Executive Perks (26 page)

“I just talk like that,” he assured her—honestly, as it so happened. Christ, half the words he’d heard growing up they couldn’t say on television even now. It was just part of the patter of his rough life. “Unless it bothers you.”

She laughed and started to slide up and down his shaft, her palms on his shoulders. “No, I think it does turn me on.”

He smiled, putting his hands under her skirt to feel her smooth ass as she rode him.

The sharp metallic sound of a door opening caused her to stop dead in her tracks, her head turning sharply in the direction of the sound.

What the fuck? They never came out here.

“What is it?” he called out, curtly enough to evidently stop whoever it was in their tracks before they got far enough to see into the passenger compartment.

She started to climb off his lap, but he held her fast, not letting her. She wrinkled her nose in silent admonishment, and he kissed it.

“It’s just John here, sir,” the copilot identified himself, not coming any further.

“Yes?” He started to move Virginia slowly up and down his cock, and she bit one side of her lip, as if she was concentrating very hard. Maybe on not moaning. He knew he was.

He’d never thought of himself as an exhibitionist, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t getting further turned on by moving her hot cunt up and down his pole while someone stood just feet away, maybe about to find them out.

“We got a call on the radio. From your office. They wanted us to confirm your destination.”

He paused. The office? Mrs. Fields wouldn’t do that. He’d explicitly told her his destination was off limits.

Virginia came down quickly on him, wet and smooth and arched back. He took a deep breath at the pleasure of it, then concentrated on making his voice sound normal. “Are they still on?”

“No, that’s the odd thing, sir. I said I had to come out and get you as we weren’t authorized to give out that information and the connection suddenly went dead. I thought you might want to call them back.”

He and Virginia exchanged an identical look. He guessed it was one of consternation, or maybe consternation tempered by the endorphins flooding through both their systems from the really hot sex they were engaging in at that moment.

“No thanks.” Aaron called out. “I’ll get them later,” he lied. Whoever it had been, there would sure to be no trace of them by now.

“Sure thing, sir.”

He and Virginia both waited for the sound of the cockpit door. It didn’t come.

“Can I get you folks anything while I’m out here?”

“No,” they both called out in unison.

“All righty. Should be a smooth ride from here on in.” Then the copilot audibly went back into the cockpit.

“Speak for yourself,” Aaron whispered, lunging up into Virginia.

* * * * *

It was a short boat trip from the airstrip on the mainland to his house on the island. When the speedboat dropped them off on the sandy beach, Virginia was surprised that there was no entourage waiting for them. Just a Jeep with the keys in it.

“It’s very isolated,” Aaron said, the understatement of the year, as he loaded their few bags into the backseat and they took off. There was a road, which Aaron admitted he had put in, but not much else.

“There’s a caretaker’s cottage for the couple that lives here year round. They keep the house,” he explained as they drove past shrouded woods and ocean views. “I hope we can find something to occupy ourselves,” he called to her over the sound of the wind as they drove.

When they arrived at their destination, Aaron helped her out of the Jeep as she surveyed their secret hideaway. It wasn’t a modern glass-and-wood structure or a stone castle like so many of his other houses. The white painted wood structure had been on the island for over a century.

“And you didn’t tear it down to build a McMansion, or even a real mansion?” she asked with a smile.

“Why would I?” he responded. “I put in a few creature comforts, like the hot tub, but the house itself is solid and it suits the island.”

Indeed, with its widow’s walk looking out to the sea and its gabled windows, this house did suit the pristine woods and cliffs of the island.

“I’m glad you didn’t tear it down.”

Virginia swiped the wig off as they went into the house and Aaron introduced her to the couple waiting there for them.

“Mr. and Mrs. Vincent are the caretakers,” Aaron explained as Virginia shook hands with each. “This is my guest, Virginia.”

The couple, in their fifties, looked like the tan and fit models they used in television commercials for “silver” vitamins. After the introductions, Aaron took the Vincents outside to confirm a few details, and then thanked them and went back in.

When he had closed the front door behind them, Aaron shepherded Virginia out to the wraparound porch facing the ocean. The cool breeze off the water, combined with the pink of the setting sun, gave just the mellow ambience he wanted for this interlude. Virginia took a seat in the porch swing and dropped the wig she’d been carrying. It lay like some deserted puppy dog next to her as she swung.

“The Vincents look pretty buff for caretakers,” Virginia observed.

“They exercise a lot. Not much else to do on the island, I guess.”

“Now that I’m here, I have to say I feel a little funny with all of this cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

He perched on the Adirondack chair next to her. Skyscrapers and panoramic views of the greatest city in the world had long since ceased to fascinate Aaron. But, maybe because of how he had been brought up, the ocean never got old. He could watch the indigo and emerald rush of the waves for hours.

“Why? It makes me feel better just knowing we won’t have to put up with any mysterious accidents or dead bodies while we’re here. Believe me, nobody’s going to get onto this island without me knowing about it.”

“Well, if this is all directed at me, and it certainly looks like it is, I’m sorry to have dragged you into it, Aaron.”

“You didn’t drag me into it. I kicked my way in, remember?”

She smiled. “Oh yeah. Why was that again?”

“Something about some little company you ran, though for the life of me, I can barely remember the name of it now.”

“I guess that’ll teach you, eh?”

Something, but he hadn’t a clue what.

“Are there phones on the island?” she asked.

“Only landlines. No cell service. Are you hungry?”

“Not particularly. You?”

He shook his head no. Not for food anyway. Too corny to say, though, so he didn’t.

“Water’s probably too cold to swim in,” she observed.

“Probably. There’s a hot tub, though, if you’re interested.”

A pause.

“What do I have to do, Winston? Jump you? Or are you going to make love to me of your own free will?”

He swooped her off the porch swing into his arms. “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * * * *

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Abe Vincent ran a hand through his cropped gray hair and perched his hands on his still-slim hips as he surveyed the beach, Mary beside him.

“So what do you think?” she asked.

He glanced at his wife of thirty years. Some folks might think they had too much togetherness, working together all their careers as well as being married. But he’d never felt that way. This surprisingly muscular little woman had been at his side through thick and thin. Nobody had his back like she did.

Of course, it never hurt to be prepared.

He felt for the holster underneath his plaid checked jacket and patted the gun.

“I think this is going to be easy,” he said.

* * * * *

When Virginia and Aaron stood on a bluff the day after their arrival, looking out toward the mainland, miles away and barely visible even on this clearest of mornings, she thought to ask about something she had meant to remark on from the day before—before his intense lovemaking had driven it right out of her head.

“How do you know no one could get on the island without you knowing it?”

He gestured toward the rocks below, big jagged boulders, slate-gray and mossy green. “Because there’s only one harbor. The rest of the island is like you see below. It’d tear a boat to pieces if they tried to land.”

“But couldn’t someone come in the harbor, while we were sleeping for example, and we wouldn’t know?”

“Ignoring the fact that whoever this person is, he couldn’t possible know where we are, if somehow they did and tried to sneak into the harbor, they’d get a surprise and we would get a hell of a warning.”

She arched an eyebrow.

“There are sensors all over the harbor. It would set off an alarm there and also here in the house. So our mystery guest would be deafened by the noise and we’d have advance notice.”

“So if we get the notice, then what?”

“Then we call the sheriff’s office on the mainland and they do a search of the island. If the asshole somehow makes it up to the house before then, I’ll take care of it,” he said obliquely.

“Used to people trying to sneak onto your island, are you?”

“The sensors were something one of my companies was working on. I thought it’d be a good idea to test it here.”

“So do they work?”

“Yes. You’re perfectly safe here, Virginia.”

They tromped back in the dew-ridden grass to breakfast on the fresh fruit and croissants that Mrs. Vincent had laid out for them before disappearing again. When they were done, Aaron agreed to give Virginia a tour of the house.

The library’s brick fireplace at one end and leaded glass window looking out to the sea at the other guaranteed it was going to be one of her favorite destinations in the house. The only discordant note in the cozy room was an oil painting hanging over the fireplace. The brooding bearded man in the frame stared down on them, as if in disapproval, though Virginia couldn’t pinpoint why she had that impression other than the sternness of the man’s features.

“Who is that?” she asked Aaron, pointing at the painting.

“My great-great-grandfather.”

“Really?”

He put one arm around her, chuckling. “No, not really. It came with the house. Apparently that’s Captain Joshua Seabridge, the first inhabitant of this island. He lived here briefly with his young bride in the late eighteen-hundreds.”

“Does
briefly
and
bride
indicate some untold story here?”

Aaron shrugged. “Every house has its stories. Houses on islands even more so, I would imagine.”

“Was that a yes or a no?”

“That was a
do you really want to hear this right now
? Because I thought we would just take a quick tour of the house, ending up in my favorite room, the bedroom, and then we could move on to more important matters, like me jumping you.”

“Humor me.”

“Only because you’re letting me jump you.”

She wondered if that was true. But an image of Aaron as he’d been at the facility where he had spent much of his childhood was stuck in her head. There was more than sex with this guy. She let it pass.

“So okay,” he obliged her, “as I understand it, this sea captain, Captain Seabridge, built the house for his new bride and brought her here to live in it. Unfortunately, he also brought—and this is the story here, not me—some complicated karma to the island. It seems our sea captain was the kind that left a girl in every port.”

“Before he met his bride, I hope.”

Aaron laughed, shaking his head. “If it’ll make you feel better, then yes. So as I was saying, one of the girls he left in a port was so distraught about it, she killed herself. So to make a long story short, the abandoned girl’s ghost shows up on the island, makes a living hell for the bride, who promptly drowns herself. End of story. Can we go upstairs now?”

His deadpan delivery and obvious haste to make it back to more enjoyable pursuits did not prevent the shiver that ran down Virginia’s spine at the tale. “That’s creepy.”

“Yeah, if you believe it. I’m more inclined to think his bride had a serious problem with depression, for which they thankfully have drugs these days.”

“Why would a
bride
be depressed?”

“You’ve never been married, have you?”

She punched him. “Neither have you!”

“I know, but I couldn’t resist.”

“What was the name of his bride?”

“No clue.”

“The ghost?”

“That one I remember. It was Arabella, which is exactly what leads me to believe this whole story was made up. Arabella is just too poetic a name for this tale. If it was true, given the time period, her name probably would have been Hariette or Gertrude. Arabella just fits too nicely with a creepy ghost story.”

“Is there a picture of the bride? Or the ghost, the girl, I mean?”

Aaron shook his head no. “Guy must have had an ego. Only had a picture of himself done apparently. There’s another odd twist to the story, which actually I shouldn’t even tell you, given the current circumstances.”

“Too late now,” she observed.

Without a fight, he agreed. “Part of the story is that the girl looked a lot like the bride. So half the time the bride was convinced she was seeing her own dead self.”