Dark Garden

by Jennifer Fulton

  Signaling Ralph to stay, she walked the final yards to the temple and climbed the moonlit steps. Sidling around the pillars, she listened for the sound of panting. All she could hear was the faint, faraway shush of the north woods alongside the driveway. She made a circuit of the temple and checked the interior chamber. There was no trace of the dog. Puzzled, she stared out at the glassy glow of the lake and the dark mass of the house. The elegant Saluki was nowhere to be seen.

  Ralph stood and wagged his stubby tail as she descended the steps. His alert posture and beaming stare had given way to a more relaxed attitude. Mason signaled him and he loped off toward the front of the house. Shivering in the chill September air, she took a last look around, then followed. She was relieved. If the animal had been able to give her the slip so effortlessly, it was uninjured and must have simply strayed into the grounds from a nearby property. By now, it was probably bounding up the driveway at its own home. If the owners were anything like her, they would be outside with flashlights searching for their missing pet.

  Smiling at the thought, she went back to the house. Several clocks chimed the hour as she trudged upstairs. It was 3.00 a.m. She was about to face another day without the only person who had ever truly loved her.

  Chapter Seven

  “What do you want?” Mason asked. Her dark eyes raked Vienna suspiciously. She didn’t open the front door any further. In fact, it looked like she was about to slam it.

  Vienna stuck her foot in the gap. “May I come in?”

  Her neighbor hesitated, then grudgingly swung the door back and feigned a courtly bow. “As my lady wishes.”

  “Well, this is a promising beginning.” Vienna was already regretting her decision to deliver the Winchester in person. She should have used FedEx. She should have known that the minute she entered her enemy’s lair she would feel the way she always felt around Mason. Dry-mouthed. Lust-struck. A disgrace to her family name.

  Mason wasn’t doing anything to cause the change in Vienna’s heartbeat. She was simply standing a few feet away, her hands on her hips, those hot eyes flashing resentment. A loose white shirt was shoved into her black jeans. Beneath it she wore no bra and her nipples were distinct shadows beneath the fabric. Vienna couldn’t drag her mind off the memory of her breasts and that muscular torso. She wanted to rip the shirt away and touch the flesh Mason had exposed that day in her office. Shocked by the urge, she felt her face flame.

  “Ah…my rifle?” Mason prompted.

  Vienna presented the weapon to her lying flat across both hands. She couldn’t meet Mason’s eyes but could feel them burning into her. Yes, this was a bad idea. And she hadn’t told Tazio Pantano she was coming here. Wondering when she would ever stop behaving irrationally around her longtime adversary, she said stiffly, “I know you’ve had a rough couple of weeks. I hope you’re feeling better.”

  “Liar.”

  Stung, Vienna jerked her head up. “Has it ever occurred to you that this whole situation is no picnic for me either?”

  Mason gave a terse little laugh as she took the rifle. “Which part? The part about destroying everything that matters to me? Or the so-called accident? Or trying to snatch my company when we both know there’s no financial gain for you? Tell me, is all of this because I turned you down that time?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Oh, that’s right. How stupid of me to forget. I was supposed to be grateful, wasn’t I? A pity fuck from Vienna Blake, the irresistible princess. The woman who could have anyone.”

  Vienna cringed inwardly. She should have guessed that Mason would throw that embarrassing evening in her face one day. “That was a long time ago and we both know I was drunk.”

  “Which is precisely the time when people say what they really think. As I recall, you said you were doing me a favor.”

  “I didn’t use those words, and anyway…it wasn’t what I meant.”

  “Like you remember anything about that night.”

  Mason’s contempt blistered across Vienna’s conscience, reminding her of events she’d rather forget. She stared out the gap in the door, knowing she should be walking back the way she came, not standing here letting Mason get under her skin again. She wished she didn’t remember that night, but it was as if the party had only happened weeks ago, not years. The humiliation and rejection were still gut-wrenching.

  Mason was the last person she’d expected to see that night. Then there was the date on her arm, a worldly, accomplished woman who made Vienna painfully aware of her own smug sophomore banality. Determined to be noticed, Vienna had tossed back drinks too fast and flirted too obviously, all the while observing Mason with that woman. Leaning over her. Bringing her cocktails. And claiming her with the casual possessiveness of a lover. A touch to the cheek. A lowered head. Constant eye contact. Mason and her girlfriend shared a coded language that excluded her completely. Every hint of intimacy had gouged at Vienna until she was seething with resentment. All she could think about was getting between them, stealing Mason’s attention away from the woman who held it.

  Looking back, she couldn’t believe her immaturity. Or her jealousy. She could still see the incredulous look on Mason’s face when Vienna cornered her alone and smoking a cigar in a secluded corner of the back garden. Vienna couldn’t remember exactly what she’d said in her clumsy seduction attempt, but the words had come out all wrong. She’d tried to be sophisticated, to sound more experienced than she was. Mason’s insolent taunt about her virginity six years earlier had hammered in her mind. Go play with your dolls.

  She’d alluded to a retinue of lovers she didn’t have and flaunted a sexual vocabulary borrowed from girls in her sorority. All the while, as she made a fool of herself, Mason never stopped devouring her with a stare that made every muscle tremble.

  When she finally ran out of steam, Mason asked, “What’s your point?”

  “I’m suggesting we could get out of here and have some fun.”

  Mason slowly extinguished her cigar. “Why would I want to sleep with a woman who gives herself away so cheaply?”

  Vienna cloaked her embarrassment with a phony laugh and a flirtatious pout. “Hey, any lesbian here would kill to be in your shoes, Cavender. They all want me, but I picked you.”

  “I’m bowled over.” Mason’s bored response burned its way through the haze of alcohol into Vienna’s brain. “But here’s the thing. I’m with someone else tonight. She doesn’t come from money, but she has real class…I won’t even try to explain what that means. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You bitch.”

  Mason wasn’t done. “Maybe if I was a jerk…and also a moron, I’d dump her so I could fuck you. But shallow narcissists don’t do it for me, sorry.”

  Stunned by the insult, Vienna swung her hand at Mason’s face and missed. “I’ll make you sorry, all right…sorry you ever said that.”

  Mason caught hold of her arm before she could take better aim. “You’re drunk,” she said, frog-marching her toward the front gates. “And you’re a menace to yourself and others. I’m taking you back to your room so you can sleep it off.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Vienna tried to shake herself free. “Who do you think you are?”

  Mason had given her an answer, but the words were inaudible and the girlfriend had shown up then. She helped Vienna into the backseat of Mason’s car and then assisted her up to her room once they reached the building. She and Mason had stayed for the next hour while Vienna disgraced herself by vomiting and sobbing incoherently about not measuring up to her father’s expectations. The girlfriend made coffee and helped Vienna undress, then put her to bed. She seemed genuinely nice, which only made matters worse.

  Vienna couldn’t remember her name, so days later when she wanted to apologize to her, the only option was to call Mason. But she hadn’t picked up the phone. The next time she saw the woman was five years later on a television program about aid workers in Rwanda. She was making a difference, helping genoci
de survivors start small businesses. Vienna sent a donation.

  Running a hand over her stinging eyes, she forced herself present. Mason had just said something else, but she hadn’t been listening. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “Could you repeat that?”

  “I said I’ve never done you harm.”

  “Perhaps not directly,” Vienna conceded. “But your father spent his whole life attacking my family, and your brother was blackmailing one of my cousins, the man who happens to be one of my vice presidents.”

  “So that’s why you arranged the accident. That snake you call a relative likes underage girls, but hey, who cares? You’re outraged because my brother called him out! That’s mind-bending.”

  Vienna lifted a hand to her cheek, wiping at something that wasn’t there, giving herself time to process what she’d just heard. She felt nauseous. Her cousin’s story was completely different. Andy had stood in front of her desk a month ago, begging her to help save his marriage. He’d made a terrible mistake. Somehow Lynden had photos of him with a girl he’d met at a party. It was obviously a set-up. Lynden wanted him to back off a Chinese supplier they’d been pressuring to stop selling products to the Cavender Corporation. He was going to send the photos to Andy’s wife.

  “My cousin was an idiot, but the Chinese situation is just business. Your brother made it personal. There are children involved.”

  “Yes, girls kept as sex slaves for men like your cousin to assault.”

  “That’s an outright lie.”

  “Sure. Go ahead and tell yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.” Mason paused, her focus seeming to shift inward. In a curiously absent tone, she murmured, “How ironic.”

  “What do you mean?” Vienna wished she could dismiss Mason’s accusation with absolute certainty, but she kept seeing Andy’s face when she picked up the phone to call the police.

  He’d begged her to appease Lynden, claiming that if the police got involved his wife would soon know everything. Vienna had seen his point. It ate at her to have to go cap in hand to a Cavender, but Lynden was the perfect gentleman when she phoned him. No crowing. No nastiness. They’d spoken civilly and agreed that if she stayed away from his suppliers, he would destroy the photographs. She’d trusted him to keep his word. That was another Cavender weak spot, their adherence to outdated principles. Lynden, despite his playboy habits, would have gone down with the Titanic before he pushed past a woman to get to a lifeboat. His sister was the same, an anachronism.

  “Do you ever wonder how things might have been?” Mason asked, as if she’d been brooding on the question while Vienna’s mind was elsewhere. “Who we could be to each other, if it wasn’t for all…this?”

  “This is the reality,” Vienna replied. “There’s no point in what-ifs.”

  Mason studied her for several long, excruciating seconds, then said in a low, husky tone, “What if I told you I want to kiss you. Would that change your reality?”

  The air escaped Vienna’s lungs in a rush. Disoriented, she repeated Mason’s words silently to herself and decided she must have misheard, or worse, unconsciously fantasized. “What?”

  “Don’t look at me like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Mason said bitterly. “We’ve been dancing around this our whole lives.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Vienna retorted.

  “Are you saying you don’t think about it?”

  “Now who’s flattering herself?”

  “I take it that’s a no.”

  “No. I mean, yes.”

  “Why, because you get so many better offers?” When Vienna didn’t answer, Mason said softly, “What if I told you I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you. I think about taking you…so you can never wash me off.”

  Knees close to buckling, Vienna said, “Then I’d know you were lying.” As soon as she’d snapped the response out, she realized she sounded disappointed.

  Mason looked down. The corners of her mouth pulled just enough to hint at satisfaction. “That’s what I thought.”

  Knowing she’d stupidly exposed herself, Vienna reached for the edge of the door but she couldn’t escape fast enough. Mason’s hand clamped down on hers. Her touch struck Vienna’s senses like a sledgehammer, driving a quivering echo through every inch of flesh. She couldn’t find words to explain the strange joy of having those fingers sealed to hers and Mason’s body aligned against hers. They stood like dancers awaiting a band to strike up.

  Unable to help herself, Vienna half turned and stared into Mason’s eyes. Something in their depths stirred her unbearably. She knew that look. She’d seen the same wounded craving the day she and Mason stood on either side of the big iron gates of Laudes Absalom when they were children. She felt the same stricken shame now that she’d experienced then, at the sight of Mason’s bruises. There were no visible injuries anymore, yet she could sense a pain so deep it tore at her.

  Hiding her welling emotion, she looked away. There was nothing she could do. Mason had lost her brother. Vienna was only making a bad situation worse by intruding on her grief. She backed up, but Mason moved with her.

  “Vienna. I’m not lying. Don’t go.”

  She was so close each word brushed Vienna’s skin like the calling card of a kiss. The thought made her ache. Her eyes fell to Mason’s mouth, then to the tug of sinew under the smoothness of her neck. The pulse she saw there matched the relentless throb between Vienna’s legs. It was as if she and Mason shared the same ebb and flow, as if their life forces had somehow converged. A rush of warmth rose from Vienna’s womb to her chest heralding something deep inside her, a primal creature brought to life and summoned to the surface.

  She let go of the door. As her arm fell, Mason’s fell with it and she caught Vienna gently around the waist. Bringing her face-to-face, she leaned in until her brow rested against Vienna’s. They stood in silent accord, abandoning one language for another, forsaking the thorny tangle of words for the silken subtlety of touch. Mason drew her fingertips over Vienna’s eyelids and down her cheeks to her lips. Her mouth followed the same delicate path, sampling the skin, brushing and kissing until Vienna’s lips offered the faintest trembling pressure in return.

  Mason’s body stiffened at the response and her fingers dug into Vienna’s hips as though a pawing thing had just unsheathed itself within her. A hand moved to cradle Vienna’s head, tilting it back, exposing her to a restless hunger finally given free rein. Mere kisses could never satisfy the devouring need. Vienna could feel the heat emanating from Mason’s body and pressed blindly into her, wanting to enfold and be enfolded. Wanting to give herself and hold nothing back.

  Mason’s taste infused her mouth. Vienna invited her cleaving tongue deeper and dragged the shirt free of Mason’s jeans. The flesh she encountered flinched beneath her touch. She slid her hand upward, overlapping the push of breast and nipple, owning every inch her palm and fingers could encompass. A groan filled her mouth. She couldn’t tell if the swell of sound was hers or Mason’s. The nipple beneath her palm relayed its own tight, hard message.

  Wanting more, Vienna stepped back and finished removing Mason’s shirt. And there she was, breasts rising and falling with each breath, her desire tangible in the stillness of her face and the fierce intent gleaming from her eyes. One hand dropped to her belt and she flipped the buckle open and dragged the heavy zipper down.

  “Touch me,” she whispered, drawing Vienna’s hand past the open fly.

  Damp skin met her fingers and Mason’s eyes darkened even more, the pupils voiding all color but for a thin slate-colored rim. Vienna brought her other hand up, trailing it gently over the plane of Mason’s cheek. Her thumb brushed across the bottom lip, then they were kissing again and stumbling into the cavernous hall. Their breathing was amplified, bouncing off the paneled walls. Fractured rainbows danced around them as sunlight spilled through the leaded windows. They collided with something solid, the banister of the grand central staircase.

  Vienna pushed past t
he crotch of Mason’s jeans, gasping when she encountered moist flesh. For a split second she froze and drew back, blood pounding in her ears. On the walls above, blades gleamed and glassy eyes observed. Painted faces stared down from the upstairs gallery, Cavenders witnessing the unimaginable. Then Mason parted Vienna’s lips in a rough, hot kiss that left no room for anything but the slippery urgency of their explorations. With a single sharp tug, she tore open Vienna’s silk shirt and slid it down, letting it fall on the floor. The flimsy lace bra followed.

  Working her hand back along the seam of Mason’s jeans, Vienna didn’t hesitate this time. “You’re so hard,” she said when she found the rigid apex of Mason’s clit. Curling her fingers around either side of the shaft, she slowly milked.

  Mason breathed, “Oh, God,” then her hand stilled Vienna’s. “No. It’s too soon. I don’t want to come yet.”

  Vienna let her grip relax. “Are you so easy?”

  “Where you’re concerned, yes.” Mason sighed. “You have no idea how much I want you.”

  “Prove it.” Vienna knotted her fingers through Mason’s hair and pushed her head down.

  Every sensation was exquisite. Mason kissed and bit a hot path to the base of her throat before descending to rest her cheek directly over Vienna’s heart. Vienna watched as she took possession of a nipple, circling the pink tip slowly with a wet fingertip before taking the tight, tender flesh into her mouth. At the same time, she cupped Vienna’s flushed breasts, squeezing and caressing them until they felt heavy with arousal.