Bound by Moonlight (9 page)

Silence, then a low drawl. “I can get away with pretty much anything I choose. But I’m not going to kill you, Detective. I promised Charlotte I’d give her a chance to talk sense into you. She believes you can be reasoned with—but you and I know that’s not going to happen. Let me lay this out simply so that you’ll understand your options. You can agree to keep what you saw to yourself, and you can go home and clean yourself up. Or you can spit in my face, and I walk away.”

“Then what happens?”

A flash of sharp teeth. “There won’t be enough left of you to flavor a bowl of gumbo.”

Soft, hungry snarls sounded from all around him. The movements grew restless, pacing, aggressive. Only Savoie was still. Savoie, who scared him more than any of the others because they moved at his command.

“I think I’d like to go home and clean up.”

Savoie continued to look at him with that flat, penetrating stare. “Should you have a change of heart— say, when you’ve showered away the stink of your fear and get your manly courage back—you might think about speaking to a certain reporter just out of spite. Think carefully. Because there will always be someone not of your kind close enough to hear whatever comes out of your mouth. Always. And they won’t have to check with me before they make sure those words are your last. Understood?”

A jerky nod.

“Oh, and I would prefer you not mention this little discussion to Charlotte. Let her think it was your idea to be sensible. And don’t call her a hard-assed bitch again. It makes me disagreeable.”

He moved in so quickly that they were nose-to-nose before the detective could blink. Savoie’s eyes blazed hot with their unnatural light, and his tone ripped as sharply as his teeth could.

“You mess with Charlotte, you’re history. You mess with me, you’re lunch. Now go away.” When Hammond was slow to react, Max roared, “Go!”

He ran, slipping on the wet bricks as he pushed through the thick press of Savoie’s preternatural pack. He held back screams as he felt their teeth snapping at his neck, their claws ripping at his clothes. Once free of them he sprinted to his car, jumping in and racing away as if the hounds of hell were after him.

Because he feared if he even glanced over his shoulder, they would be.

“I
F YOU’RE LOOKING
for Detective Hammond, he’s gone.”

Joey Boucher jumped at the quiet words spoken from the dark alley. “Gone, as in dead?” he ventured, swallowing hard at the sight of Max Savoie separating from the mists.

“Gone, as in ran for his life. He forgot this.”

Boucher took the service pistol, feeling comforted by its solid weight in his palm, even though its bullets couldn’t harm the figure before him. He tucked it in his coat. “He’s an asshole. I would have enjoyed watching him scramble.”

Max chuckled softly. “You’re a good policeman, Boucher. Are you a smart one?”

“Yes, sir. I like to think so. You put it on the line to rescue Babineau’s little boy. I won’t forget that. Detective Caissie has always been fair to me, and gave me a hand up when she didn’t have to. I won’t forget that, either.”

Max smiled. “Watch her back for me, Joey. Can I trust you to do that?”

“Yes, sir. What shall I tell her about Hammond?”

A wide show of teeth. “Tell her he had an unexpected accident and had to run home to change his trousers.”

Boucher laughed out loud and glanced toward the end of the alley. Hammond’s car was gone. “Damn, I would like to have seen that.”

When he turned back, Savoie was gone.

M
AX WAS SITTING
on the front porch glider when Charlotte came wearily up the steps. She made a bee-line for him, straddled him with her knees, and buried her face against his shoulder. Her arms curled about his neck, almost desperately tight. “I’ve had a monumentally crappy day.”

“I’m sorry. Want to tell me about it?”

“I will. Not just yet.”

He nuzzled her hair, his lips swiping her brow. “Then tell me what I can do for you to improve the hours left in it.”

She didn’t have to consider. “I need you naked under me.”

“Right here on the porch?”

His amused but willing tone made her smile. “As quickly as you can get us behind a closed door would be fine.”

“I can do that for you.”

He rose, carrying her easily with her arms and legs wrapped around him into the darkened house and up the wide stairs. She slid down when he shut the door to his bedroom behind them, but she didn’t step away. He simply held her, waiting for her to set the pace and the mood.

She started down the buttons to his shirt, touching, caressing, kissing his chest as she bared it, moving him back toward the bed. She palmed the hard swell of his shoulders and arms, exploring the familiar, tough terrain. She knew him intimately: all the intriguing strengths, the rough burr of his evening whiskers, the springy dark hair on his pectorals, thinning to a tease down his taut abdomen and thickening again where his zipper parted to release his already engorged sex. She stroked him there, her own arousal building at his eagerness for her.

She pushed him down onto the mattress, his pants tangled about his ankles. She nipped at his chin, his shoulder, his chest, sharp little bites that had his breath quickening. When his hands came up for her, she pressed them back to the sheets. He kept them there, letting her have control while he watched her, glittering eyes heavy-lidded.

She continued to taste him with her mouth, her teeth, her tongue, moving down over the quiver of his flat belly, skimming the jut of his hip bone, tormenting the sensitive flesh of his inner thighs. And all the while he waited, stiff as a two-stage rocket anticipating liftoff, rumbling when she started down his legs instead of triggering a countdown.

She untied his shoes, slipping them off with his socks and trousers. He had large, surprisingly elegant feet. She could feel his pulse in the curve of the arch, the way it jumped when she tugged at his toes with her teeth.

“Let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to do,” he offered.

“Just lie there,” she purred. “I’m using you for sex. Relax and enjoy it.”

“I’ll try.” She heard the smile in his voice.

As she worked her way up, his body tensed, taut as a guy wire. She meant to put his self-control to the test, focusing on that to distract herself from her anxious mood. And Max Savoie, in all his naked splendor, was infinitely distracting.

Her mate. Her love. Hers alone.

He trembled as her mouth slid over him, a slow, tormenting stroke down one side and up the other. The swirl of her tongue had his hands twisting in the sheets.

The taste of him, the heat of him, had her moaning softly and he answered with a groan of her name. “Charlotte. Charlotte, let me have you.”

“The having is all mine, my king. Deal with it. No whining.”

She sucked him in hard, covering the length of him she couldn’t take with one hand, simulating the movement of her mouth until his hips helplessly took up the rhythm.

“If you’re going to take that ride,
sha
,” he grated, “climb aboard now. Right now.”

She didn’t relent, rolling the taut weight of him in her other hand until the persuasive torture had his mind swirling. Pressure pounded hot and heavy, but still he hung on, fighting against the explosive pleasure.

Finally she whispered, “Let me have you, Max. Let go, baby.” A coaxing squeeze, and he was gone.

We have liftoff.

He didn’t move as she settled beside him on the bed. Rubbing her palm over his chest, she felt his jack-hammering pulse slow down. The long slant of his eyes opened just enough to meet hers and his mouth stretched into a lazy curve.

“I don’t know about your day, but mine just improved by about five hundred percent.” He caught her hand, nudging his cheek into it, holding it there as he continued to doze contentedly.

Cee Cee rested her head on his shoulder, wishing she could enjoy this tender moment as completely as he did. She couldn’t.

“Max . . .”

He kissed her palm. “Tell me.”

She took a breath and then exhaled. “I did something today I shouldn’t have. Something foolish and awful. I wish I could take it back, but I don’t know how.”

“Why do I get the feeling this involves your partner?”

She noticed how carefully neutral his voice was. “Don’t get all pissy on me, Savoie. Not now.”

Max took a deep, controlled breath. “Go ahead.”

“We had an argument in the car this morning. He said some things, so I said some things. And . . . oh, hell, I told him Tina was a Shifter, too.”

Max went completely still. He stared at her, unblinking.

“I didn’t mean to. He just got me so mad, going on about my poor judgment and his perfect life and . . . and I just said it.”

“How could you do such a thing?”

If he’d yelled at her she could have worked up a defensive temper. But the quiet disbelief in his tone had her quaking. He drew back, releasing her hand, his expression so shocked, so horribly injured.

“It was mean and careless, but what he said hurt me— Max?”

He’d rolled out of the bed away from her and went to the balcony doors that opened to the night. Silhouetted against the darkness with his hands laced over the top of his head, he stood motionless for long, anxious moments. Nothing could have surprised her more than his soft chuckle.

“Max?”

“Here I’ve been sweating the fact that our secrets are in the hands of strangers, and it’s your jealousy over your lover’s happy home life that destroys us all. Don’t you see the irony there?” Silence, then: “Was that what this was about? Softening me up before telling me how you betrayed us?”

The starkness in his voice brought a swift, gutting fear.
Betrayed
was such a strong, ugly word. But the
us
brought his entire world into the consequences of her selfish act.

“No.”
Not intentionally.
“You know better than that.” An impatient pride clawed its way up over the shame. “How much harm could it have done? Alain already knows what you are. He loves Tina and Oscar. He won’t do anything to harm his family.”

“Unless that family becomes as much an abomination to him as I am.”

She hadn’t thought of that. And now she could think of nothing else.

“What have you done?” Max continued. “You have no idea how vulnerable we are, how fragile our existence is in your Upright world.”

His words pushed a frightening gulf of difference between them.

“I’m sorry. Okay? I’m sorry. I’ll make it right. I’ll talk to Babineau; you can talk to Tina. We can fix it. I didn’t mean to make trouble for them, Max, or for any of you. I didn’t.” Her voice choked off. There wasn’t any more she could say, because it wasn’t just about Alain and his wife. It was about what she’d done to Max. The one possibly unforgivable thing.

She wanted to run to him, to fling herself on him to beg for forgiveness. But begging wasn’t her style, and at the moment she didn’t think forgiving was his.

“Maybe I should go. I’ll only make things worse if I stay.” Her tone of offhanded aggravation was fairly successful. “I’ll want to keep explaining, and it’ll just muck things up more.”

She paused, waiting for him to tell her to stay. When he didn’t, the enormity of it hit her. What if he couldn’t forgive her? What if she’d shattered his trust and become an unacceptable risk herself?

At one time, her insecurities would have had her slinking away rather than testing that awful truth. But no more. She walked over to him and wrapped him in a slow, binding embrace.

“I’m sorry, Max,” she whispered, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. “It was careless, and it won’t happen again.”

His hands covered hers, squeezing gently. “I know,
sha
, I know. And tomorrow we’ll fix things. Together.”

She let him coax her back to bed, let him undress her. He held her fiercely, but she tucked her head when he went to kiss her because she could feel the distance mingling with the desire. The distance that came with a threat. A liability. He had to be thinking that. She was.

Puppies.

Oddly, it hadn’t hit her until that moment just how unnatural their relationship was. She lay awake for a long time, studying him in his uneasy slumber. Her lover. Her one and only. Who wasn’t human, no matter what appearances told her. She reached out to soothe her palm across his furrowed brow, whispering, “It’s all right, baby. I’m here.” And his fretful movements stilled.

When finally she slept, she dreamed of screaming through the pangs of giving birth. But what she delivered wasn’t a normal child. It was a litter of Shifter pups with Max’s green eyes.

D
EEP IN THE
balcony’s shadows, a figure watched the sleeping couple through impassive eyes.

Rumors had depicted Max Savoie into mythic proportions: untouchable, indestructible, undefeatable. But that wasn’t really the case. A male protecting a vulnerable female became vulnerable himself. It made him dangerous, true, but also weak. Only the weak gave in to emotion.

A few fierce slashes, and they’d both be dead with no drama or fuss. Not inventive or satisfying to the reputation, and also not what the employer had paid for. There were always rules to get in the way. And rules couldn’t be broken without consequences.

Dispassionate eyes gleamed with impatience. Now that a way had been discovered, all that was left was for the right time to present itself.

That time wasn’t now, but soon.

And like a whisper, the assassin faded into the darkness.

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, Cee Cee was surprised to find a message on her phone from Junior Hammond apologizing for his behavior the night before, and even more stunned by his anxious assurance that he could be trusted to keep Max’s secret. His insistence that she share his pledge with Max made her suspicious, but she had more immediate concerns to deal with.

She’d screwed up majorly, had damaged the things Max valued most: trust and family. And she’d done so out of no good reason but spite.