Born to be Bad. Crystal Green

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ