Hot Blooded (2 page)

“Why don’t you join me?” she suggested, lying back on the chenille bedspread, smiling and not expecting him to move. God, it was hot.

“Take off my clothes.” He stood. Walked to the bed.

His command seemed out of sync, but at least it was a common one. So he was going to get down to business. Good. Voyeurs usually didn’t touch. The minutes were ticking off, but she took her time, standing so that she could slowly unbutton his shirt. She shoved it off shoulders that were muscular and a chest without any flab, just a wall of rock-hard muscles covered with dark, coiled hair. She unbuckled his belt, and he fingered the cross she always wore as it dangled just above her breasts.

“What’s that—?”

“It—it was a gift from my daughter…last Christmas.” Oh, God, he wouldn’t steal it, would he?

“You need something more.” He slipped the rosary beads over her head. Over the red wig. Yeah, maybe he was a priest. A freaky one.

The sharp beads were warm from being fondled. They fell into the cleft between her breasts. It was creepy. Too creepy. She should tell him to get out now. “There. That’s better.” One side of Father John’s mouth lifted, as if he was finally satisfied with the scenario. Ready to get down to business.

About time.

“What’s with the rosary?”

“Touch me.”

His body was perfect. Honed. Tanned. Hard.

Except for his cock. It hung limp, as if he wasn’t getting off at all.

She ran a finger down his chest, and he pulled her against him. Kissed her hard with cold, unfeeling lips and dragged her onto the sagging mattress of her iron bed. She had a rule—no lips on lips, but she let it slide, just to end this.

“That’s a boy,” she cooed, and reached for the sunglasses. Strong fingers circled her wrist.

“Don’t.”

“Afraid I’ll recognize you?” Maybe he was famous—God, he was good-looking enough. Maybe he was some kind of celebrity and didn’t want her to recognize him. Or maybe he was married. More likely…

“Just…don’t.” His grip was like steel.

“Fine, fine…whatever.” She kissed his cheek and ran her fingers along the ridges of his well-toned muscles. He moved against her and she worked hard, touching all those erotic spots guaranteed to cause an erection. To no avail. No matter how much she kissed, licked and purred, he was only going through the motions, not turned on at all.

Come on, come on,
she thought,
I haven’t got all night.
She was vaguely aware of the radio, the psychologist, Dr. Sam, was close to signing off, giving her signature spiel about love and lust in this city on the Delta, and Father John, too, turned to listen to the radio shrink.

Maybe he was being distracted and that was the problem. She reached for the radio dial—

“Don’t touch it,” he growled, every muscle in his body flexing.

“But—”

Smack!

Blinding pain exploded in the left side of her face as his fist connected.

She squealed. Tasted the metallic flavor of her own blood. This was not good. Not good. “Wait a second, you son of a bitch—”

He raised his fist again. She saw him through a rapidly swelling eye. “Don’t mess with the radio or my shades,” he growled.

She tried to squirm away. “Get out! Get the hell out!”

He tried to kiss her.

She bit him.

He didn’t so much as flinch.

“Get out, you bastard! No one hits me. Don’t you get it? It’s over.”

“Not quite yet it isn’t, but it will be.” He pinned her to the sheets. Kissed her again. Hard. As if he was getting off on her pain. Cheek throbbing, Cherie tried to wriggle out from under him, but he held her fast with his athletic body.

She was trapped.

Frantic. Hitting him, clawing at him, shoving him.

“That’s it, you sinner, you cunt,” he growled. “Fight me.” His hands were rough. He nipped at one breast, twisted the other.

She screamed and he stopped her by grinding his mouth
against hers. She tried to bite him, flailed at him with her fists, but he was strong. Incensed. Turned on. Oh, God, how far was this going to go?

Fear congealed her blood. What if he didn’t stop? What if he tortured her all night?

Pain shot up her torso as he bit her breast.

Writhing, she spied the radio, the digital display glowing over the hundred-dollar bill, Dr. Sam’s voice cool and collected and savvy.

Help me,
Cherie thought, scrabbling for the drawer and her gun, knocking over the lamp, kicking wildly, feeling his suddenly rock-hard erection.

So it was rape.

He wanted to rape her. If he’d only said something, she would have played along, but now she was scared. Scared as hell.

Just do it and don’t hurt me!

He yanked her head off the pillow and she cried out just as he tightened the rosary around her throat, the sharp-edged beads slicing her skin, the dark facets winking malevolently.

Oh, God, he’s going to kill me.
Fear screamed through her blood. She looked into those shaded eyes and knew it.

He twisted the rosary as he thrust deep into her. Cherie’s eyes bulged, she couldn’t breathe, her arms flailed and she scratched, but to no avail. Blackness…all around her there was blackness…Her lungs burned…her heart felt as if it would explode….
Please God, help me!

He wrenched the beaded noose. She gasped. Got no air. Something rasped and gurgled inside her. Blood, oh, God, she tasted her own blood…Again…

Blackness crawled from the outside in and she thought fleetingly of her daughter…sweet, sweet baby…

He was sweating, grinding against her, his breath racing and as she let go she felt him stiffen and heard his guttural, primal roar. Dimly over the sound of his labored breathing
and the roar in her brain there was another voice. Far away. So far away.

“This is Dr. Sam, with a final word…Take care of yourself, New Orleans. Good night to you all and God bless. No matter what your troubles are today, there is always tomorrow…. Sweet dreams…”

July

Cambrai, Louisiana

There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

Now, click the heels of those ruby slippers three times and…

“That’ll be thirty-seven dollars,” the cab driver muttered, breaking into Samantha’s thoughts. He pulled the cab around the circular drive and as close to the front door as possible while she dug deep into her jacket pocket for her money clip.

“Would you mind taking the bags inside?” she asked.

The driver, twisting his head to get a better view from the front seat, slanted her a curious look. His eyes were dark. Suspicious. As if he expected some kind of come-on. Finally, he lifted a big shoulder. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.” Using one crutch, she crawled out of the cab into the sultry Louisiana night. A fine, steamy mist shrouded the
live oaks surrounding her rambling old house in this unique community tucked along the southern shore of Lake Pontchartrain, a few miles west of New Orleans. God, it was good to be home.

Some vacations were dreams, others were nightmares. This one had been worse than a nightmare, it had been an out-and-out disaster.

But at least she knew she would never become Mrs. David Ross.
That
would have been a mistake.

Another one.

A heavy breeze riffled through the clumps of Spanish moss dripping from ancient, gnarled branches. The flagstones of the front walk, slick with rain, shimmered in the frail illumination cast from the porch light. Wet weeds that had the nerve to poke through the cracked mortar tickled the bare toe of her injured leg as she hitched her way over the uneven stones. Sweat ran down her spine. Barely July, and the Louisiana heat closed in on her. Gritting her teeth, she hobbled up steps to the broad porch that skirted the front door and swept around all sides of her lakefront cottage. Wind chimes tinkled out their lonely tune. She propped her crutch on the arm of the porch swing, then found her spare key tucked in the cobwebs behind the shutter of one window. Quickly, she unlocked the door. As the cab driver lugged her bags, she flipped on a switch. Immediately the foyer was illuminated, two-hundred-year-old hardwood gleaming with a fine patina, the air inside the ancient house stagnant, hot and still.

The driver dropped her three bags near the hall tree, then retrieved her crutch.

“Thanks.” She handed him forty-five dollars and was rewarded with a satisfied grunt and a quick nod of his head.

“Welcome back.” Dark eyes flashed from beneath the bill of his Saints cap. “Have a good one.”

“I’ll try.” Shutting the door behind him, she pocketed
her house key and called over her shoulder, “Honey, I’m home.” No response.

Just the soft ticking of the clock over the mantel and the drone of the refrigerator from the kitchen. She flipped on the switch for the overhead fan, another for the air-conditioning.

“Aw, come on…” she called into the darkened rooms. “You’re not mad because I left you here all alone, are you? You know, that’s
so
typically male.”

Finding the spare set of keys in the pantry, she waited, listening for the distinctive click of ID tags or the light tread of paws upon the floor. Instead she heard a soft meow and then Charon slunk out of the shadows. Pupils dilated, his eyes were as dark as his inky coat, just a tiny ring of gold visible. “Don’t tell me, now you’re going to play hard to get,” she accused as he eased around the edge of the foyer, feigning disinterest, his tail twitching. “Oh, yeah, you’re a real cool dude.” She laughed, and he sauntered closer, doing a few quick turns around her ankles and rubbing up against the fiberglass shell surrounding her left calf and foot.

“Like the cast? Compliments of that fiasco in Mexico,” she said, plucking his near-liquid body from the floor and holding him close to her chest as she scratched his chin. Charon, a stray she’d named after the ferryman in Dante’s
Inferno,
began to purr instantly, his aloof routine forgotten, his wet nose brushing the underside of her chin. “So what went on here while I was away, huh? Did Melanie take good care of you? No?” Smiling, she carried the feline into the den and cracked a window, waiting for the house to cool.

She set Charon on the bookcase, where he slunk through her tomes on psychology and her stacks of paperbacks, then hopped onto the desk where her mail had been stacked neatly, sorted carefully by envelopes, junk mail, magazines and newspapers. Melanie, Sam’s assistant, who had not only watched the house and seen to Charon while Samantha was
vacationing, but had commandeered her radio show as well, was nothing if not efficient.

Samantha pulled out the desk chair and plopped onto the familiar seat. She glanced around the room. It felt different somehow, but she didn’t know why. Maybe it was just because she’d been gone so long, over two weeks. Or maybe it was because she was jet-lagged and a little on edge. Though the flight hadn’t been that long, she’d spent too many hours without sleep in the past few days, and the trip had been emotionally draining.

Ever since touching down in Mexico two weeks earlier, things had started to go awry. Not only had she and David had the same old fight about her giving up her job and moving back to Houston, but there had also been the boating “accident” that had dumped both her and her purse into the shallows of the Pacific. She’d ended up with a sprained ankle and no ID—the purse had never been located. It had been a nightmare trying to get out of the country, and when she’d finally persuaded the authorities to let her back into the USA, she’d been sporting this god-awful, bulky cast.

“These things happen,” David had said with a shrug, as they’d finally boarded the 737. He’d offered her a smile and a lift of his eyebrows as if to say,
Hey, there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’re in a foreign country.
He’d been right, of course, but it didn’t help her bad mood and suspicion that the fishing-boat captain had been drunk or under the influence of some other drug and that somehow her purse, along with a couple of others in the tour group, had been found by local divers, the credit cards, cash and other items of value now being used or pawned up and down the west coast of Mexico. According to the captain, the tiny fishing boat had lurched, avoiding a rock—for God’s sake. It seemed implausible. A stupid mistake from a captain who daily patrolled the waters off Mazatlán. Samantha hadn’t bought it and had wanted some kind of compensation, at the very
least an apology for crying out loud. Instead she’d landed in a tiny hospital with an elderly doctor, an expatriate American who looked as if he should have retired in the seventies. He probably had, or been run out of the States for malpractice.

“Sour grapes, Dr. Sam,” she chastised herself, as Charon settled into his favorite spot on the window ledge. He stared through the watery glass, his eyes following something in the darkness. Probably a squirrel. Samantha looked through the panes and saw nothing but the dark shadows of the night.

She pushed the play button on her answering machine while grabbing her letter opener and slicing through the first envelope—a bill. No doubt the first of many. The recorder went through a series of beeps and clicks before playing.

The first call was a hangup.

Great.

She tossed the bill onto the table.

The second was a solicitor asking if she needed auto-glass repair.

Better yet.
She thought of her red Mustang convertible, couldn’t wait to get it on the road again. But she didn’t need a new windshield. “No thanks,” she said tearing into several letters—offers of credit cards, requests for contributions to worthy causes, the sewer bill.

Finally a voice.

“Hey, Sam, it’s Dad.” Sam smiled. “I forgot you were out of town…You give me a call when you get back home, okay?”

“Will do,” Sam said as she scanned her most recent Visa bill and was grateful that she’d called Melanie who had assured her that she would cancel all her credit cards immediately.

Two more hangups and then she heard her boss’s voice boom from the recorder. “Sam, I know you’re probably not home yet,” Eleanor said, “but call me the minute, the
minute
you get in. And don’t give me any crap about you not going
to work because of your leg, that’s just not cutting it with me. I got your message from the hospital, but unless you’re hooked to an IV
and
a heart monitor
and
strapped to a hospital bed, I want you back at the station pronto. You got that? Melanie’s doing a decent enough job, I mean it, but since you’ve been gone, ratings have slipped and Trish LaBelle over at WNAB is picking up your market share…not good, Sammie, definitely not good. Your listeners want you, girl, and they aren’t in the mood to accept any substitutes, no matter how good they might be. So don’t you go bringin’ me some note from a hunk of a doctor, y’hear? Uh-uh. You all haul your ass down to the station. Okay, I’ll get off my soap box now. But call me. A-S-A-P.”