Duo Deceiver

"Duo Deceiver"

F18?

Usual disclaimers apply.

Follows immediately after "Down and Out Deceiver".

The above picture was borrowed from Ariane's Enchanted Visions website.

~*~*~*~*~

Phoenix watched Zankou turn the last page of the manuscript. She sat forward in the large leather chair behind his desk, eagerly awaiting his opinion on what he had read. Propped full-length on the sofa in his black and copper office, one knee raised to support the sheaves of paper, Zankou appeared oblivious to her, intent only on the pages in his hands.

Her husband looked good lying there. He looked good lying anywhere – on his glass desk; on the black and red carpet beneath her feet; spread naked across the submerged aquarium in her office. She recalled how the illumination from the floor level tank outlined his darkness and always gave their love-making an ethereal quality, heightened by the moving menace of the aquarium's sharks and stingrays. The thin line that separated their thrashing bodies from the threat of danger below intensified Phoenix's pleasure, inciting her into a frenzy equal to that of a shark on a kill.

Closing the manuscript, Zankou looked up at her and smiled. "Mind in the gutter again, my love?"

Phoenix frowned, displeased with his cheapening her response to his magnetism. "Is that how you see our attraction?"

"Of course not. It's just lately you seem to be jumping my bones whenever we're together."

His arrogant grin stirred her blood, quickening her breath. Phoenix knew Zankou admired her strength and independence and so wouldn't respect this continuous, almost desperate, urge to ingest his black soul.

She deliberately made her voice flippant. "I missed you while you were incarcerated, my love. I'm just catching up."

"Then spend more time with me, and less time with these authors." He threw the manuscript on the floor, and swept a hand over it. "What can Terri Bellotti give you that I can't?"

"My cut of millions of dollars of royalties," Phoenix stated, feigning indifference.

Zankou's eyes widened with surprise. "Can she suck a diamond mine dry and shower you with jewels worth billions of dollars?"

"Zanky, there's your problem," Phoenix sighed, disappointed that he still didn't get it. "It's too easy. What I achieve, I have to fight for. Cajole, wrangle, anticipate and out step the other publishers to get there first."

"And I'm not doing that with the Charmed Ones?" Zankou rolled to his feet and walked toward her.

Pouting, Phoenix linked her fingers under her chin. "I suppose so, but I thought it was all about obtaining their power." Her body quivered as he came around the desk, towering over her. She took in a quick breath and cast her eyes down, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing her want.

"That too." In one fluid motion, he pulled her out of his deep chair into his arms and molded her to him. "That's the ultimate goal," he said, his mouth skimming her jaw, "but I love running rings around these women in the process."

Phoenix threw her head back and shivered against the onslaught of his teeth on the cords of her neck. "As long as that's all you love doing to them." She kept her voice confident, but the bravado was a ruse. She could never really be sure of him.

"You want me, don't you?" he breathed into her ear.

"Why would I want a conceited, egotistical, arrogant–?"

Zankou's lips blazed across her cheek and seized her mouth. She was ready for his possessive, violent kiss, but it still took her breath away. Rocking into his angular frame, she welcomed the invasion of his tongue, his plundering draining her strength so that she clutched his shoulders to stay upright.

"Who knows, Phoenix?" He lifted his head and his white teeth flashed at her. "Spend more time with me, and I might abandon this need to acquire absolute power. I might even lose interest in ever leaving the castle." Running his hands through her hair, he exposed her throat to his lips, grazing his teeth along her skin, causing shudders of desire to ripple to her toes.

"What if…" Zankou nipped her lips, then probed them with his tongue, slowly torturing this time. "What if I let you chain me naked to the bedroom wall? I could devote every ounce of strength to pleasuring you. Would you like that?" A roaming hand abandoned her hair, traveled down her spine and insinuated itself under her lightweight jacket. "The only food I'd eat would be lapped from your body, slowly and thoroughly." Splaying his hand against her back, he jerked her more fully into him. "And when you plead that you can't take any more, I'd take you slowly… and long… and deeply."

Phoenix writhed against him, the heat within driving her to undo the top button of her business blouse. Her action caught his attention and she watched twin fires burn in his eyes. Phoenix smiled, fingering the next button, teasing him. She gasped as she felt his other hand snake up her thigh under her skirt and smooth itself between her legs.

"Hell, Zankou, you drive me crazy!"

Zankou dragged the tip of his tongue across her jaw to her ear, his voice a hot breath in her hair. "I know." A finger probed her heat and Phoenix's knees gave way. Zankou let her slide to the floor, following her down, gently biting the flesh between her neck and shoulder.

Panting, Phoenix pushed ineffectually at his tight leathers. "Shit, why do you have to wear so much gear?"

He chuckled deep within his throat, then froze.

"Someone's coming."

Jumping to his feet, Zankou dragged her up with him. Phoenix swallowed her desire, her lungs fighting the beat of her heart. Coming on the alert, she straightened her outfit and took a deep steadying breath.

"Zankou, we've been through this before," Phoenix adlibbed as planned, also feeling the presence. She fixed her eyes on her husband's face, which was twisted with mock exasperation. "I'm not going to give up my career. The children see me at night when they're most active. Besides which, they are so independent, that like you, they don't need–"

She broke off as Zankou transferred his gaze past her and smiled. Turning, Phoenix saw Piper standing in the middle of the office, the Charmed One's mouth working over the words trembling on her lips, her body rigid with anger.

"What the hell are you playing at, Zankou?" Piper shouted, her hands balled at her sides, their knuckles white. "If you come anywhere near Paige again–"

Zankou casually walked around Phoenix, his hands held out in welcome. "Piper, how good of you to drop in–"

"Shut up!" Piper spat. "Unless you are going to assure me that you're never crossing our paths again. I don't know how you managed to persuade Paige it would be a good idea for you to move into the Manor–"

"Then I can accommodate you," he said smoothly. "I have no intention of doing so. That all came from Paige's well-intentioned, if misguided–"

"Misguided?" Piper almost shrieked the word. "Brainwashed is more like it! What the hell do you do? The fireballs I can handle, the conniving, manipulating deviousness I can understand–"

Phoenix hid a smile at Zankou's pained expression as he crossed his arms in front of him in a self-protective gesture.

"–but this playing on our benevolence is too low even for you, Zankou," Piper finished. "Stay the hell away from us. There's no way we would put up with you under our roof. Crawl back into your hole where you belong–"

"Really, my dear," Phoenix interrupted, unable to prevent herself. "That's my home you're referring to."

Piper flicked a glance at her, but ignored her, centering her gaze back on Zankou. Phoenix bristled at the way she had been relegated to the status of insignificant nuisance.

"I can see you're upset, Piper," Zankou drawled, moving closer to the witch, and Phoenix understood he wanted her to stay out of the quarrel. "But I've no idea what has disturbed you so. Perhaps you'll explain it to me."

"You know very well what I'm talking about. Paige wants you to live with us so that she can protect you from your wife!" She spat the words with such scorn that Phoenix bit back the urge to squash Piper where she stood.

Zankou looked over his shoulder. "Phoenix, go see to the children." His eyes bored into hers with a contradictory message she had no difficulty interpreting.

"I don't think so, Zankou," Phoenix said on cue. "I won't be fobbed off to the nursery when my husband is under attack."

"It's best that you do."

'No, this is precisely what I was trying to tell you when we were so–" She shot a look of disdain at Piper. "…rudely interrupted. I'm not a nursemaid or babysitter. I'm your partner, and if you have a problem, it is my problem too."

"I can handle this." He winked at Phoenix and she felt her chin wobble with suppressed mirth.

"Maybe you can but I'm staying."

Zankou turned his back on Piper to face Phoenix fully so that only she saw the huge grin on his face. She clenched her jaw to prevent herself returning it.

"Our children need you–"

"–and you don't?" Phoenix gasped with deliberate exaggeration. "That's what you mean, isn't it? I'm good enough to warm your bed and bear your children but the rest is man's work, right? Or do you want to be alone with this witch for other reasons? Is that it? I'm in the way, am I?"

"I didn't say that–"

"You didn't have to!"

"Excuse me–" Piper began, but Phoenix ignored her, encouraged by Zankou's look of approval.

"Let me tell you, Zankou, while you're throwing fireballs left, right and center and terrorizing demons just to prove your superiority, I'm seeing to it that authors get their message to the reading public and the masses are entertained." Her tongue was running away with itself, but the more she befuddled Piper the better.

"Phoenix, the masses don't need you." Zankou stroked his lip with a finger and Phoenix understood to back off. "Our children do," he said quietly. "If you didn't do it, someone else would. Meanwhile, our children call for a mother that's not there. I'm home more than you realize, because you're not there at all. Piper can relate to that, can't you?"

Zankou turned back to their guest and Phoenix narrowed her eyes at the tongue-tied witch.

"Bitch!" Phoenix hissed. "What does she know about it? Do you take her to our bed when I'm not there?"

"Really, Zankou!" Piper cried, her voice shrill with confused anger. "This really has nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with me," she emphasized, looking at Phoenix. "I just want you to stay away from my sisters."

He nodded in agreement. "As I was trying to tell you, Piper, it was all Paige's idea. I have no intention of leaving my family–"

Phoenix gasped. "You're screwing all of them?!" She grabbed Zankou's arm. "Is that it? You want your freedom? You're tired of being shackled to a woman who wants a career?"

"Get a hold of yourself, Phoenix," Zankou ordered, digging his fingers into her arms. "That's not it at all."

"You're going to leave me, aren't you?" Phoenix shrieked. "I knew it! You've been looking for the opportunity to get rid of me and now these witches have given you one." Phoenix jerked her chin on Piper. "How dare you! How dare you steal another woman's husband? You're married yourself. How would like it if–?"

"What?! You're crazy if–" Piper shouted.

"Phoenix, calm down," Zankou urged. "Your imagination is running away–"

"Get out! Get out before I kick you out." Phoenix added a touch of madness to her voice that almost scared herself. "I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of leaving me, you bastard. I'm throwing you out." Phoenix dragged herself out of Zankou's grip and rounded on Piper, putting the full force of her mock ire into her eyes. "Take him, witch. You wanted him, now you're stuck with him. Get out of my sight. Both of you! And take your ring with you!"

Phoenix tugged a ring from her finger and threw it at her husband, who caught it deftly. She jerked her arms high, transporting Zankou and Piper back to the Manor, then folded her hands in front of her and smiled.

"Okay, Zanky. It's over to you darling," she spoke to the empty space where he had stood. "But don't be too long about it. I don't like an empty bed."

oOo

More Deceiver to come.