French Silk(23)

"I understand enough. I've read the historical novels. I know that the rich white men marry rich white ladies, but take their pleasure in bed with black mistresses."

Groaning her name, he had slumped onto the edge of the bed and plowed all ten fingers through his hair in abject despair. "I swear to you… Oh, Jesus, you'll never believe me." He looked up at her imploringly, "I never loved Belle. But once my folks died, hers took me under their wing. I did what was expected of me, what was expedient. I've been a good husband. And I've tried to love her. God knows I've tried.

"You have every right to be angry with me, Yasmine," he'd said. "I should have told you I was married before we left the party together, before things got out of hand. Better still, after meeting you, I should have turned my back and walked away. Because I knew then that, well … you dazzled me."

He was a tormented man playing tug-of-war with desire and honor. "But the attraction was just too strong. I was thunderstruck. I simply had to be with you." He bowed his head and stared at the carpet between his shoes. "Now that you know about my family, you've got every right to despise me."

He raised his tortured eyes to hers. "But I'll never forget our one night together. It was the most erotically charged and sexually satisfying experience of my life. Forgive me, but I refuse to apologize for it." He swallowed, visibly emotional. "I'm thirty-four years old. But until last night I didn't know what it felt like to fall in love."

Yasmine's heart had melted. Dropping to her knees, she embraced him. They wept and laughed and then made love again. Since that morning they had met whenever their schedules permitted, stealing a few blissful hours in Washington, New York, or New Orleans. Yasmine didn't feel guilty about her affair with a married man. To her, adultery was just a word. What she shared with Alister was right. It was his marriage that was wrong.

Now, she whispered yearningly, "I get so lonesome for you, baby. I want to be with you all the time. I can't wait for the day when we won't have to sneak around."

"I'm running out of patience too, but I'm making headway."

"How?"

"I've been suggesting to Belle—very subtly, you understand—that perhaps she isn't fulfilled. That perhaps we married before she had a chance to discover herself. That sort of thing."

"Is it working?"

"I've noticed a coolness."

Yasmine's heart skipped a beat, and a hopeful smile flickered across her solemn face.

"And we're not … you know, sleeping together much anymore. It's been months." He drew Yasmine against him and whispered fervently into her hair, "Thank God for that. Every time I had to be with her, all I could think about was you. How you feel and smell and taste. How wanting you drives me insane."

Their mouths met, melded; desire was rekindled. Yasmine's lips skimmed his chest and belly, then she took his penis into her mouth, using her agile tongue to bring it to steely hardness. Rising, she teasingly drew the glistening tip across her nipples, transfixing him with her shameless sexuality. His face flushed, he clutched at the sheets. When he finally entered her, they were half-crazed with lust. Both climaxed in a feverish rush.

Alister showered while Yasmine languished in the tousled bed. She liked to linger as long as she could amid the linens that bore the musky scents of their sweat and their sex.

Eventually, she forced herself to get up and began dressing. Before he'd arrived, she had discarded her panties and placed them in her large leather shoulder bag. As she reached into the bag for them now, her hand closed around something familiar.

Her revolver.

Alister emerged from the bathroom. "Whoa!" He dropped the towel he'd been drying himself with and raised both hands in a sign of surrender. "Was my performance unsatisfactory?"

Laughing, Yasmine aimed the gun at the juncture of his thighs. "Bang bang!"

He laughed, too, then gathered his clothing and began dressing. "What the hell are you doing with that?"

"I don't know." He gave her a quizzical glance. "I mean, I thought I'd lost it."

"I wish you had. You shouldn't be toting that thing around."

"Where I grew up, carrying one of these helped ensure survival." She balanced the revolver in her palm. "I thought I'd misplaced it in a piece of luggage on one of my trips between here and New York. I figured it would turn up sooner or later, but I didn't know it was in this bag when I left with it tonight." Shrugging, she tossed the revolver back into her bag. "I'm glad Mr. Cassidy didn't have a search warrant."

"Cassidy? The assistant D.A.?"

Yasmine stepped into her dress. "Oh, I didn't get a chance to tell you earlier. He came to see Claire this afternoon."

"About what?"

"You'll never believe it. Reverend Jackson Wilde."

Alister, straightening his cuffs, checked his reflection in the hotel dresser's mirror. "What about him?"

"He wanted to know what Claire was doing the night Wilde was killed."

Alister turned to face her. "Get real."

Yasmine laughed as she buckled her oversized belt. "That was Claire's reaction, too. That crazy evangelist was a pain in the ass while he was alive, and now he's plaguing us from the grave."