Ritual Sins

by Anne Stuart

  “Running away?” he murmured, staring into the fire, his long hair a wet swathe down his back.

  Fear was one thing. Pride was another.

  “No,” she said. Moving after him, still keeping her distance.

  “Just as well,” he murmured, squatting in front of the fire. “I locked the door.”

  She’d just managed to calm some of her nerves when they began screaming again. “Why?”

  “So no one would interrupt us.”

  She swallowed, grateful that the shadowy room would hide her sudden blush. “I thought you said there were no locked doors at Santa Dolores?”

  His grin was far from saintlike. “Except for mine. So, did Calvin tell you all my dark secrets?”

  “No.”

  He sank down in front of the fire, cross-legged. “Why not? Didn’t you ask him? He could have told you how we met in prison. He could have told you about my childhood.”

  “I don’t give a damn about your childhood.”

  “No? You don’t want to hear about the poor, abused, motherless child who grew up with his old man beating on him every time he had too much to drink? Except that he wasn’t really my old man, which was part of the problem.” He looked at her expectantly.

  “You don’t sound particularly traumatized,” she said.

  “Some of us move past our deprived childhood,” he murmured, and there was no missing his meaning.

  “You think I had a deprived childhood?” He was luring her closer, she knew it, but she couldn’t help herself. The glow of the firelight against his skin was pagan, mysterious, but it drew her, despite the danger.

  “I think so, yes,” he said. “Or at least you’re convinced of it, no matter how much money you had at your fingertips, no matter that your life was never in danger. You’re feeling put upon and resentful that life has handed you a few hard knocks, and you want to make me pay for it.” His enigmatic smile was far from reassuring. “Are you going to come here and sit down or are you going to try to break down the door?”

  She had no real choice. She knelt down beside the fire, well out of his reach. “What would happen if I screamed for help?”

  “A dozen people would come running. Though I don’t know why you should. I’m not keeping you here. You came to Santa Dolores of your own free will. You’re here with me because you wanted to be. If you want to leave, ask me, and I’ll open the door for you.”

  “I’ll stay,” she said, wary. “If you promise not to touch me.”

  “Why are you afraid of being touched?”

  “I’m not,” she said. A bald-faced lie.

  “Not afraid of being touched? Then that means you’re afraid of me.”

  “No.”

  “No?” His voice was soft, musical, a weapon of desperate power. “Then come here.”

  He was closer than she realized, so close she could see the droplets of water on his eyelashes. He had long eyelashes, dark, almost hiding his eyes. “No,” she said.

  “Answer my question.” His voice was low and insistent. “Why are you afraid of being touched?”

  “I’m not afraid. I just don’t like it.”

  “Anyone’s touch? Or just mine?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” she said with a bitter laugh. “I don’t like anyone touching me. Putting their hands on me, trying to make me do things, pretending to care about me …” She let her voice trail off, knowing she’d already revealed too much. She went on the attack. “And why don’t you like being touched?”

  He didn’t flinch. “What makes you think I don’t?”

  “Catherine told me no one was allowed to touch you. Your celibacy extends beyond sexual matters, you keep yourself aloof from any human intimacy. No hugs, no touching, no handshakes even.”

  “No caresses, no kisses,” he added, his voice soft and wickedly seductive. “It’s my choice.”

  “Why?”

  The smile that twisted his mouth was a far cry from Luke’s usual saintly beauty. “Because I like power. The more I withhold from the people here, the more they crave. The more they’re willing to follow me, sacrifice everything for me. Because I’m untouchable, everyone wants to touch me. It obsesses them.”

  She stared at him in shock. “You admit that?”

  “Of course,” he said. “What harm will it do? Everyone knows you’re here to try to hurt me. No one would believe you if you told them the truth.”

  “And what is the truth? Are you some new age messiah or are you just a phenomenally accomplished con man?”

  “The very fact that you still have doubts is reassuring. You think it’s possible I’m really a spiritual leader?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “You’ve already admitted you aren’t.”

  “I haven’t admitted a thing. That’s the problem, Rachel. You don’t understand the basic tenets beneath the Foundation of Being. No one is supposed to be a saint. We all have our failings, our weaknesses, our character defects.”

  “Your sins,” she said flatly.

  “There’s that word again,” he murmured. “You don’t have any sins? It must be nice to be perfect in an imperfect world.”

  “Your followers think you’re perfect. They think you’re some sort of god.”

  “And what do you think, Rachel?”

  She hadn’t realized how close they were. She scrambled to her feet, desperate to put some distance between them. “I think you’re a menace.”

  “Only to those who are vulnerable. Are you vulnerable?” He rose, a fluid motion, and there was no escape. “Do you think I can hurt you?”

  “No,” she said, her voice stubborn. It would be useless to run for the door. It was locked, he’d told her.

  “Yes,” he said.

  And he moved closer.

  9

  He wasn’t that close to her, she told herself. Not close enough to touch, not close enough to feel his breath stirring her hair. And yet he was there, all around her, a seductive menace, intruding, snatching away her safety.

  “Poor little rich girl,” he murmured, his voice lightly mocking. “You’re so damned angry you want to hit something. You want to hit me, don’t you?”

  Rachel’s back was pressed up against the wall. She could feel her heart thudding wildly in her chest, she couldn’t breathe, all she could do was stare up into his watchful, enigmatic eyes.

  “What are you afraid of? What do you think I can do to you? Do you think I’ve got supernatural powers, the ability to cloud people’s minds and make them my slaves?”

  “You seem to have a certain amount of success doing just that,” she said in a shaky voice.

  “Do I?”

  “You know you do.” She was trying desperately to muster her defiance. “You can have anyone you want eating out of your hand.”

  “I can’t have you.”

  He was too close. The words were almost a whisper in that hypnotic voice of his.

  She forced herself to look up at him, searching for dispassion in her angry, frightened soul. He was quite astonishingly beautiful, if one were to be swayed by surface impressions. His gray-blue eyes were deep and mesmerizing, his mouth oddly unsettling as it hovered much too close to hers. “You don’t want me,” she said flatly. “You just want to … want to …”

  “To what? Conquer you? Destroy you? Seduce you?”

  The last possibility was the most frightening, enough so that she fought back. “You’re like all men, you want to prove your superiority. Well, I concede the point. You’re very gifted at demoralizing people.”

  “Am I demoralizing you? Stripping away all those prudish inhibitions you wear around your body like an iron corset?”

  “How has this gotten to be about sex?” she snapped at him, still fighting.

  “Oh, Rachel,” he murmured in his low, seductive voice, “it’s always been about sex.” He pressed his forehead against hers, and that touch alone paralyzed her. “Didn’t you know that? It’s why you’re so terrified.”

  “I�
��m not—” she began, but he cut her off.

  “Close your eyes,” he whispered, and his voice sank into her bones. “Stop fighting, just for a little while. It won’t hurt, I promise. Just lean back against the wall and let go.”

  She was tempted. Oh, God, she was so tempted. She closed her eyes, her fierce will helpless against the siren lure of his voice.

  “There’s peace here, Rachel. No more battles. Life has been a battle for you, but you don’t have to fight any longer. You can just let go. Surrender. You can’t win all the battles. You can’t slay all the dragons. Let someone else do it for you. Just this once.”

  The tone of his voice was even more evocative than his words, and she felt herself slipping, against her will, her skin tingling with longing and awareness.

  “You can have it, Rachel. No more fear. No more anger. You can just let go. Can you feel it? The peace flowing through your body? Melting the hurt, washing it away, so that you’re floating, free. Can you feel the healing begin? The wholeness spreading through your body?”

  She couldn’t open her eyes. She was helpless beneath the spell of his voice. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, trapped in some wicked, sensual web that she didn’t want to escape.

  “Do I have you yet, Rachel? Do I own you, body and soul?”

  She wanted to say yes. More than anything she’d ever wanted in her life, she wanted to say yes. But her voice wouldn’t work, wouldn’t say the damning words. She forced her eyes to open, to look into his startlingly cynical ones.

  “Bullshit,” she said, and the mood was shattered.

  His mouth curved in a wry smile, but he didn’t back away. She was still trapped between the wall and his lean, graceful body. “You’re a challenge, Rachel,” he murmured.

  “Is this how you get your followers?” she demanded in a shaky voice. “By trying to hypnotize them?”

  “Only the stubborn ones. And you’ll be pleased to know you’re my first failure. Though for a while I almost had you.”

  “I’m immune to you,” she said.

  It was a mistake. They both knew that she wasn’t. “Should I make you eat your words? I could, you know. Quite easily.”

  This time she was smart enough to keep quiet. If he was disappointed that she wouldn’t rise to his bait, he didn’t show it.

  He leaned closer, and his lips brushed the side of her face as he whispered in her ear. “Run away.”

  She couldn’t move. She realized she was so tense with fear she felt paralyzed, and a strange aching stirred in the pit of her stomach. She closed her eyes, and she could feel the cool dampness of his cheek against hers.

  “The door’s not locked, Rachel. Run away.”

  Easier said than done, and he knew it, she thought bitterly. To escape, she’d have to touch him. She’d have to put her hands on him, willingly, and shove him away. That in itself was almost beyond her capabilities.

  “Back off,” she said in a fierce voice, her eyes still tightly shut.

  She could sense the sudden stillness in his body. Sense his amusement as well as he stepped away from her, freeing her.

  She could breathe again. She opened her eyes to glare at him. “I don’t like touching people,” she said. “I don’t like being touched. I don’t like kissing, I don’t like hugging, I don’t like men, and I don’t like sex. And I certainly don’t like you.”

  There was an odd gravity in his face as he digested her angry words. “I could teach you to,” he said simply.

  She looked at him, at this man she hated enough to kill, and knew it was the truth. And that was the most terrifying thing of all.

  “I’m leaving,” she said.

  He nodded, as if expecting it.

  “Nor just your august company. I’m leaving Santa Dolores.”

  That managed to get a reaction out of him. “I didn’t realize it would be so easy,” he murmured. “I thought you were a more worthy adversary.”

  It was a battle between pride and fear, and fear won. “She who fights and runs away lives to fight another day,” she said with mock flippancy.

  “Then I haven’t won?”

  “Not by a long shot,” she said. “This is just a tiny skirmish.”

  His smile was devastating. Rachel stared at him in stunned disbelief. It was no wonder people were lining up to hand their fortunes over to him. For the sake of that glorious smile she might almost be tempted herself.

  Except that he already had her fortune. And the last thing to tempt her was a man’s smile. Particularly this man.

  “Most people aren’t allowed back at Santa Dolores if they leave too soon,” he said idly.

  She paused at the door, turning to look at him. “But you’ll let me come back,” she said.

  He smoothly covered what she thought might have been surprise. “Of course.”

  He paused. “And then I’ll seduce your mind and soul until you’re completely helpless. And then I’ll fuck your body and your heart until all you can do is cry for more. I’ll make you like it, Rachel. I’ll make you need it.”

  She slammed the door behind her as she ran down the deserted hallway, half expecting to hear his laughter following her. She was covered in a cold sweat by the time she reached her room, and she barely made it to the bathroom in time before she was thoroughly sick.

  When she was finished she collapsed on the cool tile floor, shivering in reaction. It hadn’t been that bad in a long time. It had never been that bad. And unwanted, the memories came flooding back.

  Some children were lucky enough to blot it all out. Create a nice, safe blank spot in their minds, forget anything ever happened. Forget the shame and the guilt, forget the disgust and the anger. The feel of those soft, plump hands, touching her, stroking her. The sound of his voice, calling her a good little girl, his precious baby girl.

  Damn his soul to hell! And damn Stella too, for not believing her, for ignoring her third husband’s miserable looks as she slapped Rachel across the face and called her a liar. That much lingered in her nightmares.

  The names Stella had called her hadn’t made much sense then. A lying little tramp was one of the milder epithets, all the while Garrison protested that she was being too harsh on the poor girl.

  But Rachel preferred Stella’s slaps to Garrison’s surreptitious caresses. And exile to Miss Elvin’s School for Girls was safety, at least for a while. Until Stella had moved on to husband number four.

  She’d tried sex once, with the brother of a college friend, and hated it. She never wanted to try it again. Even now, the memory of Larry’s slightly drunken instructions made her stomach knot in dread.

  And now here was Luke Bardell. Liar, thief, murderer, looking at her, taunting her, threatening her with just what terrified her the most.

  She pulled herself up to a sitting position, leaning against the open doorway. Someone had lit a small oil lamp, leaving it on her dresser, and she could see the spartan confines of her cell. The narrow bed with its plain white sheets. White cotton, like the loose clothes that Luke wore. She could see him lying in that narrow bed, covered only by the sheets. She could see herself there as well, trapped beneath him, helpless to escape.

  The low, wailing sound startled her, until she realized it came from her own throat. She pushed herself up, holding on to the sink for a moment as she pulled herself together. She brushed her teeth and splashed water on her face, trying to calm the shakiness that was tearing her apart.

  It took her five minutes to throw all her clothes into her suitcase. She had no idea what time it was, and she didn’t care. The hell with waiting—she wasn’t going to spend one more night under that roof. He was getting too close, he knew her weaknesses and her fears too well.

  By the time she returned she’d be ready to nail him. Her defenses would be back in place like a suit of armor. Her main mistake had been to underestimate him in the first place. She thought she was immune to his seductive beauty—she’d been immune to everyone else she’d met in her life.

>   But she hadn’t counted on Luke’s particular gift. No ordinary man would be capable of drawing hundreds and thousands of followers, both those at the center and those suckered in across the country. Charisma, she thought coldly. A simple trick of nature she didn’t know how to combat. For now, she had no choice but to run.

  Luke pushed the button on the cellular phone, severing the connection. She would be allowed to leave. They would have a taxi waiting for her by the time she emerged from her room, and he knew she’d head straight for the airport.

  She was running, scared shitless, a fact that amused him. He hadn’t realized that beneath all that spoiled anger how very frightened she was. He hadn’t suspected she was frigid either, despite Stella’s mocking comments.

  It would make his triumph all the more delicious. He no longer had any doubts about whether he’d take her to bed. He wanted her, it was that simple, and he was tired of ignoring his basic urges just for the sake of the power he accumulated.

  And the challenge, already powerful, had now become irresistible. A frigid, angry, spoiled young woman, lying in his bed purring with helpless pleasure.

  There was only one problem with it. He wasn’t sure he was prepared to wait patiently for her return. He’d spent too damned long as a saint, and serenity was a highly overrated commodity. He wanted her, and he wanted her now. On her back, on her knees. Any way he could take her.

  Where would she go? According to Stella, she had no other relatives except a handful of ex-stepfathers, and none of them had been particularly paternal. Would she go back to New York, find another job, try to forget about her brief sojourn in New Mexico?

  If she had any sense of self-preservation she would. But she didn’t strike Luke as the self-preserving type. She wouldn’t let go of her anger, admit defeat, and get on with her life.

  She’d be looking for new ways to beat him.

  He wondered how long it would take her to find Coffin’s Grove.

  “Bobby Ray tells me that Rachel is gone, Alfred,” Catherine said, patting her wispy gray hair.

  Alfred looked up from his paperwork, his troubled face a perfect match for his dove-gray clothing. “I’m not sure that solves our problem.”