Chapter 3

The financial advisor pushed the end button on his cell phone and pulled a pillow under the crook of his arm. During his phone conversation, he must have stated one of David's key words or phrases to arrest David's consciousness as it moved through a burst of over a thousand visits in search of insider information. Timothy Bingham didn't look like he'd be of any use to David, though. He wasn't in his office or occupied with a business meeting. He was naked on a bed. As a financial advisor, Bingham was at the low end of the usefulness scale. The local stockbroker occasionally provided David with a confirming opinion but had never been the source of prime information.

Just as David's consciousness prepared to take flight and move to the next advisor, a door opened and a woman stepped inside the room. Light streaming into the bedroom from behind her backlit her form. Normally, David would have ignored the upcoming event and moved on. He'd seen so many men and woman get it on that watching the sex act had become passé to him. Not this time. The nude female grabbed his entire attention.

She walked toward the bed with a fluid glide, a tawny graceful and controlled spring to her step, a regal move that only women with superbly developed and coordinated muscles could achieve. Her body was unbelievably erotic and exciting, tight and hard, yet exquisitely feminine. The firm flesh of her torso counterbalanced her large, proud breasts - the first truly large breasts David had ever appreciated. They were round and perfectly shaped with pinkish areolas and hard, little rosy nipples that took his breath away; that is, if he'd been breathing.

She reached the side of the bed, and her luminously inquisitive green eyes gazed at Bingham with all the detachment of a Siamese cat. Gleaming golden hair fell down beyond her sensuously rounded shoulders.

"Nora, you're exquisite," Bingham said.

David agreed with him. Nora. He liked the sound of her name, a Latin name meaning... He searched his memory, which was more acute during his trips, and recalled Nora meant honor or light. She'd certainly lit up his journey, and she did have an aura about her. The surface of her silky skin glowed. Honorable? He wouldn't know, not until he knew her better, and at that moment, David vowed he would get to know her almost as well as she knew herself. The look of her attracted him more than any other woman he'd ever met during a flight or in person.

He'd become enamored with other women he'd met on trips, even followed up and met them while in his body, but as he continued to connect with them, they disappointed him for some reason or other, like Claire. Would Nora disappoint him, too?

"Tim, I need to go," Nora said.

David fell in love with her voice, a low voice for a female, reminiscent of a young Kathryn Hepburn.

"I know. Me, too."

When she dropped one knee to the bed and leaned forward onto her hands, David gasped. Nora spun her head around. "What was that?"

"What do you mean?" the stockbroker asked.

"Didn't you hear that noise?"

Tim grimaced. "Oh that. Yeah, I heard a noise. Probably just a cat or something outside."

David gasped because her graceful move had exposed her beautiful muff. Nora had the largest clitoris David had ever seen, and he'd seen a lot of them during his flights of consciousness. His imaginary mouth drooled imaginary saliva. He wanted desperately to swoop down and give this elegant female a psychic suck, wanted to taste her fluids, wanted to check out the flavor of her velvety tanned skin, wanted to feel the texture of her areolas and nipples on his lips and tongue. Most of all, he wanted to kiss her, a gentle, tender kiss, a kiss that he'd deepen until it became romantic and finally turn into a mind-blowing kiss that expressed the intense passion he was feeling.

His imaginary cock was as hard as it had ever been.

As she knee-walked across the bed to the stockbroker, a normally awkward movement she somehow made graceful and regal, David noticed she was tan all over. She either sunbathed in the nude or frequented a tanning studio. He watched as she leaned and kissed the man, wishing she were kissing him instead.

Was Nora Tim's wife? Fiancée? Committed lover?

As David watched, she backed away from the embrace and started to dress. Bingham watched her dress, too. After all, he wasn't stupid. As they talked, David discovered they were old and dear friends, lovers from the past who occasionally used each other to quench sexual thirsts without commitment, although David sensed the stockbroker would be delighted with a more committed arrangement.

Nora Patterson was single, a lawyer and a special agent for the FBI.

Interesting, David thought. Yes, Nora Patterson, I will definitely get to know you better, much better.

Dagnabit, Steve grumbled to himself. Another loss, the third in a row.

He belonged to an investment group consisting of hundreds of doctors. The group invested in startup companies, and when they hit, they hit big, but Steve hadn't invested in a company that had survived yet. Six months back, along with twenty-four other doctors, he invested $10,000 in an Internet venture. Because he'd lost his money in two previous investments, Steve investigated the opportunity thoroughly, looking at it from every angle, and a few angles he dreamed up that didn't even exist. He'd driven his colleagues up the wall with his questions and concerns, but in the end, he'd committed the funds. That morning, he'd been informed that the venture would declare bankruptcy within a few days.

The problem, he'd decided, boiled down to his limited funds. He couldn't invest in $100,000 increments, not like some of the older, established doctors in the group. The larger ventures supposedly carried less risk than those that accepted smaller investment increments. He resolved to drop out of the investment club, at least until he could afford to buy into the larger, safer investments.

"What's the matter, sweetheart?" Darla asked. "Did you lose a patient?" Darla had noticed whenever one of her husband's patients didn't make it that he'd dig himself a deep whole and jump into it for a few days.

"No. I lost the $10,000 I invested in that dot com. It's closing its doors this week."

"Ah, honey, I'm sorry. The investment looked so promising, too." She shrugged. "Win some, lose some."

"I'd be happy with one meager win." He told her what happened, why he believed it happened, and his decision to drop out of the investment club.

A shame, she thought. She knew Steve enjoyed the club meetings, really looked forward to them each month, but from what she'd observed, doctors were notoriously poor investors. They put too much trust in each other and believed the exaggerated returns some of them boasted about that gave the others grandiose expectations.

"May I make a suggestion, honey?" Dagnabit, as Steve always says, I should have told him about my money ages ago.

"Sure."

"The next time you plan to invest, ask David to check out the company. Better yet, give David the money and have him invest it for you. You won't have as much fun as you do meeting with your cronies once a month, but you won't lose your money, either."

"I didn't know David acted as a financial advisor."

"He doesn't. He's an investor. He..."

"I know. I know. He started with $3,000 when he was sixteen, and now he's worth millions."

Darla laughed. "All true, but what I planned to say was if we asked him nicely, he'd probably help us. Shame on you, Dr. Stephen White. You're jealous. Does David wield a scalpel and repair body parts? No. He's an investor. Besides being Super Surgeon, do you think you can also be Super Investor? Get a grip, bubba. You can't be Super Everything. No one can. Be happy with Super Surgeon, Super Husband, and Super Daddy, and let David handle your money. That's what David does best. He's a fulltime, professional investor. If he needed a body part repaired, he'd sure as dickens come to you."

Steve looked sheepish. "You've got a point." Point or not, Steve had always resented David's success and David and Darla's close relationship. Steve sensed his wife respected her brother more than she respected him, and Steve needed more than respect. He needed adoration. His mother adored him, and he expected the same adoration from his wife. To Steve's mind, a wife should cater to her husband's every want and need. That's why he'd insisted Darla quit her job in public relations and become a housewife. She'd defied him, though, had continued to work until she became pregnant. The first few months of her pregnancy had been the happiest time of their marriage. Lately, he'd noticed she seemed to care more about the child growing in her womb than him, and the new wrinkle had become another source of irritation.

"Yeah, I do. Do you want to ask David, or would you like me to do the asking?"

She's pushing me, he thought. He hated being pushed. "I'll call him, but not right away. I don't have any extra funds to invest right..."

"Sure you do. You've accumulated a few thousand since your last investment to put against your next, and what about the $5,000 you put in mutual funds as a college fund for our little darlin'?"

"But..."

"How much money did the mutual fund make for little darlin' last month? No, don't tell me. I already know. It lost money last month, like most every other mutual fund in the market. It's a lousy market, and the fund managers work the averages, so when the averages are down, so are the mutual funds. I'm no investor, sweet cheeks, but I can hear the television from the kitchen while I'm putting dinner together."

She took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. "David didn't lose any money last month, and if David didn't lose any money I didn't lose any, either. According to my monthly report, I made a bunch." She tried not to laugh, but his expression tickled her, and a chuckle pushed through her lips. "Shocked you, huh? You didn't know I had money in the market. Well, I do. A lot of it. David handles my money, has since he was sixteen when he invested my college fund along with his. He's kept my slice of the pie separate all these years, too, and Mom gives me a written report on my portfolio every month. Wanna see it?"

"Dagnabit, why have you kept this to yourself? Don't you trust... ?"

"I'd trust you with my life if I were sick. I have complete, unwavering trust in your love for me. I trust you to be a great daddy for our little darlin'. I trust you more than anyone I know, so don't give me any bull crap about trust. When it comes to my money, I trust David. Live with it, bubba." She laughed heartily. "You've gotta live with it. Technically my money is our money. I didn't ask you to sign a prenup, did I? Wanna see the report, or not?"

Steve pursed his lips, but finally nodded. Inwardly furious, he felt compelled to view the report. At last he'd discovered a possible reason why Darla refused to acknowledge that she was dependent - another source of irritation.

"It's in my desk in the kitchen in a file marked Monthly Report. I don't wanna get up. Would you mind?" He's pissed, but he'll get over it. Super Investor indeed!

He retuned moments later, reading the file while he walked. "Judas H. Priest! You're a multi-millionaire!" He couldn't decide whether to be angry or exulted.

"Nope. We're multi-millionaires. Neat, huh? Wanna spend some of it on big-boy toys like David? Feel free? Like I said, it's your money, too. I have only one request, sweet cheeks. No, it's not a request; it's a condition. You will not take money out of our portfolio and invest it otherwise on your own or with another financial advisor. Any money in our portfolio stays in the portfolio under David's care unless we want to spend some of it. If you still want to invest with your cronies with money you earn, go ahead. I could care less. I know you enjoyed the monthly meetings. If they're important to you and give you pleasure, go for it. What the hell? Like I said. Win some, lose some."

"Multi-millionaire!" Bitch! Telling me what I can do and what I can't.

"Your record's stuck, bubba. I know you have something in mind. What big-boy toy have you always wanted? Come on. Fess up."

He blushed. An unbidden memory from his childhood had surfaced.

"Spit it out, sweetheart."

His eyes glazed over with pleasure as he stared off into the distance. "I've always wanted a horse." He turned to her and blushed again.