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  “Here?” she whispered. “People with telescopes watch, you know.”

  He paused. If he were merely going to screw her, he wouldn’t care who watched. But since she would be going for a long, vertical walk afterward, he didn’t want witnesses.

  Smiling, he stepped back and gestured to the door. She laughed as she walked ahead of him into the study. “Somehow I expected you to be more adventurous.”

  “There’s a difference, my dear, between adventurous and stupid.” He went to the wall switch and turned out the lights, then locked the door. Calla stood calmly waiting for him, the city lights spilling through the windows, glittering on the jewels at her ears and throat.

  He took off his dinner jacket and draped it over the back of a chair, not caring to have it smeared with telltale makeup. His shirt would likely bear the marks, but it would be covered by the jacket, and he would dispose of it as soon as he returned to his own hotel. As a last precaution he took his handkerchief from the jacket and put it in his pants pocket.

  Arousal coursed through him as he stood in front of her and worked the tight sheath of her skirt up about her waist. She didn’t have on any underwear, but then he hadn’t expected any. He lifted her onto the desk and she leaned back until she was lying flat across the polished surface. They both knew what this was, and it wasn’t lovemaking. She didn’t pretend to have any romantic feelings, or demand foreplay. This was power sex, a gambit involving bodies, though she hadn’t yet realized the true game or that she wouldn’t survive it.

  He unfastened his pants and stepped between her spread thighs, entering her with a smooth thrust that had her humming with pleasure. Good, he thought as he began thrusting. It would be nice if she enjoyed her last time.

  Calla’s long hair fanned across the desk. Parrish closed his eyes and thought of Grace, of her luscious mouth. He imagined that the heat surrounding him was Grace’s heat, and he pumped steadily into it. She too would die afterward, but perhaps not immediately. Perhaps he would play with her for a while.

  Calla gasped, arching. The response struck him as too theatrical, and he paused to consider her. Her eyes were half closed, her head tilted back, her lips open and moist. It was a lovely picture she made, and a totally false one. Why, she was faking, damn her, pandering to his ego. She probably faked it with all her rich lovers, twisting and moaning so they thought they were great in the sack, while all the time she was smirking inside and feeling nothing but contempt because men were so easily manipulated with sex.

  Not this time.

  He slipped one of her shoes off, dropping it to the floor. Deliberately he reached down between their bodies and pinched her clitoris, rubbing his thumb across it in a repeated motion. She gasped again, and tried to twist away from him. Parrish dragged her back, thrusting into her to the hilt and recapturing her hardened nub. “What’s the matter?” he softly taunted, his voice coming in soft pants in rhythm with his thrusts. “Don’t tell me you like faking it better than actually coming. Can’t you feel superior if you let yourself enjoy being fucked?”

  “Bastard,” she hissed at him, digging her claws into his sleeved arms. Her breath was coming faster, her eyes furious and gleaming in the darkness.

  “You like the power you have over men, don’t you? You like knowing you can turn them into panting beasts. Is that what makes your nipples get so hard, or do you fake that too, pinching them when no one’s looking?”

  The glitter of her eyes almost matched that of her jewels. “I pinch them. Did you think a man could turn me on? Don’t be funny!”

  “What does turn you on? A woman?” He kept his rhythm steady, his thumb moving ceaselessly back and forth while he thrust. Her hostility was far more exciting than her compliance had been; if it hadn’t been for her superficial resemblance to Grace, he would simply have pushed her over the railing without giving her a tumble first. But he liked her venom, her contempt; at least she wasn’t faking that.

  “That would please your ego, wouldn’t it, if I were a lesbian? No wonder you couldn’t make me enjoy it, I’m a man-hater! No such luck,” she jeered. “I please myself, a lot better than a man can.”

  “Until now.” He openly gloated as he felt how wet she was getting. Her breath was getting faster and faster, her nipples standing upright without being pinched. He read the signs and thrust harder and deeper, driving into her, and with a choked cry she began climaxing. Triumphant, he rode her to the end, until his own climax began boiling upward. He snatched the handkerchief out of his pocket as he jerked out of her, coming into the silk square while he stroked himself in the final pleasure.

  Her features twisted with rage as she sat up. It wasn’t just that he’d made her climax, but that he had pulled away from her at the last and accomplished his own pleasure without her, taunting her with the reversal of her usual role with men.

  Calmly Parrish folded the handkerchief and replaced it in his pocket, to be disposed of when he could safely do so. He straightened his clothing, tucking and zipping, then assisted her off the desk. She stood silently as he restored her dress to its proper position. “Don’t sulk,” he advised. “It isn’t becoming. You should learn, my dear, to be a better loser. And to be a better judge of the men you play your power games with, because I fear you badly misjudged the situation this time.”

  She glared at him, not ready to give him any sort of victory, and bent down to retrieve her shoe. Parrish stayed her with a hand under her elbow. “Not yet,” he said, smiling, and clipped her under the chin with his fist.

  She obligingly sagged forward, and he lifted her in his arms. She wasn’t unconscious, just stunned, and she blinked owlishly at him as he swiftly carried her out onto the balcony. “I would apologize for the little bruise you’ll have,” he told her as he stood her up at the waist-high wall, “but really, my dear, no one will notice.” Then he bent and caught her ankles, and tipped her over.

  She didn’t scream at all, or if she did, the sound was stifled by terror. Parrish didn’t linger to watch; after all, they were fifty-six stories up, and it would take her several seconds to hit the street. He went back into the study and picked up her shoe, then returned to the balcony. Crouching, he pressed the heel of the shoe against the polished marble until the high, sharp heel snapped off. He thought about tossing the shoe over too, but someone might notice its arrival on the street several seconds after its wearer, so instead he left it lying on the marble. All that remained to do was to retrieve his jacket and rejoin the guests, and wait for the cops to arrive and tell Skip his wife had apparently taken a header off the balcony. That should take long enough for everyone to be hazy about the time he rejoined them, especially since the wine and cocktails had been freely flowing for at least an hour now.

  He did regret having to soil his handkerchief.

  Chapter 10

  GAELIC WAS A BITCH. GRACE HAD SPENT TWO WEEKS WORKING on the Gaelic section, and made very little headway. The language wasn’t in her computer programs, so she had no electronic aid in deciphering the faint chicken scratches. Whoever had copied the originals had tried to darken the copy to bring out more detail, with little success. She could see the tattered edges of the originals on the copy, telling her that the Gaelic sections hadn’t fared as well as those written in Latin. Perhaps the paper hadn’t been of as good a quality, or the pages had gotten damp at some time. Not that a good, clear copy would have helped much.

  She had bought a Gaelic/English dictionary, and several guides to speaking Gaelic to aid her in figuring out syntax. The problem, however, was that she hadn’t been able to find any guides to Gaelic as it had been spoken in the fourteenth century. She thought she would go mad with frustration. There were only eighteen letters in the Gaelic alphabet, but the Scots and Irish had overcome that restriction by using wildly creative spelling. Add to that the archaic styles of handwriting, word usage, and no standard spelling anyway, and the effort involved in translating one sentence was twice what it would have taken her to do an entire page