Possess Me (11 page)

“They’ll hold
that
over my head forever.” His expression sobered. “And I’ll let them.”

He kissed her, and she felt his cock stir against her hip. She tore her lips from his, surprise in her eyes. “Already?”

Rousseau laughed. “I’ve had seven years of lessons from the master of kink. I’m impatient to show you all I’ve learned.”

He tossed her beneath him and she giggled, gasping when she looked down at her legs. “He healed my leg but he didn’t take away my scars? Why?”

Rousseau shrugged. “He liked you. More than I was comfortable with.” Rousseau traced one particularly jagged scar on her arm. “And he loved these. They make you even more beautiful, you know.” His lips brushed over each scar he came across, and Allegra shivered. Through his eyes she
felt
more beautiful, and stronger than she had in a long time. A warrior.

Thank you,
cher
. I’d forgotten how good it feels to come, it’s been so long. That boy is stubborn, you know that, right? But then again, you were worth the wait. Knew you were a smart one.

Don’t worry about me. Just take care of Rousseau. He loves you,
cher
. And you may see me again, sooner than you think. Ben needs a good woman. Or man. We’ll see.

Rousseau ducked his head to get her attention. “Where’d you go?”

“I think Ben’s in trouble.”

“Huh?”

Allegra beamed, grabbing his long locks and pulling him toward her for another kiss. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

He came over her, taking her mouth with all the desire she’d imagined when she first planned this crazy seduction. She’d had no idea what she was in for, but she didn’t regret a thing.

A far-off devilish chuckle echoed through her mind before Rousseau took charge, distracting her so thoroughly that she had no time to think about Loas or voodoo spells. No time for anything but pleasure.

And love.

When Michelle had agreed to come back to New Orleans, her mother had found her an apartment with a ready-made roommate. She’d known Stacy from high school, and she’d desperately needed a roommate to help with the rent.

But a few important rental features had been left out of her mother’s description. The most important being that Michelle had thought she’d be living across the street from a coffee shop, not her very own voodoo sex show.

And if her mother hadn’t known
exactly
what she was subjecting her only daughter to by setting her up in this location, Michelle would eat her shiny green hat.

She vaguely recalled Celestin from high school. Two years ahead of her, he was the attractive but distracted friend of the bane of her existence—Benjamin Beauregard Adair.

She’d had no idea that it was Celestin Rousseau who owned Café Bwe, or that he and Ben were still thick as thieves.

Even more surprising, Rousseau had found a new friend while she’d been away.

Bone Daddy.

The Loa possessing him made the handsome café owner practically irresistible. His body glowed with extra life, the spirit clinging to his skin like a glove. And Michelle could see him. Them.

She’d asked her mother, a priestess in the voodoo religion, how a man could be held so long in the thrall of a Loa. Annemarie Toussaint had just given her a stack of books and told her to study.

If Michelle was going to take over the shop, she said, she had to learn the ways of her ancestors, had to learn about and respect their family’s traditions. But Michelle had no intention of becoming a healer or priestess, no intention of becoming involved in the voodoo religion.

She only wished her mother would believe her.

The priestess might be more willing if Michelle hadn’t allowed herself to be talked into coming back home.

Why had she? Nearly losing her mother and the family home to the hurricane had been a damn good reason, but Michelle knew it wasn’t the only one.

The abilities she’d had as a child, the ones she’d pushed down with medication and therapy, had returned with a vengeance a few years ago, ruining her perfect life.

She’d been in New York, working in an art gallery. Handsome, sophisticated lovers vied for her attention, and her friends were the elite of the art world. Sure, she wasn’t painting, but there were no dangling chicken feet, no family expectations, and not a single irritating Southern man to be found.

The mugging changed everything. People got mugged all the time in New York City. In fact, a few of her friends said you couldn’t really claim native status until you were.

But this had been no ordinary mugging.

The man who’d attacked her hadn’t been alone. Someone, or some
thing
, had been directing him, controlling him. When it realized Michelle could see it, it stopped trying to steal her purse and jewelry, and attacked. If a coworker hadn’t come along . . . she didn’t want to think about what might have happened.

After that the medicine her therapist had given her hadn’t worked. She could see everything. The veil had been lifted once more, and the world that had seemed so magical to her when she was young took a frightening turn.

That was when she knew she had to come home. Had to understand. Why her? Why had she been given the ability to see all the things that went bump in the night? Was there a reason—beyond driving her insane? And if not, how could she get it to stop for good?

Maybe it had been the wrong decision. Being back home had felt good, but after four years, she found she still couldn’t bring herself to talk to her mother about her renewed abilities. And now, well, if she hadn’t returned, Allegra would never have moved here to recuperate, Bone Daddy would never have met her . . . and Michelle wouldn’t be watching through her window as the possessed Rousseau and Benjamin Adair fucked her friend into an orgasmic stupor in the loft above the coffee shop.

It wasn’t Allegra’s fault she’d given in. Despite all her warnings, Michelle knew how hard it was to resist the pull of a Loa, especially one as magnetic as Bone Daddy. The voodoo spirit wasn’t entirely to blame either. He never hid his agenda from anyone. He wanted sex, and he was willing to do whatever he had to do to get it.

If anything it was Ben she was angry with.
He’d
been the devil whispering in Allegra’s ear, encouraging her crush on Rousseau. Flirting for his own wicked purposes. And he didn’t have the excuse of being under the influence of a spell or spirit. He was just born trouble.

Too bad he was so damn fine. It made it harder to hate him, wanting him as badly as she did. And it made it impossible to tear herself away from the window when he shed his clothes, his body perfectly profiled as he stood beside the bed. He was watching Allegra writhe on the sheets, Rousseau’s face buried between her thighs.

Michelle was watching Ben.

He was a golden god. Sandy blond hair with a tendency to curl at the ends when he left it too long. Strong, square jaw that constantly seemed to have a day’s worth of stubble. He always looked as though he’d be more at home on a surfboard in California than the steamy streets of New Orleans.

And his body. It was the stuff of wet dreams. Lean and muscular, his chest was sprinkled with light brown hair that she wanted to tug, wanted to run her fingers through.

Her gaze honed in on his erection. He was stroking it lightly, grazing it with his short fingernails while he studied the couple on the bed. Michelle wanted to touch him, wanted to take him into her mouth and taste every thick, delicious inch.

Rousseau stepped back from the bed, Bone Daddy’s aura bright around him, and Ben turned to crawl onto the bed. The lamplight fell on the paler skin of his perfectly bitable ass, and she saw it. The small tattoo on his right cheek.

Mimi
.

His nickname for her inked on his behind for all to see. A sudden memory of when and why he’d gotten it flooded her mind.

The exact details of her eighteenth birthday were foggy. She’d let her friends get her drunk in celebration, and gone to a strip club when she probably shouldn’t have.

She’d been spouting off again, about how beautiful women were, better than men in every way, and her friends had called her on it. They’d dared her to share a dance with a stripper, to kiss a girl. After downing yet another sazerac, it sounded like a good plan. So they’d gone to the club.

And run into Ben.

He’d been twenty back then, home from college, and even more full of himself, if that were possible. Her friends had drooled after him, inviting him to join the party, which he had, despite her glares.

When they shared her belief that women would be better lovers than men, he’d challenged her. More than challenged.

He’d double-dog dared her.

The dare was simple. Ben would pay for her private lap dance . . . for a price. He would get to be in the room with them, and if she actually had the nerve to kiss and touch the other woman, he’d have her name tattooed on his ass.

To the drunken Michelle, this challenge had seemed perfectly reasonable. He’d dared her, after all. She had no choice but to comply.

She remembered thinking the blonde woman he’d chosen was beautiful, as slender as Michelle was hopelessly curvy. The same type of girls who’d always hung around him in high school.

They’d gone into the VIP room and the woman had started to dance for Michelle with Ben sitting on the other side of the room, his face hidden in the shadows.

The music had flowed through her, and she’d gotten up to join the dancer, unable to merely sit and watch. Her movements were hesitant at first; she was too aware of Ben, and of the fact that something in her wanted to arouse him, despite their antagonistic relationship.

The blonde had slid her hand up to cup one of Michelle’s heavy breasts, turning slightly so the male in the room could easily see what she was doing.

They were rocking back and forth together to the rhythm, inching closer, by accident or design, to where Ben sat, unmoving, in the corner.

She’d been more aroused by the dance, by the stripper’s touch, than she thought she would be. But she knew, without a doubt, it was Ben’s presence that was adding the extra heat.

“Let’s get rid of this.”

Michelle’s eyes, closed as she lost herself in the sensual beat of the drums, popped open when the woman untied her halter top, the top of the shirt dropping to reveal Michelle’s bare breasts.

“
Damn
, Mimi.”

Ben’s voice had her raising her hands to cover herself, but the stripper grabbed them, distracting her with a knowing grin. “Relax, darlin’. It’s just you and me in here. Just a dance.”

The blonde pulled the straps off her minuscule shimmery dress and it pooled at her feet, leaving her clad in only a sheer thong and high heels.

Her breasts were small but sexy, and Michelle envied her slender, boyish body—her creamy skin. Not to mention the glorious ivy tattoo that wound around her waist. The blonde came closer, tossing her hair back over her shoulder before touching the tips of Michelle’s hard nipples with her own. “Men love this,” she’d whispered into Michelle’s ear, leaving a gentle kiss on her lobe.

The pained masculine groan from the shadows told her the woman had to be on to something. Michelle thought about all the girls she’d seen him with throughout high school, all the times she’d caught him making out in the spot that had been
their
special place when they were children, and felt the desire to pay him back in kind.

She licked her lips, her hips following the knowingly seductive sway of the stripper’s as they pressed against each other. Michelle spun around so that she was facing Ben’s direction, her own hands lifting her breasts, presenting them for his inspection. She bent forward, pressing her curved backside against the blonde’s slender hips, and the stripper laughed breathlessly.

“You’re a fast learner.”

“She is, isn’t she?” Ben had leaned forward then, his hands clenched into fists on his thighs, his cheeks flushed. Their eyes met, and Michelle had had a sudden, sinking feeling she was in way over her head. “Touch her, Mimi. Kiss her. Otherwise you forfeit the bet.”

Lose a bet? To him? “Never have, never will.” Michelle straightened, turning back toward the stripper with wobbly legs, determined to show him up. “May I?”

“Why not?”

Michelle traced the twining ivy image, so stark against the pale skin, and slid her arms around the lovely blonde, leaning in to kiss her.

When the soft, feminine lips touched hers, she’d closed her eyes to enjoy the sensation. But all she’d seen was Ben. Ben cupping the curves of her hips and pulling her closer. Ben’s tongue flicking her lips teasingly. Ben moaning in delight when her mouth opened, inviting him in.