Five hours later when Rolley strolled into the gallery, carrying a box of beignets with the Café Du Monde logo on the side, Billie had never been happier to see him in her life. Not because he carried her favorite treats, but because she needed to escape before she lost her mind. Not thinking about Travis, his kiss or the fact that he was inside and would be more than willing to pick up where they’d left off had been torture. And impossible.
She’d labored through the afternoon, struggling to do the thing she normally did best—chat with tourists about the pieces in her gallery and the magic of New Orleans—because all she could think about was having Travis’s lips on hers again. And other parts of her body also. What kind of person did that make her? She had friends who waxed lyrical about their love of makeup sex, one of her old colleagues had admitted to frequently picking fights with her husband so they could have the kind of sex that only happened after a heated argument, but Billie had never been able to understand. When she made love, she wanted it to be just that, so why all of a sudden could she not stop thinking about what it might be like to fuck the brains out of Travis Sinclair? A man she barely knew and didn’t even like.
“Rolley!” He almost dropped the pastry box as she launched herself at him and hugged him like she’d never done before.
“Billie?” When she let him go, he looked at her like she was high on drugs. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Sorry, long day and I’m starving.” She eyed the box of beignets—not that she thought she could stomach even half of one in her agitated state—and pretended that was the reason for her overly effusive hug. Normally she was careful not to lead Rolley on, but tonight his feelings for her had slipped her mind as it was far too full of other stuff.
He beamed, his grin stretching from ear to ear as he pulled back the lid on the box. “They’re all yours.”
“You’re going to make me fat.”
“Impossible. But even if you were, you’d still be gorgeous.”
Billie ignored his compliment and took a beignet but didn’t put it into her mouth. “Are you sure you’ll be okay here tonight? I still have a houseguest.”
“The biker?” Rolley rolled his eyes. “I’ll be fine. As long as he doesn’t start intimidating the customers, I won’t have to rough him up.”
Billie smiled, thinking about how Rolley couldn’t even bring himself to kill an insect. He was one of the good guys, and it would be so much better if her body had chosen him for its sudden obsession. “Call me if there are any issues.”
“There won’t be.” He took a beignet out of the box and put the rest down on her desk. “You have a good night.”
“Thanks.” She started down the alley toward the entrance and then realized she didn’t have her bag, her ghost tour T-shirt or name badge. Dammit, she’d hoped to escape without another run-in with Travis. Taking a deep breath, she went back past Rolley, pretending to take a bite of the beignet, and then snuck into her house. She felt like some kind of cat burglar as she crept through the kitchen and tiptoed down the corridor to her bedroom, cringing when one of the ancient floorboards creaked under her feet.
Despite her best intentions, she glanced into Travis’s room and then breathed a sigh of relief as she saw him passed out on the bed. This time she wouldn’t make the mistake of going any closer.
—
Travis woke to the sound of the sliding door closing and the scent of strawberries lingering in the air. Where the fuck was he? He sat up in bed, feeling as if he’d been dozing for days, and looked around the room. Within seconds everything came flooding back: the fact that he was back in NOLA, once again mired in the MC and shacked up with a pretty little artist bitch who wanted to hate him but had melted beneath his touch.
He inhaled deeply, guessing Billie was responsible for the sweet aroma. His stomach grumbled, but it wasn’t food he was hungry for. He rolled out of bed, tugged on his jeans and a shirt and then decided to head out into the gallery for a little fix, but when he emerged he was disappointed. The only person in the gallery was the dark-haired hippie, doing something with pliers and cutlery. So he was responsible for the little figures made of spoons and forks that people apparently handed over their hard-earned cash for.
Travis glared at him. “Where’s Billie?”
The guy with the pathetic name glared right back. “She’s out. Working.”
“I thought she worked here?”
Rolley shrugged. “Maybe she does something else as well.”
Travis’s fists clenched at his sides, not liking where his mind went when it thought of what exactly Billie’s other employment might be. Was she stripping in some seedy club? Serving drinks topless? “What exactly does she do?”
“What’s it to you?” Rolley snapped. Travis noticed his grip tighten on the pliers as if he thought he could use them as a weapon.
Hah! It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. If Travis wanted, he could make Rolley talk, but he no longer used his fists to get things done. Besides, it was true. Billie meant nothing to him. He shrugged. “Just curious.” And then he noticed the Café Du Monde box on the desk where Rolley was working. Without asking, he leaned over and helped himself.
“Hey, they’re for Billie!” Rolley snatched the box and held it against his chest as Travis sank his teeth into the first beignet he’d had in a very long while.
He didn’t have much of a sweet tooth, but damn, he’d forgotten how good these things were. No wonder people trekked from all over the world to taste them. He popped the rest of the fried dough into his mouth, thinking about how much better it would be hot, and strode out of the gallery without another word to Rolley.
Although it wasn’t quite seven o’clock, The Priory was already abuzz with people and loud music, but Travis wasn’t in the mood for another run-in with Ajax and/or Leon. He could go ask Sophie if she’d made that list yet and then start working his way through it, but something had him heading in the direction of the Hotel Monteleone instead. Micah had been keeping a low profile over the last week, appearing only when Ajax absolutely demanded it, but Travis saw no reason why he should get away with this. They both wanted out and with their two heads working together, they might uncover answers faster.
He strode down the middle of the street—because that’s what you did in the French Quarter—dodging the already tipsy tourists exclaiming over the sights, the people as much as the actual buildings. Old homeless women on bikes proclaiming the message of the Lord; people shouting down from balconies asking women below to flash their tits for tacky, plastic beads; so-called musicians set up in the middle of the road busking; horses and carts giving those who didn’t want to step in vomit a more refined tour of the Quarter; scary-looking guys holding signs saying BIG ASS BEERS, and a tour group sipping cheap Hurricane cocktails out of large plastic tumblers while they listened to some woman tell them this was one of the most haunted cities in the world. He couldn’t believe people actually paid to listen to that crap or believed the bullshit stories fed to them by the tour guides.
“It’s great to have y’all here tonight.”
Travis stopped in his tracks, almost stumbling on a crack in the road as he heard the Aussie voice at the front of the crowd, attempting a bit of the local lingo. He’d know that voice anywhere. Pushing past a couple of guys who were sipping girly drinks, he almost tripped again at the sight of his tenant in dark skinny jeans and a fitted polo shirt with some kind of logo on her breast pocket.
Ghost tours were her other job? He supposed it beat some of the other alternatives.
Billie tossed her wide smile at the group. “I’m so excited to share with you some of the awesomely spooky history of New Orleans. There’s three hundred years of pirate, voodoo and zombie history right here; it’s a magical place and almost every building has some kind of haunting or ghost-sighting story to tell. Unfortunately we’ve only got an hour tonight, but I’m going to do my best to show you as many haunted sites as possible. But please”—she lowered her voice to a theatrical stage whisper, a streetlamp flickering behind her adding to the eerie effect—“be careful. This city has one of the highest rates of missing persons in the world, so be sure to watch each other’s backs.”