Phantom Pleasures

by Julie Leto

  She leaned close to his ear. Her voice was barely a whisper. “If you are playing dead, monsieur, please continue for a few minutes longer.”

  As she turned to watch the steady rise and fall of his chest, his breath fluttered the hairs along the nape of her neck. Well, well, well. Paschal Rousseau was alive. And she’d keep him that way…if he cooperated.

  She wandered around the room with seemingly aimless purpose, as if waiting for Rousseau to wake. Designed in a southwestern style, colorful curtains fluttered through the open window, the breeze hampered only by the iron bars on the other side. Tiny collections of hand-painted pottery and a shelf full of skillfully woven baskets provided the sparse decoration. From what she knew of Paschal Rousseau, the decor would not please him. He preferred to surround himself with items purchased, pilfered and pawned from across the greater European continent.

  In a panel beside the door, she found the intercom system access. With a twist of two knobs, she connected to the stereo she’d left on downstairs and turned the volume up high. Rousseau stirred. Not only would the music drown out any listening devices; it would help her wake Rousseau out of his drug-induced sleep.

  With a groan, he moved again. She wasted no time, swinging a leg over his midsection on the bed and buoying herself just above him. Leaning forward, she braced her hands on either side of his head and pressed her lips hard against his mouth.

  She expected him to wake with a start. To bolt against the restraints Farrow’s men had banded around his wrists and secured to the bed. To, at the very least, protest against his capture or shout in shock.

  She didn’t expect him to kiss her back.

  And with such an expert tongue.

  With a start, she flew backward.

  Eyes still closed, the wrinkled rake had the nerve to grin like a schoolboy.

  “You’re awake?”

  He peeked one eye open. “I may be old enough to be your grandfather, but I’m not dead. Drugs or not, no man can sleep soundly when a woman mounts him so boldly.”

  Her wits recaptured, Gemma leaned forward again, hoping that all Farrow saw in his monitor was the actions of a woman hell-bent on seduction. In truth, she had so much more in mind.

  “I simply know what I want when I see it,” she explained.

  “And you expect me to believe you want a man who will have been alive for an entire century in just a few years?”

  So he was still claiming to be in his nineties. She had swampland in Florida she’d sell him if that were true. “Everything still works, doesn’t it? It’s common knowledge that a man can perform until the day he dies.”

  He snickered. “Or he can die trying.”

  “Is that how you envision your final hours?”

  With a flick of her gaze, she noted that he was tugging at the wrist restraints. Not hard enough to be a waste of energy; just enough to test the strength.

  “You aren’t going anywhere, Monsieur Rousseau. Not without my help.”

  His eyes, which she noticed were a clear, silvery gray, narrowed. “And why would you help me?”

  “You fascinate me.”

  “My dear, you do not know me. The moment you figure me out, which won’t take long, you’ll toss me aside for someone more interesting. And decidedly younger.”

  He’d just described the pattern of her dating habits since age fourteen. Smart man, this one.

  “You’ve lived a long life,” she countered. “I’m drawn to you in ways I can’t explain. Perhaps we met in a previous incarnation.”

  “I have no reason to believe in reincarnation,” he scoffed.

  She shifted her weight, pleased by the thick hardening of his sex beneath her. If all men were in Rousseau’s shape, Viagra’s makers would go out of business. “And yet, you believe in Gypsy magic, don’t you?”

  “I’m a renowned Gypsy researcher. I’d hardly be worth my salt if I didn’t acknowledge the existence of supernatural phenomena attributed to the Romani. Their knowledge of herbs, roots as well as—”

  “Spare me the lecture, Professor.” She speared her red-tipped fingernail against the hollow beneath his Adam’s apple, then drew her touch downward, across his chest. “I’m not interested in the magic that can be traced to a strong knowledge of natural remedies or the power of suggestion that fueled many a Gypsy curse. I’m talking about the real thing.”

  The clock by the bedside alerted her to the duration of her stay. Farrow wouldn’t expect her to close the deal quickly, but he was not a patient man. Sooner or later, Paschal’s son would realize his father was missing. That could only mean trouble.

  Farrow had indulged her so far, but she had one, maybe two more encounters with Rousseau before Farrow expected her to produce the information he so desperately wanted. His men had searched Rousseau’s house from top to bottom and had not found the diary or the necklace. If Rousseau had the golden talisman and the journal—and all of their intelligence told them that he had been the last one to possess both—he’d hidden the objects very well.

  “How can magic be real? It defies the laws of nature,” he argued, though she suspected he was faking the sincerity in his voice—blatantly faking, which in her mind, was the equivalent of a taunt.

  Wily didn’t begin to describe this man. Her respect for him elevated a notch.

  She pressed her sex against his crotch. “This defies the laws of nature, too, but you don’t see me denying what’s happening. In fact,” she said, grinding mercilessly against him, “I’m rather enjoying the fact that you want me.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” he said, his voice dripping with dangerous intensity that belied both his advanced age and his prone position on the bed. His eyes, pale and silvery, flashed with contempt. “Purely biological functions don’t reflect any power you have over me.”

  “I have the power to decide whether you live or die,” she told him, then swung off the bed and headed toward the door. When she turned, he was yanking against his restraints, clearly infuriated.

  Good. She exited without another word. Maybe if he was frightened enough, desperate enough, he’d cooperate. Because only through a double-cross with Paschal Rousseau at her side and the Queen’s Charm in her custody would Gemma take her rightful position in the K’vr—the organization that had bound her family for centuries with promises of ultimate power.

  Too bad the empty promises had lost their luster for her when her gender had cost her direct ascension to the leadership. Now she’d have to take the power that was rightfully hers—and Paschal Rousseau would either help…or die.

  His choice.

  “Look, I told the police everything I know. I have a date. So, if you’ll, like, leave?”

  Cat and Ben exchanged doubtful glances. Finding Amber Stranton had been easy enough, but clearly, getting the coed to talk was something else altogether. Under other circumstances, Ben might have tried turning on the whole professorish-charm thing, but the strategy was useless with Cat around. She likely had no idea how intimidating other women found her. Even now, Amber couldn’t tear her eyes off the dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty. Cat made Catherine Zeta-Jones look ordinary in comparison. So much like Mariah.

  Funny how he’d managed not to think about his ex in more than a year, but the minute Cat stormed into his life, he’d been fighting memories of her all day.

  They were nothing alike, really. Where Mariah was slim but devious, Cat was curvy and sly. Mariah preferred jumping out of airplanes, surfing onto fortified island hideouts and dodging hit men hired by foreign governments. Cat…well, he didn’t know what Cat liked. Besides keeping her nose in his business. Which, to be completely honest, he didn’t really mind.

  Right now, however, her presence was a detriment to their mutual goal. They needed Amber to tell them more than she’d told the police about her cousin—which hadn’t been much. Under Cat’s scrutiny, Amber looked ready to crawl under a rock.

  He stepped back, formulating a different tactic when Catalina’s entire demeanor s
hifted. She changed from a ballbuster to a sympathetic ear in the span of six seconds.

  She snagged her bottom lip in her teeth and eyed Amber from head to toe. When she spoke, she softened her voice and laced her words with genuine concern.

  “You’re not going to wear that on your date, are you?”

  Amber glanced down at her cropped T-shirt and skintight jeans that flared at the calf. “Yeah. With these killer sandals I found at the flea market, but are totally awesome Choo knockoffs.” When her enthusiasm failed to infect Cat, it died a quick death. “Why? What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  She spun halfway around, trying to catch a glimpse of her backside, and then checked her front to see if something private was hanging out. Neither was the case. To Ben, she looked sort of cute, in the way coeds did. She wasn’t his type, but then he hadn’t had twenty-year-old preferences for a long time.

  “Well, nothing’s wrong with it,” Cat said assuredly, sugared sweetness dripping off her words. “I think you’d look great in a potato sack with a drawstring. But, I don’t know. This is…” She waved her hand around Amber’s body and then pressed her lips together tightly, as if trying to contain some salacious bit of fashion information. Amber stepped toward her and nearly grabbed her hand.

  “This is what? Too slutty? Too casual? I thought about wearing this killer skirt I got from my ex-roommate, but it’s kind of dressy and I don’t want to scare him away.”

  Cat took Amber’s outstretched hand and invited herself inside. “Well, where are you going? That’s always the first question.”

  Amber exhaled noisily. Ben could practically hear the vibrations of her nervousness. “Movie. Dinner. Club afterward. The usual.”

  Cat crinkled her nose and suddenly looked ten years younger. She was a chameleon who could think on her feet. And more than that, she was trouble with a capital T.

  “Is this your first date?” Cat guessed, leading Amber into the living room. She sat on the couch and her new best friend instantly followed.

  “Third,” Amber replied, her voice tremulous.

  Ben stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

  Cat clucked her tongue. “Then this definitely is way too casual. I mean, third date,” her voice dropped, and in an instant, images of hot, sweaty sex popped into Ben’s mind…hot, sweaty sex that had nothing to do with Amber and her unnamed third date.

  “My roommate’s gone,” Amber said, suddenly panicked as she popped off the futon. “I have a couple of things. Do you mind?”

  Cat’s grin oozed with graciousness. “I’d love to help out.”

  Without a backward glance, Amber disappeared into her bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  “How did you do that?” Ben asked, looking around the previously forbidden domain. For a young woman barely out of her teens, Amber was ridiculously neat. “Or perhaps I should ask, why did you do that?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You want her to kick us out again?”

  “No, but maybe this is a waste of time,” Ben supposed. He found Amber’s cell phone on the table near the tiny kitchen. He pressed two buttons and was scrolling through her address book. “I don’t want to sit here playing What Not to Wear when I could be out finding my father.”

  Cat’s gasp scared the shit out of him. He slammed the cell phone on the table and expected to see Amber staring agog at him, caught in the act.

  Instead, Cat arched her carefully sculpted eyebrows. “You watch What Not to Wear?”

  Ben growled and retrieved the phone, causing Cat to laugh as if she’d just been told a hilarious joke. He gave up on the address book—too many names—and switched to incoming calls. Taking a notebook from his pocket, he jotted down the names and numbers of the dozen or so people who’d called Amber in the last twenty-four hours.

  “Keep your khakis on, Professor.” Cat joined his cursory search, checking out the innards of Amber’s tiny backpack purse. “Our little fashion diva knows something. She has to. We’ll chitchat about clothes and men for a few minutes and she’ll be eating out of my hand. Just sit back and watch how it’s done.”

  Cat didn’t disappoint him. Amber had the good manners to announce her oncoming fashion exhibition, so Ben and Cat both had time to stop snooping and take their seats for the runway show. Cat immediately went to work critiquing and offering suggestions that led them to Amber’s closet while Ben explored the kitchen and her laptop. Half an hour later, Cat had Amber looking older, more sophisticated and decidedly more desirable to a guy of any age, and when they walked the coed to her car, not only did they have the name and phone number of the so-called cousin who’d confronted Paschal on the quad, but they also had the name and addresses of the bar she’d met him at—information she had not shared with the police.

  “Don’t tell T that I ratted him out, okay?” Amber begged as she popped her lime green PT Cruiser into gear. “I needed the money, okay?”

  “So you took money from a stranger and passed him off as your cousin to set my father up?” Ben asked. Now that he had the information he needed, he saw no reason to be polite. Cat, however, stomped on his foot to get him to shut up.

  “What?” he asked. “She did set Paschal up.”

  “I didn’t!” Amber insisted. “Topher convinced me that he was a Gypsy himself. That he was working on some sort of family tree and needed Professor Rousseau’s help, but he wouldn’t take his calls. He thought if one of his students introduced him, he’d have an in. That’s all I knew. He said he had information about this Valoren place that the professor would want. Then, after the professor turned him down, Topher got all weird. Really, really angry. I wouldn’t have helped him at all if I’d known what a prick he was.”

  Cat leaned forward and patted Amber’s arm through the open car window. “Dr. Rousseau will be fine. You did the right thing by telling us the whole truth.”

  Ben turned away, unable to watch as Amber peeled out of the lot without a care in the world beyond what kind of martini to order at dinner and if her shoes matched her purse. She’d led a man she’d now admitted was dangerous straight to his father, and he was supposed to care if she and her third date had a good time?

  In silence, they headed back to his car. Ben opened the door for Cat. She slid by him with only centimeters to spare, and the attendant thrill of her clothes brushing against his removed a layer of anger from his body. Without Cat, he never would have finessed the information. She’d worked Amber with a cool style that had his blood simmering. Before she got in, he grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her.

  After a long, luxurious, luscious moment, she pressed a hand to his chest and pushed him back, but only a few inches.

  “You don’t give a girl much warning, do you?” Her words came out in a breathless rush.

  In her eyes, Ben witnessed a mixture of surprise, shock and, perhaps, pleasure? Well, damn. Of course she’d found the kiss pleasurable. Wasn’t like he was new to the art form.

  When the corner of her mouth quirked up into a saucy grin, however, his mind flashed with images of Mariah. So cocky. So self-assured. So impossible to deal with.

  “Maybe if I thought before I acted, I wouldn’t make such boneheaded mistakes,” he said.

  “Kissing me was a mistake?”

  “Without a doubt,” he muttered, gesturing her inside the car so he could slam the door on his foolish moment of weakness.

  However, after he’d slid into the driver’s seat, she wasted no time reintroducing the topic. “In my experience, it’s the things we think we know that usually get us into the most trouble.”

  He snorted. “You think you know more about trouble than I do?”

  “There’s a very good chance,” she replied.

  Though he opened his mouth to speak, he thought better of engaging in this conversation and opted for silence instead. Catalina Reyes clearly knew a great deal about a lot of things, but when it came to trouble, anyone with the last name Rousseau had the market cornered.

/>   “So, now we know that Amber’s fake cousin is a drifter named Topher Pyle who can’t afford a decent pair of shoes, according to her, but he can spare two hundred dollars to pay a college sophomore to introduce him to her professor,” Cat recapped.

  “What we don’t know is why some low-life is interested in my father.”

  “Or Valoren. Maybe this Pyle guy really is Gypsy.”

  “Or maybe he’s just lying through his teeth.”

  “For a place that’s supposed to be so secret, an awful lot of people know about it,” Cat commented.

  “Too many fucking people,” Ben muttered, tamping down his anger at Paschal. Maybe if his father had told him a thing or two about the place, Ben wouldn’t be operating so blindly. Maybe if he knew…something…he’d be closer to finding his father before he died.

  “Well,” she said softly, “at least the information isn’t readily available.”

  “If Topher Pyle really had information about Valoren, my father would have helped him in exchange for it. I think that’s a lie. That punk must be working for someone—someone who knows about Valoren and believes in it as much as my father. Question is, who?”

  Cat pulled her cell phone out of her purse. “Shouldn’t be too hard to figure out who.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  After pressing a speed-dial button, she gave him a jaunty wink. “You’re in luck, Ben. You want your father back and so does my friend. My rich friend. Whether its ransom or payoffs, we’ll get Paschal back. You just have to trust me.”

  “I have so far,” he griped.

  “Have you?” she shot back.

  “Isn’t that obvious?”

  “Well,” she replied, settling into the seat as if they were going on a long, leisurely drive rather than on a hunt for the man who might have taken his father, “it was to me. I was just wondering about you.”