Extreme Danger Page 5

  Before the penis-chomping incident.

  The catered food consisted of yummy dishes, mostly Italian, that could be eaten cold or popped into an oven and browned, for quick fortifying nibbles between erotic interludes in bed. Cured and roasted meats, sun-dried tomatoes, grilled and gratinéed vegetables, spring salads, cheeses, fruits, crackers and breads. Coffee beans, cream, a grinder. And here was the kicker—five eight-inch wedding cake candidates. Butter Lemon Cloud, Rum Caramel Pecan, Black Cherry Wickedness, Mocha Mousse, and her own personal favorite, Grand Marnier Triple Fudge Angel’s Fall.

  No one could accuse her of not being passionate about sweets.

  She toyed with the idea of setting up a Justin effigy and lobbing cakes at its head, but the truth was, she was constitutionally incapable of throwing away a delicious cake. Bringing up her sister and brother on a cocktail waitress’s pay made her loath to waste food even now, years later. She shoved the pastry boxes into the fridge with barely controlled violence.

  The last box held the wedding notebook. She’d brought it along with the intention of burning it, to purge her system and make her feel better about herself. That was a lot to hope for, but a girl could try.

  She leafed through the thing, marveling at her capacity for self-deception. The quilted heart cover alone, with precious cross stitching that read Becca & Justin, April 18, should have tipped her off that the relationship was doomed. Just looking at it put her in a sugar coma.

  She ripped off the cover, flung it into the fire.

  The carefully organized sections inside—gah. Check out the questions that had kept her up at night. Should she order personalized breath mints with names and the date printed on each one? Should she go with the individual toothpick boxes for each place setting? Was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons too “done” for the string quartet in the garden?

  She ripped handfuls of pages out, threw them on the fire. They made lots of puffs and sparks and insignificant mini-whooshes before scorching and curling up like pathetic dying bugs. She did not feel any great rush of liberating, cathartic power. Surprise, surprise.

  She needed Mr. Big and his clever hands for that.

  Perish the thought. She would not be talked to like that. Oaf. So much for adventure. That encounter had not been super therapeutic for her self-esteem.

  One more thing to burn. The padded envelope of sexy lingerie that she’d ordered off the Internet. Shameful evidence of how pathetically eager to please she’d been. Trying to lure Justin by sheer effort.

  She tore it open, and stared at the pieces with hot, unfriendly eyes. The virginal cream bustier with the not-so-virginal matching thong. The demure apricot chiffon babydoll chemise, the matching panties, the crotch of which was two thick satin ribbon strips that could be nudged to either side of the labia, leaving the way clear for, well, ahem, anything. At the time, it had struck her as a sophisticated secret to share with her fiancé, just for him. Now it struck her as desperate.

  Which was exactly how she’d felt, writhing in that man’s arms.

  Maybe it wasn’t so great to have shocked her dormant sexual awareness into life at this inconvenient moment. She’d always thought that being sexually free, like Kaia, would give her a sense of power.

  But she’d been wrong before. In fact, she was wrong a lot.

  Her fist closed around the apricot chiffon confection. She drew her arm back to hurl it into the fire—and stopped.

  What would Mr. Big think of her sex kitten outfit? He might be rude, but he wouldn’t be indifferent. She wondered what it would take to make that guy whimper and beg.

  A lot more than she had going for her, she told herself. Don’t even go there, bubblehead. You’ll just hurt yourself.

  Too late. She’d already gone. She dropped onto the nearest couch and thought about it as the fire crackled.

  After all. She didn’t have to actually go near the man ever again. But all alone in the dim room in front of the fire, who could fault her for indulging in a little bit of wishful fantasy? Who would she hurt?

  She slid her hand under the folds of terry cloth, and found herself—good Lord. Already wet and soft. Just squeezing her thigh muscles together sent bursts of shivering warmth into her legs, her knees, her toes. They curled up with each rush of excitement.

  She was startled. Who would have thought that knees and toes would be invited to this party? Her intensely aroused body was like a brand new toy, and she couldn’t help playing with it.

  The fantasy that was the strongest was anything but politically correct.

  Herself, bent over, thighs spread. Clutching the wrought iron banister, bracing herself as he penetrated her from behind. That thick shaft, that big blunt knob pushing between her labia. Opening her. The powerful presence of his body behind hers, those warm hands gripping her. Thrusting and pumping. Filling her completely. Taking her.

  The feeling swelled up, lifted her, hurled her off the cliff.

  She was sobbing when she came back to reality, her body still wrenched amd racked by jolts of pleasure. Still in one piece. Still Becca.

  She got up, bumping into the furniture without her glasses.

  Damn. Her glasses. She’d forgotten all about them in her frantic hurry to get away. She’d left them by the side of the swimming pool. Along with the mostly empty bottle of wine and…oh, God.

  The keys. The poolhouse key had been on the A-frame’s key ring. The keys to Jerome’s house. Oh, no, no, no.

  That was terrible. She couldn’t face a week on a deserted island alone in a myopic blur. Nor could she go back to Marla and tell her she’d lost the keys to Jerome’s house. How could she justify it? Because the neighbor was rude? Because he had seen her naked when she skinny-dipped? Please. Marla already considered her a fluffy-tailed, persnickety little rabbit with a twitching pink nose. Little Miss Nervous Wreck.

  God, she was sick of being condescended to. By Justin, Kaia, Marla, Mr. Big. Even her little brother and sister were guilty of it.

  She gathered up every last scrap of that lingerie, and tossed it into the fire. It smoldered, smothered by the synthetic fabrics.

  Tomorrow morning she would march over to retrieve her belongings. And, incidentally, take the opportunity to tell that guy exactly what she thought of him. While sober. And clothed.

  Her pride depended on it. As wobbly and fragile as it was right now, it simply could not take another hit.

  Chapter

  5

  Dr. Richard Mathes levered himself up from the damp, quivering body of his mistress and paused to enjoy the view. The charmingly submissive position, her double-jointed flexibility, the satin babydoll nightie shoved seductively up over her breasts—it was perfect.

  His gaze turned critical as he observed the un-dynamic way that her breasts perched upon her rib cage. The colleague he’d referred Diana to for the breast enhancement surgery had overdone it. Smaller implants would have been better. Only in this position was the defect so evident, but unfortunately, this was one of his favorites. He liked to pin her ankles down on either side of her head and pound away with bruising force. It was the best way to wind down after a long stint in the operating room.

  “Amazing.” Diana licked her full lips, and wiggled as he slipped out of her body, contracting her vaginal muscles as if to trap him inside her. “I knew it would be like this today. You were amazing with Jimmie.”

  Jimmie Matlock was the sixteen-year-old boy who had gotten a new heart that day in a seven-hour surgery. Diana, in addition to being as skillful as an expensive call girl and always attuned to his sexual whims and moods, was also a competent anesthesiologist.

  “You’re so fearless,” she crooned. “Nerves of ice. It makes me wet. Even in the operating room.”

  “You shouldn’t think about sex while we’re working,” he snapped.

  Her eyes widened. So did her legs, an automatic reflex that showed off her glistening vulva. “Scold me. I love it when you’re stern.”

  “I know.” He turned a
way with insulting indifference, and opened her armoire, searching for one of the fresh shirts she kept for him.

  The next line in the script was predictable. “I’m free tonight and tomorrow,” she said. “Can I see you?”

  “No,” he said lightly. “Tonight I have to go to a musical with Helen and the girls. And tomorrow I have that meeting. As you know.”

  Her face tightened. She sat up. “I don’t understand why it’s necessary to meet this Zhoglo in order to conduct business with him—”

  “Do not say the name,” he reproved her sharply.

  She rolled her eyes. “This is my bedroom. Don’t get paranoid.”

  “I wouldn’t want certain information to slip in the wrong context.”

  Diana arched her chest, pressing taut nipples against the silk of her nightie. “When am I ever anything but discreet?” Her voice was a silky coo, but he heard the acid undertone. “Have I ever complained that you can never take me out to dinner? That you never touch me in public? Not even when we’re in Tokyo or Hong Kong or Johannesburg. It’s always room service. But do I complain?”

  This part was so tedious. “No, Diana. You’ve been very good.”

  “It’s insane, Richie. This idea to keep the stock supply here, instead of harvesting the parts overseas, or offshore.”

  Parts. Stock supply. Diana needed to distance herself emotionally from the realities of the plan they were embarking upon. He didn’t.

  “Those hours of travel time make all the difference,” he said patiently. “And I prefer to conduct the harvest myself. For the amount we charge, I have to control as many variables as possible. I have no choice, Diana.”

  She looked down, twiddling with the silk nightie, her face sullen. He wondered briefly if she would be able to handle what lay ahead.

  But he could handle Diana. The time honored technique known as “diamond and emerald earrings” always worked.

  “Bullshit,” she said petulantly. “You have choices. Every day, when you choose to go home to that frigid bitch.”

  They were out of the danger zone. He ran his hands over his own fit, lean body, checking for traces of the fluids of coitus. Not that Helen ever got close enough to him to smell another woman on his person, but even so. He was always meticulous about hygiene. Came from being a surgeon, no doubt. He ignored Diana’s complaining and went into the adjoining bathroom.

  Strange, he thought, as he set the shower running, how an isolated incident could change a man’s life. One turn to the right or left affected one’s destiny forever. What was happening now had started at a medical convention in Paris, when he was an emerging thoracic surgeon with several brilliant successes to his name. He went out to sample Parisian nightlife, relieved to be away from Helen’s moods and headaches and the constant noise and chaos of his young daughters.

  His adventures on that dreamy night had been lubricated by large quantities of alcohol and cocaine, and extravagant sums of money. He’d ended up in a luxurious apartment, entertained until dawn by two beautiful and uninhibited Parisiennes. He’d awakened in the rumpled bed, sticky with sex. Head throbbing.

  A tidy, graying man with a pinstriped suit and an English accent was sitting by the bed, waiting for Richard’s eyes to open. He introduced himself as Nigel Dobbs.

  It had taken a long, disoriented moment for the reason for the unusual stickiness to sink in.

  Blood against the white sheets. He turned, looked. Gaped.

  The girls’ wrists had been tied to the posts of the wooden bed. Their throats had been cut. They sprawled, naked, eyes wide and staring. Blood, everywhere. The room was doused with it.

  It had felt like a dream. He blinked gummy eyelids, staring from Dobbs back to the girls, as a business proposal was made to him.

  He had been very startled, but he had remained cool. His brain had always been that way, functioning superbly in situations that others would consider high stress. Compartmentalized. He would have been a good commander on the battlefield, he had often mused.

  On the one hand, he was angry at being manipulated. On the other, he was fascinated to observe his own reactions to this shocking tableau. Amid the constant white noise of daily life, a man seldom got a chance to peer into the depths of his own soul. And what, after all, could possibly be more fascinating than the depths of his own soul?

  Nigel Dobbs laid out the situation in a cool, clipped voice, as if they were in a boardroom, not an abbatoir. A wealthy Ukrainian businessman who had to remain nameless was suffering from an acute heart condition. He wanted an immediate transplant. He wanted the surgery conducted by the celebrated young surgeon Dr. Mathes. Cost was immaterial.

  Mathes told Dobbs that money was not the issue so much as the availability of a healthy and well matched organ, thinking that he knew exactly fuck-all about how organ donation was organized in the Ukraine—

  “Not a problem, Doctor. The tissue typing has already been done.” The man’s tight mouth twisted in a thin, smug smile. “We have a number of potential donors. You need not trouble yourself about that.”

  “But how…but that’s not…but you can’t just…”

  A number of potential donors? Richard had floundered, until the truth sank in. And the bottom of the world fell away, to an abyss of nameless possibilities that made his soul quail.

  And his pulse quicken.

  Nigel Dobbs studied Richard’s face with neutral gray eyes for a long moment and nodded, as if Richard had passed a test.

  “Anything is possible, Doctor. For a price. And while we are on that subject, my client will make available to you the sum of five million American dollars in a numbered Swiss account, as a thank you gift. In the event of a happy outcome, of course.”

  “And if something goes wrong?”

  Nigel Dobbs smiled again. “An unhappy outcome is not an option my client is willing to consider,” he said gently. “That’s why he wants you. Your reputation is that of a miracle worker. He has studied you, Doctor. Every detail of your life. Your wife and your little girls as well. Lovely creatures. My client wishes to convey his compliments, and his best wishes for their continued health and happiness.”

  That veiled threat had gotten his attention. Another, deeper peek into that shadowy cavern. He had always loved a gamble.

  He’d been perversely glad for the threat to Helen and the girls. It gave him a face-saving excuse for saying yes. Indeed, how could he not?

  The odds were bad. The man’s body was probably rotted by a lifetime of excess. It would be against his Hippocratic oath, and every sane principle.

  Ultimately, that did not dissuade him in the least. Neither did the slaughtered Parisian girls. Nor was the issue decided by money. Being chosen had stroked his vanity, but he had daily opportunities to have his ego stroked.

  He’d done it for the thrill. He’d never felt one so strong. That morning, lying in that blood-soaked bed, the thought of what he was going to do had burned through his body and mind, dispelling his hangover like sun on fog.

  It made him feel invincible. The high stakes, the secrecy, the risk. Unspeakable acts. Unaskable questions. It lit him up inside.

  He’d felt that thrill again the day he replaced the diseased organ of his mysterious patient with a beautiful, healthy young heart of unknown provenance.

  Some months later, there had been another call. A business associate of his previous patient had a newborn infant daughter with an irreparable heart defect. A rush job, as the child was dying.

  Richard had cleared his schedule, leaped on a plane. He had not asked where the tiny donated heart had come from. Another rush of euphoria. Another five million dollars in the numbered account.

  The money had been nice. He had been a relatively wealthy man before, but as Diana liked to point out, fondling her sapphire and diamond bracelet, there was wealthy and there was wealthy.

  That child was now a healthy, thriving six-year-old. If Richard had needed to soothe his conscience, that would have been enough.

&n
bsp; But oddly, he did not. At some point, that euphoria had burned away the part of him that pondered ethics. He did not miss it. Life was exquisitely simple without it. More profitable, too.

  In fact, he reflected as he toweled himself off, he’d never had much of a conscience to begin with. Morals were artificial. Notions culturally superimposed upon persons at a tender age, who had no idea they were being mind-fucked into being docile doormats. At the service of other people. Tormented by guilt, self-doubt. Not him.

  And this Sunday, he would meet with someone who could supply him with a constant supply of his favorite thrill. People would sell their souls to cheat death, for themselves, their spouses, their children.

  Dr. Richard Mathes found souls very appetizing.

  When he came out, Diana was at her vanity, brushing her hair. He could tell from the glitter in her eyes that she was angry.

  “He wants to look over his investment?” she said. “Check your teeth, look over your pedigree? Put you through your paces?”

  He opened her closet, took out a starched white shirt. He knew exactly where she was going with this. She wanted to lure him into having sex again. She labored under the fond misconception that she controlled him that way. It amused him to let her keep her illusions.

  “He wants to do that alpha dog pissing thing, right? And you’re looking forward to it, aren’t you? You’d love to stare down a mob boss. I bet that gives you a hard-on, Richie. You’re such a danger junkie.”

  He shrugged the shirt on. “Diana—”

  “That’s why you get off on sticking your hands in people’s viscera,” she said. “It’s not to help them. It’s just for fun. You might as well be jumping out of a plane, for all you give a shit about them.”