Night of the Phantom

by Anne Stuart

  For the time being, she wasn't going anywhere. Not anywhere at all.

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  The cold, rainy weather of April turned to May, swamping the deserted little corner of Arkansas with a blast of heat. The flowers burst forth into sensuous blossoms, lilacs and irises and roses and peonies, and Megan left the windows open in the various rooms she was put in, left the windows open to welcome in the warm air, the scent of spring. Left them open to Ethan.

  She knew he came sometimes while she slept. She would dream that a hand brushed across her face, drifting down her throat gently, a caress as light as the wind. She knew he watched her, watched her on the video monitors, came and stood by her while she slept. She always knew the nights he came to her. When she awoke, her skin would feel flushed, sensitive, tingling with life. But ten days passed without her even seeing his shadow in the moonlight.

  Ten days of moving from room to room with only Salvatore's dour presence for company, with the occasional relief of Ruth's determined friendliness. Ten days of solitude, of an odd sort of serenity as she waited. Waited for the inevitable. Waited for him to come to her.

  She had no doubt that he would. She could feel him all around her, feel his wanting, feel his need. At times, she wondered whether it was only her own, confused need that she was projecting onto him. Those were the dark times, the anxious times that sent her prowling the gardens, looking for solace, looking for Joseph and his remote wisdom.

  But he was missing, too. Occasionally, she'd glimpse him in the distance, but by the time she reached the spot where she'd seen him, he'd be gone without a trace, only the scent of freshly-tended flowers reminding her that he'd been there.

  Ten days. There were times when she awoke in the middle of the night, alone and frightened in the darkness. Those were the nights when Ethan hadn't come, hadn't watched her, hadn't touched her, she knew that without question. Those nights were the hardest.

  Reality intruded into her dreamlike existence on those nights. She'd think of Reese, alone, under indictment, facing disgrace, facing jail, with his own child turned against him, missing from the face of the earth. Except that he knew exactly where she was, had sent her there, sacrificed her in a last-ditch effort to save his own hide.

  She'd think of her apartment, of going to the movies, going out to dinner, reading the latest historical romance, eating yogurt and ice cream and drinking Diet Coke. Here she seemed to exist on hummingbird's tongues, food arcane and elegant enough to be an art form in itself. Every now and then, she'd struggle into the tightest pair of jeans she'd brought with her, certain that she had to be fading away like a good Gothic heroine. They were still as tight as ever across her hips.

  She took to wearing the long, flowing garments Ruth had brought her, wispy things that drifted around her body in a flow of what she knew had to be silk. She wouldn't have worn them, except they were so comfortable, she told herself as she floated from room to room, wondering where Ethan was, wondering when he'd reappear. And nothing she did brought her any peace.

  Sometimes, she thought she could hear him, his words, soft, drawing her deeper and deeper into the spider's web of enchantment he'd spun around her, and her dreams would turn sharply, deeply erotic. She was being bewitched, she knew it full well. Hypnotized, caught up in a spell that, sooner or later, she'd have to break. But for now, she felt strangely powerless, content to drift on a tide of lazy sensuality, her every whim catered to. Except her need for him.

  Ethan fought his need for her. For ten endless days, he wrestled with it, determined to keep his distance. Determined to push his longing for her, his aching need, to the level of a minor annoyance.

  It was a losing battle. Maybe if he'd been able to keep away from her. Turn off the video monitors, turn off his desire for her. Maybe if he'd been able to keep to his underground lair, away from her.

  But the temptation was impossible to resist. He would see her in the grainy, black-and-white monitor, watch her as she slept and know that he had to get closer. To breathe the same air. To smell the flowery scent that seemed to surround her. To touch her gilded hair. Salvatore was wrong—her hair wasn't the color of sunlight. Sunlight was harsh, glaring.

  No, her shoulder-length blond waves were the exact shade of moonlight on a white rose blossom. A dreamy midnight color, silken to his gently questing fingers.

  He had to send her away. He kept telling himself that he had to. The situation in town was escalating to intolerable levels, and he was giving it far too little attention as long as he was distracted by his unwilling guest. If he sent her away without touching her, he could concentrate on his lengthy plans for revenge.

  But if lie sent her away without touching her, it might just kill him. His body vibrated with longing for her; his soul ached for her. And he was half afraid he was going mad.

  Just one more night, he promised himself. One last time. He turned off the monitor, secure in the knowledge that Sal was somewhere in the town of Oak Grove. Not that he didn't know exactly where Ethan disappeared to at night. But for this last night, Ethan didn't want a witness.

  She slept lightly, fitfully, but he had the ability to move in complete silence. He stood over her as she lay on the bed, the white muslin curtains billowing around her, and he reached out his hand to touch the gentle swell of her breast.

  But that would wake her and precipitate everything he'd been resisting. He pulled his hand back as if scorched, and a spasm of rage swept over him. It had been years since he'd railed against the unfairness of life. He'd accepted it with a certain grudging cynicism.

  But tonight he wasn't in the mood to accept anything. He wanted to take and take and take. And he knew if he stood there for one minute more, he'd do exactly that.

  He moved out into the garden, stopping by the shallow pool, staring blindly at the reflection of the moon. The longing was so intense, it shook his body, and in full, aching silence, he tilted back his head and called to her, not with his voice, but with his heart. Called for her to come to him, to break the impasse that was tearing him apart.

  To come to him when he wouldn't let himself go to her. To come to him. To love him. Now.

  Megan awoke abruptly, pulled from her sleep by an inexorable force. She lay there against the feather pillows, her eyes open in the darkness, trying to remember where she was. Slowly it came to her, inevitably.

  They'd moved her to a new room the day before, a huge, airy room painted in white, with yards of white muslin curtains at every window, including the French doors that led into the garden. The bed was mammoth, bigger than a king-size one, and set on a low dais. The sheets were white, too, the softest Egyptian cotton, and the few pieces of furniture, the table, the one comfortable chair, were all white. The only trace of color in the room had been the flowers, a small vase of something she didn't recognize. They were a deep bloodred, with perfectly formed blossoms and a hypnotic scent that filled the room, filled her senses.

  The small walled garden matched the room. Every flower in the garden was white—white roses, white peonies, white irises, white lilacs. She had no doubt at all that when the later flowers bloomed, they, too, would be white.

  There was a shallow pool in the center of the garden, the pathways with their white crushed stone leading to it, and the clear blue of the water echoed the blue of the sky. The place was perfect, serenely beautiful and yet oddly, subtly unsettling.

  She sat up in bed, in the darkness, the pervasive scent of the flowers filling the air. She pushed back the covers, reaching for the light, and then pulled her hand back. The moon was full that night, she could see the bright reflection of the garden through the billowing curtains. A breeze had come up, filling the room with life, and for a moment, she didn't move.

  She should lie down and pull the covers around her, she told herself. She should close her eyes, close her heart, keep safe from the phantoms of the night.

  But he was calling to her. She could hear him, in her heart. She could f
eel him, nearby at last, waiting for her, calling for her. And she could no more ignore that call than she could stop her heart from beating.

  She slid from the bed, pushing aside the filmy curtains. The room was a shifting mass of shadows, but she knew without question he wasn't there. He'd been there, watching her again. And then he'd left, for what reason she couldn't fathom. He'd left without touching her, without waking her, but deep within his tortured soul, he was calling to her.

  And she was answering that call with a kind of dazed certainty. Time had lost all meaning. All that mattered was Ethan, calling to her to come to him. At last.

  She moved through the room blindly, her long white robe trailing after her, out past the billowing white curtains, through the open door into the garden.

  The landscape was bathed in moonlight, the white flowers glowing faintly. In the shallow pool she could see the reflection of the moon, round and full and pearly white like the flowers of the garden. And she could see the reflection of Ethan, dressed in black, his body tall and lithe, his face turned away from her so that all she could see was the fall of black hair.

  "Come to me," he said, and she didn't know whether the words were spoken aloud or directly to her heart. It didn't matter. She moved toward him through the garden, her bare feet silent on the sharp white gravel, knowing she no longer had any choice in the matter. Her heart had taken away that choice. She was his completely, and he'd barely touched her.

  She stopped in front of him, afraid to reach out her hand. He would have to make the first move. His face was in shadows, only the beautiful side remotely visible through the fall of hair, the shifting of the moon shadows through the garden. She tried to look up at him, but she was afraid, and instead, she closed her eyes, shivering lightly in the warm night air.

  He touched her then, his hand sliding along her neck, beneath her heavy blond hair, tilting her head back to face him without pulling her closer. "Open your eyes, angel," he said in a voice silken and beguiling. "Look at me."

  She had no choice but to do whatever that voice told her. She opened her eyes, looking up at him fearlessly. In the moonlit garden, the dark side of his face seemed to disappear, leaving only the unearthly beauty of his profile. It didn't matter. It was more than his face that drew her to him.

  His hand slid down her neck to the base of her throat, to the ornate clasp that held the dress together. His long deft fingers released it even as his eyes held hers, and the gown parted, falling loosely about her.

  His other hand came up to push the gown from her shoulders, and it landed in a flow of silk at her bare feet, leaving her naked by the clear blue pool, gilded in moonlight.

  He didn't lower his eyes to look at her body. Instead, he was intent on her face, her eyes, her expression. "You stayed," he said, and tension ripped the sweetness from his voice. "You could have gone with Palmer. If you'd asked again, Salvatore would have let you go."

  "I didn't want to go."

  "I live in darkness," he said, still not touching her, his voice low and urgent. "In the shadows, in the warmth and safety of the night. If you come to me, you'll live in shadows, too."

  She lifted her head to look around, and her hair rippled down her bare back. "The moonlight is bright enough for me," she said quietly.

  He reached out then, his hands cupping her face, his thumbs caressing her cheeks. "I must be mad," he whispered. "You'll destroy me."

  "I'll love you," she said, but the words were silent.

  "You'll destroy me," he said again, closing his eyes in sudden despair. And then he kissed her.

  She had one coherent thought after his mouth met hers. That this was the way it was supposed to be. This was what people chased after all their lives. This was why a wedding ended with a kiss. This was something that sealed, that changed her life, that took her soul to a place strange and new and terrifying. This time she wouldn't run.

  She pressed herself against him, needing the feel of his body against her, needing something to hold on to. He was lean and hard and muscular, and his soft black clothes pressed against her skin, arousing her with the very incongruity of cloth against nakedness. Her vulnerability should have added to her fright, but instead, it made her only more determined. Her mouth opened beneath his, accepting whatever he wanted to give her.

  His arms slid around her back, arching her against him, and his mouth trailed down the side of her neck, to touch the wildly beating pulse at the base of her throat. And then, with sudden strength, he picked her up in his arms, holding her tight against him, adding to her sense of frailty, she, who'd never felt frail or vulnerable in her life.

  She leaned her face against his shoulder, giving up the last ounce of fight. She was his to do whatever he wanted with, and if she felt passive, it was an oddly, intensely erotic passivity. He moved through the billowing curtains into the darkened room with only the white-shrouded furniture marking the way, and then he set her down on the bed, standing over her, watching her as he'd watched her so many nights before.

  She looked up at him, silent, questioning, wanting him more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life. He was only a shadow in the darkness, a silhouette dressed in black, a phantom lover come to her bedside, and she knew a sudden longing for sunlight. She wanted to see him, to touch him, to know him.

  But instinct told her to take him on his terms. So she lay back against the pillows, eyes half closed in the shadowy darkness, and waited.

  She could hear the rustle of clothing, and she knew he was stripping off his clothes. She wanted to rise up on her knees, to reach out for him in the darkness, but she couldn't move, mesmerized but his unspoken command in the inky blackness. She was trembling, not with cold, not with fear, but with her need for him. She wanted him so badly, she thought she might die of it.

  And then he was on the bed with her, his hands on her shoulders, pulling her to him, and his skin was hard and hot and damp against her. "Ethan," she whispered, a small cry of passion, of need, of surrender as his hands moved down her body, dancing across her sensitive skin, arousing her without touching anything but her waist, the outer sides of her thighs, her knees.

  He lay back against the mound of pillows, pulling her with him, his mouth against hers, kissing her with a devastating thoroughness that was bringing her perilously close to madness. She couldn't come with just his mouth on hers, his hands on her waist, and yet she was astonishingly close to it. His hands moved upward, sliding against her midriff, and she felt the slight, arousing roughness of his skin as it danced along her softness, moving closer and closer to her aching breasts. If he didn't touch her, she'd die. She knew it even as he tore his mouth away from hers, breathing heavily as he trailed kisses down the side of her neck.

  Slipping away from her, he pushed her back on the bed, flat against the mattress. She reached for him, wanting to pull him against her, but he caught her wrists, holding them down beside her body. The touch of his mouth against her breast brought a reaction so intense, it was almost painful. She tried to arch off the bed, but he was holding her still with his hands on her wrists as he slowly circled one breast with his tongue, then tugged it gently into his mouth, suckling on it, nipping lightly with his teeth before turning his attention to her other breast.

  She moaned, her breath coming in strangled gasps, and she struggled against his imprisoning grip. She wanted to touch him, to pull him over her, into her. Her body was twisting, desperate with longing. She needed him, needed him now. And yet she couldn't tell him. All she could do was writhe on the bed, trying to reach for him.

  His hands released her wrists and for a moment, she was almost too dazed to react as he reached up and cupped her breasts, his thumbs caressing the dampened flesh. And then he moved his mouth downward, across her flat belly to the apex of her thighs, and she couldn't make a sound of protest. He kissed her in the downy thatch of golden curls, and then lower still, his mouth finding her with devastating effect. This time she struggled for a moment, her hands finding his head
and trying to pull him away as his large, strong hands cradled her hips, holding her still. And then she wasn't tugging at him, she was threading her hands through his thick, long hair, holding him against her, arching against the devastating invasion of his mouth and tongue.

  The darkness closed around her, the thick velvet night where no light penetrated, as the sensations swirled around her. It made no sense. Normally, she didn't even like what he was doing to her, had always found it vastly overrated. And yet now she was being turned into a quivering, mindless mass of female flesh in response to his mouth, his hands, his sheer intensity. She didn't want it; she wanted to give to him, not take, and yet he was giving her no choice.

  He knew how to judge her reactions perfectly, the shift, the restlessness, the ripple of reaction, the strangled breathing. He knew when she was just on the edge of explosion, and he knew how to expand that edge, to draw her over it, willingly, tumbling to her doom with no more than a strangled cry. He knew how to prolong it so that she was clawing at his shoulders, sobbing frantically, certain her body could take no more until he showed her, with inexorable determination, that it could.

  And yet it wasn't enough. She convulsed against his mouth, her body going rigid in reaction, and still she pulled at him, tugged at him, wanting more and more of him, wanting him, not his mouth, not his hands working their fiendish magic, she wanted all of him.

  She was scarcely aware that he'd released her. Not until he covered her trembling, shivering body with his, wrapping her in his arms against his own tense, damp body did she realize that despite the contractions still rippling through her, he was no longer touching her.

  She put her arms around his neck, burying her tear-damp face against his shoulder. Had she thought there was any chance at all she'd be able to hold some tiny part of her inviolate? It was a false hope. He'd taken her completely, and yet he hadn't even attempted his own satisfaction yet.