Masked by Moonlight

by Nancy Gideon

  He crushed her to him, burying his face in the valley of her breasts, drawing the fragrance of her skin through the fabric of her shirt, hearing her heart beat with the primitive lure of fertility drums. Her ready dampness scorched against his belly.

  He angled her hips, holding her poised for a moment beyond madness, then sheathed himself with her tight, wet heat in one mind-blanking instant.

  His eyes closed.

  His breathing stopped as a long shudder rolled through him.

  Ah . . . yes.

  If lightning struck him now and burnt him to a cinder, he wouldn’t have the slightest regret.

  This was what it was like to belong to another. To be part of someone else. To not be alone. This scalding, comforting, completing union of body and spirit. He wanted to laugh out loud with the surprising joy of it, but was afraid he’d start to weep. He felt like throwing back his head to howl, to express the amazing bliss. He’d never felt so powerful. So free. But all he could do was whisper her name.

  “Charlotte.”

  Then his awareness expanded to where her fingers jabbed into his shoulder blades. Her supple body had stiffened at the shocking force of his entry. He didn’t move as that hot, huge part of him throbbed impatiently at the door of her frantically guarded memories. Now, he thought with a terrible sense of shame and loss, now she would say “No” and “Stop,” and he would have to comply. And he would kiss her calm, if she let him, and then he’d go home.

  He gentled his grip on her and started to lift her off him, when her knees locked tight at his waist. Her face was pressed against his neck. He heard her quick, harsh breaths slow and deepen, felt her inhale, felt her nuzzle and taste his skin. She said his name, a low, throaty welcome as her arms and legs twined about him. And she began to move on him, letting the hard, slick feel of him soothe her fears and rub her passions raw.

  “Max.”

  Then there was nothing but sensation. Hot-edged friction carried on a steady tide. Fierce and pounding, undercutting Cee Cee’s control until she hung onto him as her world was swept away. This was what the guys spoke of in the locker room with sly winks and ribald innuendo, when they bragged of reducing the women they bedded into wailing, clawing, screaming she-demons. She’d snorted in disgust, sure they were building themselves up with macho exaggeration, trying to impress her and each other with their tales of conquest and impossible sexual feats.

  Yet here she was, filled to bursting with Max, taking him inside her when she wasn’t even sure what exactly he was—man or beast. Letting him take her on a sensory ride with the top down and the wind howling. Nothing mattered except what was building, massing upon her nerve endings. A strange, wild tightening shot through her thighs, clenched at her belly, squeezed her breath out in short, harsh spurts until—

  “How long?”

  She fought to pull her thoughts from the realm of exquisite madness. “What?”

  “How long do we have?” His breathing was only slightly steadier as he held her pinned against his chest. The incredible Mt. Everest climb stopped.

  With a moan of objection, she panted, “I have to meet my partner in the morning at seven. Max, what are you are doing?”

  “We’ve got plenty of time. No rush.”

  He was carrying her, not to the bedroom but to the couch. She did groan aloud then. “Max, I’m not in the mood for conversation.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you. I want to enjoy you.”

  The way he said it provoked a long, voluptuous shiver of anticipation. He sat down with her straddling his lap. His hands topped her thighs, holding her still while he pulsed far up inside her.

  “Okay?” he asked her with a strange sort of quiet, considering what they were in the middle of.

  “Okay?” she repeated blankly, then smiled with wanton satisfaction. “A whole helluva lot better than okay. On a scale of one to ten, forty-seven. My God, I’m outstanding. How ’boutchu?”

  “Outstanding,” he agreed softly.

  In the darkness of the room, with only light from the next building spilling in through the open slider, his face was all strong shadows, like a bold Frank Miller pen and ink drawing with only his eyes gleaming in color. Harsh lines, fierce angles, dangerous contours.

  “Max?” Her hands moved restlessly over his shoulders, shifting soft fabric over a hard terrain of bone and muscle. A breathtaking landscape that she briefly wondered how many others he’d allowed to scale. A growly irritation roused at the thought because part of her already started to think of him as hers. And she was hot, itching, and hungry to claim him. “A gentleman doesn’t make a lady wait.”

  “As you said, I’m no gentleman.” He watched her expression slide from luscious pleasure to edgier annoyance as he continued to hold her motionless.

  She tried to lift up, to get the hot momentum going again, but he held her firmly in place. She cursed him colorfully and demanded, “Finish what you started.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty.”

  She glared down into the infuriating face of his calm. She didn’t want him calm. She wanted him wild for her again, as desperate as she was. Why wasn’t he?

  “Kind of like torture, isn’t it, Charlotte?” he goaded softly. “Kinda like inviting a man up to your place, getting him all hot and bothered with your kisses, getting his mind spinning with thoughts of sex, and then stabbing him in the back. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

  Not in the mood for games, she snarled, “Give me what I want, Savoie.”

  His hands lifted, raising up above his head in a mock gesture of surrender. “Take it from me.”

  She released a shaky breath, trying to decide between strangling him with her hands or choking him with her tongue down his throat. Choosing the latter, she groaned with satisfaction at making the right choice.

  He was pleasure incarnate, inviting her to partake as fully and deeply as she dared.

  His hair was black rumpled silk sliding through her fingers, a sleek contrast to the rough texture of his jaw and cheeks. His mouth was a wicked path to all things dark and dangerous, and she took from it with fierce determination. She began a slow rocking with her hips as she worked her way down his shirt buttons, pushing the material aside, bending to taste his warm skin, her fingers tunneling through the crisp mat of hair. The easy rocking became small, tempting lifts, just an inch or two up and down, slow and controlled, teasing their nerve endings into a heightened state of awareness.

  His arms rested above his head, overlapped at the wrists as if he were her prisoner. That wouldn’t do. She caught his hands, fitting his palms to the taut curve of her thighs, moving them in the same taunting rhythm. His eyes never closed, not when she kissed him, not as she rode him at an ever-quickening pace. He watched her, transfixed, charting every new discovery that bloomed in her expression until she was flushed and sleek with perspiration. Her breath hitched, her body shuddering like her sleek sports car shifting into overdrive. Her movements quickened and tightened with purpose.

  She seized his hand and guided it urgently to the wet heat of her body, showing him the rhythm she craved. She sighed raggedly as he pursued it, so that he stroked her, inside and out. Hard and smooth within the walls of her frantically clutching body; his thumb massaging and igniting her.

  Her hands clenched in his hair as she pulled back his head to take his mouth with a rough insistence, feeding off his lips, swallowing his breath until she couldn’t seem to catch hers. Then she spun out of control, smashing through the last guardrail of her restraints to hurtle off the cliff, his name spilling from her in reckless wonder, in triumph, and finally on a breathy sigh. “Max. Max! Oh, baby.”

  With a final, glorious spasm she collapsed upon him, spent and trembling, beyond conscious thought. He simply held her because she had no strength of her own. Finally, after she was able to sit up to meet the smoldering heat of his gaze, to return the sudden flash of his smile, she laughed with shaky delight.

  “I need oxygen. That was . . . wow.”
She grinned; she couldn’t help it. And she couldn’t resist helping herself to the feel of his cheekbones beneath her fingertips, to the taste of his mouth. She whispered, “I knew it would be like this with you. I knew it. Good God, Savoie, you are so hot.” She snuggled against his shoulder with a sigh, boneless, vulnerable, content. She felt his hands in her hair, his kiss on her brow. Then she heard his low murmur against her ear.

  “Charlotte, I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want you. So brave. So beautiful. You have nothing to fear from me. Can I have you now?”

  Her voice was weary with exhausted pleasure. “I’m all yours, Max. All yours.”

  “Thank you, sha.”

  She dozed in his arms, afloat in a heavy lethargy that suddenly became her cool sheets beneath her bare skin. She smiled, not opening her eyes as Max lifted her foot, then laughed softly as his tongue danced lightly across her toes. His hands moved up her leg with firm, kneading motions that had her purring softly in encouragement. He kissed her knee, her hip. His teeth nipped gently at the curve of her waist. She felt his warm breath blow on the sensitive skin between her breasts, where her shirt veed open, then the slow rasp of his tongue drawing an exquisite line up to the curve of her neck, quickening that wondrous thrill of need all over again. When his lips brushed whisper soft against hers, she opened her eyes to gaze up at him in drowsy bemusement.

  “Max.” Her fingertips threaded back through his hair. “How could I help but fall in love with you?”

  That eerie stillness settled over him. Finally he said, “I don’t know.” Softer still, “Are you?”

  She touched his lips. “I am incredibly fond of you at the moment.”

  He sucked at her fingers, biting them, kissing them while his solemn stare never flickered. She knew it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it was all she could give him for now. Maybe ever. She’d come a long way in one evening, but she couldn’t lower the barriers that one last notch. She was too uncertain of herself.

  “I want to be with you, Max. I want you. I love making love with you. Is that enough for tonight?”

  She drew him down to her, kissing him sweetly until he responded, reluctantly, then with an aggressive longing that stirred her all the way down to her well-licked toes.

  “No . . . but I’ll learn to live with the disappointment.”

  She sat up as he sat back. She peeled off her shirt and the one he was still wearing, adoring his bared arms and shoulders roughly with her palms, the broad expanse of his chest with her wet kisses until he followed her back down to those scented sheets. She held his face between her hands and smiled at him, her eyes full of daring challenge.

  “Make me love you, Savoie.”

  He smiled back, a slow baring of his teeth. “I will, Charlotte.”

  And as he had her moaning, straining, writhing beneath him until the encroaching dawn pushed back the moon shadows, she had to bite her lips to keep from telling him exactly what he wanted to hear.

  HER ALARM BUZZED, dragging her out of a near coma of fatigue. Cee Cee slapped it off her nightstand, then rolled over to confront a sleeping and very naked Max Savoie. He was stretched out on his stomach, his face turned toward her. Her gaze trailed over him in a hot, hungering sweep. Damn he was gorgeous, with his mussed black hair and whisker-shaded cheeks softened by the long slant of his closed eyes. And that lean, sleekly muscled frame she was now so intimately familiar with. And the tight, sweet curve of his butt that just begged for the squeeze of her hand. Even his bare feet choked her up with all sorts of emotions. While she was wondering wildly what to do with him, his eyes opened.

  Against the mossy color of her sheets, his stare was a beautiful pale green. Her heart shuddered in panic.

  “Heya,” he muttered, his sleepy voice a low musical rumble. “You look like you can’t decide whether to toss me out or have another go-round with me.”

  Her smile wobbled. “I’m afraid it’s the heave-ho. I’ve got to go to work and I’m late. I’ll have to grab a shower at the station.”

  “Just treat me the way you would any of your other overnight guests.”

  “I’ve never had—that is, I’ve never asked . . . You’re my first overnight guest.”

  “Oh,” was all he said, but there was a smirky, self-satisfied look on his face as he rolled onto his back.

  Her gaze devoured the sight of him. Though he might appear relaxed, he was all strength and tense readiness, right down to the rock-hard erection rising tight against his belly almost to his navel. The tempting, slightly terrifying sight forced her to leap off the bed before she jumped his bones. “Get out of here, Max,” she told him grumpily as she ducked into the bathroom.

  She was brushing her teeth furiously when he appeared behind her to press a kiss at the nape of her neck. Heat shot through her in immediate response. His arms circled her briefly, his hands rubbing up the insides of her thighs, reestablishing his claim of her body. Before she could smack his bold touch away, he was gone. She hurried into the living room, toothbrush still in her mouth. He was on her balcony, dressed and about to walk away from all they’d shared. And she wanted him back.

  “Max,” she called through a mouthful of toothpaste.

  A slight smile curved his lips. “Thanks for the hospitality, Charlotte.”

  “I’ll see around, Savoie.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  Before she could take a step forward, he took a light hop up onto the railing and stepped off. When she remembered she was on the second floor, she rushed over to the rail but he’d already disappeared. She turned back with a sigh, and the first thing she saw was what he’d left behind.

  “NICE JACKET. IS that real leather?”

  “Hands off.” Cee Cee shut her locker, then stroked the buttery-soft sleeve herself. “It is nice, isn’t it?”

  “Did you get a bump in pay grade to support this lavish new wardrobe? One might say you’re beginning to resemble a certain smartly dressed mob enforcer.”

  “Is that what you’re saying, Babineau?” She squared off with him in the aisle. “Anything else you want to say to me that is even remotely your business?”

  Her partner sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m worried, is all. You’re not being careful.”

  “I’m always careful. What are you talking about?”

  “Not in this. Not with him. What’s with this guy, Ceece? You know what he is. You know what he does. What’s the big attraction?”

  “He’s great in bed, all right? He’s the best in the sack I’ve ever had. Is that what you wanted to hear? Do you need any other pornographic details, or can your nasty little mind fill in the blanks?” She whirled away and stalked the length of the locker row with Babineau a step behind her.

  “I don’t care if you’re doing the horizontal mambo with him. About time you’re doing it with someone.” That was muttered under his breath, but she drew up short and faced him furiously. He didn’t flinch away from her cold stare. “A better choice would be an accountant or a hotel pool boy. Even a cop, for God’s sake—anything but a criminal. But you’re right. Who you’re dancing with after hours is none of my business. I don’t care.”

  “So why were you staked outside my apartment, if it’s no big deal?”

  “Cee Cee, this guy is bad news. If you want to fuck him, fuck him. But don’t fall for him.”

  Suddenly all the tension and turmoil inside her exploded. “I am not in love with Max Savoie!”

  Heads turned throughout the locker room, and cursing, she strode out into the crowded mill of their workplace. One look at her, and a path was made by perps and coworkers alike. She burst out into the morning heat to grab a saving breath.

  Babineau gripped her elbow, but immediately let her go when she flinched away. His tone low and intense, he said, “Ceece, you don’t know this guy. You don’t know what he is.”

  She snarled, “I know exactly what he is. He’s my way to Legere. That smug bastard killed my father, and I’m going to
get him. I don’t care who I have to sleep with. Savoie can get me in close. He can give me Legere.”

  “Cee Cee, you’re dreaming. He’ll never give up Legere.”

  “Yes, he will. He’ll do it for me.”

  “Yeah? Do you know how he made his bones for Jimmy Legere? You ever hear that nasty little detail of his criminal résumé?”

  She stood seething, not wanting to listen but needing to hear. “No.”

  “He’d been hanging around Jimmy’s heels for years, just some kid from who knows where, never speaking, never getting in the way. They used to call him Legere’s little lap dog until he was about twelve, maybe fourteen. Jimmy was having some labor trouble with a tough and smart union steward by the name of Fevre. They had a dockside meet—Fevre and half a dozen of his armed goons—and Jimmy shows up with just the kid. Fevre starts throwing muscle around and thinks to put the squeeze on Legere by having his toughs rough up the boy. Legere says something like, ‘Take care of them, Max,’ and he says, ‘Whatever you want, Jimmy,’ and Legere just leaves him there in a room with them, supposedly to be pounded into paste. Well, about five minutes goes by and Fevre starts to wonder why Legere doesn’t seem concerned. Then the kid comes walking out of the room, soaked with blood from head to toe—none of it his. And he says cool as can be, ‘I took care of it, Jimmy.’ Fevre goes to look inside, and you’ll never guess what he sees.”

  Cee Cee had a pretty good idea.

  “His men were dead. Slaughtered, butchered. Rumor has it he’d eaten their hearts. Legere’s little lap dog was a goddamned pit bull.”

  The uncanny comparison made her shudder. She closed her eyes against the image of his savage beast face, but then all she could see were the dead eyes glazed with horror from that head in the alley. The sounds of those screams flooded her ears as Babineau continued.