2,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Olympia Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
The first Jake Reynolds novel: LOVE CULT, was a smash sell-out! Now he's back, fighting sex, sadism, and a luscious blonde beauty who uses her perfect body to make him kneel down and worship her as a LOVE GODDESS!
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
Ähnliche
Love Goddess
Jan Hudson
This page copyright © 2009 Olympia Press.
ATTACKED BY THE LOVE GODDESS
“I think I could love you, Jake... I could love a man like you,” she was murmuring as she took one of my hands and guided it to the slit in her skirt and placed it underneath en the satiny smooth skin.
Then she moved my other hand to the opening at the neck of her dress and I couldn't seem to resist what she was doing with it. There was nothing but woman under that dress, nothing but the wonderfully uptilted breasts that responded to my touch like they had been waiting forever for my hands.
“Oh, Jake... the things we can do together! We can explore love, we can know everything all lovers have ever known down through the centuries! We can try everything that has ever been thought of... we can know every exotic, erotic pleasure man and woman are capable of!”
My hands had a life of their own now and were exploring every inch of her body, learning its every hidden secret. The dress had come down off her shoulders and lay in folds about her waist, leaving her breasts bare. They were as golden and as perfect as the rest of her. Her skirt had somehow gotten shoved up above her hips and the tiny shred of silk she wore under it now lay on the floor. My breath was coming in husky gasps and hers was almost as rapid.
“Take me now, Jake... take me now!” she moaned, thrusting herself against me!
CHAPTER ONE
The telephone ringing on the nightstand beside my bed woke me with a start from an exhausted sleep. The exhaustion had been brought on by a hot-lipped, hot-handed and hot-everything else blonde from one of the Sunset Strip nightclubs. We had spent most of Friday night, Saturday, and Saturday night hopping in and out of bed. For once in my life I had come close to having enough woman and sleep was the only thing I wanted now.
I winced as I noticed the clock. Who could be ringing the bell off the hook this time of morning?
“Good morning, Jake.” The woman's soft voice on the other end of the line was horribly cheerful for seven o'clock on a Sunday morning.
“What's good about it?” I said without bothering to keep the sleep out of my voice.
“My, you sound tired this morning.”
“I'm always tired when people call in the middle of the night,” I growled, reaching for a cigarette and cradling the phone on my shoulder to light it.
“Well, I don't think you're being very nice,” the voice pouted. “Here I am finally back from location and you sound like you'd rather sleep by yourself than with me!”
“Now, look, Amanda... it's seven o'clock in the morning and I'm in no mood for hurt little girl feelings,” I said, resisting the temptation to slam down the phone only by remembering what the girl on the other end looked like. Amanda Rawlinson was Hollywood's home grown answer to Gina Lollabrigida. She was the sexiest product that Hollywood High and UCLA had ever turned out and had done more to prove that “movies were better than ever” than any six Biblical epics. She had also proved to my satisfaction numerous times that “women were better than ever.”
“But you sound like you don't care whether I'm back or not,” she said with a touch of real hurt in her voice.
Suffering from lack of sleep and an incipient hangover, I wasn't in any mood for hurt female feelings. “Look, Amanda, of course I'm glad you're back. It's wonderful and I'm delighted, but I'm not out of bed yet and I don't intend to be for hours.”
“Good. I'll come right over and fix your breakfast and then we'll both go right back to bed.”
For one of the few times in my life, the idea of toying with Amanda's five feet eight of deliciously put together flesh didn't excite me. “Look, baby,” I yawned, “I've just finished a case. I've been working awfully hard and what I need right now is just plain sleep.” The only case I had just finished was the case of Sue Anne Bender, the sex-hungry blonde I'd spent the weekend with. After that weekend, a willing woman wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Even Amanda, whose bedroom activities and abilities ordinarily made my libido perk up and take notice, failed to stir me at the moment.
“Well, couldn't I just come over...”
“No,” I said firmly, taking a look around at my apartment. The place was a mess. Without moving I could see an empty bottle and several lipstick-stained glasses. It would be just my luck to rush around straightening up the place and then miss something that would give me away, like that pair of lacy green panties the blonde had had on when she arrived Friday evening and hadn't bothered to don for the rest of the weekend. “Tell you what... I'll come over to your place in a couple of hours.”
“A couple of hours! Oh, Jake!” I could almost see her large violet eyes getting cloudy.
“But I told you I've just got to get an hour or so more sleep.”
Her voice broke. “You... you can't be very anxious to see me if all you can think about is sleep.”
I wasn't getting through to her at all. She had been number one on too many lists for it to sink in easily that a man might want to do anything other than go to bed with her.
“Yeah, that's the way it is,” I said, “there are times when a little more sleep means more to a man than any woman in the world.”
“Jake... please don't be that way,” Amanda said in a completely different voice as I was about to hang up. “I want to see you so badly... it's been so long and I'm awfully... awfully... you know what I mean....
I did know what she meant and I began to wonder if I was really as tired as I had thought. I remembered her long-legged, silvery-blonde beauty and the things that body of hers could do to a man. Amanda was a lot of woman and ever since I had rescued her from the unwanted attentions of a bunch of hopped-up devil worshippers a few months ago she had been my woman. “Give me an hour,” I said into the phone. “It'll take me that long to shower, shave and get dressed.
“All right, an hour... but I'm going to be tapping my foot every minute of it,” she said. “I've missed you, Jake. I've missed you a lot.”
That was nice. It was nice to know that a girl who was as close as she was to the top of her profession and who had half the bigamy wolves in Hollywood after her was my girl and had missed me.
I climbed out of bed, padded into the bathroom, and stood for a few moments considering myself in the mirror. What I saw looked like the wreck of the guy I had been only the morning before. That blonde had been able to put away the liquor! And her capacity for sex had been even greater than her capacity for the bottle.
Trying to ignore the considerable pain in my head and the rolling in my stomach, I went about the business of shaving and getting dressed. When I had finished, I downed a glass of tomato juice laced with Worcestershire and hot sauce and began to feel almost human enough to think about heading for Amanda's Bel-Air home. I left the apartment and walked out past the swimming pool which was gleaming blue and tempting in the early morning sunlight. I had passed along the side of the bookstore onto the street when I saw the girl.
She was standing in front of the Maleficium, shading her eyes with her hands as she tried to look through the window which I hadn't washed in several years because I figured it added an air of mystery to the place. She was wearing a mannish looking trenchcoat and a hat pulled down over carroty curls. All I could see of her besides the red hair was her legs. They brought me to a full stop and I stood there for a minute enjoying the sight of them.
She turned and looked at me and I had a momentary sense of disappointment. The face didn't seem to come up to the promise of the legs at first, but as I looked a little closer I changed my mind. Her face was long with prominent cheekbones and a slightly turned down nose. Her mouth was large and her eyes a strange shade of green. Separately, she didn't have good features, but added together they made a very striking woman.
“I don't suppose they're open,” she said in a clipped British accent, indicating the Maleficium with a toss of her head. “I was almost sure they wouldn't be on a Sunday, but it was so important I had to come down anyway.”
A little bell rang in the back of my mind. A little bell that said, Here's a client, and for a while I forgot about her legs and her face and started wondering what kind of trouble she might be in.
“Well, that all depends,” I said, moving closer to her. “It depends on what you're looking for. What's so important?”
“There's a... a book I want to purchase,” she said, examining my six feet plus with interest.
“What book is it?” I asked. “Maybe I can help you.”
“I'd rather discuss it with Mr. Reynolds... Mr. Jake Reynolds. I understand that he is the proprietor of this rather strange establishment.”
“Yes, he is,” I agreed.
“Then if you could tell me where I might locate him, I would be most grateful.”
“You're looking at him,” I said.
“Oh? Oh, really?” Her eyes were wide. “But... I didn't expect you to be...”
“Under forty and with one foot still out of the grave?” I grinned at her confusion.
“I must confess that I expected... rather a cobwebby looking little man... a sort of... of...
“Peter Lorre? Or something out of a Charles Addams cartoon?”
A sudden burst of laughter changed the serious twist of her mouth and she was almost beautiful. She was, I decided, a very lovely woman if one was looking for something beyond the usual definition of beauty.
“Why don't you come on in and we'll talk about this book you're looking for?” I suggested, taking a key out of my pocket and opening the front door of the store.
Inside I turned on the overhead light that dispelled only a little of the gloom that filled the place. It was part of the menacing atmosphere I like to maintain for the benefit of my more susceptible book customers for whom part of the thrill of buying a book from me would be the juicy description they could give their friends of my ogre's den.
The young woman looked around briefly and then followed me back to the desk behind a row of bookshelves in the rear. She took off her raincoat and hat and sat down. The rest of her figure was as good as her legs and even the baggy English tweed suit she wore couldn't hide the fact.
“Mr. Reynolds, my name is Millicent Corbett — the Honorable Millicent Corbett. As you may have noticed, I'm from England and...” She paused and pulled her skirt farther down over her knees as she found my eyes on them. “... I haven't been in this country too long and...”
My eyes hadn't left her legs and this time as she caught my glance a blush crept up her high cheekbones as she tugged at the skirt. “... my... ah... I'm over here on business with my brother. We came to settle the estate of an uncle who died here in Hollywood and...”
“You said something about a book,” I said, finally managing to get my eyes back where they belonged.
“Yes, I did mention a book, but...” She looked down at her long slim hands playing with a handkerchief in her lap. “There really isn't any book, of course... although you do seem to have an awful lot of them.”
Her strange green eyes took in some of the titles nearest her. Poltergeists by Sir Sacheverall Sitwell, The Challenge of Psychical Research by Gardner Murphy, Egyptian Magic by Sir Wallis Budge and The Vampire in Europe by Montague Summers. She shivered a little and looked back at me.
“You see, Mr. Reynolds, a friend told me about you. He suggested that you... might be the one to turn to... because I... well, I'm worried. I really must admit that I am dreadfully worried.”
“Most people who come to me are either worried or frightened or both,” I said. “Why don't you tell me what's wrong?”
“Yes, that's the best way to deal with it, isn't it? I mean, come right out with it. The fantastic and the incredible sound less so when one comes right out with them and... and sort of brings them into the light of day.”
“Some things are not really so incredible or fantastic as they seem,” I said.
“I assure you that this thing is more fantastic and incredible than anything I've ever believed possible.” Millicent brushed at her hair with one long white hand. “As... as I told you, my brother and I are here in this country to settle the estate of my uncle. It... the estate consists of a very considerable amount of property and some money... and it means a great deal to both of us, but there is... well...”
“Yes, go on,” I encouraged her, remembering that I was already thirty minutes late for my breakfast date with Amanda and wishing she would get to the point. Amanda was not the sort of girl who took kindly to waiting.
“There is a problem... you see, my uncle didn't die a natural death.”
“He didn't? You mean he was murdered?”
“Well, the Coroner's jury didn't think so. They called it an accident, although at one point his widow, Estella, was held by the police. She was later released. Perhaps you read about the case in the papers. It took place about six months ago and was called 'The Egyptian Temple Mystery' in the press.”
The whole thing came back to me quickly as she said that. I remembered having read of the death of Sir Hawthorne Corbett, the rich and eccentric archeologist, who had been found with his skull crushed. His wife, who was some thirty or forty years his junior, had been arrested on suspicion of murder but freed a short time later for lack of evidence.
“Your uncle was found in some kind of temple, wasn't he?” I asked.
“Yes. His body was found in the temple he had brought from Egypt some years ago and rebuilt on his estate in Malibu. They... Uncle Hawthorne and his wife, Estella... used to worship there. You see, my uncle was and his wife still is... rather strange.”
“Strange in what way?” I asked, reconciled to the fact that I was going to be late getting to Amanda's.
“They were... I hardly dare say it because I'm afraid you'll laugh. They were demon worshippers,” Millicent said. “I know it sounds ridiculous in this day and age and especially in the center of a city as modern as this one, but...”
“It doesn't sound at all ridiculous to me,” I said. “You must remember that this kind of thing isn't new to me. And also that it isn't new to this city. Just recently, for instance, a national magazine reported that there are seventy witch cults in Los Angeles which constantly celebrate the Black Mass.”
“Can that be true?” Millicent asked.
“Oh, yes. I'm afraid they underestimated it, however. I myself know of almost a hundred. So you see, demon worshippers aren't as unlikely a phenomenon as you might think.”
“I... well, I'm sure that in London we wouldn't have any such...”
“Are you really sure?” I asked, reaching for a book from a nearby shelf. I found the page I wanted and read her a description of various odd and awful cults of present day London. In Elliot O'Donnell's Strange Cults and Secret Societies in London, I read to her about panther and leopard cults, one whose priestess called herself Medusa and another that worshipped mummies.
The girl's green eyes got wider and wider as I read and when I finally stopped, she was visibly shaken. “I guess... I guess I haven't any cause to sneer at Los Angeles, do I?” she said ruefully.
“None at all, I'm afraid,” I said, “but don't get the idea that it's only Los Angeles and London. Every city and town in the world has its cults and secret societies of oddballs. In fact, although this is the age of space flight and atomic power, it is also the most superstitious period in the history of the world.” I paused a moment, then added, “Now, tell me about your uncle.”
“I suppose my uncle took up this... this demon worship during his archeological explorations in Tibet and other out of the way places and became convinced that there were powers of darkness that were more powerful... or at least more willing to use their powers than are the powers of good. So he and his then secretary, Estella Marks, became demon worshippers. They gathered a small group of similarly minded people around them and used the ancient Egyptian temple center for their practices.”
“You say that this Estella was his secretary at first?”
“Yes. They were married about two years ago... married in their own temple and also in a civil ceremony. They seemed to get along all right until last July when he was found dead in the temple... in front of a black stone altar... with his head bashed in by a black chalice that usually sits on the altar. The police were suspicious of Estella became she naturally came into a part of Uncle Hawthorne's estate... about a fourth of it, I believe.
“Estella was arrested, but wasn't indicted because of what the police called 'a lack of evidence'. Now she's in possession of the house and grounds and... I'm still quite sure she murdered my uncle. That's why I've come to you for help.”
“I don't understand what you want me to do,” I said. “In spite of the hint of demonology, it is really just an ordinary murder case. It seems to me that if you have new evidence, you should present it to the police. Since she wasn't indicted, she could still be rearrested and tried without any question arising of double jeopardy.”
Millicent looked more worried than ever. “That's the problem. You see, I don't have any real evidence. It's just that I'm morally certain that woman murdered my uncle.”
“Well, I'm afraid your moral certainty isn't much to go on. What does Mrs. Corbett say about her husband's death? I assume you've talked to her since you've been here. Did she say anything that convinced you she murdered your uncle?”
“She says he was killed by a demon he called up from another world.”
“Was that the story she gave to the police?”
“No, of course not. She told them that her husband must have slipped and fell while he was standing before the altar and that the chalice struck him as he fell.”
“When did she tell you this other story?”
“When my brother and I first arrived three weeks ago,” Millicent said. “While we were still staying at that horrible old house.”
“You've left your uncle's house?”
“Yes. That is, I have. My brother wouldn't come with me. He's still there and...” She hesitated, “and that is the most dreadful part of the whole affair from my point of view.”
“How do you mean the most dreadful part?” I asked, noticing that I was now an hour late for my date with Amanda.
“Estella Corbett is a very beautiful woman... beautiful but evil. She looks like an angel... or some kind of blonde goddess... it's an almost radiant kind of beauty.”
“Estella means star, you know,” I said.
“Yes, and the name suits her perfectly. She is not only beautiful, she's brilliant... brilliant and cold like a star seen on a cold, arctic night. I honestly think she is the most completely amoral creature I have ever met... that she would be capable of any sort of crime.”
Estella was beginning to sound like someone I really ought to look up, although I was willing to discount a great deal of what Millicent was telling me because I knew that most beautiful women inspire nothing but hatred in other women.
“This is all very interesting, but it doesn't prove anything,” I said.
“Mr. Reynolds,” Millicent leaned forward and her eyes became even more intense. “This... this may sound silly to you, but I assure you I'm not a flighty school girl who imagines things and... I'm convinced that Estella not only married my uncle for his money and killed him to get it but that she also intends to marry my brother and murder him too if she can get away with it.”
CHAPTER TWO
I stared at Millicent for a minute and then I whistled. “That's a lot of suspicion,” I said.
“That woman is evil. I'd almost be willing to believe that she's not only a demon worshipper but a demon herself.”
“And your brother is in love with her?”
“My brother is in love with her. He's absolutely fascinated by her. He won't hear a word against her. He... that's why I want you to prove that she did kill my uncle. I'm not so interested in proof that will hold up in court as I am in proof I can show to my brother. I want something that will convince him... something that will save him from that woman.”
“Well,” I said, “let me make a few inquiries among my contacts on the police force and in... other places... and find out what I can about the murder — if it was a murder — and then I'll let you know if I can be of any help to you.”
“Then you'll take the case?”
“I'll make inquiries. I might not be able to be of any help to you if this is just a simple police matter,” I said, anxious to get away now. Amanda wasn't used to being kept waiting. “If after I look into it I find that I can't help you... well, I'll tell you so.”
Millicent leaned forward and I got a pretty good view of her cleavage and felt a tingle of excitement. Even in that shapeless suit, her figure was something to conjure with. It was, that is, if sex was the kind of magic you were interested in... and it was my favorite kind!
“I do hope and pray that you will take the case,” she said earnestly and her eyes were misty with tears. “I have been beside myself because I feel that my brother is in the clutches of a very evil woman. Frankly, Mr. Reynolds, I can't think of another person who could help me save him from her.”
“I'll do my best,” I said, standing up.
Millicent turned and reached for her trenchcoat and hat. “You don't really... really think there could be anything to that ridiculous story she told us about a demon killing my uncle, do you?” she asked, glancing apprehensively around the bookstore.
“I've never known one who wasn't in human form,” I said with a smile I meant to be reassuring. “What made you ask?”
“Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's that one or two strange things happened while we were staying at my uncle's house and...” She shook her red head. “Of course it's all nonsense... I'm sure you'll find that out, but...”
“What kind of strange things?” I as [...]
