Bayou Heat

by Donna Kauffman

  “Are you saying you’re an informant for him or something?”

  “Hardly,” he said, not hiding his derision at the idea. “But that doesn’t stop him from pumping me every chance he gets. The more he can get from me and other locals, the less he has to dig up himself. Probably thought you’d make a nice link. You tell me things, I tell you. Then he has two sources to pump. He’s just doing his job, Erin.”

  “Which is exactly what I thought at the time.”

  “At the time?” Teague pushed away from the doorframe and stepped closer to Erin. His back blocked the light, casting her in shadow before him. She didn’t back away.

  He noticed her grip tighten on the sheet. Just like that he had to struggle to remember what they were talking about. He wanted that sheet gone. Now. And to hell with underworld midnight plots and outwitting an idiot sheriff and keeping a too-smart-for-her-own-good ethnobotanist from getting her pretty derriere in a deadly sling.

  He wanted badly to forget all of that and just take her. Have her. Share his need for her. Make her need him in return.

  Dangerous. When had she become so dangerous?

  “I thought the same thing. Until I got back to my office and found your note.”

  He grabbed her shoulders before he realized he’d moved. “What note?”

  “The one you left in the desk drawer on top of the notes I’d already transcribed.”

  SEVEN

  “And what makes you think it was from me?” Teague asked. “You said you lock up your notes and tapes.”

  She stared pointedly at the open French doors, then back at his face. “So?” Before he could answer, she added, “And I only locked them in the safe after I found the note.”

  “And just what did I supposedly warn you about?”

  “Not to discuss what I do in the bayou with local law enforcement.”

  “And why would I warn you about that?”

  She glanced away for a second.

  “Erin?”

  She tightened her jaw. “I don’t know. Maybe you have reasons of your own not to want the police all over the place. Because of Belisaire … though I have to say from our brief visit she doesn’t strike me as someone who needs looking after. And it was you who was so determined to keep me from calling them.”

  “The only thing I was determined to do, chèr, was keep you from ruining your setup with Belisaire by reporting information that would lead nowhere anyway.”

  Erin’s expression softened. “I know this sounds ungrateful. I appreciate what you did in bringing me to Belisaire. But if this note wasn’t from you, then who?”

  “Who else knows you interviewed Bodette?”

  “No one. Not that that means anything. News travels fast. I can think of two other people who wouldn’t like me talking to the law.” Then just as quickly she shrugged that off. “No. No way did those two men know I was there. And I honestly don’t see them coming on campus to warn me.”

  “You are right about that, ange. Followers of Belisaire, if indeed they were, have a number of other very convincing options at their fingertips to scare you away.”

  He saw her shiver and draw the sheet tighter.

  He stepped closer. “That’s right, chèr. Don’t ever underestimate Belisaire’s reach.”

  “I don’t.”

  He studied her face. “Did you record the conversation last night, Erin?”

  Her eyes flared briefly with renewed suspicion, then it was gone as she let out a sigh. “Is that why you’re here? Protecting Belisaire’s people?”

  “Like you said, Belisaire rarely needs protecting.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Teague lightly traced a finger across the soft rise of skin just above the sheet. He was more gratified than he should have been by her soft gasp.

  “I told you I’d taste you again. Perhaps I just got hungry, chèr.” It was the truth. The instant he felt her skin, alive and warm, under his, he knew the job was an excuse to touch her. Not the other way around.

  She broke away from his light caress, moving deeper into the shadows. “And maybe I don’t appreciate being a convenient midnight snack when your other plans aren’t working.”

  “Trust me, mon ange, there is nothing remotely convenient about you.”

  “Yeah well, so what else is new in the life of Erin McClure.”

  There was no self-pity in her tone, just acceptance.

  “I know all about being an inconvenience, chèr.” He reached out and ran the side of his thumb along her cheek. “I learned a long time ago not to fight it. To use it.”

  He felt more than heard her light shuddering breath and closed the distance between them. He pressed his fingertips into her hair and tilted her head back. “I suspect you figured that out long ago too.” He lowered his mouth. “Let’s be inconvenient together, Erin McClure. I really do need to taste you again, chèr.”

  She opened eyelids that had drifted half shut at his touch and held his gaze. “Mais yeah, Teague.” Then on a soft exhalation, “Mais yeah.”

  A groan escaped his throat as his mouth closed over hers. The sensation of being welcomed home stole through him. Too provocative, too much what he needed but didn’t want. And yet he couldn’t turn away from the danger. She was too perfect, made just for him.

  He pulled her into his arms, wrapping her in his body. Yet, when she let go of the sheet to hold him instead, he felt as if he were the one being sheltered, cradled.

  Another groan escaped his throat, long, low and guttural. He buried his face in her neck, breathing hard.

  “Erin.” The word was both plea and demand.

  She was kissing his neck, pressing her teeth gently against the vein that pulsed wildly under her mouth. He felt her lips travel to the neckline of his T-shirt, then breathed in sharply when her hands found the warm skin at his waist as she pulled his shirt from his jeans.

  “Teague, your skin, you’re so hot, chèr.”

  She pushed his shirt over his chest, then lowered her face to the soft hair that swirled between his pectorals. The kiss she pressed there made him shudder. The light trace of her tongue as she moved it up to his neck threatened his control.

  He tilted his head back. She took the movement as an invitation. Had it been? He was no longer certain. Nor did he care.

  He held her waist in a tight grip, as she ran her tongue up along his throat, then gently closed her teeth around his chin. Her hands were all over him. Tracing his arms, shoulders, down his back, around his waist, slowly up his chest, molding the muscles there.

  He’d allowed himself to be touched, but never seduced. Not like this. This was a conscious act of surrender, and yet he had no choice in the matter. Not with her.

  As she claimed his mouth again, and he let himself get lost in hers, he discovered a need he’d thought dead and buried.

  The need to be loved, cherished. To be needed. In this way. In all ways.

  It terrified him.

  But the forbidden thrall of it enticed him more. Darkness was all he’d known where love was concerned. Love and need had always led to pain and suffering … so he had long ago turned away from them both.

  “Teague.” His name was a raw whisper of need.

  His response was hardly more than a moan. His body felt heavy, languid, a sponge soaking up sensation after heady sensation. He was unable—unwilling—to move, to chance breaking this spell she’d cast over him, more terrified he’d never again feel this way, than of the emotions she was dredging up in him.

  “I need you.”

  His knees actually buckled. His arms came around her in a fierce hug.

  She didn’t seem to mind, her arms held him just as tightly.

  “Please.”

  He shuddered. “Don’t ever beg me, Erin. I’m not—I can’t be—” He swore under his breath.

  She tilted her head back, forcing him to loosen his hold and look at her.

  “I know. But you can be what I need right now,” she said quietly.
“Is that enough for you?”

  He groaned, then kissed her. Long and hard.

  No! Never enough, his mind railed. He raised his head. “Yes.”

  Erin looked into his black eyes and began to shake. She’d thought she understood what she was asking. But now everything had changed. She was sure of nothing.

  Because the last thing she expected to see in his voodoo eyes was vulnerability.

  And yet, it was also the one thing she couldn’t ignore.

  Connected. That’s how she felt in this moment, as they stared at each other. The impact of that rocked her, should have frightened her.

  Instead it gave her strength.

  “Yes,” she whispered back, finally. “It will be enough.” And when he took over the kiss this time, she knew that she lied.

  His mouth possessed her in a way that made her feel cherished, needed, owned body and soul. No, this wasn’t going to be enough. She wanted all of that for real.

  But she’d take this.

  He was glorious. She moved his shirt higher, until he stripped it off with an almost violent yank. It made the gentle way in which he took her back into his arms almost heartbreaking.

  She pressed her mouth to his stubbled jaw. It felt good, sharp, alive against the softness of her lips.

  She buried her nose in his neck, tasting the light tang of salt while she breathed in the scent of the summer heat on his skin.

  She pushed him gently and after a moment he released his tight hold. As slowly as she was able, she looked at him, from the strong legs still encased in weathered jeans, over the flat belly and up to the chest she’d tasted and touched. She studied his hands, the long strong fingers and broad palms, and shivered at the idea of them touching, holding, all of her. Her gaze traveled over muscled forearms and biceps to his broad shoulders, to his neck, then along his jawline. She paused on his mouth. Those wide sensual lips. Another shiver raced over her and she lifted her hands to cup her breasts without even being aware of it.

  His low growl jerked her gaze to his eyes.

  Black fire. That’s what they were now.

  “Mon dieu, you are trying to kill me, ange.”

  She trembled to hear his need for her.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered. He stepped up against her, covering her hands with his own. She gasped, the intensity of the pleasure he took in her actions immediately erasing any embarrassment she might have felt.

  When he molded his hands to hers, manipulating her nipples with her own fingers under his, she thought she might explode from the wild, aching pleasure of it.

  She moaned, swaying into the joint pressure of their hands.

  “Mais yeah, chèr. Just like that. We feel so good on your skin.” He spread her fingers, then bent his head and touched the tip of his tongue to one nipple.

  A short soft scream escaped her mouth before she bit her bottom lip to keep her mouth shut.

  Teague immediately lifted his head, kissed her lips apart.

  “No, don’t hold back. Release, Erin. Let go. I’ll catch you, ange.”

  She took in several steadying breaths.

  “What about you, Teague? Do you ever let go?”

  He took a heartbeat too long to cover his surprise.

  “You can let go here, chèr. With me.” She leaned down and ran her tongue over his nipple, making him gasp and shiver at the unexpected act.

  His hands gripped her shoulders and she lifted her gaze back to his. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  A slow smile crossed her face. Again he was unguarded before her.

  “Afraid of me, mon cajin?”

  The fierce light in his eyes was devastating. “Terrified.” He took her hands and laid them on his chest. “But go ahead. Scare me, chèr.” He took a short deep kiss, his tongue pushing hard and fast in her mouth. In and gone, like the thief she’d once accused him of being. “We might just catch each other before this is all over.”

  His boldly delivered challenge was all it took. Erin kissed him hard, then pushed him backward until he came up hard against the wall by the bathroom door.

  So he wanted to play. The idea of playing with Teague Comeaux was tremendously appealing. And arousing.

  It was also about the only level of emotional honesty she could deal with right now. Uninhibited by her nudity—her body was the easiest thing to reveal to him—she wanted only to get him as naked as she was.

  She let her hands fall to the waistband of his jeans. His smile broadened.

  “Mais yeah, chèr. You want I should help you with that?”

  She shook her head. “No, I think I can handle it.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, I’m counting on that, chèr.”

  She pulled at the snap and kept tugging until the zipper slid down an inch or so. Oh my. She swallowed hard. “Dressed in a hurry did we?”

  “Something like that.”

  Between the hot night air slowly filling the room, and the heat coming off his body, Erin felt trapped in a sensual steam bath. She felt the perspiration slide down her throat and between her breasts and lifted a hand to wipe it away.

  Teague caught her hand in his. “I have an idea. Come on.” He pulled her with him into the bathroom, and flipped off the harsh light, casting them instantly in moonlit shadows.

  “What are we doing?”

  He turned her into his arms. “I owe you a shower.”

  “I have bathed, you know.”

  “Yeah, ange, but you haven’t bathed with me.”

  The moan slipped out without warning.

  His groan echoed hers. “Oh chèr, I do like it when you do that.”

  “What?”

  “Respond to me without thinking.” He tugged on her waist before she could respond. “Come on, let’s get wet.”

  He let her go long enough to turn on the water and draw the curtain. He looked up at her. “Hot or cold?”

  “Moderate.”

  He stood and pulled her against him so swiftly she lost her breath. He stole what was left with a deep, slow kiss. When he had her moaning against his mouth, he lifted his lips from hers. “Nothing in moderation with us, chèr.”

  Erin felt herself sinking deeper into the promise of pure, unadulterated pleasure he offered. “Then hot it is.”

  Steam filled the room, but her slick skin made her feel erotic, sensual. She watched Teague’s skin take on a sexy sheen as he bent to shuck his jeans.

  She lifted her hand instinctively, then halted.

  He paused, his waistband open and around his hips. “What?”

  She shook her head.

  “Tell me. No thinking, Erin. Just react.”

  “Don’t take them off yet.”

  He dropped his hands and straightened. “Okay.” Erin had never felt such power, such confidence. She wanted to share it.

  She slid open the curtain and stepped into the tub. He caught her elbow to help her maintain her balance.

  She turned and crooked her finger. “Come on, come on, ange.”

  Without so much as a heartbeat of a pause, he got in after her, sliding the curtain closed behind him.

  “These aren’t going to come off easy now,” he said.

  She slid her hands around his waist. He felt so good she shivered. “Nothing good comes easy,” she murmured against the skin below his ear, then nibbled her way down to his shoulder.

  He clutched her closer to him, moving his hips against her. “Keep doing that and I wouldn’t bet on that right now, chèr.”

  Erin slid her hands down, pushing at his wet jeans. Her hand hit something hard in the back pocket. It took a second for it to register, but when it did, her hands stilled.

  “What’s the matter?” he said against her wet hair.

  The shower might as well have turned to a sheet of ice. She stiffened and pulled away from him. “I’d appreciate it if you would climb out of the shower. Be careful not to get your back pockets any wetter than they already are if you can help it. I’m not sure if I made copie
s of those tapes yet.”

  Not caring if the floor flooded, she yanked open the curtain and clambered out of the tub.

  “Erin, wait.”

  Staying out of his reach, she turned off the shower then grabbed a towel from the rack. Teague took a moment to climb out after her. Even half-wet, his jeans were a hindrance.

  She flipped on the light, the unkind brightness a harsh reminder of just how far she’d gone in ignoring her responsibilities.

  To the people funding her. To her father.

  To herself.

  But for once you were doing something just for yourself, the real you, a little voice beckoned. And it felt damn good.

  The idea that this was all there was to being Erin McClure made her stomach clench. No. She knew better now. But knowing there was more, and that she couldn’t have it, didn’t exactly improve her mood.

  Still, she didn’t dare look at Teague. She wasn’t any more immune to him angry than she was aroused … and she was both. She also knew better than to let him get even a toehold in the confrontation they were about to have.

  Wrapping the towel tightly around her, she spied her opened tote bags on the sink. She grabbed them, and stormed out of the bathroom, leaving the door open behind her.

  “Just leave the tapes on the towel shelf.”

  He followed her, heedless of the mess he was making on the floor. He wedged his hand in his back pocket and pulled out the tapes. “Here.”

  She took them, wiped them on her towel, and dropped them in her bag without looking at them. “Thanks. Please go, now.”

  He stepped closer. “Thanks. Please. So polite, Erin? To your voleur? Your thief?”

  “Except for being my guide, you’re not ‘my’ anything. I’d like it if you would go.”

  He took another step. “You’d like it if we were finishing what we started in the shower.” He stopped right in front of her, all big, wet, and aroused.

  He was right, damn him.

  “What I’d like and what I’m going to do are two different things. I’m sorry, but being reminded you were here to steal from me sort of killed the mood, you know?” Her breathing was way too fast. She had no doubt he knew just how turned on she still was.