When he’d quieted the deep hollowing breaths that made his chest heave, when his hands just cupped her buttocks, no longer working her, Rafaella laid her head against his shoulder, her face pressed against his neck, and felt her legs relax, felt the building tension ease just a bit.
Slowly Marcus let her slide down his body, but he hated coming out of her, and for a moment he held her there, his cock just inside her, until, with a sigh, he let her leave him. They were standing only ankle-deep in the warm Caribbean. It was as far as they’d gotten before he’d grabbed her and lifted her and brought her legs around his hips—
“Rafaella?”
“Hmmm?” Her arms tightened about his waist. His chest hair was tickling her nose, so she kissed his chest, wetting his hair with her tongue.
Even the feel of her tongue on his chest turned him on. He held her away just a bit. “Look, I’m sorry about being a male pig. But I’m over it now. And I’ve got plans for you that include having you on your back with your legs wide apart and me between them and you arching your back and pressing up against my mouth. Do you remember that first night when I had to put my hand over your mouth, you were crying out so loud?”
She ran her hand down his stomach and her fingers closed around him. He was still aroused and he was wet with her and with himself, and her fingers moved and she felt him swell and grow hotter against her palm. “Perhaps I’ve more plans for you too, Marcus.”
Marcus knew about sand and where the gritty stuff ended up, so he forced himself to take the time to spread out his shirt for her to lie on. But he begrudged every second his mouth wasn’t on her.
“Lie down,” he said, then tripped her up himself, catching her as she fell, and laid her out as he wished to see her. Rafaella was languid and cooperative and excited. “Bend your knees,” he told her, then came down between her legs and bent her knees himself, then spread her thighs wide, then wider still. And she lifted her hips, unknowingly wanting, and he brought his mouth immediately down on her, his tongue searching through the soft folds of flesh to find her, and she imagined that she could hold back for a while, but it was impossible, and her body tensed, her legs muscles tightened and flexed, and she cried out and this time he let her, and listened to her while he probed her body with his tongue, scraped her flesh lightly with his teeth. When she came, he lifted her hips with his hands, and her fingers were winding in his hair, pressing his face closer against her.
When she’d quieted just a bit, Marcus slid into her, deeply, as he covered her.
“Rafaella?”
“It’s nice,” she said with great inadequacy.
He pushed deeper, and she smiled and lifted her hips.
“Why don’t you come with me this time? You up to it?”
She started to shake her head, to say that she was exhausted and there was nothing left in her, but it wasn’t true. She was more than able to come with him. She’d always considered herself quite healthy in her responses, but two orgasms she’d never before considered as all that healthy or normal, yet it was happening again, and when his fingers worked her, his belly pressing against his hand and her, she felt the ache deepen and widen through her lower body and grow stronger, and she cried very softly against his shoulder, her body tensing incredibly with pleasure, and he kissed her, his tongue in her mouth when he reached his own climax.
“That’s it. I’m a goner.” He lay on top of her, his full weight, and she didn’t mind it at all. “I’ve also got sand in my parts.”
She laughed at that and felt him easing out of her.
He came up on his elbows and looked down at her, studying her face. It was a dear face now, and it made him intensely uncomfortable because he didn’t want this, not now. Because if he let himself care, he’d have to worry; but that was stupid, because he already did worry about her, had worried, in fact, for so very long now. So, he decided, knowing he was a fool, it was just too late for him now, and to hell with it.
What to do?
He knew, even as the words hovered on his tongue, that she wouldn’t leave Dominick’s compound. She saw herself as here to stay, and nothing he could say would budge her. Stubborn and bullheaded and committed—but committed to what? It drove him mad. It wasn’t just the damned biography, it was something more. He also knew that he didn’t particularly want her with him to hunt out Bathsheba, but given that those were the only two choices, he had to take the latter.
He kept his mouth closed. He knew now what he had to do, and even though it wasn’t remotely honorable, it was the only sure way.
“It’s just sex,” she said, her first words, and he wanted to throttle her.
“Really, Ms. Holland?”
“Yes, that’s all it is, and because you’re pretty good, you make me care about things that are detrimental to my own well-being.”
Her words so paralleled his own thoughts that he was momentarily surprised into silence, even though he knew she didn’t feel about him the way he felt about her, however that was.
“What things?”
“You. I now find I worry about you. I nearly went crazy when I found out that awful man had tried to kill you in Marseilles.”
“You did go crazy. You kung-fu’ed me flat on my back.”
“You did the same thing to me.” In the next breath she added, “And it was just sex. You’re a wonderful diversion, but nothing more. You can’t be.”
“I agree completely. You’re keeping things from me—”
“You’re doing the same thing! No, don’t go. Come back. I like you where you were.”
“Sorry, but my arms are tired.” He lay on his side beside her, his palm on her stomach. “You ain’t exactly an affliction yourself, at least at the moment.”
And at that moment she wanted to tell him so badly: Look, Marcus, you’re a criminal. More than that, you work for Dominick, and I want nothing more than to destroy him. I can’t let you anywhere near me. Instead she asked, “You’re not a murderer, are you?”
“No. If I had killed that woman—Tulp—it would have been self-defense. Just as it was with Jack Bertrand.”
She sighed and leaned up, kissed his chest. He liked her to kiss him, but he didn’t want to tell her that, so he just leaned down and kissed her nose.
“You won’t tell me anything? I can whine until cows swim the Atlantic, and you still won’t tell me?”
“Please spare me,” he said. “And no, I can’t, won’t, tell you anything. Not yet. Be patient.”
“It’s just sex.”
“Yeah, sure. And Saddam always invites the Kurds for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Really, Marcus, let’s leave it at sex. It can’t be anything more, surely you understand that.”
“Yeah,” he said again. “I understand.”
And he did, too well. “Let’s get back.” He helped her up.
Link turned back to the beach to check that they were all right. They were standing, dressing, speaking in low voices. He sighed and turned away to hide himself in the dense foliage of the jungle until they passed him. Things were getting more complicated by the minute. He didn’t like it, and he couldn’t begin to predict what would happen now.
Rafaella jerked up in bed at the knock on her bedroom door.
“Yes?”
It was Marcus who opened her door, and he said abruptly, “Pick up your phone. It’s the Pine Hill Hospital on Long Island. They routed the call from the resort over here.”
She went cold. She picked up the phone, vaguely realizing that it too felt cold, and said, “Yes? This is Rafaella Holland.”
“This is Dr. Bentley. I’m sorry to have to call you, but Mr. Rutledge asked me to. He didn’t want to leave your mother for even a moment. She’s worse, Miss Holland. We think you should come here as quickly as possible.”
“But what happened? What’s changed? I just spoke to my stepfather yesterday.”
And Dr. Bentley reeled off words and phrases that made little sense except the “she’s deeper in coma
—sinking—”
“I’ll be there right away,” Rafaella said, and hung up. She stared blindly toward Marcus, who still stood in the doorway. “It’s my mother—”
He hated the numbed pain in her voice, and said, “I’m leaving in just a little while for Miami. You want to come with me?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, and was dressed, packed, and downstairs in ten minutes.
To the gathered family in the living room she said simply, “My mother’s condition has gotten worse. I’m leaving right away with Marcus.” And to Dominick, “I’ll be back when I can, sir. You can count on me.”
He stood up and walked over to her. He looked down at her for a long time, gently touched his fingertips to her cheek, and said, “I understand. You’ll be back when you can. If you need anything, anything at all, you will call me. All right? Good. Now, off with you. Marcus will see to everything. Good luck, my dear.”
Coco hugged her, and even Paula wished her luck. DeLorio was nowhere to be seen.
Rafaella and Marcus reached Miami at eleven o’clock in the morning. Marcus said, “I’ve booked you on a flight to New York that leaves in an hour. Come have a cup of coffee with me.”
She nodded, still numb with fear. He ordered her coffee in the small airport snack shop and set it in front of her.
“Drink up.”
She did, then set her cup down and smiled painfully at him. Odd, but he was still standing there beside her, just standing, saying nothing. “Thank you, Marcus. You’ve been more than kind. I really appreciate your being here for me. Funny that it should end this way, isn’t it?”
“This isn’t an end, Ms. Holland. Now, come with me. I’ll take you to your gate.”
He led her through security, and when she weaved slightly, it felt natural for his arm to go around her waist. And when she fell asleep in the waiting-room chair just outside Gate 93, it was natural that her head fall on his shoulder.
And when she finally woke up, it was natural that Marcus’s face was the first one she saw. Only it wasn’t natural. He shouldn’t be there. Something was wrong, very wrong. She couldn’t seem to think straight.
She smiled at him. It felt natural to do so. “Are you going to New York with me? Are we in the air?”
“No and yes. How do you feel?”
She yawned, stretched, and rubbed her eyes. There was lots of room. They were in the first-class cabin.
“Boy, I didn’t realize I was so tired. How long did I sleep?”
“About an hour and a half. You were upset. I’m sorry for that, Rafaella.”
“You’re very kind. I really was out for that long? Goodness, you checked me in and dragged me onto the plane?”
“Yes.” He lifted his left hand and pushed her hair out of her face. He smiled. “Do you know that it’s dangerous to do any kind of martial arts on an airplane that’s thirty-three thousand feet in the air?”
“I guess so.”
“So you wouldn’t?”
“No. Unless there was a hijacker or something. That’s a crazy question. Why do you ask me that?”
“The bottom line is, Ms. Holland, I outfoxed you.”
“What?”
“That phone call was a fake. I’m sorry about scaring you like that, but I couldn’t think of anything else to make you move off that damned island.”
“My mother isn’t dying?”
“No. I talked Dr. Haymes, our resort physician, into scamming you. He wanted me to apologize to you for doing it. Your mother is fine. In fact, she woke up for a few seconds yesterday.”
Her mother wasn’t dying. She’d been so afraid, felt so guilty because she’d been off tilting at windmills when her mother was lying in that wretched bed in that wretched hospital and she hadn’t been there beside her, and now, to find out it had all been a lie. A rotten lie because Marcus had wanted her off the island. She no longer felt numb from sleep. She no longer felt numb from guilt. “What did you put in my coffee?”
“The proverbial mickey. You’re very responsive to the stuff. Of course, since I’ve known you, you’ve always been responsive. Oh, by the way, we’re going to London, not New York.”
It was always better to keep one’s mouth shut until one understood the situation fully. That’s what Al Holbein had always preached to his reporters. Rafaella tried, she truly did, but it was harder than she imagined.
“Tell me why,” she managed, her mouth dry with relief that her mother was okay, drier with fury at what he’d done. “Tell me now or I’ll send you through that six-by-twelve-inch window.”
“I love it when you talk tough and mean.”
“Marcus—”
“All right. Are you feeling sharp enough, or do you want some untampered-with coffee?”
Before she could tell him what she really wanted, a flight attendant, a chirpy grandmotherly woman, sharp in her British Airways uniform, said, “You’re awake. Your husband said you’d had a hard night. One of your children was ill?”
“Yes,” Marcus said. “Little Jennifer. An earache.”
“Oh, earaches are the dickens, aren’t they? My two boys were plagued with them until they were nearly in the first grade. Your little girl’s all right now?”
Marcus said easily and quickly, “She’s just fine, and with her grandmother, as well as Rory and David, her brothers.”
“It sounds like you have a wonderful family. Would you like something to drink? Champagne? Juice?”
Rafaella ordered a huge glass of water for her dry mouth. She just waited, saying nothing to the man beside her until she had her water. It was tempting to throw it in his face, but she drank it instead.
“Your eyes look positively vicious.”
“Little Jennifer? Rory? David? For heaven’s sake, I’m only twenty-six. And just barely that!”
“You’re precocious. As was I, of course.”
“That six-by-twelve-inch window is looking like the best idea I’ve had in a very long time.”
“Good. You’re much better now. Are you ready to listen? Here’s what’s going to happen, Ms. Holland.”
“My name is Rafaella, and if you call me Ms. Holland in that snide, patronizing voice again, I’ll knee you until you’re singing soprano at St. Pat’s.”
“Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your—”
“Don’t finish that thought. Sex I can live without, and that’s all you are. A sexual diversion. I told you once, I don’t trust good-looking men. My gut was accurate as usual. All right, tell me what you’ve gotten me into.”
“But you keep interrupting.”
“Sometimes it’s difficult to get in a word edgewise with the noisy children. And of course Jennifer and David and Rory are little devils. One forgets when they’re not around. I won’t say another word.”
“I had to leave the island, but I didn’t want you to be there without me. It’s too dangerous—no, keep quiet, you promised. I decided I had to go Bathsheba hunting, no choice now. I wanted you gone, but I knew you wouldn’t leave because you’re obstinate, inflexible as hell, and you have this thing about writing Dominick’s biography that I don’t understand. I knew I couldn’t trust you not to get into more trouble if I left you on the island, so here you are.”
“Here I am,” she repeated slowly. “You took this all upon yourself—you decided to make all the decisions—”
“Okay. Serious, now.” And he was, all amusement gone from his face. “Yes, I’ve made these decisions. You’re coming with me. I figure this is dangerous, but not as dangerous as leaving you by yourself on the compound, at the mercy of an unidentified maniac.”
“We’re going to find the man or the organization behind the assassination attempt on Dominick?”
“Right. I’ve got to. Dominick can’t resume his business activities until it’s all over and done with. He’s got to resume it, you know, and I can’t afford to wait any longer.”
“One way or the other.”
“Exactly.”
“That so
unds suspiciously mysterious. What do you mean, ‘exactly’?”
“Nothing. Just—”
“I know. Be patient. Trust you. Trust the man who faked a call from my mother, scaring the wits out of me, trust the man who spiked my coffee and put me on a plane to London, of all places. Why London?”
“Good, the reporter’s back. London because that’s where Roddy Olivier is at present. Isn’t this a kick—his middle name is Masada. Anyway, he’s our only lead. Jack Bertrand was working for him at the time of his untimely demise in Marseilles. Olivier’s very civilized, he knows everything that’s going on in the international community, and he’s not just amoral like Dominick. He’s very dangerous, and he’s evil—flat-out evil. We have to be very careful.”
“I’ve been careful before, in tough situations.”
“I know. That’s the only reason I thought I could pull this off. But one thing, Rafaella. There can be only one boss here, and it’s me. Anything happens, anything comes up, and you do what I tell you to—immediately—none of your infernal questioning. You got that?”
“What makes you think I won’t take the first flight back to Miami from Heathrow?”
He’d considered that, she could tell by his expression—part worry, part weary resignation. “Don’t. You weren’t really worried about DeLorio and his clumsy attempts to get in your panties. Well, Rafaella, worry about Dominick. He saw you as nothing more than a bright girl who seemed like she could be put to good use. His vanity is enormous, and what more could he ask for than a lovely female wanting to write his biography? Actually, writing what he tells her to write. But face and accept this as well: he wants you in his bed, no matter your other uses to him.”
The thought of her father attempting seduction—She’d considered it before—DeLorio had said it—but not all that seriously, and it was strange in the extreme to hear it from Marcus.
“You still don’t believe me. All right, I remember asking him, wasn’t he worried that you could be hurt—this was after that assassination attempt. He told me you were only a woman, after all, so who cared when it came right down to it? Women are expendable to him. I wish you’d believe me.”
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