Bayou Heat

by Donna Kauffman

  She rolled to her back and glared at him. “Considering you could be sitting in jail right now, you’d better believe it. But be warned, I’m still mad about not getting my cold shower. You owe me for that one.”

  “Anytime, ange.” The words were too soft, too throaty. “Anytime.”

  Teague watched her thump her pillow and rustle under the covers a moment or two, then she was still. He spent another few minutes watching her breath move evenly in and out. She fell asleep even more easily than he did. Which, considering where he’d ended up tonight, really said something.

  And just how the hell had he ended up naked in her tub? With a silent groan, he pushed to a sitting position, then gingerly probed the side of his head. Ti Antoine. The sneaky bastard. That answered how he’d ended up bloody. The rest was still a bit blurry.

  One thing was certain. The stupid fight he’d been suckered into had cost him a very important meeting. Ti Antoine—all three hundred and twenty-five pounds of him—was a drunk and a bully, and he didn’t have to be the former to be the latter. But he’d been plenty drunk that night.

  Teague was well aware that Ruby had probably egged him on, taunting him with what Ti wanted and sure as hell would never get. But nobody messed with Teague’s waitresses. Not that Ruby would thank him for his intervention. She preferred to fight her own battles. God knows she’d wielded that heavy serving platter like an Amazon warrior.

  His fingers hit a sore spot and he flinched, then swore under his breath as he mentally tallied how much two new barstools, three tables, five pool cues, and half a dozen beer mugs would cost him. Hell, he owned the damn bar. He’d just add it to Ti’s bar bill. He drank so much he’d never know anyway.

  He just hoped Skeeter could set up another drop point. If he missed the next shipment, he’d be stuck down here for at least another six months, setting up another sting. If he didn’t get himself killed first.

  And lately that had been looking like the better alternative. Hell, who was he kidding? If it wasn’t for Grand-mère and what he owed her, he’d have stepped in front of a bullet years ago.

  He sighed in frustrated defeat. It had always been family. Twisting him around and binding him up, when all he’d ever wanted was to be free of them all forever. Something he’d long ago realized would never happen. Family didn’t go away. It was a life sentence, no matter how you looked at it.

  Like now. After almost a year, it looked as if he was finally going to pull off the bust, keep Grand-mère clear of the hassle, and once and for all get the hell out of Louisiana. Nothing and no one could draw him back this time. This would make them square. Even up whatever debt he thought he had. They’d always be tied to him, but he sure as hell didn’t have to live with them.

  And now, bingo! Out of the blue, Marshall—who had made a point of never asking Teague for a damn thing—comes out of nowhere with his baby-sitting request. The last thing Teague needed was some flower-hunting scientist stomping all over the bayou … and his operation. But Marsh had made it clear she’d stomp with or without a guide and, having met her, Teague didn’t doubt his half-brother’s assessment.

  Teague slowly rolled to his knees and stood, snagging the sweatpants at the last second but leaving the towel where it fell. He stayed bent over for some time, certain not to make the same mistake he had earlier. Passing out again at this point was unacceptable.

  He’d already let the evening’s events get way too out of hand.

  When he was certain he wouldn’t get light-headed, he rolled his spine up straight, lifting his head last. His vision was blurry and his body felt as if it had been used for … well, exactly what it had been. Target practice with a barstool.

  He made his way slowly back to the bathroom. Christ Almighty, had all that blood come from him? Damn head wounds bled like a stuck pig. He spied his once white T-shirt wadded up in the corner behind the claw-foot tub, where it had apparently landed. That explained the blood smears on the wall. He dimly recalled yanking it off, along with his jeans, and climbing into the tub with the intent of cleaning up.

  Hell, at least he’d tried to make himself presentable. Dr. McClure should be impressed.

  Dr. McClure. Teague stood in front of the partially silvered mirror and stopped fighting the urge to think about her in more detail. He told himself it helped divert the pain of examining the gash on his temple, but it wasn’t flashes of her strong, lean, naked body that invaded his mind. She was put together nice enough, but Teague had seen his share of naked women.

  It was her bravado and frank honesty that had captured his attention. Vigueur, his grand-mère would call it. Strength, force.

  Marshall hadn’t really said much about her and Teague hadn’t wanted to know. He’d been so surprised that his half-brother had asked him for help that he hadn’t taken time to question him too deeply. When he’d thought of it at all—beyond the pain-in-the-ass aspect of it—he’d pictured some dried-up, earth-hugging, bookworm type whose passions ran to spouting Latin plant names. He thought of the woman lying semicomatose in the next room.

  Oh, Erin was passionate all right. Teague smiled, reopening the cut on his lip, not caring. An imposition and pain in the ass for sure, but she also intrigued him. Too much.

  And he was going to do absolutely nothing about it.

  Eyeing the tub behind him, Teague carefully moved over and twisted the cracked ivory handles. If he was going to sleep in it, he’d use some cool water for a mattress. He wet a towel and made a half-hearted attempt at cleaning the walls, stopping when he realized he was just making it worse.

  He needed rest, needed to be alert and on the ball. He’d clean up the mess in the morning.

  A long, low groan escaped his lips as he cautiously lowered himself into the tepid water.

  Something tugged at his hip. He reached back and pulled it off, examining the plastic bandages as he leaned his head back against the rim and slipped lower into the water.

  “What in the hell?” He frowned as he made out the small cartoon characters wielding swords and shields. His gaze drifted to the open bathroom door and the sheet-draped mound huddled in the small bed. Who are you, Erin McClure?

  He let his eyes slide shut. One hand dangled over the back of the tub, the gun lying within easy reach on a footstool, hidden from view.

  He curled the fingers of his other hand around the crumpled bandages and drifted off to sleep.

  THREE

  “We simply have to stop meeting like this.”

  Teague didn’t bother to open his eyes. He wasn’t sure why. He just knew he shouldn’t start the day being charmed by her.

  “Sounded like a herd of buffalo routing around in there, ange,” he said lazily. “You always such a considerate hostess?”

  “To be a hostess, there has to be an invited guest.” She stalked into the room without so much as a glance in his direction—he knew, he peeked—and closed the French doors he vaguely remembered opening after he’d drained the tub at some point during the night. Place had been a damn refrigerator.

  “I have to be downtown in an hour,” she went on, all business. “I’m hot. I want a shower.” A stifled sigh.

  Probably looking at the blood smears, he thought. They’d look a lot worse in daylight. Another reason to keep his eyes shut.

  “I need a shower.”

  “Sounds like you need a strong cup of chicory, chèr. Are you always like this in the morning?” Startling images of a variety of things he could do to put a smile on her face made him shift a bit. He was even more certain he shouldn’t start off fantasizing about taking her to bed for the rest of the day.

  “Clean up your mess and be out of here in five minutes.”

  Teague cracked open one eye. “Or else?” He didn’t bother picking up the gun again.

  She planted her hands on her hips. “I’ve been trained in jungle warfare our military has never even dreamed of. Use your imagination.” With that, she stalked back into the other room.

  Helpless again
st it, Teague smiled.

  Erin was smoothing the wrinkles from a pair of poorly packed khaki pants when she felt him behind her. Clear across the room in the doorway, but she could feel him nonetheless. It was like the damn man had a palpable aura of heat hovering around him. Probably due to all the pheromones women sent shooting his way, she thought irritably.

  She’d spent a good part of what little rest she’d gotten the night before tossing and turning. But then a naked, bloody Cajun sleeping in one’s bathtub didn’t exactly make for sweet dreams.

  Liar.

  She quickly pulled a soft print blouse from her duffel bag and shook it out with an audible snap.

  “All yours, ange.”

  That’s just what I’m afraid of, she thought darkly.

  She straightened and turned to him. She froze for a heartbeat as she looked at him for the first time that morning. Bright sun was already streaming through the doors at his back, reflecting off his smooth skin, casting his muscles in stark relief. Freshly showered, with his black hair combed back from his stunning face, he made her breath catch in her throat. Even black and blue, the man had an almost overwhelming presence. The white towel tucked firmly around his waist accentuated just how dark he was. Dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes.

  “Thought you were in a hurry, chèr.”

  That mouth …

  She jerked her gaze up to his eyes. “I am.”

  He moved from the doorway. She swallowed hard. Gone was the weaving, beaten man of the night before. He took only a couple of steps, but the natural grace and control he had over his large frame was crystal clear. She didn’t miss the fact that the gun was nowhere in sight. Just as she didn’t miss the fact that this morning, he didn’t need it.

  He stopped several feet away, water drops still glistening on the small patch of black hair swirling between his pectorals.

  “Then stop staring at me as if you have all the time in the world and you’re just looking for someone to waste a couple of hours of it with.” He took another step. “I have things to do today, too, chèr. But that’s the sort of invitation no man in his right mind would turn down.”

  Erin lifted her gaze from his chest to his eyes, suddenly finding the ironic humor in the situation. “Well, I guess I’ve been mingling with lunatics then.”

  His smile showed his surprise. “I guess you have.”

  Realizing her plan was backfiring badly, she cleared her throat and turned back to her clothes, not caring if he read cowardly retreat into her actions.

  She was the type of woman who attracted the pocket protector set. When she attracted anyone at all. She wasn’t even sure if Teague Comeaux owned a shirt, much less one with a pocket.

  “Yeah, well, whatever the case may be, I don’t have time to waste. I’ll have Marshall contact you when I’m ready to make contact with the bokor.”

  He moved so fast she didn’t hear him. His hand closed around her arm, bringing her sharply around to face him.

  “Bokor, mon chèr?” His voice was flat, deadly cold, his eyes glittering black … and empty.

  The total lack of emotion made Erin shiver.

  “For a supposed expert, you haven’t done your research too well, ange.”

  She yanked her arm. He released it, raising his hand palm out before dropping it to his side, as if touching her hadn’t been his choice.

  She flexed her arm once, resisting the urge to rub it. He hadn’t held her tightly, but the sensation of his fingers pressed into her skin wasn’t fading. Not that she’d wanted to be touched by him either.

  She looked him in the eye. “My research is thorough and my sources impeccable. Are you telling me you don’t have a connection with the bokor? Because if you don’t, you’re wasting my time.”

  “A bokor serves with the left hand. Uses the black magic,” he clarified. “Belisaire follows the Rada, the positive. She understands the Petro, the dark side, but only as a means to combat it. You don’t want to mess with that, chèr. No one does.”

  “Don’t condescend to me. I have researched voodoo and it’s various counterparts in Haiti, Africa, the islands. I’m well aware of the dangers involved in my project.”

  Teague closed the space between them with one step, but didn’t touch her. He didn’t have to.

  “You have no idea what you’re getting into, chèr. You go into the swamps alone, here … you may not come out.”

  Erin’s skin burned at the heat rolling off him. The heat in his voice, the heat in his eyes, the heat of his near naked body so close to hers.

  “I know what I have to do,” she said, hating that her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  Teague leaned closer. She felt his breath fan across her cheeks, brush over her lips. “So do I, ange. So do I.” It was the unexpected note of resignation in his voice that kept her from moving away as he dropped his head, angling his mouth toward hers.

  Dear God, he was going to kiss her. Erin’s thighs tightened together without her consent. He lifted his hand and cupped her face, lifting her mouth to his.

  His palm was a hot brand on her cheek and she jerked away, taking several steps back. What the hell was she doing?

  Her entire body was screaming in sudden frustration. “I—I have to get a shower. I have to go.”

  That Teague looked almost as disconcerted as she felt did little to calm her. She’d expected some cocky, arrogant retort, mocking her obvious inexperience. She realized she was going to have to stop expecting him to do the expected. She also realized she was going to have to get the hell out of here while the getting was good.

  Snatching up her clothes, she stepped around him, very aware he didn’t so much as move an inch. She turned at the bathroom door, facing him. “Can you or can you not introduce me to the local voodoo priest, your houngan?”

  “Priestess.”

  “The mambo, then. Can you?”

  “I can.”

  Not entirely satisfied with his easy answer, she asked, “Will you take me to her?”

  “Yes.”

  Erin released a breath. “When?”

  Teague visibly relaxed, that crooked smile once again curving his wide lips. “You don’t exactly make an appointment with Belisaire. I’ll find you when the time is right.”

  Erin opened her mouth to argue that she needed something more definite, but shut it again. Marshall had been vague about many things, but he had made it clear that Teague wasn’t just her best connection, he was her only one.

  “Fine. You can reach me here or on camp—”

  “I know how to find you.”

  Erin shivered at the promise in his words. She simply nodded, then shut herself in the bathroom, locking the door behind her. As if that would stop him.

  If Teague Comeaux wanted something, she doubted anything would stop him.

  She peeled off her clothes, gasping softly as the fabric rubbed against her erect nipples. The image of a man like Teague, all dark and dangerous, wanting her, taking her …

  Her thighs tightened against the renewed ache between her legs.

  She was a scientist. A woman who saw life as something to be examined, understood, related to fact. Her body was a complex, fascinating machine, one she knew inside and out and was completely comfortable with.

  On a scientific level.

  She glanced up into the mirror. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes bright. She suddenly felt out of control. A stranger to her body’s responses.

  The idea of being wanted like that was a seductive thrill she’d never felt. That she liked it was even more frightening. Was it so bad to want to be wanted like that? To want to be taken by a man like him? Just once?

  Erin’s fingers curled, digging into her palms, fighting against the sudden need to do something, anything, to ease her body’s torment.

  And if she did, would once be enough?

  Teague slammed the phone down. “Damn, damn, damn.” Skeeter had taken off for parts unknown when Teague blew their meeting. He’d spent a day and
half trying to track his partner down. No luck. Ten months of hard work possibly down the drain.

  There was a light tap on the half-open door to the small cluttered office he kept at the back of the Eight Ball, the pool hall and bar he owned as a cover.

  “What?” he barked.

  A blond head poked in the door. “Hey, you busy?” Marshall stepped into the room.

  “What brings you down to the swamps?” Teague asked, honestly surprised. His brother had visited Teague here precisely once in the year he’d been back. Then it had been to ask him for the one and only favor Marsh had ever requested. Teague didn’t doubt a certain ethnobotanist was his reason for this visit as well.

  “Well, I’m not here for a game of eight ball.”

  The one thing that Teague appreciated about his half brother was that, unlike most of their family, Marshall didn’t play games. You always knew where you stood with him.

  “Good thing. Those boys out there would take half your trust fund before you downed your first beer.”

  Marshall didn’t take the bait. But then, he never did. And if he noticed Teague’s battered face, he didn’t mention it. Not for the first time, Teague wondered what Marsh really thought of him. Did he have any idea what kind of man Teague had become? Did he care?

  And why did any of it matter now?

  Marsh brushed off a folding metal chair and sat. His Italian leather loafers, hand-tailored pleated trousers, rumpled white linen shirt, loose designer tie, wire-rim glasses, and disheveled blond hair made him look like exactly what he was: a slightly harried professor who happened to be swimming in family money.

  “Yeah well, they can have it.”

  Teague smiled, on familiar ground now. “Father on your case to leave the ivy-covered walls of the university for the ivy-covered walls of the Sullivan law practice again?”

  Marshall ignored the question. “So, have you made contact yet?”

  Sometimes Teague hated being right. Again, he asked himself why it mattered that Marsh was only here about the favor he’d promised. It would be wiser to ask himself why this particular woman had brought Marsh to ask favors at all.