by Nina Bruhns
"What have you done with my sister?"
The man's eyes narrowed as he looked back and forth between them. Grace's struggles were surprisingly forceful, but he hung on, all the while watching the two strangers for a sign of trouble from that end.
None came. Instead, he detected a flash of sympathy as Mr. Cool said, "She's safe and unharmed. For now. But what you did tonight may have put her—and yourself—in some serious jeopardy, Miss Summerville. My advice would be to get out of town. Fast." He turned to Creole. "As for you, Detective, I'll be speaking with your captain. I imagine he'll be real interested in what you've been doing on your so-called 'leave of absence.'"
With that the two men turned and vanished into the crowd faster than he could blink.
"Damn," he muttered.
Grace had stopped wriggling and now turned to stare at him with wide eyes. "Creole? What does it all mean?"
He hugged her to his chest, only now noticing the way his hands shook. "It means you can stop worrying about your sister. Muse is safe."
"How do you know for sure? Who were they? Do you trust them?" Her words all ran together in her eagerness to be reassured.
"FBI, I expect," he said in answer to all three questions.
"FBI?" she echoed, pulling away with a stunned expression. She gave a nervous hiccup. "I don't understand. What makes you think they're FBI?"
Biting back the reasons he really wanted to name, he said, "The haircuts, jackets and weapons are always a dead giveaway."
Not to mention the threat to turn him in to the captain. He jetted out a breath, worried. He'd gladly sacrifice his job to find Luke's killer, but he wasn't even close yet. He needed more time—time with a badge in his pocket.
"After a while as a cop, you learn to recognize the signs," he added, when she didn't look completely convinced. "They're Feds. Trust me."
Her arms came around him again and she whispered, "I do trust you."
She sighed against his chest, and something twanged in the vicinity of his heart. Like a steel wire snapping. His heart stretched and swelled a little where one of the many tight bands surrounding it had been broken by this extraordinary, unlikely woman.
"I can trust the FBI, right?" She looked up at him, hope shining from deep within. "I can't imagine what Muse has gotten herself into, but… Oh, Creole, she's alive and safe! If the FBI says she's okay, it has to be true!"
He smiled at her beaming face, hiding the confusion creeping into his soul. "Mais, yeah, chérie. I'm sure you can trust what they say. Every word."
"Thank God." He caught her when she stumbled a little. "I think I need to sit down." Laughing, she fanned her face with a hand. "All this excitement, or something."
"Or somethin'." He chuckled and glanced around, then fiddled with a lock on the wrought iron gate behind her for a second and pushed it open. The brick path it revealed disappeared into a dark, ribbon-thin courtyard between two ancient buildings. "There's a bench in here. But just for a minute. It's late and I really should be gettin' you into bed."
A sudden crackle of electricity charged the air as his words echoed softly around the tiny private garden they'd entered. It was only a few square feet of lush foliage surrounded by mossy brick buildings on three sides, so he couldn't miss the way she paused on her way to the bench, and turned her limpid blue eyes on him.
He hadn't meant it the way it had come out. Not that he didn't also mean it the way she'd taken it. But he hadn't dared hope she was serious when she'd said all that earlier, about sleeping with him. He knew only too well her feelings on the subject. And on him.
At least he thought he did…
"Come over here, baby," she said in that honey-sweet South Carolina accent of hers that always sent his body into slow spirals of yearning. She held out her hands to him. Smiling. Beckoning.
Suddenly he was scared witless. And he knew with dead certainty he shouldn't get even an inch closer to her.
He shook his head and backed himself up against the brick wall behind him. "No, Grace. Now that you've found out Muse is safe, you'll be leaving. This can only end badly. For both of us."
Dropping her hands, she gazed at him for a few, endless seconds, and his heart sank, knowing she could only come to the same conclusion. She tipped her head and walked toward him, coming to a stop an arm's length away.
Might as well be a million miles.
"There's just one li'l bitty thing wrong with your theory, sugar," she drawled, bringing her finger to the top button of his shirt.
"What's that?" he answered in a voice that had gone stranglingly hoarse. This was the second time she'd repeated his own words back at him. Damn, did the woman remember everything he'd ever said to her? She moved to the second button. "What you say is true. We both know it is. This can only end badly for us."
Close enough. He licked his lips, terrified to hear what he knew was coming next.
"But—" she touched the third "—I want you anyway."
Oh, God. "Chère—"
"Hush."
She pressed up against his body, and kissed him. Put her lush mouth on his and begged for entrance with her supplicant tongue. He could no more deny her than he could stop the tidal wave of desire that flooded over him at her actions.
He let her kiss him, moaning her name over and over as he gave himself up to the exquisite, dizzying sensation of being wanted beyond reason.
She wanted him. He wanted her. What else was there to say?
It was just sex, he told himself.
Just sex.
She tasted of a dozen flavors of daiquiri and a tang of Jell-O. But under the fruit and the cream and the liquor, he found the taste he wanted to lose himself in—Grace's own heady essence of woman, desire, longing … trust. All rolled into one intoxicating nectar, and she caught his hands in hers just as he meant to grasp her, claim her, take her.
His pulse raced, but he knew without being told she didn't want him to move.
Her fingers trailed to his wrists and drifted slowly up his forearms. Instinctively he stiffened, his own fingers curling to tight fists. His lips stalled on hers, hot and moist, and his breath came in a deep gasp. She was touching him.
He looked at her, teetering right on the edge of panic, but her lashes rested on her cheeks, an expression of profound enjoyment on her face. Her hands continued to glide up his arms, raising a rash of gooseflesh.
Heaven help him.
He squeezed his eyes shut and let her continue, his already abused fingernails jamming into his fisted palms.
He could bear it. He could. Just for a few seconds.
For her.
Her touch was soft and delicate, worshiping. Sliding over his tough hide like cool silk. Massaging a profound need into every pore as she went. He fought back the insistent urge to stop her any way he could.
Up, up, with questing fingers she weighed and measured every cord and muscle of his arms, lingering on the contours of the rock-hard biceps he'd built up over years of punching sandbags and rookies at the gym. No one had ever touched him so tenderly, so … lovingly.
He swallowed hard. He'd never felt anything so torturous in all his born days. Her hands on him felt so good. So good he almost forgot he couldn't bear being touched. Almost.
To cover his confusion, he dove back into the kiss. He jerked his hands to her hips and pulled her tight into him. Into his aching need. Angling his mouth over hers completely, he sucked at her succulent lips, tangled her tongue with his, desperately wooing her attention back to their mouths. Anything to make her stop.
It seemed to work. Her hands abandoned his arms and grasped at his shoulders. As they did, one bumped against the Glock. A small sound of protest escaped into his mouth. His heart skipped a beat thinking she might remember who he was, what he was, and pull away. But her hands settled lightly on his chest and he silently thanked every saint he could remember from the few times he'd been dragged to church as a child.
Then her fingers started working their voodoo do
wn the front of his torso. Desperately he thrust his tongue even deeper into her mouth. She whimpered. He wanted to whimper, too. This was too much! More than he'd bargained for. He couldn't—
Suddenly he felt his shirt lift, and her fingers curled onto his bare flesh. He froze, wrenching his eyes open.
The innocent eroticism of her movements paralyzed him before he could even think to pull away. Her fingers inched up his chest, accompanied by a hard wave of gooseflesh from the tips of his toes to the top of his scalp.
Her shy exploration stunned him, caught him by complete surprise. The undemanding gentleness of her movements soothed and appeased the burning coil in his stomach, the acid aversion to being touched, which threatened to erupt and consume him. Her lips brushed against his. The goodness, the rightness of her, took his breath away.
Unaware of his inner chaos, she continued to kiss him and hesitantly slide her fingers along his waistband. He forced himself to stand still for her, lulled into a sense of trust he'd never before experienced with any woman. With anyone at all, except Luke. His heart pounded like he was running a high-speed pursuit.
But suddenly he didn't know who was the pursuer and who was being chased.
She didn't feel like a woman who would betray him.
He could be wrong. Hell, he'd been wrong often enough for two lifetimes. But she'd made it clear she didn't want to be doing this any more than he did, and yet here she was, doing it anyway.
Just like him.
He swallowed the thick lump of panic that crouched in his throat and tried to relax. But he couldn't. The feel of her warm, smooth hands sliding up and down his chest was setting him on fire. Filling him with a crazy desire to rip off his shirt and his holster and let her touch him wherever she wanted, for as long as she got pleasure from it. To let her strip him naked and trail those satin hands and velvet lips and clever tongue all over his body, making slow, sinuous love to him right here in this small patch of paradise, for hours and hours, day after day, until all his doubts and suspicions and the hurts of a lifetime melted away like ice in her hot little mouth.
His body shuddered, and he realized she had her hands far up his chest. Her nails scraped softly against male nipples that had never known such scorching pleasure before this very moment.
He groaned and grabbed her wrists.
Non! He had to stop this. Get control of her. Of the situation. Of himself. Before she crept under his skin, into his heart, and was able to betray him, like they always did.
"Stop!"
And he had to tell her about … everything.
"Stop," he repeated, slowly letting out the breath that had backed up in his lungs.
Her lashes fluttered open, and she stared at him with sensual, heavy-lidded eyes. He pulled her wrists behind her and pinned them there, leaning back against the brick wall for support, pulling her between his legs. He swallowed again, sorting through the anarchy that ran rampant in his mind and his body.
She tipped her face up to his, and he rested his cheek against her forehead.
"Before this goes any further, I need to explain. There are a few things you've got to know about me."
"I already do," she softly replied. "You don't like being touched."
Shock rippled through him. "How did you…?"
She smiled tenderly. "Wild guess." A mischievous twinkle crept into her eyes and she wiggled her fingers, still caught in his grip. "You aren't going to make it easy on me, are you, A-U-R-I Levalois?"
He knew he shouldn't allow this to happen. For her sake. For his own. But he wanted her so damned badly. Ah, hell, what could one night hurt? If she was okay with … everything.
He let her wrists go.
He shook his head and gave her a wry grin. "Nothin' about Creole Levalois is easy, chère, especially this part of him. Best resign yourself to that if you intend to go through with this."
"Then, I suppose I'll just have to be easy instead, for tonight." She winked at him and his soul leapt.
"I can live with that."
"So, is it just hands?" Her pert brow raised, and for a second he couldn't think what she meant. "Or do you dislike any body part touching you?" She traced her finger nonchalantly between her breasts.
For another second he couldn't think at all, then choked out, "Hands. Just hands. Fingers are the worst. Other parts are … f-fine. I usually use handcuffs when I—"
She looked momentarily shocked, but then a coquettish smile spread over her lush mouth. "That should be interesting."
She backed away from him, moving toward the gate, encouraging him with her eyes to follow.
"And don't pull my hair. It makes me nuts." She pursed her full lips. "Okay. I'll remember that."
There was something different about her. Something he couldn't put a name to. Something … incredibly provocative. She watched him stand there uncertainly, seducing him with those slumberously sexy doe eyes.
He knew just which part of his body was leading him on, but there was no way he could resist her siren call, even if he'd wanted to. And he didn't want to.
Just sex.
"No strings?"
"No strings."
He took a step toward her, and she took one backward. Another. And another. Until she tumbled out the gate, giggling and squealing in mock terror, with him hot on her heels.
He chased her the whole way to Burgundy Street, catching her, kissing her, losing her again. They ran laughing through their courtyard and stumbled up her stairway, until the door of her apartment presented a momentary blockade to their impatient hunger. Breathless, she fumbled for her key, but before she could even unzip her purse he had the lock jimmied and the door open, and was backing her toward the bedroom, kissing her madly, tossing her purse into one corner and her pink top into the other. He kissed her long and hard, drawing out her sighs and moans with his teeth and tongue. Her body ground against his, reminding him of the pleasures he had in store.
"Ah, chère," he whispered. "I've wanted you from the first moment I laid eyes on you." He was so hot he ached with it.
"I know." She slid from his embrace and slanted him a half-lidded glance. "Why don't you make yourself at home on the bed, while I slip into something more comfortable?"
If she insisted. Rational thought had long since flown, replaced by a craving that started in the soles of his feet and permeated every inch of him, clear to the ends of his hair. He had no idea if this was a good thing or a huge mistake. He just knew she'd changed her mind and now she wanted him, and he wasn't about to give her a chance to change it back again. He had to have her, or die of pure need.
He popped off his shoes and stretched out on the bed with a ravenous growl, placing his wallet and clip on the nightstand, and his handcuffs within reach.
When she emerged from the bathroom, she was wearing the black nightie and nothing else. He let out a long hum of bone-deep anticipation. Black lace on pink satin sheets. This was the vision that had haunted his fantasies for endless days and sleepless nights. He closed his eyes and sent up a brief prayer of thanks. "Whatever I did to deserve this, remind me to keep doin' it."
She leaned against the doorjamb in a flamboyantly sexy pose. Her luscious nude body shimmered beneath the sheer fabric of the nightie like a glimpse of Shangri-la.
He had died and gone to heaven. No doubt about it. He stretched out his hand toward her. "Vien ici. Come to me, jolie."
She strolled slowly to the bed and lowered herself onto him where he lay, placing her hands to either side of his head.
"You're different tonight," he murmured as her lips met his. His innocent angel had become a temptress.
And he had become her slave.
"Yes," she affirmed throatily.
Her breasts hung full and ripe above him, her sumptuous thighs straddled his. He grasped her hips and pulled her closer.
She rubbed against him, slow and tantalizing. "I can feel your gun," she purred.
He choked back a wicked chuckle, knowing she wasn't eve
n in the vicinity. "So you like it after all."
Her smile was catlike. "Could be."
"Shall I tell you what I like?"
"What's that?"
"I like you in this nightie." He slid his hands up her sides, relishing the feel of her hot skin, the sight of his hands on her body through the transparent lace. "I like it a lot."
"You mentioned that once."
"In fact, I like you in it so much I think I'll take it off." He lifted the hem and pulled it over her head, flinging it to the floor.
His pulse thrummed at the incredible sight of her naked body straddling his. Any second he'd explode with want. He had to slow down. They had all night.
She tongued his jaw. "Is this how it happened in your dream?"
Better. So much better. "Fulfilling my fantasies, chère?"
"Our fantasies," she murmured. "I've always wondered what it would be like to be Muse."
"You don't need to be Muse," he assured her. "You're doing just fine as Grace."
She gave him an oddly knowing look, and for a second he wondered if he'd missed something.
"Do you have any idea how hard it is for me not to touch you?" She sighed, lifted a hand and traced it through the air, hovering just above his nose and cheek and down his chest.
"Mais, yeah." He took the opportunity to flip her onto her back and ease between her legs. She looked up at him, all bare and hot and bedroom-eyed, and he nearly lost it for good. "Guess I'll just have to distract you." And himself.
She giggled and relaxed into the pillow, raising her arms in an erotic pose. "You're a bad boy, Creole Levalois."
It was the second time that night she'd called him a bad boy. Both times with the smile of a woman about to taste the fruit of the forbidden.
He reached for the handcuffs. "I try my best."
He dismissed a niggling warning buzz in his mind, and slid his free hand onto her breast. She moaned and the tip peaked to a hard point under his palm. He bent down and took it in his mouth. Dieu, she was sweet! He hated to restrain her. But he had no choice.
"A very bad boy." She moaned in pleasure. "But that's okay." He squirmed as she reached between them and slowly started unzipping his jeans. "Muse is a very, very bad girl."
