“Can you find out?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks.” She dragged in a breath and let it out. “You believe the man I’m going to marry is responsible for your brother’s death.”
“You’re not going to marry him,” he answered, punching out the words.
She reared back. “Why not?”
“You know why not.”
She’d issued a challenge. Before she could react, he was out of his chair and across the room. Pulling her to her feet, he wrapped his arms around her.
The shock of the contact made them both gasp. It was like the first time, only more intense. He knew she’d been going to ask him for information about John Reynard. Now she didn’t have to ask. It was in his mind for the taking. His import-export business was a front for bringing illegal goods into the country. He had insinuated himself into New Orleans society to make his place in the city invulnerable. He had men murdered when he thought that was the best course of action.
She moaned when she saw the pictures he’d seen of the man who had been buried in the swamp for twenty years.
“Sorry,” he managed to say, when words were almost impossible.
She’d told him she’d been to see her father. He hadn’t known how the meeting had affected her. Now he felt her pain and her bewilderment at the way her parent had just treated her.
Was it always like that?he asked.
Not as bad when my mom was alive.
I’d like to strangle him.
He’s a sad old man.
That’s charitable of you.
The conversation cut off as physical sensations made it difficult to focus on anything besides the two of them, of the feel of his body pressed to hers, and hers to his. Because both sets of reactions played through each of them.
He felt the insistence of his erection pressing against her middle, and at the same time she felt the way his cock swelled with blood, making it difficult to form coherent thoughts.
He reached between them, cupping her breast, stroking his thumb across the hardened tip. The feel of her made him ache more painfully, and at the same time he felt her response, the pleasure of his cupping and stroking her and the way the sensations shot downward through her body to her center.
She gasped, rocking against him.
That’s the way it is for a woman.
Yes. And the way it is for a man.
The overlay of sensations—feeling his own arousal and hers—made it almost impossible to stand as they swayed together, clinging to each other for support.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he felt a headache building, but he ignored it. The only thing he wanted to focus on was the woman in his arms.
He wrapped her more tightly in his embrace, closing his eyes and absorbing every nuance that they shared. He breathed inher delicious feminine scent and knew she was doing the same, tuning herself to him with all her senses. Each thing they shared was magnified by the intensity of the doubled experience.
They were both breathing hard, and when she rocked her hips against his, he knew that they were heading for the bedroom. Or the sofa, because the bedroom was upstairs—too far away.
He had never felt this aroused or this open to another human being—even with Sam.
That realization took him totally by surprise, shocking him to the marrow of his bones. All his life he had craved the closeness he had shared with his brother—searched for it—but what he felt now was more than he had experienced with Sam.
The enormity of that recognition was like a blow to his solar plexus. He dropped his hands, staggering away from Stephanie.
“Craig?”
