White Hot Holidays 13: Adam & Evil

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Adam & Evil

  ISBN # 1-4199-0468-X

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Adam & Evil Copyright© 2005 Jaid Black

  Edited by Raelene Gorlinsky.

  Cover design by Syneca. Photography by Dennis Roliff.

  Electronic book Publication: December 2005

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. Adam & Evil has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  ADAM & EVIL

  Jaid Black

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Clearasil: Boots Healthcare USA, Inc.

  Giorgio Armani: GA Modefine S.A. Corporation Switzerland

  Samuel Adams: Boston Beer Company LLC

  Chapter One

  “May I be blunt?”

  “Can I stop you?”

  “No.”

  “Then by all means…”

  Julia Cameron’s gaze narrowed thoughtfully as she deigned to engage in eye contact with her father’s protégé. Forty-year-old Samuel Adam was the man her father wanted her to date and, as he’d told her in no uncertain terms, eventually marry. It was just like the old goat to attempt to force someone into her life who was so much like himself.

  A rigid, unsmiling, tyrannical, emotionally frigid robot who no doubt bled oil in lieu of blood.

  Thanks, Dad, but no thanks.

  At thirty-one, Julia was unlikely to change. If she ever settled down—a very tentative if—it would be with a sensitive soul of a male. The sort of guy who didn’t cower away from his feelings, worrying that such a show of vulnerability was emasculating. He would be everything that, God love him, her father had never been.

  “I’m waiting,” Samuel murmured, his voice measured.

  A feral smile enveloped her face as she chose her words carefully. Everything about the man was even keel and firmly in control. His dark hair was perfectly cropped just above the ears, his suit impeccable wool and cashmere herringbone. He’d probably never raised his voice to anyone in his entire life. He didn’t have to. Those intense green eyes and that stoic face innately commanded respect. The son of a bitch needed to be rattled.

  “You are, without a doubt, the biggest jackass I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting next to on an airplane,” Julia told him.

  A lie, perhaps, but better to make him hate her and leave her alone than lead the guy on. Pointing to a bottle of Samuel Adams brand beer that a passenger an aisle over was drinking, she batted her eyelashes.

  “Furthermore, your name is one S away from being appalling. Samuel Adam? You sound like a drink, for heaven’s sake!” She waved a hand magnanimously in the air between them. “I wouldn’t date you if you were the last man on earth. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  Julia frowned at the casual amusement in his tone. That wasn’t the reaction she’d been going for. Men tended to become angry and feel aggrieved in such a situation. She’d been down this road many times before and had thought she knew the terrain.

  Apparently robots didn’t possess the same reactions as the average male.

  “Well, good,” Julia said dumbly, treading down unfamiliar territory. She rustled the newspaper on her lap. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to finish reading this riveting piece on, uh…” She took a quick glance down, having no idea of the contents. Her father published it, but she never read it. “…this riveting piece on the life of slugs.”

  More amusement. He didn’t smile, but his eyes glittered. The knowing in those light green orbs reminded her of a stalking jungle cat, an analogy that made her swallow a bit roughly.

  Samuel Adam might sound like an alcoholic drink, but his demeanor was sobering. Nothing got to him. No one intimated him.

  Ever.

  “I wouldn’t dream of keeping you from reading such an engrossing article.”

  Her glower would have killed a lesser man.

  “In fact,” Samuel said, steepling his fingertips, “I’m impressed.” His eyebrows rose slightly. “I didn’t know Barbie dolls could read. Your father must be very proud.”

  A Barbie? Her? Julia didn’t know whether to laugh or take offense. Apparently beer-boy had failed to notice the extra twenty-five pounds on her five-foot six-inch frame. Or her J-Lo bootie. Or her very red and curly, non-blonde hair. Or the doctorate hanging on her office wall.

  Her teeth snapped together. He was just trying to get back at her, prod her into making a scene so he’d feel better. Damn, he was good. Almost, but not quite, a worthy adversary.

  “He’s very proud,” Julia assured him, feigning inordinate fascination with the article on slugs. Why had her father published this boring shit? It was the daily paper, not a journal for science geeks for crying out loud. “I am, after all, nothing if not amazing.”

  “Mmm yes. As remarkable as a talking marionette.”

  Her teeth ground together, but she would not take the bait. She would rise above and stay a step ahead. She would—

  Why the fuck is beer-boy lifting my arms over my head?

  “No strings attached,” Samuel reflected. He looked genuinely intrigued. “Interesting.”

  There were many comebacks to be had, many acidic, witty replies to make. Unfortunately, all of them were eluding her at the moment. “You’ve got brass balls,” Julia huffed. “I’ll give you that much. Nobody ever talks to me like that!” She sounded like a defiant little brat, but oh well.

  “A pity,” he said firmly, those intense eyes of his finding hers.

  “Just what the hell does that mean? That people should talk to me with no respect?”

  “It means you should get what you give,” Samuel said calmly, rigidly. “If you belonged to me, I’d put you over my knee and spank your ass soundly.”

  She couldn’t believe how outrageous his words were! Or how arousing. Julia twisted in her seat, coughing in her hand to cover up her discomfit.

  Had she thought him to be almost, but not quite, a worth adversary? She had been wrong. Samuel Adam was, in fact, the real deal. Such an opponent had to be taken seriously. This wasn’t like the last poor schmuck her father had sent to court her�
�she doubted this guy would just walk away with his tail between his legs, afraid Julia would get him fired. No, Samuel realized he wouldn’t be issued his walking papers from Cameron Publishing. If he did, he would be immediately snatched up by a rival company. The situation set panic alarms off in her mind.

  She opened her mouth to rebut, but was cut off by an alarm of another kind. Julia’s eyes widened as the lights in the airplane’s cabin began rapidly flicking off and on, a shrill sound blaring over the intercom. Two flight attendants servicing the first-class cabin lost their balance, their bodies flung to the floor by the airplane’s jarring motions.

  “What’s happening?” she breathed out, heartbeat accelerating. She clutched the arms of her chair with both hands, fingernails digging into the vinyl. What a day! “Are we crashing?”

  “I don’t know,” Samuel replied evenly. His large, powerful hand covered hers as he assessed the situation. “But I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  For some insane reason, Julia believed him. Her grasp on the seat tightened as a loud, trembling voice sounded over the intercom.

  “All flight attendants and passengers prepare for an emergency landing.”

  “We’re flying over the damn ocean!” Julia hysterically pointed out. “Where are we going to land? The welcome portal to the underwater kingdom of Atlantis?”

  Oxygen masks dropped from the overhead bins before he could reply. She heard children crying from somewhere behind them back in the coach section. Her heart slammed against her chest as she fumbled with the mask, trying to secure it over her face.

  A simple, routine flight from San Jose to New York. She had taken this very flight, no doubt on this very plane, dozens of times. Her family held estates in both Manhattan and Costa Rica, though Julia primarily resided in the latter.

  Samuel had shown up at her doorstep two days ago under the guise of escorting her back home for the Christmas holiday. Her father-trying-to-set-her-up-with-another-robot radar had immediately flown sky-high. She was, after all, thirty-one, not three. She hadn’t required escorts for years.

  There had been something different about Samuel Adam from the first moment he’d entered her tropical refuge, some enigmatic mystique that gave her pause. He radiated an aura of control and power that no one could fake—a man either possessed it or he didn’t. Samuel oozed it.

  After two days of playing mouse to his cat, Julia had been more than grateful to take the flight back to the States with her father’s protégée. Anything to eventually ditch him. He was getting under her skin, and that would not do. Nothing got to the man, nothing cowered him. If she hadn’t been so hell-bent on loathing him, she would have admired him.

  He wanted her money. He wanted to control Cameron Publishing. All men saw her as a means to an end.

  The movie screens in the cabin turned on, snapping Julia back to the moment. An emergency landing instruction video began to play. The two actors smiled serenely as they calmly placed the masks in front of their faces, then lifted the attached rubber bands to position them behind their heads.

  Oh right! What a realistic reenactment! As if anyone could be that tranquil when they were about to die. Oscar-potential candidates the actors were not. They should be hyperventilating, screaming, and possibly clawing out their own bulging eyes.

  Julia’s head began to swirl, dizziness engulfing her. She hadn’t figured out the mask yet and wasn’t getting enough oxygen.

  Two strong hands held up her quickly slumping body. The mask made its way to her face. Oxygen returned. Julia stared up at Samuel with wide blue eyes.

  “I have to go help in the back,” he said from behind his own mask. “You’ll be okay, Julia. I promise.”

  A selfish gene whispered to her that she should beg him to stay, to not leave her here to die alone. But she knew those kids back there needed him much more than a grown woman did. She might be a lot of things, but egocentric wasn’t one of them, despite what she’d led Samuel to believe.

  Besides, she could take her of herself. She’d always done as much. Growing up motherless with a workaholic father did that to a person. If there was one lesson Julia had learned early in life, it was the futility in waiting on a man to rescue her.

  She nodded her head. “I’ll be fine,” she said in a monotone, her brain still relatively scattered from the previous lack of oxygen. “Go to the children. They need you.”

  Chapter Two

  Separated from the other survivors, they’d been drifting for two days. Almost out of food, Julia had predicted several times that they were goners. Samuel, on the other hand, was his typically arrogant, in-control self.

  “We’ll be fine, Julia,” Sam stated. She watched his muscles tense from the strain of continuous swimming. “We’ve made it this far and we’re still alive.”

  She snorted, but kept swimming. They were alone in the middle of the ocean. They hadn’t so much as spotted another ship. Their stash of airline peanuts, bottled water, and something resembling stale pretzels was nearly gone. Sunburns covered all of Julia’s pale body and half of Samuel’s bronzed one. Despite all that, he persisted in his mentality. Robots—faithful to their preprogramming until the end.

  Landing, if one could call it that, had been a nightmare. Unbelievably, none of the passengers died at impact. As it turned out, the emergency landing video was on target and the seats really did morph into floatation devices. All might have ended well had a thick, disorienting fog not enveloped the area. One night they were floating next to the other fatigued passengers and, a short nap later, they were bobbing alone in the middle of the torrid ocean.

  Christmas was less than a week away. There would be no turkey, ham and trimmings this year. The way things were looking, and the way sharks kept circling from below, the only thing on the menu this holiday season would be raw human à la Julia and Samuel.

  A dark shadow glided by. A dorsal fin emerged, then quickly retreated into the water. Heart pounding, Julia held on tightly to the pocketknife Samuel had given her.

  “Why don’t they just eat us and be done with it?” Julia panted, swimming vigorously. She couldn’t recall ever being this frightened or her nerves ever being so frayed. Such was saying a lot when you were the daughter of a man who possessed more enemies than friends. “They’re toying with us.”

  “They don’t know what to make of us so they’re waiting for us to weaken,” Samuel told her matter-of-factly, “to show some sign of vulnerability.”

  Great. “Like?”

  “Difficulty swimming. Fresh blood from a wound…”

  Julia mentally counted the days since her last menstrual cycle. She hysterically hoped she’d remain on schedule.

  “…anything that tells them we are vulnerable prey.”

  Silence.

  She lapsed into contemplative thought, her life playing like a DVD before her mind’s eye. She still had a lot of things left to do before she died—accomplishments to achieve, Mr. Right to find and marry, babies to make with said man. She wasn’t ready to become shark sushi.

  Dr. Julia Elise Cameron was a world-renowned botanist. She knew her tropical plants like nobody’s business. A thousand specimens of the same variety could be facing her and she could still tell them apart for the individual organisms that they were. They were distinct and vibrant beings to her, full of life and love. And, unlike people, easy to comfortably surround herself with.

  When it came to interacting with her own species, Julia had always come up short. She could blame her father’s lack of attention, or the death of her mother at the tender age of six, but there was no sense in casting blame anywhere besides at her own two feet. She was a grown woman, had been for more years than she wished to contemplate, and her life was what she’d made it.

  Julia was, and would probably die being, the horticultural version of an old maid with cats. The thought was more depressing than it should have been. Men had come and gone over the years, of course, but nobody she could envision living out the rest of
her life with.

  Aside from the usual courtships of high school, her first real love had been Phillipe, the artist she’d met during her junior year in college at the Sorbonne in Paris, France. Phillipe had been dashing and charming, not to mention an excellent lover. He excelled at the art of lovemaking and Julia quickly figured out why—she’d met politicians who were more faithful.

  For graduate school she left the Sorbonne and Paris behind and headed back to the States. Once a fine arts major, she completed the prerequisite courses to pursue her next degree in botany, this time at New York University. At NYU she met Randy, a drama student. Randy had been Phillipe’s spiritual twin, minus the French accent.

  Tired of men and their cheating, disloyal ways, Julia had converted to lesbianism—or tried to anyway. Jenny had been beautiful, any lesbian’s dream come true, but when it had come time for Julia to return the sexual favors Jenny had bestowed her with…

  She winced at the memory. As much as she might wish it otherwise, going down on another woman was simply not Julia’s thing. Trying to fake her way through it, she’d held her breath and desperately attempted to make her almost-lover come.

  Had it not been for the fact that Julia needed to come back up for air and take a deep, gasping breath before recommencing, she and Jenny might still be together, damn it. The submersible whale technique went over about as well with Jenny as rice cakes at an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast.

  Picky people.

  Following the Jenny fiasco, Julia had abandoned any realistic hope of finding true love and concentrated instead on her plants. Her father sent the occasional suitor over to test the proverbial dating waters, but she was having none of that. Her dad might be a revered and powerful publishing magnate, but he was hopeless when it came to two things—expressing emotions and picking out a would-be son-in-law.