polo shirt was damp with sweat, and his knee-high boots were spattered
with mud.
Despite his dishevelled appearance, the sight of him gave
her a sexual thrill.
His tight, white breeches clung to his body like
a second skin, emphasising his lean thighs and the very noticeable
bulge of his penis.
Jacey deliberately kept her eyes on his face.
"I've been told I'm supposed to congratulate you," she said tartly.
"Congratulations are in order," he agreed.
"We won.
But that's not why I asked you here."
He leant back against
the locker and slowly unzipped his breeches.
As she watched, he
disengaged himself from the support pouch he was wearing, and stood in
front of her, cupping his balls.
He was semi-erect.
"Come here," he said.
Despite herself, she took a step forward.
"For God's sake," she said.
"The door isn't locked.
Someone might come in."
He smiled briefly.
"No one will come in.
They know I'm here, and they know you're here.
And they know why."
He ran his fingers up and down his cock.
"Get on with it, doctor.
Use your mouth."
Jacey moved closer.
She told herself that it was part of her plan to
humour him, but she knew very well that she was going to enjoy it.
She
could smell leather, and the musky, masculine scent of his sweat.
His
overpowering maleness was an extremely potent aphrodisiac.
She knelt down in front of him and took him in her mouth.
She felt his
body shudder as he parted his legs and leant back.
She moved her lips,
caressing him with her tongue.
"That's right," he muttered.
"Nice and slow.
Make it last for me, Jacey."
She tried to oblige him, but his excitement built up much more quickly
than she expected.
Suddenly his hands were on her head, holding her
close, while his hips pushed forward, almost against her face.
He
filled her mouth, and her throat, and for a moment she felt suffocated.
Then his orgasm rocked him, and she heard his groan of relief.
It took him a moment to recover.
Unselfconsciously, he tidied himself
up, and then grinned at her.
To the victor the spoils," he said.
"That was just what I needed."
"Just as long as you don't expect me to do the same for all the other
victors," she said.
He put his hands on her shoulders and she felt the strength of his
fingers biting into her flesh.
"Would you object?"
She saw a gleam of excitement in his eyes.
"You like behaving like a whore, don't you?"
"I like to choose who I share my body with."
"You'll do it with a man you've only just met," he persisted.
"That's what a whore does."
"A whore does it for money," Jacey said.
"It's work.
If I do it with a man I've just met, it's for pleasure.
Because I fancy him.
It's my choice."
She stepped back out of his
grasp.
"My body.
My choice."
Suddenly her well-trained memory kicked into gear again.
"You accused me of that before," she remembered.
"Of not minding if I serviced a man I'd just met.
Why?"
"You fucked Peter Draven quickly enough," he said.
"In the operating theatre at La Primavera."
"You were watching us?"
She felt her anger rising once more.
"What a disgusting trick."
He shrugged, and laughed.
"I'm a busy man.
I can't afford to waste time on someone who isn't
going to be worth it.
I like to see my women in action, before I try
them out myself."
She slapped him without thinking, across his face.
The blow was harder
than she intended; it snapped his head back, and sounded like a pistol
shot.
She immediately regretted her impulsiveness.
What if he
retaliated?
She knew he was quite capable of doing so; he would not
have any chivalrous notions about not hitting women.
In that case, should she use her training to try and defend herself?
Perhaps resistance would infuriate him.
And she wasn't even sure if
she could handle him if he attacked her.
She had been taught to take a
victim by surprise, and kill him, not to stand up to a fully grown man
in a raging temper.
In that brief moment, as she stood in front of him, and saw him lift
his hand to his face and shake his head slightly as if to clear it, she
realised how vulnerable she was.
Here in Guachtal, Nicolas Schlemann
was the law.
He could probably have her murdered, and get away with
it.
He could block any investigations.
A few diplomats might make
angry noises.
A file would be opened.
There would be an insincere
promise of an investigation.
Weeks would drag into months, and the
file containing details of her case would gradually find its way to the
back of a shelf, where all the other unsolved cases mouldered.
Then Nicolas smiled with a sinister expression in his eyes.
"I really don't deserve that.
Peter Draven was quite happy to oblige
me by putting on that little performance.
And he didn't mind obliging
me by bringing you to the Marquez party either."
"Suppose I'd chosen Raoul instead of you?"
Jacey challenged.
The smile returned.
"I wasn't afraid of that, Dr.
Muldaire.
Raoul would bore you.
I've
told you before, you need a man like me.
And you know it.
You come
running when I call you, because you enjoy it."
He opened the nearest
locker.
"And now I must get changed.
I have a meeting with Hernandez in an
hour."
"And how about a meeting with me?
From my point of view, this one
hasn't been very satisfying."
He smiled at her condescendingly.
"I'll call you.
When I have some time to spare."
He slung a towel
over his shoulder.
"Make sure you're available.
I don't like being kept waiting,
particularly by women.
And especially when I want sex."
Chapter Five.
Jacey's anger simmered for the next few days.
It hurt to have her
suspicions about Peter Draven confirmed.
Whatever his reasons, he had
used her.
She would have broken off their relationship herself, if it
had become necessary to do so.
But she would have had a legitimate
excuse: she was not a free agent.
She needed information, and she had
to take any opportunity she was offered in order to get it.
And I
would have made it a gentle break, she thought.
Peter had no excuses.
He had left without an explanation.
I trusted him, and he used me.
Like Faisel, she realised.
She did not want to remember Faisel, but she could not banish the
memory now her mind had dredged it up.
At their last meeting, Faisel
was sitting between his glacially beautiful mother, and his Savile Row
suited father.
Faisel listening mutely as his parents spelled out her
fate.
He let them calmly tell me how they intended to ruin my life,
she thought.
She had hated him, then.
Wondered why she ever found him
attractive.
Wondered how she could have believed she was in love.
She remembered the cold, hard knot of anger in her stomach, when she
realised that she was powerless.
Faisel's family could do what they
liked.
She was in a foreign country, and alone.
She had felt naked
and helpless.
It was horrible, frustrating, and infuriating.
She made
a vow never to be put in that position again.
In the future she would
always be in control of her own life.
She had also been determined never to fall in love again, either.
It
had been an easy resolution to keep in the early years.
The pressure
of work kept her from thinking about the past.
She took up her studies
again, qualified, and became an overworked junior hospital doctor.
There wasn't much time for romance during that period, even if she had
wanted it.
Most of her leisure time was spent sleeping.
She had a few
one-night stands with fellow doctors, but they meant nothing.
Anton
had been her first steady relationship, and she had been honest with
him about not wanting a long-term commitment.
She leant back in her chair, and sighed.
Not that he had taken any
notice.
He could not accept the idea of a woman who did not want to
get married.
He would probably have made a good husband, she
thought.
She tried to imagine waking up and seeing him every morning.
Chatting
about work, discussing what they were going to do that evening.
Anton
would probably take his lead from her, accept what she wanted.
And
perhaps that was the problem, she thought.
He was far too nice.
If I
had to live with him, I'd be bored to tears in a couple of months.