Текст книги "Tasting Fear"

Автор книги: Shannon McKenna

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

After a moment, she groped for his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I appreciate the fact that you’re interested. I’m probably alive because of it. I just don’t get it. Why is this happening? It’s senseless.”

“Money,” Duncan said.

She looked over at him, blankly. “Huh?”

“Money is why this is happening,” he repeated.

She looked doubtful. “Maybe you haven’t noticed, Duncan, but I don’t have very much of it. Practically none, to be honest.”

He shook his head. “There’s a short list of probable motivations for crimes like this. Insanity, revenge, or money. It doesn’t look like you girls have pissed anyone off that badly—”

“We haven’t,” she cut in. “We’re goody-goody pussycats.”

“And there’s the murdered jeweller and his whole family, too, so I’d strike personal revenge as a motive. We could consider revenge against your mother, but that falls pretty flat, since she’s passed on. Insanity’s a possibility, but there are the references in those letters, to maps, searches, keys, secrets. Whoever this dickhead is, he’s invested time and money watching you, and probably your sisters, too. Whatever Lucia wanted you girls to find? It means big bucks. Very big. And they’re not going to stop till they have it.”

Nell hid her eyes and massaged her temples. “It’s so ironic,” she murmured. “If that’s true. We don’t need this money, wherever it comes from. We don’t give a shit about money. None of us do. All we want is to live our lives in peace. Oh, God. There’s so much to freak out about, I’m in tilt.”

“Don’t think about any of it,” he suggested.

“Slick solution. Neat trick.” There was a smile in her voice. “And just exactly how do you suggest I do that?”

It had been such a weird evening already, he decided one more crazy risk wouldn’t change anything. He lifted her hand, and gave it a long, lingering kiss. “I’ve got a few good ideas,” he said.

She laughed behind her hand, and the vibrations in her shoulders went on for so long, he got scared she was crying again.

“I had no idea I was so damn funny,” he said. “Who knew.”

Her shoulders shook harder. She threw her head back, and wiped her eyes. “It’s not you. I just can’t believe it. I felt safe, in my place, after I put the alarm in. The thing cost a fortune. And the whole while, they were watching me. God, it’s disgusting. How did they get in there?”

“They probably wired the place before you put the alarm in.” He handed her his phone. “Call your sister. If she’s told you where she’s going on that telephone, tell her to change her plans.”

“Oh, God, you’re right,” she whispered. “Vivi.”

She called, and he listened to her garbled, one-sided conversation for the rest of the drive to his Upper West Side condo. The driver pulled over at the lobby entrance. She was still talking as he paid the driver.

“…can’t stay with me there any longer, Viv. Haven’t you been listening? They’ve been watching us all along! We can’t go near the place until we fix this mess. Go to Liam and Nancy’s…Yes, I know, but be a grown-up, Viv. Being a fifth wheel is better than being stuffed into the backseat of a car…. Oh, no, don’t worry about me. I’m staying with a friend.” Her eyes flicked to Duncan. Her voice got defensive. “No, you don’t know him…. Yes, it is a him, okay? And so? What of it?”

Duncan heard a shrill, tinny burst of female verbosity from the telephone, and Nell rolled her eyes and snorted. “If you must know, he’s the one who clobbered the kidnappers for me…. Of course I knew him before! He’s my new boss.” Another impassioned burst from the phone. “Look, Viv, I know it’s crazy, but can we thrash this out another time? Come to the seisìun at Malloy’s tomorrow night with Nancy and Liam, and we’ll talk there, okay?…Of course. You be careful, too.”

She ended the call and handed the phone back. “She’s staying with an old art school friend she met at the fair by chance, so we never discussed it on the bugged phone. Thank God. The Fiend has no line on her there.”

“Could you folks work this out once you’re outside the vehicle?” the driver asked, his voice plaintive. “I got another call. I gotta go.”

Duncan led her into his building, dragging her huge trolley behind him into the elevator. Up thirty-five floors, and he closed the door after her, engaged the chain, the dead bolts, the alarms.

He let out a long, relieved breath. Finally. He had her right where he wanted her.

Chapter

6

Nell looked around, impressed. His apartment was huge, almost empty. Austere to the point of chilliness. Blond wood on the wide expanse of gleaming floor. Three gray couches, grouped in a square around a low table with a vast plasma TV and entertainment console. A big, shadowy kitchen, back in a distant corner. Picture windows with stunning, brilliant cityscapes on two sides. A big terrace. A scattering of black-and-white photographs hung on otherwise blank walls.

“Wow,” she murmured. “Is this place, uh, yours?”

He nodded.

Um. This apartment answered any questions a person might have about how lucrative the business of intelligent data analysis program design had been for him. It beat academia and poetry writing all to hell. Not that it mattered. She hadn’t chosen to be a scholar for money.

He disappeared into the kitchen. Lights flipped on. She heard water running, clattering and clinking. When he came back out, he was holding out a big glass of wine, so densely red it was almost black.

“This stuff will knock you out on an empty stomach, so sip it slowly,” he said. “I’ve got some water on to boil for some artichoke ravioli, and some red sauce. That work for you?”

She laid the flowers down on a table and accepted the glass gratefully. “That sounds like heaven.”

She savored the complex, aromatic wine as she gazed at the photographs. They were stark, dynamic, full of high contrasts. One showed a young man diving off a cliff into a lake. He was still upright, his body starting to jackknife, his face a grimace of concentration.

She peered more closely and realized that it was Duncan’s brother, Bruce.

She took a closer look at all of them. There was a young girl, curled up asleep, her mouth open. The same girl again, older, laughing, swinging on a rope swing, hair flying like a banner. She was pretty, with the same narrow face and uptilting eyebrows as Duncan. Then a photograph of a handsome older woman in profile, staring off a porch, smoking a cigarette. She looked like Bruce. Mother. Family.

There were landscapes, too. Deserts and mountains, barren and stark. Cruelly sharp contrasts of light and shadow made them almost like moonscapes. They were lonely, strange, aching. Very personal.

She called back to the kitchen. “Did you take the pictures?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re beautiful,” she said. “Is there one of your father here?”

He came out of the kitchen and leaned against the entryway, sipping his wine. “No. He’s long gone. Haven’t seen him in years. Off in California, working on his fifth wife. She’s welcome to him.”

“Oh.” She stared down into the cup of bloodred wine. “I think I can one-up you there. I doubt my father even knows of my existence.”

“No? Your mom kept it a secret from him?”

“In a manner of speaking. Are these landscapes Afghanistan?”

His brow furrowed. “What do you know about Afghanistan?”

“Bruce told me you were stationed there. That you were a spy.”

He grunted. “Bruce babbles about things he knows shit about.”

“So? Did you take them there?” she prodded him, staring at a picture of jagged mountain peaks, the sun a blazing halo behind them.

“Yes, most of them,” he said.

“Was that where you learned to fight like that?” she asked.

He hesitated. “More or less.”

“Amazing photos,” she offered. “I wouldn’t have dreamed that you had an artistic side.”

He looked uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

“Heaven forbid that you engage in something as frivolous as art.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you busting my balls?”

“No. I just like your pictures. I like what they say about you.”

He looked alarmed. “What do you mean? What do they say?”

“Relax,” she soothed. “I couldn’t tell you in words. I can’t discuss visual art intelligently. I just…I like the way they make me feel.”

A cautious smile started in his narrowed eyes. “Thank you.”

Duncan slowly lifted his glass. She lifted her own in response. Toasting rare, delicate perfect moments of connection, the kind that got her worked up and longing for things she could not have. The tinkle of crystal was a chime, sweet and faint as a blown kiss. The sound of an unspoken pact, delicately sealed. Stop it, D’Onofrio. She had to stop projecting wishful fantasies onto every single interaction. It was stupid.

She’d been privately dubious about eating pasta at two in the morning after an evening like this, but when he set the plate loaded with plump ravioli, red sauce, and a generous dusting of savory pecorino, something inside her stood up and cheered. It smelled superb.

They ate in silence, every last bite, and afterward, he watched her finish her wine. His unwavering gaze made heat rise in her face.

“I expect you want a shower,” he said.

She nodded, mutely.

“The best one is off my bedroom,” he said. “Come this way.”

Ah. Well, he could hardly be blamed for assuming, she thought wildly, as she followed him and her suitcase down the hall. Was this what she’d intended? And if not this, then what? Get real. Calm down.

He didn’t join her in the shower. Part of her was disappointed. She stayed in the pounding hot water, pondering it.

Duncan Burke was wrong for her. She’d known it in the restaurant. His mind was wired in a way that was foreign to her. He would annoy, insult, and disillusion her. He already had. He would again. It was a sure thing. A death-and-taxes type of sure thing.

This was set against the fact that he aroused her to a screaming pitch of excitement, he was an incredibly gifted lover, and he’d saved her life tonight. He’d used his body as a shield when that guy was pointing a gun at her. He was a good guy, beneath his hard edges. Brave, valiant, self-sacrificing. Incompatible or not. Insensitive or not.

And she wanted him. Bad.

When she got out of the shower, her decision was irrevocable. She toweled off, let her hair out of its clip, and shook it loose.

She hung the towel carefully back on the rack, and looked at herself in the mirror, naked but for the little pendent with the A in tiny rubies that Lucia had given her. Hanging right between those rather large breasts that had always embarrassed her. She’d felt since she was twelve or so as if her curvy body were flaunting itself to the world against her will, demanding attention that she did not actually want.

But Duncan seemed to like it. Finally, those boobs were good for something. She reached up, touched them gently. They were much more sensitive than usual. Goose-bumped with delicious anticipation at the thought of what lay ahead. Her nipples tightened.

She walked out into his bedroom like that. He had showered, too, in another bathroom, and wore a terry cloth robe. He glanced over, did a double take. “Ah…holy God. You’re…just look at you.”

“Did I thank you for saving my life?” she demanded.

He looked alarmed. “Yeah, but you don’t have to thank me by—”

“Shut up, Burke. Make love to me now, before I lose my nerve.”

He blinked. “Ah, okay,” he said hoarsely. He started toward her.

“I know this is a mistake,” she announced.

He stopped, looking perplexed. “It is?”

“Yes,” she told him. “But I don’t care. I’ll pay whatever price I have to pay. Life’s too short. I figured that out when those guys shoved me into the car. It could all go away so quickly. And I want to feel this.”

He touched his finger gently to her lips. “Shhh. Don’t work yourself into a state,” he soothed. “How much wine did you drink?”

“This is not about wine!” she yelled. “I know exactly what I’m saying and doing, Duncan Burke! Don’t you dare condescend to me!”

“How could I?” he asked, dryly. “You’re terrifying.”

“Oh, yeah? Do I intimidate you?” She put her hands on her hips.

“Some of me.” He tossed off his robe, displaying his naked body and his huge erection. “Other parts of me are fucking fearless.”

She stared at him. He was so perfect. Tall, broad, those lean, defined, capable-looking muscles, just the right amount of hair, beautiful thighs and flanks, long, narrow feet. And his penis. Oh, boy.

She wanted to read him like braille. Lick him like a lollipop.

He tossed the comforter back and pushed her until she tumbled backward onto the silvery sheet. It was cool against her damp skin. She scrambled up, curling her knees beneath her.

He stood there, erection bobbing right before her eyes. He started to speak, and stopped himself. His face looked grim.

“What?” she demanded. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

His throat bobbed. “I don’t want to fuck this up again.”

The raw, lost tone in his voice startled her into a rush of tenderness. She had been so overcome by her own reaction to him, it never occurred to her that he could feel vulnerable, too. The thought gave her a somewhat unwelcome sense of power. It reminded her of her mother. Elena had wielded power over men, whenever and however she could. And yet, she had died all alone. No one but Nell at her funeral.

She pushed the thought away. “You won’t fuck up,” she said. “You did fine in the conference room. You almost made my heart stop.”

“As long as I kept my mouth shut,” he said sourly. “I have an adrenaline hard-on that would drive nails. My hands are still shaking. I am not in control. At all. And I do not like it.”

She hid her smile, sensing that he would not appreciate it. Instead, she ran her finger around the swollen tip of his cock. “Strange,” she mused. “This ravenous, howling-at-the-moon beast managed to bring me to his fancy home, cook me a nice dinner, pour me wine, chat about art. Such savagery really chills the blood. Besides, I thought sex was all about losing control.”

He shook his head. “Not when you’re as big as me. I could hurt you.” His voice was a shaking rasp. “I can’t afford to make any wrong moves with you. You are a fucking minefield, Nell D’Onofrio.”

She swirled her whole hand around him, making the tendons stand out on his throat. “Sorry I’m so difficult,” she murmured.

He clambered onto the bed, dragging her close until their bodies touched. His heat was a sweet shock. The sheer mass of him, the crackling energy, his own male scent overlaid with perfumes of his soap and shampoo. He made her mouth water. She moistened her hand with the slick drops of pre-come, and began milking the long, broad stalk. “I think it would be exciting to make you lose control,” she told him.

“We’re not going there.” He slid his hand between her legs, teasing her tender folds open, sighing when he found her already wet and slick.

“We’re not?” She caressed him, two handed, long, tight, sliding strokes while his fingers delved. They stared into each other’s eyes, fighting for breath. She squirmed around his fingers. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said, breathlessly, for no reason she could understand.

And it was true. She’d changed. That was why the sex was so good. Apart from his very considerable talent, of course.

He reached down and trapped her hand at his cock, holding it motionless. “Do not provoke me. I’m walking a knife’s edge, as it is.”

She swirled her fingertip on the pre-come dripping off his penis. Then with the same finger, she gave his chest a tiny shove.

“What’s that about?” he demanded. “You pushing me away?”

She smiled at him, mysteriously up through her lashes. “No,” she murmured. “That’s me, pushing you off your knife’s edge.”

He shoved her onto her back. “You asked for it.”

“Sure did,” she agreed. “Don’t make me ask you twice.”

She wiggled beneath his big body while he rolled the latex onto himself, lungs locked with excitement. He nudged against her, pushing until her body finally yielded, until she was gasping with the pressure of that broad bulb, caressing her sensitive inner flesh. She tried to move, but she could barely budge. He shoved deeper.

She was so primed, she came almost instantly, with a gasping shriek. Duncan stopped moving as she convulsed around him, his breath hissing. When the climax had widened out to a glowing ripple of residual pleasure, he hooked her legs up over his elbows and began.

He rode her hard, and she loved it. She gripped his arms, bracing herself against each jarring thrust. She was a hot shimmer melting for him. Long, sobbing spasms of delight rippled out into everywhere.

He got up some immeasurable time later, got rid of the condom. Then he slid back between the sheets and clutched her against his big, hot chest. She snuggled against him, suspended in a liquid dream.

Only a tiny, needle-thin part of her mind stayed apart, wondering how long the dream could possibly last.

Duncan was disoriented when he woke. He’d trained himself to wake at a quarter to five a.m. He was used to having his eyes open while the sky was dark, mind clear and sharp and already generating a streamlined plan of attack for the day’s work.

The sky was not dark. The room was flooded with sunshine. And his mind was not sharp. It was drugged with a strange sensation of intense well-being. He was intoxicated with the scent of dark ringlets that tickled his nose. He was unbalanced by a rush of startled joy.

Nell. In his bed. He couldn’t get over how soft she was. Her skin beneath his hands, as fine as a baby’s. She slept, her back to him, her round, rosy ass pressed against his hips. With predictable consequence.

The urge to roll her onto her belly, mount up and slide into that hot grip of her luscious body took all his mental muscle to withstand. Too dangerous. He had no idea how she would feel when she woke.

Better that she not wake up with his cock already inside her.

He nuzzled her neck, instead. The graceful angle of bones and tendons under her soft skin, that little brown mole, the way the grain of her hair swirled in those wild vortices at her nape. The responsive skin there, perfumed and decorated with fine fuzz. The fine white-gold chain.

He scooted back, just far enough to let her roll onto her back, so he could properly admire her tits. God. World class. So full and soft, jiggling, the way they swelled out, the tight brown nipples. The glittering pendant lay on her collarbone, a bright point of light.

His self-control failed him. He cupped her tits in his hands and pressed his face against that soft bounty, and something snapped. He went wild with hungry licking and suckling. That woke her up in a hurry. She stiffened, with a gasp that soon became a whimper. Her arms twined around his neck, her back arched. Offering her tits to him.

He’d rolled over so that he lay between her legs, and now she opened them wide, tilting her hips in instinctive invitation.

His body had no hope of refusing it. He grabbed his rigid cock, held it at the right angle until he got it wedged inside, and shoved.

So good. Hot. A slow, excruciatingly tight, naked slide. “Oh, fuck,” he gasped. So much for eloquence. So much for poetry.

Her eyes popped open. She and Duncan froze. No need to speak. They both remembered the latex at the same moment. But it was too fucking good to resist. He rocked, sliding. So wet, so amazingly hot.

“I won’t come inside you,” he promised, his voice ragged.

“But I…we haven’t even discussed—”

“I’m safe,” he promised. “Tested negative for everything on my last physical. Never do it without condoms. Never. Only with you. I know it’s stupid, but I can’t…stop. You drive me out of my fucking mind.”

She wiggled around him, her eyes big and dazed. “I’m safe, too, diseasewise. But I’m not on the pill, or anything.”

He slid slowly deeper, until she hugged his whole length, and his cockhead pressed against the mouth of her womb. “I’ll be careful,” he begged. “I won’t come. I’ll be good. I swear.”

She laughed, jerkily. “You’re always good. That’s not the issue.”

“There is no issue. I just won’t. Please, Nell.”

She lifted herself against him in answer, and they were off at a wild, hard gallop. His body had an agenda all its own. He wanted to explode with each urgent stroke. The scalding liquid of her lube, the shocking immediacy of naked skin to skin, like nothing he’d ever dreamed, ever known. It revealed spaces in his mind that he’d never known were there. Sex had never taken him into other realms of consciousness before, much as he’d enjoyed it.

It was Nell who took him there. She was poetry, she was music, she was red hot, honeyed perfection. He lifted himself up so he could see every detail of their joining. The root of his cock, gleaming with her lube, her tender pink pussy lips stretched around it, kissing and caressing him as he plunged and surged, his body locked in motion. Her soft, shapely white thighs open for him, the lush curves, her tits jiggling with each hard thrust. The look in her huge eyes made something break open in his chest, but there was no time to be afraid of what he found in there, because his body was charging ahead, following the beacon of her impending orgasm. He drove her to the edge, over—

He wrenched his cock out just in time, spurted all over her belly, her breasts. He collapsed beside her, panting and shy. Hid his face against her neck. Felt the golden chain of her necklace against his lips.

“That was, um, crazy,” she whispered finally, after a few minutes.

He lifted his head. “No. That was excellent,” he replied forcefully.

She pulled away from him, and slid off the bed, mumbling something he could barely make out about taking a shower.

“I’ll make you breakfast,” he called after her disappearing back, just before the bathroom door clicked shut.

He was incapable of being disheartened by that, after such explosive sex, so he just yanked on a pair of sweatpants and got up. His eye slid over the small silver digital clock that sat on his dresser.

Nine thirty-seven. His jaw sagged. He was usually up at four-thirty. Out the door before five. Working out at the gym until six-forty. In the office by seven, maximum seven-ten. Granted, yesterday had been an unusual night. So had this morning been. So far.

Well, hell. Being the boss had to be good for something. Who knew? He might even get lucky again. That happy thought floated him right up off his feet and into the kitchen, to root around for breakfast for her. The phone rang as he was rummaging in the fridge. Nobody used this landline. Everyone else he knew called his cell. It could only be his mother. Of all times. Christ. He picked up the phone. “Yeah?”

“Duncan, honey! Thank goodness! I called the office, but you weren’t there! What on earth?” She paused, significantly. “Are you sick? Is anything wrong? You never stay home from work!”

“I’m fine,” he said brusquely. “Just taking a morning, working at home. What’s going on?”

“It’s Elinor. You will not believe what she’s done!”

Duncan dutifully responded to his cue. “What about her?” Elinor was his sister, a sophomore at New York University.

“She’s switched her major to theater arts! She dropped her business courses and signed up for theater history and dance! She wants to be an actress!” His mother’s voice cracked with horror.

He stared at the scabbed-up scrapes on his knuckles, flexed them so they wouldn’t stiffen. “So? It’s her decision.”

“It’s madness to go into theater! You have to talk sense into her!”

He glanced toward the corridor, out of which his problematic sexy siren would issue. Check him out. No longer the poster boy for doing the sensible thing. Even so, he didn’t want to get into it with his mother today. “I’ll talk to her, if you want,” he offered.

“Oh, thank you, darling. She’ll listen to you. It’s not too late to change her major back.” His mother’s voice was relieved.

“Okay, Mom.” He hung up, and dove back into the fridge again.

Nell appeared in the doorway just as he was laying out French toast, grilled ham, and orange juice on the table. She looked damp and rosy and fragrant. She gazed at the food-laden table, her eyes big.

“Hope you’re hungry,” he said.

She sat down with a murmur of appreciation and tucked in a gratifying amount of what he’d cooked. After breakfast, they sipped their coffee and stared at each other across the table. Neither of them were able to hold the other’s gaze for more than a few seconds without looking away, or laughing. Jesus. Look at him. Giggling. Touching her toes under the table, with his own bare feet. Acting like a goofy kid.

But it was getting on toward ten-thirty, and he had to get his shit together. “I have to get down to the office,” he said reluctantly.

She glanced at the clock. “Me, too. I’m going to be late for the lunch prep, as it is.” She let out a gasp when his hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. She stared at it.

He did not let go. “You are going where?”

Her eyes got big and wary. “Duncan. Let go of my arm.”

“Just answer my question.”

“Isn’t it obvious? To work! At the Sunset Grill! Remember?” She yanked at her wrist again. “Hello! I work there six days a week!”

“After what happened to you last night, you think I’ll let you walk out onto the streets? Just like that? Like nothing even happened?”

“Let me?” She straightened up. “You aren’t going to ‘let me’ do anything. I do not have to ask your permission. For anything I do.”

“Wrong,” he said.

She stared at him, outraged. “Excuse me?”

“If I hadn’t been there last night, you’d be dead, or God knows what else. I changed the course of things. That gives me responsibility. That gives me a say. So deal with me, Nell. You don’t have any choice.”

Her eyes were wide. “Let go of my arm. You’re scaring me.”

“Fine,” he said. “You should be scared. It’s about fucking time.”

He slowly let go of her wrist. She rubbed it, avoiding his eyes. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I am flat broke. The Fiend situation ate up all my savings. I’m already a month behind on my rent. I don’t even have money for cab fare if I don’t get out there and go to work.”

“I’ll give you money, if you need some,” he said.

Her face tightened. “That’s not a solution, Duncan.”

“No? And having you waltz out into the street, you call that a solution? They picked you up off a main thoroughfare, Nell. In downtown Manhattan, in front of multiple witnesses! By now, they know who I am, and where I live. They’ll nail you down. Count on it.”

She shut her eyes, looking exhausted and lost. “Duncan, I don’t have any choice but to work. I have to pay my rent, and I—”

“Oh, yeah. You mean that place with the bugged phone, the compromised alarm, and the hostile vidcams?”

“I still have to pay for it, and find some other place to—”

“Here,” he cut in rashly. “Stay here. With me.”

She gazed at him for a few moments, blankly.

“There’s plenty of room,” he urged her. “The security’s excellent.”

Nell tossed up her hands. “Duncan,” she said helplessly. “That’s very sweet, but it’s premature, and in any case, I still have to work.”

“No, you don’t. And it’s not premature, after last night. Work on game texts, if you have to work on something.” He stared at her back for a moment. “I don’t need help with the rent or the groceries, Nell.”

“I noticed that.” Her voice was acid. “So what does this mean?”

He shrugged. “What does it sound like?”

She swiveled her head, fixed him with a piercing gaze. “It sounds to me like I’d be kept.”

“It sounds to me like you’d be safe,” he countered.

“Safe, and sexually available to you, twenty-four hours a day?”

That made him angry. “Would that be so terrible?” he demanded.

She shook his words away with an angry flip of her hand. “The sex is not the problem.”

“Oh? Then what is your fucking problem, Nell? Is it money? Yeah, I’ve got a lot of it. Big fucking deal. I worked for it. You want to punish me for having it? Fuck that! That’s not fair!”

“No,” she snapped. “It’s not that.”

“Then why are you so uptight about accepting any help from me?” he snarled. “Because it is starting to mortally piss me off!”

She held her hand over her mouth for a moment and cleared her throat. “My mother was a prostitute,” she said.

Of all the things she could have said, that was the very last one he expected. “Huh?” he floundered. “You don’t mean…the lady who…”

“No. That was Lucia, my adoptive mother.” Nell’s voice was colorless. “I’m talking about my birth mother. Her name was Elena Pisani. She wasn’t a streetwalking kind of prostitute. She was always kept in style by her lovers. Nice apartments, beautiful clothes, jewels, spas. But in the end, that part’s just window dressing.”

A heavy silence followed her words, and Duncan struggled for something intelligent to say. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

She fixed him with her blazing look, the one that took his breath away, scared him and aroused him, all at once. “I remember her hammering out the details of each new mutually beneficial arrangement. As soon as she was done, off I’d go to another boarding school. Until the guy got bored. Or she found a richer client.”

He searched for a place to put this new and extremely dangerous information, but it wouldn’t stick to anything. “Ah. Oh. I, uh, see.”

“Do you?” She looked away. “It looked all right on the surface, I guess. She handpicked her lovers. They were always rich. She lived in beautiful places. But her whole existence was in function of her patrons. Their egos, their convenience, their tempers. She didn’t have energy to spare for me. Being beautiful, charming, seductive, and entertaining is hard work. Doesn’t leave much time for a kid.”

“I…ah—” He floundered for something to say that was not either stupid or offensive, but he couldn’t think of anything.

“I don’t want that,” she said. “I don’t want a man to be in the center of my life, and me circling around him, anxiously scrambling to please him. Hell with that. I’ve got plans. I have ambitions of my own.”

“I never meant to imply that,” he said, helplessly.

“I’m sorry this embarrasses you,” she said. “It embarrasses me. But I want you to know why I feel so strongly about this. I am not for sale. Not to anyone, for any reason. Not even for protection from the Fiend. Now, or ever. Because that mutually beneficial arrangement you were talking about last night? It’s not a good bargain, whatever it might look like. Not even if the sex is great. It wouldn’t benefit me. On the contrary. Eventually, I’d start to feel about two inches tall.”