Too Wild to Hold

by LETO, JULIE

  Even as a P.I., she’d broken a lot of unspoken rules, though she’d managed—barely—to stay on the right side of the law. Her reputation as a crusader willing to defy the cops in order to help her clients find justice should have made him dislike and distrust her.

  Instead, she’d snared his interest like a skilled hunter with a steel trap. What made a woman like her tick? What possessed her to devote her life to rooting out criminals at the expense of the respect of her former colleagues?

  But at the moment, none of that mattered. Who she’d been before they’d slipped behind the screen meant nothing to him. Beneath his touch, she became a willing, sensual woman who fired his blood and whose whimpers drove him mad.

  He slid his palms slowly to her knee, reveling in the feel of the warm softness of her skin. Moisture built behind the joint, and his hand nearly slipped when he lifted her leg so that her center hit the sweet spot of his erection.

  She moaned. And God help him, so did he.

  The pressure was exquisite, torturous and inadequate to quell the ache of wanting. Even as he rolled his wet tongue over her nipples and caught the sound of her gasp, followed by a low, growling groan that transformed his blood cells into sharp star-shapes that pricked their way through his veins, his mouth dried. When she wrapped her leg around his waist and pressed even closer, he thought he might explode.

  Her nipple was small, but stiff and responsive. With each flick of his tongue, he could feel her pleasure building, her need growing. She grabbed his cheeks and curved her back so that he could not stop, even if he wanted to.

  And he did not want to.

  Instead, he slid a hand around to her buttocks and squeezed past her bloomers to the supple flesh underneath.

  “Yes, yes,” she crooned.

  He growled against her skin, wanting more. So much more. He moved to her other breast, sucking the nipple in deep and then releasing it with his puckered lips, millimeter by millimeter until she shivered. He plucked and pleasured until she squirmed in his arms, her pelvis grinding in to his until need built to dangerous levels. Blood thundered in his ears. She was dressed up in clothes that did not match who she was, in a world that embraced neither of them, yet he could easily imagine he’d known her for years.

  “Claire, beautiful Claire,” he said, tickling his fingers down the curves of her ass, following a heated path to her hot core.

  He clasped her buttocks, lifting her high so that he could press his mouth to the center of her ribcage. He murmured her name again, this time against her skin. He slid her down the length of his body, said, “Claire,” once more before brushing his lips against hers.

  She did not move except to lock her arms around him. Then, for what seemed like ages, the only parts of their bodies that moved or touched were lips, teeth and tongue. As much as he ached to press into her again, as much as he yearned to retrace the heated path to her sex, he concentrated only on the kiss.

  They learned each other’s flavors. They luxuriated in each other’s textures and feasted on their tastes.

  Without friction, Michael’s body tensed and ached as if hit by a stun gun. If he denied the need to ravish her for much longer, he feared he might start to spasm or pass out. A statue of tangled nerve endings, he was keenly aware of the nearly imperceptible rise and fall of her breasts.

  “Claire,” he begged.

  The last repetition of her name sparked a mad dash of movement. She pulled herself flush against him and deepened the kiss until her tongue crashed with his in a wild exploration. In seconds, he tore off her corset, ripped aside the voluminous bloomers and pressed her hard against the nearest flat surface, which happened to be the wall behind the screen.

  His trousers dropped to the floor, nearly tripping him up around the ankles. While he’d been divesting her of her clothing, clearly, she’d done the same to him.

  When she spoke, she was panting.

  “Seems like a shame to waste such an impressive erection.”

  She squeezed her hand through the slit in his boxers and boldly grasped his sex. Michael’s brain function scattered as she teased the head of his penis with the tip of her thumb, her touch light, but precise. Insistent. Erotic.

  “You’re sure?” he asked, desperate for her to say yes, even if it meant tearing himself apart if she opted for no.

  “God, yes,” she said. She freed him from his boxers and positioned him between her legs. One slow slide, one unbridled thrust, and they’d be joined.

  Voices rose in the hallway—angry female voices that could not be drowned out by the music or the madness of their lust.

  He heard the woman who’d questioned his invitation.

  And…

  “Aunt Clarice!”

  Claire pushed out from underneath him. He braced his hands to keep from crashing into the wall, then swiveled to see her sweeping her clothes up from the floor and diving into her gown, undergarments forgotten. While he scrambled to pull up his pants and thrust his hands into the sleeves of his shirt, she tugged at the lock and banged on the door.

  “Maman!” she cried, her terror convincing even as she cursed a very modern blue-streak under her breath.

  Michael shot forward, ready to tear the door off the hinges, but he heard the key on the other side and pulled Claire back just as it opened.

  For a second, silence exploded. The dark-skinned woman who’d questioned Michael’s invitation looked as if she wanted to throttle them all. Aunt Clarice waved a lace fan and gulped air, her eyes conveying some message to Claire that he could not understand.

  “What’s happened?” Claire asked.

  Aunt Clarice gathered her calm, then turned to the woman who’d locked them inside, her shoulders back and squared.

  “This is a family matter,” she said.

  “You can’t just go bursting into rooms!” the woman argued. “There are rules. Protocols. Promises of anonymity and safety to our participants.”

  Claire guffawed, then hooked her thumb toward the air vent and the not-so-clandestine camera. “Sell that line to someone else, sister. If my maman needs to talk to me, then you can clear the hell out.”

  With a huff, the woman spun on her heel and marched out of the room, her goons behind her. Claire was, after all, a guest at this shin-dig, not a captive. The minute the door was closed and dead bolted—from the inside—she shuffled her aunt back toward the screen. Once they were behind it, the older woman set to putting Claire’s clothing back together while chattering in a hushed tone about how she’d had to battle her way past three men in order to figure out what room they were in.

  Michael made good use of the time, buttoning his pants over his persistent erection, tossing his coat over his rumpled shirt and retying his cravat, a task he failed at miserably. Luckily, once Claire emerged from behind the screen looking flustered but presentable, Aunt Clarice made a beeline for him and had his neck scarf unknotted and retied correctly in a matter of seconds.

  His expression of shock must have showed. “I was costume mistress for the Lagniappe Theater Company for forty years. You look like you could go on stage for a revival of Showboat. Clearly, you’re a fine actor if you got past those bulldogs. Have you ever considered a second career in the theater?”

  He was saved from having to come up with a pithy reply when Claire grabbed her aunt’s arm and moved her closer to the CD player, which was still on.

  “Why did you come bursting up here?”

  Her aunt pressed her hand to her generous bosom. “Oh, right! I saw her, cher. Downstairs. Bold as brass, sashaying out to the back verandah with a man half her age.”

  “Who?” Michael asked.

  But Claire didn’t need any further explanation. Her worried expression instantly transformed into keen anticipation.

  “You’re sure?”

  Her aunt dug between her breasts and retrieved a handkerchief, which she waved as if in surrender. “Cher, I may have trouble remembering faces, but when you give me a person’s measurements
, I can spot them from one-hundred paces. She’s a classic size ten. Thirty-six inch bust, twenty-eight and a half inch waist, forty inch hip. Her shoulders are broad like a swimmer’s and she’s got long legs for a woman who is only five-eight. I’m telling you. She’s your girl.”

  Claire clapped her hands together. “This might truly be our lucky night, interruptions notwithstanding.”

  She turned to her aunt, who was panting with exertion now that her adrenaline had eased.

  “Do you have the papers?”

  The older woman lifted her arm, revealing a dangling draw-string purse.

  Claire unwound it from her aunt’s wrist, then dug beyond the powder compact and lipstick and removed a cardboard bottom. Beneath it, she took out a thick square of folded papers, backed with tell tale legal-blue.

  “Great,” she said, then glanced down at her costume and realized she didn’t have anywhere to hide the papers. She tried shoving them in the thin pockets of her skirt, but the delicate folds couldn’t mask the stiff, sharp shape.

  She glanced at Michael and slipped the document into his jacket, then gave his chest a confident pat.

  “And those are?”

  “The termination of parental rights papers my client needs his ex-wife to sign. He travels a lot for his job and he needs his new wife to formally adopt the children Josslyn Granger abandoned four years ago.”

  Disgust must have shown on his face, because Claire reached up and smoothed her hand over his cheek, her jade eyes darkening even as her voice dropped to a sensual timber that reheated his simmering blood.

  “Cheer up, Murrieta. Once she signs, my case is over. And then, I’m all yours.”

  CLAIRE TOOK A deep breath and willed herself back into character while Michael swung open the door to the hall. They’d come up with a quick story to explain why he and his new “mistress” had been called away from their rendezvous, but once outside, they found no one around to question their departure.

  Maybe their luck had finally turned?

  With a slight bow and a twinkle in his eyes, Michael offered his arm. Claire flushed down to her toes. The minute her hands slipped around his impressive pecs, she mourned Aunt Clarice’s interruption. Yes, she’d instructed her aunt to be on the watch for her client’s former wife. Yes, she’d told her to move heaven and earth to alert Claire if she spotted the woman anywhere among the hundred or so people in attendance. Yes, she needed to put this case to rest so two kids could have the mother they deserved instead of the one they’d gotten stuck with.

  But God Almighty, couldn’t Clarice have waited just ten more minutes?

  Of course, her aunt had had no way of knowing that Claire had been seconds away from guiding Michael into her willing, wanting body. The pounding vibration of her unfulfilled lust still thrummed between her legs, at the center of her belly, in the tips of her breasts.

  Even after they’d retreated to the bedroom and she’d realized they were being watched, she hadn’t imagined she’d actually want to have sex with him. Heavy petting, sure. Why not? He was hot. And a damned good kisser, whether he was plying his lips against hers or moving them lower. But going all the way with a law enforcement type she’d never met before tonight while they each pretended to be someone they weren’t?

  That pushed even her limits—and she didn’t have that many of them.

  Well, she did have a few. She didn’t date actors. Her father had been an actor; her mother a playwright. They’d lived, breathed and existed solely for the theater to the point where Claire, an unexpected and unplanned pregnancy, went from doted-on infant to curly-haired prop by the time she was two, pulled out for display at family productions otherwise known as Christmas, Easter and Mardi Gras.

  The rest of the time, she lived with Clarice, enjoying a relatively normal childhood that included attending Catholic school, learning to cook and playing sports with the other kids who ran around the French Quarter as if it were the best playground in the universe.

  Claire had figured out quickly that nearly everyone orbiting her parents—from bit players to temperamental directors—were masters of the lie. It was second nature for them to fool audiences into believing truths that did not exist. Trouble was, they often transferred their talent into real life. When her parents were around, Claire wasn’t sure which parts of her childhood were real and which had been staged for a maximum emotional response.

  Luckily for her, she’d gravitated to the stage crews: the carpenters and production hands and costumers like Clarice whose jobs depended on understanding both the magic of make-believe and the very real limitations that reality brought into the world.

  Without a doubt, Michael Murrieta would have fit in well with them. Even now he radiated the character traits she’d associate with an early eighteenth century man of means in New Orleans: confidence, power and sensuality. As they passed people in the halls, he gave the men superior, knowing nods and charmed the ladies with saucy winks or cryptic half smiles. They were halfway across the dance floor, heading toward the verandah that wrapped around the back of the house, when she couldn’t take it any longer and stopped his flirting with a smack of her aunt’s fan to his shoulder.

  “Cut it out,” she said.

  He swallowed his laughter even as he patted her hand. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re drawing too much attention,” she admonished, not exaggerating. Scores of gazes followed them as they moved across the room, sidestepping dancers and avoiding the small groups of men and women who had clustered together while they sipped brandy or noshed on canapés delivered by white-gloved waiters.

  “They’re looking at you, not me,” he replied.

  She snorted, then covered her unladylike response with a flutter of her fan.

  “Are you always this smooth?” she asked.

  “Actually, I don’t think anyone’s ever called me smooth.”

  His chest had puffed up. Claire liked that she’d done that to him—and that it mattered.

  “I can’t imagine,” she replied. “You’ve blended in here without a seam showing.”

  They arrived at the tall paned doors that opened out onto the covered porch. When Michael focused his charismatic smile solely on her, her knees wavered.

  “That remains to be seen.”

  Clarice, who’d been following unobtrusively behind them, pointed out the direction Josslyn had gone.

  “Thank you,” Claire said to her aunt, then kissed her on each cheek. “You still have my phone and my keys?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Good. Now, go home. I’ll call you once we’re done.”

  “What? I will n—”

  Michael slid his hand over her aunt’s shoulder. “Trust me, madame. Your charge is in safe hands with me. From this point, she’s under my protection. Nothing will happen to her.”

  Clarice narrowed her dark eyes at him, then with a huff, accepted their orders and bustled her way back across the dance floor.

  Though September, the weather was sultry. Few couples had ventured outside, where the music from the six-piece orchestra surrendered to the sounds of the Louisiana countryside—the chirp and whine of crickets, the rustle of Spanish moss in the towering oaks, the occasional booming croak of a bullfrog lazing in the center of a glossy pool. In the distance, they heard the distinct sound of a woman’s throaty laughter.

  They followed, their footsteps muffled by the grassy moss that had grown over the lopsided tiles leading from the house into the maze of tall, trimmed hedges. As they moved farther away from the light, Claire felt Michael’s muscles tense.

  She glanced behind them. No one was following. No one was even watching. She had no reason to continue holding on to him, and yet pulling away had to be the hardest thing she’d done all night.

  After another couple of steps, Michael grabbed her. In the darkness, she nearly gasped, but he pressed a finger to her mouth, stifling the sound. The moon, more than half full, provided just enough light for her to see him nod his head
to the left. They stepped off the path and after a few more minutes discovered a break in the hedges.

  Within a private garden, the woman they’d followed stood atop a circular terrazzo dais. She untied the knots at the shoulders of her Grecian-styled dress and then slowly, enticingly, allowed the material to fall into a dark pool of silk at her feet.

  Unabashed and completely naked, she fanned her long hair over her bare breasts, then posed as if she were a statue of Venus. The men—there were two now, the younger one who had escorted her here and an older man who had clearly been waiting—circled her with hunger in their every step.

  The older man wore only pants and boots. The other man remained clothed except for his discarded cravat.

  “You’re killing us, woman,” the nearly naked man complained, his arousal obvious even with his pants on, particularly when he grabbed his crotch and squeezed. “Make your choice. Put one of us out of our misery.”

  The woman laughed again. This time she threw her wavy extensions over her shoulder so that her dark, silver-dollar sized areola puckered proudly. She slid her hands up her torso, encircling her flesh with her hands and thrusting the upturned nipples even higher.

  “Why do I have to choose? Why can’t I have you both?”

  The men exchanged lascivious glances. The younger man hesitated a moment, then both of them began stripping away their clothes. The older man was thicker around the middle, but his penis more than made up for a bit of paunch.

  Claire swallowed hard, her mouth dry.

  Now who was the voyeur?

  7

  MICHAEL MOVED IN closer behind her, his hand protectively splayed on her stomach. She was instantly aware of everything about him, from the citrus scent of his shampoo to the leathery aroma of his boots. Through his clothes, he radiated heat, from his possessive touch to his resilient erection pressed intimately against her backside.