Reckless Night

by Lisa Marie Rice

  “Oh yeah.” She kissed him. “Real, actual smiles. Lips upturned and everything. They made you very handsome. I saw the mayor’s wife do a double take.”

  “Now, that’s not possible, dusch—” He stopped, shook his head, corrected himself. “Darling. I’m as ugly as sin now. You saw to that.”

  She hadn’t seen to it so much as overseen it. A brilliant plastic surgeon had altered the major points on his face to avoid being detected by facial recognition software. He had a flatter nose now, a slightly different chin, his stark features a little more ordinary.

  “Absolutely not. You could never be ugly.” The smile that had been lurking broke free. “I’m so glad you had a good time, though you were so very vigilant, always. Were you expecting someone to pull out a gun and start shooting between the sea bream and the lemon sherbet?”

  It wouldn’t have surprised her husband if someone had. That much she knew. He was ready for anything. A hint of unexpected violence and her husband would react instantly.

  He shrugged. “Actually, the dinner party was delightfully gunshot-free. And everyone had a good time.”

  He still seemed a little surprised at that. Grace knew that there had been almost no social events in his previous life. Any dinners with other people had been business, mainly with criminals and outlaws, and then only when his business partners insisted. Drake said he hated negotiating at the table. He’d had dinner with his lovers, but that was different.

  He’d been extremely open with her about his copious sex life before meeting her, just as he’d made it abundantly clear that that part of his life was forever over.

  “Of course they had a good time. You’re a fascinating man and—”

  “No, darling.” He kissed her forehead, looking much more sure of himself now. “They had a good time because you created such an elegant setting, the food was fabulous, and you are a charming hostess. You put everyone at ease. A wild boar would relax at a dinner party you’d organized.”

  Grace smiled. It was true—to her astonishment. Being able to put people at ease was this strange new ability that had just… materialized.

  She’d spent her entire life feeling completely estranged from everyone—an alien in human skin. A struggling artist in a world that cares nothing for art, incapable of playing the games other New Yorkers found so integral to their lives.

  Somehow, Drake had changed all that. He loved her as a woman and an artist, loved her exactly as she was, and it was as if his love had shattered iron shackles, setting her free. She found it easy to relate to people now, even though she and Drake led very private lives.

  “We didn’t have wild boars,” she chided gently.

  Though judging by his wariness that first hour, there might as well have been. Drake had been stiff and formal, and the whites of his eyes had shown. He’d all but rolled them in his head like a pony’s sighting a rattlesnake. Then he’d settled down. Had actually disappeared with his chief pilot for half an hour. She’d suspected them of smoking a cigar but they passed the sniff test.

  She stroked his shoulder. “We had perfectly nice people over for dinner with no agenda other than to have a good time. And—” she dropped the little bomblet casually, “become friends with us. With you.”

  Her husband was the most controlled of men. If she hadn’t had her hands actually on his shoulder, she wouldn’t have noticed the little jolt at the word friends. The notion of having friends was still something that rocked his world.

  She nuzzled his neck, never tiring of the feel of him.

  They’d met in violence and tragedy. He’d killed four men under her eyes before she knew his name. But from the first moment, he’d thrown a mantle of protection over her. Though he looked frightening and wasfrightening, he’d never frightened her. Not for a second.

  She would never tell him and was ashamed to admit it, even to herself, but she’d fallen in love with him the instant she’d seen him. She’d been taken at gunpoint to the alleyway outside a gallery showing her paintings and had seen a powerful man, not tall but immensely broad. He was facing three armed thugs and he hadn’t looked frightened at all.

  He’d looked dangerous.

  And she’d fallen.

  But that was another time and another continent and another life. She shivered, as if to shake the memories off.

  Her husband was uncannily perceptive. “What’s the matter, my love?” he asked gently.

  Grace didn’t answer, but turned the question around. “What were you and Mike doing when you were gone so long? Were you smoking cigars? That’s what I suspected but you didn’t smell of cigar smoke. Were you smoking?”

  She fisted her hands on her hips and tried to look ferocious.

  Her amazing husband, the strongest man she’d ever seen, a man who could never be bested in combat, a man who could outshoot any sniper, threw up his hands in mock terror.

  “Never!” He gave an exaggerated shiver. “Would I risk your wrath? I tremble at your feet. You barely let me eat meat. God only knows what the punishment would be for smoking a cigar!”

  Grace narrowed her eyes. “If I caught you smoking a cigar, my revenge would be swift and merciless.”

  “Voilà!” he cried. His dark eyes gleamed. “Behold an obedient, completely smoke-free husband!”

  She laughed. Getting him to eat a healthy diet was an ongoing struggle. In New York he’d lived like the Sun King and had eaten like the Sun King, too. He’d had a rotating staff of top chefs on the floor below his penthouse and they sent up elaborate four-star meals three times a day that were the equivalent of mainlining cholesterol.

  Now she fed him fish and fruits and vegetables and he grumbled about having to obey the food police, but she knew he was feeling better.

  “So, don’t change the subject. Where did you two go off to?”

  This time the smile was sly. “Ah, my darling. I went off to arrange… your Christmas present.”

  Grace’s eyes rolled as she stifled a sigh. The eternal question. What could he give her? He asked her that a thousand times a day, and at each birthday, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, he visibly suffered.

  What could he give her?

  Nothing.

  She had everything she could possibly desire. A husband who loved her and whose love was made visible and tangible every second of every day. A beautiful home on a tropical island. Time and space to paint.

  What else could she possibly want or need?

  Certainly not the expensive baubles he kept trying to give her.

  “Not another diamond?” she asked suspiciously. The last one was so big it weighed down her hand and nearly blinded her whenever they were in sunshine, which was every day in Sivuatu. After a week, it went back into its box and into a wall safe that held about a hundred of its kin.

  He laughed. “You are perhaps the only woman in the world who doesn’t want diamonds, my beloved. Actively dislikes them.”

  “I don’t dislikethem,” Grace murmured.

  Diamonds were rocks. Big, shiny rocks whose only purpose was to attract a huge amount of attention. A woman draped in expensive jewelry was the object of envy, sometimes hatred. The opposite of what they needed. To save their lives, they needed to fly under everyone’s radar.

  Drake realized in theory but not in practice that ordinariness was a protective cloak around them, one she tried to pull over them at every opportunity.

  Being ordinary protected them. In New York, Drake had lived large, albeit away from prying eyes, but with an outrageous degree of luxury. And all the tight security in the world, the armed guards and bulletproof windows hadn’t been enough to save him because his enemies knew he was there.

  They’d gone to a great deal of trouble and effort to convince his enemies that he was dead. So why attract attention with an outrageously fancy home, high living, jewels, and super expensive designer clothes?

  It was insane, suicidal.

  “Diamonds attract attention, and we don’t want that, my love.” Sh
e twined her arms around his neck and kissed him just below the ear, a spot she knew from experience would make him shudder.

  Ah, yes.

  “I don’t need diamonds,” she whispered in his ear. “I need you.”

  He had his arm around her waist, holding her tightly to him and she felt him rise urgently against her stomach.

  To her surprise, instead of taking her down to the ground, or over to the sofa, he stepped away with a secretive smile.

  “So. All right.” His voice had that slight guttural tone of arousal and she could seehow sexually excited he was. Nonetheless, he kept himself out of arm’s reach and handed her three sheets of paper. “Here’s your Christmas present, two days early.”

  Puzzled, she took the sheets, reading carefully, not understanding until—all of a sudden—she understood.

  Her eyes widened as she lifted them to her husband in shock. He was smiling. “Are these—” she held up the sheets of perfectly ordinary photocopy paper. “Are these for real? For—for us?”

  “Oh yes,” he answered softly. “In another name, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  They’d had several identities since their “death,” and continued to have them. For example, she ordered hard copy books from Amazon to be delivered to Australia, then flown in to their island by her husband’s airline under one fictitious name and credit card, and ebooks set up on her Kindle account under another fictitious name and fictitious credit card.

  “These are—” All of a sudden her hands shook, the paper rattling. “These are tickets to Aidaat the Sydney Opera House, to a showing of Phantom of the Operaand to a showing of Cirque du Soleil,” she whispered. “All in Sydney.”

  “They are all right?” Drake asked suddenly with a frown. “On the website it said that there were live elephants onstage at the Aida. I don’t know what that means. Who wants live elephants on a stage? Imagine if they have a bowel movement? And the other shows—apparently they are very popular. These are things you would like to see?”

  “Very much,” she assured him softly.

  “And there is a show of 100 Picassos at the Museum of Sydney. I know you’ll like that.”

  Grace was as tempted as she had ever been in her life. Diamonds didn’t tempt her, not in any way, but this. An opera, two shows. Picassos. Her voice trembled as much as her hands as she put the printouts of the ticket reservations down, trying to conceal her sadness.

  “My love, I can’t accept these. I won’t endanger us. It’s not worth it.”

  They had to stay on this island forever. Drake had made that clear when they escaped the assassination attempt and made their way here to Sivuatu.

  He bought the airline company flying into and out of the island and the three shipping companies whose ships docked here. He knew everyone who came to the island and surreptitiously recorded their faces. He had his finger on the pulse of the island, no question.

  This island was safe.

  He was shaking his head. “How can you imagine, my dusch—my darling, that I wouldn’t think this through? I never operated in Oceania, never. I never even operated in southeast Asia. I cannot imagine any of my old enemies in Australia. We will fly over under assumed names on SivAir’s executive jet. I have arranged for us to rent a private apartment in downtown Sydney so we won’t need to check into a hotel. Australia has very few CCTVs on its city streets, much fewer than, say, London or Paris or New York. When we are outside, we will wear big straw hats and sunglasses. For the shows, I bought us box seats and bought all the other tickets in the box.”

  She laughed. “Of course you did.”

  A faint tendril of hope made its way to her heart.

  “And while making the arrangements, I had no pickle. No pickle at all.”

  “Pickle?”

  “Pickle of danger.”

  She forced herself not to smile, ruthlessly beat down the laugh. “No… pickle of danger?” The laugh lay treacherously in wait in her throat. She had a sudden image of him in one of his martial arts stances, brandishing… a pickle.

  “Not one,” he said seriously. “I have a finely honed sense of danger, perfected over a lifetime, and I am feeling nothing at the thought of us going to Sydney for three days.”

  She blinked at him, hardly daring to hope that this would happen.

  “So.” He picked up the show and opera tickets and handed them back to her. She took them with shaking hands. “Do you honestly feel I would endanger us? That I wouldn’t plan this carefully?”

  “I don’t know.” She searched his eyes. “I don’t know how far you’d go to please me. It frightens me because it’s not necessary. You keep harping on wanting to get me nice presents, simply because I make a few things for you by hand.”

  “You make me masterpieces. Priceless works of art. But much as I love to please you, you don’t think I would endanger you needlessly, do you?”

  Put that way… “No.”

  “So.” It was his favorite word. He had the faintest traces of an accent. He’d grown up an orphan on the streets of Odessa. In his previous incarnation as the head of a huge crime syndicate, he spoke five languages perfectly and another five well enough to negotiate. His English was nearly perfect and the slight accent bothered no one in Sivuatu as they expected a Maltese man to have an accent.

  But she found it so sexy when he said “so.” Drawing the word out. Zooo.

  “So. We are going. We will spend Christmas among the throngs in Sydney, seeing shows and Picassos and, God help me, an opera.” This last said with a painful wince and she laughed. “Are you happy?”

  He’d done this for her. How could she not be happy?

  “Oh yes. Incredibly, wildly happy.” She was studying the tickets, imagining Aidaand the Cirque. And the Phantom! All those years in New York and stupidly, she’d never gone, though she loved the CD and knew the songs by heart. She stared at the white mask with the red rose logo.

  “And are you grateful?”

  “Oh yes,” she answered dreamily, thinking of the three days ahead of them.

  “ Howgrateful?” She looked up in surprise at the suddenly harsh, hoarse tone.

  And blushed.

  They had a fabulous sex life. Drake was an attentive, tender lover who took his time in pleasing her. But every once in a while something in him changed and she caught a glimpse of the truly dangerous man he really was. She hadn’t tamed him, not one bit. He just chose to show her a tender side he said he’d only discovered with her.

  But sometimes the tiger in him growled and clawed its way to the surface. And then the sex was incandescent.

  His entire body was tense, tendons standing out on his strong neck, huge hands flexed. Those dark brown eyes glowed as if there were a power source inside him that had suddenly roared to life. As she watched, a huge shudder went through him. “I said—how grateful?”

  Watching his transformation was amazing but even more amazing was what happened to her in those moments.

  Something—something animalin her awoke, too.

  A flush of extreme heat washed over her, head to toes, the heat fizzing under her skin, glowing between her thighs. She could barely breathe, barely form the words.

  “Very.” Her throat was tight, almost closed. Speaking was hard because speaking wasn’t what she wanted to do. “Very grateful.”

  They weren’t touching but it was as if a red-hot flaming rod connected them. She could see his arousal even without looking down at his groin. It was in his face, the flush over those high cheekbones with a hint of Tartar blood, the tight mouth, flared nostrils.

  And he could see hers, too. She had very pale skin that showed most emotions. Now it would be flushed. Sweat broke out on her back, a drop curled between her breasts.

  “Show me,” he whispered darkly. “Show me how grateful you are.”

  “Okay,” she whispered back.

  Driven by something entirely beyond her control, Grace took her clothes off. Slowly. Not because she wanted to
entice him with some kind of striptease—when he was like this, he needed no enticement—but because her hands shook and her knees felt so weak they could hardly keep her upright. She had to move slowly or she’d fall down in a puddle of heat.

  Or blow up.

  Thick bands of steel encircled her chest, making it hard to breathe. Spots swam in front of her eyes.

  With trembling hands, she reached to the side. Her dress was held at the waist with a small sash anchored by a bow. She undid it and the two panels fell open. Underneath was a strapless bra and panties. She did indulge in expensive underwear, because it couldn’t be seen and because it turned on her husband.

  He was massively turned on now. She could almost see the waves of arousal coming off him like smoke. He nearly vibrated with desire.

  “Off. Dress.”

  Now she knew how aroused he was because he was losing his faculty of speech. And syntax.

  Slowly, she pulled the emerald green linen sheath off her shoulders, letting the dress fall to the floor.

  His eyes flared and he waved his hand impatiently at her.

  Deep breath. His big hand had all but sent waves of heat her way, hitting her groin like bolts of fire.

  She reached behind her, unsnapped her bra. The light silk fluttered to the floor. At any other moment, she’d have admired the pale green silk on the dark emerald green linen, but her brain was too blasted to notice aesthetic niceties. All she felt was heat turning her bones liquid.

  “Panties,” he said, his voice guttural. His dark eyes studied every aspect of her body so intensely it was as if he were touching her instead of watching her.

  Panties. Oh God. Taking off her panties was going to require balance and her legs could barely hold her. She gripped the edge of the chest of drawers with one hand, while pulling down her panties with the other. They, too, fluttered softly down to land around her ankles.

  “Off.”

  Still gripping the corner of the chest of drawers, she lifted one sandaled foot, then the other. While he watched, one foot nudged the soft silk panties over to the pile of clothes.

  She was naked and about ready to fall over.