“Hide the body first,” Madeline begged, panting. Her face screwed up as another contraction hit.
“I can’t leave you alone.”
“Get Lucas. I’ll be all right.” She grabbed her belly and screamed. Her gaze drifted to Josette. “Go. Women have babies all the time. Please, hide the body. They’ll hang you for this.”
Josette backed from the room, turning to run down the hall for Lucas. She found him in the stables with his horse, brushing its coat. The glow of a lantern illuminated his hair in a golden halo.
“Lucas.” The tears released and poured down her cheeks. Around Lucas she could be herself. He was her protector, her strength. He’d seen her cry more than once and more than once he’d taken her in his arms and held her until the tears stopped. He only worked for her husband because he refused to leave her. He’d told her he’d never leave without her, and to this day he’d been true to his promise. Five years he’d waited.
He turned, amber eyes locked onto her. “Josette. What’s wrong?”
She sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve done something awful. I’m damned, Lucas.”
“Easy, Josette. Slow down. What happened? That miserable husband of yours again?” He glanced down at her hand and his gaze snapped back to her face. “I’ll kill him.”
Josette shook her head. “I don’t think that will be necessary.” She collapsed in his arms, sobbing against his shirt, clutching the fabric in her hands. “What have I done?”
“Go back to the house. I’ll take care of this.” Lucas glanced around the stable and stopped when his attention came to rest upon an axe. “He’ll disappear.”
Jocelyn slumped to her side as the janitor rushed over. “Are you okay, miss?” He shook her shoulder and lifted his head to yell. “Somebody call the medics!”
Boot steps thudded on the marble flooring as someone approached. She’d been too focused to notice his energy before, but there it was, strong, reassuring. Her strength.
The janitor shuffled back and the man dropped to a knee beside her, stroking the side of her face. Arms slipped under her, lifting her from the floor and cradling her against a hard body. She turned her face into his chest and inhaled his spicy scent. The pain eased and Jocelyn relaxed, letting go of the remnants of the vision.
“I’ve got you.”
“Lucas,” she murmured as she slid into unconsciousness.
Chapter Four
Hungry-lion eyes, the color of amber, filled her vision.
“Taste.” He dipped his fingers into the lead cup, coating them with wine and honey, and brushed her bottom lip, painting it, teasing her mouth open. Around them, sounds of the festival filled the streets. Men and women flirted, laughed, and found hidden corners to engage in deeper contact.
All faded but the heat between them and the beat of her heart, tapping against her breast. Jocasta sighed and parted her lips to take his fingers in, savoring the sweetness that spread across her tongue. His fingers slipped free, and he lowered his mouth, stopping a breath from hers. She leaned closer.
“Come with me.” He grabbed her hand and stepped back.
Her eyes snapped open. “Where?”
He pulled her into the crowded street. “Do you trust me?”
“I barely know you. I think you’re trying to get me alone and naked.”
“Perhaps.”
“Are you?” Her stomach fluttered. His lips said maybe, his eyes said….
He drew her against his body. The corner of his mouth twitched, curling ever so slightly. Heat pulsed through her. “Would you say no if my intentions were so?”
“Perhaps.” No. Her thighs quivered at the thought. He was possession and seduction. “No” would be impossible, and from the look on his face, he knew it.
He lifted a brow.
“Perhaps not.” She reached up and skimmed her fingers along his cheek.
Augustus tugged her down the street, walking backward. “I think—perhaps not.” He handed his cup to a passerby, who shrugged and tipped it back. Jocasta glanced over her shoulder, scanning the crowd for her father and brothers. A well-bred woman wouldn’t sneak off with a man below her social station.
He ducked into a side street, guided her to where the shadows hid them, and pushed her against a building. With a growl, he captured her mouth. His hands were all over her, skimming from her shoulders to her hips. One slipped under her tunica and swept along the skin of her thigh.
The smell of spice and incense hung in the air, compelling lecherous acts, seducing hearts, and fracturing willpower. Jocasta leaned back, letting him roam. His lips moved from the column of her neck to her shoulder. Jolts zinged wherever he touched. She closed her eyes and absorbed the moment, intoxicated with his need.
Augustus pushed the fabric off her shoulder, exposing the top of her breast as a group of citizens stumbled along at the end of the alley, laughing. He shifted his position, blocking her from their view. She twisted and searched the street over his shoulder.
“My father—”
“Knows not where you are.” He gently cupped her chin and turned her back to face him.
“My brothers….” She licked her lips and stared into his eyes: predatory, hungry.
He leaned in and whispered, “…will never know.” Teeth nipped her earlobe. “Our secret.” His hand moved higher and slid between her thighs, slipping on either side of her sensitive nub. Jocasta turned in toward his mouth.
“If they discover….”
He kissed her silent and then pulled back to stare. His breath washed over her, spicy, dangerous. “They won’t.” He lowered his mouth again, drawing his tongue along the dip in her bottom lip, until he coaxed her submission. His fingers caressed her, rubbing, stroking, bringing her closer and closer to forgetting who she was.
A mistake. She’d never see him again. But this once…this once she wanted to feel love, possession of her body and soul. Just once, she needed to feel. “Here. Now,” she whispered.
“Yes. Here. Now. I can’t wait another moment. You make me hurt.”
She knew that feeling. Jocasta whimpered. Inside her belly, a ball of heat formed, swelling with each brush of his fingers. Around and around, he drew a slow circle. Desire tormented her. She couldn’t keep him. They would only have this once.
Here.
Now.
Her body vibrated from the point of contact to the tips of her fingers and toes, increasing the ache in her pelvis. The need coiled tighter.
“You want me.”
She sucked in a breath. “We shouldn’t.” No, her father would have him killed.
He applied pressure. Jocasta bucked against him, wanting more, needing more.
“I’m not a common soldier. I’m a Centurion. I can take care of you.”
“And I’m a senator’s daughter. My father will not agree to this relationship. I’m to be traded to the highest bidder, one of those who would make him a profitable association.”
“Do you feel it?” His fingers slipped inside her, twisting and stretching. He refused to listen. Jocasta moaned and rocked against him. “The heat between us burns me,” he growled.
In and out his digits moved. The heat increased until she thought for certes she would go up in flames.
“Augustus.” She moved against his fingers, needing to get closer. Most would call her insane for engaging with a stranger, but she could do nothing else. Her father be damned, she wanted him. Jocasta lifted her leg, bringing it up to his hip, where he captured it, holding it in place.
“Release yourself to me.” His fingers worked faster, rubbing, stroking, striking a spot deep inside that wound her to breaking and left her breathless.
“Augustus!” She grasped his shoulders and pushed her hips into him, moving with him, riding his fingers. Her muscles clenched around him, sending pleasure surging through her. He spread his fingers and stroked deeper. She cried out and arched into them. He leaned in, capturing her mouth, silencing the whimpering that would draw attention.
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br /> “I need inside you.” He yanked his tunic up and rubbed the head of his cock at the place where his fingers had worked her into a slick frenzy. She lifted her hips, rising onto her toes, pushing into him. He grabbed her buttocks and thrust in, sinking to his balls, working in and out, harder and faster, over and over, and the world around them disappeared. Gone was the merriment and laughter in the streets, all faded, leaving two bodies twined in a rhythmic dance.
“I feel it. I’m on fire.”
“Burn for me.”
“So hot.” Her body ignited. Jocelyn moaned. “Yes,” she mumbled. Something tugged at her, pulling her from the luscious dream, out of the heat and into an icy room.
A sharp pain ricocheted inside her skull and a noxious smell permeated the air. She knew that odor. A smell, not the spice and lust of her dream lover but of something sinister that twisted her insides. A combination of a cinnamon-scented sanitizer and the sour stench of illness and plastic sheets. Voices followed the squeaks of rubber-soled shoes up and down the hall. She pressed a hand to her forehead and tried to blot the pain. Jocelyn rubbed, expecting her fingers to sink in.
A tug and a kick worked her blanket loose, but not enough. She grabbed the offending cover and yanked. A tube attached to the top of her hand pulled, provoking a sharp sting. Jocelyn reached over and touched where cold liquid ran through a needle into her vein.
From the corner a chair creaked. “It’s about time you woke. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Nate.”
“Yes, Nate. Who’d you think it was? I’ve searched every hospital and morgue in this city.” He sighed and moved closer. “Why were you in the museum? You know you can’t handle places like that.”
She couldn’t handle places like this. She shoved the covers to the floor. “It called to me.”
“You’re lucky, Joce. Aside from some swelling in your brain from a concussion, you’re okay. A little too okay.” He sat on the bed beside her, leaning in to whisper in her ear and drop the blanket back over her legs. “It normally takes you days to come out of a bad trip like that, but it’s only been a couple of hours. What gives?” He ran a hand over her forehead and brushed the bangs off her face. “You don’t feel hot, either. Are you running a fever?”
Jocelyn pushed his hand away. “No. Please get me out of here.”
“That’s not going to happen. You need to rest.”
“I don’t feel safe.”
“You’re okay for now. I don’t think they’ve run you through the national med-link. They’ve downloaded from your implant that you’re coded as a past reader and prone to swelling in your brain. They’ve run you through a bio-scanner at least half a dozen times. I’ve seen at least twenty different doctors in here trying to determine where the mistake occurred.”
“What mistake?”
“There’s no scarring on your brain from the previous times you’ve suffered trauma.” He pulled a chair next to the bed and plopped down. “They might run your profile on the national link and that worries me. The reapers monitor it. I’m keeping an eye on them so they don’t.”
“Relax, Nate. They have to have my permission or a family member’s to run my profile. I’m safe from the reapers. It’s the hospital I fear. The energies.”
“You should be afraid of that reaper. I think the bastard healed you so he can give your body to someone else.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Hello? He’s a reaper. He doesn’t help criminals.”
“I’m not a criminal.”
“That warrant you’ve had from birth says otherwise.”
“I didn’t murder my husband to run away with a lover. I was protecting lives. I saw it all when I slipped the past in the museum.”
“And how do you plan to prove it?”
“He buried the bodies of his victims behind the house in the pecan grove. I need you to go back to the museum and find the location of the plantation. Her name was Josette. See if you can track where the items in the case came from.”
“Even if I can find the location, we can’t just go and dig up bodies. That’s somebody’s property. The legal system frowns on grave robbery.”
“We can call the authorities and report a mass grave. I only need to prove they’re there and it was a matter of defense.” If she could show that, she might be able to plead her innocence in the rest of the crimes she was accused of.
Jocelyn reached for the I.V.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Nate snagged her wrist. He set her hand back down on the bed. “The doctor said you were unconscious when you came in. You need to rest.”
“I have a week. That’s it.” Jocelyn rubbed her temple, trying to remember. “How’d I get here?” She couldn’t stay. “We can’t pay for this.”
“Some guy carried you in and left. The hospital staff said he didn’t leave an address or name. He paid all charges for your treatment and anything further you might need. He requested to remain anonymous. A good Samaritan.”
A voice slid from her memories into clarity, and belonged to one man. Jocelyn’s heart skipped.
I’ve got you.
“Joce?” Nate leaned in closer. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s nothing.”
“That look on your face isn’t nothing. You’re hiding something.”
She snorted. Telling him the reaper had brought her here wouldn’t sit well. He already had it in for Gabriel. How could she tell him that Gabriel had been with her in the past? That dream wasn’t a dream: it was a memory from Rome, and the vision in the museum placed him with her in the South. How many times had it repeated, and had that kiss opened it all up? Chances were good it had triggered the visions, and if that was the case, she needed him if she was going to gain amnesty.
No options. When she got out of here, she’d find him. Deep inside, she knew the most dangerous man walking this world would never hurt her, never intentionally. She and Gabriel were meant to be together, and would be.
“Jocelyn?” Nate used that tone, the one that made her want to scream.
She clamped her teeth together and counted backward from ten. “I hate hospitals. The energies here drive my brain haywire. I need to get out.”
“You rest or I’ll tie you to the bed. I’m keeping watch and I told you, we can run from this reaper.”
“No, we can’t. He’s different from the others.” He’d always come for her and to prove her suspicions correct, he’d found her in the museum. For all she knew, he’d been watching her since he’d left her at the scene of the robbery.
Nate huffed and got to his feet. Angry energy blasted from him. “He’s only different because you’re hot for him. He’s not someone you want to be touching or kissing. He’ll take your soul and turn you into a battery.”
“A battery?” Jocelyn started laughing. “Well, I do have a copper top.” More laughter.
“This is hardly funny. I can’t lose you.” He stormed from the room, but would be back when he settled. He never stayed angry long. Jocelyn kicked the blanket off again. Brothers!
***
“Where’s the remote?” Jocelyn called to the nurse.
“We didn’t think you’d want a holo-vis in your room.”
“Because I’m blind? I hear fine and enjoy a show as much as a sighted person. Just for the record, I’m not deaf.”
“I’ll move you to the empty room next door that has one.” She popped the brakes and wheeled her bed out. They stopped after a couple of turns and twenty or so feet. There was a click as the wheels were locked down. The nurse reached over and handed her a remote. Jocelyn jumped into the woman, letting her gaze sweep the room. Bigger, better than she could have dreamed of, even if it was a windowless basement suite.
“Excuse me. When are they releasing me?” She sat up and pulled out of the nurse’s head.
The nurse lifted the chart on the end of her bed and pressed the screen. Clicking sounds commenced as she scrolled through data. “They’re keeping you
overnight for observation and to run a couple more tests.”
“Tomorrow then?”
“Once the doctor releases you.”
The woman wasn’t going to give her a straight answer. They were probably trying to figure out where the scars on her brain had gone, to cover their asses. She could tell them the reaper did it, but drawing attention to the fact she was wanted wouldn’t be a good move. Especially since she had an active warrant.
“I’ll check on you later.” The nurse’s footsteps retreated and Jocelyn switched on the holo-vis and listened for a news channel as she scrolled through the stations.
Nate would be back with the information from the exhibit soon. Angry or not, he wouldn’t let her down. She might as well catch up on world events while she waited. She didn’t have the chance very often, and it was nice to know what happened outside her personal bubble.
A loud crash echoed from the corridor. Jocelyn turned toward the sound and held her breath. She picked out several voices, jumped, and stared through the eyes of a nurse backing down the hall and away from the room she’d moved from. She returned to her own body and took another breath, jumping into another of the staff, one with a direct view inside the vacated room. Her eyes stopped on a reaper.
Not Gabriel.
Tall, with blond hair tied in a ponytail, he wore jeans and a brown leather bomber jacket. He turned his eyes on the person Jocelyn occupied and eyed him up and down. No, not the biggest or the baddest reaper she’d had the occasion to cross auras with, but he was scary.
“You.” He pointed. The ride froze in his tracks and gasped.
Shit. He’d recognized her soul and had caught her hopping. A tracer. He’d follow her energy trail like a hound. Jocelyn snapped back into her body and swung her legs over the bed. She had seconds to get the hell out of his path. She grabbed the I.V. attached to the top of her hand, took a deep breath, and yanked, sinking her teeth into the meaty part of her cheek to keep from making a sound.
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