Ritual Sins

by Anne Stuart

  “For a walk in the garden,” she said after a long moment. “I’m having trouble sleeping. Do you have a problem with that?”

  With Bobby Ray lying in wait. “Yes, I have a problem with that,” he said softly.

  “All right. Then back off and I’ll go back to my room.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean that I’d feel better if I kept you with me.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Too bad.”

  She glared up at him. “I don’t want to be with you,” she said in a loud, clear voice.

  “Then why did you come back here?”

  “Not for your dubious physical charms,” she snapped.

  He couldn’t help it, he laughed. He knew it would only enrage her further, but rage kept her off balance. Besides, he preferred her anger to her fear.

  “It’s a package deal,” he said. “I am the Foundation of Being. Make up your mind, Rachel. It’s your choice. Do you want to sleep with Catherine, or do you want to sleep with me?”

  Her reaction fascinated him. He was an experienced fighter, all his life he’d had to defend himself in schools and alleyways and bars and prisons. He felt her muscles tense a bare second before she went for him, mistakenly hoping the element of surprise would enable her to escape.

  Instead her knee glanced painlessly on the outside of his thigh. He caught her flailing fists in one hand, threading the other through her hair and yanking her against him, pinning her between his body and the wall. “Are we going to have a wrestling match, Rachel?” he whispered in her ear.

  “I’m going to kill you,” she panted furiously.

  “Is that what they want you to do?”

  She froze.

  “Shit,” he said. And then he dragged her, kicking and struggling, down the deserted hallway to his rooms, one hand over her mouth to muffle her furious screams. Not that he thought anyone would come to her aid if they heard her, but he wasn’t sure how badly things had deteriorated. He was a supremely dirty infighter, a believer in taking any unfair advantage he could find, but he wasn’t sure how good a match he was for Bobby Ray Shatney’s homicidal insanity.

  He didn’t even pause in the outer room. Clamping her flailing body against his, he pushed the buttons that released the secret door, and the moment it slid open he shoved her through, so that she went sprawling on the huge bed. He risked turning his back on her as he punched in the security code, but she’d temporarily lost her fight, too astonished to do more than stare around her in shock.

  He leaned against the panel and looked at her. He liked seeing her on that bed, where no one had ever lain except him. Her face was pale, her hair wild, and he was so damned hot he had to keep very still so that he wouldn’t dive onto the bed with her. He needed answers first. And he was going to get them from her, by any means he could.

  “This is a secure room,” he said. “Soundproofed, locked. There’s no way anyone can get in, no way you can get out unless I choose to let you, and no way anyone can hear you.”

  She rallied, as he knew she would, scrambling into a sitting position on the rumpled white sheets. “So no one can hear if you murder me.”

  He closed his eyes for a brief, weary moment. “I’m getting sick and tired of you accusing me of murder. Frankly there are times when I’d like nothing more than to wring your neck. You’re annoying, you know that? You’re paranoid, humorless, irritating, and too damned skinny.”

  “That’s hardly any reason to kill me.”

  “Exactly. For some strange reason I don’t make a habit of killing people, even those who irritate me. I don’t make a habit of sleeping with them either, but you seem to be an exception.”

  “Why are people dying of cancer?” she asked suddenly, as if afraid of his answer.

  He blinked, momentarily confused. “How the hell should I know? Ask a doctor, ask Alfred, don’t ask me. I suppose it’s a combination of genetics and environment and God knows what else. Why? Are you afraid you’re going to get what your mother had?”

  She was staring at him like he had two heads. “I mean why are so many people at the retreat dying?”

  He couldn’t move. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Why do healthy, rich people show up here, get diagnosed with cancer, and then die, leaving all their money to the Foundation?”

  “Just lucky,” he snapped.

  “Are you part of it?”

  “Part of what?”

  “Do Waterston and Catherine follow your orders? Was it your idea to convince these people that they were dying, to hack away at their bodies with drugs and radiation and needless surgery until they died? Did you kill my mother?” Her voice rose to an anguished cry, and her eyes were haunted.

  At that moment he didn’t give a flying fuck about her eyes. “You’re as crazy as Bobby Ray Shatney,” he said flatly.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Bobby Ray Shatney is a grade-A nutcase. He slaughtered his entire family when he was thirteen, insisting Satan told him to do it. I believe he ended up drinking their blood. He wasn’t tried as an adult, and he got out four years ago when he was eighteen with a clean record. He’s been here ever since, and Alfred keeps him suitably drugged so he’s no danger to anyone. Or at least, he used to be.”

  “He told me about the people dying.”

  “And you believed him?” Luke scoffed.

  “Yes. I still do.”

  And the damnable thing was, so did he. It all made a horrible kind of sense. The growing list of people who had died so damned quickly of sudden, virulent cancer. His own willing agreement that Alfred should help them along at the end, to finish their unnecessary suffering.

  “Fuck it,” he said in a low, sick voice, turning away from her. Now he was the one who wanted to puke his guts out, as he saw the faces, the hands that he held as death claimed them, the scores of people who died because of his greed.

  He’d sworn he would never kill again. Jackson’s stinking corpse haunted his dreams. And now he had countless souls on his conscience.

  She’d risen, approaching him tentatively. He could feel her standing behind him, too close, and he wanted to lash out. “You really didn’t know, did you?” Her voice was infinitely gentle. He hadn’t thought she was capable of it.

  He reached for the door panel and began to push buttons. “Get out of here, Rachel. Now.”

  But she put her hand over his, stopping him, and he let her. “They’re going to kill you,” she said. “I overheard Catherine and Alfred talking when I was in the storeroom. They’re afraid you’re going to abandon the center, and they need a martyr.”

  He turned to look at her, leaning against the heavy door. She looked different. Troubled, not so sure of herself anymore. “That should suit you just fine then, sugar,” he drawled. “Haven’t you wanted me dead for ages?”

  “Don’t!”

  “Don’t?” he mocked, pushing her. “Not quite so bloodthirsty when it comes right down to it, are you? No longer so interested in seeing my head on a pike? Or are you just afraid your head’s going to be alongside of mine?”

  “I don’t care about you.”

  “Of course you don’t,” he said, moving away from the wall, watching her back away from him. “You don’t care about anyone or anything. So why did you come back? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you want me to lay you down on that bed and put my mouth between your legs again.”

  “I don’t!”

  He smiled, a slow, dark smile. “That’s good, sugar. Because I’m not going to do it. This time it’s your turn. You’re going to use your mouth on me. You’re going to be on top, and I’m to watch you as you take my cock inside you. I’m going to watch your face when you come.”

  She stared at him.

  “Want to run,” he said softly, “Or do you want what you really came for?”

&nbs
p; She didn’t even glance at the door panel behind him. “Sex is a game to you, isn’t it? Some sick, twisted game of domination and victory?”

  “No,” he said in a slow, deep voice, letting desire take over his body, washing everything else away. “It’s much more simple than that. It’s about pleasure. It’s about sweat and come and bodies rubbing up against each other; it’s about aching and hurting deep inside and then finally feeling whole. It’s about love and a dark kind of joy that you can only begin to imagine. You’re the one who sees it as a battle. You’re the one who sees it as sick.”

  She stared at him, mesmerized. “Love?” she said, unerringly picking out the word as he knew she would. “What the hell has this got to do with love?”

  “Get on the bed,” he said, “and I’ll show you.”

  It was too much to hope for twice in a row. She just stood there at the end of the bed, and he came right up to her and began to unfasten the stupid ties of her cotton clothing. He wanted to rip it off her, but the cotton was strong and he didn’t want to hurt her. She didn’t stop him, she just looked up at him out of somber eyes.

  She didn’t look quite so scrawny when he pushed the tunic off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. Her ribs didn’t stand out as sharply, and her breasts were fuller. He wondered idly if she was pregnant. He didn’t think so. He wondered if he could make her pregnant tonight.

  “You’ve gained weight,” he said. “You must have been eating.” He slipped his hands inside her drawstring pants and pushed them down her legs. He’d done this before, when she was unconscious, lying like a virgin sacrifice in the main audience room. The drugs had left her responsive, dreaming, and the pleasure he’d taken in her body had haunted him ever since. Until he’d finally had her beneath him in the back of that broken-down van, scratching his back and weeping with pleasure and sorrow.

  “I’m not pregnant,” she said, her voice shaky.

  “I didn’t think you were.” He didn’t touch her naked body, much as he wanted to. Instead he cupped her face, tilting it up to look at his. “I want to make you pregnant.”

  Her eyes lowered for a moment, then lifted. “Yes,” she said.

  She stood in front of him, naked, willing, and he didn’t give a shit about anyone else.

  He kissed her, so very gently, and her mouth was soft, lifting to his, pliant. She slid her arms around his neck, drawing him closer to her, and he had no doubt she could feel him pressing against her. He’d been waiting for this for so damned long he wasn’t sure if he cared what she did. Right then he wanted to push her down on the bed, free his cock, and shove it in her. He wanted to fuck her like an animal, hard, merciless, intent. Everything she was afraid of. Everything he needed.

  “Get on the bed,” he said hoarsely, amazed to realize how very tenuous was his self-control. “I won’t hurt you. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”

  She looked up at him and for a moment he couldn’t read her expression. It took him a moment to recognize it, because it was entirely new to her. There was a definite glint of amusement in her eyes. “But that’s half the fun,” she whispered, brushing her mouth against his.

  He almost lost it then. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him—he’d endured celibacy for a hell of a lot longer than the few days since he’d been between Rachel Connery’s legs, and he felt as helpless as a fifteen-year-old in sight of his first piece of tail.

  Or more so. He wanted her more than he’d wanted Lureen O’Meara; he wanted her more than he’d wanted anyone in his entire life. She was looking at him as if she could read his mind.

  “What do you want from me, Rachel?” he asked suddenly.

  She took a step back, up against the low bed, and her voice was oddly calm. “What you promised me,” she said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “Love,” she said. “And a baby.” And she waited for him to come closer.

  22

  He didn’t make a move toward her. Everything had tilted sideways in the last few hours. All Rachel had ever believed had been knocked out from under her. She looked at Luke and tried to imagine the villain, the murderer, the heartless, ruthless con man.

  He looked weary. He looked lost. He looked unutterably sexy, and she knew she wanted him. Knew it with a certain calmness and delight. She wanted to touch him, kiss him, take him. The thought of sex with anyone else still filled her with bone-shaking disgust, but with Luke it was different. It was that simple, and that complicated.

  Love, he’d said, when he thought she wouldn’t pick up on it. She had, of course. He wasn’t a man capable of love, and she shouldn’t expect it of him. She wasn’t even sure she believed in it. And yet, deep inside, beyond cynicism or rationality, she felt it. The tie between them, crazy and fiercely strong. It made no sense, but it was there, burning through her fears, burning through his distance. It was there, and there was no breaking it apart.

  His loose cotton tunic tied at the waist. Her fingers fumbled as she unfastened it, but he made no effort to help her. He just watched her out of hooded eyes, no expression on his face. The room was dark, lit only by the flickering light from the wall of black and white television monitors. The bed behind them was huge, low, covered with rumpled white sheets and nothing else. White. Everything pure and white in this place of unutterable evil.

  She pulled the shirt off him, staring at his chest in the dim light. She didn’t know whether his physical beauty made things easier or more difficult. He had a lean, strong body, covered with golden skin, a flat stomach, and subtly defined muscles. His long hair was swept behind his back, but his eyes were cool and mesmerizing, watching her, daring her, and she wished she could back off, lie down and close her eyes and think of England. Wasn’t that what he had taunted her with?

  She put her hands on his chest, tentatively, letting her fingers trace the curve of muscle that patterned him. He let out the faintest of sounds, but his expression didn’t change, and he held himself very still as her hands danced across his hot, sleek skin.

  She wanted to taste it. Without thinking she leaned forward and put her mouth against his nipple, using her tongue. He jerked, then stilled again, but she could feel the sudden racing of his heart as she slid her tongue against him.

  She kissed his stomach, feeling the tightness of the muscles beneath her mouth. The drawstring pants rode low on his narrow hips, and she put her hands on them, feeling the boniness, caressing with her fingers. He made a muffled sound, but his hands stayed at his sides, clenching, as he waited.

  She knew what he wanted her to do. She knew what he needed. She closed her eyes and pressed her face against him through the thin cotton, feeling him jerk and leap against her touch, and she let her mouth dance across the thick ridge of his erection beneath the layer of cloth.

  He swore then, and she didn’t know if it was a prayer or a curse. He lifted his hands to touch her head, to guide her, but then dropped them again. He was leaving it up to her. Her choice, no force. She kissed his hipbones above the loose waistband of the drawstring pants, slowly, lingeringly. She put her mouth against the rough hair she exposed as she pulled at his clothes. She put her lips on his sex, pushing it deep into her mouth, taking him.

  She felt his hands in her hair, gently, and it was like a benediction. She backed off slightly, tasting him, and then sank down again, and her eyes closed as his body began to tremble.

  She wanted this. She wanted him. She knelt at his feet, naked, and took him in her mouth, and everything around her faded. It came down to pure sensation, to need and longing, taste and pull, reaching and clawing, and she could feel the power build inside him, and she knew her own was beginning to match his, and when he tried to pull away from her she clutched at his hips in a desperate attempt to keep him there.

  “No,” he said in a hoarse voice, stepping back.

  She didn’t move from her position on her knees. “I want you to come in my mouth.”

  “No,” he said, and she could
see the ripple of reaction sweep up his strong, beautiful body. “Next time. If there is a next time.” He hauled her up against him, lifting her, so that her feet dangled off the floor. “That’s not the way to make a baby.”

  The bed was soft beneath her back, and he was on top of her, leaning over her, his long hair a curtain around them. She caught it in her hands and sucked it into her mouth, she pulled him down to her with it and kissed him. He put his hands over her breasts, and a tight, furious spasm of response shot through her, an unbelievable sensation that shocked and shook her. He squeezed her nipples lightly, and she cried out, convulsing, reaching for him, needing more, her body suffused in longing, in trembling, aching need as she tried to wrap her legs around him.

  “No,” he said again, a faint thread of laughter and despair in his voice. “You do it.” And he rolled over onto his back, waiting for her.

  She wanted to scream in frustration. She didn’t move, and he caught her arms and dragged her body across his, so that she straddled him, her knees on either side of his lean hips.

  She was shaking, whipped by a longing so fierce she thought she might dissolve. “Help me,” she said, trembling. “I can’t … I don’t know …”

  He caught her hips in his big hands and lifted her so she was positioned over his cock. He was huge, and she knew it. She’d taken it in her body, in her mouth. He was hot and pulsing against her, and she needed him so badly she thought she might fly apart.

  “Take me,” he said in a harsh voice. “Slowly. Don’t rush it. Don’t hurt yourself. Just sink down on me. Let your body lead you. Just slide down over me, like that. Yes … like that. Slowly … slowly now. Yes … that’s it. All the way. So deep that you can feel me in your throat. More, Rachel. Deeper. Push. God, yes!”

  She was panting, trying to control the reactions that surged through her body. She shifted, taking him in deeper still, sinking down fully onto him, and he was huge, filling her, possessing her.

  For a moment she couldn’t move. All she could do was tremble. Her body was dripping with sweat, and she could hear his words. It wasn’t about battles and fear, it was about hurt and longing and an aching that had to be filled. About love and a deep dark joy, and she needed more.