by Nancy Gideon
“No, just time-consuming. I’ll be out most of the night. Why don’t you stay here and unwind, and I’ll see you tomorrow after work.” Her fingertips strayed behind his ear where the hair ended in a slight curl.
“Okay.” He reached for her hand, just missing the tips of her fingers. “Charlotte?” She backed away, unable to give up the sight of him. As he started to stand, LaRoche elbowed his way through to place a shot and a beer on the table in front of him.
“Happy birthday.”
His glance flickered to LaRoche. “It’s not my birthday.”
“How do you know? You said you didn’t know when it was, so I’m making it today. Drinks are on the house.”
“I don’t want—” He looked over his shoulder, but she’d already turned away and was striding for the exit. “Charlotte?” The weight of LaRoche’s hand kept him in his chair. Just before she reached the door, she glanced over her shoulder and touched two fingers to her lips, then was gone.
TWO HOURS LATER he was nearly gone himself. His head pounded and whirled. The too-loud music seemed to play at the wrong speed. He wanted to go home, but every time he mentioned it, Jacques filled his hand with another drink. Thinking he should just throw up and get it over with, he let his eyes slip shut, closing out the blurred visuals that no longer made any sense to him. Maybe if he just nodded off for a moment . . .
Fingertips pressed lightly to his temples to begin a soothing massage. He made a low sound of liquid contentment. Charlotte. He took a deep breath, and beneath the thick haze of smoke and liquor was the seductive tease of Voodoo Love. Soft lips touched the side of his neck, sucking, licking. Heat shot through him in a cauterizing blaze. Charlotte.
Everything churned up inside him. Want. Need. Hunger. And that deep, primal pulse sent the blood hammering through his heart and to beat fiercely down below.
“Take me,” she whispered against his ear.
Yes. It was time. Past time.
He let her half haul him up out of the chair. He was none too steady on his feet. His vision was skewed and doubled; his sharp senses lay dulled beneath the weight of drink.
As she pulled his arm about her shoulders, something nagged at the back of his mind. Something wasn’t right. Not right at all. But he couldn’t quite grasp what it was.
From behind the bar, Jacques LaRoche sighed as he watched Amber lead Max out the back door. And he hoped he hadn’t misjudged Savoie’s gutsy girlfriend’s devotion.
CEE CEE PACED her crowded living room, trying to keep from watching the clock, trying to shut out the memory of Max dancing with one of their women, smiling at something she said while her fingers teased through his hair. Stop. Stop! She willed the taunting image away. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Don’t cry. Still, the tears wobbled in her eyes until she dashed them away. She got a beer out of the fridge and dropped onto the couch, swallowing the cold brew down in a few quick gulps. She wanted oblivion. She wouldn’t think of it as making love, not even sex. Just a simple biological cure for what ailed the man she loved.
Oh God, what if he didn’t come back to her?
What if, as a smirking Rollo had suggested, once Max got a taste of what his own kind offered, he grew dissatisfied with what she could provide?
She didn’t doubt that Max loved her, but she couldn’t discount the pull of instinct. She’d watched that brutal tug-of-war within him for weeks. And she’d just pushed him away from her side.
All the bold words she’d tossed at LaRoche soured on her tongue. She’d said she didn’t want details, that she didn’t want to know who, but jealousy shredded those sentiments. With punishing desperation, she wanted to know everything. Did they kiss? Was there touching? Was he coaxing this other female up to the same heights of pleasure she believed her own? Or could it be just biology?
Dammit, Max. You’re mine. You’re mine. You are mine!
If she hadn’t been so weak, he wouldn’t be mining some other lover. She headed into the kitchen to set the empty bottle down next to the parade of its brothers on her counter. If she’d convinced him she was strong enough, tough enough, that she loved him enough, she’d be wearing his mark, she’d be surrounded by the smug certainty of belonging to him. Instead of quivering in her kitchen, wishing she could take it all back.
The sound of the empty bottle hitting the floor startled her. She bent quickly and began picking up the pieces, sweeping them up carelessly with her hands when she could no longer see through the tears. After she’d brushed the shards into the waste can under the sink, she straightened and saw him standing just inside her open balcony doors.
“What are you doing here?”
“Do you want me to go?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “No.”
She couldn’t see him clearly there in the shadows, and she needed to, desperately. She needed to see his expression: guilt, relief, regret?
He took a few steps forward and to her dismay, there was no trace of emotion on his face.
“You were crying.” A flat observation.
She held up her hand. Blood beaded in bright dots on her fingertips. “I broke a bottle. I cut myself.”
No flicker of concern. He made no move toward her. “I thought you were working.”
“I—it was resolved by the time I got there. So I came home.”
“Not back to me.”
“No. I was…I was tired.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Her heart gave an anxious little leap. She didn’t know what to say. He wouldn’t betray a clue of what he was feeling, so she had nothing to react to. Cautiously, she asked, “What do you want me to say?”
“Why would you leave me there like that? To be rid of me? I don’t believe that. I won’t believe it unless I hear you say it.”
Nothing he could have said could have surprised her more.
“Tell me, Charlotte.”
“You think I was here bawling my eyes out because I wanted to get rid of you? That the idea of you banging some other woman was okay with me? I’d rather gouge my eyes out than see that in my mind!”
He said forcefully, “Tell me what that was all about, then.”
“You needed something, so I arranged for it to be taken care of.”
“Just like that. Without mentioning it to me.”
“What would you have said?”
“I would have said the only woman I want to touch or taste or love is the one I’m looking at right now.”
Anger burned away the hurt. “Don’t you dare tell me I’m the only one you need! You selfish bastard—why can’t you trust me? I’m every bit as tough and capable as any of those brainless pairs of boobs.”
“I know you are. And I trust you without question.”
“With your heart but not your mind. With who you are but not with what you are.”
“I don’t understand.”
She came around the kitchen bar to stalk up to him. “Yes, you do. You don’t give me the credit of understanding what you are, what you need.”
“You’re the one who shoved that pair of boobs in my face, detective. You’re the one who told her—” He broke off.
“Told who, what?”
“That I was demanding something you didn’t want to give. That the idea of mating with me was so repellent, you were looking for a way to back out without hurting me.” It sounded weak and ridiculous when he said it out loud, but it had felt like a knife in the gut at the time.
“And you believed that? That I’d use you and I’d abandon you? How could you think that?”
His voice was quiet. “Because it’s been true of everyone I’ve cared about.”
Fifteen
FURIOUS, CHARLOTTE SEIZED him by the ears and shook him hard. “Not me. It’s not true of me!”
When he only stared at her through those opaque eyes, she shoved away.
“Don’t you hide behind that. You don’t want to believe it—because then you’d have to let me in, to let me close, and you don’t want to do that. You w
ant to keep that part of you separate, like it’s some exclusive private club I can’t join. I’ve been on the outside of everything my entire life, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to shut me out now. What are you so afraid of? That I can’t take it? That I’ll fail you? That I’ll bail on you? What I can’t take is watching you struggling through this alone. What are you scared of, Max?”
“Me,” he blurted, then rushed on before he could regret it. “I’m afraid of me, of these feelings I don’t understand, that don’t have anything to do with love or desire or even sex. They’re violent and uncontrollable. They’re like a fever that’s consumed me. I’m afraid it’s going to destroy everything we’ve found with one another.”
“It won’t.” Her hand stroked down his taut cheek. “Let me take care of it. Let me take care of you.”
He shook his head. “I won’t take a chance on hurting you.”
“You’re hurting me when you push me away. You’re hurting me when you don’t trust me enough to let me share what you are. You’re hurting me when I have to think about you going to someone else for what you won’t take from me.” Her voice plummeted to a low, despairing place. “Did you have sex with her, Max?”
“I’m sorry, sha.”
Her heart imploded, crumpling with a pain she’d thought she was prepared for. She wanted to turn away from his woeful confession, to beg him not to answer, but he was already rushing on.
“She was wearing your coat. You must have left it on your chair. I could smell your scent. I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you, Charlotte. And I would have let it happen—until she tried to kiss me.” That discovery had shocked him sober. “But there was nothing she could say that would convince me that it was all right. And there’s nothing you can say that will make me believe that if I had gone through with it, things would ever be the same between us. You would have seen Amber every time you looked at me.”
“I’m seeing her now, and I don’t like it,” she said fiercely, shuddering with relief.
He ventured a wan smile as his hands cupped her face between them. “You are everything to me, Charlotte.”
“Prove it, Max.”
He froze.
“Prove that you trust me. Prove that I’m the one you want beside you for the rest of your life.”
“You are.”
“Words don’t cut it, Savoie. It ends right here, right now. And you won’t say no. And you won’t back away. And you will trust me not to say stop.”
His breathing shivered. His eyes were wide and a bit wild, with fear, with desire, with respect. “God, I love you.”
“Prove it,” she dared.
His hands pressed tighter, anchoring her to accept his kiss, a hard, urgent kiss that spoke of passion and desire.
She jerked away. “Stop it, Max. We’re not going to end up in bed. That’s not what this is about. I don’t want you to be careful with me. I don’t need you to court me. There’s more to you: that more you never let me see, because you think it will send me screaming away like a child afraid of a nightmare. I want what you are. All of you. Now.”
His gaze was guarded as he took a step back. “I’m not an animal, Charlotte. I’m not going to just grab you and throw you on the floor.”
“Why not? Don’t you want to?” She moved in close, backing him against the closet door. Her hips bumped his, grinding into his as insistently as her words pursued him. “You know you do. You know you’d like nothing better than to have your brand on me, so you can show me off and swagger around and try to control me. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
She stretched up to take his mouth in a wet, wicked tangle—and bit down viciously on his lower lip, startling him. Her hand moved down the buttons of his shirt while she continued to taunt him with her dark, flashing eyes.
“You know I want you. All you have to do is look at me and I’m ready for you.” Her hands pushed up through the dark mat of his chest hair. She reached up to nip at his chin, his jaw, his earlobe. “I like that you’re dangerous,” she whispered there. “I like that you’re powerful. It excites me to know that if someone tries to harm me, you would rip through them like an industrial shredder. The way you did those two men in the alley who tried to attack me. And the fact that you’re strong enough to crush me, but will go out of your way to be so gentle. Do you know how hot that is? How hot that makes me?”
She licked up his cheek, up to the corner of his tightly closed eyes, then buried her nose in his hair to snuffle him up until he trembled.
He wheeled abruptly away from her, warning, “Be careful, detective. Be careful what you ask for.”
“I don’t want to be careful. And I don’t want you to treat me like I’m going to break. I’m not fragile. I like to play rough, and sometimes I can be mean. Sometimes I like to roll around and get dirty. I’m not afraid of a good fight.”
She came close again, charting the harsh angles of his face with her fingertips, touching the seam of his lips with the tip of her tongue, letting him kiss her. Then she pulled away and said casually, “Alain Babineau and I were lovers.”
“What?” That got his full attention.
“You want to know why he couldn’t keep me? Because he couldn’t control me. He wasn’t stronger than I am. He wanted me to be less, so he could be more.
“I don’t want a man who can’t go toe-to-toe with me. I don’t want a man who’ll back down or back off, one I can lead on a leash. I once dared you to make me love you—and you did. You aren’t afraid of who I am. You don’t pull away because of what’s been done to me. I can’t intimidate you, and I can’t make you run away.”
She pushed him, sending him back a few quick stumbles. “Step up, Savoie. Take me if you want me. Take me if you can.” She shoved him again, but this time his feet stayed planted. He had her wrists in his hands, but let go when she tugged. “Coward,” she threw at him. “Come on.”
She pushed again, and this time he dragged her up against his chest, holding her there with his superior strength, with the intensity of his gaze.
She smiled. “Come on, big, bad, mobster boy. King of the Beasts.” Her gaze was heavy lidded, her mouth pursed and ripe. “If you want to put your mark on me, you’re going to work for it. You want to sniff at me and mate with me, I’m not going to make it easy. You’re going to have to win that privilege. Are you man enough for that? Or have those expensive suits and power lunches tamed you into something I have to lead around on a leash like a lap dog?”
Her elbow hammered into his ribs, giving her just enough time to slip away and put the couch between them.
And just like that, he changed. Nothing obvious. She saw it because she knew him so well. His posture altered, becoming sleek and fluid. His gaze gleamed, centering on her with a focus that was preternatural in its stillness. Danger oozed from him in palpable waves.
This was what he was when she wasn’t watching. This was the deadly predator whose name created fear in men who let nothing scare them. Quick. Terrifying. Brutal beyond belief.
And hers, if she had the courage to claim him.
“Your manners and elegance are slipping, Savoie. You’re looking quite fierce.”
“I am fierce. You have no idea what beats in the heart of me.”
“I do. I beat there,” she boldly claimed.
He didn’t deny it. His teeth bared. “No one dares get in my way when there’s something I want.”
“I dare. I’m in your way, Savoie. Always right there in front of you, in your face. So what do you want?”
“You.”
He was up and over the couch. Having anticipated his move, if not his speed, Cee Cee dodged into the small dining area. He stalked her around the square table, his unblinking eyes never leaving her face. In that lean, hungry look was the edge of darkness that had shadowed him for weeks. Stripped down to his primitive urges, he seethed with them, and Cee Cee began to tremble with alarm, with anticipation.
She feinted left, then dashed
for the kitchen to streak through it to the more maneuverable living room. He caught her by the waistband of her jeans, jerking her off her feet, flinging her face down across the pass-through breakfast bar with a force that knocked the wind from her. She gasped like a landed carp until she got a sweet pull of oxygen. Then she was squirming, writhing like a slippery fish, but she couldn’t shake him.
One hand clamped on the back of her neck while the other tore down her jeans. Because she’d vowed not to, she didn’t make a sound, but she fought him in earnest. Pinned and helpless, the worst kind of memories tore into her.
The way he tore into her. Without warning, without care, lifting her right off her feet.
She clung to the far edge of the counter, her eyes squeezed shut as he pounded into her, huge, hot, and hard. She couldn’t have found the breath to cry Stop if she wanted to.
She could hear the hoarse rasp of him panting against her ear, the sound unlike any she’d ever heard. Fierce, frightening. His nails, sharp as daggers, nicked the side of her throat as he gripped the neck of her shirt and ripped it halfway off her. Dark, ugly images swarmed up, reminders of pain and torture and…Oh, please, God, let it be over.
Then he said her name, snatching away her fright in an instant.
“Charlotte, take me. All of me.”
And then the feel of his bite, sharp and swift, piercing the tender skin and taut muscle between her neck and shoulder. The shock of it stunned her with sensations so startlingly pure, yet strangely sweet and powerful. A galvanizing heat seared her, cauterizing the jagged edges as it exploded, sending an orgasm shaking through her with his next violent thrust. Washing over her, rolling over her to carry her into cool darkness.
MAX WAS ON fire, his body, brain, and blood all beating to the driving pulse of near madness. There was only sensation; nothing existed beyond the scorch of urgency. Unstoppable, uncontrollable, the tension finally burst in an explosive rush.
He saw colors everywhere, so bright they had depth and weight. Dazzling, beckoning as he reached to embrace them. He heard his father’s voice whispering, “This is what you are. It’s beautiful.” He stretched out to gather more, trying to hold it, to capture it as it slipped away, leaving him strengthless as he slid to his knees on the kitchen tiles, toppling into a black velvet void.
