Deception

by Tory Hayward

  My breath halted and caught as an incredible sensation started to rush over me. Helpless to stop, I let go, let him see the deepest, most private part of myself.

  I came. So hard that I didn’t know where I ended and he began.

  And as I did, met his eyes.

  ‘Lioness,’ he growled. ‘Ah, Merry.’

  And he leaned back against the pillows, and with an animal groan he let go as well.

  ***

  He lay next to me as we floated back to earth together. We were covered in sweat, and I lay on my back, letting cool air wash over me. I reached for his hand and turned to look at him.

  ‘Not bad for someone who is out of practice.’ He smiled, slow and sleepy.

  I punched him gently in the upper arm and then stretched, arching my back and pressing my hips towards him.

  ‘I need more practice,’ I said firmly, brushing a hand gently against his cock. It was still hard, and it moved slightly against my hand. I wondered how it would feel in my mouth, against my lips and tongue. ‘There’s a few things I didn’t get to try. Should we do it again?’

  In reply he pulled me close and kissed me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I relaxed in my seat when the plane levelled out, and glanced out the window as the left wing dipped and the plane turned north. New South Wales spread like a magical living carpet below me, tiny, and, from thirty thousand feet, idyllic.

  The jewels sat safe in my hand luggage, stowed in the locker above my head. For the rest of the ten-hour flight there was nothing I could do to help my father. I did not doubt that the kidnappers were watching, or that they had guessed I was on my way.

  I slid a glance at Jack, whose seat was diagonally opposite mine.

  He’d been staring out the window too, eyebrows pulled together in a brooding frown, as if the view had been replaced with a landscape of worries. Feeling my stare, he turned and the frown ebbed away, replaced with a devilish expression that made heat throb silently, deep in my core.

  ‘You’ve been quiet.’ His eyes crinkled, just a tiny bit in the corners as he spoke, and heat spread slowly in response. I felt so aware of him. Of him as a sexy, outdoorsy guy, who smelt good, tasted better, and had been a very willing partner in a night of the kind of sex I only thought existed in my imagination.

  ‘I’ve got a lot on my mind.’

  Last night.

  Sex.

  Orgasms.

  The jewels.

  Dad.

  Myanmar.

  Him. Most of all him.

  I pulled my hair out of the hair elastic that held it back, smoothed the curls back into a bunch, and twisted the elastic back around it.

  ‘Regrets?’ he asked lightly, with warmth in his slightly lopsided smile.

  ‘Of course I have regrets. Who doesn’t?’ I thought of Dad and the jewels.

  His face froze. The warmth replaced by a coolness that hardened his eyes to blue steel, so quickly it was as if he’d flicked a switch. ‘So you are regretting last night?’ he asked tightly.

  ‘No!’ I shook my head, and drained my champagne. ‘No. I just meant—’ I pressed my lips together and blew out a sigh. ‘—They think. People think, I’m cold and aloof and I don’t care about anyone but myself. But it isn’t true. I don’t show it. That’s all. So I may seem the arrogant type who has no regrets, but it’s not who I am. I regret many things, Jack—’

  I leaned forward and covered his hand with my own. Met his eyes with a look that held all the desire I had for him, which eased beneath his cold blue stare. ‘—I don’t regret you. And I don’t regret fucking you.’

  ‘Madam, will you be having the Western menu or the Asian menu on this flight?’

  I sat upright quickly. A supercilious first class flight attendant hovered near my shoulder, face smoothed blank without a hint that he’d heard what I said. A giggle tickled at the back of my throat.

  ‘Asian menu please.’ I could not quite bring myself to meet the Jack’s eye in case the giggle escaped.

  I’d answered the attendant without thinking twice. It was an easy choice. The Western menu was code for meat, meat and more meat. If they could include meat in the dessert they would. I knew from experience the Asian menu was much less likely to sit like an indigestible lump in my stomach for the rest of the flight.

  ‘Western,’ said Jack as the attendant shifted his attention.

  I smothered a smile. He looked like a meat eater. The broad shoulders, glowing skin and well-defined muscles did not belong to a vegetarian.

  When the flight attendant moved on, Jack reached for my hand, lowered his voice and gave me a conspiratorial look. ‘We could do it again some time.’ He lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. ‘If you aren’t busy.’

  ‘Oh.’ I tipped my head back, as if trying to remember a prior appointment. ‘I might be able to move a few things around. Schedule you in somewhere.’

  ‘Would that be convenient?’ Laughter hovered behind his eyes.

  For a moment I hesitated. Realising that we weren’t just flirting about having sex another few dozen, or hundred, times. Realising he was asking if we had a future.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, anticipation squirming in my midriff. ‘Yes, I think that would be very convenient.’

  ***

  In first class the lights were low, and people were watching movies, busy with their laptops and tablets, or reading. But not Jack and I. We sat in our diagonally opposite chairs, and aside from the occasional attempt to do something productive, we couldn’t take our eyes off each other.

  I was caught in a deliciously agonising place where all I wanted was to get him naked. Sadly, I’d always through the idea of the Mile High Club was vile. It might sound all romantic and daring, but in the end a toilet was a toilet, and though I wanted Jack with every cell of my body, the very idea of surreptitiously making my way to the first class bathrooms with him came up as a big fat No.

  Not that he’d suggested it. But I was sure he’d thought about it.

  As had I.

  I checked the in-flight display. Six more hours until we landed.

  It felt like forever.

  I glanced towards the bathrooms.

  Just no.

  ***

  We landed in the early afternoon, in Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar. Deplaned into the magnificent airport terminal, with its facade of golden turrets and huge windows. I got a hint of the heat and humidity that was waiting as I walked across the aero-bridge from the plane. But the terminal itself was air-conditioned down to cardigan-degrees.

  A local man, dressed in a security uniform, hurried over as we walked into the terminal.

  ‘Meredith Taylor?’ he asked, but clearly he knew exactly who I was. My gut clenched. I met Jack’s eye uneasily. No doubt I’d been watched as I left Sydney.

  ‘I am she.’

  ‘I have your ticket for Bagan?’ He waved a boarding pass at me.

  ‘Bagan?’ I tucked my bag, which contained the jewels, a little more tightly under my arm. Bagan was in the Mandalay district of Myanmar. An hour’s flight north, or a seven hundred-kilometre drive.

  ‘The flight leaves in twenty minutes. You must hurry.’ He gestured sharply to his right, leaving no doubt that it was the way I should go.

  ‘There is some mistake. I am to stay in Yangon, those are my instructions.’

  I edged away from Jack slightly, hoping he’d take the hint to walk on. It looked like we were going to be separated, and it’d be better if he made a swift exit so he wasn’t refused entry to the country, or worse.

  The security guard’s face hardened. The politeness ebbed away and his upper lip rose slightly in irritated contempt. ‘Madam, either you go to Bagan or I will be forced to arrest you for smuggling stolen goods into this country.’ He looked me up and down. ‘I doubt you’d survive long in a Burmese prison. Do you understand me?’

  My heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. Shock trickled over my skin, so cold it raised goosebumps and
settled sickly in the pit of my stomach. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to take it all in and think clearly. We’d walked into a trap. I’d been so distracted by Jack I hadn’t thought. I hadn’t planned or realised what they might do.

  It hadn’t occurred to me that the kidnappers’ reach would extend to the ability to influence airport security, police or government.

  Big mistake.

  ‘Please give me a moment,’ I murmured, and stepped away from the guard, Jack stuck close by my side.

  His eyes were cold again, hard, and for a spilt second I thought he might be in on all this. That his expression meant he was showing his true colours, and I’d been played for a fool, just to get the jewels.

  But just as quickly I realised I was wrong. That my conclusions were drawn from an emotional reaction that came from my own tiredness and stress. Jack’s expression meant he’d realised the seriousness of the situation we were in, just as clearly as I had.

  ‘You need to leave now,’ I said. ‘They know you are with me.’

  ‘They’ve known all along, this is probably a ploy to separate us.’

  ‘I’ve screwed up.’ I shook my head, disgusted at myself.

  His lips pressed together and he grimaced in disagreement. ‘No.’ The grimace was replaced by a touch of resignation. ‘We might have predicted this happening but I don’t see how we could have avoided it. They have all the cards here, that’s why they made you come.’

  ‘There is a flight to Malaysia leaving in half an hour.’ I ran my eye down the screen displaying departures, which was close by. ‘You could be on it.’

  ‘What about you? They might arrest you and drag you off to prison. I can’t help if I’m en route to Malaysia.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do, Jack. There’s no point staying and being at risk.’

  ‘I will be right behind you. I’ll charter a plane, and be so close you will practically find me waiting at the Bagan airport. I promise you.’

  The sincerity and urgency in his voice made a burst of emotion shiver over me, as if I’d fallen just a little more in love with him at that moment. ‘Thank you.’ I cleared my throat.

  A mix of relief that I wasn’t alone, fear about what would happen next, and the fact I’d just realised I was, actually, falling in love with him made me hesitate. Then I lifted my chin and pushed the emotion aside.

  I’d dragged Jack into trouble, and really, he didn’t need to be here. There was no point in us going down together.

  ‘I want you to head back to Malaysia. Wait for me to contact you there.’ I pulled out my haughtiness and hid behind it.

  ‘Nice try, Lioness,’ growled Jack, with a hint of amused irritation. ‘But that isn’t going to work. I’ll see you in Bagan.’

  ‘Jack, no.’

  ‘Merry, yes.’

  ‘There is no point—’

  ‘I’m sticking with you, Meredith Taylor, so stop squirming about it.’

  ‘Now, please,’ snapped the security guard. ‘Come with me.’ He gestured to me with a palm down gesture, a hard smile fixed to his face, which added a pinch of politeness to the order.

  Jack grabbed my arm and brought his lips to mine in a sudden rough kiss that said everything that I felt. The guard snorted in disapproval.

  ‘Be careful,’ Jack said, with the hint of a groan in his voice.

  ‘I promise.’

  Then I hurried after the guard. He took me out onto the tarmac of the airport, the heat was intense and the stink of aviation fuel and the noise of a 787 heading towards one of the airbridges made it difficult to think straight.

  Walking so quickly that even I, with my usual long stride, was almost jogging to keep up. The guard took me past the magnificent international terminal, through a maze of baggage handling conveyor belts until we arrived at the much older and less flash domestic terminal.

  With a pang of fear, I accepted that I’d avoided customs and all the usual paperwork that happens when you enter a country. With a stab of distress I realised that Jack would have to get through customs, and when he did he’d be vulnerable to being arrested or having his visa cancelled, or any number of problems.

  What if everyone was corrupt? What if he didn’t make it to Bagan? I glanced back at the looming international terminal, hoping to glimpse Jack,

  Jack would be fine. He could look after himself.

  At the domestic terminal, my security guard walked me to the steps leading up to an ancient-looking plane that would seat about fifty, I guessed. I took a fairly fatalistic attitude towards flying. What would be would be. And I’d flown enough to be confident that the plane wasn’t going to fall out of the sky. But as I stared up the stairs towards the fuselage, with the impatient guard trying to usher me forward, I felt nothing but dread.

  ‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ I said to no one in particular.

  I took a reluctant first step.

  An attendant appeared in the doorway, a beautiful woman in an Asiana Air uniform, she beckoned. I took the next step, and the next. I would get Dad, get rid of the cursed jewels and get out of this.

  It would be fine.

  ***

  The trip to Bagan went quickly. We were in the air for less than forty-five minutes. I stared blindly out the window the entire time, barely seeing the lush green landscape and curling brown rivers below.

  Plan after implausible plan ran through my head. They’d be waiting at the airport for me. Should I run? Hide? Go with them. Refuse to leave the airport in case Jack turned up? Ask for asylum?

  We landed far too soon.

  With a sense of doom, I hesitated at the top of the stairs down to the tarmac.

  ‘Are you okay,’ asked the attendant. ‘Can I help?’

  Her words jolted me. Indecision wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

  ‘Yes.’ I smiled and pushed back the tendrils of hair, which had escaped my plait. ‘Thank you. I’ll be okay.’

  ‘Be careful then,’ said the attendant.

  Startled by the note of concern in her voice, I followed her gaze. Parked on the tarmac near the small terminal was a large black limousine. Three men walked toward the plane. Two looked like locals but were dressed in jeans and t-shirts. And a white man, thin and fair, dressed in a loose white shirt and the long sarong, or longyi, which was traditional attire for Burmese men.

  I lifted my chin and stepped down the steps towards my welcoming party.

  ***

  ‘Meredith Taylor.’ The blond man had a posh English accent, and held out a hand in a ludicrously formal welcome. His grasp was firm and dry when I took it.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met before, Mr …?’

  ‘Smith will do.’

  ‘Mr Smith.’ I did not believe that Smith was actually his name.

  ‘If you would care to join me—’ He gestured to the car.

  ‘Of course.’

  We drove smoothly out of the airport, and I had to stop myself from scanning the skies, to see if there was any sign of a private plane with Jack on board.

  I was used to being alone, doing things alone, but it was reassuring, and so much easier to think that someone else had my back. That someone else was coming to help.

  If he made it.

  The car drove slowly along the potholed roads, taking care to avoid the many people who were on bicycles—the men were all dressed in longyi, an ankle-length piece of fabric that was wound around the waist, plain shirts and thongs on their feet. They cycled with spraddled legs so that the fabric didn’t get caught up in the bicycle pedals.

  The women were similarly attired in brightly coloured shirts, and colourful skirts, or htamein, the female version of a longyi. On their faces many of them had broad smudges of yellow clay, or thanaka, which stopped sunburn.

  We drove past a market, filled with people and piles of produce being sold. A group of nuns from the local temple caught my eye. Heads shaved, dressed in pale pink and red robes, they balanced rattan baskets on their head, piled high with
food donated by the sellers in the market. That was all they’d get to eat that day. Just what was donated.

  I realised I was watching the people more than I usually did, seeing more. As if I was trying to anchor myself outside the car and its silent occupants. The English man, Smith, said nothing.

  As if I wasn’t there.

  In my experience English people chatter away, educating me about the place, explaining things. But he didn’t say a word, and quite pointedly didn’t look in my direction.

  I didn’t do much looking in his direction either. Just stared out the window and wondered where we were going, what was going to happen. I wondered how Jack would find me, even if he made it to the airport; and why, when I’d travelled so extensively, that it was I’d never actually really seen where I’d been.

  ***

  The car rounded a curve in the road and before us was the most magnificent Buddhist temple that I had ever seen. I recognised it immediately. The Schwezigon pagoda. It was breathtakingly beautiful, with its golden turrets which glowed in the sunshine. Most temples were made of stone. But a few, like Schwezigon, were covered in gold leaf. It looked like a gilded upside-down cone with a square base.

  It was said to be two and a half thousand years old, and one of the most sacred temples for the Burmese. The remains of four Buddhas were enshrined inside, and I realised that it was a very appropriate place to deliver the jewels.

  Monks, senior by the look of their robes, could be seen walking on the upper levels of the buildings. The tourists and people coming to meditate or worship mingled in groups on the ground level.

  I relaxed slightly; it was a busy place, and Smith, from his outfit and loop of Buddha beads around his neck, was in the process of going native. So it was unlikely he’d be desecrating a Buddhist pagoda with guns, threats or violence.

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He was tightly wound. He oozed tension. I closed my eyes, dreading whatever would come next.

  He might not be planning violence, but he was planning something.

  The two local men, in their jeans and t-shirts, jumped out of the car and made a show of opening the car door and ushering me out.

  ‘This way.’ Smith followed close behind me. He swept a hand towards the huge golden pagoda. The main entrance, facing due east, was a few hundred metres away and I obediently headed in that direction.