In the Midnight Hour

by Kimberly Raye

  She gave him a suspicious glance before blowing out a deep breath that lifted her chest just enough to make him swallow.

  “You’re the boss.”

  “That I am. Now think.”

  Despite her initial reluctance, she didn’t have to think very long before she poured out a very enticing, erotic fantasy, and Val wondered if maybe he hadn’t made a big mistake.

  He’d needed noncontact. Distance. Particularly after the kissing episode. But this … Merde! If this wasn’t just as trying.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes closed, head tilted back just enough to expose the smooth column of her throat. A soft smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she described the most enticing fantasy featuring strawberries.

  “… a trickle of juice on my neck and lower. A drip-drop here.” She pointed to one nipple straining against the soft fabric of her shirt. “And here.” She pointed to the other. “And all the way—” her fingers swept down, down “—to right here—”

  “Enough,” he growled. “That’s quite enough for tonight.”

  She smiled. “But I’m getting pretty good at this. I never would have thought about strawberries in that way, but after reading about that little episode with the grapes in one of your letters, I think I could definitely enjoy a few strawberries. By the way, who did you do that grape thing with?”

  “Her name was …” He racked his brain for an answer. He knew the woman. He knew every woman. It was one of the traits that women liked most. No woman ever feared being forgotten by Valentine Tremaine. They were all important, every beautiful face, every heated moment. The grape episode had been one of his more pleasurable experiences. He’d always loved grapes and when she’d suggested it … What the blazes was her name?

  “Who?” she prodded, and Val did the only thing a man in his position could do when a woman backed him into a corner and demanded the truth—he blurted the first lie that came to mind.

  “Madonna.” Madonna? While she had a pleasurable singing voice, she wasn’t exactly his type.

  What in hell was he thinking?

  Every woman was his type. Blonde or brunette. Short, tall, thin, or voluptuous. The female race was his type, Madonna included, even if she could stand to gain a few pounds, and maybe try some hair color. A flaming, fiery red.

  “Madonna? That name doesn’t ring a bell. Was it a nickname? Did she use it in the letter?”

  “You can’t expect me to commit every signature to memory,” he snapped, pacing to the window and back. “Her name was Madonna and she loved grapes. That’s the end of it.”

  “But I thought you were the one who loved grapes. She said she suggested it because you—”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “You don’t have to be so grumpy.”

  “I am not grumpy.” He stomped a path to the French doors and opened them to a gust of humid Louisiana heat.

  Just what he needed. More heat to suck the air from his lungs and make his head spin, his blood race, his body … want.

  “The lesson is over.”

  “We just started.”

  “And we just finished.”

  “Look, Val, I need more than one fantasy on record for Miss X. She’s a successful, mature woman who’s looking for love. No way will Guidry buy that this woman only has one fantasy.”

  “It’s late.”

  “It’s barely two a.m.” She closed her eyes and smiled like a child about to dig in to a platter of cookies. “Just listen to this. I’ve got another one that really rocks.” She closed her eyes. “Okay, I’m standing in the shower, the water’s streaming down, the glass is fogged. I can’t see anything, but I feel everything.” A soft smile parted her full lips. “Hands at my back, my hips, gliding around to touch my—”

  “Enough.” Her eyes snapped open again and collided with his. “You’d be the death of me if I weren’t already dead,” he muttered, desperate to ignore the flush of her cheeks, the rosiness creeping down her neck, disappearing beneath the neckline of her T-shirt. The longing in her eyes.

  That drew him more than anything else. The gold heat that warmed him from the inside out and set him ablaze.

  And he burned so damned hot.

  Too hot because of what he was, what he’d become by his foolish passion and one fatal mistake.

  Never again.

  “You know, Val, you’re supposed to be encouraging this. Some teacher you are.”

  He turned and snatched up her notebook. “Here. Write the bloody fantasy down.” A few more lessons, a few more weeks, and this last trial would be over.

  The truth would set him free from the desire gripping his soul and give his spirit peace.

  Oddly enough, the thought didn’t appeal nearly as much as it had before, not with Veronica’s sweet breathing echoing in his ears, her scent fierce in his nostrils, her fantasies still vivid in his mind.

  Strawberries and showers.

  She was definitely learning well.

  At the rate she was going, she was bound to lose her damned virginity and give him a grand send-off into the Afterlife.

  As appealing as the thought was, it also bothered the hell out of him. It was a territorial thing, of course. He was tutoring her and so he didn’t want her first time to be with just any clod without a clue as to how to handle such a passionate woman.

  She needed an equal in her bed, a man who knew all there was to know about pleasuring a woman. A man who knew her deepest, sweetest desires, her fantasies …

  Himself.

  And he needed her, but worse was the fact that he wanted her, more than he’d ever wanted any woman before, and not for the sake of a child, but for his own.

  The realization hit him as he watched her settle down at the kitchen table with her notebook, documenting Madame X’s journey into the fantasy realm. She was covered from neck to feet in baggy clothes; her hair hung in a limp ponytail. She looked rumpled and tired and not the least bit provocative.

  There was just something about the way she caught her full bottom lip as she eyed the paper, the soft whisper of her fingertips against her creamy cheek as she pushed a stray strand of hair back, the heavy-lidded gaze she cast his way as she contemplated her latest fantasy.

  Bon Dieu, he wanted her!

  More than an eternity of peace? For that’s what he would trade should he act on his feelings before he discovered the truth about Claire’s daughter. He would pay with his soul and doom his spirit to an eternity of longing, lusting, torture—

  “Did you ever make love on a swing?” her voice cut into his damning thoughts.

  “What?”

  “A swing. I think it would be kind of exciting. You could start off slow, with a gentle rocking motion, then as things heat up, the swing moves faster and faster—”

  “Write it down,” he growled, gathering his determination and turning his attention to straightening up the bookshelves in the far corner.

  “What about a picnic table?” Her voice followed him. “Outside? In the moonlight?”

  He shoved several books into place. “Just write.”

  She wrote ten pages, a total of four fantasies, that sent her straight into a cold shower that did little to ease her discomfort. Clad in a thick robe, with a towel around her neck to catch the water from her still damp hair, she padded to her desk, slapped open a textbook, and managed to read the same sentence five times before she turned to Val.

  “Why don’t we do a quick refresher on the kiss?” She needed something, anything, even if it was only the sound of his voice.

  He shot her a look that plainly said no.

  “Fine,” she muttered, tossing the towel she’d been using to dry her hair into her designated clothes corner, despite the fact that lately, with Val on the job, it looked as clean as the rest of her apartment.

  “Damn, woman,” Val muttered, bolting from his spot in front of the TV to retrieve the discarded towel. “I cannot abide your living habits. Were you raised in a sty?”<
br />
  “A barn,” she corrected, wadding up several sheets of notebook paper and tossing them on the floor for good measure. A childish act, she knew, but it looked as if making him mad was all the satisfaction she was going to get at the moment. “If you won’t be my love slave,” she muttered, “I’ll settle for a slave slave.”

  The next night went much the same, with Ronnie writing down a few more fantasies that ultimately drove her straight into a cold shower. Afterward, while Val sat in front of the TV, completely oblivious to everything save a Spice Girls video, she sat in front of her computer and worked on a spreadsheet for her tax class.

  Work, she told herself. She needed to calm down before she slid between the sheets; otherwise, she was liable to reach for Val despite the strict boundaries he’d established between them.

  Her nerves still tingled from the erotic thoughts, her heart beat faster than it should have after a half hour and so much cold water her fingers and toes had shriveled.

  She stiffened and forced her attention to the screen. Funny how if she squinted just so, the blaze of numbers looked dangerously close to a man’s …

  Hard up. That described her to a T, and it was no wonder, with a hunky, half-naked man—ghost, she reminded herself—tutoring her, tempting her.

  Why the hell was he being so stubborn?

  She cast a glare at him, noted the firm set of his mouth, the hard line of his jaw. His chest rose and fell easily, his attention completely focused. The rat.

  Furniture wasn’t the only thing they’d made solid back in the good old days.

  Admiration crept through her. Val had a cast-iron will. He’d made up his mind about virgins, and he wasn’t changing it.

  That, or maybe he simply wasn’t attracted to her.

  She frowned. After one hundred and fifty years of celibacy? He should have been tempted by a nun.

  She glanced down at her faded, loose-fitting jeans, her old T-shirt with the jelly stain—courtesy of the Hades twins—obliterating the w and the o in women do it better, so, of course it spelled men do it better.

  First thing in the morning—into the trash.

  Although she wasn’t wearing a habit, in no way was she covering any more. Or less. Yet he still didn’t pay her an added moment’s attention.

  Because he had convictions.

  She smiled again. A man with convictions.

  She frowned. A ghost, dimwit. A ghost.

  With strict convictions.

  Or an aversion to redheads. One in particular.

  The frown returned.

  Maybe he really wasn’t attracted to her. Maybe the chemistry wasn’t chemistry at all, but infatuation on her part. Wishful thinking because she wanted him.

  He was so perfect, so safe, so … controlled.

  Maybe.

  Probably.

  Definitely, she decided the next night when she asked him about his own fantasies. Strictly for comparison, of course. While she was hard up, she wasn’t throwing herself at anyone who might not want her.

  “My fantasies are inconsequential,” he’d told her. “You should concentrate on your own if you intend to master steps twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-two.” Which consisted of recognizing her heart’s desire, manifesting that desire into her everyday life—she’d had a strawberry milkshake that morning—and discovering new fantasies.

  Then he’d turned his attention to the music channel and a parade of big, buxom blondes.

  Ronnie felt as though she’d just reached the front of the line only to have someone cut in front of her. She’d gone from kissing to fantasies. Physical to nonphysical. It had to be a step backward.

  Not to Val. He kept insisting they were going full speed ahead, and he was the one with the three hundred and sixty-nine glowing references, so he should know.

  Added to her fantasy frustration was the fact that, although she lusted after Val, she couldn’t shake the memory of Danny carrying her to bed when she’d been ill and kissing her forehead.

  And curling her toes and inspiring her hormones into a rocking version of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”

  As much as she wanted to write the episode off as a hallucination, she couldn’t. She’d felt the effect of that small kiss through a feverish fog.

  But how could she have the hots for Danny when Val was the one starring in her dreams?

  The question haunted her over the next few days, following her to school and work, lingering in her mind, ready to snatch her attention when she wasn’t taking care to concentrate.

  And even then.

  She’d been smack-dab in the middle of a lecture, absorbed in taking fast and furious notes, when she’d become caught up in noticing the professor’s blond hair. Thinking how that blond hair, with a little body and more length, would have resembled Val’s silken mane.

  This was the very reason she’d avoided dating, she thought as she stood behind the circulation desk and stamped a stack of due date cards. And relationships and, especially, sex. She didn’t need distractions. How was she ever going to pass her classes if she couldn’t concentrate? If she worried instead of studied?

  If she kept thinking of Val and picturing him—six-feet-plus of hunky male with incredible blue eyes and a heart-stopping smile—

  “What’s wrong with you?” Delta’s voice shattered her thoughts.

  Ronnie glanced down to find herself this close to stamping the back of her hand. The stamper stalled an inch shy of trembling fingers.

  “Uh, nothing. I—I ran out of cards. I’m fine. Really.”

  “Hmph,” Delta snorted. “And I’m Kate Moss.”

  At just a pound this side of two hundred, Delta was definitely not Kate Moss.

  “I’ve got finals in three weeks and a load of work between now and then.”

  “And Sports Illustrated just asked me to do the cover of their swimsuit issue.”

  Ronnie grinned. “I bet you’d sell a lot of issues.”

  Delta glared, then her expression softened and shifted to old Professor Gibbons sitting across the room, reading the evening issue of the campus newspaper, the Beat. “Well, maybe one.”

  Ronnie raised an eyebrow. “You and Professor Gibbons?”

  “He’s enamored with me, of course, but I’m just keeping him company.”

  “Is that what they call it now?”

  “Listen here, missy, there is nothing between that old codger and me. We’re just friends. He can really cook.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “I’ve always wanted to try it in the kitchen.” Or anywhere, lately.

  “I was talking about cooking food. He stirs up a great shrimp creole, and that’s all he stirs.”

  “You sure?”

  “Even if he did stir up more, he’s much too frail to handle someone as vivacious as me. Why, he’d probably have a heart attack before he could even break a sweat.”

  “He looks pretty sturdy.”

  “Yeah, well, looks can be deceiving.” Delta narrowed her gaze. “You look a little peaked. You sure you’re not having a relapse with that flu?”

  If only. But flu was the last thing wrong with Ronnie. She was sexually frustrated and she needed relief.

  The experiments.

  She could always try out Val’s techniques on a few target subjects and spend some of the energy simmering inside her.

  She took a self-conscious glance around and pulled the baseball cap low on her forehead. Of course, she would have to be more careful. There were kissing bandit posters up all over campus and Ronnie had taken to wearing her hair pulled up under a New Orleans Saints cap.

  Not that there was even a Popsicle’s chance in hell she would be mistaken for the bandit. The guys who’d initially reported the incident had embellished a little, and the reporter who’d done the story had embellished, and everyone who’d read it had embellished, and now the campus police were searching for a flame-haired vixen wearing a smile and nothing more, with captivating eyes and bo
obs that could double as twin beach balls.

  She hunched down, plucking her shirt away from her chest, concealing the incriminating evidence beneath a tent of white cotton.

  No more experiments, no matter how desperate. She would just have to bide her time and wait for Val. While he might not have any intention of taking her virginity, he was bound to get physical sooner or later. To demonstrate, if nothing else. After all, how many lessons could the fantasies take? Maybe two. Three at the most.

  Six lessons later, Ronnie was penning her twenty-eighth fantasy while Val stared at the TV.

  “I want my money back.”

  He didn’t even spare her a glance. “What are you talking about?”

  “This is getting old. When are we moving on to the next step?”

  “Soon.”

  “How about now?”

  “I’m the teacher.”

  “So teach and leave the TV alone.”

  He flicked the television off and glared at her. “I can watch what I want. This isn’t about me, it’s about you—”

  “—about self-discovery, yada yada. How long did it take you to come up with that line of bull? Because at first I believed it, but enough’s enough.”

  “Just write.”

  “No.” She put the pen down and folded her arms. “You promised lessons, so give me lessons, or you can find out about Emma all by yourself.”

  Not that she would really desert him. She would never do such a thing. Because she needed him to finish her paper, she reminded herself. It certainly wasn’t because she felt compassion for Val.

  The only thing she felt at the moment was the sudden urge to rip his head off. That, or kiss him.

  She slammed her notebook shut. “I’m not writing another word.”

  “Really?” He unfolded himself from the chair and stepped toward her.

  “Really.”

  He reached her and stopped, hands on his hips as he towered over her and glared.

  She held his gaze and tamped down the unease that swirled in her stomach. This was Val. Val who took care of her, picked up after her. Regardless of how predatory he suddenly looked.

  Predatory? She drank in his ferocious expression, his eyebrows drawn together, his mouth a thin slash against his tanned face. Yes, sir, predatory.