by Paige Tyler
Remy chuckled. He wondered if Zane knew his British accent was always more noticeable when he was around the opposite sex. Probably. No doubt the former soldier from the British Special Air Service knew it made women go crazy.
“Yeah, it’s always like this here,” Remy confirmed. “New Orleans is a city that takes the concept of having a good time to a whole different level.”
There was also a palpable tension in the air tonight that had absolutely nothing to do with the normal wild-party atmosphere of the city—the tropical storm brewing in the Gulf. While his teammates had probably picked up on the nervous energy percolating around them, they most likely didn’t know the cause. But Remy knew from growing up here and living through Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Not that anyone was comparing Tropical Storm Ophelia with Katrina. It was a much smaller, weaker storm than Katrina had ever been, and if the talking heads on the Weather Channel were to be believed, the storm was destined to disintegrate into a tropical depression and do nothing more than drench the Texas coast with a couple inches of rain. That sucked for places like Houston, which had gotten more than its fair share of rain lately, but was a serious blessing for New Orleans.
Even with everyone saying Ophelia wasn’t going to be a repeat of Katrina, and that the levees, floodgates, and canals protecting the city would be fine, there was still an underlying current of fear in the city. Some of it was because many of the same people saying Ophelia wasn’t a threat were also the ones who’d said there was almost no chance Katrina would hit the city. People might have forgiven those weather experts, but no one had forgotten.
The thing that really had the city walking around on proverbial eggshells at the moment was the fact that Katrina had forced everyone to accept how vulnerable the delta city was to almost any kind of storm. New Orleans was a unique city because it was essentially an island surrounded by large lakes to the north and east, the Mississippi to the south, and wetlands to the west. Even worse, most of the city was below sea level. In fact, parts of it, like the infamous Lower Ninth Ward, were three or four feet below the water surrounding New Orleans.
Despite knowing another big storm could drown the city again, maybe worse than the first time, people chose to stay anyway, making an uneasy peace with all the water surrounding them. So while Ophelia churned slowly through the Gulf trying to figure out where it wanted to go, people went about their business, working, laughing, and having a good time—but they also had their TVs turned to the Weather Channel and the prognosticators trying to predict how strong the storm would become and where it would go. And they made plans just in case.
“Where do we go first?” Max asked excitedly. “This place is like one huge, awesome party.”
Remy did a double take when he saw the iridescent gold rimming Max’s blue eyes. Damn, the city’s energy was already starting to get to the guy. Not surprising. Max was the youngest guy in SWAT and the newest werewolf in the Pack. He’d gone through his change barely four years ago and was still getting a grip on his inner wolf. Sometimes things slipped out a little.
“Max, your eyes are glowing,” Brooks said, nudging him in the shoulder. “Dial it back a bit, dude.”
Unlike Max, Brooks was completely in control and probably had been from the day he’d become a werewolf. A former fullback at LSU, he was one of the few members of the Pack who could do a full shift to his wolf form without breaking stride or even a sweat. Remy had only been able to completely shift once and that was after Gage and Brooks had spent hours talking him through the process. It had been painful as hell and not something he looked forward to ever doing again.
Muttering a curse, Max closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. A few moments later, he opened them again. “Better?”
Brooks nodded when he saw Max’s eyes were back to their normal color. “Good to go.”
“Sorry about that.” Max ran a hand through his perpetually messy, dark hair. “I’m not sure what the hell that was about. That hasn’t happened to me in months.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Remy laughed, slapping the other werewolf on the shoulder hard enough to break bones in a normal person. “No one is going to notice glowing eyes on Bourbon Street. Hell, down here, I doubt they’d even care if you sprouted fangs. Gage would go apeshit though, so you’d better not. As far as where we go first, it doesn’t matter. You can’t go wrong down here. Let’s start on the left side of the street and stop anywhere that catches our attention.”
“Sounds like we have a plan.” Brooks grinned, his teeth a flash of white against his brown skin. “Let’s have some fun.”
Remy let Zane and Max lead the way as the four of them headed down the sidewalk toward the first club, a blues joint that already had a crowd of people moving in and out of the large, wide-open door. Zane headed to the bar for drinks while Remy and the other guys staked out some standing room space near a support column by the door.
Loud blues music and dancing people filled the club in equal measure, creating a rush of memories that brought a smile to Remy’s face. Damn, it had been a long time since he’d been here. He quickly did the math and realized it had been five years since Gage had found him in a club in the French Quarter doing his very best to drink himself to death.
He was just tugging on that particular memory, relieved that it didn’t bring him as much pain as it used to, when an unusual and extremely tantalizing scent caught his attention. He whipped his head around to stare at the door, sniffing the air. His nose was okay, certainly nothing special like some of the other werewolves in the Pack. It made him wonder why he was picking up this particular smell so clearly.
There were a lot of overwhelming scents down on Bourbon Street. Sweat, booze, perfume, cigarette and cigar smoke, moldy wood, drugs, sex—you name it. All that made it hard to discern anything else around him. This particular scent was different and it demanded his attention.
“Hey, you okay?” Brooks asked.
Brooks was one of his pack mates blessed with a good nose. Remy turned to the big guy and motioned toward the open door.
“Do you smell that?” he asked.
Brooks sniffed. “I smell a lot of things. Which one are you talking about?”
“That flowery, spicy scent coming from outside.”
Brooks sniffed again. Beside him, Max did the same. A moment later, they both looked at him and shook their heads.
“I don’t smell anything like that,” Brooks said. “Is it a trace scent or more concentrated?”
Remy breathed deeply through his nose and almost got weak-kneed. What was more, he actually started getting a boner. What the hell?
“Yeah,” he managed. “You could say it’s concentrated.” He glanced at Brooks and Max. “You guys are screwing with me, right? You seriously can’t smell that?”
“Smell what?” Zane asked as he appeared beside them carrying four plastic cups of beer.
Remy ignored him and the beer, which was saying a lot. He really liked beer. But the idea of taking a big gulp right then didn’t interest him at all. He didn’t have a clue what the hell he was smelling, but he damn well knew he needed to find out what it was. He’d go nuts if he didn’t.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said.
Zane and the other guys followed as he tracked the scent out onto the street. At this time of night, it was closed to vehicles and packed with people. He was big and muscular, so most of the crowd avoided him, which was good, since his mind was too preoccupied to worry about running anyone over.
“Hey!” Zane called out. “You want your beer?”
“No, you keep it,” he said, too focused on the scent to care.
“Sweet,” Zane said as he and the other guys followed. “More for me.”
The scent led Remy on a much longer chase than he thought possible. As strong as it had been in the club, he was sure he’d find the source righ
t outside the doors, but he’d already gone five blocks and the scent was still getting more intense. That was pretty frigging hard to believe.
The trail led him into a bar and grill, where the scent was powerful enough to make him think the person had spent some time there, then to a live music club. The scent wasn’t quite as concentrated there, so she probably hadn’t stayed there very long. He could understand why. The music had been loud, and not very good.
It wasn’t until he was back out on the street with Max, Brooks, and Zane still in tow that he realized he was following a woman.
He tried to tell himself it was insane. He’d smelled thousands of women since becoming a werewolf. Hell, maybe tens of thousands. None of them had ever possessed a spicy, flowery scent this delectable. Not even close.
Remy walked faster. What kind of woman could generate a scent so powerful it gave him a hard-on the moment he caught a whiff? The curiosity was killing him.
He was vaguely aware of his pack mates talking to each other, but he didn’t pay too much attention to what they were saying. Something about betting on the hair color of the woman he was tracking down. He briefly wondered how they knew it was a woman, since they couldn’t seem to smell her scent, but then decided that was a stupid-ass question. He was Remy Frigging Boudreaux. If he was putting this much effort into tracking down a scent, anyone who knew him would realize there had to be a woman on the other end of the line. He would have never gone through this much trouble otherwise.
Remy wasn’t sure how long he followed the scent, but the next thing he knew, he was walking into a nightclub with a steady dance beat throbbing out of every hole, crack, and pore of the building. In bloodhound mode, he headed straight to the second floor, moving like an arrow shot through the crowded, noisy room until he was standing in the middle of the dance floor full of gyrating bodies.
Right there, dancing with her back to him in a group of four other women, was the source of the scent that had dragged him halfway across the French Quarter. This close, her fragrance was damn near overwhelming. If he wasn’t such a gentleman, he probably would have leaned forward and licked the small portion of her neck that was exposed every time her long, black hair swung aside. If she smelled this good, he could only imagine how she tasted.
The thought was enough to nearly bring him to his knees.
He was trying to figure out the best way to initiate a conversation—tapping her on the shoulder and saying he’d been tracking her scent for blocks might come off as a bit stalkerish—when the woman turned to face him.
Maybe she’d sensed him behind her, or perhaps it was because her friends had stopped dancing to stare over her shoulder at him. Either way, when she spun around, Remy swore his heart stopped beating for a second.
It was dark on the dance floor and the flashing strobes were bright enough to practically blind him, but it didn’t matter. The light-brown-skinned beauty would have stood out in any light. Hell, she would have stood out in complete darkness too.
He was still taking in the smoking-hot curves, perfect skin, and exotic amber eyes when a realization struck him so hard he almost stumbled backward.
He knew her. Not in the biblical sense, though that was obviously one hell of a shame. He’d known her back in high school when she’d been a skinny, awkward teenager who never seemed to look anywhere but at the ground.
She was a lot different now—understatement there—and easily the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Now she possessed a confidence that made it hard to look at anything but her. Even with all the changes, he would have known her anywhere. He hadn’t talked to her since high school graduation, but they’d been friends and probably would have been more if he hadn’t been such a chickenshit back then.
“Triana?”
Remy didn’t expect her to recognize him. While she’d grown from a girl into a woman, he’d grown from a boy into a werewolf. He looked a lot different than he had in high school.
Triana’s eyes widened. “Remy, is that seriously you? I can’t believe you’re here!”
Grinning, she threw her arms around him. His went around her automatically, holding her close. He was shocked at how good she felt against him—good as in let’s go find a room somewhere or a dark corner or, hell, the backseat of the nearest car.
At the same time, his mind spun as he tried to understand what the hell was going on. Could he have subconsciously recognized his old friend’s scent? Okay, maybe. But that still didn’t explain why she smelled so good or why her fragrance had pulled him so frigging hard in her direction. He’d never felt anything like it in his life. The animalistic urge he’d had to track her down didn’t fit with any concept of friendship he recognized.
And neither did the erection he had going on in his jeans right then. That was definitely not the way people greeted old childhood friends. Crap, if he didn’t do something quick, this was going to get really frigging embarrassing.
He pulled away and gave her a smile. “We probably shouldn’t be wasting this music. You want to dance some before we go find a place where we can catch up on old times?”
* * *
Triana Bellamy didn’t mind when Remy’s big, strong hand glided down her back to tease the curve of her bottom as they danced. Nor did she complain when his muscular, jean-clad thigh occasionally slipped between her legs to press against her in the most delicious way through the little black dress she wore. Instead, she focused on the pounding rhythm of the music and enjoyed being with the sexiest man she’d ever seen.
Besides, it wasn’t like Triana wasn’t getting just as naughty as he was. In fact, she should have probably received an honorary police badge considering the way she’d been frisking his body the whole time. Not that there was a woman on the planet who would blame her for wanting to give Remy a pat down. The guy was seriously built.
Triana lived and worked in Houston but was back in town for the week visiting her mother and hanging out with old friends. When those same girlfriends had stopped dancing to stare at something over her shoulder a little while ago, Triana had feared the worst. She’d turned around terrified she’d find some drunk tourist with a facial tattoo and gumbo breath standing there. Instead, it had been the guy she’d crushed on all through high school looking better than any man had a right to.
Remy had always been fit and muscular as far back as she could remember, but now it looked like he’d grown four inches and added at least fifty pounds of pure muscle. But even more amazing than the physical changes was the whole animalistic-sex-appeal thing he had going on. He exuded it like a cologne.
Then there were his gorgeous hazel eyes. When the colored strobe lights reflected off them at just the right angle, it was like they were actually glowing. It made him seem like some kind of hungry predator. Damn, that gaze of his did all kinds of crazy things to her insides.
Truth be told, there had always been something about Remy that did it for her, even before she’d understood what the heck that meant. But now there was something about him that was impossible to resist. If she knew her friends, they’d been staring at him because they all wanted to jump him. Well, they were all going to have to get in line behind her.
As they danced to one song after another, Triana smiled as she remembered what it was like growing up with Remy. They’d been fourteen when their parents had met at her late father’s jazz club on Frenchmen Street. Even though they’d been from drastically different walks of life, they had formed an immediate friendship, and it wasn’t long before they were having dinner at each other’s houses all the time. She and Remy became close too. When they weren’t hanging out doing homework together, they were talking about what they wanted to do when they were older.
But even though she’d always had a crush on him, they’d never dated, partly because they had moved in different social circles. He liked sports, while she was into all kinds of science and math activities. However
, the bigger issue was that they’d both been afraid getting involved would screw up their friendship.
After they’d both gone to college, she’d tried keeping in touch with Remy through her parents, but life had somehow gotten in the way and she’d lost track of him. She’d thought about him a lot since they’d both gone their separate ways though, and there were times when she’d daydreamed about what could have been if they actually had gotten together.
Now, as if to prove the world really was a small place, she’d bumped into him after all these years. Her mom—who believed in stuff like that—would probably tell her the spirits or her guardian angel or the fates had taken a hand in her life and guided Remy to her side. Triana didn’t buy any of that, but if she was lucky enough to run into a man this sinfully hot, she wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.
Flashing her a grin, Remy spun her around, so her back was to him, wrapping his muscular arms around her waist and pulling her close. They swayed in time to the music, and Triana rested her arms on his, letting her fingers tease the well-muscled biceps left exposed by his snug-fitting T-shirt. She couldn’t tell which was sexier: the way he rubbed up against her bottom, or the way he tilted his head and buried his face in the curve of her neck and breathed deep. Both were arousing, but she finally decided on him nuzzling her neck. It made her think he couldn’t get enough of her. What woman wouldn’t like that?
As he twirled her around to face him again, she realized that their friends weren’t on the dance floor anymore. Her girlfriends had been dancing and flirting with his friends outrageously ever since Remy and the other guys had gotten there. Triana looked around, wondering if they’d left without telling her and Remy.
“They slipped out onto the balcony a little while ago,” he said, leaning over to put his mouth close to her ear, making her quiver. “You want to head out there?”
Triana would have preferred to dance with him for the rest of the night, especially if it involved him wrapping his big arms around her and burying his face in her neck again. But she thought she should probably check on her friends. Besides, she had about a million questions for Remy, and she wouldn’t be able to ask him on the dance floor.
