Notorious Read Free Page A

trial ended. In fact, he had assisted her defense. His investigators had turned up a piece or two of the evidence linking Ben to the mob and sent it to Delage. But knowing she would soon be free hadn’t quelled the temptation to whisk her away during the trial. Such an abduction waseasier to arrange than most people could imagine, and he’d wanted to be done with the waiting.
    He had sat in that courtroom day after day and watched Mallory Thane face her accusers, watched her grow thinner and more finely drawn before his eyes, and felt a raging need to end it. If she was to be punished, he should be the one to do it. He had grown fiercely protective of that right in the last months.
    Lord, he was acting like a nut case, he thought in disgust. She was becoming as much of an obsession to him as she had been to Ben.
    No … in his own way Ben had been wildly in love with her, he reassured himself quickly. What Sabin felt for Mallory Thane was lust. Lust was tolerable. He could use lust, but pity and admiration were totally unacceptable.
    He wouldn’t think of Mallory’s expression as she’d flown down the stone steps pursued by reporters. He wouldn’t think of the quiet dignity she’d shown in the courtroom, the dignity Carey had so admired.
    But he
was
thinking about it.
    Sabin impatiently reached into the compartmentthat had held the script, drew out a videotape and slid it into the video recorder beneath the television screen.
    He switched on the machine and smiled sardonically as Mallory Thane’s face appeared on the screen.
Voila
, the magic formula. Instant lust.
    But lust wasn’t the emotion engendered by these first shots that showed only her face. Helen of Troy. Carey’s words had been sarcastic but his own had not. In his opinion the great beauties of the world were the women who displayed not only beauty but character: Mallory Thane had been blessed with both. On the tape she was laughing impishly, her face alight with mischief. Her features were as close to perfection as any he had ever seen, but what was truly noticeable was the spirit and vitality illuminating them. The wide-set eyes were an incredible blue-violet shade framed by long, dense dark lashes, and her blue-black hair was drawn severely back from her face to reveal the startling beauty of her bone structure and then allowed to fall in a long silky mass to the middle of her naked back.
    Not that he could see her back now. Thatwould come later when she took off the full-length ermine coat and revealed that long elegant naked spine that was more erotic than most women’s breasts.
    He could feel himself harden at the thought, and desire brought a welcome end to pity.
    She was lying down on the chaise lounge now, carelessly showing glimpses of long legs and beautifully formed shoulders as the ermine coat fell away from them. Then, slowly, seductively, she took off the coat revealing she wore nothing beneath the fur but her own glowing, silken flesh.
    She smiled lovingly at the camera, and then slowly raised her hand to shake back her long hair.
    Sabin could feel the heavy, hot throbbing between his legs and wondered why he didn’t shut the machine off. The tape had accomplished its purpose, and he knew if he continued to watch he’d be in a fever for the damn woman.
    The tape was both graphic and explicit—a woman displaying herself in the most intimate ways imaginable for her lover. Yet there was nothing obscene about the way Mallory Thanetempted the viewer. She was as natural as Eve and as exquisite as man’s first dream of woman. Sabin knew every movement, every toss of her head by heart and still he couldn’t stop himself from watching in fascination even though the sight of her was enveloping him in a hot haze of need.
    “Lord, it’s …” He didn’t know what he had been about to mutter as he reached out with a trembling hand and switched off the tape.
    It didn’t help. After he reached this point, it seldom did anymore.
    The scene on