Night Game (GhostWalkers, #3)(58)

Gator shoved a bag, the one he recognized from the first night he’d met Flame, into a corner of the cabin out of the way before stripping off his shirt and tossing it onto the back of a chair. He pulled a bottle of water from his pack. “Here, drink this.”

“Thanks.” She took the bottle, watching as he tugged off his boots and tossed them into the corner of the room beside the large bag. “I’m not sleeping with you so you may as well take the bed. I can sleep on the floor.”

Gator sat down beside her. She flinched when he jarred her leg. “I didn’t ask you nor was I going to seduce you, not, mind you, that it wouldn’t work.”

“You were going to ask me. And seduction wouldn’t have worked.”

“I wasn’t going to try,” he repeated.

She frowned. “Why not? What’s wrong with me? I think you’d try with an alligator so why not me?”

“An alligator? I draw the line at reptiles.”

“Fine, I take it back. Why aren’t you going to try to seduce me?”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “You mean why aren’t I going to seduce you? Grand-mere raised a gentleman. You’re too upset for me to take advantage of you right at this moment. We can both sleep on the bed and I’ll be have myself.”

Her gaze moved over his face. “But you would have tried to seduce me if I wasn’t so upset, right?”

“W-e-1-l,” he drawled. “I don’ know if I would have or not. You have a thing about knives.”

She made a face at him. “You like my knives and you know you do. It turns you on every time you think about them.”

He didn’t deny the obvious. “Did you huck one at me the other night after you left the club? Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Huck? Is huck a word? No, I don’t huck knives; I throw them with deadly accuracy. If I threw a knife at you, you’d be in the bottom of the bayou. I saved your ass, actually.” She wiped at her eyes again, took a drink of water, and twisted the cap back into place.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you aren’t quite the Mr. Invincible you like to think you are. You got someone mad at you the other night and he was just drunk enough and mean enough to try to take you out. You’ve grown complacent, and complacency can get you killed.”

“You were following me?”

“I was baby-sitting. You and your drunken idiot brother and friend. Someone had to do it and I didn’t see anyone else volunteering. Personally, I don’t think you have all that many friends.”

“It was Vicq, wasn’t it? He waited for his chance and threw the knife.”

She shrugged. “I was pretty certain he wasn’t going to just walk away quietly. He isn’t the quiet type. Did you know that he dated Joy? They went out twice. She called it off when he gave her a black eye for looking at another man.”

Anger churned close to the surface. “How the hell did you find that out? If Wyatt had known he would have been gunning for Vicq.”

“Word is, everyone is afraid of the man.”

“I’m not.”

“Which is why I was baby-sitting you.” She sent him a look of censure. “Just because you’re enhanced doesn’t mean you can’t be killed. You dismissed him because he isn’t combat trained. He’s dangerous, Raoul, and you should have known that. I could see it in his eyes. He likes violence and he gets away with it. I’ll bet he’s very abusive toward women as a rule. He’s going to beat his wife and children and he’ll have fights all the time hoping to hurt or do worse to the men he picks the fight with. He likes it. He likes hurting people and probably animals as well.”

“How’d you find out he went out with Joy?”

“I talked to her mother. She told me Joy came home crying and had bruises on her face. They didn’t want her father or brothers to find out because Vicq has such a bad reputation. Joy’s mother mentioned it to the police but they didn’t even question him.”

“It wasn’t in the police report, I read the report myself.”

“What a shocker. You said Vicq’s last name was Comeaux. Did you notice the police officer’s last name on the report? Everyone is related to everyone.”

Gator swore softly in Cajun. “I should have caught that. So Vicq Comeaux is actually a suspect. You haven’t tried to question him, have you?”

She frowned at the sharpness in his voice. “I’m not that stupid. I don’t think anyone would get anything out of him by questioning him, and certainly not a woman. The best way is for someone to get drunk with him and talk trash about women. He’s going to brag.”

“You know a lot about people, don’t you?”

“It’s a survival technique. I learned it early on. Whitney was a hell of a teacher.” She turned her face away from him, but not before he caught the glimpse of pain in her eyes. “My bet is on the boyfriend. Parsons’s son,” she continued, leaning her head against the wall and stretching her right leg out in front of her. “Something isn’t right about him.”

“I had the same feeling. Take the jeans off.”

Her gaze leapt to his, held there. “You said you weren’t going to try anything.”

“I’m not. For God’s sake, woman, you’re beautiful, but don’t flatter yourself. I’m not after your body. I’m after your leg. That’s a single body part.”