FLAME AND A FIREMAN Page 4

  She'd been in the Roman room, the Celtic room, the Western room and all the others the bordello had to offer. But none of the carefully decorated spaces had been this big or this ornately planned. Even down to the hidden bar that, through its glass panels, she could see was fully stocked.

  "This place is unbelievable." She smelled coffee brewing and sat up. "You're offering me a cup of java?"

  He turned from where he was working at the bar and smilingly glanced over his shoulder. "You were shivering. I thought you might like some."

  "Well, it is a little cold in here. Seemed warmer when I first came in."

  "The temperature in this place fluctuates. Unlike your mortal dwelling, there's little need to bother over temperature in the Underworld."

  "Hmmm, so we're back to that again," she muttered under her breath.

  A firm decision to find out his true identity embedded itself in her brain. Even though she'd never tried to wangle any other man's identity out of him while patronizing the bordello, this man was different. Not only was he the most sexually alluring specimen she'd ever seen, there was something else about him that captured her attention. Something she couldn't quite define. But her cop instincts had lasered in on him and she could no more walk away from this experience without a name than she could have left a crime scene without questioning a witness. It was a moral, or in this case, an immoral imperative. She simply had to find out who he was.

  When he turned away from the bar bearing not only a tray with two steaming mugs of coffee, but some Danish and a bowl of huge strawberries, Lisa felt her skin tingling. Danish and strawberries were her two favorite snack foods. How could he possibly know that? Then the answer hit her and she suppressed a laugh. Of course...Cathy had set this up, so he would know quite a bit about her. I can't wait to tell Cathy just how good this guy was.

  He sat next to her and placed the tray on his lap. "I know you like your coffee black and your Danish homemade. The strawberries are fresh. Try them."

  She began to sample a little of everything, even feeding him some strawberries and pastry between sips of coffee.

  "You sleep like an angel," he complimented.

  Placing her cup on the tray to eat another morsel of Danish, Lisa thought she had a way of making him reveal himself. If she could get him to come out of the Pluto role, then maybe he'd give her his name.

  "What would Pluto know about angels? I mean, for all intents and purposes, we're in hell. Aren't we?"

  He shook his head in denial. "You're thinking of Lucifer who, by the way, was a fallen angel. This isn't hell. It's the Underworld. And I'm Pluto. But a lot of people do confuse me with that dark archangel who once inhabited the spaces of heaven."

  "But doesn't mythology say you're the archetype for Satan and the Underworld you rule was the original hell?"

  "There are those who confuse me with that darker side, but I'm not evil, Lisa. I think you know that."

  "Excepting the fact you make love better than any man I've ever known, I don't know anything about you at all." She sidled closer to him. "However, we can rectify that oversight if you'd let me know who you really are."

  He stared at her for a moment, then gathered their food and mugs and placed them on the floor beside the bed. "How about that massage?"

  She sighed in frustration then shrugged. "Okay. Why not?"

  "Lie on your stomach."

  She did as he requested and moaned in pleasure as his hands began to work over her back and shoulders in rhythmic expertise.

  "You know, I've always disliked being confused with the Devil. I'm no demon at all. In fact, it's my job to look after the dead and bestow upon mankind the fertile sampling of the earth. You've seen the gemstones in the cauldrons?"

  "Yes, and I was wondering about that," she admitted.

  "Fine stones are but a small portion of the wonders of the Underworld. It's my job to see earth's treasures from below the ground find their way to worthy mortals above. In fact, the name Pluto means wealth. I'm a deity of prosperity and abundance to those who truly deserve such gifts."

  "And I do? Is that why I'm here?" she asked with humor.

  Slowly turning her over so she lay on her back, he nodded. "You are. You deserve much more than you let yourself have."

  "Sure. I'm an exemplary model of how to live." She rolled her eyes in exaggeration. "That's why I'm being pleasured in the Underworld, isn't it?"

  He placed his hands around her waist. "While others are spending their time chasing wealth, you often visit a hospital where sick and ill children need to see a smiling face. You volunteer your time frequently, and chose an occupation that has little reward except to see justice done. Your wealth allows you freedom, but you choose to use it helping others. I know you better than you think. And the woman I know is very much a good role model. You judge yourself very harshly, Lisa."

  For a long time, she stared up at him. "You certainly did your research on where I go and what I do, didn't you? Did Cathy fill you in on any other little details?"

  He slowly shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about. You're here because I invited you. You're a worthy woman with whom I wanted to spend my time. And you accepted the invitation because the men in your life place their paltry needs above your own. They see you as a means to an end...a way to more wealth. Possibly even a way to power, through combining your wealth with theirs. But you see through them. You're not a gullible woman. Bradley Winthrop-Silsby the Fourth and some of his contemporaries would prefer you were."

  "How do you know about Brad or any man I date?"

  "You don't date him or the others with any intention of a relationship. You go with them to keep from being lonely and use the excuse your parents have asked you to entertain them. And, while that might be true, until quite recently, you wouldn't accept that staying home and caring for yourself as being more important and meaningful than being with those money-grubbing boy toys."

  She sat up. "How dare you? Where are you getting your information and where do you get off judging them? Or me for that matter?" she angrily responded. "Who the hell do you think you are? You're a paid escort. A gigolo. A man who works in a bordello to please women." She stopped when he shook his head and a sad expression flooded his handsome face.

  "You frequent a bordello and provide the men there with a ready customer. I might ask what that makes you, if I weren't so sure you were doing it out of boredom," he responded, anger audible in his voice.

  She clenched her hands and was about to let him have it when he raised one hand to quiet her.

  "Forgive me, Lisa. It isn't my place to judge anyone. Not for patronizing a bordello or for working in one. I suppose some might say there's at least a twisted kind of logic in visiting such a place. No one goes to a bordello to break any hearts or to get hurt. Sex is the reason for the visit. Pleasure is the game. Everyone knows that and they enter into the encounter with their eyes wide open.

  "But when your life becomes so tiresome your only excitement comes from that kind of gratuitous pleasure, then there's a great deal missing in your world. Something much deeper. Do you understand?"

  "You're making me out to be some pathetically sad rich bitch!" Then she turned her head away as she remembered similar words she'd whispered to herself in a bathroom mirror very recently.

  He placed his hand under her chin and forced her to look at him. "I shouldn't have said anything. Like I said, it isn't my place to judge you or anyone else. I simply exist to care for my domain. What humans do above my world isn't my concern. That's a matter best left for others, in a higher position, to sort out.

  "I only know you deserve better than what you're giving yourself. There should be someone in your life with depth. Someone who can at least try to understand who you are instead of chasing the riches in your family's control. Any man should really get to know the kind of woman who would give up traveling the world in luxury to spend her life as a police officer. I understand it's an often thankless, misunderstood pr
ofession."

  Lisa swallowed hard. Most of the men she'd been with over the last two years hadn't even asked her what her day at the P.D. had been like. One even insinuated it was something she was doing for kicks, and that it was a job far beneath her station. She took a deep breath and quietly asked, "Where does a woman find such a man, Pluto? Does she find him here in the Underworld?"

  When he turned his head away, Lisa got the impression he was frustrated and wanted to answer her question. It appeared, from the expression on his face, that he was considering saying something important. When he turned back, however, that momentary lapse of control was over. His mask of Pluto, Ruler of the Underworld, was back in place.

  "Why don't I show you the rest of my domain? It isn't every day I let a mortal enter this place and allow them to leave."

  Afraid of where the conversation had been going, and how intimate and serious this stranger was getting with her personal life, Lisa quietly nodded.

  He stood up and held out his hand. "Come with me, Lisa. Let's just enjoy ourselves. All right?"

  She put her hand in his. Her curiosity over his identity and his sudden intensity concerning her future welfare had Lisa more determined than ever to find out what his agenda was, and why her best friend had set her up with a man so magnetic, passionate and interfering.

  Is this what Cathy Sullivan thought she needed? A romp with a man who alternately sexually pleased her the way no man had, then lectured her on her social life, or lack thereof?

  As Lisa walked with him to view more of his so-called Underworld domain, there was one thought that rolled around in her head over and over. She became obsessed with it.

  No matter what the rules say or what it takes, I'm gonna find out who the hell you are.

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  Still nude, Lisa followed him into the darker regions of the room. He led her to a small, circular space where she gasped at the sight before her. From a large elaborately lit rock, a small waterfall fell in a long, wall-length sheet into a little, oval pool. The pool was about six feet wide by ten feet in length. The scenario reminded her of the expensive bathroom waterfalls Lisa had noted in many of her friends' mansions. The pipe feeding the water had been hidden in an overhanging ledge in the rock, and red lights reflected both on the water's surface and from the floor of the pond itself. There were even fiery red towels, more cauldrons with condoms and pretty clear bottles and jars of complementary creams and shampoos. The fog machines that must have cost Monique a fortune were still working overtime, spewing their soft billowy clouds of blue and red from behind more artificial rocks.

  "A waterfall? In hell?"

  He grinned and wagged his eyebrows at her mischievously. "Even the denizens here have to bathe. See, it isn't the hell humans make it. That's a different place entirely."

  "And what did you have in mind, Pluto?"

  He turned away, walked down into the sunken pond and turned to her. "Join me?"

  "Aren't you afraid your makeup will wash off, or you'll lose that expensive wig? You might even lose a horn or an ear. Then where would your illusion be?"

  He tilted his head. "I don't know what you're talking about. From the first moment you stepped into my kingdom, you've assumed it wasn't real. If it pleases you to keep thinking that, then I won't argue. That may be your way of dealing with what you can't accept is the truth."

  She shook her head, put her hands on her hips and looked his magnificent body over. "You should be on Broadway. Maybe I'll put in a good word in with a few theatrical backers I know."

  "Have their people call mine," he glibly responded. "Will you join me or not?"

  She laughed and shrugged. "Why fight it? I'm here, so let's play."

  When he held out his hand to help her safely down into the pond, Lisa found there was some kind of soft surface on the bottom that was tinted red. It both added to the entire scenario and allowed her to stand next to him without the fear of slipping.

  She watched as he turned his back to the sheet of water, letting it run down his back and over his shoulders. When he tilted his head back, she was sure he'd lose that very expensive wig, but it didn't budge. Neither did the makeup, the horns or the ears.

  Frowning, she looked down at her body. Before, she'd been so involved with either having sex or a serious conversation to notice whether any of his makeup had rubbed off on her body. She couldn't find a single smear of it anywhere and that puzzled her.

  "What's wrong, Lisa? Aren't you going to join me under the water? It's quite warm."

  Her police mind told her there was a logical explanation for his body being so evenly red. That was just another mystery she'd have to solve as well as who the man himself was. "Sure. Why not?"

  She walked forward to stand next to him and felt the warm water cascade gently over her body. When she'd vacationed in Hawaii two years earlier, the expensive hotel she'd patronized had had such a waterfall built into the swimming pool. Like that little water feature, the waterfall here neither ran too fast nor noisy. It was a comfortable little haven in which sexual rendezvous could take place.

  * * * *

  When she closed her eyes and tipped her head back to enjoy the warmth of the water, he picked up a nearby basket, selected a small bottle from the contents and opened it. She still had her eyes closed when he smeared some of the contents into his palms, set the bottle aside, then moved in front of her.

  With her eyes still closed, enjoying the comforting water as it struck her shoulder tops in just the right places, Lisa clearly wasn't prepared for his hands closing over her breasts. She quickly opened her eyes to see him looming in front of her. In the shallow depth of the pool, it seemed she had to look up even further to see his dark, sultry expression.

  He slowly massaged some kind of oil into her breasts that heated up a few seconds after it was applied. She moaned in appreciation as the lubricant on her nipples caused them to become erect and sensitized to every single touch of his fingers and palms.

  "Wh-what is that? It's fantastic," she whispered.

  "Something to arouse you. I couldn't look at you standing under the water and not want to take you again."

  She leaned against his palms and let her body circle in conjunction with his caresses. "That's unbelievable. Let me do you."

  He nodded toward the bottle. "Help yourself. Touch me any way you'd like."

  She quickly grabbed up the small, exquisitely designed bottle, curved to look like a little flame, and grinned. "No expense spared."

  She poured a quarter-sized amount of the stuff onto her left palm, then placed her other one against it to smear the contents onto both hands and in between her fingers. Looking down at his crotch, she could see his body was already responding to her anticipated touch.

  "I think you know where I'd like you to start. But the choice is yours," he murmured.

  "You touch yourself first, Pluto."

  He shot her what he hoped was a wicked grin, then ran his hands down his chest and his thighs. He spread his legs slightly, then cupped himself and moaned.

  His heavy lidded, feral expression caused Lisa to forget their former, serious conversation and everything else except pleasing him. Her hands pressed against his lower abdomen and moved lower, pushing his aside.

  "This may be a little warm on skin this sensitive," she warned.

  "Don't let that stop you. I'm used to hot places."

  Thoroughly coated with the warming lubricant, she wrapped her fingers around his shaft and slowly pulled from the base, all the way to the tip. Then she deliberately lingered there and made a swirling motion.

  "Sweet Mother of..." He stopped to inhale deeply and let his head fall back.

  "That's it, Pluto. Now, I'm gonna do to you a little of what you did to me when I first came in the room."

  He grabbed her shoulders and began to thrust slowly toward her. Her hands made a kind of pouch into which he could move.

  "So...good!" he cried out.

  *
* * *

  Lisa had never wanted a man so badly in her life. She glanced around to find the nearest condom filled cauldron, and actually managed to pull it toward her using the big toe on her right foot. Keeping one hand on him, she reached down, fished for a condom until she found an extra large, then brought the packet to her lips. She gently pulled open the foil using her free hand and her teeth, then spat the package top away after removing the bright red condom.

  She only moved the hand touching him when he began to thrust harder and she thought he might release. It was only then that her hands maneuvered the condom onto his thickness. She put one leg on the side of the pond and writhed against him.

  He gazed down at her only a second before lifting that one leg higher and placing it around his hips. Then he wrapped his hands around her tiny waist, lifted her up, and settled her against his body until he was sure his cock was where he wanted it. After that, it was only a matter of letting her slide down his body a few inches. The remains of the oil on her breasts caused her body to slither quite nicely down his own.

  And when she was settled onto him, he put his face next to her cheek. "Raise your other leg up and put them both around me. I'll take care of the rest."

  Lisa could only nod and do as he told her. She was impaled on him and was being pressed backward partially into the sheet of falling water. A voice cried out and echoed throughout the cavernous room. She recognized it as her own, but was so intent on the pleasure in her womb that the wild grunts and cries she made went unchecked. He was lifting his hips up and down and her body was already responding to the thickness deep inside her.

  * * * *

  He felt her tighten around him and knew it was only a minute or less before she climaxed. Wanting to spill at the same time she was in the depth of her orgasm, he bucked harder against her and focused on nothing but her full perfectly formed breasts, her nipples and how good they felt against his own, and the heat surrounding his erection. Such tight, tight heat! It was almost overwhelming. Almost too much.