Parallelogram : Day Two : Chapter 64
Five Days, Nine Hours, Forty-Three Minutes
Exhausted, Lisa Clark rolled over onto her back.
She gasped in deep breaths of cool air. The hotel room Richard DeMarco had checked them into was beautiful, as she imagined all of his rooms were wherever he stayed in the world. He insisted on keeping the room temperature very cool – "as crisp as ice," he soothingly taunted her with words separated my kisses down her neck and chest – because the rest of the world didn't know the typical American paradise. She let him turn the thermostat as low as he could, turning up the air conditioning to a brisk, 55 degrees, and then – with complete abandon – she let him ravage her on bitter cool sheets for the last ... the last ... she couldn't guess how long they had been at one another's skin. Now, on her back, she edged closer to him, basking in the warmth of his dark-skinned body, and she slipped one lazy arm across his chest. She felt the thin layer of sweat and found herself suddenly, curiously aroused again – it must've been the musk of his natural scent – and she draped one leg across his naked hip.
"Please tell me that you're not utterly spent," she whispered softly into his ear. When she was finished, she reached up and, with her teeth, caressed his lobe before biting down into his flesh.
"No," he told her, chuckling lightly. "Not utterly spent ... only nearly so."
Turning, he kissed her hard on the mouth, and she parted her lips, tasting his tongue with her. She brought one hand to his check, gripping his face gently under her nails, and she breathed him in deeply. After a moment, they parted, and he rolled away from her.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"I have to make a telephone call."
Sitting up, he stretched an arm over the edge of the bed and found his dark jeans. There, on the waist, he found his cell phone. He pulled it off the clip, flipped it open, and lay back down next to her. He touched the proper speed dial, and then he placed the phone to his ear.
"You'd better not be calling another woman."
Smiling over at her, he taunted, "Perish the thought, young lady."
He heard a loud click, and then Arthur Pendley demanded, "Tell me where you are."
DeMarco raised an eyebrow. He heard the urgency, the sense of desperation in the senator's voice, and he didn't know what to make of it.
"No," the terrorist said.
"Stop with these games, Richard."
"I'm not playing any game, Arthur."
"Then tell me where you are."
DeMarco sighed. Slowly, he began caressing the curve of Lisa's left shoulder – her skin was delicate to his touch.
"I am ... nowhere near you."
"How do you know where I am, Richard?"
"As always, that is for me to know, senator."
Gently, Lisa slipped one leg under his, and then she gripped his hip with her thighs. He felt her warmth as she pressed herself closer to him, and he smiled.
"If you know where I am," Pendley stated hurriedly, "then you very well may be inadvertently compromising my plans ... and you know that I won't have any plans of mine compromised ... certainly not by the likes ... of you."
Now, DeMarco felt another warmth, this sensation not of passion but of anger. The emotions were similar, he knew, but both could easily be his undoing. He closed his eyes, allowed the tremor to pass, and relaxed again into the welcoming press of the beauty lying next to him, lying against him, wrapping herself around him.
"Arthur," he said, "you are always so serious."
"And you never seem to take these things you do seriously enough," the senator barked into the phone. "As I said, if you know where I am, then I may be compromised. Right now ... right now, I cannot take any risks."
"What would you have me do?"
Lisa stroked her fingers through the small hairs on his chest, and DeMarco found himself slowly becoming as aroused as she clearly still was.
"Richard, I want to protect you," the senator tried forcefully. "I want to help you. But, right now, I can best do that if you were to come here."
"I would very much like to be where you are, Arthur."
"Then come here," Pendley countered. "Let me protect you."
Tiredly, DeMarco closed his eyes and allowed himself to be swallowed hole by the sensations of pleasure Lisa gave him.
"As you said," he started, "I never tend to take these activities of mine seriously, and that leads me to ask you for a favor. If you are willing to do this one thing – this one small, tiny, inconsequential favor for me – then I will do as you have said, and I will come in ... but I will not be alone."
"You will come alone."
"I do not work for you, Arthur."
"You must come alone," Pendley demanded. "That is non-negotiable."
"I agree that it is non-negotiable," DeMarco said, "but it is you who will not place restrictions on me. You know what I'm capable of."
"AND YOU'VE NO IDEA OF WHAT I'M CURRENTLY CAPABLE OF!"
Ignoring the orders, the terrorist chuckled into the telephone. He waited for Pendley to say something – to say anything – because he had resigned the argument. He would not be told what to do by the senator. He would not allow himself to be pushed around by the older man. It was a matter of ... personal satisfaction.
"All right," Pendley finally conceded the point. "You may bring whomever you like."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me, Richard," he spat back at the young man. "Just get here as quickly as you can."
"You're forgetting about my favor."
DeMarco heard the sigh over the telephone, and he knew the senator was at the end of his limitations.
"Would it be imprudent of me to assume that this favor somehow involves a woman?"
Again, DeMarco laughed. "Doesn't it always, Arthur?"
"Who is she?"
"Her name is Indiri Farris."
DeMarco pressed the back of his head further into the pillow cradling him as he felt Lisa's fingers massaging down his chest, across his hard stomach, and draping gently – like feathers of human skin – across a minor ticklish spot on his hips. He stifled the reaction – holding it at bay for fear of showing any sign of weakness to another human being – and, instead, savored the control.
"I must know where she is," he told the senator.
"Why?"
"You may check the latest police records," he offered, "and you will see that there has been two attempts on her life."
"Two attempts?" Pendley asked angrily. "Richard, you're getting reckless."
"I have always been reckless. You have said so yourself on many occasions."
"You're going to try to kill her a third time?"
"This time will not be an attempt," the man explained. "This time, I will take care of it myself. I will take care of it personally. But, in order for me to do it, I must know where she is."
"Has she been placed into protective custody?"
"I only know that the last time I went near her," DeMarco began, "I was shot at. I don't know who he was. I only know that he was wearing very little – hospital pajamas, I believe. A black man. He nearly killed me. I'd also like to know who he is, if that is possible. If it isn't, I will find him on my own soon enough."
The terrorist felt Lisa experimenting with his ticklish spot – had she recognized his brief flinch for more than what it was? – and he brought his hand from her shoulder up to her neck, clutching the smooth windpipe under his fingers, cutting off her air.
Immediately, she went completely still. She tried inhaling, couldn't, and forced herself to lay perfectly still. She wouldn't show him any weaknesses, any protest, any fight. She wanted him to control her, to possess, and fussing about a little rough treatment could be seen as a sign of rejection. She pressed herself firmly into the bed, and then she felt him gently loose his grip on her throat as he rolled his body on top of hers, dominating her.
"I will call you back," Pendley snapped.
"Be quick abou t it, Arthur."
END of Chapter 64
