She met his gaze, her topaz eyes unreadable and paced silently over to stand in front of the bank of monitors. She studied them for a moment, and pointed to the blank one. “Malfunction?”
Victor shook his head. “My niece's lover likes his privacy.”
She nodded, unsurprised, and turned her gaze back to the monitors. “Those two look good together,” she commented.
He stood up, feeling a warm shimmer of anticipatory heat. Amazing. He approached her from behind, bending down to inhale her perfume, to touch her shimmering chestnut hair. “Was it you who picked out the Dolce & Gabbana for her?”
Mara's slender shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. “It was the obvious choice. It wasn't hard to make her look good. She's stunning.”
“So are you, my dear,” Victor said. “So are you.” He lifted up her hair to admire the curve of her back, the whorl of fine dark hairs at the nape of her slender neck. “Lovely.”
Mara smiled from beneath her thick, sooty eyelashes, then turned back to the monitor. She took the mouse next to the keyboard and clicked on the icons with expert swiftness until one of the images on Monitor #17 enlarged, obscuring the other windows. She enlarged it again, until the image filled the entire screen.
It was Sergio, the curator, tangled in a complicated knot with two beautiful young Asian women and a muscular blond boy, creating a writhing configuration that Victor would have sworn was anatomically impossible for a man of Sergio :s age.
They watched it for a moment. Mara clicked onto Monitor #9. It was the celebrated cardiologist, Dr. Wade, giving his own heart a strenuous workout They watched a lithe, coffee-colored woman in a black bustier apply a pink unguent to a certain part of the renowned doctor's anatomy, and then, very slowly, introduce a formidable sex toy into said part. To the august doctor's evident delight.
She clicked idly across the other centers of activity, lingering on the image of a beautiful young brunette, clad only in scraps of lingerie, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. She was sweaty and flushed, eyes half closed, as a local software mogul belabored her vigorously from behind.
Victor had little interest in what was on the screen; he had gotten bored with it lifetimes ago. But watching Mara watch made his own sexual energy uncoil, slow and sinuous as a snake waking up from its winter sleep. “You like to watch, Mara?” he asked softly.
She shifted until she was leaning back against him, a light, warm, silken weight “I like a lot of things,” she said.
He put his hand upon the fine-textured skin of her thigh, and slid it up beneath the short skirt. He discovered, with pleasure, that she was naked beneath it. Depilated as well; her mound was smoothly shaven with just a flirtatious little puff of hair shielding her clitoris. She widened her stance, opening for him with a sigh. He delved deeper and found that she was already aroused. She moved her body with feline grace against his hand. Hairless, silky and slick. Delicious.
He bit her neck, savoring the reaction rippling through her slender body- “You're a naughty girl, aren't you?”
“If I wasn't, I certainly wouldn't be here,” she said. Her voice choked off into a gasping moan as he thrust his hand more deeply, unfastening his trousers with the other. She braced herself against the edge of the table and arched herself open.
“True enough,” he agreed.
He drove inside her with a violence that surprised them both. She cried out and stumbled forward, catching herself against the table, and then braced herself more firmly. The room was a haze of glowing images, the bank of monitors with their assorted scenes of pleasure and depravity, Mara's perfect buttocks, the silk tunic pushed up to her delicate ribs, his penis gleaming as it thrust in and out of her.
He barely heard the grunts and gasps, the slapping sound of contact. The cool, detached part of his mind that always watched was well aware that it was his fury at Riggs that fueled this brutal rhythm. He didn't want to hurt Mara, but he paid lavishly enough for her services to indulge in his baser instincts without needing to ask either permission or pardon. He was so aroused. More alive and aware than he had been in years, not since his brother, Peter—
No. He pushed the thought away before it could unfurl, before it could detach him from the intensity of this delightful experience. The tight, slick depths of Mara's perfect body exciting him beyond measure as he caressed her trembling buttocks, giving into the hard, driving rhythm.
Erotic heat roared through him and carried him over the brink. He spent himself in a long blast that blotted out every thought in his mind.
When he moved to withdraw, Mara made an inarticulate cry of protest and shoved herself back against him. “Wait” she gasped. She came, long and shivering and totally unexpected. Delicious to watch, to feel. Her lingering pulsations milked and massaged his still-erect penis.
They were sticky and wet, but the architect had not planned the room with spontaneous sex in mind, so there was no adjoining bathroom. He withdrew himself, closed his pants and waited for his heart to slow down. Mara sank down onto the carpet, her legs sprawled out beneath her, as limp as a rag doll. She was still trembling. With her back hunched over like that, she looked fragile and vulnerable. He put his hand on her bare shoulder. It was hot and damp. She looked up at him. He felt a shock of startled recognition as their eyes met.
The sex had genuinely excited her. A fascinating discovery.
He held out his hand, pulled her up onto her feet 'Thank you, Mara. That was a revelation,” he said. “You can go.”
Her face convulsed. “Don't dismiss me like that!”
Another moment of blank surprise. “I beg your pardon?”
Mara looked suddenly unsure of herself. “I said... don't dismiss me,” she whispered. “Not after we've just had sex. Like that.”
“My dear, I can do anything I want with you,” he said gently. "You agreed to that when you were hired. Remember?”
Her wide mouth trembled. She stared him in the face, eyes wide and glittering with unshed tears. “Don't,” she repeated.
He was taken aback, almost touched by her daring. Under the circumstances, that gesture took both courage and honesty. Both of which were in short supply in his life.
Ordinarily he would never permit a member of his staff to make personal demands of him. But tonight was a night for rule-breaking, for risk taking. Tonight, he would overlook this breach of protocol.
The girl was shivering. Her taut, dark nipples were clearly visible through the delicate fabric. He would not mind seeing those breasts again, he realized, with a fresh wave of lust He saw her in his mind's eye, naked on the bed, her hair fanned out across the white linen. Those topaz eyes, filled with genuine need.
Yes. It would be good. It would work. He was hard again. Already. He gave her a brief nod. “Come along, then. Let’s go to my suite.”
Victor stalked down the corridor, watching as Mara scurried ahead of him, her bare feet silent on the cold flagstones. She cast nervous, wide-eyed glances back over her shoulder at him, as well she should. She was an intelligent girl. She had good reason to be nervous.
He opened the door with a predatory smile and gestured for her to enter. Mara was hungry for something, too. And in appreciation for her charming honesty, he was going to see that she got it.
As much of it as she could take.
Chapter 19
Riggs swerved on the dark road, correcting just in time. It was bad tonight. Ever since Jesse Cahill's death, his ulcers had been flaring up to the point of burning agony. Medication didn't do much good, mixed with bourbon, but he needed booze to take the edge off the knowledge that he was an unredeemable piece of shit Survival lay only in keeping that knowledge from Barbara and the girls for as long as he possibly could.