Fearless (24 page)

“Maybe you need a little more incentive,” he says. “Next time you miss, instead of spanking you with my hand, I'm going to use a paddle.”

Every muscle below my navel quivers with anticipation. Before I have time to process this new development, the bullet vibrates inside me intensely.

“Ten,” I say definitively.

“Very good,” he says. Something vibrates directly against my clitoris and I moan as the sensation quickly drives me toward the edge of orgasm.

“Not yet, Angel,” Beckett murmurs as the sensation abruptly stops. He plants a kiss on one flaming cheek and then the other. He is clearly enjoying tormenting me.

The vibrator hums to life again and I try to concentrate, which is becoming increasingly difficult since I know what is going to happen if I guess wrong.

Beckett caresses my backside. “I'm waiting,” he admonishes.

“Uh, five?” I breathe.

The vibrating stops and Beckett clucks sympathetically. “Ah, Angel, that was only a four,” he says.

I whimper as excitement, hot and heavy, sears through me. Even though I know it's coming, the heavy thud of the paddle connecting with my flesh takes me by surprise. It's wildly erotic and I inhale sharply. The vibrator starts again.

“Two?”

Whack. My mind tries to absorb the pain that so quickly morphs into pleasure. I close my legs as the vibrator comes to life again inside me.

“Eight,” I guess.

“Open your legs,” he orders forcefully, and I reluctantly do as he commands, my breath coming in quick huffs. Smack. My bottom is starting to burn, but I can feel the ball of need gathering in my center.

The vibrator pulses faster.

“Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten,” I say quickly in one breath.

Beckett laughs and the sound makes my heart expand.

“Alright, Angel,” he says, and then the vibrator is once again pressed against my sensitive nub, driving me higher and higher while the bullet continues to pulse inside me. I'm breathing so hard I'm practically hyperventilating the sensation is so sweet. He hits me again with the paddle, once, twice, three times more, and I come undone, the orgasm seemingly endless as it ricochets through me.

Later, as we lay spent together on my bed, our arms and legs entwined, Beckett asks, “What's your schedule with Nikki for the summer?”

“I need a spreadsheet to keep it all straight,” I groan. “She leaves on Monday for volleyball camp. Tim picks her up on Saturday and has her for a few days and then she flies to Colorado to see my brother, who will drive her to San Diego. I'll join her there the following Saturday.”

“Then come to Las Vegas with me next week,” Beckett says.

“I can't,” I protest. “I have probably one more interview to do with your dad next week and I have to have an outline to his agent by Friday. Plus, I can't just go to Las Vegas at the last minute. It would cost a fortune.”

“Let me worry about that,” he says. “It's a two week conference, but I'll be free during the weekend. Fly out and we'll spend the weekend together.”

He kisses me with exquisite tenderness and I'm lost. I know I should stay home and work on the book but I can't deny him anything, especially when he is looking at me with those eyes that could thaw ice. Plus, I'll be leaving for San Diego right after he gets back and the thought of not seeing him for almost six weeks seems impossible. With Nikki and Beckett both gone, I should be able to get a lot accomplished before the weekend so I can go with a clear conscience.

“I guess I could,” I say, considering. “If I work non-stop next week.”

“Good,” he says, nipping my ear lobe. “I like the thought of you being busy. That way I'll know you're staying out of trouble while I'm gone.”

I scrape my nails lightly over his chest, making him groan. “I never get in trouble,” I say indignantly. “I've always been the good girl. At least I was until I met you.”

“Exactly,” he says, rolling me onto my back and bracing himself on his forearms over me as he leans down to kiss me. “I may have created an insatiable monster.”

“Only when it comes to you,” I whisper.

After dropping Nikki off at the airport, I throw myself into organizing my notes for Dr. Black's memoir and formulating an outline, stopping only to eat and sleep, and even then only when absolutely necessary. When I arrive at his house on Tuesday, I'm pretty sure it will be the last interview I'll need.

I fill him in on the progress I've made over the weekend, assuring him that the proposal will be ready to go to his agent the following week.

“Excellent,” he says. “I'm not going to know what to do with my Tuesdays and Thursdays now, though.”

“Me either,” I say sadly. I'm going to miss him.

“So,” I begin, setting up my tape recorder. “You never told me how Griffin survived. Did he not have leukemia after all?”

The old man leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers. His eyes suddenly look weary. “Oh yes,” he says. “I knew we'd get to this.”

Taking a deep breath, he continues. “It really was leukemia. I had sent blood samples to my research partner, and I brought more home with me and had them tested in the lab, just to be sure. When I saw the boy three years later, so robust and healthy, I couldn't believe my eyes. I asked around the village, but no one could tell me anything other than that the spirits had spared him. Of course, as a scientist I knew something huge had to have killed the cancer cells, and I knew if I could find out what I might make medical history.

“His mother, who would have been the best source of information, had been dead for several years, and as I told you last week, the rest of the tribe gave the two brothers a wide berth. Aleron and the rest of the villagers I had lived among had had little contact with the boys' tribe during the years I was gone, and Aleron was as surprised as I was when he found out the boy was alive. Everything hinged on the memory of a seven-year-old little boy.”

I sit up straighter in my chair. Of course the seven-year-old boy he's referring to is Beckett.

“Such a serious little soul he was, with watchful brown eyes that missed nothing. It took a while for me to win his confidence. I started following him to the river where he fished and after a while, when I didn't go away, he started showing me how to fly fish. We spent a lot of time on the banks of that river.” Dr. Black lips curl up at the memory. “One day I told him I had visited his village long ago when his brother was very sick, and I casually mentioned that I wondered how his brother had gotten better.

“It turns out he remembered it quite well. He told me how his mother had sent him deep into the forest to bring back the leaves of a guanabana tree. She boiled them to make a tea that she gave to his brother. Every few days Beckett went to gather more leaves, and every day his mother made the tea, his brother drank it, and the little boy got better.

“What's curious is that, as I mentioned before, there were several other children in the same and neighboring villages that it appears had also contracted leukemia, most likely from their exposure to the chemical spill that had occurred in the area. Because it was not known at the time how many native tribes were near the sight of the spill, officials had said the spill occurred in an unpopulated area and that there was no impact on human life. This was clearly not true, but that's neither here nor there now.

“When Griffin improved so drastically, the other children were given the same tea brewed from the guanabana leaves. However some failed to recover, and the others that did live improved at a much slower rate than Griffin. It seemed clear to me that the guanabana leaves had undoubtedly been what had saved Griffin, but why Griffin's recovery was so dramatic remains one of the greatest mysteries of my career, and one that I have resigned myself to possibly never understanding.

“Nonetheless, the possibility of the guanabana as a potential cure for cancer was there. It is believed that the healing properties of the tree are most potent during the month of May, so maybe he just benefitted from the increased potency, but his recovery was so quick and absolute that I can't help but think there is something more, some piece of the puzzle that will, sadly, forever be missing.

“But I digress. We came back to the states with two sons and another was born six months later. I devoted the next twenty years of my life to researching graviola, the substance that comes from the guanabana tree, as a potential treatment for cancer. Our research was groundbreaking. We found that the twigs and leaves of the tree that the boys' mother had used contain thirty acetogenins which can target and kill specific cells. That means it can starve the cancer cell of energy so it can't continue to divide, ultimately killing the cancer cell.

My head is spinning as I try to grasp what he is saying. “So this substance from the guanabana tree really has the potential to cure cancer?” I ask incredulously.

“I believe it does,” Dr. Black states.

“Then why isn't it widely used to treat cancer now? What happened?” I can't comprehend why this information isn't public knowledge.

“After my preliminary research, the National Cancer Institute performed its own research and found that the leaves and stems of the Brazilian Paw Paw tree, as it's also called, are effective in attacking and destroying malignant cells. Furthermore, they don't harm the healthy cells like chemotherapy does. However, the results were never released to the public. Since then, more than twenty independent laboratories have performed tests that confirm it is a potent cancer killer and is 330 times more potent than Taxol, which is a popular chemotherapy drug. But double-blind clinical trials—which is the way mainstream doctors and journals judge a treatment's potential—have never been done. To complicate matters, a few tests indicated that graviola might cause neurological problems.”

“That's amazing,” I breathe, completely stunned. “Why haven't there been those double-blind clinical trials?”

Dr. Black sighs. “Because graviola is natural. Under federal law it is not patentable, which means that no one can make any money off of it. One of the largest pharmaceutical companies tried to create a drug that mimicked the graviola leaves, but when they were unable to duplicate it all research was ended. Sadly, the large drug companies do not want to fund research for a treatment they can't make a profit from. Some even say that the pharmaceutical companies have actually tried to block graviola from getting FDA approval.”

I try to absorb the magnitude of what Dr. Black has just revealed. There exists a potential cure for cancer in the Amazon rainforest and Griffin's remarkable recovery, coupled with Dr. Black's research and the research of dozens of other scientist have proven its potential, yet because no one will fund clinical trials it remains untapped while people die? It seems criminal.

“How is that possible?” I ask, enraged. “People are dying who could be cured. Someone should do something!”

Dr. Black smiles sadly at me. “It is available as a natural remedy, although many people don't know about it, and there are enough warnings out there to prevent only the most desperate or brave from trying it. And of course there are the concerns about neurological damage, even though that has not conclusively been proven or disproved with clinical trials. I'm afraid at this point there would have to be some very compelling evidence to open the door on researching graviola more, and even then, we would be up against the big drug companies trying to stop us. If only I knew what Griffin's mother might have done differently…..” he trails off, deep in thought. Finally he takes a deep breath and says, “But I have done all that I can and I am proud of the legacy I have left the medical community. Thank you for hearing my story.”

“You have so much to be proud of,” I tell him. “I'm honored that you trust me to tell your story. I promise I will do my best to do it justice.”

I spend the rest of the week making sense of my notes and interviews, slowly putting together the bare bones of Dr. Black's memoir that I will flesh out in the coming weeks. Following some advice I picked up at a writer's conference several years ago, I have mapped the various points of the story line on post-it notes that I can move around, and there are post-it notes covering my bathroom mirror.

By the time I sink into the first class seat on my way to Las Vegas, I'm glad I let Beckett convince me to take this mini vacation. I'm definitely ready for a break from working nonstop on the book, but more importantly, I've missed him. We've talked every day, but I hunger for the touch of his hands on my body, his lips on mine.

Beckett told me that he wouldn't be finished at the conference until late afternoon so he has sent a limousine to pick me up. I relax back into the plush leather seat on the short drive from the airport, thinking about the improbability of my insatiable need for him given that until four weeks ago I hadn't had sex in two years, and before that my idea of a perfect night of sex was missionary style that was over in less than 15 minutes so that I could get some sleep.