Night of the Phantom

by Stuart, Anne

  His hands reached to cup her face. The moon had gone behind a cloud and the tiny glow of light had vanished from the room, leaving them plunged into inky darkness. His long fingers brushed the tears from her face, and then his mouth followed, kissing salty dampness from her cheeks, her eyelids, her mouth. She didn't need to hear the words; he didn't need to speak them. You 're mine. Forever. She knew it in her heart, in her soul. There was no longer any chance of running.

  She turned her mouth to meet his, and his long thick hair fell around them, closing them within a curtain of it. Once more darkness surrounded them, cocooning them in a world of sensation and midnight glory. He shifted her beneath him, parting her legs so that he rested against her, the heat and hardness and need of him, and she trembled, uncertain that she could take much more.

  His slow, inexorable possession of her body was something she couldn't deny. It seemed endless, overwhelming, consuming, as her body shifted to accommodate him, and she knew from her initial twinge of discomfort that he was far more than what she was used to. Far more of everything. When be finally rested inside her, he pulled her legs up around his hips, settling in even deeper, and she couldn't contain a little gasp of dismay.

  She could feel the iron hard muscles against her, feel the fierce control that tightened his body. ' 'Did I hurt you?" he asked softly, urgently, and she knew if she said one word, he would pull away, leave her. And she would die.

  But she wouldn't lie. Never would she lie to him. Instead, she kissed his mouth, silencing the question, and tightened her legs around him, pulling him in deeper still.

  Now it was his turn to shudder, to tremble and shiver in reaction. The control that he'd kept so tightly began to slip, as he slowly pulled away from her, only to fill her again. She winced in the darkness, keeping still, determined not to flinch from the fierce possession of his body.

  She wasn't quite sure when it changed. When the last trace of discomfort vanished and she was reaching for him, clutching at him, sobbing and weeping as he strained against her. He was so strong, so powerful, that her entire body felt invaded, overwhelmed by his possession, a possession she didn't want to end. She arched up against him, knowing that nothing could possibly reach the heights she had earlier, but reaching anyway when the moon came out from behind the clouds, filling the room with silvery light.

  He had his face turned away from her so that all she could see was his unmarked profile, the sheath of long hair between them. His muscles were bunched, slippery with sweat beneath her hands, and she was loath to give up holding him, touching him, but she had to. Reaching up, she caught his face, turning him to look down at her, full face, his bisected beauty mesmerizing her. She kissed his mouth, his nose, she kissed the marked side of his face. Pushing his hair out of the way, she kissed the side of his neck where the mark continued down between their joined bodies.

  For a moment, he stilled the hypnotic, powerful rhythm of his body and she was afraid she'd gone too far. She met his gaze fearlessly and she said the words she'd only thought, the words that would be her death knell. "I love you."

  He closed his eyes, an expression of pain and something else she couldn't read washing over him. And then, flinging his head back, he began to move again, slow, deliberate thrusts that she met with every last ounce of her strength. Until the tempo increased, until he was thrusting into her with a fierceness that should have frightened her. She held on desperately, somehow wanting to absorb him into her very skin. She knew he was on the absolute edge of his climax; she could feel it in the shivering tension of his body and she wondered why he held off, why he waited.

  And then she knew, as suddenly, without warning, her own body convulsed again, around him, with a power that seemed to stop the earth in its orbit. She could feel him, rigid against her, she could hear her name, a curse of despair and triumph, as he joined her, spilling into her, giving the last that he'd kept from her in a timeless, endless dance of desire and satisfaction that she was certain would destroy her. And she would have gone willingly.

  When reality returned, it was minutes, hours later. He was lying on top of her, his marked face hidden in the white pillow beside her, and his body was cool and shivery and very tense. She knew he was going to move away, and she couldn't let him go. Threading her arms around him, she clung tightly, unaware of her tear-streaked face, the desperation in her embrace.

  His tense muscles relaxed against her, and his hand came up to gently caress her face. In a moment, he was asleep, pinning her beneath his much larger body, and she found, to her amazement, that she was smiling through her tears.

  He was human after all, and just as prone as any other damned man to fall asleep after making love. It was a tiny measure of relief to know that even he wasn't always astonishing.

  She lay beneath him, accommodating herself to his weight, knowing she couldn't possibly be smothered, even though it felt like it. As the tumult in her heart and body subsided, the tumult in her mind increased. It made no sense. Her experience hadn't been extensive, but enough to know what she liked and didn't like, of what her own body was or was not capable. And he'd proven her wrong on every point, taken her on a trip of such mysterious, mesmerizing proportions that she doubted she'd ever be the same again.

  Now he slept in her arms, weighing her down, his silken hair around them both. And not for the first time she wondered whether she'd stepped into a fairy tale or a nightmare. Or a bewildering combination of both.

  There was no answer to that. Not in the middle of a moon-shadowed night with a man in her arms who not only meant more to her than anything else. He was the only thing that mattered to her. The only thing at all.

  She didn't know how it happened. What strange flaw in her character made her become totally obsessed by a man who'd essentially kidnapped her, terrorized her, seduced and enchanted her. It didn't do any good to wonder. For the first time in her twenty-seven years, she was in love, irrationally, completely. Eternally. She was just going to have to figure out a way to live with it.

  Live with him.

  If he'd let her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  * * *

  Watching Meg while she slept had become an obsession for Ethan. Lying in the bed beside her didn't lessen the potency of that pastime. Her eyes were closed, her sunlit hair was a tangle around her face, and he could see the trace of dried tears in the faint glow. The moon had set long ago, but he was accustomed to the dark, welcomed it. The brightness of the full moon had been almost intrusive. He preferred it this way, with the shadows all around them, enclosing them in the bed just as the muslin curtains did.

  At some point during the night, they'd shifted. She lay curled up beside him, not touching him, her hands tucked under her chin, her body hunched slightly beneath the sheet that covered them. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to lift a strand of hair and kiss it, follow the peachy texture of her skin with his mouth, he wanted everything, and he wanted it so much, he shook with need. But he held himself distant, remote, a tense occupant of the huge bed, knowing his time was drawing to its damnable, inevitable conclusion.

  He hadn't even let her touch him. She wanted to, he knew that. But he was afraid if she'd touched him, if she'd been more than a recipient of his overwhelming passion, then he might not be able to follow through on his determination.

  He shouldn't have gone this far, he knew. But he couldn't let her go, not without having her, just once. Not without tasting that silken, peachy flesh of hers. Not without watching the passion, the astonishment, the shimmering delight in her face as he made love to her.

  He'd remember that look for the rest of his life, and he had no doubt that even if, God help him, he lived to be ninety years old, his body would still respond to the memory.

  It would be all that he had. A few moments more of watching her, of breathing in the flowery perfume of her body, feeling the warmth of her breath against his skin, and that would be the end. This life, this existence he'd been handed was rough enough. If his pu
nishment for unnamed crimes including living another fifty-some years without her, he didn't think he could stand it.

  He couldn't bear to let her go, but that was exactly what he intended. He'd always known he had to. For the past ten days, he'd been trying to steel himself to do just that, trying and getting nowhere. Tonight had stiffened his resolution. He'd given in to temptation, to the silent cry for him that he alone could hear. He'd gone to her, called to her, and she'd come without hesitation, without questions, without demands, with only that one, damnable protestation of love.

  And it had been perfect. No, not perfect. Life wasn't perfect. It had been something close to heaven. No wonder the French called it le petit mort, the little death. Making love to Megan had felt like the cataclysm of everything he'd known flaming into nothingness, a death that was its own sort of triumph. Nothing else could ever come close.

  She murmured something in her sleep, rubbing her face against the pillow, and then she smiled in her dreams. He wanted to reach out and pull her into his arms, his hands were shaking with the need to touch her, and still he didn't move, prolonging his torment, prolonging his agony. And then, even his formidable resolve failed and he made himself leave the bed before he gave in.

  She made a tiny sound, a small, weak sound of protest, and her arms reached out for the empty space where he had lain. But she slept on, only in her dreams did she know that he'd abandoned her.

  His clothes were in a tumbled heap at his feet. He pulled them on slowly, his eyes never leaving her sleeping face. She had a mark beneath her chin, a faint bruise that must have come from him. He found himself wishing that mark would never leave her. That she would look at the small mark and think of the man who'd given it to her. That even when she was back in her safe, controlled world and her sojourn here was nothing more than a distant dream, she'd find something and remember.

  The wind had picked up and the muslin curtains surrounding the bed tumbled in the air, flapping against him. He could feel the approach of dawn with its glaring sunlight. It had been so long since he'd felt the sun's warmth on his face. Maybe Salvatore was right. Maybe he should go back to the island. Maybe then he'd forget about her.

  It didn't take him long at all. He worked quickly, efficiently, ignoring the pain in his hands as the thorns lacerated his fingers. She slept on, oblivious, as he stepped back into the bedroom, behind the billowing bed curtains. And she only smiled faintly in her sleep as he covered her with the petals of a thousand white flowers, their scent filling the room, blending with her own flowery fragrance and the raw, erotic smell of sex.

  He wanted to take her in the midst of all those creamy white petals. He wanted to lie in the flowers with her, devouring her, body and soul. He wanted her so much and in so many ways that he had only one choice. He left her.

  He went straight to the computer room in the bowels of the house, comfortable in the utter darkness, welcoming it. The candles had long since burned down, but he found his way to the huge, throne-like chair with unerring instinct, sinking down into it. A trace of her flowery scent clung to him, to his skin, to his hair, to his hands. Alone in his room, he knew what he had to do. He just didn't know how he could do it.

  He leaned forward and put his face in his hands. His long hair covered him, wrapping him in a curtain of her scent. And he began to shake with pain.

  Megan was alone. The scent of flowers was all around her, but still she felt oddly bereft. She knew Ethan was gone from her, knew it without having to reach for him. She just didn't know how far away he'd gone.

  The early lavender-and-coral light of dawn was threading through the billowing muslin curtains. She sat up in the bed, shivering slightly in the early-morning chill, and looked at the flowers he'd strewn over the bed. Sudden, inexplicable tears filled her eyes, and as she reached to pick up a silky white petal, the dull gold of the Janus ring gleamed on her hand.

  She pulled up the sheet around her. There was nothing to worry about, she told herself. He didn't like the sunlight, she knew that. It didn't matter that she'd seen him. He'd made love to her in total darkness, and she had the insight to know that the darkness was more than a way to hide. And if he did use it to hide, it wasn't from her. It was from himself.

  And he'd left her flowers. A garden of flowers, a blanket of flowers, covering her body. Why did she have a tiny, frightening feeling that those flowers were his way of saying goodbye?

  Time had little meaning since she'd taken up residence in Ethan's strange house. If she had any sense at all, she should try to sleep some more, but she couldn't. She told herself it was sheer happiness dancing across her nerves, and to try to sleep would be a waste of time. She couldn't wait till he came to her again, until he touched her again. Until she touched him.

  Salvatore usually came with her breakfast in the late morning, and he usually moved her to another room by early afternoon. She could tell by the rumbling in her stomach and the position of the sun overhead that he hadn't appeared by noon, and the door to the hall was securely locked. Her doubts started then, the first niggling worry beginning to creep though her intense well-being and anticipation.

  The garden looked different in daylight, not nearly as mysterious. The white blossoms glowed less in daylight, and the shallow pool no longer reflected the brilliant moon. Megan stepped out, glancing at the high walls and wondering whether she could manage to shimmy up one, when she saw a familiar figure in the far corner. Joseph.

  She picked her way carefully through the lush greenery, glad that she wasn't wearing one of those filmy dresses. The rose bushes had thorns that managed to scratch even through the heavy denim of her jeans, and there was an unnatural chill in the air, making her glad she'd pulled on her sweater.

  Joseph was kneeling in the dirt, digging beneath a huge white rose bush, seemingly oblivious to her approach, but she knew better. For days, he'd been frustratingly absent. His appearance today wasn't a coincidence.

  She wanted to take his arm, to touch another human being, to remind herself that he was flesh and blood, but she resisted the impulse. There was a touch-me-not quality about Joseph, despite his kindly expression and concern. So she simply halted a few feet away, rubbing her chilled arms briskly, and waited.

  Finally, he lifted his head, and there was no reading the expression on his seamed old face. "Don't you hurt the boy," he said.

  She stared at him in confusion. "The boy?"

  "Ethan. I know he's a grown man. I just can't help thinking of him as a child."

  Megan sank down cross-legged in the grass. It was dry, warmed by the overhead sun, and she wondered why she was still so cold. "Did you know him when he was a child?"

  "I was there when he was born. I remember his mother's scream of horror. I imagine he does, too."

  "People don't remember things from that long ago."

  "Don't they?" Joseph asked. "Haven't you figured out yet that Ethan isn't like other people? It doesn't matter. If he's forgotten that, he's had plenty of time since to face people's rejections, his mother's included. I don't know that he can stand much more of it."

  "I didn't reject him," Megan said in a low, quiet voice.

  Joseph stared at her for a moment. And then he sighed. "These are bad times, Megan. Very bad times. Even if you could give Ethan what he needed, I don't know if he'd be able to accept it. He's a man with an overwhelming rage inside him, and it's eating him up. I'm afraid he's going to destroy himself if something or someone doesn't stop him."

  "I don't understand."

  Joseph shook his head. "The people of Oak Grove aren't ordinary, either. They've been too isolated, too preyed upon by crazies like Pastor Lincoln. They believe in Satan, and they think Ethan is hand in hand with him, and nothing and no one is going to convince them otherwise. Especially when Ethan goes out of his way to goad them. But he's going to push them too far. They're already losing control."

  "I still don't understand."

  "He owns most of this town, you know. His family has for gen
erations. And he's planning on giving about two thirds of it, some forty thousand acres, to a nonprofit organization. He's even going to build their headquarters and conference center."

  "It sounds noble enough."

  Joseph laughed, but the sound was mirthless. "Ethan's not one for nobility. The world hasn't taught him to be noble. He's planning on building the Center for Psychic Research. Bringing the devil right into the home of all those rabid fundamentalists. They're even going to have dormitories, communal living quarters for those interested in following New Age stuff."

  "Oh, God."

  "Exactly," Joseph said. "Now, somewhere in the Northeast, or along the West Coast, something like that'll do just fine. Here in the heart of America, with a group of people who see Satan in every blade of grass, he's asking for disaster. And he's getting it. They've been burning crosses out here almost every night."

  "Every night?" she echoed faintly.

  "Every night. They've been holding meetings out at the building site, threatening all sorts of things in the name of their own personal, vengeful god. Ethan won't stop until they're out of their minds. And they won't stop until they've destroyed him."

  If Megan felt chilled before, she felt absolutely icy inside. "But why?"

  "Because he feels they killed his father. Because revenge is the only thing that keeps him going. What else does he have? A wife, family, a life of any sort at all? He's lived his life in the darkness, and now it's part of him."

  "Someone's got to make him see reason!"

  "Sal tries. But Ethan's not a man to listen to anyone."

  "But what about you? Why don't you try to talk to him?"

  The expression on Joseph's face was so sorrowful that it almost made Megan weep to see it. For an odd, eerie moment, he reminded her of Ethan. Something about his pain-filled eyes, the desolation in the set of his shoulders. "He'd never listen to me, least of all."