Green-Eyed Monster (16 page)

Mickey pushed her hips to answer Victoria’s rhythm. She couldn’t believe Victoria’s heated fervor. Victoria had never been the aggressor in their short-lived liaison. She had always been the pursued. Mickey was the initiator. At least that’s how she’d imagined it. Where had this hotheaded hellion come from? In all her fantasies she had been the one chasing…and losing, reliving her miserable mistake over and over. The object of those fantasies had sprung into her arms, and was now pinning her to the bed, forcefully taking her. All she could do was hang on, and she fully intended to do that.

Victoria’s hips stilled their grinding motion, her lips stopped sucking Mickey’s throat, and she pulled away. Leaning on her elbows, she gazed directly into the lust-hazed face below. The rebalance of weight pushed her mons harder onto Mickey, who gave a small grunt and sneakily spread herself wider, trying to apply some of the pressure to just the right spot. Feeling the furtive move, Victoria eased her weight off, using her knees as leverage. Amused, she watched Mickey’s small, petulant frown at this loss of contact, then she snapped with sudden authority,

“Put your hands above your head.”

Mickey’s frown remained, and her hands stubbornly squeezed Victoria’s bottom. The soles of her feet continued caressing Victoria’s smooth calves. Her dimple popped as her lips pursed.

Oh no, you don’t. Don’t you dare turn that damned dimple on me. I’m on to your tricks, Rapowski. And I’m in charge now.

“Do it,” Victoria ordered.

Mickey eased her grip and placed her arms above her head. Victoria raised herself to straddle Mickey’s prone body, unceremoniously stripping Mickey’s boxers down, leaving them at a constricting half-mast, pinning the tanned thighs together.

Never breaking eye contact, she caught the rim of Mickey’s T-shirt and yanked it off, exposing full, mouthwatering breasts.

Toffeed nipples puckered for her invitingly.

“Close your eyes, and don’t open them.” Mickey complied immediately. Victoria stripped away her own nightwear before repositioning herself across the captured thighs. She sat there and contemplated the body beneath her, her musk and heat dampening Mickey’s darker curls. It was the complete reverse of their first time together. She didn’t know why she needed this tokenism, other than to feel that this time she was in charge, the bestower of exquisite touches and delicious kisses.

She watched the hitch in Mickey’s breathing and the rise and fall of her chest. She smiled at the struggle Mickey was obviously having keeping her eyes closed and her hands above her head. It was a delightful little power game. Already, she could see Mickey’s eyelids fluttering as she was torn between the wish to obey and the need to look at Victoria straddling her nude. The earthy scent of moist arousal rose up between them. The tension crackled like a fuse.

Mickey whimpered, and Victoria pulled a nipple deep into her mouth before her teeth closed around its base. Mickey arched up into her mouth gasping at the stinging caress. A soft tongue bathed the ache away in long, swirling strokes. Artfully, it dragged across the sensitive bud as recompense for the tingling ache, before it began all over again. Her other breast was cupped and kneaded firmly, fingers pulling on the pouting tip before circling and compressing the soft tissue. This pattern of flattening, kneading, and pinching continued until Mickey’s breasts hummed with sensation. Each alternately massaged and stroked, as its twin was sucked and laved by Victoria’s hot, greedy mouth. Mickey arched, pushing onto Victoria’s hands and lips. She squirmed and groaned, the pressure between her trapped thighs building to the bursting point.

“Please, Victoria,” she whispered. “Don’t torture me.” Victoria sat upright and undulated her sex across crisp curls.

Mickey gasped, her hips surged trying to make a connection for her pulsing clitoris, but her thighs were restricted, pinned torturously together.

Victoria was determined to increase the torture. She reached for Mickey’s twitching hands, lying on the pillow on either side of her head, and clamped them onto her own breasts.

Mickey’s eyes flew open. Automatically, her fingers began to greedily knead the beautiful creamy flesh spilling onto her cupped palms. She massaged lustily, pale pink nipples peek-a-booed between her fingers, teasing her until she ached to kiss and bite and suck them. They were both groaning now. Victoria held Mickey’s hands in place as she ground her hips and rode out her pleasure.

Eyes wide open, greedy hands full, Mickey decided the rules were broken and the game was now officially over. Thus justified, she rolled Victoria onto her back and rested snugly between her open thighs. Quickly kicking off the offending boxers, she grunted as she arranged her outer lips, at last making sliding contact with Victoria’s engorged clitoris. Leaning forward, she captured her lover’s gasping mouth, only releasing their bruised lips to draw breath.

She sensed Victoria approaching orgasm, and she reached down between their hips and steadily pushed two fingers deep inside her. She swirled them on the long, slow slide in, stroking the inner walls all the way along, giving a sensation of complete fullness. Satisfied by the small grunts and puffs that told her Victoria was comfortably filled, she began to stroke in and out.

Victoria cried and arched into her hand. She opened wider to give Mickey more access, feet planted firmly on the thin mattress for leverage.

Mickey’s thumb grazed across her clitoris causing another throaty cry. Mickey watched the passion ripple across her face.

On and on her fingers slid, each thrust greeted with a deeply delicious moan.

“I’ve dreamt of you every night,” she murmured in a pink-tinged ear, her thumb stroking softly across the swollen clitoris.

“Stay with me,” she whispered her secret need.

Victoria did not register her words; she was floating in her own world. She gave up trying to kiss, or hold, or stroke the woman above her, and simply surrendered to the rippling waves of orgasm that washed over her again and again, pulling one long, ragged cry of ecstasy from her screaming lungs.

“You’re so beautiful,” Mickey whispered as she watched Victoria crest.

❖

BJ’s and Ginette’s heads jerked simultaneously. The animal cry of raw release roared out from the open fore hatch and ripped the night apart. BJ looked at Ginette in shocked alarm, as if misunderstanding what she was hearing.

Oh, way to go, you horny sluts!
Ginette thought, disgusted.

Blow our cover completely, and leave me up here with the angry gunslinger to try to explain.
She turned to BJ with her best full-on smile.

“My. Now there’s a whole new slant to coming onboard.”

“You two! Up here now.” BJ bellowed through the cabin hatch. “All three of you got some explaining to do.” She’d had it with these stooges.

Grimly, she sat beside a silent and very tense Ginette, her hand resting on her Glock. A few minutes later, two flushed, incredibly shamefaced women seated themselves opposite.

Ginette threw a hard, unforgiving look at both of them, taking in the rumpled sleepwear and guilty faces. Victoria looked everywhere to avoid Ginette’s stare, while Mickey became fixated on her own feet.

“Spill.” BJ folded her arms, commanding everyone’s attention. “Who the hell are you people? What the hell’s going on here?”

Mickey and Ginette both turned silently toward Victoria.

“Great. It’s always up to me to sort everything out.” She flung her hands up in disgust. The other two rolled their eyes at each other.

“If you’re gonna wear the general’s stripes, you gotta run the war,” said Ginette.

“First”—Victoria jabbed a finger in BJ’s direction—“get rid of the hardware. I’m
not
telling you anything as long as that gun’s lassoed around your neck.”

BJ gave her a measured look. She quickly surmised there was no denying the request, not if she wanted answers from this stubborn, shady trio. Slowly, she slipped the semiautomatic from her neck, setting it carefully on the seat beside her. She sat back and waited.

Victoria took a deep breath and began to explain in one huge rush. “
I
am Victoria Gresham and I came to Cayman Brac on the trail of Michaela Rapowski, who stole all my…private funds, with the aid of my ex-girlfriend Ginette Felstrom, who nearly killed me in a cabin fire that Michaela Rapowski subsequently rescued me from before disappearing to…well, Cayman Brac.” She finally took a breath. “And there you have it. Right cast, wrong script.”

BJ blinked. “You’re not Officer Rapowski?”

“Nobody’s Officer Rapowski,” Mickey said. “I was never a federal agent. I worked for the Financial Crime Enforcement Network as an analyst but left over a year ago. I helped with an unresolved investigation into businesswoman Victoria Gresham’s supposed laundered assets. I then used that information to set up a sting. And I used Ginette Felstrom, Victoria’s ex, to gain an entry point.”

“Sweet,” BJ said dryly. “So tell me who you are, not who you ain’t.”

“Mickey Rapowski, kidnapper, swindler, and thief.” BJ next turned to Ginette. “And who are you?”

“Oh, I’m Ginette Felstrom all right, and I’m a victim of these two, just like you. I was dumped by her”—she pointed at Victoria—“and double-crossed by her.” She singled out Mickey.

“And now I have to be nice to
everyone
in order to get my life savings back.” She managed to sound simultaneously flirtatious yet outraged at the injustice heaped upon her.

BJ shook her head slowly. “So between the lot of you, I got a tax embezzler, a kidnapper, and an arsonist, at the very least.  My, how’d I get so high up in the world? If my mama could see me now—”

“And what about you,
Officer
Jack?” Ginette interrupted.

“What have
we
got with you?”

BJ grinned. “You got a pirate.”

“Oh, perfect.” Victoria slapped her hands on her knees.

“Absolutely perfect. We’ve got Blackbeard onboard. And just what does a pirate want with Victoria Gresham?”

“And where’s the rest of your gang?” Mickey threw a furtive look around the horizon. “Pirates don’t work solo.”

“The rest of the crew are arriving later this morning, after I fix the radio and call in our position.”

“But what do pirates want with Victoria?” Ginette repeated Victoria’s question.

BJ shrugged. “A ransom. All them millions she’s got stashed away.”

“What millions?” shrieked Victoria, pointing at Mickey.

“She’s got all my millions. Kidnap Rapowski. Leave me out of it.” 

“Well, we thought she was you.” BJ frowned, still a little lost in the maze of twisted identities.

“
We
?” Ginette asked.

“My uncle Rudy, he’s the boss.” BJ came clean, caught up in the need to try to make all this mud as clear as possible.

“Rudy? As in my hotel manager Rudy? Scumball. Setting me up like that. Selling me out.” Mickey was beside herself with outrage. “I pay his freaking wages.”

“Hey.” BJ frowned. “He’s the only scumball in my family to hold down a nine-to-five.”

Victoria swapped glances with Ginette. “He’s also our informant. Rudy’s the guy who sold Ginette all the details of your movements before we came down here.”

“Told ya. Scumball,” Mickey said.

“I was making inquiries all over the place trying to trace her.” Ginette pointed accusingly at Mickey. “He must have figured his new boss was the tax evader Victoria Gresham using an alias.  Half the underworld knew FinCEN were after her when her money went whizzing round the globe so openly.” She shrugged away the bad luck of it. “Rudy did good research. A little bit off center, but kudos.”

They all looked at her as if she was insane.

“Hey, credit where credit’s due,” she said. “After all, the man found a link between Rapowski and Gresham. And then sold it to us. That’s good work. Okay, so he jumped the wait list and tried to kidnap her for his own gain. But I got nothing against the guy for going after her.” She jabbed a finger in Mickey’s direction.

“Except he thinks I’m her.” Mickey nodded toward Victoria, scowling at Ginette’s stupidity.

“Is there anybody involved who isn’t a double-crosser?” Victoria asked in exasperation. Silence followed.

She sighed. Negotiations were going to be tricky.

“So what happens tomorrow morning?” she asked BJ. “How does all this work?”

BJ frowned. “I don’t really know much because I’m sort of lowly, like a cabin boy sort of thing. In fact, I only got dealt in because I’m family and trying to pay off my student loan.  But as I understand it, she”—BJ pointed at Mickey—“has been kidnapped by me. And a ransom demand has been made to Uncle Rudy, by himself.”

Mickey sighed as she guessed the rest. “Which he’ll pay immediately—to himself. In a brown paper bag, I bet, without contacting the police as per the ransom demand.” It all sounded so familiar. She should have patented the formula.

“As we speak, he’s happily emptying your office safe and business accounts. But he wants more than the immediate cash, he wants the rest of your dirty money, and he knows it’s stashed away somewhere semilegit.”

“And then what happens?” said Victoria. Everyone was being very free and easy with her money here.

“Mmm.” BJ looked rather contrite. “I think he comes out here, tortures you for the rest, then kills you.” This was greeted with absolute silence.

“Oh,” Mickey said. “Kudos. Credit where credit’s due,” she quoted, glaring mockingly at Ginette.

“I wonder which one of you he’ll torture first,” Ginette said, looking innocently from Victoria to Mickey.

With a lingering, spite-filled glare in Ginette’s direction, Mickey turned to Victoria, slightly panicked.

“If there’s gonna be any torture, let me still be you, okay?” she said.

“Ha,” Victoria guffawed. “What happens if he pulls your hair? You’ll spill like a kicked bucket.”

“Okay, fine. So we’re
all
gonna die.” Mickey flung her hands in the air. “We’re shark fodder.”

The words had an almost magical effect on Ginette. “Shark fodder, my shiny white ass,” she screeched.