Venus Rising

by Annalise

  Within a few moments, Cloud9 returned. Evans stole a peek. There were two items on her tray. One was the spray Evans knew well. The other was a substance that looked like whipped cream in a silver bowl.

  “What do you have there?” Link asked.

  “This spray will numb the area and aid healing. If the chafing is severe, we recommend the cream. It seals and heals more serious damage.”

  “Oh, I think she’s pretty damaged. Seal and heal.” He swept out a hand and she bowed and set the tray on the bench beside Evans.

  Evans slid away when Cloud9 reached for her robe. “I’ll tend to myself,” she said.

  Perhaps Link heard the urgency in her voice, for he nodded. “Leave it. We’ll take care of the problem ourselves.”

  The door sighed softly and shut with a click. Evans knew that did not mean they were in any way private.

  She pushed the tray away. “I’ll take care of the problem at home.”

  Link went down on one knee and plucked her robe open over her knees. “I think not. Let’s see what’s what, shall we?”

  “No.” She shoved at his hands.

  A voice said, “Do you need assistance with your personal attendant? Help is but a step away.”

  “Thank you, but no thank you,” Link said. But he mouthed, And fuck you.

  “Cream or spray?” he asked aloud. He took one of her hands. His thumb stroked gently back and forth over the back, soothing her. His touch communicated what he could not say.

  A throb pounded in her forehead. “I’ve never had the cream. The spray numbs you for hours. You can’t feel anything. I wouldn’t be able to have a climax for a long time.”

  She saw understanding cross his face as he realized why she’d faked her orgasm with him.

  “Then let’s try the cream. Why don’t you slide to the edge of the bench?”

  He dipped his fingers into the whipped goo. She spread her thighs and leaned back, doing as he’d asked, sliding her bottom to the edge of the bench so he had complete access to her crotch.

  The cream was warm. The scent of vanilla filled the air. Her skin warmed as he massaged between her thighs. His touch continued to be as gentle as she knew he could be sometimes.

  “Sorry I asked them to give you two climaxes. I guess that was too much.” He kissed the inside of her thigh. “Do you feel numb?” he asked, meeting her gaze.

  The gray of his eyes reminded her of a stormy sea just as it looked off the coast of his summer home.

  “A little, but not cold like the spray, more of a warm numb.”

  He stood up and held out his hand. “Let’s go. I’m hungry and maybe you can cook me up a real steak, bloody on the inside, charred on the outside.”

  So much for tender and caring.

  “As you wish.” The three words reminded them she was an attendant in this place. His partner only for sex acts. And at home, society would assume she tended to his other needs equally as assiduously.

  * * * * *

  At the hotel, she was halfway to the closet to hang up her dress—one Link had purchased through his personal shopper that morning—a soft green, backless, strapless thing, long and silky against her body, when a strong pulse of heat flashed between her thighs.

  She gasped and clutched her groin at the stab of pain that followed. “Oh.”

  “What is it?” he asked, laying a hand on her shoulder.

  The pain flared again. “Link. Help me.”

  She fell to her knees, pain radiating like fire from where he’d smoothed the cream.

  “Sara?” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “What the hell?”

  The pain coursed and flashed like hot knives. Grace8’s scrape was a fleabite compared to this agony.

  “I think Cloud9 gave me more… than just cream.” She moaned. “I think it was… Grace8’s revenge.”

  The room spun. Sweat slicked her skin. Link wavered before her. The room grew hot. Hot as the skin between her thighs.

  The pain escalated, spread, entered her belly, ran down her legs.

  She couldn’t tolerate it. Couldn’t fight it.

  The room tilted into darkness.

  Chapter 19

  Link watched Evans as she lay like the dead. The base physician leaned over her.

  “And you say you don’t know what was in the cream?” the gray-haired civilian swabbed Evans between the thighs. Whatever it was that caused the pain and rendered her unconscious, it did not show on her skin. Even the chafing was gone. She looked healed.

  “No, I don’t. It was white and felt a bit warm as I… rubbed it on.”

  The physician grunted and pulled the covers up to Evans’s waist. “I don’t see how a cream rubbed here,” he tapped her groin area, “could cause this reaction, unless she’s allergic to one of the ingredients. Even then, I’d expect the reaction would be topical or at least show some sign on the skin there as well.”

  “Do something.”

  “Young man, I am not a miracle worker. She’s out cold. Now, her blood pressure is fine, her samples when run through diagnostics say she’s fine. Let her sleep it off. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the cream.”

  He bustled out of the room with an officious bow.

  Link called Eric Samuels of Homeland Security and demanded the Secretary Martinez’s personal physician, then he sat on the edge of the bed and held Evans’s hand.

  While he waited, he watched her. She moaned once. It was a raw sound of extreme pain. And he couldn’t rouse her.

  His throat was dry. What if something happened to her? What if this mission ended with death?

  He almost tore the door from its jamb flinging it open when the physician arrived.

  The Secretary’s physician spent a good half hour analyzing the diagnostics streaming across his hand-held unit.

  He tut-tutted. “Drugs. I’d have said R89-17, but somehow the readings aren’t quite right—skewed a touch to the alkaline. Whatever it is, it’s very similar. Something new. And whatever it is, she must be hypersensitive for such an intense reaction.”

  “What the hell’s R89-16?”

  “17. It’s a drug often used to stimulate sexual responsiveness in women who are, shall we say, a touch cold in their responses to their partner.”

  “Shit. They said it was to soothe chafed skin –”

  The man waved him off, punching another series of commands into his unit. Readouts flickered across the screen. “Sure. Sure. The drug needs a delivery system, so they put it in with something that will heal. Yes, indeed, that’s it. Right there, as I suspected.”

  The doctor slid his diagnostic unit into his pocket. He pursed his lips. “Look, it’s none of my business what you and she are up to. But I suggest that next time, when she proves cold to your advances, seek partner counseling instead.”

  Link nodded and stifled an urge to shove the doctor’s gadget down his throat.

  At the door the doctor turned. “Oh, and get some rest.”

  “Why?”

  “If this drug is a derivative of R89-17, when she’s slept off the worst of it, she’ll still have a high level of it in her system. She’ll be insatiable.”

  * * * * *

  Evans opened her eyes. Her irises were so wide they looked black. The better to find his cock in the dark, he thought as she reached across the small space separating them on the bed.

  “Fuck me,” she demanded, her voice low, raspy. Her hands were sweaty as she fumbled, touching him here and there.

  Before he could evade her, she’d rolled atop him, her hands between their groins, gripping his cock roughly through the cloth of his trousers. Shameless soldier, it obeyed her touch.

  She sank her teeth into his shoulder.

  “I should have worn armor,” he said half in jest. He might as well have saved his breath, for she gave no indication he’d spoken.

  She ripped at his trousers, barely getting them past his balls before climbing astride his erection. She kissed his cheek, his shoulder, his th
roat, licking and moaning his name.

  She rode him, jerking up and down on his shaft, panting.

  It wasn’t getting done.

  Her moans became wails.

  “Take it easy.” Gripping her with both hands, he tried to slow the frantic slam of her hips. He flipped her over.

  She cried out in alarm when he pulled out of her. He clamped a hand over her mouth. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  The words were useless. She either couldn’t or wouldn’t hear.

  She pressed her hand between her thighs, rolling side to side, knees drawn up.

  Link gripped her knees and pushed them back against her chest and slid into her. She wailed as if in pain each time he thrust his cock deep into her.

  “Shhh,” he said over and over, trying his best to satisfy her, moving his hips for her, drawing out, spreading her legs, putting his mouth to her, then repeating it all again.

  A scent swirled around them, the vanilla he remembered from applying the cream, only now she exuded it from every pore.

  It was heady, almost toxic in how it drew him to want to taste and smell her. He laved her from clit to throat and watched her writhe and tug on her nipples until they stood out from her chest like rivets on a bulkhead.

  She came four times before his cock fell, a soldier defeated by her onslaught. He used his fingers and mouth on her instead.

  “Make me come. Make me come,” she begged, even after the sixth and seventh climaxes.

  So he did.

  Finally, after he’d lost track of the number of orgasms that had convulsed her body, she began to quiver with spasms that had nothing to do with sexual tension.

  He scooped her into his arms. Luckily, he had the presence of mind to heave the bathroom chair into the shower before stepping in.

  She remained in his arms, still, limp as a washrag in his lap, the warm water jetting on low over them.

  “What?” she finally said, pushing off his chest.

  Water ran between her breasts, pooled in her lap. She shifted her thighs apart a touch and arched as the water trickled there.

  “The cream from The Palace was R89 something or other. You’re sensitive to its ingredients. It’s also something that made you insatiable.”

  “I think it was revenge from Grace8.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about her?”

  “She was really pissed when I supplanted her as the favored attendant for one client.”

  “Whoops,” Link said. “You supplanted her twice. I abandoned her massage for your sunning event. And I complained about her scratching you.”

  “And she and Cloud9 are inseparable. And Cloud9 has more freedom than most attendants. She could pull something like this off.”

  Link kissed Evans’s hair. “Are you feeling any better?”

  “I feel like my brain is filled with that stuff we packed our weapons in.” She rubbed her stomach. “And my insides feel greased.” Her head drooped to his shoulder. She touched a set of scratches on his chest. “Did I hurt you?”

  “You should see my butt.”

  Her cheeks pinked and he could not resist touching them as he said, “Fucked out, sucked over, exhausted.”

  Evans leaned against his chest and let his strong body renew her own. He held her gently, as if she were a fragile treasure.

  She shared his exhaustion but didn’t want to sleep. She didn’t want to face the dreams she’d had. Dreams of smothering. Of something clinging to her face and her desperate efforts to claw it off. And finding her limbs frozen. But the smothering had been the worst. That must have been how she’d scratched Link. Embarrassment filled her. She shifted in his embrace.

  “I’m hungry.” She slithered from his arms, grabbed a towel, and scooted from the bathroom.

  He rose with a groan and dropped the water ten degrees. It puckered his skin and pounded on his head. The scratches she’d touched were deep. So were the ones on his ass.

  “I ordered us whole lobsters,” she called from the bedroom.

  “Thank God Homeland Security is footing this bill. Whole lobsters must cost as much as—”

  “Three sessions at The Palace with underage girls. Come look,” she said from the bathroom doorway.

  Wrapping a towel around his hips, he followed her back to the touch screen.

  “I thought I’d explore while I waited. I’ve been looking over the attendants. Only the young ones. When you enlarge them, some aren’t so young, but others are. And when I went to the menu again, this is what I found—new stuff.”

  It was definitely a new menu on the screen. “Look at the prices.” He whistled. For an amount just under one year’s salary, he could enter a realm called, Hidden Delights.

  “Hidden because you have to prove yourself to get in and you have to be dripping bucks.”

  “Speaking of dripping.” He touched her arm. Water dripped off her hair, down her shoulders and arms.

  “I’m too hot to care.”

  When he raised his eyebrows she said, “Not that kind of hot. Hot deep in my stomach like I’m sick, hot.”

  He enveloped her in a light embrace and held her so her back nestled against his chest.

  “Look,” she said again and touched the gilded letters announcing the Hidden Delights.

  A woman appeared. She was so beautiful, almost a caricature of beauty, that Evans thought she must be a virtual composite. Her lips were very full, her eyes as black as onyx, her hair a startling contrast of silver blonde. She wore a gossamer robe that showed every inch of her lush body. Her breasts were very large and high, her nipples an impossible blush pink. Silver jewelry graced her thumbs as well as pierced her nipples, her navel, and when she spoke, her tongue.

  “Welcome to the hidden delights offered by The Palace. We are pleased to serve you. Your balance and frequent patronage permits you to take advantage of the most exclusive pleasures. Your searches also tell us you are looking for something beyond the usual, that you have a special reverence for youth. If that is so, please continue.”

  The woman stood a moment, frozen. Link reached around Evans and tapped one of the woman’s breasts. She smiled as if he’d actually reached in and touched her.

  “We are pleased to serve you.” As the nymph spoke, she parted the robe to touch the silver rings that graced her nipples, hooking her fingers through them and tugging. A visible shudder ran across her skin. “Hmmm. So delicious,” she said. “As are all of our available pleasures. But we ask you to choose wisely.”

  “I wonder why?” Link said.

  As if she had heard him, the woman said, “The hidden delights can be addictive.”

  “I’ll just bet,” Evans snorted.

  “This might be it,” Link said by her ear.

  She reached out and touched a kaleidoscope of words, each framed in silver rings as glittery as those on the woman’s body.

  The twirling rings halted. Each word now stood in an orderly row of silver circles. Perfectly readable. And selectable.

  “You choose,” Link said, his arms tightening around her waist.

  “No. You pick.”

  “Coward.”

  But he didn’t reach past her to pick. Instead, he said, “Off.”

  The screen went blank.

  “What the hell?” she pulled from his arms. “What if we can’t get back there?”

  “Oh, believe me, we’ll get back there. I just think we need to talk about this first.”

  “Talk about what? We have to find Angel. We know she’s there. Each day of delay is one day closer—”

  “And you. You might be closer to something just as grim. Do you think Grace8 and Cloud9 are going to stop at a little aphrodisiac revenge?”

  “Personally, I think it was just Grace8 wreaking havoc on my sex life, but we can be extra cautious about anything we ingest or apply while we’re there.”

  “I hope it’s that simple.” He paced the room then settled next to her on the bed. If Evans could handle it, who the hell was he to act
the coward?

  “So, what will you pick?” Evans asked.

  They sat in their damp towels and stared at their feet.

  Finally, Link said, “We have to pick Young and Foolish.”

  Evans sighed. “You’re right. It was the only menu option that pretty much guarantees we’ll find what you call jail bait.”

  “Yeah.” He stretched out his legs and crossed his feet at the ankles and put his hands behind his head. He stared up at the ceiling.

  She knew he was avoiding her gaze. And avoiding thoughts of what other options might need to be explored if Young and Foolish didn’t produce Angel Martinez.

  A shiver ran down her spine at the last option on the menu. Partner Pain. Had it been her imagination that the silver ring around the words had reflected the light like the hard glint of a knife blade?

  “Link. Do it. Get that menu back and make the choice before I get cold feet.”

  He did as she ordered. Evans snapped her fingers through the preliminaries.

  Silver Girl appeared, along with her tantalizing menus. Tantalizing if you lived on the edge. Frankly, he liked his sex firmly in the middle of ordinary.

  He rose immediately. Before she could call out to him to stop, he’d returned to the screen.

  “Come over here.” He held out his hand.

  She entwined her fingers with his and watched as he touched Young and Foolish.

  “Welcome,” said a voice, high and breathy and sounding like it came from a child, not a woman.

  The very young female, if she was young, who bid them welcome to this part of The Palace menus was veiled like a concubine in a sultan’s harem.

  “That covers the legalities,” Link said.

  “We have many willing attendants who are just too foolish for their own good. Enjoy,” the greeter said and faded away to be replaced by a screen full of thumbnail photos.

  “So many,” Evans said, squeezing Link’s hand.

  “Find her.”

  Evans moved closer and scrutinized each face. She knew Angel had undergone the hair treatment, just as she had. The memory of Angel tied with the lavender ribbons made Evans shiver.