The Disenchanted Duke

by Marie Ferrarella

  And he belonged to a very powerful organization. He'd been sent to this country to find a way to build up the depleted coffers of the Brothers of Darkness, the terrorist group he had pledged his allegiance to when he was just a boy. The organization was his mother, his father, his god and he would gladly die for it.

  But not yet.

  He sighed, frustrated. He needed to be in Austin by the end of the week. His contact would be there, the man who could put him in touch with others who thought the way he did, who believed in their cause. But it was moving far too slowly for his tastes. Finding a way to rebuild resources, to make connections that would allow a way for money to begin flowing back to his organization, took too much time.

  And once that was started, he would go on to an even bigger mission. Killing the son of the king of Montebello. This time, for good. According to the intelligence network, Prince Lucas had escaped the jaws of death despite the plane crash.

  But not for long.

  Right now, though, Salim was getting bored, restless. From where he was sitting, he could see into a booth that was to his left. A man occupying it was there with a woman who was obviously not his wife. The man was running his hand up her skirt.

  Salim shifted on the stool. He needed diversion. He needed a woman.

  Being on the run this way hadn't left him much time for the simpler, necessary pleasures of life. A man needed to feel like a man once in a while and though these western women were inferior to the women in his country and far too stubborn for his tastes, with their big breasts and tempting hips, they had their uses.

  A slight movement in the mirror caused him to look to his right, toward the bar's entrance. A dark-haired woman wearing a clingy white dress walked in. The wide folds of the short dress caressed her body with every step she took. She made his mouth water.

  She seemed to smile right at him, though his back was to her. Their eyes met in the mirror.

  A working woman, by his estimation.

  He could smell them. High-class from the looks of her. A woman who knew how to work a room, who knew how to say the things a man wanted to hear. Do the things a man wanted done. Obviously a whore, but still infinitely superior to the ones he saw frequenting selected corners and streets, offering instant gratification in the time it took to pull down a zipper.

  There was a time and a place for instant gratification, but not from a common slut ripe with diseases.

  He liked quality, even in his whores. Salim was willing to pay if it meant that his needs would be pleasured, that the woman was clean and attractive, not used-looking or cheap.

  The very word turned his stomach. He'd had enough of "cheap" hiding in those run-down motels, staying ahead of that bounty hunter who had been after him. But now the hunter was behind him, most likely gone for good. He was through running, through with the game. The next encounter, if there was to be one, would be deadly. And he intended to be the one walking away.

  The stool beside him was empty. The woman in white had crossed to him, standing behind it.

  "Is this seat taken?" she purred in a voice that seemed to have been dipped in honey.

  He could feel his arousal beginning. This one he would have, first quickly, then slowly, until he was tired of her.

  "If you sit down, it will be."

  She took it as an invitation. Smiling, she sat down beside him, adjusting her skirt so that he could see her long legs, her bare, silky skin. As she turned toward him, the neckline of her dress dipped down. The firm cleavage that was exposed to his hot gaze rose and felt seductively with each breath she took.

  Salim was fairly salivating.

  "Would you like a drink?" he offered.

  She lowered her eyes to the one on the counter. "I'll take a sip of yours," she murmured, her voice e low, husky. She took the glass from his hand. Slowly she ran the tip of her fingernail along one edge of the rim. "Is this where your lips touched the glass?"

  He felt his throat and his loins tightening. "Yes."

  As Salim watched, the woman pressed her own lips to the spot and took a long sip. Her eyes never left his. He found that his breath caught in his throat.

  The drink was a particularly strong one. He expected to see her eyes water. Instead she merely smiled as she placed the glass on the counter.

  "Smooth," she whispered. The word seemed to graze his very skin.

  His arousal increased. He inclined his head toward hers. "Perhaps you would like to leave here for a little while?"

  "Perhaps," the woman echoed. Her blue-gray eyes danced as they teased his. "Just what did you have in mind?"

  She was being coy. It was part of the game. "I think you know."

  Leaning her elbow on the bar, she rested her chin on her hand. Her eyes smiled up into his. "Why don't you tell me, anyway?"

  He skimmed her bare arm with his fingers, envisioning his hands on her breasts instead. "We could go back to my room and I could appreciate you the way a woman such as you should be appreciated."

  She exhaled a long, sensuous breath, as if she could read his mind, feel his touch. His excitement mounted. "Sounds good to me." Slipping from her stool, she watched him toss a couple of twenties onto the bar before he got off his stool. She nodded at the money. "Pretty free with your money. Are there any more like that?"

  His smile broadened. He'd been right. A working woman. Well, he was going to make her work. "A great many." He placed one proprietary hand on her shoulder, steering her toward the entrance. "In my hotel room."

  Her smile was inviting, seductive. "Then show me your hotel room." Slipping his hand from her shoulder, he took her arm. "That is not all I will show you." She leaned into him, laughing, filling his space with the perfume she'd put on only half an hour ago. "I'm counting on it."

  * * *

  Damn it, she was here. Intent on finding his quarry, Max had almost missed her. As if a body like that could be overlooked.

  What the hell did she think she was doing?

  Didn't she have any idea how dangerous the man was and what could happen to her?

  Obviously not, Max thought in disgust.

  The woman was a myopic fool.

  Making his way out of the bar again, he followed them, keeping a discrete distance behind.

  * * *

  As they walked out of the bar and toward the elevator, Cara planned how and when to make her move. Weber's room was both the best place and the riskiest. Best because there was no one to get in her way, no one he could use as a shield to make his getaway. And, since the room was on the sixth floor, there was only one way out for Weber. He certainly wasn't going to leap out the window and suddenly sprout wings. This time, there would be no Dumpster to catch him.

  But it was the riskiest place because there would be no witnesses, no one for him to fear if he suddenly turned on her or tried to overpower her.

  The operative word here was "tried."

  Which was why she had her gun very strategically planted beneath the slinky white skirt of her dress. She could easily draw it out when the time came.

  Cara stole a glance at the man at her side as he jabbed again for the elevator. She'd known what he looked like, had carried around his likeness to hold up in front of people and help jar their memories, but she hadn't realized just how unnerving he was in person. There was an aura around him. Though it seemed foolish, it felt as if she was in the presence of pure evil.

  It wasn't often that her imagination ran away with her.

  The elevator opened. She felt his hand at the small of her back, pushing her forward. They were the only two occupants.

  Cara could feel her nerves jumping. As before, she'd managed to track Weber down by the activity on his charge card. When she saw that he'd checked into the Excelsior Hotel in Dallas, she'd felt as if she'd hit pay dirt. Different than the hotels he'd stayed in previously, the Excelsior catered to a whole different breed of people. The man was moving up. Her guess was that Weber had to be feeling pretty cocky about his getaway. Maybe h
e actually thought he'd lost them.

  Pride went before a fall, she thought smugly. Which meant that she couldn't get too confident or she would be sharing his fate.

  Turning toward her, he nuzzled her neck. "How do you like to do it?"

  Cara was struggling not to have her skin crawl off her body. "Slowly. All night."

  He ran his hands up and down her bare arms, his breathing becoming audible, heavy. "And what will this night of ecstasy cost me?"

  Steady, just a little while longer, she counseled herself. For Weber's benefit, she smiled seductively. "We'll talk terms in your room," she promised.

  "Why wait until we're in my room to get started?" Grabbing her roughly, he pulled her to him, his hand going up her skirt.

  Quickly Cara pulled away. When he protested, his temper flaring, she pointed to the small camera mounted in the corner.

  "Security cameras," she told him. "You don't want some underpaid, pimply-faced adolescent getting his rocks off by watching us, do you?"

  He grunted something completely unintelligible under his breath as he fisted his hands at his sides and glared at the camera.

  The woman with him was hot and he wanted to take her now, while his loins throbbed.

  "Americans," Weber jeered. "Always watching everything. A nation of voyeurs."

  Thank God for small blessings, she thought. He'd almost slipped his hand over her weapon.

  Once they were in his room, Cara knew she was going to have to act fast. There would be no time for slipups and what she had going for her was the element of surprise. The man was thinking so hard with his organ that he hadn't recognized her. She'd gone through a lot of trouble not to look like herself, but a real professional would have noticed the similarities between the pro he was bringing to his room and the woman who had pounded on his door a short while ago.

  Lucky for her, she thought.

  Now all she needed was for her luck to hang on a little longer. There were handcuffs in her purse. It might have been safer for her to have placed her weapon in there, too, but she'd wanted to feel the reassuring press of metal against her flesh and had opted to strap her gun to the inside of her leg.

  Her quarry brought her to his door, unlocking it. Anticipation rushed through his veins.

  "I want you to strip for me." He locked the door behind her. "Slowly."

  Cara turned around, stepping back coyly out of his reach. "We still haven't talked terms."

  Pulling out his wallet, he yanked out several large bills, tossing them on the floor between them. "There. Terms. Now do your part."

  It was now or never, she thought. Even if she began to go through the motions to distract him further, dropping her dress would leave her wearing matching bra and panties and a gun that didn't match either.

  As his eyes bored into her, Cara began to slowly hike her skirt up, swishing the material along her legs, knowing that she was going to have to be fast to get the drop on him. She hadn't gotten to where she was by underestimating the people she was up against.

  Her eyes never leaving him, Cara slipped her hand beneath her skirt, her fingers securing the hilt of her gun. She froze when she heard the knock on the door. The sound vibrated in her chest, blending with the hammering of her heart.

  Distracted, angry at being interrupted, Weber growled, "Yes?"

  "Room service," a Southern voice twanged.

  "Go away. You have the wrong room," Weber barked. "I did not order anything."

  "No, sir, this is the right room," the voice insisted. "Compliments of the house. Champagne and a basket of fruit."

  Weber took a step toward the woman whose obedience he'd just bought. "Leave it in the hall."

  "Can't, sir. I need you to sign that you got it. Otherwise, they'll think I took it and I'll lose my job. I've got a family to support—"

  "Enough!" Weber shouted. Swearing, he swung around and unlocked the door again. He looked at the table that was before the bellman. There was nothing on it. Incensed, he looked up at the tall bellman. "Where is my champagne?"

  "Right here."

  The next moment, the table was being shoved into Weber. Caught off guard, Weber stumbled backward and fell.

  Cara's mouth dropped open in surprise. She'd been so busy not underestimating Weber that she'd wound up underestimating his pursuer.

  Ryker.

  It took her less than a split second to come to. Cara pulled out her weapon, training it on Weber, who was sprawled out on the floor.

  "Don't move a muscle," she ordered. "Kevin Weber, you're under arrest by order of the sheriff's department of the town of Shady Rock, Colorado."

  Max was shrugging out of his bellman's jacket. There was a gun in one hand and she saw the handcuffs at the back of his belt. "He's my prisoner, Rivers," he informed her as he tossed the jacket aside.

  She smiled at him serenely, shaking her head. "Uh-uh. I had him first. And possession, Ryker, is still nine-tenths of the law."

  On the floor, Weber looked angrily from the call girl to the bellman. "Who the hell are you people?"

  Cara smiled broadly. She really enjoyed saying this line. "Your worst nightmare, Weber." Gun trained on the man on the floor, her eyes pinning him in place, she asked, "What are you doing here, Ryker?"

  He didn't want her to get away with it, but right now wasn't the time to challenge her. If they started arguing, Weber or whoever he really was might get away.

  "Trying to get back my car and my prisoner," Max told her.

  She could afford to be magnanimous. Up to a point. "The car's downstairs. Valet parking. Just let me get my stuff out of it and you can have it back." She spared Ryker one quick glance. She knew her answer wasn't going to sit well with him. Too bad. She had no intention of giving up custody. "But the prisoner's mine."

  The woman was nothing short of infuriating. "I can have you up on charges of grand theft, auto. Like the idea of doing time, Rivers?" He didn't tell her that he didn't want too much attention drawn to Weber, that if the police were called in to arrest her, things might get dicey about Weber and the matter ' of jurisdiction. Besides, when he really got down to it, he didn't like the idea of the woman being arrested. He admired her creativity and spirit. And he liked besting her on his own without outside help.

  Her eyes darted to his face. And then she smiled. "You can," she allowed, sensing that he wasn't the type to follow the strict letter of the law, "but you won't. Like it or not, you admire resourcefulness." Slowly, her gun still raised, she opened her purse. "Speaking of which, how'd you get here?"

  "I got the desk clerk to sell me his car." It hadn't been easy. The man insisted on being paid a lot more than the vehicle had been worth, but he'd been desperate.

  Thinking back, Cara vaguely recalled seeing an old, rusting jalopy parked in front of the motel office. It hadn't looked as if it could even run.

  "You're kidding."

  She was smirking. He didn't particularly like being the source of her amusement.

  "I'm here, aren't I?" He had a question of his own for her. "Now you tell me how you managed to get my car started without my keys?"

  She shrugged carelessly. That had been a lot simpler than sneaking out of the room with all her things. She'd held her breath the entire time, positive that Ryker would wake up and stop her before she managed to get out the door.

  "I hot-wired it, only to discover a second set, deep in the folds of the seat cushion."

  "I thought I lost those keys," Max muttered. "I even had a second set made."

  "Where the hell did you learn to hot-wire cars?"

  She supposed it did no harm to tell him. "During my nomadic childhood, I lived with the family of an auto mechanic. He showed me a few things that he thought might come in handy. How to tune up a car, how to jump-start it if the battery's dead—"

  "How to hot-wire it if you can't steal the keys, too." The whole story sounded incredible. He had a feeling she was lying to him on principle.

  "No, he thought showing me how to ho
t-wire a car would come in handy if I lost my keys," she corrected. Realizing she'd turned her eyes away from Weber, she looked back and saw that the man was inching his way over to a chair. She cocked the hammer of her gun, aiming it directly at his heart. "Don't even think about it. On your knees, Weber," she ordered.

  Holstering his gun, Max took out his handcuffs, but Cara beat him to it and slapped her own cuffs on Weber. Slipping them on Weber's wrists, she tested their integrity before stepping back.

  "I'm impressed," Max said to Cara.

  She couldn't quite gauge by his tone if he was mocking her or not, but it didn't matter. "Just stay out of my way."

  Max loomed over her. She might be clever, but if she thought he was backing off, she was also very naive. "Afraid I can't do that."

  Her brows narrowed. "And I'm afraid you have no choice. He's my prisoner, not yours, and he's going back to Shady Rock. I need that ten thousand dollars."

  She kept throwing that number around. "What ten thousand?" he wanted to know.

  "The ten thousand dollars bounty that Phil Sanford is willing to pay for his safe return before the trial. Phil stands to lose a lot of money if I don't get this scum back in time." She looked at Weber. "Get on your feet," she ordered. "Now." Cursing her ancestry and her soul, Weber rose. "Like you're doing this for the fun of it," she jeered, glancing at Max.

  "I'm doing it because I made a promise."

  She didn't know if he was serious or not, but his reasons didn't really interest her. Only the ten thousand did. "And I'm doing it because that ten thousand dollars means an awful lot to someone I care a great deal about. To her, it's the difference between life and death."

  She was pulling his leg, he thought, trying to play on his sympathies. But the look in her eyes was so sincere, he wasn't sure. What he did know was that arguing over this was wasting precious time.

  "All right then, let's go."

  She made no move to go. "You're not coming with me."

  "The hell I'm not."

  The next thing he knew, she was pointing the gun at him.