Going All Out by Jeanie London Page A

restraint as tenuous as her own.
    “Tonight.” The word tumbled from her lips unbidden.
    “Tonight.” He smiled, a promise. “Sweet dreams, Bree.”
    Funny, she thought when he turned and strode down the steps with long, sure strides, his deep voice still lingering in her ears. Bree knew her dreams tonight would be very sweet.
     
    G ABRIEL SAT ON THE GATE linking his careless descendents’ front lawn with the alley leading to le Vieux Carré. The French Quarter. No matter how much this magnificent city had grown and changed in the centuries since he’d walked the streets in life, certain things remained infinitely more civilized in French.
    He would cling to those things, the only things he had left in this cursed hell of an afterlife.
    His pride, gone. His peace of mind, too.
    Especially as he watched Lucas stroll back into the court trying to look normal. His swagger told a different story. No matter how long he’d been dead, Gabriel hadn’t forgotten what it felt like to walk with his crotch as hard as a mainmast.
    And he was pleased with the progress of Breanne and her lusty new beau. He wasn’t pleased that desire seemed to have addled both their brains. Would that they had taken all their passion upstairs into the bedroom!
    Instead these two had indiscriminately fondled each other, then had gone their separate ways. Now Lucas strolled past the alley, oblivious to the man standing in the shadows of the piazza hedges. An intruder who’d been waiting in those shadows ever since Breanne and Lucas had returned, watching their passionate antics.
    Gabriel’s instincts were one of the few things that had followed him from life into death, an echo perhaps or a memory that he clung to, deluding himself that something of the man he once was remained. He refused to analyze this too closely, didn’t really want to know which it was. Some things he was content to simply let be.
    This intruder in the shadows was not one of them.
    An overgrown wisteria vine shielded him from the light of a street lamp, but he had a crow’s-nest view of the proceedings on Breanne’s front doorstep.
    The intruder seemed very interested and very displeased.
    Which was why Gabriel sat here and waited to see what the fellow did next. With a vested interest in both Breanne’s and Lucas’s continued health at the moment, Gabriel needed to keep lookout. First he had to keep belle grand-mère from starting up her nonsense to keep Breanne from Lucas the way she had tried—and almost succeeded—to keep Tallis and Christien apart. Now this intruder.
    If only Lucas had scooped Breanne into his arms and taken her straight to bed. Gabriel guessed by her vibrant aura that Breanne wouldn’t have resisted, and the sooner they got on with this business, the better for all of them…. Oy, but he had made a muddle on his hands.
    The intruder didn’t attempt to waylay Lucas. He simply watched Lucas disappear inside Number Sixteen, then crossed the lane as if he had every right to be in this court. Pausing by Breanne’s gate, he stared up at her doorway with an expression filled with surprising longing.
    Gabriel exhaled a sigh of relief. Even if this intruder’s actions didn’t cast him in suspicion, his aura confirmed he had more darkness in his soul than light. Auras never lied. Not to the dead, anyway.
    Unfortunately the living only saw outer appearances, and this fellow looked nothing like his aura. Women would surely swoon over his dark good looks and piercing eyes.
    He retrieved a cellular phone from his pocket. Modern developments had transformed New Orleans since Gabriel’s time. He found himself fascinated with some, unimpressed with others.
    Technology impressed him. A lot.
    Scooting along the gate in an effortless motion, he sidled closer to the man to eavesdrop on this conversation.
    “Good, you’re there,” the dark-souled man spoke into the phone, his voice a low whisper. “I need you to get me some information about who lives in