by JoAnn Ross
“How can I remember anything so horrible?” she asked quietly, “when my mind’s filled with the glorious way you make me feel?”
If there was ever a time to take off running, Roarke thought, this was it. She wasn’t just wearing her heart on her sleeve, it was gleaming in her remarkable golden eyes.
Dragging his gaze from hers, he sat down in the creaky wicker chair next to her and put his feet up on the railing beside hers. As he watched a raccoon washing its morning meal in the water on a nearby bank, Roarke allowed himself the perilous fantasy of just staying out here with Daria forever.
“I can’t quite get a handle on you,” he grumbled.
She glanced over at him, surprised. “I haven’t held anything back.” That was definitely true. Especially last night. “Not that I remember, anyway.”
“I’m not accusing you of that” He continued to look out over the water. “It’s just that you seem so open and it would seem to me that a prosecutor needs to keep his—or her—cards pretty close to the chest”
She thought about that and allowed that he had a point “Perhaps that’s how I got into trouble in the first place.”
“That’s pretty much the conclusion I’ve come to.” Unable to resist touching her, he reached out and stroked her thigh, clad this morning in black leggings. “I’ve also been wondering if perhaps something more than just that graze to the head is blocking your memory.”
“What do you mean?”
“What if whatever you witnessed was so emotionally traumatic that your mind couldn’t handle it?”
“Murder’s ugly,” she agreed. “But I deal with it every day.”
“Speaking of that, Mike’s checking out the cases you’ve worked on during the past few months to see if he can uncover anything that might have ticked off some of the powers that be. If there’s any pattern, he’ll find it.”
“But how will you find out what, if anything, he discovers?” The phone in the van hadn’t been portable and needless to say, no one had gone to the trouble of stringing up phone lines all the way out here.
“There’s a bait shop a few miles from here, about twenty minutes by boat. There’s a phone I can use to call him. And to hook up to my laptop modem. He promised to E-mail me some files.”
“I suppose it goes without saying that we can trust Michael.” Daria couldn’t quite keep the question from her tone.
A flinty warning appeared in his dark blue eyes. “Unequivocally.”
It was enough for her. Daria nodded. “You’re lucky, having brothers.”
“I’ve always thought so. At least when they weren’t beating me up.”
“They beat you up?”
He shrugged. “When we were kids, we fought all the time. It wasn’t any big deal.”
She thought about that. “I guess it’s a guy thing.”
He shrugged again, but she didn’t miss the grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I guess so.”
They sat there for a while longer, each content to simply enjoy the company of the other. When a boat approached, she felt Roarke tense beside her. Daria was halfway out of her chair when he said, “Don’t worry. It’s just my Uncle Claude, checking his traps.”
“His traps?”
“It’s crayfish season. From the height of the water, it’ll be a good year, which is lucky for Claude, since Mike told me our Aunt Evangeline is pregnant with her sixth.”
“That’s quite a lot of mouths to feed.”
“It’s a helluva lot of crayfish,” Roarke agreed. “But Claude’s an oil engineer, too. So he does okay.”
“Of course, he’s not the one having to give birth all those times,” Daria said dryly.
“Got a point there.” Roarke waved at the man in the plaid shirt, who waved back. “So, what about you?” he asked with studied casualness.
“What about me, what?”
“You and your fiancé ever talk about having kids?”
“Of course.” The question stimulated the memory of a conversation. “James says that it’s important for a politician to have a family.”
“A pretty wife and a couple of cute little kids undoubtedly makes for a better campaign ad,” he agreed. “Especially in these days of family values.”
He wondered if she knew the rumors Mike had passed on about James Boudreaux having a longtime liaison with a redhead who had worked for a popular New Orleans escort service before leaving to open her own “modeling agency.”
“That’s exactly what he said.” Her tone was definitely less than enthusiastic.
“Doesn’t sound as if you agree,” he said mildly.
“I like the idea of children. And I’ve always wanted a large family. Although not quite as large as your Uncle Claude’s,” she added hastily. “But I don’t believe in using them as political pawns.”
“You may have to get over that.” He reached over, took hold of her hand and ran his finger over the sparkling diamond ring she was still wearing. “If you intend to be a politician’s wife.” Roarke knew he’d hurt her when he felt her hand go cold.
“How can you think I could possibly marry James?” she asked quietly. “After last night?”
He hardened his heart against the soft sheen of tears glistening in those wide, wounded eyes.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he drawled, “but I thought we had an agreement. Last night, as good as it was—as good as you were—was just sex, sugar. No strings, no commitments. We’ll enjoy each other until this is over and the bad guys are behind bars. Then we’ll move on with our lives.”
“That was the agreement, but—”
He cut her off with a curse. “I knew that was a mistake. I knew you couldn’t stick to the deal.”
“I’ve never welshed on anything in my life. And if you think I’m going to grovel and beg you to love me, you’re going to be waiting until this bayou freezes over.” She dropped her feet to the wooden-plank floor of the porch and stood over him, her arms crossed over her breasts.
She was trembling, but the tears threatening in her eyes had been burned out by lightning flashes of anger. “Last night proved to me that I can’t marry James. But just because your oversize ego seems to think that means I want to spend the rest of my life with you, doesn’t make it true.”
She might actually believe that. But Roarke didn’t buy it for a minute. “This has nothing to do with my ego. It’s about the fact that just because I spent most of the night inside you, you’ve started smelling orange blossoms.”
“That’s not true.” All right, perhaps there had been a moment when she’d first come out here this morning, that she’d fantasized about spending the rest of her life here, with Roarke. But at the same time she’d understood that such a scenario was not only impractical, but impossible. “And just because you spent most of the night inside me, doesn’t give you the right to treat me like some cheap hooker you picked up in the Quarter.”
He dragged his hand through his hair, frustrated by her accusation, but even more frustrated by his own unruly feelings. He’d walked away from countless affairs without looking back, and never had he felt so much as a twinge. Although she insisted she wasn’t looking for happily-ever-afters, he felt as if he’d just stomped all over her tender heart.
“If you’d told me in the beginning that you expected pretty words, I would have told you that I was the wrong guy.”
“You did tell me you were the wrong man for me,” she reminded him.
“Then you should have listened.”
“I did listen.”
“But you made the decision to sleep with me anyway.”
“Because I didn’t believe you.”
His only response to that was an arched, challenging brow.
Her fingers were itching to slap that smug look off his face, when she suddenly understood.
“I don’t know what happened to you in Moscow. But it obviously left emotional scars—”
His booted feet hit the deck. “You don’t know what you�
�re talking about.” He was on his feet, towering over her, his glare as lethal as any weapon.
“Yes, I do.” She also realized that despite her denial about wanting more than he was prepared to offer, she’d fallen in love with this dark and secretive man. “I know that something or someone made you think you can’t ever trust again. But you’re mistaken, and I also know that deep down inside, you know you’re wrong, too, because so far, in the past few days, you’ve trusted Mike—”
“He’s my brother.”
“True. But that’s not always a given. Surely you’ve read the story of Cain and Abel.”
He shook his head. “Remind me not to argue with a damn lawyer.”
Daria ignored that little jibe. “And you’ve trusted me.”
“I didn’t have much choice. I told you, I’m after a story, and—”
“And you’re a rotten liar.” She put her mug down on the railing, closed the scant distance between them and linked her fingers together around his neck. “This isn’t about a story.” Her body pressed against him—soft, feminine and treacherously alluring. “You do trust me, O’Malley. The same way I trust you. Because we can both deny it until doomsday, but we care. Perhaps more than we should.”
There were a hundred—a thousand—reasons why he should cut his losses now and run. While he still could. But the renewed flare of hunger in his loins overruled the voice of reason trying to make itself heard in his head.
He slid his hand between the waistband of the leggings and her smooth silky skin, and cupped her bottom, lifting her against him. Pressing his erection between her legs, he rubbed her back and forth against him in a way that made her moan softly and created an ache somewhere between pain and pleasure.
“The only thing I care about right now is getting laid.”
She knew he was being purposefully crude to discourage her. She also knew that Roarke was a far better man than he believed himself to be. And although she had no idea what had happened to so darken his soul, she vowed to stay alive long enough to prove to him that he was a man worthy of love. A man capable of giving love in return.
“All you had to do was ask.” She took her hands from around his neck and backed away just enough to allow her to pull the shirt over her head. When her bare breasts beckoned, he bent his head, intending to take one of those sweet rosy tips into his mouth, but she resisted. “Not yet.”
She drew the leggings all the way down her legs and pulled them off. She was now down to a pair of scarlet-as-sin panties so skimpy he wondered why she even bothered with them, and a pair of knee-high white socks covered with red hearts.
“Nice socks,” he managed.
He wasn’t looking at the socks at all, but at the ribbon ties at the sides of her panties. Daria smiled—a slow feminine smile that women have been using to seduce men since the beginning of time.
“It’s the season for hearts...Valentine’s Day is coming up,” she elaborated at his blank look.
“Oh. Yeah.” It was more and more difficult to talk around his thickened tongue. After last night he knew her body as well as his own. So why the hell could the sight of it make him feel like a homy, sex-crazed teenager getting his first glimpse of a Penthouse magazine?
He leaned back against the railing, watching as she put her left foot up on the chair and slowly rolled the cheery heart-covered sock down her calf with all the erotic skill of a premiere stripper on Bourbon Street.
The second sock joined the first, draped over the back of the wicker chair. When she closed the gap between them and pressed her palm against him, Roarke thought he was going to explode.
Desperate to be inside her again, he ripped the red panties away, then lifted her up, braced her against the wooden railing and entered her fully in one deep, driving thrust. As she closed around him like a hot, tight velvet glove, his release was instantaneous and so explosive that he couldn’t think, let alone speak. He simply held her, pinned against the railing, his mouth buried in her neck.
When his mind cooled slightly, he reached between them, found her hard little nub, then adjusted their position so he was pressed against it. He was rewarded by her faint gasp, and felt her literally go weak at the knees in his arms. “Wrap your legs around me, baby,” he coaxed, his tongue trailing wetly around her ear. “And hang on.”
When Daria did as instructed without question, he began to rotate his hips, massaging her most sensitive fresh, heating it, until he felt her come in a deep, shuddering release.
Although the morning air was cool, they were both drenched in perspiration. It wasn’t until he heard the faraway drone of a boat engine that Roarke realized that he’d taken her outside, standing, where anyone could see them. This was the busiest time on the bayou, and although his cabin was more isolated than most, he knew several men—including his uncle—whose crayfish trapping areas were in the vicinity.
“What is it about you?” he murmured as he reached for her sweatshirt, “that makes me lose my head whenever I get within kissing distance?”
“I have no idea.” She pulled the sweatshirt over her head, flinching slightly as the fleece slid over nipples that were still ultrasensitive from her earlier sexual hunger. “But when you figure it out, let me know, because I’m the same way around you.”
He’d known that, and it gave him more pleasure than it should have. He also knew that women usually found him to be a proficient and satisfying partner. So why should the simple physical act of bringing this particular woman to orgasm make him feel as if he could leap tall buildings in a single bound?
Roarke told himself that nothing had changed. He was still a wanderer. It was in his blood, passed down from father to son. He’d been a loner all of his life, and if there had been a time when he might have contemplated having a normal life, with a wife, some kids and a dog—the kind of life he’d always yearned for as a boy—he’d given up on the idea years ago.
If he had any sense of honor, he would remind Daria that he wasn’t the sticking-around type of guy. But when he realized that he’d screwed up again, not only taking her outside in the open, but without additional protection, he found himself imagining her ripe and round with his child. When the idea proved far too appealing, Roarke decided it was past time to leave the cabin and check up on what, if anything, Mike had discovered—about his assailants, Daria’s cases and, although he hadn’t said anything to Daria, her fiancé.
“I suppose I’d better get going,” he said after she’d gotten dressed again and he’d refastened his jeans. Part of him needed to get away from her, to clear his head, to figure out what he was feeling. Another part of him—the terrifying part—seemed more than comfortable just to remain here forever.
“I suppose so.” Daria didn’t sound any more eager than he was for him to leave. She sighed. “I wish I could remember something else. Since I can recall that man being murdered in the bayou, you’d think being out here would trigger some memory.”
“That was the plan.” He sat down in the chair next to the one she’d abandoned, and pulled her onto his lap. “But I guess you’ve been a little distracted.”
His hand slipped beneath the sweatshirt to cup her bare breast again, but rather than feeling renewed arousal, she felt utterly comfortable and safe. She laughed as he nuzzled at her ear and tilted her head back, giving his lips access to her throat. “More than a little.”
“I don’t suppose that the world would come to an end if we had breakfast before I left.”
“I think that’s a very good idea. After all—” she put her hand against his chest “—you need to keep your strength up.”
“Good point.” Her smiling lips were too much of a temptation to resist. He touched his mouth to hers. “I’m going to need all the energy I can muster if I’m going to play good guys/bad guys.”
She felt his lips curved against hers and knew that he was smiling. She remembered the grim expressions that had seemed normal for him when they’d first met, and realized that the easy enjoyment they
seemed able to share together had, for some reason, been a rare thing for him.
“Will you do me one favor before you leave?”
“What?” He was not the kind of man to agree to anything without knowing the terms of the deal. On the other hand, he couldn’t think of anything Daria could possibly ask of him that he wouldn’t do willingly.
“Will you tell me what happened in Moscow?”
She felt him go absolutely still. His body tensed and she thought he’d stopped breathing. Indeed, although her hand was pressed against his chest, she could have sworn that even his heart had ceased to beat.
Dammit, anyway. She’d come up with the one request that was going to prove not only difficult, but downright painful. Although he knew Natasha’s death hadn’t really been his fault—she had, it seemed, been more than willing to kill him—guilt still nagged at him, weighing heavily on his shoulders.
“It’s standing between us,” she said softly, but insistently. “She’s standing between us. And although I realize that we have an agreement that this is strictly sex, I’ve never been all that kinky.”
A warning flashed in his eyes. “What does that mean?”
Reminding herself that in the outside world she was a competent, intelligent trial lawyer, capable of surviving a great deal more than a masculine glare, Daria ignored it.
“It means,” she said, “I’m not really into threesomes.”
At first Roarke didn’t understand. “You think I am?”
“She’s between us, Roarke.” Daria cupped his face between her palms, her expression more earnest than he’d ever seen it. “She has been from the beginning.”
“Not while we’re making—” it was his turn to quickly catch himself “—not while we’re in bed,” he alleged.
“No. Not there.”
Those were the only times he’d allowed his emotions to slip the tight rein he kept them on; the rare instances when he would allow her a glimpse of his inner self. Beneath the cold, forbidding exterior was a warm, caring, compassionate man. Who was also the most passionate and demanding lover she’d ever known. Yet because he gave of himself so freely, Daria never felt as if he asked more of her than she was capable, or willing, to give.
