Secret Souls (12 page)

She had answered the telephone and on hearing his voice had said, ‘My dear Hannibal, you do surprise me. I had expected you to call months ago. It does you much credit that you didn’t.’

‘I do now only to say thank you, Lilana. Tonight I saw for the first time what a magnificent erotic creature you have turned her into.’

‘It wasn’t difficult, Hannibal. If it happens for you, you must know you will be well matched. She has a strong sexual drive, as strong as yours, and she is courageous in her lust. She is also sexually free – adventurous eroticism will be that young woman’s life. In that she is like yourself, only maybe more so. But, caution, Hannibal. You may one day possess her sexually – to be enslaved by lust is what she yearns for, she derives enormous pleasure from her sexuality, and, Hannibal, she wants you. However, that does not mean she will be easy to fathom. She’s deep and mysterious and a law unto herself.’

‘Lilana, I know Chadwick to the very marrow of her bones. We give each other everything.’

‘How strange, those were her exact words about you.’

Now Hannibal could not help but smile as he remembered his conversation with Lilana. It confirmed what he had always sensed: Chadwick had saved his life to give him another. They had done that for each other, their lives had been cast together a long time ago. He heard the gate open and walked from the window to open the front door and watch the 1936 Rolls-Royce pull slowly off the street and on to the short horseshoe-shaped drive to the front door. The Chase house was one of only a few such town houses left in Manhattan to have the luxury of its own private drive.

Chadwick was riding in the rear seat. His intention was to chastise her for being late but one look at her as she slid across the seat and opened the car door before Telford had a chance to get to it and he could think of nothing to say except, ‘Where were you at breakfast?’

‘It’s a secret.’ She smiled and very nearly sprang from the car to give Hannibal a kiss on the cheek.

‘And why are you late?’

Once again a peck on the cheek. ‘Another secret. And I’m not even sorry I’m late and neither will you be.’ There it was, that unmistakable new seductive look just for him. He did and didn’t
like it, he wanted and didn’t want it, but he couldn’t help but smile at her, and she had excited his interest.

‘I think we should leave immediately, I long to get out of town.’

‘Me too.’

Telford drove them only a short distance, around the corner, to the building where Diana and Warren had their flats. Warren was waiting in front of the building. He sat down next to Chadwick, and Hannibal, amused and charmed now by her little game, said, ‘Oh, I see you’re part of this surprise, Warren.’

‘No. I’m here to give Chadwick moral support, Dad.’

‘Since when do you need moral support in anything, Chadwick?’

‘Since I’m kidnapping you and we’re going to the airport, and I don’t want to give in when you tell Telford to turn the car around.’

‘Then you’re a party to this surprise, Warren?’

‘Only in as much as I agreed to secure the company jet for the day for Chadwick. And there is no use asking me where you’re going, or why, Dad. Chadwick refused to tell me or Diana, and you know she and Diana tell each other everything.’ He laughed aloud before he continued, ‘And Chadwick won’t let us come along. In spite of that she talked me into helping because she said she hadn’t the authority to arrange transportation for your getaway.’

All the way to the airport the two men indulged Chadwick in a game of guess where, after it was established that she thought Hannibal needed an adventure and she was determined to give him one. The guesses came fast and furious: safari, a tiger shoot in India, shooting the rapids on a river in Nepal, flying in a biplane through the Grand Canyon, sailing up the Nile in a felucca or down the Orinoco in a dugout, a day of shopping on Rodeo Drive, lunch in Rome, swimming with the dolphins in Baja California – all three of them letting their imaginations fly and suggesting what each of those adventures might entail.

Hannibal listened and played along with the game, enjoying himself enormously. Nor did Warren’s interest in Chadwick go
unnoticed by him; he was seeing his son’s sexual attraction to her for the first time. It showed in his eyes, the way he touched her, spoke to her, it was somehow different. Lilana had indeed done her work well. She had been right when she’d said that Chadwick had that special kind of sensual attraction that only a very few women possess; that adventurous eroticism would be her life. What Lilana had not said was that a great many men would want Chadwick, never have her, suffer rejection, and the tortures of their lust for her. For the first time in five years Hannibal thought of the vile Ed Chadwick; he had been the first of such men and most surely would not be the last of Chadwick’s victims.

It was not Africa or India, not even Nepal. But it was a small private island just off the coast of Trinidad in the Caribbean. By the time the plane landed on the air strip running parallel to the sea, its waves gently lapping on one side of the beach, fringed on the other by a grove of coconut palms, a new life would already have begun for Hannibal and Chadwick. But this was still New York and as Hannibal was shaking hands with his son while bidding him farewell and was then following Chadwick up the few stairs and into the twelve seater Gulfstream Jet, he could not have imagined that was going to be the case.

They sat together buckled into the settee, facing the window, and waved goodbye to Warren as the plane taxied down the tarmac. ‘This is a very extravagant surprise,’ Hannibal told Chadwick, and gave her a gracious and winning smile.

Chadwick surveyed Hannibal’s face, the face that she had fallen in love with as a child. He had aged well, in fact hardly at all. His hair was still dark brown and thick and worn on the long side to curl just above his coat collar. The sexy-looking square face had deep furrows in it and yet he remained young looking for a man of fifty. He had remained as slim as when she had met him and worked out so that his body was still taut and muscular. He was a big handsome man on whom all her girlfriends had a crush. She had often thought that possibly the uneasy relationship that Diana sometimes had with her father was because she too had a crush on Hannibal. His dark brown eyes had always been what Diana had called ‘bedroom eyes’, and she claimed that was why
women fell in love with him. Chadwick tended to think that Diana was right. Now at the start of the runway, as the pilot was revving the engines making ready for take-off, she was fixated by his lips, his mouth. For weeks now when with Lilana discovering her sexuality, it was Hannibal’s lips, his mouth, that she fantasised about while edging towards orgasm.

Chadwick had been several months with Lilana when she had finally confessed her sexual feelings for Hannibal to her mentor. And when Lilana understood that a sexual relationship, short- or long-lived, was inevitable for Chadwick and Hannibal, she made up her mind it would be the most erotic and sexually thrilling experience for them both. Anything else would be damaging to their relationship, one she was certain that neither Chadwick nor Hannibal could ever give up. Few would understand, as Lilana did, that they were privy to an unusual and most extraordinary love affair.

Taking all those things into consideration, she took it upon herself to educate and train Chadwick in how to enjoy the lustful life that Hannibal demanded of his women. She taught her not only how to develop an outstanding sexual life for Hannibal and herself, but explained about the demands he would make on her, even the psychology of his sexual appetites. She groomed Chadwick to be his sexual slave, a role that excited his sexual side and which she knew Chadwick herself would enjoy. Lilana went one step further; she taught her how she should periodically turn Hannibal into her own sexual slave and in such a subtle way that he would only realise it after the event, hate it, and redress the situation. Sex was more thrilling for Hannibal when power games were involved and love could be shunted aside.

Lilana could well understand how a man like Hannibal would want a woman like Chadwick in his life. She had a secret centre that would always be a challenge for a man. Lilana fell just a little bit in love with her protégée herself. It was easy, they had many similar qualities and had something in common: they both loved and respected Hannibal who had kept Lilana de Chernier as a mistress years before he met Chadwick.

The friendship that grew between mentor and protégée made it
easier for Lilana to express to Chadwick something a seventeen-year-old girl in love and sexually besotted might not want to hear: that she must be prepared for the possibility that though Hannibal might never want another woman once he had her, he might very well insist that she have other men, even other women. Lilana explained that it would ease his guilt over lusting after his adoptive daughter, over loving her as an erotic woman and keeping her as the companion of his life. Another reason: Hannibal genuinely loved Chadwick and would not want to deprive her of her chance of finding a younger, better love and sex life than he could offer.

When Chadwick told Lilana that she did understand Hannibal’s and her own predicament, that she intended to obey him in all his wishes
vis à vis
their sexual and love life, Lilana knew that her protégée was ready for her heart’s desire: a sexual liaison with the man of her life. Together they planned the seduction of Hannibal Chase.

The plane chased down the runway and took to the air at a steep angle. Chadwick, having at last stopped fixating over Hannibal’s lips, smiled then sighed.

‘You sound as if you’ve just ridden yourself of some tremendous weight,’ said Hannibal.

‘I have. We have,’ she told him somewhat boldly, then ran her fingers through her hair and with a flick of her head shook it away from her face.

‘I have?’

‘You’ll admit it to me later.’

‘You seem very sure about that.’

‘Oh, I am, I would stake my life on it.’

Just then a small light on the wall flashed, announcing they could if they wished undo their seat belts. They did and Hannibal began to rise from his chair. Chadwick stopped him. ‘You were going to the cockpit to talk to Jim. Well, you’re not allowed to. One of the ground rules. And that he is not allowed to come back here is another, not unless we invite him to. And you are not allowed to pilot the plane, not down to our destination or back from it.’

Hannibal was amused. ‘That’s a lot of ground rules.’

‘There are more, but I’ll tell you what they are as we go along.’

‘You really have kidnapped me?’

‘Not for a ransom,’ she told him, gazing directly into his eyes.

They needed no words, their eyes were speaking for them. Hannibal’s heart was racing. There had been so many women, beautiful, graceful and glamorous creatures, some even as young as Chadwick, but none had ever moved him to such fierce pangs of desire as she did now. He felt like a dying man, his life rushing past him, as if he had lived a whole lifetime just for this one moment. The ultimate expression of sex with undiminished love for the object of his desire.

Chadwick’s heart was pounding, her hands trembling ever so slightly, he was hers as he had never been anyone else’s. It shone in his eyes, and showed in the expression on his face. He was devouring her with lust. She placed one of her hands over her mouth and covered it with the other. Her breathing quickened and she closed her eyes for a moment. She came. The sensation was delicious, more thrilling than she had imagined it would be. She removed her hands from her mouth and ran her fingers through her hair before she slid from the seat and on to Hannibal’s lap.

She leaned forward and kissed him, licking his lips. They parted, and passion rose between them in that first kiss. He had removed his jacket before take-off and loosened his tie. Now, slowly, she slid it from around his neck and dropped it on the floor. She kissed him again, and once more their kiss was deep and passionate as she ran her hands down his arms. The feel of him, his strength, through the fine white linen, ignited her desire for him even further. She opened the buttons of his shirt and pulled it away from his chest and out from under his belt.

How clever she was with her hands and her caresses. Hands so soft with fingers long and slender, pressing his flesh, pinching his already erect nipples. She lowered her lips to them and sucked on them, ran her tongue over his chest as her fingers worked the buttons on his cuffs. She slid his shirt from his shoulders and off his arms. Chadwick raised her face from his chest and rubbed her cheek against his and then licked his shoulder and bit hard into it
while her arms slid around him and pulled him forward against her. Lust was taking her over, fierce sexual desire demanded of her that she dig her fingers and nails into his back.

Chadwick was now delivering light nibbling kisses on the flesh of his arms, stopping only long enough to lick his skin. She adored the scent and texture of his skin. Having worked her mouth down to his hands she took his fingers and placed them in her mouth and sucked on them. The feel of her teeth, used as lightly as if they were feathers, was erotic and teasing, as was the provocative, long and slow sucking. It put him on a sexual high note. He unbuckled the leather belt round his waist and Chadwick smiled at him and said, ‘Oh, yes, please,’ in a voice husky with lust. She removed his hands and took over sliding the belt from the loops of his jeans.

She was still on his lap, and while gazing into his eyes gently moved his legs apart, slipping round in such a way that she did not have to break her gaze. While facing him, she slipped from his lap to between his legs and on to her knees. That first feel of the swell of his erect penis against her body, even though it was still confined in his jeans, was outrageously sexy and glorious for Chadwick. Here was where all her attention focused now. She pressed it with the palms of her hands and then caressed the length of it and under it. She massaged it and his crotch and the inside of his thighs before she kissed the object of her desire through the faded blue denim.