She’d taken prelaw at Tulane, at the time not because she’d planned on being a law-enforcement officer, but because throughout her life, her mother had drilled into her the importance of two career choices: doctor or lawyer. She’d ultimately gone with lawyer mostly because she’d never done well when it came to blood.
One of the mock trials she’d participated in in her first year had involved a false accusation. She’d been assigned as part of the defense team. And the question had been pretty much what Claude had asked her: how did an innocent defendant prove he or she wasn’t guilty?
“You can’t disprove a negative. It’s like asking you to prove God doesn’t exist when there’s no solid proof that he exists,” she’d argued to her professor, finding the case a test of her patience and frustration.
She could still see the prof’s knowing smile.
In the end, the mock defendant had been convicted of first-degree murder with recommendation of execution. Neither Akela nor her team had been able to disprove the negative.
So where did that leave Claude Lafitte? If he was indeed innocent, his prior record and his actions following the discovery of the murder scene would make him look guilty as sin.
Akela craned her neck to see out the window. From what she could tell from the light slanting through the thick vegetation, the sun was beginning its long descent toward the horizon. She couldn’t see Claude or where he’d gone. It had been a long time since she’d heard anything other than the squawking of a bird and a slosh of water indicating that maybe an alligator or snake or something was nearby. Otherwise, nothing.
Using her free hand, she slid her fingers inside the neck of her slip and reached into the inside of her right bra cup for the needle she’d fastened there. It was almost sturdy enough not to bend, but after some work with her teeth and fingers, she managed to force a curve into the stubborn, narrow length of steel. She wiped her free hand against the bedding to rid it of moisture, then inserted the end of the needle into the lock on the cuffs. When her fingers slipped, she nearly lost the makeshift key. However, she quickly recovered it from where it was ready to bounce over the side of the bed.
Okay, maybe working on the cuff on her wrist wasn’t a good idea. She switched her attention to the one attached to the headboard, which would allow her to use both hands. Holding the lock still, she worked the needle inside and felt her way around the mechanism. While the needle’s strength had been a hindrance when she’d been trying to reshape, now it worked in her favor because it was strong enough to spring the lock—at least in theory.
Concentrating, she tried and tried again…and was finally rewarded with the sound of metal teeth giving.
She was free. She still had the cuffs secured to her right wrist, but she was free from the headboard. After pushing off the bed, she headed straight for the door and the porch beyond.
A sound at the side of the house reached her ears.
Damn.
As quietly as possible, she collected her firearm from the barrel, gained silent access to the house and rushed for the bed. She shoved the gun under the pillow, then stared at the mattress. There was no way to pretend the cuffs were still attached to the headboard so she was forced to refasten them. Then she lay down to disguise her activities, hoping she was lying on top of the needle she’d tossed aside once she’d unlocked the cuffs.
She pretended to sleep.
CLAUDE STEPPED inside the house, feeling even worse now than he had before. He’d spent the past couple of hours on the phone with the attorney his brother had matched him up with. John Reginald had immediately contacted the NOPD and somberly admitted that things didn’t look good for him—especially since he still held an FBI agent hostage.
He absently rubbed the back of his neck and considered the hostage in question. She was lying half on her back across the mattress, her legs pressed tightly together, her head turned his way, her eyes closed.
Claude grimaced. While Akela Brooks struck him as someone who could sleep anywhere, anytime if she put her mind to it, he doubted she would put her mind to it here. What intrigued him was why she was pretending to.
He stepped slowly closer to the bed, eyeing where the cuffs were still firmly attached to her wrist and to the headboard. At some point her chestnut hair had entirely escaped her professional twist, as if rebelling against the confining style. The damp bayou air had caused wisps to curl around her face, the rest of the shoulder-length tresses wavy and wild. The look it gave her was much different from the one he guessed she affected for work. Combined with the high color in her cheeks and the humidity dampening her skin, she looked like a sexy siren designed to drive man to madness.
Claude caught himself brushing the hair in question back from her face, his gaze lingering a little too long on her full, pouty lips. He checked the cuffs instead. When she didn’t budge, he knew for sure she wasn’t really asleep.
He stood silently for a long moment, trying to decide what to do, not just with her but the situation at large. It would be dark before long.
He sat down on the mattress, his gaze on her face. She didn’t bat a lash.
Claude stretched out next to her, his side flush against hers. He figured the shock of his bare skin against her arm would at least send her jackknifing upward. To his surprise, she remained still.
What he hadn’t factored into his little ruse was that he would end up affected by the touch of her skin. Despite the heat, she was cool and smooth. And she smelled good. Of something citrus. Not perfume; maybe lotion.
He heard her thick swallow.
Maybe she wasn’t as unaffected as she appeared.
And given the darkness pressing in on him from all sides, he found he wanted to test boundaries better left alone.
AKELA WAS READY to jump straight out of her skin.
She forced herself to lie perfectly still, even though the part of her still capable of rational thought told her that she’d taken her sleep act too far, that what Lafitte was doing now was designed to rouse a reaction from her.
It was working, only not in the way she suspected he thought it might.
She knew the dangers inherent in such a situation. It had been in close confines—albeit completely different circumstances—that she’d convinced herself she’d been attracted to, and had fallen in love with, her ex. She and Dan had been on stakeout together, putting in double time as they tailed a suspected felon in a small town outside Oklahoma City. Their cover had been as young honeymooners on a cross-country road trip, so they’d stayed in the same motel room to perpetuate the roles.
Only their faked attraction to each other had turned quickly into the real thing.
It wasn’t until after they’d married and had Daisy that they’d figured out that, aside from their jobs, they didn’t have much in common. Not even passion.
Still, with Claude so close, Akela couldn’t help thinking it had been so long since she’d allowed her body to take precedence over her head. Too long.
The bed beneath her was softer than anything she’d felt in a long, long time. While she’d been sitting on it for the past four hours, she hadn’t noticed how soft it was until she was lying fully against it. The mattress nearly cocooned her in its layers of down, the high thread count sheets like silk against the exposed areas of her skin. The bedding smelled subtly like wildflowers. Narcissus? Orchids?
Then Claude had stretched out next to her and it was as though someone had struck a match and thrown it on top of her after dousing her with accelerant. Every nerve ending leaped to pulsating life. Her heart pounded an uneven staccato in her chest. She couldn’t seem to draw a breath deeper than a shallow gasp. And her lower abdomen felt as if Claude had pressed a hot hand against it, eliciting a riot of longing in her.
Though they were touching, it wasn’t in that way. Instead, he appeared to be going out of his way to make his actions seem casual, only her reaction to them was anything but.
This man had been with another woman that morning. That
woman had died shortly thereafter, possibly at the hands of this man. None of this mattered to her. She only knew a burning desire to experience what he so openly seemed to be offering her.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew the wantonness of her thoughts should startle, if not scare her. She’d never been one to let go of her self-control. All decisions she made were in concert with her brain—which may be exactly the reason for the full-scale rebellion her body was staging now.
She felt something against her right nipple and gasped. No longer capable of pretending sleep, she threw her eyes open and stared at where Claude was leaning on one well-muscled arm, staring down at her, his expression sober. His other hand was above her chest, a finger having traced the edge of her slip.
“Ah, cher, I thought that might get your attention.”
It did more than get her attention. Her nipples were bunched so tight they ached. And her stomach quivered from his attention.
But when she might or should have asked him to leave her be, tell him that molesting a hostage would only put him in hotter water, an unfamiliar voice whispered, almost pleaded, with her to give herself over to sensation just this once.
She licked her lips as her chest heaved from the difficulty she was having breathing.
Up this close and personal, she noticed how very attractive he was. Not in a Greek statue way. Rather in a wild Cajun way, with tousled hair, dark skin and an even darker allure that left her scanning his mouth and wondering what it would feel like to be kissed by him.
His finger grazed her skin again. Akela arched her back, pressing her breast into the palm of his hand and groaned, a response so outside her normal one that she was shocked—until Claude leaned over and showed her exactly what it would be like to kiss him.
Firm and probing and hungry, he slanted his mouth against hers, tentatively at first, as if giving her the option of pulling away, then more insistently, a low groan of his own filling her ears.
Long moments later he broke from her mouth and buried his nose along with the fingers of his right hand in her hair. “Ah, poupée, you present a temptation too strong for this mortal man to resist.”
His words made her blood surge in her veins and hot wetness flood her inner thighs.
She’d never been an irresistible temptation to anyone. And the prospect that she was to him made her feel powerful despite the cuffs holding her captive.
She felt fingers against the sensitive skin of her inner knee and nearly came up off the bed, the jolt of electricity to her tender areas so intense she was sure he had set fire to her limbs. The hem of her slip slid up and she felt the humid air on her exposed underpants. She held his probing gaze, almost challenging him to take things further. Daring him.
She watched his gaze take her in from hair to bare toes, lingering on her crotch and her breasts where they strained against the material of her bra and slip.
“You’re playing a very, very dangerous game, ma catin.”
Akela restlessly moistened her lips. “No more dangerous than the one you started when you took me captive.”
His gaze flicked to hers where it stayed for a long heartbeat, touching her as thoroughly as any caress. “Ah, yes. Only I’m beginning to wonder who’s keeping whom captive now.”
She tugged on her wrist. “Release me and find out.”
7
CLAUDE REALIZED he’d have to reassess his belief that beautiful FBI agent Akela Brooks was a woman not given to impulsive acts.
His gaze slid from the soft swell of her breasts, down to where the silky material of her slip skimmed her plain white panties, doing little to disguise the springy wedge of dark curls just beneath. A light sheen of sweat covered her supple skin and her chest rose and fell laboriously.
Another man might have viewed her suggestive request for freedom as a ploy toward escape. But if there was one thing Claude was an expert on, it was recognizing sexual need, and Akela’s softly spoken challenge had nothing to do with finding a way out of the cabin and the bayou, and everything to do with showing him exactly what she promised.
Only Claude couldn’t give in to the urge to unlock her cuffs, no matter how much he wanted to. His legal position was too shaky right now. His avenues to clear himself were limited to the woman who was now looking up at him as if she wanted nothing more than to be kissed senseless.
But no matter how precarious his situation, and how vital his need to convince her of his innocence, he knew that’s exactly what he was going to do.
Drawing his fingers up her hip and over her side, at her quick intake of breath, he pressed his mouth against hers. And he was rewarded with her arching up toward him, her cuffs clanking, her body hot and supple.
His mama had been fond of saying that her brand of Cajun cooking could put the heat in anyone’s veins. That the hot spices didn’t just tease the tongue, they wove their way through the bloodstream, making the person restless and yearning for an unnamable something.
Of course, Olivie Lafitte also said that excusing yourself for bad behavior was inexcusable.
Claude felt Akela’s finger at the side of his neck, then her touch trailed down over his bare arm to his chest. She pressed her damp palm against his flat nipple, her eyes fluttering slightly open to watch his response to her bold move. Normally it would have taken a whole helluva lot more than a touch north of the snap on his jeans to do it for him. But her tentative touch and the warm quicksilver of her eyes combined to make him feel as if he’d been sucker punched.
And that, more than anything, should have warned him to be careful before pushing ahead. But he couldn’t seem to help himself, could no sooner stop what was happening between them than he could the beating of his own heart.
He kissed her as his palm slid down the fluid material of her slip. The heel of his hand hesitated against her pelvis. And she bucked against his touch like a woman gone mad with desire.
Dear Lord…
She rolled over on top of him, her knees on either side of his hips, putting her in direct contact with his straining arousal. He closed his eyes and reveled in the myriad sensations caused by the move.
Then he heard an ominous click and he looked up to find himself staring down the muzzle of an all-too-familiar gun. Holding it was Akela, looking tousled and sexy as hell—and very much in control.
She licked her lips. “I told you when the gun was back in my hands, we were going to have that conversation again.”
EVEN AS AKELA’S THIGHS burned where they squeezed his hips, his powerful erection pressing against her delicates, she aimed her firearm. The metal was heavy in her free hand but she was well trained in the art of one-hand shooting. Besides, at this close range she couldn’t miss.
Claude’s green eyes took her in. “Ah, I wondered what you were hiding when I came in and you were pretending to be asleep.”
“Unlock the cuffs.”
Akela watched as he reached for the chain around his neck. She backed up a hair to give him the room he needed to ensure he couldn’t take the gun. Then she heard the teeth from her cuffs give as Claude released the metal shackle from her wrist.
She immediately grasped the gun in both hands.
Claude lay back and considered her.
“Do it,” he said quietly.
Akela’s throat tightened. She hadn’t retrieved the firearm in order to kill him. She’d merely been trying to regain her freedom.
“Go ahead, shoot. The way things look, I’m a dead man, anyway.”
She blinked at him, thinking he couldn’t be serious.
She began to climb off him.
That’s when he made his move. He took advantage of her being off balance and grasped her wrists, forcing the muzzle of the gun away from him at the same time he rolled her over, his body pinning her to the bed, his hips solidly between her legs. The gun was above her head, held there by his strong hands. But he didn’t appear interested in trying to take it from her. Rather he was staring at her as if in disappointment.
For the life of her, Akela couldn’t figure out why he would be disappointed.
He rolled off her and pushed from the bed. Then he held his hand out to her. “I wasn’t going to do this until the sun goes down, but I can see I no longer have a choice.”
Akela swallowed hard, leaving her hands and the gun above her head. “Do what?”
He didn’t say anything.
Dropping the gun to her side, she took his hand with her free one and he hauled her from the bed.
“Gather your things and come on.”
Akela felt oddly out of sorts as she watched him turn and walk through the door. Keeping a tight grip on her gun, she quickly put her skirt and blouse back on, barely buttoning the top before joining him where he stood on the porch staring out at the bayou.
Shadows were lengthening and the autumn sunlight gave the mist-heavy air a purplish, surreal tint. A light breeze teased Spanish moss. The tall cypresses spoke to each other.
“You grew up here?”
Akela was somewhat surprised to hear her voice ask the question as she tucked her gun back into the holder inside her jacket. She was surprised further that she wanted to know the answer to it.
“Mmm. My brother and I were raised by our mother.”
“And your father?”
She felt his gaze on her and blinked to find him staring at her while he slowly fastened the buttons on his denim shirt. “Could have been one of three men, if you believed the rumors.”
“The truth?”
“He was a shopkeeper on the outskirts of the bayou who was already spoken for.”
“Married?”
“Yes.”
In the social circle in which Akela had been raised, being someone’s bastard child was tantamount to death. At least if the situation wasn’t socially remedied. The way her mother told it, if a woman in their social circle was in trouble, in the kind of situation Claude’s mother had been in, there was always the son of a congressman whose sexual orientation was in question who could pose as a perfectly good substitute. And the child himself…well, he’d never have to know of his true parentage.
Possession Page 5