Page 51 of Slow Burn

But Paolo was in the next room; surely this little rabbit-chinned businessman couldn’t be a danger, not to her. No strength in those eyes, only a blind panic.

Panic can hill.

To still the doubts, Ming quick-snapped the whip, three, four times, each snap closer to the client’s chest. He pressed back into his wooden chair, actually balancing it on two legs in his haste to get away.

When she stopped, the chair thumped back down and he gulped in a deep breath.

“I think I’ve made a mistake,” he said, and stood up. Ming flicked her wrist, and the whip made a lazy sinuous circle on the floor at his feet.

“Do you want to fuck me, Ed?”

His Adam’s apple disappeared beneath the pressed white collar, bobbed up again convulsively like a drowning victim clawing for the surface. His face was white, flushed with red around the ears.

“Yes,” he said.

He was lying. Ming stood up and carefully coiled the whip. She left it in the seat of her chair and walked over to where he stood.

He didn’t move as she unzipped the crisply pressed trousers, teased his cock out, and persuaded it to stiffen in her hand.

“You know,” she said, as she brushed her thumb over the velvety head, “I taught Velvet everything she knows. Is this what you want? My lips around you?”

She watched him nod convulsively and smiled.

“Ah, Ed, Ed.” Her fingernails dug in just slightly, enough to make him flinch and wither. “We don’t always get what we want, do we?”

She stood up and walked away, seated herself in her chair with the whip on her lap like a favored pet. Ed Julian stood miserably where she’d left him, cock shrunken back into his underpants like a frightened animal.

“See me next week,” she told him.

When she heard the elevator rumble its way down, she walked to the doorway and looked at Paolo, who was reading a magazine by the light of a single small lamp. She’d long ago instructed him that the magazines had to be pornographic, at least on the outside. He put this one aside and revealed thatLeather Lovecovered the latest copy ofEntertainment Weekly.

“They’re going to make a ‘Gilligan’s Island’ reunion movie,” he reported. She stared at him.

“He’s asking about Velvet,” she said. “I want to know why. Find out.”

Paolo licked his lips. She read the hesitation,

“Don’t make me ask you again,” she said. He nodded and looked dejected. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“I like her,” he said. His dark eyes glittered from under thick eyebrows. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

It was as if he’d spoken to her in a Cantonese, the sounds familiar, but the meaning lost. She blinked.

“What does that matter?” she asked, honestly puzzled.

Chapter Twenty

Robby

As always, she’d slipped out of Jim’s bed before the sun rose, like a vampire returning to her coffin. There was something about waking up with a man that seemed so final. The one time she’d violated that rule he’d woken surly and they’d fought over something stupid; now it was agreed that she went quietly, no goodbyes.

He mumbled in his sleep and turned over to put his hand in the hollow where she’d lain. He hadn’t said anything about the fiasco at the mall except,bad luck, kid—but she was still smarting from it, angry at herself and the world, aware that luck had run out. The security guards would be looking for her. The police would have her description. Avenues of escape were narrowing.

Jim didn’t seem worried, but he had lived on the edge for so long that he’d gotten addicted to the view. She was still a tourist, and liked it that way.

As she rode the deserted bus to her building, she thought about alternatives. Leaving town seemed logical—after all, any good-sized city could support a decent pickpocket—but she’d built up so much here. A change in hairstyle? Clothing? Jim was the chameleon, changing to meet the world; she had a set unchanging camouflage, and that was the way she preferred it.

The bus driver, in no particular hurry at this hour, idled at the curb until she opened the building’s front door, a bit of kindness that made her wave thanks. He didn’t seem to see it as he rumbled away, an island of yellow glow in the thick night.

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