The Lady Vanishes (30 page)

“These pearls are for somewhere a little more private. Put them inside you, and by the end of the evening, I will have removed each one.”

Regina swallowed and opened the box. Inside it lay two elegant pearls about the size of table tennis balls. They were cool and heavy in her hands. He wanted her to put these inside her, wanted her to have dinner with these stretching her, filling her.

She set them down quickly and took a deep breath. Removing the pearls from around her neck, she laid them gently on the bed, then stripped out of her clothes. She picked up the other pearls and sat on the end of the bed, spreading her legs. She glanced at the door, wondering if he would come in as she was putting these inside her. If he did, he would push her back on the bed and fuck her, of that she had no doubt. He’d been prudent to wait downstairs.

She pressed the first pearl inside herself, forcing it past her entrance the way Milton had to force his dick and pressing it deeply inside her. She felt it filling her and let out a shivering sigh, already wet at the idea of his fingers probing beneath her clothes, removing these pearls one by one. She shivered, wanting to call him upstairs to fuck her.

She ignored the urge and pressed the second pearl inside, moaning as they filled her. She tightened her muscles around them and gasped as they moved, revolving inside her.

Panting, she slowly closed her legs.
Oh my God, this is insane.
She waited for a few minutes, letting the thick invasion grow more comfortable, before she carefully stood and began strapping herself into the satin lingerie. A little makeup and a quick fix of her hair and she’d be ready.

She didn’t know what he had planned, but she would enjoy this night to the fullest, including whatever games her naughty magician wanted to play.

WHEN SHE APPEARED ON THE STAIRCASE,
Milton could’ve sworn he heard a roaring sound in his ears, as if the Charles River had overflowed its banks and was even now about to wash him and all of Boston away. He couldn’t think, and his heart didn’t seem to be working right. It tripped and stumbled in his chest. He put a hand to it. Was he dying? Now?

She looked like a 1940s starlet. She’d let her dark hair down, parted on the side and falling in gentle waves down her shoulders. She was wearing the pearls . . .
all
the pearls, if her slow, careful walk was any indication.

She was holding a tie for him. A blue silk Hermès with small fleur-de-lis covering it.

He wished he could write music, poetry, something. Instead, he struggled to keep his hands still with the urge to draw her. It was a relief when she handed him the tie. It gave him something to do beside stare at her like a complete idiot.

“Thanks. You look beautiful.” He took it from her and began tying it absently, looking in the entryway mirror as he deftly made a Windsor knot. With each loop, his heartbeat steadied in his chest.

He caught her eye in the mirror. Her pupils were dilated and a delicate flush suffused her cheeks. He had a feeling she liked his second gift.

When he finished, he held out a hand for her. “Ready?”

She nodded.

“I have a coat for you,” he whispered near her ear and went to get the faux sable he’d purchased for her. He would have bought her a real one, but she’d mentioned her opposition to fur during one of their conversations.

He got it out of the coat closet and held it out for her. When she frowned, he held up a hand to stop her comments.

“It’s not real.”

She nodded, turning to slide first one arm and then the other into the blue satin–lined sleeves.

She fixed her hair and examined herself, coordinated from inside out. “You had this entire outfit made for me, didn’t you?”

Milton nodded, opening the door and holding his arm out for her. “Blake designed it, and I had it made.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said sincerely and took his arm.

Milton followed the instructions he’d been given, and had Shane drive around to the delivery entrance of the museum. There they were met by the public relations director.

“Mr. Shaw, a pleasure.” The man, slightly balding and short, had a surprisingly deep voice. “Your dinner is waiting inside.”

“Thank you.” Milton stepped back and allowed Regina to precede him inside. They walked down a long hallway lined with what looked like the rolling doors in a storage room, through another set of back offices, and into the main part of the museum.

He heard her breath catch, and was very pleased with what the museum, Blake, and the owner of the five-star restaurant Menton had arranged for the evening. A table had been set up for two among the European art, directly beneath a Monet. There were no candles, rules of the house, but the soft lights in the museum sparkled on the silver and glassware. He’d had an additional table brought in and an enormous vase full of flowers in shades ranging from white to champagne had been placed just next to where they were dining. Pearls dripped here and there from the greenery, just to remind her.

“May I take your coats?” the director asked them with a slight bow.

“Of course,” Regina said.

Milton stepped forward to take it from her shoulders and then removed his own coat, handing it to the man.

“Thank you, Howard.” He pressed a hundred dollar bill unobtrusively into the man’s hands.

“Your waiter’s name is Steve.” Howard nodded to a young man pouring water into glasses.

“Thank you.”

Milton escorted Regina to her chair and pulled it out for her. She sat very slowly and carefully, making him wish that she could describe what it felt like as those pearls shifted inside her. He was going to enjoy removing them. She smiled at him like his very own Mona Lisa.

They ate wild Scottish hare, bluefin tuna, Arctic char, cherry tomatoes, eggplant, and a few other tastes that Milton couldn’t remember. He ate mechanically, watching her face, enjoying the buildup as much as he enjoyed the pleasure of her company.

He was telling her about Saint George, about how well he was doing with his trick, when she asked him a question he’d been dreading.

“Milton, why do you perform at the hospital?”

He swallowed the last of the bite he’d just taken, caviar, before he answered. “I thought you might ask me that.” He’d known he’d have to tell her. You told people you cared for about the horrible parts of your life, about the parts that had destroyed you. She’d told him how she felt when her grandmother died; he couldn’t not tell her about William.

“You lost someone you loved, didn’t you? Someone like Saint George?”

Taking a sip of water just so he had something to do with his hands, Milton nodded. “My little brother, William. He died of the same thing, leukemia, when I was twelve.”

“I’m sorry, Milton,” she whispered.

“I’d just started trying to learn magic—I think I’d seen a story about Houdini—and I just became obsessed. William helped me with it, and then he got sick.”

“So you started performing for him at the hospital?”

“Yeah.”

Milton didn’t know how to explain what he’d felt then: helpless, angry, crushed. He hadn’t known what to do with those emotions, hadn’t been able to just sit and watch his brother die. He’d wanted to do something, anything, and so he’d thrown himself into the magic. Somehow, some way convinced that if he just pushed a little harder, learned the next most difficult trick, he would be able to . . . what? Save his brother? He hadn’t thought that, had he?

Watching his face, she changed the subject neatly by sliding her bare foot up his calf under the table.

“So when do you plan on . . . relieving me of my pearls?” she asked, making him nearly choke on his second sip of water.

“I should have had them seat us side by side,” he muttered darkly and she laughed.

“Don’t rush on my account. I’m enjoying myself.” She smiled at him, a wicked smile that she flashed at him every time she shifted in her chair.

When they finished dinner, they walked around the museum looking at the paintings. He showed her the Jasper Johns he was coveting.

He pointed to the 3-D design, how the edges seemed to fall away from the paper. “It’s like some of my tricks. An illusion, but Johns was just brilliant.”

Regina tilted her head. “I see why you like it,” she said. Shrugging a little uncomfortably, she admitted, “Cheesy, but I’ve always loved Monet.”

“It’s not cheesy,” he murmured, kissing her temple. “Next time we’ll go to New York. I know a woman with a private collection of Monets. Come on, they have a hedge maze through this way.”

He led her out of one corridor and into an antechamber. Double-glass doors opened to a mazelike garden. “I went to a wedding here once. Some of the guests managed to get themselves lost.”

“Is that what we’re going to do?” she asked, her voice husky.

He nodded, unable to speak, and pulled her into the garden. It, unlike the one at the hospital, was not enclosed—the bright night sky opened above them, but brassieres had been set up every few feet, warming the air around them.

Regina shivered anyway. He felt it and tugged off his suit jacket, draping it around her shoulders.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her gaze thoughtful. She strolled away from him, the undulating walk of a temptress.

He followed, as lacking in free will as a zombie. If she’d asked him to buy her a Bentley and a house in Ibiza, he would have made the call instantly. She wouldn’t ask for anything, though, except for him to touch her.

She walked among the hedges for a time. He stalked behind her, so aroused he could barely see, certain she was a dark-haired goddess come to life to tempt him to his destruction. She turned and turned again, and managed to do exactly what he hoped she’d do, trap herself in the maze. There was a stone bench in the center of a circle of hedges and two brassieres. But no exit except for the way they’d come in. Except for the brassieres, there was little light, just as he’d requested. They were alone, and, in the dark and shadowy center of the garden, unlikely to be disturbed.

She sat on the bench, with one leg over the other, her eyes daring him. And then, as if she knew he wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer, she uncrossed her legs, just enough that her shapely thigh glowed white in the slit of the midnight blue gown.

God, I love her.

Milton didn’t remember crossing to her, but suddenly he was on his knees in front of her, spreading her legs even farther. He heard the rip of fabric as the slit in her skirt widened. He ducked under her skirt, taking deep breaths of the humid, salt-scented air between her legs. He kissed the inside of one thigh, and then the other, sliding his hands to where the curve of her buttocks met her thigh and spreading her a little farther apart.

She was wet; he didn’t have to touch her to know it. The pearls had done their work, filling and arousing her all evening, making her aware of the stretch and tug inside her own body, making her want to be penetrated in a different way.

“You like these inside you,” he whispered against her hot flesh. His finger ventured inside, just enough to touch one of the pearls, and he shifted it gently. She moaned and tightened involuntarily.

“Yes,” she gasped, and he felt the shift in her body as she braced her arms on the bench and threw her head back. He went to work, moving the pearls inside her as he gently suckled the taut bud at the top of her sex. She was swollen, her little clit hard against his tongue as he flicked it roughly. His fingers moved more urgently, stretching her, tightening her, until she came with a startled cry, her body clamping fiercely around his fingers.