“Why would it be? He manipulated everything else, didn’t he? He was building the perfect army. The perfect weapons. The perfect agents.” She sank down, looking up at him from the seat. “Whitney had years to work things out. And somebody knew he was doing it. Somebody helped him. He wasn’t alone in this, he couldn’t have been.”
Her twisted logic was beginning to make sense to him and that was alarming. “I go out on missions all the time with the GhostWalkers. Of the missing girls, only Lily and Dahlia have been found. And now you.”
“What a shocker that is. Maybe we’re all his little puppets and he’s playing us. You don’t want to consider that could be what’s happening because that would bruise your ego. You think you chose what happened to you so that somehow makes me the poor victim and you the hero in charge of your life. If what I’m saying is this truth, that makes you a victim right along with me and you just can’t stand the thought.”
Gator turned over the words in his mind. The logic of her argument. If she was right he was no more than a programmed robot, a marionette and Whitney was pulling his strings. Worse than that, she was right. On some level he had thought of her as a victim, hell, all of the GhostWalkers thought that way. The women had been bought and experimented on. The men had chosen to be heroes, to save the world. He erupted into another long passionate string of inventive and crude curses.
“I’m sorry to rock your world. But if you’re in with Whitney, and you’re doing what he wants you to do by coming here and trying to take me back with you, at least consider that he’s playing you. Whitney never does any thing that doesn’t benefit Whitney.”
“Damn it, the man is dead.”
“Do you realize you didn’t answer a single question tonight, Raoul?”
“Just don’t talk anymore. Damn it anyway.” He was silent as the boat sped through the canal, his features etched in stone.
Flame couldn’t take her eyes off of him. She felt sad for him. Sad for her. She didn’t even know why.
There was a small silence as the airboat moved up the canal. As the pier came into view, Gator glanced at her, his gaze moving over her dress, her legs, the curve of her bottom. “I don’t want you doing it anymore.”
“It?” Her eyebrow shot up.
“Don’ give me trouble. You know what I’m talking about. Don’ go tryin’ to lure Joy’s fate to you. If someone took her, or killed her, the same thing could happen to you. You don’t even have backup. You don’t have anyone to watch out for you.”
Flame shrugged. “That’s something I’m used to, Raoul. I’m not a team player.”
“I’ve searched for Joy for four weeks. My brother, Ian, and I have been all up and down the bayou. We’ve questioned everyone. We’ve even looked in shacks and investigated every tip we were given. Joy’s disappeared and I’m not having the same thing happen to you.”
“I’m not Joy. I can take care of myself.”
His dark gaze flickered over her face and there it was again, that something undefined she couldn’t quite catch, but that made her shiver. “You couldn’t have stopped me if I was a different sort of man.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Think what you like. Men always do.”
“I’m not arguing with you about this. And be at my house tomorrow by two for tea. Grand-mere expects you.”
“Why in the world would I show up?”
“Two reasons.” He jumped onto the pier and tied up the boat, reaching back to offer her his hand. “You want your motorcycle and any woman who would risk her life to find out what happened to a stranger is not going to disappoint an old woman with a heart condition.”
“Does she really have a heart condition or are you making that up?”
“I don’ lie about my grandmother. Don’t be getting the men riled up again and don’t be setting yourself up as bait, or you and I are going to have a fight you aren’t going to win.”
She looked him in the eye, waiting for him to release his hold on her. “I don’t like you very much.”
“That’s too bad. When you sleep with me, you’ll just have to pretend.” His fingers reluctantly slid from her wrist.
“Who says I’m sleeping with you?”
Deliberately he crowded her body, aggression in every line of his much larger frame. “Let’s put it this way, you won’t be sleeping with anyone else, so if you want to get rid of all that heat, you’d better be thinking of me, cher.”
She didn’t back up an inch. “Go f**k yourself.”
Palming her knife, he moved closer still, his hand traveling over the curve of her bottom, sliding beneath the hem of her dress to shove the knife back into the scabbard. All the while his knuckles brushed bare skin, the back of his hand massaging the damp heat between her legs. His breath was warm against her ear. “I’d much rather f**k you and judging by your panties, I’d say you feel the same way.”
“I ought to make you eat that knife.” She didn’t move away from him or his probing hand. She stood face-to- face, eye-to-eye, staring him down, a quiet fury burning in her eyes. She hated that her body burned for him. She hated that she might actually enjoy his stupid sense of humor. Most of all she hated that he was a puppet for a man who played God with people and moved them around like pieces on a chessboard.
“I’m going to kiss you. If you stick me with that thing, make it somewhere not important to me.” He gathered her to him, his arms locking around her, hands sliding up her back. His body was hard and hot and thick with need and he rubbed against her, massaging the terrible ache as he bent his head to hers.
Flame lifted her mouth to his, meeting him halfway, the slow burn igniting instantly when her lips touched his. His tongue swept into the moist heat of her mouth, the craving for her so strong it shook him. He felt an answering tremor run through her body as she melted into him, all soft flesh and lush curves. He tasted sex and sweetness and fury mixed together in a powerful concoction.
She was addicting, potent, the chemistry between them highly volatile. He wasn’t simply kissing her, he was devouring her, feasting on her, long, hard kisses over and over because it wasn’t enough. Her br**sts were soft temptations against his chest and when she rubbed her leg over his thigh, aligning their bodies more closely, the breath left his body in a mad rush.