Lola had no doubt that Captain Scandalous would demand his due, when he learned she’d slipped his leash. But escaping felt so damn good, she didn’t really care what the testy Greek would cook up as punishment for—
The crowd on the narrow gangway stopped, with people packed ahead of her and behind. The brim of her hat bumped the freckled female shoulders in front of her, while the guy behind her took advantage of the moment to rub himself against her butt.
What the hell was the hold up? Lola was short enough that she had to lean over the side railing to see if there was another security check at the pier, or if some sort of emergency had—
Her jaw dropped.
There was indeed a crisp white uniform at the end of the gangway, glad-handing each and every passenger—welcoming everyone to Grenada and checking SeaKeys for the day’s winning number. As though he sensed her presence, the captain’s gaze followed the length of the white metal walkway crammed with passengers.
Skorpio looked right at her. Flashed her a bright, victorious smile.
19
Rio switched off his radio receiver, shaking his head at the pathetic calls for help coming from the Aphrodisia Suite. Since the captain’s quarters and this lavish hideaway were the only rooms on this corridor, he’d told Claudine to clean for her other guests first today, so he could take care of…business.
She assumed his business was with Lola, and he let her believe that. Because, if he played things right, it would be.
And Claudine—unlike her sister Odette—understood that his tip guaranteed her silent cooperation for the rest of this cruise. She’d smiled and stuffed the fifty down her front with a suggestive wiggle.
“Is more than I get from Mister Aric last night. Thanks!”
“You’re welcome,” he said, “because you’ll be working for me, right? Mister Aric’s acting like a low-life, and it’s up to us to correct his wicked ways.”
“Yes sir! He is—how you say? A major pain in my ass!”
When Claudine had strutted away, her walk ripe with invitation, it left this end of the hallway totally unoccupied. Except for him.
And Petrocelli, who seemed to be having mobility problems.
DeSilva paused outside the suite door to gather his thoughts—because after what he’d seen and heard last night, he’d had more than his share of thoughts. He passed his key in and out of the slot and opened the door.
It was even more absurd than he’d anticipated.
The kid was stretched out naked on the couch with his ankles and wrists tied in very colorful, very feminine, silk scarves, which Lola had fastened to the legs of the coffee table. The six empty beer bottles told the rest of the story, but he wanted to hear every last detail of it from Aric.
So he walked in, stopping in front of the table. His gaze followed the length of the kid’s slim, bronzed body, lingering on his limp cock, before he let out a derisive snort.
“Looks like Lola really tied one on. Getting a little desperate, are we?”
“Hey—can I help it if I have to piss? Untie my—”
“Can you help it that a woman—the woman you were watching,” DeSilva mocked, “took you hostage and escaped? How do you explain that?”
The coffee table jumped with his frustrated fumblings: his first show of any motivation, because the beer bottles clinked and clanked before rolling in six directions on the floor.
“I knew she was doing it!” Aric protested, as though any fool could figure it out. “I let Lola wrap those—it was part of the captain’s plan to—”
“Don’t blame Skorpio for this! It’s your own damn fault you can’t get up to relieve yourself.”
Rio looked around the dim main room, stepping toward the open bedroom as though he had nothing more pressing to do. The rumpled bed and the sunshine pouring in Lola’s balcony doors made him want to stay there the rest of the day waiting for her. Inhaling her scent from the sheets.
“Maybe it should be the captain who unties you,” he mused aloud.
“Hey—don’t do me any favors!” Aric jeered. “Somebody else would’ve found me! Claudine’ll be coming in to—”
Rio let him blather on, pondering how much to reveal. After the way he’d treated Lola last night, Aric deserved the punishment—the humiliation—Skorpio intended for her.
Her essence beckoned him, into the room where the bright natural light reminded him of Lola’s smile. Rio gazed at the big bed, and then saw the cards laid out on her table.
He paused to ponder them.
Not surprising that this woman would consult a Tarot deck—just as his mother did—or that she’d use cards with such rich, brilliant colors and beautifully drawn people. Not surprising, either, that whatever situation Lola had been considering, the cards were arranged in a pattern he recognized: the Skandalis family on one side, beneath the shock and surprise of The Tower, balanced by a King and Queen that made his breath catch.
They were well matched, beneath that Moon: a king who sported a mustache like his—and a suggestive grin, because he was gazing at the redheaded queen who so reminded him of Lola!
Had she chosen these cards consciously and arranged them this way? Or had the ancient wisdom of the Tarot determined them?
DeSilva chuckled at the Strength card, where the woman was leading the lion with a chain around his neck. Not much different from the medallion Petrocelli wore, was it? Clearly, the same chain could be used to leave the kid dangling like that Hanging Man, at the mercy of those who tormented him.
He ambled out into the main room again, restraining his grin. Devious ideas popped into his head, punctuated by Aric’s grunts as he tried to pull free from Lola’s knots.
“So how did you know someone would find you?” Rio asked. He circled slowly to gaze at Petrocelli’s nakedness—to taunt him as he struggled against the bright silk scarves.
All that frustrated jerking made Aric’s limp cock bob in front of those goose-bumpy balls. Damned if he wasn’t getting hard, as though he liked being Lola’s victim!
Not the kid’s best moment. Especially since he hadn’t thought to knock the table over, so he could slip those scarves off the legs.
“The camera caught Lola tying me up!” he replied defiantly. “It was only a matter of time before Skorpio would’ve seen—”
“Skorpio has gone ashore,” Rio remarked. “It might interest you to know that I have the monitor—and I watched your every gutter-level, mud-sucking move with Lola last night.”
“Hey! She did the sucking, because she wanted to, DeSilva! Don’t give me any bullshit about—”
“You told her Skorpio was coming! You had every advantage over her, yet you lied to get her into that bathroom,” he replied in a rising voice. “You could just as easily have ducked into the theater, where it was dark and the crowd would’ve concealed you from the captain.”
DeSilva glared down at the kid long enough for his disgust to register—not that he expected any signs of remorse. “But that doesn’t matter now, since I’m not getting your signal anymore. Checked the battery lately?”
The slightest hint of concern flickered across his brow. “No way, man! I’m thinking it must be the—”
“No, you’re not thinking. Or you’d’ve known better than to pull this wireless camera stunt on Lola!” Rio replied hotly. “When she finds out about it, she’ll fry your hide, little man!”
“Why? I have my orders, same as you!”
“Yes, but the difference between us,” DeSilva said tersely, “is that I have a conscience. And what I saw last night—the way you conned her into that john for a blow job—was about the lowest form of coercion I’ve ever witnessed.”
He backed away, warming to this rare opportunity to get some licks in.
“She trusted you! All she asked was to have a good time and get out from under Skorpio’s thumb,” he went on, pointing an accusing finger. “But you had to be the hot-shot bodyguard. Had to use the hidden mini cam and mike, so the captain could take unfair advantage of h
er, too.
“But that’s all over. The batteries are dead. I wasn’t receiving a thing when I woke up this morning.”
Rio looked the kid straight in the eye. No need for Aric to know that he’d turned the damn monitor on, but only to watch out for Lola’s welfare. “It’s just your luck I happened by—”
“Enough of the sermon, already!” Aric snapped. “Turn me loose, so I—”
“Nope. It might take me all day to find Lola and apologize for my lapse in judgment, when I went along with your uncle’s scheming last night.”
“You think he’s going to be impressed, Mr. Nice Guy?”
“I don’t really give a damn!” Rio fired back. “Another week and I’m off the ship. You have to be related to him for the rest of your life.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Just untie my hands, so I can—”
Rio laughed, because it was awfully funny to see a twenty-three-year-old beach bum tied up naked on a couch! With soft, shimmery, girly scarves, no less. Petrocelli couldn’t see his way out of his predicament because he was too busy whining. Pouting because Lola had won this one.
“Later, guy.” He walked toward the door to further antagonize him.
“You can’t just leave me!” the kid cried hoarsely. “If I have to wait until Claudine gets here, I’ll bust a gut—”
“So relieve yourself,” DeSilva said with a shrug. “You’re a big boy, Aric. Figure out your priorities. Meanwhile, you can be sure the captain will get my full report on how you let Lola escape.”
Rio went to the island-print shirt hanging neatly from the back of a chair, and fished out the pack of Camels where Aric’s mike was hidden. When he opened the draperies—again to torment Petrocelli—he saw the line backed up on the gangway.
Then he spotted the white uniform; the raven-haired Greek who was keeping passengers from going ashore in a normal fashion.
“Shit,” he murmured, pivoting.
“Problem?” Aric taunted. “Besides the fact that this couch is gonna get soaked if you don’t—”
Rio leaned down and nimbly unfastened the crystal medallion. Stuck it in his shirt pocked and patted it flat.
“Duty calls for me, nature calls for you,” he remarked lightly. “Have a great day, all right?”
Rio raced along the corridor and then bounded down the center stairway, skipping three and four steps at a time. If Skandalis was standing at the pier, then Lola hadn’t gotten past him yet. She had to be stuck on that gangway, packed in there like a sardine…a captive the captain was just waiting to take.
He jogged to the security point at the ship’s exit and flipped on his two-way. “Captain Skandalis? DeSilva here. We’ve got an emergency.”
Rio cleared his way by ordering everyone in the crowd to one side. “Sorry folks, we’ve got a potential crisis brewing. Please let me through!”
From the open doorway of the ship, Rio looked down along the crowd and spotted Lola’s bright green hat, right smack at the halfway point. She couldn’t move forward, and she couldn’t come back.
And when she leaned sideways over the railing to see what the holdup was at the pier, he couldn’t miss the captain’s crocodile smile.
Skorpio raised his walkie-talkie to his ear. “Yes, DeSilva? From what I can see, everything is perfectly under control. My control.”
“You’ve spotted Lola,” Rio agreed, “but you have no idea what she left in her wake. You need to get up here before we have a damn flood in the Aphrodisia suite. Your nephew—the genius who deserves a raise—is uh, all tied up. The wireless cam and mike have disappeared, and he has no idea where they are.”
Skandalis stopped shaking hands to glower at him.
DeSilva sensed he’d better get down the gangway to rescue Lola before the captain got to her first.
But what was this? The packed passengers in the back half of the gangway were squeezing to one side—as though a miracle, like the parting of the Red Sea, had come to pass!
Rio stepped forward, squinting in the sunlight. When he saw that the miracle’s name was George LeFevre, his nighttime security counterpart, he shut off his two-way. Skandalis didn’t need to hear another word!
20
“Please! I’ve got to vomit!” Lola cried, fluttering her hand in front of her mouth. “Please move! Please—I’m going to be sick—”
Which wasn’t a lie. If Captain Scandalous grabbed her, it was all over. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed to trap her this way, but it was a no-brainer that he’d make her pay for her sins.
“Please—let me by so—”
“Hey! Outta the lady’s way!” a burly black guy took up her cry.
When he turned in the aisle, with his voice blasting at them like a bullhorn and his sheer bulk clearing a path for her, Lola believed in the intervention of angels. Even very large, very dark angels with southern accents.
“Y’all gotta move it now!” he sang out. “This poor little gal’s about to hurl, and you don’t want it gettin’ on ya!”
Thank God for hats with floppy brims and big shades. Lola followed close behind this guy, keeping a hand to her mouth and the other one to her stomach, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder.
Skandalis would be pissed, but she didn’t care. He had his games, and two could play them—by whichever set of rules worked at any given moment.
But then she caught sight of another white uniform, and a slender, golden face with a mustache.
Rio was looking right at her. Grinning. Either laughing at her predicament, or following orders from Skandalis to head her off.
She didn’t have a rat’s chance in a D-Con factory of getting away. Couldn’t go backward; wasn’t sure she should go forward.
Maybe the best answer was to hurl.
But then DeSilva grabbed her hand, thanking the man profusely for clearing her way.
Like they know each other, Lola realized. The guy went on inside before she got a look at his face, though.
But there was no time to worry over DeSilva having a huge black guy on his side. She was being led back through the security check point, past all the passengers waiting to disembark, so quickly she had no idea what was going on or how to get away if she needed to.
“Rio, if you tell me you’re going to—”
He whipped her around a corner, away from other ears. “I’m saying I’m sorry for what you’re about to find out,” he whispered urgently. “And I’m saying Skorpio will be right behind us. Trust me, querida, and play along, all right?”
Didn’t ask for much, did he? But even through her dark shades, she could see the concern on DeSilva’s handsome face. Could feel the pulse beating in the hand that squeezed hers, and smell cologne made sharper by the heat.
“Where can we go?” she whispered.
“We’re on our way.”
Up the first set of stairs they dashed, to get out of the captain’s immediate sight, and then Rio led her across to the ship’s other side, into the Trade Winds Buffet. They wound through the crowd quickly, dodging guests with loaded breakfast trays and sloshing coffee cups.
Lola’s stomach lurched. She’d had nothing to eat since the cherries jubilee Phillipe had flambéd at their table. The colorful displays of food—aromas of fried bacon, coffee, and fresh cinnamon rolls—made her whimper.
“You all right, Lola mia?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Just starving.”
“Not really sick, though?”
“Not until I saw Skandalis down there running some cock-eyed contest—and I realized I’d be the winner,” she replied. “How’d he know it was me in this hat and shades?”
Rio’s eyes closed with the answer to that. As he hurried her along, he snagged a banana from a centerpiece, and then led her around another corner at the end of the seating area.
They dashed up carpeted stairs into a lounge Lola hadn’t seen.
The place was deserted. The lights were out, and nobody was behind the bar or at the piano. The scent of lemon fur
niture polish almost camouflaged the heavy smell of smoke that permeated the place.
Rio steered her into a booth against the side wall and slid in next to her. “Welcome to Whispers, our cigar club. It won’t open for a few hours yet.”
Again her stomach lurched, but with a different need now. She gripped the handle of her purse, determined not to reach for that suede cigarette case while Rio was watching.
“Interesting decor,” she remarked, gazing at the dark red wallpaper flocked in black.
Around the walls, at eye level, ran a rough-cut band of carved marble that could’ve come from some ancient Greek ruin. A closer look revealed that the people were nude. Probably at an orgy.
The trio beside their table—a smiling woman with two aroused young studs caressing her breasts and belly—bore facial expressions that invited her to frolic with them. In the dimness, they seemed so lifelike Lola swore the lady winked at her. A dog lying to one side was looking right at her, too, with a face that was eerily human.
Lola blinked. Then burst out laughing when Rio tapped her hand with the banana.
“Thanks,” she murmured, looking around to be sure no one heard them. Now that they sat side by side, she knew of a hundred things they needed to discuss.
Or not. The lips framed by that mustache were good for so many things besides talking.
“The frieze here is supposedly patterned after one in a temple honoring Aphrodite,” Rio explained. “Legend has it that worshipers could become disoriented—or very aroused—because the figures on the walls seemed to whisper…suggestions to them.”
He paused, fascinated by the way her fingers flexed when she peeled the banana…by the delicious O her mouth made when she took her first bite.
To think that Aric had felt her lips on his cock this way last night.
DeSilva shifted on the padded seat when he caught the banana’s fresh scent, mingled with that of her sunblock.
“So I don’t want to come here with Skorpio. Or with Aric,” she mused aloud, “when there’s a chance Captain Scandalous—or even Odette—is on the other side of the wall, listening.”
All Night Long Page 17
