Masked by Moonlight

by Nancy Gideon

  “Not until I stumbled onto it. No.”

  The tears on her face startled a bittersweet panic within him as he remained motionless, a room away from all her pain.

  “Did you know about my father? Were you in on that plan to kill him?”

  “No.”

  “Would you if he’d asked you?”

  “He didn’t ask me.”

  “That wasn’t the question.”

  “He didn’t ask me.”

  He watched the horror, the fury, the fear well up inside her. And he braced himself, in dread and a terrible resignation, for her one question.

  “Why, Max? Why did you come back?”

  It wasn’t the question he expected, and for a moment, he had no response.

  “Why? Why didn’t you just walk away?”

  He explained as best he could the conflicting feelings tightening inside him even now. “Because she was crying.” Then his voice dropped to a husky register. “And you were so brave.”

  She came toward him then. He held his ground as long as he could while a nervous alarm spiked through him.Then he tried to retreat, reaching for the knob as she backed him up against the door. Her hand slipped over his, closing around it. He stood frozen as her other hand lifted, as her fingertips grazed along the angle of his jaw. His eyes grew huge.

  “It wasn’t my father,” she began in a rough voice. “It wasn’t the doctors in the ER. It wasn’t the detectives or the shrinks who made me feel safe. It was you. It’s your face I remember—your other magnificent face. You were my hero, Max. You saved me.”

  She leaned into him, her head on his shoulder, her soft breath on his neck. He closed his eyes, breathing her in until all his senses were shivering. “Don’t try to make me more than I am, Charlotte.”

  Her fingertips traced the curve of his ear. “Stop pretending to be less than you are.”

  He jerked his head away from the touch that scrambled his ability to reason, to react. “I’m not heroic. I’m not one of your good, decent, hard-working heroes.”

  It was then she understood what Mary Kate was trying to tell her. And that truth freed her conscience. “Those good, decent, hard-working heroes did nothing, Max. You did. You stepped in when you didn’t have to, and you saved us.”

  “No. I didn’t. I was too late. I didn’t know. Charlotte, I couldn’t—”

  Her fingers touched his mouth, silencing him. “That’s twice you’ve been there for me, and neither time I’ve thanked you.”

  He swallowed hard, unable to speak.

  “Thank you, Max.”

  She sighed and burrowed in closer, closer to the frantic beat of his heart. The feel of her was heaven. His hand came up slowly, settling to rest lightly between strong, capable shoulders that for a moment sagged with the weight of past demons.

  With his heart so achingly full, it would be a tremendous relief to release the burden he’d carried for so long with those three, powerful words. But he held them back, not trusting himself. Not trusting her with them.

  “I’m so tired, Max. So tired of carrying everything alone. Stay with me tonight. With you here, maybe I’ll be able to let the shadows go and get some rest.”

  His fingers began a firm massage of the tight muscles in her neck. The sound she made was liquid contentment as his mouth moved lightly along her brow. “If I stay,” he warned gruffly, “I can’t promise you’ll be resting.”

  Silence.

  Then her head lifted and her stare locked into his. “That might be all right, too.”

  Everything he’d ever desired was in that soft carte blanche. He’d be crazy not to act on it, not to satisfy all those restless, urgent fantasies that only she could fulfill. Not to take with desperate need all the things he wanted from her.

  Wanted her to give to him. Not just allow him to take from her.

  He took a shaky step back. “What do you want from me, Charlotte?”

  “I don’t know, Max. I’m not thinking straight right now.” Her hands stroked up and down the front of his jacket, rubbing his response to her into a dangerous confusion. Then she stopped and he was able to breathe. “I just want your shoulder—if the offer’s still open.”

  A small smile. “Is that all?”

  A small smile in return. “For now.”

  Mentally beating his head against the wall, he heard himself say, “Okay.”

  She led him by the hand to the couch, her expression so absurdly grateful that he felt like something disgusting she should be scraping off the bottom of her shoe. When she reached over to turn down the light, he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair to dry.

  “Nice coat.”

  When he saw her admiring glance, he scowled. “I’m not leaving it here.”

  “I just said it was nice.”

  “It was a gift.”

  “Oh.” A lot of thorns prickled around that little word.

  “From Jimmy. I’ve never really bought anything for myself.”

  Bringing up Jimmy Legere returned a degree of her tangy spirit. She snorted, regarding him through chiding eyes. “Next you’re going to tell me he only pays you minimum wage.”

  “He doesn’t pay me anything at all.”

  She stared at him, drawing harsh conclusions as she frowned. “So he owns you lock, stock, and wardrobe.”

  “No, of course not. I can have anything I want. I just don’t want much. Except once I wanted to take this maddening woman out to dinner, and she ended up trying to poison and torture me. I’m not very good at investing my money wisely.”

  “Don’t worry about your coat,” she told him archly. “I don’t want anything of Jimmy Legere’s.”

  “What about me?”

  Alarmed at where the conversation was leading, she tried to lighten the tone with a gentle tease. “I never said I wanted you, Max.”

  He took her comment unblinkingly, as if it weren’t a sledge between the eyes.

  Cee Cee waited for his usual sharp and sassy rejoinder. His unexpected silence stretched out uncomfortably between them. Finally, still tightly shuttered behind an impassive stare, he plumped several pillows against the arm of the couch and sat down. He patted the seat beside him and waited expressionlessly for her to join him. When she settled on the cushion, he angled slightly toward her and patted his shoulder. She settled into that offered comfort without reservation, tucking her feet up, her eyes closing on a sigh. They sat like that for a moment until Max began to shift restlessly, finally toeing off his shoes. Moving Cee Cee away from him long enough to twist on the seat, he slid one leg behind her, then leaned back against the arm of the couch, drawing her between his knees to stretch along the lean length of him.

  “How’s that?” he whispered into her hair.

  “Nice,” she murmured, snuggling into the circle of his arms, nearly asleep on the gust of her first sigh.

  He lay still, barely breathing until he was sure she was slumbering deeply. Then he let the tension in his muscles unknot, and let himself explore her with his heightened senses. One denim-clad thigh rode his hip. An arm curved about his ribs, the other curled behind the back of his neck, her knuckles folded beneath his chin. She wasn’t light, but he liked the firm, muscled feel of her contrasting so deliciously with the soft cushion of breasts pushing against him with every gentle inhalation. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, drawing in the unique fragrance of her.

  She wore perfume from Bourbon French perfumery on Jackson Square. He’d smelled it when walking past, and located the rich tones in one of the smoked glass bottles. Voodoo Love. He’d smiled, wondering if she’d put a spell on him. That would explain the way logic melted away the moment the scent of her tickled up his nose. It was more than the perfume though that was thickly sensual and exotic. It was the way the liquid warmed and awakened with her skin chemistry. The way it blended with her sultry female heat. Intoxicating pheromones that wound him up into a tight coil of yearning and near madness.

  But whatever he mi
ght feel for her was not returned. How many more times did she have to tell him that brutal truth, in actions and words, before he believed her?

  He nuzzled her soft hair.

  At least one more time.

  The urge to move his hands from where they rested safely on knee and shoulder began to tempt his resolve, so he let his senses stretch out beyond her to distract him from her closeness and availability. He heard the quick patter of heartbeats. Her two rodent pets, frozen with the certainty of impending doom. There was a slight drip at her bathroom faucet. Her bed was freshly made, laced with some floral-scented dryer sheets. There were Chinese take-out containers in her trash—moo shu pork. It was a wonder her guinea pigs weren’t watching her more closely. His Armani jacket was in her closet. Did that mean she wasn’t planning to return it? He smiled and let his radius expand outside her apartment.

  The couple downstairs had three cats. He worked around oil and automobiles. She was an artist. They’d just finished making love, while their barbecued ribs grew cold on the table and the wine warmed in their glasses. They were murmuring things he didn’t think they’d want him to hear, so he turned his attention to the street. To a car parked on the far side. The occupant was a man, drinking hot coffee and carrying a gun. He smelled like fast food and gym clothes. A cop.

  Max rolled out from under Cee Cee without causing her to stir. He padded to the balcony in his socks and leaned out, just able to see the rear bumper of the voyeur’s vehicle. In a quick movement, he vaulted over the wrought-iron rail and dropped to all fours into the wet grass below.

  Alain Babineau checked his watch, then rubbed at his eyes. He sat up straight, blinking, wondering if he’d actually seen something rush up toward his driver’s window. He heard a light thump on his roof. By the time he followed the sound up and over, he was staring at Max Savoie in his passenger seat. He jumped, spilling his coffee into his lap, cursing as he tried to blot it up with a handful of paper napkins.

  “Good evening, detective. It’s a lot more comfortable upstairs than down here spying through the windows.”

  “I wasn’t—oh, hell. Yes, I was.”

  An awful thought roughened Max’s voice as he studied the boyishly handsome man who had the same calculating eyes as his partner and a shiny gold ring on his left hand. “Did Charlotte ask you to watch out for her?”

  “God, no. She’d bust my butt if she knew I was out here.”

  Relieved, Max still wasn’t through intimidating him. “Then why are you out here?”

  “Because you were up there. If our roles were reversed and she was your partner, and I was a cold-hearted bastard with blood on my hands alone with her in the dark, what would you be doing?”

  Max smiled slightly. “I’d either be calling for a lot of backup, or I’d trust her and go home to my wife. You’ve got about two seconds to decide which one you’re going to do.”

  “She’s important to me.”

  “And I’m not going to hurt her.”

  Babineau started the car. “I’m more worried about your friends.”

  “They’re not going to be messing with her.”

  “Yeah? I followed them here.” Babineau shone his spotlight out the window, letting it dazzle off the windshield of a big black Olds parked a block down. The car immediately roared to life and executed a quick U-turn disappearing act. “Anyone you know?”

  Max didn’t answer, thinking of those photographs from the station steps. He’d had Pete, Jimmy’s driver, drop him off near the Quarter and he’d walked the rest of the way. Why was Jimmy having him followed? And why was Babineau tailing his observers?

  “She likes you, Savoie. I don’t know why, but she does. It could do some serious damage to her career, the two of you together like this.”

  “We’re not together.”

  Babineau sighed. “Right. Get out of my car. I’m going home. I suggest you do the same.”

  Max waited until the car was out of sight before jogging back across the street. He stood beneath the balcony, crouched, then sprang easily up and over the rail. As he reentered the dim living room, he sensed movement. Then he felt a pistol barrel tap under his chin.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “Your partner.”

  The pistol lowered as Cee Cee swore fiercely. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Both of you have some serious trust issues. He’s worried about the company you keep. I told him he had nothing to concern himself over, that I was just leaving.” Hard to do when she was standing next to him warmed by sleep, with the scent of him all over her.

  “You misinformed him. You’re not leaving. Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I never said I wanted you, Max. But I do.”

  Eight

  MAX STOOD AS frozen as her little rodent friends, his heart beating just as fast, his mind just as paralyzed. When her palm cupped the side of his face, a fierce tremor raced through him. And his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “What do you want me for? Your bodyguard? Your best friend? Your snitch? You’re going to have to spell it out for me, Charlotte.”

  “You make me sound very manipulative.” She continued to touch him, her fingertips outlining his face. He struggled not to turn into her palm, to suck on her fingers.

  “Why is that, I wonder? Could be you’ve stuck it to me one too many times?”

  “And now that I’m asking you to stick it to me, you’re saying no?”

  Instead of answering, he asked his own question. “Why did you kiss me, Charlotte? When you brought me here the other night, why did you kiss me? You didn’t have to.”

  “No,” she agreed softly, “I didn’t have to. I wanted to.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when you kissed me for the first time at my car, I didn’t know how to react to it. I was too upset to think, to feel.”

  He went very still, his breath stopping as she traced the shape of his mouth.

  “Max, you’ve been chasing after me for years. Didn’t you ever think of what you’d do if you caught me?”

  “You’d be surprised how little I think of anything else, detective.”

  Cee Cee let that go for the moment. “I asked you here that night to break your trust. I wanted to hurt you and drive you away.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you scared me, Max—and dammit, I don’t scare easily.” Her fisted hands struck his chest in frustration, then gripped his shirt, kneading the fabric in agitation until his hands slipped over them to hold them tightly.

  “What did I ever do to make you afraid of me?” He sounded so genuinely upset that she laughed a bit frantically.

  “Nothing. You didn’t do anything. I’m not afraid of you; I never have been. That’s what scares me: You are the last person in the world I should feel safe with. I don’t want to like you so much. I don’t want to look forward to being irritated by you. I don’t want to see you in handcuffs and lie to my superiors, my coworkers, my friends, to get you out of them. You’re a criminal, and I’m supposed to want to put you away for life. But all I can think of is how miserable I’d be without you.” She grabbed a shaky breath while Max stared at her through wide, unblinking eyes.

  “I wear your clothes because they make me feel like you’re wrapped around me. When you touched me, I couldn’t think of anything but how much I wanted you to keep on touching me. I kissed you because I couldn’t stand not knowing how it would feel to kiss you back, and I didn’t know if I’d ever get another chance. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what you are. And that scares me, because I should care. When I woke alone just now and you were gone, all I could think was that I might never have another chance to be with you. I want that chance, Max—and I don’t care what it costs me.”

  He gripped her face between his hands and pulled her up to the hard, hungry crush of his mouth.

  There was nothing gentle about him. His hold on her was firm, controlling. His kiss bruised and demanded. The unyielding p
lane of his body offered no comfort.

  And she didn’t want any. She wanted a toe-to-toe, hip-to-hip, lip and tongue confrontation. She wanted to be bruised and mashed and wrestled in rough passion. She wanted to let go of the fear that blocked all natural reactions to a man’s touch. And she found no barriers in Max’s arms.

  Their hands were all over each other, touching, groping, tugging, and stroking, hurried and awkward. She panted wildly as his mouth tore away from hers to move greedily down the offered arch of her throat. Urging him to rush because she was afraid she’d freeze up if the momentum slowed from avalanche intensity.

  She unbuckled her jeans and wiggled them down, stepped out, and kicked them away. Then she jerked his shirttails free, rubbing her palms up and down his hard flat stomach, the feel of him exciting. He made a raw sound at that first cool touch. Then, hands shaking, she was undoing his belt, his fly, fumbling until he reached down to assist her.

  Her arms whipped around his neck as she cried, “Now—hurry! I want you now.” Desperate to have him, desperate to know if it could be different with him.

  His hands clamped onto the backs of her thighs, lifting her off the floor. He hadn’t meant to be so abrupt, but he was on fire and she wasn’t helping matters, chewing and licking his ear, driving him mad with the hot pulse of her breath shivering all the way to his animal soul. He was desperate to have her, desperate to know if fact could rival fantasy.

  He’d imaged this moment until he feared he’d explode with tension from just a whiff of her perfume. He’d dreamed of having her, taking her, mating with her in every way and place his fevered mind could come up with. In his bed, in hers, in the impossibly cramped front seat of her car. From behind while she was splayed face down across her desk, beneath him on the hard, narrow beds in lockup. On his lap in the big leather chair in Jimmy’s office. Rolling naked with him on the groomed grasses of Jackson Square. But none of those raw, explicit imaginings compared to this.

  Her body was hot and damp for him, her scent all potent, alluring female. He wanted to sniff her, taste her, devour her, claim her. He’d planned to be gentle, to ease into intimacy so as not to remind her of what had been stolen from her by force. He’d meant to temper his growling passion with care. But the feel of her silky thighs sliding over his hips, opening his way to all her wondrous secrets, the sound of her husky voice urging him on—he couldn’t wait.