Vendetta in Death (In Death 49)

“This moment.”

She laughed, tossed her hair. “Then we should savor it, and the moments yet to come. Tonight I come here to …yes, divest—it is to divest the day and the things that must and needs be done. So to do what pleases instead. A night for me, yes?”

“Yes. This is also the same for me. Another commonality.”

“So …” She opened her evening purse, took out a tiny compact. “Tonight we are creatures of the moment. Together.”

He started to lean toward her, and the drink slot signaled, opened.

“We should toast the moment.”

As he turned to retrieve the martini glasses, she tossed her purse to the floor. He set the drinks on the table, bent to pick up her purse.

As he did, she spilled the contents of the vial in the compact into his drink.

“Merci.” She took the purse, slipped the compact back inside. She accepted the glass, tapped it lightly to his. “To the moment,” she said.

“And the many pleasures.”

Her eyes glittered at him over the rim of her glass. “And tell me one of the many pleasures you seek.”

“A beautiful woman who wants what I want.”

Watching him drink, she laid a hand on his thigh, trailed her fingers teasingly toward the bulge in his crotch. “But how can you seek what you have found?” When he leaned toward her, she brought the hand up to his chest. “Mais non. We drink first, to this moment, the savoring, and the anticipation of pleasures to come. See them beyond the curtain, moving, touching, a ritual of mating, yes? And some may while some may not. And we, we could do what we like here, unseen.”

“Titillating,” he said, and felt oddly light-headed.

“Finish the drink and come with me. I have a place that is more so. A place of many pleasures.”

Eager, he downed the rest, took the hand she offered when she rose. “My flat’s close,” he began.

“I have a place,” she repeated.

He thought it was like moving through a silver-edged fog, and never saw her tap her wrist unit to signal the droid, barely heard the music as she led him down to the first level, out into the night.

She nudged him into a car, and inside he groped for her breasts as his mouth sought hers.

He thought she said, “Straight home, Wilford,” in a different voice, but he was sinking, sinking into her, into pleasures.

Into the dark.

He woke with his head banging, his throat burning dry. When he tried to move, the muscles of his arms screamed. He blinked his aching eyes open, winced against the light.

He saw a large room, counters, monitors, screens, a massive workstation. None of it made sense.

It took him nearly a full minute to come around enough to realize he was naked, his hands cuffed over

his head to a chain that hung from the ceiling. His feet barely made it to the floor.

Kidnapped? Drugged? He twisted against the restraints, but it hurt.

No, no, the club. He’d gone to the club. The Frenchwoman. Solange. He remembered, but it blurred, and when he fought to think it through, his head screamed.

No windows, he thought as fear popped cold sweat over his skin. He saw stairs leading up and, if he craned his throbbing head enough, a door at the top.

He tried to call for help; his voice came out in a croak.

Pleasures—he remembered that.