Blade scowled and shook his head in disgust. “Look at what you’ve become,” he spat. “Too high and mighty to even wear your cut. Lucky thing Priest is dead. It would kill him to see what’s become of you losers.”

Travis raised one eyebrow, his jaw twitching at the way Blade dared mention Priest. “You know anything about that?”

“About what?” Blade asked, shrugging one shoulder.

One of his sidekicks smirked. “Fucking terrible accident, wasn’t it?”

Blade nodded, a shadow of a smile on his lips. “That’s what I heard.”

Despite his own feelings about Priest, Travis didn’t take kindly to any Ministry talking this way. He felt anger building inside him, his control slipping away. “It better have been,” he growled, looking from one man to the next, scrutinizing their eyes for any flickers of guilt. Not that they’d probably feel guilty even if they had done away with Priest.

All five men maintained their hard stares, but that wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

“You’re not threatening me, are you?” Blade chuckled as if Travis were delusional, and Travis wondered if perhaps he’d gone too far when there was no one around to watch his back, but Blade knew all the right buttons to push. He’d love him to strike out, love him to lose hold on his tightly wound self-control, but then Blade would be winning a war Travis didn’t want to fight.

“ ’Course not,” he ground out, using every iota of restraint he had to stop from saying what he really felt. “Just making conversation.”

Blade snorted. “You really have changed. Come on, brothers, let’s leave Cash to his date. ’Night, sweetheart.” He looked past Travis to Billie and tipped his head. “Although if you need a real man, I’d be happy to oblige.”

Travis counted to five in his head as Blade and his fucking entourage walked off to order take-out at the counter. It would not do him or Billie any good if he let his anger get the better of him.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, finally turning around to face Billie.

“About what?” Her face was pale as she looked right into his eyes. “About those guys or about kissing me?”

He swallowed as her question reverberated around his head. Perhaps he should be sorry for kissing her, because in doing so he’d put her on the Ministry’s radar, but he couldn’t bring himself to lie. “About our uninvited guests.”

She licked her lips and met his gaze. “You’re not responsible for other people’s actions.”

Her soft lips and the blatant desire in her eyes turned him inside out. Right now he wanted to do a lot more than simply kiss her—the safest way to rid himself of all this pent-up anger was through sex, and she was here, looking all hot and fuckable.

But first he wanted to take her as far away from his archenemies as he could get.

“Let’s get out of here.” He bent down and grabbed Baxter’s leash—the little pup was a pathetic guard dog—and then took Billie’s hand with his free one as he stalked out of the café and onto the street. He glanced behind him, making sure the Ministry guys weren’t following, and then dug his cell out of his pocket. The last thing he wanted to do was call for backup, but he couldn’t risk Billie’s safety. She wasn’t part of this world.

“Blue?” he said, when Leon answered the phone after a few rings. The loud classic rock music of The Priory blared in the background. “I need your help.” He knew that even though they’d been apart for ten years, even though half the time now they acted more like enemies than friends, his brothers would come if he asked. He quickly filled Leon in on the situation, asking him not to tell Ajax, and then shut off the phone and shoved it in his pocket.

He and Billie started walking back up St. Ann Street, still hand in hand, neither of them saying a word. Travis told himself he was holding Billie’s hand to keep her safe, but truthfully he liked it. Within a few minutes a Harley roared up beside them. Baxter got all feisty, tugging at his leash and barking at Leon as he leaned back on the idling bike and gave Billie the once-over.

“Let me get this straight,” Leon said, clearly finding this amusing. “You were in Café Du Monde in the middle of the fucking night with a beautiful woman and the Ministry turned up?”

Travis bristled. “Don’t say another word. Just watch our backs, got it?”

He knew what Leon was thinking—what the hell was he doing out and about when he could have had Billie in his bed? It was a good fucking question. Being back in New Orleans, this whole damn mess with Priest was fucking with his head.

Leon revved the bike. “After you.”

Realizing he was still holding Billie’s hand and imagining exactly what Leon would think of that, Travis reluctantly let her go and continued on. Baxter had a death wish and kept trying to throw himself in front of the bike, so Travis scooped him up and shoved him under his arm, grateful to have the dog to focus on.

They walked quickly, neither of them saying a word as they continued down St. Ann and then turned onto Bourbon Street, Leon always only a block or so away. The crowds were finally thinning, those still on the streets staggering along the sidewalk as if trying to remember where they were staying.

“We’ll be okay from here,” Travis told Leon as they arrived in front of The Priory. “Thanks.”

Leon merely nodded and then revved his bike again as he drove around the back of the building to park it. Travis lowered Baxter onto the pavement as they continued on to the gallery. The little dog stopped and lifted his leg over a pile of vomit, but Travis ignored it, wondering what the hell would happen now.

He knew what he wanted to happen. What he needed to happen. He wanted to haul Billie into his arms and use her body to help him forget his run-in with the Ministry, to forget why he was here in New Orleans and why he couldn’t just leave. Not yet. To help him expel some of the tension from his body. He wanted to rip off her jeans and lick her pussy until she begged him to take her over that damn piano. His mouth watered, his cock hardened.

He could practically taste her on his tongue, but didn’t she deserve better than him? Someone who could offer her a pretty future, not just a few fucking-amazing hours between the sheets? While Travis deliberated more than he ever had in his life about a woman, Billie got out her key and unlocked the gate into the gallery. It squeaked as she opened it. Baxter shot inside, no doubt to wash his dirty mouth in the fountain like Travis had seen him do a couple of times already.

“You coming?” she asked, her eyes wide open as she looked back at him still lingering on the sidewalk.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and swallowed. She looked so damn lovely standing there in the doorway, the few security lights of the gallery flickering behind her. There was just something special about her. She was so different from the women he usually used to scratch his itch, yet it was obvious what she was offering him and every red blood cell in his body wanted part of that.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said, unable to believe his own ears.

She frowned slightly, and then sighed. “That’s a pity, because I was hoping you might kiss me again.”

“Jesus.” He groaned, her sweetly suggestive words making his cock physically ache. “Billie, I’m not a good person to get entangled with. Wasn’t tonight evidence enough of that?” He thought of what it would do to him if the Ministry so much as came near her again. “There’s shit going down, and it’s better you stay away from me.”

Most women listened to him, but Billie didn’t heed his warning. Instead, she took a couple of steps, closing the distance between them and joining him once again on the sidewalk. She stood right in front of him, so close he could smell her intoxicating strawberry shampoo or whatever the hell it was, and looked up into his eyes. “Travis, let me be the judge of what’s good for me.”