Sociopath? (32 page)

“Well, Vic, I’m not the most reliable
e-mailer so I’m not saying how often it will be, but I’ll e-mail
you sometimes. And you have my cell phone number so you can always
call me.”

“You hardly ever have your cell phone on,
Rafe.”

“Yes, but it goes to voicemail and I’ll call
you back. So have you put an ad in the paper for the carriage house
yet?”

“No, not yet, and maybe not this year. We
can’t stand to think of anyone living there but you.”

They both gave Hawk a hug too and then he was
gone.

“It feels like the sun just went behind a
cloud, Chas, and I have a feeling it’s going to be that way a
while.”

“Do you think we have Empty Nest Syndrome,
Vic?”

*

They packed a picnic lunch and rode up to the
Cabin. He’d teased her all along the way while they were still
riding along, reaching over to run his hand between her legs or
under her blouse. Before they ever got there, he had her top
unbuttoned, her bra unfastened and her jeans unsnapped so that she
could hardly wait to dismount, tie up Des and Lisbon and get
through the door to throw her arms around him.

He pulled her away though and went to sit on
the corduroy sofa.

“Undress for me, Lane. Don’t rush. I want to
watch.”

“Rafe…,” she was panting a little but he
shook his head.

“No, we’re going to do it my way.”

So she slowly took off her blouse and slipped
her bra over her arms, then removed her boots and socks, before
pulling down her jeans and sliding out of her underwear.

“God, Lane, do you know how beautiful you’ve
become?”

From his sitting position, he ran his
fingertips across her breasts and down her belly and lightly across
her mound and thighs as she stood trembling before him.

He stood. “Now undress me. Don’t hurry with
that either.”

Her hands were clumsy with desire as she
undid the buttons of his shirt, kissing his nipples as she slid it
off his shoulders. Then she unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans and
tugged them around around his ankles before doing the same with his
shorts. He sat again so she could pull off his boots and socks and
get his pants off. Kneeling, she kissed the tip of his hard cock
and ran her tongue around the head.

“Lie down on the rug on your belly.”

She could sense him coming over her, then
felt kisses so teasingly light she had to concentrate to actually
know they were there, on her neck and down her back and onto her
butt. It had the effect up making her want to lift herself higher,
to bring herself closer to his mouth. He slid his finger inside her
but only once. Just enough to bring her to the very cusp of a
climax, then postponing its completion.

“Roll over, Sweetie.”

“Please, Rafe, please, I can’t wait any
longer.”

“Yes, you can, Lane, you can wait.”

Now his tongue tickled her ears and her mouth
and down her neck, darting across her nipples, making its way down
her belly and her inner thighs. He held her open as it went dancing
across her clit and around her labia.

“Do you want me to make you come, Laney?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Tell me how much you love me first.”

“Whatever the highest number in the world is,
Rafe, I love you way more that that!”

And then his mouth homed in on her sweet
spott and her legs curled around his neck and her back arched and
she flew to heaven and as she was floating downward, he put his
cock inside her and started his slow stroking, and she went right
back again.

*

He sat up and gave her a light smack on the
ass. “Get up and get the lunch stuff out, Lane. Don’t get dressed
though. I want to be able to reach out and touch you.” He put one
hand on her breast, circling his fingertip around her nipple. “Like
this.” His hand moved down to massage her butt cheek. “Or
this.”

“Don’t start, Rafe, if you really want me to
get up.”

He laughed. “I do. I’m hungry. Go on
now.”

They sat naked around the oak pedestal table,
chowing down on croissants filed with lobster salad and deviled
eggs and big pieces of cheesecake, all of which they’d found in the
cooler when they raided it.

“So, Rafe, do you think I made a good
decision to go to Skidmore?”

“Sure, Honey. It’s probably not as far away
as I’d have gone if I’d been able to choose but at least it’s the
mountains, completely different scenery than here, and far enough
away, you won’t still feel like you’re at home. I’m going to get my
pilot’s license so I’ll be able to fly up to see you.”

“It’s going to seem strange to flip positions
with me gone and you here at home alone.”

“Except it doesn’t bother me to be alone and
I probably won’t be home that much anyway.”

“Is all you’re going to do is race, Rafe?
Full-time, I mean?”

“I guess. I can’t think of anything else. Can
you picture me as a banker or a chemist or a teacher?” (He’d
graduated with a double major in Math and Science and a minor in
English Lit - haha.)

She giggled. “No, I can’t see you as any of
those things, Rafe, although you’d probably be a good teacher. All
the girls would be in love with you and all the boys would want to
be like you.”

“Well, I don’t think instructing the kiddies
is my cup of tea so I guess I’ll race unless something else comes
along I think I’d like better.”

He looked around the room. He didn’t know how
old the cabin was. Certainly it had been here ever since he could
remember but he thought it dated back at least to their
Grandfather, who’d had sort of an obsession with Vincennes history.
Maybe this cabin was supposed to represent the first Vincennes
settlers who had to rough it to make it in America. Except Rafe
didn’t think any Vincennes had had to rough it since oh, maybe, the
Dark Ages. So far as he could tell, the American branch of the
family had been rich from day one.

Of course, Renny had maintained it, replacing
the roof and the old chinking with some new modern miracle material
that looked like the old but was longer lasting and more
weatherproof. He was the one who wired it for electricity and added
the bathroom with the whirlpool tub and the oak linen closet and
the long sink and mirror. Magdelene had renovated the rest of the
inside, although keeping the rustic look, so the kitchen featured
granite countertops and bricked floors, and all the modern
conveniences. The centerpiece of the living room was still the
enormous stone fireplace that took up one end of the cabin and the
inner walls of the whole place still gave the appearance of logs
and open beams but Rafe knew it had been insulated, so the outside
logs and the inside logs weren’t the same. Because, of course, you
had to be able to keep the place warm, both to protect the modern
plumbing, and also so you could lay comfortably naked on the rug as
he and Laney had just done (not that it was a problem this time of
year) and sometimes you wanted to get right to it without taking
the time to build a fire. After all, that’s why the place existed,
at least in modern times, not as a monument to the Vincennes
pioneer spirit, but as a monument to Vincennes lust - in the case
of Renny and Magdelene, a place where they could indulge themselves
away from their kids and in the case of the kids, so they could
gratify their needs away from their parents.

Rafe thought maybe that was always the excuse
for the cabin because the bedroom was the biggest room in the place
and he didn’t think that was usually the case with the typical
humble abode of preceding generations. It was plenty big enough for
the four-poster bed that dominated the room and some tables and
chairs and lamps besides.

“Between Mom and Dad and all of us, I wonder
how many sex acts this cabin has seen? I bet it would put some
whorehouses to shame,” he remarked.

“How many girls did you ever bring here,
Rafe?”

“Oh, hell, I’ve never tried to keep track.
Lots, and lots more other places. You know, though, Lane, I’ve
actually only slept with two women - you and everyone else. The
rest of them are sort of lumped together into one generic
female.”

“God, we’re so different, aren’t we,
Rafe?”

“We’re exact opposites of one another, Lane -
light and dark, good and evil,” he agreed, pulling her to him. “You
know, in any contest between good and evil, evil almost always
wins. Let’s see if it does this time?”

*

Chester was puffed with pride. His discovery
was making waves in the racing world. Chet had already worked a
deal with the Corydon Racing Team, owned by Ron Corydon, who’d been
a friend of his for many years. He’d sold Ron on the idea that Rafe
was the best young driver he’d ever trained. Rafe would be driving
for them in three Busch series races early in the Nascar season. If
he did well, maybe they’d eventually consider giving him a
full-time ride. If he kept winning the way he was, Chet could
imagine Rafe at the top of the heap in a few years. Chet didn’t
know what that meant for himself. He’d have to release Rafe because
Chet had no illusions about where he fit into the scheme of things.
He was strictly small-time. There was no way he could compete in
the big leagues. Still, Rafe was so disinterested in anything
except actually being behind the wheel of a car that he thought he
could convince Rafe to hire him as a full-time manager. Well,
they’d see how that worked out when the time came. He was getting a
little ahead of himself.

The fan club was thrilled too. They thought
they owned Rafe and when he won, it reflected on them. It was like
they’d had the foresight to get in on the beginning of something
that was going to turn out to be huge, like buying a stock no one
has ever heard of and then later, it becomes Microsoft. They’d
started collecting dues to put in a travel fund. Jeri said when he
hit the NASCAR circuit, they’d use their tried and true
drawing-names-out-of-a-hat method to see who got to go. Their
membership had grown so large there was no longer any possibility
that all of them would eventually get to spend the night with Rafe,
as had been the case when they were just a handful. Now it was more
like the odds of winning a lottery. Still, someone won the lottery
so…. Jeri herself was back in contention because after you’d had
your turn, two years later, your name went back in the hat
again.

*

“Mr York? Rafe Vincennes here. You left a
message on my voice mail to call you?”

“Oh, yes, Mr Vincennes, I’ve been eager to
talk to you. Do you think we could make an appointment to get
together next week?”

“What is it you want to talk to me
about?”

“We’re convinced you’re perfect for a role in
a film we’re getting ready to start production on.”

“A film?” Rafe asked blankly.

“Yes, but I’d rather tell you the details in
person. I could fly in whenever you say.”

“Fly in from where?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Are you sure you called the right person, Mr
York?”

“Oh, yes, Mr Vincennes, quite sure.”

“Well, my weekdays are fairly free, except
for Thursday when I have flying lessons. Why don’t you just come on
into Baltimore. I’d recommend the Renaissance, the Marriott or the
Radisson. Just give me a call when you get there and I’ll meet
you.”

“That sounds great. I’m anxious to talk to
you so why don’t we tentatively shoot for dinner on Monday night.
If my secretary advises me that’s not good, I’ll call and let you
know you, but I’d really like to do it then.”

“I’m always around. Let me know.”

Rafe shook his head in amusement. “What the
hell?”

*

Gribben York was exactly what you expected
from a, well, Rafe wasn’t sure what his title was, but a
representative of a film studio anyway, Benchmark Productions.
Perfectly barbered golden blonde hair, sky blue eyes (colored
contacts?), tanning bed brown skin, muscular build that Rafe
assumed was helped along by the professional expertise of a
personal trainer, designer jeans with a pale blue silk shirt and
and fawn leather jacket, along with a thin gold Rolex watch, a
large diamond ring and a smile that held all the sincerity of a
cobra right before it sinks its fangs into you.

Still, as far as Rafe was concerned, that
didn’t necessarily mean their interests might not converge
somewhere along the line.

“My friends call me Grib,” he told Rafe,
showing his orthodontist-enhanced perfect white teeth.

“My friends call me Rafe,” showing an even
whiter, but perfectly natural smile.

Gribben York had delusions of grandeur if he
thought he could out-insincere Rafe.

“So, Grib, lay it on me.”

“We’ve got a project everyone is fired up
about. It’s been kicking around for a while until we got all the
different elements put together - financing, casting, locations,
writers. The two stars have already signed on. Preston Buckley will
be the male lead and Rhiannon, the female lead.”

Rafe whistled. Preston Buckley had won an
Oscar last year for his portrayal of Franklin Roosevelt. Everyone
knew Rhiannon, of course. She was one of those people so famous,
she only used her first name. She’d been Hollywood’s darling for a
while now. Just her presence automatically guaranteed any movie
would be a hit. She had a reputation for being tempestuous and
demanding as well as delectably gorgeous with her heart-shaped face
framed by dark chocolate curls, smoky gray eyes and a sensuously
full mouth, punctuated by a charming beauty spot, that made every
straight man who saw it dream of kissing her.

“Exactly,” Grib agreed. “You’ll be playing
with the heavyweights if you do this, Rafe. We’ve been trying to
cast the part we have you in mind for all along but nothing has
come together. We offered it to a couple of people. One had a
scheduling conflict and the other wouldn’t take anything but a
starring role. No one else struck us as being right for the
part.”