Kept (4 page)

Martin hadn’t expected anything different, but it made it that much more entertaining to expose Van Weldt’s dirty secret. His lip curled when he thought of the ad campaign featuring Alyssa Miles draped in nothing but sparkling stones. He wondered what she’d do when she found out she might as well have been covered in blood.

Alyssa Miles at the center of a blood diamond scandal. And Martin Fish would be front-page news for breaking the story.

But first he needed Marie Laure’s help to get him the footage he needed to give the story that heartbreaking dose of reality.

“Monsieur Fish?”

He sighed in relief when he heard Marie Laure’s soft greeting. She shot a furtive glance over her shoulder before emerging from the shadow. Her eyes were huge and dark in her thin face. Spindly arms poked from the sleeves of her dress, her legs covered by a colorful ankle-length skirt. She shuffled forward on bare feet. “I am sorry to be late,” she said in her lilting English. “My husband was slower to go out this morning.”

Husband.
Now, that was a euphemism if he’d ever heard one. Mekembe had stolen Marie Laure during a raid on their village nearly a year ago. In the course of the raid, her parents and younger sister had been killed, her younger brother taken captive and impressed into service for the People’s Freedom Movement.

Marie Laure, an uncommonly pretty sixteen-year-old with smooth, coffee-colored skin and fine sculpted features, had been chosen by Mekembe to be his “wife.”

Which Martin knew was code for sex slave. But it meant she had only one rapist to endure.

And uncommon access to Mekembe and those who helped him move the diamonds over the border.

“Give me the necklace,” he said, reaching for it even as she slipped it over her head, careful not to dislodge the blue and white scarf wrapped around her head. “It’s late. I’ll be lucky to make it back to the camp without anyone seeing me.”

He ignored the stab of guilt in his chest as she lowered her gaze and hunched her shoulders and quickly replaced the battery in the pendant.

She slipped it back over her head and reached for the bag of lentils.

“Uh-uh,” Martin said, holding it just out of reach. “Before I give you this, you need to promise you’ll get me footage of the next shipment.”

Her full lips tightened. “Monsieur, I do what I can, but he sends me out when they are meeting—”

“Peek in the window, hide under the bed, for all I care. But if you want to get you and your baby out, you’ll get me the access I need.”

Her thin, long-fingered hand curved protectively over the small bulge of her belly pushing insistently against the worn cotton of her dress. “I heard him talking to someone on his handphone. Someone important, someone they call the
Français,
is coming in next week.”

Martin barely kept his jaw from falling open. He couldn’t possibly be this lucky. “The Français? You’re sure of that?” He tried not to get too excited. No doubt a lot of shady characters of the mixed French persuasion did business in this part of the world. How likely was it that he would come here in person? Still, his insides churned with anticipation. “You get me footage of him, and I promise I’ll get you out on the next transport to Kinshasa.”

“And my brother, too,” she said, losing her timidity.

“I’ll do what I can,” he said, knowing her brother was a lost cause. Finagling a pregnant teenage girl a spot on the
helicopter was difficult enough, if not impossible. He still wasn’t sure he could live up to that promise.

But he shoved aside his guilt as he handed over the bag of lentils and watched Marie Laure disappear around the corner, her bare feet silent in the red dirt. Even if he couldn’t save one pregnant girl, if he broke the story the way he wanted, it would bring the plight of thousands like Marie Laure and her brother to the world’s attention. If she had to be sacrificed to save thousands, so be it.

Martin sipped at a mug of malafu as he reclined on his canvas cot. He took another slug, wincing at the taste of the bitter local brew, but he’d learned the best way to consume palm wine was to power through the first couple glasses. Then you barely tasted the rest of the bottle.

He fumbled under his cot for a refill, nearly upsetting the notebook computer on his lap as his fingers twisted in the netting surrounding his bed. As accommodations went, a canvas tent in the PRC encampment wasn’t much, but at least he had a net to keep the bugs out, a modicum of privacy to do his work, and access to a generator to keep his batteries charged. Add his satellite modem into the mix for easy Internet access, and, really, what more did he need?

Sweat trickled down his neck, but he barely felt the itch as the malafu flowed thick and warm through his blood. He posted his latest article onto his news site, FishBait.org, and checked the traffic stats.
Fuck.
Only a thousand goddamn people had bothered to read his news in the last month. Might as well have been zero.

Why do you waste your time?
The voice in his head started out as his own and then morphed as it echoed around his head, becoming his ex-wife’s, his daughter’s, his parents—All the people he’d disappointed in the past two decades, angry at him for not being there because he was too busy
chasing a story. Pissed that he wouldn’t give it up and settle for some desk job writing business news for some bullshit paper in podunk USA.

Then another, smug voice.
Why do you waste your time?
Charlie’s. Arrogant fucker. Martin surfed over to Charlie’s site, creatively titled Celebzone. The glow from his screen cast an eerie light against the dark canvas walls of his tent. Outside he heard scuffing footsteps in the dirt, snippets of muffled conversation as aid workers made their way to their tents after a long day of trying to save a part of the world beyond saving.

Little of it registered as Martin stared, transfixed at the images on the screen. Headlining Charlie’s site was a non-story about Alyssa Miles attending a charity event up near San Francisco. The story itself was nothing—a single paragraph on what Alyssa wore and something about tension between her and her stepmother.

What mesmerized him were the pictures that ran alongside. Alyssa, long hair spilling down a back left bare by her flame-colored silk dress, the hard glitter of diamonds at her wrists and fingers.

Below that was a picture from the latest “Diamonds for All” campaign, featuring a nearly naked Alyssa with cold, hard stones trailing down the curve of her spine. Martin swallowed hard. Resentful as he was at Alyssa and the dumbed-down culture she represented, even he had to admit there was something about her. An appeal, an allure, a natural charisma that went beyond beauty to draw people’s attention, even though she’d never done a single useful thing to deserve it.

He stared at the photo, her pale gold skin giving off a glow, her eyelashes a thick fringe as she kept her eyes downcast, fixed on a point to the right of her shoulder. Most people thought the glow of her skin was a trick of airbrushing, but Martin had seen her in person and knew for a fact it wasn’t. She really was that pretty, that flawless.

A perfect, empty shell.

He traced his finger over the screen as if he could feel her skin. Feel the cold bite of the diamonds trailing down her back. Marie Laure’s face popped into his brain, her dark eyes bottomless pits of despair as she hunched her body around the bump of her baby. He gulped down another cup of palm wine to wash the image away.

It did nothing to dampen his resentment for Alyssa, so busy posing in ad campaigns and pimping jewelry at fund-raisers, with no clue in her walnut-sized brain of the kind of suffering those sparkly little stones represented.

He saved the photo of Alyssa’s ad to his desktop and reopened it in a graphic design program. In a different window, he opened another photo, a still from the video footage Marie Laure had captured just a week ago, after one of the miners had tried to smuggle a stone out of the camp. First Mekembe had hacked off the man’s hands with a machete. Then Mekembe had gone to the man’s tent and dragged his wife and ten-year-old daughter out into the road.

As the man watched, his wife and daughter were gang-raped by Mekembe’s men before having their hands hacked off with a machete blade. In this frame the man sat dazed in shock next to the crumpled forms of his wife and daughter. Blood pooled around them, darkening the already red earth to a near black crimson.

Marie Laure told him the daughter had died several hours later.

Lips curling, Martin clicked on the sea of thick red, transferring the color to the photo of Alyssa. As he clicked his way down her back, the diamonds became drops of blood, oozing down her skin like scarlet tears.

H
E WAS BATSHIT. That was the only word that explained Derek’s behavior.

Why else would he be unlocking his door to usher in a woman he’d just met—some random society brat, no less—into his house?

Okay, not merely batshit. Completely nuts. He had been from the moment he’d taken her hand, felt the sensual warmth of her skin. And when she’d leaned over in the car, laid that hot hand on his thigh, burning him through the fabric of his pants, his cock had gone titanium hard.

Every drop of blood had rushed down to pulse and throb between his legs, causing temporary insanity. Because there was no way in hell Derek would be doing this otherwise.

That said, he was mesmerized by the swing of her ass, the subtle flex of muscle under the smooth skin of her thighs as she preceded him up the stairs leading from the garage to the kitchen. He wanted to lean forward, bury his face against the curve of her butt, take a nip out of a firm cheek. Push her forward, lift her skirt, and shove his cock into her from behind.

He reached past her to flick on the light, catching the scent of her as he did so. Fresh, citrusy, with a warm, musky
tone underneath. The aroma went straight to his balls, curling around and squeezing like a woman’s soft hand.

Like Alyssa’s hot hand, circling and stroking his cock, burning him alive.

“Nice place,” she said, surveying the recently remodeled kitchen.

“Thanks,” he said. “I just finished renovating the kitchen and bathrooms.” This was weird, standing here, his dick hard enough to cut glass, talking about his kitchen remodel.

She walked slowly forward, her skinny heels
tap-tapping
on the tile before she leaned one hip against a bar stool next to the counter. She looked up at him with wide, grass-green eyes and caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

Was she really nervous? Or was it an act?

Derek didn’t kid himself. She probably did this all the time. He was merely her chosen nightcap at the end of the evening.

Still, she looked uncertain, waiting for him to make a move. The silence thickened, verging on awkward.

This was such a fucking bad idea. If he were Ethan—his twin who would have done this gig under normal circumstances—Derek would have a steady stream of flirty banter at the ready, a smile designed to make a woman feel at ease as he was herding her to the bedroom.

But he wasn’t the player Ethan had been before he’d met Toni Crawford, world’s sexiest computer nerd. Derek didn’t take random women home, didn’t have the time or desire to make meaningless chitchat and talk them into bed for equally meaningless sex.

So what the fuck was he doing?

Alyssa gave him a tentative smile and absently twisted a strand of golden-brown hair. The smile shot heat to his groin, and he had his answer.

“How about a drink?” Alyssa said. She slipped her coat off her shoulders and placed it on the bar stool next to her, not noticing—or not caring—when it slid onto the floor.

“Good idea.” He could use something to take the edge off as the rational side of his brain—the one he listened to without fail—argued with his cock over whether or not he should throw caution to the wind or throw Alyssa out on her delectable ass.

Right now, the jury was still out. “I’ve got Scotch,” he said, retrieving a bottle of Lagavulin from the liquor cabinet. “And a bottle of this cabernet. I think it’s decent. I got it as a gift.”

Alyssa took the bottle and eyed the label. Her appreciative “Ooh” made him wonder what noises she’d make if he buried his tongue in her pussy.

Logic was losing out to lust, big-time.

He poured himself three fingers of the Lag and dug a wineglass from the back of a cabinet. He filled it half full and handed it to Alyssa, making sure not to touch her as he did so.

“Let’s go outside,” he said, motioning to the French doors that opened off the kitchen to a small deck overlooking his patch of grass that served as a backyard. Sipping her wine, Alyssa went over to the deck’s railing and rested her knee on the built-in bench at the edge.

His eyes were glued to the skin of her back, left bare by her dress, glowing silver in the moonlight. His mouth watered with the urge to brush her long, thick hair aside and run his tongue along the shallow groove of her spine, up over her shoulders, and back down.

He moved closer, catching her scent. Like an animal. He’d never felt this, the craving to take a woman, to have her, over and over.

And he hadn’t so much as kissed her yet.

She had to go.

The Lag was starting to do its job, mellowing him out, dulling the edges of everything, including his defenses against the unwarranted desire for this woman.

“Listen,” he began, “I don’t do this kind of thing very often—”

“What? Have a drink on your deck or take random women home with you?”

“The second,” he said, an involuntary smile pulling at his mouth.

She turned to face him, the light spilling from his kitchen bouncing off the delicate lines of her face. “Me neither. Go home with random men, I mean.”

He didn’t bother to hide his disbelief.

“Believe what you want.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “It’s true.”

Fine, he’d humor her. Then he’d let her finish her drink and offer her a ride home.

No matter how much his dick throbbed in protest.

“Oh, yeah? So why me?” He tossed back the last of his Scotch.

She gave him a wry smile. “There’s something about you that’s different from most men I meet. Something that makes me want to be with you.”

He thought he heard something in her tone, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it through the soft haze of the Scotch and the sudden rush of heat that blew through him as she eased closer, close enough for him to feel heat radiating off her in waves.

Hands were tugging at his lapels. “Come down here,” she whispered. “I can’t kiss you all the way up there.”

Oh, this was such a bad idea. But he sat down on the bench and pulled her between his parted thighs, spreading his palms on the hot skin of her back.

“That’s better.” Her hands cradled his face, and her wine-scented breath caressed his mouth as she leaned in for a kiss.

Heat exploded through him at the first touch, and his fingers tightened around her back as he pulled her close. She tasted like peaches, he thought as his tongue slid into her mouth—peaches and something dark and rich and spicy.

The curve of her hip pressed against his thigh, and the softness of her belly cradled the hard ridge of his erection. His mouth opened wider over hers, his tongue thrusting inside. Not the light, introductory, how-you-doing kiss she’d started.

He half expected her to pull away—little slip like her probably wasn’t expecting an assault from a caveman when she’d invited herself over to play.

Too bad. She’d slipped right through his control, wound him tight as a bow. Now she had to face the consequences.

To his shock, she didn’t back off at all, but gave as good as she got. Her mouth opened under his, her tongue swept through his mouth, exploring him as hungry little moans bubbled from the back of her throat.

She leaned into him, crushing herself against his chest. He took off his suit jacket in jerky, impatient motions, resenting the way the heavy fabric kept him from really feeling her. His hand covered her breast through her dress, swallowing the plump curve in his broad palm. Alyssa moaned and sucked on his tongue. His cock strained against his fly, begging for the same treatment.

He stood up and clamped his hands around her waist, lifting her easily and carrying her through the kitchen, down the hall to his bedroom. He deposited her on the bed and switched on the bedside lamp. His last lover had been a strictly lights-out girl, and Derek had never cared.

But one look at Alyssa, blinking up at him with blurry green eyes, the hem of her dress flipped up to reveal the crotch of
cream silk panties, and he knew he had to watch every second.

He stripped off his shirt in jerky motions, ripped by dueling desires to fuck her hard and fast and get this the hell over with before he completely lost his mind, and the need to linger over every square inch of her, discover every secret spot, see how many times he could make her come before he finally let himself go.

She kicked off her shoes and rose into a seated position. She reached around to the back of her neck. With a flick of her fingers she undid the button holding up her dress. Red silk pooled at her waist as her gaze slid shyly from his.

Derek felt like he’d taken a roundhouse kick to the chest. She was perfect—silky golden skin, small but luscious breasts tipped with dark pink nipples. Something twisted inside him, dark and aching and needy, yearning for this small woman perched on his bed.

He had to get this over with, fast. If he was smart, he’d follow his initial instinct and cut this off now. But he’d left smart behind about thirty minutes ago when his cock had told his brain to offer her a ride home.

Not fucking her was not an option. Not anymore. Not with her sitting on his bed with her buttery soft skin and nipples that begged to be sucked and tongued. But he could do it quickly, get her out of here, mitigate the damage. No soft words, no lingering explorations. Get her off fast, get himself off immediately after.

Over and done with, and then he could put this whole crazy night and the irrational pull she had on him out of his mind.

His hands went to his fly as he simultaneously toed off his shoes. He shoved his pants and boxers down in one move and stripped his socks off in fast, efficient movements. His cock was rock hard, bobbing and straining between his legs.

Alyssa’s mouth curved in another soft “ooh,” and she let out a little gasp. He felt her gaze like a caress as she stared at his erection, her eyebrows raised. Blood surged, and he lifted one knee onto the bed.

Alyssa looked up at him with a tiny smile curving her pink mouth. “Impressive.”

Derek wanted to return her smile but couldn’t. He wanted to laugh this off, inject some lightness into a moment that had sped from flirtation to way too intense in lightning speed. His hands shook as he reached for her and pushed her back on the bed. She pulled him down over her, sliding her fingers through his hair and pulling his mouth to hers for another hungry kiss. Her skin was hot against his, hot and smooth. Her nipples were like bullets pressing against his chest.

He shoved her dress all the way off and pushed on his arms so he could see her, all of her, naked except for a wisp of silk covering her mound. She raised her hands, ran her hands down his chest and sides, traced the line of hair that bisected his abdomen.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered and slid her hand down the last few torturous inches to his cock. He wanted to return the compliment, but his brain turned to mush as warm fingers wrapped around him, sending a jolt of fire straight to his belly. A thick drop of precome beaded on the tip as he pulsed in her hand. He looked down, groaning at the sight of her small, manicured fingers circling his cock, and for a brief, humiliating moment he was afraid he was going to come in her hand.

Then she closed her fist around him and started to stroke. He arched his head back, gritting his teeth against the unbearable pleasure, allowed himself to savor it for a few seconds before he grabbed her hand away. Christ, she was going to burn him alive.

He leaned down and took her mouth in a hard, hungry
kiss, came fully over her until they were breast to chest. One of his thighs hitched between hers, and he could feel her damp heat against his skin. He pressed higher, reveling in her soft gasp, in the way she arched and rubbed herself against him.

His hands slid over her breasts, exploring, his thumb flicking over the firm beads of her nipples. He slid his mouth from hers, trailed hot, openmouthed kisses down her neck and chest before closing his mouth over one hard tip. He’d meant to be gentle, easing into it with teasing flicks of his tongue before sucking it between his lips.

Instead he sucked her, hard, like he wanted to devour her. And she seemed to love it, digging her fingers into his hair, holding him close.

“Derek,” she whispered, “that feels so good.”

Her breathy voice exploded through him, making his dick throb to get inside her even as he wanted to show her all the ways he could touch her and give her pleasure.

He buried his head between her breasts, pressing hard kisses against her skin as an unfamiliar tangle of desire and emotion roiled inside him. Derek had always considered himself a decent lover. Courteous, anyway. He always got his partner off, lingering as long as he needed to, doing whatever she needed done before getting onto his own satisfaction.

But he’d never felt this primitive need to give pleasure, the need to stroke her higher and higher. He’d never anticipated a woman’s orgasm like he did Alyssa’s, wanting to experience it almost as much as he wanted his own.

He circled her nipple with his tongue and pulled away to look at her. Her green eyes were narrowed into slits; her lips were puffy and red from his kisses. Red splotches showed on her delicate skin where his day’s growth of stubble had rasped. She was so beautiful it made his throat tight to look at her.

He wanted to spend hours, days, touching her, tasting her, finding out all her secrets.

He wanted to steal her away to one of Gemini’s safe houses, keep her there for about a month until he knew her as well as he knew himself.

Derek’s brain, which had gone on a coffee break up until that moment, surged back into action.

What the fuck are you thinking? She’s nothing but a rich girl who picked you up at a party for the purposes of a fast fuck. She’s hot. You want her. She wants you. You know all you need to know. Now get it over with before you really lose it.

Right. So what if he wanted her more than he could remember wanting any other woman, ever? So what if she made him lose touch with his normal, levelheaded, logical self?

They were two strangers who had met and wanted to have sex. Nothing special about that. No deeper meaning beyond mutual lust.

Yet every instinct for self-preservation urged him to get this over with as quickly as possible before Alyssa Miles wreaked more havoc on his mental state.