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Disclaimer: All characters and events in this story are fictitious, and any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and unintended by the author. "The Pretender" is a protected trademark of MTM Television and NBC and the characters of that series are used herein with no mean intent or desire for remuneration. It is, instead, a tribute to innovative television, that rare and welcome phenomenon.
The Third Highway Series Part 11:
Telling Lies
Chapter 1
Witch1
Kennedy International Airport, Overseas Terminal
New York City
She was late, as always, plus traffic had been awful and parking impossible, and she'd had to run down the terminal arm to get to British Airways Gate 45B in time to meet his flight. So that she was out of breath and annoyingly flustered when the first passengers came hurrying up the enclosed ramp into the terminal.
She picked him out immediately--he'd sent her a brief physical description as email, and he was the only passenger that it even vaguely fit. She did think it was a bit odd that he was the second one up the tunnel--which had to mean he'd flown first class. Not what she would have expected for someone who was, basically, just a fancy cop. But that thought drifted quickly away as she reached instinctively to smooth her hair and pursed her lips to even out her lipstick--he was much better looking than she had imagined and she knew she probably looked awful.
"Inspector Peel?" she asked, holding out her hand to him expectantly, "I'm Marita Eversham."
"My pleasure," he answered with a warm, heart-melting smile.
She smiled back, quite at a loss for words. He had a wonderful voice--and it was so nice to hear English spoken as it should be, she thought, pleased, as always, to meet an attractive man who didn't have that annoying American accent.
"How nice of you to fetch me," he continued smoothly, still grasping her hand. "Very thoughtful of you."
"I'm just glad I can be of assistance," she answered, hoping it didn't sound trite: she meant every word. Her finely tuned ear picked up more from his voice than just words--his intonations spoke of expensive schools, a very upper class background. She liked that. She'd noticed his clothes, as well--conservative dark suit, but clearly hand-tailored. Expensive. Possibly Brioni. The same went for the top coat tossed over his arm. Unusually good taste for an Englishman. "How was your flight, Inspector?"
"Pleasant", he answered cheerfully, "and please--call me 'Jarod'."
"Of course," she responded, looking into his dark eyes. "And you must call me 'Marita'" .
"Charming name," he told her, "absolutely charming."
"Baggage claim?" she asked, noticing that he carried only a silver metal attaché case and a medium sized black bag.
"No--this is all," he responded, "I always travel light."
As they started toward the exit together she was glad that she had removed her heavy wool coat. She draped it over her left arm, hiding her hand, and as they chatted casually together she surreptitiously used it to mask her nimble fingers as she tugged off her wedding and engagement rings and dropped them, unseen, into her handbag.
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Suquamish Island
Washington
Laura picked idly at her salad as she sat staring at her computer screen, stabbing at a cucumber slice. She took another long gulp of red wine and began typing an email message.
"Haven't heard from you in days . . . " she began.
She stopped and stared at the screen again, then quickly backspaced the words out.
She impaled a small wedge of tomato on her fork and ate it, pensively.
"Was just thinking about you . . . . " she began again after a pause.
She stared at the words for while and then erased that phrase, too.
She ate a bit more salad and then sat tapping on the edge of the keyboard with a fingernail. What she really wanted was for Jarod to email her. They'd been in daily touch with each other, and even though she'd been unhappy about his long silence while he'd been in Mexico and then in Philadelphia--which he had never explained--she'd accepted that. It was part of the tacit agreement they'd finally arrived at that he have as much privacy as he needed. But then he'd simply arrived on her email screen one day, told her he was in Delaware, and to be on the watch for something arriving in the mail.
He'd kept in touch while in London--in fact, they'd been burning up the Internet with constant email and, whenever possible, private chats. And their communication had developed a life of it's own. While there was no way it was like real sex, Laura had gotten rather involved in the entire fantasy of cyber sex. It was certainly a hell of a lot more fun than solitary masturbation, and their shared exchanges had become a very important part of her life. She dressed up for them, wearing the lingerie Jarod sent her, whether it was classy or sleazy or simply outrageous. She never knew what to expect when she opened one of his elaborately gift-wrapped boxes: seven hundred dollar hand-made silk and lace bra and panty sets with exquisite crystal beading, or some bizarre leather and chain corselet that would take her an hour to figure out how to put on.
He sent her hand-made heels of the softest leather imaginable, almost too perfect and delicate to actually wear, and then, the very next day, thigh-high, spike-heeled vinyl trash boots that made her laugh, until he asked her to run her hands slowly--more slowly!--up the insides of her legs and tell him explicitly how it felt, all the while telling her how her description made him feel.
She'd glued pasties on her nipples, gasped at the multicolored dildoes he sent wrapped in hand-painted silk kimonos and lacy teddies--as well as the graphic directions he sent for their use--and struggled not to laugh so hard she couldn't type when he'd wanted her to wear a ridiculous white lace peignoir that came with a white chiffon bride's veil--and crotchless white silk panties.
She suddenly had a closet full of erotic fluff: boned corsets that shoved her breasts half way up to her chin, French maid costumes with cut-out bras, gilt platform shoes with six inch heels and delicate straps around her ankles, stretch lace cat suits and too many pricey bustiers, garter belts and lace thongs to count. Whatever had happened to him in Mexico and Philadelphia, he had responded with a burst of over-wrought libido and a buying spree that put his previous lingerie obsessions to shame.
Laura responded by laughing and tapping away at the keyboard as quickly as she could, until she couldn't type words any longer and would simply set her index finger on the 'o' and just let it run. She had orgasms sitting in front of her desktop, and in every room in the house with her lap top propped beside her. She had orgasms wearing lace and leather and chain mail. She tied an elaborate dildo to the seat of a chair as per his instructions and impaled herself on it while he typed furiously about how hard he was and how deep inside her he wanted to be--and she honestly tried her best to type the whole while, even if spelling and syntax went all to hell and the most she could manage were endless variations on, "dear god jarod dont stop i'm so close dont stop telling me how much yu want to fuck me i wish i could lick your cock i wish i could watch yu cum i want i want i want want want. . . "
And an unexpected side benefit was that her one-handed typing speed had improved exponentially.
"I want you to lean over that big blue chain in your living room", Jarod would type, "and spread your legs. Lock your knees. Can you reach the keyboard if you put it on the seat? I bet you really have to stretch for it. Must pull the straps on that garter belt really tight across your ass. I would give anything, anything, to come up behind you at this moment. Tell me the truth: does it feel as good for you to touch yourself as it would if I were inside you? You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"
And then as suddenly as it started, it had stopped.
She knew Jarod, and she knew how deeply involved he got in his stings. She hadn't expected him to be in such constant touch in the first place--he'd started it. But she wanted more, she wanted to test out the royal blue lace shelf bra he'd sent--that would lift her breasts up and leave her nipples exposed--with the tiny lace g-string, garter belt and matching stockings. And those blue high-heeled slides with their soft puff of marabou that made her feel like a movie star out of the '40's. She wanted to put it on, do her makeup and look at herself in the mirror. She wanted to feel sexy and exotic and desired, and have crazy, passionate sex with a man who was a continent way--through a keyboard and a modem! It was insane, she knew, and some would say she was living way too deeply inside a fantasy. But she'd gotten completely addicted to it, and now she was reduced to staring at her empty email mailbox and feeling sorry for herself.
She punched the PCU's on/off button with a jabbing fingernail.
If that's how he was going to be, well, she could damned well play that game, too. No more pleading email--she could wait.
She glanced over at the bed and the blue lace nestled in all that hot pink tissue paper, the box lid on the floor, drifts of gold and blue wrapping paper and pink ribbons scattered around it. She sighed. She poured another glass of wine and drank most of it. And then booted her lap top back up.
She saw that the little red flag was up as soon as her desk top was visible--it meant she had new email.
"Laura," it began, "hope you got the box today. I've been thinking about you a lot. And wondering if your nipples will get hard if I just talk about how much I wish I could lick them . . . "
She smiled to herself and sighed. He'd set up a time for a private chat in half an hour. Just enough time to get into the lingerie, have another glass of wine, put on some terrific music--and she realized her nipples WERE hard, just as he'd predicted.
"What do you expect?" she thought contentedly. "After all, the man IS a genius . . . "
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British Consulate
New York City
Marita Eversham scrolled quickly down the text on her computer screen and then paused. She'd found what she was looking for: Jarod Emlen Robert Peel, Detective Inspector, London Metropolitan Police--otherwise known as New Scotland Yard--Criminal Investigation Department. She pulled up the rest of his file and read through it quickly: very prestigious schools, excellent marks, promotions within the Yard following each other quickly. Never married--she frowned a bit at that, wondering if there weren't something a bit odd about a man of his age and attractiveness never having married. He wasn't gay--she could trust her instincts on that. She'd seen the way he looked at her--especially when she's crossed her legs in the limo on the way to the Consulate from the airport.
She looked back over his file again--it was a very busy career. He'd moved up with surprising alacrity and evidently handled some very important investigations, many requiring overseas travel. So perhaps he'd never had time to find the right girl. Or felt it wasn't fair to marry when he was so involved in his work. And that explanation bothered her a bit, too: it was irritatingly close to her own husband's situation, she increasingly felt he should never have married if he'd planned on spending every blessed minute of his life at work. She frowned.
Perhaps simply "never met the right girl" was explanation enough, she decided, upon further reflection. Marita had a habit of putting the best possible spin on things.
She scrolled further into Jarod's "past" --the fictitious life he had made up for himself in this pretend. And then she gasped out loud. For there, at the very foot of the dossier, almost hidden under the burden of career and school details, was a single paragraph listing his parents' names and birthdates.
Marita smiled and massaged the annoying recessed band at the base of her ring finger, an irritant that simply wouldn't go away, a reminder of the rings that had been there. On top of everything else, he was a Lord--heir to the Earldom of Hefering. Upon his father's death--and she did the math quickly, the old man was eighty-four--Jarod would became the seventeenth Earl of Hefering!
She sat staring into space. It was almost too good to be true.
She had no way of knowing it was, in fact, way too good to be true--that Jarod had binged on British import TV before leaving for London to polish his English accent, and somewhere in the midst of "Upstairs, Downstairs" , "Are You Being Served?" , "Wallace and Gromit" , "Mr. Bean" , "Masterpiece Threatre", "Absolutely Fabulous" and "Fawlty Towers" he'd made up a Earldom and a title for himself on a whim. It had never occurred to him it could cause any problems. It fit his pretend rather well, actually, explaining "Jarod Peel's" exclusive education and, hopefully, serving to mask any peculiarities in his speech or accent as simply to-be-expected upper-crust eccentricity. He'd certainly had no way of knowing, that to a lonely woman trapped in a comfortless marriage, it removed with a flourish any lingering vestige of trepidation.
Marita peered at her finger and rubbed her flesh harder. Ten years of marriage and all she had to show for it was mark on her finger that she couldn't get rid of no matter how hard she tried. She snorted in disgust: that expressed her sentiments precisely.
And she realized that Jarod's family background explained away all the lingering questions she had about him. It didn't take a genius to put all the pieces together and fill in the blanks. For example: he'd flown first class: which indicated private wealth beyond a merger detective's salary (actually, Jarod had merely wanted the extra leg room on the long flight). And then there were the quaint idioms he seemed fond of using: he'd grown up in the closed, exclusive world of the very-rich and had some odd speech patterns because of it (it was really due to too much "Upstairs, Downstairs" while he was researching his accent). He wore expensive clothes: obviously he was used to the best (they were left over from his last sting and he thought they worked well with the more formal clothing habits he had noticed in England). And he seemed remarkably at home in New York--and quite comfortable with American habits: clearly an indication of a cosmopolitan, well-traveled youth (not hardly).
She smiled smugly, proud of her own detecting skills. She knew a great deal about this man, and she liked what she had found out.
The gentle knock on her closed office door made her jump. She shut the computer down with one brisk motion.
"Yes?" she responded to the knock.
Jarod opened the door only enough to peer inside. "I didn't mean to disturb you," he began, "but I have a few questions about this Chambers case and I was wondering--"
"Jarod!" Marita replied warmly, flipping her shining blond hair out of her face. "Please come in. It's no trouble, at all, I assure you. I'd be delighted to help you in any way I can . . . "
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New York Metropolitan Police
Homicide Division
Oddly enough, Jarod had expected a great deal more disdain directed toward him from the New York cops while in this pretend. He'd " been" a cop, and FBI, and he'd quickly understood the territorial posturing that local law enforcement felt compelled to display for the benefit of outsiders. Intruders, really: hot shots who cruised in, took over and then walked away--getting all the credit for the hard work done long before their arrival. And his cover story--that there had been a child in Vivian Chambers' care who had died suddenly and inexplicably of " crib death" in England, which he was now looking into again--was pretty vague. But so far the New York detectives had been almost excruciatingly polite and helpful.
He decided it reflected another interesting discovery he had recently made: the seemingly irresistible desire of people to be kind and helpful to foreigners. He'd seen it in restaurants at first, where normally contemptuous waiters had started smiling as soon as they heard his phony English accent. He'd tested it further, asking for directions from people on the street, and was amazed by how far out of their way New Yorkers--not generally known for being solicitous to the needs of others--had been willing to go. They'd walked him to subway entrances, hailed cabs for him--demonstrating their own personal version of the classic New York whistle-and-wave--and asked him if he was having a "good time" in New York. Worrying about whether or not someone else was having a "good time" had never seemed to him previously a typical New Yorker character trait. And now even the cops were bending over backwards to help him--going beyond, he knew, what they were legally required, or even allowed, to do for him. It almost made him feel guilty for not actually being this Scotland Yard guy. Almost, but not quite.
Because the only thing that mattered to him was seeing justice served: not his ego or theirs. What he wanted was to bring closure to the parent's of a brutally murdered child, and be the force that would bring righteous punishment against the truly guilty.
If Laura joked about his "climax" at the end of a successful sting, well, that was Laura. Her cynicism no longer hurt him--even she had finally admitted she approved of what he did. But he didn't require that, he didn't require anyone else's approval, or even understanding. All he required, he required of himself: simply to get the job done. And he was in this city for a very specific reason.
"I've got to tell you," Detective Don Bollman was saying, "I've never felt right about this case. Not from the get-go. I mean--it's like everybody's lying, about everything, you see what I mean? Normally I'd say, sure, the nanny did it. The kid was crying, she wanted her daily nap--bam! She whacks the kid too hard, maybe slams him against the wall: boom! Skull fracture, next thing you know you got a dead kid. OK? But her story made no sense! She didn't even try to put together an alibi, an explanation of how it really happened--you know: he fell off the changing table, or down the stairs. Nothing. She sat in there--" he gestured with a toss of his head toward the interrogation rooms behind them--"and says nothing--nothing at all--for hours. Then the freaking lawyers start showing up." He paused and glanced at Jarod's suit. "I got nothing against guys in fancy suits, OK? But these guys--a major investment in threads, you see what I'm saying? It looked like freaking Hollywood in here--legal consultants of the rich and famous! So where did THAT come from, huh? This Brit nanny was, what, putting fifty grand away every week out of her pay to put down as retainers on these guys? Give me a break!"
"But the evidence does all point, nevertheless, toward Vivian Chambers?" Jarod asked.
"Yeah, yeah--the evidence! As if we had evidence! Look, Peel, between you and me--this case sucked from the start. It was full of holes those high priced shysters coulda driven their Mercedes through!"
"Which is precisely what they did, didn't they?" Jarod asked quietly.
"Yeah--that's how it went down." Bollman sighed contemplatively. "They walked all over the D.A., they stomped all over our forensics, they shit all over--ah, excuse my, ah, my language . . . " Bollman broke off, embarrassed.
"No--that's a very apt description of what happened in court, I believe," Jarod reassured him. "I couldn't have put it better, myself."
"Well," Bollman continued, "that's it in a nut shell: that's why Chambers walked. No matter how you feel about dead kids, you've gotta give a jury something REAL to hang a conviction on. And we had nothing real. To tell you the truth, it surprised the hell out of me we even got an arrest warrant out of a judge on what we had. I mean, you always hope that justice will be done. Even us: even guys that have seen the worst side of life--" he glanced around the big, cluttered room filled with desks and cops--"even we hope, when you see a thing like this, that somebody's going to pay for what they did. But then, well, you start to think, there is no real justice, after all."
Jarod smiled and looked off into the distance for a moment. "Don't you be so sure about that," he told the cop.
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Lutece
East 50th Street, New York
It had amused Jarod that of all the complicated things he had managed since getting out of the Centre, acquiring a last-minute dinner reservation at Lutece had turned out to one of the hardest to accomplish. He'd finally had to send an off-duty concierge from his hotel--who aspired to be an actor--in person, in a limo, equipped with fake I.D., demanding a table for the British Ambassador.
Even then it had also cost him an extra thousand bucks.
But Marita was clearly overwhelmed and blushed charmingly when Jarod was addressed as "Mr. Ambassador" . Jarod hushed her with a wink and then explained after the man left, and she gasped and clapped her hands in delight, much like a surprised child.
What he was after from Marita, he reminded himself--and the only reason for all the attention he was paying her--was information. She had been the only person to whom Vivian Chambers had spoken about little Jonathon Roth's death. Chambers had placed the phone call to the consulate even as the boy was being rushed to the hospital--where he was pronounced dead on arrival. As a British citizen, Jarod imagined that Vivian had wanted know where she stood vis a vis the American criminal justice system. Marita's testimony at the trail had been clear and the point, though: Vivian Chambers had tearfully insisted she was innocent. She hadn't asked about the law, at all. She claimed she merely wanted to talk to another Englishwoman.
It was unclear if the jury had believed Marita or not. With the paucity of actual evidence, her testimony probably didn't matter, one way or the other. But what concerned Jarod was the truth, not what a jury thought, or didn't. He was quite sure Marita had not told the entire content of that phone call to the jury, and he needed to know what Marita had held back, and why. And if that meant he had to have dinner with a beautiful woman who seemed thrilled to be with him, well, it wasn't causing him any pain.
It crossed his mind to wonder what Laura would have thought--and said. He'd been online with her just before picking Marita up, and the "conversation" had been very satisfying. He was enjoying their new little sex games and having a huge amount of fun picking out costumes for her to wear. There was a kind of trust and intimacy in staying in touch with her that he'd never experienced before. He still found it difficult to tell her about what he was doing, but the sex kept them together, nonetheless. He wasn't sure if she understood that it meant a great deal to him, or that it was more or less the closest he could get to actually sharing his life with her--or anyone else. Still, he doubted she'd be very supportive of his trying to extract secrets from Marita this way. She'd imagine he had other motives, as well.
Which he was beginning to think he might, after all. Marita was a very desirable woman, and she had a way of looking at him--as though she were hanging on every word he said--that was extraordinarily flattering. She seemed so happy to be with him. Hungry, actually, for his attention. Her foot brushed against his leg under the table. He wondered in that were by accident or intent.
From her point of view, there was also a Plan. It had nothing to do with Vivian Chambers, and everything to do with Jarod. What had happened in her life had developed slowly, over the course of ten years of marriage. It wasn't until quite recently that she realized how unhappy she was, with Edgar, her husband, her job at the consulate, her whole life. Edgar was very successful, spending about equal amounts of time at his business in London and the American subsidiary here in New York. When they'd met, it had seemed the perfect fit: they both loved the two cities equally and planned to travel back and forth together as much as Marita's position allowed. Which hadn't happened, at all. Mostly, Edgar was gone. He spent longer and longer blocks of time in England, and even when he was in the States was more likely to be at their summer home in Maine than in New York. He cared passionately for two things in life: his business, and golf. That Marita came up a distant third--if that--was increasingly clear to everyone involved.
But getting out of it wasn't all that easy. Marita had never really been truly alone in her life--she'd gone right from her parent's home to her first marriage, and right from it to Edgar. She disliked the concept of loneliness as much, if not more, than the concept of discomfort of any sort. She didn't want to feel abandoned or unhappy. She needed a place to go, and someone to take her there. And she thought she knew exactly how to make that happen.
She looked deeply into Jarod's eyes. He returned her warm, interested stare. She had remarkable eyes, he thought--a sort of smoky, gray green. With some blue, as well. He hadn't planned on having sex with her but suddenly it occurred to him that it was nearly inevitable if they kept staring at each other that way. He didn't have a clue that he was being seduced. He thought he was in complete control.
She lived in a grand old brownstone on East Eighty-Sixth Street, near the park, and it seemed completely natural for him to follow her invitation in for a cup of coffee. He didn't feel lured or manipulated. He wasn't aware of anything except her smile and the rapt interest with which she listened to him talk. Later, he would never be able to quite remember how their first kiss had come about. She was helping him out of his overcoat and then quite inexplicably she was in his arms. It didn't seem planned or rehearsed. He wouldn't believe you if you told him she'd done both.
She wasn't demanding or pushy like Laura so he couldn't imagine that she had any ulterior motive. She seemed merely compliant, willing. He got the impression she hadn't had many lovers, she seemed vaguely timid, waiting for him to decide what came next. He wasn't used to women who were so passive. It was different and he liked it--or at least it seemed somehow correct for her to be that way. It made him feel--he wasn't sure--perhaps "manly" expressed it. She had a way of being helpless and needy and fragile and feminine that had nothing to do with Laura's almost predatory sexuality. Marita seemed to want and expect him to take charge and, well, take her.
She didn't even help him find her bedroom, she let him lead her down the hall by the hand as if it were his house. He hadn't a clue that she was orchestrating everything that happened. She wanted him--that much was clear--but at all times he felt that the next move was entirely up to him. He felt almost giddy with that unfamiliar responsibility. And delighted. When he kissed her she responded warmly, but if he drew back she waited for him to return his lips to hers.
He'd been shoved rudely down on beds all over the country so many times by Laura that Marita felt like some other gender, entirely: it was like he was making love to another species. She let him undress her as if it were his right to do so. It was like undressing a doll. It was an unfamiliar sensation of power and intimacy that he found rather exciting. Her underwear was black and he almost didn't want to take off her bra: her skin was so pale it seemed to glow in the dim light and the contrast with the black satin was breathtaking.
He remembered the first time he'd seen Laura naked--it had surprised him that she'd had practically no tan line, her honey colored skin was naturally that dark. But Marita was as pale as a ghost, with the lightest golden brown pubic hair and pale pink nipples at the tips of her soft breasts.
And Laura had muscles. Her body was hard and firm and packed with woman--there wasn't anything fragile or weak about her. She made love like an equal: he could never imagine thinking he'd " had" Laura or "taken" Laura. But he felt he was definitely about to " have" Marita.
The softness of her skin--and of her entire body--astonished Jarod. He ran his hands over her back and down her thin arms, pulling her closer to him, getting lost in the scent of her golden hair and amazed by how fragile and defenseless she seemed. And was, he thought, quite literally--Laura had enough muscles to put up a hell of a fight if she wanted to. She'd caught him off guard and pinned him more times than he liked to think about. She snarled and bit and scratched and made what they both knew were impossible sexual demands of him. But Marita merely stood and waited.
He led her to the bed and sat her on the edge and she reclined languidly, resting on one elbow, watching him undress. She seemed in no hurry. If she was thinking anything she kept it to herself.
He stood over her for a long moment, unsure, suddenly, if she really did want this to happen. She was so silent and passive he felt he might be misreading her. And she reached for him, then, sensing his confusion, pulling him down on the bed beside her, stretching her nakedness against his, the hardness of his erection pressed into her stomach.
He rolled on top of her, working his way slowly down her body with kisses and licks, feeling her sighing beneath him. Her eyes were shut and she seemed lost in some other world, disconnected from the place he was at, which was very real and physical, a world where flesh tasted of salt and sweat, nipples quickened into the hardness of desire and a man and a woman had a lot they could say to each other. But Marita seemed to be floating silently above that. He couldn't imagine what she felt. She said not a word. He licked the insides of her thighs and pinched her nipples, moving his tongue slowly deeper into her crotch, spreading the delicate, pink lips of her labia with his fingers and licking the glistening, translucent perfection inside, exploring for her clitoris . . . .
She suddenly opened her eyes wide. Of course, he wasn't in a place where he could see that happen, but he felt her entire body jerk away from him. He paused, waiting for some sort of signal from her. Perhaps this was something she didn't want, didn't like. Perhaps she was simply too sensitive--the way Laura was for a long while after she'd come. He'd learned not to even try to touch her there until she let him know it was OK again.
Marita lay back on the bed staring right up at the ceiling. She'd slept with two men in her life--her two husbands, and neither one had ever done what Jarod had just done. It was like a door opened up and she was sucked right through it into another world. Sex was something men did to you, after all, and if it felt all right that was nice, but the sort of things she'd read about--wild, earth-shaking orgasms--had never happened to her. Sometimes she pretended it did, to get the whole thing over with. Other times she didn't even bother to pretend. Edgar was eighteen years older than she, her first husband had been ten years older. Neither cared about how she felt in bed. They cared about how other men looked at them when they walked into a room with her.
She'd never in her life seen a naked man that looked like Jarod did. The hardness of his body--of every inch of it when he pressed up against her, had actually terrified her. It was exciting and scary at the same time. She'd imagined this entire scene much differently, in fact, she'd thought about it as a thing she had to get through. First you let them have sex with you, then they fall in love with you, then you get them to marry you. It was a progression as ancient and simple as a religious ritual. She hadn't counted on Jarod being different. On sex being different. She waited to see what Jarod would do next.
And he waited to see what she wanted him to do next. The moments ticked by. It may have gone on that way forever, with her lying there passively and him too confused to make a move, except something had changed in the universe, although Jarod was blithely unaware of it.
"That--thing," she finally whispered, "that you just did--you know?"
Jarod nodded. He was still concerned he'd hurt her or something.
"Do that again," she commanded.
He smiled. Now he was back in familiar territory. Women who gave him orders in bed were a familiar phenomena in his life. Ultimately, he liked it better that way. Marita's almost corpselike passivity, combined with her pallor, had been beginning to, as Laura would have put it, "creep him out." He'd been around too many dead people lately, pretending to be an anatomy professor, and was a lot more interested in the living at the moment.
He obeyed, licking and sucking and finally even biting gently the tiny hot button of her clitoris. He held her firmly by her ass, past the point of caring if he left bruises of that porcelain skin, and she gasped, grabbed him by his hair and screeched out loud.
He laughed, moving upward to hold her while she literally shook and moaned, kissing her face and throat.
"That was nice," he told her, "do you always come that hard?"
She stared at him like he was from Mars or something. She was past the point of knowing what to say. She'd never had an orgasm like that in her life, not when masturbating, certainly not with either of her husbands.
"What else do you know how to do?" she asked, finally, honestly curious.
"Oh, a few things," he answered.
Telling Lies
Chapter 1
Witch1
Kennedy International Airport, Overseas Terminal
New York City
She was late, as always, plus traffic had been awful and parking impossible, and she'd had to run down the terminal arm to get to British Airways Gate 45B in time to meet his flight. So that she was out of breath and annoyingly flustered when the first passengers came hurrying up the enclosed ramp into the terminal.
She picked him out immediately--he'd sent her a brief physical description as email, and he was the only passenger that it even vaguely fit. She did think it was a bit odd that he was the second one up the tunnel--which had to mean he'd flown first class. Not what she would have expected for someone who was, basically, just a fancy cop. But that thought drifted quickly away as she reached instinctively to smooth her hair and pursed her lips to even out her lipstick--he was much better looking than she had imagined and she knew she probably looked awful.
"Inspector Peel?" she asked, holding out her hand to him expectantly, "I'm Marita Eversham."
"My pleasure," he answered with a warm, heart-melting smile.
She smiled back, quite at a loss for words. He had a wonderful voice--and it was so nice to hear English spoken as it should be, she thought, pleased, as always, to meet an attractive man who didn't have that annoying American accent.
"How nice of you to fetch me," he continued smoothly, still grasping her hand. "Very thoughtful of you."
"I'm just glad I can be of assistance," she answered, hoping it didn't sound trite: she meant every word. Her finely tuned ear picked up more from his voice than just words--his intonations spoke of expensive schools, a very upper class background. She liked that. She'd noticed his clothes, as well--conservative dark suit, but clearly hand-tailored. Expensive. Possibly Brioni. The same went for the top coat tossed over his arm. Unusually good taste for an Englishman. "How was your flight, Inspector?"
"Pleasant", he answered cheerfully, "and please--call me 'Jarod'."
"Of course," she responded, looking into his dark eyes. "And you must call me 'Marita'" .
"Charming name," he told her, "absolutely charming."
"Baggage claim?" she asked, noticing that he carried only a silver metal attaché case and a medium sized black bag.
"No--this is all," he responded, "I always travel light."
As they started toward the exit together she was glad that she had removed her heavy wool coat. She draped it over her left arm, hiding her hand, and as they chatted casually together she surreptitiously used it to mask her nimble fingers as she tugged off her wedding and engagement rings and dropped them, unseen, into her handbag.
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Suquamish Island
Washington
Laura picked idly at her salad as she sat staring at her computer screen, stabbing at a cucumber slice. She took another long gulp of red wine and began typing an email message.
"Haven't heard from you in days . . . " she began.
She stopped and stared at the screen again, then quickly backspaced the words out.
She impaled a small wedge of tomato on her fork and ate it, pensively.
"Was just thinking about you . . . . " she began again after a pause.
She stared at the words for while and then erased that phrase, too.
She ate a bit more salad and then sat tapping on the edge of the keyboard with a fingernail. What she really wanted was for Jarod to email her. They'd been in daily touch with each other, and even though she'd been unhappy about his long silence while he'd been in Mexico and then in Philadelphia--which he had never explained--she'd accepted that. It was part of the tacit agreement they'd finally arrived at that he have as much privacy as he needed. But then he'd simply arrived on her email screen one day, told her he was in Delaware, and to be on the watch for something arriving in the mail.
He'd kept in touch while in London--in fact, they'd been burning up the Internet with constant email and, whenever possible, private chats. And their communication had developed a life of it's own. While there was no way it was like real sex, Laura had gotten rather involved in the entire fantasy of cyber sex. It was certainly a hell of a lot more fun than solitary masturbation, and their shared exchanges had become a very important part of her life. She dressed up for them, wearing the lingerie Jarod sent her, whether it was classy or sleazy or simply outrageous. She never knew what to expect when she opened one of his elaborately gift-wrapped boxes: seven hundred dollar hand-made silk and lace bra and panty sets with exquisite crystal beading, or some bizarre leather and chain corselet that would take her an hour to figure out how to put on.
He sent her hand-made heels of the softest leather imaginable, almost too perfect and delicate to actually wear, and then, the very next day, thigh-high, spike-heeled vinyl trash boots that made her laugh, until he asked her to run her hands slowly--more slowly!--up the insides of her legs and tell him explicitly how it felt, all the while telling her how her description made him feel.
She'd glued pasties on her nipples, gasped at the multicolored dildoes he sent wrapped in hand-painted silk kimonos and lacy teddies--as well as the graphic directions he sent for their use--and struggled not to laugh so hard she couldn't type when he'd wanted her to wear a ridiculous white lace peignoir that came with a white chiffon bride's veil--and crotchless white silk panties.
She suddenly had a closet full of erotic fluff: boned corsets that shoved her breasts half way up to her chin, French maid costumes with cut-out bras, gilt platform shoes with six inch heels and delicate straps around her ankles, stretch lace cat suits and too many pricey bustiers, garter belts and lace thongs to count. Whatever had happened to him in Mexico and Philadelphia, he had responded with a burst of over-wrought libido and a buying spree that put his previous lingerie obsessions to shame.
Laura responded by laughing and tapping away at the keyboard as quickly as she could, until she couldn't type words any longer and would simply set her index finger on the 'o' and just let it run. She had orgasms sitting in front of her desktop, and in every room in the house with her lap top propped beside her. She had orgasms wearing lace and leather and chain mail. She tied an elaborate dildo to the seat of a chair as per his instructions and impaled herself on it while he typed furiously about how hard he was and how deep inside her he wanted to be--and she honestly tried her best to type the whole while, even if spelling and syntax went all to hell and the most she could manage were endless variations on, "dear god jarod dont stop i'm so close dont stop telling me how much yu want to fuck me i wish i could lick your cock i wish i could watch yu cum i want i want i want want want. . . "
And an unexpected side benefit was that her one-handed typing speed had improved exponentially.
"I want you to lean over that big blue chain in your living room", Jarod would type, "and spread your legs. Lock your knees. Can you reach the keyboard if you put it on the seat? I bet you really have to stretch for it. Must pull the straps on that garter belt really tight across your ass. I would give anything, anything, to come up behind you at this moment. Tell me the truth: does it feel as good for you to touch yourself as it would if I were inside you? You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"
And then as suddenly as it started, it had stopped.
She knew Jarod, and she knew how deeply involved he got in his stings. She hadn't expected him to be in such constant touch in the first place--he'd started it. But she wanted more, she wanted to test out the royal blue lace shelf bra he'd sent--that would lift her breasts up and leave her nipples exposed--with the tiny lace g-string, garter belt and matching stockings. And those blue high-heeled slides with their soft puff of marabou that made her feel like a movie star out of the '40's. She wanted to put it on, do her makeup and look at herself in the mirror. She wanted to feel sexy and exotic and desired, and have crazy, passionate sex with a man who was a continent way--through a keyboard and a modem! It was insane, she knew, and some would say she was living way too deeply inside a fantasy. But she'd gotten completely addicted to it, and now she was reduced to staring at her empty email mailbox and feeling sorry for herself.
She punched the PCU's on/off button with a jabbing fingernail.
If that's how he was going to be, well, she could damned well play that game, too. No more pleading email--she could wait.
She glanced over at the bed and the blue lace nestled in all that hot pink tissue paper, the box lid on the floor, drifts of gold and blue wrapping paper and pink ribbons scattered around it. She sighed. She poured another glass of wine and drank most of it. And then booted her lap top back up.
She saw that the little red flag was up as soon as her desk top was visible--it meant she had new email.
"Laura," it began, "hope you got the box today. I've been thinking about you a lot. And wondering if your nipples will get hard if I just talk about how much I wish I could lick them . . . "
She smiled to herself and sighed. He'd set up a time for a private chat in half an hour. Just enough time to get into the lingerie, have another glass of wine, put on some terrific music--and she realized her nipples WERE hard, just as he'd predicted.
"What do you expect?" she thought contentedly. "After all, the man IS a genius . . . "
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British Consulate
New York City
Marita Eversham scrolled quickly down the text on her computer screen and then paused. She'd found what she was looking for: Jarod Emlen Robert Peel, Detective Inspector, London Metropolitan Police--otherwise known as New Scotland Yard--Criminal Investigation Department. She pulled up the rest of his file and read through it quickly: very prestigious schools, excellent marks, promotions within the Yard following each other quickly. Never married--she frowned a bit at that, wondering if there weren't something a bit odd about a man of his age and attractiveness never having married. He wasn't gay--she could trust her instincts on that. She'd seen the way he looked at her--especially when she's crossed her legs in the limo on the way to the Consulate from the airport.
She looked back over his file again--it was a very busy career. He'd moved up with surprising alacrity and evidently handled some very important investigations, many requiring overseas travel. So perhaps he'd never had time to find the right girl. Or felt it wasn't fair to marry when he was so involved in his work. And that explanation bothered her a bit, too: it was irritatingly close to her own husband's situation, she increasingly felt he should never have married if he'd planned on spending every blessed minute of his life at work. She frowned.
Perhaps simply "never met the right girl" was explanation enough, she decided, upon further reflection. Marita had a habit of putting the best possible spin on things.
She scrolled further into Jarod's "past" --the fictitious life he had made up for himself in this pretend. And then she gasped out loud. For there, at the very foot of the dossier, almost hidden under the burden of career and school details, was a single paragraph listing his parents' names and birthdates.
Marita smiled and massaged the annoying recessed band at the base of her ring finger, an irritant that simply wouldn't go away, a reminder of the rings that had been there. On top of everything else, he was a Lord--heir to the Earldom of Hefering. Upon his father's death--and she did the math quickly, the old man was eighty-four--Jarod would became the seventeenth Earl of Hefering!
She sat staring into space. It was almost too good to be true.
She had no way of knowing it was, in fact, way too good to be true--that Jarod had binged on British import TV before leaving for London to polish his English accent, and somewhere in the midst of "Upstairs, Downstairs" , "Are You Being Served?" , "Wallace and Gromit" , "Mr. Bean" , "Masterpiece Threatre", "Absolutely Fabulous" and "Fawlty Towers" he'd made up a Earldom and a title for himself on a whim. It had never occurred to him it could cause any problems. It fit his pretend rather well, actually, explaining "Jarod Peel's" exclusive education and, hopefully, serving to mask any peculiarities in his speech or accent as simply to-be-expected upper-crust eccentricity. He'd certainly had no way of knowing, that to a lonely woman trapped in a comfortless marriage, it removed with a flourish any lingering vestige of trepidation.
Marita peered at her finger and rubbed her flesh harder. Ten years of marriage and all she had to show for it was mark on her finger that she couldn't get rid of no matter how hard she tried. She snorted in disgust: that expressed her sentiments precisely.
And she realized that Jarod's family background explained away all the lingering questions she had about him. It didn't take a genius to put all the pieces together and fill in the blanks. For example: he'd flown first class: which indicated private wealth beyond a merger detective's salary (actually, Jarod had merely wanted the extra leg room on the long flight). And then there were the quaint idioms he seemed fond of using: he'd grown up in the closed, exclusive world of the very-rich and had some odd speech patterns because of it (it was really due to too much "Upstairs, Downstairs" while he was researching his accent). He wore expensive clothes: obviously he was used to the best (they were left over from his last sting and he thought they worked well with the more formal clothing habits he had noticed in England). And he seemed remarkably at home in New York--and quite comfortable with American habits: clearly an indication of a cosmopolitan, well-traveled youth (not hardly).
She smiled smugly, proud of her own detecting skills. She knew a great deal about this man, and she liked what she had found out.
The gentle knock on her closed office door made her jump. She shut the computer down with one brisk motion.
"Yes?" she responded to the knock.
Jarod opened the door only enough to peer inside. "I didn't mean to disturb you," he began, "but I have a few questions about this Chambers case and I was wondering--"
"Jarod!" Marita replied warmly, flipping her shining blond hair out of her face. "Please come in. It's no trouble, at all, I assure you. I'd be delighted to help you in any way I can . . . "
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New York Metropolitan Police
Homicide Division
Oddly enough, Jarod had expected a great deal more disdain directed toward him from the New York cops while in this pretend. He'd " been" a cop, and FBI, and he'd quickly understood the territorial posturing that local law enforcement felt compelled to display for the benefit of outsiders. Intruders, really: hot shots who cruised in, took over and then walked away--getting all the credit for the hard work done long before their arrival. And his cover story--that there had been a child in Vivian Chambers' care who had died suddenly and inexplicably of " crib death" in England, which he was now looking into again--was pretty vague. But so far the New York detectives had been almost excruciatingly polite and helpful.
He decided it reflected another interesting discovery he had recently made: the seemingly irresistible desire of people to be kind and helpful to foreigners. He'd seen it in restaurants at first, where normally contemptuous waiters had started smiling as soon as they heard his phony English accent. He'd tested it further, asking for directions from people on the street, and was amazed by how far out of their way New Yorkers--not generally known for being solicitous to the needs of others--had been willing to go. They'd walked him to subway entrances, hailed cabs for him--demonstrating their own personal version of the classic New York whistle-and-wave--and asked him if he was having a "good time" in New York. Worrying about whether or not someone else was having a "good time" had never seemed to him previously a typical New Yorker character trait. And now even the cops were bending over backwards to help him--going beyond, he knew, what they were legally required, or even allowed, to do for him. It almost made him feel guilty for not actually being this Scotland Yard guy. Almost, but not quite.
Because the only thing that mattered to him was seeing justice served: not his ego or theirs. What he wanted was to bring closure to the parent's of a brutally murdered child, and be the force that would bring righteous punishment against the truly guilty.
If Laura joked about his "climax" at the end of a successful sting, well, that was Laura. Her cynicism no longer hurt him--even she had finally admitted she approved of what he did. But he didn't require that, he didn't require anyone else's approval, or even understanding. All he required, he required of himself: simply to get the job done. And he was in this city for a very specific reason.
"I've got to tell you," Detective Don Bollman was saying, "I've never felt right about this case. Not from the get-go. I mean--it's like everybody's lying, about everything, you see what I mean? Normally I'd say, sure, the nanny did it. The kid was crying, she wanted her daily nap--bam! She whacks the kid too hard, maybe slams him against the wall: boom! Skull fracture, next thing you know you got a dead kid. OK? But her story made no sense! She didn't even try to put together an alibi, an explanation of how it really happened--you know: he fell off the changing table, or down the stairs. Nothing. She sat in there--" he gestured with a toss of his head toward the interrogation rooms behind them--"and says nothing--nothing at all--for hours. Then the freaking lawyers start showing up." He paused and glanced at Jarod's suit. "I got nothing against guys in fancy suits, OK? But these guys--a major investment in threads, you see what I'm saying? It looked like freaking Hollywood in here--legal consultants of the rich and famous! So where did THAT come from, huh? This Brit nanny was, what, putting fifty grand away every week out of her pay to put down as retainers on these guys? Give me a break!"
"But the evidence does all point, nevertheless, toward Vivian Chambers?" Jarod asked.
"Yeah, yeah--the evidence! As if we had evidence! Look, Peel, between you and me--this case sucked from the start. It was full of holes those high priced shysters coulda driven their Mercedes through!"
"Which is precisely what they did, didn't they?" Jarod asked quietly.
"Yeah--that's how it went down." Bollman sighed contemplatively. "They walked all over the D.A., they stomped all over our forensics, they shit all over--ah, excuse my, ah, my language . . . " Bollman broke off, embarrassed.
"No--that's a very apt description of what happened in court, I believe," Jarod reassured him. "I couldn't have put it better, myself."
"Well," Bollman continued, "that's it in a nut shell: that's why Chambers walked. No matter how you feel about dead kids, you've gotta give a jury something REAL to hang a conviction on. And we had nothing real. To tell you the truth, it surprised the hell out of me we even got an arrest warrant out of a judge on what we had. I mean, you always hope that justice will be done. Even us: even guys that have seen the worst side of life--" he glanced around the big, cluttered room filled with desks and cops--"even we hope, when you see a thing like this, that somebody's going to pay for what they did. But then, well, you start to think, there is no real justice, after all."
Jarod smiled and looked off into the distance for a moment. "Don't you be so sure about that," he told the cop.
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Lutece
East 50th Street, New York
It had amused Jarod that of all the complicated things he had managed since getting out of the Centre, acquiring a last-minute dinner reservation at Lutece had turned out to one of the hardest to accomplish. He'd finally had to send an off-duty concierge from his hotel--who aspired to be an actor--in person, in a limo, equipped with fake I.D., demanding a table for the British Ambassador.
Even then it had also cost him an extra thousand bucks.
But Marita was clearly overwhelmed and blushed charmingly when Jarod was addressed as "Mr. Ambassador" . Jarod hushed her with a wink and then explained after the man left, and she gasped and clapped her hands in delight, much like a surprised child.
What he was after from Marita, he reminded himself--and the only reason for all the attention he was paying her--was information. She had been the only person to whom Vivian Chambers had spoken about little Jonathon Roth's death. Chambers had placed the phone call to the consulate even as the boy was being rushed to the hospital--where he was pronounced dead on arrival. As a British citizen, Jarod imagined that Vivian had wanted know where she stood vis a vis the American criminal justice system. Marita's testimony at the trail had been clear and the point, though: Vivian Chambers had tearfully insisted she was innocent. She hadn't asked about the law, at all. She claimed she merely wanted to talk to another Englishwoman.
It was unclear if the jury had believed Marita or not. With the paucity of actual evidence, her testimony probably didn't matter, one way or the other. But what concerned Jarod was the truth, not what a jury thought, or didn't. He was quite sure Marita had not told the entire content of that phone call to the jury, and he needed to know what Marita had held back, and why. And if that meant he had to have dinner with a beautiful woman who seemed thrilled to be with him, well, it wasn't causing him any pain.
It crossed his mind to wonder what Laura would have thought--and said. He'd been online with her just before picking Marita up, and the "conversation" had been very satisfying. He was enjoying their new little sex games and having a huge amount of fun picking out costumes for her to wear. There was a kind of trust and intimacy in staying in touch with her that he'd never experienced before. He still found it difficult to tell her about what he was doing, but the sex kept them together, nonetheless. He wasn't sure if she understood that it meant a great deal to him, or that it was more or less the closest he could get to actually sharing his life with her--or anyone else. Still, he doubted she'd be very supportive of his trying to extract secrets from Marita this way. She'd imagine he had other motives, as well.
Which he was beginning to think he might, after all. Marita was a very desirable woman, and she had a way of looking at him--as though she were hanging on every word he said--that was extraordinarily flattering. She seemed so happy to be with him. Hungry, actually, for his attention. Her foot brushed against his leg under the table. He wondered in that were by accident or intent.
From her point of view, there was also a Plan. It had nothing to do with Vivian Chambers, and everything to do with Jarod. What had happened in her life had developed slowly, over the course of ten years of marriage. It wasn't until quite recently that she realized how unhappy she was, with Edgar, her husband, her job at the consulate, her whole life. Edgar was very successful, spending about equal amounts of time at his business in London and the American subsidiary here in New York. When they'd met, it had seemed the perfect fit: they both loved the two cities equally and planned to travel back and forth together as much as Marita's position allowed. Which hadn't happened, at all. Mostly, Edgar was gone. He spent longer and longer blocks of time in England, and even when he was in the States was more likely to be at their summer home in Maine than in New York. He cared passionately for two things in life: his business, and golf. That Marita came up a distant third--if that--was increasingly clear to everyone involved.
But getting out of it wasn't all that easy. Marita had never really been truly alone in her life--she'd gone right from her parent's home to her first marriage, and right from it to Edgar. She disliked the concept of loneliness as much, if not more, than the concept of discomfort of any sort. She didn't want to feel abandoned or unhappy. She needed a place to go, and someone to take her there. And she thought she knew exactly how to make that happen.
She looked deeply into Jarod's eyes. He returned her warm, interested stare. She had remarkable eyes, he thought--a sort of smoky, gray green. With some blue, as well. He hadn't planned on having sex with her but suddenly it occurred to him that it was nearly inevitable if they kept staring at each other that way. He didn't have a clue that he was being seduced. He thought he was in complete control.
She lived in a grand old brownstone on East Eighty-Sixth Street, near the park, and it seemed completely natural for him to follow her invitation in for a cup of coffee. He didn't feel lured or manipulated. He wasn't aware of anything except her smile and the rapt interest with which she listened to him talk. Later, he would never be able to quite remember how their first kiss had come about. She was helping him out of his overcoat and then quite inexplicably she was in his arms. It didn't seem planned or rehearsed. He wouldn't believe you if you told him she'd done both.
She wasn't demanding or pushy like Laura so he couldn't imagine that she had any ulterior motive. She seemed merely compliant, willing. He got the impression she hadn't had many lovers, she seemed vaguely timid, waiting for him to decide what came next. He wasn't used to women who were so passive. It was different and he liked it--or at least it seemed somehow correct for her to be that way. It made him feel--he wasn't sure--perhaps "manly" expressed it. She had a way of being helpless and needy and fragile and feminine that had nothing to do with Laura's almost predatory sexuality. Marita seemed to want and expect him to take charge and, well, take her.
She didn't even help him find her bedroom, she let him lead her down the hall by the hand as if it were his house. He hadn't a clue that she was orchestrating everything that happened. She wanted him--that much was clear--but at all times he felt that the next move was entirely up to him. He felt almost giddy with that unfamiliar responsibility. And delighted. When he kissed her she responded warmly, but if he drew back she waited for him to return his lips to hers.
He'd been shoved rudely down on beds all over the country so many times by Laura that Marita felt like some other gender, entirely: it was like he was making love to another species. She let him undress her as if it were his right to do so. It was like undressing a doll. It was an unfamiliar sensation of power and intimacy that he found rather exciting. Her underwear was black and he almost didn't want to take off her bra: her skin was so pale it seemed to glow in the dim light and the contrast with the black satin was breathtaking.
He remembered the first time he'd seen Laura naked--it had surprised him that she'd had practically no tan line, her honey colored skin was naturally that dark. But Marita was as pale as a ghost, with the lightest golden brown pubic hair and pale pink nipples at the tips of her soft breasts.
And Laura had muscles. Her body was hard and firm and packed with woman--there wasn't anything fragile or weak about her. She made love like an equal: he could never imagine thinking he'd " had" Laura or "taken" Laura. But he felt he was definitely about to " have" Marita.
The softness of her skin--and of her entire body--astonished Jarod. He ran his hands over her back and down her thin arms, pulling her closer to him, getting lost in the scent of her golden hair and amazed by how fragile and defenseless she seemed. And was, he thought, quite literally--Laura had enough muscles to put up a hell of a fight if she wanted to. She'd caught him off guard and pinned him more times than he liked to think about. She snarled and bit and scratched and made what they both knew were impossible sexual demands of him. But Marita merely stood and waited.
He led her to the bed and sat her on the edge and she reclined languidly, resting on one elbow, watching him undress. She seemed in no hurry. If she was thinking anything she kept it to herself.
He stood over her for a long moment, unsure, suddenly, if she really did want this to happen. She was so silent and passive he felt he might be misreading her. And she reached for him, then, sensing his confusion, pulling him down on the bed beside her, stretching her nakedness against his, the hardness of his erection pressed into her stomach.
He rolled on top of her, working his way slowly down her body with kisses and licks, feeling her sighing beneath him. Her eyes were shut and she seemed lost in some other world, disconnected from the place he was at, which was very real and physical, a world where flesh tasted of salt and sweat, nipples quickened into the hardness of desire and a man and a woman had a lot they could say to each other. But Marita seemed to be floating silently above that. He couldn't imagine what she felt. She said not a word. He licked the insides of her thighs and pinched her nipples, moving his tongue slowly deeper into her crotch, spreading the delicate, pink lips of her labia with his fingers and licking the glistening, translucent perfection inside, exploring for her clitoris . . . .
She suddenly opened her eyes wide. Of course, he wasn't in a place where he could see that happen, but he felt her entire body jerk away from him. He paused, waiting for some sort of signal from her. Perhaps this was something she didn't want, didn't like. Perhaps she was simply too sensitive--the way Laura was for a long while after she'd come. He'd learned not to even try to touch her there until she let him know it was OK again.
Marita lay back on the bed staring right up at the ceiling. She'd slept with two men in her life--her two husbands, and neither one had ever done what Jarod had just done. It was like a door opened up and she was sucked right through it into another world. Sex was something men did to you, after all, and if it felt all right that was nice, but the sort of things she'd read about--wild, earth-shaking orgasms--had never happened to her. Sometimes she pretended it did, to get the whole thing over with. Other times she didn't even bother to pretend. Edgar was eighteen years older than she, her first husband had been ten years older. Neither cared about how she felt in bed. They cared about how other men looked at them when they walked into a room with her.
She'd never in her life seen a naked man that looked like Jarod did. The hardness of his body--of every inch of it when he pressed up against her, had actually terrified her. It was exciting and scary at the same time. She'd imagined this entire scene much differently, in fact, she'd thought about it as a thing she had to get through. First you let them have sex with you, then they fall in love with you, then you get them to marry you. It was a progression as ancient and simple as a religious ritual. She hadn't counted on Jarod being different. On sex being different. She waited to see what Jarod would do next.
And he waited to see what she wanted him to do next. The moments ticked by. It may have gone on that way forever, with her lying there passively and him too confused to make a move, except something had changed in the universe, although Jarod was blithely unaware of it.
"That--thing," she finally whispered, "that you just did--you know?"
Jarod nodded. He was still concerned he'd hurt her or something.
"Do that again," she commanded.
He smiled. Now he was back in familiar territory. Women who gave him orders in bed were a familiar phenomena in his life. Ultimately, he liked it better that way. Marita's almost corpselike passivity, combined with her pallor, had been beginning to, as Laura would have put it, "creep him out." He'd been around too many dead people lately, pretending to be an anatomy professor, and was a lot more interested in the living at the moment.
He obeyed, licking and sucking and finally even biting gently the tiny hot button of her clitoris. He held her firmly by her ass, past the point of caring if he left bruises of that porcelain skin, and she gasped, grabbed him by his hair and screeched out loud.
He laughed, moving upward to hold her while she literally shook and moaned, kissing her face and throat.
"That was nice," he told her, "do you always come that hard?"
She stared at him like he was from Mars or something. She was past the point of knowing what to say. She'd never had an orgasm like that in her life, not when masturbating, certainly not with either of her husbands.
"What else do you know how to do?" she asked, finally, honestly curious.
"Oh, a few things," he answered.
