Strip You Bare (15 page)

He froze, a harsh groan on his lips as he came hard, his cock pulsing deep inside of her. She clung to him, clung to the moment. Because right now she felt perfectly and completely free. There was no expectation for the future, nothing at all beyond this pleasure. This man.

Then she heard footsteps again, louder this time. “Ms. Delacroix?”

He moved away from her, tucking himself back into his pants while she pushed her skirt back down over her hips. “Yes?” she asked, taking a deep breath and smoothing her hands over her hair, knowing that her lips would still look swollen, her cheeks flushed.

Knowing she would still look very much like she’d been screwed against a wall.

She moved into view, doing her best to smile. It was Tara, the woman who was coordinating the layout of the tables and chairs for tonight.

“Is there something I can help with?” Sarah asked.

“Just needed you to sign off on this,” Tara said, holding out a clipboard. “We misquoted the initial amount on the chairs. That was for one-fifty. Not two hundred.”

Even if she was lying, Sarah was not in a position to sit around and do chair math. She still had orgasm brain. Anyway, the party was in a few hours and she needed chairs. “It’s fine,” she said, signing quickly. “Thank you.”

She stared at the other woman until she hurried out of the room. Sarah let out a long breath.

“Scared she might have caught us?” Micah asked, moving away from the shadows.

Actually, she wasn’t. She was . . . a little bit excited about nearly being caught. He really had made her go insane.

She didn’t mind.

“Are you coming?” he asked.

“What?”

“To the Priory. You think you can handle this. Come handle it.”

“Why?” she asked, suddenly feeling like the floor had dropped away from beneath her feet. “Why are you letting me? What happened to
Baby, you can’t handle it
?”

“You can handle it,” he said. “I’m sure of that now.” He shifted his weight, the expression on his face shifting along with it. “There are some things going down. I decided it would be best if you came down to the Priory now rather than just watching it blow shit to hell tonight.”

“So you put on a suit?”

“It’s kind of my cut now.”

She heard his words, but couldn’t really absorb them. He might as well have been speaking another language. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing you’re gonna like. But it’s happening whether I include you in the decision or not. Do you want to know what’s going on?”

She nodded slowly, dread filling her chest. “Yes.”

Sarah had done the obligatory late-night walk down Bourbon Street many times. She had never seen the appeal of getting drunk and stumbling down Bourbon Street, but she had observed other people doing it many times. Had taken peeks into the crowded, dimly lit bars. Had gawked at women standing in front of strip clubs wearing nothing but a thong and pasties, beckoning passersby to come up and see them right
now,
rather than sometime. Yes, she had seen all that, but she had kept her distance, often walking through with a tight grip on her purse and an involuntary curling up of her lip.

But, even in the middle of the day, the Priory had taken that atmosphere of a late night on Bourbon and wrapped it up tightly in the walls of the bar. It was bursting with music, with old, dark wood paneling that held secrets and ghosts. The secret world beneath the world, the one that Micah had promised existed, the one he was from. Some might be tempted to see the bar as grimy, but some would be tempted to see the city of New Orleans that way as well.

But not when your eyes were opened to the magic that existed in every corner. It was the magic, spread over every inch, that turned grit to glitter. That gave it all a surreal, Old World fairy-tale quality.

It reminded her of Micah in strange and fascinating ways. If you only looked at the surface, you would miss the depth. Would miss what made it special. Micah had magic in his hands, just like this bar had magic in the walls.

“Like what you see?” he asked, his tone sardonic.

“Yes,” she said, and she found she was being completely truthful.

This bar didn’t exist to impress anyone. It existed to offer community. For blood and tears to soak into the bar top. For secrets to be shared, and lovers to meet.

She thought of the Delacroix mansion. A place that existed to make people feel small. To glow brighter than the people in it.

Where here, it was the people who shone with the most brilliance.

There was a group in the back, three large, imposing men that were every inch what she imagined bikers would be. Leather, denim, a look that would make men and women go weak in the knees, but for different reasons.

There were two women standing there as well, clearly with two of the men. One was artsy and bohemian, her blond hair scooped back into a messy bun, the hard edge present in the rest of the bar absent around her. She softened the place, and the man who was with her. Then there was the other woman. The type Sarah would think of as a biker chick. Dark hair, long and straight, leather pants clinging to delicate curves. Behind the bar was another woman completely at ease with her surroundings, somehow managing to exude both femininity and an air that she would willingly separate delicate body parts from your person if necessary.

“The Deacons of Bourbon Street, I presume?” she asked Micah in a hushed tone.

“You would be correct.”

“What the fuck is this, Prince?” This question came from the man Sarah had no doubt was the leader. He wore it with as much ease as he wore his leather jacket.

She stopped walking, completely intimidated by this version of a biker she saw before her. Because she saw now that Micah had never fully exposed this part of himself to her. Or perhaps it didn’t exist in him in quite the same way as it did in this man.

“Sarah Delacroix.” She had a feeling she was not meant to offer her hand for him to shake along with Micah’s introduction.

“I know who she is,” the man said. “Why is she here?”

“The Christmas party is tonight,” Micah said.

“Am I invited?” The unnamed leader crossed heavy muscular arms across his broad chest.

“There
is
a dress code,” Sarah said, not quite certain why she was pushing her luck.

“I left my tie in another lifetime.”

“Same place as my leather pants then,” she returned, her tone crisp.

The leader laughed. Short, hard, nothing excessive about it. “She’s funny,” he said, addressing Micah and not her. “I hope you have a good reason for bringing her into this. Because funny isn’t enough to save her ass if this turns into a firefight.”

“Maybe not. But I’m enough,” Micah returned. “Sarah, this charming gentleman is known as Ajax. He’s the club president. This is Blue, Cash, Billie”—he indicated the artsy woman holding on to the man he’d just called Cash—“Alice”—the biker chick—“and Sophie,” the woman behind the bar.

“You’re the owners of my house,” Sarah said.

“And you are the squatter on our property,” Ajax said.

“I suppose I am. How novel.” Disquiet crept through her as she stood there, all eyes on her. She had walked into a very tense situation, and she knew now, more than she had even a few moments before, that Micah had not brought her here to simply satisfy her curiosity.

She looked up at the large man called Blue, who was standing just a bit behind Ajax. Their eyes caught and held, and something stirred deep inside of her. Recognition. She felt dizzy for some reason she couldn’t quite figure out. Nor could she figure out why there would be something familiar about him. “Why am I here?” she asked.

“There’s a connection between the death of our leader and the Delacroix family. We suspected as much finding out we owned your property, but since then we’ve discovered that two members of another motorcycle club were paid by the Delacroix to kill Priest.”

Micah’s words hit her like a punch in the gut. “There’s no way . . .”

“It’s true,” Micah said.

“I hope you’re planning on holding her captive between now and tonight,” Ajax said. “Because if she goes off crying to her grandfather—”

“She won’t. She’s under my protection. She’s my responsibility.”

“I am my own responsibility,” she said, directing the words at Micah. “And why did you wait until I was here, with them, to tell me this?”

“Because I wanted you to see. I want you to be a part of this. I know you wanted to protect your grandfather, but he’s involved.”

“My father—”

“I don’t know where he fits into this. But trust me, there is shit happening. With your family. That indicates it’s likely your grandfather’s involved.”

“I don’t believe it. I’m not unrealistic, but my father and my grandfather . . .”

“Ask yourself this, Sarah: Why have you lost so many of the men in your family? A good, upstanding, old-money family? There has to be something else going on. I think you know that.”

She looked back at Blue, because for some reason she needed to. “I know you,” she said, unable to stop the words from escaping.

He lifted his shoulder. “Maybe you did.”

She looked harder at him, past the biker exterior, at his eyes. She knew those eyes. “Leon.” It was impossible, but she knew it was him. Her cousin she hadn’t seen since she was a child. He hadn’t died. He hadn’t even gone all that far. “Does anyone else know?”

“We know,” Ajax said.

She ignored him. “Grandfather?”

“He doesn’t know exactly where I am, no. He knows I’m alive. My parents’ manor was left to me, so I can only assume they know I’m not dead. We like our ghosts, but not enough to leave them an inheritance.”

“And no one ever went after you?”

“I was not my father’s favorite person in the end,” he said, his tone hard.

“Well, what about me?”

“I don’t have any control over what you were told,” he responded.

“I thought . . . I thought Grandfather was all I had left. My father is dead, Leon. My mother.
Everyone
. And you . . . you left us.”

“I had to. I found out a long time ago that our family name was hiding a whole lot of shady shit. My father wasn’t a good man, Sarah. In my mind, I was better off joining an outlaw biker gang than staying in that mansion as a Delacroix. I found my real family outside of my blood family. I don’t regret it. I can’t.”

She took a step closer to him. “And you think . . . you think our grandfather had something to do with this? You think he ordered an old biker to be killed? Why? Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know why, Sarah. The fact remains Deacons own that mansion that was in our family for generations. That might be motive enough. The old man takes a lot of pride in our name. In what we have. You know that firsthand. There could be more. Like I said, my father was involved in some things . . . I don’t know how far all that corruption goes.”

Sarah couldn’t breathe. “But he’s old . . . he’s . . .”

“Bad young men turn into bad old men, if they’re smart enough to stay alive,” Ajax said. “Him being old just proves he’s a smart son of a bitch.”

“Leon . . . You think it’s true?”

“I think it’s true,” her cousin said. “But then, I have a bit of the vendetta against our name and for good reason. That has to be taken into account. Still, I want you out of the line of fire, that’s a priority for me.” He directed that last part at Ajax. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this. She’s just in the middle.”

“It seems to me that you and I have everything to do with this,” she said. “We
are
this. It’s our name.”

“Not my name,” he said. “Not anymore. I’m a Deacon.”

“So that leaves me alone, then?”

Suddenly, she felt more isolated than before she realized who Leon was. Because for just a moment she’d felt a connection. And now he’d cut it off.

Not a Delacroix.

She felt Micah’s hand on her waist. “Not alone. That’s why I brought you here. You’re in this now, you’re with us.”

“Are you laying a claim, Prince?” Ajax asked. “She going to wear your patch?”

A shiver wound down Sarah’s spine. She knew what that meant. Thanks to Micah. He was asking if she was his property. Which, in this culture, symbolized something deeper than she could imagine.

“I probably don’t have time to get one done up,” Micah said dryly. “Right now? Yes. When you look at her, you better see her as mine. Offer the same protection you would to Alice or Billie or Sophie. If Leon is going to distance himself—”

“That isn’t what I was doing,” Leon said. “I said I wanted her protected, and I mean it.”

“But I’m willing to stand in front of the bullet. I’m willing to do what’s necessary,” Micah said.

Sarah looked over at him, Micah, by far the most civilized-looking man in the room. The Prince among them, and his perfectly cut suit, with his clean-shaven jaw. He should have looked weaker than the men standing before him in their leather. Far from it, he looked ready to take on each and every one of them. Her heart expanded in her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe.

Ajax looked them both over. “Fine. She’s yours. No one will touch her. And we’ll all protect her.”

“What exactly do you think you need to protect me from?” she asked, looking from Micah to Ajax.

“That’s the thing,” Ajax said. “We don’t know exactly. We think your grandfather ordered the death of Priest. That means we may have to protect you from gun-wielding psychopaths.”

“Is that all?” she asked, her voice thin.

“I could be wrong,” Ajax said. “It could be knives.”

“That’s . . . helpful. My grandfather is not going to let anything happen to me.”

“Sure, but you also didn’t think your grandfather would order the death of another man, I trust,” Ajax said.

“Of course not,” she looked down at her shoes, shiny black patent-leather pumps that made an interesting contrast with the dull tile.

“That means I don’t trust anything, and there’s nothing I don’t think he’s capable of.”

“I feel the same way,” Micah added.

“You’re not allowed to storm my Christmas party. I have a tree. It’s decorated. If you mess up my tree, I’m going to get pissy,” she said, folding her arms beneath her breasts.