DrillingDownDeep (20 page)

Like some kind of incredibly sexy virgin bride. He didn’t
remember saying anything about this type when he booked the girl, but it worked
for him. Big time. He was surprised how much.

He slipped one arm around her waist, the other pulling down
a bra strap to let that ripe little tit pop free, and then he tongued it,
sucking on the sweet clean nub until it was wet and dark rosy. He did the same
to the other, while she let out slight, almost stifled groans, her hands on his
shoulders, but that was all the foreplay he could afford. He pushed her back
onto the bed then climbed over her, ripping her panties off as he did and
flinging them on the floor. She could go commando the rest of the party. It
would give him a very nice sense of anticipation for the rest of the night
until they could leave to go back to the hotel.

Kneeing her thighs open, he ran an appreciative hand along
her slit to ensure she was nice and wet and then shoved his aching dick inside
her in one hard thrust and she gasped.

“Christ, you’re incredibly tight,” he muttered, forcing
himself to stay still for a minute because of it. Her eyes were a blue so dark
they almost looked black, although maybe that was because her pupils were so
big.

“It’s been a long time,” she said quietly, even as she was
relaxing underneath him, his cock sliding a little deeper at it, causing him to
groan.

A long time? “You’re not a regular?” he got out.

“A regular what?”

But she was leaning up to kiss his cheek now, making her way
to his mouth, he hoped.

“You okay now?” he asked breathlessly, and she thrust her
tongue in his mouth.

Oh fuck. Okay, that was that. The pleasure of it roaring in
his ears, he pulled out almost to the tip of his cock and rammed into her wet
tight cunt again as she opened her legs wider and he was off. He couldn’t have
stopped the relentless flexing of his hips, driving his cock in and out of that
warm cradle, for anything.

Her fingertips wound in his hair as they kissed, refusing to
let go, and the touch, intimate though not necessarily sexual, pleased him for
some reason. As for his hands, they were firmly underneath her beautiful ass,
tilting her up to take each thrust of his long-starved and greedy cock.
Fucking, kissing, gripping each other, it wasn’t long before they were sweaty,
their bodies slapping against each other in the warmth of the guest room and
conducting a veritable symphony with their low moans of pleasure.

When he came it was so hard he vowed he would not wait so
long next time. Christ, he vowed he’d get out of this party and take this
incredible lay back to his hotel room right now.

He collapsed on top of the girl for a second, unwittingly
making her take his full weight in the exhaustion of his release, before he
realized it and rolled over to let her up. He got up from the bed himself,
pulling the condom off and tossing it in the wastebasket before he turned back
to her. “Do you come?”

She was sitting up slowly. “What?”

“Do you come or do you not want me to even try?”

She shook her head. “I did come,” she said softly, but he
didn’t know whether that was her standard line or whether he’d been so wrapped
up in his own ferocious orgasm he hadn’t noticed.

“Well, I’ll pay more attention next time. I promise.” He
grinned, so relaxed and feeling good he couldn’t help himself. “Don’t worry. I
like to make a woman come. You’ll enjoy it next time.”

She reached for her dress and stepped into it. “I enjoyed it
this time,” she said, with a shaky smile.

When she tried to retrieve her panties, he snatched them
away. “I’ll keep these, if you don’t mind.”

He pulled his chinos on and stuffed the panties into one
pocket, grabbing the condoms as well. Come to think of it, they might even have
to stop for more at a drugstore on the way back to the hotel.

They walked down the staircase, hand in hand, until she
suddenly pulled hers away. When he glanced over at her she was blushing. She
was awfully sensitive or shy or something, especially for a working girl.

“Hey, Evan.” He turned his head to his oldest brother
Michael’s voice.

“Hi, Michael. I didn’t know you were here already.”

“Yes. I’m staying over.” He turned to Evan’s date, who
seemed to have composed herself. “Hello, Miss Prentiss. Do you have those
papers for me?”

“Yes, Mr. Reynolds. I was just looking for you. They’re here
in my purse.” She pulled out a folded set of papers and handed them to Michael
along with a pen. He spread them out on a small hallway table and started to
sign.

Without looking up, Michael said, “Did you meet my
assistant, Evan? I don’t think you’ve ever been to the office, have you?”

What the…?

He finished signing and handed the papers back to her.

“I emailed you the file you requested as well, concerning
the gentleman on the rig. It’s in your inbox.”

“Good. That’ll be all, Miss Prentiss. Thank you for coming
all the way out here.”

She smiled. “My pleasure, Mr. Reynolds.” But she was looking
straight at Evan.

Shit. Now he was the one who was blushing.

As he watched
Miss Prentiss
go out the front door of
the mansion and Michael wandered away, someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Evan?”

“Yeah.”

He turned to see a mass of dark-brown curls spilling over a
plunging shocking-pink neckline, a glittery chain disappearing into the
pushed-together cleavage.

“I thought that was you. They give us a picture.” The girl
in front of him slipped a card into his hand and he glanced down to see the
name of the escort service he called.

Right. That was what he was supposed to look for. She was
supposed to give him a card. He remembered now.

Fuck!

“I’m Annie.”

Her lip gloss was as pink as her dress. She was pretty, in a
flashy way he usually didn’t mind, since it was what a girl looked like naked
that counted to him these days, but somehow, after
Miss Prentiss
he
wasn’t in the mood anymore.

Not for Annie anyway.

“Thanks, honey. But I’m all set. I’ll pay for the night, but
consider it a vacation.”

“Really? Is it me? They can send some other girl.”

“Not the one I want,” he muttered.

* * * * *

“I like your new girlfriend. And I’m using the word
deliberately.”

Michael gave his sister Samantha a quick hug and peck on the
cheek. “Oh you met her? Good. And thanks. I like her too.”

What he really wanted to do was find Vanny. He’d already
taken the time to answer the questions his father had fired at him, about
business at least, which had eaten up more time than he’d expected. And then he
ran into Miss Prentiss and signed the papers on the way to look for Vanny. And
now here was Samantha, who he really couldn’t ignore since the party was in her
honor after all.

“Why doesn’t she work on the oil drilling rig anymore?”

“Vanny? I fired her.”

“Wow, I didn’t think you were that hard up for a date,
Michael.”

He laughed and grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing
waiter, handing it to his little sister. “How about you, Samantha? How’s
married life treating you?”

“So far so good.”

“Has Vik stopped this spy thing?”

“We just got back from our honeymoon. Give the man time.
Even Interpol probably needs two weeks’ notice. Besides,” she added, as she
sipped her champagne, “I’m not too sure he wants to quit.”

“That’s a dangerous job, Sam.”

“He could go into strategizing, taking on isolated
assignments, not the deep undercover stuff. It’s what his mentor did to ease
off.”

“That’s the old man I met at the wedding? The one who looked
like James Bond?”

“That was him. Crenshaw. I’m not sure if that’s his first or
last name, but he’s really very sweet.”

“You moving into the family castle now you’re back?” In
addition to being a spy, Samantha’s new husband, bizarrely enough, turned out
to be an earl as well.

“We would if Vik’s grandmother had anything to say about it,
but he wants to take it slower.”

“No countess for you yet, eh?”

“No, but you may genuflect if the mood seizes you.”

He kissed her hand instead. “I have to find Vanny. Father
tied me up longer than I wanted.”

“Go ahead.” Samantha waved him on. “Find your girl.”

Unfortunately, on his way to do so, he ran into Tiffany. Or
rather she ran into him. Right into him. Tiffany was never one for subtlety,
but even he was surprised at the way she plastered herself right up next to
him.

“Hey,” he said, pushing her back as gently as he could under
the circumstances. The last thing he wanted was for Tiffany to cause a scene
with Vanny here. Who the hell had invited her anyway? Samantha hated Tiffany.

“Michael, I have to talk to you. In private!”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Tiffany. I’m on my way
to find someone.”

“That little hick bitch you brought with you can wait.”

“That’s enough.”

“If I’d known that was what you liked, I’d have popped into
J.C. Penney for some overalls and print dresses.”

He looked around quickly to see if he could spot Jeff. Maybe
he could calm his ex-wife down.

She tugged at his arm, succeeding in pulling him into one of
the sitting rooms off the main ballroom. After a minute of hesitation, he let
her close the door behind them. If she was going to launch into one of her
tirades, better if the door was closed.

“What is it?” he snapped.

“You have to help me.”

“Do what?”

“Get away from him. Please!” For an uncomfortable moment, he
thought she was talking about Jeff.

“Look, he told me you divorced him.”

“Who?” She looked blank for a second. “Oh, Jeff.”

“Yes and that you were cheating on him, not that that
surprises me one bit.”

“Huh!” She looked around distractedly, muttering, “He was
behind all my affairs anyway.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

She made an uncharacteristically scrunched-up face. Oddly,
the naturalness of it made her more attractive rather than less. “For such an
experienced man, Michael, you’re so naïve in some ways. He picked the men for
me. He watched me with them. Not in person. He was afraid to go that far. He
always made me record it. And then he’d watch it again and again.”

Naïve or not, Michael guessed he wasn’t all that surprised
by the information. Jeff always seemed a little too interested in other
people’s fucking. “So what? Some guys get turned-on by that kind of thing. Not
me,” he hastily added. Actually the thought of Vanny having sex with another
man kind of made him want to kill. “Other than the fact that you were probably
breaking a hell of a lot of privacy laws, it doesn’t matter to me if Jeff gets
off on that.”

“Oh he gets off on it, but unfortunately he’s ridiculously
guilt-ridden about it. Anyway, you were the one I really wanted to sleep with.
He wouldn’t have minded that either. In fact, he may have wanted it more than I
did.”

“Stop right there, you lying bitch.”

“I tried to engineer it a hundred times. And when I finally
realized you wouldn’t ‘betray’ him by sleeping with his wife, I divorced him to
make it happen.”

“I’ve heard enough of your twisted logic. Jeff’s better off
without you.”

“He is,” she said earnestly, surprising him. “He really is.
And especially now. I wish I could get that through his thick skull.”

“I’m sure you’re doing your best,” he noted wryly.

She shook her head quickly. “But none of that matters
anymore. I’ve got a bigger problem. I’ve got…” her voice faltered. “Oh God,
he’s…he seems to be
obsessed
with you.”

“Funny. That’s the same thing he says about you.”

“Not Jeff,” she said swiftly.

“What are you talking about, Tiffany?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Michael raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not yours. I’m just a few weeks along. But I want this
baby. And one asshole’s insane delusions are not going to hurt it.”

“Whose baby are you supposedly carrying?”

“Jeff’s.”

“It’s possible, I guess. But if he asks me, I’m going to
advise he get a paternity test before he forks out a penny of child support on
top of the already exorbitant alimony he pays you.”

“Oh God!”

Tiffany looked so distraught—her mascara even running—that
he almost believed her.

“Why won’t you listen to me? You’ve got to do something to
stop him!”

“Who? Jeff?”

“Not Jeff!” Her head popped up at a sudden sound. “I have to
go. I have to—”

The door opened and somebody ducked his head in. Michael
didn’t recognize him.

“Oh I’m sorry. I thought this room was empty.”

Tiffany’s face was completely drained of color, the tint of
her foundation not enough to compensate for it. “I have to go.”

“I saw this right outside the door and heard voices so I
thought it might be yours.” He held out a black evening bag. “Miss?”

Tiffany took the purse and then pushed past him and shot out
the door past the man.

The guy, sort of a professor type, said, “I’m sorry. I hope
I didn’t disturb anything.”

“Not at all,” Michael said politely and went back out to
find Vanny.

Vik Pillay eyed the blonde in the skintight black dress, her
boobs practically hanging out. The detachment he felt at the display was almost
amusing to him now. What a trained dog he was after two weeks of marriage and
only a few months before that of courtship.

There was only one woman for him. Now and forever.

But this one was interesting. In a purely professional
sense. He watched her as she fiddled with the palms of one of the potted trees
old man Reynolds had all around the greenhouse, and then slipped something from
her compact black evening clutch into the dirt.

She was acting so oddly that he had followed her here to the
greenhouse, taking care to stay out of sight. Old habits died hard and Vik had
been a spy for over a decade. When something was wrong, he could just feel it.
Probably why he’d made it out alive after all this time. And something about
the slutty gorgeous blonde was all wrong. For one thing, she was too nervous.
For another, this type never wandered away from the crowd—unless she was
meeting someone to fuck. Half thinking that may be all there was to it, he
trailed her at a proper distance and hid when she turned down the long hallway
to the greenhouse, following a second or two later at a safe distance.

With a slight twist of his body, he disappeared into the
background when she hurried out. After a minute or two, he went into the
greenhouse and searched the dirt of the plant, finding the little device
easily. She hadn’t hidden it very well.

“If you snuck out of the party to make out with Tiffany
Fischer, who I just happened to notice leaving here, I’m afraid we’re going to
have a murder-suicide situation on our hands. I’m going to murder that blonde
bitch and make you so sorry you cheated on me you’ll want to kill yourself.”

Vik straightened from the plant, device in hand. Too
concerned to laugh at his wife’s little joke, he held it out to Samantha.
“That’s who that woman was? Tiffany Fischer, you said?”

She took it and turned it around in her palm. “Yeah. One of
Michael’s rejects. She used to be married to his best friend too. A real and
total bitch.”

“And a little bit more,” he said grimly.

“Why? What’s this?”

He took it back from her. “This, my lovely little wife, is a
very compact but very deadly bomb. Extremely sophisticated. And planted by Mrs.
Fischer there.”

“Wow. Hell hath no fury and all that.”

“I doubt that’s what’s behind this. I don’t even know where
somebody like that could get a hold of something like this. You need very deep,
very dangerous contacts to get something this compact and deadly.”

“Well, shouldn’t we call 9-1-1 or something? I mean, is it
going to go off any minute? Not that I’m being a wimp here or anything.”

He grinned at that. This woman was the furthest thing from a
wimp he’d ever come across. He kissed her swiftly. “No need.”

“Why not?” She had that dazed look on her face that she
always had after they kissed. The one that made him find it very hard to stop
at just a kiss. The one that ensured that, although they’d honeymooned in one
of the most gorgeous sites in Tahiti, they had barely made it out of bed to the
beach.

Unfortunately, dazed look or no dazed look, making love to
his wife would have to wait. The Reynolds family, and that included the Pillay
family now, had a mystery to solve.

“She forgot to arm it. See this little green switch here?
She was supposed to flick it on.”

“Tiffany never was very bright.”

“Thank God for that. How about we go find out who is?”

* * * * *

What did they say about dumb blondes again? This
incompetence was simply too much. It was amazing the woman had ever gotten away
with murdering her pimp in the first place so many years ago. Dumb luck
undoubtedly.

At least she’d pulled over to the side of the road in that
little orange Jag of hers when he overtook her on the deserted road. She knew
it was him, having seen him at the party. He put on a pair of driving gloves
and got out of the respectable Bentley, which he parked behind her, turning off
the headlights.

“I put it exactly where you said to,” she whined right off
as he slid in beside her.

“Really? How come we haven’t heard a big kaboom behind us on
the road?” He glanced at his Cartier illuminated watch. “It’s been about enough
time. Five minutes or so I said, right?”

She looked back at the dark behind them. “Was it really
supposed to, just like,
blow
the place up?”

“A nice little chunk of it anyway. Enough to see from here.”

“But, I mean, isn’t that kind of excessive? I’m not
criticizing you or anything, but if you want to kill Michael Reynolds, why
don’t you just kill him? Don’t they have snipers or something for that sort of
thing? Not that I’m saying you should kill him or anything.”

“Is that why you didn’t arm the bomb? You didn’t want to
kill
Michael Reynolds?”

“No! It’s not my fault if it didn’t go off! Maybe there’s a
time delay or something.”

“It couldn’t have had anything to do with the fact that you
failed to move the little green switch to the on position, could it?”

“I did! I swear I did! Somebody must have found it and
switched it off. That’s not my fault, is it?”

“Remember what I told you, Cissy?” She visibly cringed at
the name. “Once it’s switched to on, it’s extremely difficult to switch off.”

“Well, they must have. Or maybe that bomb thingy was, I
don’t know, some kind of a dud.”

He sighed heavily. He was always going to have to kill her,
wasn’t he? She’d seen his face, unlike his minion on the rig. And now, thanks
to her, Michael Reynolds had seen him with her at the party as well. He had to
interrupt their conversation rather than surreptitiously give her the package
as they’d agreed. It was clear Cissy was about to spill the beans.

But he hadn’t thought he would have to kill her so soon. He
thought that perhaps she could have been of further use to him. Or at the very
least, he could have done it slowly, for maximum enjoyment, taking her lovely
body apart piece by piece. No time for that now.

When he realized that the new Reynolds family member was
following Tiffany, he followed as well, long enough to see the man find the
device and determine this nitwit had failed to arm it. They would all be
suspicious of Tiffany now of course, or at least the old man would be
suspicious even if his son was too pussy-besotted with his new girlfriend to
give a shit apparently. And eventually Cissy-Lou here would crack. So he’d
employed almost-forgotten skills from a childhood of stealing cars and slipped
out of the party to
borrow
this Bentley and come after her. It was quite
a risk, but he had no other choice.

In fact, he hadn’t wanted the bomb to
kill
Reynolds,
which is why he’d instructed Cissy to plant it in the greenhouse away from the
main building. He had something else in mind entirely. But it didn’t matter
what she thought one way or another. Never had. And certainly didn’t now.

“You really should be grateful, my dear.” He removed the gun
from his inside coat pocket and raised it right to her forehead. She didn’t
even flinch away, though she was shaking. “It could have been much more
painful.”

She started to say something, to plead no doubt, and not
wanting to hear it, not to mention not having the time to, he pulled the
trigger. Just once. Her head fell back, almost gently, against the seat, the
red streaming down her cheeks.

He put the gun in her hand, doubting it would fool a
competent inspector, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances
given the limited time he had. And maybe he would get lucky and an incompetent
inspector would handle the case. Either way,
Socialite Takes Own Life
was a more palatable headline in a fancy town like this than
Murderer Loose
in Hamptons,
all things being equal. If there were no more deaths, the
investigation might just stop at that.

He took one last look at the dead woman’s bountiful chest
and sighed. “What a waste.”

* * * * *

“Tiffany may be stupid. And greedy and jealous.”

And this was the defense from the man who loved her?

“But she’s not totally insane. Why would she plant a bomb?”

“I don’t know, Jeff, but Vik saw it. We’ve got to talk to
her.”

“There might be some more innocent explanation, Mr.
Fischer,” Vik offered. “Maybe she was doing it for somebody and didn’t really
know what it was.”

It sounded like a stretch to Michael, but who the hell knew?
It wasn’t bad enough he’d caught his current girlfriend with a bomb, now his
exes were trying to blow him up too? He was starting to get a complex here.

“You’re the big Interpol agent,” Jeff accused. “Isn’t it
more likely this all has something to do with you?”

“It’s possible.” Vik’s calm was one thing Michael admired a
lot about his new brother-in-law. He felt as if his own was really slipping
here. “But we won’t know until we talk to your ex-wife.”

“She’s gone, Mr. Reynolds,” one of the security guards came
in to report. “The valet said she drove off about five or ten minutes ago.”

“Right after she planted the device,” Vik observed.

“Get the license plate and find somebody to overtake her.
Bring her back.”

“Let me do it, Michael,” Jeff pleaded. “Please.”

“No way. You’re not objective about her. I don’t know what
she might talk you into before you get her back here.”

“I’ll go,” Vik said, looking at the security guard. “If
somebody will get me the details on the car. Quickly.”

“I’ll go with you,” Samantha offered.

Michael started to object at his little sister putting
herself in a potentially dangerous situation but, seeing that her own husband
just smiled at her, thought better of it. She could handle herself and if not,
Vik would be with her.

“But only on the condition that if she needs to be
physically restrained, I get to knock her out.”

Chuckling, Vik put an arm around Samantha and they followed
the security guard out, promising to bring Tiffany back as soon as they could.

Jeff collapsed in an armchair, shaking his head. “Tiff, what
have you done?” he mumbled. Then he lifted his head and said, “You know, I
never stopped sleeping with her. Even when she was sleeping with you.”

Michael glanced uncomfortably toward Vanny. She was curled
up by the fire, her legs underneath her, pumps kicked off, her green eyes wide
and attentive as this whole drama had played out in front of her. But if Jeff
was going to start making the same disclosures Tiffany had about their
marriage, Vanny didn’t need to hear them. Jeff was a good guy. A good friend.
And his sex life was his own business.

Even if he didn’t feel the same about other people’s.

“It wasn’t always her talking me into things either,
Michael. I talked her into things. Sick things.”

Michael wanted to stop him, more for Vanny’s sake than for
anything else, but of course he forgot he was talking about Vanny. Worldly and
rig-wise, she didn’t hesitate to jump in with both feet.

“I’m sure that’s not true, Jeff.”

At her words, Jeff shot his attention to her. “It is. It is.
You don’t know. She was so sweet when I first met her.”

Like hell. Tiffany was never sweet. She’d been a seductress
from the moment he and Jeff had set eyes on her at a party years ago.

“I…” Jeff faltered then blurted out, “I liked to see her,
having sex, fucking.”

Vanny got up before he could stop her and put a comforting
hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Fucking other men.”

“Oh that’s not so bad,” Vanny crooned, prompting Michael to
startle back and stare at her. She met his eyes and frowned, as if warning him
to stay out of it. “A lot of guys like that. It’s not so uncommon. And for some
women, well, probably all women, having sex with two guys is the ultimate
fantasy, whether they act on it or not.”

Jeff looked up hopefully.

“Now wait just a minute here,” Michael interjected.
Comforting was one thing, but he didn’t like how this conversation was going.

“Tiffany would probably like it if you joined them having
sex.”

“You think?”

Michael scowled.

“Absolutely.” Vanny met his scowl with one of her own. “Just
not with Michael.”

He cracked a smile. “Glad we’re on the same wavelength here,
Vanny. And not with you,” he added.

“Me?” She laughed. “I have enough trouble handling one cock.
I’m not stupid enough to try to juggle two.”

Jeff looked at her a little funny—Michael forgot how
surprising Vanny’s earthy candor had been when he’d first met her—but then just
shook his head, putting one hand to his temple.

“What I’m trying to say, Jeff,” she continued, “is don’t
beat yourself up about sex. As long as consenting adults are involved, it’s
nobody’s place to judge.”

“On the other hand,” Michael groused, “secretly recording
somebody is not exactly consenting.”

“We never recorded you!” Jeff insisted. “Never.”

“I’m touched.”

One side of Jeff’s mouth crooked up. “I know. Fuck. I am
such a pervert.”

“One man’s turn-on is another man’s perversion,” Vanny
pointed out in that soothing voice that Michael was starting to get pissed off
she was using with his pal. Seeing his woman have sex with another man? Shit!
He wasn’t even sure he wanted her talking to another man. How perverted was
that? His hand went up to his own temple.

Vanny appeared to be the only one who wasn’t having trouble
with this conversation. “Can I get anybody some tea?”

The phone rang and Michael picked it up. He listened to Vik
on the other end, his mouth tightening. “Yeah,” he finally said and hung up the
receiver.

God, this just kept getting worse.