RoxannesPirate Page 18

  Roxanne leaned her forehead on the glass. “I must have made a noise because the man looked up and saw me. He stepped out on to the patio and called me by name. He held his hand out to me and introduced himself. He said his name was John Murkley. I felt caught. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I shook his hand. I looked at my father. He looked old, shriveled. Murkley took an envelope from his jacket and held it out to my father. He had this odd smile on his face, as if he was delighted that I was there as a witness. I heard my boyfriend calling me. I left to go to him. I remember thinking that none of it was real. Not my father. Not Murkley.” Roxanne sighed. “We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t talk about much of anything after that. A few weeks later, the papers reported that my father had made a surprising ruling in favor of a company that everyone had expected to lose. I knew my father had sold himself. I went back to law school. My father made a few other surprising rulings that year. In the spring, my father was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. My mother and brothers urged him to try an experimental treatment, but he refused. I think he wanted to die. He failed so quickly. My mother sat by his side nearly every minute. But one evening near the end, he sent her away. He wanted to talk to me alone. I was afraid of what was coming—a confession of his sins. I didn’t want to hear them. Didn’t want to be the one he asked for forgiveness. But that’s not what he wanted from me. He didn’t want forgiveness. He wanted revenge.”

  She shut her eyes. The scene was the stuff of her nightmares. “He told me that he’d fallen in love with one of his male clerks. They’d had an affair. But the man was married and like my father, hid the truth about himself from his family. The affair ended. But sometime after, the man threatened to blackmail my father. My father panicked. He didn’t have access to the kind of money this man wanted. But soon after this blackmail threat, Mr. Murkley tracked my father down in his club and very delicately let my father know he had a business proposition that could bring my father lots of money. My father told me he had no choice so he took Murkley’s offer.”

  She pushed herself away from the glass. She looked at Carlos. “Of course he had a choice! He could have told the truth. He could have risked exposure. But he didn’t. He took the coward’s way out. He took the deal with Murkley and paid his blackmailer.”

  She took a deep breath. “I sat in that hospital room holding my dying father’s hand while he wept. But he didn’t weep from remorse or regret. He wept because that morning the man he loved had called him to confess he had blackmailed my father because Murkley had blackmailed him. All the money my father had given him had gone back to Murkley. And then the man shot himself. My father heard the shot. That’s why he wept. For his lover.”

  Roxanne hugged herself. “He clutched my arm and made me promise I would seek revenge against Murkley. Made me promise that I would make Murkley pay. I wanted him to stop talking, so I told him I would do it. Within a few days he slipped into a coma. Then he died. I stood at his grave and hated him. Hated him for betraying my mother. Hated him for his cowardice. Hated him for asking me to take on a terrible burden.”

  “Ah, Roxanne,” Carlos said quietly.

  “I’ve spent the last seven years doing all I could to distance myself from my father. What I hadn’t considered was that Murkley would continue to add to his roster of victims. If I had done what my father asked me to do, Spencer would never have met Murkley. Your project might have been a success. Spencer might have been alive today, celebrating his triumph with you.”

  Her voice shook. The enormity of what she was saying silenced her.

  “You can’t do that to yourself, Roxanne. Spencer’s death was not your fault. John Murkley’s evil is not your doing.”

  “You can’t imagine what I felt when I saw his name on that chart in your hotel room. As much as I wanted to stay with you, I fled because I was afraid of that name.” She could feel tears well in her eyes. “But I can’t be afraid anymore. I keep seeing Spencer’s body on the floor.”

  He made a noise in his throat as if he were choking.

  “I can’t run from this anymore, Carlos. I can’t.”

  He moved to her side and put his arms around her, hugging her.

  She buried her face in his chest. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” He stroked her hair. He rested his head on hers. “I have to go away for a few weeks. When I come back, I’ll do what you want. I’ll go with you to see your friend Evan Blake. I’ll tell him everything I know.”

  “You will?”

  “I promise I will.” He kissed her hand. “I keep my promises.”

  One loud sob escaped her effort to stifle it.

  “Don’t cry, querida.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you.” She kissed him hard on the mouth.

  He held her tightly.

  She leaned against his chest and listened to the beat of his heart.

  “You brought me a present.”

  “I did.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Maybe we should wait for another time.”

  “There’s no time like the present for presents.” She reached for a tissue from the box on the sideboard. She blew her nose. “I can use a little mood lifter right now.”

  He seemed to be considering his response. “All right. I’ll get it for you.”

  He brought her the black gift bag. She sat back down on the chair by the table and reached into the bag and took out a large black box tied with a wide black ribbon.

  “It looks slightly ominous,” she joked. She pulled the ribbon off the box and picked up the lid. Inside the box were coils of thin black rope, two black candles and a black feather. Something shiny lay under the rope.

  “We don’t have to do this now,” he said. “We can wait until the time feels right.”

  She picked up the feather and stroked the side of her face. It tickled. He watched her intently.

  “I won’t have to cut myself free?”

  “No. When you ask, I’ll let you go.”

  She dropped the feather in the box and put the box on the table. She had poured her heart out to him and he had promised to help her. They would not run from each other, as Elspeth had run from Spencer. Whatever happened, they would go through it together. This would be for him, for me, for us.

  She held out her wrists and looked up into his face. “Bind me.”

  His eyes glinted. He picked up a coil of rope and weighed it in his hand. He dropped it and picked up another. He took the rope and looped it around her wrists and knotted it, making a handcuff with a long tail. He held the tail in his hand like a leash. He pulled it gently.

  “Not too rough,” she said.

  “This time I’ll be gentle.”

  He pulled the rope slightly harder. “Come.” He held the rope that bound her in one hand and tucked the box under his other arm and led her into her bedroom.

  “I hope you remembered matches,” she said.

  “I thought of everything.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Lie down,” he said.

  She lay in the center of the bed. He brought her arms up overhead and tied them to her headboard. He sat on the bed and unzipped her skirt and pulled it off. He picked up another coil of rope and looped it around her right thigh. He pulled this rope back and tied it to her headboard too.

  “You forgot to take off my sweater and tights,” she said.

  “They stay on.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  He ignored her and bound her other thigh to the headboard. Then he tied ropes around her ankles and tied these to the footboard. She was spread wide open and pinned down. He stood at the foot of the bed and looked at her.

  “Do you like what you see?”

  He nodded. He took off his suit jacket and his tie. He unbuttoned his shirt and took that off too. He took off his belt but kept his pants on.

  He picked up the feather and ran the tip of it along her inner thigh.

 
; “I can’t feel anything through the tights,” she said.

  “I’ll have to do something about that.” He reached into the box and pulled out a pair of scissors. The handles of the scissors were black, but the blades were silver and came to sharp points. Carlos knelt on the bed between her legs. He pulled the material of the tights away from her right leg near her calf and cut a small hole. He touched the tip of the feather to her exposed skin. “Feel that?”

  “Yes,” Roxanne said. The ticklish sensation of the feather on her skin seemed magnified.

  He cut more holes in her tights on both legs and on the bottom of her feet. The tip of the feather bushed against cloth then skin. The pattern repeated—cloth, skin, cloth. She loved the play of sensation.

  “Your nipples want to come out and play,” Carlos said softly.

  “This is one of my favorite sweaters,” Roxanne said. She had mixed feelings about him shredding it.

  “I’ll buy you a new one.”

  The scissors flashed. “Now for the bra.”

  Carefully, as if he were performing surgery, he pulled the fabric of her bra taut and cut. First one pink nipple was exposed then the other—two small pink hills rising from the sea of black. The feather dusted them both.

  “Oh,” Roxanne sighed. The sensation induced a spasm in the muscles of her vagina.

  He cut more holes in the arms of the sweater, on the neck and scattered a few holes across her belly. The feather traversed her body. She wriggled in her bonds, enjoying the feelings he aroused. He put the scissors down.

  “Wait,” she said. “There’s one spot you forgot.”

  “Don’t be so impatient.”

  He lit a candle. The heat of the flame warmed a spot near her right elbow, a spot she’d never been aware of before, but a drop of warm wax hit it and she thought she would never forget it again. The candle roamed over her body, dropping flickers of heat. With each drop, some new part of her skin came to life. One drop below her bellybutton brought an answering spasm in her pelvis.

  He held the candle flame to her face. “Blow.”

  She blew the flame out. He picked up the scissors and enlarged the holes around her nipples, exposing nearly all her breasts.

  “Poor baby,” he murmured. “Someone was very rough on you. You have bruises all over.” The feather stroked her breasts in maddening circles.

  Roxanne moaned. “Isn’t it time?”

  “For this?” He tugged the crotch of her tights and cut the material. Cool air caressed her moist skin. She arched her pelvis. He pressed the flat blade of the scissors on her clit and between her labia.

  “Oh Carlos!” The cold metal tantalized her, focusing her need but not satisfying it.

  He stood and looked down at her spread open for him, the shiny scissors marking the center of her being. He grinned and unzipped his pants. His erection sprang out. Very slowly he unrolled a condom.

  She wanted to urge him to go faster, but she was afraid if she did, he would hold back. She kept silent. The ache he’d generated inside her wanted to be filled now.

  He pressed the scissors down on her flesh and rubbed them slightly side to side. The tendons in her neck were tense. She wanted something inside her. Needed it. Craved it. He slid the scissors back. The sharp tips traced the edge of her labia. Her cunt spasmed.

  “Fuck me,” she begged.

  He tossed the scissors on the floor. He leaned over her and braced his weight on one hand; his other guided the head of his cock to her entrance. She dropped her head onto the pillow, yearning to feel him fill her. But he was not to be rushed.

  “I said I’d be gentle,” he teased. He kissed her nipples, brushing the puckered tips with his tongue. She arched her pelvis to urge him inside. He pressed his cock only a fraction more.

  “Please, please,” she begged him.

  He laughed. He rested his weight on both hands and plunged into her. “Is this better?”

  She moaned her answer.

  He stopped her moaning with a kiss. He moved his hips slowly, circling instead of thrusting. She wanted to curse at him and make him go faster. He looked into her face and smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkled with amusement at her frustration. He gave her a long, deep kiss.

  Then his movements speeded up. There was the wonderful friction he created, his thick cock filling her passage, filling her need. She arched her back. He thrust harder still. His body rubbed against her swollen clit, giving her just what she needed, what she craved. She gave herself up entirely to the sensation and she was on the edge and spilling over.

  “Oh yes!” she cried, and the contractions shook her, swept her away.

  He gasped, stiffening, and pulsed inside her. She shut her eyes and enjoyed his weight and the smell of his skin until pinpricks of pain in her wrists disturbed her pleasure.

  “I think it’s time to untie me. My arms are going numb.”

  He sat up. “As you wish, madame.”

  The ropes came off her ankles and legs. He untied the long tail from the headboard. She sat up. He held her bound wrists in his hands. She smiled at his hesitation. “The way to keep me isn’t with knots,” she said.

  “I know.” He untied the last rope and pulled her onto his lap. He pressed her against his body.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  She kissed him again and again.

  Later she made him eggs and toast for dinner. They sat on the couch and watched an old movie. She fell asleep leaning against him. She woke at four in the morning, still on the couch, a blanket tucked around her.

  He was gone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Roxanne fully intended to spend Wednesday hard at work, but she kept gazing out her office windows, thinking about Carlos. She found it hard to stop smiling. She forgave him his hasty and silent exit. She forgave him for not sending her any messages that morning. He had told her he loved her. He had promised to help her.

  “I want some of your happy pills,” Annelise Brown told Roxanne in the office kitchen as she poured coffee into her mug. “You’ve had a big smile on your face all morning.”

  “It’s a beautiful day,” Roxanne said. She leaned back against the counter and sipped her coffee.

  “It’s freezing and we’re supposed to get more snow.” Annelise wrinkled her nose. “I meant to ask you about Florida yesterday but I got sidetracked with the news about Bardon. Perchance is your Florida weekend the source of your glow?”

  Roxanne smiled. “Anything new on the Bardon front?”

  “Good way to change the subject, but yes, unfortunately there is. He lost a client.” Annelise poured milk into her coffee. “Poor guy was found in his car. The news report says the police think he was shot and killed in a robbery.”

  “Who’s the guy?”

  “Hector Rivera.”

  Roxanne sputtered her sip of coffee back into her cup.

  Comprehension illuminated Annelise’s face.

  “I forgot! He’s the one your bad date wanted information about. Did you know him?”

  “When did it happen?”

  “They found his body early this morning. I got a message about it from Derek Macauley. There are news reports online.”

  Roxanne hurried back to her office to scour the web for information.

  There were several brief bulletins about the murder. Rivera’s body had been found in a car in a parking lot in midtown Manhattan. She called Carlos. When he did not answer his cell phone, she left him a message asking him to call her. She sent him the same message by text and email. She set alerts to warn her if there was any new information posted online about the murder, but she could not concentrate on her work.

  What are you afraid of? Carlos isn’t in danger. He had nothing to do with Murkley. Why would he be Murkley’s target? And you don’t know Murkley killed Rivera. Maybe it was just a simple robbery gone wrong. But Roxanne could not shake the anxiety that made her blood race, turned her hands ice cold, knotted her stomach and formed a tight band of pressur
e across her chest.

  A bulletin flashed across her computer screen. Someone had posted a photograph of Hector Rivera and the beautiful Ines Da Silva.

  Why wasn’t Carlos responding to her messages? He must know how concerned she would be. “Unless he’s in the air,” she said to reassure herself. He’d told her he had to be on a business trip. But he didn’t tell you where he was going. Or when. Or for how long. “What am I afraid of?” she whispered, as though saying the words out loud could help her pinpoint the source of her anxiety.

  Another alert flashed on her screen.

  Dead exec’s former business partner questioned—an unidentified source in the Commissioner’s Office confirmed that detectives are questioning Carlos Delgado, president of Delgado Enterprises, about his connection to Hector Rivera, whose body was found this morning, apparently the victim of a shooting.

  He was alive. And of course it made sense that he would be questioned. They had been on opposite sides of a lawsuit. Rivera had made accusations of misconduct against Carlos. If the police believed that Rivera’s death was not accidental or the result of a botched robbery, Carlos was a possible suspect.

  She called him. He did not answer. Maybe he was still being questioned. He might be kept for a long time. She had to keep busy. She had work to do.

  Hours passed. She accomplished little but paced a line in her office carpet. There were no new reports online. There was no word from Carlos.

  The late afternoon sunlight was obscured with heavy, low-hanging clouds.

  She stood at the window, her arms wrapped around her chest, trying for calm. But the anxiety that had gripped her since that morning swelled inside her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe. Rivera had been angry with Carlos when they parted, had accused him of stealing a business opportunity. Rivera had cursed Carlos. The vulture will pick your bones. What if Carlos was connected to Rivera’s murder?

  She called the number that was listed in Miami for Carlos’ company and reached an automated system. She had no other numbers to call. She did not know the names of any relatives. She did not know the names of any friends.