She wished that just once a man would see the two of them together and would concentrate on her instead of staring wide-eyed and hungry at her friend.
They were each a gift, D.J. had told her once long, long ago. Teryl was God’s gift to parents—sweet, well behaved, well-mannered… meaning boring—while D.J. was Satan’s gift to men. Teryl the good little girl, and D.J. the temptress. The seducer.
John, silently watching her move away from the Camaro, was ready, able, and willing to be seduced.
D.J. walked in a slow half circle around the Blazer, then came toward the house. Even if she’d found Teryl here alone, she would have been full of questions about New Orleans, the mystery man, and Simon Tremont. Now, Teryl knew, she would be crazy with curiosity. She wouldn’t rest until she got at least a little time alone with Teryl and all the details she could pry out of her.
Teryl found herself hoping that John wouldn’t give them any time alone at the same time she wished he would disappear up the stairs in the next thirty seconds and not come down again until D.J. was gone. Then the thirty seconds were up. D.J. was knocking at the back door, and John was still standing only a few feet away.
With a reluctant sigh, she headed for the door.
D.J. wasted little time with hellos. “Whose Chevy is that?” she demanded. “Is it his? Teryl, you slut, did you bring him home with you?”
Teryl was stammering through an answer when D.J. abruptly walked away. She approached John, her heels clicking on the tile floor, her movements graceful but calculated, everything done for maximum effect. She reminded Teryl, watching from the doorway, of nothing so much as a sleek, lean cat stalking its prey. Under ordinary circumstances, Teryl found her behavior amusing… but there was nothing ordinary about these circumstances.
D.J. didn’t stop until she had completed a circle around John, looking him up and down. Teryl recognized that slow, satisfied smile of hers. Her friend found no fault with what she saw… but then, she never found fault with any male. “I’ve got to hand it to you, little sister,” she said in a honey-smooth drawl, looking back over her shoulder. “This is one heck of a vacation souvenir. Most people who go to New Orleans bring home those gaudy little masks or tacky beads, but not you. You brought yourself a man.” She extended her hand. “I’m D.J. Howell, Teryl’s sister and friend.”
After a moment, he responded. “I’m John.”
She released his hand and, taking a few steps back, seated herself at the table. “So… how did you two meet?”
Thankful that her friend’s attention was focused on John and not her, Teryl stared across the room at him. D.J. had asked the question once before, on the phone their first night on the road, and Teryl had lied. Please, she silently prayed, please let him remember.
He did, and he delivered the lie so smoothly she would have believed it herself if she hadn’t known better. “At Pat O’Brien’s. It was crowded and we were both alone, so I asked her to join me.”
D.J. crossed one leg over the other, and Teryl watched as John’s gaze flickered down, then back up again, his expression absolutely blank.
“Funny,” D.J. remarked. “You don’t talk the way I thought someone from New Orleans would talk.”
“A lot of people who live in New Orleans aren’t from there,” he pointed out evenly.
“And where are you from?”
“Everywhere. Nowhere.”
“But you’re in New Orleans now.”
“Actually, I’m in Richmond now.”
Her response to that was a thinly amused smile. “You know what I mean. You live in New Orleans now.”
He shrugged. “I’m not living anywhere in particular right now.”
If the rest of his story was true, Teryl thought, then that was, too. The closest thing he had to a home right now was her home.
Reaching across the table, D.J. picked up Teryl’s Coke can and drained the last of the soda from it before she turned to her. “Come sit down, girl, and tell me about New Orleans,” she invited, then added with a lascivious grin, “Tell me about Simon Tremont.”
There was nothing in the world that Teryl wanted less than to sit down at that table and talk to D.J. about Simon Tremont in front of John. If only he would leave the room, would go to the living room or outside to the courtyard, so they could talk privately, but she suspected that he had no intention of going anywhere. He couldn’t be sure that D.J. wouldn’t coax details—secrets—from her. He wasn’t sure that he could trust Teryl not to confide in her.
Hell, Teryl wasn’t sure she could trust herself not to blurt out everything if she had the opportunity.
Reluctantly, she approached the table, sliding back into her chair. The last bite of her toasted bagel sat on a napkin next to the now-empty Coke can. “There’s not much to say,” she said, avoiding both John’s gaze and D.J.’s. “The interview went okay… but you’ve probably seen it by now. I think it’s played on every TV station across the country.”
“Not much to say?” D.J. echoed incredulously. She directed her next words at John. “The girl has had a severe case of hero worship for the man her entire adult life. He’s the standard by which she measures all other writers and most other men. I swear, she thinks he can walk on water. She would have sold her soul to meet him, and once she finally gets to, there’s not much to say about him.” She mimicked Teryl’s less-sexy, less-sultry voice on those last words before laughing. “Reality must have been a tremendous letdown from the fantasy. Poor kid. I’m sorry. So what was wrong with Tremont? Was he a geek? An idiot? Was he stuffy? Obnoxious?” She leaned forward, sending her hair cascading across her shirt, and asked with a conspiratorial grin, “Was he crazy?”
“D.J.,” Teryl chided.
“Oh, come on, you’ve read his books. The man writes about creepy things and creepy places. His books are spooky and totally weird.”
Her words made Teryl uncomfortable. Would John take offense? How would he feel about hearing words like crazy, creepy, and weird applied to the man he was claiming to be?
When she didn’t respond to D.J.’s question, he did. He took the seat between them at the end of the table, and he answered mildly, evenly. “What kind of books he writes has nothing to do with what kind of person he is. Do you think romance writers are having all these hot and passionate affairs? Or that mystery writers are killing people? Or that Western authors are saddling up ol’ Paint and riding off into the sunset?”
D.J. turned her gaze on him, studying him with an interest that, for once, Teryl noted, wasn’t sexual—but it was intense. “Did you meet him, too?”
“No.”
“But you saw the interview.”
“Everyone in the country saw the interview.”
“But you were there in New Orleans. Did you see it in person or on TV?”
“On TV,” he lied.
“What did you think?”
“That’s not a fair question. Unlike Teryl, I’m not a fan.” He paused. “But you are, aren’t you?”
Abruptly she drew back, just an inch or two, shifted her gaze away, and forced a laugh. “Me? A fan of Simon Tremont’s? Oh, please. Teryl does enough hero worship for the both of us. Besides, brilliant eccentrics aren’t my type at all. I like real men. Attainable men. Men I can reach out and touch.”
For a moment there, D.J. looked as if she just might reach out and touch him. How would John react if she did? Teryl wondered. Would he welcome her overture, or was he that rare male creature who had no interest in D.J.’s advances? It annoyed Teryl that she didn’t know the answer. It annoyed her even more that she cared.
In the momentary silence that followed, D.J.’s gaze shifted repeatedly back and forth from her to John. Teryl could almost see the little wheels spinning in her head, could read the doubt in her expression. Did she suspect something was terribly amiss, or was she simply a little confused by their behavior? After all, they were supposed to be involved in a hot and heavy affair, one so intense that sweet, good, and levelheaded Te
ryl had, for nearly a week, acted totally out of character. She had supposedly become unreliable, undependable, irresponsible.
And yet, since D.J.’s arrival, they had hardly looked at each other. They hadn’t touched at all. Even now, sitting there at the table, she kept her hands clasped in front of her, her fingers nervously rubbing back and forth, hating the silence and the discomfort and not knowing how to dispel either one.
D.J. lacked no such knowledge. “So…” Her voice was huskier than normal. “How long are you planning to stay, John?”
“I don’t know.”
“Won’t they miss you at work if you’re not back soon? Or do you plan to follow Teryl’s lead and simply not show up when you’re due back?”
“I work for myself.”
“Interesting. Doing what?”
“Whatever I want.”
She laughed, then cut out the husky voice, the seductive behavior, the smug smiles. “I don’t want to be rude, John, but could you give me some time alone with Teryl? I haven’t seen her in a week. There are some things I want to discuss with her—personal things.”
He hesitated a moment, no doubt weighing whether he should trust her; then he stood up. Before he moved from the table, though, he bent to brush his mouth across Teryl’s ear. From D.J.’s point of view, it probably seemed a perfectly normal kiss between lovers. From Teryl’s perspective, it was something completely different—an intimate touch shielding a whispered threat.
“I’m counting on you, Teryl,” he murmured, little more than a breath giving voice to the words, making her shiver. “Don’t let me down.”
D.J. listened to the back door close, then watched out the window as John came into sight again at the far end of the courtyard. Sprawling in a big old unpainted chair that was shaded by the overhang of the roof, he lit a cigarette, drew a deep breath, then blew out a heavy stream of thin blue smoke. Cancer scares aside, there was something inherently sexy about a man who smoked, especially a man as handsome as John.
Damn Teryl, she had all the luck. Who else could have picked up a stranger as good-looking and bright as this one was? Who else could have built a relationship out of what had started as a cheap, sleazy one-nighter? Who else could have enticed that one-nighter into pulling up stakes and coming home with her?
Who would have suspected that she could so dazzle a man like John?
And who ever would have suspected that, hiding underneath her oh-so-good exterior, beat a heart craving pain?
Finally Teryl quit fidgeting and met her gaze head-on. “What did you want to talk about?”
D.J. settled back in the chair. “Let me explain the concept of pickups to you, Teryl. He comes on to you—or vice versa—you go someplace and get laid, and then you go home. Alone. You do not—do not—take a strange man home with you. Especially when home is a thousand miles away.” Then, abruptly, she smiled. “For someone who didn’t know what the hell she was doing, you did pretty damned good for yourself. He’s gorgeous.”
Teryl glanced out the window at him as if to confirm the truth of her words. “He is handsome,” she agreed quietly.
“What’s he like in bed?”
As D.J. expected, Teryl blushed.
“Come on, don’t pretend we haven’t discussed our sex lives with each other ever since we had them to discuss. Tell me about him. How does he like it?” She paused before slyly adding, “That is, besides rough.”
Teryl stared at her, a stricken look in her eyes. “What makes you think… ?”
D.J. gestured toward the bruises on her wrists.
“Oh, no, these aren’t… He didn’t…”
When she fell silent, D.J. softened her voice. “Hey, kiddo, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You’re an adult. You want to play adult games, it’s no one’s business but yours. Just tell lover boy to show a little restraint next time. All you need is for Mama or Daddy to see those bruises, and your halo will be tarnished forever.” Which, frankly, was something she wouldn’t mind seeing happen. Maybe, if their parents discovered that Teryl wasn’t so damn perfect, they wouldn’t mind her own imperfections quite so much. “So… you like this guy?”
She looked out at him again. “Yeah.” Upon hearing her own response, she looked a little on the surprised side. Was the sex so good, D.J. wondered, that Teryl hadn’t taken the time until just now to realize that she felt something besides lust for the guy? Was she so deeply under his spell, so enthralled by his games?
Curious, D.J. directed her gaze once again toward John, studying him, this time with the experience of a lifetime of using, and being used by, men. He looked utterly relaxed—long legs stretched out in front of him, cigarette resting between two fingers, head back, eyes closed or nearly so; it was hard to tell from this distance. He wore jeans, faded and snug, and a white shirt, long-sleeved in spite of the heat, the cuffs turned back to his elbows, and he looked as everyday-average as any of a hundred men she knew.
But none of the men she knew could have caught Teryl’s fancy so effortlessly. None of them could have seduced her as quickly and as thoroughly as John apparently had. Not one of them ever could have seduced her into games of bondage and submission as John apparently had.
No one D.J. had ever met could have persuaded Teryl that she could find pleasure in pain. But apparently, judging from her bruises and the fact that the man who had inflicted them was now temporarily living in her home, John had.
How? she wondered. He must have seduced her first, all gentle and charming, tender, considerate, generous, and then made his requests. I did it your way; now will you do it mine? I swear it won’t hurt, I’ll stop if you don’t like it, I promise you will like it. D.J. knew all the enticements, the words of encouragement whispered softly between kisses and caresses, all the more effective for the intimacy in which they were offered. Give me your hand. Let me wrap this tie around your wrists. It won’t hurt, and you’ll like it. She had seduced more than her share of men into the darker, rougher, crueler side of sex. On occasion she had taken the dominant role, had introduced them to their own vulnerability, but her real preference lay in the reverse. Just tie my hands, tighter, yes, like that. Now take me however you want. Slap me, rape me, punish me… and don’t worry. I’ll stop you if it hurts.
Some men had been disgusted by her cravings for punishment—and even more so by the enjoyment they’d found in meting it out. Those she had rarely, if ever, seen again. Some had returned from time to time for a little more guilt-tinged pleasure, and she had developed full-fledged relationships with a few of them, with the ones honest enough, open enough, to admit that they found kinkiness exciting.
But none of them had been as good, as exquisitely talented, at the games as Rich.
What would he think if he knew that sweet, innocent Teryl had been introduced to the sort of sex play that was his own personal specialty? Just how restrained would he be if he knew he could have Teryl in his bed, bound and at his mercy, willing to suffer his pleasure, eager to enjoy his pain? Would the loss of her naïveté and innocence make him want her less… or more?
Damned if D.J. would find out.
“So… you met John at a bar.”
Teryl simply nodded.
“You guys talked, had a few drinks.”
Another nod.
“He was by himself?”
A third nod.
“Did he buy you dinner? Take you someplace nice? Show you around the city?”
This time Teryl shook her head.
“Just talk and a few drinks. And this was on Tuesday.”
A nod again.
“And you went to bed with him Tuesday night.” When her friend gave no response, she laughed. “Jeez, Teryl, this is like pulling teeth. All right, let’s try an angle that’s a little less personal. What does he do for a living?”
The question may have been less personal, but Teryl’s answer came no more easily. “I’m not sure.”
“He said he was self-employeed; at some point didn’t you think to ask
him doing what?” When Teryl shook her head, D.J. grimaced in dismay. “For God’s sake, Teryl, he could be a drug dealer or a gangster or a contract killer. He could be a rapist or a thief or a—”
“Or a perfectly normal guy.”
“A perfectly normal stranger. Did you meet any of his friends? Did you meet anyone who had ever laid eyes on him before? Did you see where he lives, where he works? Do you have any proof that he is who he says he is?” The pauses after each question grew briefer, giving Teryl less of a chance to respond—which was fine, D.J. thought with a scowl, because she didn’t have any responses. “Is he married? Is he safe? Is he sane? Does he have any money, or is he sponging off you? Now that you’ve brought him into your house, do you have any reason to believe that he’s not going to steal you blind or worse? Damn it, Teryl, do you know anything at all about the guy besides the fact that he likes to tie you to the bed when he fucks you?”
The silence that followed her last question was thick and heavy. Teryl finally broke it when she slid her chair back with a scrape and stood up. “Don’t get preachy with me, D.J. I’m an adult, not a kid. You said so yourself not ten minutes ago.”
D.J. stood up, too. “This is your idea of adult behavior? You go off to a strange city for two days. The first chance you get, you pick up a strange man, go to bed with him, cancel your trip home, and spend the rest of the week with him. You leave New Orleans with him in his car for a trip halfway across the country, telling absolutely no one anything about the trip or him, and you bring him to stay with you in your isolated little house. You know nothing about him but what he chooses to tell you, which is that he’s self-employed at doing whatever he wants, that he comes from everywhere and nowhere and doesn’t live anywhere. You don’t even know if his name is really John!”
Passion Page 22
