The Promise of Love

by Lori Foster

  “Take no prisoners.” He shook his head and a small laugh escaped him. God, he was scared shitless. He didn’t know how to bring something precious and fragile into his life.

  “Except for you.” Her hands slid up his back. Her lips whispered across his jaw.

  Jack lifted her feet from the floor. “I want to be good for you.”

  “You have been. You are. You will be.” Her teeth scraped lightly over his earlobe, sending a surge of heat and longing through him. “I’m going to show you all the ways I’ve grown stronger because of you. Because of things you’ve done for me and said to me. Because of how you look at me. For a long time, I didn’t understand why you look at me the way you do, but I knew you saw something in me I wasn’t seeing. I can’t tell you how many times thoughts of you motivated me when I wasn’t sure I could get something done.”

  He kissed the top of her shoulder, which was bared by the asymmetrical shirt she wore. “You can do anything you set your mind to.”

  “I’m setting my mind to returning the favor. Together, we can overcome anything—our pasts, your job, a long-distance relationship. I’ll send you Better Than Sex cupcakes to tide you over between days off.”

  “I thought we established that the name is false advertising.”

  “God, did you ever,” she breathed, wrapping her arms around his neck. “But I enjoyed your argument so much, I’d be happy to have you repeat it.”

  He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers. Right now, he had all he’d ever wanted. They would plan the next steps together. After that . . .

  Onward and upward, she’d said.

  Jack’s arms tightened around her. Onward and upward.

  FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT FUTURE SHADOW STALKERS STORIES, VISIT WWW.SYLVIADAY.COM.

  COMING OCTOBER 2011 FROM HEAT . . .

  men out of uniform

  (WITH MAYA BANKS AND KARIN TABKE)

  About the Author

  Sylvia Day is the national bestselling author of more than a dozen novels. A wife and mother of two, she is a former Russian linguist for the U.S. Army Military Intelligence. Sylvia’s work has been called “wonderful and passionate” by WNBC.com and “wickedly entertaining” by Booklist. Her stories have been translated into Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Czech, and Thai. She’s been honored with the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the EPPIE award, the National Readers’ Choice Award, the Readers’ Crown, and multiple finalist nominations for Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award of Excellence.

  midnight rendezvous

  JAMIE DENTON

  For Kane, Katelyn, Jadyn, Sam, Cyrus, Melina, Kinley, Luke, Kaylee, Ariel, Vinnie, Abe, Mya, Alyssa, Angeleah, and Isaak . . . You are my blessings.

  acknowledgments

  Erin McCarthy—For steering me in the right direction, and for sharing your beloved New Orleans with me. I can’t thank you enough. One of these days, I promise, we’ll do the Quarter crawl.

  Christy Carlson Esau—For forcing me to look behind the curtain. You were right—it wasn’t such a scary place, after all.

  Kristine Thompson—For being there every day. My world is right, knowing you’re only a phone call away.

  Mary Ann Chulick and Rhonda Stapleton—My favorite goddesses of plot. You make my life so much more interesting.

  Leslie Crossen—Because you’ve always been there, my dear friend. I love you.

  one

  Burnett Dupree snapped his laptop closed, then stretched his arms over his head, satisfied with the evening’s progress. The second scene of the first act was shaping up in a way he hadn’t anticipated, and that was always a good sign. Two weeks ago he’d been wondering what the hell he’d been thinking in coming to New Orleans. The answer had been simple—New Orleans wasn’t New York. Fourteen days later, he had another reason for staying.

  Pushing away from the small dinette table pulling double duty as his desk, he stood and snagged the lukewarm bottle of water from the counter. A quick glance at the inexpensive novelty clock above the stove indicated the time was half past midnight. He smiled to himself as he cut the light, then walked to the front window where he leaned against the frame and waited.

  Like clockwork, his mysterious landlady appeared. Tonight she wore a short silky robe, but from two stories up, he couldn’t be sure if she wore ice blue or white or maybe even silver. Not that it mattered because she’d be bare-ass naked within seconds.

  Ten days ago he’d first noticed her. God help him, he hadn’t been able to turn away when she’d stripped and dove into the deep end of the built-in swimming pool. The next day, the words he’d feared he’d lost in the bottom of a bottle of scotch had finally returned. From that moment on, he’d labeled her his muse and had been watching her night after night since.

  He’d only seen her from a distance, and only after midnight, when much of the world was supposed to be sleeping. She fascinated him, and Burnett couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so intrigued by a woman. Especially one he hadn’t even met.

  With anticipation, he grinned to himself as she shed her robe, letting it fall into a puddle of silk at her feet. Moisture from the heavy Louisiana humidity clung to her sleek curves, making her skin glisten in the moonlight. Once upon a time he’d mistakenly thought the only time a sweaty woman sexy was during a hard and fast ride between the sheets. Yet after the unobstructed nightly view of his very striking, and very naked, muse diving into the crisp, cool water, he’d decided the time had come to alter his opinion.

  Cloaked in darkness, he stood to the side of the open window and took a long drink from the water bottle clutched in his hand. Not for the first time he wished he were downing three fingers worth of Glenfiddich, what the serenity-prayer-reciting, Kumbayahugging rehabbers would refer to as his drug of choice. His go-to during times of stress, duress, or just plain-ass self-destruction.

  He downed another swallow of water.

  Sobriety sucked.

  He’d been dried out for less than a month, in more ways than one. Was it any surprise the cravings hadn’t lessened in degree or quantity? Was it any wonder he’d already become weary of the battle to stay sober?

  Just one shot.

  He might be a drunk, possibly even brushing up against full-blown alcoholism, but he also understood his personality. He knew better than to tempt himself. A single shot would lead to one drink, which would lead to more booze until he ended up God knew where, with only God knew who, because he’d drank himself into oblivion. One thing Burnett Dupree knew better than anyone, one drink never had been, and never would be, enough for a Dupree.

  He scrubbed his free hand down his face, wondering how in the hell he’d come to this place. Not New Orleans, but his current place in the world. A place that had his agent and the executive producers of his last bomb issuing the ultimate of ultimatums. Dry up. Clean up. Get his act together and write a new hit play. Or else.

  God, he hated ultimatums. But he could no longer deny the truth. He needed a hit and he sure as hell wasn’t going to flnd it if he was swimming in a bottle of thirty-year-old scotch.

  Fortunately, he hadn’t pickled his entire brain because he had enough common sense left to recognize that the moneymen were right. Two years since his last hit, he was long overdue for a smash. The few words he had managed to string together in recent months were for an off-Broadway production that had tanked—badly.

  He’d been closed down after opening night.

  With that abject failure topping his résumé, the next morning he’d packed a bag and hopped a plane for a high-end rehab center located in the swanky, upscale desert of Southern California. He’d lasted a day shy of two weeks.

  Since rehab had been his idea and not a court-ordered edict, he’d checked himself out and left Palm Springs in search of his muse. Yeah, he had a drinking problem, but no way was he in as bad of shape as the poor bastards he’d left behind at the Betty Ford Center. For reasons he didn’t care to examine too closely, he�
��d avoided New York and headed straight for New Orleans.

  Home. The city of his misspent youth. His soul city. She’d called to him in a way she hadn’t in a very long time, and he’d answered.

  Determined to remain sober, he’d avoided all of his old haunts and had checked into a five-star hotel on Royal Street. The sort of distraction the French Quarter offered had him lasting all of two days. Before he blew two weeks of sobriety, he found himself a rental agent, who in turn had suggested a small one-bedroom furnished garage apartment that had just become available in the Garden District. He’d offered six months’ worth of rent plus agreed to the rather steep security deposit after signing a monthto-month rental agreement that included no pets, no parties, and no use of the swimming pool after 10 P.M. No exceptions. He didn’t much care what stipulations were mandatory as long as he was offered a clean place to work far from the lure of Manhattan, Broadway in particular. No interruptions. No distractions.

  The way he figured it, two out of three wasn’t half bad.

  He downed the last of the water as his distraction broke the surface of the pool. With efficient strokes, she reached the edge where she turned and braced her back against the side. Resting her elbows on the concrete ledge behind her, she lifted both legs in front of her repeatedly.

  He counted her movements in his mind. When he reached fifty, she slid beneath the surface and swam two full lengths of the pool.

  Damn, but she was one stunning creature. After several nights of voyeurism, he knew her body intimately—well, at least he did in his imagination. In his mind, he’d touched, tasted, and surveyed every curve and line of her slender shape. He had no idea what color her eyes really were, but in his mind they were a shocking green, large and clear and framed by thick, dusky lashes. Her hair, dark now from the water and plastered to her head, was actually a darkish blond, like the color of melted caramel. Her long, thick tresses looked rich and sun-streaked, falling past her delicate shoulder blades in soft waves.

  Tonight, even under the light of the new moon, he still wasn’t able to see her clearly. She kept her face averted, shielded from view with her long, wavy hair. But in his lust-filled mind, her lips, full and lush, captured his attention. Her breath hot, her mouth moist, as she covered the head of his dick with her pouty, pink lips.

  He blew out a long, unsteady breath and drew back slightly from the open window. Shaking his head to clear the runaway fantasy proved fruitless. All he had was his imagination because he’d never really seen her up close and personal.

  She was an obvious recluse, and damn if he didn’t want to know why. His curiosity, not to mention his libido, were killing him. Why did she only come out after midnight? What secrets did she need to hide?

  As curious as he was about his sexy landlady/muse, he had to admit it was his thoughts of her nude body that had him equally distracted and inspired. And hard.

  When at the top of his game, he’d worked in the early mornings at his favorite coffee shop, observing the city coming to life around him. Since his return to New Orleans, his long time habit no longer worked for him. Afternoons were too bloody hot to even think. The one time he’d packed up his laptop and driven his rental car out to the Quarter, the Café du Monde had been brimming with noisy tourists. That’s when he realized what he really craved was solitude. As a result, he’d started writing in the evenings.

  While he was flnally putting words to the page, he admitted he’d spent far too much time fantasizing about the naked neighbor. Yet regardless of how much progress he made on his new project, each night at half past midnight he stopped working and turned off the lights in the apartment. That he chose to shut down when he knew his illusive landlady came out for her nightly ritual was no coincidence. He couldn’t decide if he was a glutton for punishment or a voyeuristic fool.

  Probably both.

  She used the pool for exercise, he knew from his observances, the evidence plain in her long, lean, and fit body. Even in the moonlight, he could tell from the slope of her breasts they were genuine. She was tall, nearing six foot, he estimated. From his perch two stories above, he couldn’t help but notice she walked with a fairly pronounced limp and tended to favor her right side more than her left.

  With his shoulder propped against the window frame, he continued to watch her as she performed another series of poolside exercises, followed by more laps. Feeling a little too much like a Peeping Tom, he reminded himself he was merely looking out of his rented window, not peeking into hers. Splitting hairs, the conscience he’d forgotten he had warned, but nothing short of an explosion could’ve dragged him away from the window now that she’d exited the pool.

  She stood facing away from him with her arms stretched over her head. Something about her was hauntingly familiar, the way she carried herself perhaps, or maybe she was just one in the hundreds of beautiful women he’d admired over the years. Supporting actresses wanting leading roles, dancers wanting out of the chorus line, models aching for a small but pivotal role in one of his plays.

  Heaven help him, there’d been plenty of women in his life. Seemed the more he drank, the more women he’d gone through, too. Exotic names and beautiful faces that were now nothing but a blur combined with a few snippets of erotic memory. Not exactly the kind of memories he wanted to keep him warm in his old age, but thus far they were all he had managed to accumulate.

  Slowly, she bent forward at the waist, reaching down to smooth her hands down the back of her calves, then held the position. His imagination, along with his libido, skyrocketed. He took in the curve of her sweet ass and easily imagined sinking his flngers into her smooth, taut flesh as he ran the flat of his palm up the slope of her back until he reached her shoulder, holding her in place as he ground his cock between her thighs.

  He closed his eyes and attempted to blow out a long slow breath, but his mouth was suddenly dry as dust. So dry that his throat tickled, and he coughed.

  Shit.

  Abruptly, she stood and looked over her shoulder up to his open window. Paralyzed, he stared back at her. She let out a strangled cry, then dove for her robe. She probably thought he was no better than a pervert.

  She jammed her arms into her robe as she bolted toward the back door of the main house, her limp even more pronounced. Feeling very much like a garden slug, he moved away from the window. What was he supposed to do now? He’d be willing to bet she was already planning to cancel his rental contract.

  He huffed a chuckle. No. Moving was simply unacceptable. For the first time in months, he was writing, and the words were good. Damned good. What harm was there in introducing himself and apologizing for intruding on her nightly ritual? Because if he knew one thing, he wasn’t about to leave, not when his muse had finally returned in the form of a beautiful naked woman.

  two

  Maya Pomeroy pressed her back against the mudroom door as she struggled to catch her breath. Her heart pounded so hard, she feared it would jump right out of her chest. He’d seen her. Worse, he’d been watching her.

  “Oh God,” she whispered.

  Twisting the belt of her white silk robe in her hands, she berated herself for her own stupidity. She’d known deep down renting the garage apartment would be a mistake. More important, she’d known taking on a tenant could lead to an invasion of her treasured privacy. Unfortunately, the lousy economy had forced her hand. Not that she was anywhere close to living a hand-tomouth existence, but she wasn’t exactly rolling in disposable income at the moment.

  Unlike many in her former line of work, she’d always played it smart with her earnings. Despite the oft times shallowness of the high-fashion world, Maya had lived in the real world most of the time. She’d understood her days on the runway or gracing the covers of Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and Vanity Fair were numbered. The hands of time couldn’t be stopped. She could’ve been replaced by someone younger, thinner, and prettier tomorrow. Except her tomorrow had come a lot sooner than she’d anticipated because of a career-ending accident t
hat had left her broken.

  What money she had earned, she’d entrusted to one of the most prestigious accounting flrms in her hometown of New Orleans. But even Thompson, McCarthy, and Love had been duped by a Ponzi scheme that had cost many people a great deal of money. That loss, coupled with the abrupt ending of her career and the worst economy the country had seen in decades, had her living on a strict budget. Like so many others, she’d been given a crash course on how to economize. If she cut back any more, she’d be living on bread and water and working on her new clothing line by candlelight.

  Her heart rate back to normal, she turned to peer out the crème lace curtain covering the door’s window, praying her tenant hadn’t followed her. The last thing she wanted was a face-to-freak confrontation. She’d kept to herself for a reason. The same reason she worked out after midnight—so she wouldn’t be seen.

  Flipping the switch to turn off the overhead light in the mudroom, she still couldn’t see much outside her back door window but deep shadows. The pool water was still, not so much as a ripple disturbing the surface. Edging the curtain back in place, she breathed a tentative sigh of relief until a light rap on the back door made her jump and sent her heartbeat racing all over again.

  Maya held her breath and waited, hoping, no praying that the tenant hadn’t seen her light on and would go away. When he rapped on the door again, she swore under her breath and cursed her rotten luck.

  What the hell did he want? She’d escaped into the house. Wasn’t that clue enough that she didn’t care to speak with him? Since she had been in the nude, he probably thought she was embarrassed, but that was the furthest thing from the truth.