Claire could have kicked herself for being so transparent. She groped for a logical explanation. "Mama's on medication. She has to eat at certain times. I don't want dinner to be delayed on my account."

"Very neat."

"What?"

"That excuse. I'd have to be a real bastard to challenge it, wouldn't I?"

"It's the truth."

His sly grin said he knew she was lying but that he chose to let it drop. "One more question and I'll go. Promise."

"Well?"

"Have you ever been in trouble with the police?"

"No!"

"Ever been arrested?"

"You said one question, Mr. Cassidy. That's two."

"Are you refusing to answer?"

Damn him. She hated giving anyone in authority the upper hand, but refusing to answer would only complicate matters. "I've never been arrested, but I take umbrage at your asking."

"Exception noted," he said unrepentantly. "Good night, Ms. Laurent. We'll be seeing each other again soon."

She was glad she was standing in shadow so he couldn't see her alarmed expression. "I've already told you everything I know."

He subjected her to another deception-flaying stare. "I don't think so." He had rolled the catalog into a tube, which he now used to tip his forehead in a mock salute. "Thanks again for the drink. You stock very good whiskey."

Claire slammed the door in his face, hurriedly clicked the bolts into place, and leaned against the cool metal. She gasped for each breath as though she'd been running for miles. Her heart was beating so wildly that it ached. Her skin was covered with a fine sheen of perspiration, which she attributed to the heat ... even though she knew better.

Chapter 5.

*His tongue flicked over and around her stiff nipples. The caress elicited sounds from her that had pagan origins. "You're killing me, baby," she gasped.

"Oh, God, don't stop. Don't stop." She caught his earlobe between her strong, white teeth and bit it hard. He grunted in pain, but her untamed responsiveness increased his excitement. His fingers made deep impressions in her firm ass as he clamped her to his hips and thrust himself deep inside her. His mouth captured one taut nipple and sucked it hard.

She screamed and clutched handfuls of his hair, bucking against him wildly, lost in the throes of her climax. Seconds later, he came in long, ecstatic bursts, panting and straining and grimacing.

Yasmine's skin was slick with sweat. It gleamed, reflecting the glow of the bedside lamp like polished bronze, except that none had ever been sculpted as exquisitely as she.

She rose above Congressman Alister Petrie's limp, spent body and with adoration gazed down into his flushed face. "Not bad, sugar," she whispered as she brushed an affectionate kiss across his lips. "You found my G-spot."

Keeping his eyes closed, he chuckled. "Get off me, you insatiable bitch, and pour me a drink."

Yasmine gracefully left the bed and moved to the dresser where earlier she'd arranged a bottle of his favorite brand of scotch, a bucket of ice, and two glasses. Articles of clothing were strewn on furniture and across the carpeting. She was attired only in a pair of large gold earrings that brushed her smooth shoulders whenever she moved her head.

Their love play had begun the moment he'd entered the hotel suite. During a lengthy, tongue-twining kiss, she had guided his hand beneath her skirt, pressing it between her open thighs. "You know what to do, baby. Make me crazy."

"You mean this?" His fingers separated the moist flesh and slipped inside her. "Lucky for you your customers wear your merchandise," he whispered as he stroked her. "What if everybody decided to go without underwear?"

"Everybody would have a lot more fun."

They eagerly shed their clothes without compromising the carnality of the kiss or his manual stimulation. Naked, they fell onto the bed, a tangle of brown and white limbs.

Now, Yasmine mixed his drink while watching him in the mirror. She always loved him best immediately after making love, when his sandy hair was uncharacteristically mussed and his lips were soft and relaxed. They were almost identical in height, but he had more physical stamina than his lean, compact physique indicated. The sheen of perspiration on his smooth chest reminded her of how vigorously he made love, and she felt another tingle of expectation between her thighs.

He stacked the pillows behind his back and sat up against the headboard. Returning to the bed with his drink, she stirred it with her index finger, then ran it across his lips. "How is it?"

He sucked her fingertip. "I taste you," he said huskily. "And me. Delicious. Perfect."

Smiling with pleasure, Yasmine handed him the highball and lay down curled against his side. He kissed her forehead. "You do everything perfect, Yasmine. You are perfect."

"No shit?" Snuggling closer, she applied her mouth to his nipple and damply agitated it with her tongue.

"No shit," he moaned.

"I'd make you a perfect wife."

His reaction was abrupt and negative. He stiffened, and not with heightened desire. "Don't spoil our time together, Yasmine," he urged softly. "These hours are so hard to come by. So precious to me. Don't spoil them by bringing up a topic that makes us both unhappy."

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. "It doesn't make me unhappy to think about becoming Mrs. Mister Petrie."

"That's not what I meant. You know what I meant."

"I think about it all the time. It's what I want more than anything in the world," she said fiercely. Tears formed in her eyes and shimmered in the soft light.

"Me too, darling." He set his drink on the nightstand and turned onto his side to face her. "You're so beautiful." His hand glided over her breast. Her nipples were only slightly darker than her skin and very responsive. He bent down and kissed one, raising it with gentle plucking motions of his lips.

"Am I a fool to love you?" she asked.

"I'm the fool."

"Do you ever intend to leave her?"

"Soon, Yasmine, soon. You've got to trust me to choose the right time. This is a difficult situation. It's going to take a lot of finesse to escape it without someone getting hurt, namely you."

They had met a year earlier in Washington, D.C., at a black-tie reception in an African nation's embassy. Yasmine had been invited because she was reputed to have roots in that country. The story had been fabricated by some unknown source, but her agent had liked it and kept it alive for publicity purposes. It certainly had more romance and intrigue than the truth-that her family had lived in Harlem for four generations.

Resplendent in a gold lame dress, she had been introduced to the handsome young congressman by one of his colleagues. For several minutes Alister had been tongue-tied, but her laughs and gentle teasing soon put him at ease. They ignored everyone else at the reception, eventually left together in a limo provided for her, and concluded the evening in bed in a suburban motel.

It wasn't until the following morning that he confessed to having a wife and children at home in New Orleans. The passion that Yasmine had exhibited in bed hadn't prepared him for the passion of her unleashed fury. She had railed at him, called him scandalously filthy names, and threatened him with voodoo curses that would shrivel his manhood and render it useless.

"You fuck 'em and forget 'em, is that it, Congressman? Well, sugar, you're not dealing with any ordinary dumb chick here. I'm Yasmine. Nobody screws me over and gets away with it."

Once he had calmed her down, he explained the sad state of affairs. "My and my wife's families were friends. Belle and I grew up together."

"Big fuckin' deal."

"Please, Yasmine. Hear me out. You don't understand our society down there."

"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."

"What's the connection? Other than the obvious."

"Wilde had a 'hit list,' as this Cassidy called it. A list of magazines that he wanted to abolish. French Silk's catalog was one of them. Did you know about that?"

"How would I?"

"Well, you and Wilde were so chummy," she teased.

"I attended a few receptions welcoming him to the city because Belle thought it politically beneficial for me to do so. Personally, I think he was full of shit."

"Amen. I wonder who had the pleasure of shutting him up permanently," she said with a wicked grin. "The police must be scrounging for leads. Anyone on that list would have motivation for killing him, but since French Silk is headquartered here in New Orleans, Cassidy thought that maybe... You get the picture.

"Anyway," she continued, sliding on her bangles, "it wouldn't have looked too good for me to be toting around a gun, would it? Especially if the D.A.'s office discovered that I was in New Orleans with you that night and not in New York as everyone believes. If it came down to it, would you vouch for my Whereabouts?"

"Don't even joke about it, Yasmine." He took her by the shoulders. "I know Cassidy by reputation: he's ambitious and shrewd and always goes for the jugular. It sounds as though he's grasping at straws to connect French Silk to Wilde's murder, and it might look silly to us, but you can be damn certain that he's serious."

"Well, I'm not worried. He's got nothing on Claire. He can't build a case around her catalog's appearance on a stupid list."

"Of course not."