The Red Shoe Chronicles : A Fantasy Romance Anthology

by N. R. Larry

  And it had to be a game. No way could one woman change that much overnight without putting in some serious effort.

  Right?

  The only reason he hadn’t twigged to it earlier was that damn break-in at her place. It made her seem vulnerable.

  She still did, for that matter, with her big blue eyes staring up at him in wide-eyed anticipation. Her breath fluttered between them as she watched him, waiting for Corvin to speak first.

  Yet there he stood, silent. Despite all his training and practice as an undercover cop, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  Better come up with something, dumbass.

  Somehow, he didn’t think Fuck me now was entirely appropriate.

  “You eat yet?” he blurted out.

  From the look on her face, the question surprised her. She shook her head a little, as if dispelling some other thought, then more firmly in answer to his question. “No. I planned to grab something later.”

  Well, maybe if I’m shoving food in my mouth, I can keep from saying completely stupid shit.

  It might be better if I limit the number of words I say around Angelina. Nothing but the bare minimum, LaValle.

  “Let’s go,” he said shortly. “Po’boys okay?”

  What on earth are po’boys?

  Jenna blinked again at Corvin La-Handsome, feeling as if she were about three steps behind in this exchange.

  For a long, breathless moment, when he stepped slightly too close and stared at her with a barely banked fire in those hot green eyes, she had been certain he was about to take her in his arms and kiss her senseless.

  Not that he had to kiss her to make her senseless.

  No, I’m managing “senseless” all on my own.

  Speaking of which, his question had required an answer. Right. Po’boys.

  “Sounds great.” And if she got to wherever they were headed, only to discover that po’boys were not so great after all, she could grit her teeth and bear it. Given the very few words she’d heard out of him, po’boys had to have something to do with food, though it didn’t sound like anything terribly appetizing.

  Corvin opened a closet and pulled out a helmet. “This should work.” He handed it to her and grabbed his jacket off the back of the couch. Jenna followed him outside wordlessly, waiting until he locked the door behind them to follow him toward the lone motorcycle parked at the side of the driveway, next to the house.

  If she had known even the first thing about motorcycles, she would have said something about this one. But somehow, “that’s huge and shiny” didn’t seem quite right.

  Suddenly, she was worried again about playing Angelina. Her twin was the one who did things like climb on giant motorcycles with gorgeous strangers. For all Jenna knew, Corvin La-Lucious had taken Angelina out on his bike before.

  Jenna had never even touched a motorcycle before, much less ridden one.

  But, oh, I want to ride Corvin’s bike.

  Fighting back a slightly hysterical giggle, she pulled the helmet down over her hair and snapped the chinstrap shut.

  “You ride much?” Corvin asked.

  Oh, thank God. He didn’t expect her to know what she was doing. “Never.”

  “We’re not going far, so you’ll be fine. Just remember to lean when I do, and in the same direction.” With a jerk of his chin, he indicated the tiny back seat. “Climb on.”

  With any luck, the helmet would hide the blush his words brought out, she reflected as she followed his directions.

  When he straddled the bike in front of her, though, the slight heat in her cheeks became a raging fire, fueled by the way her inner thighs brushed against the outside of his jeans-clad legs.

  “Ever been to Liselle’s?” he asked over his shoulder.

  Finally, a question she could answer honestly. “Never.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “It’s been one of my favorites since I was a kid. You’ll love it. Hang on.”

  The motorcycle roared to life, and Jenna realized that the last comment had been literal. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she pressed against his back, inhaling the heady combination of engine fumes, leather, and something that smelled to Jenna like pure, heated masculinity.

  She was definitely hungry.

  But it wasn’t for po’boys, whatever those might be.

  All she wanted right now was Corvin. Jenna was quite certain he was the only one who could fill this craving.

  It turned out that a po’boy was a sandwich. When we pulled up to the dingy yellow clapboard house with the barely legible, hand-lettered sign reading “Liselle’s Po-Boys & Beer,” Jenna was half-convinced the whole thing was a joke. Right up to the point that Corvin shut down the bike, climbed off, and held out one hand to help Jenna dismount as he unsnapped his helmet with the other.

  This is what happens when you climb on a motorcycle with a hot, dangerous man, who probably has tattoos. You get taken to a so-called restaurant and served salmonella on a plate.

  Trying to drown out the chiding voice in her head, Jenna removed her own helmet, shook out her hair, and said, “This is the place?”

  “Best po’boys in the city. Maybe even the state.” Corvin’s infectious grin took her by surprise—it seemed out of character for the bad-boy biker type.

  Much like his taste in furniture and décor.

  The man was definitely an enigma.

  “Got any recommendations?” she asked as she followed him into the small restaurant, where sandwiches on French bread were being assembled and served over a long counter. A bar lined another wall, leaving the middle space open for tables and chairs.

  “Oyster,” Corvin answered promptly.

  Isn’t there something about dates for eating oysters that I am supposed to remember?

  What the hell. If Corvin was getting it, she would risk it, too. “Sure.”

  “Dressed?”

  She stared at him, eyes wide, and tried not to consider the alternative to dressed—because after that motorcycle ride, short as it was, she could still feel him between her thighs. Undressed sounded like the better option right now. “Okay.”

  “All the way?”

  God, yes, please.

  If only they meant the same thing. Jenna was pretty sure Corvin was somehow talking about the sandwiches, though.

  “Sounds fine,” she said. It was all she could do to keep from flinging herself at him and demanding he show her what all the way could mean, right there in the middle of the restaurant. Maybe on one of the tables.

  “Find us a table and I’ll be back in a minute.” Corvin’s comment followed her own thought so perfectly that she snickered. Luckily, he didn’t notice as he handed her his helmet with the keys inside and headed toward the counter to order. Choosing one of the few empty tables, Jenna watched Corvin from a distance as he flirted with the woman taking his order, flashing a smile that combined with those green eyes to leave devastation in his wake.

  Jenna knew nothing at all about this man, but she knew she wanted him—something about him brought every fiber of her being to attention, as if her nerve endings were sitting up and paying attention for the first time in her life.

  What would Angelina do in this situation?

  That was going to have to become her motto.

  WWAD?

  The answer came to her instantly. Angelina would take him home with her and have him fuck her until she couldn’t stand up straight.

  This seemed as good a time as any to really embrace her role as Angelina.

  She got as far as taking a deep breath and pushing her chair back, when the restaurant door flew open quickly enough to create a draft and crashed against the outside wall, silencing the hum of conversation.

  Two men walked in. Jenna recognized one as the man Corvin had been sitting with that afternoon.

  She had no idea who the other one was, except to know that he terrified her. She froze in place, hoping that his pale eyes didn’t land on her as he scann
ed the room.

  Probably looking for his next victim.

  And finding him, apparently.

  “Lejeune.” Corvin’s friend from earlier had a voice that carried. “Come with us. Salas wants to see you again.”

  Murmuring something to the woman at the cash register, Corvin slowly turned around to face the new arrivals. “Let’s go, then.”

  Without even a glance at Jenna, he followed the men toward the door.

  When he was almost even with her table, Corvin gave Jenna a fleeting look, long enough to flick his eyes at the keys inside his helmet and raise his eyebrows.

  Jenna nodded almost imperceptibly.

  After they were gone, she sat at the table for a long time, staring at the two helmets in front of her. When the woman behind the counter brought two sandwiches, wrapped and bagged to go, Jenna took them with a smile, though she doubted she would be able to eat any time soon.

  She was far too worried. She sat at the table for a long time, wondering whose apartment she was going to be sleeping in.

  What was Corvin mixed up in? How dangerous was he, really?

  But more to the point, how am I going to drive his motorcycle back to his place?

  WWAD?

  Chapter 7

  How the hell did they even know where to find me?

  Corvin followed Luis and his bruiser companion outside the restaurant.

  “You want to take your own ride?” Luis jerked his chin at the bike parked alongside the building.

  Corvin’s mind raced. Ah, shit. They had tagged his ride. Of course.

  That part was safe enough—the bike was part of his cover, registered to the fictitious Corvin Lejeune.

  But he had taken it to his apartment, rented in his actual name. And to Angelina’s apartment—the one that had been ransacked for some reason he didn’t know yet.

  A whole pile of rookie mistakes. Because of a woman.

  I’m a fucking idiot.

  Luis continued talking. “Or you want to let that ex-girlfriend of yours take it home?” When Corvin glanced at the other man, Luis laughed. “You think I didn’t see her in there? A hot piece of ass like that? Thought you said you didn’t do crazy anymore, man.”

  Normally, he let Luis’s commentary about women—a constant and unrelenting patter of combined evaluation and fantasy—roll right past him. Now, though, he had to concentrate to keep his hands loose, unclenched. To slide into the Lejeune persona.

  He shrugged, deliberately nonchalant, and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m a fucking idiot.”

  Luis barked out a laugh. “I might be, too, man, if I had that waiting for me, psycho-bitch or not.”

  Don’t react.

  Telling himself that was all well and good, but all Corvin really wanted to do was punch the man he had been cultivating as a friend for months now.

  Don’t be an even bigger idiot.

  Change the subject.

  Luis led them across the street to a black SUV. As the bruiser walked around to the passenger side, Corvin asked quietly, “Who’s the big guy?”

  “That’s Jorge. He’s new. Came in with one of Mr. Salas’ cousins. We’re supposed to show him the ropes.”

  “You and me?”

  Luis opened the driver-side door. “You and me, man.”

  Corvin nodded, sliding into the back seat. “Guess I’d better get up to speed, then.”

  Luis’s laugh filled up the space inside the vehicle. “Why you think we came to get you?”

  Staring out the window as they pulled away from Liselle’s, Corvin considered the possible answers to that question.

  Maybe to prove that Gregor Salas knows everything about me?

  I don’t know anything about him at all.

  Jenna watched through the window of the restaurant as the big, black SUV Corvin had gotten into with the two scary guys drove away from the restaurant.

  Away from her.

  Away from the motorcycle that Corvin had left behind, apparently for her to drive back to his place.

  Staring down at the keys he had tossed inside his helmet, Jenna chewed on her bottom lip.

  What would Angelina do?

  Something wild, probably. Something crazy. Jenna’s sister would probably have a beer, get on the damn bike, and go pick up some other guy to take back to Corvin La-Hottie’s apartment.

  I don’t want some other guy.

  The thought surprised her.

  Oh, hell. I’m already hooked.

  She didn’t know a single thing about this man. Actually, no—that wasn’t entirely true. Now that his frightening companions had called him out in a bar, she did know that his last name was Lejeune.

  She liked her versions of his name better. They were more fitting.

  Anyway, apparently Jenna’s subconscious had decided to announce that she wanted Corvin La-Mmmm to be her crazy Mardi Gras hook-up.

  Terrifying companions be damned.

  Absently, she unrolled one of the sandwiches as she wondered if her sister actually knew how to drive a motorcycle.

  She scrolled through her phone records with one hand to see if she could get through to Angelina on the number she called from earlier. With the other hand, she took a bite of the sandwich—then nearly dropped everything when she realized, simultaneously, that she was starving, and that the French bread and fried oyster sandwich she held in her hands was astoundingly good.

  With a shrug, Jenna set the phone down and applied herself to the food.

  Angelina had abandoned her to track down a story, leaving her without a safe place to stay.

  Corvin had left her alone in a restaurant, her only way home a motorcycle he knew she didn’t know how to operate.

  But she was a resourceful woman, dammit. She had lived on her own for years in Dallas. It’s not like she didn’t know how to take care of herself.

  She could figure out what to do next.

  But first, she would eat this sandwich.

  In the back seat of the SUV, Corvin’s stomach rumbled, and he wished for a moment that he had waited long enough to bring his sandwich with him to eat on the way.

  His concentration would be better if he had eaten anything recently

  He desperately needed to concentrate, too, and on something other than Angelina Riggs. If Luis hadn’t pinged on her yet, then she was probably safe for the moment. Now that he was past the initial shock of Luis tracking him to Liselle’s, Corvin needed to consider all the possible implications of this summons to speak with the crime boss again so soon.

  The meeting that afternoon had ended on a positive note, with Salas offering to let Corvin distribute a few shipments for him—the most a low-level dope-slinger like Corvin’s Lejeune-cover could have expected.

  To be called back to see Salas so soon almost certainly meant that Corvin’s cover had been checked out more thoroughly, and had either held up particularly well under scrutiny, or … well, or he was screwed.

  As the SUV curved around onto Tchoupitoulas Street, Corvin caught the occasional glimpse of the Mississippi River, wide and deep, with waters so dark that it was impossible to see the bottom.

  I have to be that river. No one knows what’s at the bottom of me.

  Time to be Lejeune.

  Taking a deep breath, he blew it out, relaxing into his Lejeune persona. His posture shifted as his face lost any worry lines.

  Luis hadn’t seemed to notice anything odd in Corvin’s behavior, but if he had, he was likely to brush if off as surprise at being tracked to the bar.

  “What’s the boss want to see me for?” he asked, slipping more firmly into Lejeune’s broad, slow New Orleans accent, with just a hint of bayou Cajun.

  “You’ll have to ask him,” Luis said, shrugging. “He didn’t tell me nothing. Just come get you, bring you back to the office.”

  Partway down Tchoupitoulas, Luis turned into the parking lot of a long, low building—something that used to be a factory of some sort, from the disused smokestacks rising from it.
Like many buildings along the street, it had probably been a warehouse in the 1970s and 80s. The three men piled out of the vehicle and moved toward an ornate metal door, cast into molds designed to echo the wrought iron of the Quarter, and that served the dual purpose of decoration and security.

  Inside, they were met with cool air as they made their way into an interior that had at some point been carved into office spaces. Corvin fell back to let Luis lead the way, but noticed that Jorge, the bruiser, stayed behind him.

  No getting out that way.

  Corvin half expected to find Gregor Salas ensconced behind a giant desk, Godfather-style. Instead, Luis led them around to a large office with a standard conference table. Salas sat at the head of it, flipping through papers in a folder in front of him, and checking them against the laptop he had booted up to one side.

  The only sign that this was anything other than a standard business meeting was the presence of two giant men stationed by the door. From the bulges under their jackets, Corvin guessed they were packing pretty serious firepower, too. And that was just what he could see.

  One of the armed giants stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind him. The other stayed inside the room, standing in a sort of parade rest.

  At Corvin’s entrance, Salas glanced up. “Ah, there you are. Please, come in and have a seat.” He waved one hand at the chairs to one side, then went back to scrutinizing the paperwork.

  His Lejeune cover character wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t a coward, either, so Corvin strode in and took the chair closest to Salas, leaning one elbow on the armrest and bouncing one leg slightly as he waited.

  Slightly impatient, slightly bored. A little pissed at being pulled away from my food without warning, but not willing to give up a lucrative contact. That’s the way to play it.

  He waited until Salas set the papers aside with a sigh, then raised both eyebrows as the crime lord. “You wanted to see me, boss?”

  Salas narrowed his eyes as he regarded Corvin.