Relentless Seduction (8 page)

He’d felt like a full-on hero when she flung herself into his arms earlier. Her breasts had pressed against his chest and he’d wanted to lower his nose to her neck and breathe in her clean scent.

But he’d been forced to pull his Sig Sauer like the banger he used to be.

How the hell else was he supposed to keep her safe when she came into this part of town looking like she did? Wait. Since when had he found jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt sexy? But something about the dark red color of the shirt brought out red lights in her brunette hair, which curled delectably out of control as usual. He wanted to reach up and twirl a short silky strand around his finger

He shook his head. He was losing it.

“Wait.” She dug in her heels when he tried to push her into his passenger seat. “I’ve got a cab waiting on the other side of the highway.”

Merde.
“Get in.” He started the engine, swung around and paid off the cabbie before roaring back onto the highway. Maybe it was the adrenaline from the danger, but all he wanted to do was toss her in the backseat, pull up her shirt, drag off her jeans and be inside her again.

“You were seeing if any of your friends knew Shadow? Or where we might find him?” Claire asked.

Rafe forced his thoughts to the problem at hand. “Yeah. I called in some favors. They’ll put the word out. If anyone knows anything, they’ll come to the bar.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

He shrugged, irritated. With himself. With her. With the whole foolish situation. He shifted gears. Changed lanes.

“I’m sorry I upset Ima Jean.”

Rafe glanced at Claire as he punched the clutch and shifted a second time. She was biting her thumbnail and he wanted to take her hand and suck that thumb into his mouth. “She doesn’t like outsiders.”

Claire gently cleared her throat. “After the last housing bubble burst, I believe the number of homeless rose to around seven-hundred thousand. Ten percent of U.S. workers’ incomes decreased to below the poverty level, and especially in New Orleans after Katrina—”

“What would you know about it?” He gritted his teeth at her arrogance. “Spouting your facts and figures? Have you ever had to wonder where you were going to sleep at night? Ever gone even one day without food?”

“You’re right. I can’t even imagine what that must be like.” She moved in her seat to face him. “Were you displaced after Katrina?”

He scoffed. “I was in the Gulf on a rig when Katrina hit. What happened here after the hurricane only confirmed what I already knew. You can’t count on anyone but yourself.”

He glanced over at her. She frowned as if she were trying to figure him out. “Were your parents...drowned in the flood?”

Clenching his teeth, Rafe changed lanes to pass an eighteen-wheeler. “My parents died when I was twelve.”

Her mouth dropped open. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.” Then why did he still feel like slamming his fist through a wall?

“What happened?”

They were almost to Once Bitten. The wheels screeched as he turned into the alley behind his bar. His lungs felt tight as he parked and killed the engine. “Head-on collision.”

“Oh, my God.” She reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, but he opened his door and jumped out.

“I’ve got to open the bar.” He slammed his door, and then took the stairs two at a time to get to his apartment.

His keys. He’d left them in the damn car. He turned and Claire was behind him. Holding his keys.

“Rafe.”

“Give me the keys.”

“Are you okay?”

“Give me the damn keys!” He snatched them from her fingers and unlocked the door. Slamming open the door, he made a dash for the cabinet under the sink and grabbed the bottle of whiskey. By the time he had the lid unscrewed and the bottle to his mouth, she was standing next to him. He avoided her gaze and took a swig. And then another, longer gulp.

“Rafe.”

“Dammit!” He slammed the bottle on the counter, ready to tell her to mind her own stupid business.

Someone pounded on the door leading to the bar. “Rafe, you there?” his assistant manager, Rowena, yelled.

Rafe blinked, pulled out his cell and checked the time. Damn, Ro had already opened the bar. What the hell was he doing? He squeezed the bridge of his nose and strode to the door. “I’ll be right there,” he called. He didn’t know what had happened just now, but, thankfully, he didn’t want or have time to think about it.

“Got a message for you, Rafe.” Rowena spoke through the door.

Claire pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped her nose.

He opened the door. “What is it, Ro?”

“There’s a guy here says he has some information for you about someone named Shadow.”

8

“P
UT
HIM
IN
MY
OFFICE
.
I’ll be right there,” Rafe calmly told Ro.

Ro nodded and headed back down the stairs, but not before giving Claire the evil eye.

Rafe closed the door and swept past Claire.

He jerked out of his jacket, strode to the bathroom and splashed water on his face.

Claire followed, standing in the doorway. Her gaze caught the handle of the gun sticking out of his waistband.

Rafe straightened, wiping his face with a towel. He caught her gaze in the mirror. “What?”

“I just wanted...” What could she say?
I want to know everything about you, Rafael Moreau. What happened to you after your parents died? Why can’t you talk about it?

“You want to find your friend or don’t you?” He gestured toward the stairs, and Claire preceded him down to the bar.

At the door to his office, she waited for him to enter first before following.

“Rafe.” An older man who looked to be in his forties fist-bumped Rafe. He was easily half a foot taller than Rafe, with a thick neck and a broad chest. His salt-and-pepper hair was tied in a ponytail at the back of his neck and the tail was a couple of feet long. But his straggly beard was completely gray.

“Hawk, how you doin’,
mon ami.
” He offered the man the chair, but Hawk shook his head, folded his beefy arms and stared pointedly at her.

Claire shrunk into herself, then harnessed her inner Julia, lifted her chin and returned his stare.

“She’s with me.” Rafe gestured at her, and Hawk’s eyes widened, and his gaze moved down her body, and back up again.

“Heard you’re looking for a low-life called Shadow.”

“You know him?”

“Yeah. He’s small time, steals enough to get high.”

“Know where I can find him?”

“I know where he used to be, man. But I heard he was recently...excommunicated, let’s call it.”

Rafe folded his arms and leaned against his desk. “It’s a start.”

“There’s this group of people that believe they are vampires, call themselves The Colony. They don’t break the law, but they don’t exactly like it when members try to leave, if you know what I mean.”

Rafe nodded. “I’ve heard of them. A few used to hang out in the back room here sometimes. They’re a cult of sorts. Rumor has it they like to drink each others’ blood as a turn-on. But from what I saw they were basically harmless. Know where I might find them?”

A cult? Claire shivered. They didn’t like it when members left? Could Shadow have brought Julia there and now they were holding her against her will? And what was that part about drinking each others’ blood?

“Okay, thanks, man.” Rafe straightened from the desk and briefly clamped Hawk’s upper arm. “I owe you.”

She’d missed Hawk’s answer. About where to find them. As Hawk approached the door, Claire stepped aside, but extended her right hand. “Thank you.”

His huge hand swallowed hers. Rough calluses scratched her palm, but he smiled as he looked down at her. “If you’re Rafe’s woman, no need for thanks.” He opened the door and was gone before she could correct him.

Rafe’s woman. She had to admit that the sound of that sent a thrill through her.

Get real, Claire Brooks. You’re nothing but a pain in Rafe Moreau’s behind. An annoying fly he’d like to swat. At best, you were a fling.

“So.” Rafe pulled the gun from his waistband and set it on the desk, took a seat in his chair and gathered up some papers. “Now you can tell the cops to check out The Colony.” He began scrutinizing the papers as if the secret to immortality were hidden in them.

Dismissed. As if he were one of her professors at the university and she were one of his students. Class over.
We’re over.
Except, despite Hawk’s assumption, they’d never been a
“we.”

Oh, but she would never forget his lovemaking. The memory would keep her toasty warm on many a bitterly cold Boston night to come.

Rafe cleared his throat. “This paperwork isn’t going to finish itself.” He raised a brow at her, then returned his glare to the ledger on his desk. Did he remember why he hadn’t gotten to it earlier?

“Right.” She pulled out her phone, brought up the sergeant’s number from her list of outgoing calls. “I’m sorry, what was the address? I didn’t catch it.”

“It’s the old abandoned hospital in New Awlins East,” he mumbled, still engrossed in the ledger.

“East. Right. What was the name of the hospital?”

He jerked his gaze to her, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t even think about it.”

“What?” She was a terrible actress. Still, she gave him her most innocent look.

“I mean it. You go out there tonight and I’ll shoot you myself.”

“Rafe, what if she’s being held prisoner there?”

“Let. The cops. Handle this.”

She let out a defeated breath and punched Mulroney’s number.

The phone barely rang before the sergeant answered. “Mulroney.”

Rafe snatched the phone from her hand and proceeded to fill in Mulroney on everything they’d learned from Hawk. Then he warned the sergeant that Claire might try to head there herself and they should send someone now. She couldn’t hear what Mulroney said next, but Rafe swore under his breath, clicked the phone off and leveled a cold stare at Claire.

“Let’s go.” He grabbed his gun, stuck it back in his waistband and strode out of his office.

Confused, Claire followed.

“Ro, I’m going out,” he called to the woman behind the bar serving customers. Then he raced up the stairs to his apartment.

Claire hurried after him. “What did Mulroney say? Aren’t they going to check it out?”

“As soon as they can spare a patrol car.” Rafe grabbed his jacket and his keys and headed out the back door.

“I don’t understand. After the break-in at the hotel, he seemed to take Julia’s disappearance more seriously.” She rushed down the stairs after him.

Rafe gave a humorless laugh. “He said if she
is
with this cult, then it’s of her own free will.”

“No! Julia would never do that.”

“That’s what cults do, Claire. Brainwash suckers into believing in their craziness.”

She hesitated. Could she again let him put himself in possible danger for her? This group, this...Colony, were really just regular people, after all. But they might not appreciate Rafe and her barging into their midst and trying to extricate Julia. And they drank human blood?

But what if Julia was being abused even as Claire stood here dithering?

Images flashed before her of Julia’s wrist being cut and her wound forced to bleed into a chalice, or even her neck being bitten, or of her sexually assaulted by some delusional sadist.

Claire bit her lip, constricting her distress. “Rafe?”

“What?” He half turned back.

“If Julia
is
there, but it seems too dangerous to confront them, we call Sergeant Mulroney and wait for him to bring backup. Deal?”

He raised his brows. “Who said anything about confronting them?” He continued down the stairs.

* * *

B
Y
THE
TIME
R
AFE
PULLED
the Barracuda into the cracked, weed-infested parking lot of what used to be the Delacroix Asylum on the outskirts of Orleans Parish, he was wondering if he should have his head examined. What was he thinking coming out here to rescue some bimbo who probably didn’t want to be saved?

Hell, they weren’t even sure she was here.

Then he grinned at the irony of using the phrase
head examined
at a place like this. More than likely the poor souls who’d ended up here had had their heads cut open for a lobotomy.

He shuddered, but covered it by getting out, striding to the back of the Barracuda and opening the trunk. He pulled out his two-foot-long Mag-light. The sucker weighed a good five pounds and, if wielded properly, could cause a concussion.

“Here.” He handed it to Claire.

She turned it on and aimed it at the crumbling building.

“If you need it, that thing makes a pretty good weapon.”

Her eyes wide, she looked back at him and then down at the flashlight. “Okay.”

He took her elbow and guided her toward the entrance.

Claire was studying the building. “This used to be a hospital? It looks more like an old plantation house.” They took the dozen steps carefully, avoiding rotted-out planks.

“It was. Then, during the Civil war, it was used as a hospital. By the early twentieth century, it’d been turned into an asylum.”

She glanced at him. “How do you know so much about it?”

“The Delacroix Asylum used to be a stop on all the ghost tours until the building was officially condemned.”

She rubbed her arms and shivered. “Condemned?”

He chuckled. “That’s what bothers you? Not the ghosts?”

“I don’t believe in ghosts. Do you?”

“
Cher,
I’m from New Awlins. I was raised on all kinds of supernatural stories from ghosts and ghoulies to voodoo and vampires.”

“Well, I’m from Missouri. The ‘Show Me’ state.”

He caught her mouth curving up at the corners. A beautiful mouth, full lips. He wanted to taste them again. Wanted to feel them on his skin again. And...yeah, he must need his head examined if he could think of sex right now. An hour ago he would’ve sworn he wanted nothing more to do with Claire and her mission. He’d done all he could and the police would handle it from there. He didn’t want to get any more involved.

But then she’d looked at him with those big brown eyes, damn it. Maybe he
could
use a lobotomy.

“Is it safe to go inside?”

The porch had a hole about five feet in diameter where the worn wood had broken. He shrugged. “If we’re careful.” Gingerly, he stepped around it and opened the double doors, noting the chain was missing that should be locked around the handles. A good sign that someone was using the place. Or had been recently.

It struck him that he and Claire were behaving like the morons in those horror films who go into the spooky mansion even after all their friends have already been slaughtered by the psychotic murderer. But he squelched the thought—after all, there’d been no murders committed. And he’d met a few of the members of this cult before. They weren’t violent.

Claire lighted the way, but he went in first. She stepped inside behind him and shone the beam of light all around. The twenty-foot-tall arched ceiling was impressive, until a closer look revealed the once-gilded wood was rotting. What was left of the blue silk wallpaper was peeling. And the floor was more moss and weeds than pine planks.

“There are an awful lot of windows for a vampire lair,” Claire observed. “Not to mention the gap in the roof.” She aimed the flashlight up to the missing ceiling. “Wouldn’t they need a dark place to sleep during the day?”

“Maybe. If they took their role-playing that seriously. Maybe they sleep in the basement.”

“Basement?” She shuddered beside him. “I thought New Orleans couldn’t build underground because it sits below sea level,” Claire whispered.

“This house has a raised basement. Most plantations did. We actually entered the house on the second floor.”

“Oh, right.”

The hallway was littered with trash, leaves and broken furniture. He stepped slowly, watching out for weak spots in the floor, turning left into a room that had once been a parlor, but had been converted a century ago or more into an office.

The room was empty now except for sagging bookshelves and a three-legged chair lying on its side. A door leading from the office led into a smaller, darker room, probably used for storage. Rafe motioned for Claire to shine the flashlight in there, just so they could say they’d checked every room, but it was empty.

He retraced his steps and crossed the main hall, trusting Claire to follow and light the way. He could feel her at his back, hear her breathing. The next step he took he kicked a heap of something and dozens of squealing rats scratched over his boots and between his legs, scurrying every which way.

Claire screamed and dropped the flashlight, which went bumping and rolling across the floor. The light bounced off the walls and ceiling. She clutched both her arms around him as she danced and hopped trying to dodge the rodents.

As Claire stilled and the house settled back into silence, he realized he’d taken her in his arms and her face was buried in his neck. One hand rubbed her back and the other was tangled in her hair. The locks were so soft between his fingers and he found himself stroking the curly strands. He inhaled, smelling her honey shampoo and his body reacted.

Great time for this, Moreau.

“Are you all right?”

She sniffed and nodded, but her body still trembled. Neither of them moved.

“It was just a nest of rodents. They were more scared of us than we were of them.” He continued rubbing her back and stroking her hair. He could get used to this playing-the-hero thing.

“Speak for yourself.” Her voice sounded so timid. “You weren’t scared.”

“Sure I was. For a second there.”

She lifted her head. “You were not.” He could feel her grin more than see it, since the flashlight was lying some feet away and pointed in the opposite direction. But her smile faded as he watched her mouth and lowered his to kiss her.

What the hell? He pulled back, dropped his arms and strode over to pick up the flashlight. He
had
lost his edge if all he wanted was to take her right there against the grimy wall.

“Come on.” He shone the light into the room, which had clearly been a waiting area with chairs lining two walls. He took her hand and headed down the main hall past the staircase, then hesitated at the door on the right.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of light flickering from beneath a door two down on the left.

Turning to Claire, he pointed at the door, put his finger to his lips and clicked off the flashlight, plunging them into blinding darkness. Which was stupid, come to think of it. Any element of surprise they might have had had disappeared when they’d disturbed the rats’ nest and Claire screamed.