Determined to ignore the nagging guilt that prompted her toward her book satchel, she stabbed the remote control button and found a music video channel. Humming with the song, she retrieved another slice of pizza. No stress-induced hallucination was going to rob her of the pleasure of a double cheese and pepperoni.
She hadn’t had a really good pizza pie since she’d left her hometown of Covenant and her friend Jenny, the daughter of the town’s one and only pizza parlor owner. Friends since kindergarten, Ronnie and Jenny had gone through school and puberty together, despite Ronnie’s father, who’d never approved of the friendship. Jenny had been a wild child, the product of a divorce, and a bad influence, according to Mayor Parrish.
Oddly enough, Jenny was the one married and settled in Covenant with a husband and two toddlers, while Ronnie was here, a hundred and fifty miles away in Lafayette, still single, sitting in a messy efficiency she didn’t have the time or the energy to clean, nursing a pizza smack dab in the middle of a bed that belonged in one of those Enhance Your Love Life catalogues advertised in the back of Cosmo or Vogue.
If only her folks could see her now.
She nibbled on her pizza slice. Her mother would turn every shade of red. Her father would probably have a heart attack. He’d definitely issue a statement claiming Ronnie’s behavior was due to an accidental drop on the head as a child rather than her upbringing.
Not that Ronnie had to worry about either. They wouldn’t see her, because traditional Mayor Parrish and his lovely wife wouldn’t visit their nontraditional daughter. Ronnie had traded marriage and a family for late-night study sessions and student loans, her role as dutiful daughter for that of political liability.
And, of course, she’d made the choice publicly. In front of a church full of people gathered to watch her marry the man of her father’s dreams, Raymond Cormier, the town’s chief of police and one of her father’s staunch supporters.
She took another bite of pizza and flipped through a couple of television channels, finally settling on an old black-and-white movie.
On-screen, Shirley Temple hugged her long-lost father. A sense of loneliness washed through Ronnie.
Despite her differing views and their bitter parting, she missed her parents. There was a lot to be said for living at home. She’d had three solid meals a day, no bills hanging over her head, and two people who loved her, even if they were painfully conservative. At least she hadn’t been alone.
Then again, there was also a heck of a lot to be said for independence, regardless of all its responsibilities and worries. She ate and slept when she wanted. Wore sweatshirts, jeans, and sneakers instead of the awful, “feminine” dresses her Aunt Mabel had made for her. Did whatever she felt like doing.
Smiling, she placed the half-eaten slice of pizza back in the box and stretched out on the bed. Her T-shirt rode her hips. Soft cotton cushioned the backs of her bare legs. Yes, independence had its good points. This was her apartment, her bed—in all its bold, outrageous glory—and she was going to sleep like a rock tonight.
Her gaze went to the pizza box and the same sense of unease she’d felt earlier came crawling back through her. Just a draft, she told herself.
She heard the soft buzzing sound again, like a faint whispering. Whispering? More like a fly or a gnat. She slapped at the air, then gathered up the pizza box and refrigerated the leftover slices. Out of sight, out of mind, she told herself. She checked the double deadbolts on her apartment door, flicked off the lights, and climbed into bed, ready to relax and watch a little TV. But she couldn’t seem to get comfortable. The pillow wasn’t right. The sheet twisted this way, her leg felt uncomfortable that way, and every time her gaze strayed to the spot just to her left where the pizza box had been sitting, a shiver worked its way through her.
Even watching the latest video from a group of bare-chested hunks didn’t take her mind off the pizza box episode.
Correction—it wasn’t an episode. Just one of those things easily explained if she’d been a physicist or rocket scientist instead of an accounting major.
Finally, unable to relax, much less sleep, she flicked off the television, turned on the nightstand lamp, and retrieved her book bag. She would write out her paper topic right now. Homework never failed to put her to sleep. In a half hour she’d have her topic ready to hand in, and she’d be sound asleep. One hour max.
“Take that, Guidry,” she said, smiling to herself as she finished penning her brilliant idea. She was busy jotting down some extra thoughts—better to have too much information when Guidry called for topics than too little—when her eyes started to droop.
Her fingers went limp, the pen sliding from her grasp as she snuggled back into the pillow. Ahh … This was much better than being hunched over her desk. Mmm … Her first night in her new bed. She smiled as her eyes drifted shut.
The bed was so soft, so warm, so … ticklish?
She forced one eye open to stare at her bare arm. There was nothing there, yet she felt a soft whisper across her skin, a feather-light stroke as soft and understated as the glide of silk over smooth marble.
Her skin prickled, goosebumps danced along her arm, and Ronnie had the sudden and inexplicable feeling that she wasn’t alone. The same feeling She’d had with the pizza box earlier. As if something, or someone, were there with her, beside her, touching the box, touching her …
Geez, she was sleep deprived.
She pulled the sheet up over her bare legs to her waist. The textbook She’d been perusing for possible topics was open, facedown on her chest, the weight oddly soothing.
Her eyes closed again. The softness of the mattress lulled her body into complete relaxation and her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm for the next fifteen minutes. Until her cuckoo clock struck midnight and the loud noise launched an all-out offensive against General Sandman.
She had to get up, she thought, vaguely aware of the textbook weighing down her chest, her notes scattered next to her. She had to at least put away her things and set her alarm. Packing lunch and picking out clothes could wait until morning. But there wouldn’t be a morning if she didn’t set the blasted alarm.
She knew that, yet for some reason it didn’t hold any urgency. Her entire life centered around a carefully planned schedule—the only way she had time for school and two jobs—but at that moment, nothing seemed as important as keeping her eyes closed and relaxing in the hazy bliss that surrounded her.
The last cuckoo grated on her nerves, then the room fell into blessed silence.
Peace enveloped her, soothing her aching muscles and weary mind. Blackness welcomed her like a long-lost friend, and then she was floating, drifting, sleeping.
The weight on her chest suddenly lifted, the release of pressure luring her back to the fringes of reality, the hum of the air conditioner, the tick-tock of the clock, the strange uneasiness, not as pronounced as before, that crawled through her. Something wasn’t right. She knew it even before she felt the strange movement.
Ronnie forced one eye open to see the sheet drift down to puddle around her ankles, exposing her bare legs. Then the edge of her T-shirt lifted, glided upward, baring a pair of silky white panties, several inches of pale skin, her navel, more skin, the underside of her breasts. Her nipples tightened. The material snagged on the stiff peaks.
Her breath caught, her chest rose, and her nipples strained against the fabric. It was a highly unsettling sensation. Erotic, forbidden.
Impossible!
Her other eye opened and she watched in stunned amazement as the material lifted, easing over her nipples, exposing the throbbing, rosy tips. The edge of the shirt bunched as if invisible fingers tugged at the thin covering—
She clamped her eyes shut.
The pizza.
Her mother had always told her junk food would rot her brain—traditionalist families were sticklers for good, wholesome home cooking. That’s what was happening. Her brain was rotting, because this couldn’t—no way in hell, hea
ven, or the in between—be real! The sheet couldn’t move on its own, nor could her shirt. No way. Uh, uh. Forget it.
She chanced another peek and shock bolted through her. Her T-shirt was no longer moving at the will of invisible fingers. They were real fingers. Long, lean, tanned fingers attached to a strong hand and muscled forearm dusted with sand-colored hair—
Impossible.
She clamped her eyes shut. This couldn’t be happening. There couldn’t be a man in her bed. She’d locked the door and checked the French doors, and there wasn’t any place to hide in her small apartment. Except under the bed, but she’d checked that herself, an old habit she’d developed since moving out on her own. She was completely, totally, indisputably alone.
Alone.
After such a lengthy sermon of reassurance, she might have believed her assertion but for one thing. She could feel the pressure just above her left breast where the material tugged higher, higher, the motion caused by the strong male hand she’d glimpsed a moment ago.
But there couldn’t be a man in her bed. Other than the pressure on her skin, she didn’t feel a presence beside her. Surely the bed would dip beneath his weight? Most certainly she would be able to feel his body heat, the warmth of his legs next to hers, hear his breathing, the thump of his heart. Something.
“Impossible,” she muttered and the tug on her T-shirt stopped.
Her eyes flew open to see—
Nothing. Just the frantic heave of her bare chest, the empty sheets surrounding her, the dark shadows fingering just beyond the reach of lamplight. There was no one in bed with her, and no one had crawled out. She’d opened her eyes too fast for that. There’d been no squeak of bedsprings. No rustling of covers. No telltale indentation next to her. Nothing.
No one.
Yet …
An enticing scent wafted through her nostrils, teased her senses. A rich, musky fragrance tinged with the faint hint of leather and apples that made her want to drink in another deep draft.
Nah, she decided when she inhaled again and smelled only cheese and tomato sauce. No strange aroma. Just a hallucination warning her of potential brain rot if she didn’t start eating right.
No more junk food, she vowed, tugging her shirt down and yanking the sheet up. A hallucination. A junk food-induced dream.
A sort of pleasant dream, she admitted several minutes later, her body still buzzing from the sensation of fabric gliding, hands moving, nipples tightening.
Okay, so maybe there was something to be said for junk food late at night. No wonder her mother had warned her against it. Anything to keep Ronnie from having a little fun.
She took a deep breath; her body prickled and she marveled at the sensation. She’d never had such a “pleasant” dream before. Her nighttime fantasies usually involved a computer with a high-powered spreadsheet program that could calculate taxes faster than she could blink. Oh, and she also had the one where she pictured herself in a custom-tailored business suit in a posh office—the high-powered computer at her fingertips, of course—head of her very own CPA firm. Her dreams had never involved a man with tanned arms and strong hands, doing forbidden things to her. Men were distracting. She didn’t have time for sex, and especially not love, and so she kept her mind strictly tuned to school and work. Usually. Until now.
The junk food, she assured herself.
And Guidry’s class.
And, of course, this bed.
With all three corrupting her, it was no wonder her dreams had taken a turn for the worse.
Or the better.
She smiled to herself, pushing away the fear and panic. She was a grown woman and they were just dreams. It wasn’t as if she would have to face Mr. Dream Man the morning after, and spend precious hours worrying over a relationship, or over an “accident” that would chain her to a crib and a husband and rob her of her career.
She worked hard. She’d earned a few harmless dreams.
She would start by making pizza a mandatory late-night snack while she studied for Guidry’s class. And she’d buy a few six-packs of soda in case the extra sugar rush was needed for this particular fantasy. And she would do her snacking and studying in bed, of course.
Ah, pizza and cola. Imagine what a pint of Häagen-Dazs could do!
On that titillating thought, she drifted into a deep sleep, not the least bit alarmed when the sheet started to glide down again and her T-shirt to inch its way up. Her body responded, arching against the seeking hands, straining into the moist heat of a firm mouth.
Just a dream, of course, her conscience reassured her time and time again. Just a dream.
This is more like it, Val thought, feeling the woman respond beneath his expert hands. Mon Dieu, she was hotblooded. He licked a blazing trail up her stomach, up the slope of her breast until his mouth closed over one puckered tip.
She was so sweet and warm, her nipple hard and greedy against his tongue. He suckled her long and deep, tasting her, relishing the feel of a woman’s response to him. It had been so long. Too long.
Her moan sent an echoing thrum through him, making him harder, more eager to bury himself deep inside the blissful warmth of her body. She was the culmination of endless nights spent dreaming and now she was real. Here with him, under him, begging him.
And she was a virgin.
The realization hit him with the same force as the bullet that had robbed him of his mortal life.
Shocked, he stared down at the ripe, soft woman. His fingertips teased her nipple and, sure enough, he felt the surge of emotion that swelled inside her. Desire. Anticipation. Wonder.
Merde! A virgin.
He stared at her face and willed her to meet his gaze.
Her lids lifted and amber eyes the color of fine whiskey glittered back at him. They widened as if shocked at the sight of him, the expression quickly fading into that of pure pleasure.
“A dream,” she mumbled to herself, her eyelids fluttering closed.
He trailed a hand up the inside of her thigh, peeling back the scrap of lace that served as the twentieth century’s version of bloomers. There was certainly something to be said for modern times, but Val had no energy to rejoice over the changes. He was intent on a higher purpose, a soft, warm, wet purpose, and the truth.
His hands returned to her thighs, urging them apart to give him full view of her femininity. With a trembling hand, he touched the soft, slick folds and a rush of warmth spilled over his knuckles. She arched into him. He touched her again, stroking, probing until she came up off the bed, a breathy moan sailing past her lips as a wave of ecstasy crashed over her and she came completely undone. And at nothing more than the brief touch of his hand!
Nom de Dieu! A virgin.
He jerked away from her, stumbling from the bed to the French doors. He needed some air. Cool, relaxing air. He threw open one door. A wave of summer heat washed over him, through him, and he burned all the hotter.
There was no relief, he realized, anguish driving him to his knees. No relief at all, because Valentine Tremaine didn’t touch virgins.
He left the spoiling of innocence, the breeching of maiden-heads up to those men interested in more than a night’s pleasure. Val had no use for clingy, naïve, inexperienced women who expected the world. He sought an equal in his bed. A woman who revered freedom and relished independence as much as he did. Virgins robbed a man of both, not to mention his livelihood. His life, too, as Val well knew.
Never again, he vowed to himself, even with one as comely, as sensuous as this woman. Never again.
Crossing the room, he stood next to her. She lay on the bed, her eyes closed, her head thrown back into the pillow. Flame-colored hair spilled around her head, across the white pillowcase. Her T-shirt was bunched beneath her arms. Her chest rose and fell to a frantic rhythm, her breasts soft and creamy and swollen, her turgid nipples the color of fine wine. A fiery thatch of red curls formed a triangle at the base of her thighs, hiding the most intimate delights of her body.
Not his, of course. But then, Valentine Tremaine wasn’t a man anymore.
Not that he didn’t ache as badly as one with a near-naked woman in front of him. He did. Worse, even, because now in his present state, his feelings were magnified. That’s what she’d felt—the presence of his energy rather than a body, though that energy still maintained the same shape and form, the spirit a shadow of the physical self, and much more potent to the senses.
Val had stirred her from the inside out. He’d stroked her feelings with his own, caressed her body with the sheer force of his will disguised as his hands and lips. Most certainly she would see a man if she looked at him now, since the night was at its darkest, the veil between the worlds its thinnest. But he was more. And he burned more fiercely, craved more desperately.
Ah, but not for her. Never for her.
Her eyelids fluttered and she gazed at him through passion-glazed eyes. There was an instant of confusion, panic, then the feelings eased as she smiled and mumbled, “Just a dream.”
Her heavy gaze drank in his face, burning a path over his shoulders, his chest, down to the prominent erection waging war on his tenuous control.
There she fingered, studying the jutting proof of his desire as if she’d never seen a man before.
A virgin, he reminded himself, his fists clenched tight at his sides. Pure. Untouched. Unschooled.
But he reacted to her as if she’d been the most talented whore at a Bourbon Street brothel. His breathing quickened. Anticipation sizzled back and forth along his nerve endings. Hunger gnawed deep inside his belly.
Just when he knew he was going to explode if she stared at him an instant longer, her eyes drifted shut and she sighed.
“Ah, pizza,” she mumbled. “Double pepperoni.”
It was a long time later, after several deep, agonizing breaths, before Val felt calm enough to return to bed. He sank into the mattress just as the clock struck three a.m. It was time to forget the woman, to rest and reenergize.
In the Midnight Hour Page 2
