Chapter Twenty-nine

The band wasn’t very good, which might explain why the crowd was thin. Or it could just be that on Fat Tuesday, Bourbon Street was the place to be.

King saw me the instant I stepped inside. His glare told me I’d been missed. He made a sharp gesture that stopped just short of giving me the finger, but which I took to mean I’d better come over and quick.

“Where the hell were you?”

“I—I thought I saw Katie.” The truth slipped past my lips and tears sparked behind my eyes.

His anger fled in an instant. “Hey.” King put his big, hard hand over mine. “Take a breath.”

I drew in a huge gulp of air and let it out again. With all that had happened tonight, I’d pushed from my mind what had started my mad dash in the first place. Had the masked woman been Katie?

I didn’t think so, and that made me want to cry all the more.

“Go on upstairs.” King began to wipe down his already pristine bar. “We’re good here.”

“You sure? I can take over for one of the others.”

“Nah. They want to make as much money as they can before they go home. Besides, Johnny was lookin’

for you. I think he’s in the back.”

I thanked King with a tired smile and headed for the office. But a quick glance inside, even after I’d turned on the lights, revealed an empty room, so I went up the stairs—first one flight, then two.

He wasn’t in the attic room either. He’d no doubt gotten tired of waiting and left.

Disappointment flooded me. Maybe I’d just change clothes and follow.

I unlocked my door, snapped on the lights, and, removing Murphy’s gun from the waistband of my shorts, shoved it into the nightstand drawer, then laid my fanny pack on top.

Turning around, I gasped. Rodolfo stood just inside the room. “Where did you come from?”

He didn’t answer, just shut the door and flicked the lock.

“John,” I began, but with his unerring sense of direction, he crossed the floor and took me into his arms.

He was shaking and my heart stuttered. “What’s wrong?”

“Anne,” he murmured against my hair. “Anne.”

He didn’t seem capable of saying anything else. In truth, I didn’t mind. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to be held. The violent encounter with Sullivan had confused, frightened, and exhausted me. I started to shake too.

John lifted his head, brushed his lips across my brow, touched my cheek. “You’re freezing. Come on.”

He led me toward the bathroom, one hand around my wrist, the other stretched in front of him. Once there, he released me to turn on the hot water. After testing it, he put in the stopper and straightened.

“Get in.”

Despite the heat of the night, the lingering shock had chilled me. I was also beginning to ache from being thrown around like a rag doll by a lust-crazed werewolf. I wanted to sink into the warm water, but—

“You won’t leave?”

“No.” He stepped into the bedroom and closed the door.

I stripped and jumped into the tub, nearly groaning at how good it felt. I lay back and closed my eyes, but as soon as I did, I saw Sullivan as he’d been tonight, heard the echo of his words, felt again his bruising hands.

My eyes snapped open. “John?”

The door opened an inch. “You all right?”

“Could you… come in? Talk to me?”

The door opened wider. “You’re not all right.”

“No,” I whispered.

I was mortified at how not all right I was. I didn’t want to be alone, which was not a good thing for a single woman to want. What would I do if I suddenly became afraid of the dark?

John sat on the edge of the tub. If it had been anyone else, I might have been embarrassed to be naked in the water, but he couldn’t see me. He’d never see me. There was a comfort in that.

“You scared me to death, querida.”

Querida? My Spanish wasn’t good, but I thought the word an endearment. I didn’t want to ask, just in

case it wasn’t.

“What did I do?”

“One of the waitresses said you ran into the crowd. Then you didn’t come back and I couldn’t—” He broke off, tilting his head until the lights bounced off his sunglasses like a flare. “I couldn’t go after you, Anne. I couldn’t protect you.”

“I don’t need anyone to protect me.”

Big, f at liar. If Murphy hadn’t been there—

I didn’t want to think about that now; though I had no doubt I’d be thinking about it a lot in the nights to come.

But I wasn’t going to share the experience with John. Sometimes a lie was the best policy. He was already upset enough; telling him I’d almost been raped by a werewolf… What good would it do?

His head lowered, and he seemed to be looking at me, although the lights still reflected in the dark lenses like sunbursts.

He trailed his long, supple fingers through the water, creating a current that swirled against my neck, down my breasts, over my stomach, and across my thighs. I caught my breath as my body came alive.

What was it about this man that made me feel things I never had before? Things I was afraid I’d never feel again, with anyone else but him?

“Relax, querida.” The way he murmured the word was itself a caress. I didn’t care if he was calling me

“pig face,” as long as he said it like that. “Lay back, close your eyes. No one will hurt you when I’m here.”

I heard the contradiction, even as my eyes fluttered closed. In one breath he said he couldn’t protect me, in the next he said no one would hurt me.

But I’d seen John in action; he’d fought a crazy guy with a knife and won. Though the sense of safety Sullivan’s presence had once brought was gone, and I doubted I’d ever get it back, I felt safe now, with John.

He continued to draw his fingers along the surface of the water, just enough to make the liquid swirl. I was both relaxed and aroused. The heat made me languid; the water made me moist. His presence made me hot, as usual.

His fingers trailed lower and lower. My breasts ached for the touch long before it came. Skin against skin, I needed it like I needed my next breath. Finally I arched, and his palm cupped the fullness, his thumb stroked my nipple beneath the surface of the water. I sighed and let my legs drift open, relishing the lap of the current between them.

“I can’t seem to stop myself from touching you,” he whispered, “even though I know I shouldn’t.”

I opened my eyes, startled at the sight of myself reflected in his lenses. I looked so erotic in the water, my skin pale, his fingers dark against my thigh.

“Touch me,” I said, and watched the tendons in his hand flexing and releasing as he stroked.

I reveled in combination of the gently flowing water, the eddies swirling past my breasts, my belly, the press of his thumb against me as one finger slid in and out of my body. My eyes wide open, I watched myself in his sunglasses, feeling, not for the first time, as if he were watching me too.

I rose from the water like a serpent, a nymph, a goddess—I don’t know, something magical. I was prepared to yank off his clothes and do him on the slippery tile floor of the bathroom, but he wasn’t so crass. He evaded my grasp, tossing me a towel, then leading me into the bedroom, as he dropped his own clothes like the proverbial trail of bread crumbs.

I could see nothing. He’d shut off the lights; the curtains were drawn, this hour the darkest in every twenty-four, when the moon falls and the sun has not yet risen.

The bed creaked with his weight, the sound drawing me onto the mattress.

I’d been perched on the edge of orgasm, but the slight chill of the room, the few minutes it had taken to get from there to here, had cooled me. One touch of his tongue to my breast and everything came back, stronger than before.

I could smell him, hear him, but I couldn’t see him, and the not-seeing increased the anticipation, made the intimacy more compelling. No wonder he was so good at sex. With only touch, scent, taste but no sight, the senses left behind were almost painful in their intensity.

In every brush of his hand lay the gentleness of an artist; with every nudge of his mouth, I relished the slight scrape of his goatee that surrounded the incredible softness of his lips, the sharp nip of his teeth.

His hair but a whisper, the slide of his glasses was both hard and smooth. He rubbed his face against the underside of my breast, breathing in as if memorizing the essence of me before taking my nipple into his mouth and suckling as if he’d draw me into his very soul.

I tangled my fingers in his hair and urged him on, the pull of his lips, the press of his tongue, seeming to start an answering contraction within so that when he rose above me the first thrust of his hips, the weight of his body over mine, had me both opening to him and closing in on myself, savoring the pleasure, the wonder, the blessed gift of this moment when it was just the two of us together in a way we could never be with anyone else.

I had to feel him closer, deeper. My legs over his hips wasn’t enough, I lifted them higher, locking my ankles behind his neck as he gripped my buttocks and found a rhythm that had me moaning in both surprise and shock as sensations I’d never experienced before washed over me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and then he was pulsing, coming, causing an answering wave in me.

My legs slid bonelessly down his shoulders as we held each other, shuddering together until it was done.

“Don’t be.” I ran my hand from the crown of his head, along the slope of his back, my fingers coming to rest at the base of his spine. “I couldn’t wait either.”

He began to roll away and I held on. “Stay. Please.”

I thought he’d argue, at least shift to the side, remove his weight, at the most get up, get dressed, walk away. Instead he remained buried inside me, toe to toe, hip to hip, cheek to cheek, the drift of his breath stirring my hair, tickling my ear, making my lips curve and my heart flutter.

I must have fallen asleep because I woke alone, though the bed was still warm next to me. A knock sounded on the door. John must have gone downstairs for—I don’t know what—and now he couldn’t get back in.

The clothes I’d worn the night before were folded on my dresser; the fanny pack lay on top. Weird. How long had I been sleeping for John to have tidied the place before stepping out?

I grabbed some clean underwear, threw on a T-shirt and shorts, then picked up the fanny pack, carrying it with me as I opened the zipper and checked to make sure the silver letter opener remained inside. It did.

I opened the door, blinking in the sudden flare of light from the hall.

At first I thought the man was John, except he had long hair, a clean-shaven face, and very familiar blue eyes.

I blinked, staring into his face, unable at first to remember why I knew him, or at least why I knew those eyes.

And then it hit me.

I’d seen them on several occasions—staring back at me from the face of a great black wolf.

I cried out, stumbling back, somehow having the presence of mind to yank the letter opener free of the fanny pack and hold it in front of me like the weapon it was.

Sure, the black wolf had saved me from Sullivan on two occasions, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t here to kill me. According to anyone who knew anything about werewolves, they were evil, murdering machines

—and there was one of them in front of me now.

He stepped inside, flicked on the light, then shut the door behind him. My gaze lifted, then lowered. He’d walked right under the horseshoe and hadn’t even noticed it was there. What a waste of money.

His mouth twisted wryly at the sight of the letter opener clutched in my hand. “De silver doesn’t work on me.”

He had a pronounced Cajun accent. The last time I’d heard one that sexy I’d been drooling over Dennis Quaid in The Big Easy . I never had stopped lusting after the man, throughout countless less wondrous movies.

I shook my head. Now was not the time for an Ebert & Roeper flashback.

“You’re a—a--” I couldn’t get the word out of my mouth.

“Loup-garou?” he supplied, inching nearer with every passing second.

He was close enough to touch, so I pressed the flat of the silver opener against his arm.

Nothing happened—until he snatched it right out of my hand.

“Shit,” I muttered.

The man flipped the opener end over end, catching it by the handle. I shuddered when those too familiar blue eyes met mine. The sharp silver implement would work on humans as well as werewolves. All he had to do was shove it into a vital organ and twist. I began to back toward the nightstand where Murphy’s gun was hidden.

“I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m looking for de loup-garou.”

“But I thought you were—”

He shook his head. “I’m as human as you are.”

“If you’re not a loup-garou, then who is?” The bathroom door opened and I whirled in that direction.

John Rodolfo stood in the doorway. “Hello, Grandpère,” said the blue-eyed man.

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