All Night Long

by Melissa MacNeal

  It got soooo quiet; the music was merely a whisper now. She heard heavy breathing—or was that her own? Lola felt Captain Scandalous spreading her—placing his hands inside her thighs to get her into position—while Odette was guiding her arms lower…lower…until she stood with her palms mere inches above the floor, her ass pointed at Skorpio, and her legs lewdly spread.

  Never had she been taken so overtly: her pussy was gaping, while wetness dribbled down the inside of her thighs. She was wide open to Skorpio’s approach, holding her breath, waiting for him to enter.

  The captain stepped closer; the music reduced to a slow stripper beat of the snare drum and the string bass, very sexy and low. Behind her, Lola heard the slither of a zipper.

  His tip touched her ass; she felt his heat, and the reservoir of his rubber. Lola braced herself, praying he didn’t enter her untried territory. Bad enough she was at his mercy—although every nerve of her body was twitching to the beat of that string bass and throbbing with a need so overwhelming, she didn’t care how many eyes were watching or how many mouths were hanging slack, waiting…breathing with her in the anticipation of—

  Odette suddenly planted Lola’s hands flat on the floor, shoulder’s width apart. With the agility of a gymnast, the woman crouched and then shot her legs between Lola’s hands, so she was lying full-length beneath her.

  The slither of another zip—

  The men all around them gasping with anticipation and need—sucking air at what they could plainly see down there and she couldn’t—

  “We’re going to kneel together now,” Skorpio whispered, and his knees bent her legs from behind. “Hold us steady, or this will be a major fiasco.”

  Too scared to defy him—too damn curious about what would happen next—Lola did as he told her. Bearing their weight on her hands, she slowly lowered to the stage, with her knees landing on either side of the masked, silver-clad woman beneath them. Skorpio’s knees were in there, too—opening hers farther.

  And before she could protest—much less guess where this three-way would go—she felt the prod of a very hard, firm shaft nosing its way into the slit of her pants. Behind her, Skorpio had removed his glove, and his greased finger was teasing her asshole. It puckered in protest—

  But the pressure of the prick beneath her, after so much heart-pounding anticipation, made Lola lunge to take it inside her. It wasn’t hot, but it was hard and solid. Odette bucked upward to fill her with a dildo far larger than any man she’d ever had.

  Lola clenched; closed her eyes. She was so close to completion—

  That finger toyed with her; entered tentatively—

  She gasped with the unexpected sensation of extra fullness—

  And slowly, carefully, Skorpio eased the tip of his cock into her ass.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered, his words reverberating in the breathless room. “Let us do it. Let us drive you absolutely insane with pleasure like you’ve never known.”

  Lola wasn’t sure how it happened, but with one shaft coming from beneath her and another from behind, she became a core of throbbing, urgent need—a sensitive system of nerve endings all jangling at once. Her head flew back and she grimaced with it, a climax that rocked her so hard she imploded. Lola could only vibrate mindlessly as the spasms went on and on.

  She was vaguely aware of hoarse cries around her, and wild applause. The band geared up again, signaling the end of this show, but it wasn’t over until Captain Scandalous convulsed against her backside and Odette’s sly laughter made her open her eyes.

  “Be careful what you ask for,” the woman whispered, her eyes shining dark beneath that spangled mask. “We’ll give it to you—but it will always, always be on our terms. You know that now, don’t you?”

  Lola nodded mutely. It was all she could manage.

  Later, as Aric escorted her upstairs, Lola had little to say. No surprise that she hadn’t seen Rio anywhere after the show. He was probably so repelled by her brazen stage behavior, he would avoid her for the rest of the cruise.

  Cabana Boy knew better than to say anything other than, “I’m whipped, Priestess. How ‘bout a pizza and some cold—”

  “Get me a medium, veggie with extra cheese. Two bottles of Rolling Rock,” she specified as he unlocked the suite door. “I’m going to my room for the rest of the evening, and I don’t want to be disturbed. Got it?”

  “Loud and clear,” he murmured.

  His expression invited her confidence; matter of fact, he looked almost apologetic for the way things came down in Whispers, but Lola wasn’t going there. She only wanted the company of her Tarot cards as she figured out the way she felt now—the highs of her first virtuoso performance, compared to the way Skorpio and Odette had once again twisted the rules of this game to put her in her place.

  She wasn’t sure whether to be pissed about their deception, or pleased that she’d crossed a new sensual line. But one thing Lola knew for damn sure: she was exhausted. Wrung out. Half inclined to rip open that pack of Camels before her pizza arrived, so that comforting old chemical high could help her sort out so many new feelings.

  Including a heaviness around her heart. A loneliness far worse than she’d felt when Dennis ditched her.

  Lola locked the bedroom door and leaned on it, dog-tired. Sorta sore. Claudine had turned down that big, heavenly bed, and a silky summer breeze drifted in from her balcony. The billowing sheers beckoned her to step outside and breathe in the fresh night—

  She heard a quiet fffffffft. Saw the flare of a match.

  Rio DeSilva sat in one of her patio chairs, his tiger eyes aflame as he inhaled to light his little cigar.

  24

  What was it about European men who smoked those skinny, dark cigars?

  Lola froze, fascinated by the sight of him out there in the dusk. She stared at his seductive face, which glowed with the intensity of his red ember.

  Hadn’t she said she was tired?

  Hadn’t she feared he’d avoid her, after her grand finale in Whispers?

  Just the way he lounged in that chair, with one leg cocked over the other knee, slumping enough that his head rested against the chair back…God, but he’d lit all her cravings with that match! DeSilva sat, motionless except for the flexing of those lips beneath that mustache, drawing on his cigar.

  Drawing on her.

  Lola could’ve been blind and still known how Rio’s eyes beckoned. Could’ve felt that lusty summons, even if she hadn’t noticed him yet.

  And his eyes said he knew that.

  Shaking with need—and for a drag on that little cigar—Lola put a finger to her lips. Motioned for him to stay out there, and then pointed over her shoulder at the door.

  She did not feel like sharing this surprise with Cabana Boy!

  DeSilva didn’t move. Just watched her, as that seductive smoke, which caught the glow from her bedside lamp, encircled his face.

  She waited for Aric to knock on the door with her pizza and beer. Would he see Rio out there and then notify the captain?

  That’s why you locked the door, silly. So Aric wouldn’t barge in. So he wouldn’t quiz you about the cards.

  Ah, her cards.

  A smile spread over Lola’s face, and she sidled over to her table. The spread she’d arranged the other night, with Skandalis and Odette on one side and Rio and herself on the other, was just as she’d left it. She could smile now at how the Hanging Man and Strength had allowed her to take her warden hostage with her scarves, just as those chains suggested.

  But enough about Aric. She had a real man on her balcony, watching her. Waiting for her next move.

  It was time for some cat-and-mouse. Time to see who came to whom. And who came first.

  Sitting down at her table, Lola closed her eyes. She prayed for patience and guidance from the cards, to invoke the spiritual presence she required for true meditation. Then she prayed for an extra measure of focus. After all, what rational woman would be shuffling her Tarot deck when such
a hunk had positioned himself outside her bedroom?

  The cards felt smooth and slick and new. They whispered against the table as she mixed them in circular directions, face down, to transfer her energy to them. And now that she was preparing herself for a reading, what did she want to know? What question did she want the cards to answer right now?

  What’s going on, REALLY, with Rio? she queried silently. What do I dare reveal to him?

  She gathered them in handfuls, stacking them; held the deck loosely between her hands, until her heartbeat pulsed through it. Then—because it was part of her ritual, and because she felt Rio watching—she divided the deck into three stacks. Instinctively picked up the middle one.

  What’s going on with Rio? What should I reveal to him? she repeated in her mind.

  One by one, she laid the cards face-down in the ten positions of the Celtic Cross. Her fingers itched to turn them over, to study their possible meanings but—

  Lola sighed longingly. She could feel the suction—damn near tasted the warm hit from that cigar—every time DeSilva inhaled. He was letting the smoke drift out through his nose, little puffs of temptation she longed to share with him, even if he didn’t know what he was doing to her on a chemical level.

  Tap, tap. “Pizza’s here.”

  Lola blinked. Slowly, as though she didn’t know she was being watched—hah!—she went to the door. “Just leave it right there. With two of those Rolling Rocks, please.”

  “You’ve seen me in your cards, haven’t you, Priestess?” Aric whispered. “I’m that guy on the Nine of Cups, about to make all your wishes come true.”

  Shit! Who knew Cabana Boy would be into Tarot?

  “More like the Page of Wands,” she mused aloud, “bringing me a message, loud and clear, with that wand that nearly split your zipper in the elevator.”

  “Hey! Pages represent boys, and I—”

  “You are so right, my little love slave,” she purred through the door. “Now go scarf your pizza and leave me to my divination. We Priestesses must perform our rituals and renew our powers, you know. Alone.”

  She waited for the scrape of the cardboard box against the bottom of the door, and the clinking of two bottles. Then Lola waited several seconds more, for the sound of his breathing to leave. It made a damn funny image: Aric’s ear on the other side of the wood, slightly higher than hers.

  Quickly she whisked the food inside and relocked the door. Lola set the warm box on the end of the bed, looking right at Rio as she pulled up the first steaming wedge of pizza. Thinnish, air-bubbled crust with lots of mushrooms, olives, red peppers, and cheese. Lord she loved the hot, gooey cheese that dangled out of her mouth as she took that first heavenly bite!

  She had to hand it to him: Cabana Boy knew what a woman wanted. At least in a pizza.

  Lola tipped the cold, green bottle to her lips, saluting Rio. Seducing him by just standing there for a moment, focusing on her food.

  Or so she told herself.

  He gazed back, nursing that cheroot like he might sit out there all night.

  So she’d let him.

  Or so she told herself.

  Lola returned to her table with a second slice on the small plate Aric had provided, to study her Tarot spread. She’d better interpret the cards before things got ratcheted up a notch, somehow.

  Somehow? Silently, Rio entered her bedroom, his slender mustache rising with his sly smile. The shirt he wore looked clean and white against his skin, but old enough that its cotton would be very soft. It was already unbuttoned, and when he let it fall down his arms, Lola could feel its caress against her own skin.

  She shivered. Studied her cards again.

  Yeah, right, like I have any idea what they’re saying, with a half-naked man helping himself to my pizza…slipping onto my bed, while I sit here wishing he had a piece of ME between those long, slender fingers.

  The first card in a Celtic Cross spread represented her, and when Lola turned it over, she gasped. The High Priestess danced above the ocean in her dress woven of stardust.

  How did the cards know my new nickname?

  How did the cards know anything? The way they fell into place spooked her more often than not—which made her connection to them seem valid.

  Feeling Rio’s gaze, she quickly flipped the other nine cards and noted the mix of positives and negatives…some very impressive messages in some very compelling places. Since her question concerned that man on her bed, who was reaching for more pizza, Lola’s heart pounded into double-time: the sixth and tenth positions, which involved her future, showed The Lovers and the King of Cups, a major player when it came to love and emotions.

  And who, come to think of it, bore a striking resemblance to—

  “Tell me what they mean, Lola mia,” he whispered against her ear. “Your face tells me the cards have revealed some startling, but exciting, predictions.”

  She may have won their little game of cat-and-mouse, but with Rio DeSilva leaning over her shoulder, bare-chested, crooning in an accented voice that smelled of pizza and beer and tobacco, Lola was a goner.

  She closed her eyes against a welling up of every need her body knew. Then she glanced toward the door.

  “He won’t hear us. He’s watching TV,” Rio breathed, tickling her neck. “It’s between you and me now, querida, and I won’t allow Aric to intrude.”

  How did he know that? What did he see in these card positions? Or was he bluffing, to get her interpretation of between you and me?

  “I—I’ll place a clarifying card on each of these,” she stalled.

  She dealt from her pile again, going backwards from position ten this time. How could she admit she’d asked the cards about him?

  “Such vibrant colors and images,” he murmured, leaning lightly against her shoulders. “My mother would love this deck. She’s been a psychic advisor for most of her life—but I recall little of what she’s told me about the Tarot. Basics about some of the positions, maybe. And if this card is you—”

  Rio caressed the High Priestess with his digit, following the arc of her nearly bare body.

  “—then this gallant Knight with his uplifted goblet must be me. Is that how you see it?”

  Lola let out a weak laugh. “Well, your visual interpretation of the cards is often as accurate as their traditional meaning, so—”

  “So that means this is also you and me, in The Lovers card—making love in the ocean, no less.” His low chuckle sent shivers all through her body. “And here’s that goblet again, on the Ace of Cups, but it resembles a communion chalice. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that’s the eye of God sanctioning the commitment. Am I close?”

  She sucked in her breath. Rio was standing oh so close, she felt the heat of his bare stomach through her blouse. DeSilva was far too perceptive to lie to—and she’d never had the poker face for deception, anyway.

  “The Lovers is about relationships, yes, and about choices,” she murmured, “while the Ace of Cups suggests the beginning of a new—”

  “Romance,” he finished, lightly kissing her temple. “You have a way with these cards, don’t you? Is that why the King of Cups is smiling toward the card at the top, where he sees a home with a wife and a daughter?”

  Lola closed her eyes at the intensity of his voice. “The Ten of Cups is often called the ‘happily-ever-after’ card, yes.”

  Rio’s hands closed over her shoulders and he took a long, deep breath. Was he actually trembling? Did he see his resemblance to that smiling king with the slender mustache?

  Or was there something about the happy family in the other card that touched him so deeply?

  She felt him shift gears then, maybe not wanting to reveal his deepest secrets any more than she did. “And this position—the past, isn’t it?”

  “Or energy that’s passing away.” Lola paused, fingering the two cards as their meanings suddenly hit home. “When the Six of Cups is reversed—turned upside down that way—it can indicate an
unhappy childhood—”

  “Was it?”

  Rio crouched beside her table to gaze up into her eyes. “What happened to you, sweetheart? Did your parents divorce, or—”

  How did he know, dammit?

  Lola blinked, not wanting to get maudlin. Lord, how many years ago did that happen? She’d moved beyond that long ago. Learned that lesson and grew up to become an independently successful woman, right?

  Or so she told herself.

  Lola sighed. Rio would keep looking at her until she answered.

  “I heard my parents having this awful fight one day—worse than usual,” Lola amended. “And that’s how I found out they’d had to get married, because—because I was on the way.”

  Rio’s brow furrowed. His hand shot up to cover hers. “So you’ve spent more than half your life feeling responsible for your parents’ breakup? That’s a helluva long guilt trip, Lola mia.”

  Her head fell forward so her hair hid the wetness in her eyes.

  DeSilva rose to pull her against him, holding her close to his heart. “So let me guess. You became a wild child to compensate—”

  “Hardly. Boys didn’t like me nearly as much as I liked them.”

  His sardonic laugh said he didn’t believe that. “So you fell for any sign of affection or approval. Maybe gave yourself to men, thinking that if they responded to you, it must be true love?”

  Lola shook against him with a single sob. Did he think she’d agreed to Skorpio’s game to seek the captain’s affection? His acceptance? Rio might as well be reading from her files in the shrink’s office—except he was much more compassionate than Dr. Frinkel had been back then. And a lot better looking.

  With another tender kiss, he pointed to that beautiful High Priestess again. “You sell yourself too short, Lola mia. A woman—a goddess—who can dance above the waters this way should never have settled for a loser like Dennis Fletcher.”

  Damned if he wasn’t tapping on that Five of Swords card; the card about overkill and victory at the expense of others. It hadn’t escaped her that the fellow with all the swords in his arms, lording it over his fallen competitors, looked a lot like Fletch.