Hold Me (20 page)

People started to whisper.

The maître d’s hands rubbed together faster and faster. Katie expected him to start a fire in a moment. Or maybe start humming like a locust.

“No! No, no, no.” The little man broke under the pressure of so many eyes and grabbed some menus. “If you and your, uh, wife, will follow me.”

They were led to a table at the very back of the restaurant right outside the restrooms. The maître d’ waited until they were seated, then put the menus in front of them. “We’re only serving lunch now,” he warned. “The choice is limited.”

“That’s fine,” Luc said.

“All right.” The maître d glanced at Spot, who was making herself comfortable beside Katie’s chair and swallowed. “What about the, uh, animal? Food…?”

“I’ll order for both of the ladies,” Luc told him gently.

“Oh. Good.” The little man seemed to remember Katie was supposed to be blind. He started to pick up the menu, then hesitated, decided to leave it, and scurried away.

Luc watched him go. “Asshole.”

“Why did you tell him I was your wife?” Katie blurted out, and then bit back a groan. That was the last thing she’d wanted to ask.

Luc turned to her, and his frown faded into a small smile. “Because I wanted to.”

“Oh.” Well, there didn’t seem to be too much to say to that one. She sat in silence for a minute while Luc watched her with evident amusement and maybe just a hint of something else. She wished she could take off her sunglasses so she could see him clearly. She tugged at the scarf around her hair and tried to adjust it so it was more comfortable. “Can I take this off?”

“No.” His smile broadened.

“Great.” She tugged at it some more. “Why in the world did you pick purple? I always look like a dead woman in purple.”

His eyes roved over her face. “You look great. I thought purple would be a good girly color. It brings out your eyes.”

“I’m wearing dark glasses.”

“I know what your eyes look like.”

“Oh.” Katie sighed deeply and let her gaze slide over his face. Before she realized it, she had reached out her hand and put it against his cheek, his growth of beard rough against her fingertips. “Luc, what are we going to do?”

He held her palm against his face. “The waitress is coming. So right now, we’re going to eat. I sure hope to hell they have some real food here.”

They did, although it took a minute to figure out that the ‘marinated lean ground beef on a Kaiser roll’ was really a hamburger.

After about ten, Spot fell to the floor with a happy sigh and promptly started snoring. Katie felt some moisture on her foot and discreetly moved it out of the way of any slobber.

“Well, that bump on her head certainly didn’t hurt her appetite.”

Luc paused in the middle of stuffing a third hamburger into his own mouth. “She’s had a rough day.”

Katie folded her arms on the table, watching him eat. Her stomach was full, and her worries had returned full force.

“My mother knows karate. She’s a black belt.”

“She was taken by surprise, outweighed and outnumbered. If she knew how to fight, she probably fought, but these guys are rough. They know what they’re doing.”

Katie swallowed. “I hope she’s okay.”

“She will be.” He smiled at her, although she could tell it was just a pathetic attempt to be supportive. “It could be worse, right? We know exactly where they took her. I’ll get her out of this.”

“So, when do we leave?” Katie leaned forward, eager to be up and doing.

Luc wiped his mouth with his napkin. Then he grabbed her hands, holding them gently down on the table. “We’re not going anywhere. I’m going. Rescuing your mother, assuming it is your mother, means walking right into the middle of Silvano’s organization. I’m not putting you in that kind of danger.”

“But—”

“I’m not going to do it, Katie. I got you into this mess and I’ll get you out, but I’m not going to let you walk into that…that pit with me. It’s not going to happen.”

Katie read the stubborn determination on his face. She knew, knew she was playing this wrong, but she couldn’t seem to keep her mouth shut. Her spine stiffened. “You’re not going to keep me out.”

“I have to.”

“I’m not going to sit around somewhere twiddling my thumbs while you go and risk your life. I can help. You need me.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t. You’d only be in the way.”

Katie felt that if she got any stiffer, she’d turn to stone. In the way. He didn’t need her and he thought she was in the way.

She pulled her hands back and he let her go. The sudden pain inside her made her want to lash out.

“Yeah, you’re right. I guess it is the least you can do. After all, this is all your fault. We wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for you.”

“Like I said.” His voice was calm now. Emotionless. “Wait here. I’ve got to make arrangements.”

“What are you going to do, lock me up?” She was pushing him and she knew it, but if she didn’t she was going to cry and that would be really embarrassing.

“Katie…” Luc said her name, stopped and stood. “Just stay here.” He turned and walked quickly away.

She watched him go, watched him weave his way through the room. She even forced a smile for the openly curious waitress who’d come over to remove their plates. Shaking off the offer of dessert, she tried to ignore the moisture in her eyes and failed miserably. So, this was it then. He was going off to play the big hero while she sat all alone and worried. Probably going to get himself killed.

And even if he managed to stay alive, she suspected that he’d never come back to her again. Not really.

But then, she’d never expected him to.

Luc ignored the maître d and walked to a small table tucked away in a corner near the bar.

The man who was its sole occupant looked up and met his eyes over a newspaper, then sighed, folded it and put it down on the table. “Vasco.”

“Némes.”

Luc studied Justin Némes. It had been about a year since they’d last seen each other, but the other man hadn’t changed much, except now his dark hair was so long that he actually had to tie it back to keep it out of his face. That would have driven Luc nuts.

Némes’s expression was blank as he returned the stare. “Is she really blind?”

“No.” He pulled out a chair and sat without being invited. Although they hadn’t been assigned together on the case that had destroyed Némes’s career, this man had been his partner off and on for four years. They’d depended on each other, fought for each other. Saved each other. He’d thought they’d been friends. Almost family.

Until Liza.

“She isn’t your usual type,” Némes commented.

“Didn’t know I had one.” Luc leaned back in his chair, watchful.

“Of course you do. Leggy blondes with big tits. Liza.” Némes smiled but it wasn’t a pleasant sight. “Too bad we have the same taste.”

Luc kept his face expressionless, but it took some effort.

“Is that the excuse you used to rationalize sleeping with her behind my back?”

Némes shrugged, a lazy roll of shoulders. “It just kind of happened. One of those things. Spontaneous combustion.”

But I trusted you. Luc shook off the thought. He knew what instant attraction did to a guy. Made him think with the little head instead of the big one. And Liza hooking up with Némes had shown him what she really was. Shown him what he really wanted.

And now there was Katie. Maybe if he hadn’t been screwed over by Liza, he wouldn’t appreciate Katie as much.

Némes was watching him, eyes lit with an ironic amusement. “So, how’s David doing these days? Rumor has it he misses me.”

Somehow Luc managed to hold on to his patience.

“He finally broke the Central American trafficking ring. Now we’re rounding up the girls they’d already sold and trying to get them some help.”

“Good. Very good.” For a moment there was genuine emotion in Némes’s hard face, then it was gone.

“You can’t blame David for being pissed off.”

“He wants me to pay because he had to rebuild the case from scratch.” Némes smiled again, tightly. “Believe me, I’ve paid.”

Luc nodded in silent acknowledgement of the part he’d played in that. They’d heard the rumors that Némes was pushing high-quality coke about the same time he’d found out about the man’s affair with Liza. Finding out about his friend and his fiancée had rocked him hard.

So when the accusations of drug dealing surfaced, Luc had let emotion cloud his better judgment. He’d been the one to lead the criminal investigation that had forced Némes’s resignation from the Bureau. It was only later, when he’d been able to think rationally, that he’d realized he might have acted too hastily. Whatever he’d done to clear Justin Némes had been too little, too late.

“So, tell me why you’re here,” Némes said. “I understand you gave my assistant quite a hard time until she handed out my cell phone number. I’m scheduled to lead a seminar on international taxation in a few minutes.”

“Jesus Christ, you really are an accountant.”

“I got my C.P.A. before I joined the Bureau.” Némes smiled again, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Contingency. The work’s a lot less stressful. Except at tax time, of course. And the pay’s better, which I grant you isn’t saying much. So. Talk to me.”

“You’ve always said you felt like you owed me for your sister. I’m going to give you a chance to make it even.” There’d never been a debt as far as Luc was concerned, but he knew Némes believed there was. And he knew that as long as Némes believed he was discharging an obligation, he could be trusted.

Luc was willing to say anything, do anything, use anything to keep Katie safe.

Something flared in Némes’s face, but it was quickly gone. “Sara is alive. I owe you for that.”

“Help me with this, and you’ll never see me again. All debts canceled.”

“Enticing beyond belief. What can I do for you?”

Luc leaned forward. Right now he didn’t care about the past. He knew Justin Némes. He’d seen what the other man was capable of, had seen it firsthand. He could protect Katie.

“The young lady I’m with is a witness against…some very bad people. They’re trying to kill her.”

“Hmm.”

“I have to go straighten out a few loose ends. While I’m gone I want you to watch out for her.”

“Me?” For the first time, Némes’s expression was less than contained. “Why me? Why not David?”

Luc shifted position. “I can’t go to him,” he said quietly.

Némes was silent for a few long seconds, digesting that. Luc didn’t say anything else. Instead he sat back and waited, unwilling to give any more information than was absolutely necessary.

“Interesting.” Némes pinned him again with his cold, blue stare. “And if I watch out for her while you’re gone, we’ll be even. Closed.”

“Yes.” Luc bit off the word, hoping to God that this time his instincts were sound. But what choice did he really have? He couldn’t leave her without any protection at all.

Némes’s smile was broad, feral. “What do you want me to do?”

Katie let Luc usher her and Spot into a room in the hotel that was attached to the convention center. She dropped her purse on a table and, as soon as Luc closed the door behind them, took off her sunglasses and put on her regular ones. Unable to stand the hideous bandana a second longer, she unknotted it and ripped it off her head. Her hair sprang free into a million bouncing curls, the follicles practically singing as she massaged her scalp. God, it felt good.

Spot, being a curious soul, wandered around the room sniffing at the rug and the air conditioner. Katie followed her, pretending to look out the window when she was really watching Luc from the corner of her eye. He stood just inside the door like a big granite statue—feet braced apart, arms folded across his chest.

A tall, cold stranger wearing Luc’s face.

He was leaving. He was actually going to leave her.

Turning, she trailed a finger over the spread on the king-sized bed before facing him fully. Okay, she thought. One last chance. One last try.

“I want to come with you, Luc. Please take me with you.”

She knew she’d failed to sway him when his face remained composed. Unmoved and uncompromising.

“No. You can’t come.” Final.

“I’ll follow you,” she threatened.

“No, you won’t. Not if you ever want to see your mother alive again.”

“But I—”

His composure cracked and fell away. “Would you just let me do my fucking job, Katie? I can’t fucking find your mother if I’m worried about you all the time.”

Katie looked away, refusing to admit he was right.

“You are staying here. End of argument. No discussion. I don’t want to leave you alone, but I can’t afford to wait. I have to get on the road. Némes will be here as soon as he’s finished running his damned tax seminar. Jesus, I can’t believe he’s really an accountant.”

Katie thought about the man Luc had introduced her to before they’d left the restaurant. He was probably as tall as Luc but not so heavily muscled, which gave him the impression of a sinewy grace. Like a big cat. His dark, silky hair was long and tied in a queue at the back of his neck, and his cold eyes were clear blue and empty. She didn’t think he was an accountant either.

She sighed. “Yeah, yeah. I’m staying here, okay? I’ll wait for Justin Némes. Satisfied?” What the hell was the point of arguing? He was leaving. No way would he take her with him. She’d be lucky if he didn’t tie her up first to make sure she didn’t move.

He studied her for a moment before nodding slowly. Now that he had her compliance, he seemed a little reluctant to go. Maybe he didn’t trust her to keep her word. Maybe he shouldn’t.

“I can’t stay,” he repeated.

“You said that. So go already.” She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice and failed.

“Némes will take you somewhere safe.”

Safe. Yeah, right. No place was safe.

“You’ll hear from me within three days.” Luc hesitated. “If I’m not in touch by then, I won’t be in touch at all.”

Her eyes flew to his face. “Why—”

“Because I’ll be dead. I won’t leave you hanging otherwise.”

Dead.

She couldn’t control a violent shudder. In a couple of hours or days, Luc could be dead. This vital, caring, alive man standing across the room from her could be dead. He could die, and she would never know what happened, who killed him.

Katie put her hand to her chest because her heart was heavy. Numb.

“Here.” Luc stepped forward to hand her a little card. She stared at it for a minute or two before she realized there was a name and telephone number printed on it. “This is Némes’s cell. If anything happens before he gets here, you call him right away. I mean it, Katie, right away. We should have time before Frankie tracks you, but still…” He let the words trail off.

“Sure.” Katie tucked the card into her pants pocket.

“I’ve rented a car for myself, and I’m leaving Spot here with you.”

Recognizing her name, the dog walked up to him. He knelt, ruffling her large ears and stroking her head affectionately with his long fingers.

“She’ll take care of you, won’t you girl?” Spot yipped and he straightened again.

“Luc…you’ll be careful, right?” The words ripped out of her.

“Of course.” He started to turn, to go, then hesitated. “I’ll make sure your mother’s safe.”

“I know.” She was crying, she realized, and wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands like a child.

The reality of what was happening swept over her. The loneliness of it. The irrevocability of it. He was leaving. She might never see him again. He might die trying to save her and her mother. And even if he came back, she knew he would put aside the days they’d spent together.

Katie took a couple of steps toward him.

“I have to go,” he murmured, backing away. For a moment there was a glint of something like desperation in his eyes. “I have to set up my cover.”

“Yes. I understand.” She smiled at him through her tears. Knowing this was the end gave her the courage to reach up to him, to take his face in her hands and pull it down closer to hers. She kissed him, kissed him with everything she felt, everything she was, tried to tell him what he meant to her without burdening him with words. And maybe she was just a little afraid to say the words anyway.

His hands stayed at his sides, but his lips parted, soft against hers. For one endless breath, he responded, mouth moving, tongue dancing with hers as he’d danced with her in the mirrored ballroom so long ago. In that instant he gave and she gave and they were both giving and receiving at the same time. The sensations spiraled around them and through them until she took that last step closer, molded her body to his and clung.

He let her hold him, then, abruptly, grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away. They stared at each other, lungs heaving, breaths mingling. Katie licked her lips and tasted him.

“Don’t do this,” he growled. “Just…don’t.”

“Don’t do what?” She could barely talk. She wanted his mouth again. On hers. On her.

“This isn’t right. You don’t really want me.”

“I don’t?” Katie met his gaze and was trapped by the haunted expression in his beautiful eyes. “I think I do. I want you. Didn’t I prove it last night?”

She leaned forward again, but stopped when his grip tightened to the point of pain. His sudden anger was unleashed and boiled against her skin as his fingers dug into her.

“You think you want me? You think you even fucking know who I am? I’m not fucking Bruce Wayne, or whatever else it is you think you see. I’m not even close. Isobel was a bitch, but she was right about me.”

“Luc—” She reached for him, but he abruptly released her and spun away, one hand raking through his thick, dark hair. Then he turned to face her again, a sneer distorting his mouth.

“Between the Army and the Bureau, I’ve killed so many people that I’ve lost count. Do you know how much blood I’ve spilled in my life? A swimming pool full of it. A lake full of it. Enough blood to drown in.” He laughed without humor. “But it doesn’t mean dick. War still happens. The creeps are still out there. The terrorists still attack innocent people. People still die when they should be alive.”

She found her voice. “You’re wrong if you think that’s all you are.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He was prowling, pacing back and forth, back and forth. “I couldn’t stop those bastards from hurting Melanie at the foster home,” he growled. “I couldn’t stop them from hurting me. Then, after everything was finished, I finally managed to do something. Want to know how Winston died?”

“Luc, you don’t need—”

But he didn’t let her finish. His face was strained, his eyes wild. Katie knew it was all going to come out now whether she wanted to hear it or not. “I took off when Melanie went to live with you, but he still tracked me down. Fucking living on the streets like an animal, but I look up, and there’s Winston standing at the end of the alley, smiling. I don’t know how he found me, but the gang I’d been trying to join let him come. My initiation.” He laughed again, a bark of sound.

“He wanted to teach me a lesson, but I’d learned a few tricks. I knifed him. Slit his throat. My first corpse, but not the last one, that’s for damn sure. The gang was impressed.”

“Luc—”

He stared at her, dark eyes blank. “I was glad I’d done it. Glad I’d been the one to off him. But it didn’t help Melanie, did it? It was too damn late for that. I was too much of an idiot to know what was going on when it was happening. Too much of a coward to help her.”

“You helped her.” She sensed that he wouldn’t welcome her touch right now, so she curled her fingers into her palms to keep from reaching for him. She wanted to cry for him, but she wouldn’t let herself do that either.

“Oh, yeah, right. Sure. Like I’ve helped so many other people. Okay then, let’s talk about Marie, shall we? She was an informant. Just someone I was playing because I knew she had feelings for me, and she was helping in an investigation. I lied to her and I didn’t—wouldn’t—stop lying to her. I let her believe what she wanted to believe until she jumped in front of a bullet and saved my life.”

He turned away. “When she died she touched my face and told me that she loved me. I lied to her even then because I told her I loved her too.”

“Luc, listen to me—”

Without any warning, he took two strides over to her and grabbed her shoulders again. She couldn’t control a wince when his fingers curled into her skin.

“I should have stayed as far away from you as I could get, Katie. You were under my protection. Someone I was supposed to be guarding for fuck’s sake. But who could protect you from me?”

“I don’t want to be protected from you, you moron.”

“Shut up. Just shut the hell up.”

Then he kissed her, hard and harsh and desperate. His mouth forced her head back; his lips were fierce and ravishing, as if he was trying to prove to her that he was what he believed himself to be.

But his hands gentled as his fingers slipped up to her hair and through it. As he removed her glasses and put them on a table. As he cradled her head in his large palms. As he cradled her.

Even if she’d been reluctant, Katie couldn’t have helped responding. Her mouth opened under his, moved on his as his moved on hers. His tongue came to dance with hers, and she tasted his warm, rich flavor. She couldn’t resist nipping at his bottom lip, then sucking on it.

He groaned deep and husky in his chest. The nature of the kiss changed, becoming less about force and more about passion. Excitement.

Katie lifted her arms, wound them around his neck and held on, her fingers caressing the soft skin above his collar.

He twirled in one of those swift, graceful movements and backed her up against the nearest wall, moving against her in a heart-stopping, fully-body caress that made her stomach flutter and her thighs clench. He ran his wonderful hands all over her body, his mouth wild on hers. He smelled so good, all wild and spicy, and she fought him for control of the kiss. The bulge of his erection rubbed high on her stomach. She loosened one hand from where it tangled in his hair, and cupped him, exploring his firmness with her fingers.

Then his clothes were loose and so were hers, her pants down around her ankles. He pressed her back against the wall, his fingers under her panties, on her skin, inside her, and she came so quickly, so violently that she cried out.

“Katie.”

She had her hands on him, too, running under his shirt, then digging his erection out of his pants, caressing him, pulling more strongly as he groaned in her ear.

“God, Katie. We need to stop. I need to…”

“If you won’t take me with you, then leave me with this. Don’t just walk away from me as if I don’t matter,” she whispered. “Please.”

He shuddered, his hands warm and so strong on her skin. “Condom.” His voice was guttural. “God. Need condom.”

She blindly grabbed for her purse on the table. Her mouth fused with his, their tongues twining, as she searched through it, unseeing and one-handed. Finally, finally, she touched the little foil packet Darren had given her and pulled it out.

She wrenched herself back an inch and pressed it into his hand. “Condom.”

“Jesus.” The word was halfway between a laugh and a prayer before he was kissing her again.

They fumbled him out of his pants and her out of her underwear. Katie groaned as he massaged her breasts through her shirt, under it, as he tweaked her sensitive nipples. Her head fell back against the wall with a thud. His teeth were on her throat, his hand leaving her for one painful moment to outfit himself with the condom.

Then he was inside her. They both moaned at the sensation of him filling her, stretching her. He shifted and she gasped. The slide of it. The heat. Skin against skin.

“Luc.”

Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, through the polo shirt. His thick muscles shifted as he lifted her, adjusted her into a better position. He moved, the rhythm of his hips quick and desperate. As if he would drill her through the wall. As if he would plant himself so deeply inside her that he would never come out again.

“I. Am. Not. Bruce,” he growled in time to his thrusts.

Her answer was a groan.

Pictures rattled next to her, her back slapped against the drywall, and she came again with a shocked and startled cry. “Luc!”

A second later, he followed her over the edge, his own groan reverberating around the room.

They stood, grasping each other, knees trembling, breath shuddering, until Katie gradually became aware of another noise in the room. A slight whining. She opened her eyes, looked over Luc’s shoulder, and saw the black blob that was Spot lying on the floor, watching the proceedings with apparent confusion.

“Oh,” Katie said. “God.”

They separated. While Luc stepped into the bathroom to clean up and deal with the condom, she tried to put herself at least partially back to rights. The world came into focus when she put on her glasses again, but her brain refused to function. Satisfaction and pleasure and sadness and fear all swirled around inside of her until she couldn’t think.

She heard water running, the toilet flushing. After a moment, Luc stood on the threshold of the bathroom, staring at her while he zipped up his pants and buckled his belt. The expression in his eyes was so bleak she could hardly stand it.