Authors: Angela Claire
“We’re anchored here. And I can drive The Ann if I have to.”
“Oh.”
“So what is your last name? No, wait, let me guess.
Patterson?”
Her heart sank as she recognized one of her aliases. Not
that she really had much hope at this point, no matter how much she was trying
to fool herself in the bathroom mirror down there.
“Donaldson?” he continued, with another. “Vickery? Take your
pick?”
She sat up, gazing out at the waves. “Do you get all the
girls you sleep with investigated? That must run up quite a tab with your
private dick.”
“Is Sophia even your real name?”
She turned to look at him. “What do you want to ask me,
Brendan?”
“I want to ask you what your fucking real name is.”
“Is that why you took me out on this boat?”
“I took you out so you couldn’t run away while I was asking.
But your pal there showed up to warn you, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you came anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Convinced I was even more of a sucker than he thought, eh?”
She said nothing. He broke the eye contact before she did, a
sudden interest in the life jacket next to them overtaking him apparently. He
fiddled with the orange cushion. Maybe that’s why he had dismissed the crew. He
planned to dump her overboard.
At least he was going to give her a life jacket.
“So why me?” he finally asked. “What do you want? Or is this
just your usual gig with a rich guy? Am I supposed to eventually give you my
bank codes or something?”
“No. We were looking for something.”
“You and that guy? Who is he? Your lover? Oh, no, that’s
right, you were a virgin. Unless that’s something else you faked.”
“How could I fake that?”
“How the fuck would I know? So who is that guy? Your
partner?”
She hesitated. “More like my mentor, I guess you’d say.”
“Mentor,” he scoffed. “What are you looking for, if you
don’t mind my asking?”
“A box. A little puzzle box. But I think whatever is inside
it was the goal.”
“You don’t know?”
“No, Arthur didn’t tell me.”
“Arthur? That’s his name?”
“Yes.” The lapping of the waves against the side of the hull
filled the silence until she said, “So what now? Should I expect cops waiting
for me when we dock?”
“None of your fucking business.” He got up. “For now, I’m
going to get a drink and watch the sunset…with my girl.”
By about his fifth whiskey—he’d brought a bottle and a
glass, one glass, up from the main saloon—she thought to volunteer that she
didn’t know how to drive the boat just in case he planned to get totally
wasted.
“No problem. We’re not going back tonight. I want another
night alone with you.”
Another night, as if that would be their last.
Wake up
from the dream here, Sophia. Your dream man is about to turn you over to the
authorities.
Talk about a rude awakening. What did she expect?
“I thought you had questions for me.”
“I do, but it occurred to me you’d probably just be lying
through your perfect teeth if you answered them.”
“I won’t.”
The sun was dipping low on the horizon, but there was no
chill in the air. Just that warm Caribbean breeze. After years of pretending,
she didn’t want to for one second more. She wanted to be heard. She wanted him
to hear her out.
“You asked for my last name. The truth is I don’t know it.”
He scoffed audibly, but that didn’t stop her.
“I don’t know my real age either. I have a lot of birth
certificates, but none of them are real.”
He took another drink. “Is this the part where you sucker me
in even further by feeding me some sob story about your deprived childhood?”
“Believe it or don’t believe it. I don’t care. I just want
to tell you.”
“It won’t change anything. I hate your guts, you know.”
She winced a little. She couldn’t help it. “You’re not exactly
my favorite person in the world right now either,” she lied. “Give me a drink.”
She snatched his glass just as he was bringing it to his lips again and downed
the fine whiskey. No cheap stuff for Brendan Beckett.
Never the cheap stuff. She set the empty glass down between
them.
“Arthur raised me, if that’s what you want to call it. My
first memory is being with him in this tiny apartment. I don’t know where it
was. I don’t know where I was before that. I was just there. With him. He fed
me. Took care of me, I guess. Taught me.”
“Taught you what is the question.”
“Taught me this. This life. The only life I’ve ever had. The
game.”
“It’s not a game, you bitch. You take people in, you
pretend—”
His abrupt stop left a long silence. And then she filled it.
“At first it was just like pretend. Sometimes I would pretend Arthur was my
daddy and sometimes he’d pretend my name was whatever. Sometimes I’d be alone
for long stretches of time, while Arthur pretended without me. I’d be scared,
but he always came back. Sometimes, in the early days, there was a woman too,
but I don’t remember much about her.”
“Look, Sophia, or whoever the hell you are, if you think I
believe one word of this, you’re even stupider than you were for coming on this
boat with me in the first place. You should have cut out with your pal, or
mentor, or whoever the hell. But you didn’t. And now you’re here, at my mercy,
and I sure as hell didn’t bring you hear to listen to you whine about some
fucking ridiculous story that nobody would ever believe and certainly would
never believe if a fucking admitted con artist was telling it.”
“Ridiculous. Yeah, it’d be ridiculous to somebody like you
with your rich and perfect parents.”
“Don’t make this about me, you bitch.”
“Stop calling me a bitch!” God, she felt on the verge of
tears.
“Don’t you dare cry on me,” he warned. “And I’ll call you
anything I fucking well want to call you.” He snatched the glass up from the
deck and poured another whiskey. “But I don’t feel like fucking you right
now—that was the point of getting it out of my system when we first came
aboard, so my dick wouldn’t get in the way of our little conversation—so you
might as well go on. Unburden yourself. So this mean old Arthur—”
“I didn’t say he was mean.”
“Kidnapped you or whatever and made you do this.”
“I didn’t say that! I said he took care of me. And that we
pretended.”
“And what’s his supposed explanation for all that? He’s
what, your father? Your brother? Your uncle? What?”
“Yes, yes and yes. At various points he played all of those
things.”
“Played.”
“But he never explained who he really is to me. I’ve asked
and he, Arthur, just doesn’t, he doesn’t explain much.”
“So, how did you go to school?”
“I didn’t. He taught me how to read and write and I studied
other things on my own and we traveled a lot. All the time for the most part.
In the US at first, but as I got older, more in Europe, which is why Interpol
had that nice file to share on me.”
“You really expect me to believe all this? Why would I?
Because you’re gorgeous? Because I love to fuck you? What?”
“I guess it’s too much to expect that you might have liked
me.”
“Liked you?” He stood up and threw the glass down on the
deck with force. It broke in a suitably dramatic manner, which was undoubtedly
just as he’d intended, glass splintering everywhere, whiskey sloshing on the
polished wood. “I didn’t even know you! At all! I thought you were a kooky
girl, not some criminal mastermind.”
“I’m not a criminal mastermind. More like a petty thief, I
guess, when all is said and done.”
“Nothing petty about you, babe.”
Why was she even trying? She got up too. “I don’t know why
you even brought me here if you weren’t even going to listen. You should have
just arrested both of us on the dock, me and Arthur, instead of going through
the charade of taking me out on your boat. I want to go back.”
He faced her, a smirk on his handsome face. “Oh you do?
Well, that’s too fucking bad. You can just consider yourself my prisoner now.”
“Are you going to make me walk the plank or something? For
committing the grand sin of not wanting Brendan Beckett for his own delicious
self? Yes, I used you. Wah wah. So sorry.”
He grabbed her arm and whipped her body to him. “You don’t
think I used you? What do you think you are? You’re just a one-night stand,
more or less.”
“So why are you so pissed?”
“I don’t know,” he muttered, bringing his mouth down on
hers, hard.
She returned his kiss, exultant that he was kissing her, the
real her finally, even if he was angry about it. Whether he realized it or not,
or believed it or not, he knew more about her than any other human being in the
world right at that moment. And he knew how much she wanted him. She thrust her
hands in his hair, pulling his head down to her, running her tongue along his
lips, dipping inside.
He ripped the top of her suit off, fondling her breasts
roughly, and then bent his head to them. She held his head to her as he tasted
her nipples, nipping at them lightly and then sucking so strongly she thought
she might faint.
But he pushed her away suddenly and she stumbled back, at
the last minute avoiding a glass shard that would’ve cut her bare foot open,
righting herself against the railing.
“Enough.” He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “What
are you trying to do now? Turn into one of your other groping, mindless
tricks?”
She slapped him. He put a hand to his cheek.
“I don’t have ‘tricks.’ I’m not a whore.”
“No.” He dropped his hand. “I guess not. A whore actually
puts out. You’re just—what did you call it?—oh, yeah, the bait.”
He grabbed her hand that time before she could land a blow
and yanked her to him, kissing her again.
Whether he pushed her down on to the deck or she just
collapsed, bringing him with her, she didn’t know. Luckily they managed to land
clear of the rest of the splintered pieces of the glass strewn near the towel.
It was all mixed up, the kissing, the anger, the pleasure,
the hurt. She rolled on top of him, straddling him, and his hands went to tear
the bottoms of her suit off as she reached into his and brought his hot,
throbbing cock out to play.
She mounted him abruptly, not even asking about a condom,
not caring, just sliding down, and he groaned, gripping her ass, watching her
as she moved above him.
“I wanted you,” she told him, rising up, feeling his hot
cock slide out of her, not quite to the point of coming out. “For myself. For
me. Not as a whore. Not to use you. Can you understand that?” Keeping his cock
just on the point of coming out, she watched him, swaying her hips, and then
slid down again slowly, feeling her way, driven by this desperate urge to be
honest after a lifetime of duplicity.
“Liar,” he muttered, leaning up to latch on to one breast,
flicking his tongue against her nipple, sucking. She pulled away and pushed him
down flat on his back again, though he was stronger than she was and did not
have to let her. But he did, watching her, his blue eyes bright with something.
“I am a liar. I’ve always been a liar.” Somehow, talking to
him as she slid that hard, hot pole into her did not distract her. The
two—trying to explain to him and making love to him—were in perfect sync. She
braced her hand behind her on his thighs and slid up, arching her back. “But
I’m not lying now.” She came down hard.
He gasped, never closing his eyes.
“I wanted this with you, Brendan, almost from the first. I
wanted you to want me.”
His hands clenched on her ass and he suddenly flipped her
over, coming on top of her. “Big surprise. Lots of girls want me to want them.
I’m rich.”
“It wasn’t—”
“Shut up.” He rammed into her and she welcomed it, wrapping
her legs around his waist as he grabbed her hands and held them to the side of
her head, his cock pistoning in and out of her.
“I want to tell you—”
He kissed her, stopping the thought for a minute, but she
wrenched her head away and he buried his hot face in the crook of her neck and
shoulder.
“I want to tell you—” He slammed into her. “I want to tell
you that I, ah, I read your journal and you were—”
“Stop.”
“So sweet and—”
He came, all the way inside her, and in the wild intensity
of the moment, she came right with him, shuddering up toward him as he groaned
into her ear. After a minute, he let go of her arms and slowly rolled off her
and onto his back, catching his breath as she was.
The fading light made the sky look almost purple as she
stared up at it, waiting.
“So you read my journal, on top of everything else? Now I’m
really mad.”
Chapter Seven
The muttered comment dissipated the tension between them.
That and the incredible sex of course.
Brendan reached for the bottle of whiskey again and drank
from it directly this time. A few more swigs and he should just about finish it
off.
Considering the amount he’d had to drink in her presence,
and he very well might have started before he even came up on deck, he should
be very drunk. But other than a slight looseness in the way he moved, and that
he had let her mount him without a condom without even commenting on it, he
didn’t seem to be.
“At first, I thought you were like any other pompous rich
guy. Just younger and better looking than the ones we usually target. And then
I saw how you were with other people when nobody was looking and I read the
beautiful poetry in your journal.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Okay, now
you’re seriously pissing me off.” But there was no heat in it.
“Really, Brendan. Why don’t you do anything with that?”
“What? Buy a publishing company so I could sell my poetry?
Talk about your rich guy clichés.” He finished off the bottle and threw it, not
ecologically inclined at this moment apparently, clear over the railing and
into the sea.
“So what is it, then? Why do you write?”
“For me.”
“Then I’m honored to have read it.”
“Don’t you mean stole it?”
“Don’t quibble.”
He was sitting up now, arms over his knees. “You know you
really threw me off by being a virgin. I was suspicious of you at first, at the
wedding, and then we slept together that first time, and I wasn’t. Fucked up
guy thinking I guess. If you were ‘pure’, you must be as innocent in
everything.”
He looked down at her over his shoulder. “So why were you
really a virgin? What part did that play in all this? Was that supposed to make
me want you more? Because to be honest, it just kind of creeped me out.”
She shook her head. “Sleeping with a guy was never part of
the con.”
“Please…”
“If it was, believe me, I wouldn’t have been a virgin all
this time.”
“You expect me to believe this Arthur, what, protected you
in some kind of twisted way?”
“Hardly. More like he was indifferent. It was really more or
less what I told you already. I was the bait. But it wasn’t necessary to sleep
with them.”
“So why did you sleep with me?” Resentment was warring with
what was probably genuine curiosity on his part.
“Why do women usually sleep with you, Brendan?”
He scoffed. “Right about now, I’m not sure any more.”
“Well, take a look in the mirror.”
“That’s hilarious coming from you.”
“Yes, just think of what beautiful children we’d have.”
His early pickup line, in this context, caused a wry smile.
“Thank God for contraception.”
Maybe it qualified as the meanest thing he could think of,
especially since they had just gotten finished not using any, but
unfortunately, she agreed. She wasn’t fit to be anybody’s mother. “So are you
going to have me arrested?”
He looked ahead at the darkening sea. “I haven’t decided
yet. Other than holding a gun to my head and reading my journal, I guess I
don’t have a lot to hold against you. And maybe you’ve more than made it up.”
He leaned over and grabbed her chin, tilting her face up to
his kiss. She could taste the whiskey and something else, something darker in
him that she sensed he kept carefully hidden, or maybe just leashed.
“What is it, Brendan? Why do you act the way you do?”
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“The women. This playboy surface. Sometimes I think you’re
pretending just as much as I am.”
He ignored the comment, standing up and holding out a hand
for her. “Okay, I have to say I’m leaning toward no incarceration. But you have
to lay it on a little thicker about liking my writing.”
“I do like your writing,” she said softly, taking his hand
and standing up as well.
He stared down at her, just holding the one hand. Then he
shook his head. “I don’t know what to believe.”
“Let’s go back to the cabin while you decide, then.”
“So you can make the final pitch to convince me not to?”
“That, or else get my money’s worth out of you in sex. If I
was giving up my freedom by boarding this boat with you, I deserve it.”
“I’m good either way,” he muttered. “But I warn you I’m not
done drinking.”
“That’s okay. I kind of like you drunk.”
Given that Sophia was still naked, and he was unusually
drunk, it was not surprising that they didn’t make it to the cabin. Watching
her ass as she took the stairs down to the lower deck in front of him, he
caught up to her at the bottom and cupped those silken cheeks, kissing her neck
from behind. His hardening cock was prodding her ass and he really should let
her get all the way to the cabin. There was something he needed there, although
it momentarily escaped him just what that was. Another drink? No, that wasn’t
it. Another drink and he just might not be able to get it up. Get it up—oh,
yeah, that was it. A condom.
But she turned in his arms, with that cream-colored sofa
right behind her, and all thought of not being able to get it up—and a condom,
for that matter—were gone. He leaned down to kiss her as she put her arms
around his neck. Her lips tasted wildly sweet. There was an abandoned feel to
the way she kissed him now, although maybe it was the whiskey talking. Or maybe
she really was trying to convince him not to have her arrested—an effort he
fully appreciated her indulging in—although arresting her had never really been
in his game plan.
Arrest her for what? Hurting his feelings?
Of course, there was that gun to his head thing, but he was
having trouble summoning up any indignation at that for some reason. Maybe it
was the way her hand slipped down to his ass and caressed, urging him closer.
When he had been trying to fuck her for some kind of ridiculous revenge of
sorts in the cabin earlier, just that same touch of her hand on him had driven
him wild. He had been forced to pin her arms above her to stop it, so he could
keep control, such as it was. Now he had no interest in keeping control. It was
all out between them. And he had not a modicum of control left between the
whiskey and her.
The saloon was darkened and he pulled away from her to
switch on a light. In his fumbling in the dark, he inadvertently flicked on the
sound system as well. The strains of Van Morrison filled the room.
“Oh, I love this song.”
He pulled her into his arms, rather than pushing her back on
the couch as originally intended, and with one hand linked in hers and the
other around her waist, he started to dance with her.
She joined in the swaying movements easily. “Gosh, you sing
well and you’re a good dancer? I really am impressed.”
“Thanks. They teach that in playboy school.” He danced her
around the saloon to the rhythm of the song. “But you dance pretty well
yourself. So I’m assuming they covered it in con artist school too.”
“Yes, there was an entire semester on that.”
“Dancing naked too, I assume.”
“Well, that was extra credit.”
He dipped her, surprising her apparently, and then swung her
around while she laughed, sounding as if she was catching her breath.
“So why didn’t you ever marry any of these guys you strung
along?”
He supposed she might be offended by that, but she didn’t
seem to be. “They were all awful.”
“But what if they hadn’t been? Would you have married one?”
She shook her head, and then laid it on his shoulder as they
danced. He had to strain to hear her response, so soft with the music in the
background. “No. I could never marry anybody who didn’t really know me. Who
thought I was someone or something I wasn’t. I don’t want that.” When she
lifted her head a few moments later, she asked, “What about you?”
“Me? When I want a wife, I’m going to buy one.”
“Bill Murray. Scrooged, right?”
“Right. I’m just kidding.” He spun her around in a
pirouette. “I’m not getting married.”
“Never?” She sounded surprised, even as she executed a
perfect twirl.
“Nope. It’s not for me.”
“Too busy sleeping with anything that moves?”
“Well, that does take up a lot of my time. What, with that
and pretending to work at my family’s company, I’ve pretty much bitten off all
I can chew at this point.”
“You do it pretty well, though. The bedroom part, I mean. I
can’t speak for your job of course. But you do the bed thing quite well.”
“Thanks.”
“Almost as well as you dance.”
He laughed, stopping their dance abruptly. “Oh, you are just
asking for it.”
“I am,” she said in a breathy tone that got his cock, which
had been distracted by the dancing, rock hard again. But since she just started
dancing again, he went with it.
“Are you just being nice to me because you’re so drunk?” she
asked.
“No. It’s because you’re so hot. Are you just being nice to
me because I threatened to have you arrested?”
“Actually, it’s because you’re so rich. And very, very good
in bed of course.”
“Now, that I can take credit for.”
“You can take credit for threatening to have me arrested
too.”
“Sure. Well, you break into a guy’s apartment, Sophia, it
gets him to thinking. So I hired this PI, who for the life of me I can’t get
rid of now. I almost wish I didn’t know anything. That you were just a girl I
was dazzling with my dancing prowess on my big, fat yacht.”
“I’m glad you know.”
He chuckled.
“No. I am.”
“Except for that arresting thing?”
“Well, except for that of course. But you said you’re
leaning against that anyway.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll probably be passed out soon and
you can get away.”
“How? By swimming to shore?”
“Don’t laugh. I’ve seen you swim. I bet you could do it. So
why didn’t you try to get away on the dock when you could?”
She shrugged. “I wanted to go with you. And I’m glad you
know who I am now. Because that makes this qualify as my very first actual real
date.”
He pulled her closer, feeling the tips of those luscious
breasts against his chest. “That’s sweet.” And he was so drunk, he wasn’t even
being ironic. “Now, this PI that I hired will probably give me all the gritty
details—he tried to earlier, but I kind of wouldn’t let him, I was so pissed
about the whole thing—but just so I’m prepared, how criminal are you? I’m
assuming non-violent offender, though I guess the gun thing—”
“No! Non-violent absolutely.”
“So more of a Miss Lonely Hearts kind of thing.”
“Well, lately. Earlier on, we were a little more varied. But
nobody who couldn’t afford it.”
“Oh, so you’ve the heart-of-gold vibe going here?”
“More like the ‘if they can’t afford it, they may try a
little harder to see they get it back’ thing. But I actually feel better about
it this way too, if that makes you feel any better yourself.”
“Much. But of course, I’m three sheets to the wind.”
“You carry yourself very well, though.”
“Thanks.”
“Will you remember any of this tomorrow?”
“We’ll just have to see. I hope I remember the sex part.”
She laughed. “You are such a dog.”
“I think when you broke into my apartment, you called me a
wolf. But dog, wolf, I’ll answer to both.”
Van Morrison was singing still, but he’d had enough of
dancing. He led her back to the sofas. “Lie down.”
Accommodating him, she looked like some kind of a harem girl
spread out on his cushions. She opened her legs even and held her arms out to
him.
Even as he went into her arms, leaning one knee next to her,
he mumbled, “I have to go get a condom.”
She pulled him close and his defenses were such that without
him even really realizing it, she slipped his needy cock right into her soft,
wet pussy, unprotected.
Why did she keep doing that?
He groaned. God, the heat of her pussy, his cock unsheathed
to feel it full on, was incredible. Oh yeah. He was so the victim here. Not.
He pulled his cock out slightly and then thrust in again.
“Are you trying to trick me into getting you pregnant?”
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she murmured, “What if I
was? What difference would that make? I’ll be swimming out on the tide while
you’re passed out. You’ll never see me again.”
“Oh,” he groaned, giving it to her really hard for that.
“You do that and I’ll have to chase you to the ends of the earth.”
“Why?” Her legs came around his waist, her sweet ass tipping
up toward him as he thrust. “To arrest me?”
“Fuck no.” Kissing her, he muttered, “To marry you of
course.”
When he came, he stubbornly held his cock deep within her as
he ejaculated, though she had made a stab at trying to push him off when she
realized he was coming.
Hell, he was never going to wear a condom again. Why should
he? He was with the mother of his child.
That was the last thing he remembered.
* * * * *
Vinita wandered out onto the balcony of the plush Cayman
Islands hotel she had checked into under her own name. Her own current name,
that is. Comparing it to Arthur’s dirt cheap digs earlier today, she marveled
yet again at how right she had been in the choice she made so many years ago.
“
Guten Abend
.”
Good evening.
She swung around at the greeting from the man sitting on the
balcony chair who she hadn’t noticed at first. The downside of her choice she
supposed. She hoped he hadn’t killed anyone getting into her hotel room. Not
that she valued Cayman—or American, for that matter—lives. But it was always
messy and she was tired of cleaning up after everyone else’s messes.
About to admonish—no, admonish wasn’t the right tone to take
with this man, unless she wanted to end up as one of his messes—or rather
request that he switch to English, he saved her the trouble, doing so before
she even had to ask him.