CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
She needed time alone.
Liv wasn’t sure how long she’d stood on the dock gazing after her sister, but she finally shook herself out of it and made her way back along the beach to where the golf carts were waiting.
She noticed Axel was now involved in a card game in the center tent, a cigar clamped between his teeth as he studied his cards. The tent where the food and never-ending supply of alcohol was located only had a smattering of people, mostly women, and they were gathered around the tables in conversation.
As she walked farther down the beach, she realized something was different about the third tent. Curtains had been pulled across the sides, giving a semblance of privacy, but they billowed and flapped as the wind coming off the water picked up.
The occasional moan wafted on the breeze, and she caught glimpses of bare flesh as she walked by. The party had definitely gotten more risqué.
“I’m going back to the bungalow,” she said. “And I’m going offline.”
She motioned to one of the golf cart drivers, dressed in the same uniform Dante had been wearing earlier, and he hopped out and helped her into the back of the cart. By the time the driver pulled in front of the bungalow she shared with Axel, she’d already replayed the entire scene with Elizabeth in her head.
Elizabeth was alive. But Liv had lost her forever.
Lights were on inside the bungalow, and she let herself in, enjoying the cool breeze of the overhead fans. There was no air-conditioning. There was none needed with the doors and windows open, and the cool ocean breeze blowing in.
The bungalow had been decorated in white. White carpet runners and rugs broke up the smooth expanse of the bamboo floors. The white sectional sofa was surrounded by glass coffee and end tables, and even the candlesticks and other knickknacks on the shelves were white. The kitchen, naturally, was white, the appliances stainless steel. Liv walked to a small box sitting on the bar and pressed the button. It looked like a modernist cube—a piece of art: it was anything but.
There were several beeps, and then Elaine’s voice came on. “There has been no new activity on the premises since nineteen fourteen hours when Agent Tucker and three minor subjects passed the established perimeter.”
“Thank you, Elaine,” Liv said, removing the undetectable comm unit from her ear and laying it on the counter.
“You’re quite welcome, Agent Rothschild. Did you have a good time at the party?”
“Not especially, no. I wasn’t aware that it would eventually turn into an orgy.”
“I’ve read of those,” Elaine said. “It seems like a great deal of work. And I’m still unsure about body fluids. It seems that orgies would produce copious amounts. I believe when my human form is rendered, I won’t at all like body fluids touching me. It seems quite unsanitary.”
“It’s probably best to stay away from orgies,” Liv agreed. “I’d love to meet your human form, Elaine.”
“You are not the first person to tell me that,” she said. “Dante would also like to meet me. I believe I am quite the catch. I have a soft spot for Dante, so I believe it’s best if I try to catch him first.”
Liv’s brows rose, and she felt a strong impulse to tell Elaine she wouldn’t be sharing any body fluids with Dante. Of course, that was ridiculous. First of all, because she didn’t care what Dante did or with whom. And second of all, because Elaine was a computer, for God’s sake, and she wasn’t even real.
“He’s a slippery one,” Liv said.
“Oh, no, I believe he wants to be caught,” Elaine corrected. “I think he’s quite lonely. It’s why we spend so much time talking. When he isn’t searching for substitutes for you, of course.”
“I beg your pardon?” Liv asked.
“He’s always dating women who look like you,” she said. “Before you colored your hair, of course. He loved your hair. I must say, though, I’m enjoying the red. It’s feisty.”
Liv was going to have to think about that for a moment. The idea of Dante with a bevy of other women who looked like her didn’t sit well. “Why would he date women who look like me?”
“When I calculate the data,” Elaine said, “it would appear that it’s because he’s experiencing the emotion of love. He sometimes says your name in his sleep.”
She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. Elaine was a computer. She didn’t know anything about human emotions.
“I’m going to take a walk on the beach,” Liv said. “I’ll exit and enter through the master bedroom. I’m sure Axel will be in much later, once the party is through.”
“You don’t have to worry about Axel,” Elaine said. “He’s always been faithful to his wife. Did you know my voice is hers? I don’t always understand emotions like a human would, but Dante once explained it must be terribly hard for Axel to listen to me speak, knowing he’ll never see his wife again. I can infer that the connection to her through my voice either keeps him sane or is a punishment of sorts. Dante told me not to ask him.”
“Really?” Liv asked, surprised Dante would be that in touch with someone else’s emotions.
“Do you think I should?” Elaine asked, perking up. “I’m very curious to know the answer. The situation reminds me very much of Gloria and Stefan on my favorite soap opera. It’s very tragic.”
“I’m sure it is,” Liv said amused. “But in this case, Dante is right. It’s best not to ask.”
Entering the master suite, Liv closed and locked the door behind her. The bed was a four-poster with white netting draped over the top, the white comforter and pillows soft as clouds. The French doors that led straight out to the beach were open, and the white sheers billowed in and out.
She stripped out of her dress and threw it across the bench at the end of the bed, then removed the panties and tossed them in the hamper and put her shoes back on the shelf in the closet. Liv found a soft jersey sundress in blue, and put it on, not bothering with underwear. Releasing her hair from the tight ponytail it had been in all night, she put it back up in a loose bun, then dug a pale blue pashmina from the drawer. The nights could get cool.
She left through the French doors, wrapping the pashmina around her, and made her way down the beach. The white sand was soft beneath her feet, and the moon was bright enough to light the way. She walked just a little way, careful not to venture near any other bungalows in case she ran across someone unsavory, then turned and headed back the way she’d come.
“You look like a ghost walking beside the water,” Dante said from the shadows. “I had to look twice to make sure you were real.”
She couldn’t see him until he emerged from the cover of the palm trees. He was dressed all in black after his nighttime foray to Mittal’s bungalow, and she recognized how smooth and practiced his movements were. Not one stick crackled beneath his feet, and not one leaf rustled as he walked through the foliage.
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m finished at Mittal’s,” he said. “I was just heading back and wanted to make sure you made it okay. There’s a lot going on tonight.”
“No kidding,” she said dryly. “That’s an understatement.”
“Men who deal in sex trades, weapons, and drugs are always going to push things to the limit. It’s like a drug in itself. Wait and watch. Someone will go missing before the weekend is out. It’s survival of the fittest around here. Any weak links will be destroyed.”
“We just need to make sure it’s not one of us,” she said.
Dante slowly brought his hand up and brushed the side of her cheek. “Why are you crying?”
She hadn’t realized she had been. But her cheeks were wet.
“I wasn’t expecting the meet with Elizabeth to hurt quite so much,” Liv confessed. “I don’t know what I expected. All these years, I’ve dreamed of passing her on the street and having a heartfelt reunion. Or I dreamed that I’d track her down and rescue her from whatever hell she’d been living in, and then I’d do whatever I needed to help her.”
“I’m sorry it wasn’t like that,” he said, dropping his hand down to take hers and squeezing it gently.
“I just didn’t expect for there to be nothing between us,” she said. “We’re twins. When she was taken, I felt like part of myself had been ripped away. But when she was standing right there in front of me, I realized she was a stranger. A stranger who didn’t need saving. She said she’s happy and isn’t going anywhere. What have I been living my life for?”
“You can’t tell me you do the work you do only to find your sister,” he said. “I’ve watched you. You care about every case that comes across your desk. You care about finding those little girls as much as you cared about finding your sister. You put your heart and soul into everything you do.”
“And what do I have to show for it?” Liv asked. “No family. No children. No sister. My best friend is a middle-aged father of four with a bullet hole in his shoulder. And apparently a therapist doesn’t count as a friend at all.”
His lips twitched. “No, I’d think not. And Donner is a good friend to have. Don’t discount him.”
“I never would,” she said. “It’s just that everything I thought I was working for turns out to be a fantasy I concocted. And now I have to figure out what to do with the remaining chapters in my life.”
“I think you’ll find you have plenty of options once you start looking,” Dante said. “Being hurt because your sister rejected you is normal. I’d be more worried if you weren’t hurt by it. She’s probably hurting too. You never know what kinds of fantasies she concocted in her head over the years. Maybe she dreamed of being rescued for a time, just like you dreamed of rescuing her. Those disappointments can weigh heavy when fantasy doesn’t live up to reality.”
“My head knows you’re right,” Liv said. “My heart is a little slow at getting the memo.”
“I can understand that,” he said. “My heart has been fighting with my brain since I met you.”
Dante leaned in to kiss her, his eyes open, giving her plenty of time to pull away. But she didn’t. And when his lips touched hers, she sighed in relief. She’d wanted him to kiss her. Needed him to touch her.
The kiss didn’t stay simple for long. Her mouth opened and she moaned as his tongue invaded. Who would’ve known that just a kiss could melt her heart and soul? Only Dante. No one else had ever completed her the way he had. And no one else had ever devastated her the way he had. It was the cruelest of ironies.
“What have you done to me?” he asked.
“I don’t understand,” she said, trying to catch her breath and leaning into his kiss again.
“I can’t resist you, no matter how often I tell myself that I should stay away.”
“Maybe you just have an itch that needs to be scratched.”
“No, don’t make light of it. I’ve only been half alive for the last two years. Do you know the discipline it took not to check up on you? Not to watch from afar as you went about your life. Wondering if you’d found someone else. Fallen in love.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t deal with these emotions tonight. Not after Elizabeth.
“It’s been too long since Dubai,” he said. “I’ve wanted you every day since. I’ve ached with the need for you.”
“Me too,” Liv confessed. “Even as furious as I was, I still wanted you. And hated myself for it.”
“We never seem to make it to a bed,” he said, slipping the pashmina from her shoulders and spreading it flat on the sand.
“Beds are for old people.” She kissed him deeply, loving the feel of his hands on her. Then she tugged the black shirt over his head and let it fall to the ground.
“Do you have any idea how crazy you drove me today in that little bathing suit?” Dante said. “I was so angry I couldn’t see straight, and I was so horny I went back to my room during my break and pretended it was your mouth on my cock instead of my hand. I came so hard I saw stars.”
He slipped the straps of her sundress off her shoulders, and the dress fell past her aching breasts. He groaned at the sight of them and palmed one in his hand, skimming her nipple with his thumb. She could tell he was past the limit of his patience, and if she didn’t take matters into her own hands he’d have her flat on her back in the sand with her ankles next to her ears.
She took hold of his wrists before he could do just that, and started kissing her way down his muscled chest and taut abs. His skin was practically vibrating with energy, and she could feel it coursing through her own body, just by touching him.
“God, Liv,” he whispered, staring down at her as she knelt in front of him. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“That’s the idea,” she said, undoing the buckle of his belt. Then she unbuttoned his pants and pulled down the zipper. “Do you know how rare it is for me to look at all of you?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, kicking off his soft-soled boots. He helped her push off his slacks and briefs, so he stood before her completely naked.
“I mean there’s been many a time we’ve done this where we couldn’t get completely naked. Like during the third act of La Traviata at the Royal Opera House,” she reminded him. “We had box seats, and if I recall, I did this for quite some time.”
His cock jerked in front of her face, thick and hard, and she met his eyes as her tongue traced him from base to tip.
“I remember,” Dante rasped.
Her tongue swirled around the head before she took him completely in her mouth. And then she felt the complete power of the act as his head dropped back and his fingers tangled in her hair.
“You have no idea how good that feels.”
“I imagine it feels as good as it does when you do it to me,” she said, swirling her tongue at the top again before swallowing him whole. Her nails bit into his thighs and she opened her throat, feeling him all the way at the back, her eyes watering as she tried to prolong the pleasure for him.
“Enough,” he said. “My turn.”
Before Liv knew it, her dress was in the sand and he was flat on his back, lifting her so she straddled his face. She leaned forward and immediately took his cock back into her mouth. And when his tongue licked into her, she saw stars.
“I think you’re right about getting undressed,” he said. “If I recall, you wore that flirty black skirt the day we went to the Fountain of Four Rivers in Rome. And you didn’t wear panties. It was so easy to lay you back and push that skirt up.”
“We could’ve gotten caught,” she said, her breath quickening at the memory, and her hips began to move against his face.
“We could have,” he said, his tongue zeroing in on her clit. “But you came so fast there was never a chance for anyone to even walk by.”
Mewls of pleasure escaped her lips, and the sounds vibrated against his cock. Liv could feel it building inside of her, from her toes to her scalp, and her body vibrated all over as his tongue flicked faster and faster.
Her vision dimmed and all she could hear was the blood rushing in her ears. His hands grasped her hips and pulled her down hard. He devoured. And she lost her mind as the orgasm exploded through her.
She was still spasming when he lifted her and placed her on her back. He pushed her thighs open and she watched out of half-lidded eyes as he pushed inside her; her muscles were still contracting and the fit was tight as he pressed forward. She caught her breath and could feel the next wave begin to build as he hit just the right spot.
He draped her legs over his shoulders and then lowered himself, so her knees were pressed to her chest. She could feel every inch of him, as deep as he could possibly go, and his hips began to move in a slow roll against her.
“Dante,” she moaned.
The look of concentration on his face was intense, and his gaze bored into hers. He released her legs from his shoulders and she pressed her heels flat on the pashmina, so she could move against him. Her skin tingled and she could feel the imminent release at the base of her spine.
Her nails dug into his shoulders as her hips slapped against his.
“Come for me, damn it,” he growled.
She felt him harden and swell, and her back arched as pleasure ripped through her violently. His mouth covered hers to silence her screams, and then he buried his face in her neck to silence his own as he exploded inside of her.
She could’ve sworn she heard him whisper I love you.