And that wasn’t enough for John. He wanted more. He wanted her faith, her trust, her acceptance.
Too tired mentally to work any longer, he returned the pad to its place underneath the phone book and headed outside. He had just settled down, sprawled in one of the weathered wood chairs at the end of the patio, staring morosely into the heavily leafed branches overhead, when the sound of a finely tuned engine broke the silence. There was no way Teryl’s little economy car could purr like that and no reason for her to be returning home from work more than an hour early. D.J. Howell’s car, however, sounded exactly like that. He hoped he was wrong, but the uneasy knot in his stomach suggested that he wasn’t.
He wasn’t. The car that came around the curve in the driveway was black, shiny enough to gleam, and powerful enough to roar. If he owned it, he would tint the windows, would add an air of mystery to it, but he knew why D.J. hadn’t. Tinted windows wouldn’t show her to her best advantage, and she cared tremendously about her best advantage.
He wondered why she had come when she must know Teryl was at work. Did she want to question him about his involvement with her best friend? Did she want to find out his intentions, to look out for Teryl’s best interests? Or did she have something a little more self-serving in mind? Seduction, perhaps, or the offer of a playmate for the rough games she was into and believed that he was, too?
Climbing out of her car, she spotted him right away and walked toward him with enviable grace. For all the polish and elegance of her movements, though, there was nothing about her that spoke of class. The wild look of her hair was overdone, her dress was too short and clung too tightly, her heels were too high, her moves too practiced. She looked like exactly what she was: a breathtakingly beautiful, exotic, erotic whore.
She didn’t stop until she was right in front of him. Only his legs, stretched out straight, prevented her from coming even closer. “Don’t you look comfortable,” she said in her throatiest, most seductive voice. Just the sound of it, he imagined, was enough to make most men thankful they were males.
He didn’t respond to her greeting. He simply remained as he was, slouched down, spine rounded, hands folded across his belly, and watched her.
“My sister’s not here, is she?”
“Your sister?”
“Teryl,” she said drily.
“Teryl says you’re not really her sister, just a foster sister.” His tone was mild to bring such a dangerous glint to her eyes. Obviously, being thought of as a real sister—as a real member of the Weaver family—was important to D.J.… but not important enough to keep her away when she knew damned well her foster sister wasn’t home.
“Teryl teases.” Her voice was cool, her body stiff, her annoyance poorly hidden.
“What’s to tease about? Either you’re a Weaver… or you’re not.”
“And either you’re a bastard or you’re not. I’d vote for the former.” She shifted her weight from side to side, a sensuously natural movement that drew his gaze lower. Her dress was so short that it retained any measure of modesty only by virtue of its tightness. Every single man-made fiber was stretched so tautly across her body that the sheer tension kept it from riding up. It was appropriate, he supposed, for a night on the town in the trendy sort of clubs D.J. probably preferred, but he couldn’t think of many other places it would belong. It certainly didn’t strike him as appropriate for a visit to your best friend’s supposed lover… unless you were looking to get laid.
He nearly smiled at that. He would bet his next royalty check that Debra Jane Howell was always looking to get laid.
It was an option, he admitted, the moment of humor disappearing. With even the slightest encouragement, D.J. would be stripped down bare in a matter of seconds. Living in a perpetual state of unsatisfied desire as he was, with any encouragement at all, he would be hard and throbbing in even less time. In the hour or so before Teryl returned home from work, they could get down to some serious business. He could work off a hell of a load of sexual frustration and maybe lose a little of this obsession over making love to Teryl.
Less than an hour. That was all it would take to turn his life into sheer hell. He would destroy whatever chances he might ever have with Teryl. He would feel too damned guilty ever to look her in the eye, would be too damned scared of what D.J. would tell her to ever let his guard down. Hell, he would probably be too damned busy fulfilling D.J.’s blackmail demands to even spend any time with Teryl—and he had no doubts whatsoever that D.J. was the sort of woman who would blackmail a man. She would have him by the balls, and she would never let him go.
“You don’t like me much, do you, John?” Stepping over his feet, she approached him from the side, not stopping until the broad arm of the chair blocked her way.
“Not much,” he agreed, forcing himself to remain still, not to surge to his feet and put a safe distance between them. A thousand miles or so sounded about right.
“That’s all right. We don’t need to like each other to get along.”
“We don’t need to get along,” he disagreed. “We don’t need to ever see each other again.”
She draped herself over the chair arm, a sexy sort of settling in. He knew it was calculated, every movement studied and planned, but knowing the effect was deliberate didn’t stop him from feeling exactly the response she wanted to provoke. It didn’t stop him from thinking, even if only for an instant, how easy it would be to pull her down across his lap, to peel up that silly excuse for a dress, to open his jeans and slide right inside her. It didn’t stop him from wondering, since he had no real chance of ever developing anything permanent with Teryl, if it wouldn’t be all right to blow it now and at least get something for his troubles. It didn’t stop him from getting just a little bit hard.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she practically purred. “We’re both a part of Teryl’s life. Of course we’ll need to see each other.”
Forcing himself to control the almost-desperate need to escape, he got to his feet without touching her and retreated a half dozen feet to lean against the nearest tree trunk. He felt a tremendous sense of relief with the distance that now separated them. “Explain that to me, D.J. I’m here because I like Teryl, and you’re here because… ?”
That nasty glint reappeared in her eyes. “Because she’s my best friend,” she said icily.
He forced a laugh. “Right. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t one of the prerequisites for best friendship actually liking the person whose friendship you’re claiming? You like Teryl even less than you like me.”
For a moment she simply stared at him, the vaguely surprised look in her eyes confirming what he’d said. Then, abruptly, the surprise disappeared, and she smiled coolly. “You’re right. I don’t like you at all. I think you’re taking advantage of Teryl’s kind nature. I think you’re using her. I think you’re abusing her. I think you’re seducing her into things she would never ordinarily do, things that she’s ashamed of, things that she’ll have to cope with by herself once you’ve gotten bored and moved on to some other innocent fool. I think you’re playing games with her, games that she doesn’t know how to play.”
Now it was his turn to feel surprised. Although, with her focus naturally on the sexual aspect, she had the details all wrong, overall, her guesses were accurate. He was using Teryl, forcing her to do things that shamed her, things like cooperating with him, going through her boss’s files, and lying to the people who cared about her. “But you know how to play the games, don’t you?”
“Every one of them.”
“And you’re willing to play them with me—to save Teryl’s pride, of course.”
Her only response was a faint smile.
“I never would have pegged you for such a generous woman.”
Her smile thinned; then, brushing off the insult, she rose from the chair and took a few lazy steps toward him. “I am a generous woman, John. I’ll play your games. I’ll let you do whatever you want—domination, submission, discipline.
I enjoy it all. And to show you just how generous I am, I’ll promise you that Teryl will never know.”
“And I’m supposed to simply accept your word.”
Her look this time was sly, sexy, and full of promise. “I’m good at keeping secrets, especially from Teryl. I’ve been keeping secrets from and about her since we were kids. This? This is nothing. In all the times it’s happened before, she’s never suspected a thing.”
“All the times?” he repeated. “You make a habit of sleeping with Teryl’s lovers?”
Her gaze was steady on his. “Every one of them.”
John took a moment to process that information. This was no simple case of sibling rivalry. Bitterness and resentment must run as deep in D.J. as affection and caring did in Teryl. Did Teryl have any idea how little D.J. actually liked her? Did she feel any of those negative emotions seething behind her foster sister’s bright smiles and phony concern? Probably not. While she had acknowledged that D.J. had a few problems, Teryl loved her dearly. She didn’t see D.J.’s jealousy. She didn’t recognize D.J.’s deceit, her manipulation, her betrayal.
He moved away from the tree and came closer to her. When he was close enough to feel her, to smell her, to damned near crawl inside her, he stopped, gazing down at her, his eyes intense, his mouth thin and hard, his derision palpable in the heavy afternoon air. “Not in this lifetime,” he said, the soft huskiness of his voice unable to disguise one bit of the steel underneath. “Not if you were the last woman on earth.”
Disappointment crossed her face, followed by disbelief and anger, hot and ugly. She raised her hand to deliver a stinging blow to his cheek, but he caught her wrist before she made contact. “You bastard.”
“Run along now,” he advised, using his grip on her to force her a few steps back, “and maybe I won’t tell Teryl how her best friend betrayed her today and how often she’s done it in the past.”
Yanking free, she rubbed the slight pain in her wrist. “She would never believe you.”
For the first time since she’d arrived, he smiled. It was filled with malice and taunting and felt damned good. “You think so? When I’m in bed with her? When I’m inside her, doing things to her that have never been done before? When I’m teaching her things she never realized she was dying to know, when I’m making her writhe with need, when I’m giving her pleasure like no other man she’s ever known, do you honestly think Teryl won’t believe anything I choose to tell her?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. He could read it in her scowl, in the hatred that darkened her eyes and the underlying shadow of fear.
“You can’t afford to lose her, D.J. You need her far more than she needs you. So stay the hell away from me, and don’t try to cause trouble, because, in the end…” His voice dropped a few levels, became low, soft, and threatening. “You’ll be the one to suffer.”
For a long moment she simply stood there, staring at him. He could see the thoughts running through her head, could see the subtle shift of emotions. Anger gave way to speculation; hatred slid easily into faintly amused satisfaction. He wished he knew what she was thinking, wished he knew what it would take to move her from rage to amusement in a few quiet moments, while at the same time he didn’t want to know. No doubt it was something perverse, something hurtful and sick. That was all he needed to know.
She offered him a smile, nothing seductive or sensual, just a cool acknowledgment one to another. “Okay. If you want to belong to Teryl exclusively right now, I have no problems with that. But don’t underestimate me, John. Don’t underestimate my influence on her. I’ve been a part of her life—the closest part of her life—for twenty-one years. I know her in ways you never can. I can control her in ways you’ll never manage. Don’t make me turn her against you just to prove it.”
The quiet words sent a chill down his spine, but he hid it well. “You could give it your best shot,” he said with a careless shrug as he started toward the house. “But don’t count on succeeding.”
D.J. watched him as he let himself into the house. Once the door closed behind him, it was impossible, of course, to tell where he’d gone, but she would bet upstairs. She had no sensation of being watched through the sheer curtains on the French doors, and John-boy’s blue gaze was so intense that she imagined she would always know when he was around.
Jeez, she hadn’t had to work so hard to get any man besides Rich into bed in longer than she could remember. Even Paul Robertson—Rebecca’s ex and, according to Teryl, one of the sweetest and most devoted men a woman could ever hope to meet—had been easier than this. He had been too naïve to recognize that she wanted an affair with him until the day he’d come home from work and found her waiting, naked and willing, in his bed. He had protested, of course—weakly—but by the time she’d gotten his pants open and started to blow him, words like no and stop had ceased to exist within his vocabulary.
John obviously still had command of all those words. For a moment, when she had sat down on the chair arm, she had thought he might falter. She had thought that, any time now, he would draw her close for a kiss, would pull her dress up and take her right there or maybe invite her inside. She would have liked that—doing it in Teryl’s house, maybe even in Teryl’s bed.
She would have loved it.
And hated it.
And gotten off on it like never before.
But the moment had passed, though not, she suspected, without some effort, because he had immediately moved away from her. Maybe she shouldn’t have let him. Maybe she should have been more brazen. Maybe, as she’d done with Paul, she should have initiated some action and seen how quick he was to stop what was already started.
And then he had threatened her. Do you honestly think Teryl won’t believe anything I choose to tell her? Of course she would, D.J. thought with a scowl. She knew that from her own experience. She’d been a child when her parents had first taught her, when they’d done things to her and whispered things to her, and she had believed. This is how a good daddy shows his little girl he loves her, Debra Jane. Quit crying, Debra Jane, and let me teach you what a good little girl does to make her mama happy. Oh, yes, she had believed, and so would Teryl.
With a sigh, she sat down in the chair he had vacated, feeling the wood slats, sun-warmed and rough, against her bare thighs. Maybe John could turn Teryl against her… for a time. But he couldn’t make it last. After all, she was Teryl’s best friend, her sister, a part of her family. Who the hell was he? Some guy that Teryl had picked up on an overnight trip, a summer fling who was introducing her to the darker side of her soul. He didn’t understand that, while Teryl might be indulging his taste for the kinky and depraved, she wouldn’t settle for a lifetime of it. She couldn’t handle the guilt and the shame. She was experimenting, getting off on the thrill of how bad she was being rather than truly enjoying the pain and degradation. Soon the thrill would pass, and she would want to return to straight, plain, boring sex, to normalcy, to being good. After all, Teryl made an art of being good.
When that happened, John would be gone, because to get rid of the shame, Teryl would also have to get rid of the man who’d taught her the shame. She would force him from her life, and she would try desperately to pretend that the entire nasty little interlude had never happened—and that would mean coming crawling back to D.J., pleading for forgiveness, which D.J. naturally would offer… eventually.
Until that happened, though, it couldn’t hurt to be on guard. It couldn’t hurt to keep an eye on John, and the best way to do that was to find out more about him. Right now she knew nothing except that he had more in common by far with her than with her friend and that he had more strength of will than any man she’d ever known besides Rich. Hell, she didn’t even know his last name.
Her gaze shifted from the house to the Blazer parked beside her car. You could tell a lot about a person from the car he or she drove. Hers was sleek, fast, flashy, like her. It was her most prized possession, immaculate outside and in, the glove
box cluttered only with the manual that had come with it, a box of condoms, and a couple of her favorite CDs. Teryl’s car, on the other hand, was nothing less than junky. It had suffered dents and dings on every surface, the tires were bald, and the engine was always in need of a tune-up. She cleaned it only once in a blue moon and relied on rain to rinse off the worst layers of dust and dirt. The glove compartment and console were stuffed with receipts, deposit slips, napkins from fast-food restaurants, breath mints that were inedible, and junk mail intended for but never making it to the garbage. Food wrappers, empty Coke cans, and an occasional M&M littered the floorboards.
The only item the two vehicles shared in common resided in their respective glove boxes: the vehicle registration. It was a handy little piece of paper, full of interesting information like names and addresses.
If John was like virtually everyone she knew, his registration was in his Blazer. It would tell her his name and exactly where he lived in New Orleans. With that information and the vast resources a lifetime of affairs had given her, she could find out almost anything.
She glanced at the house as she stood up, then casually made her way past the fountain and toward the truck. If John discovered her, she would make some excuse or, better yet, create some distraction and be on her way. But there was no sign of him at any of the windows or French doors.
She always locked her car doors, even here at Teryl’s house, but her friend, she knew, usually left her own doors open here. Teryl thought that location alone would protect her from thieves and prowlers. Granted, the big house on the other side of the trees did have an elaborate security system and intelligent thieves, realizing that, wouldn’t bother with the estate at all. But who said all thieves were intelligent? Most of them were just desperate, and while Teryl didn’t have much worth stealing, what she did have, even her old car, could be taken and sold as easily as anyone else’s property.
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