STORY EXCERPT

It was a long drive back to New Delhi, and as Stephanie had not been sleeping well she felt herself drifting off to sleep several times. Woken when they slowed through a town whose market seemed to have brought the whole region’s population onto the streets, she tried to keep herself awake and enjoy the views. She wasn’t likely to make it back to India in the foreseeable future.

So it was pure luck that she saw the sign. It was very clear and in English. Delhi straight ahead. Yet their driver turned left. New Delhi was not that far away from Delhi to require a left turn hours before.

Stephanie’s sixth sense started to tingle. “Excuse me,” she said, leaning forward. “You’re going the wrong way.”

The driver beamed. “Oh no, no, lady. We are absolutely going the right way.”

“We’re going to New Delhi,” said Stephanie firmly. “Which is back the other way.”

“Yes. Yes, New Delhi,” agreed the driver, nodding. “This way is infinitely better. We will not be having the traffic.”

Already the quality of the road had deteriorated. Stephanie had seen enough of Indian infrastructure to be pretty sure that beyond the main roads there was likely to be much worse of everything.

“No.” she said. “I want you to stop and turn around. I want to go the other way.”

“No, no, lady, this is good.” The driver seemed to be pushing the accelerator even harder. And despite the cool air, he was sweating profusely. Stephanie’s sixth sense was now screaming.

“Jean-Luc,” she said urgently in a low voice, “we have to make him stop and go the other way.”

Jean-Luc, who had been half-asleep, looked at her as is she’d lost her mind. “You really think you know the way better than him? That’s what I’m paying him for.”

“You don’t understand,” said Stephanie. “Something’s wrong.”

Jean-Luc looked at her skeptically.

“Try,” she urged. “If he won’t then you’ll know I’m right.”

Jean-Luc sighed and leaned forward. “The lady wants to go the main way. Don’t worry if it takes longer, I’ll pay you extra.”

The driver now was in a pool of sweat and his agitation was enough to make Jean-Luc take note. “No, no, we will get there much faster this way. This way is very good.”

Jean-Luc was now bolt upright. “I said stop. Now.” There was a dangerous edge to his voice.

“Soon, soon,” the Indian said, nodding and smiling and sweating.

“By the time I count three,” said Jean-Luc. He whispered to Stephanie to tighten her seat belt and be ready. A quick look around her showed they were in the middle of dry plains. She crossed her fingers. Nothing to hit.

When Jean-Luc got to three the driver just gripped the steering wheel tighter and accelerated harder. Whatever he thought Jean-Luc might do, he wasn’t ready for an athlete at the peak of his powers catapulting himself over the divide and into the passenger front seat. Nor was he ready for Jean-Luc poking his fingers into his eyes with one hand while the other grasped the steering wheel.

The car veered madly, heading across rough fields then spinning, which at least slowed it down, before it hit a rut and flipped. Stephanie felt her life flash before her, the crazy ride seeming to be in slow motion as the vista whizzed about her before tossing her around carelessly until it was dirt she was seeing. As the car came to a halt on its roof, Stephanie, coughing, could only think she had to get out. Undoing the seat belt, she banged her head and then kicked open the door, falling out onto the field.

“Jean-Luc,” she coughed, thinking that he hadn’t had a seat belt on. Louder. “Jean-Luc!” She heard a groan and crawled to the other side of the car, pulling at the door. It opened, and Jean-Luc pulled himself out. They sat there for a moment before she moved back to look for the driver. It was him groaning. He didn’t seem to be bleeding and she couldn’t smell or see any gasoline. He could get himself out.

“What the fuck,” said Jean-Luc finally, “was that about?”

“It would be nice to be able to ask him,” said Stephanie, indicating the driver. “But I have my suspicions. The ones you refused to take seriously.”

To her consternation, Jean-Luc smiled. “You mean the Argentineans are that worried about me!” he exclaimed in delight.

Men! The driver groaned again. Jean-Luc, brushing himself off and seemingly no worse for the ordeal, walked around and pulled the driver out.

“Okay,” he said, kicking him for good measurement. “Who paid you to do what?”

The driver curled himself into a fetal ball. “No, no not me, I was not doing anything.” Jean-Luc kicked him again, and Stephanie winced.

“Who. Paid. You. To. Do. What?”

“I don’t know anything,” the man pleaded. “All I had to do was pick you up and drop you off. That’s all. Nothing else, I swear.”

Jean-Luc kicked him again. Stephanie heard his ribs crack. “Drop us off where?”

“Up the road ten miles, that’s all I know,” said the driver, groaning and holding his side. “Never saw who paid me. Money, cash in my mailbox.”

“Looks like that’s all we’re going to get out of him,” said Jean-Luc in disgust.

“One more question,” said Stephanie quietly. “When?”

The man raised his head slightly. “Late last night, good lady, but confirmed this morning. Please, I mean you no harm. I need the money, my wife, she…”

“Shut the fuck up,” said Jean-Luc, kicking him. He looked around. “Question is—what now?”

Stephanie, her fingers trembling as the full relevance of the final answer reverberated through her, called Jeffrey.

ADULT EXCERPT

A huge spa bath was already half-full with water, soapy bubbles smelling of lilac. Jeffrey glanced up at her and for a moment they looked at each other in silence. His eyes could have said “I told you so,” “you’re an idiot,” or “what did I tell you about Jean-Luc,” all things mulling around in her own mind, but instead seemed to be focused in the moment. His overdeveloped sense of responsibility it seemed.

“I’ll leave if you like.”

Stephanie took a breath. “And if I don’t like?”

Jeffrey smiled and said, “Well I have long since decided you are far too dangerous to have sex with—something akin to the black widow is it?—but I suppose I can at least appreciate the view.”

Stephanie sighed. Well, friends was maybe better than nothing, at least if they were going to survive the next month together. She dropped the gown and stood in front of him, hoping that he would be sorry for what he was missing out on.

Jeffrey smiled mischievously. “You look luscious even when bruised and battered.” His finger ran over down her arm gently and she shivered. Holding her hand he helped her step into the bath.

“I’m not entirely sure alcohol is a good idea, but I might allow one glass,” said Jeffrey kindly. “Any preferences?”

He brought her a glass of champagne—they both decided to celebrate her survival—and he sat behind her, rubbing her neck. It had taken quite a lot of the force of her dropping out of the seat belt, and after the initial pain the massage felt like heaven.

“Do you give this sort of therapy to all your employees?” she asked, closing her eyes and savoring his touch.

“Only the ones I like to fantasize about strangling at the same time,” said Jeffrey, though his tone suggested that at least in this moment he had put this idea aside. He pushed his sleeves up, and his hands came further down into the water, digging in under her shoulder blades and into the ridges of her spine. The combination of the warmth of the water, the effects of the champagne, and his touch sent a delicious shiver through her body.

Jeffrey took her uninjured arm and ran his hand gently up and down it, then she felt his mouth licking and sucking her fingers, each in turn. She opened her eyes slowly and stared into his.

“Relax,” he said gently. “I’m not going to fuck you, just enjoy.”

Stephanie took a long sip of champagne, put the glass down and let her mind drift. Jeffrey’s hands were firm and unforgiving at first, pushing into the muscles of her shoulder to release all the tension that had accumulated there in the last few weeks. Then his hands moved around her shoulder blades, edging down under the water over the tops of her breasts. She felt his lips close to her ears, blowing gently, then nibbling. His tongue licked around the edge of her ear as his hands moved lower and Stephanie felt her hips move involuntarily as he cupped her breasts, teasing out the nipples and rolling them between his fingers.

Time drifted as Jeffrey sucked on her ears, his thrusting tongue causing her to imagine his cock doing the same thing. Stephanie’s hand went to her sex, and she pressed hard against her clit.

Jeffrey sat back for a moment and then moved to the other end of the bath, taking one leg and slowly running his hand over the sole and between the toes, then sucking while he massaged her calves. Stephanie kept her hand over her clit, circling it as she allowed her mind to believe it was Jeffrey’s and that his hand and his cock would enter her most personal place.

Jeffrey moved to the other leg, and repeated the movements, slowly sucking her toes, with firmer caresses of her calf. When he moved back to her torso she arched at his touch on her nipples, now unable to stop her pelvis rocking gently.

“Let yourself go,” he whispered in her ear, but it was his tongue following his words that sent her fingers deeper, opening her pussy, first one, then a second, trying to satisfy her need to be filled.