Rush

by Beth Yarnall

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said and opened the door. “Honey, I’ve got some phone calls I want you to make.” He looked over his shoulder at Lucas and Mi. “Keep me informed.” And then he closed the door behind him.

  “I hate thinking one of us is doing this,” Mi said. “We’re like a family.”

  “If you had to pick someone, who would you think of first?”

  She nibbled her lip, contemplating his question. She’d worked with most of the staff since she started with the show. Imagining one of them turning against the rest was unthinkable. She knew their families, considered them friends.

  “Any new employees lately?” he prompted. “Anyone seem unhappy or angry?”

  “There’s not a high turnover rate. If anyone’s unhappy they haven’t expressed it to me. I’m sorry. I wish I could be more help.”

  “How about this: Has anyone gotten religion lately? Shown sudden disapproval over the show’s products?”

  She considered his question carefully. The only unusual display of disapproval had come from Tracey, but that had been about Lucas, not the show.

  “No, not that I know of.”

  As he took in her words, Mi used his temporary distraction to study him. It wasn’t often she got to look at him without his attention on her. His focus on her never wavered, never allowed for this slow perusal without Mi giving away the fact that she was staring, gawking at him like a lovesick teenager. There was a lot to take in.

  He’d thrown on dark jeans and a charcoal t-shirt that rode every muscle of his torso and arms like a lover. There was a small mole under his left ear. She hadn’t noticed that before. His dark hair curled around the shell of his ear and down his neck. She knew how thick and soft it was, and she had suppressed the urge to reach up and run her fingers through it. The glint of a silver chain winked out at her from just above his collar. She wondered about the significance of the necklace, as he wore no other jewelry.

  She didn’t dare let her gaze wander farther south. Last night she’d seen the sculpted muscles of his legs, dusted with dark hair. There wasn’t one inch of him she’d change. If anything, this moment she’d taken to study him had done her more harm than good. He would play heavily in her fantasies tonight. As he had last night. She sighed. If only she’d been able to slip her vibrator into her overnight bag without Lucas seeing it. The pent up sexual frustration was going to kill her for sure.

  Her sigh brought his attention back to her. “Okay. Keep your eyes open for anything. Any difference of attitude, tone, anything out of the ordinary, someone hanging around or being where they shouldn’t, stuff like that.”

  “Sure.”

  He watched her in that probing way he had for a moment, then moved into her, backing her up against the door. “Are you sure you’re all right?” He touched a finger to her lip, tracing it slowly back and forth. “You’re doing it again,” he whispered, crowding her, his head lowering toward hers.

  She put her hands on the hard planes of his chest and gave a shove that didn’t budge him. “Don’t.”

  He placed his hands flat on the door, bracketing her head as he pushed back from her, separating their bodies. His dark chocolate gaze locked with hers. “Is it about what I said earlier?”

  Again he saw too much. With only inches between them, heat from him radiated into her. She had to fight the urge to wrap herself around him “No. Forget it. Let me out. I’ve got to go over the products we’ll be showcasing tonight.”

  He traced a finger along her jaw, sending a wicked little shiver through her. “All right, querida. We’ll talk about this later.” He bent and kissed her cheek before reaching for the doorknob. “Until later.” He gave her room to leave, holding the door open for her, then followed her out into the studio.

  Mi stepped up onto the Pleasure at Home set and sat down on the sofa to go over the products she’d be showcasing today. Great. It was couples night. Once a month the show featured products and devices geared toward couples play. After her embarrassing conversation with Lucas, she would have to describe and demonstrate some of the very same products she’d practically begged him to try with her. With him standing just feet away. Watching. Judging.

  Mortification burned her cheeks as she stared down at the furry pink handcuffs with matching blindfold, the multi-flavored, stimulating lubricant sampler, and vibrating cock ring. The toys she wanted to try. There were others as well: a non-stinging whip, a sex swing (okay, maybe she wanted to try that one, too), a bridal seduction kit, Thirty-one Favors Body Paint, a card game, toys for same sex couples, and a sensual massage kit, which would be the night’s special.

  She flipped through the blue cards listing the products and features, jotting notes here and there on some of the descriptions she wanted to be sure to focus on. She always put herself in the role of consumer, trying to imagine what aspect of the toys would appeal to her. But her thoughts were scattered, interspersed with images of her and Lucas instead of the nameless, faceless lover she usually visualized. She pictured herself chaining Lucas to the big bed in his bedroom, clamping his big wrists with the fuzzy pink cuffs, slipping the blindfold over his eyes, taking away his most powerful sense, and doing naughty things to him while he writhed in pleasure, calling out her name over and over…

  “Here you go, Miz Mi.” Davy held out a replacement pair of glasses to her. In his other hand he held a plastic shopping bag, probably containing the other eleven or so pairs Crosby wanted.

  “Oh, thank you, Davy. These look just like the pair I lost.”

  “You mean the pair that were stolen, right?” he whispered, his head tucked down, the curtain of his hair partially obscuring his features.

  Mi immediately went on alert. Did Davy know something about their disappearance? “Stolen?” She’d tried for innocence, but sounded suspicious.

  “It doesn’t take much to figure this is someone’s doing. The batteries, the lights, and now your glasses.”

  “No. I guess not. Do you have any ideas about that, Davy?”

  He shook his head, the strands of his long blond hair swishing back and forth. “I’d hate to be him though. Crosby’s liable to really lose his temper, and I wouldn’t want to be around for that.”

  Mi cracked a smile, loving Davy all the more for how he took the brunt of Crosby’s frustrations with subtle acceptance as if Crosby’s angry outbursts couldn’t be helped anymore than the sun could stop shining.

  “Me either,” she said, slipping on the glasses. “But if you hear anything let me know, okay?”

  “Sure, sure.” He pointed to the products on the table. “I’d better check these over one last time. Don’t want you coming across one that doesn’t work again.”

  She resisted the urge to rub his head like a puppy or a small boy. “No, absolutely not. Thank you.”

  She spotted Lucas at the back of the studio, leaning against the wall, arms crossed, talking with Cal. Even across the distance she could feel his gaze as if he touched her. She had to get a hold of herself, find a way to stop her body from responding to him as though she could be more to him than a job. She was nothing more than a way for him to pay back that favor he owed Cal. She needed to remember that.

  “All right, kids. We’re a go.” Crosby dropped into his director’s chair. “Five minutes!”

  Tracey rushed over and powdered Mi’s face one last time. Davy finished checking the products and arranged them in front of the large centerpiece on the coffee table out of sight from the camera, but within Mi’s reach. Other employees scuttled around, performing last minute checks. Then all the lights dimmed in the studio all except those that lit the set. Mi shuffled her note cards back to the beginning. She closed her eyes and mentally gave herself her pre-show pep talk.

  “Roll cameras,” Crosby barked.

  Mi opened her eyes and pasted on her camera smile, the one her viewers trusted.

  “Speed,” one of the crew answered.

  “Begin theme,” Crosby directed. “Mi you’re on
in five, four…” He held up three fingers, then two, then one, and then pointed at Mi to begin.

  “Hello and welcome to Pleasure at Home. I’m your host, Miyuki. Pleasure at Home is America’s preferred home shopping show because we bring you products to add spice to your love life or maybe even to help you learn to love yourself a little more. And as always, you can count on Pleasure at Home to be discrete with your selections.

  “I’m so excited about tonight’s show because it’s all about couples. Yes, that’s right. Our products tonight were chosen with couples in mind to help you get the most pleasure out of your loving relationship…”

  At the back of the studio Lucas watched Mi launch into her spiel. From his vantage point he could see her on the monitors, see what her viewers saw. A confident young woman with an easy smile and soothing voice, Mi oozed trustworthiness and confidentiality. She beckoned her viewers to try something new, to make their fantasies come true and to strengthen their relationships. He could see in a moment why she was so successful.

  “This is one of our most profitable shows,” Cal whispered. “Couples night is gold.” He rubbed his hands together as though preparing them to count stacks of cash.

  Mi’s voice drifted across the studio. “Our first product of the evening is Mutual Bliss’s Thirty-one Flavors Body Paint. Be the canvas as your partner discovers their inner Picasso, painting their way to your mutual gratification…”

  Lucas tried not to imagine stroking the paint-dipped brush up and over Mi’s hip, down the length of her thigh, and following it with his mouth.

  “Completely edible, deliciously decadent, these body paints let you be the artist, designing a night of passion neither one of you will ever forget. Only sixty-three, ninety-nine this delicious palette of pleasure includes such flavors as cherry, chocolate, marshmallow, apple tart, and many more guilt-free taste sensations.”

  Chocolate tipped nipples… He shuddered, disguising the sudden movement as a simple posture shift. He wondered if anyone would notice if that palette somehow disappeared after the show.

  As Mi continued on to the next product, he began to understand the popularity of Pleasure at Home’s products. He found himself considering the possibilities, as he’d never done before. Maybe it had less to do with his shedding beliefs and more to do with his attraction to Mi. Either way, watching her performance gave him ideas he’d never had before. Not all of the products were for him though. That strap-on thing and that other one for—what the fuck had Mi called it?—‘back door action’—were definitely not for him. But those panties with the built-in, controllable vibrator had him smothering a pirate grin.

  Cal leaned toward him, pointing at Mi, his lips curved in a cat-that-got-the-cream grin. “Isn’t she amazing? And she’s all mine. All mine. Remember, I’m counting on you not to let anything happen to my girl.”

  The way Cal said that with such possession made him wonder for a moment if Cal and Mi had something going. He shot his friend a death stare. Jealousy, hard and sharp stabbed into him, nearly stealing his breath. In a contest between the two of them, Lucas wasn’t sure who’d win. The only thing he knew for sure was when it was finally over there’d only be one of them left standing.

  And that man had to be Lucas.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “I can practically hear my bank balance ticking up and up.” Cal’s words penetrated Lucas’s covetous rage.

  As the red haze cleared his vision, Lucas really looked at his friend. Cal had been talking about Mi as though she were a valuable asset, not a lover. A thing to buy, sell or trade. He realized she meant nothing more to Cal than the cameras, the studio or even his precious Mercedes. She was an investment Cal had employed him to protect, nothing more.

  He shook his head. What had he been thinking? He’d been thinking with his dick, that’s what. Thinking with his dick always gotten him into trouble. Thinking with his dick had allowed Vanessa to fuck him over. And there sat trouble. All one hundred odd pounds of her, holding up a set of fuzzy, pink handcuffs and matching blindfold, looking like every man’s fantasy.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  He ran a hand through his hair, knowing he was in deep. Every time he’d get her within reach she’d slip away. He wondered if it was the chase that enthralled him. He’d never had to chase Vanessa and yet she had never really been his, had she?

  Cal mumbled something to him, but his attention remained riveted on Mi. She held up a strange looking rubber ring with a big nub and silver bullet thing attached to it. She switched it on.

  “One of our most popular couples toy, the Colossal Cock Ring from Tease and Scream keeps him up and at ‘em all night long. This powerful couples cock ring delivers a perfect O with a vibrating tongue that hits her spot every time. Only twenty-nine ninety-nine, the variable speed bullet lets you control the intensity wirelessly, so no twisted wires, only tangled limbs and pleasured sighs.”

  Now that one was on a whole other level. A level he wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready for.

  “Lucas.”

  He turned to find Cal regarding him as though he were sizing up a competitor he wanted to take advantage of. Always the worst position to find yourself in with Cal.

  “What?”

  “I was asking if you and Mi would like to have dinner with me tonight, but I think I already know the answer.”

  Lucas returned his attention back to Mi, ignoring Cal’s bait.

  They watched the rest of the show in silence. When it was over, Lucas peeled off the wall with a half-assed muttered goodbye to Cal and followed Mi to the makeup room. Cal’s low chuckle followed him.

  He stood outside the door, waiting for her to transform back into the fresh-faced Mi he’d come to like best. While he waited, he watched the crew, looking for what he didn’t know. A button on a lapel proclaiming allegiance to C.A.L.M.? A receipt for surveillance equipment hanging out a back pocket? Mi’s missing glasses clenched in an angry fist? He wished. What he saw was a group of people who worked well together and did their jobs with the practice of long employment.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. He found an out of the way corner from where he could see the doorway to the makeup room and punched the phone on. “Vega.”

  “The cops are gone.” Malcolm said. “They left a right mess.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “I dropped the key off at your place. The doorman has it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I got news.” Malcolm’s voice held the excited quiver of a boy who’d pulled the prize from a cereal box.

  “Yeah?”

  “That background you wanted on Mi?”

  With an eye on the doorway, he rolled up to the balls of his feet, his body tensing. “Yeah.”

  “There’s no record of her ever having a child.”

  He relaxed back down to his heels, but the tension stayed with him. There was more.

  “She’s never been appointed a legal guardian either.”

  “Just cut to it,” Lucas ground out.

  “The only record I could find of a child close to her was a brother born about fourteen years ago. Ethan Derek Easley born July twenty-nine died six months later on January eleven. Cause of death was listed as SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.”

  Lucas thought about the recent photo of Mi and the older woman with a baby in a park. The car seat. The crib. He hadn’t bought her explanation about buying those things for Lucy at rummage sales. They’d looked used. And often. Unless she babysat regularly it just didn’t add up.

  “Anything else?”

  “She makes a very decent income, but her bank balance is pathetically low. She has little debt other than her house. No savings. I can’t find where her money actually goes. But whatever she’s spending it on, she’s paying cash, leaving no credit trail.” Malcolm let the end of the sentence hang with all kinds of supposition tacked onto it— gambling, drugs, the list went on and on. None of it was good.

  Fuck.

  “You
want me to keep digging?”

  That sick feeling he’d gotten, when Vanessa had thrown herself to her knees in front of him begging him to forgive her, dropped into his belly and lay there like a pile of lumber, hard and unrelenting.

  “No,” he managed. She would have to confide in him on her own.

  “Sorry, man.”

  “Yeah.” Me too, he silently added. “Thanks. I owe you.”

  “No. I think giving this kind of news is a favor that should never be repaid.” Malcolm hung up.

  He shoved his phone deep into his pocket and took a moment to wipe the disappointment from his face. He almost wished he hadn’t asked Malcolm to check out Mi. Almost.

  He clamped down his emotions, trying not to acknowledge how hard disillusionment rode him. Sifting through the information Malcolm had provided, he compared it with what he’d seen, heard, and surmised about Mi. What was she hiding? And how much of what she was keeping to herself was going to turn around and bite him in the ass?

  Mi came out of the makeup room and glanced around until she spotted him. She smiled, her face lit with what looked like genuine pleasure at the sight of him. His forehead hurt and he realized he was scowling back at her. As she neared, he lost all perspective, his vision narrowing down to a point that began and ended with her as though she were a single candle in a darkened room. She came even with him and he realized he’d forgotten to breathe. With his sudden intake of air came the recognition that this tiny woman could do him more harm than a grenade strapped to his chest. It scared him even more that he might be willing to take that risk.

  “I’m ready to go.” She glanced around the studio. “Is Cal still here?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” She frowned and worried her lip, her gaze darting away. She seemed to be struggling over what to say next. “I… I’m still not quite comfortable with how this works.” She made a back and forth motion between them. “I have plans to have dinner with Lucy tonight. I almost forgot until she just texted me.” She held out her phone, the screen dark. “I can cancel.”