Undercover Encounter

by Rebecca York

  He kissed her cheek, the edge of her hair. For long moments neither of them moved.

  He wanted to stay close to her forever. The thought of getting dressed and walking out the door made his chest tighten painfully. How much more time could he spend with her? Half an hour? Less?

  It was impossible to get up and walk away. Not yet.

  “I think I owe you a shower,” he finally said, because that would delay his departure.

  She nodded, then stood and backed away, blinking as though she couldn’t believe where they were and what they had just done.

  Clasping her hand, he led her across the cold tile to the tub. They both climbed in, and he pulled the curtain, locking them away from the world as they stood, holding each other under the pounding water.

  SHE STROKED her hands over the wet skin of his back, down his hips, sealing him to her, and he felt himself getting hard again. They stood together for long moments before she murmured, “We’re going to use up all the hot water in the house.”

  “We’re entitled to some privileges,” he answered as he reached for the soap and lathered his hands, then ran them down her neck, over her shoulders and onto her breasts. The water and the soap made his hands slick, so that they glided sensuously over her breasts, then her bottom. She made a low purring sound as his slickened hands moved over her. Then she was reaching for the soap and working up her own lather. When her hand closed around his erection and began a slow, sliding motion, he dragged in a shaky breath.

  “That feels so good,” she breathed.

  “Yeah.” He laughed. “At this end, too.”

  She laughed with him.

  “But maybe too good. I want to be inside you for the second round.”

  “Here? In the shower?”

  Instead of answering, he covered her mouth with his. Then he washed the soap from his hands and body and reached between her legs, finding the hot, swollen core of her. Bracing his back against the wall, he lifted her up and entered her, then moved her hips in a slow, steady rhythm that soon became more frantic. She hung on to him, bracing her feet against the high edge of the tub. And they climbed toward another shattering climax.

  The water temperature had dropped considerably by the time he shut off the faucets.

  Pulling a towel from the rack, he tenderly dried Gillian’s body, then worked on her hair.

  “I need to use the dryer and brush it,” she murmured.

  He turned her loose, watching her slip into a robe, then work on her hair as he dried himself and reached for his underwear.

  When he was dressed, he turned to her. “Are you going to get in trouble?”

  “Because of Pedro? I don’t know.”

  “Him, maybe. But I also stayed over an hour. You’ve probably got a time limit with johns.”

  When she winced, he wished he’d thought of a more delicate way to say it.

  “You can offer to pay Madam Dupré extra. That should take care of the overtime problem,” she said in a clipped voice.

  He gave her an appraising look. A few minutes ago they’d been very close. Now it sounded like she was trying to put some distance between them.

  “What about the Pedro problem?” he asked carefully.

  “I guess I’ll have to deal with it, won’t I?”

  There were a lot of things he might have said. He settled for, “I don’t like leaving you here.”

  “But you will,” she said tightly. “Because we both have a job to do. Like, we’ve got to find out why the men you’ve been tracking ended up in the McDonough Club, of all places.

  He wanted to argue with her. Instead he gave a tight nod and left.

  The only thing that gave him the strength to walk out on her was that old game he played with himself—the game where he thought of all the reasons why he should stay away from her. All the reasons why his damn abnormal upbringing made him a bad risk for relationships.

  This time he summoned up a doozy. The time when he’d been fifteen and Flora, the woman his dad was going with, had come on to Alex. They’d been alone in the kitchen. Dad had gone out to pick up Chinese carryout, and she’d pressed her hand against the fly of his jeans. He’d been embarrassed. And turned on. He hadn’t known how to handle the situation. So he’d told her to tell his dad he was going to a friend’s house. And he’d fled, hearing her laughter follow him down the block.

  He fled now because he was stuck in another situation he didn’t know how to handle. Only this time it was different. A lot different.

  But he couldn’t let his personal feelings get in the way. They’d have to stay on hold until the case was wrapped up.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Where’s Mason Bartley’s report?” Alex demanded. He was standing in the New Orleans Confidential office, with his hands fisted on his hips, trying not to jump down Seth Lewis’s throat.

  Conrad Burke had taken several hours of personal leave that morning. Apparently his twins had sore throats and he’d been drafted by his wife, Marilyn, to help take them to the doctor.

  Because Seth had no present outside assignment, he had been left in charge of the office and he was having trouble locating all of the files he needed on Conrad’s less than tidy desk.

  “Bartley was supposed to follow that guy Pedro,” Alex said impatiently. “Where did he go?”

  Seth scrabbled through papers and read several lines of text. “His report says he lost him.”

  “What?” Alex shouted.

  “I’m only delivering the information,” Seth said calmly.

  Alex shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Let me see the report.”

  Seth handed it across the desk. Alex read rapidly, then swore. “He got behind him in traffic. Then the light changed. Some super-sleuth he is!”

  “Yeah.”

  “Our best lead in the investigation and he lost him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you think Bartley’s really on our side?” Alex asked in a low voice. “Or is he being paid by the opposition? I mean, what has he done right since he joined this organization?”

  “I guess you’ll have to take that up with Conrad Burke.”

  Alex nodded tightly.

  “There’s something else that might interest you,” Seth offered.

  “Like what?”

  “Like, Sebastion Primeaux asked for a report on the Category Five case.”

  Alex’s brows shot up. “The district attorney? How does he even know about it? The operation is supposed to be secret.”

  “He has his ways of keeping current on everything that’s going on in town. Burke had me do a background report on him.” He cleared his throat. “Probably you haven’t had a chance to read it, since you’ve been busy in the surveillance van, so I can fill you in, if you want,” Seth finished, being careful not to imply that Alex should be keeping himself up to speed on all aspects of the case.

  “Yeah, go ahead,” Alex said. Truthfully, he’d been so focused on watching over Gillian that he’d neglected to do his homework on some other details.

  “To be brief, he’s a bad combination—very powerful and very corrupt.”

  “How does a guy like that hold on to the job of district attorney?” Alex asked.

  “Well, he has a lot of influential people in his corner because he’s smart and careful. He looks, acts and speaks the politically correct way to keep the powers that be happy, but in reality he’s as slimy as a used car salesman.”

  “Just great!” Alex muttered.

  “He’s more than willing to bend—or rather break—the rules to further his own agenda. Dig below the surface and you find that bribery, extortion and tax fraud are his way of life. And one more thing that might interest you. Nobody would speak on the record about his sexual preferences, but I heard some talk that he likes to bonk underage prostitutes.”

  That last statement caught Alex’s interest as he thought back over what Gillian had told him. She’d said there were teenage girls
being forced to work in the McDonough Club. She’d even seen a man requesting the services of one of them. A man who spoke with a courtly New Orleans drawl. “Do you have a picture of the scumbag?” he asked Seth.

  The other agent shuffled through a folder and brought out a black-and-white five-by-seven head shot of a smiling man, obviously meant as a publicity photo. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with slicked-back brown hair, brown eyes and some gray at his temples.

  “What do you want with the photograph?”

  “It might come in handy,” he said, thinking that maybe he could use the photo as an excuse for going back to Gillian.

  The phone rang and Seth answered. “Yes, Chief Courville,” he said. “No, I’m sorry, Conrad Burke is not available at the moment.”

  Alex knew he was taking to the chief of police. And the scowl on his face told him it wasn’t good news.

  GILLIAN HAD ENDURED a dressing-down from Madam Dupré that morning. She’d had to explain over and over that Alex was a legitimate john. Still, she’d had her wages docked for the rest of the month. And she knew she was in danger of being fired over the supposed mix-up in her schedule. But somehow she’d talked her way back into the madam’s good graces. Maybe because Madam Dupré was determined to show Gaspard that she hadn’t made a serious mistake in hiring her. Apparently nobody had told him about the mix-up last night, and Gillian fervently hoped he never heard about it.

  What’s more, she was taking an even bigger chance than usual, she silently acknowledged, as she made her way down the hall to the part of the house that was technically off-limits. But since she’d learned about the teenagers being held as virtual captives, she’d felt compelled to come back again and again to see if she could help any of them. Maybe it was because she kept thinking about her own family. They were close, and when her cousin Maggie had run away, Uncle Fritz and Aunt Mary had been devastated. Maggie had eventually called her mom and dad and asked to come back home. But Gillian shuddered to think about what might have happened to her if she’d been scooped up by someone like Gaspard.

  She stopped short when she heard voices behind one of the closed doors. Frank was speaking harshly to a kid who obviously didn’t want to be there.

  “Just let me leave, okay? I’ll go home. I won’t give my…family…any more trouble.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you go, missy. You came here of your own free will, and now you have to deal with it.”

  “No, I didn’t! Just let me go,” the girl repeated.

  “Monsieur Gaspard is busy right now. He’ll be back to talk to you soon. So don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

  How soon? Gillian wondered. How much time did she have?

  She watched Frank step into the hall, lock the door be hind him and stride down the corridor. Quickly, before she got caught, she hurried to the door and she snapped the lock open.

  When she stepped inside, she saw a scruffy-looking teenage girl huddled on the sofa. She looked up in terror as Gillian entered the room.

  “No, please,” she whimpered.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help you,” Gillian said.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” the girl asked in a shaky voice. “How do I know you’re not going to trick me—the way he tricked me into coming here?”

  “I guess you have to trust me. What’s your name?”

  “Lily.”

  “Okay, Lily. If you get out of here, what are you going to do? Go back on the street?”

  “I just want to get in touch with my father. If I can get away from this place.”

  “I’ll help you,” Gillian said.

  Before she could say more, the sound of footsteps approaching the room made her freeze. “I can’t do it now. But I promise I won’t abandon you,” she whispered, diving into the closet.

  Through the slit in the door, she saw Frank.

  “Come on,” he said gruffly. The girl glanced toward the closet, and Gillian waited with the breath frozen in her lungs to find out if she was going to blab.

  But she said nothing. Looking sick and scared, she let Frank lead her into the hall.

  Feeling like she’d betrayed the girl, Gillian waited several minutes, then slipped back into the hall. She wouldn’t let her promise turn into a lie. She’d find that kid and get her out of here, she vowed. But she couldn’t do it now.

  Before anyone caught sight of her loitering on the first floor, she made for the back stairs, then up to her room.

  As soon as she was alone, she went into the bathroom to get out the special equipment that disabled the camera and checked on its status. She’d turned it off that morning. According to the readings, it was still off. So she walked to the window and spoke as she looked out into the sunlit street.

  “I made contact with one of those runaway girls that Gaspard brings here. I tried to help her get away. But Frank came back,” she said, because she had to tell someone what had happened.

  She pictured Alex in the van—looking disapproving. He’d tell her it wasn’t her job to get anybody out of the house. And really, she knew she’d jeopardized her position here. But she had to do it, because the idea of unsuspecting girls being brought here and forced to service slimeball guys turned her stomach. And if she’d made a difference for just one of them, then that was one less kid who was suffering the tortures of the damned.

  BABS WAS ON HER WAY downstairs when she saw the man standing in the doorway—and froze.

  It was him. The guy who had come swaggering in and claimed that he’d had an appointment with Gillian. Which was a bald-faced lie, of course. She’d been on call like everyone else to entertain those badass Latin American hombres.

  And here was the dude back again, before they were really open for business, like he didn’t know the girls had free time in the late afternoon.

  She half turned and fiddled with a little dish on the table, peering at him from under lowered lashes. Maybe he thought he looked different. His hair was a lighter color. And he was dressed in a business suit tonight and carried a leather briefcase. But Babs knew him, all right. She’d seen him charge upstairs. She knew he’d barged in on Gillian and Pedro, an account of which Pedro had given her in great detail, although she suspected the Latin guy was making it sound like he’d come off better than he actually had.

  But the whole thing had ended up working out okay for her and Lisa.

  In fact, it had been more than okay. Pedro had liked the way they had treated him. He’d given them a big tip. And he’d given Babs something even better. A white powder that he said would make whoever you gave it to crazy horny. She might not have believed him, except that it sounded like the same stuff that Dolly and some of the other girls were whispering about. The way Dolly told it, a bartender would give it to the unsuspecting customers, then send them back here with Dolly or a few other girls.

  Dolly had said it made them hot to trot, all right. It also made some of them sick. Some guys had ended up in the hospital and some had even died. At least, that’s what she’d heard.

  Babs had been thinking about slipping it into Gillian’s drink and watching the fun. Maybe tonight would be a good night to do it. Maybe it would make her toss her cookies when her special friend was here.

  She walked toward the guy, and his head jerked up. A smile split his face. In the next second, it was replaced by disappointment. She knew what had happened. He’d seen her red hair, and for a second he’d thought she was Gillian. Then he’d realized it wasn’t her.

  Well, too bad for him.

  She’d fix him. With some of that powder.

  Before he could say anything, she turned and went to the bar. The powder was in the little evening purse that she liked to carry. Keeping her back to him, she fixed him a Planter’s Punch, dropped in a nice big dose of the powder, and brought the drink across the room.

  “Let me offer you a complimentary beverage,” she said.

  He looked surprised, but he took the drink. “I know it�
�s early. But I was hoping to see Gillian,” he said.

  “Yes, it’s early. Why don’t you have a seat?”

  He sat down on one of the armchairs and took a swallow of the drink.

  She sat down beside him. “What’s your name, handsome?”

  “Alex,” he answered.

  “Are you staying long in town?” she asked, pretending she hadn’t seen him the night before.

  “Uh, I get here from time to time.”

  “Make yourself comfortable. This is your lucky night.”

  “What?” he asked, not getting the joke, of course. Well, he’d get it later.

  She gave him a little smile. “I’ll go see if Gillian is available.”

  When he took another swallow of the drink, she smiled at him and headed for the stairs, giving him a nice view of her swaying ass as she went.

  IT SEEMED HOTTER in the room than it had a few minutes earlier. To cool himself, Alex took another swallow of the drink, then clasped the tumbler in his hand, letting the icy glass soothe his skin. He didn’t usually go for mixed drinks. But this stuff tasted good, so he took another swallow.

  He wouldn’t be here now, except that he had a lot to discuss with Gillian. More than just the picture of the district attorney. Something that she had to know right away.

  He was feeling kind of strange. Horny, actually. And a broad smile plastered itself on his face as he thought about the lucky fact that a whorehouse was the perfect place for his present state.

  By the time he saw Gillian come down the stairs, he was feeling a little light-headed. She wavered in his vision as she walked toward him, looking surprised and then alarmed as he mopped a sleeve of his jacket over his sweating brow.

  “Alex?” she said.

  The other red-haired woman was standing in the doorway, watching them.

  “I thought I’d come back to see you,” he said. “I thought we’d just have a nice intimate chat. But now…” He let his voice trail off suggestively, because he knew he was talking pretty loud. And maybe this wasn’t the best place to discuss their private business.