King of Diamonds (2 page)

“It is time,” he murmured under his breath. “It is time.”

Chapter One

Annie Travis squeezed a dab of navy blue paint onto her palette, her hand trembling slightly as memories of the past two years threatened her creative energy. First her cousin Alice had disappeared and then exactly a year later to the day, Alice’s twin Alexi vanished.

The note. Remember the note,
Annie reminded herself as she screwed on the tube’s lid and put the paint back into her artist’s toolbox. The room smelled of her paints and of the unlit cranberry and spice candles in her apartment. Her cat, Abracadabra, curled around Annie’s ankles and warmed her bare feet.

She tossed her braid over her shoulder and stared at the enormous blank canvas that was four feet high and three feet wide. She had no idea why she’d purchased one this size. It was certainly too big for her apartment. Perhaps it would look good in Aunt Awai’s condo, depending on what scene Annie came up with. Something was stirring in the back of her consciousness. It was like her mind was already working on what she wanted to paint, she just needed to give it a little more time to gel.

Abra gave a little
meow
as if reminding Annie she was supposed to be painting and not moping over her missing cousins. Annie absently reached down from her stool to rub behind the calico cat’s ears until Abra purred and nuzzled Annie’s bare feet.

With a smile, Annie pushed her wire rimmed half-glasses up the bridge of her nose then selected a paintbrush with heavy bristles. For a moment she glanced away from her canvas to the window. The curtains were tied back so that she could clearly see the rare sunny morning, the sky a cerulean blue with just a few wisps of transparent clouds streaking the horizon.

She lived with only Abra for company, right off the beach in Pacifica, a suburb of San Francisco. Year round the Pacific Ocean in the Bay Area was too darn cold for anyone to brave it without wetsuits, but Annie wasn’t much into water sports anyway. She’d chosen the apartment because rent was cheaper here than in the city, and because she loved to watch and
experience
the ocean, with all of her artist’s senses. The dark push and pull of the waves, the way they crested pearl-white when the water was rough and slammed onto the beach, the stark black cliffs against slate blue waters, and the tang of salt and brine in the air.

But today she was attempting to portray the sunny beauty outside and get her mind off of her missing twin cousins.

Yellow. Bright, happy, relaxing…It’s not working.

A few months after Alexi’s disappearance, Annie had gone to the twins’ townhouse to clean it out for the landlord and to put her cousins’ belongings into storage. But when she’d walked into Alexi’s bedroom, she found a rolled-up piece of parchment tied with a black ribbon on Alexi’s bedspread. A spade crest was stamped onto a wax seal.

After Annie had removed the tie, broken the seal, and unrolled the note, she saw that it was written in Alexi’s bold scrawl. It even looked as if she had used a quill, of all things—there were a couple of smudges and a blob of ink at one corner.

A kaleidoscope of emotions had whirled through Annie when she’d first read the note. Uncertainty, disbelief…and hope. Definitely hope.

Dragging herself back to the present, Annie set her paintbrush onto her easel and slipped one hand into the pocket of her smock to retrieve the parchment. She didn’t know why she’d taken it from her nightstand this morning. Maybe it was for the comfort it gave her to read the words she was sure Alexi had penned. It was like her cousin was talking to her, reassuring her.

Annie’s hands were steadier now as she slipped the black tie from around the note and let the ribbon fall to the floor. The parchment felt thick and coarse to her fingertips as she smoothed it out on her lap and read it for at least the hundredth time.

Dear Annie and Aunt Awai,

Please don’t worry about Alice and me. It’s a very long story, and it’s one I hope to tell you one day in person. But for now just know we’re both safe, and we’re both happy. It’s likely we won’t be able to see you until another “path” opens between us. I know this all sounds cryptic, but please trust me.

So that you’ll know it’s me and not someone else: Annie, remember the time Alice and I accidentally turned your hair orange when we were teenagers? We were grounded most of our eighth grade year over that one. Never thought you’d forgive us.

And Awai, I bet you’ll never forget the time we broke that unusual glass cylindrical sculpture we found in your bedroom. Of course it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I ran across one in an erotic boutique and learned it was a glass cock. Go, Auntie!

Hugs and kisses from both Alice and me. I found her! Well, more or less. Anyway, you can imagine how happy I am. I only wish that you could be here with us.

I also wish they had computers here, and e-mail. This ink stick is frickin’ hard to write with.

All my Love, Alexi

A smile tugged at the corner of Annie’s mouth, at the same time tears burned behind her eyes. Amused and sad—the two emotions blended like discordant colors. She shook her head as she retrieved the black ribbon from Abra who had pounced on it where it had fallen on the floor, and promptly attacked it.

“Listen you little imp,” Annie said as she leaned down and snatched up the ribbon from Abra. Annie rolled the note and tied it while trying to keep the cat from untying it again. “This is my ribbon and you can’t have it.”

Okay, so she had no life. Outside of teaching, her daily conversation consisted of talking to a cat and painting.

While she tucked the parchment into her smock, hiding it from Abra’s mischievous paws, Annie wondered yet again who “they” were—the people that Alice and Alexi were with. “They” were probably some kind of cult, which was what the police department had concluded even without the note. Annie had showed it to Awai only, for fear that the police would take it and lose it somewhere in all the shuffle of paperwork. That note was too important—it was her only link to her cousins.

Yeah, the twins were likely hidden up in the Tahoe area in some kind of back-to-nature commune. Yet Annie couldn’t believe that Alexi could possibly have been brainwashed enough to live with a cult—she was too damn pigheaded and stubborn. Alice, too, but she had a gentler side that could be more easily swayed than Alexi.

Even with the note, though, Annie had never stopped her search for her twin cousins. She had hired private investigator after private investigator, but every lead turned up empty. It was like her cousins had vanished to another planet or something.

Using her free hand, Annie pulled her smock and T-shirt away from her breasts to allow a little cool air to flow through. It was an unusually warm day, and sweat had beaded on her skin. She had very large breasts to go along with her size 16 figure, and when she was home she preferred to go with no bra.

Even though she was inexperienced sexually, she had plenty of fantasies. It made her feel naughty and kind of sexy to be clad only in her white T-shirt and black jeans, and no underwear at all.

Her pussy tingled and her nipples tightened as a thought crossed her mind—to take off all her clothes and paint in the nude. Should she?

Why not? No one would see.

But what if someone stops by?

Well, she’d settle for leaving her jeans on and taking off only her shirt.

Annie whipped off her smock then pulled her T-shirt over her head, causing her braid to flip over her shoulder again. She tossed the shirt and smock onto the taupe leather couch behind her.

Closing her eyes, Annie brought her hands to her breasts, allowing her fantasies to take over. As usual, a dark, mysterious, faceless man filled her thoughts. As she imagined his hands on her nipples she tweaked and tugged at them, feeling a response shoot down to her folds. She moved her hips in time with the movements, causing her jeans to rub against her clit as she imagined the man licking and sucking her.

Annie tilted her head back as she continued to play with her nipples. Her braid fell and swung across her skin, a teasing caress against her naked back. No one would believe her fantasies. She was the boring, staid college professor who never had time to date, nor a worthy selection. But her fantasies…she had often imagined what it would feel like to have a man between her thighs, to have his cock sliding in and out of her core.

And in her most secret fantasies, she had two men pleasuring her at once…or even a man and a woman.

Shame on me.

Annie grinned at her own brazen thoughts. Until she was eighteen, she had been raised as a southern lady. She learned that sex was something you didn’t do until you were married. And
real
ladies certainly never talked about sex. Anything other than missionary position with a spouse was considered evil as far as her sanctimonious mother had been concerned.

But after leaving home and going to college, Annie’s mind had opened up, freeing her to all the possibilities a woman could enjoy.

If only she could find the right man to enjoy them with.

The ache in her pussy was growing stronger and stronger, a tight spiral connected from her nipples to her belly to her slit. She moved her hips faster so that the jeans rubbed her clit even harder until she reached that special place.

She gave a small cry as a series of mini-orgasms rippled through her, and more of her juices soaked the heavy denim of her jeans. Warmth flushed over her skin and her core pulsed as though milking a cock and drawing out her mystery man’s seed.

What would a man’s come smell like, taste like?
Brie and salty tapioca pudding, that’s what Awai said once. Just a casual comment, driving home to Annie how little first-hand information she had about intimacy. Her knowledge was confined to literature and the imaginations of her paint brushes…and the few naughty websites she had dared to visit.

“Brie and Tapioca. Well, y’all, Annie likes both.”

She lifted her eyelids and stared again at the blank canvas as she let her hands slide from her breasts and down her full waist. She felt more relaxed, her mind cleared of stress and ready to open up to her artistic imagination.

With renewed determination, Annie raised her head and pushed thoughts of her missing cousins away. Her braid fell forward, over her shoulder as she attacked her canvas, losing herself in swirls of blues and grays. When she worked on a landscape, she tended to block out the rest of the world and to get lost in thoughts and feelings of the moment. She truly was in her own little world.

Persistent knocking at the front door jarred Annie from her artistic trance. She blinked the fog of colors and shapes from her mind, slowly returning to reality. A glance to the window told her that from the time she’d started working on her painting hours had fled by rather than minutes. The sun now hung low over the ocean, its golden ripples leading from the glowing orb across the water to the shore. A spectacular sunset of oranges, blues, and pinks streaked the horizon.

More knocks, and Annie frowned as she eyed the door. Should she answer, or hope whoever it was went away?

“Annie! I know you’re in there!” Awai’s no-nonsense voice sliced through the door like a diamond saw. “Stop moping and open up.”

“I’m not moping,” Annie grumbled under her breath as she dropped her brush into her waiting container of turpentine, stood, and stretched her cramped muscles. The movement caused cool air to rush over her nipples, and they stood out hard and tight. Heat flushed over Annie as she realized she was still naked from the waist up. She climbed off the stool, quickly grabbed her T-shirt and yanked it over her head.

“Annie!” Awai’s tone notched up to her
I’m-gonna-huff-and-puff-and-blow-your-house-down
voice.

“Hold onto your britches,” Annie shouted. She pushed her glasses up her nose, threw her braid over her shoulder and padded across the worn carpet to the door. Abra blinked green eyes and watched from her perch on the back of the couch. The cat had her little chin up high, doing her best to show she was Queen of Annie’s Realm.

“What, are you naked or something?” Awai said from outside, and Annie’s cheeks heated even more. “Open the damn door already.”

“You have about as much patience as a hurricane.” When Annie reached the door she wiped her sweating palms on her black jeans. She didn’t bother to look through the peephole—no doubt at all it was Awai, the human whirlwind. She unlatched the chain lock then opened the door.

As always, Awai was sheer elegance with her black hair in a neat chignon at her nape and wearing one of her usual designer outfits. This one had a black skirt and matching mandarin collared jacket, her blouse a splash of amethyst in a vivid but gorgeous contrast.

Awai held two paper bags, one in each arm. “Took you long enough,” she said before Annie had a chance to greet her. “Damn southerners. Everything’s slow and easy.”

Awai blew through the doorway and Annie was left looking out into the late afternoon sunshine instead of her aunt. “Uh, hello?”

The warm smell of fresh baked bread and something spicy drifted behind Awai as she headed straight into the apartment’s kitchenette. Annie’s stomach growled.

“I heard that,” Awai said as she plopped the bags onto the counter. Without pause, she went to the oven, and turned it on. “I knew you’d be painting and moping.”

“I told you already—I wasn’t moping.” Annie shut the front door and followed Awai into the tiny kitchen, the linoleum cool to her bare feet. “What in heaven’s name are you doing?”

“Making us dinner.” Awai smiled as her dark eyes met Annie’s. “I figured you’d need more than just Abra for company this evening.”