Sexual Persuasion

by Sinclair, Maryn

  He got up and slithered toward her with all the charm of a cobra. His eyes focused on her chest. She wore the tightest sweater she could find with no bra, stood up straight, and took extra bouncy steps, jiggling her boobs for all they were worth. Spittle formed at the corner of Jack’s mouth. His lizard tongue darted out, and he licked it away. The man was nothing if not predictable.

  “This is a surprise,” he said with his eyes on her protruding nipples. “A pleasant one, for sure.”

  “Nice to see you too, Jack, although I never thought I’d hear myself say that.”

  “You’ve come to your senses, I see.”

  “Not sure. I wanted to give myself every advantage.”

  “So you’ve figured out Andros is gay, huh? What happened? Couldn’t he get it up?”

  “I don’t kiss and tell. Let’s say he, um, had trouble. Got me thinking, what if Jack was right?”

  “I’m right, babe, and I’ll prove it to you tomorrow morning.”

  “Why not now?”

  “I’ll show you when I have the evidence in my hand.”

  Charlotte thought the only evidence in Jack’s hand would be his own sore, blistered dick. Now she had to entertain the creep for another hour and a half. “So tell me how stupid you were to throw me over for your stripper friend. And make me believe you.” Groveling over that should be worth two hours, at least, and she only needed an hour and a half.

  “I was stupid. You were the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Too bad you didn’t know it at the time. Funny thing is that I might have done everything you wanted if you’d given me the chance, although the rig you clamped on my breasts might have gone too far. You could have taken it slower, eased me into heavier S and M.”

  “You were never receptive.”

  “I never liked the anal equipment, but I’m willing to give it a try. I let you cuff me, didn’t I? Some other stuff too. But no, you had to drug me.”

  “Like I said, babe, I was drunk. I’m truly sorry. I’ve got a handle on things now. Too much going on for me to be out of control.” He checked his watch.

  “What’s the matter? Got a date?”

  “No, a business appointment. It’s important too. I have to leave in an hour or so. But I’ll make it up to you. We’ll take it slow. Whatever you want to do.”

  “As long as you understand the boundaries.”

  “I do. Just the thought of playing with your tits again is getting me hard.”

  And the thought of you playing with my tits again is making me sick. “Give me a day or two to think it over.”

  “No longer. Now that you’re in my head again, the big head, I don’t think I could wait more than that.”

  Big head, my foot. It’s all about the little head with you, Jack. She could wait forever. But now she couldn’t wait to meet Alex on the fourth floor. She had a strong feeling she’d enjoy every minute of whatever he had planned.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Let the Games Begin

  Alex held his breath when he arrived at the Regent and walked through the lobby. He scurried by the bar to the elevator, got off at the top floor, and hustled down the hall to the room adjoining the Presidential Suite. Tom Scruggs had specified the room when he checked in under another name. He’d been there all afternoon wiring his equipment. Accessing locked doors to check the other suites on the floor was Tom’s specialty.

  “You were right. This guy’s committed all kinds of crimes according to Massachusetts law. And if he’s planning to use the videos or audio to blackmail his subjects and he’s caught, he’d better prepare to spend a long time in prison. ’Course, I’m doing the same thing, so who am I to say? I’ll be in the next cell.”

  “With me,” Alex said, his conscience tweaking, especially now that he’d put Charlotte in jeopardy. Why did he agree to let her come up to the room? Well, he did, and he couldn’t stop her now. “So how does this work?”

  “You were right. The setup I’m about to show you is duplicated in every room on this floor. See this area?” He pointed to a speck in the middle of the painting. “It’s actually a small opening, aimed at the bed. Watch.”

  Tom slipped a lock pick into a key slot on the bottom strip of molding on the framed painting over the dresser. “Artwork is usually bolted to the wall, so no one would consider this strange.” He carefully pulled back the painting, similar to how someone might open a concealed safe. Carved out between the adjoining walls was a space big enough to hold a small DVD recorder and a camera held in place by a brace that swung into place over the hole of the painting in the other room. “There’s the camera.”

  Alex looked inside to see the setup. “Jesus. How the hell did he do this?”

  “He paid a lot of money to a very good, discreet carpenter, and even more to the tech guy,” Tom said. He pointed to the rest of the equipment. “This DVD model can be activated either by motion or a timer. There’s sound too. Don’t want to miss any important business info. Davidson set the timer to start the minute it picked up motion, which would be when he gets into the Presidential Suite.”

  Alex studied the setup. “I wonder how long Jack’s had this system in place and whether he ever used what he recorded.”

  “Why have it if you’re not going to use it?”

  “He must check to see who’s going to be in which room, and if he thinks he has a patsy, all he has to do is open the painting, adjust the camera to whichever room, and set the timer on the recorder.”

  “Right. He can pick up the disk whenever. He even has a setup in his personal suite. I assume what he films there is for his own amusement.”

  “Devious bastard,” Alex said.

  “I’ve spliced into his feed, which will start the minute Davidson’s camera activates. I’ve set mini cameras in different positions in the room and bathroom, so we can watch what he does on the split screens before anything happens. They’re all activated by motion, so if he switches rooms, like if he goes to the bathroom, we can watch on the monitor. If he leaves the room before we do, I’ll collect them. If not, I’ll get them tomorrow.”

  Tom turned to Alex. “Whoever wired it was a pro, and I can name two or three guys in the city with the know-how. But if you can suffer me tooting my own horn, it took a pro to rewire it so we could get a feed and still not clue Davidson in to what’s going on. He’d have to examine the equipment to find my setup, but I don’t see why he would. He thinks it’s all working like it has since whatever genius put this in place.”

  Alex kept his voice low. “You did a great job. What about the other thing?”

  “My hire’s downstairs. I’ve never known her to fail to open a locked door. The safe might be tricky, but she’s as good as they come.”

  “A woman?”

  “One of the best. Learned it from her daddy. She’s better than him, though, ’cause he’s in prison. She’s never been caught, so I’d hate for it to happen on one of my jobs.”

  “Very cool. Let’s hope the material is here and not at his house or bank safe. I’m not up for breaking into either of those.”

  “Nor am I.” Tom waved at the monitor. Davidson slipped into the Presidential Suite, checking the hallway before he closed the door. Alex glanced at his watch. “Nothing like being half an hour early to make sure everything’s working and he’s ready.” Alex felt better that Charlotte didn’t have to spend more than an hour with the dirtbag. He hoped she’d get up to the room without any problems.

  Davidson got in the shower when a knock sounded on Alex’s door. He checked the peephole. Charlotte. She darted inside the room when he opened the door. He kissed her. “This is Charlotte Stone,” Alex said. “Tom Scruggs. He’s the genius behind the filming. Charlotte distracted Jack in the bar while I went through the lobby.”

  “Good work. Nice to meet you, Charlotte.”

  “Pleasure’s mine.” She glanced at the monitor. “Well, look at that. Jack shaved his genitals. That’s a new one.”

  Alex
knew she meant he’d never done that for her. Something told him that Jack’s date for the night did no such thing. Jack dried himself with one of the Regent’s fluffy white towels and splashed on cologne. He primped like a teenager going out on a first date.

  “Dapper guy,” Tom whispered. “Wonder who he thinks he’s going to get it on with.”

  “Me,” Alex said.

  Charlotte knew, but Tom seemed genuinely surprised. He studied Alex. A smile curled his lips. “I take it you have something else planned.”

  “Oh, do I.”

  Tom stifled a laugh. “Man, you are Satan himself.”

  “Sometimes it takes a crook to catch one.” He glanced at Charlotte. “Or maybe the better phrase would be, fight fire with fire.”

  Tom put a finger across his lips and pointed to the screen. “Shh.”

  Everyone hovered close to the monitor.

  Jack opened the painting on his side of the wall and checked the equipment. “Camera working; DVD rolling. Now for the main event,” he said aloud.

  Then he said something that caused Tom to look at the two people in the room.

  “I told you, Charlotte. You’ll see.”

  Charlotte drew a hand to her mouth. Alex smiled. Tom shrugged and turned back to the monitor. No one spoke.

  The fourth floor of the Regent housed the most expensive rooms, and the rich demanded them when they stayed there. Others had been caught in stings―a New York governor, for one. But no one would see this tape except the people involved. At least Alex hoped not. Because if they did, the whole mess would be out in the open, and there’d be no stopping the fallout. He relied on Jack’s common sense to keep it private, although Alex silently admitted that common sense wasn’t one of Jack’s attributes. If common sense didn’t prevail, he hoped Jack had a better grip on his quality of life.

  Five minutes to ten. A rap on the door. “Showtime,” Tom said.

  Jack slicked back his hair in the mirror, ran his finger across his teeth, and popped a mint into his mouth. He opened the door. A huge, tattooed muscleman shot through the opening before Jack could close it. The guy looked like a Hell’s Angel. Decked out in black leather pants, a sleeveless leather vest, studded collar, and a bandanna tied around his head, he had enough hair covering his arms and poking out of the vest to be mistaken for a bear. A bulging backpack hung from his shoulders.

  “I’m Rip Cord,” he said. “Mr. Andros sent me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Icing on the Cake

  Charlotte fell on the bed and smothered her laugh in a pillow. Tom stared at the monitor. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and plastered it across his mouth to stifle a chuckle that otherwise would be heard down the hall. “Jesus. Where the hell did you find him?”

  “He’s a friend of Max’s.”

  “Jack sure didn’t need to shave,” Charlotte said.

  They all hovered, magnetized in front of the monitor. When Tom had control of his emotions, he said, “From what I see going on, Davidson will want to burn his DVD, and I don’t mean burn to make a copy.”

  “He’s filming this?” Charlotte asked.

  “Yup. He wants to prove to you I’m gay, and he’s willing to sacrifice himself to do it.”

  She moved closer. Cord had opened his backpack and extracted all kinds of kinky sex toys. “Well, then. He’s getting what he deserves, isn’t he?” She zeroed in on the monitor. “Hmm, maybe this isn’t punishment after all.”

  Alex checked too. “They’re talking about the toys. After Jack’s initial reticence, I think he might enjoy this. Anyway, the disk won’t be there when he goes to get it.”

  Tom swiveled around. “Then he’ll know someone’s tampered with the system.”

  Alex felt one side of his mouth raise in a half smile. “Exactly.”

  “Woo-hoo. Is he going to be pissed. You promised him you, and he got Sasquatch instead.” Tom reached over and fiddled under the bottom of the painting. “Double-checking I locked it.”

  Alex put his arm around Charlotte. “I really debated letting you in on this. Now you see what an evil person I am.”

  “I hate to admit it,” she said, “but I like this part of you. What does that make me?”

  “Evil. Everyone should have a little evil in them.”

  “Count me in,” Tom said.

  Alex needed some luck to pull off a clean escape. Not too much to ask of a distracted man who’d survived the sexual experience of his life. “I hope you’re right. I’d hate to have to face him after what he’s going through.”

  Alex took another look at the screen.

  “Well, how about that? I wouldn’t worry, though. Davidson won’t press charges. Not with this video as a bargaining chip.”

  Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s all about trade-offs, isn’t it, Alex?”

  Alex exchanged glances with Charlotte. He liked this more adventurous side of her. Tweaking her bottom, he relished the smile she returned. “Sure is.”

  The sounds coupling with the video brought a smile to Alex’s face. “Jesus, look at that. Cord’s a little rough; I could almost feel sorry for the guy.” Then he thought of what Jack had done to Charlotte and caught her looking back at him with a frown. “Almost, but not quite.”

  “It’d be a better payback if Jack wasn’t enjoying it so much,” Tom said.

  “Oh, there’s more payback to come. Lots more.” Alex plopped down on the bed and closed his eyes. Charlotte and Tom kept a vigil on the monitor.

  Tom took a drink of the beer he had in front of him. “I’ve never been a voyeur, but this is fascinating stuff. And you’re right. Davidson isn’t putting up much of a fight. Not that he’s a match for this guy.”

  “Cord used to wrestle.”

  “Jeez, I remember him. Wasn’t he the one who accidentally killed another wrestler?”

  “That’s him. Max is using him in the spread for the magazine about bikers and their babes. Cord’s babe is a six-feet-five wrestler named Tiny. Should be an interesting issue.”

  Charlotte laughed. “You’re serious?”

  “Yup.”

  Tom buried his mouth in the crook of his arm and broke up, but Alex noted he hadn’t taken his eyes off the screen. Tom listened through a headset, and his expression ranged between disbelief, amusement, and disgust. After an hour, he waved to Alex, who’d given up and was talking to Charlotte on the bed.

  “Sasquatch is getting ready to leave. He’s collecting his toys and putting them in his backpack. Damn, Cord’s making another appointment, and he’s not taking no for an answer.”

  “Max said…” He shrugged at Charlotte. “We’ll, never mind what Max said.” Tom looked like he really wanted to know, but Alex asked, “What’s Davidson doing?”

  “Come look. He’s spread out on the bed, panting hard, shaking his head. He looks exhausted.”

  Charlotte zeroed in. “Sheesh, his dick’s flopped to the side, the size of a Vienna sausage. That is so un-Jack.”

  Alex got up to look at the same time someone tapped on the door.

  “That must be Jeannie.” Tom glanced through the peephole and opened the door. He yanked her inside before Cord came out of the Presidential Suite and saw her.

  Jeannie Day looked like a cross between Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie. Her designer clothes fit as if they were made for her tall, elegant figure. Alex could see why Tom used her for this particular job. No one at the Regent would stop a woman who looked like her, even as she picked the lock to Davidson’s office.

  “How’d it go?” Tom asked.

  Jeannie looked around, settling her gaze on Charlotte. “Piece of cake. The jerk had the combination to the safe taped under his desk drawer. Not very original. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found one inside or under a mark’s desk.”

  “Jeannie Day, Alex Andros and Charlotte Stone.”

  Alex extended his hand, and Jeannie latched on. “Nice to meet you, Alex.” She looked him up and down. “Very nice. Yo
u too, Charlotte,” she said with barely a glance.

  “Likewise,” Charlotte said, but she didn’t look at all pleased.

  Jeannie pulled a cloth shopping bag out of a large, expensive-looking satchel and handed it to Alex. “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  Alex took the bag, peeked at the contents, then extracted an envelope from his inside jacket pocket. “I believe so. Good work. This is what Tom quoted me. You can count it.”

  “I trust you.”

  Alex didn’t look at Charlotte after that comment.

  Jeannie dropped the envelope into her satchel. With her gaze fixed on Alex, her intentions were as obvious as a Bond girl after James himself. Charlotte’s silence echoed inside the room.

  “You better stay here until the coast is clear,” Tom said. “Cord is leaving. I imagine Davidson will want to rest for a while.”

  Alex checked the monitor. “No, he’ll shower. Maybe even take a bath. Let’s hope he shuts off the recorder and leaves the disk for later. We’ll still have our copy, but I want him to know it’s gone.”

  “Hannibal Lecter could’ve taken lessons from you,” Tom said.

  “That the mark?” Jeannie asked, zeroing in on the monitor.

  Tom nodded. “He’s just had the experience of a lifetime.”

  “What did he do to deserve that guy?”

  Alex dug into the shopping bag and removed the folders stuffed with personal information about Davidson’s marks. CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes, obviously from an older setup, were in there too. He took the packet of photographs and flipped through them. Most were taken with a hidden camera. He recognized some of Boston’s rich and famous, along with other celebrities. Some people looked familiar but nameless. Charlotte hung over his shoulder.

  “Son of a bitch,” Alex said, looking at her. She winced, grasping his arm in a death grip. Duplicates of the pictures Davidson had taken of her surfaced in the stack, as they suspected. Alex’s blood heated to a quick boil. “Did you see these pictures?” he asked Jeannie.