Afterglow (14 page)

Dakota raised on both elbows, her hair streaming down her back and clinging to the sweat on her gleaming skin. Her picture should be in the goddamned dictionary under
temptation
. “Come back down here. I’m not done with you!”

“Take that cold shower,” he told her roughly, looking around for his shoes. “Do whatever you have to do in there. Keep the door locked. Move!” He hauled her to her feet. Dangerous, as she instantly clung to him, her arms hard around his waist, her lips and bare breasts on the open V of his shirt. He untangled her arms and backed toward the door. Wanting to stay, to keep doing what felt so insanely good …

When she came toward him, he blocked her with his forearm. “No more. No more, damn it! We’re both going to regret this when the drug wears off.”

“I won’t—”

Rand wrenched open the door, slammed it closed behind him, and fell against the wall, breathing hard as he heard the automatic lock engage. Sweat rolled down his temples. He wondered if the erection would ever go down. He found his keycard and unlocked the door of his room. Closing and double-locking his door, he just stood there, eyes squeezed shut, heart hammering.

Then had to open them as he imagined Dakota right next door, stripping off the rest of her clothes. His dick pulsed. His heart pounded. Sweat ran into his eyes. He slammed the back of his head into the unyielding plaster wall.

The walls were thick enough he couldn’t hear movement in the connecting room, but he could imagine …

He yanked open the door back into the hallway, and went in search of the gym.

PHASE ONE COMPLETE,
MONK
thought, swirling the intense, deep gold liquid in his glass. As the subordinate stood preternaturally still, he brought the Baccarat crystal glass to his nose and inhaled: apple tart with a sprinkle of demerara sugar, Sultana oranges, hint of nutmeg, clove, and aniseed underpinned with musky oak. With a deep sigh of satisfaction, he tilted the glass to his mouth and sipped, savoring the intense layers of delicious desserts in his twenty-eight-year-old Glenmorangie Pride whiskey.

No matter the visitor, a snifter of four-thousand- dollar-a-bottle whiskey was to be savored, enjoyed without haste. He took another sip, enjoying the expensive heat gliding down his throat as the other man waited.

His simple cell, with its stone walls and floor, could be frigid in the winter months, and even now, when outside the sun blazed, Monk had a small heater running to stave off the chill. A two-thousand-year-old Chinese rug covered the floor, and heavy burgundy velvet drapes disguised the fact that there was no window. Simple articles brought by his followers to ease his simple life.

He gave the man a small smile as he cradled the glass. Well satisfied, he had to force a mask of pleasantness to his features. He didn’t like emotion, and in fact, rarely felt any. This satisfaction was more a comfortable warmth. But then he got that in the same measure from a good bottle of scotch. “The buyer was pleased with the demonstration of Rapture at yesterday’s wedding, Szik. You did well.”

The man puffed his chest and bowed his head. “Thank you, Father.”

“Has Lucifer tempted you with too much pride, my son?”

“No, Father. I want nothing more than to please you.”

Sycophantic asshole.
Last night’s display had netted Monk a sizable first order for the drug. Just the beginning. Production was already under way. There was just one player still missing, but that was soon remedied. Patience, as Monk well knew, was a virtue. He had nothing but time. The execution of the waiter early this morning had been a small bonus. One Monk hadn’t witnessed firsthand, although the video had been well shot and gratifyingly realistic. Too short, of course, but effective nevertheless.

The buyer would prove to be a powerful ally. He already distributed an interesting selection of street drugs, and was ready to break into the European market. Rapture was going to net him billions, and for Monk, multibillions.

The man was eager to buy the uncut product after seeing the quick results at the wedding reception the day before. Buyers always responded better when they saw the results and potential of a new drug. This buyer was willing to put two billion dollars on the line for a quick turnaround.

Phase Two: a more powerful dose of Rapture had been leaked into the air-conditioning system inside a Spanish bank earlier today. That, too, had been a small but strategic display to whet the appetites of a different kind of potential buyer.

The only fly in the ointment was that Rapture was unstable at high altitudes, which would be problematic in Phase Three. By the time he was ready for the third unveiling, his new chemists better have worked out that wrinkle. No terrorist would want to drive a gas of mass destruction around in a fucking truck. Rapture Three could be manufactured anywhere, but Monk wasn’t about to give away his closely guarded formula. If they wanted it, they would have to come crawling to his door, hats and money in hand. He was, and planned to remain, the sole manufacturer.

“As you instructed, our salesmen were allowed to keep the money they stole from the bank in Barcelona.”

The money had been stolen just to show the buyers that, with a small application of airborne Rapture, anything could be done, right under the noses of anyone in attendance. The pleasant rose fragrance was an enticement to breathe deeply. Everyone enjoyed a fragrance that reminded them of something beautiful. Monk had spent a fortune perfecting that fragrance, using only the best flowers from the Grasse region.

“I’m afraid only one television station showed a small portion of footage of the customers five minutes after the gas was fed into the air-conditioner vents. The authorities shut them down. I hope the video our people took was sufficient inducement for our buyers?”

They weren’t “our” buyers, Monk thought, mildly annoyed. They were
his
buyers. His invention. His blood, sweat, and faux tears. A lifetime of hard work and sacrifice was coming down to the next few weeks.

“The footage was adequate,” he said dismissively. He had no interest in sex. Neither watching nor participating. He’d merely observed the activities as one would observe animals mating in the wild.

“There are a few prospects,” Monk added. “We’ll know more as word gets around.” Word had spread like wildfire, and he already had more buyers for both applications. He’d have to see about hiring more chemists, more lab personnel. Bigger facilities … Monk sipped his whiskey. First, though, he had to keep Szik in his proper place.

“Did you masturbate as you watched the video?”

Szik hesitated, bowing his head, his tightly clasped hands a knot at his waist. “I did, Father. I couldn’t help myself.”

Monk leaned back in his chair, cradling the glass. “We must contact Branah and Raimi. I’m ready for Phase Three. You must be punished for your lust and pride,” Monk said smoothly, with no transition between the thoughts, as he picked up from the table beside him a folded chamois, heavy with his favorite tools.

He looked up to see Szik still standing there, and said quietly, “Remove your clothing, my son.”

AFTER A LONG, COLD
shower that left him even more frustrated and no less horny, Rand jogged twenty miles on the hotel treadmill, which was damned hard to do with an unrelenting boner. He lifted weights until his arms quivered and sweat ran off him in rivers. Hit the sauna, and his fist, several times, ran again. Showered in the coldest water they had. He prayed like he’d never prayed before that nobody joined him in the gym. He’d used all his self-control leaving Dakota—what fucking little self-control he could claim.

During that first hour in the hotel gym, he would’ve fucked anyone or anything. For the first time in two days, luck seemed on his side. Nobody joined him. Nobody tempted him.

He went back to his room, took another icy shower, and called room service for hot coffee. Lots of it.

He’d been gone three hours. At least he could now do up his pants without causing himself irreparable damage. Dressed, and toweling his hair dry, he quietly opened the connecting door.

Dakota, wearing only a towel, was curled on the bed, her wet hair a wild coppery tangle across the white pillow and down her bare back. He noticed a faint red line on her upper thigh, a scar, near the edge of the towel, and frowned. That hadn’t been there before. He looked more closely, his eyes traveling inexorably down her body.

It was no drug coursing through his system that made him want to run his hands up the smooth, creamy skin of her thigh. Gritting his teeth, he took a tactical step back.

“It’s a good thing I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time, Maguire,” Dakota said pointedly, opening her eyes. She rolled her head to give him the evil eye. “Where’ve you been?”

“Gym.”

“Still?” She sat up, exposing even more of her long pale legs and a tantalizing glimpse of the upper swell of her breasts as she spread her hand across her chest to hold the white towel in place.

Rand’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. The harder he tried not to imagine her pleasuring herself, the harder it was to breathe. “You seem to be okay,” he told her coolly, letting his eyes drift over her cinnamon-flecked skin. He wanted to lunge across the bed and take her. No preliminaries. Just nail her to the mattress. He gripped the doorjamb to anchor himself.

Her eyes narrowed, and she shoved a long hank of wet hair over her shoulder. “It would’ve been easier if you’d stuck around.”

His nails scored the woodwork. “Nice to know.”

Now her lips curved in a way that made him shake. Her wet hair was like a dark red cape around her shoulders, reaching halfway down her back. He wanted to fist it and bring the strands to his nose. Maybe bury his face in the damp curve of her neck and slide his hand to where he’d bet his last dime she was wet and aching still. Wanting what he wanted.

Her eyes were clear, light green, and dancing with amusement, as if she could read his mind. “I offered,” she pointed out mildly. “Why didn’t you accept? We would’ve had a better workout than you had in the gym.”

“
If
we have sex again, it’ll have nothing to do with sniffing any aphrodisiac, believe me.”

She raised a copper eyebrow. “Maybe I won’t want to have sex with you if I haven’t been inhaling an aphrodisiac.”

Always had to argue the other side, didn’t she? He pushed away from the doorjamb, his equilibrium restored. “We’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?” There was a knock on the outer door of his room. Saved by room service. “That’s coffee and food. Here or in my room?”

“I’ll get dressed and meet you in there.”

Too bad. “Good plan.” He
really
could have gone for a round two. Rand pulled the connecting door almost all the way closed, and went to let in the waiter.

There was no reason that he should feel as though he’d just had a narrow escape.

DAKOTA DRESSED IN THE
bathroom—pale-blue skinny jeans and a white tank top—then ran a comb through her still wet hair. Drying it was a pain. It was so long and thick it took forever. Her hair was her one vanity, but most of the time, having it hanging in her face and all over her shoulders and chest was just a nuisance.

Men liked her hair.

Rand liked her hair. Still. She could tell.

Not even glancing in the mirror, she pulled it up and off her face in a ponytail, tempted to take the band out and run her fingers through it before going into his room. Considering how inflammatory the situation was already, she decided against tormenting the man any more than she already had.

She didn’t want to examine too closely her own behavior earlier. Even though there’d been no fragrance added to DL6-94 in the lab, she’d known almost instantly that she was inhaling Rapture at the bank. Known what would happen. And of course it had. In spades. Call her a fool, but she’d allowed herself to give in, allowed herself to give and receive the exquisite pleasure she’d found in Rand’s arms.

Rapture had made their passion excusable and guiltfree.

She was damned if she’d second guess herself.

She was going with that.

Barefoot, she grabbed her tote and a plastic shopping bag, and walked into his room.

His bed was neatly made, so he hadn’t taken a nap as she had; all those orgasms had worn her out. She speculated briefly on how he’d managed that wicked erection he’d had. He was sitting at the small table near the window, texting into his phone.

He glanced up and, with a small frown, waved his phone at her outfit. “You weren’t wearing that this morning.”

“I went shopping.” She dropped the shopping bag in his lap. “I got a few things for you as well, like dry pants and clean underwear.” And a couple of T-shirts. And sneakers. “You can’t walk around in a tux and dress trousers, stained ones at that, without attracting notice.” Okay, that was mean. He wouldn’t like being reminded that he’d lost control.

He ignored the bag as he ground his teeth. “Let me get this straight. We came here because it wasn’t safe for either of us to be in public under the influence of a powerful narcotic. And you went
shopping
?”

She waved a dismissive hand. “That wore off after an hour; I didn’t get as much as you did. Don’t worry, I didn’t rape and pillage anyone on the streets. I
did
have to make a few stops to …” She paused deliberately. “… relieve myself, but after a while, I managed to tough it out. Now we have fresh clothes. I saved us some time. You can thank me later.” She dropped her tote on the floor and settled in the chair opposite him, pulling her feet up on the seat before taking the cup he extended with a stony face. She didn’t give a damn that he wasn’t pleased she’d gone shopping. She was a big girl. She didn’t need his permission to do what she liked.

Including taking care of her needs if he wouldn’t.