Authors: Nancy Gideon
“Hey. Thanks.”
“For what?” Savoie sounded genuinely puzzled.
“The upgrade to my place.”
“Oh. No big deal. I like to take care of those who take care of me. Your music got water-damaged. Charlotte replaced what she could.”
“Thank her for me.”
“Thank us by having us over after you get settled in. I’ve been listening to you brag about your bourbon short ribs for long enough. Time to put up or shut up.”
“How’d I end up with a tux?”
A pause. He could hear the mysterious smile in Max’s voice when he said, “You never know when you might be called upon to wear one.”
Where would he have to wear a tux? Except maybe to a wedding. Jacques’s grin broke wide. “You and your detective—”
“Are going to be late for our reservations. In case you didn’t notice, the bar and fridge are stocked, too. Have a good night.”
“You, too, Max.”
He was still smiling when he entered the living room. Susanna was sitting up on the couch, blinking uncomprehendingly at her surroundings.
“How are you feeling? You were out of it for a while there.”
She rubbed at her eyes and temples, then glanced up at him. “Where are we?”
“This is my place. I just moved back in.”
A sense of pride swelled as she looked around with an admiring sense of surprise.
“You’ll be safer here,” he added, “and a lot more comfortable than before.”
She met his gaze, hers steady and direct. “I wasn’t complaining.”
His heart gave a strange shudder. “I know. I appreciate that.”
“You’ve taken very good care of me,” she continued in that same quiet voice that brushed over his senses like velvet. “I’m grateful.”
Her gratitude wasn’t exactly what he was after. He broke the tender/tense mood between them by gesturing to the table. “I picked up something for us to eat. Hungry?”
“Starved. Do I have time for a quick shower first? I feel like I’ve spent an afternoon tied up in a storeroom.”
“Sure. I put your things in the bedroom. It’s right through there.”
She got off the couch, wobbling slightly, but put a hand up to keep him from offering assistance. He let her make her way unsteadily into the other part of the apartment. Then he stood, trembling inside at the thought of her in his shower.
Sucking in a saving breath of reality, Jacques went to the kitchen to check out the bar.
Twelve
A
fter the minuscule space at the trailer with its lukewarm trickle, the forceful burst of hot spray in the roomy walk-in shower was heaven. Susanna stood beneath it, letting the heat soak into her achy muscles and rinse away the sweat of fear.
The mental exercise had exhausted her. Her head pounded and her system shivered from the strain. She’d almost managed her own rescue. Almost. But there was no shame in allowing Jacques to whisk her away from danger. His sudden appearance, all fierce and powerful, infused her with a different kind of weakness, the kind that had her knees shaking and made her thoughts go all swoony.
It wasn’t a sense of obligation that had him racing to her side, claws sharp and eyes blazing with red sparks of fury. He’d come for her, to save her for himself, not for any other reason. And that was as frightening as it was flattering.
Philo Tibideaux knew her secret. She wasn’t worried because it was in his best interest to keep it. What she couldn’t trust were her own motives.
Everything she believed in had been shaken to the core, and the only one she could trust was the man
she’d betrayed. The only way she could have him was to tell him the truth, but that truth would destroy any chance of them being together.
An impossible conundrum no matter how she looked at it.
She reached for the shampoo, frowning slightly at the two bottles. One was the brand she remembered from the trailer. The other was a floral botanical she couldn’t quite imagine the burly bartender using to condition his shaved head. Tempted beyond her sudden jealous pique, she massaged it into her scalp, letting the fragrance envelop and soothe her senses.
Jacques had left a bag on the floor at the foot of the bed. She opened it to find their clothes heaped together in a careless fashion. With just the towel wrapped about her, she sorted and separated the garments into neatly folded stacks on the smooth deep blue bedspread.
She slipped on clean underthings and a loose pair of cotton drawstring pants over which she draped one of Jacques’s swimming T-shirts. Not sure where she should put the clothes, she left them on the bed and padded barefoot with hair still damp into the main room.
Jacques was behind the kitchen bar, a bottle of beer raised to his lips. He paused midswallow when he saw her, something dark and faintly predatory coming into his eyes. Then he finished his drink.
“Food’s on the table. Help yourself.”
The smells coming from the open bucket had her mouth watering. Settling into a chair, she dove in for a
drumstick and started to feast on it even as she scooped some of the salad onto her plate. She glanced up to see him regarding her with a smile.
“I see you haven’t lost your appetite,” he commented as she broke off two of the yeasty rolls.
“It’s always been surprisingly healthy,” she answered.
She thought she heard him growl as he turned to pull another beer from the refrigerator.
He came to join her at the table, an appreciative eye roving over her choice of clothing. As he walked behind her chair, she could hear him inhale. Then she felt the brush of his face against her hair.
“You smell fantastic.”
Pleasure collided with a prickly sense of jealousy. “Just like all your other lady friends.”
He paused behind her so she couldn’t see his expression.
“What?”
“I figured it must be your preference, or did one of your guests leave the bottle behind?”
“What bottle?”
“In the shower.” Her tone had grown as cold as that first blast from the faucet.
He was silent for a moment, then said, “Since you’re the only female who’s ever been invited here, my guess is Charlotte left it for you. I’ll be sure to tell her you liked it.” He moved to his chair and settled there looking annoyingly smug. Her irritation with him faded as she happily accepted that explanation.
“I’ll be sure to tell her myself.”
Jacques didn’t look up from the meat he was pulling off the bones on his plate. “I was thinking of putting a computer in the second bedroom so you don’t have to go back into the club. It would be safer and you could get more done.”
She wasn’t quite sure why that idea upset her so, but her tone was brittle with it. “And so could you, with me safely locked in your glass tower where you don’t have to keep an eye on me.”
He blinked up at her. “That’s not what I meant—”
“That would be fine,” she concluded. “I’m sure babysitting has grown tiresome for you.”
After considering his options carefully and apparently not liking any of them, he didn’t answer. They ate in silence for several minutes.
“What’s wrong with your daughter?”
The question came as an unpleasant shock. She stumbled over it. “I told you, she’s ill.”
“Then why are you here, doing favors for near strangers? Shouldn’t you be with her?”
“Damien’s there for her.” Even as she said it, she wondered if that were really true.
Damien doesn’t like me
. “The answers to her recovery are here. That’s why this research means so much to me. Hopefully I can turn my data into a treatment, maybe even a cure.”
“For what? What does she have?”
“A genetic condition,” she told him, careful not to give away too much. “She’s fairly stable most of the time but I’m afraid that could change drastically at any
moment.” She looked away, emotions quavering until she felt his hand press firm and warm over hers. Her panic instantly settled.
Susanna ventured a look at him. Seeing the care in his intensely blue eyes, she took a risk. “If you were her father, would you urge me to stay here, even while my daughter’s asking for me, so I can search for data that would prove a financial windfall?”
“You mean would I rather you be a mother or a moneymaker? I’d have had you on a plane yesterday. Family is more important than fortune. But I don’t really have any family that I know of, so I guess I’m not much of an expert there.” He glanced back at his plate before he could see the emotions softening in her expression.
Here
was the man who should have been with her child. Not Damien, who, beneath the false face he’d worn to win her over, apparently cared for no one but himself. She’d cheated Jacques out of the chance to be that man and her daughter of the chance to know him.
Pain and uncertainty drove her from the table to sit tensely on the couch where she rubbed at her eyes in an effort to stay her tears.
How had she been so easily fooled? She’d believed Damien cared for her, for Pearl. She’d believed he was acting in their best interests instead of his own. She’d thought he’d wanted a family unit, not simply a very valuable life partner whose accolades and research he could turn into his own successes.
She’d accepted his lies because she’d been willing
to believe them. She’d seen good in him because she’d needed it to be there.
The cushions gave as Jacques sat down beside her. His arm rested along the back of the couch, surrounding but not touching her. His voice was low and achingly gentle.
“Anna, what’s wrong?”
Anna
.
He’d always called her Anna when they were alone, never Susanna.
With a soft cry of anguish, she turned and was in his arms.
“I’ve made such terrible mistakes,” she lamented. “I’ve been so naïve.”
He held her easily, providing that sense of comfort lost to her for so long.
The truth was there desperate to be spoken, all those ugly secrets ready to spill over, cleansing her spirit at the cost of shattering his. To silence them, she lifted her shimmering eyes to meet his, her hands raising to catch his face between them. And with an insistent tug, brought his mouth down to hers.
Her urgency quickly overcame Jacques’s surprise as her lips moved upon his, sweeping, searching, waking a rumbling groan in his chest. The taste of him fueled her desperate hunger for more of the feast, encouraging her tongue to slip over and around his until he was coaxed to reciprocate with deep, lolling thrusts.
His kisses had always had the power to reduce her to pure sensation. She burned for him, for his touch.
But just as she was ready to lose herself in him, Jacques eased back just far enough for their gazes to meet, his a hot laser blue, bright with passion, tempered with one unspoken question.
“Please,” she whispered against his parted lips. “I need this.”
“We both do,” was his response as he leaned into her.
His mouth teased hers in a tender stroke, caressing lightly over the slight swelling that remained at one corner, touching to her flushed cheeks, her feverish brow, to the flutter of her eyelids before sinking down to sample the frantic tempo at her throat. Susanna closed her eyes and let her head roll back against his shoulder as she clutched at the back of his head, rubbing over the bristle of hair he’d been letting grow out. She freed one hand to grip his, guiding it beneath the edge of the baggy T-shirt she’d borrowed, her body shuddering at the first warm glide of his fingers over bare skin.
It had been so long.
He continued to kiss her as he traced the outline of her bra, as he explored one lacy cup to excite a hard new pattern to rise against his palm. Her soft moan encouraged him. Her heart knocked like the bad valves in his Caddy as she kneaded the hard line of his shoulders with helpless, hurrying motions as he toyed with the center clasp. A sigh whispered from her as it popped open and he brushed that first barrier away.
Anticipation trembled through her, spiking gooseflesh all across her body as his thumb buffeted a sensitive
peak. She arched her back to encourage him but he didn’t need any urging. His fingers hooked the bottom edge of the T-shirt, drawing it slowly up to her chin.
The room’s cool air was no match for the scorch of his stare as she angled back to settle against the slanted arm of the couch, her legs slipping across his thighs. Her lips parted in sultry invitation, bringing him down to her for a slow, searing kiss.
When her calf rubbed against the hard bulge behind his zipper, Jacques caught her knee to still the movement.
“Not a good idea,” he whispered upon her lips. “Yet.” She could feel his smile and relaxed, going temptingly languid so he could take his time.
Once he’d kissed her nearly mindless, he shifted his attention lower. Her breath hitched into a jerky rhythm as the scrape of his chin was followed by the delicious contrast of soft mouth and damp, teasing tongue. Her breasts quivered beneath that sensual assault as his hand slid lower still, trailing over the curve of her hip, caressing along her thigh.
“Please. Touch me.” She didn’t recognize the raspy purr of her own voice.
His palm cupped between her legs, pressing, circling until the cotton crotch of her bottoms dampened. Without leaving his tender worship of her breasts, he tugged the drawstring at her waist, loosening it so he could tuck his hand between soft fabric and softer skin.
So close already, all it took was the purposeful dip of his long middle finger, parting the moist folds of her
body to sink deep inside her. A swift jolt of sensation sent a rolling climax through her, shaking along muscle groups, sizzling across nerve endings in a powerful wave. He swallowed her loud gasp with a heady kiss that prolonged her ride over those continuing crests until she sank into a satisfaction so deep it was like a dream.
A dream interrupted by the sudden loud buzz of the intercom.
Unwilling to be pulled from the intense pleasure of the moment, Jacques ignored the summons. The soft, luscious female he’d just brought to the first of what he’d planned to be many suspenseful peaks over the course of the evening was wet and more than willing for that journey. The scent of her arousal, of her readiness, fogged his senses like a thick perfume. The lambent glow in her half-lidded gaze spoke of her desire for him. The slow undulation of her hips pressing her hot sex against his hand demanded his attention.