The Devil's Touch

by Vivien Sparx

  Slowly – very slowly – Lucien traced the shape of her eyebrows with the touch of his fingers, drawing them lightly across Angelica’s forehead.

  “What I am about to show you is called the Devil’s Touch,” Lucien explained. “But for you to enjoy the experience you must be completely relaxed.” His voice stayed soft and soothing. He drew a fingertip across her lips and down past her chin to her throat.

  “I discovered the Devil’s Touch from an old man I met in Hong Kong,” Lucien said. “He was English, and we met in a bar one night. He was middle-aged, balding with a big belly and a beefy face, and after a long night of drinking he showed me photos of the women he had pleasured. There were a lot. I asked him what his secret was, and he explained how to perform the Devil’s Touch.”

  As Lucien talked, he paid attention to Angelica’s breathing, noting the relaxed rise and fall of her breasts through the fabric of his shirt.

  “I thought it was all fantasy,” Lucien smiled to himself, remembering the night, “until I got back to the States and tried the things he told me.” There was a smile in his voice now. “In Hong Kong, the man who shared this technique also warned me. He looked me in the eye, swaying on his stool and he said; ‘Be careful, laddie. The Devil’s Touch will sexually enslave any woman you use it on – so only use it on the pretty ones!’”

  As he had relayed the story, Lucien had begun to gently ease himself off the bed. He ran his hands along the inside of Angelica’s thighs and then slowly crouched beside the edge of the bed, between her legs.

  Angelica lay completely still, concentrating on her breathing to allay her apprehension. She felt Lucien’s weight move off the bed and then a moment later his hot breath was gusting across the warm insides of her thighs. She had an image of Lucien Lance in a seedy Hong Kong bar, the air thick with smoke, as pretty Asian girls giggled and fluttered around him like butterflies.

  Then one of Lucien’s long fingers grazed across the swollen nub at her core and her breath seized in her throat so suddenly, so shockingly, that she gasped out loud.

  Angelica screwed her eyes tightly shut and dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. Now, all of her attention telescoped to the sensations beginning to spread from low down in her body.

  It began with light caresses, seemingly random to Angelica, but each touch was like a spot fire on her skin. Gradually the feel of his fingers became more lingering, and the pressure of his touches increased.

  Angelica could feel the familiar sensation of molten arousal beginning to seep and moisten. She bit down on her lip, and the taut nerves in her thighs began to tremble.

  One of Lucien’s fingers slid inside her, not far, not penetrating, but gently probing. She felt the tip of his finger slowly twist, and then suddenly he was pressing down firmly. Although Angelica knew his finger was only an inch within her, she suddenly felt an amazing sensation of fullness. It was so unexpected and so remarkable that her eyes flew open. She moaned softly. For a long moment nothing else happened, and then she felt two more of Lucien’s fingers exploring the folds of her, rubbing them gently between his fingertips and gradually moving up towards the puffy sensitive button that was beginning to tingle with delicious vibrations.

  Lucien’s fingers felt as though they were everywhere at once, and she guessed he was using both hands. She began to feel her body thrill.

  “Oh, God,” she thought. ‘This man could be a concert pianist with those fingers!”

  Angelica’s breathing suddenly became huge heaving gulps for air and she lifted her head to look down between the tautness of her breasts to Lucien. Her vision was beginning to star and her hands clawed at the bed sheets as she teetered on the edge of the precipice.

  She saw Lucien’s head and felt the brush of his hair against her inner thighs. Then his tongue swiped along the full length of her glistening wet sex and she flung her head back down on to the bed as new sensations of exquisite pleasure overwhelmed her.

  The first brush of his tongue was broad and soft, setting a swathe of new nerves on edge. Then when she felt his mouth again, it was as a series of hardened rapid flickers around – but never quite on – the jutting stiffened nub at her center.

  “Oh, God. I… I can’t take… I’m going to scream!” she hissed.

  “Do it!” Lucien encouraged her. “Scream, Angelica. No one will hear you. Scream as loud as you can.”

  And she opened her mouth wide and the cry in her throat was a release of all her humiliation, her wanting, and her ecstatic rapture that sounded as a long exultant roar in the most absolute and shattering moment of Angelica’s entire life.

  Her eyes fluttered open slowly, and there was a dreamy, almost intoxicated glaze to her expression. Lucien was kneeling on the bed holding a glass tumbler of water. Angelica blinked up at him.

  “You fainted,” he said, and handed her the water.

  “I… I fainted?”

  Lucien nodded. “Just for a moment. It’s nothing to worry about. The Devil’s Touch does that to every woman.”

  Lucien left Angelica lying on his bed and disappeared into the adjoining en suite to shower. When he came back he was wearing a fresh bath robe and his hair was wet and curly.

  Angelica rolled languidly to the edge of the mattress and slowly sat up.

  Lucien had left his watch on the bedside table. He picked it up and looked at the time. “It’s getting late,” he said. “I can call my chauffeur now and he will drive you to your friend’s home, or you can sleep here if you prefer. There are three other bedrooms. I’m sure you would find any of them more comfortable than a sofa.”

  Angelica blinked as if she were slowly coming awake. Her mind was vague and muzzy, her body listless. Her dress and panties lay on the floor at her feet but she could not summon the energy to bend down and pick the garments up.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. Her mouth and lips were dry. “I’ll stay for the night, if you’re sure you wouldn’t mind?”

  Lucien shrugged and turned away so Angelica never saw the wicked smile that played across his face and then was gone just a moment later.

  * * *

  Angelica awoke in a strange room filled with sunlight that streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows. For a long moment her mind was a complete blank, and then everything that had happened the previous evening came back to her in a rush.

  There was a white robe hanging at the end of the bed. Angelica wrapped it around herself, cinched the tie tightly around her waist, and tottered along the hallway towards the sound of Lucien Lance’s voice.

  He was talking to someone. She hesitated in the doorway and saw he was on the phone, his back to her, staring out at the view of the city sprawled far below. The tone of his voice was careful, reserved, and Angelica instinctively knew he was talking to a woman.

  A girlfriend?

  Another woman he had pleasured with the Devil’s Touch?

  An irrational surge of jealousy seized her muscles.

  Some sixth sense made Lucien turn then, and he saw Angelica, small and quite beautiful in the doorway. He finished the phone call with a curt, “Just do as I tell you,” and hung up.

  “Good morning,” he smiled. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  His hair was still damp from a shower, his jaw freshly shaved, and Angelica could smell the delicious musky scent of him. He was shockingly handsome, like some dangerous and beautiful fallen angel, she thought with despair. What woman could possibly resist him?

  Especially after last night…

  The smile crooked his wicked mouth invitingly, emphasizing his sinful attraction. He was wearing a crisp white shirt that clung to the planes of his chest, a dark grey waistcoat, matching trousers and a burgundy silk tie.

  “Are you hungry?” Lucien asked.

  Angelica nodded.

  The aroma of fried bacon made her mouth water and she came towards the elegant dining table hesitantly.

  A wheeled serving cart had been left besi
de the table.

  Angelica’s lips parted in anticipation as she neared the cart. Under the silver domed lids was a variety of dishes including poached eggs, lashings of fried bacon, fresh baked breads, a platter of fruits and an assortment of jams and other spreads.

  There was a glass pitcher of orange juice and a silver flask that smelled of fresh coffee.

  “I thought it would be best to order everything on the menu,” Lucien said as they sat at the table. “I wasn’t sure what you would feel like eating.”

  Angelica smiled. It was a nervous, overwhelmed expression. “Thank you,” she said again.

  She sat in silence with her hands in her lap while Lucien filled her plate with bacon and eggs, and helped himself to more of the same. Then, his eyes fixed on her face, he waited until Angelica picked up her knife and fork. When she had put the first forkful of food into her mouth, he too began to eat.

  Throughout breakfast she watched him secretly from the corner of her eye. He had the ‘Wall Street Express’ open on the starched white table cloth beside his plate, reading with absorption.

  He was so remote. He acted as though nothing at all had happened. And yet Angelica felt so… so conflicted? Confused? There was so much she wanted to know about this man – and what he had done to her in the bedroom last night that had completely shaken her world. And, recognizing the sheer femininity of the emotion, she also wanted to ask about the woman he had been talking on the phone to when she had entered the room.

  Who was she? What did she mean to Lucien?

  Angelica poured herself coffee and looked up. Lucien Lance was watching her with a contemplative expression. The sinful little smile was at the corner of his lips again and she met his gaze, their eyes entrapped. They stared at each other for several long moments. Angelica felt a connection with him. She wasn’t imagining it. It might have been because – after last night – he already knew her more intimately than any other man. A rush of pink color flooded her face, remembering the feel of his fingers and mouth – remembering the euphoria of the Devil’s Touch – and she had to look away suddenly.

  “What’s on your mind?” Lucien asked. His tone was cool but the expression on his swarthy buccaneer’s face was intense and compelling.

  “I was just wondering…. How you got your name?” she lied awkwardly. “Do people call you Lucifer because of the Devil’s Touch?”

  She leaned forward across the table to re-fill her coffee cup, unaware that the over-sized white robe fell open to reveal a glimpse of the soft springy flesh of her breasts to him. “Did other women give you the name?”

  Lucien sat back in his chair and his eyes narrowed as he considered Angelica’s question – and the real reason she had asked. He dropped his fork and it clattered on the plate. Angelica flinched.

  “Why would you think that?” he asked carefully.

  Angelica balked, feeling the heat of his gaze. “I just thought that…” she became flustered. She could feel the burning hot flush of embarrassment across her cheeks and all the way down to her chest. She took a deep breath, and her face was suddenly awed and wondrous, but her shyness made her words faltering.

  “Lucien… last night. I’ve never… ever… I never knew such sensations were possible.”

  “And that’s why you thought people call me Lucifer?”

  Angelica nodded, not trusting herself to speak again.

  Lucien shook his head slowly. Then he leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table and laced his fingers in front of his mouth, as though what he was about to say was secret, confidential.

  “When I was sixteen years old I began to take an interest in my father’s business,” Lucien said. “At the time I thought Lance Corporation was this great, invulnerable empire. My father’s interests spanned across the globe; ventures in the UK, Africa, Asia, and here in the US. He had companies we owned and ran, and other investments that were speculations – gambling that the break-up value of a business would be worth more than he had paid for the whole failing enterprise. It was a huge network, and I thought it was too big to ever fall. But I was wrong.”

  Suddenly Lucien stood and began to pace the thick carpeting like a caged animal. Angelica followed him with her eyes. He was speaking in a soft hypnotic purr, but there was a sinister edge to his voice.

  “I found out my father was propping everything up with borrowed money. So much money the debt was crushing. Lance Corporation was a house of cards, and over the next two years three bankers were regular visitors to our home. They came late at night – men in dark suits from greedy banks who could smell my father’s blood in the water, and they were circling. They offered more and more money, and they demanded more and more to secure those loans. Finally it was too much. It couldn’t last. Lance Corporation was at the mercy of these men, and they came the night before my birthday and they pulled the whole thing down, right before my father’s eyes. They destroyed Lance Corporation, and they destroyed my father. I found him dead in his study on my birthday. He’d used a shotgun.”

  Lucien paused beside the table and refilled his cup.

  “My father left me a note,” Lucien said, and for a moment his eyes were distant and reminiscent. “It explained what had happened – what those men had done.” He swallowed a mouthful of coffee and then resumed his pacing. His steps now were more urgent.

  “For six years I worked from sunrise until after midnight to re-build Lance Corporation. I worked with a single-minded ruthless determination. I wanted to return the company to its former glory. I wanted to restore my father’s reputation – but most of all I wanted revenge.

  “It took me that long to gain enough power and influence to do what I needed to do. Everyone thought I was a kid. They underestimated how hungry I was, and how much hate I had. It cost them.”

  Not for a single moment had Angelica’s eyes left Lucien. She was riveted and appalled. She sensed the ominous tone in his voice.

  “I made a fortune in the early days of the dotcom boom,” he said. “It was my kind of market. Stocks were exploding overnight. I bought well, made enormous profits, and got out of the market months before the bubble burst. That’s when everything changed. Now I had money – lots of it – and I had new and influential contacts,” Lucien grinned, and Angelica saw the sudden malevolent glint in his eyes.

  “I went after the three men that had destroyed my father with the same ruthless, relentless determination I had used to rebuild the company,” he said. Then he suddenly stopped pacing and went across to the windows. The morning sun streamed light into the room. Lucien stared at the view and thrust his balled fists deep into his pockets. When he turned back, he was a black silhouette against a dazzlingly bright backdrop.

  “The first banker was a man in his fifties. He worked for a European consortium of financiers. Through my new contacts, I arranged for him to be caught in extremely compromising circumstances with two ladies of questionable character. When I had the photos I invited him to my father’s study and I sat him in my father’s chair. And then I showed him the photos. The man’s face went deathly white. He had a wife and four children. He pleaded with me. I sent the photos to the newspapers, and to his bosses, and to every broking firm on Wall Street. And then to his wife. It destroyed him. His marriage fell apart. He lost his job – and I smiled for a week.

  “The second man was highly placed in a bank here in the States. He is currently serving twelve years in prison for insider trading. I can’t say more than that,” Lucien gestured with his hands, “but you can fill in the blanks, I’m sure.”

  Angelica nodded. “And the third man…?”

  Lucien blinked, then grunted. “He was in his seventies by the time I got to him. He had a nasty pinched face, a vulture’s nose and the mournful expression of an undertaker,” Lucien said. “He’d gotten fat for forty years off the misfortune of men like my father – until I discovered he too had a weakness. Like the first man, I found he had sex kinks… but his were more…. exotic. When I showed him the
photos he looked me in the eye and began to cry. I told him I wanted him to retire and resign immediately. He did. I handed over my copies of the photos. But the next evening he drove his car off a bridge. When the police recovered the body, and the car’s contents, they discovered he had written across one of the photos.”

  “What? What did he write?”

  “The Devil Made Me Do It.”

  Angelica gasped suddenly. She had not realized she had been holding her breath. “And that’s why people call you Lucifer,” she whispered.

  Lucien said nothing. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was as though he were shrugging off a heavy black cloak. When he opened his eyes again all of the sinister darkness had gone, like a thunderstorm blown beyond the horizon.

  Lucien crossed to the table, took his suit coat from the backrest of the chair and put it on. He glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting in an hour,” he said.

  “On a Saturday?”

  He grinned. “Money doesn’t come to you, Angelica. You’ve got to go out and fight for it.” He gulped down another mouthful of coffee.

  Angelica stood up quickly. “I’ll just get my things. I’ll be out of here in fifteen minutes.”

  “There’s no rush,” Lucien said, and Angelica sensed the emphasis in his words. “In fact, I want you to consider staying here with me for a week or so.”

  Angelica’s eyes fluttered in confusion. “You want me to stay here… with you?” There was an unnatural squeak in her voice.

  “Why not?” Lucien asked. “I have plenty of bedrooms – and you have nowhere to live. You certainly can’t spend the rest of your life on your friend’s couch. A week here will give you time to sort your life out and maybe start looking for a new job.”

  A flare of pink touched at her cheeks. She was blushing at the thought of spending time with this man.