The medic faltered. “Lytton as in the Warwick-Lytton Cup—that Lytton?”
“Aye lad. Why else do you think I’m here ‘in this state’ as you so rightly put it?”
The medic flushed. “I’m very sorry sir. I didn’t realise . . . you should be wearing a tag, see, to show you’re a VIP.”
“And that makes a difference to how you treat people does it?” McCarron asked with ominous calm.
“Well no, but—”
“I’ll be sure to mention that to Matthew,” he said. “Now, where would I find him?”
123
The police presence around the racecourse was being organised by a uniformed chief inspector called Cheever. Initially he didn’t take kindly to a couple of plainclothes cowboys from north of the river trying to ride onto his patch and start any kind of a ruckus.
He explained this to O’Neill and Dempsey in terms that left them in no doubt of his feelings on the matter. O’Neill mentally labelled him an arse within moments of meeting the man. The mental picture was completed by the fact Cheever was almost entirely bald and had a cleft chin.
“So, you’ve no hard intel there are explosives at my racecourse—or anywhere within a hundred miles of here for that matter, hmm?”
“No sir,” O’Neill said with a scrupulous politeness he tried hard to maintain. “But we’ve been watching this drama unfold and we can’t ignore the fact that all the players are here—in one place. Today. If Warwick really is planning to get rid of his partner then—”
“Ah but that’s exactly my point, hmm?” Cheever interrupted. “It’s all a big ‘if’ isn’t it? You know—if you’ll pardon my saying so—jack shit for certain.”
O’Neill felt the muscle in his jaw hinge clench, heard the squeak as his teeth clamped together.
“No sir.”
Cheever nodded. “Well then. I am not prepared to evacuate this facility, causing disruption and no doubt panic—not to mention a world of bad press—solely on the basis of your gut instinct.”
“Sir, surely public safety is—”
“My concern,” Cheever snapped. “And I’ll thank you not to try and tell me how to do my job detective inspector!” He paused, glowering. “If you can provide one iota of hard evidence I’ll act on it. Until then I’d thank you to get out of my command post and stay out of my way!”
O’Neill turned away, Dempsey silently on his heels, and stepped down out of the Portakabin Cheever had commandeered. The door wasn’t quite slammed behind them but it was a close-run thing.
“Bloody tin pot dictator,” Dempsey said sourly once they were outside. He hunched his shoulders. “What now, boss?”
“We find him his bloody evidence,” O’Neill declared. “And make him eat it.”
124
Steve Warwick shouldered his way into the private box with his fist wrapped in Myshka’s hair and his mouth clamped onto hers. As soon as they were inside he groped for the key to click over the lock and backed her roughly against the wall alongside the door. She gasped in pleasured pain. Warwick’s hands dived for the hem of her dress, gathering it up towards her waist.
“Stop!” she commanded, before he could discover for himself if her boast about a lack of underwear was true.
But he stopped anyway. Experience had taught him that Myshka’s games might be cruel, but they were always so satisfying in the end. He let the edge of the dress fall back into line, smoothed his hand across her hipbone and cupped her, not gently, through the material instead.
She gasped again, her eyes bright with a feral excitement he didn’t think he’d ever seen in her before.
Hell, if horseracing turns you on this much, darling, I’ll take you to bloody Ascot every week.
She batted his hand away, drew herself to her full imperious height. “Strip,” she ordered.
Warwick glanced at his watch even as he reached to unknot his tie, his expression wolfish.
“Whatever you have in mind, darling, we’ll have to make it quick,” he said, shrugging out of his suit jacket. “The race will be—”
Myshka moved in closer, pinched his chin between a steely forefinger and thumb. “Silence,” she rapped. “Your clothes—take them off. All of them.”
He fumbled in his haste to comply, but at least still had enough of his wits to hang the jacket on the back of a chair and fold his trousers to avoid creases. No point in making it too obvious what he’d been up to when he got back out there—especially not to Matt.
Myshka strolled over to the big slab of a conference table which stood near the slanted glass front wall of the box. He tried to make a grab for her as she past him, but she jinked her hips out of reach and smacked his hand away again.
“On the table—now,” she said, patting the smooth surface. “Face down.”
He glanced down pointedly at his rapidly growing erection and gave her a lascivious smile. “That might be . . . hard.”
“But I will make it much harder on you, yes,” she promised in the slightly fractured English that zapped straight to his groin. Her voice was so sultry it should have come with a blood pressure warning.
Warwick didn’t wait for a second invitation. He hopped up onto the table and rolled obediently onto his stomach, sucking in a breath at the cold against his flushed skin.
Myshka opened her bag and brought out the suede-thonged whip he knew so well, along with a skein of silk scarves. She deliberately placed the whip close to his head while she fastened the first scarf from the nearest table leg to his wrist, stretching first one arm and then the other out wide.
In moments, it seemed, he was spread-eagled at her mercy. She picked up the whip and stood in front of him, trailing the thongs through her fingers. It was all he could do not to groan out loud.
“You really have been very, very bad boy,” she said solemnly.
I know, I know, so do your wonderful worst, darling. Don’t keep me hanging!
She moved out of his line of sight and he trembled at the fleeting brush of the soft suede along his body from shoulder to calf. Then he heard the warning swish. He just had time to tense before the whip landed across his upper thighs and buttocks and a bellowed cry escaped him at the unaccustomed force of the blow.
“I told you silence!” Myshka hissed and she hit him again—if anything, harder this time.
“Christ, woman! What the devil d’you think you’re playing at?”
He heard her stride across the room and when she returned she had his tie bunched in her hands.