Possess Me (14 page)

Ben nodded, he’d heard all this before. “Like Michelle.”

The petite priestess nodded. “Like Michelle. They’re called
bon ange
by some. Guardian angels on earth, who use their abilities to help others. But like any gift, if it’s used for negative ends, or in my daughter’s case, rejected out of hand, the good of it can be twisted, can call the darkness instead of helping to protect the light.”

He leaned back in his chair. Michelle had rejected her gifts for most of her life. Running from who and what she was. And he’d always understood why.

“She thinks her father and brother left because of her,” he said softly.

His mother glared at him and went to stand beside Annemarie, wrapping her arm around her friend. He stood as well. “I’m sorry, Mambo. I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Her father was a decent man. At least, he seemed to be at first. He just had one too many old-fashioned ideas and too closed of a mind. I should have told her long ago, I just didn’t want to hurt her anymore.”

Elise shushed the priestess, holding the smaller woman protectively close. “He was a jackass, Annie, and that’s the God’s honest truth.” She glanced at Ben. “When she caught him forcing Michelle to stand in a corner while Gabriel played in the same room, she confronted him. He said Michelle had to stay there until she promised to tell her brother that there were no such thing as ghosts. That she was a liar. She’d been there for four hours, not even allowed to have a drink or go to the bathroom. She was brave even then, poor child.”

The bastard. Ben’s jaw tightened with disbelief and anger at the redheaded man he barely remembered. The man who’d made his own daughter ashamed of her abilities.

The priestess took a shuddering breath, and for the first time Ben thought about how hard it must have been on her, not only finding out she’d cared for a man who disregarded her beliefs, but also losing her son, and watching her daughter grow up believing—no matter how hard she tried to change her mind—that her gift was a curse.

“A Toussaint has lived in New Orleans since the city was built. My ancestor was blessed by Marie Laveau herself.” Mambo Toussaint lifted her chin, her stare fixed on Ben. “But not in love. None of the Toussaints have chosen wisely in love. And no man has loved them enough to fight for them.”

The Mamas looked at him with a hope in their eyes that was plain to see. Hope that he would be the one to break the family’s run of romantic bad luck. But it wasn’t his choice that was the problem, he’d made it a long time ago. It was Michelle, as usual, being the stubborn one.

Ben was pushed out of his memories when a drunken straggler bumped into him before rejoining his group on the sidewalk. He shook his head. Luckily most tourists didn’t know about this place. From the outside, it looked exactly like what it was, an abandoned building that had seen better days. The owners had kept up the plywood they’d nailed to the windows after the last storm. There wasn’t even a sign over the entrance. But then, this wasn’t the kind of place that advertised.

He opened the door and was instantly overwhelmed by the sound of hypnotic techno music and the scent of sex. Two large men appeared beside him and looked him over, taking his money before nodding and melting back into the shadows.

He’d known the people who owned this place for years. During the day, they ran a T-shirt shop a few streets down. What had started as a safe haven for their monthly swinger and BDSM education party had turned into this weekly gathering of pleasure seekers. He hadn’t been aware that Michelle knew about it.

A raised platform in the middle of the room where an exhibitionist couple was performing was surrounded by several booth-like daybeds where the audience could watch, or participate in their own chosen love play.

Small wicker bowls full of protection and different types of lubrication were placed on every table, and bottled water was stocked in coolers in each corner. No liquor was served here, no food. Just fantasy. Just escape.

Upstairs, he knew, were the rooms for the more intense players. Domination and bondage. It was there he and Bone Daddy, while he’d still been “attached” to Rousseau, had taken a woman with some intriguing fetishes. He got hard just thinking about it, instinctively imagining Michelle in the nameless woman’s place.

How many nights had he woken from
that
dream? Michelle bound and open for his pleasure, her ass dark and flushed from the palm of his hand. If anyone needed a good spanking, it was her.

But his Mimi would never go upstairs. At least, not without him. And not without an audience. He knew what she truly craved.

The music changed to a sensual tribal rhythm with an irresistible beat the moment he found her. She was talking absently to a man who had his arm around her, staring at the couple on the stage.

The man gave her a squeeze and a small push, and she was walking up through the groping couples and to the edge of the platform. The man and woman who had been kissing and caressing each other looked down when she started talking and nodded, smiling as they helped her up onto the makeshift stage to join them.

Ben shoved his fists into the pockets of his jeans and leaned back against the wall, attention riveted to Michelle. She was in a flouncy indigo skirt that fell to her lower thighs, and a snug, golden half-shirt with buttons down the front that showed her tight stomach muscles off to perfection.

The spotlight overhead began to pulse in time to the beat, and he watched as she closed her eyes and started to move.

Her hips flew back and forth too fast for his eyes to follow, her hands gliding up her body like a lover’s, touching her breasts, her neck, lifting her shoulder-length curls up over her head.

Ben knew all eyes were on her, how could they not be? She was stunning. When the nearly naked couple beside her came closer, touching her body as she bent back in an arch that made his dick jerk against the confines of his jeans, he had to hold himself back.

The muscular male lifted her skirt slowly, showing the crowd the smooth skin of her thighs, the muscles controlling her flexing movements. Ben wanted to feel those thighs wrapped around his waist, wanted to hold them wide and taste her, finally, on his tongue.

The flat-chested female beside Michelle was fascinated by her large, luscious breasts. She slid open the buttons of her half-shirt, spreading it wide to reveal a bra made of violet lace.

This was how he’d felt all those years ago when he’d dared her to dance with the stripper. He’d wanted her then so much it physically hurt. No woman, no matter how practiced or lovely, had ever been able to bring out this kind of hunger, this level of need in him from that day to this.

Michelle covered the woman’s hands with her own and her eyes opened, gazing in his direction. She saw him. She knew he was here.

She turned toward the woman, leaning back against the man so that she was sandwiched between the two, still gyrating her hips and moving to the quickening rhythm.

Seeing the man’s large hands against the skin of her hips, pumping lightly against her through the fabric of her skirt, made him growl. Michelle lifted her chin, and Ben knew the game she was playing.

It was a dare. Neither of them had ever been able to resist a dare.

He caught a flash of movement beneath the dizzying lights, noticed the man who’d sent her toward the stage was walking closer, headed directly for her.

Not fucking likely.

Ben pushed off from his position against the wall, his legs eating up the distance between them, reaching the stage at the same time as the other man, his gaze focused on Michelle.

The music changed, and the lights stopped their rapid pulse. The couple thanked Michelle with a friendly embrace and went back into each other’s arms, leaving her standing alone, her body shimmering with unsatisfied desire.

Ben didn’t blink, refused to look away. He held out his hand to her, his heart thumping hard against his chest. He knew the other man was looking at him in confusion, but he didn’t care. He could only hope a bit of Bone Daddy’s mojo had rubbed off on him, that she would, just this once, find him as irresistible as he found her.

She hesitated for a painful moment, glancing toward her intended partner and biting her lip. Ben almost hollered in relief when she shook her head, slipping her hand into his.

He’d never let her go again.

MICHELLE HAD LOST HER MIND. THAT WAS THE ONLY EX
planation she could come up with. Mindless, faceless sex. That was all she’d wanted.

Hadn’t she just renewed her promise to herself to stay away from Ben Adair? And yet, a part of her had known he would find her tonight. Had known when she got up on that small stage that she was performing for him. Again.

Her body was on fire, her mind hazy as he dragged her through the crowd and through the old kitchen. He seemed to know exactly where he was going.

He opened the back door and stepped outside, reaching behind her to close it before pushing her against the outside wall.

The alley was dark and narrow, the building across from them full of light and life. Anyone could walk out onto the balconies and see them. Or pass by on the street and see the man with his hips pressed between her thighs, his hands holding her wrists above her head.

God he was sexy. Especially now. The easy smile that always drove her mad was gone, replaced with an intensity that took her breath away. Desire. For her.

But she wasn’t going to give in easily. “Slumming, Ben? I was sure you’d be back at Rousseau’s place for another threesome. Or is it not as fun without Bone Daddy around?”

His brown eyes narrowed. “We’re even now. You’ve watched me, and I’ve watched you. It ends tonight, Mimi. Let other people watch as I fuck you, as I make you come. From this moment on, if anyone’s going to touch you, it will be me. Meet your new distraction.”

The last time he’d kissed her, she’d been eighteen and overwhelmed by the power of it. After all these years, the touch of his lips against hers still hit her like a punch in the stomach. He opened her mouth with his own, his tongue tangling with hers as though he couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t taste her enough, kiss her enough.

Her distraction? He could never be that. She’d always known it. She was too drawn to him, too affected by his touch. The touch that could read her so well.

She struggled against his hold, wanting to wrap her arms around him, run her fingers through his hair, but he wouldn’t let her go.

One leg came up to wrap around his waist, pulling him closer as she arched her hips against his denim-clad erection. So good. He felt so good.

He gathered her wrists in one hand and pulled his mouth away from hers. “I’ll buy you a new one.” The words came out rough and garbled. He curled his fingers around the small bow design that held her bra together and yanked, ripping it open and exposing her breasts to the night air.

She’d forgotten her shirt was open. She was completely bared to his burning gaze and his words suddenly made sense. Her thighs clenched, and she arched her back as he stared at the hard peaks of her nipples. Did he like them? She’d only seen him with smaller women. Maybe he thought they were too big.

He groaned. “Fuck, Mimi. Don’t you know how perfect your breasts are? How much I want to suck them, slide my cock through them, squeeze them as I make you scream my name?” His hips jerked against hers, and he shuddered. “You never need to doubt it, babe.”

“You talk an awful lot for a distraction. I think I’d rather you show me.”

She slapped down the part of her mind that was shocked at what she said, at the fact that she wasn’t turning tail to run as fast as her heels would take her. But she was tired of fighting it. For tonight, anyway, she desperately wanted to give in.

He lifted one full breast, his exhalation rough against her skin. “Anything you say, Mimi.”

She watched his head lower, felt him press an open-mouthed kiss against her neck. She shivered, surprised at the flood of desire that simple touch evoked.

When his tongue traced a path from her collarbone to her nipple, she couldn’t stop the moan that escaped her. His grip on her wrists loosened, and she pulled out of his grasp to clench his head in her hands.

“Come on, Ben. Don’t be a tease.”

She pulled him closer, and her eyes nearly rolled in the back of her head when he sucked her nipple hard against the roof of his mouth. The scrape of his teeth against her skin heated her blood, her sex. He knew just how to touch her, to bite her, to drive her crazy. God, his mouth was dangerous, but she wanted more. She wanted to taste him, too.

“You’re the dangerous one.” He lifted his head to whisper against her nipple. “All those wicked thoughts. You’re tempting me to take you right here. Just bend you over and make you mine.” He pressed her breasts together, taking turns licking and sucking each nipple in turn.