Remembered by Moonlight (4 page)

A laugh. “How would you know? You’re hardly an expert on what I am or I’m not.”

“I’m a fast learner.”

She wasn’t sure if he stepped forward or she leaned back. Their bodies bumped, and the shock of it undid her.

Cee Cee turned right into his arms. Hers circled him in a frantic clutch. Cheek pressed to the hard wall of his chest with only a thin weave of white linen between them, she squeezed her eyes shut and simply breathed him in. Love, longing, desire all quivered through her, a bouquet so potent he couldn’t be unaware of it. This was where she belonged, where everything made sense.

And then she realized he no longer held her, that his arms had dropped to his sides, as his breath suspended. She knew if she looked up, she’d see that horribly familiar blankness in his eyes, that stiff distance in his expression, and suddenly that hurt worse than the thought of his absence.

She pushed away with a crisp, “I’m sorry. I’m breaking the rules. I forgot we were strangers.” She turned to her dresser to snatch up those things that represented her: shield, cell, holster and gun, all the while saying, “Consider yourself off the leash, Savoie. You’re capable of handling your own affairs. I’ll stick to mine. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a report to file.”

He didn’t move to stop her.

Giles came up off the couch, but she cut through whatever he was about to say with her brusque, “Take your orders from him from now on. I’m not his babysitter or your conscience.”

Then Giles surprised her with a well-meaning but nonetheless wounding, “That’s probably for the best, Charlotte.”

For whom? Definitely not her.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Cee Cee went through the motions, quickly and efficiently. She filed her report of the incident—a carefully veiled version of the truth. Everything about her life seemed wrapped in varying shades of a lie. She and MacCreedy had gone to the wharf to follow up on a lead. Their police-issue coupe had been struck by a runaway forklift whose driver had bolted the scene after they went into the water. They were fished out by vigilant dockworkers, and Silas was currently under observation for some nasty contusions. Which was all that would be left of his trauma after he’d healed. Having a self-restoring partner had its perks. She was never without one for long.

While she was running solo, she decided to complete their morning’s intentions in a talk with Jacques LaRoche.

Cheveux du Chien
. Hair of the Dog. An appropriate name for LaRoche’s warehouse-based club where those of his kind didn’t have to pretend they were like everyone else in New Orleans. Within its black-matte walls, beneath its booming sound system, they could howl.

The first time she’d gone inside she’d been a stranger in a very strange land. Following a whispered suggestion, she’d taken Max there to find others like him. Before that, he’d believed himself a frightening anomaly. To discover an entire community of supernatural beings who now looked to him for leadership changed a shadowy Mob bodyguard who’d lived to heed one voice into a powerful symbol of change and freedom who heard the cries of many. From that initial meeting of kindred souls, Max had felt the pull between two worlds, and because she was with him all the way in all things, so had she.

The club’s mammoth owner was hunched over ledgers in his glossy black, red and chrome office. On the other side of the desk, his seven-year-old daughter’s head was bent over school books. Both looked up through the same bright blue eyes.

“Detective.” Jacques’s usual booming fondness was tempered by concern. “I hear there was trouble at the docks.” He smiled at the child. “Pearl, grab one of those pricy foreign waters out of the cooler for Detective Caissie.”

“On the house?” Pearl may have inherited his stare but the sharp contemplation behind it was all her mother’s. Her censure was very clear.

“Don’t be sassy.” After the girl begrudgingly left them, Jacques muttered, “Quite the little capitalist, that one.” But his smile softened with adoration, turning ferocious beast into teddy bear. He looked to Cee Cee, all attention. “Fill me in.”

As he listened, his expression grew more and more troubled. When she’d finished, he asked with some difficulty, “Are you looking at Tib for this?”

Jacques and Philo Tibideaux went way back, to the time the redhead and his brother had interrupted the killing of a stranger from the North and took him in as family. The break between them had been harshly painful on both sides so Cee Cee continued with care.

“He’s right in the middle, Jacques, so I can’t exclude him. He knows something, but he won’t talk to me.” Her insinuation was plain, and Jacques didn’t like it.

“We’re not exactly on good terms, Charlotte. He’s not going to confide anything to me.”

“Could you be my eyes on the docks then? If what Silas heard is true, we’ve got a dangerous unknown trying to push inside our city limits. They’ve already made trouble for Giles’s family in the bayou, and I don’t want them camping out on our back porch.”

“No problem. I’ll poke around.”

“Have you heard anything about this Kick? Noticed any changes in your clientele?”

“
Cher
, my customers have always been a rowdy bunch, but if they’re up to really rough stuff, they’re not doing it here.”

Cee Cee exhaled loudly, disappointment evident. Then she recalled something Dovion had mentioned. “What about illegal fights? Max’s father used to mix it up on the docks in his day. Is there anything like that going on?”

Jacques chuckled. “I never thought I’d be so happily domesticated that I don’t even notice. I’ll have some of my less tame acquaintances see what they can sniff out. There’s always some group of knuckleheads who can’t get their aggression harnessed by honest work.”

“Like Philo’s Patrol?”

Jacques’ smile died. “Yeah. Like them.”

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It was well past the supper hour when Cee Cee, carrying a takeout bag of Chinese, let herself into the apartment. Finding the rooms dark likewise colored her mood.

Her taste for the meal gone when it meant dining alone, she put the sack in the nearly-empty refrigerator, exchanging it for a beer. She studied the cool bottle then, with a sigh, put it back, resigned to a comfortless evening.

Where was Max?

She paced and mulled over that question as shadows deepened along with her fears.

Had she expected it to be easy having him here so close and yet so agonizingly far away? Bad enough watching him in that antiseptic clinic cell, a prisoner of his own panicked madness, raving, raging, out of control. Worse was having him here in the lush, sexy surroundings he’d built for them to share, temptingly near yet impossible to reach.

A bargain made in heartbreak hell.

It was practical, logical, she’d argued once he’d calmed and was no longer a threat to them or himself. Where better for Max to recover his fragmented past than in surroundings rich with the memories they’d shared? The high-rise stronghold he’d erected to house his clan would become his own protective cocoon where he could remain safely swathed in the details of his life. A huge walk-in closet filled with his designer suits and tailored shirts. The scent of his toiletries in the bathroom. Of their bodies entwined together on the sheets. His unpretentious taste reflected in the clean yet sophisticated line of each and every room. She’d been sure the proximity would provoke something . . . other than her frustration.

Max had come with her willingly enough. What option did he have? Remain at the Institute as a subject of surveillance and cautious study? They’d made an agreement so the transition would be less awkward: cohabitation without the pressure to fulfill each other’s expectations. She’d walk him through the personal ins and outs of their life together in an effort to spark familiarity. She’d keep him safe from the outside world and from himself. And from her. What an excruciating Catch 22 that had become. To pretend not to ache for his touch. To keep her hands from reclaiming the long, powerful lines of his body, from absorbing his heat, from tasting his lips with a hunger that just kept growing. Rolling over in the huge bed she insisted they share to find them separated by more than just space. Or, more often than not, him absent, preferring the couch to her company for what little rest he was able to find.

Though she might be tortured by cherished memories, he was not. She was nothing to him but a protective port in his emotional storm. And that knowledge was driven home like a stake through the heart every time they were together. Every time he stared at her through those cool green eyes without the slightest flicker of response. Every time he took that distancing step back to evade the casual graze of her hand. Every time he lay next to her in the night, and silence created a force field of discomfort.

Tripping over him every minute of the damned day only emphasized how much she wanted,
needed
him back. And underlined how far away he was.

“Don’t push.”
Susanna’s advice weighed like a stone upon her anxious hopes. Make the past available, but don’t overwhelm him with it. Let him take it in slowly, don’t force-feed him until he chokes. Offer, but don’t insist. Be patient. Not her strong suit.

Max was the one who’d been willing to wait twelve years before making a move for her affections. He was a virtual Job of restraint. Her, not so much. Time was a luxury she rarely enjoyed in her profession’s sprint for results. If a short cut to his recovery existed, she’d take it in a heartbeat if not for the Chosen doctor’s warning.

Max could crash.

Susanna didn’t have to paint an oil masterpiece for Cee Cee to get the picture. Overload. Melt down. Circuit fry. Permanent collapse of personality. Since they had no idea what had been done to him, those horrifying consequences were all too real. Susanna had seen it happen when subjects fought the imprinting process, her kind’s nasty habit of mind control by chemically and psychically altering individual will. Max Savoie had battled for his identity since childhood, that need to fight ingrained in him.

So Cee Cee would go slowly. She’d suppress her own desires to protect him during this fragile stage, and calmly, patiently encourage those baby steps to bring back her love, her mate, her every dream come true.

That was the plan.

What was she going to do if she couldn’t break through that barrier between them? How was she going to live her life if, instead of going back to what they’d had, he rebuilt his world without her?

Cee Cee collapsed on the couch and closed her eyes, struggling against the burn of distress prickling behind them. Her palms pressed to the faint curve of her abdomen as she remembered Susanna’s concern. Was she all right? Not hardly. Nowhere near it.

Time was running out.

Some elements of the past would soon be apparent. Whether Max was ready to face them or not.

No particular sound or movement woke Cee Cee from her restless sleep. More a sense that she was not alone. She straightened from her curled position on the couch, puzzled by the drape of a light blanket tucked in around her.

The bare wall of windows let in the lights of the city against an ink-black sky, silhouetting a solitary figure. Her throat clutched as she recalled the first time she’d seen him there when the building was still a metal skeleton, toeing the edge of the beam, his dark coat billowing behind him like the wings of a fallen angel. His pose was no less dramatic now, sleek, dark and solitary as he stared out into the night.

Cee Cee bit down on her initial impulse to demand where he’d been, knowing her panic would shine through. No pressure. Don’t push. Give him space. Her restraint was rewarded by the quiet murmur of his voice.

“I didn’t mean to wake you. Giles and I were going through the books at LEI, and time got away from us. There’s so much I need to learn if I’m to maintain the masquerade of knowing who I am. I apologize if you were worried.”

He’d been with Giles at Legere Enterprises International tending his inherited ill-gotten and now nearly legal gains. All anxieties addressed and answered. She relaxed. “Have you eaten?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She could tell by his hesitation that there was more he wanted to say, so she remained silent and let him work up to it. Still, his question took her by surprise.

“What was that this morning?”

“I had a very busy morning. Be more specific.”

“Between us.”

Specific as a heart attack. No use tiptoeing around it.

“We’ve had a sort of psychic connection since we bonded.” Thankfully, he didn’t ask her to explain
that
process. “We can get inside each other’s heads.”

He had yet to look toward her. She didn’t need a psychic bond to feel him locking down tight to prevent her unauthorized entry. They both were intensely private that way.

“How does it work?”
How can I stop it?
That’s what he really wanted to know.

“I’m not sure. We share thoughts, feelings, dreams.”

“All the time?” Oh, such wariness in that simple question. So Max.

“No. Of course not. It’s not something we’ve explored. It happens rarely, in times of stress or when we . . .”

Have sex. That dropped between them like an armed bomb.

“Don’t worry,” she concluded, tone brittle. “I knock before I come in, and wait for permission.”

He turned slowly to face her.

The past months of anxiety and fear fell away as she stared at him, heart seizing. Here was the Max Savoie she’d fallen helplessly in love with against all her best intentions. Impeccably dressed, the lines of a designer suit skimming his long, lean and lethal frame, the toes of his athletic shoes peeping from beneath tailored slacks in sassy juxtaposition.

Darkness and shadow carved out features too rough and bold to be handsome, yet too compelling to be ignored. Unblinking eyes, as pale and green as the still waters of the bayou, shone with an eerie intensity from beneath an uncompromising line of heavy brows and unruly black hair nearly tamed by a stylishly short cut. Faint stubble shaded the set of his rugged jaw, lending a harshly dangerous air to his outward sophistication.

He was thuggishly elegant, graceful yet seething with raw power, aloof and still undeniably fascinating. Legere’s enigmatic enforcer turned influential businessman and philanthropist. Traumatized orphan child who’d polarized a group of frightened misfits into a tight community family. Everything she’d ever wanted.

She’d worried over him, missed him, needed him but until this moment, when the unexpected mention of sex reared its wicked head, Cee Cee hadn’t realized just how long she’d gone without the physical side of their relationship. Seeing him standing there fit and fine, wreathed in stillness and mystery, so tempting, so inviting, a fever hot dream personified, her body burned until only a fire extinguisher could cool her intention of coaxing him back into an intimate bed.

Until he spoke.

“But you didn’t ask this morning.”

Even though there was no censure in his tone, his testy challenge coldly dashed her desire.

“That was instinct, not a planned invasion of your privacy. Would you rather I hadn’t reached out to you? Would you rather Silas and I both had died for the sake of politeness?”

“Of course not.” Irritation flashed through his expression. Reserve fell before a simmer of temper. “Don’t be—” He broke off abruptly.

“Foolish?” she supplied.

He raised his brows, a small smile lifting one corner of his too damned delicious mouth. Making her crave hot sex again when, unfortunately he was still interested in conversation.

“How is this possible, you being a human?”

It was her turn to hold back behind silence.

His eyes narrowed into long cautious slits. “What are you, Detective? What makes you different?”
What makes you dangerous to me?
was tacitly implied.

“I’m like you. I’m more.” It felt strange to admit that out loud for the first time, the concept still uncomfortably new to her. “My father was human, my mother an original of your species, like yours. She brought unique abilities into the genetic mix. That’s what Susanna is studying.”

For a moment, Max stood motionless, digesting this information. Was he shocked? She couldn’t tell from his shadowed expression. Would it change how he viewed her, discovering that instead of a feeble human, he was mated to a female with strengths and talents of her own? Never mind that she’d yet to discover them. Or would he see her now as a threat? She wished she could read what went on behind his impassive stare.

“Are we her test subjects?”

Now there was emotion. Uneasiness, resentment, caution. Distrust. As if all the forward momentum they’d made slammed into wary reverse. As if they were no better than the ones who’d trapped him on their experimental table.

She could have lied. She could have sugar-coated that bitter pill of knowledge to make it go down easier. But Cee Cee answered truthfully. “In a way.”

“I see.” Whatever he saw wasn’t pleasant. He’d closed down tight as a vacuum seal. “Who’s been mucking about in my head without me knowing it?”

“No one, Max. Not since Nica, Silas and his sister tried to reach your memories. No one has acted against you or your best interests. You must believe that.” But obviously, he didn’t.

“They were unsuccessful.”

“Yes.”

“No more of that. Not from anyone.” Anger as well as anxiousness underlined that demand. She couldn’t blame him for feeling betrayed by their desperate actions until he added, “Not even from you, Detective.”

Point taken as hard as a slap. “I understand. I’ll keep my distance, Savoie.” She stood and carefully folded the blanket, hugging it to her chest. Waiting. Hoping he’d say more. When he remained stoically silent, she had no choice but to say, “Good night then. I have an early day tomorrow.”

“I’ll try not to disturb you.”

With a thin smile, Cee Cee disappeared into the bedroom.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Max stood letting minutes become an hour as he looked out into the night, at that dark canvas dotted with brilliant light. A good analogy for the state of his mind. He knew only what he’d been told by those who called themselves his friends. But they could have been anyone and their words lies. He had no way of knowing. That left him uneasy beneath the crown of responsibility they’d eagerly placed upon his head.

He understood some things as truths. He just knew. He keyed in the code to this secured floor without thought, knew where the coffee maker was, what order his parade of shoes should be in and which pair he preferred above the costly Italian leathers—the red Converse high tops that fit so comfortably upon his feet. How could he know these things and not his name?

Or the face of the woman he was linked to for life?

A woman who was so much more than he at first assumed.

Again, caution whispered to him. Such intense self-restraint must have come from somewhere, from some harsh lesson learned. What was it?

They’ll find you. They’ll hurt you. They’ll kill you.

Don’t let them see what you are, what you can do.

Those two very distinct voices haunted him. One he believed was his mother’s. The other belonged to his mentor, mobster Jimmy Legere. What had they known that he needed to discover if he was to survive?

Survival. That one forceful need drove him, the key to all that he’d been, to all that he was. A deep, desperate, clawing purpose rooted in fears that shadowed his beginnings. Forbidding this trust his supposed mate spoke of. Challenging the life of wealth and hard-won respect he’d been shown that afternoon. Denying the insistent claims that he was safe and protected amongst friends.

Why did none of those things quiet the insistent alarm crying all was not fine, that he was teetering on a precipice that would destroy him?

If survival was the treasure locked beyond a wall of blankness, his memories were the key. He had to get through. Or this woman, these people, this world he allegedly loved would all be lost.

A soft cry from the bedroom pulled his attention away from his own troubles. Just as it had that morning, that sound of distress triggered a sudden surge of defending instinct, propelling him down the hall, his pulse thundering in alarm.

The room was dark, but Max had no trouble locating the figure tossing anxiously beneath silky sheets. She was asleep, her dream twisting about her like those tangled covers. There was no apparent danger, yet he didn’t withdraw. Her plaintive cries held him in a tight fist, shaking him into intuitive action. To guard. To comfort.

After taking off his jacket, tie and shoes, he slid across the acre of empty space to find her knotted and trembling on the far edge of the mattress. Trying not to wake her, he bent close enough to see the frantic movements beneath her shuttered eyelids, to hear the hurried snatches of breath that fluttered softly against his skin.

“Shhhhh. It’s all right,
sha
. I’m here. I won’t let anything harm you.”

His voice brought her up against him like a gravitational pull, her arms snagging about his middle, her damp face burrowing into the hollow of his throat. There, she clung with a desperate entreaty until his embrace circled her and pressed her closer still. The transfer was immediate, her absorbing his calm, him tense with her panic.

Despite an insistent urge that he pull back from this unexpected intimacy, Max sank into a deep sense of . . . rightness. Her scent, her thick mat of dark hair tickling beneath his chin, her curvy body’s surprising strength under sweat-dampened tee shirt and gym shorts, the unquestioning way she sought him, all so familiar, so . . . right.

He settled beside her, letting himself relax into the moment, cautiously exploring the complexities she inspired. Contentment. A fierce, spirit-shaking protectiveness. And more. Sensations wound about his heart, sinking low to burn and ache in his loins as his knuckles brushed along the line of her jaw.

My warrior woman.

Max smiled at that encapsulation of who and what she was as he let his eyes close and simply enjoyed the sense of belonging to someplace, to someone. And as he drifted off into a deep and untroubled sleep, one certainty lingered.

He’d been wrong before.

Here in his arms was the key to everything.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

With a languid stretch, Cee Cee reluctantly allowed wakefulness to creep up on her, unwilling to surrender her dream of being held by the man she adored. She’d never imagined such a feeling during her careful, self-contained early years when the only one she could depend on was herself. She didn’t let down and let go easily around others. A rare phenomenon found only with Max Savoie. How she missed that restorative peace.

Yet this morning she felt its embrace, as if she’d enjoyed the real thing.

Her eyes blinked open, finding the expected empty spot beside her. Oddly, disappointment didn’t crush her mood.

Something was different.

Max Savoie’s scent was all over her.

She sat up abruptly, pulling her tee shirt to her nose, inhaling his unmistakable smell in the fabric.

It hadn’t been a dream.

Cee Cee scrambled out of bed and headed toward the sound of the television in the living room. Max had become something of a news junkie. He was lounging on their sofa, already dressed in his sleek Armani, sipping a cup of harsh chicory coffee. As his head turned and his gaze lifted to her, her pulse stumbled. There was something different about him. Something that encouraged a hopeful smile as she bid him good morning.

“Your coffee’s ready, Detective. I wouldn’t want to send you out to face the streets unarmed.”

“I appreciate your concern, Savoie.”

That was it. What she read in his eyes was concern. For her. What a huge improvement over his recent remoteness. A tiny step, but enough to make her own wobbly as she went to pour a cup of the dark brew. Normally, she would have carried it over to the couch where she’d have curl up against him, her head on his shoulder as they readied to start their day. That was before. Now, she assumed a seat on the adjacent sofa, keeping a careful distance as she inhaled the potent steam in appreciation.