KILLING ME SOFTLY (23 page)

Cain Robichaud was an innocent man.

Renee knew that in every corner of her soul. Deep inside, she'd known it all along. She'd tried to convince herself otherwise, tried to strip away all trace of emotion and entertain the possibility that maybe Cain had been the one.

He'd been the one, all right. But not the one who tried to kill her.

Whoever wanted her dead would have never found her in Nova Scotia. She could have stayed there, built a new life. But she didn't want a new life. She wanted her old life.

She wanted Cain.

Two more days, three tops. That's how long she had left. Then, God, she didn't know what then. Take Cain's hand and look him in the eye, tell him that the hell his life had become could have been prevented, if only she'd picked up the phone and told him the truth? He would never understand. Sometimes she wasn't sure she did. So many pieces still refused to fall together.

Renee closed her eyes to the soft light of the bedside lamp, but found no relief in the darkness of her own mind. Only Cain. She didn't understand what she'd seen in his eyes that afternoon after he'd damn near kissed her into oblivion. He'd looked at her as though he'd never seen her before. Or worse, as though he had.

On a deep inhale, she looked up and opened her eyes. Cain thought she was dead. If he saw, for so much as one second, any resemblance between her and the woman she'd once been, he'd fight the comparison with every ounce of strength he had. But no alibi lasted forever. One more memory, one more kiss, maybe just a sigh. The more time they spent together, the closer the noose became.

"Non."

Renee released her knees and twisted toward the door.

"Revenez a moi…"

The low, tortured words knocked the breath from her lungs. She bolted off the bed and ran from the room, down the hall and toward the closed door. Heart pounding, she pushed it open and rushed inside, stopped the second she saw the big sleigh bed.

"Je suis désole,"
Cain rasped. He lay tangled in the sheets, clutching a pillow and shredding what remained of Renee's heart.

She didn't stop to think. She didn't stop to plan. She crossed the massive room and climbed onto the big bed, reached for him.
"C'est moi,"
she whispered, putting her hand to his cheek. The sandpapery feel or whiskers she expected. The dampness of tears she did not.
"Je suis ici."

"Non,"
he rasped again, this time harsher. And then his arms shot out and closed around her, pulled her to his body. She went willingly, fit against him just as she always had. With his hands tangled in her hair and cradling her head to his chest, she could hear the rapid thrumming of his heart. Feel the moist heat of his skin. Her hands reached for him, clutched him.

"I'm here," she whispered, this time in English. "I'm here."

On a low sound he brought his hands to her face and dragged her toward him, took her mouth with his own. No time was wasted on preliminaries. He pushed his way inside and took immediate possession of all that she was. She kissed him with the same urgency, the same reckless abandon for all that stood between them. The pain, the denial, the betrayal. The inevitability.

He knew. On some level, in some place he tried to deny, he knew the truth.

Twisting beneath him, she scraped a hand down his back and cupped his buttocks, loved the feel of his erection straining against her. Only the silk of her pajamas separated them.

Sliding over her, Cain took one of her hands and dragged it over her head, laced their fingers together. To hold her in place, she thought in some hazy corner of her mind, so that she would never slip through his fingers. Like Savannah had.

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes." Her body hummed and burned and begged, responding on a primal level, tired of fighting the draw. The bond they'd begun to forge a lifetime ago flared stronger and tighter, and Renee realized she no longer gave a damn about consequences.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

New Orleans

Nineteen months earlier

I
t's late. The night is dark, unusually still. My granddaddy would have said a storm was prowling around offshore, sucking the oxygen from the city, waiting for the right moment to attack. He had an imagination like that. A way with words. A flair for melodrama.

There are those who say the trait runs in the family.

But Granddaddy's been gone for five years, since the morning he woke up before dawn to go fishing. We found him that night, slumped in his pirogue, both him and the fish trapped on his line as still as the night now enveloping me. He'd died a happy man.

Unlike my brother.

I've been walking for hours. I can't seem to stop. I just keep walking. No destination in mind. Just … away. Anywhere but the Palace Café, where Cain and I were to meet for dinner. I don't know whether he showed or not. I never did.

Everything inside me is jittery, unsettled, like the Gulf on a stormy morning. I can feel the whitecaps cresting, shattering.

It's been like this since Cain found me in the cemetery and held me, rocked me. He's a man of hard-driving passion. That I can handle. But the tenderness…

The tenderness can only lead one place.

All my life I've had a thirst for adventure. My
grand-mère
called me her
petite explorateur
. She worried that I had no fear. From the time I could walk, Adrian was dragging me through the swamps. The haunted ones were my favorites. We'd search for the lost stained glass and catch crawdads.

As I got older, my taste for the unknown intensified. The higher the risk, the higher the reward. There was no surer way to get me to do something than to dare me not to. Once, I spent the night in the abandoned morgue of the old Lady of the Lake Hospital. The teenage guys did it all the time. As far as anyone knew, I was the only girl who'd ever lasted more than twenty-two-and-a-half minutes.

I've always, always thrived on fear. It's never stymied me. Never stopped me. Until Cain.

He's just a man, I know that. He's got a reputation, that's true. But rumors have never frightened me. They make me want to know more, to find the truth. That's how it started with him. The more I heard about the untouchable police detective, the more I wanted to touch. The more my brother said stay away, the closer I wanted to step. The more Cain himself tried to stop me, the more I wanted…

The more I want. That's the problem.

I've never wanted like this. It's not just hunger or a thirst, but more of a necessity. Like breathing. Except when I'm around him I can't do that. Everything inside of me riots. And for the first time in my life, I'm scared.

Because of the tenderness.

Because of the knowledge, the realization, that for the first time in my life, someone has the power to hurt me. Destroy me. If I let him touch me one more time, kiss me, take what I so desperately want to give, deep inside I know it will be like putting a brand to my flesh. There will be no turning back.

Even if it comes out everyone was right about him after all.

That's why I stood him up.

My instincts are razor sharp, always have been. But with Cain … I don't know anymore. The hum in my blood drowns out everything else, the caution, the instincts. When I look at him, I don't see the suspected dirty cop everyone else sees. When I touch him, I don't feel a ruthless monster. When I kiss him, I don't taste a man without conscience.

And that scares me.

After walking so many hours, I should be relaxed, but as I step onto my front porch, the pinball game inside me shifts into high gear. Inhaling the scent of jasmine twined around my porch rail, I lift my key to the lock.

The door is ajar.

Slowly, I reach for my mobile phone. Call 911. That's the smart thing to do.

On a rush, I kick open the door, feel my heart stall in my chest.

Moonlight slants through the shutters, revealing Cain sitting across the room in Granddaddy's old recliner. The shadows playing against his face do nothing to mute the hard glint to his eyes. Esmerelda is sprawled in his lap, arched into the curve of his hand. Even from across the room, I can hear the purring.

The survivor in me, the one who for the first time in my life fears the fire, demands that I turn and walk away. Slowly, I step into my house and close the door. Cain eases the cat from his lap, and stands. I go to him.

He does not meet me halfway.

I don't care. The move is mine. I know that, see it in his eyes. He's furious with me. But it's not a fury born in anger or violence, but some place deeper. The place that has seen fear, knows its taste and feel and power.

The same fear that's shredding me from the inside out.

No words are spoken. No words are necessary. I step up against him and push up on my toes, press my mouth to his.

For a moment, there's nothing. No response. And I know it's taking every ounce of strength he has to restrain himself. But then the storm breaks and a sound tears from his throat, low and primal, and with the stealth of a lightning strike his arms close around me and he takes control of the kiss, his hands fisting in my hair, his mouth crushing mine in urgent demand.

His body is like a rock, hard and unyielding, and as I press myself to him, I feel his erection straining against my abdomen, and everything inside me turns wet and wanting.

And he knows. Without another word he lifts me from my feet and I wrap my legs around his waist. The world falls away, but I don't care. There's only Cain, the way he makes me feel, the way he makes me want.

Mouths locked in both battle and surrender, he carries me from the living room to my bedroom.

Life will never be the same.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Bayou de Foi, present day

D
uring the long hours of the day, Renee had learned to push the memories aside. But at night, when she lay in exhaustion, that's when the memories attacked.

He'd come to her then, in the brutal quiet of her dreams, as demanding as he'd once come to her in her bed. Hours later she would awaken, nightgown damp and tangled, sometimes torn, body slick and heart racing, trembling from the aftermath. Imaginary, she'd always told herself.

But never quite believed.

Now she realized what had seemed devastatingly intense and real during the nighttime visits had been nothing more than tattered shadows, muted echoes of what she'd once shared with this man. She arched into him, loved the feel of his body pressing down against hers. He was hot and hard and slick, and everywhere he touched, she burned.

This, she realized. This is what she'd forced herself to forget. Because to remember would have destroyed.

"I'm here," she whispered again. Her legs fell open and she could feel him between her thighs, heavy and straining. Her body hummed and begged, as though she'd been holding her breath for eighteen months, her body shutting down one cell at a time.

But now oxygen flooded her, and even as she wept, she rejoiced.

He ripped his mouth from hers so fast her heart never had a chance to prepare. Breathing hard, he pushed up on his arms and glared down at her, exposing her to eyes more decimated than should be humanly possible. Damp hair fell against his forehead, but did nothing to soften the lines of his face. His shoulders rose and fell with each choppy breath, as though he'd been sprinting for his life through the swamp, mile after mile after mile. And abruptly stopped.

"I can't." The words sounded dredged from a tortured place. "Not like this."

Her body screamed from the sudden loss, demanded that she bring him back. All of him. She could still feel him between her legs, his erection pushing against her, and despite the struggle vibrating through his taut muscles, she knew he wanted her, too.

"It's okay," she whispered, lifting a hand to his face. "I'm not some fragile—"

"Non!"
He grabbed her wrist, pulled her hand away. "You deserve better."

She swallowed hard, tried to breathe. He was a man rumored to be amoral, without conscience. And yet here he was, denying himself what he so obviously wanted, because she deserved better.

The tarnished nobility, the cutting knowledge that she alone possessed the ability to put an end to his private hell, shredded her.

"This is what I want," she said with the ferocity screaming through her blood.

Propped over her, he held himself very still. "Don't cheapen yourself, Renee."

The words stung. "I'm not."

For a moment he said nothing, just stared down at her as if he didn't know whether to push her away or pull her in for more. Moonlight whispered in from a crack in the heavy curtains, revealing the sheen of perspiration against his nude body. She could feel the strength of him, longed to return her hand to his back and slide it along his flesh, feel the curve of his buttocks, pull him closer. But the way he looked at her held her motionless.

The silence worked between them, broken only by the hard thrum of her heart. His heart.

Then he swore softly and released her wrist, lowered his hand to her face and cupped her cheek. Again, it was the gentleness that stole her breath.

"Do you have any idea what you do to me?" he asked in that black-magic voice of his, and she would have sworn she felt the question whisper through her. "How you make me feel? Make me want?"

Everything inside of her went painfully still.

"I look at you lying here," he said on a rough breath, "all soft and warm and willing, some kind of twisted deliverance I don't come close to deserving, and I'm half out of my mind with the need to tear your pajamas off and be inside you…"

Her heart slammed hard against her ribs. "Cain—"

"But I can't," he said hoarsely.
"I can't."

Shadows flitted across his face, but in a blinding second of mercurial light, she saw the truth that punished, the moisture in his eyes. And she knew.

"It's her, isn't it?" she said, and her heart, her voice, broke on the question. "Savannah."