Anne Stuart's Out-of-Print Gems

by Anne Stuart

  But he could see in the dark, feel her response. “What?” he asked. “What do you want from me? If I can, I’ll give it.”

  The heat was already starting to build again, that burning, yearning ache that centered between her legs and spread up through her belly to her breasts, her mouth, her body and soul. She didn’t want to lose him, but she had to ask.

  “Could we make love with the lights on?”

  The utter stillness in the room was deafening. Even the pouring rain, the fading thunder seemed to have vanished, and for a moment, she was afraid Ethan had vanished, too, gone back to his subterranean lair, never to surface again. He didn’t say a word, and she could feel the torment she’d put him through, and she cursed herself, but she didn’t withdraw the request.

  The bed creaked, shifted, and she thought he was leaving her. And then the room was flooded with a blinding light, a white-hot blaze of brilliance that hurt the eyes. She shut hers with a little gasp, unused to the brightness, but his hands were on her wrists, pulling them away.

  She blinked rapidly as her eyes grew accustomed to the brilliance. And then she looked up at him, at his utterly still body and expressionless face.

  The mark was as she remembered, bisecting his face, turning it into a thing of tragic beauty. What she hadn’t known was that the mark spread down his body, his neck, one shoulder, and his torso, ending just above his hip. The mottled, liver-colored flesh contrasted to the lightly golden tone of the rest of him, once more emphasizing the contrast, and beneath that skin was a strong, leanly muscled body, And he was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen in her life.

  She sat up, still shaky with effort, and leaned forward, pressing her mouth against his. Then she kissed his neck, the marked side. She kissed his shoulder, using her tongue, she kissed the flat, tight male nipple, she kissed his stomach and his waist and his hip as he sat there, utterly still and unmoving.

  She looked up at him, wondering if he wanted her to go further, wondering if he was angry or disappointed with her request and her reaction. Belatedly, she realized that the brightness did more than expose him to her curious eyes. It exposed her, too, extra ten pounds, too-rounded hips, too-full thighs and all. And she started to retreat in sudden uncertainty, back against the sheets, and she knew her expression must have signaled some of her self-doubt.

  He smiled then, a faint, rueful upturning of his mouth. “You’re right,” he said in his soft, beguiling voice. “There’s something to be said for being able to see. Especially when it’s someone as beautiful as you are.”

  “I’m not—” she began, prepared to point out all her deficiencies, but he stopped her mouth with his, stretching out beside her in the glaring midnight light. And then she realized those ten pounds didn’t matter, not one bit. To him, she really was beautiful. And if he thought so, she did, too.

  They did sleep, at least for a while. They awoke to make love again, then slept, then awoke. The bright glare of the electric light was joined by the approaching lights of dawn, filling the room with a murky gray light. Megan cuddled in Ethan’s arms, too content to sleep, and surveyed the room.

  It was one she hadn’t seen, one that wasn’t part of the game of musical rooms Ethan had been sending her on. The sheets beneath them were a pearly gray, the walls a similar muted color, and the rug that they’d tumbled onto earlier was a beautiful Oriental with shades of gray and rose. Candlesticks were mounted on the walls, on the dresser, and the pile of books beside the bed was a haphazard tower. She knew without question that this was Ethan’s bedroom, Ethan’s bed, not one more in a line of secret rooms. She looked up at the walls, squinting through the darkness to decipher the one shadowed painting that adorned the bare stucco. It was a chiaroscuro of light and shadows, and she squinted, then found herself sitting up, pulling herself carefully out of Ethan’s sleeping arms to focus on the painting.

  It was a life-size nude. And it was unquestionably her. He’d painted her from memory in the act of doing her defiant striptease in front of the video camera. He’d captured her anger, her challenge, every ripe curve to perfection. But he’d also captured her vulnerability. An expression in the back of her eyes as she stared out at the world, daring him to come to her. Daring him to love her.

  He was awake, of course. “Do you like it?”

  “Did you paint it?”

  “Did you think I would have let anyone else see you?”

  “You had Sal lie to me. Why?” She knew the answer, but she had to hear it from him.

  “I wanted to make you angry. To drive you away. To somehow lessen the power you had over me.”

  She looked down at him, lying back against the pearly gray pillow. “Did it work?”

  “What do you think?”

  She glanced back at the painting, at the woman who was here, and yet far more than she’d ever thought she could be. “I think you really do love me,” she said. “I think—”

  Her words were interrupted by a thunderous pounding on the hall door. With a little shriek, she dived down in the bed, pulling the covers around her, huddling against him.

  “Why the hell’s the door locked?” Sal’s voice demanded from the other side, a rough urgency filling it.

  “Because I wanted to lock it,” Ethan replied, his voice cool as his hand gently stroked Megan’s huddled form. “What do you want?”

  “We got trouble. Plenty of it. For one thing, and that’s the least of our worries, the girl didn’t leave last night. She must be wandering around the place looking for trouble. The car was left in a ditch with the lights on. The battery’s dead, and it’s going to take hours to recharge it, and—”

  “You said that was the least of our worries,” Ethan reminded him, his hand dipping beneath the sheet to stroke the smooth line of Meg’s back.

  “Yeah. She’ll turn up like a bad penny. It’s Ruth.”

  Ethan’s hand stopped its slow, erotic motion. “What about Ruth?”

  “She’s been taken to the hospital in Millers Fork. Burt says she’s in stable condition, but he’s staying over there.”

  “What happened to her? Who took her to the hospital?”

  “Burt drove her. Doc was too drunk to help. And the others…” There was a strangled pause on the other side of the heavy door. “They stoned her, Ethan,” Sal said in a broken voice. “Pastor Lincoln got everyone convinced she was the whore of Babylon, consorting with the Satan that lives on their doorstep, and they went after her with rocks.”

  Ethan had pulled himself upright in the bed, a dark, unreadable expression on his face. “They hurt her because of me.”

  “No, Ethan. They hurt her because they’re crazy and wicked and stupid,” Megan said urgently, putting her hand on his arm. He didn’t yank it away, he just sat there.

  She’d forgotten Sal didn’t know where she was until she’d spoken. “She’s in there with you, isn’t she?” he said finally, his voice heavy with disapproval and something else.

  “Yes,” Ethan said.

  There was a pause. “Then you’d better keep her with you. There’s no telling what that mob will do at this point. Once they’ve tasted blood, there may be no stopping them. Or maybe they’re so frightened and ashamed of what they’ve done that they’ll lie low for a while. Long enough for us to get away from this place. You’ll go, won’t you, Ethan?”

  Ethan looked at Megan’s pale, questioning face. And then he put out his hand, pushing the tangled sheaf of hair away from her eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I’ll go.”

  Megan, hearing the defeat and acceptance in his voice, wondered whether he’d be going alone. Or whether he’d take her with him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ethan left her then. She hadn’t expected him to stay with her. Without a word, he left the bed, moving with unselfconscious grace and disappearing into an adjoining room that she assumed was a bathroom.

  With a sigh, she rose, grabbing the pearl gray top sheet from its spot on the floor and wrapping it around her like a toga. She we
nt to the hall door, unlocking it, bracing herself to meet Sal’s disapproving eyes.

  In the light of day, he wasn’t looking any too good himself. The livid bruises that had adorned his face had turned even brighter, and she could only assume they’d come from an encounter with the same crazed group of townspeople. He was right, they had to get out of there as fast as they could, before the whole thing exploded around them.

  “Sorry about the car,” she said inanely.

  He just stared at her. “You should have left while you still could,” he said, his rough voice somber.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the tightly shut door. “I couldn’t,” she said, more to herself than to him.

  Sal followed her gaze. “No,” he said. “I guess you couldn’t.” He moved past her, not touching her, but she could sense his mental dismissal. “I put your suitcases back in your room. You’ll probably want to change.” His gaze raked the sheet she had pulled around her. “And Ethan and I will need some time alone.”

  “All right.” She couldn’t think of an argument. And she desperately longed for a shower and a change of clothes. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel so weak and shaky, so helpless. She wasn’t used to feeling helpless—it was an unpleasant feeling, but one she couldn’t shake. She was at the mercy of emotions, events that she couldn’t control, couldn’t even influence. She was at the mercy of a man who mystified as much as he enchanted her.

  “Just keep turning right and you’ll come to your room,” Sal said, sensing her hesitation. “Anyone with your ability to get into places where you shouldn’t be won’t have any trouble finding it. And once you’re there, for God’s sake, stay put. Ethan will know where to find you. I’ll be going into town to find out exactly how bad things are. I wouldn’t want you to be wandering around alone if Pastor Lincoln decided to make one last try at converting you.”

  Megan shivered. “I’ll stay in my room. At least until Ethan comes to get me.”

  Salvatore’s answering snort was far from encouraging.

  ETHAN DIDN’T COME TO get her. She made up a dozen excuses for him. He had to be as tired as she was after their sleepless night. She was able to sleep for several hours on the muslin-enclosed bed, hoping, dreaming that when she awoke, Ethan would be lying beside her. But when a nightmare yanked her into sweating, heart-pounding wakefulness, she was alone in the darkening afternoon.

  The thunder was back, a distant, ominous rumble, and the wind had picked up once more. She climbed off the huge bed, stretched her cramped, sore muscles and walked over to the French doors. The white-flowered garden was empty—no elderly gardener was stooped over the fragrant blossoms. She’d have to remember to ask Ethan about the old man. For some reason, she’d always been too overwhelmed by the here and now to think of anything, anyone but the two of them. When she was with him, all other people seemed to fade into the distance.

  She glanced around the darkening room, looking in vain for food. She couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten, and while food had certainly been a low priority while she’d been in residence, she realized quite suddenly that she was famished.

  In her wanderings around the convoluted old house she’d never found anything as remotely practical as a kitchen, but then, she’d never been looking. Maybe her sense of direction would work as well for cheese and crackers as it worked for Ethan. Except that she didn’t think it was going to be that simple. She needed Ethan far more than she needed food to stay alive.

  Maybe she’d go in search of him, and together, they could invade the kitchen. She could manage a decent omelet if she could find the right pan. The thought of cooking for him, of a tiny, normal morsel of domesticity, was alluring. And somehow, very unlikely.

  The hall door was tightly locked. She stared at it in disbelief, unwilling to accept the fact that last night had made no difference at all. But then, Sal was perfectly capable of taking it upon himself to lock her in. Ethan was probably wondering why she was gone so long, why she hadn’t come to him.

  No, he was wondering no such thing. He could come to her, as he had before. If he wanted to.

  Where was Sal? It had been midmorning when he said he was going to check on what was happening in Oak Grove. Though she had no way of telling time, she could only guess that it was early evening, six or seven. He’d been gone a long, long time.

  And she wasn’t going to sit there a minute longer like a passive little lady. If she couldn’t get through the door to the house, she could go over the garden wall. And if Ethan came to rescue her while she was gone, then he’d have only himself to blame.

  The wind was picking up, knocking the white-budded flowers this way and that. She went first in search of the door Joseph had used just yesterday, but that stretch of wall was smooth and unblemished. There’d been no way he could have simply vanished in front of her eyes, but there was no other practical explanation, either.

  The white climbing rose ran up a trellis. She tore her hands climbing, snarled her hair, but nothing could make her stop, not the wind howling overhead, not the distant crackle of lightning, not the threatening roll of thunder. She dropped down lightly on the other side into a Zen-like garden of swirling sand patterns and miniature fir trees, then up and over another wall, her anger at odds with her quickly building panic. Something was wrong, something was very wrong, and she had the sense that danger was all around her. She could smell smoke in the air, a sweet, piny-pitch smoke, and the rumble of thunder sounded ominously like the rumble of voices.

  The next garden had no walls. Instead, there was a maze made of boxwood that reached over her head, a maze she had no choice but to enter. There was no way around it, and she sure as hell wasn’t going back.

  The chanting was louder inside the maze, and she knew with sudden grim fear that Pastor Lincoln and his loyal crew of followers had to be nearby. Hadn’t Sal warned her? Hadn’t Ruth already ended up in the hospital, an innocent victim of their deranged sense of justice?

  The voices grew louder, closer, and the smell of fire was stronger than ever. Torches, she thought, panicked. They used to burn witches, didn’t they? Hadn’t Pastor Lincoln accused her of being something perilously close to a witch?

  She turned back, panicked, but the maze split in two directions, and she had no idea which way to go. She started down one path when something or someone seemed to call to her. Looking back, she saw Joseph, as if from a great distance, beckoning to her.

  Without hesitation, she wheeled around and ran to him. He was gone by the time she got there, but she kept on in that direction, blind with panic and fright, the voices behind her growing louder and louder.

  Another split in the path, and Joseph was there again, leading her to safety. She no longer thought she’d reach him, she was happy just to follow him, away from those droning voices, those evil minds. He’d take her to Ethan, she knew he would, and Ethan would keep her safe. Ethan was all-powerful, dark and menacing and mysterious to people whose limited minds couldn’t understand him, and he loved her. He wouldn’t let anyone touch her.

  She almost made it. The end of the maze was in sight and she began to run toward Joseph’s patiently waiting figure, slipping in the dew-wet grass, racing as fast as her beating heart would allow her, when she felt the hands behind her, reaching out for her, gnarled, clawlike hands, catching at her clothes, pulling her down, down. She screamed, Ethan’s name a helpless cry that was silenced as it began as a hand clamped over her mouth, followed quickly by a foul-tasting rag. Something pungent and acrid covered her nose, and she held her breath, struggling, fighting with all her strength.

  “Ether’ll do the trick.” She recognized Doc Bailey’s slurred tones with horror. “She’ll either have to take a breath or she’ll pass out on her own accord.”

  “Evil!” Pastor Lincoln intoned from overhead, and she knew they were his hands holding her down, hurting her breasts with perverse deliberation. “She’ll be purified by fire and blood….”

  Megan could smell the fire, see th
e flames of the torches against the darkening sky. Why didn’t Joseph help her? She turned her head and saw him at the edge of the maze, watching her struggle, making no move to help her.

  She kicked hard, connecting with the good pastor, forcing him to release his painful hold as he rolled to the ground. But there were too many willing hands ready to take his place, and her lungs were about to burst. She opened her mouth against the rag in one last attempt to scream, but the drug poured into her, blackness surrounded her, and the last thing she saw was Joseph watching her, standing close, a sorrowing expression on his ancient face. And the odd thing was, no one else seemed to notice him at all.

  ETHAN SAT BOLT UPRIGHT in his chair, his hands clenched into fists. For five long hours he’d sat in darkness, fighting his need to go to Megan, fighting his own guilt and rage. She wasn’t safe. He’d known that, known that once he’d put his own convoluted plans for revenge in gear, nothing would stop them. Not an innocent woman who stood in his way, not his own, belated second thoughts. He’d gone too far to change his mind, to back down. And now Ruth lay in a hospital, Sal was missing, and Megan…Megan…

  She was safe for now, locked in that room, with the locked garden beyond. No one could get to her, most of all him.

  When had things shifted beyond his control? He’d managed his life so carefully, using his money, his brilliance, the gifts a stingy God had given him in return for deformity, to run his life. No one was able to touch him, to hurt him. Those who had managed would pay the price.

  First Reese Carey, with his greedy tactics that endangered people in order to line his own pockets. A man worthy of punishment, yes. But not Ethan Winslowe’s punishment. If Ethan had simply been interested in justice, he would have sent his information directly to the investigators looking into Carey Enterprises. Instead, he’d planned to keep the man a prisoner, playing his own sadistic cat-and-mouse game, to make the man suffer.