Hunted (3 page)

Clay opened his mouth to say a smart-ass reply but DeLuca held up a hand before he could get a word out. “I don’t even wanna know. I’ll be in New Orleans for the security conference this weekend. Feel free to come by and buy me a beer.”

When he walked away, Tuck turned to Clay and Schroder. “You guys still coming into town with me?”

“I’m in,” Schroder said, hazel eyes bright with excitement. “You’re still meeting up with your cousin, right?”

Clay’s head snapped around to stare at him and he shot the former PJ a hard look. What the hell did he know about Zoe, and why did he seem so happy about the prospect of seeing her tonight?

Her face formed in his mind. Pale skin, red and black-dyed hair, sultry golden eyes that saw right into him. Saw right
through
him, and she didn’t seem to mind his brusque, rough edges. And her body. Fuck, those long, strong legs and full hips he’d wanted to feel beneath his hands. Under
him
.

No, he didn’t like the gleam in the young medic’s eyes at all when he mentioned Zoe. The raw, territorial reaction came out of nowhere, catching him off guard.

“Bauer, you’re in too, right?” Tuck asked.

Clay met his gaze, kept his expression impassive even as he experienced a simultaneous shot of anticipation and dread. “Yeah, I’ll go.” Wasn’t like he had anything else to do, and despite all her weird quirks, he liked Zoe. More than he wanted to, and sure as hell he should be beaten with a tire iron for thinking the way he had about the woman Tuck considered a sister, let alone for all the filthy, X-rated things he’d imagined doing to her.

“Good. Zo’s been looking forward to seeing you.”

Clay didn’t reply as he followed Tuck and the others back to the van. Zoe was… Well, there was no one like her. To be honest, she confused the hell out of him. Without even trying she made him want her so much it was all he could do to keep his hands off her. She also had a knack for making him feel like an uneducated idiot compared to her, and it had nothing to do with her being three years older than him. The woman’s brainpower was a little intimidating, to be honest.

He wasn’t the best judge of character, but from what he’d seen of her and what he’d heard from Tuck and Celida, Zoe was one of those rare people who said what she meant and meant what she said. And by all accounts, she was loyal. Something as rare as diamonds in this world, at least in Clay’s experience. But he’d witnessed that loyalty firsthand.

Resting in the back of the van with his eyes closed as they drove back to their hotel, memories flashed through his mind. Zoe’s face lighting up and the way she’d rushed over to hug him when he’d gone to pick her up from the airport as a favor to Tuck back in June. That smile on her face had seemed genuine, as if she’d truly been glad to see him.

Her finding him alone and naked in the hot tub at his and Tuck’s place a few nights later. The unmistakable female appreciation and interest in her eyes when he’d climbed down the steps with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.

They’d watched a movie together, her just three feet away from him on the other end of the couch. She’d looked so…soft, that night. So feminine and sexy, that hard-edged attitude dimmed until it was all he could do to keep from reaching for her, twining his hands in that thick, shockingly bright, red-streaked hair and kissing that smart mouth.

But most of all, he remembered her being at his hospital bedside after he’d been injured on his last op.

The hostage rescue mission at a federal bank eight weeks ago had gone to shit when the hostage-taker had detonated his explosives wired into the building’s windows and doors, collapsing the tunnel Clay and the others had been waiting in to do the breach.

He barely remembered anything after that except for the hellish pain in his back, in his legs, that wouldn’t stop. When he’d woken in the hospital that first night in a haze of mind-numbing pain, Zoe had been right there to help him. She’d come back the same day of his operation, too, and visited him twice more before he was discharged.

The last time he’d seen her was at her uncle’s—Tuck’s father’s—funeral. He’d been two days post-op and even grumpier than usual because of his pain level. When she’d showed up at his house to drive him to the church, the sight of her in that filmy, black Victorian Goth dress had taken his breath away.

She hadn’t seemed to hold his gruffness against him, even standing quietly in a corner at the reception after the graveside service, enduring his silence because she’d known he was in pain and didn’t want to socialize, and that he couldn’t sit down without being in agony. They’d e-mailed and talked over the phone a few times since, but he’d been careful not to encourage the interest she clearly broadcasted.

And the books she’d left him before she’d gone back home to New Orleans. That had been one hell of an eye-opener, because mother of Christ, the woman had a brilliant, dirty imagination.

He wasn’t much of a reader but when he did it was usually biographies, historical stuff or Spec Ops thrillers. Romantic horror wasn’t even remotely on his interest spectrum but he’d read all three books Zoe had given him because
she’d
written them and for some reason he’d wanted to know that part of her. The sex scenes had played on the screen of his mind like a high definition porno flick long after he’d read them.

He’d replayed them at least a hundred times since when he was alone in bed and needed to take the edge off, except he always imagined it was him and Zoe in place of the main characters. Each time the need she’d awakened inside him only seemed to get stronger.

And therein lay the dilemma.

There was no question that he wanted her, more than he’d wanted any other woman in recent memory, but that was where he drew the line. He couldn’t just fuck her and walk away, and that was all he had to offer a woman these days. His disastrous marriage and divorce had damaged him and he knew damn well he wasn’t ready for another relationship. Might never be. Zoe deserved better than what he could give her. If he acted like a prick and gave into temptation and took her to bed, Tuck would cut his heart out for hurting her.

That wasn’t why Clay wouldn’t make a move on her though. The truth was he didn’t ever want to see those pretty golden eyes fill with hurt because of him. He knew all too well what it felt like to be hurt by someone you cared about, and Zoe cared too much about people, including him for reasons he’d never understand. So he had to keep his distance.

And since he’d just agreed to see her tomorrow night, that had to mean he was a fucking closet masochist or something.

Back in the hotel in Biloxi, Clay stripped and stepped under the hot spray of the shower in the room he was sharing with Tuck. He groaned at the heat and pressure of the water pounding against his sore back and shoulders. The instant he closed his eyes, however, Zoe’s face came to mind again. Smiling, laughing at something he said, the knowing gleam in her eyes challenging him. Clay’s muscles tensed. Molten heat and need erupted inside him, making him hard all over.

He leaned forward and braced one palm against the slick fiberglass wall as the water pounded over his back. The door was locked and even though he should probably feel guilty as fuck for fantasizing about Zoe like this when Tuck was just in the next room, he couldn’t help himself.

Blocking out the twinge of guilt needling his conscience, he grasped the length of his hard, swollen flesh and let his favorite fantasy unfold. Zoe on her knees in front of him, hands secured behind her back. Her wildly-colored hair wound into a knot at the top of her head, those heavily made up eyes gazing up at him with lust and desire as her luscious lips closed around the head of his cock.

Clay stifled a groan and stroked harder, faster. The fantasy raged on in vivid detail. He could hear the wet slide of her mouth on him, feel her lips and tongue working the ultrasensitive spot beneath the head just before she bobbed down and took him deep.

His back arched, a raw gasp tearing free of his chest. A warning twinge of pain shot down his lower back, into his thighs as scar tissue and newly healed muscle and tendons pulled, but the pleasure obliterated it all. His free hand curled into a fist against the wall. In his fantasy his fingers wound around her hair. He squeezed tight, holding her head and mouth just where he wanted them, watched as that flare of heated awareness and languid acceptance appeared in her gaze when he seized control. He shuddered, squeezed his eyes shut as the pleasure bordered on pain.

And when he came deep in her mouth, despite his iron control and vow to remain silent, two desperate syllables rasped out of his tight throat.

Zoe.

Zoe pulled at the high collar of her black, ruffled Victorian-style sleeveless top and blew out a sigh as she shifted her weight to counteract the streetcar’s change in momentum when it slowed at the next stop. Even though she had her hair secured into a messy bun at the back of her head, the tendrils around her face and nape were limp and stuck to her skin.

Summer in New Orleans was notoriously hot and steamy. Even though it was September, the temperature was still damn near unbearable. Not for the first time she wondered what the hell had possessed her to decide to stay down here instead of moving to a cooler climate where her hair didn’t frizz every time she went outside. The humidity was going to kill her yet, just see if it didn’t.

With the streetcar halted, the slight breeze that had been coming through the windows stopped and without it the atmosphere inside went from uncomfortable to intolerable. It got even worse when she had to press up against a heavy-set man in front of her in order to allow a mother and her two young children by so they could get to the door.

The man looked down at her with a wry smile, face shiny with perspiration and sweat stains marking the armpits of his shirt. “Summer in N’Awlins,” he murmured, his gaze taking in her newly purple-streaked hair and Goth outfit and makeup. Not that she cared. She was used to people staring at her and didn’t give a damn what they thought. Some were more ignorant than others, of course.
Is that a costume? Aren’t you a little early? Halloween isn’t for a few months yet.

Or her favorite:
Are you a vampire?

The locals usually didn’t say dumb shit like that because New Orleans was called the Big Easy for a reason and the city was okay with all lifestyles. Tourists and strangers when she ventured outside the city, however, were a different story.

“Gotta love it,” she agreed as she stepped back, “else you’re gonna hate it.” And lord, did she hate this part of it. She couldn’t wait to get back to her new air-conditioned apartment she was renting in the Quarter and climb into a cool shower. She had big plans tonight and she wanted to look and smell her best when they happened.

Because whether the man in question knew it or not, they
were
happening.

The streetcar began moving again, starting up that blessed wisp of a breeze through the windows. The air streaming in was hot, but at least it was moving across her skin and brought a slight measure of relief.

She actually loved her weekly commute, though.

Out the window across the aisle from her she watched her favorite part of the Garden District pass by. Beautiful, stately homes with well-manicured gardens and lawns that looked like they’d been sheared with scissors, some pre-dating the War Between the States. She’d used a few of the houses in the district in her novels, though usually she set the homes in the swamps and bayous just outside of the city. Way spookier that way, and the setting helped give her the dark and creepy vibe she aimed for in her books. Her fans loved her settings as much as they did the tortured heroes and kickass heroines, and Zoe loved delivering.

Just as the streetcar began to slow for its next stop, her cell phone buzzed with an incoming text. She pulled it out, aware of the surge of excitement in her veins, but it quickly dimmed when she saw the text wasn’t from her cousin, Tuck. It was from a woman she’d talked to a couple of times at the women’s shelter where she volunteered. Normally she didn’t give out her number to anyone but Leticia was a special case and Zoe had been trying for months without success to talk her into leaving her boyfriend and stay at the shelter until they could come up with a permanent solution.

I’m at the house
, the text read.
They told me you just left
.

Zoe typed a response. If she could convince Leticia to stay at the shelter, then she had to go back.
I’m about fifteen mins away. Want me to come back?

No. Can we talk when you get a chance though?

There was no way she was going to say no, not when she’d begged the woman four times already to leave her current situation and get her and her son to the shelter for help. If she was there now, this had to be important.
Sure
, she responded.

The streetcar’s brakes let out a high-pitched squeal as the vehicle slowed to a stop to pick up a passenger. Zoe hitched her black leather satchel higher up on her shoulder and stepped past the heavy-set man to get off. The air outside was still just as heavy but without all that body heat surrounding her to make it worse, it felt like heaven.

Stepping off the sidewalk onto a patch of brown, brittle grass beneath the shade of a huge, spreading live oak, she called the number on screen and Leticia picked up on the second ring.

“Hey.”

“Are you okay?” Zoe asked her.

“Yeah. Xander and me are fine, we just arrived a few minutes after you left.”

“Sorry I missed you. Do you need anything?”

“No, everyone here’s been real nice. They’re making Xander some mac and cheese right now, his favorite.”

Zoe smiled. “That’s good. Will you be staying the night?”

A huff of ironic laughter answered her. “Longer than that.” She paused. “I left him, Zoe. For good. I’m not going back there, ever.”

Zoe closed her eyes in relief. It had been necessary, but still incredibly brave of Leticia to take her ten-year-old son and leave her abusive, waste-of-skin, controlling boyfriend. “I’m proud of you.”