Night Game (38 page)

He swore in Cajun, a long growling, guttural curse -while his body swelled thicker and thicker until he was rising on his toes and gritting his teeth, shuddering with pleasure as his body jerked with his own violent, explosive release.

Flame lay facedown over the side of the bed, Raoul’s thick erection buried deep inside her, his body blanketing hers, while they both gasped, searching to draw air into burning lungs and calm the wild storm crashing over their bodies. Spasm after spasm tightened ruthlessly on him. rocking them both, even as they lay quiet. She could feel her body pulsing around his, greedy for more, yet she was exhausted.

Dawn had crept into the room, the early-morning light spilling over them, bringing with it some semblance of sanity. She felt the burn of tears. She wanted to spend her life here, in this cabin, far away from the insanity of who and what she was, but it was impossible. How could she stand knowing what it would have been like to stay with him? To have him? To have a family?

Raoul would bring her pleasure beyond measure. And he would always make her laugh and feel safe and protected.

“Are you crying?” His hands stroked her hair. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

She shook her head. How could she tell him the truth? Of course it hurt. He had shown her paradise and she was going to have to walk away. His hands ran down the length of her body, lingered on the sides of her breasts.

Even that small touch sent another small aftershock rippling through her. His mouth teased the nape of her neck, his hands massaging her bottom, fingers dipping into her heat and rubbing to send another much stronger aftershock through her.

“I love that,” he whispered against her spine. “I love how hot and wet you are for me and how when I touch you, and I’m deep inside you, all your muscles clamp down on me as if you’re holding me inside you and don’t want to let me go.”

She turned her face to the side, resting it on the quilt. She looked exhausted, sated, drowsy, and sexy all together. The sight of her made his throat ache and his eyes burn. He had felt empty for so long, needing something and not even knowing it. Flame was a miracle, a once in a lifetime gift, and he wasn’t going to be fool enough to let her slip through his fingers.

His body relaxed slowly, allowing him plenty of time to enjoy the ripples of pleasure coursing through her. He helped her sit on the edge of the bed, a slow grin stealing over his face as he surveyed the room. It smelled of sex and candles and he inhaled to remember the heady aroma forever.

She looked fragile when he knew she wasn’t. Everything male in him rose up to want to protect her, which was funny, because when she got him riled, everything in him wanted to dominate her. She brought out extreme emotions in him, made him feel alive, made him want to be alive.

He drew a finger across her breast and leaned close to take the tip into his mouth, biting down gently and tugging, before laving with his tongue. He felt a shiver run through her. Male satisfaction was instant.

“We can’t stay here all day,” she said.

He felt her withdrawal, a small feminine retreat, her body moving inches from his, but definitely telling him something. He caught her chin in his hand. “Sure we can. You just got out of the hospital and you’re entitled to a day or two of resting. Even with painkillers I know that arm has to hurt.”

A faint smile curved her mouth, but didn’t reach her eyes. And she avoided looking at him. “Is this what you all resting?”

Deliberately, to prove to himself he could, he bent his mouth to her breast again, this time suckling strongly, his hand on her stomach to feel the contractions sweeping through her at his touch. He loved the power of it, the way she shuddered with instant need when he’d just had her. It took him a moment or two to realize what that meant. She was still trying to withdraw and he was asserting dominance. Frustrated, he sat back, regarding her averted face while fear and anger began a deadly mix. “What is it, Flame?”

She stared out the window, refusing to meet his gaze. “This doesn’t change anything you know.”

“
What
doesn’t change anything?” Gator couldn’t keep the challenge out of his voice. She damn well wasn’t going to sleep with him and
dismiss
him.

Flame finally turned her head and looked at him. “You know exactly what I mean. We…”

“Don’t you
dare
use the
F
word. I made love to you all last night
and
this morning and you knew that was exactly what I was doing. Don’t you even think about calling it anything else.”

Her eyebrow shot up. “The
F
word? You weren’t so afraid of using the word the other day or last night for that matter. I was going to say
slept
with you. You’re such a hothead. We slept together, that’s all.”

“I swear, Flame, I’ve never had anyone make me as crazy as you manage to do. I’m not letting you just dismiss me after last night.” His dark eyes glittered at her.

She shrugged as nonchalantly as she could. “I’m certain you’ve rejected lots of women after sleeping with them. Don’t act so outraged.”

He was angry. He could feel the anger churning in his gut, riding him hard as he struggled for control. He turned away, paced across the room when his fingers itched to shake her. She could pretend to be casual about what was happening between them all she wanted, but that’s what it was—pretense. “You’re being a damned coward, Flame, and that’s beneath you.”

Her breath hissed out between her teeth and she whirled around, her eyes fairly shooting sparks. “Don’t you dare call me a coward. You don’t know the first thing about me. Your ego is a little wounded because I’m not falling at your feet like all the other women you took to bed and then walked away from.”

He stepped closer to her, uncaring that the walls of the cabin expanded and contracted and beneath his feet, the ground shifted ominously. “You think I don’t know you want me as much as I want you? Hell, honey, you don’ have near the experience I have.”

Flame sucked in her breath and quickly turned her face away from him, but not before he saw the hurt in her eyes.

“Fils de putin!”
Gator passed his hand over his face. This was his fault, not hers. He was the experienced one, yet he’d been so out of control, wanting her so badly, he acted like a buck in rutting season. How would she know he’d been making love to her when he hadn’t been tender and gentle?

“Flame…” he began, at a loss for words. He didn’t talk about feelings. He just
felt
. “I made love to you. That was me making love to you and maybe you deserved a different initiation, but I meant it as loving you. I’m not all that civilized and I can’t say what I’m feelin’ right all the time, but…”

She turned her head from him and he caught the glitter of tears. “Don’t, Raoul. This is me freaking out, not you doing something wrong.” She drew the sheet around her, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “I’m afraid of you, of how you make me feel. When I’m afraid, I have a tendency to run. And if I can’t run, then I go on the offensive.”

“You’re not embarrassed with me, are you? Because the things we did are natural. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m not embarrassed.” And God help her she wanted to do them all again with him. “I’m just—confused. I’ve always had a plan and I’ve always kept on the move. I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know if I can stop, or even if it’s safe to stop, even for a little while.”

“It’s okay to be confused,
cher
. I can live with confused. I just can’t take you leaving me. Maybe we’re both a little afraid, but I say we give it a try.”

He was standing in front of her, totally naked and comfortable with it, such a temptation to her. It was impossible to be embarrassed around him because he made her feel beautiful and comfortable in her own skin, with her own sexuality. He made no excuses for the things he wanted from her body, but more than that, with the way he looked at her, the look in his eyes hungry and possessive, she couldn’t help but respond.

He held out his hand. “We need to shower. Don’ be worrying about what we can’t change,
cher
. You don’ throw something like this away.”

“Like this?” she echoed.

He sighed. ‘Why do women always make you say things?” He took her hand and tugged her to her feet. “If I’m makin’ love to you, sugah, it’s because I’m
in
love with you. Come on, you’re still a bit sticky from all that whipped cream.”

Flame didn’t let herself think about the future as the hot water poured over her. Raoul insisted on shampooing her hair, using her broken arm for an excuse, and then he soaped her body, his hands lingering in intimate places. His lovemaking was far gentler without the wild, frantic pace, but no less intense. She wanted to cry with the way he made her feel.

“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered, holding her close to him.

She knew a sound must have escaped without her realizing it. Life wasn’t as easy and laid-back elsewhere as it was in the bayou, but she wasn’t going to think about it anymore. She’d stay with Raoul as long as she could.

The clothes his grandmother had chosen for her were very tasteful and in stark contrast to the strange leather and mesh attire. She wiggled into a powder-blue tank top and frowned at Raoul. “Are you
certain
you had nothing all to do with that bag of sex toys? I just can’t imagine your grandmother in an adult store. I mean, you are a perv and it had to come from somewhere, but it just doesn’t seem like something she’d do.”

Gator drew his jeans over his hips and buttoned them up, as casual dressing in front of her as he was with his nudity. “Now that you say that, I’ve never had an inkling she even knew there were such things as adults stores, but don’ be selling her short. She wants us together and she’s very shrewd.”

Flame ducked her head. “She wants you to have children. Raoul. She doesn’t want you to be with
me
. I’m go to tell her the truth. She deserves to know.”

Raoul paused, hands on the last button of his jeans. “Don’ be getting all hot and bothered,
cher
, but she already knows the truth. I told her a little bit about you when you were in the hospital and I made certain she knew you couldn’t have children.”

“Then why…” She pointed to the candles and the remnants of mesh and leather. “Why would she want us to have any kind of a relationship let alone a permanent one?”

“Because you make me happy.” He said it simply, his dark eyes meeting hers.

Flame shook her head. “You’re such a goof, Raoul. I have no idea why I make you happy. You’re not a very logical person, are you?”

He grinned at her as he scooped up the fur-lined handcuffs. “We’ve still got these,
cher
. You’ll make me very happy when you’re my little sex slave.” He leered at her and dangled the cuffs.

She started laughing again, shaking her head just like he knew she would. “You’re going to have to help me with the zipper on these jeans.” They were just a little tighter than she normally wore them.

Raoul dropped the cuffs on the bed and crossed the room to stand in front of her, obediently doing the enclosure up for her. She suddenly sucked in her breath. “Too tight?” He stepped back to look at her. “They don’ look too tight.”

“Sex slave.” She repeated the words aloud. “There were tie-downs in that car. And a recorder. It was on when James tore my shirt open.” She looked up at him. knowledge blossoming. “That’s what they’re doing. They drug the girl, have sex with her, and record it, probably really humiliate her and they keep her locked up while they get her addicted to drugs. They’re using her as their own personal sex slave, Raoul. She’s got to be somewhere in the bayou.”

“You think they’d keep her alive all this time?”

“Why not? The bayou’s a big place. They use her for a while, make a few recordings, keep her hooked on drugs then…” She trailed off.

“Then kill her?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Remember the mini-discs I found in Saunders’s safe?” She rubbed her temples and sank down onto the edge of the bed. “It’s all coming back to me now. I saw those same discs in the car. What if they turn the girls into porn stars or prostitutes or sell them as sex slaves? Keep them, terrorize them, hook them on drugs, degrade and use them, threaten them with the movies, eventually the woman might do what ever they say.”

“That’s a big leap, Flame.”

The car was a trap for a woman. It can’t be just date rape. Raoul. The driver’s in on it. The camera installation alone would require big bucks. It’s well hidden. I heard the hum or I wouldn’t have ever noticed it. These stupid painkillers. If I hadn’t been so foggy from the operation, I would have remembered every detail.”

“If more girls were missing we’d know about them.”

“Why would you? My guess is, they don’t usually grab women close to home. The first girl was probably taken because her voice triggered the need and whoever is the ringleader couldn’t resist.”

“And then Joy did the same thing.” Gator shoved his hand through his hair in agitation. “You think the old man knows?”

“How could he not? His son. His driver.”

“We could be wrong about this, Flame. We have to go slow and make sure. Parsons has a lot of political contacts. If we make a mistake, we could be in trouble. James Parsons could just be a common garden-variety sleaze bag. I don’t see him as the type of man to be involved in a crime of this magnitude.”

“I agree. But he wants to feel important. And he’d love to put one over on his father, if I’m any judge of people. He’s a spoiled kid who wants his own way. The driver is the brains. And he drives Emanuel Parsons everywhere. So he probably knows every private thing in their lives. If he could get James on camera, drugging and raping a woman, what do you think Daddy would do to protect his son?”

Gator shook his head. “This is a big jump, Flame.”

“You weren’t in that car. I know that was Joy’s earring.”

“And James Parsons would say that she was his girlfriend and they had lots of sex in the backseat of the car. Or he could just say she rode in the car.”