Double Jeopardy by Liliana Hart

Chapter One
     
    New Orleans, 1925
     
    Secrets could never be kept from the
maid.
    Chloe Monroe found this out first hand as she
stood in the darkness of the servant’s stairs behind the master
bedroom wall, a small lantern at her feet. She was no stranger to
the sounds of passion—the soft moans, rustling sheets and whispered
words—she’d been a widow for more than a year, but that didn’t mean
one forgot.
    The folded linens in her arms went forgotten
and her pulse leapt in anticipation. Lucian Deveraux was the master
at Vieux Coeur , an estate his
great-grandfather had built during the early eighteen hundreds.
Chloe had never seen anyone as handsome as Lucien. With his gilded
hair, sinful blue eyes and rakishly good looks, it was no wonder
that women frequently found excuses to visit the house. She’d felt
the same pull of attraction dozens of times, but Lucien was a busy
man who had no time to pay attention to his servants. And that’s
all she was now. A servant. Her days of glamorous parties and a
staff of her own were long over.
    The servant’s stairs ran all through the
estate, from the basement to the third floor. Legend was that the
elder Mr. Deveraux had had dealings with Jean Lafitte himself and
used the passageways to smuggle contraband to the canal. It was
most likely true because she knew for a fact that Lucien used the
same passageways to smuggle bootlegged whiskey out of New
Orleans.
    Shafts of light gleamed into the dark
passageway through wood that was riddled with wormholes, and it
glittered upon the dust dancing in the air. There was a small tear
in the silk wallpaper from the inside of the room and it gave her a
perfect view inside Lucien’s private domain. A faint glow of candle
flame flickered from somewhere and the scent of sex was stronger
than the earthiness of the corridor where she stood. Her eye roamed
lazily around the room, over plush chairs and a low-banked fire, to
the massive four-poster bed that was the focal point of the room.
Crimson sheets pooled over the edge and onto the floor like
blood.
    The muffled sound of a grunt pulled her
attention to the center of the bed. Her eyes widened as she saw
Lucien in naked splendor. His skin was tanned from the time he
spent on his ships, and his torso and thighs were muscled
impressively. A fine feathering of light hair covered his chest,
and the sheen of perspiration matted the hair at his temples. He
knelt behind his lover, his buttocks flexing with each thrust, and
he threw his head back in ecstasy as his rhythm sped to an
impossible tempo.
    But it wasn’t the sight of Lucien that
brought a small gasp to her lips. It was the man who knelt before
him. She’d never seen him before. She would have remembered.
    The man’s swarthy skin and black hair
contrasted against Lucien’s fairness. And he didn’t seem the type
to kneel before anyone. Even now, his head was thrown back in a
defiance that warred with his moans of pleasure.
    Moisture pooled between Chloe’s thighs,
soaking the thin cotton of her bloomers. She watched the man’s
face, the mixture of pleasure and agony, as Lucien’s thrusts became
even more rapid.
    “You love my cock, don’t you?” Lucien asked.
“You can’t be around me without wanting my cock up your ass.”
    “Fuck you,” the dark man answered.
    Lucien’s lover held onto one of the massive
posts at the end of the bed, his legs spread far apart and his
muscles taut. His thick prick stood at attention, almost to his
bellybutton, so hard it looked painful. It was wet with the
beginnings of his come, the tip swollen and ripe like a plum.
Lucien took hold of the man’s hips and each thrust made the bed
creak.
    Chloe let the fresh linens she held fall to
the dusty floor. She’d have to rewash them in her off hours, but
she couldn’t help the sudden need that came over her. She hadn’t
felt a man’s touch in so long, and her fingers had been her only
satisfaction for the last year. She inched the dark gray