Night Game (15 page)

Flame spread her hands out. “So what are we doing out here in the middle of the night?”

“We’re talking truce,
cher
.” His slow smile matched the warm molasses in his drawl.

“Don’t you think before we talk truce it would be a gesture of good faith to give me back my motorcycle?”

“Have you shoved my brother’s Jeep into the Mississippi yet?”

“That was on the schedule for tonight.”

“It’s my brother’s Jeep,” he reminded her, fingertips tracing the smudges on her throat. “Not mine. I just borrowed it.”

“Bad decision on his part to lend it to you.”

His eyes darkened as his gaze drifted over her throat. “I’m sorry about this,
cher
. I could kiss it better for you.”

She remained absolutely still beneath his touch, her heart beginning to hammer in time to the blood roaring through her veins. The heat of the bayou enveloped them in the perfume of the night and the rich rhythm of life. “You aren’t going to seduce me into cooperating with you and, if you try, the Jeep definitely goes into the Mississippi.”

“It was a bad decision on his part to lend it to me.” Gator murmured the words against her soft throat, his body pressed against hers, although he didn’t wrap his arms around her. He simply stood leaning into her, the warmth of his breath touching her skin.

She swallowed hard when his lips pressed against her throat, feather-light, velvet soft. “So you’re willing to sacrifice the Jeep.”

“Damn straight,
mon petite enflamme
. No sacrifice is too great.” His tongue swirled over the dark smudges as if to soothe them.

Her breath left her body in a little concentrated rush. “Well then, you’d better do a very thorough job.”

He lifted his head, his gaze sweeping over her face. “When I kiss you, what exactly are you planning to do?” Raw huskiness mixed with suspicion in his voice.

She could barely breathe. She had an unfamiliar urge to circle his neck with her arms and press her body tightly against his. “You said no sacrifice was too great,” she reminded.

“That’s when I thought the sacrifice was going to be my brother’s Jeep. Now, I think you have something else in mind. What are you planning to do?”

“Retrieve my knife, of course,” she answered honestly.

His head bent an inch lower until she could feel the velvet of his lips brushing hers. “You don’t think I can distract you?”

“You’ve been distracting me all evening, but no, if you kiss me, the knife is definitely back in my possession.”

He ached to kiss her. The temptation was overwhelming, but he wasn’t nearly as stupid as she thought him. Reluctantly he stepped back away from her, a faint smile on his face. “
Cher
, we’ve got us a problem.”

Her gaze brushed the front of his jeans. “You more than me.”

His eyes darkened. “Oh, I don’ think so,
mon amour
, and if you want me to prove it to you, just come closer and let me touch you.”

“Try it and I’ll definitely slap your face.”

His grin widened. “You are wet for me, aren’t you,
cher
?”

She ran her tongue along her lower lip, her gaze hot. “More than you’ll ever know. Too bad you’re such a chicken.”

“You’re playing a very dangerous game, Flame,” he said.

“You’re the one with my knife and motorcycle.”

“That’s not why. You think this is all part of another experiment, don’t you?”

“Isn’t it?” She moved into the heat of his body, her hips pressed close. “When you’re with other women, is it this intense? Do the women you meet make you feel like tearing off their clothes right there, right that moment, and the hell with everything you’ve ever believed and valued?”

“If you know I feel that way, why the hell are you tempting me out here in the middle of nowhere when we’re alone? What you did in that club was wrong and what you’re doing to me right now is wrong and with another man, you could be in trouble.” Something dark and burned briefly in the shadows of his eyes and gone almost immediately.

Flame shook her head, her expression defeated. “That’s just it, Raoul,
I’m
not the one doing it. You are. We are. Don’t you get it?” She pushed a hand through her hair, scattering pins so that strands of red hair fell in all directions. “You do get it. You knew what I was thinking, because you were thinking the same thing. It’s all part of Whitney’s experiments. Take me back. It’s been a long day and I want to go home.”

She did look tired. And sad. And very alone. Gator turned her accusations over and over in his mind. “It would be impossible to manipulate the sexual chemistry between two people wouldn’t it?”

“Why would it be? He manipulated everything else, didn’t he? He was building the perfect army. The perfect weapons. The perfect agents.” She sank down, looking up at him from the seat. “Whitney had years to work things out. And somebody knew he was doing it. Somebody helped him. He wasn’t alone in this, he couldn’t have been.”

Her twisted logic was beginning to make sense to him and that was alarming. “I go out on missions all the time with the GhostWalkers. Of the missing girls, only Lily and Dahlia have been found. And now you.”

“What a shocker that is. Maybe we’re all his little puppets and he’s playing us. You don’t want to consider that could be what’s happening because that would bruise your ego. You think you chose what happened to you so that somehow makes me the poor victim and you the hero in charge of your life. If what I’m saying is this truth, that makes you a victim right along with me and you just can’t stand the thought.”

Gator turned over the words in his mind. The logic of her argument. If she was right he was no more than a programmed robot, a marionette and Whitney was pulling his strings. Worse than that, she was right. On some level he had thought of her as a victim, hell, all of the GhostWalkers thought that way. The women had been bought and experimented on. The men had chosen to be heroes, to save the world. He erupted into another long passionate string of inventive and crude curses.

“I’m sorry to rock your world. But if you’re in with Whitney, and you’re doing what he wants you to do by coming here and trying to take me back with you, at least consider that he’s playing you. Whitney never does any thing that doesn’t benefit Whitney.”

“Damn it, the man is dead.”

“Do you realize you didn’t answer a single question tonight, Raoul?”

“Just don’t talk anymore. Damn it anyway.” He was silent as the boat sped through the canal, his features etched in stone.

Flame couldn’t take her eyes off of him. She felt sad for him. Sad for her. She didn’t even know why.

There was a small silence as the airboat moved up the canal. As the pier came into view, Gator glanced at her, his gaze moving over her dress, her legs, the curve of her bottom. “I don’t want you doing it anymore.”

“It?” Her eyebrow shot up.

“Don’ give me trouble. You know what I’m talking about. Don’ go tryin’ to lure Joy’s fate to you. If someone took her, or killed her, the same thing could happen to you. You don’t even have backup. You don’t have anyone to watch out for you.”

Flame shrugged. “That’s something I’m used to, Raoul. I’m not a team player.”

“I’ve searched for Joy for four weeks. My brother, Ian, and I have been all up and down the bayou. We’ve questioned everyone. We’ve even looked in shacks and investigated every tip we were given. Joy’s disappeared and I’m not having the same thing happen to you.”

“I’m not Joy. I can take care of myself.”

His dark gaze flickered over her face and there it was again, that something undefined she couldn’t quite catch, but that made her shiver. “You couldn’t have stopped me if I was a different sort of man.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Think what you like. Men always do.”

“I’m not arguing with you about this. And be at my house tomorrow by two for tea.
Grand-mere
expects you.”

“Why in the world would I show up?”

“Two reasons.” He jumped onto the pier and tied up the boat, reaching back to offer her his hand. “You want your motorcycle and any woman who would risk her life to find out what happened to a stranger is not going to disappoint an old woman with a heart condition.”

“Does she really have a heart condition or are you making that up?”

“I don’ lie about my grandmother. Don’t be getting the men riled up again and don’t be setting yourself up as bait, or you and I are going to have a fight you aren’t going to win.”

She looked him in the eye, waiting for him to release his hold on her. “I don’t like you very much.”

“That’s too bad. When you sleep with me, you’ll just have to pretend.” His fingers reluctantly slid from her wrist.

“Who says I’m sleeping with you?”

Deliberately he crowded her body, aggression in every line of his much larger frame. “Let’s put it this way, you won’t be sleeping with anyone else, so if you want to get rid of all that heat, you’d better be thinking of me,
cher
.”

She didn’t back up an inch. “Go fuck yourself.”

Palming her knife, he moved closer still, his hand traveling over the curve of her bottom, sliding beneath the hem of her dress to shove the knife back into the scabbard. All the while his knuckles brushed bare skin, the back of his hand massaging the damp heat between her legs. His breath was warm against her ear. “I’d much rather fuck you and judging by your panties, I’d say you feel the same way.”

“I ought to make you eat that knife.” She didn’t move away from him or his probing hand. She stood face-to- face, eye-to-eye, staring him down, a quiet fury burning in her eyes. She hated that her body burned for him. She hated that she might actually enjoy his stupid sense of humor. Most of all she hated that he was a puppet for a man who played God with people and moved them around like pieces on a chessboard.

“I’m going to kiss you. If you stick me with that thing, make it somewhere not important to me.” He gathered her to him, his arms locking around her, hands sliding up her back. His body was hard and hot and thick with need and he rubbed against her, massaging the terrible ache as he bent his head to hers.

Flame lifted her mouth to his, meeting him halfway, the slow burn igniting instantly when her lips touched his. His tongue swept into the moist heat of her mouth, the craving for her so strong it shook him. He felt an answering tremor run through her body as she melted into him, all soft flesh and lush curves. He tasted sex and sweetness and fury mixed together in a powerful concoction.

She was addicting, potent, the chemistry between them highly volatile. He wasn’t simply kissing her, he was devouring her, feasting on her, long, hard kisses over and over because it wasn’t enough. Her breasts were soft temptations against his chest and when she rubbed her leg over his thigh, aligning their bodies more closely, the breath left his body in a mad rush.

It was torment, his body so tight and hard he thought his skin might burst. His blood pounded and thunder roared in his ears. “Come to my cabin with me.” He bit her lip, sucked it into his mouth and teased with his tongue. “Right now. Forget everything else and come home with me.”

Flame fought her every instinct to climb on top of his body. “I didn’t know you had your own cabin. You’re staying with your grandmother.” The temptation of being alone with him in a cabin with a bed was more than she could think about. Her brain was on total meltdown.

“When I visit, I stay with her. The cabin is small, a hunting cabin but it has a bed.” He kissed her again, long, ferociously, a wicked combination of command and coaxing, his hands sliding down to her bottom to lift her closer.

Flame became aware of her leg wrapped around his waist, of her hands under his shirt caressing his bare chest, of the heaviness of her breasts and the terrible throbbing between her legs. She had never wanted any one the way she wanted him. Her need seemed beyond lust, beyond attraction, bordering on obsession. She tore herself out of his arms, stumbling backward toward the edge of the pier.

It was more reflex than thought that allowed Gator to reach out and steady her, preventing her from falling into the reed-choked water. They stared at each other, both fighting for control.

“Let’s not do that again,” Flame said, shaken.

“I was thinking we should do that all the time,” he countered. “You have the right name. I thought for a minute there I might go up in smoke.” His grin flashed at her, a quick teasing smile that made her heart do some silly flip.

Flame wiped her swollen lips with the back of her hand. She could still taste him in her mouth and feel him imprinted on her body, pressed deep into her bones like a brand. “In case you aren’t paying attention, they’re fighting inside.” Her voice was so low, so husky she hardly recognized it. She couldn’t look away from his gaze, held captive there like a hostage.

“I hear them. Ian and Wyatt can hold their own. They’re fighting with Louis and Vicq, which isn’t surprising. Our two families have been fighting since we were about five years old.”

The door behind them opened and Raoul spun around to watch as the crowd poured out of the Huracan Club. He took two steps to place his body between Flame and the throng of men, many still fighting as they spilled out into the yard and onto the pier. Several large men surrounded Emanuel Parsons and his son James as they pushed their way toward the relative safety of the end of the pier.

The older Parsons wore a long trench coat and with his silver hair and cane looked very out of place in the midst of the fighting crowd of men. His son, sporting a darkening eye and a swollen lip, shook off his bodyguard’s hand as the group neared Gator and Flame.

“Raoul Fontenot,” Emanuel Parsons offered his hand. “I met you at a fund-raiser a few years back.”

“I remember,” Gator said. “This is my fiancée, Flame Johnson.”

Parsons’s eyes flicked over her. “You’re quite lovely, my dear. I’ve heard you sing a few times. Have you considered singing professionally? I can make a few phone calls if you’re interested.”

Flame flashed a perky smile, eyes wide with awe, her gaze flicking toward the bodyguards and the shadowy driver always in the background. “Really? Do you think my voice is that good?” She took Gator’s outstretched hand and allowed him to pull her to his side. He curved his arm around her waist rather possessively, but she let it stay there while she observed Parsons’s son. This was the man who had been engaged to the missing Joy. The man who swore he didn’t know what happened to her. Joy’s brothers had obviously taken a couple of shots at him in the middle of the brawl.