Obsession (11 page)

F
OLLOWING THEIR CONVERSATION
in the kitchen, Anne-Marie insisted that the first order of business was to scour room 2B. No cleansing ritual could be expected to work while the blood of a dead woman still marred the place, she’d said.

So she and Josie cleaned it. Top to bottom. Placing the stained mattress in the back alley, despite Detective Chevalier’s instructions that neither guest room was to be touched since they’d been deemed crime scenes.

After they’d completed that somber task, Anne-Marie had gone back to her shop, promising to return shortly, while Philippe stayed in the kitchen to make dinner.

Josie, on the other hand, was in her rooms, once her grandmother’s rooms, on the fourth floor.

She stood in the middle of her bedroom, looking around with eyes other than her own. While the additional rooms had always belonged to her
grandmother, this one had been hers. It had changed over the years. From a twin canopy bed with pink accents, to a queen-size wrought-iron bed not unlike those in the guest rooms. Except it had a canopy with white sheers draped around the top posts, lending it what was supposed to be a romantic effect, but now only looked ghostly. Especially with the breeze blowing in from the open French doors, disturbing the gauzy fabric so that it billowed out, resembling a phantom.

She’d never had a man up here before. Had never had cause to because all her liaisons had been fleeting, carried out in the guest rooms where her lovers had stayed.

She reminded herself that Drew fell solidly into the same category, even if he was no longer staying at the hotel. Only she knew that the connection to him that dwelled within her, that grew every time he touched her, would be with her till the grave.

Gathering fresh linens from a nearby closet, she stripped the bed and remade it, fluffing the pillows on top. Then she took the white candles on black wrought-iron stands that were placed throughout the room and repositioned them on the nightstands on either side of the bed, careful to tuck the canopy sheers on the back board so they wouldn’t accidentally catch fire.

Narcissus.

She thought she smelled the unique, indigenous fragrance on the night air. The unmistakable scent her grandmother always wore. She turned her head, trying to identify the source of the smell.

Then she did what she’d only done once, very briefly, in twelve months. She stepped out into the main drawing room and stood outside her grandmother’s private rooms.

She’d breached Josephine Villefranche’s sanctuary one other time since saying her final goodbyes a year ago. But she hadn’t stayed long. Hadn’t been able to. She’d only picked up the fan she used at the front desk that had been lying on her grandmother’s rocking chair and then had quickly left.

She sniffed. The scent was stronger here.

Odd that she shouldn’t have sensed it until now.

She gripped the doorknobs of the ornately carved double doors and slowly pushed them inward.

As impossible as it seemed, a gust of fresh air hit her head-on, blowing her black curls from around her face and infusing her with the smell of narcissus, as though an entity not of this world had just traveled through her. She stared unblinkingly at the familiar room, half expecting her grandmother to materialize in front of her, looking for her usual kiss on the cheek.

Of course, she didn’t appear. But Josie felt her presence everywhere. Smelled it. Sensed it.

She slowly stepped from one familiar object to another. From an old oval picture frame that held a shot of
Granme
with her two young daughters, the girls looking as different from each other as night and day. To the wooden rocking chair that still held Josephine’s favorite shawl. To the bed that Josie had left made as if her grandmother might want to use it some night.

The source of the narcissus came from the wrought-iron dressing table. She stepped to it, picked up a crystal spray bottle and squeezed the decanter so that a fine mist filled the air. Immediately she was enveloped in everything that was her grandmother.

“Remember, always, that you are only as beautiful as you feel,” she’d said to her while Josie had sat in the rocker watching her grandmother get ready for church one Sunday morning. “And smell.”

She sat down on the bed, the same bed that when she’d first arrived at the hotel, she’d spent sleeping in with her grandmother to help chase away the nightmares that abandonment had caused. She ran her hand over the meticulously tatted lace.

It seemed like a long time later when she finally got up and left the room, closing the doors after herself.

And it was only then that she realized she still held the bottle of perfume.

T
HREE HOURS LATER,
Josie again stood alone in her room. Night had long since fallen. Anne-Marie was long gone. But the rituals Josie had helped her perform remained in her mind and likely always would.

She remembered a time long ago when her mother had dabbled in white magic, the voodoo. Lighting candles and sitting for long hours watching the flame grow lower. But while it was rumored her great grandmother had been a witch of sorts, her grandmother had never bought into it and had refused to allow Josie to be tempted down that route. She’d infused the Church in her instead, making sure she went to services every Sunday and that she prayed before going to bed every night when she was younger.

Of course, Josie had been surrounded by voodoo her entire life. Her best friend owned one shop out of the dozens that catered to interest in the occult. And Josie had been in that shop countless times. But she’d always looked upon it as
something to make her smile. She’d never taken it seriously, dismissing the rituals as strange, the beliefs as unworthy.

But as she’d watched Anne-Marie bring herself to a oneness with the four elements and, using natural herbs and oils, cleanse the hotel, she saw there was nothing hokey or damaging about the ritual. In fact, the mere act of participating had brought her a sense of peace and awareness of her surroundings that she hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

When Anne-Marie had finished with the hotel, she’d commanded Josie to kneel over the bathtub in her private bathroom and went about pouring an aromatic wash over her hair and head several times before filling the tub and asking her to soak in it.

The final ritual, Anne-Marie had said, was one only Josie herself could perform. Setting up a table in the middle of the private sitting room, Anne-Marie had draped a white cloth over it then placed a single white candle in the middle.

Even now, wearing a loose-fitting, white gauzy dressing gown her friend had given her, Josie sat in front of the table, concentrating on the flame, the scent of sage and various oils teasing her senses, the sweetness of narcissus just beyond.

“Clear your mind of everything,” Anne-Marie had told her. “Focus only on the color white. And
imagine yourself pushing that whiteness on everything around you, from the inside out, up to and including the hotel, until you reach the front curb.”

Her friend had smiled at her softly then, a serenity on her face that Josie couldn’t help absorbing. She didn’t have to say aloud that she had gotten it. She suspected that was as obvious on her face as it had been on her friend’s.

She didn’t hope that the rituals would work. She
knew
they would…

T
HE HOTEL WAS NOTABLY QUIET
given the sound of the raucous jazz streaming from the bar across the street. Drew hesitated in front of the open door, looking up the lit street. The blind horn player had taken up his spot on the corner again, blowing a tune that made its way under Drew’s skin so that the trumpet was the only thing he heard outside his own heartbeat.

He didn’t know how this was going to turn out. Josie had been matter-of-fact on the phone earlier when she’d asked him to come tonight. He stepped inside the lobby, the scent of sage unusually strong. He looked around, finding different-sized white candles burning in every corner and forming a line that went even into the courtyard and the kitchen beyond.

He felt another well of fear that this meeting would be a quiet send-off, a “nice to meet you, too bad you turned out to be a louse” chat that would leave him standing on the street alone wondering what had happened. It didn’t help that even he believed it was no less than he deserved.

But, somehow, the atmosphere inside the hotel also infused him with something else. Hope, perhaps, that he might have a chance to prove that his feelings for Josie went deeper than his deception.

“Josie?” he quietly called.

There was no answer. Not from Josie or Philippe, whom, he assumed, she’d let go for the night.

Drew glanced at the door behind himself, wondering if he should close it. But there was something that urged him to leave it open, a cross breeze he hadn’t noticed before that seemed to flow from the top of the building to the bottom, enveloping him where he stood. The scent of something exotically floral teased his nose, seeming to draw his attention to the stairs.

He squinted at the candles placed on each of the steps, then started to climb, first to the second floor, then following the flickering wicks up to the third, then the fourth, a place he’d never visited before.

All the doors stood open. He wasn’t sure how he knew to walk straight ahead rather than go into
either of the open doorways to his right and left, but he halted just outside the third one. He blinked, sure he was seeing things. Seated in front of a table was Josie, her golden skin shiny and beautiful, contrasting against the sheer white dress she wore. She appeared to be in some sort of trance, the planes of her face relaxed and peaceful. She looked exactly like the enchantress he’d once thought her.

Drew stood mesmerized as the flame of the candle on the table in front of her flickered, playing hide-and-seek with the shadows. She blinked, as if having been alerted to his presence, then looked up into his face and smiled.

Drew felt like she’d touched him although she sat a good twenty feet away.

She slowly rose to her feet and rounded the table, seeming to float more than walk. When she stepped in front of the candle, he saw how very sheer the dress she wore was. Her luscious body was clearly outlined and he could make out the dusty rounds of her areolae and the deep V of curls between her thighs.

He swallowed hard as she came to stop in front of him.

“I’m glad you came,” she said quietly.

Glad
didn’t begin to cover how he felt about being
there, present in her private rooms, gaining a glimpse into a woman who’d fascinated him since the beginning. He felt honored, undeserving and awed.

He thought of all the things that he wanted to say. That he’d put together in his mind over the past four hours since her phone call. There was a proposition that he wanted to make, that covered both personal and business matters. And he’d composed an expanded explanation for his deceptive actions.

He remembered the call he’d made to his client. His final call, because he’d used the opportunity to quit. Something that hadn’t gone over very well and had resulted in a lot of threats that involved him never working in this business again.

He’d expected the reaction, but had never anticipated the venom that had gone along with it. After all, he was dropping a client, not taking one of Rove’s children hostage.

Drew hadn’t realized how very off balance his life had been until that one moment. How much importance he and those he worked for placed on their business pursuits to the exclusion of all else.

A game. That’s what it all was. Some sort of pointless, intense match of wills that required your complete attention. Forget family or home or personal enjoyment or conscience. It was all about the next deal, the next kill, the money involved.

Never mind what you did with the money. Whether you enjoyed the results of your labor. That didn’t matter. What did was getting it. Period.

And Josie, with her soft smile, had made him realize that that was no longer enough.

She held out her hand and he took it, marveling at the smoothness of her skin. No matter how much he wanted to haul her into his arms and kiss the life out her, he found he could do little more than follow her lead, allow her to call the shots.

And he had little doubt that whatever happened tonight would be something he would never forget.

“A
LLOW YOURSELF TO FEEL
the love, Josie. Love is the true genesis of all things good. No bad can hide from love.”

Anne-Marie’s parting words echoed in Josie’s mind as she reached out, filling her, lifting her, making her feel outside herself. Her heart floated in her chest, her stomach felt fathomless, and every cell, every throb of her pulse, was aware of the man standing opposite her.

Gone from her mind was his deception. Banished was any thought of this night being their last time together. Nowhere in sight were the problems she was having. All that existed in that one moment in time was love. Her love for Drew. And, yes, she realized, his love for her as well.

Rather than turning away from the raw emotion so clearly etched on his handsome face, she reveled in it. He loved her. It was there in the dark blue depth of his eyes. If she placed a hand on his
chest, she felt sure she’d feel it in the heat of his heart. A heart he’d opened to her as surely as she’d opened hers to him. While she hadn’t been aware of what was happening at the time, now that she did know, rather than closing the door, she opened it, drawing from the extraordinary emotion, allowing it to dictate her thoughts, her actions.

“Come,” she said softly, leading him to the open door of her bedroom.

The candles burned on the nightstands, giving an otherworldly feel to the room. The air coming in through the open French doors flickered the flames and stirred the sheers on the canopy.

Josie stopped at the foot of the bed then turned to face Drew again. He had yet to say anything, and she didn’t need him to. Everything that needed to be expressed would come through action rather than words.

She released his hands then crossed her arms in front of her breasts as she reached up to her shoulders. She brushed the light material down over her shoulders, baring one at a time. Drew watched her movement as she caught the fabric between her breasts. But she didn’t use it to cover herself. Rather her nipples stood out, prominent and proud, and then she allowed the sheath to pool around her feet on the floor.

She watched Drew swallow and she read what he couldn’t say. He found her beautiful. And she felt beautiful. Wanted. Wanton.

He moved, unbuttoning his shirt as if on automatic pilot, his gaze never leaving hers as the soft cotton rasped from his skin to join her sheath on the floor. The whisper of a zipper later, his slacks and boxers followed suit, his need for her evident in the erection that seemed to reach out for her.

Josie slowly curved her fingers around his turgid flesh, watching as his pupils dilated and his breath came out in a rush. So thick. So hard. So hot. She explored the silken shaft with her fingertips, finding a bead of moisture on the engorged knob. Her mouth watered with the desire to taste him, to feel him against her tongue. She slid down to one knee, then the other, until her mouth was mere millimeters in front of his arousal.

Drew still hadn’t moved. He stood stock-still, watching her as she cupped his sac, reveling in the feel of his coarse pubic hair against her palm. She kissed his erection, then swirled her tongue over the tip, lapping up the moisture there even as she added a different type of moisture with her mouth. Then she fitted her lips around the end, creating a wet channel with her tongue, and took in as much of his
considerable length as she could, withdrawing when she reached that point, then starting over again.

She felt his flesh pulsate and grow thicker. Sensed his growing urgency from the stiffness of his body and the rapidness of his breathing. She gently squeezed his sac, then moved her fingertips to just beyond, to the nerve system there, and pressed the knotted flesh, holding off his crisis even as she slid her mouth to cover him again.

He tasted sweet and sour, hot and hard. And she couldn’t seem to get enough of him as she licked and suckled and squeezed.

Finally, he moved.

She felt his hands on her bare shoulders and understood he was urging her to stand up before him. His face was savage with need. His fingers indented the flesh of her hips as he curved them around to her backside, cupping her bottom. Then he lifted her so that her legs went around his hips and she felt his hardness pressing against her slick softness.

Josie’s heart seemed to stop and expand and beat harder all at once. She balanced herself with her hands on his shoulders, her gaze locked with his. Then he slid his hands down further from behind, his fingers finding the tight bud nestled in her curls. She lost her breath as he pressed it. Then he parted her swollen labia, testing her readiness, the proof
of her arousal covering his fingers, lubricating them so that they easily slid inside her tight canal.

Josie’s eyelids drifted closed as she rode the swell of white-hot sensation.

Then he replaced his fingers with the head of his shaft. Slowly, torturously, he moved her down until she covered him fully, her pubis resting against his, her curls entangled with his. Bare flesh meeting bare flesh.

Josie pulled air deep into her lungs, her tingling breasts lifting until they brushed the fine hair sprinkling his chest. She grasped on a deeper level the significance of their joining without protection. The trust inherent in such a move touched her beyond words, beyond understanding. Everything that was her seemed to fuse with him, throbbing, expanding and contracting, their heartbeats one as she crossed her ankles behind his back and lifted herself up from his shaft, then slowly slid back down.

He was kissing her. Gently at first, one hand supporting her bottom, the other curving around to the back of her head, holding her still as he launched a sensuous assault. His tongue flicked over her bottom lip then dipped inside her mouth. Her hunger growing, she wrapped her arms around his neck, entangling her fingers in his hair, press
ing her breasts fully against his chest, her nipples hypersensitive.

He slid his hands to her waist, taking his time. Gripping her hips, he lifted her up, then back down, establishing an easy, deep rhythm that made her quake from the inside out as she squeezed and released the tension of her legs to accommodate the move. She leaned back so that only her fingers were laced behind his neck, encouraging an even deeper meeting. Then she swiveled her hips, rubbing provocatively against him.

He groaned, his erection twitching inside her when she did it again. Then again, her own crisis growing nearer as she watched the effect she was having on him. Moisture dotted his forehead, dampening the hair that had fallen over his brow, drawing attention to the desire darkening his eyes. Then she released her grip on his neck…

Drew knew a moment of fear when Josie let go of him, knowing that she wouldn’t be able to support herself. He shifted his balance to protect her…only it appeared she knew exactly what she was doing. Clasping her hands tightly over his at her hips, she leaned back, farther and farther, until she could touch the floor. The view the move provided sent his blood pressure soaring: his
member buried deep inside her, her pink flesh engorged and glistening in the candlelight.

She released his hands then stretched her arms over her head, bracing herself against the floor and tightening her legs behind him. Then she moved.

Drew’s heart beat thickly as his hips bucked, once, twice, then he was releasing his seed in her slick, tight opening at the same time her own passion-filled moan filled his ears.

For long moments, he was incapable of movement, his knees threatening to give way under the sudden weakness. He felt Josie’s hands on his again, and he grasped them, lifting her until he held her tight against his chest. She released her legs and slid down the length of him, the mere feel of skin against skin enough to make his erection twitch back to life.

Then she kissed him.

Dear Lord but this woman was going to be the end of him. She tasted of sweetness, and heat and desire, her lips claiming his in gentle persuasion. But what she was trying to persuade him of, he didn’t know. Surely she knew that he loved her? Was she perhaps attempting to get him to say it? He gazed deep into her eyes and knew that she wasn’t. Instead, she seemed to be saying the words herself.

The realization nearly knocked him over with the power of it. Deepening the kiss, he swept her up into his arms and carried her to the canopy bed, laying her gently across the length of it. Then he followed, covering her body with his, doing nothing more than kissing her and somehow feeling that if he could do that for the rest of his life, he’d never want for anything more.

The sound of the trumpet grew almost mournful as it drifted through the open doors. The candlelight flickered over her, her exotic beauty dark against the white linens and pillows. After long minutes, he trailed his fingers down over her defined collarbone, over the damp skin between her breasts, over her toned stomach. Reaching her moist curls, he nudged her open with his index finger and thumb. He dipped into her slick channel, then used the proof of their desire to swirl his fingertip around her tight nub. Her back arched against the mattress, thrusting her breasts into the air. He hungrily claimed them, taking each into his mouth as he caressed her below, licking and drawing them deep until they were shiny from his attention. Then he thrust two fingers deep inside her waiting flesh, drawing her muscles tight.

After riding the wave of sensation caused by his move, she looked at him with her whiskey-
brown eyes. The raw emotion there stopped him in his tracks. And touched him more profoundly than any physical act. The honesty…the nakedness…the power was almost too much for him to view head-on.

So he didn’t.

Instead, he smoothed his hands over her lithe body, then coaxed her to roll over onto her stomach. She rose up onto her knees until her sex was in contact with his sex again. She stretched her hands straight out in front of herself, elongating her back as she strained back against him. He ran his thumbs the length of her spine and gasped when he felt one of her hands grasp his erection between her legs and place his knob against her. Then she slid back, taking him in.

Drew instinctually bucked in response, thrusting himself even deeper. And as he moved in and out, watching her juices flood over his turgid flesh, he realized that he hadn’t used protection.

The thought caused him a moment of pause. He’d never gone without protection. Not even while married because Carol hadn’t wanted to go on the pill. Something about weight gain and risks that he didn’t understand. And since he’d never even come close to having the children conversation with her, he’d always worn condoms.

But now…

Josie drew away then rolled over onto her back, placing her legs on either side of his as she gazed up at him.

And in that one moment, Drew knew that he’d be the luckiest man in the world if the woman, this woman, who had rocked his life to the core, would be the mother of his child.

When he reentered, he didn’t turn away, didn’t mask his emotions, and he met hers head-on.

A
FEW HOURS LATER
, Josie roused from a light sleep, her bottom snuggled against Drew’s hip where he lay on his back next to her. A few of the candles had burned themselves out, leaving the room dimmer than it had been earlier. But the light that filled her was more than enough compensation.

She’d never experienced before what they’d shared tonight. Now she understood what it meant to truly make love. And she wondered how anyone could ever compare cold, emotionless sex with what she and Drew had just shared.

The scent of their mixed passion filled her senses and her chest felt as if it were packed with cotton batting, as weightless as a cloud. Longing and need filled her on an emotional level as pow
erfully as physical desire, and she was loath to examine it too closely for fear that it might vanish.

She heard Drew’s even breathing catch, then he rolled over, placing his front against her back. Her womanhood was swollen to almost the point of pain from his passionate attentions, but that didn’t stop her from wanting him all over again.

She turned and slid her right leg over his, rubbing herself wantonly against his growing arousal. His hand moved over her stomach, causing her to catch her breath as his fingers burrowed into her curls and fondled her at the same time as he entered her again.

Heat spread through her limbs, and she tilted her hips back and forth in time with his leisurely strokes, his fingers keeping pace against her. She reached down between them and caressed his balls, pressing them against her clit then encircling the base of his penis as he entered her then exited.

She loved every moment of their joining. It fascinated her. He fascinated her. She didn’t think she would ever tire of discovering the things that mildly stimulated him and the ones that shoved him right over the edge. While she enjoyed touching their joined parts, following the movements, he liked to watch. She thought of climbing
back on top of him so he could do just that when a sudden climax caught her off guard. He came at the same time she did.

He slowly stroked her until her spasms subsided, drawing her closer against him, despite the heat.

“Water,” he whispered against her ear. “I need water.”

She moved to get up.

“No. You stay here. I’ll go get it.”

She lay back, lazily watching as he got up and his tight butt disappeared into the connecting bath. A moment later he came back out with a towel secured around his hips, grinning her way, then going out into the hall through the drawing room. Soon thereafter, she heard his footfalls on the steps.

Josie closed her eyes and realized she was smiling. She idly drew her fingertips along the length of her stomach, then back again, then trailed a path to her own womanhood. She wanted to cup herself, as if the action could somehow trap Drew’s sperm inside her.

She stretched her neck. Is this what her grandmother and mother had done with their lovers when they’d conceived? Had they been with men they loved, but knew they couldn’t have except in one important way? Had they thrown caution to
the wind, praying for a child out of the most moving experience of their lives?