Refracted Crystal: Diamonds and Desire Read online

  If she had paused to consider the fact that she was not even thinking about someone hurting her, she would certainly have found it bizarre and might even then have begun to worry about herself. As it was, however, a burgeoning protectiveness was building up inside her towards Daniel and their child. Roth and the others were attacking her husband, and by god they would pay for it. She didn’t know how if she was honest, but pay they would.

  And this despite the passport she had carried with her from London. Daniel Logan. I may not tell you everything, but I don’t lie. In some respects, however, this name had been the first thing that Kris had known about him: Daniel Stone had not been revealed to her until many weeks after they had met—weeks after she had been captivated by him. As strangely as she feared more for Daniel than for herself, so any anger she may have expected to feel towards this revelation quickly abated: he was in trouble, and while there still remained wheels within wheels operating here, gaining his release was more important than anything else.

  Fortunately, two weeks in Alfama also helped her deal with the fatigue she was beginning to experience. Even without the emotional rollercoaster of Daniel’s incarceration, being twelve weeks pregnant was starting to drain her physically. The hot, Portuguese sun, which she had always adored, now felt a little too warm and often she would spend time in the cooler rooms of her apartment, sketching and painting, passing the time until she could speak to Daniel during the periods he was allotted for phone calls.

  She also spent fairly long periods of time speaking to his lawyer, or engaging in extensive email conversations with him. The charges of rape against Francis and Matthew Doherty, and counter-charge of assault against Daniel, were dragging on and would likely not reach court until the new year as each side’s lawyers made claims and counter-claims, lodging depositions and paperwork with the court, dragging the process of justice into a thick mire where nothing would happen quickly. It was becoming increasingly clear that Kris had no chance of winning her case against Francis Roth and his accomplice, but at the same time Maximilian Roth did not seem particularly keen to pursue Daniel. Nathan Armstrong suspected this was because a court case would once more cause the claim of rape to rear its ugly head in the public domain. A game of wills was being played out between Daniel and Maximilian, but increasingly all Kris wanted was for Daniel to be released so that she could be with him.

  “Can you be here within the next two days?” Nathan Armstrong’s voice was somewhat strained. It was early in the morning and, judging by the emails she had sent him, he had evidently spent very little time sleeping.

  Can you be here within the next two days? His question went round her skull like a mantra or a magic spell. At last! “Of course,” she told him quickly. Daniel had been adamant that she was not to return to San Francisco: he was determined to protect her and she knew that Nathan would not go against his request. As such, this could only mean that Daniel was going to be released.

  And yet the lawyer hesitated, for a moment. “You know that McGuire and I have been working on a deal together.” McGuire was the main lawyer representing the Roth interests in this case although, as with Nathan, he was heading a team of advocates.

  “Yes, I know that.” Kris frowned slightly. Where was Nathan heading now?

  “If Daniel Stone is to be set free, you know that you’ll probably have to drop the rape charge...”

  Kris sighed impatiently. “I realise that, Nathan. We’ve been over this so many times now.” It galled her that Francis Roth and Matthew Doherty would get away with their crimes, that there was no justice in this world, but more than anything now she wanted her husband by her side.

  “Look,” she told the lawyer sternly. “Just do whatever needs to be done. I’ll be there. Damn it, I’ll be there tomorrow. I want Daniel freed, do you understand? I’ll do whatever it takes to get all charges dropped. I don’t care any more. I just want him.”

  And so it was she found herself on another transatlantic flight. She had to transfer at Heathrow but she had no intention of staying in London. Anywhere else was now a distraction to her purpose, which was etched into her heart as though carved on diamond.

  Her only concern would be whether someone would query the additional passport she carried. She had brought very little luggage with her—as far as she was concerned, the amount of time she actually expected to stay in the United States was minimal: her task was to fetch Daniel and return with him as soon as possible. As such, she had the illicit documentation in her hand luggage and had experienced a few tense moments as she went through customs and security. Nonetheless, the main concern of the security personnel appeared to be taking care of a woman who was, to keen eyes at least, clearly pregnant.

  Nor was that passport the only unusual item in her luggage. She had brought with her one more item from Elaine Christiansen’s safe, an encrypted thumb drive. Apparently it contained the details to a Swiss bank account. Elaine didn’t know the password and so in many respects it was useless for Kris, but when the headmistress had suggested taking it to Daniel she had agreed immediately.

  Despite her fatigue, she barely slept at all on the flight and, after a slightly more nerve-wracking passage through San Francisco International security, she hired a taxi and made her way to the offices of Nathan Strong before she even booked into her hotel.

  After an hour with him, the most immediate business was done. “It will take a day for Daniel to be processed, but with your willingness to drop all charges I know McGuire and Mister Roth will do the same.” Nathan frowned a little as he looked at her. “You look exhausted. You should go and rest.”

  Although it was true, at the same time Kris found herself slightly heady at the thought that very soon, so soon, Daniel would be freed. She nodded, however. “Yes, I should go and rest. Can I ask you a favour, though? Could you book me a car—a hire car—for the next week or so? I want to be the one who collects Daniel.” She pulled a face. “After my last incident with a driver, I’m not so keen to be put in the same position twice.”

  Kris remained in her hotel for much of the next day. Outside the air was humid and sticky and she found herself less able to cope with such heat as before. Her body was not growing especially fat yet, though when she was naked she could notice a visible bump appearing in her midriff. She was also exhausted by her travels and so spent most of the morning asleep: when she woke in the afternoon, she called through to Armstrong’s office to check a car had been hired for the next day.

  At last her time came for a phone call with Daniel. When she heard his voice on the other end of the line she thought her heart would burst with joy. Daniel’s own pleasure was also irrepressible, and part of her wanted to drop everything and rush to him there and then. She only had to wait less than twenty-four hours, however, and he would be hers once more.

  “I’ve hired a car,” she told him. “I know you’re not that keen on me driving, but don’t worry. I’ve got to look out for more than one person now.”

  He laughed at this and then said: “Actually, that’s better. Did you bring what I needed from Elaine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well have it in the car with you tomorrow, and any luggage you brought with you. To be honest, I’m not in any mood to return to San Francisco for a while.”

  While she agreed heartily with him about this, Kris also wondered for a moment what Daniel was planning—and how it would interfere with some of her own fantasies and preparations she had been running through her mind. After she hung up the phone when Daniel’s allotted time had expired, she frowned for a moment and then used her mobile phone to check something up. Once she had scrolled through the online map, she smiled. Yes. That would do very nicely.

  The next day she was alone by the car, standing in the parking lot and leaning against the door. Fortunately there was a breeze for which she felt utterly grateful, the cool air blowing beneath the blazing California sun and raking the fronds of her hair. Her locks, always dark and proud, seemed even thick
er now that she was pregnant, and she actually received a few furtive admiring glances from the guards as she had driven through to wait for Daniel. Her limbs may have been plumper than she really would have liked, but even she had to admit that her pregnancy, as well as her excitement at seeing her husband once more, had made her glow. Her light, cotton dress, fluttered slightly around her thighs, and she could feel the glass and metal of the car warming up as she leaned against it.

  He had been held up, and she could barely contain her anticipation. Nonetheless, after nearly an hour of waiting the door opened and a guard appeared, a figure in the shadows behind him.

  As he stepped into the sunlight, Daniel blinked up at the bright sky. His eyes were momentarily blinded and his head moved around for a few seconds, attempting to focus once more, his gaze searching for Kris.

  She, for her part, resisted an urge to run screaming towards him. For just a few seconds, she wanted nothing more than to watch him. He was dressed in the same suit he had been wearing on the day he was arrested, the white shirt open a couple of buttons, the flat muscles of his chest just visible beneath the hollow of his throat. He was slightly thinner than when he had entered prison, leaner, but also tougher she realised. The sleekness that he had worn, the product of his rich and indulgent lifestyle, had clearly not suited him in prison and he had shed it like a coat, revealing the harder man beneath. His face, scarred and firm, was covered with a thin gauze of stubble, and his eyes squinted beneath the harsh sun. Christ! If it was possible, he looked even better than before, and at the sight of him Kris felt herself suddenly become damp between her thighs.

  At last he had spotted her, and now a broad smile spread across his face. Now she could no longer resist him and ran, squealing like a stupid teenager, across the tarmac and into his open arms. He hugged her tightly around the shoulders, lifting her up from the ground enthusiastically then almost immediately placing her back down, a concerned expression on his face.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  She slapped him and pushed herself against him. “I’m not a china doll, not yet. Come on, kiss me you fool.”

  And so he had wrapped her in those strong arms and held her to him more tightly than ever before. With his freedom, she wanted nothing more than to be imprisoned in his embrace, to taste his mouth as his lips opened, his tongue hungrily searching for hers. The flower of her sex was beginning to open, and her body was becoming a river, legs trembling as she thought what she was going to do to him all too soon.

  When at last they broke their embrace and she led him by the hand back to the car, he asked her: “Did you bring everything with you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But why the rush?”

  “I don’t want to spend any longer than we need here. I need to get back—all hell’s been breaking loose and I need to return to London. I don’t particularly want to go via San Francisco—Roth might have someone looking out for me there. Same with LAX, but we could get a flight from San Diego, or perhaps even Las Vegas.”

  “Vegas sounds fun,” Kris said, sliding into the driver’s seat as Daniel sat beside her. “Why don’t we go from there?”

  He leaned across and kissed her once more. “You never cease to amaze me,” he told her. “You’re ready for anything, aren’t you? It must be why I love you so much.”

  Just you wait till you see what I’ve got planned, she thought. She said nothing, however, but simply smiled as she began to pull away onto the road.

  While they were driving down Highway 280, the sky scorching above them and the dark waters of San Andreas Lake on their right, Daniel began to frown. “This isn't the quickest way to Las Vegas,” he told her.

  “I know,” she replied, her eyes flickering away from the road for a moment and considering him. His face was rugged, his expression more relaxed and happier than she had seen for a long time. She almost had a mini orgasm just seeing him, feeling his presence so close to her. “There’s something I have to do, first.”

  “Really?” he sounded confused but shrugged, willing to go along with her.

  As they pulled into the court of the motel, he was even more confused. “I don’t need to rest, really,” he said. “If we push on, we can get to Las Vegas before nightfall, probably even get a flight out to London.”

  “I’m glad you don’t need to rest,” she told him. “That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

  He looked utterly at a loss now, and Kris turned around on him, grabbing his shirt and pulling him slightly off balance so that his broad chest clashed against her face.

  “Daniel Stone—or should I say Logan?” she said. “It has been nearly a month since I last had chance to be with you. A bloody month! I knew that you would be in a rush, but whatever it is you’ve got planned can bloody well wait. I booked us a room in this motel, and I don’t intend us to hold hands and sleep chastely for an evening. Before you do anything else, I am going to take you to our room and you are going to fuck me until I howl and you can no longer stand.”

  He stared at her blankly for a second, then a slow, delighted grin began to spread across his face. “I thought that...” his voice trailed away, the glint in his eye contradicting any hesitancy in his speech.

  “What? That because I’m pregnant you won’t be able to touch me for another six months? Fuck that! My hormones are driving me crazy. Seeing you has caused a river to start flooding between my legs, and my breasts are so sensitive at the moment that I can guarantee you one hundred per cent that the second you touch them I’m going to have an orgasm. God damn you, Daniel! You are going to give me my conjugal rights before we go one mile further!”

  The effect upon Daniel was electric and, as they collected the key to the room, his hands were all over her, squeezing her buttocks through the light fabric of her dress. Despite her threat to fuck him until he couldn’t stand up Kris thought her own legs were going to buckle beneath her in desire. As they stumbled through the door into the room, kissing and laughing and giggling like fools, she was already fumbling with his jacket, ripping it from his shoulders while he pulled and groped at her dress, trying to yank it up over her torso while she was still moving.

  The room was bare, nondescript, clean. Kris didn’t care. After so many months visiting the richest, most prestigious hotels in different parts of the world, all she wanted now was a bed where she could take her husband and the man of her dreams, take him and give herself up to him completely.

  She had yanked his jacket almost off his body, so that it flapped ridiculously from one arm, but impeded by it he was struggling more and more with her dress. Taking control for a second, she pushed him backwards, catching him off guard so that he tumbled and fell onto the bed.

  Stretching herself out along him, her back arched slightly and her hair falling down into his face, she kissed his mouth and whispered in his ear: “Wait there. I want to get you naked.”

  For just these few moments, she wanted him pliant, placid. He would be the submissive one. Once they started to fuck, he could do whatever he wanted to her, but for now she wanted to be in control.

  Unbuttoning his shirt, she ran her fingers along the firm outline of his pectorals and the iron hard washboard of his abdomen. God! Just feeling him, even stronger and tougher after his time in prison, made her begin to flow more. She could imagine him doing pressups and situps every day in his cell, his body becoming harder in those narrow confines, and simply the thought of that fantasy made her begin to orgasm.

  Realising what she wanted, what she needed, Daniel didn’t move but allowed her to strip the shirt from his torso, her breath coming in fast, ragged pants, her face flushed and the strangest, lustiest glow burning in her eyes.

  Kneeling at the edge of the bed, she lifted one of his legs, and then the other, sliding his shoes from his feet, pulling off his socks and, with a mad twirl, flinging them to the corner of the room. As he lifted his head, looking down his body and towards her, Daniel could not help but laugh at the
manic expression on her face.

  “You look insane,” he told her affectionately.

  “Insane for cock,” she replied. “If only you knew...”

  Suddenly his own expression changed, a thickening of his features and a slight glazing over of his eyes as though it had only just struck him how much he needed her now. As she reached up with her hands towards his waist, neither of them could ignore the thick lump in his trousers. On her feet now, Kris suddenly felt her legs trembling once more, almost giving way as she saw that thing, how big it was.

  She kept it together, however, held herself long enough to unbutton his trousers, to tug at them and pull them down, revealing his boxer shorts beneath. That cotton fabric, relieved of the extra fabric provided by his trousers, ballooned and shot up, and she yanked each trouser leg off, desperate to uncover her final prize.

  He lifted his buttocks as she stripped him naked, still submitting to her will for the moment, passive because that was what she needed. As the elastic of his shorts stretched over his hips and thighs, so his erection at last became visible. The thick shaft was twisted sideways at first, following the restrictions of his shorts, but as they snapped down over his thighs so it rose above his lap, so large and thick.

  Kris didn’t even need to touch him, nor to be touched by him, to begin cumming.

  He was utterly silent now, watching her intently, one arm lifted up behind his head, the bicep thickening and taut. With his other hand he stroked himself, displaying himself for her. His eyes were hooded with desire and he said nothing—there was no need to speak. Everything about him—his posture, his gaze, his intent expression on her—said, “This is yours. All of it.”

  She reached down with nimble fingers and pulled up her dress, lifting up the light, cotton fabric over her shoulders and head with one easy gesture. Beneath, she wore no bra and her breasts, heavier now than they had ever been, more sensitive, bounced down, her nipples stiff and erect. Her hair, so thick and lustrous, hung in ringlets over her shoulders, and her hips, wide and fertile, swayed slightly as she moved towards him.