Stud service. She’d planned this.
Later. He’d think about it later.
Her determined look was back. She sauntered forward. His head whirled. He ached. And not just in the obvious place.
She reached for his tie. “Need help?” she breathed.
A shiver washed over him, he fought to make his jaws move. He wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter that they were using each other for stud service or a comfort blanket. All that mattered was that they were together. But her fingers were busy under his chin, her expanse of pale northern skin glowing before him, the scent of her filling his nostrils, his mind dissolving into a sensuous haze.
In honor of tonight’s occasion he’d worn French cuffs, with amber studs Mandy had given him for Christmas one year. Plunging his hands under hers, he jerked at the studs, managed to slip them into his pocket. But not without encountering several portions of Mandy’s anatomy in the process, sending jagged lightning bolts through his already sensitized skin. Mandy too perhaps, because she paused, eyes closed, her fingers clutching the almost free knot under his chin.
Peter moved her hands aside, finished the job in one swift tug, attacked his top two buttons and pulled the shirt over his head, allowing it to fall to the rug with as much abandon as Mandy had dropped her dress.
Mandy reached for his belt. He clenched his teeth, afraid he might come in his pants. It had been so damn long. He groaned, dug his fingernails into his palms. A-ah! She’d snaked the belt out. Her fingers touched his zipper. He wasn’t going to make it. He’d waited so long for this moment, and he was going to blow it. Literally. What was that old advice for Victorian virgins? Lie back and think of England? What could be more off-putting than that?
It wasn’t working.
“We forgot your shoes.” Mandy’s flat tone pierced his sexual haze.
Okay, so shoes were right up there with thinking of England. Peter sighed. Grabbing Mandy by the shoulders, he spun her around and dropped with her onto the bed. Ah, God, yes, that was much better! Shoes, socks, trousers, briefs, bra, panties. All hit the floor in a sudden frenzy of flying hands, shimmying bodies, and kicking feet.
Naked at last.
Somehow Mandy ended up on top, sitting astride, Peter’s more-than-readiness jutting upward just in front of her. “Don’t touch it,” he gasped. “I’m sorry. This isn’t going to be the way I’d planned. I thought I was stronger,” he added through clenched teeth, “but I need to be inside you before I make a complete ass of myself.”
Warily, she eyed the length of him. “Truthfully, it’s been so long I can’t help but wonder if that will fit.”
That caused him to blink. “No one, Mouse? In all this time?”
“I tried a couple of times, just for revenge. Went through the motions, but that’s all it was. Celibacy seemed a wiser choice.”
Peter groaned. “Tell me you’re not backing out. Please.”
Mandy tilted her head, considering. “I’m toying with the idea of taking my revenge by letting you demonstrate what an ass you really are.”
“You wouldn’t!” He reached for her. Grabbing his wrists, she slammed his hands to the bed. “Wanna fight, Pennington?” Green eyes gleamed, taunting him. Laughing.
She leaned in, her breasts dangling straight in front of his eyes, his swollen cock pressed against her stomach. Her skin was hot, nearly as fiery as his. If he had an ounce of sense left, he’d let her do what she had to do, be the new Amanda Armitage, maintain control. But it was too late. He was what he was. He was a male of the species, this was his wife.
Peter flipped them over with ease, heard Mandy’s tiny gasp as his fingers found her opening, found her wet. Gently, he parted her engorged folds, felt her fingers close around him, guiding him in place. He moved slowly, determined not to hurt her. This was Mandy. Wife. Lover. The only woman he wanted for the rest of his life, and he wasn’t going to spoil the moment, even if it killed him.
Murmuring her name, he inched inside her. Farther, still farther, until he reached the end of the tight passage, right up against her womb.
Stud service.
Not now, not now! Forgetaboutit!
“Okay?” he whispered, his lips poised above hers.
“Yes.” Was he imagining the touch of wonder in the word?
“I’m sorry.” He pulled out, thrust home, and, as he’d feared, the world exploded around him. Mandy’s arms and legs hugged him tight as waves of lightning swept over him. Colors sparked, expanded, contracted, morphed into one great white bolt that flattened him onto Mandy’s body, too spent to move.
When he came back to the world, a long time later, she was still holding him, one hand fisted in his hair. “Jesus, I’m sorry, you must be squashed.” He rolled off, flopping onto his back, one hand draped over her belly.
“Thirty-seven,” Mandy mused. “Are you done, old man? Or should I let you stay ’til morning?”
Chapter Thirteen
“Anya! Annushka!” Nadya bent over the still figure sprawled on the bed in the small but well-appointed room. The Ukrainian girl’s hair billowed against the white pillow. Her eyes were closed, her body limp, her face nearly as pale as the bedding. More gaunt than anyone of nineteen should ever be. Nadya put her ear to the girl’s chest, searching for signs of life. An infinitesimal rise and fall, soundless even in the deep quiet of seven o’clock in the morning when everyone else had taken to their beds with their customary relief. All but Nadya Semyonova and Karim Shirazi.
Nadya grabbed her friend by the shoulder, shook her hard. “Wake up, Anya. You must wake up!” No response. Nadya turned anxious eyes to Karim who was standing in the doorway. “We must get a doctor.”
“No.” The reply was flat, uncompromising. “She lives or she dies. That is the only possibility.”
Fists clenched at her sides, Nadya bounced to her feet. “You pig,” she hissed. “You give the girls drugs to make them behave, then won’t lift a finger to save one from the consequences. How can you live with yourself? How can you call yourself a man?”
Dark eyes flashed a very cold fire. “I do not provide the drugs, Misha does. If I could call a doctor without being arrested, I would do so, but one foolish girl is not worth the risk of all our lives. Misha would surely kill us before he’d let us be arrested.” Karim’s mouth thinned to a straight line, his words squeezed out like whips of steel. “Only a fool would not fear his anger.”
“So I am a fool,” Nadya snapped. But she wasn’t. Cold, sick fear forced her to understand Karim’s reasoning. His was the attitude of a soldier, an officer who had to make choices of life or death. Anya was expendable.
“Help me get her up,” Nadya ordered. “We can try walking her around, maybe shower her with cold water. Well, don’t just stand there. Let’s do it.”
The former Major Shirazi stood with his hands on his hips regarding the girl from Yekatarinburg as if she were some species of rare beast. Slowly, he shook his head, then shrugged, and stepped forward. It would not hurt to try Nadya’s suggestion. Anna Tvardoskaya was a very small burden, and the girl’s death would be a loss of income for Misha and his bosses. Also, if she lived, there would be no telltale corpse to be buried in the Florida jungle.
As Karim positioned the inert body between them, taking most of the weight himself, he carefully avoided looking at Nadya. She was a little too sharp, that one. She made him recall the man he once had been. The pain of remembrance was intense, not at all what a man of means should have to endure from a female, particularly a helpless foreign female totally dependent on his tolerance for her existence. She was like that South American fish—a piranha, was it not?—a man-eater. Undoubtedly, she would keep snapping away until he was consumed.
The problem was, he thought as they paced the room, the length of the hall, and back again, he liked her. Her fragile body housed an agile mind and independent spirt. Not what he’d thought he wanted at all, but . . .
She was gallant, his Nadya. Nadezhda.
&nbs
p; Hope.
Peter, one hand knuckled against his cheek, reached for his coffee cup with the other. He peered at the newspaper, lying open on the table in front of him, blinked, tried again. Sighing, he plunged his head into both hands and allowed thoughts of Mandy to sweep away any interest he might have had in the affairs of the world.
Miserable little Mouse. Heartlessly, as pre-dawn edged away the night, Mandy had reverted to shy violet, casting him out to slink past all those silent trailers, arriving home just as the sun rose behind the trees across the river. Just in time to pick up his newspaper from the driveway, stagger up the ramp and fall into bed for a few short hours.
Now, at close to ten, he was drinking coffee alone. No Mouse. No wife. No lover.
Well, shit.
That was good, right? He’d worn her out.
Or she was going door to door at the campground: “He’s my husband. Peter Pennington’s my husband.” Ridiculous Puritan conscience!
Talk about being worn out. Peter directed a silly grin at the newsprint on the table. They’d certainly tried to make up for all those wasted years. In one night. He hadn’t done it that many times since that voracious countess from Catalonia. Actually, he’d made a damn good comeback for a man who had screwed up so badly the first time around.
Mouse. His Mouse. Who was developing backbone, taking initiative. Even in bed.
If he hadn’t already given up his slippery sexual ethics, promises of more birthdays like that were guaranteed to enslave him for life.
Ten-thirty. No Mouse.
She wasn’t going to panic and run. Was she?
She wouldn’t. Would she?
Tires on the macadam below, the familiar sound of Mandy’s tires. Breath whooshed out of his lungs. Peter took a gulp of coffee, then swiftly leafed through the newspaper. When Mandy came in, his attention was fixed on the Entertainment section.
“Good morning,” she announced crisply from the doorway behind him. Professional research assistant to employer.
“Get any sly looks?” Paper rustled as he turned to the next page.
“You would not believe.”
“That bad?”
Mandy snorted.
“Sorry. Correction.” Peter turned to face her, holding out his hand. “I’m not the least bit sorry. I loved every minute. My only regret was your sending me home too soon.”
Mandy pushed herself away from the door, grasped his hand. “You sure about that?”
He pulled her down into his lap, nuzzled her cheek. “Oh, yeah. Good morning, Mrs. Pennington,” he added softly, just before pressing his lips to hers. “So are we okay?” he murmured when he came up for air. “Or was last night just your way of saying Happy Birthday?”
Mandy laid her head on his shoulder, traced a circle on his bare lower arm, sending an encore of last night’s lightning zapping through him, almost as if he were a horny seventeen instead of an exhausted thirty-seven. “Verdict’s still out,” she said. “What we want and what’s wise aren’t always the same thing.”
“Marriage is wise, take my word for it.”
“Umm.”
“By the way, take a look at this.” Peter leaned forward, surrounding her with the freshly showered and shaved scent of him, the heat, the wonder of him. Mandy uncrossed her eyes and focused on the newspaper. “Madame Butterfly? In Florida?”
“Hey, skeptic, we even have a genuine opera house. Horseshoe seating and all.”
“You went to an opera?”
“Saw a photo in the newspaper,” Peter admitted with a grin, giving her a swift buss on the tip of her nose, “but, actually, this is a ballet. Believe it or not, there’s a ballet company too. Didn’t know you were living in the cultural capital of Florida, did you?”
What was he up to now? Mandy wondered. “So . . . just what does Madame Butterfly have to do with us, other than being a nineteenth century example of trafficking?”
Peter heaved a long, exaggerated sigh. “You wound me, wife. I thought I’d promised to woo you. You know . . . romance. Flowers, candy, movies, the theater.”
Oh. Great going, Mandy. It’s the morning after a night of hot sex, your husband is asking you out on a date, and you’re all business. Sitting in his lap at the kitchen table and thinking trafficking. Aargh!
“They’re doing four performances this weekend. Want to go?”
He was asking her out? On an honest-to-goodness date? Courtship? Living like real people instead of and AKA princess and her Prince Consort. The idea that had charmed her last night looked even better by daylight.
“I’d love to go,” Mandy told him. “I don’t think I’ve seen a ballet since Grandmother Armitage took me to The Nutcracker when I was seven.”
Peter chuckled, gave her a swift hug. “There’s bacon on the counter, eggs in the microwave. I’d better finish the newspaper and get to work.”
Mandy slid off his lap, giving him a swift pat on the top of the head as she headed toward the counter. Ordinarily, she didn’t eat much breakfast, but Peter liked to surprise her with a little something each morning, even if it was only toast and jam. And she had to admit she enjoyed those moments at the kitchen table, quietly eating, sharing the newspaper.
Never more so than this morning.
Mandy took her helping of scrambled eggs from the microwave, added the bacon, poured herself a cup of coffee, and sat down at one end of the table. Without looking up, Peter handed her the front section.
Old married couple at the breakfast table. He was luring her into his trap. Smoothly, deftly, seemingly without effort. And she was making it easy for him. Lapping it up. Well, why shouldn’t she? He owed her. Mandy took a sip of her coffee, then turned her attention to the front page.
A bold headline caught her eye. She scanned the article, went back to the top and read it again. “Peter?”
“Mmm?”
“Did you see this story about a murder in Manatee Bay?”
“I wasn’t in the mood for murder this morning.”
Nice. “A woman was killed by her husband. Kitchen knife. One of her two little girls may have witnessed it. The girls are five and three.”
Peter put down the newspaper. “You think it could be Jade.”
“I don’t recognize the names, but the ages are right, including the victim’s.” Mandy could feel goosebumps rising on her skin. Her stomach threatened to regurgitate the bacon.
Peter hauled out his cell phone, ran down his phone list, dialed. As Mandy listened to Peter’s end of the conversation, hope plummeted. “You were right,” he said as he ended the call. “Jade’s gone, husband’s on the run.”
“Those poor little girls,” Mandy breathed before her vocal cords twisted into silence.
“We’re never going to make a difference, are we?” Peter said into the gloom. “What we’re doing is an exercise in futility. Problem’s too big, too widespread. What’s evil to some is life’s blood to others. Sex can be beautiful, all-powerful, and top of the devil’s list. Shall we chuck it, Mouse? Run off to Tahiti and forget the whole damn thing?”
Mandy studied Peter’s anguished amber eyes, the lips that had caressed every inch of her body just last night. The arms that for a few hours had held her, comforted her, treasured her. Nice offer, but she knew his question was rhetorical. Peter wasn’t any more ready to give up than she was. “We’d still have to save Nadya,” she reminded him. “That’s all we can do. One small victory at a time.”
“I’m glad you think you can win that one.” Obviously, Peter’s crusading spirit had taken a heavy blow. She’d have to give him time.
Give and take. Marriage.
Was it possible they could make it work this time?
What the hell was he doing? Paying a call on a Russian whore wasn’t on Peter’s list of events for wooing his wife. But perhaps it should have been. What faster road to Mandy’s heart than rescuing Nadya?
As Peter guided the rowboat into the bank, mooring it close so Mandy could use the exposed roots of an
ancient oak to pull herself up the bank, Peter was glad his scowl faced the river. As Mandy clambered out, he sore softly but pungently about stubborn idiotic females born without a drop of common sense. Given what they now knew, this was a fool’s errand. Dangerous as hell. But he’d been unable to resist Mandy’s plea that Nadya needed to know she wasn’t alone, that the forces of good really existed and were not far away.
Peter made his way up the bank, then stopped to stare. Many had warned him, but Nadya’s ethereal beauty, her flowing white gown, her tearful relief as she opened her arms to embrace her American friend, were enough to touch the most hardened heart.
“It’s going to be okay. All right. Vee ponemayetyeh?” Mandy said as she grabbed Nadya’s hands and sat down beside her. She met the Russian girl’s hopeful gaze, green eyes to blue, as the first glimmering shadows of predawn lit the clearing. Mandy retrieved one hand, pulled a folded note out of her pocket. “Find a safe place to read this,” she instructed, then . . .” She pantomimed tearing the note in small pieces, the downward motion of flushing the toilet.
A smile of comprehension lit Nadya’s pale face, but after a quick compulsive hug, she shoved Mandy away. “Go. Go quickly.” Nadya glanced over her shoulder toward the path to the house. “Karim,” she hissed. “Go now.”
Peter clasped Nadya’s small hands in his, squeezed hard. He echoed Mandy’s reassurances, then swept his wife up from the fallen tree trunk and hurried her toward the johnboat. The soft swish of oars soon echoed over the silent jungle where all the creatures had gone quiet with the multiple invasion of their territory.
In the small clearing along the river Nadya read the note for what must have been the tenth time, then finally, reluctantly, tore it into pieces. She walked the few steps to the river, scattered the tiny pieces onto the mahogany waters where they looked like snowdrops on an overlarge chocolate cake. Slowly, they swirled, fanned out, a few dipping beneath the dark surface, others floating downriver like messengers of hope. For long moments Nadya watched them go before turning reluctant footsteps toward the path to the house.
Paradise Burning Page 19
