Night Game (GhostWalkers, #3)(33)

She ran her tongue along her lower lip, her gaze hot. “More than you’ll ever know. Too bad you’re such a chicken.”

“You’re playing a very dangerous game, Flame,” he said.

“You’re the one with my knife and motorcycle.”

“That’s not why. You think this is all part of another experiment, don’t you?”

“Isn’t it?” She moved into the heat of his body, her hips pressed close. “When you’re with other women, is it this intense? Do the women you meet make you feel like tearing off their clothes right there, right that moment, and the hell with everything you’ve ever believed and valued?”

“If you know I feel that way, why the hell are you tempting me out here in the middle of nowhere when we’re alone? What you did in that club was wrong and what you’re doing to me right now is wrong and with another man, you could be in trouble.” Something dark and burned briefly in the shadows of his eyes and gone almost immediately.

Flame shook her head, her expression defeated. “That’s just it, Raoul, I’m not the one doing it. You are. We are. Don’t you get it?” She pushed a hand through her hair, scattering pins so that strands of red hair fell in all directions. “You do get it. You knew what I was thinking, because you were thinking the same thing. It’s all part of Whitney’s experiments. Take me back. It’s been a long day and I want to go home.”

She did look tired. And sad. And very alone. Gator turned her accusations over and over in his mind. “It would be impossible to manipulate the sexual chemistry between two people wouldn’t it?”

“Why would it be? He manipulated everything else, didn’t he? He was building the perfect army. The perfect weapons. The perfect agents.” She sank down, looking up at him from the seat. “Whitney had years to work things out. And somebody knew he was doing it. Somebody helped him. He wasn’t alone in this, he couldn’t have been.”

Her twisted logic was beginning to make sense to him and that was alarming. “I go out on missions all the time with the GhostWalkers. Of the missing girls, only Lily and Dahlia have been found. And now you.”

“What a shocker that is. Maybe we’re all his little puppets and he’s playing us. You don’t want to consider that could be what’s happening because that would bruise your ego. You think you chose what happened to you so that somehow makes me the poor victim and you the hero in charge of your life. If what I’m saying is this truth, that makes you a victim right along with me and you just can’t stand the thought.”

Gator turned over the words in his mind. The logic of her argument. If she was right he was no more than a programmed robot, a marionette and Whitney was pulling his strings. Worse than that, she was right. On some level he had thought of her as a victim, hell, all of the GhostWalkers thought that way. The women had been bought and experimented on. The men had chosen to be heroes, to save the world. He erupted into another long passionate string of inventive and crude curses.

“I’m sorry to rock your world. But if you’re in with Whitney, and you’re doing what he wants you to do by coming here and trying to take me back with you, at least consider that he’s playing you. Whitney never does any thing that doesn’t benefit Whitney.”

“Damn it, the man is dead.”

“Do you realize you didn’t answer a single question tonight, Raoul?”

“Just don’t talk anymore. Damn it anyway.” He was silent as the boat sped through the canal, his features etched in stone.

Flame couldn’t take her eyes off of him. She felt sad for him. Sad for her. She didn’t even know why.

There was a small silence as the airboat moved up the canal. As the pier came into view, Gator glanced at her, his gaze moving over her dress, her legs, the curve of her bottom. “I don’t want you doing it anymore.”

“It?” Her eyebrow shot up.

“Don’ give me trouble. You know what I’m talking about. Don’ go tryin’ to lure Joy’s fate to you. If someone took her, or killed her, the same thing could happen to you. You don’t even have backup. You don’t have anyone to watch out for you.”

Flame shrugged. “That’s something I’m used to, Raoul. I’m not a team player.”

“I’ve searched for Joy for four weeks. My brother, Ian, and I have been all up and down the bayou. We’ve questioned everyone. We’ve even looked in shacks and investigated every tip we were given. Joy’s disappeared and I’m not having the same thing happen to you.”

“I’m not Joy. I can take care of myself.”

His dark gaze flickered over her face and there it was again, that something undefined she couldn’t quite catch, but that made her shiver. “You couldn’t have stopped me if I was a different sort of man.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Think what you like. Men always do.”

“I’m not arguing with you about this. And be at my house tomorrow by two for tea. Grand-mere expects you.”

“Why in the world would I show up?”

“Two reasons.” He jumped onto the pier and tied up the boat, reaching back to offer her his hand. “You want your motorcycle and any woman who would risk her life to find out what happened to a stranger is not going to disappoint an old woman with a heart condition.”