Possession (4 page)

A
KELA STRAINED
against her restraints as Lafitte came back into the house. But his attention wasn’t on her. It seemed instead to be on the conversations he’d had outside. Conversations she hadn’t been privy to because of the radio, which undoubtedly he’d purposely turned on to keep her from overhearing him.

He glanced at her. For a moment she thought he might have forgotten he’d taken her hostage, his look of surprise was so genuine. He put his cell phone down on the counter, turned down the radio, then strode across the room toward her.

Akela’s every nerve ending went on alert. He had yet to put another shirt on and was still barefoot, and his casual attire made her feel more awkward still. She wasn’t used to people being so casual around her. At her parents’ house, no matter the heat, full dress was expected, even at night and in the morning.

Lafitte reached for the chain around his neck
that held some sort of coin along with what she realized was the key to her cuffs. He pulled the simple silver chain over his head then unlocked the cuffs from her wrist.

He stood looking at her expectantly. Was he waiting for her to make a run for it?

“Didn’t you say you had to go to the bathroom?”

Akela stopped rubbing her wrist. She’d forgotten she’d made the request. Part of the reason might be the subtle scent of spice that reached her nose, a scent that emanated from him and probably came from whatever soap he’d used during his shower.

She eyed his wide chest and the way his waist narrowed, then caught sight of the light sprinkling of hair below his navel that disappeared in a line down the front of his buttoned jeans.

“Um, yes.”

He gestured toward the door in the corner. “It’s over there.”

Akela couldn’t have moved fast enough. As soon as she closed the crude wood door after herself, she found out why he hadn’t insisted on coming with her. The small room didn’t boast any windows, and held only the bare necessities.

She quickly took care of business and started looking through the narrow medicine cabinet. Aspirin, rubbing alcohol, cotton swabs, shaving
cream and a straight razor comprised the contents. She opened the razor, tested its sharpness, and then lifted the hem of her slip and slid it into the top elastic of her underpants. On the bottom shelf she found a needle bearing a short length of thread. She picked that up, as well, tested its strength, then fastened it just inside the cup of her bra.

There was a rap at the door and then it opened.

Akela started.

“I figured chances were better than good that you’d either be still on the commode or going through my medicine cabinet.”

She stiffened and straightened her slip. “I have a headache.” She grabbed the bottle of aspirin and shook out a couple of tablets.

“Not a phrase I hear often, although it seems to be a staple of most marriages.”

Akela shot him a glance. “Are you talking from experience?”

He crossed his arms over his bare chest and leaned against the doorjamb. “
Non.
Never been tempted down that path.”

He didn’t seem in a hurry for her to leave. Then again, there really was no reason for him to be. She was essentially blocked in.

She took her time putting the aspirin onto her tongue one by one then following them up with
water she scooped from the faucet into her mouth. Well water.

“You won’t want to be doing that often,” Lafitte said. “There’s bottled water in the fridge.”

She wiped droplets of the liquid in question from the side of her mouth then stood before him, indicating she wanted out. He stood solidly unmoving.

Akela was acutely aware of his proximity, standing tall and proud, regarding her openly. While he was tall, so was she.

He leaned closer, his nose mere millimeters away from her neck. He almost seemed to be smelling her.

“Mmm,” he made a sound that was both intensely personal and heart-poundingly suggestive.

She suddenly couldn’t draw a breath.

“Tell me, Akela—” her first name on his lips made her shiver “—have you ever not been in control of a situation?”

“No.” The word came out as a harsh rasp.

He fingered a strand of her hair that had long escaped her twist, considering the dark strand with interest. She watched the shadows shift in his eyes, the dilating of his pupils, the shallowness of his breathing.

“I have,” he said. “A long time ago. And I don’t like that I’m not in control again now.”

His other hand was at her hips, setting a tiny fire
there that nearly scorched her skin through the flimsy fabric of her slip. She caught her breath, her body yearning for exactly what he seemed to be offering with his touch.

All too abruptly he stepped back, holding up the straight blade he’d taken from under the elastic of her underpants without her even realizing it.

Akela swallowed hard, trying to rein in her runaway emotions.

“How did you know?”

He put the object into his own pocket. “Because if our roles had been reversed, it would have been the first thing I’d have gone for.”

“You could have made things much easier by removing it before I went in.”

“What would the fun have been in that?”

“Fun. Is that how you view this?”

He stared at her, the darkness back in his gaze. “I was speaking figuratively.”

He moved away from the door, but didn’t seem intent on refastening her to the bed. For that, at least, she was grateful. And she was careful not to make any quick moves that might cause him to change his mind.

“What do you do for a living?” she asked quietly, watching as he looked through the cupboards.

While he appeared unconcerned with her move
ments, she didn’t kid herself into thinking that he didn’t know exactly where she was and what her intentions were.

“I’m a business owner.”

“What kind of business?”

His gaze narrowed on her face. “Why don’t you sit down?”

He motioned toward a stool near the counter.

Akela slowly did as he asked, making sure her slip covered her and gauging the distance between him and her, and her and the door.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“My brother and I began an airboat tour company in a nearby bayou and slowly expanded to include selling boats some years ago. I’m in the process of buying him out now.”

His movements slowed as he took a couple of cans out of the cupboards, then a can of beans and a bag of rice. Another cupboard bore spices.

She was mildly surprised he was going to cook. Most men she knew couldn’t boil an egg, much less knew their way around a kitchen. Her ex certainly hadn’t known how to do anything beyond pour milk on top of store-bought cereal.

Lafitte appeared not only at home there in the small, makeshift kitchen, he looked somehow…right in his surroundings, despite the tension radi
ating from him in waves. She supposed it could be the way he moved, as if he really didn’t have to think about what he was doing.

“What kind of boats?”

“Do you really want to know?”

She held his gaze, then admitted, “No.”

“Didn’t think so.”

She couldn’t help thinking that a man who had so much going on wouldn’t jeopardize that by killing his lover.

He turned away from her to begin combining the ingredients in what she recognized was a crude, basic gumbo.

“How long you been an agent for the FBI?”

Akela pulled her gaze from where she’d been watching his back and the scar there. “Six years.” She noticed there was a subtle red ring around her right wrist and gently rubbed it. “Do you have a prior criminal record?”

He didn’t immediately answer, which she knew probably revealed more than what he might have said.

“Violent crime?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then if you’re innocent, why are you running?”

N
OW THAT WAS
a question, wasn’t it?

Claude was acutely aware of where Akela was
at all times. Not merely because he needed to keep tabs on her movements to prevent her escape, but because he seemed tuned into her on a level that bothered him because it had little to do with her as a hostage and everything to do with her as a woman. Yet it had only been a short time ago that he’d been in another woman’s arms. But it wasn’t the limited passage of time that disturbed him; rather it was the fact that that woman was now dead.

“As my brother and I are fond of saying, ‘our mama didn’t raise no fools.’”

“Why would turning yourself in make you a fool?”

“Because I would be putting my destiny in someone else’s hands.”

She seemed to give that some thought as she rubbed at the mark the cuffs had made on her wrist.

“You believe I did it? That I murdered Claire?” he asked point-blank.

“I don’t know you well enough to say if you like corn on the cob.”

That was honest.

“Besides, it’s not part of my job to ascertain guilt or innocence.”

“Whose is it if not yours?”

She squinted at him. “How do you mean?”

He’d combined the ingredients for the gumbo,
now it needed only to cook at a simmer. He turned and leaned against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. He noticed the way her gaze kept trailing to his abs—which intrigued him. Seemed he wasn’t the only one having trouble with keeping to their assigned roles. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her, either. From the graceful sweep of her neck to the outline of her collarbone above her slip to the gentle swell of her breasts beneath the silky material.

“You, Agent Brooks, were the one who made the snap judgment that since I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, I must be a suspect.”

“The hotel owner put you in the room with the girl.”

“Sure. But I went out. Isn’t it possible that it happened while I was gone?”

Her gaze skittered away. “That’s not for me to decide.”

“But you did decide. By pulling your gun on me and ordering me to freeze, you decided on the spot that I was guilty.”

“I decided you were a suspect.”

“With coffees and beignets? What do you suppose I planned to do with the extra? Feed them to a corpse?”

The expression on her face told him she’d seen others do worse.

Claude lifted his brows. He’d experienced much during his life. From the streets to the hills of Kosovo, he’d witnessed many things that had surprised him and changed his perception of the world, but nothing like what she was considering. “Are you that jaded?”

“I’m that educated.”

Yes, perhaps that she was. But on all the wrong topics as far as he was concerned.

Oh, Claude didn’t kid himself into thinking that there was no role for law enforcement. While his bayou roots dictated an eye for an eye, the injured party choosing revenge over reporting the incident to the police, he understood that things didn’t work that way everywhere.

He also understood that those with badges were just as fallible as the next guy—his being under suspicion for killing Claire another glaring example of that.

“How was she killed?” he asked quietly.

That squinty-eyed look again. Claude frowned, realizing that she really did think he’d done it and he could virtually hear her ask,
I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?

“Her throat was slit.”

Claude rubbed his face with his hands, remembering Claire’s long, flawless neck. He could never have done something like that.

“And what is the FBI’s interest in the case?”

She seemed to shift uncomfortably. “I was there on another matter.”

“So your involvement is unofficial.”

Her gray eyes flashed. “It had been until you took me hostage.”

“Now I’m not only wanted for murder, but for kidnapping a federal agent.”

“You’re the one who got yourself into this mess.”

“By making love to a beautiful woman?”

He reached into the fridge and took out two small bottles of water. He handed her one, noticing the way she automatically said thank you.

“You have to admit, Lafitte—”

“Call me Claude.”

He knew she wouldn’t. “Your taking me hostage does not reflect well on your innocence.”

“So it makes me guilty.”

“It makes you highly suspect.”

He noted that as they spoke she eyed the door a few feet away.

“Ever been this deep into the bayous before?”

She blinked at him but didn’t answer. He hadn’t expected her to.

“Essentially your only way out is for me to take you out.”

“I think you underestimate my abilities.”

“I think you underestimate mine.”

While physically, Claude came across his equal often, it had been a long, long time since he’d encountered a mental equal. But as he faced off with the lovely Agent Akela Brooks, he had little doubt that she was every bit his match.

And he had little doubt that she would somehow find her way out of the bayou if given the chance—with or without him.

But first, of course, she’d have to get past him.

“So tell me, Akela Brooks,” he said quietly. “How do I go about proving my innocence?”

T
HREE HOURS LATER
, Akela thought about her answer to Claude’s question of how he could prove his innocence. Or rather she considered what had been, in essence, her nonanswer.

The cuffs clinked above her head and she had a crick in her neck from sitting upright for so long. After Lafitte had fed her a bowl of gumbo, he’d resecured her to the headboard then disappeared outside again, taking his phone with him. This time, however, he hadn’t switched the radio on, leaving Akela alone with her thoughts and the sound of the bayou around her.

“Most suspects will try everything in their power to convince you of their innocence.”
A snippet of her training came back to her.
“And you must do everything in your power to ignore them.”

Something Akela had never had a problem with—until now.

It wasn’t that Claude’s…Lafitte’s proclama
tions of innocence were any different from the others she’d encountered in her six-year career. Rather it was something she sensed rather than could explain, even though everything pointed to his guilt.

She supposed part of the reason was that he had yet to do her any harm. If, indeed, he was guilty of the crime, wouldn’t he have done away with her by now? Wouldn’t he have used her to try to escape the country?

Then again, if the crime was one of passion, then Lafitte wasn’t a killer in the traditional sense of the word. He’d lost control in a fit of rage and committed manslaughter.

She moved to scratch her head with her bound hand, the cuffs stopping her. As she stared at the piece of unforgiving metal, she considered that perhaps the root of her dilemma was that no one had actually asked her the question Lafitte had:
“How do I go about proving my innocence?”

She’d taken prelaw at Tulane, at the time not because she’d planned on being a law-enforcement officer, but because throughout her life, her mother had drilled into her the importance of two career choices: doctor or lawyer. She’d ultimately gone with lawyer mostly because she’d never done well when it came to blood.

One of the mock trials she’d participated in in her first year had involved a false accusation. She’d been assigned as part of the defense team. And the question had been pretty much what Claude had asked her: how did an innocent defendant prove he or she wasn’t guilty?

“You can’t disprove a negative. It’s like asking you to prove God doesn’t exist when there’s no solid proof that he exists,” she’d argued to her professor, finding the case a test of her patience and frustration.

She could still see the prof’s knowing smile.

In the end, the mock defendant had been convicted of first-degree murder with recommendation of execution. Neither Akela nor her team had been able to disprove the negative.

So where did that leave Claude Lafitte? If he was indeed innocent, his prior record and his actions following the discovery of the murder scene would make him look guilty as sin.

Akela craned her neck to see out the window. From what she could tell from the light slanting through the thick vegetation, the sun was beginning its long descent toward the horizon. She couldn’t see Claude or where he’d gone. It had been a long time since she’d heard anything other than the squawking of a bird and a slosh of water
indicating that maybe an alligator or snake or something was nearby. Otherwise, nothing.

Using her free hand, she slid her fingers inside the neck of her slip and reached into the inside of her right bra cup for the needle she’d fastened there. It was almost sturdy enough not to bend, but after some work with her teeth and fingers, she managed to force a curve into the stubborn, narrow length of steel. She wiped her free hand against the bedding to rid it of moisture, then inserted the end of the needle into the lock on the cuffs. When her fingers slipped, she nearly lost the makeshift key. However, she quickly recovered it from where it was ready to bounce over the side of the bed.

Okay, maybe working on the cuff on her wrist wasn’t a good idea. She switched her attention to the one attached to the headboard, which would allow her to use both hands. Holding the lock still, she worked the needle inside and felt her way around the mechanism. While the needle’s strength had been a hindrance when she’d been trying to reshape, now it worked in her favor because it was strong enough to spring the lock—at least in theory.

Concentrating, she tried and tried again…and was finally rewarded with the sound of metal teeth giving.

She was free. She still had the cuffs secured to her right wrist, but she was free from the headboard. After pushing off the bed, she headed straight for the door and the porch beyond.

A sound at the side of the house reached her ears.

Damn.

As quietly as possible, she collected her firearm from the barrel, gained silent access to the house and rushed for the bed. She shoved the gun under the pillow, then stared at the mattress. There was no way to pretend the cuffs were still attached to the headboard so she was forced to refasten them. Then she lay down to disguise her activities, hoping she was lying on top of the needle she’d tossed aside once she’d unlocked the cuffs.

She pretended to sleep.

C
LAUDE STEPPED
inside the house, feeling even worse now than he had before. He’d spent the past couple of hours on the phone with the attorney his brother had matched him up with. John Reginald had immediately contacted the NOPD and somberly admitted that things didn’t look good for him—especially since he still held an FBI agent hostage.

He absently rubbed the back of his neck and considered the hostage in question. She was lying half on her back across the mattress, her legs
pressed tightly together, her head turned his way, her eyes closed.

Claude grimaced. While Akela Brooks struck him as someone who could sleep anywhere, anytime if she put her mind to it, he doubted she would put her mind to it here. What intrigued him was why she was pretending to.

He stepped slowly closer to the bed, eyeing where the cuffs were still firmly attached to her wrist and to the headboard. At some point her chestnut hair had entirely escaped her professional twist, as if rebelling against the confining style. The damp bayou air had caused wisps to curl around her face, the rest of the shoulder-length tresses wavy and wild. The look it gave her was much different from the one he guessed she affected for work. Combined with the high color in her cheeks and the humidity dampening her skin, she looked like a sexy siren designed to drive man to madness.

Claude caught himself brushing the hair in question back from her face, his gaze lingering a little too long on her full, pouty lips. He checked the cuffs instead. When she didn’t budge, he knew for sure she wasn’t really asleep.

He stood silently for a long moment, trying to decide what to do, not just with her but the situation at large. It would be dark before long.

He sat down on the mattress, his gaze on her face. She didn’t bat a lash.

Claude stretched out next to her, his side flush against hers. He figured the shock of his bare skin against her arm would at least send her jackknifing upward. To his surprise, she remained still.

What he hadn’t factored into his little ruse was that he would end up affected by the touch of her skin. Despite the heat, she was cool and smooth. And she smelled good. Of something citrus. Not perfume; maybe lotion.

He heard her thick swallow.

Maybe she wasn’t as unaffected as she appeared.

And given the darkness pressing in on him from all sides, he found he wanted to test boundaries better left alone.

A
KELA WAS READY
to jump straight out of her skin.

She forced herself to lie perfectly still, even though the part of her still capable of rational thought told her that she’d taken her sleep act too far, that what Lafitte was doing now was designed to rouse a reaction from her.

It was working, only not in the way she suspected he thought it might.

She knew the dangers inherent in such a situation. It had been in close confines—albeit completely
different circumstances—that she’d convinced herself she’d been attracted to, and had fallen in love with, her ex. She and Dan had been on stakeout together, putting in double time as they tailed a suspected felon in a small town outside Oklahoma City. Their cover had been as young honeymooners on a cross-country road trip, so they’d stayed in the same motel room to perpetuate the roles.

Only their faked attraction to each other had turned quickly into the real thing.

It wasn’t until after they’d married and had Daisy that they’d figured out that, aside from their jobs, they didn’t have much in common. Not even passion.

Still, with Claude so close, Akela couldn’t help thinking it had been so long since she’d allowed her body to take precedence over her head. Too long.

The bed beneath her was softer than anything she’d felt in a long, long time. While she’d been sitting on it for the past four hours, she hadn’t noticed how soft it was until she was lying fully against it. The mattress nearly cocooned her in its layers of down, the high thread count sheets like silk against the exposed areas of her skin. The bedding smelled subtly like wildflowers. Narcissus? Orchids?

Then Claude had stretched out next to her and it was as though someone had struck a match and thrown it on top of her after dousing her with ac
celerant. Every nerve ending leaped to pulsating life. Her heart pounded an uneven staccato in her chest. She couldn’t seem to draw a breath deeper than a shallow gasp. And her lower abdomen felt as if Claude had pressed a hot hand against it, eliciting a riot of longing in her.

Though they were touching, it wasn’t in that way. Instead, he appeared to be going out of his way to make his actions seem casual, only her reaction to them was anything but.

This man had been with another woman that morning. That woman had died shortly thereafter, possibly at the hands of this man. None of this mattered to her. She only knew a burning desire to experience what he so openly seemed to be offering her.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew the wantonness of her thoughts should startle, if not scare her. She’d never been one to let go of her self-control. All decisions she made were in concert with her brain—which may be exactly the reason for the full-scale rebellion her body was staging now.

She felt something against her right nipple and gasped. No longer capable of pretending sleep, she threw her eyes open and stared at where Claude was leaning on one well-muscled arm, star
ing down at her, his expression sober. His other hand was above her chest, a finger having traced the edge of her slip.

“Ah,
cher,
I thought that might get your attention.”

It did more than get her attention. Her nipples were bunched so tight they ached. And her stomach quivered from his attention.

But when she might or should have asked him to leave her be, tell him that molesting a hostage would only put him in hotter water, an unfamiliar voice whispered, almost pleaded, with her to give herself over to sensation just this once.

She licked her lips as her chest heaved from the difficulty she was having breathing.

Up this close and personal, she noticed how very attractive he was. Not in a Greek statue way. Rather in a wild Cajun way, with tousled hair, dark skin and an even darker allure that left her scanning his mouth and wondering what it would feel like to be kissed by him.

His finger grazed her skin again. Akela arched her back, pressing her breast into the palm of his hand and groaned, a response so outside her normal one that she was shocked—until Claude leaned over and showed her exactly what it would be like to kiss him.

Firm and probing and hungry, he slanted his mouth against hers, tentatively at first, as if giving
her the option of pulling away, then more insistently, a low groan of his own filling her ears.

Long moments later he broke from her mouth and buried his nose along with the fingers of his right hand in her hair. “Ah,
poupée
, you present a temptation too strong for this mortal man to resist.”

His words made her blood surge in her veins and hot wetness flood her inner thighs.

She’d never been an irresistible temptation to anyone. And the prospect that she was to him made her feel powerful despite the cuffs holding her captive.

She felt fingers against the sensitive skin of her inner knee and nearly came up off the bed, the jolt of electricity to her tender areas so intense she was sure he had set fire to her limbs. The hem of her slip slid up and she felt the humid air on her exposed underpants. She held his probing gaze, almost challenging him to take things further. Daring him.

She watched his gaze take her in from hair to bare toes, lingering on her crotch and her breasts where they strained against the material of her bra and slip.

“You’re playing a very, very dangerous game,
ma catin
.”

Akela restlessly moistened her lips. “No more dangerous than the one you started when you took me captive.”

His gaze flicked to hers where it stayed for a long heartbeat, touching her as thoroughly as any caress. “Ah, yes. Only I’m beginning to wonder who’s keeping whom captive now.”

She tugged on her wrist. “Release me and find out.”