Полная версия
Bulletproof Billionaire
“You’re going to have to let go, princess,” he said over his shoulder.
She looked down. She was still holding on to him with all her might. “Sorry.”
He climbed off the Harley and held out his hand to her. She let him help her off. Then she took off her helmet and looked up to find him staring at her.
“My hair is a mess, I know.” She reached up to smooth it back into its bun, but he stopped her.
“You look gorgeous.”
“Thank you, I think.” She gave him a wry smile and pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “What is this place?”
“It’s called T-Jean’s. They have the best crawfish on the Pontchartrain, or so I’ve heard.”
They walked across the crunchy parking lot and over the rickety bridge to the house. The place’s only concession to commercialism was a big metal crawfish with dozens of Mardis Gras beads hung around its neck and dangling from its claws.
With a finger, Seth hooked a bracelet made of purple and green and gold beads. “Here. Hold out your hand.”
When she did he slid the bauble onto her wrist, right beside her Lady Rolex. She laughed and fingered the beads. “Thank you, kind sir.”
“It’s not a diamond tennis bracelet, but it goes with the decor.”
“It’s beautiful,” Adrienne said, an odd sadness swelling in the back of her throat. The worthless string of beads was probably the only gift she’d ever received that hadn’t been picked out by a secretary or a hired buyer. For that reason alone, it was worth more to her than Seth would ever know. She would treasure it beyond diamonds or pearls.
The raucous sound of a Zydeco band swelled as Seth pushed open the creaking door.
Adrienne stopped, disoriented, waiting for her eyes to adapt to the dark. The place was lit only with lanterns that bravely shone through the smoky interior. The band’s noise filled the room, but nobody seemed to be listening to them. People dressed in everything from ragbag throwaways to cocktail dresses sat around, talking loudly over the music, drinking and eating. The smell of spice and fish pervaded the air.
Seth put his arm around her waist and urged her forward. Bending, he whispered against her ear. “We’ll go out on the deck, where it’s quieter.”
Adrienne leaned a little closer to him. Everything he did, from a casual touch on her wrist to a breath of air against her ear, to a laugh that rippled the muscles of his belly, streaked through her the same way, stirring desires she had forgotten she could feel. Other people touched her hand, whispered to her, but Seth’s touch was different. He made her feel safe and cherished.
She was afraid to examine her feelings too closely. A dose of reality would come soon enough, she knew. Nobody was ever what he seemed.
Folks glanced up as they passed, but paid little attention to them. Out on the deck, with the door closed, the music was muffled.
“Allô, cher, what you be having?” a frizzy-haired waitress asked.
Adrienne looked around for a menu, but Seth spoke right up.
“Crawfish and beer.”
“I don’t drink beer,” Adrienne said, but Seth just laughed.
“You do today,” he said, leaning back in his chair and looking out over the dark, calm waters of the lake.
Adrienne looked, too. The shack was tucked into a corner of the lake lined with mangrove trees. A warm breeze lifted her hair and carried the smell of rain, although the sky was clear and blue. She heard some sort of animal grunt, then the flapping of wings caught her attention as a flock of white birds took to the sky.
She reached up automatically to rub her neck and realized it wasn’t aching. She arched it and shrugged her shoulders. She’d lost at least some of the tension that had become a part of her. She glanced at Seth’s strong profile. How had a motorcycle ride done what thousands of dollars in massage therapy had failed to do? She smiled and shook her head.
“Tuppence for your thoughts, princess.”
She laughed shyly. “I was just noticing that the knot in my neck is gone. I should hire you to be my masseur.”
His hazel eyes glinted amber in the sunlight. “I think we could come to terms.”
Chapter Three
Adrienne’s mouth grew dry. Her careless remark about Seth massaging her neck had backfired on her. After Seth’s response, she couldn’t stop thinking about his hands and how they would feel massaging other parts of her body. They were big and graceful, with long blunt fingers that looked so incredibly strong but could touch so gently.
Desperate to wipe away the erotic image of him caressing every inch of her body, she searched for something to say. “How do you know this place?”
His mouth curved into a slow grin. She wasn’t fooling him a bit. He knew exactly what she was thinking. It surprised her how little that bothered her right at this moment. She had already dared more in the last twenty-four hours than she ever had in her life. She liked this carefree feeling. She could get used to it.
“I like to sample the local cuisine wherever I go. You know, conch in the Caribbean, eel in the Loire Valley, beef in Kansas City. Someone told me T-Jean’s had the best crawfish in the world. I wanted to find out for myself.”
“You’re an interesting man, Seth Lewis.”
Seth looked at Adrienne. She’d given up trying to smooth her hair and he was glad. It had fallen out of its constraining knot and now framed her face with sun-struck gold, making her look more like an angel than ever.
“Not so interesting, actually,” he said, distracted by her loveliness. Her body had been anything but angelic during the torturous motorcycle ride, with her breasts pressed against his back and her hands and arms squeezing his middle. He’d had a devil of a time controlling his reaction to her closeness. If she was an angel, she was a damned sexy one.
As innocent as she appeared, she was as aware of him as he was of her. He’d known it last night and he knew it today. He knew that whenever he wanted to, he could—he stopped his wayward thoughts. Plenty of time for that later. Right now, he needed to get her to talk about herself.
“Now you. You are interesting. May I ask how long ago your husband died?”
Her eyes darkened. “A year and a half.”
“I’m sorry. Was it unexpected?”
She pressed her lips together tightly as the waitress came slamming through the door and dumped a huge pile of steaming crawfish right onto the table. The air filled with the sharp scent of the peculiar mixture of spices that made boiled crawfish one of the wonders of the South.
Tumbled in with the crawfish were tiny golden new potatoes and half ears of corn. The waitress set down a pitcher of beer, and a basket of French bread. “Y’all holler if you need anything, cher.”
Seth’s mouth was watering, but Adrienne eyed the table full of crawfish as if they were about to rise up and attack her.
He smiled inwardly. She really was a princess. “So how do you peel these?” he asked, holding one up close to her nose, tamping down on his hungry urge to just dig into the fragrant pile of mudbugs. He couldn’t blow his cover, though. A wealthy continental type who’d never been to New Orleans before wouldn’t have the first idea how to peel crawfish and eat them.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve never peeled a crawfish? You must not have lived in New Orleans very long.”
“But I have. I grew up here. My father owned a chain of hotels. Our flagship hotel was on Canal Street. We actually lived there when I was a child.”
“You lived in a hotel? What hotel?”
“The Caldwell.”
Seth pretended to be surprised. He had been apprised before he took the assignment that her father was Adrian Caldwell, the internationally renowned hotelier. Although he knew she’d been rich all her life, he felt his contempt returning hearing her confirm how she’d lived the stereotypical life of a pampered socialite. He chided himself. He’d known from the beginning she couldn’t possibly be the angel she seemed to be. In fact, he’d counted on it. He concentrated on his real reason for being here.
Feigning fascination with the hot boiled crawfish, he took one and pulled off its tail, deliberately fumbling a bit. “They’re similar to the tiger prawns I’ve had in Sydney, but smaller,” he improvised.
Adrienne finally picked one up with her pink-tipped fingers. “I’ve watched the servants. Apparently you split them like this, then dig out the meat, then—” she stopped.
Seth knew what came next. He hid a smile. “Then what?”
Her cheeks flamed. “Then you’re supposed to, um, suck the head and pinch the tips.”
“Show me,” he rasped, unable to take his eyes off her, controlling his growing desire with a ferocious will. He knew exactly how to eat crawfish. He’d even teased girls with the words Adrienne had just spoken, using them as a double entendre. But until this moment, he’d never completely understood just how sexy eating crawfish could be.
His body reacted like a teenager’s as she put the head of the crawfish to her luscious lips. He shifted in his chair, his jeans suddenly way too tight, his heart pounding, his gaze riveted on her mouth.
She pinched the tail and pulled the last bit of meat from the shell with her teeth. A tiny drop of juice ran down her chin.
Seth reached over and stopped the droplet with his thumb, then slid it up to her parted lips. Her tongue touched his thumb and he groaned. Lust raged through him.
No, it wasn’t going to be hard to seduce her. It was going to be hard to avoid being seduced by her. Very hard, he thought wryly as sensitized flesh rubbed against rough denim.
Seth set his jaw against the urge to lean over and kiss her. Job, man. Remember the job. His assignment was to seduce her for information. And he would complete his assignment as planned. In Special Forces, there was no room for distractions.
Adrienne hadn’t meant to touch Seth’s thumb with her tongue. She was shocked, both by her action and by her reaction. Her insides quivered, her thighs tightened. She felt heat spread through her like a fire fed by pure oxygen.
She glanced at Seth, who looked away and took a long drink of beer. He’d felt it, too. She was sure. She’d heard his barely suppressed groan.
What was happening to her? She’d never been all that interested in sex. But every move Seth made, every word he spoke, acted on her like an aphrodisiac.
“Did you say your husband’s death was unexpected?”
Her heart took a nosedive, landing in her stomach. She grabbed another crawfish and picked at its shell with her fingernails, just for something to do.
She’d half expected Seth to try to kiss her, as he had last night. She’d been waiting for it, wondering what she would do if he tried. So his abrupt switch back to the topic of her husband had shocked her. His question was a blow. As if he’d forced himself back to business.
“Yes, it was unexpected, in a way.”
Seth watched her.
She met his gaze, feeling the numbness threaten to creep back inside her. “He died of a heart attack. He was in bed with a prostitute at the time.”
Seth’s eyes went wide.
She’d surprised him. A tiny sense of satisfaction swept through her. She popped a morsel of crawfish into her mouth and took a sip of beer. “Anything else you want to know?”
“I’m sorry, Adrienne. You must have been crushed.”
She almost choked on the beer, coughing and laughing at the same time. “Could we talk about something besides my boring life?”
What would he do if she told him the truth? The whole truth? This wealthy young executive who’d been so confident she’d go out with him would probably be shocked if he knew what her life was really like. But she couldn’t tell him. For all she knew, he was just like Jerome. Just like Tony. She couldn’t trust him.
She remembered Tony’s warning to not talk, just listen. Ever since Marc had died, Adrienne had been watched over by Tony Arsenault.
Tony had been Marc’s best friend, but she knew the reason he had taken her under his wing. It was not out of affection or friendship. The Cajun mob liked her social position. They liked her influence. And they liked her money.
She’d tried to get away from them, but she’d quickly found out there was no getting away. Only a few months after Marc’s death, her mother had suffered a debilitating stroke. St. Cecilia’s was the safest place Adrienne knew. But it wasn’t safe enough.
Tony never failed to ask about her mother. And every time he did, a knife blade of terror cut through Adrienne’s heart. The message was clear. Your mother’s continued survival depends upon your cooperation.
“What are you thinking about, princess? You’ve mutilated that poor crawfish.”
Seth’s deep voice penetrated her thoughts and pulled her back to the present. She looked at his plate, which was had mysteriously become piled high with crawfish carcasses.
The sight made her forget her troubles for the moment. A chuckle escaped her throat as she shook juice off her fingers and reached for the roll of paper towels sitting on the table. It was an odd feeling—a welcome feeling. “You certainly didn’t waste any time learning how to peel crawfish.”
“Hunger is a good teacher. Besides, I read that guy’s T-shirt.” He inclined his head to their right.
A bald man with a big spare tire around his middle drained a beer as he peered out over the lake. The back of his red T-shirt had a diagram of how to extract the meat from a crawfish with the words Suck Dem Heads, Pinch Dem Tips plastered across his shoulder blades.
“You read a T-shirt?” Seth’s simple solution struck her as funny. Covering her mouth, she laughed. He reached over and pulled her hand away.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.