Night Game

She turned her head from him and he caught the glitter of tears. “Don’t, Raoul. This is me freaking out, not you doing something wrong.” She drew the sheet around her, suddenly feeling vulnerable. “I’m afraid of you, of how you make me feel. When I’m afraid, I have a tendency to run. And if I can’t run, then I go on the offensive.”

“You’re not embarrassed with me, are you? Because the things we did are natural. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

She shook her head. “No, I’m not embarrassed.” And God help her she wanted to do them all again with him. “I’m just-confused. I’ve always had a plan and I’ve always kept on the move. I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know if I can stop, or even if it’s safe to stop, even for a little while.”

“It’s okay to be confused, cher. I can live with confused. I just can’t take you leaving me. Maybe we’re both a little afraid, but I say we give it a try.”

He was standing in front of her, totally naked and comfortable with it, such a temptation to her. It was impossible to be embarrassed around him because he made her feel beautiful and comfortable in her own skin, with her own sexuality. He made no excuses for the things he wanted from her body, but more than that, with the way he looked at her, the look in his eyes hungry and possessive, she couldn’t help but respond.

He held out his hand. “We need to shower. Don’ be worrying about what we can’t change, cher. You don’ throw something like this away.”

“Like this?” she echoed.

He sighed. ‘Why do women always make you say things?” He took her hand and tugged her to her feet. “If I’m makin’ love to you, sugah, it’s because I’m in love with you. Come on, you’re still a bit sticky from all that whipped cream.”

Flame didn’t let herself think about the future as the hot water poured over her. Raoul insisted on shampooing her hair, using her broken arm for an excuse, and then he soaped her body, his hands lingering in intimate places. His lovemaking was far gentler without the wild, frantic pace, but no less intense. She wanted to cry with the way he made her feel.

“It’s going to be all right,” he whispered, holding her close to him.

She knew a sound must have escaped without her realizing it. Life wasn’t as easy and laid-back elsewhere as it was in the bayou, but she wasn’t going to think about it anymore. She’d stay with Raoul as long as she could.

The clothes his grandmother had chosen for her were very tasteful and in stark contrast to the strange leather and mesh attire. She wiggled into a powder-blue tank top and frowned at Raoul. “Are you certain you had nothing all to do with that bag of sex toys? I just can’t imagine your grandmother in an adult store. I mean, you are a perv and it had to come from somewhere, but it just doesn’t seem like something she’d do.”

Gator drew his jeans over his hips and buttoned them up, as casual dressing in front of her as he was with his nudity. “Now that you say that, I’ve never had an inkling she even knew there were such things as adults stores, but don’ be selling her short. She wants us together and she’s very shrewd.”

Flame ducked her head. “She wants you to have children. Raoul. She doesn’t want you to be with me. I’m go to tell her the truth. She deserves to know.”

Raoul paused, hands on the last button of his jeans. “Don’ be getting all hot and bothered, cher, but she already knows the truth. I told her a little bit about you when you were in the hospital and I made certain she knew you couldn’t have children.”

“Then why…” She pointed to the candles and the remnants of mesh and leather. “Why would she want us to have any kind of a relationship let alone a permanent one?”

“Because you make me happy.” He said it simply, his dark eyes meeting hers.

Flame shook her head. “You’re such a goof, Raoul. I have no idea why I make you happy. You’re not a very logical person, are you?”

He grinned at her as he scooped up the fur-lined handcuffs. “We’ve still got these, cher. You’ll make me very happy when you’re my little sex slave.” He leered at her and dangled the cuffs.

She started laughing again, shaking her head just like he knew she would. “You’re going to have to help me with the zipper on these jeans.” They were just a little tighter than she normally wore them.

Raoul dropped the cuffs on the bed and crossed the room to stand in front of her, obediently doing the enclosure up for her. She suddenly sucked in her breath. “Too tight?” He stepped back to look at her. “They don’ look too tight.”

“Sex slave.” She repeated the words aloud. “There were tie-downs in that car. And a recorder. It was on when James tore my shirt open.” She looked up at him. knowledge blossoming. “That’s what they’re doing. They drug the girl, have sex with her, and record it, probably really humiliate her and they keep her locked up while they get her addicted to drugs. They’re using her as their own personal sex slave, Raoul. She’s got to be somewhere in the bayou.”

“You think they’d keep her alive all this time?”

“Why not? The bayou’s a big place. They use her for a while, make a few recordings, keep her hooked on drugs then…” She trailed off.

“Then kill her?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Remember the mini-discs I found in Saunders’s safe?” She rubbed her temples and sank down onto the edge of the bed. “It’s all coming back to me now. I saw those same discs in the car. What if they turn the girls into porn stars or prostitutes or sell them as sex slaves? Keep them, terrorize them, hook them on drugs, degrade and use them, threaten them with the movies, eventually the woman might do what ever they say.”

“That’s a big leap, Flame.”

The car was a trap for a woman. It can’t be just date rape. Raoul. The driver’s in on it. The camera installation alone would require big bucks. It’s well hidden. I heard the hum or I wouldn’t have ever noticed it. These stupid painkillers. If I hadn’t been so foggy from the operation, I would have remembered every detail.”

“If more girls were missing we’d know about them.”

“Why would you? My guess is, they don’t usually grab women close to home. The first girl was probably taken because her voice triggered the need and whoever is the ringleader couldn’t resist.”

“And then Joy did the same thing.” Gator shoved his hand through his hair in agitation. “You think the old man knows?”

“How could he not? His son. His driver.”

“We could be wrong about this, Flame. We have to go slow and make sure. Parsons has a lot of political contacts. If we make a mistake, we could be in trouble. James Parsons could just be a common garden-variety sleaze bag. I don’t see him as the type of man to be involved in a crime of this magnitude.”

“I agree. But he wants to feel important. And he’d love to put one over on his father, if I’m any judge of people. He’s a spoiled kid who wants his own way. The driver is the brains. And he drives Emanuel Parsons everywhere. So he probably knows every private thing in their lives. If he could get James on camera, drugging and raping a woman, what do you think Daddy would do to protect his son?”

Gator shook his head. “This is a big jump, Flame.”

“You weren’t in that car. I know that was Joy’s earring.”

“And James Parsons would say that she was his girlfriend and they had lots of sex in the backseat of the car. Or he could just say she rode in the car.”

“Well, maybe we should go to your grandmother’s house and play these discs. I have a firm belief that slime- bags hang out together. There’s a reason Emanuel Parsons is visiting Saunders.”

“He’s investigating him for laundering money.”

“That’s the official version. What’s the real one? Why go to his house late at night? There was no party, no social event going on. I’ve thought a lot about that night. I was distracted knowing you were there, but Parsons didn’t go for dinner. Saunders was in his ivory tower working late. No one else came. It wasn’t a let’s-get-together- for-drinks atmosphere and Saunders found out before Parsons left that the money was missing. I heard the guards talking about the robbery, so whatever business he had with Saunders that night involved whatever was in the safe.”

They looked at each other. “The discs,” he said.

She nodded. “It has to be. He couldn’t have opened the safe for papers because there weren’t any papers, I