The Devil's Touch (11 page)

“This is a tough world, Angel. Don’t let what you see fool you. It’s a jungle out there. Despite civilization, men are not civil – not when it comes to sex or money. It’s always going to be survival of the strongest, and weakness in a man is a fatal flaw. I don’t know why I am who I am. All I know is that it’s who I need to be to survive and succeed. It’s the essence of me. I’ll never change. I’ll never be weak like my father, and I’ll never be emotionally dependent on another person. I don’t want to share my life – I want to control my world.”

* * *

“You’re going to be a busy young lady this morning. I hope you’re prepared,” Lucien said.

His tone filled Angelica with a sense of apprehension that should have been warning enough, but she still flinched with shock when he said with a soft smile;

“Wear the shortest skirt you own, and leave your panties on the table.”

Angelica felt a sudden giddy flush in her cheeks and her body clenched involuntarily with the first tingling spark of arousal.

“Okay…” she said slowly, and then blurted out, “Why?”

It was an overcast morning. Rain had fallen throughout the night, washing the city glistening and clean, and now grey sullen clouds lingered outside the penthouse windows.

Lucien folded his newspaper and got up from the dining table. “Because I want to show you off,” he said. “I’m going downtown to my lawyer’s office to review the Darrow Air deal. You are coming with me.”

Angelica squeezed into a short white skirt she had worn once to a tennis game and never worn again. It was tight across her bottom but still fitted snugly around her waist.

But it was so short!

Either she had grown several inches taller since her brief flirtation with tennis as a form of exercise, or the skirt had shrunk. Angelica stared at her reflection in the mirror and panicked. The line of the skirt barely covered the tops of her thighs. She tried to tug at the hem but as soon as she stood up straight again the hem rose. She clenched her fists and took a long breath.

“This is what he wanted,” she reminded herself, “so this is what he will get.”

She wore the powder-blue blouse she had bought in the hotel boutique, and while the fashion sense of her outfit was highly questionable the effect was not. She looked like a hussy.

Marvin Skinner was a short stocky man, bald headed, beady eyed, with bushy black eyebrows that gave him a villainous cast. He greeted Lucien in the reception room of his office then shook hands with Angelica, his fingers lingering longer than necessary, his palms moist, his smile lecherous as he looked her up and down like a man appreciating an exquisite piece of art. Then he turned back to Lucien and cocked one eyebrow. “Now I understand why I haven’t seen you all week.”

Skinner led Lucien and Angelica down a short passage lined with framed certificates into the board room.

The room was in the corner of the suite, with windows facing north and east. The walls were white, the carpeting pale grey. The effect was an austere almost clinical atmosphere. There was a long timber table stretching almost the full length of the room. On the wall beside the doorway was a large projector screen with a laptop on a small table in front of it.

Lucien took a seat opposite the screen and nodded to Angelica. She sat beside him and blinked in alarm when Lucien shifted his weight so that his thigh touched hers under the table. She could feel the warm resilience of him through his trousers. The contact set off tiny sparks along the smooth skin of her leg, but she made no move to pull away. He turned to her casually for a moment, noting the hectic spread of color across her face.

“Marv is going to do a slideshow presentation, going over the Darrow Air assets. I’d like your involvement,” Lucien said. Then his hand slipped under the table and lightly tugged at her skirt. “I really do want you to be open to anything.”

Angelica stared into Lucien’s eyes for a moment, recognizing the spark of his interest. She nodded. “I understand.”

At that moment Marvin Skinner’s secretary breezed in to the room holding a tray of coffee cups and a coffee pot.

She was a tall woman with a flaming mane of red hair that glinted like copper wire down over her shoulders. She was wearing a tight grey top that hugged her slim shape and highlighted the bouncing jiggle of her breasts. Marvin smiled at Lucien.

The woman gave Lucien a lingering look and flashed him a dazzling painted smile as she set the tray down in the center of the table.

Marvin Skinner watched his secretary saunter from the room with rapt fascination then shook his head. “She can file paperwork too,” he assured Lucien.

Skinner poured coffee then drew down the window shades and flicked off the lights. A cluster of brightly colored charts appeared on the projector screen. Marvin Skinner began to pace across the floor. He spoke in rapid bursts of explanation, occasionally shooting a sidelong glance back towards the table. As each new set of graphs flashed up on the screen his voice became more excited, his explanations more detailed.

Finally the screen faded to white and Skinner stood in front of the projector, his bald head shining in the unusual light, his eyebrows animatedly dancing up and down on his brow.

“Well, what do you think so far?”

Lucien nodded. “It’s about what I expected.” Then he turned to Angelica, and in the darkened room his hand on her thigh became insistent. He reached between her legs and they fell open for him.

“What do you think, Angel?” Lucien asked, his voice perfectly calm and business-like. “How does this feel for you?”

Angelica’s face was on fire. She felt Lucien’s fingers brush the pouting swollen lips of her sex and then she felt herself get wet in an instant.

“It feels good,” she said self-consciously. She had to clench her jaw to stop herself from crying out. “There’s certainly an opening for you – and I think it should be explored.”

“Explored?” Marvin Skinner bounced around the room in agitation. He had no idea that under the table Lucien’s fingers were stroking Angelica’s sex and that she was on the verge of exploding all over his office chair. “What are you talking about?” the lawyer went on. “Lucien, don’t listen to her. This is the moment when you need to plunge right in!”

Lucien frowned as though he was considering Marvin’s words, but his eyes stayed locked on Angelica’s face. Her lips were slightly parted, and she had pushed her weight against the chair’s backrest, tilting her pelvis forward to give Lucien greater access to the heat between her legs. He saw her breathing become slow and deep, noting the gentle rise of her breasts and the hint of hardened nipples beneath the fabric of her blouse.

“Angel?” Lucien asked. “Marvin says I should plunge right in? Do you have any objection?”

Angelica cleared her throat. Suddenly she was burning up and her bottom lip began to tremble. She nodded.

“That.. that might be a good idea after all,” she said. Her voice was thick and husky and unsteady in her ears. Almost without realizing it, her own hand groped in the darkness for the huge bulge in Lucien’s trousers. “But will it be hard?”

She gripped Lucien between frantic squeezing fingers, trying to remain restrained.

“It’s always hard, Angel. That’s what makes life so interesting,” Lucien murmured.

Angelica had never felt so aroused. The thrill – the reckless excitement – was intoxicating. A stranger was standing watching her just a few feet away while she sat spread-legged with Lucien’s fingers driving her to the very edge of sanity. The relentless insistence of Lucien’s touch and the frantic desperation of her own sudden desire was a heady blend of spontaneous sexual excitement combined with the near torturous need for restraint.

The slide show began again and Angelica shuddered. Lucien’s hand worked possessively between her legs, still touching and teasing her with slow deliberate strokes, and she felt her stomach swoop. Her body clenched tight suddenly as the warm wash of pleasure finally spiked in a breathtaking orgasm. She closed her eyes tightly and groaned. A moment later the lights in the room blinked on.

“Is something wrong?” Marvin Skinner frowned in confusion.

Lucien shook his head. “I just yawned, Marv,” he lied innocently. “But I think we’ve seen enough.”

Skinner nodded. He turned to a folder on a shelf beside the laptop and retrieved a single typed page of paper. He slid the form across the desk.

“Just sign that authority before you leave so I can proceed with filing all the documents,” he said.

Lucien frowned for a moment, and then Angelica saw a wicked, mischievous smile touch his lips.

“I don’t have a pen.”

“Here,” Skinner said. “Use mine. It’s a Hartigan. Cost me $1,500.” The pen slid across the table.

“No!” Angelica panicked.

Suddenly the blood drained from her face, horrified.

“Oh, God. No! He wouldn’t!”

But he did.

Lucien eased his fingers from between Angelica’s open legs, picked up the pen, and signed his name with a flourish. Then he led Angelica from the room, handing the pen back to the stocky lawyer in the doorway.

Marvin Skinner looked puzzled as he waved goodbye. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why the pen in his hand felt wet and sticky.

“You’re wicked!” Angelica gasped.

“And heartless.”

“And you’re evil!”

“And I’m irresistible,” Lucien smiled.

Angelica threw herself back into the corner of the limousine. She was trembling uncontrollably, still deeply shocked, but also still aroused. The delicious release Lucien had given her in Marv Skinner’s board room had taken the edge off her appetite, but his fingers had also sparked a greater hunger for more.

Lucien sensed her mood. He leaned across lightly and touched her cheek. “You did well,” he said. “When we get back to the penthouse we will celebrate.”

Angelica smiled – then suddenly she became wary. She was getting to know this man, and she knew from her brief experiences already that he gave nothing away easily.

“Where are we going now?”

“Back to the penthouse.”

“Straight back to the penthouse? We’re not going anywhere else first?” she asked carefully, looking for a hint of deception.

“Straight to the penthouse.”

Angelica sat back in the seat – but she didn’t fully relax.

In the hotel lobby they headed for the attendant-operated executive elevator, but at the last moment Lucien took her by the elbow and gently steered her into the open doors of the guest elevator instead.

It was holiday season and the lower floors of the hotel were fully booked with tourists from around the country, and around the world. Lucien stepped to the back wall of the elevator and positioned himself close behind Angelica, gently wrapping one arm around her waist as the compartment filled with a dozen hotel guests.

Angelica stood rigid in front of Lucien, feeling the heat of his body against her back and his breath warm against her neck. A sudden cold sense of dreadful disbelief turned her blood to ice.

He wouldn’t.

Would he?

Not in an elevator!

All of the passengers stood facing the doors. Lucien stared at their backs over Angelica’s shoulder. There were several middle-aged women carrying shopping bags, a young couple standing close with their shoulders touching, and four businessmen of various ages scattered throughout the group. He grinned.

The elevator stopped at the second floor. One of the businessmen got out. As the doors whispered closed and the elevator continued to rise, Lucien let his free hand drift down over the tightness of Angelica’s bottom. His hand skimmed across the fabric and he felt her muscles clench in sudden alarm. She tried to lean away from him but he reacted instantly, tightening the pressure of his fingers around her waist to restrain her.

On the fourth floor the young couple stepped out. The elevator rose higher.

Angelica stared at the red numbers in the display console, feeling a panicked lump the size of a baseball jammed in her throat.

“Fourth floor,” she fretted silently. “The penthouse is on the twentieth floor!”

Lucien’s body was pressed hard against her so she could feel the muscled resilience of him. Then his hand touched her bare thigh and she realized he was boldly walking his fingers up between her trembling legs. She stood rigid with disbelief and erotic shock, and she willed the other passengers around her not to turn around. There was nothing else she could do. She was completely at his mercy – and Angelica was certain that ‘mercy’ was a notion Lucien Lance was quite unfamiliar with.

The elevator slowed to a stop again. Angelica gulped. Two women with shopping bags were stepping out on the seventh floor. Then Angelica held her breath – Lucien’s hand had found the hot melting center of her. She closed her eyes, and could feel the hem of her skirt being rucked higher up her thigh.

The first brush of his fingers against the wet velvety folds made her gasp, and she clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle the moan that was on her lips. Her eyes rolled back and she felt her whole body begin to sway.

God! She was so aroused!

She felt her hips begin to make lewd jerking movements and she whimpered.

On the eleventh floor the woman standing beside Angelica glanced at her curiously as she stepped out of the elevator. Angelica turned away, certain the look on her face would betray her. Her whole body was strung tense. Lucien was sliding two of his fingers over the sensitized folds of her sex, and the quivering friction of that contact had her nearly mindless with lust.

“Spread your legs,” he breathed in her ear.

Angelica tried, but the skirt was too tight. Even with the material bunched high around her bottom she could only shuffle her legs an inch or two wider.

But it was enough for Lucien.

Suddenly he dipped the tip of one finger inside her and Angelica went weak within the band of his arm. She threw her head back and a parade of graphic erotic images flashed into her mind.

In her fantasy the passengers in the elevator were all turning to watch her, their eyes shiny with hunger and desire as Lucien boldly displayed her to them. They whispered words she could not quite hear, and they edged closer to reach out for her, their hands caressing and appreciating her body while Lucien Lance held her tight and plunged his fingers deeper and deeper.