“Erin met a young man yesterday, while drinking hot chocolate by the fireplace. A dashing fellow, with a romantic foreign accent and long blond hair. Georg was the name he gave her.”
“No,” he croaked.
“The young lady is surprisingly resistant, to her credit, and yours, if I may say so. But Georg is confident in his powers of seduction. He will eventually make it into her bedroom. He will take her to bed. And you, my friend, will be the key to the quality of that experience for her”
“You can't”
“Oh, but I have. You decide, Edward. It could be just a bittersweet memory of new love found and then, inexplicably, lost... or with one short call on my cell phone, it could become something else entirely. Something that a loving father should do absolutely everything in his power to spare his innocent child.”
Riggs closed his eyes. He saw Erin, in the wading pool. Helping him rake the leaves. Curled up in the window seat with her journal. Sweet, quiet Erin, who always tried so hard to please, to be good.
“By all means, take your time,” Novak said softly. “Think about it. There's no rush. Georg is very aroused by Erin's maidenly reluctance. She is a beautiful girl. This is his favorite kind of assignment.”
“Don't you dare touch my girl.” His words were flat and hollow, followed by Novak's soft chuckle. “Oh, God,” he whispered. As if God gave a damn about him, after what he had done, after what he had become.
“One phone call.” Novak's faintly accented voice burned like corrosive acid against Riggs's nerves.
The bloody red roadhouse light wavered in his watering eyes. “If I cooperate with you, this man won't touch Erin?”
Novak laughed. “Oh, I can't promise you that. I'm afraid that depends upon Erin herself. Georg is very attractive, very persuasive. What I can promise is that if you cooperate, she will have nothing to complain about. Georg is a skilled professional. No matter which way you decide, he will carry out his duties with enthusiasm.”
“Promise me he won't touch her, and I'll do it” Riggs hated himself for the hoarse, pleading tone of his voice.
“Don't be foolish. Erin must take her chances with sex and love, like every other woman. And if you are considering calling the Cave, be aware. My men are watching Crystal Mountain very carefully. I have spared no expense in my
planning. The slightest wrong move, an intercepted phone call, and poor Erin's fate will be sealed in a heartbeat. And I have not yet even begun to devise something special for your other daughter, little Cindy. And there is your wife to think of, too.” He sighed, shook his head. “An infinity of details.”
“No,” he repeated stupidly.
Novak patted his shoulder. He was too numb, too cold, to even flinch away. It was almost as if he were dead already.
“Come now, Edward. Let's move ahead. Raine Cameron. Out with it. Tell me everything, my friend. Everything.”
“Not your friend,” he mumbled.
“Eh? What was that you said?”
He took a deep breath. “I'm not your friend,” he said more clearly.
Novak gave him an approving smile, as if he were a dull child that had just gotten a difficult math problem right. “That is absolutely correct, Edward,” he said. “You are not my friend. You are my slave.”
Jesse was standing on the boat, wearing Seth's black leather jacket. He knew it was his jacket became it was far too big for Jesse. The shoulders drooped off Jesse's narrow shoulders, the sleeves hung down all the way to his fingertips.
He was very pale, freckles standing out sharply against his skin, his green eyes somber. “Be careful,” he said. “The circle is getting smaller.”
In the dream, Seth understood perfectly what that meant. “How small? “ he asked.
Jesse held up his hand, thumb and forefinger touching in a circle. Then he was a child again, dwindled down to the size of the five-year-old he had been when he came to live with them. The jacket now hung down past his knees. “Very small,” he repeated, and the water behind him glittered as a bolt of sunlight pierced the clouds. Something was dangling from Jesse's little-boy fingers, flashing green and blue fire. Raine's grandmother's necklace.
Seth slid into waking consciousness, fixing the details of the dream in his mind as he registered the luxurious sheets he was tangled in, the flower-petal softness of Raine cuddled in his arms. She stirred, trying not to wake him, and he feigned sleep as she dropped a kiss on his shoulder. She slid out of his arms. The door to the adjoining bath opened. The toilet flushed. The shower began to hiss.
He had resisted sleep to the very end, but Raine had been as fierce and demanding as he was; and after hours of wild lovemaking, sleep had finally claimed him. He stretched, enjoying the remarkable comfort of the huge bed until the bathroom door opened, then the armoire. He heard a gasp, and opened his eyes.
Raine was standing in front of the closet, wearing nothing but a towel. Her wet hair hung all the way down to her perfect ass, and he was relieved to see that the curls were back in full force. He tried to see what had alarmed her, but all he saw was plastic-wrapped clothes.
“What's the problem?” he asked.
She smiled over her shoulder at him, but her eyes were anxious. “Those bastards took my glasses! And my clothes are gone, too! I left my suit here, and my shoes, but now there's just... this other stuff.”
“So? Those glasses were pretty weird anyhow, sweetheart. You've got the contacts you wore last night, right? No problem. Pick something out of the stuff that's there “ he suggested. “I'm sure it's all for you.”
She rifled through the clothes. “Lord. I can't take these. Armani, Gianfranco Ferre, Nannini, Prada... there's a fortune in this closet”
“Does that surprise you?”
She scowled at him. “I don't like being shoved around, Seth! I want my cheap blue suit back. I paid for it, and it's mine.”
The movement had caused the towel to slip, catching on the top of her nipples. His morning erection throbbed urgently, as if he hadn't spent the night having the hottest, most prolonged sex of his whole life. He threw the covers off mid lunged for her. She backed away, but there was no place to run, and he was all over her, dizzy with the fragrance of soap and shampoo and Raine. Honey and violets. Good enough to eat.
“I'm too nervous to make love again, Seth,” she whispered.
He stared over her shoulder into the mirror at the graceful curve of her back and cupped her round, rosy buttocks in both his hands. “Don't be nervous,” he urged. “It doesn't matter what you wear. You always look gorgeous. I like you best stark naked anyway.”
Her arms stole around his waist, and she nuzzled his chest tentatively. “I can't go out there stark naked.”
He tossed her down onto the rumpled bed. “Sweetheart, your outfit is the least of your worries this morning.”
She took his words more seriously than he had meant her to, and her face clouded with real fear. “You're absolutely right,” she said. “Seth, I'm not sure if I can—about the—”
He kissed her hard and put his mouth to her ear. “Not one word.”
Her mouth trembled. She closed her eyes, and two crystal bright tears squeezed out between her lashes, flashing down her face. “But—”
He covered her mouth with his hand and kissed the tears away, trying to communicate without words that it was a done deal, no going back, no longer negotiable. She stared into his eyes. Her breath came in short, panting gasps, trapped beneath his weight.
It seemed as natural as breathing to push her legs apart and start petting her. She moved against his fingers, getting slick and wet for him almost instantly, and he eased me head of his cock inside her, kissing her as she tried to speak again. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, muffling the cry she made as he forged into her. The almost scalding heat of her body shocked him. He hadn't put on a condom.