Too Wild to Hold

And even more important…how far was he?

He had not planned to kiss her. Beyond working his way into Nouvelle Placage, he had not planned much of anything. The more he’d learned about the plantation party, the more he figured he would have to flirt and be charming before he convinced her that her personal safety was more important than finding some woman who’d willfully abandoned her kids.

But now they were trapped. He could flash his badge and get them out, but that would blow her case, and possibly his, too. Telling her the Bandit could be here watching had not just been a scare tactic. In all his other attacks, the guy had stalked his victims for weeks and ended up knowing more about their lives than anyone had imagined. If he was here watching Claire and realized she was being protected by the FBI, he could run.

And then he could change his patterns. If he did that, they might never get this close to finding him—not until he’d hurt another string of women. And maybe this time, he wouldn’t stop at kidnapping or rape. If Michael and Claire utterly destroyed The Bandit’s sick fantasy, he might cross the line and kill.

They were in now—they had to play this through to the end.

Wasn’t like it was a huge sacrifice to kiss Claire Lécuyer senseless anyway.

Since joining the Bureau right out of college, he’d trussed himself to his job. What free time he had, he’d given to his family, with only short, uninspired relationships that fired up quick and burned out fast. Never in his life had he kissed a woman he knew he shouldn’t—with strangers watching every slide of his hand down her waist, every curve of his fingers through the folds of her dress.

It was exciting.

It was dangerous. One call to his superiors, one viral video linked to the Bureau could destroy everything he’d worked for.

So why couldn’t he let her go?

Her lips were soft and slick; her tongue was hot and insistent. With no hesitation, no boundaries, she explored the full breadth of his mouth, skimming across his teeth and igniting a flame deep in his gut that would be impossible to extinguish, even if everyone in the plantation house burst in and doused him with pails of ice cold water.

Scrunching up the voluminous skirt in his hands, he found the back of her thighs, bare between her stockings and some sort of cottony drawers that cradled her backside like a cloud. Her flesh prickled and he wanted to warm her. Create friction. Share the burn.

She broke her mouth away from his, then trailed her lips over his jawline. “Is this what they train you for at Quantico?”

He braced his hands on the crest of her buttocks, resisting the urge to lift her fully and completely against his erection. “Not last time I checked.”

She followed her path of feather light kisses with a lush swipe of her tongue, her long lashes hiding her gaze as it trained on the camera. “You must really want my cooperation if you’re willing to put your credentials on the line for a chance to feel me up. My ass is choice, but probably not worth your career.”

Michael laughed, the sound bursting from his chest like the stopper on a bottle of sparkling wine. Self-deprecating, she was not. She was, however, gorgeous, sexy, sensual and irresistible. From the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, his need to touch her, taste her, seduce her had been harder and harder to fight.

And this wasn’t like him.

Not like him at all.

As if on cue, the center emerald of the Murrieta ring caught a flash of lamplight.

Up until a month ago, Michael had been exactly like his oldest brother, Alejandro. Serious. Responsible. Concerned with expectations and appearances and all the other prison bars society erected to keep anarchy at bay.

But then Alex had taken possession of their deceased father’s ring. In the span of a week, his entire life had changed. Not only had he fallen in love with a woman who’d completely lied to him about who she was, but he’d invested a large amount of cash and clout to ensure that Daniel, their middle brother, got off on the trumped-up charges that could have meant a long stint in the state penitentiary.

Now, Michael had the ring. Was it a coincidence that he was willing to turn away from what was right in order to revel in something wicked and wanton and undeniably wrong?

“Ordinarily, I’m a by-the-book kind of guy,” he said, dipping his head so that he could run his tongue down the elegant curve of her bare neck. “But for this case, I might have to push some limits.”

She arched her back, and with no reason not to, he smoothed his hungry lips across her collar bone and then down the edge of her square-cut bodice. “Personally or professionally?”

He didn’t know the answer. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. The instinct to remain in the moment, grab what he could while it lasted, proved more powerful than anything he’d ever felt before. He realized he’d say just about anything to taste the skin between her shoulder and neck.

“It’s all about the case,” he said.

“Which? Mine or yours?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me.”

She braced her hands on his shoulders and gave a push that instantly disengaged his mouth from her flesh. “I have less than three days to find the woman I’m looking for. The only lead I have is that she’s here, for this weekend only. I won’t hide in this room with you and I won’t run away on the off chance this so-called Bandit of yours has somehow managed to follow me here. Not until I’ve done what my client has paid me to do.”

The determination in her voice doused his libido.

“This man has targeted you, Claire. He won’t stop until he gets you.”

Her light laugh sparked a trail of heat underneath his skin, as if someone had injected his blood cells with gun powder and her confident smirk had lit the fuse.

“He’s never gone up against anyone like me before.”

This much was true. However, her cocky strength could just be the stressor that sent the Bandit over the edge.

He clutched her arms and forced her back a few inches, which, unfortunately, did nothing to squelch his need to kiss her again.

“Maybe not, but he’s still a serious threat.”

“He hasn’t killed anyone.”

“No, but he’s assaulted and raped. It’s only a matter of time before he goes even further, Claire. And maybe you’re the one he’s been working his way up to murder.”

He watched fear skitter across her expression—which impressed him. It was one thing to be confident, but it was something else to think you were invincible. Something incredibly unwise, if not downright stupid.

And Claire Lécuyer did not strike him as stupid.

“Why me?” she questioned. “Don’t criminals usually follow the path of least resistance?”

“Not always and not in this case. I fully intend to brief you on why he sought you out, but not here. This isn’t a game, Claire.”

She nodded, her mouth pursed in a serious, contemplative scrunch. After a moment, she locked her stare with his. “But I’m the best chance you have to catch him, right?”

His stomach constricted. She wasn’t going to give up easily.

“This is the first time we’ve had any knowledge of who he’s after before he’s attacked.”

Her increasingly confident grin bloomed into a full-on smile. “Then you need me to cooperate, Agent Murrieta. And for that, you will have to help me solve my case.”

So it had come to this: blackmail. Or if he was feeling generous, quid pro quo. He strolled to the bedside table to put down his brandy, giving him time to think. He’d had two things on his mind when he’d broken the rules in coming here. First, he would protect Claire by getting her out as soon as possible. Then, from a safe location, he would determine a way to use the knowledge they had about the Bandit’s patterns to set a trap and catch him. Except for the pull of desire that had caught him unaware, nothing had changed. He still had two goals.

Protect Claire and catch a kidnapper.

In that order.