Fantasy

by Christine Feehan

  “Our guests…” she murmured as his palm slipped down her pearl-decked bodice to her waist.

  “Let them wait,” he growled, beginning to gather her undergown. “Then they will savor you as I do.”

  His mouth breathed heat across her bosom, stirring the longing that never ebbed very far. Her teeth sharpened, then the peaks of her breasts. How lovely it was to feel this hunger without fear, to know it would be matched and met. Her hands seemed to drift of their own volition up his thighs. She found the extravagant swelling at their apex, the hardness of his desire.

  With a moan of impatience, he pierced her neck.

  “Oh, my,” she sighed at the throbbing pleasure of his bite. “By all means, let them wait!”

  Mr. Speedy

  Elda Minger

  1

  “I can’t believe he isn’t letting me do this!”

  Miranda Ward leaned back in the booth’s comfortable seat and stared across the table at her friend Jim Barker. They’d left work twenty minutes early and headed for their favorite hangout, a sports bar, as soon as she’d found out she’d been turned down for this latest writing assignment. It was one she had really wanted, so this time it had really hurt.

  “I mean, I was the one who brought the whole thing to his attention!”

  “I know.” Jim signaled the waitress, who started over toward their booth. “Miranda, I think this calls for fries. I know we’re both trying to avoid fried food, but sometimes—”

  “Fries would be good.”

  He ordered a large serving covered in chili and cheese, plus additional beers for both of them.

  “Onions?” he said.

  “Let’s not go over the top.”

  Miranda studied her friend. Jim, at about five feet nine inches, was a roly-poly sort of man, a real teddy bear with a full head of gingery brown hair and a ruddy complexion. In the six years they’d worked together at Street Talk magazine, she hadn’t felt a shred of attraction toward him, though there were times when she wished she could. They were best friends. He could’ve been her brother.

  And since she stood five ten in her bare feet, she kind of liked it when the men she dated were a little taller than she was. Call her shallow, but it was the one requirement she usually didn’t deviate from.

  She liked looking up to a man. Feeling a little feminine. And wearing heels on a date.

  “Do you think it’s fair?” she said, returning to the subject she just couldn’t seem to relinquish.

  “Fair isn’t the issue. Ron doesn’t think you could do the article justice—”

  “Because I’m a woman!”

  “Well, in this case, I have to agree with you.”

  Miranda took a sip of her beer and set it down. She’d come to Ron Hutchinson, their editor, with the idea on Wednesday morning. She’d found out about a popular seminar sweeping Los Angeles called The Swiftest Seduction. The seminar leader promised men that if they attended this weekend seminar and then followed to the letter the specific directions they learned, they could have a woman in bed and have glorious sex with her—within twenty-four hours after meeting her!

  At first Miranda had been incredulous, but after doing the necessary legwork, she’d found out that not only was this seminar legit but business was booming.

  As if women dating in Los Angeles don’t have enough problems.

  And to add insult to injury, Ron had informed her late this Thursday afternoon that she couldn’t possibly do the assignment because Anton Levine, the man in charge, never let women into his educational seminars. He considered them “the enemy.”

  “Anton Levine?” Jim had said when she’d told him the outcome of her meeting with their boss. “Wasn’t he the Satanist?”

  “LaVey. The name was La Vey,” Miranda had said. “Though I’d put this guy in the same league, with the stuff he’s preaching.”

  So Ron had assigned the article to Bertie Hunt, one of the more uninspired writers on their staff, and a total lech.

  Miranda was still furious. “I know Bertie won’t take the angle I will, he’ll probably attend the damn seminar and get some creepy ideas about how to treat female staff members—”

  Their waitress set the plate of fries on their table and Jim reached for one, the cheddar cheese gooey, the spicy chili fragrant.

  “Too bad you couldn’t dress up as a guy and go do the seminar anyway—” He stopped, the messy fry halfway to his mouth. “Oh, Miranda, no. Don’t go there. I don’t like that look in your eye. Please tell me that I didn’t—”

  But she was already fumbling in her purse for her cell phone and notebook.

  “I can’t believe—” Jim began.

  “Remind me,” Miranda whispered as she found the phone number in her notebook and swiftly depressed the buttons on her cell phone, “to kiss you and thank you for the most brilliant idea after I finish this call—Hello?” she said, her voice lowering to a more masculine range. “The Swiftest Seduction? Yes, I’d like to sign up for your seminar, if you still have spaces available. You do? Great!”

  Jim set down the French fry, wiped his hand carefully with a paper napkin, then put his head in his hands. Miranda almost laughed out loud.

  “What? Oh no, I’ll be using my—sister’s credit card…. What do you mean, I sound like I’m already whipped?”

  Jim started to laugh, his eyes still covered.

  “Hey, then all the more reason for me to get in there this weekend and find out how to really treat women!” Miranda smiled sweetly at Jim, who was now staring at her from between spread fingers. “Great. I understand. I’ll go ahead and call the hotel and make reservations.”

  “Hotel?” Jim said as she ended the call.

  “They have some rules and regulations, probably to keep people there once they find out how horrible the seminar is. You have to commit to staying at the hotel the seminar is held at, but it’s just Friday and Saturday night. And you have to partner up with someone at the seminar so the two of you can go over homework.” She rolled her eyes. “I can imagine what the assignments will be!”

  “Do you have to room with this person?”

  She frowned. “I’m not sure. I wouldn’t think so.” She leaned forward and touched Jim’s arm. “I can’t thank you enough for giving me this idea! When Ron sees my finished article, he’s going to flip! And you can’t tell anyone what I’m up to. I want the whole thing to be a complete surprise.”

  “What about Bertie? What if he recognizes you?”

  “Bertie’s an idiot. He won’t have a clue.”

  Jim sighed. “Miranda, I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do. Hey, can I raid your wardrobe for a few pieces?”

  The mournful expression he directed toward her almost made her laugh. “Sure, why not? In for a penny, in for a pound. But I want you to be careful.”

  “Oh, Jim, what could happen? And anyway, it’s only a weekend. How bad can it be?”

  Jake Blackhall stared out over the Los Angeles skyline from the cement patio surrounding his pool. He heard the sound of his secretary’s heels tapping as she came up behind him.

  “The Swiftest Seduction people called back,” she said quietly. “You’re all signed up for this weekend.”

  “Thank you, Helen.”

  He didn’t know how he would’ve functioned without her. Helen Kendall, in her fifties and the best executive secretary he’d ever had, was his right arm. She kept his house running, made sure he ate on a regular basis, assisted his housekeeper in throwing food out of his refrigerator when it started to resemble a science experiment, and just generally made sure he had quiet, uninterrupted time to write.

  And she was deadly when it came to research, fast and accurate. Anything he couldn’t find, he assigned to Helen. She was worth every cent of the more than generous salary he paid her.

  “And your sister is on the other line,” Helen said. “Shall I have her call you back?”

  He smiled at the mention of his twin sister, Jennif
er. She lived with her husband and two sons three thousand miles away in Connecticut, but they managed to talk at least twice a week.

  “I’ll take it,” he said, and started inside.

  Once in his cool, shaded den, he sat down in the black leather chair behind his desk, reached for the phone, and put his feet up.

  “Jen,” he said.

  “Oh, I can’t believe you’re actually going to do this! This man is an insult to all women everywhere!”

  “Hey, relax. I’m going to write an article about the guy that will expose him for the scared little boy he is.”

  “How about woman hater? He sounds like Tom Cruise in Magnolia.”

  Jake sighed. “I have a feeling you’re not that far off from the truth.”

  “I couldn’t believe what I read! That article you faxed me was so—I can’t even begin to describe—if George had approached me that way—”

  “Jen, listen. I want to do this piece because I have a feeling that the story behind the story is even more interesting. I mean, how did this guy get this way? What made him want to even start these seminars? That’s the part that interests me. That, and why any sane man would take a seminar like this one and actually believe it would work.”

  She laughed, then said, “I wonder if anyone will recognize you this weekend.”

  He sighed and stretched the kinks out of his shoulders. “Nah. I don’t think men follow the gossip columns as closely.”

  “Hmmm. Who’s being sexist now?”

  He laughed, amazed that he could finally laugh about a time in his life that had been incredibly painful. A woman he’d thought he was deeply in love with, a marriage that had lasted barely three years, and a vicious divorce with a lawyer battling on his wife’s behalf who had taken him to the cleaners—it had brought him to his knees and almost forced him to declare bankruptcy.

  The tabloids had loved it. Because he was a public figure, they’d followed his every move, headlines screaming with different bogus information at every turn.

  It had been a living nightmare. Pure hell. And in the process, Jake knew he’d developed a very thick skin. Nothing like having your every move scrutinized and analyzed to death to make a man wary.

  And all he’d done to deserve it was to live his life. If he was good at making money by writing bestselling nonfiction exposés and investing that money to make even more, and if he liked to spend time with beautiful women, where was the crime in that? But the minute his personal life had gone down the toilet, the vultures had come out in the form of photographers and tabloid reporters.

  Ah, he knew the rules. Whatever sold, whatever moved those papers out of the store, was fair game. Money was always the bottom line.

  But it had been hard.

  “Jake?” His sister’s voice was soft. “Don’t go back there. She’s not worth it.”

  “Yeah.” He hesitated. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Okay. Call me during the weekend if you want to talk. Any time.”

  “You bet. Give my best to George and hug those two little monsters for me.”

  “Always,” his sister said.

  He hung up the phone, then sat in his dark office, remembering.

  “I draw the line at ugly underwear,” Miranda said. “I’ll wear my own.”

  Jim merely smiled.

  “What?”

  “You’d have to be a man to understand. The visual image—”

  She had to laugh. “Hey, I have four older brothers. I think I understand male visual imagery quite well!” She threw a shirt at him.

  “What, not the green one? I thought it would go so well with your eyes—”

  “You are such a pain in the butt!”

  Late that same Thursday night, she’d gone over to Jim’s condo and assembled her wardrobe with choice pieces from his closet and a few more androgynous pieces of her own. Now all she had to do was call in sick on Friday and head down to the hotel in Santa Monica where the seminar was to be held.

  Oh, and there was the small matter of getting a haircut.

  “I’ll cover for you,” Jim said. “And listen, if you need to call and talk this weekend, any time’s okay, got it?”

  “You,” she said, giving him a swift hug, “are the best friend a girl could have.”

  Jake threw some clothing in a weekend duffel bag without any real enthusiasm.

  When had relationships become so hard? His own parents had been married for more than forty years and were still going strong. Not that they hadn’t had their ups and downs, but somehow they’d managed to weather them. Every single year at the holidays, all he had to do was fly back to Pennsylvania, walk into the house he’d grown up in, and he could immediately feel the deep love that surrounded them.

  He admired his parents. His father had always been his hero, his mother his confidant. And he’d hated calling them with the news of his divorce. They’d emotionally supported him through those dark days, assured him that he’d done nothing wrong, but Jake had still felt that he’d let them down. Jen had gotten it right. George was a terrific guy, and their two boys, Matt and Jake, had only added to their happiness.

  He stalked into the bathroom and gathered up some toiletries, then tossed them into the duffel, and wondered if he was doing the right thing.

  The writing had always gone well. He’d published his first book with not a whole lot of struggle and never looked back. It had been his personal life that had always been a problem.

  At the age of forty-one, he’d come to the conclusion that the possibility of a real relationship, for him, was a total fantasy, something that probably wasn’t going to happen in this lifetime. But something that, in a very quiet corner of his heart, he wanted badly.

  He didn’t often dwell on the subject. And he wondered why he was doing so now.

  The various women he met in Los Angeles knew all about him. Who didn’t? He’d been accused of breaking up marriages when he hadn’t even met either the husband or wife. If a photographer managed to get a picture of him standing next to a total stranger, a woman outside the dry cleaners or the market, he was suddenly dating yet another woman.

  Once they’d even taken a picture of him with Jen in Malibu and claimed she was “the new mystery woman” in his life. Though he and George and his sister had had a good laugh over that one, it had still annoyed Jake. He understood that his life made him fair game for the press, but he drew the line when they pursued his family.

  It would be difficult for him to even find the necessary privacy to get to know a woman. Though his every move wasn’t as publicly scrutinized as it had been during those awful days after his divorce, the paparazzi knew he still sold tabloids, so they took every advantage.

  Jake sighed, took one last look at his duffel bag, then zipped it shut. He was checking into the hotel in Santa Monica at noon tomorrow, which would give him time for a quick nap before the seminar got under way at six that evening.

  He wasn’t sleeping all that well at night these days.

  The haircut was harder than Miranda had imagined.

  Talk about giving everything for your art.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Jim had reminded her just before the first cut. He’d come with her. She’d found at the last minute that she needed the extra support.

  “Yeah,” she had said, staring into the stylist’s mirror. “I do.”

  Now the reflection that stared back at her looked like it belonged to a young boy. Her dark coppery hair had been shaped into a man’s cut, and with her new short hair mussed up with styling wax, she looked about twelve. A clean-cut twelve.

  Okay, on a good day, maybe fourteen. And Amish.

  Pretty awful, considering she was thirty-three.

  Jim must have read her mind. “So you’re a late bloomer if anyone asks, right? Right?”

  Her hazel eyes filled and she reached for his hand.

  “Oh, Miranda—”

  “I’m okay.” She blinked, halting the tears. Her hair had been short and s
haped to her head, but this cut was definitely shorter. “I’m okay. It’s going to be fine.”

  The lobby of the hotel was jam-packed with men of all shapes and sizes as Miranda maneuvered her way to the seminar registration desk. Her disguise seemed to be working so far, as no one looked at her in horror, made the sign of the cross with their fingers, and demanded she be strung up or thrown out.

  “Randy Ward?” the uninterested man in charge of registration said, once she was at the area for R through Z.

  “Yep, that’s me.”

  After he found her name on the master list and she showed him her ID, he handed her a fat registration packet and an autographed hardback book without even making eye contact with her. She silently blessed Johnny Fontaine, a contact from the streets who had whipped her up a fake driver’s license in record time. One fake ID for Randy Ward, male. Though Miranda didn’t think the photo looked anything like her, it hadn’t mattered. This guy had barely glanced at it. The whole thing reminded her of false IDs, barhopping, and her early college days.

  She supposed this registration guy didn’t really have to be that interested; after all, she’d already coughed up the eight hundred ninety-five dollars for this weekend that stretched from six in the evening on Friday until three in the afternoon on Sunday.

  Almost a grand to learn how to get laid. Pathetic.

  Glancing around, Miranda was surprised to see that the men who were signed up for this weekend seminar on swift seduction seemed like a real cross section of American males. Some were young, some old, some fat, some thin, some bald, several with long hair. But most looked rather clean-cut, like regular businessmen. For some reason this depressed her.

  “Your partner,” Mr. Uninterested said, handing her a small envelope. “His name. And he’s got yours. You’ll meet tonight during the first hour.”

  “Great.”

  And she shouldered her duffel bag and headed toward the check-in.

  Jake had checked in earlier in the day and registered for the seminar. He’d gone up to the room, tossed his registration packet and book on the chair by the desk, and slung his bag beneath that same desk without unpacking it. Then he’d stripped down to his boxer shorts, flinging his clothes on a nearby chair, and crawled beneath the covers of one of the queen-sized beds in the room.