Part 10 (2/2)

”I don't know! Really, I don't. Hugh's been missing for days. That's why I came here-”

”You thought you'd find him here? Why?”

Randy didn't see any point in holding back what little she knew. ”He was last seen with you,” she said.

Santeras drew back the monk's hood, his dark eyes flaring with icy pa.s.sion. ”Your fiance has made a fatal mistake, Ms. Witherspoon. First he lied to me, and then he tried to bribe me as if I were a common criminal, the kind of sc.u.m that attacked you on the street today. He insulted my name, defamed me.”

”Bribery? No-” Randy tried to tell him that it must have been a mistake, but he cut her off.

”You can't defend him,” he said harshly. ”A man must do that for himself. It's a matter of honor.”

”Then please, let me go!” Randy strained against the cuffs. ”I'll find Hugh. I'll talk to him. If he did what you say, there must be something he can do to make amends.”

Santeras studied her, his eyes going cold. ”Stop wasting my time, Ms. Witherspoon. Tell me where he is.”

”I don't know.”

”In that case let me give you a little history lesson, shall I?” He kicked the iron chain attached to her ankle cuffs. ”The leather jewelry you're wearing was used to restrain slaves in the days when this villa was a coffee plantation. It proved to be a very effective means of punishment. That's why I hope you're telling the truth.”

”I am!”

”Perhaps,” he said, ”but I have to be sure.” He stepped back and replaced his hood. With a quick nod to the guard, he left the room.

Randy let out a terrified moan as she realized what was happening. The guard's eyes glittered, their obvious excitement made more horrible by the executioner's hood. He looked Randy up and down, slowly, lasciviously, and then he began to circle her, making remarks in Portuguese that needed no interpretation.

He stroked her bare skin with his fingers, dragging them along the small of her back and onto her midriff as he came around to face her. Randy shuddered and tried to wrench away from him, but the restraints bit into her flesh.

”Call Mr. Santeras back!” she insisted. ”I'm telling the truth, I swear!”

Laughing at her efforts to defend herself, the guard drew a knife from a sheath beneath his s.h.i.+rt. His eyes glowed with a terrible light as he traced the swell of her cleavage with the knife's tip, leaving a thin pink line of enflamed skin. As she flinched back, he slipped the flas.h.i.+ng blade under the center band of her bra and severed the material.

Randy screamed in terror as the bra flew open, baring her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The guard snorted with satisfaction, devouring her with his eyes. As he reached out to touch her Randy turned her head away, as repulsed by the sight of him as she was by the thought of his hands on her body.

She waited, skin crawling, for his touch. Instead, she heard a grunt of surprise and looked up to see the guard jerked off his feet and flung against the wall. Geoff had come up on the man from behind! Randy went limp with relief.

The guard never had a chance to recover. As he staggered away from the wall Geoff fell upon him with the jealous pa.s.sion of a lover fending off a rival. Geoff's fury was awesome. He shook the man until his teeth rattled, threatening to kill him, then knocked him out with one skull-shattering blow.

Randy strained against the cuffs, desperate to be free as she waited for Geoff to bind and gag the unconscious guard. When he was done with the man, he dragged him to a closet and locked him inside.

”Untie me,” she pleaded as Geoff turned to her. But her heart froze as she saw the heat burning in his eyes. He believed she'd deceived him, and he was furious.

”Geoff, please,” she implored.

He studied her, still breathing hard as he took in her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s and what was left of her harem outfit. Randy felt a sharp thrill of alarm. He looked as if he intended to take up where the guard had left off.

”What's wrong with you?” she cried. ”Untie me! We have to get out of here!”

”What's the rush?” His voice was dangerously soft. ”Santeras won't be back tonight. He's got a party to host. That's why he left you in the hands of his thug rather than 'interrogate' you himself.”

”Dammit, Geoff, you have to let me go! Santeras is after Hugh, and he thinks I know where Hugh is.”

”Maybe you should have thought of that before you came to this party, sweetness. I seem to remember suggesting that possibility.”

Geoff wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, sweeping waves of damp hair from his eyes. A nerve sparked painfully in his jaw, triggered by the adrenaline still coursing through him. He knew she was frantic to be set free, but he had no intention of untying her, no intention in h.e.l.l. She was too wildly erotic with her bared b.r.e.a.s.t.s and her anguished sighs. And he was too aroused and angry and frustrated to give in to his n.o.bler instincts at that moment.

”How did you find me?” she asked, as if hoping to distract him.

”I heard your screams.” Anger flashed as he remembered how badly she'd frightened him. He'd had no idea she was in danger, or even that she'd come to the party, until he'd followed Santeras and his guard to this floor. He'd lost track of them in the maze of corridors when he'd heard a woman's shriek. He'd known instinctively that it was Randy, and his heart had nearly slammed through his chest.

”I could scream again,” she threatened.

”Go right ahead, but it's you they'll find. And don't expect me to come riding to the rescue.”

She swore at him and twisted against her bonds, but he made no move in her direction. He was fighting a dozen different impulses, the most immediate of which was to stay exactly where he was and let her beg for a while. He wanted her to throb wondering what he was going to do-and waiting for him to do it.

He let his eyes run the length of her body, trying to imagine how in h.e.l.l he ever got mixed up with a heartbreaker like her. Her back was arched defiantly, and her skin was flushed with heat, glowing from her throat to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The sight of her enflamed him.

”Geoff!”

”Don't go anywhere,” he said, letting the darkness he felt roughen his voice. He walked to the door, locked and bolted it, then turned back to her.

Randy waited, agonized, sensing what he intended. She moaned softly as he approached, her mind on fire. The idea of him touching her while she was restrained whipped her into a fever pitch of excitement. ”You can't,” she whispered.

”Can't what?” he asked.

The antic.i.p.ation she felt was nearly unbearable as he walked up to her. With his hair falling all around him in crazy disarray and his eyes as piercing as emerald shards, he looked capable of anything. She told herself not to move, knowing every breath that rushed through her lungs made her belly tighten and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s shake. She knew how she must look, stretched out and trembling, like a nubile slave restrained for her master's pleasure.

”Please,” she said, ”don't ... touch me.”

The muscles of his jaw went taut. ”You're reading my mind, sweetness.”

”You wouldn't,” she said, ashamed of her own desperation-and hating him for making her that way. ”You wouldn't take advantage, not like this. You're not that kind of man.”

”Oh, that's rich.” He laughed harshly. ”I've been called everything from a b.a.s.t.a.r.d to a barbarian, but suddenly I'm not that kind of man.” His gaze dropped to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and he blew a soft jet of air over her cleavage, cooling the perspiration that had beaded there. ”What kind of man am I, Randy? Why don't you tell me, since you seem to be the expert?”

”You're a monster!” A sob thickened her voice. ”And I hate you.”

Laughing he continued to cool her down, purling air over her throat, her lips. ”Now we're getting somewhere,” he said. ”Tell me how much you hate me. Randy. Tell my why you hate me.”

”Because you're crude and uncouth-” She hesitated as if trying to think of something else. ”And you ride a motorcycle.”

”Sure, sure, but why do you really hate me?”

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