The Black Widow (15 page)

‘You really are a bitch, aren’t you?’ Wendy commented.

Violet laughed in wholehearted agreement. ‘It takes one to know one,’ she replied tartly.

The entire group fell silent as Allen moved his mouth over Wendy’s bare breasts. He teased one nipple between his lips, then the other, nibbling playfully on the erect buds until Wendy was gasping.

Jo envied the woman her good fortune at having Allen please her in such a way. After having enjoyed the pleasure of his lovemaking that afternoon, she knew how adept he was at intimate teasing. She could empathise with Wendy’s mounting moans and groans and wished Allen had been told to kiss and make up with her. She knew this simple stimulation would not have been enough for her own burgeoning appetite, but it would have been a delightful piece of foreplay.

Not that Allen was content with just stimulating Wendy’s breasts, she realised. He had slipped one hand between her broad, muscular thighs and was easing his finger into the wetness of her hole. The long digit was slippery with the honey-like dew of Wendy’s excitement. Seeing this, Jo realised the heated warmth between her own legs was burning with an infuriating passion.

‘Enough,’ Violet said abruptly. Her single word stopped the pair of them.

Reluctantly, Wendy moved her breast from Allen’s teasing mouth. She graced him with a smile, wrapped her robe round herself, then glided gracefully back to her seat.

Allen covered his stiff, unsatisfied erection and turned back to the table. After briskly shuffling the cards, he began to deal again. He glanced at Jo and gave her a knowing, lecherous wink. ‘Do you think you have an idea about the rules we’re playing to?’

She grinned back at him. ‘I’ve got an understanding of the situation,’ she conceded. Remembering the argument that had forced Allen and Wendy into that situation, she wondered if it might have some bearing on her investigation. It was annoying that she should have to put her arousal on hold as she tried to find out more about the case, and Jo silently cursed Sam for accepting this assignment on her behalf. She leant closer to Allen and asked, ‘Have you and Wendy got a problem with the management here?’

‘A problem?’ Wendy snorted. ‘The woman’s a psychopath.’

Allen considered this damning opinion for a moment, then nodded wholehearted agreement. ‘Wendy’s right,’ he agreed. ‘Our new owner is a little bit on the volatile side.’ He frowned and squinted at Jo. ‘Didn’t she call in and visit you this afternoon?’

‘Didn’t who come and visit me this afternoon?’

‘Mrs Meadows,’ Allen explained. ‘She said she wanted to call in and see you when I saw her in the gym.’

Jo shook her head, a puzzled frown creasing her forehead. ‘No. No one’s been to see me today.’ She tried to work her way through what she had just learnt, wishing it was not quite so confusing. There were plots ion American soap operas that did not seem quite as involved and complex as the happenings at Elysian Fields. Jo strongly suspected she was missing something but it was awkward trying to ask glib questions when her client had given her so little to begin with.

‘Anyway,’ she said, speaking quickly so that the topic was not brushed over. ‘I thought Mrs Meadows had been the owner since this place first opened. Didn’t you just say she was the new owner?’

‘It’s quite a coincidence that,’ Bryn noted. ‘Both the new owner and the old owner being called Meadows. Do you reckon they might be sisters?’

‘More likely it’s a pseudonym,’ Allen said thoughtfully.

‘Or it could be a false name,’ Bryn suggested, trying to appear sage as he made this suggestion.

Jo glanced at him. She wondered if he was joking but was unable to decide. His beard his any wry smile he may have been wearing while his eyes remained clear and untouched by any trace of mirth. Mentally dismissing Bryn, she tried to decide which of the two Mrs Meadows had employed her. After a moment’s thought, she decided it was unimportant as long as she had the correct invoice address.

‘Are you ever going to deal those cards?’ Violet asked sharply. There was a touch of petulance in her tone that grated on Jo’s nerves. ‘If you shuffle them much more the spades will fall off.’

Startled back into action, Allen tapped the deck twice on the table, then flicked a pair of cards to each player.

‘So why did Mrs Meadows want to come and see me?’ Jo asked, staring nonchalantly at a pair of threes. She placed the cards face down on the table and glanced from Wendy to Allen as she sipped at her drink.

‘You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?’ Wendy observed. Her tone was innocent and without accusation, but Jo still felt an unsettling pang when she heard the words. This case had not seemed to merit anything as grand as going undercover but, with her usual sense of caution, Jo had elected not to leave her business cards on the receptions desk. A case was always safer when less people knew about it. She realised that her natural curiosity had come close to giving her away.

‘She asks too many fucking questions,’ Violet snapped irritably.

Jo held her breath, biting back the vicious retort she had been about to bark. Something was amiss at Elysian Fields and she felt close to finding out what it was. It would be a shame to distance herself from those round the table simply because of Violet’s truculence.

Violet was glaring defiantly at Allen as she barked, ‘Twist.’ The harsh tone of her voice was enough to let them all know that she was in a bad mood and not to be trifled with. Quite how the woman could be irritable in the company of such easy-going people, Jo did not know, and she wondered if Violet had been this abrasive before she arrived.

‘Stick,’ Violet said tersely after examining the card Allen had given her. Glaring at Jo, she added, ‘You’d better hope I don’t win another hand. If I do, I’ll put something in your mouth to keep you quiet.’

Jo studied her with unperturbed equanimity. ‘Has your dentist ever fallen in?’ she asked softly. The comment was enough to make a tense silence fall. Allen tried to lighten the mood by joking with Bryn about his next card, but the mounting tension prevailed. Smouldering glances from Violet added to the darkening mood and Jo wished she could do or say something to disperse the atmosphere. The evening had the potential for so much more.

When Allen actually won the hand, Jo saw Violet was glaring at him. She could tell from the woman’s steely expression what thoughts were going through her mind and she found herself in complete accord with Violet’s unspoken warning. ‘Don’t suggest that Jo and I kiss and make up,’ Violet’s threatening gaze insisted.

Sensibly, Allen chose to heed the unvoiced warning ‘My win,’ he said with a sly smile. ‘So why don’t we all make ourselves a little more comfortable.’ To demonstrate exactly what he meant, Allen stood up, tugged the cord on his dressing-grown, then shrugged it off. He stood over the table for a moment, allowing them all to study his broad muscular body and his long, meaty erection. When he saw that no one was moving, Allen clapped his hands together smartly and gestured so that the others would follow his lead. ‘Come on,’ he insisted. ‘I want to see some nudity round this table.’

Bryn and Wendy stood in unison and began to ease their gowns off.

Jo cast a cursory glance at each of them, noting the powerful physique of Bryn’s body and the exciting breadth of his erection. Unconsciously, she licked her lips as she studied him. To disguise her obvious excitement, she took a small sip from her glass.

She had intended to grace Wendy only with a fleeting glance, but her attention was caught by something enticing in the woman’s nudity. Wendy held herself with an athletic grace and poise that Jo found infuriatingly arousing. Her full breast swayed gently as she stretched her body out of the dressing-gown. Jo could feel herself drawn by an irresistible impulse to reach out and touch one of the woman’s nipples. She knew that, among company like this, such a breach of life’s normal protocol would not trouble anyone. However, her hand remained round her glass and she struggled to resist the urge. She was not a hundred per cent confident that Wendy would allow such a caress. Jo’s first impression of the woman had not been inspiring. Wendy had initially struck her as cold and surly. Admittedly that had been during the middle of a busy morning when a person was least likely to seem approachable, but the negative image still lingered. Reluctantly, Jo denied herself the indulgence of touching Wendy, for the moment.

Snatching her gaze away from the woman’s desirable figure, she realised Violet was glaring at her threateningly.

Jo had known the woman was staring at her while the others undressed. If she had been the first to undress, Jo knew that Violet would have dismissed her as a slut. Now, if she waited until everyone else was naked, Jo felt certain that Violet would decry her prudishness. Normally Jo would not have cared about the woman’s low opinion of her. She sensed, though, that this evening held a lot of possibilities, and did not want to miss out on a single one of them.

Primarily, she found she was learning more and more about the case. Even if all this information seemed to be adding to the confusion, she supposed that was not really a bad thing. Cases invariably became more confusing before they were resolved. There was also the additional excitement of what might happen in the next few moments. Allen’s suggestion that they all disrobe seemed to move the evening closer to something exciting but indefinable. Jo could sense a glorious tension building in the air around them and she knew that something spectacular was about to happen. Whatever that was, she had already decided she wanted to be a part of it. She was also reluctant to move out of the same room as the open bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

Because of all of these factors, she was determined not to be intimidated by Violet and her antagonistic, bullying behaviour.

As Jo watched, Violet stood up.

Jo eased herself out of her seat at exactly the same moment. She moved her hand down to the cord of her dressing-gown as Violet did the same. In unison, the two women shrugged their robes off then glared defiantly at one another.

Jo studied Violet’s nudity, trying to maintain a scornful, disparaging scowl. It was not easy. The woman had a splendid figure with creamy pale flesh and the alluring contours that Jo always found irresistible in a woman. Her breasts were full and round. Her stomach, while it could not be described as flat, was only slightly too large, and Jo suspected that the remaining layer of fat would have been worked away by the end of the week.

Violet snapped her fingers, snatching Jo’s attention. ‘See this?’ Violet said, teasing her fingers through the fringe of curly hairs that covered her sex. The blood-red colour of her manicured nails contrasted with the pale-pink flesh of her pussy. Her voice was low and sultry, taking on a harsher inflection as she repeated the question, hissing threateningly: ‘See this?’

Jo nodded. Her face was impassive and calm. She studied Violet with a stony gaze.

‘If I win the next game of cards, you’re going to eat this,’ Violet declared firmly. ‘Do you still want to stick around for the next hand?’

The obvious challenge in her voice was something Jo could not turn away from. She met Violet’s defiant glare with more poise than she would have believed possible. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ Jo replied. Annoyed by the woman’s unpleasant attitude, but determined not to show it, Jo eased herself back into her chair. She chewed her lower lip thoughtfully as she glared across the table at Violet.

Allen flicked cards to each of them, trying to frown firmly at Jo and Violet as he dealt. Both women ignored him.

Tired of trying to appear threatening, Jo glanced at her cards, then turned to Wendy. ‘I’m surprised Poppy hasn’t shown up for this card game,’ she began carefully. ‘Then again, I haven’t seen her all day. Do you know where’s she been hiding?’

Allen grunted soft, humourless laughter. ‘She’s probably still with the Black –’

‘We don’t know where Poppy might be,’ Wendy broke in suddenly. She fixed Allen with a firm, silencing glare that equalled the threatening force of anything Violet had been administering.

Sensibly, he did not take issue with her interruption.

Wendy tried to remain oblivious to the curious stares that her harsh tone had inspired, but it was an impossible task. Her cheeks turned a flustered red and she no longer had the courage to meet anyone’s questioning expression.

Seeing the way Wendy’s cheeks coloured, while the rest of her naked body remained a gorgeous creamy white, Jo felt the familiar flutter of excitement tickling deep inside. It was an intense feeling; a delicious, tingling pleasure that left her mouth dry and her pulse beating ever so slightly faster.

She had been wondering if Sam might consider her recent behaviour to be adulterous. Now that thought was dismissed. Jo was on a case and she realised that Wendy had information she could use. Under these circumstances there was no such thing as infidelity: there was only the investigation. If a certain method got results, then it was the right way of working. Judging by the way Wendy was blushing as she tried to remain silent about Poppy’s fate, Jo felt certain that the woman had information she could use. Besides, Jo thought pragmatically, Wendy has the most alluring green eyes. They reminded her of Sam’s and she momentarily felt a pang of guilt at the salacious thoughts she was entertaining. She did not allow the guilt to intrude for long, caught by the glint of a promise in Wendy’s smile. Her athletic body was such an enticing vision it was impossible not to look at her and want her. The idea of taking Wendy somewhere discreet, so they could be alone, excited Jo fiercely. She could feel the lips of her sex tingling with anticipation at the prospect. Jo reached a tentative hand towards Wendy’s leg, intending to caress the top of her thigh with gentle but suggestive fingers.

Her fingers were just about to touch the milky-white smoothness of Wendy’s upper thigh when Violet spoke.

‘I win,’ Violet declared triumphantly. She laughed wickedly.

Jo turned to glare at the woman and saw she was brandishing an ace and a king. Unhappily, she snatched her hand away from the intimacy of Wendy’s legs and lifted her cards to see if she had come close to beating the woman. The two picture cards that stared back were of no help.