Читать книгу Born to be Bad - Crystal Green, Crystal Green - Страница 7

IN GEMMA DUNCAN’S FANTASIES, sweat would bead on her skin. It would trickle down her body to dampen the satin sheets while strangers—bad boys who never turned good—trailed their mouths over her belly.

They would dip their tongues into a navel pooled with summer heat, drag their kisses upward, over her writhing torso, her ribs, under the tender swell of her breast, drinking her in. They would never leave their names, but they would leave her tapped out physically, filled only with a surging need for more.

Gemma never talked about these fantasies.

But there were safer ones she would share with her new friends over happy-hour cocktails. Fantasies such as winning a Pulitzer at the tender age of twenty-six. Fantasies where she would uncover the nefarious activities of crime lords while crusading as a journalist at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Fantasies where she could bake a perfect soufflé, do a triple axel like Michelle Kwan and come home to a Garden District fantasy mansion full of fantasy puppies saved from the pound with her fantasy fortune.

As far as vivid imaginations went, she was number one. Heck, her fantasies even included knowing how to position a cell phone so that it always received perfect reception.

Needless to say, reality was a little different for Gemma Duncan.

“Jimmy?” she asked for the third time, walking five steps to the left and cocking her head to the right as she exited a French Quarter souvenir store. Taunting her, the phone fuzzed and stuttered in denial.

She’d had her older brother on the line only a second ago. “Jimmy? Can you hear me?”

The shop’s zydeco music, with its energetic pulse of percussion and accordion, caused Gemma to plug one ear and wander through the muggy July air toward Dumaine Street. The threat of an afternoon rain braided itself with the smell of battered crawfish and spices from a nearby café.

“Hello?” She clutched her shopping bag, eager to talk to Jimmy and be back on her way to the Weekly Gossip offices in the Central Business District. Today she’d been interviewing a psychic who was integral to her latest headline: “Swamp Girl Finds Love with Tarot Reader.”

Truly. That was it. This was why Gemma used a pen name—Duncan James—as opposed to her real one.

As she wandered farther down the street, away from the tourists and toward her second destination, a voodoo shop, her older brother’s voice squawked in and out of range.

Lunch-hour efficiency, she thought, somewhat proud of her scheduling skills. On Dumaine, she would not only achieve possible reception but also buy gris-gris bag souvenirs for an out-of-town friend. Oh, and then there was the antique shop where she could see if that white-satin-gowned jazz-singer painting was still for sale….

“Jimmy,” she said again. “I’m trying to… Aw, forget it. If you can hear me, I’m running errands anyway, so I bought that grotesque shellacked baby gator head for your wife. I’ll send it priority mail tomorrow, okay? By the way, tell her happy birthday, you sicko. If I had a husband with a yen for weird gag gifts like you, there’d be some damage. And I say that with all the love in my heart. Talk to you later.”

In one last, hopeful attempt to achieve reception, Gemma paced near a courtyard. It had a wrought-iron gate, and banana-tree leaves that leaned over the brick wall like a bored woman passing time while watching the street’s infrequent traffic. Beyond the barriers, a man’s raised voice competed with Jimmy’s tinny bark.

“Gemma, I heard that. When you finally get it into your thick head that you’ve moved to the wrong city, and listen to your family and move back here—”

Oops. Not…understanding…a…word…you…say….” She snapped shut her cell phone, tucked it into the purse she’d slung crosswise over her chest and rested her spine against the courtyard bricks. She wiped at the heat steaming the straight tendrils of her upswept hair into curlicues while the man’s disembodied voice continued to bluster behind the wall. A fountain tinkled in the background.

Water. The splashes reminded her of Orange County, California, where the dog days of summer were tempered by beach winds and afternoons by the swimming pool.

But that’s not where she belonged. She’d visited New Orleans and had never left, especially after the Weekly Gossip job had come along. The tabloid had sounded good because she’d been desperate for income and experience.

Besides, the “Big Easy” had always sounded adventurous, a bit scary. Naughty.

The last place anyone who knew “nice” Gemma Duncan would’ve expected her to end up.

Over the courtyard wall, another male voice had joined the first one. Gemma idly closed her eyes, listening, lulled by the southern afternoon sounds.

“You’re playing with some fire, here, Mr. Lamont. I’ll leave now, before our meeting humiliates you further.”

Gemma’s eyes eased open, lured by the second man’s voice. His tone had the rough undertow of a bayou night, where unknown dangers were hidden by darkness, the buzz of crickets, the lap of black water against crumbling docks.

A warm ache shocked her lower belly, then pulsed lower, urging her to press her thighs together. Man, if a mere voice could get her going, she really needed a date. Maybe it was time to start meeting more people and doing less work.

People such as…

She strained to hear him again, that echo of her fantasies—shadow-edged and wild, with just a hint of foreign danger.

Right, she thought. Only in my craziest dreams.

Most disappointingly, the first man was talking again, his N’awlins accent charged with anger. “You rigged that roulette wheel and bled me last night. Did you invite me to that gaming room with ruination in mind, Theroux?”

Theroux? She knew that name.

An intimidating pause spoke volumes, and she could imagine the accuser, Lamont, backing up a few steps.

“Anything else?” Theroux asked. “After all, you invited me to meet with you alone, and I expected to deal in some true business with a man of your stature. But your threats don’t interest me, Lamont. Neither does your desperation.”

“I resigned from the company three months ago, so you can’t hold anything against me now.” Lamont’s voice shook a little. “I’ve become a better man.”

“After you’ve tasted what your employees had to endure? I think so.”

“What are you, Theroux? Some self-appointed avenger? Yes? I lost a lot of money in your joint. I could—”

“But you won’t. You’ll keep your voice down and go back to your home unruffled. Understand?”

Had Theroux stolen from this Lamont? And what was all this talk about employees and revenge?

Heart fluttering during the ensuing hesitation, Gemma shrank away from the gate, sheltering herself behind the brick wall. Maybe she should leave, but her inner journalist wouldn’t allow it. Sometimes the best stories were the ones you stumbled over.

Damien Theroux was gossip gold, a city legend. A fixture in the good-old-boy network.

Just by picturing what kind of man went with that kind of voice, she grew a little feverish.

Was he suave? Graying at the temples? As bearish as Tony Soprano?

While she considered it, Theroux’s victim, Lamont, was no doubt taking a moment to gather himself. He finally responded with more respect. “All I want is my money back, Mr. Theroux. I’ve worked hard for it.”

“Not as hard as I did. And, rest assured, the proceeds will go to a proper place.”

“Please!” Lamont’s voice cracked. “I’ll have to sell my home, you realize.”

More silence cut through the humidity, and Gemma held her breath. The brick wall scratched against her cheek as she slipped down an inch, knee joints turning to liquid.

This was ridiculous, hiding like a child. Eavesdropping. But she couldn’t leave. Wouldn’t leave.

Heavy footsteps neared the gate. With a guilty start, Gemma opened her eyes, then darted behind a long, exhausted bronze Buick parked streetside. She held her crinkling plastic souvenir bag against her thigh, hoping it wouldn’t make another sound.

She’d hit rock bottom, spying like this.

As the iron gate moaned open, Lamont’s tortured voice echoed the rusty hinges. “You’re not getting away with this. You are not all-powerful, Damien Theroux!”

Damien Theroux. Confirmation that this was the shady man she’d read about in the newspapers.

She could hear Theroux’s steps come to a halt.

“I wish I had the power of gods,” he said. “Then I’d fleece you in the afterlife, too, when we’re both in hell.”

Oh, what a quote that’d make. Gemma only wished she had her tiny recorder on.

From the sound of it, Lamont was getting braver, closer, as if he was at the gate, too. “Wouldn’t the public love to know about these other dealings? Your weaknesses? I think a few of your competitors read the papers, if you catch my meaning.”

Theroux merely laughed—but not because he was entertained, obviously. Or maybe he was.

By now, Gemma’s head was swimming. This could lead to a real story. Maybe an exposé of one of New Orleans’s most intriguing characters?

Her ticket to respect.

If she could just find out exactly what these “other” dealings were.

After the seemingly endless lack of response, Theroux spoke. “I think you’re too smart to talk about my business, Mr. Lamont, if you catch my meaning.”

That must have done the trick for Lamont because Theroux continued swinging open the gate. He shut it with finality and walked away.

Oh, thank God, thank God, thank God he hadn’t seen her crouched by the Buick.

As she waited a beat, a car drove by. Nonchalantly, Gemma flashed a smile at the miffed driver while he watched her hiding.

When he’d passed, she paused another moment, peeking around the car, watching an overweight, bald man—Lamont—as he trudged back toward his foliage-obscured brick home. Moments later, he slammed his door.

Quivering with the buzz of career success, Gemma peeked around the other side of the Buick, focusing on a tall, broad-shouldered, wiry figure as he moved down the street with the walk of a predator—slightly hunched, wary.

He had black shoulder-length hair that echoed the lazy wisps of a fine cigar’s smoke. Hair that reminded her of a hallway in the dead of night when you have to drag a hand along the walls to find your way. A hallway where something might be waiting for you to pass, to feel the smile on its face when you discover it’s there.

Was she going to pursue this? Damien Theroux wasn’t a woman who lived in the sticks, professing to be a swamp thing in love with a psychic. He wasn’t anyone else she usually wrote about, either—not the reincarnated Elvises or the women who claimed to be the next Marie Laveau.

Damien Theroux was her chance to make it big, to be taken seriously by everyone who’d expected more out of her than tabloid reporting. Even herself.

Hell, yeah, she was going to do this.

Gemma slyly removed herself from behind the Buick, trailing Theroux’s panther stride, his black designer suit, the brightness of her future.

He rounded onto Royal Street, and she took care to act like a tourist, gawking at brightly hued buildings with their jolly paint-flaked shutters, the lacy iron fences, stray drops from this morning’s rain shower dripping on her head from galleries and balconies.

As Theroux moved onto St. Philip, the streets grew more deserted. Gemma wondered if she should stay on the beaten paths, if she’d entered an area that concierges warned their hotel guests to stay away from.

A hungover man without shoes told her in passing that he’d fallen asleep in front of a bar and someone had stolen his wallet and boots, and she just about turned right back around to safer territory.

“Brave Reporter Breaks Open the Truth About Notorious Criminal!” screamed the headlines of her mind.

She kept going.

Finally, Theroux disappeared into a crumbling, two-story wooden dwelling that squatted on a corner. The word Cuffs was painted in green over the awning-shrouded door.

Cuffs, huh? Gemma grinned, liking the place already. Her California-suburb family and friends would be shocked, but she was curious.

Not that she’d ever admit that out loud.

As she ventured closer, she wondered if this was Theroux’s place. Everyone knew the man owned aboveboard businesses such as restaurants, bars and souvenir shops. Ironically, he was said to own the exact store where she’d purchased the gator head today.

But she was more interested in other establishments—especially the ones Lamont had mentioned.

Gemma took a big breath, fortifying herself. She could barely even walk straight with all the adrenaline attacking her system.

When she finally made it inside, she didn’t have long to absorb the murky atmosphere—the T-shirted, buzz-cutted, beefy men clutching the handles of mugs and watching a TV game show at the four-sided bar. The smell of booze and perspiration mixed by the slow blades of a ceiling fan. The clank of balls rolling over a pool table in the far corner.

Instead, a pair of strong arms engulfed her with the quickness of a flashing bite. One hand sprawled over her belly, pressing her back into a hard, lean body covered in linen. The other gripped her chin, turning her face toward her captor while he guided her into a deserted corner.

Theroux.

Only now, this close, could she see the feral glow of his pale blue eyes set against skin the color of a tobacco leaf.

Gemma tried to bite into his hand, but he loosened his hold while refusing to let go. Mouth quirked, his smile was mean, his gaze was narrowed.

“It’s not nice to follow people, chérie.”

Fear choked her throat, and she was painfully aware that her only weapon was a dime-store gator head wrapped in a plastic bag. Her heart jackhammered in her chest. He could feel her crazy pulse, couldn’t he?

This wasn’t a fantasy anymore.

Something shifted in his eyes, the shards of a broken kaleidoscope changing form. He released her, except for the fingers that kept a hold of her skirt waistband.

God, she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t run, either.

Yet, inexplicably, she took a step toward him.

His heavy eyebrows shot up. His half smile returned.

Her instinctive response had caught her unaware, also. But Gemma gathered all her courage and shed her old skin—the girl next door who’d made the honor roll and the dean’s list throughout school. The editor of every academic newspaper she’d worked on. Her family’s great hope.

She shot a cheeky glance at his hand. His fingers had gone from grasping her waistband to settling on her hip, his thumb looped inside the skirt’s rim.

Now that she could breathe again, she detected his scent—cool, mysterious, brandied.

“Do you mind?” she asked, directing her glance from his encroaching hand to his face.

“I mind being tailed, yeah,” he said. “Is there something you want? My day’s been full of demands, anyway.”

Didn’t she know it. “Your hand’s still on me.”

“So it is.”

His smile widened, but it wasn’t playful. No, this was what sin looked like when it was amused.

Gemma’s blood rushed downward, making her stir uncomfortably. Making the inside of her thighs slick with the excitement of the chase. Making her swell and throb.

Dammit, she needed this story, and the enigmatic Damien Theroux was right here, ready for the unmasking.

She wasn’t going to lose this chance.

Instead, she stilled the trembling in her lower stomach, hoping it wouldn’t travel to her limbs.

It did.

But her voice was strong, even as she played dumb. “You own this place?”

He merely stared at her.

“I take that as a yes.”

“Take it any way you want it.”

Her appreciation for the art of a good double entendre tickled her nerves. Luckily, she found her steel again.

“I was wondering…” what you’d feel like inside me “…if there were any openings. You know, for a waitress.”

Genius, she thought. Working for him would be a good way to gather some sly information about these “other” dealings Lamont had hinted at.

But Theroux just continued staring.

“No?” she asked.

His thumb unhooked from her waistband, coasting lower, brushing over the center of her belly. Gemma jerked and grabbed his wrist as a bolt of desire shot through her. With emphatic meaning, she pushed his hand away.

“We’re not hiring,” he said. “For waitresses.”

Gemma gulped, dreading her next question.

HAVING GROWN UP IN A DOWN-at-the-heels section of the Faubourg Marigny, Damien had been raised to watch his own back. That’s why, halfway through his trip from Lamont’s, he’d been aware of someone following him. Usually, he kept much better track of his surroundings, but today he’d been distracted by Lamont’s threats to go to the media with what he knew. None of Damien’s marks had ever been that stupid.

Would Lamont actually chance it?

Damien highly doubted so, because the price was too high. Still, he didn’t like being targeted. Trailed. You always felt it in your spine—the watching. The way a potential threat sought out your vulnerable spots.

And blondes like this woman standing in front of him were one of his biggest weaknesses.

Now, as she glanced up at him with those baby-doll-blue eyes, Damien knew better than to let down his guard for the second time that day.

She had Barbie packaging, but the innocence of her heart-shaped face was thrown out of whack by a surprisingly square jaw. Delicate, to be sure, but still strong.

“So,” she said, cool as a mint sprig in an iced cocktail, “what kind of work is available here?”

He ran a gaze over her body, starting from the flats of her sensible shoes upward—the long, tanned legs, the career-girl khaki skirt that covered slim hips and a trim waist, the humidity-soaked blue top that clung to a pair of small, rounded breasts. As his attention lingered there, her nipples hardened, pebbling the material in two strategic locations.

Deliberately, he returned his focus to her face. Her cheeks were flushed, probably because she was insulted. Either that or… Could she be turned on by his interest?

Did this girl play dirty? And had her game started when she’d followed him here?

Lust speared through Damien, a raging grumble reaching from gut to cock. He could play dirty, too. In fact, that’s the only way he wanted it. Dirty, and easy to dust off.

“What kind of work do you do?” he asked.

“Waitressing.”

“And?”

She pursed those lips. Blow-job lips, as he’d grown up calling them. “I’m not sure I understand, Mr….?”

“I’m asking about your experience, Ms….?” He mocked her by grinning.

Refusing to back down, she laughed. “Call me Gem. Gem…James.”

She rested a hand on her hip, and Damien ached, remembering how his palm had molded those curves.

“I waitressed at an Italian restaurant in high school. In college, I worked at the same trendy bar for four years. I’ve also done time at a few chain restaurants recently. So what do you say? Are you hiring?”

“No.”

She glanced at the floor, but not before Damien saw a flash of disappointment. When she looked back up, she was giving him the puppy-dog treatment.

“I swear, I’m a great server.”

Was she now?

He must’ve been wearing the happiest grin he could manage, because she perked up. “I really need a job. I moved out here a few months ago, and I haven’t gotten on my feet yet. I’ll work my ass off for this place.”

“That’d be a shame, because even though I’ve only seen the front of you, I expect the back to be just as divine.”

She gasped slightly, and her eyelashes lowered over an appraising gaze, not because he’d offended her, Damien guessed, but because he’d broken her code. Unlocked her.

Again, he wondered if she’d come into Cuffs for more than a waitressing job.

It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had wandered into one of his establishments seeking to test the rumors about Damien Theroux. There were females who liked the taste of bad boys, and he was only too happy to oblige when the need suited him.

Truth to tell, he thought, moving forward, looming over her, it suited him now.

Eyes a hazy blue, her soft lips parted, forcing him to stifle a pleased groan at the thought of how they’d feel on his penis. Without thinking, he slipped his hand into her waistband again, knuckles skimming against her hip bone. He pulled her closer, his cock hardening.

For a second, neither of them moved. But within the blink of an eye, she recovered, cleared her throat, backed away. He kept a hold of her silk tank top, not wanting to let go. The material slithered out of her skirt.

Damn, how he wanted to help her out of the rest of those clothes.

As he rubbed the sinuous material between his thumb and forefinger, she ignored the gesture, acting as if it wasn’t happening. Her aloofness got him worked up because he couldn’t get a bead on this woman.

Outside, rain started to patter on the roof.

“Why would you want to work at Cuffs, anyway?” he asked in a low voice, as if they were in a bedroom, three inches away from a mattress. “Why don’t you go to Hooters? Crescent City Brewhouse? Somewhere ‘trendier’?”

To her credit, she didn’t back down. “I like the name. Cuffs. What exactly does it mean?”

Should he tell her it was an homage to the retired cops and blue-collar fellows who liked to hang out here?

“Use your imagination,” he said instead.

“Well, you’re not one for hiding behind social niceties, are you?”

“Never.” Not since his dad had gotten worked over. Not since Martin Theroux had died from the shame brought on by the ruins of his life. Not since his son had decided that being bad was the only way to live good.

“You’re not the type of guy who’d take pity on a woman in need and hire her out of the kindness of your heart?”

“Not as a waitress.”

“Then what…? Oh.”

There it went. The lightbulb. That’s right, Damien thought. Think the worst.

New Orleans cathouses were notorious, especially with men who dealt in Damien’s area. He didn’t know if Gem realized he ran a private gaming room in addition to his legitimate businesses, but going along with her assumption that he engaged in illicit dealings didn’t bother him in the least.

Prostitution and drugs were part of the scene. They drew in customers, served as perks. Gaming downstairs, sex upstairs. That’s how it worked.

Except for Damien. He was in it for the “marks”—victims—and the fleecing. Not that anyone needed to know why he kept his gaming clean of hookers and dope.

The more horrible his reputation, the easier it would be for him to survive.

“I’m not…” Gem gestured with her hands, waving them somewhere around her chest. “You know…”

“That sort of girl?”

She didn’t say anything.

Their gazes caught, and something unspoken passed from her to him. His blood jolted in his veins, warming, boiling.

What the hell was she about?

“Damien!”

He let go of Gem’s shirt, knowing that voice. “Roxy.”

A buxom redhead with streaks of gray framing her elfin features sauntered over to the dark corner, a jaded gleam in her eyes. “Who’s this here?”

“Ms. James was just leaving.”

“I’m needing help, you fool.” Roxy grabbed Gem’s hand, tugging the young woman toward her. “I heard the two of you. She asks for a job, and you putter around the subject. Look at her, would you. She’s what our customers like—pretty and young. I tell you, Damien Theroux, no more interviews for you. Stick to the upstairs work.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a lazy salute. Only two people in the world could ever talk to him like this— Roxy and his maman, bless her soul. Everyone else could go to the devil.

With a long-suffering sigh, Roxy took Gem’s hand and placed it between both of hers. “You need a job, baby, here it is. I’m shorthanded since Eva quit days ago, and Damien could care less. I hope you can look past him and be my savior?”

Gem’s smile almost lit the room. Damien sucked in a breath, then moved away, creating distance.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Gem hugged the older woman, then clapped her hands once. “When do I start?”

“How ’bout now? Our busy time is some hours away, and I’ll want you up and running. We’ll consider this a test run tonight. How does that sound?”

“Great. I’ll be great. But may I make one quick phone call first?”

“Please.” Roxy snapped an impertinent glance to Damien, then shook her moneymaker in the direction of the bar. Gem herself gave him her own saucy look and made her way toward the entrance.

Damien watched her go, noting that her ass definitely was divine, just as he’d predicted. Firm and full in all the right places.

Before he did something ill-advised, he headed out of the bar and toward the stairs leading to his office. So Roxy had taken his departed maman’s place once again. Nice for her. Now Damien had a screwable waitress who could provide a few nights of distraction.

And he certainly needed it.

As Damien settled down to his desk to shuffle through his accounts, he lost himself in his work, happy to see what a profit he was making.

Happy to find his next victim so he could bleed the worst men dry.