Dark and Dangerous

by Anwar, Hart, Harte, Mcbride(Lit)

  Samantha stared into the gleaming eyes of a predator and still could not find voice to protest.

  "I may be twice damned," he muttered, "but I cannot stay away."

  It delighted her. Resolutely, she closed her mind to the little voice in her head that pointed out that he yearned for life itself, had been deprived of it for centuries. His desire might have all to do with that and nothing to do with her. With an effort, she pushed the warnings from her mind, and the hopelessness of the situation, even if his feelings were indeed for her alone.

  His words sent a thrill of need through her and Samantha leaned toward him, tilting her head upward. A faint cleft creased his chin. She traced the indentation with her tongue and lightly nibbled the edge of his chin with her teeth.

  He caught her face between his palms, covering her mouth with ravenous urgency that made the muscles in her belly jump and clench. Samantha ran her palms along his biceps and then downward along his sides. His flesh was warm, silky smooth, the underlying muscles taut and hard—his body was lithe like the body of a dancer—or swordsman, as he had no doubt been in his time.

  Like duelers, their tongues danced one along the other, entwined, stroked. His breath came hard and fast. Her own struggled from her chest and their breaths mingled as they kissed, each sharing their essence with the other, feeling their desire reeling out of control.

  He broke the kiss, skating his hands down her throat and over her shoulders, following with his mouth. Samantha dug her fingers into him as a rush of heat washed over her skin, making it hypersensitive to the touch, as if she was flushed with fever.

  It had become a fever. She ached. His touch soothed the needs of her flesh and at the same time made her body demand more. Lowering her head, she nipped and then sucked at his shoulder as he caught the spaghetti strap of her night gown with his teeth and tugged it down her shoulder. Abruptly, he caught her shoulders in his hands and pushed her back against the pillows, following her down. Capturing her hands when she reached for him, he clamped them to the pillows on either side of her head and, dipping his head, tugged the neck of her gown down with his teeth, nuzzling the cleft between her breasts. Then he traced a path along the upper slope of her breasts with his tongue and lips, pausing to suck a string of love bites.

  Moaning, Samantha arched her back, thrusting her breasts upward, urging him to caress her more thoroughly. Restlessly, she twisted beneath him, grinding her hips against his thigh as he insinuated first one of his thighs and then the other between her own.

  Opening his mouth, he covered one nipple where it thrust against the sheer fabric of her gown. The heat and moisture of his mouth sent a shudder of pleasure through her. His tongue teased her, sending sharp currents of delight sizzling along her nerve endings that nevertheless left her wanting.

  She began struggling to free her arms. She wanted to feel nothing between them. His hands tightened, imprisoning her. Panting from her struggles as well as the desire that stifled the air in her chest, she went limp abruptly. "Gerard?"

  He caught her lips beneath his once more, kissed her, silencing her, making her heart race with an element of uneasiness as well as need. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, she felt herself falling deeper under his spell, felt all consciousness spiral away as her senses narrowed in upon the sensations he created inside of her.

  She wasn’t even aware that he’d released his almost bruising grip on her wrists until she felt the tug on her nightgown, heard the snap of breaking thread and felt the coolness of night air on her bare breasts. His hand covered one breast, massaging. Capturing the distended nipple between two fingers, he pinched it lightly, rolled it between his fingers, sending delightful shocks through her. Abruptly, he broke the kiss and covered the nipple he’d been toying with with his mouth, sucking hard as he cupped her other breast with one hand and teased the nipple as he had the first.

  Finding her hands free, Samantha lifted them, threading her fingers through his long, silky hair, holding him to her. She’d become desperate for more, however, felt the need rising inside of her to feel him stroking the walls of her sex, filling her.

  Slipping her hands along his back, she caressed him, urging him to fulfill her.

  He ignored her urgings, moving to her other breast and stimulating her to mindlessness. Moving restlessly beneath him, she caressed every part of him that she could reach and finally began to work her hand between them. He lifted slightly away from her as she struggled to curl her fingers around his erection. Grasping him at last, Samantha stroked him as he reached between their bodies and slipped a finger into her cleft, rubbing tiny circles against her clit.

  Samantha jerked, moaned and released her grip on his cock, clutching the sheets as she arched upward to meet his teasing finger, feeling the muscles of her passage clenching and relaxing in an ever increasing rhythm as her body surged toward culmination. Leaning forward, he caught one throbbing nipple in his mouth once more, teasing it in concert with her clit until, abruptly, her climax seized her, making her cry out with pleasure too intense to contain.

  Even as the quakes began receding, however, he grasped his distended flesh and thrust inside of her. The walls of her passage, quaking with the echoes of her climax, clutched at him, impeding his possession. He struggled, gritting his teeth as he pulled away slightly and thrust again. Samantha lifted her hips and met him. Her heart felt as it if would explode with joyful thunder as his flesh melded with her own, as she felt him sink to her depths.

  Lifting her arms, she locked them around his shoulders, gasping as she met him thrust for thrust. Her body, only just fulfilled, responded to the feel of him inside her with renewed need, climbing again toward completion.

  His thrusts, hard, demanding, shifted her upwards on the bed. She dug her heels into the mattress, opening her body fully to him, feeling a rising ache with the abrasion of his hard flesh against the inner walls of her body.

  A thin sheen of sweat broke from her pores, bathing them both in the scent of her desire. His body began to shudder and jerk as he neared his release, feeding her own desire until she felt herself on the verge of coming and then felt release explode inside her so powerfully she felt as if she would faint. Her gasping moans sent him over the edge. He groaned, a low, animalistic sound of pain and joy and release, shuddered, lost the rhythm of his thrusts as his body moved beyond his control.

  The strength fled their muscles. Weak, trembling, they collapsed together, struggling for breath. With an effort, Samantha lifted her hands, stroking his back soothingly, brushing the damp hair from his forehead. He went perfectly still for several moments and then, abruptly, he vanished.

  A coldness washed over Samantha. Stunned, disbelieving, she hardly breathed for a handful of seconds. Finally, slowly, her heart still hammering in her chest, she sat up and looked around the room.

  There was no sign of Gerard—no sign that he’d ever been with her. The clothing he’d discarded—that she’d thought he had discarded on the floor, was gone. She glanced down at herself and saw that her gown was intact.

  Lifting a shaking hand, she pushed her hair from her face, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. As she did so, ever so faintly, she smelled him on her skin.

  Hurt surged through her and behind that, anger. "You take, but you can’t give. Is that why she cursed you, Gerard? Because your heart was stone cold dead already?"

  There was no answer. She hadn’t really expected one.

  She lay down again, staring at the ceiling.

  She hadn’t imagined it. She could still feel the heat and pressure of his body. Her sex still throbbed from his possession. She could taste him on her lips.

  A knot of misery gathered in her throat. Resolutely, she pushed it from her mind and turned over, punching her pillow. Despite her misery, her sated body begged for rest and eventually sleep claimed her.

  When she rose a sense of purpose filled her. She would join the tour as she’d planned, and visit the nearby town and then, the following d
ay, she would cut her trip short and return home. She’d looked upon the trip as a getaway to escape the sense of loss that still lingered from her mother’s death. She’d hoped that she would become engrossed enough in the search for restless spirits to banish her own ghosts so that she could look forward once more to a future. Instead, she’d taken on more baggage and the only way to escape that was to leave as soon as possible.

  After showering, she dressed in comfortable clothing and walking shoes and went downstairs for brunch. She didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that she saw no sign of Gerard, but she finally decided that she was glad. She hoped she wouldn’t see him again. Perhaps, since he appeared to be so convinced that she was only here to cause more trouble for him, he would avoid her.

  The tour began promptly at eleven on the terrace. Only two couples had opted to take the walking tour around the estate. Since one of the couples were from the UK, the guide was kind enough to conduct this tour in English.

  The buildings directly behind the chateaux had originally been built as a stable and carriage house, as she’d thought. They strolled past empty stalls while he expounded on the fine horses the Count du Beauchamp had reputedly owned. The estate carriage, to her surprise, not only remained, but had been carefully restored to its original glory. Like the chateaux, it was not only a work of art, but appeared to be surprisingly comfortable, as well.

  Not far from the stables and carriage house were other buildings. One was a winery---apparently the estate had once produced its own brand of wine—and next to that was an ice house. Built similarly to the old ice house she’d seen on an old American plantation she’d visited—or maybe, she amended mentally, it had been the other way around—it was little more than a pit dug deeply into the earth. In the winter, ice was cut from the nearest lake and stored away layer by layer with straw packed between each to act as insulation. The straw and the earth and the building above it preserved the ice through the warm months.

  It was easy to see, just from the way the guide talked at length about it, that this was a rare facility in France and Samantha decided she might have mistaken the matter when she’d assumed the American ingenuity was actually an adaptation from European craftsmanship.

  They spent a few minutes examined the smoke house and storage buildings and then made their way toward the family cemetery she’d visited the day before. Once there, the guide gave them a list of those of any interest buried in the family plot and then moved around to what Samantha had assumed was the rear of the mausoleum. It was, in point of fact, the front. On either side of the door a list of the earlier Counts and Countessa’s of Beauchamp had been carved.

  "What about the one that haunts the chateaux?" the English woman asked.

  "Ah," the guide exclaimed, smiling as he held one finger in the air and then pointed to an inscription above the door. "The Countessa, his last wife, had an inscription carved above the door here in his memory."

  Samantha felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. She scarcely listened as he translated the inscription for them.

  "He’s buried …ah … entombed here?" she asked faintly.

  "But non! His body was never recovered. According to legend, he simply disappeared and was never seen or heard from again. It is for this reason, we believe, that the legends arose that he had been cursed, or bested, by his rival and banished from this world."

  "Wait a minute," Samantha said when he turned away and motioned for them to follow him. "Are you saying there’s more than one story about how he disappeared?" she asked, falling into step beside the guide.

  "Oui, there are several. The only fact that we know with any certainty is that there is no record of his death, only his disappearance. There is also some documentation to indicate that he dabbled in the black arts. He was accused of it in any case, and since his disappearance coincided with a recorded event of a gathering of witches, the disappearance is assumed to have the connection with the event. It is possible he took part in a black mass and was sacrificed, and his body hidden. This is one explanation that is also believed by many. Some also believed that he simply left his wife for another woman and never returned, but not many have placed credence in this. It seems unlikely he would have abandoned all that he owned."

  "To say nothing of his wife and child," Samantha added dryly.

  He shrugged.

  Samantha walked in thoughtful silence for a while. "So nobody really knows whether or not he was cursed?"

  The guide smiled thinly. "The Countessa de Moyer wrote of him in her memoirs. This is where the story of the black magic originates. She claimed that the gathering was called to determine whom would be the grand witch and that she defeated the Count du Beauchamp, her nearest rival. She had written long passages professing her love for him, however. Alas, he wed another and her love for him became hatred. This is where the other story originated, as well. Some argued that, rather than having defeated him with her black magic, she had him killed."

  He wrinkled his brow as if struggling to remember. "I can not recall exactly what it was that she had written, but the gist of it was that his heart and soul had long since gone to the grave and that he should be deprived forever of the warmth of life that he had chosen to close himself off from."

  "Sounds something like ‘a woman scorned’ to me," the English man commented.

  His wife frowned at him disapprovingly.

  Samantha felt a coldness wash over her as she recalled what she’d shouted at Gerard the night before. Had it been purely coincidence that the words had popped into her mind? Perhaps even a natural inclination to say such a thing, given the circumstances? Or was there some truth to what Gerard had accused? That she was reincarnated, not of Juliette, but the Countessa who’d cursed him?

  "She cursed him to live forever, but be forever denied the warmth of life," she murmured.

  The guide glanced sharply at him. "But oui, madam! I believe that is it."

  "She gave him no hope of escaping the fate she cursed him with?"

  The guide shrugged. "It is only legend, madam—stories made up to fool the credulous." He seemed to dismiss it, but after a few moments, he frowned again. "He had spurned the love offered to him. One must suppose he was not capable of loving another and it was that which condemned him to begin with."

  Samantha found she really had no interest in the remainder of the tour. She was tempted to return to the chateaux when they’d finished exploring the estate, but the thought of running in to Gerard was enough to spur her to continue with the tour of the village. It was several miles away and they returned to the chateaux where a tour bus awaited them.

  Gerard was standing on the terrace, near the door where she’d bumped into him that first day. Looking away quickly, she followed the others as they climbed into the bus and resolutely studied the carriage house as the bus pulled away.

  The little town was quaint in an old world way, too far off the beaten path, and too poor to have changed a great deal with time. A couple of buildings still stood that bore the scars of wars that had ravaged the countryside. When they’d finished the tour, they stayed to dine at a local outdoor café.

  The tour guide was kind enough to share a table with her since she was alone.

  "You have seen the ghost, madam?"

  Samantha smiled faintly at the understatement. "Would you think I was a crazy American if I said yes?"

  He shrugged. "I, myself, have never seen him, but there are many who say that they have. And, I must admit, strange things have happened at the chateaux that I find difficult to explain."

  "Like the incident the other day during the tour of the chateaux?"

  He nodded. "And others."

  Samantha considered whether or not to pursue the subject and finally shrugged mentally. What difference did it make what they might think of her? She was leaving anyway. "He was angry … partly with me, I think. But also because he feels the guests are intruders in his home."

  The man’s eyes narrowed shr
ewdly. "In a very real sense, I suppose we are intruders in his home, but under the circumstances …. Why do you suppose that he is angry with you?"

  Samantha smiled wryly. In for a penny, in for a pound. "He believes I am the reincarnation of Juliette."

  The man’s busy brows rose almost to his hairline. "And you, madam? What do you believe?"

  Samantha was almost relieved when the waiter interrupted them at that moment to deliver their food. She discovered that she was wrong, however, in thinking his question merely idle curiosity.

  "Do you believe you are his Juliette?"

  "Before I came here, I didn’t believe in reincarnation at all. I’m still not sure that I do."

  He nodded. "It is like faith. One feels it in one’s heart … or not."

  "I suppose," Samantha said a little doubtfully. She sighed. "I think that if I believed I was reincarnated, I’d be more likely to believe it was the Countessa de Moyer."

  The man studied her for a long moment. "The Countessa believed that she was Juliette. The Count du Beaumont did not believe her. He was infuriated that she would claim such a thing. In his mind, it was a desecration of his beloved Juliette, I think. A great hatred arose between them, according to the countessa’s memoirs."

  Chapter Six

  The concierge was at the desk when Samantha returned. Samantha stared at him for several moments, torn, but she knew her decision, however, emotional, was still a sound one. She needed to go.

  Dragging in a deep breath, as if she were about to dive into a pool of cold water, Samantha marched across the foyer and stopped before the desk. "Something’s come up. I’ll be leaving tomorrow," she said before she could change her mind.

  His brows rose. "There is a problem with the hotel, madam?"

  Samantha shook her head. "I’ve enjoyed my stay. It’s just … I have to get back now."

  "But … you are paid for two more days."

  And obviously, he was reluctant to refund the difference. Samantha resisted the urge to grind her teeth and forced a thin smile. "And since I reserved the room and I’m sure you won’t be able to rent it out, I don’t expect to get a refund, but I do have to go."