by Nina Bruhns
He shot her a confused look. "Pictures?"
Grace's eyes lit up, and immediately she was all smiles. "Oh, it must be the final photos for her book! Tell him to come up." She danced to the door as he gave the messenger instructions. "She mentioned last time we talked she'd made the final selections, but I'd completely forgotten."
Cautiously, in case it was a trick, he opened the door. It wasn't. A few minutes and five bucks later, he was carrying a large flat carton into the kitchen.
"What's this about photos and a book?"
"Muse's pet project. A photographic book on Louisiana wrought iron fences."
"Excuse me?"
Grace grinned. "I know. Sounds a little out of character, doesn't it?"
After the week he'd had, nothing should surprise him any longer, but that sure did. He glanced around the room and for the first time took real note of several framed black-and-white photographs on the wall, placed between the Mardi Gras masks and draped strands of beads. "Muse is a photographer?"
Grace nodded, and her smile widened. "Amateur, but she's darn good. Pretty aren't they? It's going to be a beautiful book."
"Sure is, if these are any indication."
"You should hear some of the stories that go along with the pictures. Really amazing."
"Like what?"
"Oh, stories of sex, romance and adventure."
He waggled his eyebrows. "Yeah? Dis moi. Tell."
Her mouth snapped shut. She turned and headed for the bedroom, flicking her hand in the air. "Now if I told, that would spoil the book for you, wouldn't it?"
He chuckled. "I guess. What are you doing?"
"I thought I'd change clothes."
Huh? Now what? "What you're wearing is fine for Ralph and Kakoo's."
"Short and tight, you mean?" She shook her head as she sailed through the door. "No. All week I've had to wear Muse's things."
Eyeing her sassy, thigh-length, buttercup-yellow sun-dress, he ventured, "So?"
"So it's been awful."
"It has?"
"Are you kidding? They're all so—" Abruptly she stopped and turned. Lifting her chin mutinously, she said, "I suppose you like her taste in clothes."
He pursed his lips to prevent a grin, knowing he was treading in dangerous waters. He sauntered to the bedroom door. "Now, honey, I like anything at all, as long as you're in it."
Her mouth wrinkled up like a prune. "Lord, you're smooth. Help me with this, would you?"
He frowned at her suitcase as he took it from her and hefted it onto the bed, dreading what he'd see inside when she opened it.
"You think I like looking like this?" She gestured at her cute outfit with open disdain.
He shrugged casually. "Don' know, but I sure like it." He caught a sneaker just before it smacked him in the chest.
"Out!"
He retreated to the safety of the living area, resigning himself to a much more prim and proper Grace from now on. Damn. Though it would no doubt help his situation tonight if she didn't look quite so … delectable. Ah, well. With difficulty he shored up his earlier resolve to try to keep his distance from her. Prim and proper. A good start.
Then a ray of hope emerged from the bedroom in the form of a series of distressed mutterings and exclamations, and his resolve came tumbling right back down again.
"Somethin' wrong, chère?" he called.
"I can't wear these!" she exclaimed, coming to the door carrying a handful of extremely wrinkled garments. "It'll look like I slept in them!"
"Sa c'est malheureux … such a shame." Naturally, he was delighted. He wasn't a sexist or anything, but he surely enjoyed the sight of a jolie femme in a sexy dress. Why hide it if it's worth looking at? Even if it was hell on a man trying to keep his hands off her.
She disappeared again. "Why didn't I hang these up when I first got here?"
He took a guess, "No room in the closet?"
He heard a distinctly disgusted snort. "And Muse doesn't even own an iron! I can't find one anywhere."
"Probably takes everything to the cleaners," he said noncommittally, remembering the dry cleaning ticket he'd run across in her briefcase when he'd searched it.
She huffed. "Bother." He heard her toss the wrinkled heap at the suitcase. "Double bother. I'll just have to go shopping. I've been meaning to pick up some things since I got here, but—" she darted him an accusatory glance through the bedroom door "—somehow I kept getting distracted."
"You find me distractin'?" he asked optimistically.
She scowled at him, crossed her arms and pretended to study something very interesting out the window. Her scowl deepened and she said, "And there's another thing I've been meaning to buy. Curtains!"
Now, that he could agree to. Even though he knew nobody could see into the apartment from anywhere but his own, and possibly the roof above it, he didn't like the feeling of the two of them being so fully exposed to the world. Especially with Morris' men lurking down in the courtyard through all hours.
"Good idea." He pleated his brow, a thought scampering around the outside edges of his brain. Then he had it. "But why buy new curtains when you can just pick up Muse's from the dry cleaners?"
She glanced at him, eyebrow hiked. "And how would you propose we do that? Go to every dry cleaning establishment in the Quarter and ask if I dropped off some laundry lately?"
Smug, he leaned back on his heels. "Naw. Just use the dry cleaning ticket in Muse's briefcase."
Her mouth parted and then reluctantly curled up at the corner. "I guess that's why they pay you the big bucks."
He winked, and with a flourish produced the ticket from the briefcase stowed under the bed. "Voilà."
She swiped it from his hand with a sheepish grin and headed for the door, apparently forgetting all about the awkwardness between them.
"Okay, Mr. Ace Detective. Let's go see if you're right." And with any luck, she'd forget all that nonsense about changing clothes, too.
* * *
"A hundred and ten yards?" Grace gaped first at the huge plastic-wrapped bundle on the counter and then at the bill. "You've got to be kidding," she mumbled, and reached for her checkbook.
"I'll get it," Creole said, handing the clerk his credit card.
"I'm so glad you came in," said the clerk. "I meant to call and remind you about them this morning, like you asked me to do."
"I did?"
"You said you'd probably forget about them." The petite foreign woman smiled broadly at Grace. "I guess I can see why."
Creole winked and signed the receipt, then hefted the bundle like a sack of flour over his shoulder. "Come on, let's hang these things up."
Luckily the dry cleaner was just around the corner from the apartment, so she didn't feel too guilty about Creole lugging the unwieldy package. She waved to their two FBI tails as she trailed him up the stairs, leaving them to melt into the courtyard greenery. The agents seemed like nice enough guys, but she was just as glad to be covering the windows properly. One man watching her every move was plenty, thankyouverymuch.
She opened the dry cleaner's package to find two separately wrapped bundles of curtains. "One must be for the living room and one for the bedroom." They looked about equal, so she handed one to Creole and tackled the other herself, dragging it into the bedroom.
"Um, Grace," he called after a few moments. "I'm really no good at this kind of thing. Any chance we can do this together?"
"I thought you'd never ask."
She dropped the mess she was making of her half, and went back to the living room. She was greeted by the sight of Creole, completely surrounded by a disorderly mound of white, diaphanous fabric dotted along one edge by a never-ending row of small white rings. He held up one end, looking very male by contrast, and completely overwhelmed.
"Oh, dear," she said, her lips twitching with amusement.
"Je t'amuse?— do I amuse you? If you laugh at me, I won't take you to dinner," he grumbled.
She stifled the grin th
at threatened. "Me? Never."
She grabbed the end from him and stood back to study the arrangement of the rod that stretched above the windows and French doors. "It should be easy enough to hang the curtains. Just slip the rings over the end of the rod."
He grunted and reached up to flick one end off the hook holding it up. "All right. You feed me the cloth." He plucked the first ring from her fingers and attempted to slide it onto the rod. After several stabs, he threw up his hands. "All right, smart aleck, I'll feed you the cloth."
After a good fifteen minutes she'd managed to thread about a third of the rings into place. "The curtains really are pretty," she remarked, glancing at the shimmering waves of transparent cloth, made of the finest white silk gauze she'd ever seen. "Like something from an old Southern mansion."
"I wouldn' know," Creole muttered, then glanced up from the tangle of yardage he was trying to straighten but only making worse. He gave her a penitent half smile. "But, yeah, they look nice."
"We're going to have to slide this lot all the way to the other end, so I can get the rest on," she said, peering at the far side of the rod, which still hung empty in place on the wall.
"No problem." He let go of his pile, went to the window and starting yanking the rings up the rod.
"Watch…" She looked on in horror as the rod bounced out of the hook and dumped twenty yards of foamy white silk. "…out!" Right onto his head.
Surrounded, he swore and thrashed about like a trapped alligator, nearly hitting her with his blindly flailing arms. She gasped at a near miss and dropped her end of the rod, which caused him to become even more firmly entrenched in the tangle. Somehow he lost his footing and landed with a muffled crash—and a few French swear words that, thankfully, she didn't understand—on his back on the floor.
"Oh, dear," she repeated, laughter bubbling up despite her best intentions. "Let me help you."
He went ominously quiet as she bent to tug at the disordered layers of curtain fabric that had buried him. Was that his teeth she heard grinding in the silence? It was impossible to tell, since his face was completely hidden in the jumble.
Honestly, she couldn't help it. Her laughter started against strict orders. At first only a few chuckles, then more and more until she was giggling furiously.
"I'm sorry. It's just—" she chortled wildly "—you look like a mummy gone terribly wrong."
His body shook once, whether in restrained anger or stifled amusement, she couldn't begin to guess. More laughter erupted before she could stop it. But there! That was definitely a masculine chuckle.
"Oof!"
Suddenly she found herself on her back. In a flash he was on top of her, and their positions reversed. Yards and yards of featherlight gauze ensnared her from head to toe like a wild, clinging petticoat. The distinctive, piquant smell of silk enveloped her, the glow of sunlight filtered through dozens of layers of shimmering gossamer.
"Mais, toi, you look like a beautiful bride."
The laughter on her lips evaporated.
"Just waitin' to be ravished."
And was instantly replaced by a breathless thrill at his rough-spoken invitation.
She tried to raise her arms, to reach for him, but found she could only lift them a few inches before being restrained by the cloth.
She was trapped! Caught beneath this electrifyingly sexy man, unable to do more than await his next move.
He froze. She heard a low curse, then he moved away.
"Wait!" Her heart pounded madly.
"What is it, darlin'? I'm about to break my promise here."
"If … if I were a bride," she whispered, "what would you do?"
The silence lengthened until she was certain he hadn't heard. Or wouldn't answer. But then slowly he lowered his tall frame back onto her. "If you were my bride, and I was your groom," his voice rumbled in a matching whisper, deep and rolling and filled with an emotion she hadn't ever heard from him before, "I'd peel away these layers, one by one. Kissin' your pale, smooth skin as each luscious bit was revealed, slowly strippin' you naked for the pleasure of my love."
A small moan of desperation escaped her throat.
* * *
Why, oh, why had she asked? She shouldn't be doing this! She'd never be able to resist his unrelentingly seductive nature. He was too great a temptation. But, oh, she wanted this dissolute, sensual man. A man who could make a woman forget all her plans, sacrificing all her caution to the overpowering siren call of being close to him. Under him.
As if reading her mind, his weight shifted off her, and he was gone.
She panicked, felt deserted in her burning need to touch him, be in contact with him, even through her silken net. Suddenly she heard the whisper of feathery gauze and felt a layer of her cocoon lift from her legs and settle softly on her face and torso. He hadn't left!
A shiver rocketed down her spine. Would he do as he'd said?
"Creole…" she quietly pleaded, torn between needing to save herself and begging him to take her just as he'd described. What should she do?
"Hush, ma douce amie. Sweet darlin'. Let me love you."
She swallowed heavily and squeezed her eyes shut, wondering what he was really asking. Was it an afternoon of no-strings sex he sought? Or did she dare think he might be asking something much, much more?
He unearthed her ankle and grasped it. Strong fingers circled the narrow bone and smoothed slowly upward. She should protest, but her mouth refused to form words. All that came out was a weak, needy sound. His fingers stopped, withdrew, and she felt another tier of her makeshift petticoat lift. The skin of her calf tingled warmly, craving the return of his touch. She shifted, impatiently seeking his hands.
Sweet heavens. A moment ago she had meant to stop him. Now she couldn't stop herself. She wanted him. Wanted this. Wanted to experience the spangling ecstasy of being joined with this incredible man, regardless of the pain he would cause her when he walked away.
She swallowed again, knowing in her heart that this time it didn't matter what he asked of her.
Whatever he wanted, she would give.
"Yes," she answered softly. "Love me."
The layers of silk covering her lightened once again, and a few seconds later, again. This time both his hands found her, caressing her calves, lifting her knees gently from the floor. Her body thrummed with instinctive understanding of his positioning. She was ready.
His lips brushed over her feet, her ankles, and she heard the sigh of the material as he languidly pushed it up her shins. The smooth scrape of a row of curtain rings trailed over her knees. Something tickled a spot on her thigh and her blood pulsed in dizzy anticipation. But he continued to tease with his lips. After an eternity, they moved from her calves to her knees, where they lingered maddeningly.
Achingly.
Frustratingly.
Surely she would scream if he didn't come to her soon!
"Mmm. You taste so good," he murmured, sliding his tongue up her inner thigh.
She shuddered in pleasure. "Oh, baby, I— Ow! What was that?" Something sharp and metallic pricked the top of her leg.
"I don'… Now, that's strange." He lifted his head and her mood wavered.
"What? What is it?"
"It looks like a…" He paused, and she felt the tangle of curtains being shifted from atop her thighs. "Well, I'll be damned."
"For crying out loud, what is it?" Sublime frustration sizzled through her. He would pick this moment to have his darn detective instincts surface!
"It's a key."
* * *
Creole stared at the thick, squat key dangling so enticingly between Grace's legs, then focused on the place behind it, and almost groaned out loud. What a choice!
Grace's arms lifted the pile of fabric from her upper body, and peered down at him through a tunnel of filmy white. There was a big frown on her face. "A key? What kind of a key?"
So much for their ambrosial afternoon and the passion it seemed she, for the first time, ha
d truly, consciously, wanted to abandon herself to. Despite his earlier resolve to hold himself aloof, he hadn't been able to turn away when she'd reached for him with her seductive words.
He'd felt honored to share her gift, so very lucky to receive it. Unfortunately, it appeared his luck had just run out.
He sighed. "Looks like a safety deposit box key."
The frown deepened. She flailed a bit and sat up, perched in a cloud of silk. "Why would anyone keep a safety deposit box key attached to a curtain ring?"
"To conceal it?" he suggested, trying to fasten his brain on why Muse might have taken such elaborate pains to hide a key, and not on Grace's arousal-flushed face, still well within kissing distance.
"The deposit box must contain something very valuable."
He wrenched himself from thoughts of taking the damn key and hurling it out the window. "Valuable, or something she doesn't want anyone to know about." Then he added with sudden insight, "Except you."
She blinked. "Me?"
Slowly his mind fastened on the puzzle at hand. "Think about it. She left the dry cleaning ticket in plain sight in her briefcase. And even if you didn't find it, she'd asked the clerk to call and remind you about the curtains. She knew you'd put them up and find that key."
"But she's safe with the FBI. Why would she…?" Grace gazed at him, her sparkling blue eyes dimming with worry, her luscious rosy lips turning down at the corners. "We need to find out what's in that box."
Frustration flared for what might have been. But she was right. "Yeah. I guess we do. What time is it?"
They both turned to the clock. "Two-thirty."
"It's Saturday. Only half an hour before the bank closes."
"But which one?"
He looked at her anxious face, trying to think. He couldn't remember. "Have you seen a checkbook? Statements? Anything? Here, or at the office?"
She shook her head. "No, nothing like that. Wait! On the computer! She had the Web site address for Louisiana Merchant Bank in her favorite sites folder. Isn't there a branch down on Decatur?"
"Bingo." He was already unfastening the ring the key was attached to. He grabbed her arm and pulled them both to their feet. "We better hurry if we're going to make it on time."
