No one knew how to party like a Terriot.
Obscenely rich, harshly gorgeous with a dangerous, take no prisoners arrogance, they’d roared into New Orleans on their big bikes to rally behind their new king, as welcomed as a plague of soldier ants bent on stripping the landscape of all resources. Their Tahoe-based warrior clan feared nothing, bent before no rules but their own, yet somehow managed to strike a tentative truce with the cast-off shape-shifter band who’d made the Crescent City their home.
A month before, no one would have imagined a Terriot, let alone a Guedry, sitting down to talk truce with Max Savoie’s representative. Yet here they were in Cheveux du Chien, the Quarter’s clandestine Shifter-Only bar, celebrating the intimate union of a Terriot prince and the Guedry heir, drinking and dancing and, Amber James feared, about to explode with the violence they were known for.
Working the floor and now behind the bar she called her Church of Broken Hearts, Amber had seen and heard it all. She’d listened to the tragic Shakespearean romance as it poured into her sympathetic ear, a dangerous triangle of love and lust, of two volatile brothers vying for the same forbidden fruit. One claimed his dream come true. The other, unbidden and unexpectedly, had managed to snag Amber’s own reluctant heart.
Tonight, that drama continued.
"Oh, shit."
Startled by her boss's dark oath, Amber looked to him then followed his furrowed glare toward the floor. Rico, the bitter, lovelorn brother, was dancing with their new clan princess. The song was suggestive, so were his moves, a little too much so considering the occasion. But his behavior wasn't what caught Jacques LaRoche’s attention. He scowled at the newly mated prince as Colin Terriot's stare followed his brother like a gun sight.
"I just got this place put back together,” the bar owner growled, “and I'll drop that guy, bond-groom or not, before I let him tear it apart again. I don’t care how much their king paid me for the trouble of letting them use it tonight." His fingers stroked the well-worn baseball bat he kept behind the bar, willing to set it swinging.
Amber touched his beefy arm. "I got this."
"Ammy, you don't have to-"
She cut him off with a smile. "Sure, I do. What are friends for? Right?"
A brow rose toward the shiny dome of his head. "Carrying that just friends torch a little far, aren't you?"
His observation, though gentle, was a sound right hook to the pride. She took it without a blink. "That's what I do. Who'd know better than you?"
He made a huffing noise but didn't disagree since she'd babied his sorry ass more than once until bliss in the form of a family had found its way back into his life.
"Don't get between them,” he grumbled. “I can't replace you . . . that easily."
"Gee, thanks." She grinned, dropping her rag and apron on the bar.
Though Cale, the Terriot clan’s new king, hadn’t closed the bar to their usual customers, he’d reserved a large portion of it back by the office and rear exit. Bold and loud and aggressive on the dance floor, the small group had behaved themselves as they toasted the unexpected mating of middle prince, Colin, to Mia Guedry, cousin to her clan’s new leader. Under the watchful eye of a half dozen motionless guards from Memphis, Rueben Guedry sat chatting easily with Max Savoie, joined by Charlotte Caissie, Max’s police detective wife who’d proven to be more than the human they’d all believed; Savoie’s right hand Silas MacCreedy and his former assassin wife, Nica, who’d once worked the bar beside Amber; and Cale, the rowdy Terriot king with his not yet noticeably pregnant queen, Kendra, cousin to MacCreedy. As they laughed together, no one would guess that short months back, they’d been scheming for ways to kill each other. Romance had a way of making strange bonds all the way around.
The mood had definitely darkened where the guest of honor was concerned. Touching Colin Terriot's shoulder was like placing her fingers on a hot stove, knowing she'd get burned but doing it anyway. For a moment he didn't respond, his frame so tight, he quivered. Then his gaze lifted. Amber sucked an involuntary breath. His usually beautiful green eyes were a churning sea of hot gold lava. She knew what kind of powerful, deadly beast lurked behind that fiery glare. She’d seen him rip through a room full of their patrons in a maddened fury, and was wise enough to remain wary.
She offered a smile. "I haven't had a chance to congratulate you yet." Boldly, she leaned down to touch a kiss to his taut cheek. "Don't you owe me a dance?"
He blinked, the dangerous heat cooling slightly.
"Something sexy this time,” she added with a wink, “since it’s my last chance to squeeze your butt with a clear conscience."
His mouth stretched, revealing his teeth, a nice even row instead of the deadly fangs he’d flashed during his last visit. His voice rumbled, deep and disturbingly masculine. "I think maybe you're right." He stood, dwarfing her with his sheer mass, taking her hands and placing them on his hips as he grinned wider. "Hang on tight."
* * * * *
Rico Terriot clutched everything he’d ever desired tightly to his chest, but this everything, like all else he’d ever dreamed of, belonged to his brother. Tonight, he was just drunk enough, reckless enough and angry enough not to care. His last excuse to feel Mia Guedry moving against him and he planned to enjoy it, damn the cost.
He pressed her small, curvy body into his, pretending not to notice how she stiffened in his arms as he did below. Nuzzling her thick dark hair, he sucked in her intoxicating scent, letting it go to his head like all those many drinks. Mia . . . Longing sighed through him, chased by a possessive rumble vibrating through his suddenly dark soul. One that didn’t weigh consequence against conquest.
No fragile female, when Mia Guedry pushed against his chest, there was determined muscle behind it.
“Rico, stop. I belong to your brother, and he will kill you where you stand if you don’t back off.” Her tone threaded with steel and a kindness more killing than the inevitability of Colin’s fury. “That’s not how I want this celebration to end.”
“I don’t care.” His arms cinched tighter in defiance.
Instead of struggling, she relaxed against him, palms rubbing the wide span of tense shoulders.
“Yes, you do. You do or you wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to save him for this moment. Can’t we enjoy it as family?”
Family. Right. The two of them as a couple and him, alone. That definition of family scored more cruelly than a knife blade to the gut. But she’d made her point, the only one that could reach through the roar of his lust to wound. He stepped away, hand on her elbow, to steer her back to the table she and Colin shared with their brothers Kip and Turow. A friendly group that he excluded himself from by choice.
Without a glance or word, he left her there to head for the bar, where he found the owner’s unfriendly glower instead of the kind smile he’d hoped for. He tapped the edge of his glass and waited stoically until it, unlike all his hopes, was filled.
"I want to propose a toast!"
Colin's loud announcement dragged Rico's attention from his glass to the group circled about Colin and his mate. Another in the endless tributes to his perfect future? Rico didn't think he could stomach it, let alone lift his drink.
"To Abel Daniel Terriot." A puzzled silence met his proud claim. "The best gift a man could ever receive from the woman he loves. My heir.” Colin’s deep voice broke an octave lower. “My son."
As an incredulous understanding dawned in those around him, Colin bent and, clasping Mia's tear-dampened cheeks in his palms, claimed her lips for a long, tender exchange.
In that moment, Rico realized all his hopes were forever out of reach. A small, choking sound escaped him as he grabbed for his coat. He jumped when Amber caught his wrist.
"Don't run."
He stared at her as if he didn't understand the words.
"Frederick, if you don't accept this now, you'll lose them both forever. He's your brother, your friend. They’re your family."
Rico drew a strangled breath then blinked and steadied. He pulled out from under her grasp, the movement slow, his hand turning so his fingertips could catch hers in a brief squeeze before he straightened his shoulders and joined the others.
He waited his turn as the couple was surrounded by well-wishers ranging from the heads of their rival clans to Colin's happily sobbing sisters, who’d been allowed to sneak in for the occasion. Until just he and their king stood on the outskirts. Their gazes met, Cale silently applauding Rico’s heroic effort of good will and Rico realizing something he wasn't sure his king would appreciate him seeing.
With his smile thin and fixed and his steely eyes narrowed, the new king of the Terriot clan had to be considering the weight of his younger brother's claim. Not only Colin’s first born, his heir, but also the firstborn male in the next generation. And since Cale’s queen was carrying a female, the next ruler of their people.
Rico's smile took a wry twist watching Colin beam beneath the same shower of affection he'd always received from his step-father and brothers. Colin, surrounded by respect, embraced by a love Rico never known. Rico's many drinks stirred up imagined crimes toward the perfect son, brother, warrior, mate. Soon to be the perfect father.
When they faced each other, Colin's eyes narrowed cautiously, but he easily took the offered hand for a congratulatory shake. The stiffness fell from his wide shoulders as Rico embraced him and offered, "Congratulations, brother. You have everything now, including a child on the way."
"Thanks, Red," Colin murmured with gruff emotion.
"Are you sure it's yours?"
Rico stepped back to watch the impact of his whispered insinuation strike with unexpected malevolence. At first, his brother's expression blanked. A confused blink as the words sank deep. Then Colin’s earth-rending roar worked its way up and out as Rico smiled, taking a quick step out of reach as Turow and Kip caught their brother’s arms to prevent his lunge. Mia was instantly between them, her arms circling her mate.
"What did you say to him?"
Rico smirked at her demand. "Ask him."
Ignoring the surprised and resentful stares from his family and their guests, Rico headed for the bar, turning his back on all of them. When Amber appeared to freshen his drink, he didn't look up. He didn't dare. She paused for a moment but moved on when he didn't speak.
Rico sensed another at his side. He'd expected Cale or maybe Mia there to punch his lights out. A black Stetson settled on the bar at his elbow. Rueben Guedry he hadn’t planned on.
"Sorry, I don't recall your name," the tall, lean ruler of the Memphis clan drawled.
"No reason you should." When there was no flicker in the coal-black eyes, he volunteered, "Rico."
Amber slipped over with top-shelf whiskey, pouring without asking Rueben's preference, remembering it from his last visit. He tipped his head in appreciation.
"Here on your cousin's behalf?" Rico hadn’t thought Mia and Reuben’s relationship to be close, but family pride was a ferocious motivator.
A deep, throaty chuckle. "Mia doesn't need my help. If she feels the insult warrants it, you'll know about it right soon."
Rico made an assenting noise and turned back to his drink.
"So, you and my new in-law don't get along."
"You might say that."
"You and me need to talk. Tomorrow morning. Not too early from the looks of you. Say eleven o'clock. I'm at the Ritz-Carlton. I’ll put in a reservation at the M Bistro."
Rico glanced up at him, scowling. "What do we have to talk about?"
"Show up on time and find out." He picked up his hat and nodded to Amber. "Thank you, ma'am." He laid down a big bill. “For the drink and the service.”
* * * * *
Distracted by the brooding figure at the bar sinking deeper and deeper into bourbon-fueled despair, Amber was surprised when Jacques tugged the ties of her apron loose.
He answered her questioning look with a curt, “Go on. Get him outta here before he does something else even dumber. He’s got that look about him—that he won’t be satisfied until they’re all drawing each other’s blood.”
Though her pulse jumped to obey, practicality weighed heavily. “I’ve already been paid for tonight. I can’t afford to give up the overtime. You know that.”
“Consider it compensation for saving my bar from the two of them tangling.” He glanced between the sullen figure crouched over his drink to the glowering prince still simmering at his table. “That’s where this is gonna end if he sticks around. You’re doing me a favor. I already called in a replacement for you.” He gave her a wry smile. “Go on. You’re the only one he’ll listen to. If I have to ask him, he’ll be leaving horizontal.”
* * * * *
“Let’s get out of here.”
Cloudy eyes lifted, growing disoriented when he found Amber on his side of the bar.
“Walk me home. I can call you a cab from there. Come on.” Amber gripped Rico’s elbow, giving him a motivating tug. “The fresh air will do you good.”
Meeting with no protest from him, Amber directed him off his stool and out the back door as the mated couple exchanged another in a seemingly endless parade of explicit kisses. Amber should have felt guilty taking advantage of his pained confusion. Part of her, that mothering part, worried about him being alone. Another part hoped for an entirely different thing, to be there when he went for a rebound.
Pathetic, right? She promised herself to feel suitably ashamed in the morning, preferably after he left her with all the memories needed to sustain an all-too-chaste life.
Rico fell in step, his remarkably stable after what he’d tossed back pretending to be part of the celebration. They didn’t speak. What would they talk about? The weather? The woman he loved in the sanctioned bed of the man of her dreams, that man who wasn’t him?
To put a finer point on his misery, a cold, biting rain began to fall. Always the regrettable gentleman where she was concerned, Rico shed his coat and tented it over her head as they ran the last two blocks to her tidy little shotgun house. By the time she fished out her keys, they were both drenched.
Amber stepped inside, immediately turning on the welcoming glow of the kitchen’s overhead. Illuminating an image that burned from widened eyes to the pit of her belly. And below.
Frederick Terriot stood on her doorstep, hair plastered to his skull, raindrops hanging from his obscenely long lashes. The rain turned his white dress shirt all but transparent as it clung in graphic definition to broad shoulders and a long, divinely sculpted torso. Her mouth went dry, probably from hanging open like a gawking teen-age girl, but another part of her came awake from a long hibernation.
Rico Terriot was the stuff of dreams. Lately, all of hers.
A cautious reluctance narrowed his golden eyes as she took his arm to coax him inside. Inside more than just her lonely home if she was very, very lucky.
About her. About taking advantage of the situation. One she’d been trying to push on him like a front-end loader since the first day she’d seen his lovelorn features on the other side of her bar.
“Don’t be silly,” she coaxed. “You’re drenched and more than a little drunk. Come in, dry off and get some coffee before the cab gets here.”
“Evie—”
“Is at the sitter’s until morning. I figured this would be a late night.” She didn’t confess she’d hoped it would be one she didn’t spend alone.
Because of the friendship she used to artfully disguise a rather desperate seduction, Rico shrugged and stepped in from the cold.
His size dwarfed her. His presence filled her tiny living area, the sound of his breathing inordinately loud, the scent of his body an aphrodisiac spiking straight to her loins. Until a strange sound distracted her. His teeth were chattering.
Having spent more of her life as a caregiver than a lover, Amber’s maternal instincts kicked in.
“You’re freezing.” Her fingers started in a practical hurry down the buttons of his nearly nonexistent shirt. “I’ll get you something to wrap up in while I toss this in the dryer. It’ll only take a minute or two.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he protested.
The backs of her fingers brushed bare skin. Heat sparked, quickening a brush fire through all those long dried and dead parts of her.
His big hands gripped hers, perhaps with the intention of stopping her. At first. His thumbs stroked her palms, the gesture so unexpectedly sensual, Amber shivered all the way to her soggy work shoes. Taking a shaky breath, she forced her gaze up to see what moved in his, need or regret.
Those golden eyes flamed with desire.
She didn’t care for who. Not then. Not as, without hesitation, he bent down from that towering height to kiss her.
His mouth . . . so full and soft, so urgently seeking. Whatever he looked for, she’d supply without question, opening to him, raising up on tiptoes to encircle his neck, to bury her fingers in the sleek cap of short hair. He tasted of every dream she’d ever secretly harbored, of love and rescue and safety. Of her dreams, not his. Tonight, it didn’t matter as his palms cupped her rear, lifting her up so her legs could wind around those lean, sexy hips as he carried her to her bedroom.