Cherry Adair - T-flac 03 (14 page)

The room was dim, the slats of the shutters closed to block the early afternoon sun. She hadn't bothered with any of the lights. An oversight he rectified at once by turning on a table lamp.

"Where is she?"

He clicked on the second lamp and gave her a cool glance. He hadn't missed the wine bottle and glasses on the table. He hoped to God he was wrong about what he thought Mama Montero wanted. She had a damn odd expression on her beautiful face as she uncrossed her legs and rose from the sofa.

She picked up the two filled glasses from the coffee table. "She is in the bedroom,
querido
."

He waved away the glass she tried to hand him. Kyle headed straight for the archway and the dark bedroom beyond. Isabella stopped him with a hand on his bare arm. Her eyes glowed black.

"You do not have the same proclivities as Ramon, do you, my dear?"

"Why?"

She shrugged, the curved chunk of gold between her breasts glinting. "I am not considered an unattractive woman," she purred, stepping closer to engulf him in a cloud of expensive, and freshly applied, perfume. When he didn't say anything, she smiled coyly and shot him a considering look. "You
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are supposed to assure me that indeed I am."

"Look in a mirror, Isabella."

Her nails dug into his arm as he tried to move. "My breasts are larger, my body just as firm as that of Miss Eastman." She gave him a sultry glance under her lashes. "And I have considerably more experience." She pressed herself disconcertingly closer. He felt her surgically enhanced breasts against his arm with a shudder of revulsion.

"Perhaps that's exactly what prevents me from taking what's offered," he murmured silkily. With dispassionate carelessness, he plucked her carmine-tipped nails off his arm. "What were you thinking?

That I would take you here, in your son's home? With Delanie in the next room?"

She smiled, running a practiced tongue over her lips in a meaningful gesture.

"Where
she
could walk in at any moment?" he asked with marked disinterest. "I prefer more of a challenge than you present, Isabella. I doubt you could offer me anything I haven't experienced before.

However creative you are. And I've never needed an audience to perform. Sorry, I won't play."

"You won't play with Delanie either, will you?" she said waspishly. Something more than annoyance flashed in her cold, dark eyes. It vanished almost immediately behind a mask as she followed him into the bedroom.

The room was as dark as midnight. What the hell was going on here? "That's none of your business, Isabella. Remember that," he finished softly, turning on the overhead light a second before Delanie flung herself off the bed and into his arms. He braced her weight as she burrowed her face against his shoulder.

Quite a switch from half an hour ago in the pool, he thought dryly, as his arms wrapped around her automatically. He could smell Isabella behind him.

Delanie's flushed face rose from where it had been buried against his chest, her eyes dark and slumberous. He could feel the sharp points of her nipples against his bare chest as she rubbed against him. His fingers tensed against her scalp as he felt her hot, hungry breath across the bare skin of his throat. She pressed her hips against him.

Jesus. Were
both
women turned on by violence?

Delanie suddenly struggled in his grasp, and he unglued her from his chest, holding her by the shoulders to keep her steady on her feet.

She was incorrigible. He was hard pressed not to laugh at the ludicrous situation. Not half an hour ago he'd been deliberately, aggressively, and crudely to the point and she'd torn a strip off his hide.
Now
she was all over him like a rash. Hell. She managed to surprise him at every turn.

He gave her an assessing look. "What are you up to?"

"Come 'ere, I'll tell y—" She stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear, but didn't say anything. After a moment, she shifted her head and stared up at him blankly. She shook her head as if to clear it, bleary-eyed as though she'd just woken from a deep sleep.

His gaze sharpened and his hands tightened on her upper arms. This was no act. He turned his head to
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glance at Isabella, surprised to see her right behind him instead of over by the door. "How long has she been like this?"

The older woman shrugged. "Perhaps it is the heatstroke?"

"If you didn't know what was wrong with her, why the hell did you give her wine?" He could smell it on Delanie's breath as she nuzzled his chest again.

"We were thirsty! Goodness,
lo siento
, Kyle. I thought I could help her. The wine was in the room."

Isabella smoothed Delanie's bangs off her face. "I thought she was distressed about the
serpiente
."

Christ, this was all he needed. Delanie had finally snapped. He'd take long enough to pack her stuff, then get her on the chopper Montero kept at the small airfield behind the house. It wasn't going to be a moment too soon.

Delanie looked at Isabella with dazed eyes before petulantly waving the other woman's hand from her face, then rested her cheek against his chest again and closed her eyes.

He swung her up into his arms as her knees buckled. Hell. A small cut could become infected here in the jungle, any number of microscopic insects were poisonous. She could have been bitten—

Had the bastard drugged her? Jesus. Montero had more drugs than Carter's Little Pills. It could be any one of dozens of the bastard's products.

"Kyle… feel… strange."

"Strange how?" he demanded. Her skin felt fiery hot, her eyes glazed as he laid her on the bed. Her arms shot up around his neck to pull him back.

"How, Delanie?" He picked up her wrist. Her pulse was thready and fast. Too fast.

"Like—" She licked her lips. "Like I'm going to jump right out of my skin…" She grabbed his hand and pressed it hard against her breast, flattened by slick nylon. "Like—hmmm, a cat and my fur's been rubbed the wrong way. Kyle?"

He lifted her lid and scrutinized her frantic brown eyes.

Glassy. Pupils dilated. Crap'nshit.

"Kyle. What's happ—" She faded, staring up at him blankly before she tightened the hand she held over his on her right breast and pressed it down hard. He felt the sharp erect peak in the center of his palm.

He looked up at Isabella. "Out."

"Oh, but—"

"Now," he snarled unequivocally, turning back to his more immediate problem, spread diagonally across the wide bed.

"I hate this." Delanie sounded panicky. "Kyle, help me."

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He heard a movement behind him. Creepy Isabella stood a few feet away, watching them avidly. "I said get the hell out of here. Move it!" Kyle kept his eyes on her, while Delanie clung like a limpet to his arm, trying to drag him onto the bed. The moment he heard the outer door slam, Kyle focused on his prime concern.

Those sons of bitches had given her one of their filthy drugs, he thought murderously. What the hell was it? And how long would this last?

"Who gave it to you?" he demanded, trying to get out of her frantically grasping hands. She was like a wild woman now, and had the attention span of a water newt. Her brain couldn't focus, and he gave up.

"Hell, sweetheart. Your timing stinks, you know that?" he said with grim amusement as she managed to ram his hand between her thighs against her damp heat, clamping her legs together to hold him there. He could smell her arousal as she ground her pelvis against his wrist in a desperate bid for release.

Her body bowed, her eyes rolled back, and her soft mouth was a rictus of pain/pleasure. He had never seen a woman climax that fast. Which was probably not a good thing, he thought grimly. He had a sinking feeling it wasn't going to last her.

"Delanie?"

She was out for the count. Just like that, she sprawled across the mattress on her back, her eyes closed, her breathing ragged.

Carefully he extricated his hand from between her legs. She moaned. He swore.

He placed one knee on the bed beside her hip and gently pried open an eyelid. Oh yeah. She was drugged to the gills all right.

Annihilating these bastards would be more than business. It was going to be a pleasure.

But first things first.

Levering himself off the edge of the bed he ran his hand over his jaw, gritted tight with fury. At himself.

He'd screwed around too long. Now, God only knew what crap she'd ingested or what the ramifications of
this
scenario could mean.

First, he confirmed Isabella had left. He locked the double doors to his suite and dragged the writing table across it for added protection.

Swearing under his breath, he strode to the closet to start packing her stuff. The servants had stashed her Louis Vuitton on the top shelf. Holding a handful of rubberized, elasticized, and transparent garments he paused. Hell, she'd be better off leaving everything behind, he decided, and tossed the clothes onto the floor of the large closet, about to close the louvered doors when a hand grabbed him from behind.

By the balls.

He froze.

Ah, hell
. "Delanie, don't."

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Her fingers tightened on his scrotum. "I was wild about you, Kyle, did I ever tell you that?" Unfiltered by her normal stubborn, intractable thought processes, the words tumbled out uncensored. Her moist breath feathered his back.

"No," his voice was hoarse, "you never did."

Through the far too-thin fabric of his swim trunks he felt Delanie's fingers cup and stroke until he practically bit a hole in his tongue.

"Oh yes." The drug made her voice thick, syrupy, and amazingly poignant. "Remember the night we met?" Her lips nuzzled his shoulder. "I'd never felt like that. Hot. Cold. Shivery." She pressed her hips against him, and he could feel her skin touching all the way down his back. "From that first moment—"

Obviously buck naked, she trailed her hands up over his erection to reach the waistband of his trunks and lost track of what she'd been saying.

He felt the lush brush of her breasts against his back, the nipples hard pebbles. God, she was going to be doubly pissed when this was over,
if she
remembered this little conversation. From what he was rapidly learning about her she didn't like admitting any vulnerability. Particularly where he was concerned.

"I waz so nervous—kind of icky in my stomach, you know?—when I walked into the bar. 'N I
felt
all you guys looking, looking, looking. 'N I thought 'Who cares I'm a virgin? Nobody! That's who. Except for stupid Anthony-baby!' Then I saw you, and my heart went… zoooooom! Jus' like that! Zooooom!

An' I want to." Her hands were busy as she spoke, her voice far away and dreamy. "With you. I loved your calm eyes. Trusted—"

With a reluctant oath, Kyle put a restraining hand over both of hers. "God, I'd love to hear about it any other time, but this is bad, bad timing, honey. Trust me." He turned to gently guide her back to the bed.

"Take a nap while I—"

In one quick move she had his swimsuit yanked down to his knees. Which brought her mouth, quick as a lick, against his rampant erection, where she proceeded to try to devour him with lips and tongue and a clumsily endearing technique that almost brought tears to his eyes, it was so frigging effective.

She paused, giving Kyle a reprise and a second to catch his breath. He found his fingers tangled in her damp hair.

"I went there to sh-shleep with Anthony-baby, did I mention that little f-actoid?"

Her breath fanned his crotch and Kyle stared at the top of her head in bewildered amusement. "No, as a matter of fact you—Jesus, don't bite!—didn't."

"Yep. I was the virgin fiancé. Really, really pissed off good ol' Anthony-baby."

Virgin fiancé
? "Sounds like a fascinating story." He tried to pry her hand off his body parts, which were starting to turn an interesting shade of purple, and draw her to her feet. "Why don't we get dressed while you tell me the rest of the story. Okay?"

"Shr." She looked up at him for a second, her heart in her glazed eyes. "
Prove it
! Not prudey and cold annny more." She shook her head adamantly, obviously reliving a past conversation with someone.

Someone Kyle was beginning to dislike intensely. He'd rip the bastard's heart out.

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His hands clenched in her hair.

"I
said
to him." Delanie absently stroked her tongue down his hipbone. "I
said
'Silly!
I am
a kindergarten teacher! Of course I look like one! If you want to see someone parading around half nek-naked, you'll have to go see Lauren.' I did
not
want him—Lauren. Anthony-baby would've fallen in love wit her for sure.
Everybody
loves
Lauren
."

A
kindergarten
teacher?

"Sweetheart, that carpet can't possibly feel good on your knees. Let me help you up, and we can—"

Her giggle teased the damp tip of his penis. If this wasn't the most bizarre encounter Kyle had ever had, God only knew what was.

"Said, if you change your mind, buy crotchless panties and get your ass on a p-plane to Frisco. Does thith tickle?"

"Not even close." Kyle told her, his voice grim. She'd bought the panties, crotch intact. They'd been red satin with little black bows at her hips. The tiny red satin bra she'd worn that night had matched. The sight of her in her underwear was a memory he'd never forget.

"We're slow now. Right?"

"Slow now?"
Lord
, Kyle thought, his body thrumming,
I can't keep up with her stream of
consciousness thoughts
. Ah. At the pool. He'd asked her if they'd ever made love slowly.