Phantom Series Boxed Set

by Julie Leto

  Ten

  Lauren allowed the sweet sensation to tickle across her tummy, and for an instant forgot what she’d asked Aiden to do. She had a whole new request for him that had absolutely nothing to do with movies or Athena or swords, except for the fleshy kind he’d wielded on her last night. The needs of her body instantly overrode the requirements of her mind. When his hot breath swooshed intimately between her legs, she nearly lost her balance.

  “Stop that,” she said in a voice she found entirely unconvincing.

  Luckily, so did he.

  He blew again, harder this time, so that a concentrated curl of heat spiraled into her.

  “Honestly,” she insisted, “I can’t make love to you again. Not like this.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  He was behind her now, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt the luxurious pressure of his touch on her breasts.

  “I need…” she started, her thoughts derailed the moment pinpricks of pressure lengthened and pleasured her nipples.

  “Oh, yes, my lady,” Aiden purred into her ear. “You do need.”

  Slowly the sensation of her blouse bunching at her waist lured her deeper into sensual hypnosis. In seconds she’d lifted her arms. He tugged the blouse until she was bare breasted and open to whatever magical seduction he had to offer. Only she shouldn’t be doing this, should she? Not before she’d ensured his agreement. Women were supposed to use sex to get what they wanted, right? Not just for pleasure. But, ooooh, the pleasure.

  “Stop!”

  This time her voice reverberated in the emptiness of the room. Instantly her heated flesh chilled. Had he left?

  “Aiden?”

  A knock shook the trailer. Lauren crossed her arms quickly to cover her nudity, but then remembered she’d locked the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Oh, Lauren! You’re inside? You’re not supposed to be on the set yet!”

  Lauren struggled through her muddled mind to recognize the voice.

  “Cinda?”

  Her assistant. Great kid. Bad timing.

  “I was just coming to stock your fridge and tidy up,” she explained.

  Lauren coughed and shook her head, trying to restore her equilibrium.

  “Can you come back later? I was just about to jump in the shower.”

  Lauren knew the excuse sounded totally bogus. Actresses, by their trade, were not shy or prudish. Cinda had seen Lauren in her altogether more times than Lauren could count. Then again, so had most of the cast and crew of her films, since she’d never shied from nudity on-screen if it enhanced Athena’s sensual nature, which it often did. But the last thing Lauren needed right now was people around. She had her hands full with her phantom. If he hadn’t left.

  But then, he couldn’t leave, could he? Not without her? Without the sword?

  “Oh, sure,” Cinda answered. “You need anything?”

  “Just about an hour of privacy,” Lauren replied, wincing at the way that sounded. Cinda might have been the gofer assigned to her by the studio two films ago, but they’d become friends. Now she was blowing the girl off.

  Lauren walked over to the door, but denied her urge to open it. “Could you do me one favor before you leave?”

  “Sure!” Perky, as always.

  “Could you head over to my place and feed Apollo? Take him for a walk?”

  That she had gone this long without thinking of her dog was criminal. Sure, the housekeeper would let him out into the dog run first thing, but the poor guy had to be miserable without real company. He’d been the only loyal male in her life since…well, since ever.

  “Why don’t you pick up your Princess, too, and take them on a play date at the dog park? It’s supposed to be a gorgeous day today.”

  Cinda’s squeal of delight told Lauren that she’d not only fixed any hard feelings with her assistant, but she’d just gotten rid of her for the better part of the day.

  “Really?”

  “Honestly,” Lauren reassured her. “I’m going to be here all day working on the casting of my costar.”

  “You’ll call me if you need anything?” Cinda asked.

  “Before I call anyone else, I promise.”

  After a shouted, “Thank you,” Lauren heard Cinda fly down the metal steps outside the trailer.

  Her assistant was gone. She was alone.

  Or was she?

  “Aiden?”

  He did not reply. She closed her eyes and concentrated as she’d done before, conjuring his scent in her mind as she attempted to find the leathery essence lingering around her. She smelled nothing but the cold crispness of newly recycled air.

  Though Cinda had already dumped Ross’s pictures out of the now empty frames, Lauren realized she’d been married the last time she’d used this space. The other pictures were candid shots of her with costars, crew and fans who’d won trips to the set. Still, the gaping holes made a statement. About loneliness. About betrayal. About lies.

  Aiden’s sudden appearance, however, had torn away the veil she’d kept over her emotions for so long. She was lonely. She was starved for intimacy and sex. Lauren needed those things in her life—and preferably on a regular basis…preferably with a man like Aiden: Strong. Honorable. Not entirely real.

  Which made her wonder…was she going from an earthbound, human Svengali to an ethereal one? Over the course of her life, she’d gone from depending on no one to relying on Ross’s money, Ross’s contacts, Ross’s advice and approval. Now she was finally on her own again. Did she really need another man in her bed, even one who was solid and visible only during the night?

  Actually, she couldn’t think of a better way to ease into her life as a single woman again. Aiden needed her more than she needed him. He wanted his total freedom, and she could, once they figured out how, give that to him. Maybe he could give her the same.

  On that hopeful note, she pushed into the bathroom at the back of the trailer and tore off the rest of her clothes. She really did need a shower. And a nap.

  If she hadn’t watched part of the video, she might have believed that her rendezvous with Aiden had been nothing more than a very hot dream. Or maybe—what was the word her therapist would use—a “manifestation” of some deep-seated, unfulfilled desires. Well, if that was the case, Aiden put the “man” in “manifestation.”

  But despite everything she knew about reality and dreams, Lauren believed Aiden was real, a phantom of his living self, trapped by an ancient curse in the blade of a magical sword. The evidence on the recording was incontrovertible. He’d seduced her last night, just as she’d seduced him. The heat they’d generated could have started a California wildfire during the rainy season. She knew all this, and yet she wasn’t afraid. Why should she be? In her life before she became the famous Lauren Cole, she’d certainly dealt with greater dangers. So far the only risk Aiden had brought into her life was the risk of orgasmic over-dose.

  The shower door was stuck, so with a grunt she tugged it open, reached in and turned the lever, allowing the water to run through the long-unused pipes. Steam instantly blossomed, so she opened the door to the living area and turned on the vent. For an instant she glanced longingly at the sword nestled on the table and wondered whether Aiden would come out to play again anytime soon. Just the thought sent a gentle throbbing between her legs. God, how long had it been since a flash of erotic memory had wound her up so tightly? How long since she had had anything remotely erotic to remember?

  Lauren tested the temperature, found the scalding water irresistible and stepped beneath the stream. She was so caught up in the delicious way the heat eased into her stiff and constricted muscles, she didn’t bother to close the door completely. She wasn’t entirely surprised when the chill of its falling open blasted her bare backside.

  Then the feel of Aiden’s hands against her skin nearly sent her flying.

  She spun.

  “Aiden?”

  A sensation began at a precise spot betwe
en her inner thighs and knees, much like the tips of fingers tracing over her skin. Primal heat immediately suffused her body from every direction: Inside, from the needfulness. Outside, from the water. She leaned forward against the tile and concentrated on the sweet pressure rising higher and higher up her leg and then disappearing into the tawny curls at the juncture of her thighs. Somewhere between a breath and a probing touch, the invisible finger parted her feminine lips and slipped inside, slim at first, teasing the tip of her clit, then broadening, stretching, touching every sensitized part of her. She gasped, choking down water as her heart sent needful pulses through her veins. Her hands itched for someone to touch, someone to cling to, even as she tripped on to the edge of a climax. With no male flesh to hang on to, she grabbed the showerhead for balance.

  Her breasts made exquisite contact with the chilled tile, adding to the explosion of sensations detonating across her body.

  She was panting, moaning uncontrollably as pleasure built to the pressure point. Then the contact disappeared.

  “Aiden?”

  “I’m here,” he said, his whisper barely audible over the shower, his form entirely unseen, even amid the steam.

  Though her body throbbed for him to finish what he’d started, Lauren forced herself to breathe. Not to sound anxious. Or worse—desperate. “I hoped it was you and not some other phantom haunting my trailer.”

  “I am not dead,” he replied, his voice deep and throaty and decadent. “I cannot haunt you.”

  “You’re sure?” she asked.

  Once again the sensation of having a man inside her—and yet…not—threw her body into extrasensory overload. She gasped, then cried out when an added force tightened around her nipples. She squeezed her eyes tight as an orgasm rocked through her, prolonged and exquisite and maddening.

  “Why are you,” she asked, spinning around, “doing this to me?”

  “Do you not enjoy my attention?” Aiden teased.

  She swiped water out of her eyes. “You know I do.”

  A slither of a touch snaked across her neck and shoulders. “You found me, my lady. Fate drew you to me.”

  “I don’t believe in fate,” she argued.

  “I’d venture to guess that less than a day ago, you did not believe in phantoms, either.”

  She couldn’t resist laughing. At him. At herself. She pushed the water out of her eyes again and decided she’d better get lathered soon or risk running out of hot water. She loved her luxury trailer, but it was a trailer, not a suite at the Crown Chandler Beverly Hills.

  “You’ve got me there,” she agreed.

  Suddenly he was surrounding her again. In front. In back. Over. Beneath. Inside. She gasped for breath, sputtering when water flooded her mouth and nose.

  “I want you everywhere,” he admitted.

  She forced herself to move to the other side of the shower stall. “Slow down, phantom boy. You’re going to drown me. Unless,” she said, suddenly suspicious, “that’s your intention. Take me into the afterlife with you?”

  His presence rushed at her in a wave, but the change in atmosphere remained inches away. “I told you,” he said, “I am not dead.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  Suddenly all she could feel was the cold draft from the opened shower door and the hot sizzle of the water against her skin.

  Was he gone?

  Had she insulted him?

  She had no idea what constituted a faux pas in the world of phantoms and ghosts, but she did know she had to get out of the shower. She made short work of lathering her body with a squeeze from a fresh bottle of her favorite aromatherapy wash, courtesy of Cinda, no doubt, and then took the time to wash and condition her hair. After doing a quick check to make sure all necessary parts were sufficiently buffed and clean, she shut off the shower and reached for a towel.

  Stepping into the cold bathroom, she wondered how far Aiden had wandered. Still dripping, she closed the shower door behind her and began to call his name.

  But the instant the metal trim touched the stall, the lights above her flashed. A hot spire of electricity shot through her body, seizing her muscles until she dropped, unconscious, to the ground.

  ***

  Aiden waited for Lauren to emerge front the tiny room where he’d left her bathing beneath a shower of water with soap suds on her skin and in her hair. The scent of vanilla and lavender drifted on the steam, reminding him of his childhood, when flowers had bloomed heartily in his mother’s cherished garden. He’d been so young when she died. Unlike his brother Colin, Aiden was not a religious man. He wasn’t sure he believed in an afterlife of any kind. But this place where he’d emerged, this California, shared qualities with both heaven and hell.

  Despite Lauren’s misgivings, Aiden was sure he was still alive. Ghosts or cursed spirits did not experience the rapture he’d felt last night, nor the torture of being unable to join with her now beneath the cleansing water.

  No longer willing to torment himself with the sounds and smells and tastes of her sensual delight while he could not fully feel his own, he had watched her bathe for as long as he could stand the agony. Aiden had never seen anything like the contraption that rained water down on her hot and hard, but he longed to experience the sensations while in his solid state. There would be time enough, he mused, willing himself into the other room. He had no idea how yet to break the barrier between his phantom state and true life, but he knew the wall between worlds existed, just as certainly as he knew he was not dead.

  Contact with the sword all those years ago had brought him quick pain, yes, but he’d been aware of his entrapment just as immediately. Somewhere in the recesses of his memory, he recalled raging against Rogan, knowing he’d been bound by a curse the dark sorcerer could have conjured. Over the course of two-hundred and fifty years, any moment of awareness had been dominated by the desire to run the bastard through with his own cursed sword. Now, part of Aiden wanted to thank the black-hearted liar for setting in motion his meeting with Lauren.

  Suddenly the lights around him flickered. He heard what sounded like a feminine squeak from behind him and then a thud that was unmistakably the sound of a body dropping to the ground.

  “Lauren!”

  He whirled back into the room and froze. Lauren. Naked. Wet. Unconscious.

  And there was nothing he could do to help her.

  Eleven

  David Drake, as he was calling himself these days, scanned the increasingly busy set for signs of the casting director he’d been told was somewhere inside the soundstage. He glanced at the portfolio he clutched in his hand and refamiliarized himself with the stats printed on the back of the professionally produced eight-by-ten glossy. He supposed his agent’s insisting that his height was six feet when he was only five-eleven and three-quarters wasn’t so much of a lie, but the rest seemed to have come out of the ether.

  Hometown: Boise, Idaho. Sure, he’d been born in the potato state, but he hadn’t lived there for more than the week it had taken his mother to break out of the hospital and hitchhike to L.A.

  Eyes: blue. Thanks to contacts.

  Hair: black. Gotta love that L’Oreal Men.

  He supposed his weight was accurate. He worked out three hours a day to make sure he never tipped over one eighty. Lean and hot as he was, he was primed for the role as the goddess Athena’s lover du jour. He’d watched the first four movies long before he’d been in a position to audition for a role. He’d memorized most of the dialogue, even though he wasn’t wonked-out enough to actually recite them in tandem with the actors, like some über-fans he’d met. But since the series had had the same team of writers for all four films, he’d learned the cadence and rhythm of their words. He was going to nail this audition. And then he’d get exactly what he’d come for.

  “Can I help you?”

  He turned to face a striking woman in a bold blue blouse. Matching eyes flashed against porcelain skin. Thick, dark blond hair. Thin waist. And the mouth…Good th
ing she chose such a light shade of lipstick or the luscious lips would overpower. Her confident smile threw his thoughts in a lusty direction that took him by surprise.

  “I’m here to see Helen Talbot.”

  The woman crossed her arms tightly over her chest, and he couldn’t help but watch how her breasts rounded from the tension.

  She cleared her throat, but when he met her eyes again she didn’t seem offended by his blatant stare. “I’m Helen Talbot.”

  He flashed his best bad-boy grin and offered his hand. “David Drake.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m here for a read with Lauren Cole? My agent told me to be here at two o’clock.”

  After taking a quick glance at her watch, she slipped her hand into his. But instead of giving it the hearty, “I’m a woman but I can do business rougher than any man” shake he’d become so accustomed to in Hollywood, she just held his hand, as if she were determining the size and texture of it. After a moment, a satisfied grin turned those plump lips into the stuff of erotic fantasies.

  “The audition has been canceled, Mr. Drake. Last-minute decision. The role has been cast. Your agent probably missed you.”

  He took his cell phone out of his pocket, and though he’d turned the device to vibrate, there was nothing indicating a missed call. “Sorry, my agent must not have gotten the message.”

  She took a step to the side so she could get a better view of his backside. There was no slyness. No pretense. After a few high-profile guest roles on the New York soap scene, he’d been auditioning in Hollywood for over a year. And yet he couldn’t remember ever being so audaciously assessed. At least, not by a woman. Despite the urban legends about casting couches, David’s experience so far ran along the lines of movie executives so harried and single-minded, they barely had time to look up from stacks of résumés and scripts, much less seduce the stampede of wannabe actors and actresses called to each audition. He was lucky to get one glance before he heard a yea or nay.

  Clearly this woman liked to take her time.