you’re finally showin’ good sense. And just where did this outfit come from? You haven’t been out of my sight long enough to go on a shopping spree.”
She smirked. “Your grandmother.”
Gator raked a hand through his hair, wanting to tug it out by the roots. “Women were designed to drive good men crazy. Why the hell would my grandmother have a hooker outfit? All this time I’ve held out hope it was my brother who bought the toys for us. How the hell am I ever going to look her in the eye?”
Flame burst out laughing. “Men have such double standards. It’s perfectly okay for you to have good healthy lust and want wild, uninhibited sex and you like a woman to look a little slutty for you once in a while, but women better not feel the same way.”
“I certainly don’ want to picture my grandmother looking slutty.” He rubbed his hand over his face, covering his eyes as if that would drown out the picture.
She wanted to torture him a little more, but he looked so uncomfortable she took pity on him. “These aren’t your grandmother’s clothes, you goof. I told her what I needed. There wasn’t time to go shopping, so she called all her friends. They pooled resources and this is the result.”
Gator began to sweat. “This is getting worse and worse. Are you telling me all of my grandmother’s
Flame found herself laughing at his horrified expression. She put her arms around him and leaned her body against his. It was impossible for her to resist Raoul when he turned into a confused male. “It will be all right. You’ll get over it.”
“I don’ think so,
“We don’t have much time so you can seek sympathy while you’re driving me to the corner where Saunders sends his men to pick up a woman. I intend to be that woman.”
“I’m asking the others to back us up,” he warned her. “I don’ like this at all, Flame. Saunders is a straight-up killer. He likes to hurt women and he’s bound to be really confused about now. He doesn’t have a clue what happened and doesn’t know whether there’s proof against him or not. He’ll be looking to kill somebody.”
“Men like Saunders get away, Raoul. You know that.”
“He isn’t Whitney,” he reminded gently. “Even if you bring him down,
She raised her chin. “Yes I do. I won’t be able to live with myself if he walks away unscathed after what he did to both Burrell and Joy. Maybe I do equate him with Whitney, but it doesn’t make him less guilty.”
“He’s surrounded by civilians and he has a small army,” he reminded.
“You don’t have to come with me.”
His dark eyes glittered at her and Flame felt a shiver run down her spine. She turned away from him, refusing to be intimidated, refusing to back down. He caught her chin in his hand. “I think we need to get something straight,
She wasn’t going to react to his declaration. It was a hell of a time for him to make it and she just plain wasn’t going there, although she couldn’t stop the way her heart and her treacherous body responded. She loved him goofy and she loved him when he went all alpha on her. God, she was pathetic. “I wasn’t trying to push you around, Raoul. This is important to me. I
She ducked her head, looked away from him so he couldn’t read the real reason in her eyes. She was dying, and she wanted to leave something behind. She couldn’t leave children, and if Raoul was telling the truth and he loved her, he was the only one. And he’d be the only person to remember her. She was going to rid the world of one more monster before she allowed the disease eating her up to take her.
“Let’s go then,” Gator said. “I’ll send the others out to his house to back us up.”
They said little as he drove through the streets to find the Bourbon Street address she gave him. Most of the time he spoke on his cell, issuing instructions to the other GhostWalkers. The street corner was deserted with the storm battering the streets, filling them with water so fast the pumps couldn’t keep up.
Flame leaned across the seat to give Raoul a kiss, her hand on the door. The slight brush of her mouth against his sent a small jolt of electricity through him. Angry or not, he couldn’t resist her. He framed her face with his hands and held her still, kissing her the way he wanted, letting her taste his anger, the bite of his teeth, the dance of his tongue. He was wearing his damn heart on his sleeve and she gave him so little back. He was going to have to watch her walk away, stand on a corner to entice a killer to pick her up.
“The car’s shaking,” she said.
“Fuck the car.” He kissed her more. Long, drugging kisses. Hot, sizzling kisses. Dark, angry kisses. Every kind of kiss he could think of to hold her to him.
“I love you,” Flame whispered, her voice so low that even with his acute hearing, he barely heard. “I’ve never loved anyone, Raoul and I’m not very good at it.” It was a confession, the best she could give him and she could only hope he understood what she was trying to tell him.
He rested his brow against hers. “You’re good enough at it,” he said. “Don’ get yourself shot or I’ll be really pissed at you. I didn’t throw the paddle away, you know.”
She laughed the way he knew she would, the sparkle returning to her eyes. “I threw it away. And I broke it in two first so you wouldn’t get any more bright ideas.”
His hand dropped to her breast, her bruised, painful breast. He stroked her gently, lovingly, through the thin material. “You like my ideas. I think you like the feel of my hands.”
The way he touched her was reverent, not at all playful like his words, so tender and loving she wanted to melt into him. “I love the feel of your hands. Now go away be fore we get arrested.” She kissed him again and opened the door.
He caught her arm, preventing her from scooting out. “Look me in the eye, Flame and tell me you aren’t looking to die here.”
“I’d no more let Saunders kill me than I would Whitney.”
He held her a second longer, swallowed hard, and nodded.
She sauntered over to the corner, tucking back out of the rain, trying to look as if she were ready for a good time with the rain pouring down and the streets looking tawdry with the neon signs blinking through the gray haze. She didn’t have any competition that she could see so, if she guessed right and Saunders needed to work off is frustrations, she’d be the logical choice. Surreptitiously she glanced at her watch. All the days of reconning Saunders had paid off. She had his schedule. Either they would come looking in the next few minutes, or to night was a bust.
Headlights nearly blinded her as a car swept around the corner. She recognized the security vehicles Saunders used.
She snuck a peek to see if she could spot him, but there was no seeing Raoul when he was in hunting mode.
The window rolled down and a hand beckoned her to the car. The man handed her three hundred dollar bills without saying a word. Flame got in when the back door was opened. No one spoke as they drove her into the city to the Saunders’s estate. They looked and smirked and she could tell they wanted to intimidate her. The one on the passenger side had a crooked nose and rubbed his crotch and grinned at her.
She looked right through him and thought about Raoul. She felt him close, knew if she whispered he would hear her. When Raoul looked at her she felt sexy. When these men looked at her she just felt dirty-and angry. As they swept through the back entrance straight to the gatehouse, the front passenger window shattered. safety glass exploding inward. The men reacted, drawing weapons and crouching low. Flame kept her smirk to herself. They were all nervous and the window shattering with no clear explanation added to the strain.
The gatehouse was neat and appealing on the outside, blending in with the beauty of the landscaping, but once inside, it was easy to see exactly what the place was used for. Saunders sat by the fake fireplace, drinking a glass of whiskey. He barely looked up when the men shoved her inside. The door closed with a solid thud.
Flame looked around her. Mirrors decorated the ceiling and three of the four walls. There was a rack holding all kinds of what looked like very painful instruments. “So this is your little torture chamber. Very chic. I’ve heard about
