Too Wild to Hold

“Just how far are you willing to take this?” Michael asked.

“As far as we have to,” Claire said, breathless, even as her voice hitched when he pressed his lips to her neck. Suddenly, she didn’t care that they were being watched. “You?”

“As far as you want to go,” he replied. He pressed her full against his body, so that she could not mistake the feel of his erection against her, even through the layers of her gown. “I came here with no intention beyond getting you to safety as soon as possible. But I’d be lying if I denied how beautiful you are or how hot you look in that dress, especially now that it’s half-off. Making love to you would not be a hardship. In fact, it would be my pleasure.”

Her jaw dropped open momentarily, then she lifted her chin and laughed. “Then I think I’m going to like working with you, Special Agent Murrieta.”

“If we do it right, it won’t be work. And please, call me Michael.”

“By all means, Michael. Let’s give those pervs behind the camera something worth watching.”

Dear Reader,

I love old movies. Not all old movies, mind you. I prefer the epic, swashbuckling films where swordplay rules the day and the heroes survive not only because of their skill and speed, but also because of their irrepressible charm with the ladies. Pirate movies are a personal favorite, but I also adore stories set around the exploits of a certain black-masked bandit who rode around colonial California and fought for the rights of the downtrodden. And at the same time, he somehow managed to win a beautiful woman who really shouldn’t have had anything to do with him.

Over the years, this hero has been played by many great actors, each giving him their own spin. So I thought, why not do the same with the heroes of my series, who are all fictionally descended from the real-life outlaw who supposedly inspired the legend? Three brothers couldn’t be more different than wealthy, educated Alejandro (hero of Too Hot to Touch, August 2011), FBI agent Michael and their black sheep brother, Daniel. Each man has inherited some of their infamous ancestor’s daring, bravado and charm, but all in a different way.

Recreating a historical legend in order to fit my own imagination was a true pleasure. I hope you enjoy Claire and Michael’s story as much as I did writing it.

Happy Reading,

Julie Leto

Too Wild to Hold
Julie Leto

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Over the course of her career, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Julie Leto has published more than forty books—all of them sexy and all of them romances at heart. She shares a popular blog—www.plotmonkeys.com—with her best friends Carly Phillips, Janelle Denison and Leslie Kelly and would love for you to follow her on Twitter, where she goes by @JulieLeto. She’s a born and bred Floridian homeschooling mom with a love for her family, her friends, her dachshund, her lynx-point Siamese and supersexy stories with a guaranteed happy ending.

This book is dedicated to

Smarties and Kit Kat bars.

(Which means my next book will be dedicated,

once again, to Jazzercise.)

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

1

“DON’T MOVE. I’VE come for you—and only you.”

With the whispered threat came the clamp of a man’s gloved hand on the back of Claire Lécuyer’s neck. She commanded herself not to flinch or alter her features, which she’d schooled into relaxed amusement. She’d entered this crowded ballroom of her own free will and she meant to leave that way, even if she had to take a madman with her.

She started to turn, but he tightened his grasp.

“You don’t take orders very well,” he chastised.

He didn’t know the half of it.

Despite the rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins, Claire willed her voice to remain light and lilting, in keeping with the character she’d created. Tonight she wasn’t just a former cop turned private investigator searching for a missing person—she was, in this undercover incarnation, a sweet Southern belle looking for her lover among the throng.

“But the night has just begun,” she said. “Who knows who is going to end up with whom?”

Two hundred years had passed since the first quadroon ball, but two weeks ago, Claire had learned that the traditions of old New Orleans had been reintroduced to modern Louisiana by sexual fetishists who called themselves Nouvelle Placage. In a leased plantation over an hour away from the French Quarter, the group recreated the grand ballrooms and strict rules of a system that had once been the means by which rich white landowners arranged for long-term affairs with women of the gens de couleur libre, a light-skinned French Creole class native to pre-Americanized New Orleans.

But the people here tonight weren’t re-enactors like the ones who showed up at Chalmette National Park every January to recreate the Battle of New Orleans. These modern men paid outrageous entry fees for women who would fulfill their every fantasy. They came from across the country to enjoy a weekend of anonymous sexual encounters dressed up with proper manners, old-world moral codes and romanticized dominance and submission.

In the past, the young ladies demanded homes, generous allowances, finest clothes and educations for their bastard children from the men they took as lovers. In this modern revival, the compensation was a hell of a lot more complicated. And the affairs only lasted for a weekend—which meant Claire had that long to complete her case and find Josslyn Granger.

Technically, Josslyn wasn’t missing, though for four years, her whereabouts had been unknown. According to her former husband, she’d announced her defection from suburban soccer mom to sexual deviant, filed for divorce and disappeared. But though she’d granted her perplexed husband papers to dissolve their marriage, she’d conveniently forgotten to give up parental rights for their two children.

Since then, Robert Granger had hired a dozen private investigators to search for his wayward ex-wife as she followed various sex partners and sex clubs around the country, but none had succeeded in pinning her down. When the husband heard she’d be in New Orleans for the Nouvelle Placage event, he’d hired Claire. Now that Granger had remarried, his job required frequent overseas travel, and his new wife, for both legal and emotional reasons, needed to adopt Josslyn’s kids. But for that to happen, Claire had to find Josslyn and convince her to sign the papers she’d hidden nearby.

The case was a welcome diversion from her usual background checks and cheating spouse investigations. She liked to succeed where others had failed. She adored undercover work and relished a chance to test her own limits.

What she didn’t like was being manhandled by some guy who may or may not be the stalker the FBI had warned her about. A stalker who was after Claire.

“You will end up with me,” he said, his voice a low, but confident promise.

She forced a girlish giggle. If he was the stalker, maybe a different persona would throw him off. He hadn’t come here expecting to find a pliant, vapid ingénue on the prowl for a man. He’d expected Claire Lécuyer—who was, in all ways, the complete opposite.

“Is that so?” she asked, her tone seemingly unconcerned. “But you have not yet negotiated my willingness to end up with you. Have you not been schooled in the ways of Nouvelle Placage?”

Around them, men in impeccable top coats and breeches circled the room, calculating and assessing their more-than-willing prey. From behind painted fans, women in decadent, empire-waist gowns flirted and fawned, hot with anticipation for a lover who’d soon devour them with unbridled desire and deep, deep pockets.

If not for the strains of a lively quadrille and the overpowering scent of candle wax, a stranger might mistake the scene for a modern-day masquerade. But this place was more than costumes and characters—this was the gilded antechamber into a dark and scintillating world. Claire had busted her ass to get in to this guarded community and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let some mystery man derail her, no matter who he was. Maybe he was just an attendee who’d missed orientation. Or maybe he was the stalker.

Didn’t matter. She wasn’t dealing with her own problems until she completed her case.

“Perhaps I should call Monsieur Masterson to remind you of how things are done here?” she suggested, invoking the obviously fake name of the man who seemed to be in charge. Unfortunately, he was nowhere in sight.

“I know all the rules, Ms. Lécuyer,” the mystery man assured her. “But like you, I believe that some rules are made to be broken.”

She pretended to laugh, hoping to shake off her fear. “Your overconfidence does you no credit, sir. But if you are so intent on having me, perhaps you should begin by telling me who you—”

He cut off her inquiry by tightening his grip.

“You thought you’d be safe here, didn’t you?” While one hand held her immobile, the other trailed up the back of her gown, brushing the beribboned stays with exquisite slowness, as if he savored a chance to untie each and every one. “You thought you could protect yourself.”

Unexpectedly, his breath was tinged with the sweet scent of mint and creamy café au lait.

“You haven’t yet proven otherwise, sir,” she whispered.

Swallowing her fear, she’d pushed out the reply with a bold confidence that was only half-sincere. She didn’t know very much about the man who was after her. The local FBI agents had only told her to go someplace safe and wait for contact by the lead agent who was on his way from California. Since she only had the weekend to find Josslyn Granger among the attendees of Nouvelle Placage, she’d figured it was as safe a place as any.

She’d had to call in quite a few favors from her days at Vice to even get in here. She’d had to pay the dues, buy the clothes, endure the orientation, all in her bid to find a woman she knew was here somewhere, but who’d yet to show. She hadn’t imagined some wacked-out sicko who’d last been spotted in California would go to so much trouble to follow her.

But maybe she was wrong.

She moved her head just enough to catch a glimpse of her captor. His startling blue eyes widened, then narrowed before he tugged her back into place.

“You don’t follow directions very well,” he chastised.

She snorted. He wasn’t the first man to utter those words to her. And he probably wouldn’t be the last.

“It’s one of my unique charms, I assure you.”

His chuckle was low, but genuine, and soothed her anxiety rather than increased it.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“A man who caught you.”

He smoothed his gloved fingers around her throat and pressed gently against her carotid artery.

Her breath hitched. Damn, damn, damn.

Why hadn’t she listened more carefully to the local feds? The details she retained were sketchy. A special task force had put her name on a short list of likely victims for some creep who kidnapped women. He used the date-rape drug Rohypnol and incapacitated them long enough to act out some freakish seduction where he wore a mask and cape. Buried under by preparations for her own case, Claire had hardly given their warnings a second thought.

But then a black silk scarf embroidered with a scarlet letter Z had been delivered to her doorstep. She’d immediately taken it to the FBI, but refused their offer of protection and instead went ahead with her time-sensitive plans.

Which might, she admitted to herself now, have been a mistake.

One by one, she felt his fingers dig deeper into the skin along her throat. “One squeeze right here and you’d fall into a dead faint. A rather fashionable thing to do for young ladies of the early nineteenth century, wasn’t it? No one would blink if I carried you out for a moonlight tryst.”

His hand constricted, but not enough to spawn even the slightest dizziness. He was taunting her, perhaps even attempting to scare her.

And he was succeeding.

But she wasn’t going down easily. She shifted her elbows into striking range when he tightened his hold again.

“Don’t move,” he warned.

She bit back a curse. She’d nearly dropped her cover. The women of Nouvelle Placage came here specifically to be manhandled. If she reacted too much like a modern-day ex-cop and not enough like a woman on the prowl, she’d have to deal with more scrutiny, more questions—more possibilities for getting tossed out on her ass.

“Let me go.” She delivered the command with a honey-sweet Southern lilt, but though his grip slackened, he did not release her.

“Luckily for you, I’m not here to hurt you.”

Something in his tone sliced through her suspicions, along with the fact that he loosened his hold. Maybe he wasn’t the man who’d sent her the scarf. Maybe he wasn’t related to the FBI case at all. Her instincts kept returning to that possibility, and though her gut had often gotten her into trouble, it had never proved wrong.

Painting on a simpering smile, she turned to face him, chin up and eyes flashing.

She didn’t know him, but she’d seen him. When she’d first been paraded in the ballroom along with the other women intent on selling their services for the weekend, she’d become instantly aware of his presence.

Amid the assessing stares of the many men in attendance, his intense, sapphire blue eyes had stood out, causing a prickle of excitement to shoot through her system like liquid lightning. She’d immediately recognized the reaction. Lust. He was handsome, with a square chin and strong upper torso built more for helmets and shoulder pads than snug breeches and a fluffed cravat.

But just as quickly as she’d felt the flicker of desire, she’d dismissed it. This weekend might be all about sex for everyone else here, but she had a job to do.

Which, now that she saw her captor close up, was a crying shame.

“Of course you won’t hurt me,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes. “Unless I want you to, non?”

The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. He wanted to smile, but fought the urge. Well, that wasn’t the only urge he’d have to fight tonight. He might have set his sights on her, but she had no intention of taking a lover—no matter how hypnotic his blue eyes were.

“We should negotiate our expectations in a quieter place, don’t you think?” he asked.

She softened her voice to a coy purr. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Not yet, ma cher,” he replied, his raspy voice scraping over her. “But I expect that, soon, you’ll know much more about me than that.”

Claire took a step back, dislodging his hand only for a second before he regained his touch.

“You may release me now, sir,” she said.

“That would not be wise.” The corner of his mouth quirked into a bold grin that liquefied her insides and gave a little tweak of desire to the tips of her tightly corseted breasts.

This was ridiculous. Why was he being so single-minded? And why was she so intrigued?

“Really? And why ever not?”

He leaned in close. His lips brushed against her curls when he spoke, but the voice that had been so accented and charming before now sliced across her skin with icy precision.

“Because you’re in danger, Ms. Lécuyer, and I’m here to protect you.”

2

SPECIAL AGENT MICHAEL Murrieta gave his captive a minute to let his words sink in. Once her eyes narrowed in suspicion and she visibly shed the cloying persona she’d adopted for the night, he released his hold. From the first word he’d read in her file, he’d figured she was going to be a pain in the ass, but he’d had no idea he’d have to cross the continental United States, don a crazy costume and borrow ten thousand dollars from his brother in order to find her.

He turned their bodies so that no one could see, then with practiced swiftness, flashed his credentials.

Her eyes widened and she mouthed an unspoken curse.

“Not here,” she pleaded.

She took a large step back again, but he quickly regained custody of her hand. “If not here, then where, cher?”

His accurate Creole accent again elicited a tilted eyebrow. He had to admit that she was very good at going undercover—but he was better. He did not have her family’s theater background, but Michael had years of experience with the Bureau and a partner originally from Louisiana who’d schooled him on the accent before he’d taken off to find Claire Lécuyer and save her from a rapist.

She had not made his job easy. Only hours after alerting the local office that she had received the telltale scarf, she’d dropped off the grid and disappeared into this sexual underworld. In order to bypass their intense security on short notice, he’d had to make quick arrangements for an authentic costume—oddly, not difficult to do in New Orleans—and borrow the exorbitant entrance fee from his brother, Alejandro. He had authorization to retrieve Claire Lécuyer and put her under protective custody, but he doubted his superiors would have approved of him paying his way into a sex club.

The case hadn’t yet become a major priority for the Bureau. They had serial killers to catch and homegrown terrorists to thwart. They’d only thrown the case his way because of an obscure tie between him and the rapist. But it was that same family secret that made him determined to catch this psycho before he hurt another woman. To that end, he’d finagled a consult from the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico, received approval to call in Ruby, his partner, a member of his San Francisco team and was given open access to agents from the local office.

Otherwise, Michael was on his own.

It hadn’t been easy to find Claire, but he’d pulled it off with limited resources and time. He had no reason to believe that her stalker, a man who’d already kidnapped and tormented five other women, wouldn’t find her, too.

And when he did, Michael intended to catch him.

“So now that you have me,” she said, turning up the mocking quality in her Southern belle enunciation, “whatever are you going to do with me?”

He bit back a grin, but allowed an eye roll. There was something about this woman that could drive a man to drink. Heavily. As it was, he’d taken a great risk snatching her the way he had, but he’d had a point to make. Despite FBI warnings, she’d gone off on her own. Her dossier overflowed with situations where she’d put her investigation above her own safety. She’d lost her badge for disobeying repeated orders from her superiors to stop her pursuit of a suspicious death case that had, because of her, resulted in a highly publicized murder conviction.

But he didn’t see her vindication as a victory. If she’d followed procedures and worked within the system, she might have had the same result and kept her job. Not that he was one to judge at this point. He believed in the rules set forth by the Bureau which ensured that investigations were both balanced and prosecutable.

On the other hand, if he hadn’t ripped a page out of her book tonight, he might never have found her before the unsub.

“The possibilities for what we might do together are endless, cher,” he replied, “but none would be appropriate for this company.” His eyes darted to the men and women mingling around them. “Perhaps we can move along to some place a little more private?”

Within the depths of her mossy green eyes, he watched her calculate the risk versus the reward. No doubt she wanted to get rid of him as quickly as possible so she could continue to pursue her case. Had their roles been reversed, he’d want the same. But she didn’t know yet what he had planned for her. If she did, she might change her mind about ditching him, which he was certain she would try to do.

Claire tilted her fan toward the foyer, then hooked her arm into his. “This way, sir,” she crooned. “If you wish to take me on, you’ll first have to consult with my maman.”

“Of course,” he said, tempering a grin.

Very wisely, Claire had arranged for backup of sorts in the form of her aunt, who had stepped into the role of maman for the night. As the designated “mother” figure, she would negotiate a proper arrangement for her “daughter.” In other words, she was the pimp. From Claire’s superior smirk, she expected that her aunt would dismiss any amount Michael offered.

Well, she’d soon see that while she was wily and had come prepared, so had he.

In the grand foyer, draped sheets of sheer organza and candelabras bright with beeswax tapers masked the peeling paint and moldy smell of the old plantation house. Michael had to admire the time and effort the organizers had taken to ensure that one step over the threshold transported attendees into a different world—an old world, a racially ambiguous world when the French dominated New Orleans.

Some of the accounts he’d read during prep for this case had claimed that white men who bought quadroon women did so out of true love and affection. Glancing at Claire, with her flawless coffee-stained skin and hypnotically opaque green eyes, he could understand the appeal. How hard was it, really, to be intrigued—enslaved, even—by a woman such as her?

With her exotic beauty and impeccable manners, what man wouldn’t promise away his entire legacy to possess her, even for just one night?

Michael slid his gloved hand over hers as they approached the veritable shelf of older women sitting in a row beside the open windows. A breeze scented with night-blooming jasmine cooled the air and ruffled through the swatch of silk she’d tucked into the neckline of her gown. He couldn’t help but wonder what he would find if he peeled the material away—then he realized that was probably the whole point of the costume piece.

She exhaled with relief when she spotted her aunt, seated and sipping on a cocktail. Clarice had spent most of her life involved with the theater, and since she’d also been born and raised in the French Quarter, she’d easily seen more sordid events than this laced up version of consensual prostitution.

“This is my maman,” Claire said by way of introduction, her voice lilting with confidence that he was about to be summarily dismissed.

Michael gave a low and reverent bow, took the woman’s lace-gloved hand and swept a kiss across her knuckles.

“Madame,” he greeted. From inside his jacket, he took out an envelope he’d prepared ahead of time.

Clarice took another sip of her drink, snatched the letter and gave it a quick, almost cursory read. Then, after looking him up and down, she nodded her approval.

“Maman!” Claire protested.

Michael fought to hide his amusement, but instead grabbed her elbow and leaned in close. “She knows who I am and she knows why I’m here. Now find us a place to talk in private or I’ll drag you out and whatever case you’re working on will be ruined.”

Claire cast one angry look at her aunt, who smiled benignly in response. “The man makes a fair offer, my love. Go with him. Hear what he has to stay.”

Claire continued to silently plead with her aunt, but the woman’s matching gaze was just as stubborn and intense and Michael wasn’t sure who would win this battle of wills. He had indeed sought out Claire’s “guardian” shortly after spotting her in the ballroom. Following the protocol of Nouvelle Placage, he had revealed his credentials and verified that the aunt was helping Claire on her undercover operation, then had taken the older woman on a short stroll and explained what he’d come here to do.

Though Claire had already told her aunt about the serial rapist, she’d downgraded him to a simple stalker. So when Michael filled Aunt Clarice in on the real story, she’d agreed to help him by approving him as her niece’s lover. Once alone, he and Claire could talk freely, and hopefully, Michael could convince her to leave.

For her own safety—and for her case—she had to trust him.

She muttered a very unladylike curse, and then hissed, “This way, monsieur.”

AS THEY WALKED to the curved staircase, Claire pushed away her anger. Nothing good ever came from reacting solely on emotions. She had to concentrate on the task at hand. This FBI agent, whose name she hadn’t caught as he flashed his identification, had gone to a lot of trouble not to muck up her case. The least she could do was hear him out.

Her reconnaissance at the old plantation house had been minimal, but she knew that one of the upstairs bedrooms, reserved for lovers who preferred a traditional setting rather than one of the more exotic locations throughout the house, would afford them a measure of privacy. Damn it.

She shouldn’t have called the Feds about the scarf. She should have kept her mouth shut until after she’d closed her case. But she hadn’t figured the government would act so quickly, not for a case where no crime against her had yet to be committed. Maybe the agent would be reasonable. Maybe he’d agree to leave her to her assignment until she’d found Josslyn and obtained the woman’s signature.

Or maybe he’d already messed up her chances of bringing her case to a close by spiriting her upstairs long before any of the other women had left the dance floor.

On the second story landing, they were met by a dark-skinned woman in a plain, black dress who led them to a room at the end of the hall. Without a word, she opened the door and stood, eyes down, while they went inside. Claire had seen the woman with Masterson earlier. Was she just an employee or one of the organizers? In this world, it was impossible to know all the players.

The door shut behind them with a tight click.

Claire opened her mouth to speak, but the handsome agent held up his hand while he scanned the dimly lit room.

The boudoir did not have much furniture. A large bed with a plush comforter and an array of pillows. A silk changing screen, a chaise lounge, a small table set with a brandy decanter and two snifters, three lamps and a fireplace filled not with logs in the summer heat, but with a fragrant blaze of orange and red flowers.

Just enough scenery to evoke the weekend’s theme, but not enough to detract from the real objective—sex.

When the agent looked up at an air vent in the corner, his shoulders stiffened for a split second before he turned and held out his hand with a gallant bow. “So, cher, would you care to dance?”

He remained in character, so she did, too. He’d spotted something. With her gaze cast coquettishly at her slippers, she shuffled closer. From the break in the light beneath the door, she could see that someone was listening in. She’d been warned that some of the people in the Nouvelle Placage entertained themselves not by participating, but by watching. Did that include eavesdropping at key holes?

After slipping her hand into the agent’s, she chanced a glance at the air vent that had put him on guard.

Tucked just beyond the cast-iron scrollwork was a camera.

And from the tiny green light, she could tell it was on.

“I’d love to dance with you, sir,” she said, “but we haven’t any music.”

“That can be rectified, I’m sure.”

He marched to the door and swung it open, startling the woman hovering there.

“You!” he ordered, his manners and stature every bit as imposing as a Creole-accented Rhett Butler. “We want music. And hurry up about it.”

Less than two minutes later, she wheeled in a device that looked like a gramophone, but was connected to a very modern CD player. The FBI agent practically pushed the woman out of the door, locked it, then slowly eased his fingers out of his gloves.

She did the same, but finished first as his right glove had snagged on a large emerald ring. She was just about to comment on the unusual size and style when he turned up the volume of the melodic waltz more than necessary.

He gave her a little bow, revealing a twinkle in his deep blue eyes that was not the least bit government issue.

Who was this guy?

She curtsied as she’d learned to do before she’d gotten herself kicked out of cotillion class and then willfully walked into his arms.

His hand on her waist was taut, but the one that cupped her palm was surprisingly gentle. He was a mass of contradictions, this nameless man.

“I thought the local FBI instructed you to lay low until I arrived,” he said as they swayed to the string-heavy waltz.

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“Special Agent Michael Murrieta.”

“Shh,” she admonished. His voice was strong and would easily carry over the music. “If the room has a camera, it clearly has listening devices, too.”

“These freaks aren’t the only ones with hardware. I slipped an amplifier onto that gramophone. It’ll boost the sound—the only thing any bugs will pick up is Mozart.”

She smirked. “Actually, this is Strauss.”

“It’s still a cool gadget. They can watch us, but they won’t hear a word we say.”

She couldn’t help but be impressed by both his preparedness and his slightly boyish enthusiasm for spy toys.