Authors: Stella Cameron
"Zoya—"
"Lift her," she snapped, and pulled the teddy all the way off when he did so. "Now it's your turn. Show time."
"Forget it." He raised his palms and backed away. "I've had it with this scene."
"Don't tell me you've never done a threesome before."
"Not this way." He realized what he'd said and whispered, "Shit!"
"Always a first time. Come on," she wheedled. "Or are you shy?" Hoisting herself to sit beside Maryan's flaccid form, she rested one elbow on the mattress and teased tight swirls of dark pubic hair.
"You're sick." York walked away and rested his fists on a wall. He dropped his head forward. "Messing with a woman who can't defend herself."
Keeping him in sight, Zoya felt for the trigger point between Maryan's legs. "Let's see if we can get her attention."
"Stop it!" Ron demanded, pushing away from the wall and approaching. "If she comes to she'll blame me for this."
"Get naked."
"The hell I will."
She fondled one of Maryan's heavy breasts. "Do it, Ronnie. Or I'll strip and tell Maryan you forced me." In one swift move she sat astride Maryan's hips.
Ron rammed a hand into his hair. "Oh, my God." He pulled his tank over his head and threw it aside.
Zoya began stimulating Maryan.
The blue shorts met their mate and Ron stood, naked, muscular, and bronzed all over—and erect.
She laughed. "None of this is a turn on, huh?" She pointed at him. "And that's a mirage."
"You've had your fun, now go."
"I've hardly begun having fun. Get over here."
With obvious reluctance, he let her take his hand and pull him close. "Relax," she told him. "All I want you to do is lie down with your keeper."
Anger twisted his features, but he did as she instructed and climbed past her to lie beside Maryan.
It was all going to work. Zoya grinned her triumph. After weeks of terror, of watching everything she'd worked for dwindle away, she was seeing sunshine on her future.
Abandoning Maryan, she hopped to the floor and wriggled quickly out of her swimsuit.
"What the hell?—"
"Hush"—with a finger to her lips, she skirted the bed until she could kneel on the mattress beside him—"this is our lucky night, Ron. After tonight we're on our way to the big leagues."
"Maryan's going to chew you up, baby."
He didn't as much as look at her body—but what else could she expect? She'd enjoy using him anyway. "Don't worry about Maryan." Bending, she filled her mouth with him and bit hard enough to bring him jackknifing over her back.
Laughing, she wrestled with him, grabbing, as she knew so well how to grab, and screaming when he fought her off with slaps. He took her breasts in his big hands and squeezed them as if they were oranges and he was a man thirsty for juice.
She waited for the right moment and threw a leg over him. He was deep inside her before she fully caught his attention.
"Bitch!" he said through his teeth. He arched his chest off the bed. "Bitch!"
Two thrusts and he ejaculated, and Zoya bounced off him, glancing at Maryan to gauge the depth of her stupor.
"Hurry up," she told Ron. "Get up and do as I tell you."
"Let me be," he mumbled.
"You got more out of that than I did." She leaned to retrieve
the robe belt and shoved it into Ron's hand. "I always get my full share. Tie my wrists to the bed."
"Fuck off."
Pressure, applied behind a trapezius muscle, got his full, yelping attention. Zoya kept her sharp fingers digging into his shoulder until he slid to the floor, moaning.
"Up," she told him. "I'm it, Ronnie, your salvation, or your destruction. Take your pick."
He staggered to his feet.
Gripping a vertical bar in the brass bed head, Zoya stretched out on her back. "Do it."
"No."
"Okay. Let's make this clearer. It's you or her. Tie me up and I'll swear you did it because she insisted. Refuse and I'll tell her you raped me while she was unconscious. Take your pick."
His chest rose and fell. "My God, you're evil."
"And you're a choirboy?"
He tied her wrists to the bed, yanking the belt hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. "What now?" he asked.
"Now we make a lovely threesome in this bed until Maryan comes to and starts screaming. Then I cry, and you protest, and I back you up. We did what she insisted we do. And I tell her I know all her little secrets. End result? We make very sure Bliss Winters isn't a problem, and Maryan becomes our golden goose. Sound good."
He chewed his bottom lip. "I don't like it."
"You don't have any choices, so let's enjoy it. Come to me, baby. Once more for the hell of it." She parted her legs and raised her hips. "What d'you say, Ronnie?"
Without taking his eyes from hers, he climbed onto the bed. "I say, fuck yourself, baby." He lay on his side and pinched her nipples, and spread a heavy leg over her thighs.
Zoya writhed. "Oh, yes. Oooh, yes. Now. I want it now!"
"Sometimes we don't get what we want," Ron said, rolling until she looked at his back. "See you in the morning."
Sixteen
Sleep wasn't an option.
Bliss stared at the Delft clock. Late and getting later.
Fabiola and Polly's mother had brought the kitchen clock back from a trip she'd made to Holland with her belly dancing class.
Lots of freshly laundered shirts smelled of starch. All freshly laundered shirts probably smelled of starch.
Sebastian wouldn't deliberately frighten her.
Would he?
Why would he?
Why would he frighten her, tell her to stay away from him, then make love to her?
She'd never felt before what she'd felt with Sebastian tonight.
But trust had to be built, to be earned. He'd given her more reasons to distrust than to trust him.
But they'd made such love.
Seated in a chair at the kitchen table, she folded her hands behind her head and gazed at the ceiling. She felt his hands on her, felt his body pressed to hers, inside hers, his mouth . . .
From outside, Spike's bark sounded an instant before someone hammered at the door.
Bliss got up and went to shoot the bolt open.
"You didn't even ask who was out here," Fab said, charging in, her face flushed. "You're too trusting, Bliss. It isn't safe."
Barely getting out of Spike's gambolling way, Bliss leaned
against the nearest counter. "What is it? Did you forget your key to the bungalow?"
Bursts of whispers came from the terrace.
Fabiola put a finger to her lips. "This is probably dumb, but how long have you been back?"
"Maybe an hour?" Bliss shrugged. "I'm not sure to the minute."
With Liberty clutching his bare arm, Vic entered the kitchen. His gray hair streamed down his oiled back. Bobby—in his pajamas—ran ahead of Polly, and Venus Crow put in one of her rare appearances.
"Mom's spending a few days with us," Polly said, sounding uncomfortable. "Hope you don't mind."
"You know I don't mind," Bliss said truthfully. Venus never failed to amuse and entertain her. The twins' mother had permanently adopted the traditional belly dancing garb she wore tonight—including a veiled headdress that all but masked her round face.
Naked to the waist of his black leather jeans, Vic closed the door and peered through a window into the darkness. "Quiet everyone." He turned out the lights and shone a small flashlight beam at the floor. "No one talks but me. Listen closely because I'm going to whisper."
"Vic—"
"Hush," he said, interrupting Bliss. "Did you hear the bell?"
Her scalp tingled instantly. "What bell?"
"A bell," Bobby said in a hoarse whisper that ended in a squeak. "There's a bell ringing out there."
"Shh, Bobby," Polly said. "Let Vic explain."
Polly disliked Vic. Just hearing her defer to him made Bliss nervous.
"I was working," Vic said.
"We were working," Liberty corrected him.
Fabiola said, "We can imagine."
"She's jealous."
Vic shushed Liberty. "That's enough, girls."
"Girls," Fabiola hissed. "The asshole called us—"
"Fab!" Bliss was horrified. "Bobby's here."
"Sorry."
Bobby said, "I'm not listening."
"I'll try again." Vic expelled a loud breath. "We were working and it was pretty quiet. But I think we'd have missed it if we hadn't had the windows open. A bell—like a china bell, or something—tinkling. You know the sound. It would ring, then stop. Ring, then stop. Finally Lib and I went outside to listen. It was pretty close, we thought, but we couldn't see anything."
"Maybe you imagined it," Bliss said, not without hope.
Vic flipped back his hair. "It's really important for you feminist gurus to turn the tables on a man, isn't it?"
"By suggesting you've got an imagination?" It was understood that Bliss didn't appreciate having her academic field used against her. "I'll repeat, maybe you only thought you heard a bell."
Spike pushed a cold, wet nose into her hand and she jumped violently.
"That's what we said," Fabiola told her. "Mom thinks so, too, don't you, Mom?"
"That Vic merely imagined what he heard—no," Venus Crow announced in her full voice. "That what he heard was the result of a deep, subliminal connection to an extraterrestrial aura— absolutely. This type of linking is not unusual among people of exceptional intuitive powers."
"Oh, for God's sake," Liberty muttered.
"In your case," Venus said, "You probably thought you heard what Victor heard, simply because you are accustomed to living through his intensely sensual nature. An intensely sensual man would be very likely to intercept signals from other-worldly beings—such as the sound of a celestial bell."
"Celestial bell, my ass," Liberty said curtly. "This bell was outside Vic's cabin. I don't know anything about the shit you're spouting."
"Liberty!" Bliss said. "Please!"
"Yeah, right, the kid. Sorry."
A bell ringing in the night? Had she mentioned the previous incident to anyone, to Vic? She didn't think so.
"We stood and listened," Vic went on. "There would be silence for a few seconds. Then it would ring again. It got more distant, then closer, then more distant."
"Like it was beckoning to us," Liberty said.
"Garbage," Polly announced.
"They don't know what happened," Liberty said to Bliss. "They weren't there. We went for them on the way back. The other two, those two poets, are away for the weekend. We thought we should all be together to decide what to do."
"Call the police," Polly said promptly.
Bobby squealed and shouted, "Yeah, call the police!"
"Silence," Venus demanded. "There may be a spirit in need of help."
"Oh, Mom," Polly said, "you'll frighten Bobby."
"We followed in the direction we thought the ringing came from," Vic said. "It went toward the cliff—or seemed to."
Bliss waited, and when Vic didn't continue, she said, "Then what?"
Vic cleared his throat. "This feels really stupid."
"It is really stupid."
"Fab," Bliss pleaded. "Let's get through this."
"Someone laughed," Liberty said. Her throat made a noise as she swallowed. "It was weird. A really horrible laugh, like something out of a bad movie or something. A kind of gurgling laugh that gradually faded."
"Look," Vic said. "It seemed to us that the laugh fell. Does that make any sense to anyone?"
"Why are we all standing in the dark?" Polly asked. "Why—"
"Because if we turn on the light we can be seen from outside, while we can't see out," Vic said shortly. "That's an advantage I'd rather not give right now."
"Because you heard a falling laugh?" Fabiola sounded disgusted. "That's ridiculous."
"What if it wasn't a laugh?" Liberty said. "What if it was some sort of gurgling noise as someone fell? Down the hole, maybe? What if they were pushed? What if the person who pushed them is out there?"
"Call the police," Polly repeated.
Bliss moved. "Wait here." She sped from the kitchen and upstairs to her room. Making her way between shapes illuminated by a cloud-dulled moon, she went to her bedside table and felt over the surface. Her fingers closed on the Steuben bell and she let out the breath she'd been holding.
What would it have proved if the bell hadn't been there? She didn't know, but finding it was a relief anyway.
When she went back into the kitchen, Vic's flashlight picked out a row of feet lined up, one pair behind the other. Bliss frowned. "Now what?"
"We've got to go out there and check around," Liberty said. "Someone might be lying injured in the dark."
"I still say we ought to call the police."
"Not without looking around first," Vic said to Polly. "They'd just tell us we were hysterical—if they agreed to come at all."
"Why are you standing one behind the other?" Bliss asked.
Bobby said, "I want to go, too."
"You'll stay with Nanny," Polly told him. "Pull out the so-fabed in the great room, Mom."
"I am Venus to all," the older woman said. "Love embodied in woman. Come with Venus, Bobby. I shall watch over you."
While Polly and Fabiola groaned, Bliss stood aside to let grandmother and grandson pass. Coins clinked on Venus's swishing costume.
"Are we ready?" Vic asked. "I'll go first. I'm not using the flashlight unless I decide it's safe, or I absolutely have to, so we'll have to be very careful where we step. Holding on to each other will help."
"Not if you fall," Fabiola pointed out.
Vic snorted. "I won't fall. Keep absolutely silent. If I say,
run, do it. Just turn around and run for your lives—and call the police. But if I give you the word, I want you to attack."
"Attack?"
"Attack," Vic repeated in response to the collective question. "Leap forward and yell like hell. The only reason I'd ask you to do that would be if I saw something I thought we could scare off. Like an animal."
"Oh, spare me," Fabiola grumbled.
"I agree with Vic," Liberty said.
Polly's distinctive laugh made Bliss smile. "You agree with anything Vic says," she declared. "If he said the sky was green, you'd say you'd always thought so, too."