Chasing the Night - Iris Johansen [122]
He was silent, his expression arrested. “Interesting.” She had reached him, tapped into the perversity that was an essential element of his character. “I wasn’t expecting this, Catherine.”
“Why not? You know that I’ll do anything to save my son. Maybe if I delay it long enough, it will be like Scheherazade telling her tales every night. It won’t happen.”
“You wouldn’t live past the first night, Scheherazade.”
“Yes, I would. You said I was strong. I am strong.” She stared him in the eye. “You liked your hands on me when you were searching. I could make you like everything about me. You mentioned that house in Istanbul. I grew up on the streets of Hong Kong. Do you think there’s anything I don’t know about the ways to please a man? You want to hurt me? I can endure and bring you to heights you’ve never reached.”
“And try to kill me after you’ve done it.”
“You’re a strong man. Keep me from doing it.” She could see that he was fascinated by the idea. Why not? She was offering him the kind of submissive sex that he adored. Clinch it. Show him.
She reached up and took down her dark hair and shook it about her shoulders. She took off her shirt and dropped it on the floor.
“Before they find Luke, let me show you,” she whispered. “You won’t be sorry.”
“You’ll take anything I do to you?”
“And beg you for more.” She started toward him. Hold his eyes. She knew about seduction. Draw him. Arouse him. Make him look at her eyes and her naked breasts. Glow, shimmer with sexuality. He might be a monster, but he was a man. “Will you let me try to please you enough to save Luke?”
“It won’t work. I’ll break you.”
“I’m not afraid. I know I’ve got a chance to change your mind.” She was standing in front of him so close the muzzle of his gun was pressed against her bare stomach. “And you want to do it.” She could see the pulse leap in his temple. “Do what you want, Rakovac. Anything you want.”
“Whore.” His cheeks were flushed and his lips full and slightly parted. “Oh, I’ll do what I want. You’ll scream for me, Catherine.” His hand closed on her breast. “And it might as well start here and now.”
Ignore the pain. Watch the gun in his left hand. He might have a second to respond.
“How do you like that?” His teeth sank into the lobe of her ear and brought blood.
Good. Perfect. His movement had brought her mouth to press against his neck.
Her tongue ran quickly over the back of her front teeth.
“You’re not answering, bitch.” He was panting, gnawing at her like an animal. “Tell me: how much of this you can stand for your son?”
She had the cap off the tooth. She opened her mouth, and her teeth sank deep into his neck!
He jerked away from her. “What are—” His hand lashed out at her.
She had to get the cap back over that tooth quickly. Done.
Now it would take three seconds.
The gun. She blocked it as he started to raise the weapon.
Three seconds.
He only made it to two seconds.
Rakovac’s eyes glazed over, the gun dropped from his nerveless hand. He was staring at her in horror.
“Is the pain starting?” She was panting as she took another step back and gazed up at him with glittering ferocity. “Hu Chang promised me that it would be excruciating. He said, ‘Don’t worry, my friend, it won’t be as long as you would like, but for him, it will seem forever. A fitting prelude to the hell where you’re sending him.’”
Rakovac was looking at her in bewilderment. He tried to speak, “Hu…Chang…”
“As I said, an old friend from my days in Hong Kong. He made his living concocting very lethal poisons and undetectable delivery systems for them. I did a favor for him once. When I went to him four years ago and told him I needed his help, he was happy to oblige.”
Rakovac suddenly moaned and staggered back.
“Ah, now it’s hitting. It’s mamba venom mixed with one of Hu Chang’s more painful additives. At first, he