A Dangerous Game by Lucinda Carrington Read Free Book Online Page B

said.
     
    "Really?"   He stepped back and his brown eyes wandered over her body.
     
    It was an impudently sexual appraisal, and she suddenly felt glad that
    she was covered by her straight-cut, white doctor's coat.
     
    "Well, you certainly don't look just like any doctor I've ever seen."
    He struck a pose, one hand on his hip.
     
    "Would you like to give me a thorough medical?   I'm sure it would be
    very arousing for both of us."
     
    What would it be like to make love to a professional she wondered
    suddenly.   A man who was being paid to please her?   Would it excite
    her?
     
    Or would she feel cheap and maybe slightly ridiculous?   Would she
    wonder what he was really thinking while he used all his skills on her
    body, and murmured his standard repertoire of compliments?   She had
    read that female prostitutes switched off their emotions when they were
    working.   It was all mechanical for them: get it up, get it in, and get
    him out of the door.   Would male prostitutes be equally dispassionate?
    Surely a man would have to think about something to turn himself on,
    particularly if his client was unattractive.
     
    "So, do you want to make a booking?"   She came back to the present with
    a jolt.   He was still smiling at her.
     
    "I'm very clean, very discreet, and very imaginative."
     
    "And no doubt very expensive, too?"   she said, curious to know how he
    would respond.
     
    He hesitated for a moment.
     
    "A thousand dollars.   American dollars, of course."
     
    She stared at him for a moment and then laughed derisively.
     
    "Are you crazy?   No man in the world is worth a thousand dollars, and
    certainly not second hand goods like you."
     
    "It's for a whole night."   He sounded slightly piqued.
     
    "I wouldn't pay that for a whole week," she scoffed.
     
    He shrugged.
     
    "Then I'll just have to go and be nice to Julia."
     
    And more fool her, if she parts with that kind of money for sex, Jacey
    thought, watching him walk down the corridor.   He does have a nice
    tight little bum, she thought, and then checked herself crossly.   I bet
    he knows it, too, conceited little brat.
     
    But she did have a sneaking sympathy for him, and others like him.
     
    Even her brief experience of Guachtal had shown her that the majority
    of people there were poor; for most of them there was probably no
    escape from their poverty except to sell their bodies.   Could she
    really blame that beautiful young man for cashing in on his assets?
     
    What would I have done, she wondered, if I had been born here?   Would I
    have married, produced a dozen children, and been worn out by the time
    I was thirty?   Or would I have sold myself to the highest bidder? After
    all, men use us, so why shouldn't we use them?   The thought prompted a
    memory.   A memory she did not want, which had a habit of resurfacing
    when she least expected it.
     
    A man in an elegantly tailored suit, looking incredibly sexy and
    desirable.   And a wide-eyed girl standing next to him, dressed in
    white, her burnished, red hair piled up and held in place by a circlet
    of tiny, white flowers.   My wedding day, she thought.   Supposedly the
    happiest day in any woman's life.   What sentimental crap.
     
    Despite the fact that she was married in a registry office, she had
    wanted to wear white.   Faisel had promised her a religious wedding when
    she returned home with him.   She did not question why he wanted a civil
    ceremony in England first.   Her parents had attended, looking unhappy
    because they disapproved of Faisel and the way he had steamrollered her
    into a quick marriage.
     
    They were also unhappy that she was going to fly back to the Arab
    States with him that evening.
     
    It's a holiday, she had told them.   A honeymoon.   And I have to meet
    his family.   She repeated all the lies Faisel had told her.   We'll be
    back in London soon.   Faisel is going to work in his father's City
    office.
     
    I'm going to