by Anne Stuart
They were dressed in white. White sheets to be exact, with hoods, eye holes cut out, and there had to be at least thirty of them, of all shapes and sizes. Even children were there, if she could judge by the height of some of the sheeted figures, and that was the most disturbing thought of all. In front of them, providing illumination, was a burning cross.
She put her hands on the bars, leaning closer, trying to make out their muffled words. The voices were garbled, threatening pseudoreligious mumbo jumbo, but the message was clear. The inhabitants of the house were a scourge upon the land and they would be wiped out by the sword and by fire before long.
She shivered, absorbing the fanatical hatred. She knew the man in front by his high-pitched fury. Pastor Lincoln leading his flock. Some were carrying torches, and she wondered if tonight was the night to perish by the flame and the sword. Or whether the threats were just part and parcel of the mob’s paranoia.
A gas can was flung from somewhere in the crowd, landing with a metallic clang and the breaking of glass. The sound was too far away for the can to have reached the house, but her increased foreboding proved justified when a torch followed, arcing across the inky dark sky and landing through the smashed windshield of her rented car.
It exploded into flame with a roar, and she stepped back, shocked and startled. Stepped back against a hard, warm figure.
“Don’t turn around,” Ethan Winslowe said, his hands coming up to clasp her shoulders.
She couldn’t have if she wanted to. He seemed immensely strong, though the pressure on her shoulders was light enough. It was the psychological pressure that was holding her in place as surely as his hard, strong hands.
She stood very still, feeling the heat and pressure from the tall body behind her, feeling the heat from the flaming car outside. Small explosions echoed in the night over the chanting crowd, as the windows blew out, the gas tank exploded and the car was engulfed in flames.
The violence of the fire seemed to have temporarily sated the angry crowd. Meg watched as they began to back away, their threats no more than mumbled rhetoric now, the torchlit figures disappearing into the fields from which they had come. Meg found herself thinking odd thoughts. How did people get to a hate-filled rally? Did they drive or did they march? Did they dress in their sheets before they set off, or did they don them just before lighting their torches?
“They’ve had enough for tonight,” Ethan murmured from behind her. “Each time they get a little more violent, a little more destructive. Sooner or later, they’re going to try to burn down this entire building.”
“Why?” It was the first time she’d spoken, and the question came out flat and prosaic.
“Didn’t you listen to them?” His voice was low and beguiling. “They think I’m the devil incarnate, and anyone who chooses to stay here is as evil as I am.”
“But I didn’t—”
“Yes, you did,” his voice overrode hers. “You spurned Pastor Lincoln’s offer of haven and cleansing. Granted, you were between a rock and a hard place, but the good people of Oak Grove don’t take that into account. They’re a superstitious, narrow-minded bunch who try to wipe out anything that goes against what they think is right and proper.”
“You could talk to them. Explain you aren’t trying to hurt them or the town.”
“I could. But why should I when it would be a lie? They know I’m out to torment them, and they’re fighting back the only way they know how.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I would have thought Joseph would have explained it all to you. They murdered my father.”
“He explained. Your father died of a heart attack—”
“He died through their neglect,” he said, interrupting her, his voice vibrating with rage. His hands were still on her shoulders, holding her in place, and she could feel the tension in them. And the faint tremor. “Besides, I’m not doing anything so very terrible to the citizens of Oak Grove. I’m providing them with a decent livelihood, and I don’t show my face around town to turn people blind and crazy.”
“What are you doing, then? Why are they so frightened and angry?”
“They’re not frightened enough,” he said, his fingers flexing gently on her shoulders. “I own most of this town. I’m deeding a large parcel of it to the Society for Psychic Research.”
“They’d think you’re importing Satan into this town,” she said, wishing he’d release her. Wishing his fingers weren’t soothing. Arousing through the oversize shirt she’d flung around her.
“How could I be when I’m already here?” he answered. “I’m just fulfilling their worst nightmares by bringing all my followers with me.”
“It’s not a joke. They really believe that,” she tried to argue, but a strange lassitude had crept over her and she found herself drifting backward, leaning against him, her shoulders against his chest, her buttocks against his hips.
“I’m not responsible for their sick delusions. That comes from generations of isolation and inbreeding.” His fingers slid beneath her loose shirt, pulling it gently over her shoulders and down her arms. “As a matter of fact, right now, I’m not worried about them at all. I don’t even want to think about them. I want to think about you.”
The people were gone, the sound of voices vanished, and even her destroyed car was nothing more than a smoldering shell. The scent of night air mixed with the faint smell of fire and a soft breeze wafted through the open window, ruffling her hair, tossing it back against the man standing so closely behind her. She leaned her head back slowly, so that it rested against his shoulder, and only for a brief moment did she wonder what was happening to her.
“That’s it,” he murmured in that deep, enchanting voice of his as his arm drew across her chest, holding her against him, gently, oh, so gently. He was much taller than she was, particularly when she was barefoot, and she felt tiny, vulnerable. She reached up to pull his arm away, but her fingers touched soft, flowing cotton and steely muscle beneath, and instead, she simply rested her hand against his arm as she closed her eyes in the darkness, no longer fighting it.
His other hand moved down her body, skimming it lightly, scarcely touching her, dancing over her skin beneath the filmy nightgown. “You shouldn’t be afraid of me, you know,” he whispered in her ear, his mouth brushing the sensitive skin beneath her ear. “I would never hurt you. Never.” He kissed her there, his lips nibbling lightly at the burning skin, and she felt herself begin to tremble.
“Ethan,” she said, her voice not much more than a strangled plea for help, and she reached up her other hand to touch him, to touch his face, but he caught it, pulling it downward with only the slightest force till it grazed the side of his thigh.
“Or is it the dark you’re afraid of?” He released her hand, letting it rest against him, and drew his own up the loose front of her nightgown, brushing against the soft cloth. “You could learn to love the darkness, my angel. You could find that’s the only time when you can be truly alive, with the soft, velvet blackness all around you, holding you, caressing you, bringing you a release you never guessed existed….” Her heart was pounding almost painfully against her chest, her skin felt prickly, and behind her, she could hear his heart beating just as quickly, feel the unmistakable hardness of his reaction to her.
“Ethan,” she said again, a plea or a surrender, she no longer knew. All she knew was that if he didn’t touch her, she’d go mad. “Please…”
“What are you asking for?” he whispered, his mouth brushing her temple beneath her tumble of hair. “Do you want to leave me, go back into the sunlight? It’s harsh out there, and burning far too brightly. Stay here in the darkness, angel. Stay with me. Give yourself to me.”
Never had she wanted anything more in her life. She felt as if she were suffocating with longing, trying to drag the breath into her lungs. She wanted to be absorbed into his very skin, to sink back into him and never surface, she wanted things she couldn’t even begin to imagine, things his body
promised, his words promised, his soft, enticing voice promised. How could she fall in love with a voice? How could she want…
“Stop fighting me, angel,” he whispered, and his hand brushed her skin, the soft, sensitized flesh of her stomach. The row of tiny buttons had disappeared and her nightgown was open to the night air. “Stop fighting yourself. Give yourself to me.” And his hand moved between her legs and touched her.
What strength she had in her legs vanished and she sagged against him. It happened with shocking speed, scarcely had his long, deft fingers found her than she dissolved, lost in a darkness of sensation and despair. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out but a strangled gasp of surprise, of release, of an astonished pleasure so intense that what little existed of reality vanished, and her last, amazed thought was that, for the first time in her life, she was going to faint.
Ethan caught her as she collapsed, lifting her high in his arms. She was so very small, so very fragile. He could see her clearly in the inky darkness, the pale, blue-veined lids closed down over her huge eyes, her mouth pale and soft.
He hadn’t had a chance to kiss that mouth. He did so now, feeling strangely guilty, but not enough to stop. He ran his tongue across her dry lips, dampening them, and then he kissed her, hard, with the full force of his passion set free while she was too insensate to be frightened by it.
Even unconscious, she responded, her mouth clinging to his, her body arching against him. He groaned deep in his throat as he reluctantly drew back. If he kept up with that, there’d be no way he’d be able to control himself. As it was, he wanted to lay her down on the polished floor beneath them and bury himself in her body. He was trembling with need, and it took every bit of his formidable self-control to keep himself from doing just that.
He wasn’t going to take her tonight, much as his body craved it. He could have her, he knew. All he had to do was carry her back to her room, strip the rest of the nightgown off her and continue what he was doing. By the time she regained consciousness, she’d be too far gone to want to stop.
But that was almost too easy. Too soon. Anticipation was a major part of the delight, and his longing, his anticipation of her was more overwhelming than any of his previous sexual experiences. He was going to have her, but the time would be perfect, the pleasure so intense that it would be worth it. Worth what would have to come next.
Worth letting her go.
DREAMS, MEG THOUGHT AS she opened her eyes to the murky daylight. They simply got weirder and weirder. It was no wonder she’d had such a strange, erotic one last night. She’d been a fool and a half to do that little strip-tease in front of the video camera. She’d wanted to taunt and torment the unseen man who watched her. She wanted to punish him. Instead, she’d taunted and tormented and punished herself.
She turned over in the bed, pulling the heavy cotton sheet around her. Her first sight was the mural, the half beast ravishing the willing maiden. Quickly, she averted her gaze. That too, had added to her peculiar dreams. She could remember most of it very clearly, from the smell of smoke to the feel of Ethan’s body against hers….
She could feel her cheeks heat up, and she put her hand against one, feeling the flush. The dream had been so realistic, she could almost fancy she could smell the smoke.
She sat up in bed, suddenly, shockingly awake. It wasn’t her imagination. The smell of wet smoke clung in the air, laced with gasoline. She hadn’t dreamed the fire last night.
The warm air danced across her skin, and she looked down at her body. She was still wearing the nightgown, but twenty tiny buttons had been unfastened down the front of it. Quickly, she yanked it together, and then she saw the ring.
It was much too big for her small hands, a man’s ring. Someone had placed it on her hand. On her left hand, on the fourth finger, where it still hung loosely. It was heavy, dull and, unless she was mistaken, solid gold. It felt warm, not from her own flesh, but from his.
She stared at the design, unmoving. She knew enough of Roman mythology to recognize the image of the god imprinted on it. Pastor Lincoln would have a fit if he saw it. Janus, the god with two faces, the god of beginnings, of sunrise and sunset.
She was shaking. Sitting in that bed in the middle of the room, her skin flushed and feverish, her body icy cold, she was shaking. It hadn’t been a dream. None of it. Ethan had come up behind her in the darkness and—
She wouldn’t think about it. She couldn’t think about it. Salvatore must have drugged her. Or maybe, despite all evidence to the contrary, she had dreamed it. Either way, she couldn’t allow herself to dwell on it. If she did, she’d go mad.
She pulled the ring off her hand and flung it across the room. It ricocheted, rolled across the floor, and came to a stop beneath the panel of the mural that Megan found most disturbing. For a moment, she didn’t move, suddenly as mindlessly superstitious as those idiots from Oak Grove.
And then she shook herself. She’d had enough. Enough of being frightened, of being coerced, of being seduced by a voice and a mysterious phantomlike presence she’d never even seen.
She was going to see him. It didn’t matter if he looked like Freddy Krueger, the hunchback of Notre Dame and something out of Night of the Living Dead combined. She’d track him down in this ridiculous mausoleum of a house and take a good, hard look at his shocking deformities. And then maybe her enchantment would begin to fade.
An odd word for it, she had to admit as she pulled her nightgown back around her and headed for the bathroom, away from Ethan’s prying video camera. Not that he was watching her. He’d be asleep in the unfriendly daylight. She’d know, as surely as she could see him herself, when he’d be watching her.
It felt like an enchantment, though, she thought as she ducked under a shower where she first scalded then froze her body. Deliberately. An evil enchantment by a wicked troll. Like Rumpelstiltskin. And the only way she’d escape was to face the monster. Learn his face, instead of his name, and then his power would vanish.
She dressed in the bathroom, just in case Ethan happened to wake up and decide to watch a little closed circuit TV. Her jeans had reappeared, thank heavens, and she pulled on a soft, faded pair and topped it with a cotton sweater. Something loose, enveloping, covering a body that felt sensitized, dangerously alive and not the slightest bit violated.
She almost screamed when she stepped back into her room, before she realized it was Ruth Wilkins standing there, an odd expression on her face.
“I suppose you’ve been looking at the murals,” Meg said, pleased at the briskness in her voice. “Pretty kinky, aren’t they?”
“I’ve seen the room before,” Ruth said, dismissing it as something of little interest. “I found this on the floor.” She held out the ring, and her pretty face was troubled.
For some reason, Meg didn’t want Ruth holding it. Didn’t want anyone holding it. She took it from her, enfolding it in her hand. “It’s mine,” she said.
“He gave it to you.”
Meg didn’t deny it. “How did you know it was Ethan’s?”
“He always wore it. Always. I can’t imagine why…” Ruth’s voice trailed off and her expression went beyond troubled to deeply worried.
“I can’t imagine why, either,” Meg said honestly. “I just woke up and found it on my hand.”
“Did you sleep with him last night?”
Meg whirled around, shocked. “Don’t be disgusting.”
“It’s not disgusting. I was his mistress for five years.”
There was no chair for Meg to sink into in shock. She could only stare at Ruth, at normal, comfortable looking, middle-aged Ruth, and tell herself the emotion sweeping through her was surprise, not a raging jealousy. “I thought you were married. I thought…”
“I was a widow with two little ones to raise. No one in that rotten town would help me, give me a job, give me a hand. My kids were going hungry, we had no heat, we had no hope. Until Ethan suggested…an arrangement.”
&nbs
p; “An arrangement you accepted?”
Ruth nodded. “I had no choice at first. I had to take care of my babies, and Ethan was the only one who’d help me.”
“In return for sex.”
Ruth shook her head stubbornly. “I think he would have helped me anyway. But I couldn’t just take from him, even for my babies’ sake. It was a fair trade. More than fair. He had his needs met, and I had mine. Oh, yes, indeed, I had mine.”
There was no longer any use in denying the jealousy that was washing over Meg. “And you never saw his face?”
“Of course, I did. He wouldn’t let me agree to it until I saw him. It made no difference. He was offering to help me, and deep down, he’s a good man.”
“What—”
“I’m not going to tell you.” Ruth forestalled the inevitable question. “If he wants you to see him, he’ll show you. In the meantime, he deserves whatever privacy he wants.”
Meg could have disputed that, but it would have been a waste of time. She had her own determination to breach EthanWinslowe’s privacy. “What ended your…relationship?” She’d almost said “business arrangement,” but realized that would have been out of pique.
“I met Burt and we fell in love. I didn’t even have to tell Ethan. He knew, and he let me go with his blessing. He saved my life, he saved my babies, and then he let me go when I had to. I’d do anything for that man. Anything.” Ruth’s voice was as fiercely protective as it would be for her two grown babies.
“Is that why you work in the house when no one else will?”
“The town thinks I’m the worst kind of whore. Maybe I am. All I know is that Ethan never made me feel like one. When he made love to me, I felt…cherished.”
Meg held so tightly to the ring that her hand began to ache. “But now you’re happily married.”
“Very happily married. I wouldn’t trade Burt and my life with him for anything. But I’ll tell you one thing, Megan. Ethan’s a very different sort of man. Everything he does, he does better. And that includes loving. I’m in love with Burt, I’m completely satisfied with Burt. But he’s nothing like Ethan.”
