Out of Control

by Shannon McKenna

  “You’re going to leave me in this condition?” She was outraged.

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’re gorgeous in this condition. Your eyes glowing like that. Every man in the room will know you’re taken.”

  She closed her legs, smoothed the skirt over her throbbing nether parts and slid off the table, unsure if she could even stand. “That’s an awfully primal sentiment for a detached guy like you,” she told him.

  “I know.”

  He offered no further explanation, just pulled her into his arms and held her tightly until they were ready to face the world again.

  The rest of the afternoon and evening swam by, in a colorful blur of images. Dancing, conversations she couldn’t remember as soon as she’d had them, bites of delicious food that she had no appetite for, icy champagne that went straight to her head. The bridesmaids’ dresses were colored so brightly, they hurt her eyes. Every sappy song the band played wrung her overstimulated emotions.

  She sneaked peeks at Davy, wondering how he could look so calm when she felt torn wide open. Her skin was so sensitized, every brush of fabric a caress. The condensation on the champagne flute was a cold, wet kiss. Her body ached for the moment they got back to the bedroom.

  She was in love with him. Against all odds, she’d succeeded in making her life even more complicated and dangerous than it already was. She got the grand prize for total idiocy.

  Hope and fear. Two sides of the same coin, Tamara had said.

  Too bad. She didn’t want to give up hope, so she was just going to have to live with the fear. God knew, she should be an expert by now.

  An affluent upbringing had its advantages, Faris reflected, as he wandered through the wedding crowd. One tended to look at home in a suit, champagne flute in hand. He smiled and nodded at everyone he saw in such a way that they would all assume he’d met them, and that they were the socially inept clods who didn’t remember where or how.

  Marcus had once commented that both of them had just the kind of bland, unremarkable good looks that gave the vague impression of having been seen before. It was a very useful quality.

  Surveillance of his angel was momentarily obscured by a white blur. He focused in on it. It was the bride. She unfastened her filmy veil from her upswept dark hair, revealing a soft, slender neck adorned by waving wisps of dark hair. He gazed at her neck hungrily. Twenty seconds alone with her, a couple of well placed needles, and she would die on her honeymoon of an unexpected coronary embolism. Hmm.

  He didn’t need a reason. Musicians loved to play, painters loved to paint, hunters loved to shoot, tax lawyers loved to crunch numbers. He loved to kill. If there was a God, he must operate like Faris. Reaching out at random, the touch of a fingertip, and pow—a car accident, an armed intruder, a fulminating infection. Faris embodied that same power of random chaos. He was God’s agent, the shadow of death.

  He was debating ways and means of getting a private moment with the bride when the girl in the ruby red bridesmaid’s gown bounced up, burbling some female inanity. Sisters, he concluded, noting the similarities. The ruby red girl took the veil from her sister as the groom walked up, beaming like an idiot. The man was oblivious to everything around him but his bride. He pulled her back out onto the dance floor, whispering something into her ear that made her giggle.

  Faris heaved a private sigh of regret. There went that opportunity.

  He turned his attention to the ruby red girl, noting all the vital Dim Mak points that her strapless bustier displayed. Ruby Red was an easier target. Less observed, sillier, not distracted by a new husband.

  And already shooting curious glances at him.

  Faris put on his most charming smile. Ruby Red took the bait and sidled closer. “Romantic, isn’t it?” She gestured towards the newlyweds.

  “Terribly. I keep looking for Disney birds and butterflies.”

  Her smiled widened. This was going to be almost too easy.

  “Are you one of Connor’s friends?” she asked.

  Faris let his eyes drop to the girl’s hiked-up cleavage for a telling instant as he pretended to sip champagne. “Oh, yeah. We go way back,” he said easily. “And you must be the bride’s sister?”

  She simpered. “I’m Cindy.”

  Faris took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “Cindy. I’m Cliff. You are stunning in red. Would you do me the honor of dancing with me?”

  Her smiling lips opened to reply when a tall, pale young man with lank black hair and hideous glasses lurched towards them. Margaret’s crippled pet was draped over his arm. Its pink tongue hung out as it panted gusts of fetid dog breath. Faris’s heart began to pound.

  “Oh, Miles. Hi. This is Cliff, one of Connor’s friends,” Cindy said. “Would you hold Erin’s veil for me while I dance with him?”

  Cindy draped the veil over Miles’s arm. He gazed down at it, dismayed. “But—”

  “You’re right, the dog might get it dirty,” Cindy said. “Take it over to Marika and let her look after it.”

  “But…but I asked the band to play your favorite Eric Clapton song next. You said you’d dance with me for that one,” Miles said, his voice forlorn. “Don’t you remember?”

  Cindy sighed. “That was before I knew you’d be dogsitting for the entire evening. I don’t know what you were thinking when you agreed to that, but it certainly wasn’t about dancing with me.”

  “I’ll watch the dog for you while you dance,” Faris offered. “Really. I’d be more than happy to. He looks like a friendly little guy.”

  Cindy’s mouth set itself in sullen lines. “It doesn’t make sense for both of you to ruin your clothes with drool and dog hair.”

  Miles shoved the veil back at her and backed away, blinking rapidly. “OK, Cin. I get a clue. Fine. Whatever. I don’t give a shit.”

  Faris watched the dog’s panting pink mouth retreat, draped over Miles’s arm. The filthy little animal almost seemed to be taunting him.

  It took effort for Faris to suppress the blaze of venomous anger that burned inside him as he turned back to Cindy. Self-absorbed bitch. A cerebral aneurysm would be just right for her. He forced himself to smile as the band struck up a slow, lazy version of “Layla.”

  “Well?” he said. “Shall we?”

  Cindy tossed the length of tulle onto a table full of half-empty champagne glasses. He swept her out onto the dance floor.

  “Are you an FBI agent, too?” Cindy asked.

  He couldn’t help but smile at that. “I work in the private sector.”

  “Oh,” Cindy breathed, as he slid his hand over her slender hip.

  “Your friend seemed jealous of our dance,” he commented.

  “Oh, Miles.” Cindy tossed her head. “He’s being ridiculous. He’s a great guy, and I like him a lot, but we’re just friends. That’s all we’ll ever be, but it hasn’t quite sunk into his head yet. And then he ends up bodyguarding Margot’s stupid little dog. I was, like, excuse me?”

  “Who’s Margot?” Faris asked. “What’s the matter with her dog?”

  “Connor’s brother Davy’s new girlfriend,” Cindy explained. “Nobody knows much about her except that Davy’s crazy about her, and she’s got some weirdo stalking her. It’s creepy, but the dog bodyguard thing is over-the-top paranoid. But the McClouds are just like that. You know how Connor is. His brothers are just as bad.”

  “Of course,” he murmured.

  “I mean, please,” Cindy nattered on. “Like anything bad would happen to it if she left it in the hotel room. Silly, if you ask me.”

  Oh, but I didn’t, you empty-headed little whore, Faris thought, as he maneuvered her towards the corridor at the edge of the ballroom.

  Chapter

  18

  The dessert fork full of moist, goopy wedding cake covered with raspberries and crème Chantilly made its way slowly into Margot’s mouth. Davy watched every second of that pornographic event from across the table. He wondered if he would ever have the nerve to stand up again. His relent
less boner was starting to worry him.

  He should have had Margot make him come before leaving that room. She would have obliged him. Skillfully, eagerly, any way he wanted it. But he’d been too attached to the idea of saving every last drop for the privacy of the bedroom. He wanted it to last for hours.

  She was licking crème Chantilly off her fingers, opening another Pandora’s box of erotic fantasies. He shifted uncomfortably on his chair.

  “…do you think, Davy?”

  He yanked his attention back to Seth, who was staring at him with a wicked gleam in his black eyes. “Huh? Think about what?”

  “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”

  Davy grunted something unintelligible and stuck a wedge of melon into his mouth. Seth followed his gaze. Margot was dipping a raspberry into cream as Raine whispered into her ear. She laughed and popped the berry into her mouth, sucking her creamy fingers again.

  Seth laughed at him. “You’re fried, man. Some advice? Just give in. The harder you fight, the more stupid you look in the end.”

  “I’ll skip the love advice. What were you asking before?”

  “It can wait,” Seth said. “No point in talking business to you until after you get laid a few more times—”

  “Watch it.”

  Seth lifted meek hands. “I’m as respectful as a virgin choirboy. Just thinking about your health, that’s all.”

  Davy shook his head and stared down at the piece of wedding cake on his plate. Connor and Erin were safely off to the airport for their night flight to Paris. Any minute now, he would quietly excuse himself, grab Margot by the arm and drag her off to his cave. As soon as he dared to stand up, that is. The hard-on was all that inhibited him.

  “Hey, Davy!” Miles skidded to a stop next to the table. “Do you know a sleazeball called Cliff who says he’s a friend of Connor’s?”

  Davy’s instincts snapped into high alert at the strain in Miles’s voice. “I don’t know anyone named Cliff.” He looked at Seth. “Do you?”

  Seth shook his head and put down his glass.

  “If Connor knew a guy well enough to invite him to his wedding, we would recognize the name,” Davy said. “Where is he?”

  “It’s that asshole who’s dancing with Cindy,” Miles said. “Looks like some kind of stuck-up lawyer type. He’s over by the—hey. They’re gone. They were dancing right over by the potted plants!”

  Davy followed Miles’s pointing hand towards the Norwegian pines shielding the door through which he’d pulled Margot some hours before.

  He was on his feet and running before he knew he’d gotten up. The image of Bart Wilkes, curled up on the blood-smeared linoleum jarred his mind’s eye. He flung open the doors in the corridor. Seth and Miles caught up with him as he flung open the last one.

  It was a library. The light streaming in from the corridor revealed Cindy sprawled on the carpet. The French doors that led out to the rose garden hung wide open, the night wind blowing in. The crumpled folds of Cindy’s crimson dress gleamed like a pool of blood.

  Miles flung himself down next to her. “Cin? Are you OK?”

  Cindy stirred, and pushed herself up onto her elbows. “Um, yeah, I guess.” Her voice was squeaky and high. “I just—he just started kissing me, and then we heard a noise in the hall, and he just…pushed me down onto the ground and ran out the door.”

  Seth bolted out into the garden. Davy itched to follow, but he knelt down next to Cindy. “Did he hit you, Cin?”

  Her big brown eyes blinked and welled full of tears. “No,” she whimpered. “He just…he just…oh, God. Oh my God.”

  And that was the end of that. Getting a coherent story out of Cindy would have been no small task even if she’d been her normal bubbly self, let alone freaked out and buzzed on champagne. Eventually she started to sob, which he took as his cue to leave her to Miles and head out into the gardens after Seth and Snakey.

  He scanned the shadows, his stomach a knot of misery and guilt. Too busy thinking with his dick to see the signs, even after what had happened to Bart Wilkes and the Goth girl. Dragging Margot up here for his own sexual convenience, telling himself it was to keep her safe.

  He’d fucked up worse than he’d ever dreamed. Underestimated his opponent. Endangered everyone in the world that he cared about.

  Seth emerged cursing from a thicket of bushes, plucking thorns and rose petals off his tux jacket. “Not a goddamn trace. Is Cindy OK?”

  “She appears to be fine,” Davy said. “The guy just kissed her. He could be just another resort guest, cruising for free booze.”

  Seth’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t think that, do you?”

  Davy rubbed his face. “No,” he said wearily. “I don’t think that.”

  “This thing is bigger than Sean said, right? This isn’t just your garden variety stalker thing.”

  “It’s a long story,” Davy admitted.

  “Thanks for keeping me in the loop.” Seth’s voice was hard. “Next time you guys invite me and my wife to a party, do me the favor of letting me know if you’ve got dangerous scumbags on the guest list.”

  Davy lifted his hands. “I barely found out myself what’s—”

  “How about you cut out the part where you grovel pathetically, and make it right with me by telling me everything now?” Seth suggested. “Come on, let’s go in. I don’t want Raine out of my sight.”

  Davy quietly told him what had happened over the last two days, and Seth listened, impressed. “I might have known you’d get embroiled in that magic hoodoo shit. Touch of death, my ass. Only you, Davy.”

  “You know as well as I do that it’s not magic hoodoo,” Davy said testily. “Just energy manipulation.”

  Seth’s grunt sounded unconvinced. “It’s that funky gray area that makes me nervous. I prefer techno-toys. They do as they’re told.”

  “If Cindy’s guy was Margot’s stalker, she was about ten seconds away from dying young,” Davy said. “And it would have been my fault.”

  Seth’s face tightened. His steps quickened. They rejoined the table, where Miles was depositing a pale, swaying Cindy into a chair.

  Margot held Mikey on her lap. Her shadowy, haunted eyes met Davy’s eyes, full of silent inquiry.

  He shook his head and gave her a who-knows shrug.

  “That asshole offered to hold Mikey while we danced,” Miles said. “Lucky for Mikey you have shitty taste in dance partners, Cin.”

  Cindy barely reacted to the venom in Miles’s voice. “He seemed so normal,” she said faintly. “Good-looking, funny. He seemed so nice.”

  Miles’s laugh had a bitter edge. “Yeah, all the guys you pick seem nice. Until they turn out to be dickheads, or pimps, or drug dealers or pathological liars. Next time we might not be around to bail you out.”

  Cindy’s face crumpled. She jerked out of Miles’s grip. Raine scooted her chair closer and put her arm around the younger girl.

  “Cool it, Miles,” Sean said gently.

  Miles shot up out of his chair, sending it spinning across the floor. “How am I supposed to cool it? She picks out the scum of the earth. They treat her like crap. I keep rescuing her, and she cries all over me, boo-hoo. But if a guy is dumb enough to actually care about her, forget it. She could give a flying fu—”

  “Miles.” Davy used his command voice. “Chill. Now.”

  Miles choked off his words and turned away, fists clenched.

  “You can’t make her feel the way you want her to feel.” Davy made his voice calm and steely. “You’ve got to let it go. Now is not the time.”

  Miles shook his head, yanked off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

  “Oh, fuck it.” The words exploded out of him. “Fuck all of this.” He took off across the dance floor, bumping into dancing couples on his unsteady path. Everyone at the table exchanged uncomfortable glances.

  Mikey leaped off Margot’s lap and scampered after Miles, yipping anxiously. Miles scooped the dog up over his arm and stalke
d on.

  “Unrequited love,” Seth offered dourly. “It’s a bitch.”

  Sean gave Margot a long, assessing glance and looked at Davy. “You taking her up home to the mountains tonight?”

  Davy nodded “Would you two guys run security? I want someone looking out for the wedding party until every last one of them leaves.”

  Seth’s eyes lingered regretfully on Raine. “I had other plans for the night, after staring at that dress all day. But I guess they’ll keep.”

  “I’m sorry, man,” Davy said. “This is my fault, and I’d do it myself if I could, but I want to put some distance between Margot and—”

  “Don’t bother trying to justify why you get to drag the hot babe off to the mountain hideaway while Sean and I get to prowl hotel corridors all night.” Seth winked at Margot. “Get out of here. Scram.”

  “Sean, stay with Margot at the entrance while I bring the truck around,” Davy said.

  “I’ll do it.” Tamara rose to her feet, smiling. “I have some final pearls of wisdom for your lady friend.”

  Sean hesitated. “Are you armed?” His eyes slid over her revealing gown, lingering appreciatively over her bosom.

  “Are you kidding?” Tamara’s teeth flashed against red lipstick.

  Margot smiled at everyone at the table. “It was wonderful meeting you all. This has been the most interesting wedding I’ve ever attended.”

  Davy’s laugh was bitter with irony. “Too interesting.”

  Margot tottered in the fragile heels of her sandals as the three of them made their way to the front entrance, thinking with longing of her high-top sneakers. “Aren’t we going back to the room to get our stuff?”

  Davy shook his head. “I’ll have Sean bring it to you later.”

  They stopped in the luxurious lobby just inside the glass double doors. “But what about Mikey? I can’t just—”

  “Miles will look after him tonight. I arranged it already. He has the dog dish, the food, the works. Stay here with Tam while I get the truck.”

  His commanding tone made her back snap up, ramrod straight. She suppressed the sarcastic urge to click her heels together with great difficulty. Davy was in no mood to be goaded. Things were too grim.