Too Wild to Hold

by LETO, JULIE

  “But I had everything to lose. For one horrible moment I don’t ever want to relive, I thought I’d lost you.”

  Her mouth curved downward, but her eyes seemed alight with energy. “You really think I’m that easy to get rid of?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  Michael wrapped his arms around her, tugging her close and breathing in the scent of her shampooed hair, the hygienic blanket and the drug-infused wine. Around him, he was vaguely aware of people moving, talking, maybe even asking questions, but he remained in the warm cocoon of their bodies.

  He could not let her go. Physically, he’d manage it, but beyond that? There was no way. Over the course of two short days, they’d connected in ways he’d never experienced with any other woman—and this was a treasure more priceless than his father’s ring or his ancestor’s romantic legacy. Using a sword or whip, wearing a mask and riding through the night to right wrongs was nothing compared with the courage Michael now needed to surrender his heart.

  Only, he’d already surrendered it, hadn’t he? That first night in the bedroom, when he’d tossed aside the protocols of his job for a chance to kiss the woman of his dreams.

  A cadre of local FBI agents marched down the stairs, turning in unison to stare disapprovingly in his direction. At their frowns, Claire sighed and broke the magical bubble that had encased them.

  “You’re going to be in a lot of trouble, aren’t you? For fraternizing or something?”

  “Or something,” he said, chuckling at the idea. It was ridiculous. Absurd. A week ago, he would have cared if his superiors had questioned his professionalism. Now, not so much.

  “Anything I can do?”

  “Yeah, actually,” he said, rising to his feet and taking her hands to pull her up with him. “How do you feel about taking on a partner? For your P.I. business, I mean.”

  It was a good thing he hadn’t released her because her foot stumbled down a step and she nearly took a tumble.

  “What?”

  “Look, the only reason I wasn’t with you tonight, to really protect you, was because I had to put my job first. I had to go after Josslyn and I have no regrets I did that, but being away from you, being constrained by the rules and regulations of my job…it’s starting to chafe. Remember when I gave you ten minutes to sneak over to the unsub’s apartment and look around and you found the evidence we needed? Part of me was terrified that he’d come back and hurt you, but the other part of me was jealous as hell that you could break the rules in the first place.”

  She tossed the blanket off her shoulders and stepped onto the landing. Only now did Michael realize that the second floor of the house was entirely empty of people, though he could hear Ruby talking downstairs. She’d probably herded everyone out of the way to give him and Claire real privacy—a privacy he was going to take advantage of, no matter how much his revelations shocked her.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re quitting the Bureau?”

  “Yeah,” he said, surprised by how easy the answer came.

  Her eyes widened. “And you’re doing this just because you were jealous that I could break the law to get what we needed and you couldn’t?”

  “It’s more than that. God, so much more.”

  Unable to stand another second without touching her, Michael took her hands again, this time indulging in his need to kiss her by pressing his lips first against her knuckles and then her wrists and palms.

  “You don’t know a lot about my life or my past,” he confessed. “That’s nothing unusual with the women in my life because I’ve never taken the time to give them a piece of me. I was too wrapped up in my career, in my ambitions, in my unending need to prove that I’m one of the good guys, no matter what ne’er-do-wells and bandits have peppered my past.”

  “Michael, I’ve met a lot of good guys and bad guys, and trust me, you’re one of the best.”

  “Maybe,” he said, heat rising in his cheeks in a way that might have embarrassed him with any other woman. But not with Claire. With her, he could feel anything, say anything, do anything. As if she’d had a key to unlock his soul. “But I don’t want to be defined by my past anymore. I don’t want to be defined by my job. I want to be defined by doing what I love, with someone I love.”

  She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. With her tongue, she parted the last of his resistance, and as she melted in his arms, his heart fused into her. They had so many things left to say to one another—so many things to learn and share. But he knew without a moment’s hesitation that he wanted to explore all the possibilities life and love had to offer—with Claire and only Claire.

  “I love you, too,” Claire said, breaking away just enough to run her hands over his face and then spear them into his hair. “I’ve known you for two days and I love you, Michael Murrieta.”

  “It sounds crazy,” he replied, but no crazier than what he felt.

  She threw back her head and laughed. “My life has always been crazy, but I never imagined the insanity was just a prelude to this. If I had, I might have spent more time enjoying it.”

  “We’ll enjoy it together from now on. How does that sound?”

  Unable to resist any longer, he dipped his head and kissed the soft flesh on her neck. The way she cooed in his ear and clutched at his shoulders gave him a hint as to her answer.

  “Sounds wild, Michael. Too wild.”

  He braced her spine with his hand so that she arched her back, giving him clearer access to her throat.

  “There’s no such thing as too wild, Claire. Not with us. Not ever.”

  Epilogue

  THE GOLD RING clattered over the felt tabletop, but Daniel instantly caught it, not giving the family heirloom a chance to roll off the side or get mistaken for an up of his ante. The shock of holding the ring for the first time caught him unaware, and it took him a split second to realize that Michael had shooed away the dealer at the private blackjack table he’d been gambling at for the past hour.

  “You were going to leave without saying goodbye?” Michael asked, sliding into the tall chair beside his.

  Daniel grumbled, slid the ring onto the table in front of his brother, then shook the ice in the bottom of his tumbler to get one last taste of the Scotch. “I’m not big on goodbyes.”

  “You pretty much suck at hellos, too.”

  “I don’t generally like to announce my presence to people coming or going,” he explained. “Hurts my chances of ripping them off if they realize I’m around.”

  Michael caught the attention of a passing cocktail waitress, ordered two drinks and then turned back to his brother. He gave him a powerful once-over that made Daniel yearn for a dark corner or shadow in which to disappear. Unfortunately, those were tough to come by in a brilliantly lit casino.

  Unlike Alejandro, whose assessing stare tended toward the judgmental and was, therefore, easy to brush off, Michael’s gaze was more probing—as if he didn’t quite know what to make of his middle brother. As if he were a puzzle he desperately wanted to solve.

  Daniel knew the feeling. He’d been trying to figure himself out his whole life, but never more than in the last few months. His brothers had forced the issue. Not because they’d wanted to and certainly not because he’d asked them to redefine who he was.

  It was all because of the ring.

  Just two months ago, he’d started on a path to retrieve his father’s most prized possession. He’d only met Ramon Murrieta once. He’d used the opportunity to let the old man know. He’d survived foster care without his intervention, so he sure as hell didn’t need him once he’d turned eighteen. He’d built his own family with a menagerie of thieves, fences, money-launderers and loan sharks.

  The irony had not escaped him that years later, when he’d been unfairly accused of attempted murder, that “family” had deserted him. If not for Lucienne, his adopted sister, and the two brothers he did not know, he would have been entirely alone

  And now, the brothe
r who’d been the most doubtful of Daniel’s motives, the one who had grown up with Ramon Murrieta and deserved his legacy more than anyone, had tried to give him their father’s ring?

  Again, Michael slid the emerald in front of Daniel. This time, he didn’t pick it up.

  “What’s this for?” he asked.

  Michael grinned. “Don’t need it anymore.”

  “I didn’t realize the wearer had to need it,” he said. “I thought it was just about blood.”

  “Didn’t Alex tell you what the ring does?”

  Daniel scoffed. “Said something about the three qualities of Joaquin Murrieta or some shit. I wasn’t listening,” he lied.

  He’d heard every word Alex had told him, of course, but how could he believe in such nonsense? Over the course of his career, he’d stolen more than a few items purported to have curses or luck associated with them and he’d never seen anything to make him believe the legends were even remotely based in truth.

  But Alex, a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic of epic proportions, had given the ring credit for bringing him together with Lucienne. And from the grin on Michael’s face, he had also found the path to true love and was assigning some of the credit to the hunk of well-worn gold and damaged stones.

  Daniel lifted his glass again, hoping for one last drop of Scotch. “Great. I’ll sell it.”

  Michael’s smile did not falter. “No, you won’t.”

  He was right. Just a couple of months ago, someone had wanted the ring so badly, they’d set Daniel up to take a murder rap. If he put the ring back on to the open market, that still unknown person might get it—and Daniel’s vengeful nature wouldn’t allow that to happen.

  To keep the ring safe, it would have to stay in the family.

  “I don’t need a woman in my life,” he said, tossing the emerald across the table. Michael caught it on a bounce.

  “Oh, the ring isn’t about women. It’s about giving you what you’re missing.”

  Daniel waved him off, not wanting to hear a lecture about which aspects of his character needed a magical intervention. “I’m not missing anything.”

  Michael used the opportunity to snatch his hand. “Trust me, bro, you need this.”

  Their wrestling caught the attention of the gamblers nearby, but before anyone could intervene, the burlier Michael had succeeded in sliding the ring onto Daniel’s finger. He tried to tug it off, but couldn’t get it past his knuckle.

  Michael sat down on his chair and shook his clothes back into place.

  “What the hell?” Daniel protested.

  “Consider it a favor, brother. Your life has been going nowhere. Maybe you need a change. The ring might give it to you. Look at me. I’ve decided to take a break from the Bureau. I’m staying in New Orleans. With Claire.”

  Danny gave the ring one last tug, then gave up. He’d ice his hand later. Maybe use some soap. In the meantime, he could at least admire the craftsmanship. If not for the Z-shaped scratch on the emerald and the somewhat sloppy repairs made to the worn gold band, it might have fetched a nice price in a foreign market.

  Maybe he would still try, just to get rid of the thing.

  Or maybe he’d see what the piece of crap jewelry could do.

  The cocktail waitress returned with two glasses of Bourbon, neat. They each took a sip. Daniel preferred Scotch but the alcoholic burn on his tongue was nice all the same.

  “So you’re sticking around to study for your P.I. license?”

  “Wouldn’t be too hard, with my experience. And I have a bead on an internship with a local P.I. who for some reason seems to want me around.”

  Michael put his glass down and leaned in close so his whispered words could be heard over the dinging bells and endless chatter on the casino’s main floor.

  “Thanks for keeping an eye on her. You kept your word. That means a lot.”

  Daniel eyed his brother intently. “For future reference, I’m a thief, not a liar.”

  “I didn’t realize the two were mutually exclusive.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. To be an effective thief, lying is often part of the deal. But I try to avoid it when I can.”

  “So you’ll tell me the truth if I ask you whether or not you came to New Orleans just to steal Pop’s ring?”

  “If you asked,” Danny said, hoping he wouldn’t.

  “Then I’m asking.”

  Daniel frowned and looked down at his hand. He hadn’t really expected it to fit. He remembered his father’s fingers being thicker and longer than his own. He’d met him only once, but he still remembered the strength in the old man’s hands.

  He threw back the remaining Bourbon, impressed by how the light caught on the green stone, despite the scratch.

  “The thought had occurred to me, yes, but then I asked myself, where was the challenge? You were so distracted by Claire and the Bandit, you wouldn’t have noticed if I’d cut your finger off to get it.”

  Michael arched a brow. “So the only reason you take things that don’t belong to you is for the challenge?”

  Daniel laughed. In the beginning, he’d stolen to survive. Once he’d figured out he was good at it, he’d done it for the sense of accomplishment—and the cash.

  But since Alejandro’s lawyer and Michael’s influence had helped him beat the bogus attempted murder charges, he was no longer sure that any monetary reward was worth the risk—especially not to his tentative relationship with his brothers.

  He had no idea what he was going to do next, but taking his father’s ring had not been a choice.

  Again, he tried to remove it. Again, it did not budge.

  Michael finished his drink, chuckling. “Funny. First you wanted it enough to steal it, and now you can’t give it back if you wanted to.”

  He slapped his brother on the shoulder and stood.

  “Wait,” Daniel ordered, objecting to Michael’s departure.

  “Can’t,” Michael said, tossing down a twenty to cover the cost of their drinks. “I have a beautiful woman waiting to show me all the best make out spots—I mean, stakeout locations—in New Orleans. I suggest you stop wasting your time trying to take the ring off and just buckle up for the ride. Your life is about to change, Daniel. Whether you like it or not.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-1200-8

  TOO WILD TO HOLD

  Copyright © 2011 by Book Goddess, LLC

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