”

  “You know the answer to that one. I’m one of millions, but at least I’m gainfully employed.”

  “Perhaps, but you don’t like doing what you do … that’s obvious.” She swerved the car into a narrow driveway beside the dark yellow mansion. “A man happy in his profession doesn’t care what other’s think, he only cares about what he does.”

  “Where did you learn that?”

  “My father,” she declared, as the car slowly eased through the side entrance. “He was a musician, who worked in about every jazz joint in the city.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She came from an old New Orleans family. This was their home.” She gestured to the house. “She died when I was sixteen. After that, my older sister, Cassie, took care of me and the house.”

  When the car entered the courtyard in back, high, red-bricked walls rose on either side, while dull, gray cement covered the ground. Along the walls, empty flower beds seemed to cry out for some form of decorative vegetation, while at the rear a single story cottage stood with a hipped, black shingle roof and the same deep yellow plaster that was on the main home. The green shutters on the cottage were closed, giving the building the same abandoned feel as the empty flowerbeds.

  “Where’s Cassie now?” Grady probed, taking in a beat-up blue Volvo to his right.

  She parked the car in a spot behind the rear entrance. “She went west.”

  “Where west? L.A.?”