Her teeth nibbled at her bottom lip as she tapped in his number. A second later she replaced the receiver quietly without saying a word. Neither Hunter nor Suzie was there and she couldn’t leave a message on the machine. Too impersonal. Too open to misinterpretation.
Shaking her head, she tried to get a grip on the workday ahead. The countdown serious had begun with the exhibition just a few short weeks away. She scrolled down her emails, answering those that required immediate responses and putting others into various files. A new email flashed up from Gus, asking her to come to his office as soon as she was free. God, she hoped nothing else had gone wrong. She had enough on her plate as it was.
Morgan walked briskly down the corridor, wanting to hear whatever Gus had to say and then return to her desk so she could start making some headway in her work. It was still one area of her life that she still had control over. Sort of.
The door was ajar and from the voices inside, it was clear Gus had company. She went to knock, but then a baritone rumble brought her up short. Hunter.
Immediately her breathing seemed to quicken, her pulse picked up pace and a slow-burning heat ignited in the pit of her belly. What was he doing here? Gus usually kept her up to date with meetings and he’d said nothing about a visit from Hunter.
"….so I must apologize, Hunter, for Morgan’s actions. She has been under a huge amount of pressure, as I’m sure you understand, but that is no excuse for what occurred a few days ago.
"Our curator Marshall Beasley filled me in on the fact that Morgan--against my express instructions, I might add--failed to attend a meeting with you. I’m sure you must have been most insulted, however generously you’ve tried to excuse her behavior."
"Please, Gus, there was no harm done." Hunter’s voice was pitched so low, Morgan had to strain to hear it.
"No, really, Hunter, you must let me apologize. I would hate in any way for you to think that I or the museum have endorsed Ms McClellan’s behavior. In fact, as soon as I heard about what had transpired at the meeting, I had very serious words with Morgan with regard to her absence at the meeting and I believe she understands just how badly she misjudged the situation. She assured me that she would put the situation to right immediately."
Morgan stood horrified, realizing how Gus’s words might be misinterpreted and willing him to silence. It did not work.
"Hunter you have been more generous in allowing the museum to undertake the first public showing of Cernunnos’s torque. As you know, the museum has made no secret of the fact we would love to have the piece as a permanent addition. Morgan knows how crucial this is and I have made it clear to her your satisfaction is our greatest concern. She assured me she would do whatever it took to reassure you of our, I mean her, commitment. She will be here shortly if you have any questions or concerns."
"Thank you but no. I think everything is quite clear." Hunter’s words were coated in ice. Not that Gus seemed to notice.
Transfixed with a sense of impending doom at Gus’s unfortunate choice of words, Morgan didn’t realize that Hunter was about to leave until he came around the door. He stopped short when he saw her frozen there, a look of horror on her face. Morgan didn’t have to ask him how he’d interpreted Gus’s words. It was plain to see.
His mouth twisted and he brushed past her, striding down the corridor towards the exit. For a moment, Morgan remained rooted to the spot, and then she tore after him, her heels clattering on the stone tiles.
"Hunter." If she didn’t stop him now, she feared she might never see him again.
"Forget it, Morgan."
"Just listen. What you heard just now --"
"Was the first reasonable explanation to your behavior I’ve had in days." He looked down at her contemptuously and continued walking towards the door.
"I didn’t --"
"What? Didn’t fuck me like you couldn’t get enough of me? Or didn’t fuck me to get what Gus told you to get?"
"No, it had nothing to do with the torque." Her voice wobbled precariously. "I would never use --"
"I wonder if Gus knows what a little treasure he has. Someone who’ll open her legs to tip the negotiations in his favor, no questions asked," he spat. "I have to admit I admire you. You know you’ve got quite a bargaining chip there."
"Hunter, please don’t. I made love to you –"
"Love? Don’t ever use that word to me," he spat. "It was sex. Nothing more."
"How could anything that passionate not be making love?" she whispered, reaching out to touch his arm. He shrugged it off, intent only on hurting her as he’d been hurt.
"You don’t need to worry." Light brown eyes bored coldly into her gray ones, and his mouth twisted as though at an unpleasant memory. "I know how distasteful it must have been for you. Did you grit your teeth the whole time? Must have been sheer hell for you, worse than that, to make you run like that. Under cover of darkness."
One of the store room staff wandered by at that instant and looked curiously at them but didn’t say anything. Morgan realized they could be overheard by anyone walking by and pulled Hunter into an empty specimen room. He leaned casually against an unused display cabinet, folding his arms. His expression said that he cared for nothing she had to say.
Morgan bit her lip, searching for the right words before she spoke. "I was scared, Hunter. I should have woken you and told you, but I was scared and I ran."
"Scared of what? What have I ever done to make you fearful of me?" He raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
"It wasn’t you I was scared of. It’s what we become together. It was so … erotic. I become someone I don’t recognize. Completely taken over by sex." She shuddered for a moment, recalling the feel of him inside her. "I don’t know how far I’d go if you asked me and it frightens me."
Hunter looked at her sardonically, hands resting casually in his pockets, but his features were stiff with anger. "Well I’m not exactly into whips and chains, honey. But in any case you don’t need to worry. You’re off the hook. I’ve already decided the museum should house the torque permanently so there’s no need to sacrifice your body for the cause any further.
"Of course, should Gus decide there’s something else I have that the museum wants, I might be open to offers. I can’t deny you’re the hottest piece I’ve ever had." His eyes slid over her body suggestively, insultingly. (deletion made here)
Morgan felt humiliated beyond despair. She knew he was hitting out at her because he hurt, but it didn’t excuse anything. Tears brightened her eyes, and her mouth trembled violently.
"Do you really believe I’d use you that way?" Her voice broke and she couldn’t go on.
Hunter shrugged. "What else am I supposed to think? Every time I come on to you, you respond then back off. Teasing, flirting, keeping me hanging on. Then your boss tells you to keep me happy and suddenly we’re in bed fucking like there’s no tomorrow."
"He didn’t--not until after we had been together and in any case.…" Morgan’s voice trailed off. It was like talking to a brick wall and, anyway, she did not sound believable – even to herself.
Hunter’s face was shuttered. "What does it matter? Even when you did finally come to me, you ended up running." A smile twisted his lips but didn’t reach his eyes. "That’s what I don’t get. The bed virtually went up in flames from the heat we generated. I could have sworn you were with me all the way, and yet when I wake up, you’re gone. Without a word."
Morgan hung her head. "I wasn’t running from you."
"So you keep saying. Well, honey, there were only two of us there," he said, pushing away from the cabinet and striding towards the door.
"Hunter --"
He turned, his hand on the door handle. "I want a woman who knows her own mind. I want a woman who isn’t afraid to reach out and take what she wants."
The door swung closed behind him and Morgan stood there in the silent dusty room. The brown walls were faded where old furniture had once sat. Dusty Venetian blinds let streaks of la
te afternoon sunlight into the room. It seemed incongruous somehow that the first sunny day the city had seen for weeks was also the worst day in Morgan’s life.
And as she stood there, her work, her love, her life unraveling around her, the tears began to fall and wouldn’t stop.
* * * *
The phone was a welcome distraction, Hunter thought as Suzie signaled him from her office. Anything to take his mind off the infuriating Morgan McClellan.
Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since the scene in the museum and still he felt the angry surge of frustration, as much with himself as with her. He’d gone off half-cocked and all but accused her of prostituting herself for her employer. He hadn’t meant it, of course. He hadn’t really thought she was guilty of ingratiating herself, even when Gus Waugh had inferred it was part of her brief.
But he’d been royally pissed off with her for coming to him and then disappearing, and when he’d seen her standing there outside Gus’s office, he hadn’t been able to hold back from verbalizing the rush of bitter disappointment. He’d been confident that once they made love, all her fears would simply disappear, but instead of being reassured she had run. Hunter cursed to himself. He was too old to play the flirting game. He wanted to know where he stood with her, and her indecision drove him crazy.
Ah, but he should have listened, Hunter thought. She’d looked so distressed, as though she was barely hanging on to her composure. He knew he was a sucker but when she looked at him with that luscious, trembling mouth, he wanted to take her in his arms and reassure her everything would be all right. But if he did, he would still be the one making all the moves and what he wanted--more than anything--was for Morgan to come to him freely.
Nothing like being caught between a rock and a hard place, he mused without much humor. Adding insult to injury was he was in the office on the brightest weekend morning since the leaves had begun to take on their autumnal hues.
Abruptly he became aware that Suzie had put the call through and a tinny voice was talking frantically at the other end of the line.
"What?" Hunter frowned as he tried to make out what was being said. The line was scratchy and the time delay pissed him off. "Francois? Is that you?"
"Oui, Hunter." As the French accented voice of his French colleague continued, Hunter suddenly understood what he was trying to say and felt suddenly sick. He asked a few questions to make sure he had heard right. He had and it was bad. Very bad.
* * * *
In the unbroken stillness of night he came to her. The last embers of the fire in the grate threw up ghostly, flickering shadows on the walls of the chamber. The shadows lengthened and deepened, and from them stepped a figure. Man or beast, Morgan couldn’t tell at first.
Her eyes riveted on him, he approached the huge bed where she lay amid the warm furs. He was naked but for the heavy silver torque of a high-born warrior.
"Cernunnos," she breathed, her eyes rising up along his tall form. His hair hung long, partly obscuring his features, but she had the impression of hard chiseled features, jutting cheekbones and sensual lips. He came closer and his hair parted, exposing tiny ivory horns. Morgan’s eyes met his, burning like molten metal through the darkness of the room.
He snarled then, softly, the beast in him coming to the fore as he approached the bed. Morgan gasped as he rose over her and scrambled back against the wall. A flitting movement in the far corner of the room caught her attention. For a moment, she thought there was someone else with them, hidden in the shadow of the huge fireplace. But with the naked creature bearing down on her, she had no time to consider anything but the threat of the man-beast.
Trapped against the wall, she could go no further and she huddled there, naked under the furs, like small, soft prey awaiting the cruel grasp of talons and teeth. But his hand when it touched her was human as it pulled her back down the bed, the fur sliding away to reveal her palely naked form. He ran his hands roughly over her breasts and thighs for his own pleasure. Morgan didn’t get the impression that it was to arouse her. When he moved to part her legs, she cried out and dived away, across the bed and towards the door.
Roaring with lust, he sprang after her, eating up the distance to her in a flash. His hands wrapped around her waist and she was picked up and flung her face down across the bed as though she were a rag doll. Her breath coming raggedly through her teeth, she braced herself against the furs as the man-beast grabbed her hips, pulling her legs up and apart.
His desire for her sent the blood thundering in Morgan’s ears and a reciprocal passion permeated her body, making her nipples throb and sexual liquid drench her core. The creature stopped and sniffed the air. Morgan looked over her shoulder in terror. He could smell her, could tell that she was ripe for rutting. He smiled then, an utterly carnal movement of his lips, and she knew there was no escape even if she had wanted.
Still she screamed as he reached between her thighs, probing roughly inside her with his long, hard fingers, feeling the wetness that flooded her. And then he was withdrawing his fingers, dragging them up towards the crease in her buttocks. He circled the tightly-puckered hole hidden between the pale globes of her bottom, his fingers dipping in and out, around and around.
Morgan froze as she recognized what he was about. Oh God! He was preparing to mount her there, where she had never before felt a man’s possession. A frisson of anticipation hummed through her body and then she felt a powerful force, there, at that tiny entrance. Pushing, forcing. And as her scream of terror and desire rent the air, her world shifted and grew misty. The shadows faded and disappeared, the fire in the grate shriveled and died, and there was silence. She was alone.
* * * *
A whimper escaped Morgan’s throat as she hurtled up from the depth of dreamland and then her eyes were open, darting frantically around her bedroom. From the door, to the armoire, the beautifully carved chest and to the window where the old rocking chair sat.
She forced herself to take long deep breaths but it was minutes before she was calm enough to realize she was alone in her own snug bedroom, in her house. She shivered though she was warm in her flannel pajamas. Almost too warm. Perspiration clung to every pore on her skin, her hair in damp rats-tails about her face. She moved her legs cautiously and felt her own stickiness dampen the crotch of her pajama pants.
With one arm, she reached out and turned on the lamp. The bulb sent tendrils of gentle light across the room, illuminating all but the darkest corners. Her clock-radio read six. Dawn should be brightening the eastern sky, but the gloom of approaching winter blocked out the early rays.
It was said that the Celts believed Cernunnos was the god of autumn, appearing as the year moved inexorably towards its close. The dying time, Morgan had heard it called. Then, he would make his annual descent into the underworld. Was that it? Was this his dying time? And what was his purpose with her? Did he plan to take her with him?
Morgan felt consumed by his flame as it licked outward from her dreamland into her real world. His ferociously carnal instincts set her alight, transporting her from her restrained solitary existence to a world where impetuosity and passion burned long and hard. As soon as Hunter had entered her orbit, he had been sucked in to her flame, precipitating her unconscious sexual awakening.
She felt alive, as though the flame of the great man-beast, the leader of the night hunt, burned passionately within her, driving her to explore her deepest, darkest desires. As she made her way slowly downstairs, she paused on the stair that creaked, thinking of the dream that had passed.
Despite her terror at falling once again into the clutches of the man-beast, she had thrilled in his desire for her. He had made her blood run hot, even as it chilled her veins. She wanted him to do his will with her, to penetrate her every orifice, to spill his seed where he would. She thought of him pressing there in that forbidden place and knew she had wanted it and would want it again. Reality had intruded before he could consummate his depraved desire but he would return. Morgan
could see that clearly now. He would return and she would follow him into his underworld of sexual abandonment.
Morgan drank heavily from a bottle of chilled water in her fridge, and then pulled on her running clothes, wincing as her clothes touched the bruises on her hips and buttocks. She ran, quickly finding her rhythm, her mind blank of anything but the steady thud-thud of her feet on the track. The early morning gloom had lifted, and across the harbor, apartments and offices were coming to life, as the inhabitants of the city rose to make breakfast and the early worker bees sat behind their desks. The street lights were still on and cars rumbled through the streets. Morgan was oblivious, though. She lost all sense of time as she ran, and was surprised when she found herself opening the door to her house.
Hungry, she cracked two eggs into a bowl and made an omelet, and then scooped coffee into the pot. She felt strangely calm as she ate. Admitting to her dark sexual desires in her life had lightened the oppressive burden she had been carrying for the past few weeks. She felt free to explore and reveal herself without fear.
Morgan showered and then dressed carefully in a sleek black dress, with a wide neckline that emphasized her delicate shoulder bones. Pale stockings and black high heels complemented the look. She pulled her black cashmere coat around her and caught the bus to the museum. As she got into the lift, she heard heavy breathing behind her and turned to see Andrea running towards her. Morgan held the doors open for her, and smiled.
"Made it." Andrea caught her breath and gasped the words out.
"You beat the clock." It had become a departmental joke that Andrea was always late, although usually only by a few minutes.
"It’s my New Year’s resolution."
Morgan frowned. "It’s not New Year’s."
"I’m getting some early practice in."
The phone was ringing when they entered their office.
"No rest for the wicked," said Andrea.
"Morgan, we have a disaster on our hands, I’m afraid." It was Gus, and he sounded as worried as she had ever heard him. "I need to talk to you. It’s about Riley’s torque."
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