by Leslie Kelly
So did he. He couldn’t help it. She looked very, very normal. “Hi.”
“Hi, Mr. Tief.”
Her polished brown skin was much darker than Jade’s. He wasn’t surprised by her race, given what he knew about Jade’s family. Her face was smooth and nearly unlined. But her hair was a wiry mix of black and gray, with gray appearing to be the winner. Her smile was accentuated by the whitest, largest teeth he’d ever seen. And she wore an old-lady housecoat that fell to just above a pair of very knobby brown knees. On her feet were bunny slippers.
Okay, no one with bunny slippers on her feet was going to chant a few words and cause all his hair to fall out or make his nuts stop doing their job.
“You find anyt’ing good?” she asked, as matter-of-factly as she’d ask an invited guest.
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. I’m not a thief.”
“You come here to take something from us?”
“Well…”
“Den you a tief. A good-looking one, though.”
“So why haven’t you called the police?”
She shrugged. “You not a dangerous man. I can tell as soon as you come in the front door.”
She was right, though he felt mildly insulted that he didn’t have even the tiniest bit of danger written anywhere on his aura.
“How you get in?”
“I used Jade’s key,” he admitted.
That didn’t seem to phase her, either. She simply nodded. “Where is she?”
He hesitated. If he could get the old woman to help him somehow, maybe he could end this thing tonight. But it probably wouldn’t be easy if she found out what he’d done.
She crossed her skinny arms over her old-lady chest and gave him a sideways smile. “What you do with Jade? And don’ lie.” She wagged her eyebrows. “I’ll know if you lie.”
“She’s handcuffed to my bed at the Winter Garden House,” he found himself saying. Then he groaned, wondering how the hell he’d let those words spill out of his mouth. Maybe she had hexed him because he’d had no intention of telling the truth.
The old woman’s eyes widened and she let out a bark of laughter that made her whole body shake. The white smile became even whiter. She clutched a chair, almost snorting with laughter, then clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no,” she lisped, “there go my good teefs.”
He didn’t know what she meant until she spat out a full set of dentures into her hand, giving him a wide, gummy grin. He began to laugh with her.
“Din’ have time to glue ’dem in right when I hear you comin’ in to steal from us.” Before he protested, she held up a hand, smooth and work-worn, but still strong and capable. “Don’ worry. I know now who you are. You flash de folks at de fancy party last night.”
Oh, God, so much for his hope that Tally Jackson and Mamie Brandywine hadn’t told their tale. “You heard about that, hmm?”
She shrugged, not explaining. “So you getting even?”
He shrugged. “Sort of.”
The old woman casually retrieved a glass, filled it with water and dropped her teeth into it with a little plop. Then she put a pot of water on the stove, retrieved two mugs and a container of tea leaves. “We talk over a drink.”
And somehow, though he’d come here to steal what had been stolen, he found himself sitting in a quiet kitchen, drinking a cup of delicious and strangely spiced tea, with Lula Mae Dupré, voodoo priestess of Savannah.
JADE FUMED, CURSED and muttered for the first ten minutes after Ryan had walked out of the room, leaving her helpless on the bed.
Helpless. What an unbelievably awful feeling. Jade hadn’t felt helpless, ever. Her mother’s romantic life had been a nonstop adventure, but otherwise Jade had been the product of a normal home. Her family—both close and extended—was a secure one. She’d always felt loved, both before and after Daddy’s death, and had been raised to believe she could be anyone, achieve absolutely anything.
Except make handcuffs magically open.
“You sneaky S.O.B.,” she whispered, finally allowing a bit of reluctant admiration for her adversary to enter her mind. He’d gotten her, but good.
After last night, he had to have figured she had it coming. She knew why she’d abandoned him in the garden at the Medford place—because of Jenny. But he didn’t know. He must have figured her for some game-playing sexual psycho who got her kicks leading men on, building them up—way, way up, in his case, she recalled with a gulp—then letting them crash and burn.
His retribution was pretty fair, considering he’d at least shut the door to the room. Nobody would be seeing her here, unlike where she’d left him last night.
“That still doesn’t mean I’m not going to kill him,” she muttered through tight teeth.
But for now, she focused only on covering herself. Bad enough to have to face the man when he got back, knowing he’d won this round. She didn’t want to have to do it while stark naked, laid bare for his perusal.
Or his pursual.
She couldn’t handle that. Couldn’t even think of him coming back into the room and doing what he’d threatened—counting the score even and trying to finish what they’d started.
She dreaded that. Not because he couldn’t do it but, she was very much afraid, because he could.
The outraged sister in her insisted she could resist. The incredibly aroused woman who’d practically begged him to take her knew better.
It took a while, but eventually she was able to grasp the end of the folded-down sheet with her toes and drag it up her body. A contortionist she wasn’t. But by lifting her legs all the way up in the air and toward her chest, she managed to drop the covering so it at least reached her midriff. All the wiggling, jiggling, cursing and bouncing wouldn’t bring the blasted thing up over her breasts, however. So the man was going to get some peek-a-boo nipple action, but at least nothing farther south.
She’d just begun contemplating whether she should hit him before she got dressed, or after, when the door creaked open.
Jade held her breath, praying it was Ryan, even as she hated the idea of seeing him again.
“Still here, I see,” he said as he came into the room.
She shot him a glare. “Like I was going to be able to go anywhere?”
He shrugged. “You’re very resourceful.”
“Resourceful wouldn’t help me drag this eighteenth-century cherrywood bed over to the bathroom.”
“You needed to go?”
She glared. “No, I hoped I might be able to find something in your shaving kit so I could unlock these things.” Then she added, “And maybe a pair of scissors to attack you with.”
He quirked a sideways grin, then began to look her over, head to foot. But he didn’t get far, his gaze lingering somewhere below the throat. Her standing-at-attention nipples clued her in on where.
She swallowed a lump of rising awareness. “Unlock me.”
“Are you going to attack me?”
“Not sexually,” she snapped.
“Bummer,” he said with a lift of his shoulders. “How about violently?”
“I’m debating.”
“On?”
“On how loud it would be if I crack your head open with that lamp on the dressing table.”
He glanced at it and tsked. “Porcelain. Pricey. And probably loud. Not to mention that these floors are wood. The thud would probably be heard all the way to your uncle Henry’s room.”
He was right. And somehow, drat the man, he was making her want to laugh with the matter-of-fact way he was trying to help her figure out how to attack him. Then again, since she was still handcuffed, he did hold a certain position of power.
“Please unlock me.”
“I’m making sure you’ve calmed down,” he replied, returning his gaze to her face and staring at her with a kind of quiet intensity he hadn’t shown before.
Jade felt heat rise in her body, up her cheeks. The heat inside her was nothing compared to the expression on his face.
He wanted, all right. Still wanted.
“If you won’t unlock me, you can certainly be decent enough to pull the sheet all the way up.” Sakes alive, even to her own ears, her tone sounded more provocative than pleading.
“Can I?”
His voice was low, almost a purr, as he approached the bed. She couldn’t read the look on his face. No smile, no twinkle in his green eyes to help her gauge his intentions.
Was he about to unlock her? Or strip naked and climb into bed beside her? And which was she really, deep in the innermost part of herself, hoping for?
He knelt on the bed, his knee close to her side, pulling the sheet tighter across her tummy and hips. Then he reached up, already holding a small silver key, and unlocked the cuffs.
She immediately pulled her hands free. Lowering her arms, she rubbed her wrists and shrugged her aching shoulders.
“Let me,” he said.
“Hands off. Don’t try your tricks on me again.”
His expression said he was hurt. “I only wanted to ease the knots.”
He reached his hands up again as Jade clutched the sheet to cover the front of her body. She had to tug it a little since he was still kneeling on the bed. He shifted, freeing the sheet and also sitting down beside her.
Then, only then, did Jade give a short nod. A shoulder rub was the least the man could do considering he’d caused the discomfort.
He began to stroke her upper arms, kneading, deep strokes that eased the tight muscles there. Then he moved higher, working on her shoulders, his hands moving over her with both strength and gentleness, as if he knew which she needed when. Jade couldn’t help relaxing, dropping her head to the side. From behind her, she heard his breathing grow deeper, slower. More intimate.
Oh, so much more intimate.
She wanted that, so very much. But the thought of those hands, those strong, tender hands, having already touched her sister in the same way was just too much.
It wasn’t so much about him hurting Jenny. It wasn’t even about him locking her up naked and disappearing for an hour. Now this had become much more personal, with so much more at stake.
She simply didn’t want to sleep with a man who’d been in bed with her sister. Period.
“I can’t do this,” she said, her voice shaking.
He didn’t remove his hands, but they did pause on her shoulders, touching her with gentle possession but demanding nothing.
“I have to go.”
He instantly removed his hands and slid off the bed to stand next to her. It took a moment before she could work up the nerve to turn her head and lift her eyes to meet his.
He looked serious. Intense. Maybe even a little sorrowful.
“I understand.” He tossed a bag onto the foot of the bed. “Here are your clothes. Maybe…maybe once you can forget about my, uh, getting even tonight, we can meet again. Start over.”
Start over. How lovely that sounded. She wished they could, considering he was the first man she’d ever known who’d both aroused her and completely matched her, wit for wit, in a hot, playful game of up the sexual ante. She had to admit it, if only in her mind, she’d liked their games. Ryan could be a very exciting playmate. In bed, and out of it.
If only she could pretend he was just an incredibly attractive man she’d recently met. That there was no baggage, no revenge schemes between them.
No Jenny.
She wanted to wail at the loss. She wanted this man more than she’d ever wanted anyone. In her life.
Sudden frustration rose and she clawed at her clothes, yanking her tank top on over her head, then tugging the sheet out from under it. Staying under the covers, she maneuvered her panties toward her feet and slid into them.
Clad in that much, at least, she felt a little more confident about her ability to face him. She stood up beside the bed. “It’s impossible, Ryan.”
“Nothing’s impossible.” His low, hypnotic voice almost made her believe it.
“I can never be with someone I don’t trust and respect,” she said. “Or someone who doesn’t trust and respect me.”
His brow shot up and his mouth dropped open. “Trust and respect?” he said, sounding completely offended. “This from the woman who tied me naked to a statue in a public place?”
“It wasn’t public,” she retorted.
“About as damn close as you can get.”
“You said nobody saw you except Tally. And she wasn’t wearing her glasses.”
His face turned red and he leaned close. “Mamie Brandywine saw me as well. I had to stick like glue to other people leaving the inn this morning so she wouldn’t corner me.”
She snickered. Mamie’s appetites were well known in Savannah. Half the town pitied her husband. The other half wondered what he wasn’t doing to keep her satisfied at home.
Such ran the gossip mill.
She reached for her skirt, bunching it and stepping into the waist, still not trusting herself to look at him.
“Why, Jade? Why can’t we even try to make something happen when we both know it’s what we want?”
“Maybe we could,” she replied without thinking about it, “if only you weren’t such a womanizing reprobate.”
He gave her a look of such shock and confusion that she almost felt sorry for him. The feeling quickly disappeared when he stepped closer, crowding her until the backs of her legs were against the bed. He’d stepped onto the bunched-up fabric of her skirt, so she was stuck there, with her feet inside it and the material puddled around them.
Grabbing her shoulders, he glared at her. “You’ve got a lot of nerve. I wasn’t the one begging you to get naked in the moonlight. You wanna talk about people moving a little fast…”
She blinked. Was that a tiny bit of fear creeping up her spine? A bit of concern at the fury she heard in his voice and saw in his stiff form? Or maybe it was just excitement at seeing his raw masculine power unleashed.
Ryan had been in many moods since they’d met, but she’d never seen him truly angry. “Do you really want to compare notes on who was the aggressor here?” he asked, his voice shaking.
She jerked away from him, forgetting that her feet were tangled. There was only one way to go—down. She wound up on her butt on the bed, eye level with his waist, and realized his anger hadn’t done much to tamp down his arousal.
Wow. Not much at all.
She blinked her eyes and forced herself to look up toward his face. Sticking out her jaw, she hit him with the accusation she’d meant to keep to herself. “I’m not talking about me. I’m a grown woman. I know how to take care of myself around smooth-talkers like you.”
He leaned over her, so close she could see the crisp black hairs in the open vee of his black cotton shirt. See the sheen of sweat on his skin and the bunching of his muscles. Slick. Bulging. Powerful. She gulped and tore her stare away.
Fisting his hands, Ryan bent close and put them on either side of her on the mattress, effectively trapping her. “You’re not making any sense. You don’t know a thing about me. Not about my past, who I’ve dated. Nothing.”
“I know about Jenny,” she snapped, trying to keep her wits about her when what she wanted to do was ask him if he knew there were tiny flecks of gold scattered across the green of his eyes. She regretted it as soon as the words left her mouth.
“Who?”
She tried to backpedal. “Never mind.”
“No, I do mind. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Look, it doesn’t matter.” Forcing a laugh, she tried to change the subject. “Why are we arguing anyway? It’s not that big a deal never to see each other again. You can’t want me too much if you had me naked and chained to a bed and still walked out the door.”
This time, he was the one who barked a laugh. A disbelieving grunt of a laugh. “Not want you? Babe, a man would have to be gay, castrated at birth or had his nads blown off in an industrial accident not to have wanted you.”
She sucked her lips into her mouth, b
oth amused and a little mollified at the tormented tone in his voice. Okay, walking out hadn’t been easy. That was a relief.
He straightened and crossed his arms, but remained threateningly close, as if silently ordering her to stay seated. “I did it to teach you a lesson about playing games with men you don’t know.”
“Yeah?” she said, scoffing at him with her tone. “Well, maybe I did that to you for the same reason.”
He quirked a brow. “I don’t play games with men.”
“I sure hope not.”
“So what makes you think I play games with women? Go back to what you were saying earlier—about Jenny.”
She didn’t want to, didn’t mean to, didn’t plan to. But somehow the words burst out of her anyway. “Jenny Maguire, from New York? She’s my sister.”
He continued to stare, then nodded slowly. “The waitress who wants to be an actress?”
He didn’t even try to deny it, the dog. “Yeah. I guess she got some great acting lessons from you. How to act like you have a heart.”
His jaw tightened and the amusement left his face. “Since I only met the girl twice in my life, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Of course you know what I’m talk…” Then she paused as his words sunk in. “Twice?”
“Yeah, twice. Once in the diner where she worked. Once when we went out for lunch. Twice. End of story.”
“Twice,” she repeated dumbly, wondering what to believe, who to trust. “Jenny said she…she cared for you.”
He ran a hand wearily through his hair, rumpling those dark waves into a sexy, bed-tousled disarray. “I don’t know what she told you, Jade. But here’s the truth. I met her at the diner when she waited on me. I invited her to lunch at one of those tourist traps where you sit in a stage-shaped booth. We ate. We talked. We had our picture taken. We left. I’ve never seen or spoken to her again.”
“Why not?”
“Good grief, she’s got to be all of what? Twenty? And I’m supposed to have developed some great passion for her? This is nuts!”
“So why’d you ask her to lunch in the first place?” she shot back.
For the first time, Ryan looked away. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Through the worn blue fabric, she could see his fingers curl into fists. “It was a bad idea at a bad moment.” He looked up at her through half-lowered lashes, his frown screaming his discomfort at the topic of conversation. “Haven’t you ever had a bad idea?”
