Red Leopard (The Vistaria Affair Series) (5 page)

She opened her mouth, but nothing emerged. She could say no words nor any sound, although the words were there, ready to tumble out. She fought to speak them and failed.

His hands dropped away from her. He stepped around her and began to walk away and she lifted her hand toward him, pleading, but still the words would not emerge until he had left, and then the cry of frustration and despair came back to her throat.

* * * * *

Calli sat bolt upright in her borrowed bed, her heart and head pounding with the pressure of dream induced horror and a sexual excitement more intense than anything she had ever experienced in her life. Not just her genitals throbbed. Her whole body pulsated with the coursing arousal. Her chest heaved beneath the pink chiffon and her nipples could feel every little rub of the fabric. They were tight, taut and almost painfully sensitive.

She opened her mouth and took deep measured breaths, bringing her pulse down, working for calm. It took several minutes, for her mind was a jumble of dream images, still fresh, still able to arouse.

Chief amongst them, the feel of him holding her up against him. Soft, warm silk beneath her fingers. Underneath the silk, the hard wall of chest muscles. His mouth mere inches from hers. His knowing gaze. The waves of sexual tension pouring from him, washing over her. The pressure of his hips against hers. The powerful, arousing pressure.

“Ah, shit,” Calli murmured to herself in the dark. Playing back the dream memories wasn’t doing a thing to help steady her pulse. She reached over for the glass of water on the edge of the desk beside the bed. The desk would be removed from the bedroom tomorrow, along with the empty leather chair beside it. Her uncle had intended to use the third bedroom as his study, but the demands of the job on-site were enough that he had barely used the room. He spent all his time at the mine, instead. So the room would revert back to its designed use as a bedroom.

She groped for her watch until she remembered it was one of the items that had been stripped from her and not returned. It was still dark outside the window, though—excuse enough for her to lie down again and try to find sleep.

Add a watch to the list, Calli
, she reminded herself.

The throbbing arousal was slowly subsiding, but still strong enough for her to slide her fingers between her thighs in a restless unconscious movement intended to address the ache. Then she stopped, realizing what she was doing. She moved her hands and slid them under the pillow, away from temptation.

She would not be dictated to by a figment of her imagination. She was Callida Munro, soon-to-be professor of economics, a thirty-something single-by-choice woman with a career, a house, a life, thank you very much.

But his eyes, the feel of his body against her, followed her down into an uneasy sleep, along with writhing shame, for even if she had resisted his dream image, she had not resisted the lure of him in person. She had virtually begged him for a boon. That was something she would never tell another living soul. Not even Minnie, who might understand.

Thank god she would never see him again and have to look him in the face.

Chapter Three

“Calli, you’re not really paying attention, are you?” Minnie said, looking over the top of the shimmering dress she held up for Calli’s inspection.

Calli blinked away the sense memory of last night’s persistent dream images for the tenth time that morning and struggled to stay in the moment. She looked at the bright patterns, the predominance of red in the abstract swirls of the dress. “Not my color at all,” she said.

“Not you. Me.” Minnie held it against herself.

“You, certainly,” Calli agreed.

“For tonight, do you think?”

“Tonight? What’s on tonight?”

Minnie rolled her eyes. “Great, Calli. I only told you about twenty minutes ago. You agreed, don’t you remember?”

“I did? To what?”

“Tonight. The party. Duardo and his friends.”

“Duardo?” Suddenly Calli’s scattered thoughts congealed into a cold whole. “You mean the
soldier
Duardo? From last night?” Horror filled her. “Minnie, did you give him your phone number or...or...?”

“God, relax Calli. Sometimes you treat me like I’m still eighteen and wet behind the ears. He invited me last night—actually, me and a friend because I said I wouldn’t meet him somewhere alone.”

“Well, that sounds a little more sane. But Minnie, I’ve only been here twelve hours and I’ve already heard how little Americans are liked here. Do you know how close Vistaria is to outright revolution? What if this Duardo is part of some rebel faction?”

Minnie gave a low peel of laughter, shoved the dress back on the rack and flipped through more hangers. “Not Duardo,” she said with complete certainty. Her voice held the same firmness as when she had explained the local use of
el colinas
.

“Okay, so you know more than me about the way things really work here. But what makes you so certain he’s not into something dire and nasty? You have no idea who he is at all.”

“I know he’s an admirer of the Red Leopard, so of course he’s not a rebel.”

Calli shoved the dress she had been inspecting back onto the rack impatiently. “Who the hell is the Red Leopard?” she demanded.

“Why are you getting so angry?” Minnie asked sweetly.

Calli cast about for a reasonable answer to Minnie’s reasonable question. She had to dig hard. “I’m so sick of not knowing what’s going on,” she muttered.

Minnie smiled a little. “You’ve been too long on that campus. So you’re out of your comfort zone. So what?”

“I like my comfort zone.”

“Dull, boring. Deadly.”

“Shut up.” Calli’s demand was a token one. She couldn’t think of a better answer.

Minnie laughed again and came around and tucked her hand into Calli’s elbow. “You need a long, cool margarita under a shady patio with a view of the ocean,” she declared.

“I need sleep, is what I need.”

“Siesta. That I can arrange, too. But first the drink.” Minnie tugged on her arm. “Come on.”

* * * * *

The patio
was
shady, and faced the deep blue Pacific Ocean. A cool breeze, laden with salt, flapped the spice-colored tablecloth and Calli turned her face into it, enjoying the moist wind. They had climbed a dozen stairs to reach the patio and consequently, the buildings across the road didn’t hide the view of the ocean. The ground here sloped sharply down towards the sea.

“The ocean looks wonderful,” Calli confessed. “I wish we were going down there afterwards, but it seems like all we’ve done today is climb.”

“The city is built right next to mountains. What else did you expect?”

“To go down at least fifty percent of the time.”

Minnie grinned. “They say here that if you get tired climbing the hills, you can always lean against them.”

A huge margarita for each of them arrived at the table, along with a platter of rolled tortillas surrounded by tomato slices, sour cream and green salsa.

“We didn’t order this,” Calli said.

Minnie looked up at the waiter. “What’s this?” she asked. Then she pointed at the tortillas. “
Qué?
” she repeated.

The waiter nodded. “
Sí
.” He turned and pointed to a table at the far end of the patio, where three men sat with a bottle of tequila between them. There was a woman at the table too, wearing a very modern, quite short business skirt and a silky blouse. The man next to her had his hand on her tanned, glowing thigh, stroking the flesh along the inside of it while she leaned back, a dreamy expression on her face. One of the other men—young, and with bright, happy eyes—lifted his shot glass toward them.

Minnie smiled at him and shook her head regretfully, a hand over her heart. “Please take them back,” she told the waiter. “We just want to have a quiet drink.”

The waiter looked at the man at the other table, shrugged and picked up the platter.

The man shook his head and called out something. Then he motioned that the waiter should put the platter down again. He got to his feet and bowed from the waist toward them, then with deliberate, almost exaggerated, motions, he turned his chair to face the table of men, his back to them. He would leave them alone, despite his gift.

“Oh, the darling,” Minnie breathed.

“How do you
do
that?” Calli asked, rubbing her temple. She took a sip of the margarita. Delicious and with just the right amount of kick—featherweight—for this heat.

“Do what?”

“Get them to leave you alone after you’ve hooked them and drawn them in?”

“No idea,” Minnie admitted. “They just seem to understand.”

“Even here?”

Minnie waved towards the table where they talked together busily, not taking the slightest notice of them now. “Apparently.”

“I wish I’d had you with me last night,” Calli muttered.

“It didn’t occur to you that the men last night just wanted some fun?” Minnie asked.

“Groping constitutes fun?”

“Groping is virtually a compliment. The men here, they see, they like, they do something about it. It’s refreshing. You know where you stand.”

The image from her dream came zinging back into Calli’s mind. It had faded now and was losing its edge, but it still had the power to catch her breath and make her pause. She remembered to breathe again and picked up one of the tortilla wraps. “I bet you do,” she said and took a bite.

Minnie tilted her head inquiringly. “Calli, when are you going to forgive the race of men for what that bastard did to you? They’re not all tarred with the same brush, you know.”

Calli choked on the mouthful of tortilla as the spice hit the back of her mouth, her tongue, and her lips. Afraid to take a breath in case her mouth burst into flames, she sat with the morsel on her tongue, not sure if she could swallow it. What would it do to her stomach? Tears watered her eyes.

“Swallow, then suck on the tomato,” Minnie advised, passing her a napkin.

Calli swallowed, then reached for the margarita.

“No, the tomato. Trust me,” Minnie said, grabbing the glass from her. “That’ll make it worse.”

She grabbed a slice of the tomato and stuffed it into her mouth and was astonished at the instant relief it brought. “Ohmigod!” she said, when at last she could draw breath. “Do Vistarians have cast iron stomachs? Metal linings in their mouths? I think my lips have gone numb....” She prodded them experimentally.

Minnie smiled and took the remainder of the tortilla from her. “Excuse fingers,” she said and unrolled it. Along the row of spicy meat and vegetables inside she dabbed big dollops of sour cream and a line of the green salsa. Then she rolled up the tortilla again and handed it to Calli. “Try that.”

“Is it safe?”

Minnie merely sipped her drink with a smile.

Calli took a bite. This time the cream and the salsa, which had almost a fruity flavor, dulled the fire of the meat and vegetables enough to allow her to enjoy the flavor and chew before swallowing. But she still reached for some tomato anyway.

“Why are you doing this, Calli?” Minnie asked as she unrolled a tortilla of her own and added the fillings. “Robert’s already wasted the first half of your life for you. Why let him destroy the rest of it by hanging onto a grudge that stops you from enjoying yourself?”

Calli carefully avoided answering. She took another bite of her tortilla, beginning to enjoy the sharp flavor of the spices. She’d had Mexican food before, but these spices had a slightly different flavor. Fresh or green, or something. After mulling over the differences for a while, she took another sip of her drink, then said to Minnie, “Tell me about the Red Leopard.”

Minnie pursed her lips, then sighed. “Okay. Serves me right.” She ran her hands through her short hair, ruffling it and patting it into order again. “I don’t know who he is,” she admitted.

“You said—” Calli began.

“I said,” Minnie overrode her, “That I don’t know who he is. I don’t. But I do know all about him.”

“Give. Why does Duardo admire him? Why does that mean Duardo couldn’t possibly be a rebel?” She shook her head. “
The Red Leopard
,” she quoted. “Isn’t it just a tad ridiculous? The name? Honestly, who outside the movies goes around with a name like that?”

“He doesn’t call himself that. He doesn’t call himself anything at all. All the soldiers that like him do. Because that’s what he’s like.”

“He’s in the army?”

“Don’t think so. I think that’s part of why they like him. He’s no man’s servant and master of none. He’s got no official position anywhere but he has influence. Power. He gets things done. He is everywhere at once. Watching them, keeping them on their toes. He’s very, very sharp, doesn’t miss anything.”

“It still sounds like a fairytale,” Calli muttered.

“Yeah, it does a bit, but Duardo didn’t think so. He said he has seen him a few times and wanted to see him again. That’s why he hurried to the police station, but by the time he’d got there,
el leopardo
had gone—poof! He’d prowled in and slinked out before Duardo got there.”