Lying down, closer to him, she decided to let the poison run its course without extra morphine, since that’s what her instincts told her. She took his limp but warm hand and fit hers—hardly more than half the size of his—inside it. Holding it and curling it to her chest, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift back to sleep.

Chapter 22

Something about black satin rubbed Henry the wrong way. Perhaps because the trend had become so common among women of his class.

“I’m glad I caught your eye,” the woman wearing it drawled. Her lips were the color of red wine, and her extra-long lashes were glued on. She put her hands on her hips and Henry smiled, backing her into the corner. At least she wouldn’t be wearing the dress much longer.

They’d just left the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, or the “Schnitz,” as the Portland locals called it. Halfway through the Oregon Symphony’s rendition of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major, he’d spotted her in the balcony adjacent to his, eyeing him over her binoculars. She knew who he was, he could tell, but that didn’t surprise him since everyone did. He hadn’t planned on taking anyone back to his hotel tonight, but she was pretty enough. He had given her a single nod, and when it was over she waited outside the lobby. They’d walked up Main Street then turned left onto Park Avenue where Arne would meet them with the car. He never introduced himself since he didn’t think it necessary, and neither did she. He preferred it that way.

It was near midnight and beneath a canopy of trees, he wedged her into a red brick corner, the exterior of a local attorney’s office. He placed his hands on the bricks, cooled by nighttime air. His eyes traveled over her, down her long slender neck to the low, swooping neckline of her dress, revealing cleavage that did nothing special to his pulse.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she said.

“And what have you heard?”

“That it would be a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Her thin lips grew mischievous, and he moved his hands to her satin-clad hips, his mouth traveling down her neck. She breathed a satisfied, “Mr. Clayton.”

She smelled of Chanel No. 5. The scent was everywhere.

For some reason, even though he’d smelled it on other women like her, he knew from this moment on, that scent would always remind him of her—the woman he’d just met, the woman who was nameless. Her black hair had been trimmed short, which made tasting her that much easier. As he descended her neck, she said between aroused breaths, “Surely, there’s somewhere else we can take this…”

He moved his hands down the roundness of her behind and gripped it firmly, pushing her into him, and with her diamond-studded earlobe between his teeth, he said, “My driver will be here shortly. Until then, I’ll take it where I want.”

She murmured, wrapping her arms around him. They usually liked when he took charge, but there had been a few who hadn’t, a few whose eyes swam in teary regret and humiliation when it ended. It probably should have been more difficult to forget those eyes and the brief sting of guilt, but he never saw the women again and frankly, when his successes outnumbered the few failed attempts at pleasing his partners, it was easy to forget the way some women felt taken advantage of.

He straightened at the sound of footsteps. The interruption bothered him, but it brought a strange presence. Turning, he squinted at the curvy silhouette, one he at first thought was naked. But she wasn’t truly naked, he saw when she stepped beneath a streetlamp; just clothed in something so scanty it could pass for lingerie. Heat and arousal flourished in his abdomen, and his eyes widened at her red, flowing hair and supple lips. It was like nothing he’d ever felt: so intense and sudden, it didn’t feel natural.

“Mr. Clayton, why’d you stop?” the unnamed woman in satin said, still holding his neck and not noticing the goddess approaching.

With his eyes on the goddess, he shoved the black-haired woman off of him, and she gasped in offense. Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off the red-head’s smile, off the way her lavender eyes nearly hypnotized him. He’d never seen eyes like hers, and a power lay behind them—a power he wanted to get lost in but didn’t want to be controlled by at the same time. He stared, dumbfounded.

She touched his bowtie, and her scent was that of exotic flowers. He closed his eyes, his head spinning in a deadly but euphoric daze. “I see your reputation precedes you,” she said, her voice raspy and slight. He opened his eyes. In his peripheral vision, the black-haired woman who paled in comparison placed her hands on her hips.

“My…reputation?” he asked with a deep swallow. Her index and middle finger walked up his neck.

“You’re a bad boy, Henry. You’ve hurt many women.”

“Excuse me,” the woman in black said.

The mysterious beauty looked at her, then back at Henry. “Which one do you want, Henry?” she asked, her head tilting and eyes narrowing as though she knew him better than he knew himself, knew what he would do before she even asked it. “Her or me?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. His charm had gotten him far in the past. “Both?”

She laughed, continuing to draw her finger up his neck, and the sound was…actually quite unsettling. “That is not an option.” He exhaled at the overpowering surge of heat that overcame him. Why was it he wanted to run from something he wanted so badly to be swallowed in?

“Then you, of course,” he answered. She smiled, and he could have sworn blackness lurked inside her mouth—as though one of the universe’s black holes existed solely behind her lips. From the corner of his eye, he saw the other woman sulk, her heels clicking on the cement as she stormed off. And all he could think was good riddance.

“Not very wise,” the red-haired woman teased, even as the spell she’d put on him led him to grasp her waist. He pulled her against him, roughly, and lowered his lips to hers.

Before he could kiss her, in an oddly cool breath she said, “I’ll give you one more chance, Henry,” and that was when he heard the voice of the man and the cocking of his gun.

He turned, where a man in a dark overcoat held a pistol against the woman in black, her back against the bricks and the tip of the barrel over her heart. Henry panicked inside as the woman in black began to cry, but his feet were glued to the ground, his consciousness elsewhere. He wondered if the sight of him and the temptress had been veiled to the mugger, because the gunman seemed to not notice them. Or perhaps the gunman was a figment of his own imagination.

The woman in black sobbed, begging for her life, convincing the man with the gun that she had no money on her. It was the scene of a film, surely, rather than a reality only feet away.

“Me…” the temptress said, getting Henry’s attention. She smiled crookedly and he knew that’s what she was: a temptress. “…or her?” She tilted her head, studying her psychological experiment, and her arousing power overcame him again, taking his breath. He wanted to save the woman in black—the one from the scene that couldn’t be real—but he wanted the temptress more. He wanted to know what it would be like to be under her power, for it to overtake him. He wanted it, just one time.

The woman pled for her life.

The mugger yelled that he wanted everything she had.

But all Henry could do was breathe into the mouth of the temptress with flowing red hair. “You,” he said again, his every extremity in a weightless tremble. The most carnal desire trapped him, and though he tried to fight it, in the back of his awareness he knew he didn’t try hard enough. Because he didn’t want to fight it.

Her smile stretched, and her breath grew cool and peculiarly moist. “Very well, Henry Clayton.”