Born to be Bad

3

GEMMA HADN’T FORGOTTEN how exhausting being a waitress was.

Roxy had told her that the help wore high, strappy black pumps, short black skirts and the tightest tank tops in creation. No stranger to a nightlife wardrobe, Gemma had pieced together a decent serving ensemble, complete with a small apron and a black top decorated with silver studs and a skull and crossbones.

So, she had a thing for pirates.

Now, as Aerosmith played on a corner jukebox, she served drinks to a mellow crowd of cops, local blue-collar men and a contingent of hip, artsy types who sat in the corner booths. She was counting the minutes until her first break. Then she could rest her aching tootsies as well as her tray arm.

Past midnight, Roxy finally caught Gemma after she’d delivered a round of Hurricanes to a table of slumming lawyers.

“Those fellows aren’t our usual crowd,” Roxy said, sliding her words together lazily. It gave the older woman the air of a sophisticated nineteenth-century madame fanning herself in a fancy parlor.

Or maybe that was just Gemma’s overactive imagination.

She set her tray on the bar counter, rolling her head to work the kinks out of her neck, feeling the night’s humidity cling to her chest like a veil of moisture. “This does seem more like a local watering joint, but that’s the fun in a place like this—getting to know the customers.”

And picking their brains about Theroux. Not that she’d found out much tonight. When she’d had time to ease any questions into a conversation, the answers had been limited to, “Damien’s not much for socializin’ with the likes of his neighbors anymore,” or, “Damien’s done right by himself.”

Soon, she’d talk to Roxy and the other staff. Maybe they would shed some light on the man. And as for the prostitution angle? Well, there hadn’t been much traffic up and down the stairs tonight. Just a short, muscled African-American man and a woman dressed in what could only be called Irish-lass-fetish garb who’d gone up about a half hour ago.

She’d have to explore to see what was going on.

Roxy placed a pale, vein-etched hand on Gemma’s arm, squeezing it. “You done well tonight, Gem. I checked on those references you left, and I’m hoping you’re one to stick around this place.”

Good. Gemma had asked some California friends to pretend that they were ex-employers who’d hired Gem James. They’d obviously come through for her.

Roxy added, “I still need that paperwork, though.”

“I’ll get it to you.” She was procuring some false documentation, complete with a fake Garden District address, that would be ready tomorrow.

Patrons were starting to leave the bar, slowing the night’s pace. Gemma sighed and slipped a hand to the back of her bared neck, kneading her nape.

“How about you go into the back room and get me some napkins?” Roxy asked. “And take a few minutes off those feet while you’re there.”

“Thanks.” Gemma thought about staying to talk with the waitress for a second, but decided instead to seek privacy and scribble down some notes. There would be time to gab with Roxy and the other workers later.

After winking at the string-bean bartender, Wedge, who pointed his finger like a gun at her and winked back, Gemma entered a room stacked with cardboard supply boxes and bottles of liquor. She found her purse where she’d tucked it on a shelf between two pillars of paper napkins, then attacked her notepad with gusto.

She scribbled colorful details about the bar and the customers for about ten minutes, realizing how little she’d turned up so far.

Back at the office, she’d done some preliminary research on Theroux, not finding anything she hadn’t already known. Thirty-four years old, business owner, New Orleans native. Real exciting stuff. Tomorrow she would have more time to do a deeper search, but still…

She wanted more. What she had—even for day number one—wasn’t nearly good enough.

Heavy footsteps sounded on the hallway tiles, and Gemma scrambled to put away her notes.

The door swung open, revealing Damien Theroux.

Her blood twisted direction, shocking her system, leaving her weak with a mix of attraction and guilt.

Whoo, he was tall. Slim, but solid enough to fill out that black suit. It wasn’t hard to picture toned abs and cable-muscled arms under those fancy clothes. Unlike this afternoon, when his dark hair had been loose, he’d secured the top strands away from his face with a band, allowing the bottom to wave down to his wide shoulders.

Time to go to work again.

She forced herself to meet his blue-diamond eyes. “I’m just taking a break,” she blurted.

Suave. Could her words have been any more spastic?

“Roxy says you’re back here for napkins.”

He leaned against the brick wall, taking his time, bracing himself with one shoulder as he ran his other hand over his angled jaw. He smoothed a gaze over her.

From her pumps…up her bare legs…over her skirt…her torso…her breasts…still on her breasts…still on her…

Gemma covered her chest with her arms, blocking him.

He smiled, doused it, then glanced up at her from beneath his dark brows. “I like your pirate motif.”

The skull and crossbones. Right. “Don’t you mean ‘motifs’?”

“Those, too.”

There they went—the motifs—hardening into sensitive peaks that brushed the cotton of her shirt. As she adjusted position, keeping her arms crossed and leaning nonchalantly against the shelves, her nipples scraped against the outsides of her thumbs. A flush roared over her body, prickling her skin with new sweat and heat.

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

She tried to stay unaffected. “You walked in the door just as I was trying to relax. Scared me half to death.”

As if to prove it, she raised a hand to massage her neck again, leaving the other arm to still cover evidence of her inconvenient desire.

Theroux unfolded himself from the wall, stepped forward.

Fear shot through her, but not because she felt threatened. No, this was the safe fear of her fantasies, where unknown men would approach her, cover her with their shadows, slip into her, then disappear into the corners of her mind.

A stirring, a warm shivering, bloomed in the pit of her stomach. She slid her palm there, liking it. Hoping it would stop.

He was still moving toward her.

The rational part of her panicked. “So, do you hit on all the new waitresses, like some sort of initiation?”

Why had she said that? Because she thought it would create some kind of distance she didn’t really want?

He paused a mere foot away, his taut body remaining as still as a held breath. “If you think I’m hitting on you now, chérie, you’ve got some lessons to learn.”

Another blush prickled over her skin. “It’s just… My space bubble. I don’t think you’re aware of the concept.”

“Am I getting a little too close now?”

“For a stranger.”

Tilting back his head, he surveyed her, a grin quirking his mouth. He had a full lower lip. Sensuous, soft.

“Stranger,” he repeated, rolling the word over his tongue, savoring it.

That slightly exotic accent—a tinge of French?—stretched over her, bare and slick, burying her under its promising weight.

By now, Gemma couldn’t contain the excited quiver traveling her limbs, settling between her legs with electric anticipation.

Theroux must have sensed that she liked the way he’d touched her this afternoon. That she wanted to test the dark waters outside of her wading pool. And maybe…

No.

Yes. Maybe this was a good way to ask a personal question or two. It’d worked for Mata Hari.

He moved closer to her. Closer. Inches away, until he was staring down, arm curved over her head as he rested it on the shelves, body slightly hunched, eclipsing everything else around them.

His scent filled her—rain, brandy—making her giddy.

“A stranger?” he whispered. “I’m easy to know.”

While Gemma pressed her arm against her sensitized breasts again, the hand she held against her neck tightened involuntarily. “Listen, you’re not my type.”

“Yeah?”

He took up where they’d left off this afternoon, with him skimming his palm up her arm to capture her hand—the one rubbing her neck. The weight of his touch reduced her next words into a quiet struggle to suck in oxygen.

“I usually…go for more…of the roses and…chocolates guy.”

Theroux pressed his thumb up her wrist, up the middle of her palm, finding a spot that made her want to giggle, cry and rub herself against him all at the same time. He traced circles, reducing her to helplessness.

“You get that sort of pansy boy in California, for certain,” he said, watching her.

She couldn’t meet his gaze, not straight on, so she glanced up at him through her eyelashes. “How do you know I’m from…?” She gasped as he gave her delicate palm nerve an especially persuasive nudge. “Ah. Oh. Right. You must’ve talked to Roxy about me.”

Dammit, she was supposed to be questioning him.

“She’d have all the information, being the boss round here.” With unexpected care, he lowered her hand, then slid his own around her neck, massaging her tense muscles.

“Mmm.” In spite of her caution, Gemma leaned into the pressure. “And what else do you know about me?”

“Not much. Just that you follow…strangers…down streets and into dark bars.”

“I told you, I need this job.”

Theroux kept rubbing, watching. Gemma’s chest rose and fell, marking the seconds.

“Let me guess what you’re about,” he said. “I think you’re a ‘never left.’ One of many who came to this place just to visit. You fell in love with the jazz, the Creole sauces, the romance of not knowing what goes on behind the lace curtains. Then, as we say, you never left.”

He’d gotten most of it, except the part he’d skipped about coming here with the hopes of finding a life, too.

“And you?” she asked. “Why are you in New Orleans?”

Theroux paused, then trailed his hand from her neck to her collarbone, running his fingers under her tank top’s neckline until his nails smoothed against the tender skin of her upper chest. Without thinking, Gemma took her arm from her breasts, reached out to grab his jacket’s lapel, leaving herself open.

Obviously encouraged, he slid his fingers outside the material of her shirt, cupping a breast, tracing his thumb over the awakened crest of it. Gemma winced, arching into his caress. Her other hand mindlessly shot out to cover his knuckles in pleased wariness.

What the hell was she doing?

“I think maybe you like strangers,” he said, ignoring her personal questions.

Not that she could remember what they’d just been talking about.

Fascinated by his aggression, her fingers moved with his as he absently toyed with her nipple.

“I think,” he continued in that soft, lethal whisper, “that you aren’t what you seem.”

Her heart punched against her ribs, then wavered in real fear. He couldn’t know she was a reporter. How…?

Theroux lowered his lips to her ear, his breath warm. “You tease. You act nice. But that’s not what you want, a nice man.”

Thank God, he didn’t know. The buzz of passing danger melted downward, coating her with dampness, readiness. She wanted him to touch her there, to give her what she really wanted.

“I do want a nice man,” she said. “I’ve been looking for one, but…”

He skimmed his hand down her ribs, over the curve of her butt, the back of her thigh, searching.

“…it never seems to work out.”

“I wonder why.”

She did, too. She did like nice guys, even if they’d never been enough to hold her interest. But that was her fault, not theirs. She’d tried a few normal, home-by-six-for-dinner relationships, tried men her family approved of.

But there was something untamed in Gemma. Maybe something might be wired wrong in her. Was it normal to lust after men like Theroux? To find yourself in a position like this?

She reached down and captured his wandering hand with hers, putting an end to the spell.

For a moment, he froze. Without moving, he created a space between them with the sting of his gaze.

“I think my break’s over,” she said, voice wavering. She cleared her throat. “First night. Good impression. All that.”

A calculating smile settled on his mouth. Reaching up, he grabbed a packet of napkins, deposited it into Gemma’s hand, then backed away.

“Roxy’ll wonder what took you so long,” he said. “Should I tell her?”

He was baiting Gemma, so she sent him her toughest glance. “Your call, boss.”

“As I said, Roxy’s in charge. I’m inconsequential to this bar.”

She’d see about that.

He ushered her away from the shelves with a sweep of his arm. “After you.”

Had she alienated him with her hot/cold change of reaction? Way to go, Duncan. Gemma could almost hear Waller Smith congratulating her on messing up already.

Much more painfully, she could hear her first boss saying, When you’re assigned a story, you get your ass out there and do it. Don’t piddle around. Your scaredy-cat caution has no place in this business, girl.

She left the room, feeling her redemption—Theroux—following right behind her.

Toughen up, she thought. Next time, don’t stop. Get your man, no matter the consequences.

When she emerged into the bar again, she turned around to fire a parting shot at her mysterious subject.

But he’d already disappeared.

WALLER SMITH LIKED A proper nap.

So, as he sat at the Cuffs bar, his body relaxing on the scuffed wood, Waller sighed, content.

In his forty-four years of life, he’d sat on a lot of bar stools across the country, liking how the chattery, friendly voices made him feel a part of something. In fact, even if he nursed one gin and tonic all night, he always fell asleep to the lullaby of conversations.

New York, L.A., Dallas, Miami, Chicago. He’d lived in all the big cities, getting jobs at local papers to support himself and trolling the bars for a kind voice or two. Tonight, he’d decided to try Cuffs, not only because he wanted companionship, but because it’d come highly recommended by Ms. Gemma Duncan during her unsuspecting story pitch to The General.

And speaking of the little devil, Gemma had emerged into the bar again.

See, not only could Waller sleep on a dime, he could wake up with the best of them, too. It just took a sound, a feeling. The best sleepers could all stay slightly alert in their slumber.

Screw the fact that his ex-wife had chalked up the ever-increasing number of his naps to depression. Waller merely believed he was getting older. More used up and worn out.

Fully awake now—except for some blurred vision—he watched his co-worker, the newest reporter at the Weekly Gossip, strolling out of a back room, tailed by none other than Damien Theroux himself.

She’d made quick time, hadn’t she?

Waller wondered just how much information she’d gotten out of the guy. How she’d gotten it out of him.

Young pup. Reporters were always bright eyed and eager until a few years passed. Years of seeing bullet-riddled corpses at drive-by-shooting crime scenes. Years of seeing crack babies who’d been stranded by their strung-out mothers living on the street and prostituting themselves for their next fix.

Like Gemma, Waller used to love chasing a story.

That was before the stories chased him, caught him, burned themselves into his memory until nothing on earth could erase the pImages**. Except a good sleep.

As Theroux disappeared into a patch of darkness behind Gemma, she straightened her tank top, turned around and found herself alone. After a beat, she raised her chin and extracted her order pad from a tiny apron while walking to a table of three old men. The few grizzled patrons who hadn’t gone home yet watched her progress, enchanted.

The back room.

Tank top adjusting.

Waller sighed. He remembered the days when reporters had ethics, but if this girl wanted to use her body to get her ink on Theroux, he’d stay out of it. After all, this was New Orleans. Anything went.

After taking the order, she swayed to the bar in her heels. Waller tried to catch her eye.

When she saw him, he saluted with his full glass of booze. She hightailed it over, jaw clenched.

“Good evening,” he said jovially.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Waller pulled a pained expression out of his collection of reactions. “I’m having a drink, just like everyone else. What are you doing here?” He aimed a disapproving glare at the back room.

“Perv. It’s not what you think.”

“You don’t want to know what I think.”

“You haven’t answered yet.” Her voice lowered. “Are you crowding me?”

“Sweetness,” he said, holding a hand over his food-stained heart, “I’ve got no ulterior motives. Remember, someone with no talent wouldn’t have such drive.”

She seemed to regret what she’d said at the office earlier. Truthfully, the words had whiplashed Waller. He knew he was useless, but the problem came when everyone else knew it, too. Not that he gave a crap.

“Smith.” Gemma crept closer, eyes wide and Bambilike. “Don’t blow this for me. Please.”

Unable to counter the clear ambition—no, it was desperation—in her words, Waller could only stare at his drink. In its clear depths, he saw his past swirl right by him—the hard-earned headlines, the awards he’d so proudly displayed on his desks, the divorce papers he’d burned in the flame of a dinner candle one lonely, bitter night.

He’d never expected to find himself huddled over a bar in the middle of the French Quarter by himself, beaten, mocking a young reporter because of her shining future.

Or was he here because she could still track down a good lead when he didn’t have it in him anymore?

Gemma was shaking her head. “Why would you want to pull one over on me, Smith? You’re already established.”

“Actually, I’m at a dead end.” His words tasted sour. “Isn’t that what you meant to say?”

“No, I—”

“Listen. Maybe I came here to show you that going fishing for shark won’t be as easy as you think. Maybe I came here to see if I could give this a go, myself.”

Now that he’d said it out loud, Waller wondered if it was true. Why else had he taken a detour from another boredom-filled night in his apartment?

“Gem,” said a raised female voice from the other end of the bar. “You okay down there?”

Waller kept his gaze fixed on Gemma, almost daring her to tell him he wasn’t good enough. But she didn’t.

Instead, she nodded at the voice and ran a fidgety hand over her done-up hair. “I’m so onto you.”

“Feisty,” he said. “That’s another excellent quality for a girl in your profession to have.”

With a cautious look, she left him and proceeded to wait on a group of former cops. Their bygone career was obvious from the way they sat—still wary in their advancing age, but less arrogant than they probably had been in their heydays. They joked with Gemma, turning their chests toward her, open books.

Look at that. She was already back to questioning sources. Seeking answers about Theroux. Well, best of luck.

The waitress who’d talked to Gemma was now cleaning glasses two feet to the left of him. He could barely see her fuzzy figure out of the corner of his eye.

“What is this place?” he asked. “Mustang Ranch?”

She didn’t stop her task. The tall stick-shape of a bartender floated past, also pretending Waller didn’t exist.

Raising his voice, Waller repeated, “Just what is this place? Look at what you women wear around here—Band-Aid skirts and linguini tops!”

“You fool.” The waitress, still a blur except for some flaming red hair that was layered down to her bare shoulders, sauntered over to him. “You’re a mess, and it ain’t from havin’ enough of our booze, I tell you that.”

“So, I’m naturally loaded.”

She came closer, and Waller hitched in a breath. God, she was a beauty. Two gray streaks of hair framed her face—lightning in a red sky. Fine smile lines surrounded soft, whiskey-hued eyes. Her skin was pale, the color of smooth writing paper before you mark it with the scar of stories.

“A man with eyes so red should go on home to bed,” she said in a mother-hen scold.

Waller blinked, donned his most charming smile. He hoped it still worked. “Tell me you’re my guardian angel.”

“Not likely.”

The waitress leaned on the bar, showing ample bosom. Waller’s vision cleared to an even greater extent.

“I deal with drunks every night of my life,” she added. “Your sober imitation of one is not impressing me.”

“No?” Waller’s pulse actually slowed to almost nothing. Funny. He hadn’t felt keen embarrassment in a while. There’d only been a numb string of days holding his life together.

“What would it take to impress you…?”

It was a cue for her to reveal a name. She shrugged. “Roxy St. Clair. If you want to look good to me, you change your messy shirt. Easy enough, huh?”

Waller checked out his lunch-decorated button-down. Was it that bad? “I suppose that’s simple. What next?”