Night of the Phantom

  His other hand moved down her body, skimming it lightly, scarcely touching her, dancing over her skin beneath the filmy nightgown. "You shouldn't be afraid of me, you know," he whispered in her ear, his mouth brushing the sensitive skin beneath her ear. "I would never hurt you. Never." He kissed her there, his lips nibbling lightly at the burning skin, and she felt herself begin to tremble.

  "Ethan," she said, her voice not much more than a strangled plea for help, and she reached up her other hand to touch him, to touch his face, but he caught it, pulling it downward with only the slightest force till it grazed the side of his thigh.

  "Or is it the dark you're afraid of?" He released her hand, letting it rest against him, and drew his own up the loose front of her nightgown, brushing against the soft cloth. "You could learn to love the darkness, my angel. You could find that's the only time when you can be truly alive, with the soft, velvet blackness all around you, holding you, caressing you, bringing you a release you never guessed existed." Her heart was pounding

  almost painfully against her chest, her skin felt prickly, and behind her, she could hear his heart beating just as quickly, feel the unmistakable hardness of his reaction to her.

  "Ethan," she said again, a plea or a surrender, she no longer knew. All she knew was that if he didn't touch her, she'd go mad. "Please..."

  "What are you asking for?" he whispered, his mouth brushing her temple beneath her tumble of hair. "Do you want to leave me, go back into the sunlight? It's harsh out there, and burning far too brightly. Stay here in the darkness, angel. Stay with me. Give yourself to me."

  Never had she wanted anything more in her life. She felt as if she were suffocating with longing, trying to drag the breath into her lungs. She wanted to be absorbed into his very skin, to sink back into him and never surface, she wanted things she couldn't even begin to imagine, things his body promised, his words promised, his soft, enticing voice promised. How could she fall in love with a voice? How could she want...

  "Stop fighting me, angel," he whispered, and his hand brushed her skin, the soft, sensitized flesh of her stomach. The row of tiny buttons had disappeared and her nightgown was open to the night air. "Stop fighting yourself. Give yourself to me.'' And his hand moved between her legs and touched her.

  What strength she had in her legs vanished and she sagged against him. It happened with shocking speed, scarcely had his long, deft fingers found her than she dissolved, lost in a darkness of sensation and despair. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out but a strangled gasp of surprise, of release, of an astonished pleasure so intense that what little existed of reality vanished, and her last, amazed thought was that, for the first time in her life, she was going to faint.

  Ethan caught her as she collapsed, lifting her high in his arms. She was so very small, so very fragile. He could see her clearly in the inky darkness, the pale, blue-veined lids closed down over her huge eyes, her mouth pale and soft.

  He hadn't had a chance to kiss that mouth. He did so now, feeling strangely guilty, but not enough to stop. He ran his tongue across her dry lips, dampening them, and then he kissed her, hard, with the full force of his passion set free while she was too insensate to be frightened by it.

  Even unconscious, she responded, her mouth clinging to his, her body arching against him. He groaned deep in his throat as he reluctantly drew back. If he kept up with that, there'd be no way he'd be able to control himself. As it was, he wanted to lay her down on the polished floor beneath them and bury himself in her body. He was trembling with need, and it took every bit of his formidable self-control to keep himself from doing just that.

  He wasn't going to take her tonight, much as his body craved it. He could have her, he knew. All he had to do was carry her back to her room, strip the rest of the nightgown off her and continue what he was doing. By the time she regained consciousness, she'd be too far gone to want to stop.

  But that was almost too easy. Too soon. Anticipation was a major part of the delight, and his longing, his anticipation of her was more overwhelming than any of his previous sexual experiences. He was going to have her, but the time would be perfect, the pleasure so intense that it would be worth it. Worth what would have to come next.

  Worth letting her go.

  Dreams, Meg thought as she opened her eyes to the murky daylight. They simply got weirder and weirder. It was no wonder she'd had such a strange, erotic one last night. She'd been a fool and a half to do that little striptease in front of the video camera. She'd wanted to taunt and torment the unseen man who watched her. She wanted to punish him. Instead, she'd taunted and tormented and punished herself.

  She turned over in the bed, pulling the heavy cotton sheet around her. Her first sight was the mural, the half beast ravishing the willing maiden. Quickly, she averted her gaze. That too, had added to her peculiar dreams. She could remember most of it very clearly, from the smell of smoke to the feel of Ethan's body against hers

  She could feel her cheeks heat up, and she put her hand against one, feeling the flush. The dream had been so realistic, she could almost fancy she could smell the smoke.

  She sat up in bed, suddenly, shockingly awake. It wasn't her imagination. The smell of wet smoke clung in the air, laced with gasoline. She hadn't dreamed the fire last night.

  The warm air danced across her skin, and she looked down at her body. She was still wearing the nightgown, but twenty tiny buttons had been unfastened down the front of it. Quickly, she yanked it together, and then she saw the ring.

  It was much too big for her small hands, a man's ring. Someone had placed it on her hand. On her left hand, on the fourth finger, where it still hung loosely. It was heavy, dull and, unless she was mistaken, solid gold. It felt warm, not from her own flesh, but from his.

  She stared at the design, unmoving. She knew enough of Roman mythology to recognize the image of the god imprinted on it. Pastor Lincoln would have a fit if he saw it. Janus, the god with two faces, the god of beginnings, of sunrise and sunset.

  She was shaking. Sitting in that bed in the middle of the room, her skin flushed and feverish, her body icy cold, she was shaking. It hadn't been a dream. None of it. Ethan had come up behind her in the darkness and—

  She wouldn't think about it. She couldn't think about it. Salvatore must have drugged her. Or maybe, despite all evidence to the contrary, she had dreamed it. Either way, she couldn't allow herself to dwell on it. If she did, she'd go mad.

  She pulled the ring off her hand and flung it across the room. It ricocheted, rolled across the floor, and came to a stop beneath the panel of the mural that Megan found most disturbing. For a moment, she didn't move, suddenly as mindlessly superstitious as those idiots from Oak Grove.

  And then she shook herself. She'd had enough. Enough of being frightened, of being coerced, of being seduced by a voice and a mysterious phantomlike presence she'd never even seen.

  She was going to see him. It didn't matter if he looked like Freddy Krueger, the hunchback of Notre Dame and something out of Night of the Living Dead combined. She'd track him down in this ridiculous mausoleum of a house and take a good, hard look at his shocking deformities. And then maybe her enchantment would begin to fade.

  An odd word for it, she had to admit as she pulled her nightgown back around her and headed for the bathroom, away from Ethan's prying video camera. Not that he was watching her. He'd be asleep in the unfriendly daylight. She'd know, as surely as she could see him herself, when he'd be watching her.

  It felt like an enchantment, though, she thought as she ducked under a shower where she first scalded then froze her body. Deliberately. An evil enchantment by a wicked troll. Like Rumpelstiltskin. And the only way she'd escape was to face the monster. Learn his face, instead of his name, and then his power would vanish.

  She dressed in the bathroom, just in case Ethan happened to wake up and decide to watch a little closed circuit TV. Her jeans had reappeared, thank heavens, and she pulled on a soft, fade
d pair and topped it with a cotton sweater. Something loose, enveloping, covering a body that felt sensitized, dangerously alive and not the slightest bit violated.

  She almost screamed when she stepped back into her room, before she realized it was Ruth Wilkins standing there, an odd expression on her face.

  "I suppose you've been looking at the murals," Meg said, pleased at the briskness in her voice. "Pretty kinky, aren't they?"

  "I've seen the room before," Ruth said, dismissing it as something of little interest. "I found this on the floor." She held out the ring, and her pretty face was troubled.

  For some reason, Meg didn't want Ruth holding it. Didn't want anyone holding it. She took it from her, enfolding it in her hand. "It's mine," she said.

  "He gave it to you."

  Meg didn't deny it. "How did you know it was Ethan's?"

  "He always wore it. Always. I can't imagine why..." Ruth's voice trailed off and her expression went beyond troubled to deeply worried.

  "I can't imagine why, either," Meg said honestly. "I just woke up and found it on my hand."

  "Did you sleep with him last night?"

  Meg whirled around, shocked. "Don't be disgusting.

  "It's not disgusting. I was his mistress for five years."

  There was no chair for Meg to sink into in shock. She could only stare at Ruth, at normal, comfortable looking, middle-aged Ruth, and tell herself the emotion sweeping through her was surprise, not a raging jealousy. "I thought you were married. I thought..."

  "I was a widow with two little ones to raise. No one in that rotten town would help me, give me a job, give me a hand. My kids were going hungry, we had no heat, we had no hope. Until Ethan suggested... an arrangement."

  "An arrangement you accepted?"

  Ruth nodded. "I had no choice at first. I had to take care of my babies, and Ethan was the only one who'd help me."

  "In return for sex."

  Ruth shook her head stubbornly. "I think he would have helped me anyway. But I couldn't just take from him, even for my babies' sake. It was a fair trade. More than fair. He had his needs met, and I had mine. Oh, yes, indeed, I had mine."

  There was no longer any use in denying the jealousy that was washing over Meg. "And you never saw his face?"

  "Of course, I did. He wouldn't let me agree to it until I saw him. It made no difference. He was offering to help me, and deep down, he's a good man."

  "What-"

  "I'm not going to tell you." Ruth forestalled the inevitable question. "If he wants you to see him, he'll show you. In the meantime, he deserves whatever privacy he wants."

  Meg could have disputed that, but it would have been a waste of time. She had her own determination to breach Ethan Winslowe's privacy. "What ended your... relationship?" She'd almost said "business arrangement," but realized that would have been out of pique.

  "I met Burt and we fell in love. I didn't even have to tell Ethan. He knew, and he let me go with his blessing. He saved my life, he saved my babies, and then he let me go when I had to. I'd do anything for that man. Anything." Ruth's voice was as fiercely protective as it would be for her two grown babies.

  "Is that why you work in the house when no one else will?"

  "The town thinks I'm the worst kind of whore. Maybe I am. All I know is that Ethan never made me feel like one. When he made love to me, I felt... cherished."

  Meg held so tightly to the ring that her hand began to ache. "But now you're happily married."

  "Very happily married. I wouldn't trade Burt and my life with him for anything. But I'll tell you one thing, Megan. Ethan's a very different sort of man. Everything he does, he does better. And that includes loving. I'm in love with Burt, I'm completely satisfied with Burt. But he's nothing like Ethan."

  For a moment, Meg felt herself drawn into the notion Ruth's words were conjuring, and it took everything she had to fight it. "Is this your day for procuring, Ruth?" she asked coolly.

  Ruth recoiled as if she'd been slapped. And then she managed a wry smile. "I don't want him hurt, Meg. If he gave you that ring, it means something, something I can't even begin to imagine. I don't want his heart broken."

  "He doesn't have one."

  "Oh, yes, he does. He most certainly does. And if you hurt him, you'll have me to answer to."

  "You're imagining things. I no more have the power to hurt him than I have the power to fly to the moon."

  "Maybe not," Ruth said. "And I don't suppose it's up to me to stop it. If you'll give me a minute, I'll get your things packed."

  Sheer panic swept through Meg. "He's letting me go?" Why did the thought terrify her when it was what she wanted most in the world?

  Ruth shook her head. "He's just moving you. He sent word that it was too noisy here for you. I guess Pastor Lincoln and his bunch of crazies were up to their weekly tricks. Ethan wants you someplace more protected. Nearer his own rooms."

  That would dovetail well with her plan, Meg thought with only a trace of compunction. "Let me help," she said, crossing the room.

  But Ruth had already finished packing Meg's clothes. "All done. Just follow me. It's a bit of a hike." She headed out the door without waiting to see whether Megan would follow her.

  Megan stood there for a moment, and then walked to the mural that disturbed and fascinated her. She stretched out her hand, letting her fingertips brush the terra-cotta wall with its erotic etchings, brush the pleasure-suffused face of the young woman, the face of the demon. And then she dropped her hand, stepping away as if burned.

  The ring was still in her hand. Moving over, she set it in the middle of her unmade bed, then turned to follow Ruth.

  She got as far as the door. "Damn it," she muttered under her breath. And without thinking, she turned back, grabbed the ring and then raced after Ruth. As she went, she slipped the ring back on her hand. Left hand, fourth finger. And held it tightly in place.

  Chapter Ten

  * * *

  Megan began to lose count of the different rooms she'd spent the night in. Except for the tower room, when she was so ill, she hadn't spent more than one night in any of the rooms Ethan had her moved to. The next three days were no exception. Ruth took her to a Southwestern-style room, complete with exposed beams and corner fireplace, a room simple and beautiful enough to make Meg temporarily resigned to being a prisoner. She even made it through the endless afternoon, evening and night alone, no company but Salvatore's dour presence when he brought her dinner and returned to take the dishes. He absolutely refused to talk to her, glowering at her instead under his heavy eyebrows, and his huge, hulking body vibrated with disapproval.

  He was the one to move her the next morning. Ignoring her questions about Ethan, he took her to a room that looked like nothing more than a Park Avenue apartment. Except that there was no view of skyscrapers—just the edge of the woods beyond the windows of the fourth-floor rooms.

  Still Ethan didn't call for her. Still he didn't come, even in her dreams. Each room had a video camera, but she simply ignored them, changing in the bathroom, keeping out of range of those vigilant eyes. Not that Ethan was necessarily watching her, she reminded herself in what she was certain wasn't pique. He seemed to have forgotten her existence. She could have carried her denied anger one step further and decided that now that he'd gotten what he wanted from her, he was ready to dismiss her.

  Except he hadn't gotten a thing from that strange encounter in the darkened hallway. Unless pleasuring someone else was the only way he got his pleasure. Maybe he simply wanted her surrender. Not to take her, just to know that he could have her if he wanted her.

  Well, he couldn't, she told herself self-righteously, striding around the parquet flooring of the apartment-style room. She'd had a moment of weakness, a moment of something bordering on insanity. She'd had plenty of time since then to regain the use of her brain, and she wasn't going to succumb to a beguiling voice and seductive hands again.

  By the third day, Salvatore had moved her into a room so
starkly modern that she thought she might scream. Glaring white walls, abstract paintings, a queen-size mattress on the floor, and chairs she couldn't even figure how to sit on comprised the furnishings. There were no Stephen King novels in the pure white bookcase that looked like a tulip. There were books on trigonometry, something she found even more terrifying than the un-dead.

  "How long am I going to be here?" she demanded when Salvatore brought her lunch. The food was in keeping with the room—nouvelle cuisine, with more attention paid to the presentation than to the taste. Not to mention the paucity of the serving. She was a woman who liked to eat, and she didn't consider three curls of parsnip that resembled a snake to be much of a vegetable.

  Salvatore shrugged. "You'll have to ask Ethan."

  "I would, if I ever saw him. Scratch that—I know I'm not going to see him. I mean, if he ever decides to grant me an audience again.''

  "Can't say."

  "Won't say, you mean." She glared at Sal. "I want to know what's happening with my father."

  "I'll ask Ethan."

  "Don't you know? I thought you were his dogs-body, his gatherer of information, his faithful manservant and all that jazz."

  "I know. I just have to ask him whether I can tell you."

  There were no words more calculated to put her into a flaming temper. She wasn't used to having her emotions rage so out of control. Her life in Chicago had been relatively calm and ordered. Too much so, which was why she'd been intent on escaping, on finding adventure. She'd found it, all right, in spades.

  She took a deep, calming breath, determined to keep herself from screaming at Sal in rage. "Salvatore, you care about Ethan, don't you? Like Ruth."

  She almost thought she saw a trace of amusement in Salvatore's sullen dark eyes. "Not quite like Ruth. But yes, I'd do anything for him."

  "Then can't you see that he's making a big mistake keeping me here? He's just asking for trouble. If my father gets arrested, he'll have nothing to gain by keeping quiet about me. He'll send the police out looking, and even Ethan Winslowe couldn't keep them at bay."