by Dani April
I guess I should face it. I haven’t been attracted to any men in the last several years. The only emotion that has driven my life is ambition in my career. Maybe all of that self-denial is finally catching up with me out here. In some ways, I have been as reclusive as Peter. The big difference there is, while I have chosen to seclude myself in a newsroom at the studio, he has been hiding in a medieval castle constructed in a radiation field.
That’s it! Peter is hiding out here. But what on earth is he hiding from? He is rich and handsome and eligible. I have repeatedly tried researching his past for any allegations of illegal activity and have continuously come up empty. No one has even so much as suggested that he might be guilty of insider trading.
Then what is the secret behind him? Within the next week, I swear I am going to find out the answer to that question. I just have to stop thinking about sex long enough in order to be a reporter again.
But oh my God—those three men out there… If I only had fewer inhibitions ruling me, they would be inside this room with me right now. We would all be naked and in that king-sized bed behind me…
There was a knock at her door. She was so embarrassed by what she had just been writing that she pounded the lid of the computer shut with a thud, thinking for a moment she had broken it. She turned around in her chair to face the door and brushed her hair back behind her ear. She realized sweat was pouring down her brow. No wonder with the nature of her writing.
“Who is it?” she called, trying to remember if she had locked the door.
The heavy wooden door was so thick it muffled the voice of the man on the other side. She went over and opened it a crack. Standing out in the hall was Ramos. Thank God he had now put his shirt on.
“Hello, Rebecca,” he greeted her with a charming smile lighting up his dark features. “I came up here to get you. I want to take you somewhere and show you something.”
Rebecca looked back into her room. No, that was no good, only the bed was back there behind her. She knew she would get herself in trouble if she went with this beautiful young stud. But he had her at a disadvantage here. He rather had her trapped.
“You want me to go with you right now, Ramos?”
“Yes, please. I want to show you before it gets dark.”
“What do you want to show me?”
“I can’t explain. I can just show you. Come on!” He held out a hand for her.
Without even thinking, she reached out and put her hand inside his. His olive, dark skin covered up hers. She thought their two skin tones looked a lovely contrast to one another. She was flushed. The sweat was pouring down her face, matting her hair.
“I will show you a back way.” Ramos pulled her out of the room. She had no choice but to follow him. His hand squeezed hers, and she involuntarily squeezed back.
He turned and headed north along the long corridor outside her room, taking her deeper into the castle than she had been before. After about a hundred feet, he led them through an archway out onto a ledge in the sunlight. They were high up on the bluff. From across the battlements, she could see the barren landscape marching off far into the distance.
Her hand still cradled inside his, she followed as he led her up a flight of stairs. There was no railing or protective wall of any kind. When she looked over the edge, she could see two hundred feet straight down. Her heart leaped up into her mouth, and she clung more tightly to the young man leading her.
“Where are we going?”
“It’s not far now. You will see.”
The stairs came to a welcome end, and they arrived at the top of the bluff overlooking the castle. Level ground afforded Rebecca a chance to reclaim her hand, relax her posture, and walk upright. No longer did she have to fear falling to her death.
“Here we are.”
Up ahead was what looked like a small shrine built on the head of the bluff. The structure had four white stone pillars supporting it and stood about thirty feet tall. It was open to the air on all four sides and within seemed to be some monument with writing inscribed upon it.
“Wish you’d let me have time to get my camera.”
“Some things are better not to photograph.”
A couple of steps led up to and inside the shrine. Ramos stood back. He did not lead or follow Rebecca here. She walked inside the shrine by herself. It was dreary inside. The sun blocked by the rock overhead.
Everything was clean and pristine in here as if this was one part of the grounds that was kept in top shape. The tall roof made an echo of her footsteps as she approached the monument in the center.
Whatever this was, it was obviously very old like the castle itself and must have been imported from Europe along with the rest of the ruins. Only a few lines of text were etched onto the monument, and it was in an ancient language Rebecca could not understand.
She had to stare at it for a moment before she finally realized what she was looking at. It was a crypt. Someone was buried here. One part of the script she could decipher. It was a date.
1052 AD
“Peter’s wife is buried here,” Ramos told her from behind.
* * * *
“I didn’t know Peter had ever been married.” Rebecca mused. Ramos handed her a glass of water, and she drank greedily from it. She had not eaten since breakfast that morning, and her stomach was starting to growl from hunger.
“I never knew his wife,” Ramos told her. “But I think they were close in their own way. I thought you should know.”
“Is everything about Peter a secret?”
“Yes. Everything about him is a secret. And please do not tell him that I took you there today.”
They were inside Ramos’s room. He had taken her back here after coming from the crypt. She didn’t even know how they had gotten here. She was seated on his bed. Inside her chest her heart was pounding, and she felt a tightening in her stomach.
His quarters were set off from the rest of the castle and to the side of the courtyard in front. Basically it consisted of a bedroom and a bath, but it was an ample space and comfortably furnished with a beautiful view of the desert and the setting sun beyond the flats to the west.
“You talk as if you’re afraid of him?” she asked Ramos.
He pulled his shirt off and used it as a rag to wipe down his brow. “I am afraid of him,” he admitted. “All of us are at times.”
“Somehow I think you’re afraid of something more than just getting fired by your employer.”
“He’s not just our employer. He’s not just an ordinary man.”
He sat down next to her on the bed. He seemed to feel miserable, as if he was telling her too much. His presence so close to her on top of the bed made her nervous and even fearful. She wanted nothing more than to get up and run from his room. But she forced herself to remain seated at his side. The reckless, impulsive part of her was winning the battle at this moment, and when she looked beyond her initial fear, she realized lust was uncontrollably springing up inside her loins.
“You know a whole lot more about Peter than what you’re telling me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” he said. Now he turned his head and looked down at her. “But you’ll learn about him on your own. Right now I don’t want to talk about Peter.”
She cleared her throat and attempted to clear her sex-starved brain, looking away from him. “My job all week long is to talk about Peter.”
“Then ask him when you see him tonight.” He placed his hand around her shoulder. She did not move away. “It will be dark soon. We don’t have much time.”
“Thank you for showing me the grave.” She was making an effort to pull herself back to her feet. “I really should be going.”
His other hand rested on her knee and held her in place. “You don’t have to go yet.”
“Ramos, I don’t want…”
His lips were on top of hers. At first she brought her hands up to the naked flesh of his chest. She thought she was going to push him away with them. B
ut when her skin touched his, she realized that instead of pushing back against him she was running her fingers across his hard muscles and fondling him.
His breath was warm and sweet against her mouth. He was gentle and took his time. After a moment she opened her lips for him and let him inside. He tasted like the sweetest fruit—definitely a forbidden fruit.
His hand slid up her thigh and found her crotch. His fingers toyed with her pussy, and she started becoming wet at his touch. Again he was gentle. He did not rush. Apparently he sensed she wanted this, too. She had done a horrible job of hiding her feelings for him.
His other hand slid down her shoulder and snuck under her shirt. She had not worn a bra, and his fingers quickly found her nipples and started massaging them to erection. His insistent hand on her crotch, even outside of her pants, was making her squirm her hips on the bed and moan into his kiss.
He was so slow and gentle with her. He was a skilled lover. She could almost picture him making love to a different girl every day on top this very bed. The mental image just made her hotter, and her hips gyrated more under his loving caresses.
Giving into her lust, she allowed her hands to roam across his body and feel the various hard edges that his muscle ridges created. She ran a hand down his back, clasping his tight butt. She could almost hear herself growling into their kiss. She was turning into a different person. Someone she did not know. A sex-starved maniac.
His hand had left her crotch and risen to the zipper of her khaki pants. He was about to unfasten her pants for her. “Tell me you don’t want this.” He broke their kiss and whispered into her ear. “Tell me you want me to stop.”
“This is insane, Ramos,” she whispered back to him, her voice breathless from lust. “I don’t know you. We don’t have anything in common. We won’t ever have an emotional connection, and we’ll never see each other again after this week.”
“Then tell me to stop and I will.”
He was so polite to give her an out, except her body had already gone too far. There was no way she could stop now, even though the sane half of her mind was screaming at her to do just that. She attempted to push him away from her once more, but found as little success in the endeavor as she had the first time. Her body was responding to him in every way now, writhing against his hard, half naked form.
“No…Don’t stop…” she commanded him.
She was faintly aware of the sound of her zipper being lowered. Then she felt the elastic of her panties bend and the warmth of an invader inside them, stroking her mons and heading between her thighs.
She parted her legs to give him easy access. She gripped him around his neck, feeling his hot breath on her face as he planted kisses along her forehead.
He knew what he was doing, and playing with her pussy lips was natural for him. His finger toyed with her clit until it provoked the flower from out of her folds. At first there was only a gentle pressure, but just his slight touch was an amazing torture that made the room spin and sent her head flying back in ecstasy.
Slowly he became more insistent, and his index finger entered her, the wetness of her pussy providing easy access.
“It’s all right, Rebecca,” he whispered in her ear. “Everything is all right…You’re going to be just fine. You don’t have to be afraid of anything. You’re about to come now. I can feel you. That’s all right. Let it go. Let go…you need the release. You will feel so much better. You will be able to face him tonight when he comes for you. Just relax and let the feeling take you away…”
A strong orgasm hit her, and she cried out sharply into the silence of his room. Her cry seemed to hang in the air around them as the muscles in her pussy contracted and soothing warmth flooded her body. His fingers had brought her pleasure and forced her to feel an orgasm different from any she had experienced before.
When he removed his hand from out of her panties, she was left with no strength and cradled in his arms, her breathing coming in uncomfortable torrents. She had almost gagged on her passion and felt dizzy. Somehow she did feel cooler. That heat making her sweat all day had lifted, and she knew once she recovered she would feel a lot better than she had before she came to his room. She supposed she had gotten what she came for, but she wasn’t the type of woman to do this.
She rested her head against his shoulder. “Oh shit, I feel so embarrassed,” she admitted to him.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to feel that way.” He gently laid her head back against the bed rest and got up from the mattress.
She reached down and zipped up her pants and tried to straighten her rumpled shirt, wanting to preserve whatever dignity she had left. She watched him as he moved over to his closet, took out a new shirt, and shrugged into it.
“You should go.” He turned back around to face her and no longer seemed gentle or unhurried.
She didn’t know what to feel at this turn. Disappointed? Offended? He was kicking her out of his room, and in a hurry, too. In a way she felt relieved that he did not ask her to give him a release also. But still she was puzzled by his actions.
“Hurry!” he chided her. “You should go back to your room. The sun will set in a few minutes.”
“Okay?” She stretched out her hands to him in a questioning gesture. “Can you let me know what the big hurry is all of a sudden?”
“He will be here soon…”
Chapter Six
The sun went down.
The walls of the bluff outside Rebecca’s window were shrouded in the first shadows of the night. Rebecca had just stepped out of a long shower and was toweling herself dry as she watched darkness descend outside. Everything was silent out there, no animal sounds, no insect sounds, just a lonely breeze blowing in against her wet hair.
She couldn’t believe what she had just done, and the shower was her attempt to try and wash it away. This person staring out the window did not seem to be the Rebecca Everheart she had known for twenty-five years. She was turning into a stranger. She didn’t know who she was.
She felt better. The shower had helped, and, Goddamn it, yes, the orgasm had helped. The cobwebs were starting to clear from her mind, and she felt like trying to get on with her assignment and forgetting what had happened earlier with the young stud. Not that she ever could really forget it. The feelings it had inspired in her would be ingrained forever.
Maybe that was all she had needed. The touch of a man she was attracted to, one who she didn’t know and would never see again. After all, it had been a long time since she let a man touch her like that. When she went back home, she would have to make an effort to rekindle her personal life.
Thoroughly scrubbed from head to toe, she dressed in a dark blue suit, one she often wore on air when she was doing a piece from the studio. Putting on the suit made her feel instantly more professional and added momentum to her desire to get back to her assignment. Enough fumbling around like a teenager. The rest of this week she would be focused as straight as an arrow on the goals of the assignment that had brought her here.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Rebecca Everheart, the driven professional, stared back at her, the image reassuring. Her hair was still damp from the shower. Not knowing how much time she had until Peter got there, she decided she wouldn’t have time to fool with it and combed it straight back on her brow.
Outside her room, she heard some sounds, footfalls in the corridor, and faintly echoed words of a man’s voice. Peter must have returned home. It was about time. He had ditched her on her first full day with him. She would have to chide him about that tonight and let him know that her time was too valuable to waste.
She picked up her video camera, threw it in her purse, and headed for the door.
As she walked the halls of the castle that afternoon, she thought she had just about gotten the labyrinth of twists and turns committed to memory. Now in the gloom of darkness, she found herself disoriented and lost again as she traversed them. The dim overhead lights must have been on a timer because th
ey had each turned on at the setting of the sun, but none of them provided sufficient light to see by.
The glare of light coming out of the dining room beckoned her, and she headed in its direction. Rounding the corner of the last turn in the corridor, she found two chairs pulled up to the big table. A fire was blazing in the large hearth adding more warmth to the room than she had formerly felt.
Peter greeted her from the far side of the room, giving a formal nod of his head to her as she entered.
“Good evening.” His handsome features turned up in a smile. “You’re looking lovely this evening, Rebecca.”
“Peter…” she gasped. “You startled me. I didn’t know what time to expect you back.” His very presence seemed to take all the air out of the room.
“I took the liberty of having dinner prepared for you, a veal cutlet with potatoes and vegetables. I hope you will not find the meat too rare.”
Rebecca came up to the table. It was set as if in a five-star restaurant. Everything was already served to the plate. Two candles in the middle of the table added an almost romantic air. The only thing missing was the second place setting. His side of the table was empty. There was only enough food on the table for one.
“This looks very good.”
He came over to her side and pulled back the chair for her in the gentlemanly manner he always used. “Please sit down.”
She took the proffered seat and felt his strength as he pushed the chair up to the table for her. “You’re not eating with me?”
“Unfortunately, no.” He walked back to his side and took the seat across from her. “I dined earlier.”
She felt self-conscious picking up her silverware with him staring across the table at her with those penetrating eyes. Instead, she took the glass of water in front of her and took a sip to calm her nerves. This is where it had all started last night with this gorgeous man and the intensity he exuded from every movement of his body. She had gotten lost in him and stopped seeing him as just an assignment. She took a deep breath and determined not to let it happen again tonight.
