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NIGHTWIND
By
Charlotte Boyett-Compo
© copyright by Charlotte Boyett-Compo, August 2007
Cover Art by Alex DeShanks, © copyright August 2007
ISBN 978-1-60494-071-9
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author's imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Prologue
He heard her calling to him, one of thousands who asked each night. One of the legions of hopeless burdened women whose souls were blighted, withering on the vines of life. Her name meant nothing to him. Names never did. It was her pitiful sobbing, her breaking heart, her utter loneliness that caught, and held, his attention. He listened closely, his mind reaching out across time and space and millennia. To him, her entreaties were like cool, sweet water to a thirsty man. They tempted his thirst for further knowledge of the human race and filled his bored mind with a multitude of possibilities.
The dark ember in his eyes flared.
Her sobbing had ceased. Her desolation, her emptiness called out to him, begged him, beckoned him, and needed him. The ache in her heart was a sentient life form thrusting up through the heavens, speeding toward his lair. It cried out in mournful whimpers of surrender to him, granting him entry, promising him all, and its sound struck a chord deep in his being.
He turned his gaze Earthward, searching amongst all the womanly cries for help, the sobs of need, the whimpers of female defeat and frustration and failure. His keen vision traveled swiftly from land to land, from coast to coast, mountain to mountain, river to dale. He strained to catch her voice once more, one tiny, fluttering essence of her grief. In the strident confusion of tongue and sound and noise, he probed. He explored the nether regions of human misery that called out to him, searching for the one voice, the one cry that had garnered his attention. In the resonance drifting up to him, at last he heard her and his intellect homed in on her pain.
He smiled.
He had found her.
And she would be his.
Chapter One
Lauren Fowler's forty-fourth birthday came and went with the onset of the Summer Solstice. There had been no party, no birthday cards, nor wishes, no presents wrapped in gaily colored paper to mark the day of her birth, no bouquet of flowers. No one phoned. No one even noticed. No one cared.
Not the people she worked with who always ignored her.
Not the customers who never acknowledged her presence.
Not the people on the street who overlooked her.
Not her neighbors who barely noticed her existence.
Not her mother who had always neglected her.
Lauren Fowler had no friends, only acquaintances. She had no one with whom she could talk, to whom she could confide her deepest fears and regrets. There had never been anyone in her life who would listen to her troubles, and there had been many in her life. No one ever listened when Lauren Fowler spoke. No one ever took the time to hear what she said. Her voice was drowned out by all the other voices, her words lost in the vast sea of human flotsam that washed around her. Lauren Fowler was as alone in her world as though she were the only inhabitant.
"Where can I find John Sandford's new book?"
Lauren looked up at the elderly woman who was standing in the aisle. She smiled as she stood up from her cramped position on the floor, but the old woman did not return the gesture.
"I believe it's out of stock at the moment, but if you would like to give me your name, I can call you when ...." She stopped as the old woman, mouth pursed in annoyance, eyes rolling, turned and walked away from the counter. Lauren's smile faded and a hard thump of hurt twisted in her heart. She watched until the old lady had pushed through the front door and was gone.
"Those self-help books will not shelve themselves, Miss Fowler!"
Lauren jumped, turning around to face her manager, Mrs. Yelverton. "One of our customers was asking about-"
"I am not paying you to chit-chat with the customers, Miss Fowler. I pay you to work." Louvenia Yelverton frowned and her dark red lips twisted in irritation. Her sharp scrutiny raked Lauren. "There are quite a few names on my waiting list of prospective employees. If you are not willing to do the job, you can certainly be replaced."
Lauren's eyes widened in fear. "I do want the job, Mrs. Yelverton. I apologize if it seemed otherwise."
"Well then," the manager nodded curtly. "We'll see how much you wish to maintain your employment with us. I expect you to have those books shelved and cataloged in short order. Is that too much to ask for the ridiculously high pay you are earning, Miss Fowler?"
"No, Mrs. Yelverton," Lauren mumbled, her face scarlet. "I'll have the section finished before quitting time."
Louvenia sniffed. "If not, you will stay until it's done." she pointed a thin, bony finger at her employee. "And I will not pay one penny of overtime if you do!"
"I understand, Mrs. Yelverton," Lauren answered. She ducked her head, her shoulder-length hair cascading over the sides of her face to hide her embarrassment from the older woman.
"And do something with your appearance!" Louvenia snapped. "It is unseemly for a woman your age to wear her hair in that manner." The manager reached up to pat her own sleek chignon. "One can never recapture one's youth, Miss Fowler."
"Yes, Mrs. Yelverton." Lauren's hands twisted together at her waist. "I'll pin it up tomorrow."
"Are you waiting for an engraved invitation to get back to work?"
Lauren shook her head and sank to her knees before the older woman could ridicule her again. She blindly reached for a book, tears making her vision water, blurring the title. She swallowed hard to keep the sob from escaping, felt the other shop girls smirking at her, heard their muted giggles. Her face flamed as she pushed the book onto the shelf with trembling hands.
"If you ask me," she heard Inez Montes say, "Yelverton ought to fire her. There's not a day that goes by that she isn't in trouble with the old lady."
"Yelverton feels sorry for her," Beth Janacek laughed. "Who else in town would hire Maxine Fowler's old maid daughter?"
"No one in their right mind, that's for sure!" Karla Cooper said in a droll tone and the laughter rang out until Louvenia's harsh shush came from the back of the store.
Lauren wished the floor would open up beneath her, a wide, deep, endless chasm yawn before her into which she could fall, and keep falling, disappearing forever. She knew they watched her-laughing, mocking, hating. She could no longer hear their words, but nevertheless she knew the hushed whispers coming from the other women were about her. A piercing pain throbbed in her soul and her tears slowly crept down her cheeks as she took another book from the box beside her and placed it on the shelf.
"Excuse me," said a soft voice from above her.
Lauren flinched, startled, for she hadn't heard the customer's approach. She looked up and blinked.
"Perhaps you can help me?" he said, his gaze kind, his lips stretching into a lazy smile. "I'm looking for a book on medieval madrigals by Soames. Do you know if you carry it?"
She stared at him, her eyes widening, her lips parting in surprise. She couldn't seem to find her voice and when his left eyebrow lifted in amusement, his smiling mouth twitched, she felt her face flame again.
"I'm sorry," she said, coming so hastily to her feet her heel caught in her skirt and she lurched forward. A tremor of pure shock ran through her as he reached out and took her arm to keep her from falling.
"Easy there." He laughed as he steadied her.
Lauren looked up into his smiling face and felt a quiver go through her belly. The man was looking at her, not through her, and there was a gentle kindness in the way his gaze swept over her face.
"May I help you?" Inez Montes sultry Spanish accent was like a pail of cold water in Lauren's face and she turned, seeing the shop girl eyeing the customer with undisguised invitation.
Lauren saw the flash of annoyance that flared dangerously in the man's dark eyes. He had been looking directly at her, but at the other woman's interruption, he slowly turned his attention to Inez. His hand on Lauren's arm tightened. "I am being helped, thank you." Lauren noticed the warmth had fled his deep, slightly accented voice.
"Miss Fowler is only a stock clerk," Inez informed him, the sultriness deepening in her voice to gain his attention that had shifted back to Lauren. "I am one of the saleswomen. I know every book in the store. What may I help you find?" She sidled closer, her avid interest roaming the tall length of him.
The man ignored Inez Montes. "Stock clerk?" he asked Lauren, his voice a silky caress. "Then you are familiar with every book on every shelf in this establishment, are you not?"
Lauren could only nod. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Inez glowering at her. She wished the man would let go of her arm, but his thumb was rubbing a slow little circle on the tender flesh on the inside of her elbow. It was a sensation that was both stimulating and threatening at the same time and it caused a feeling with which Lauren was not familiar. She sensed he was gaining as much pleasure from the gesture as she was.
"Is something wrong here?" Louvenia Yelverton asked as she joined them. Her sharp blue gaze passed over Lauren, dismissing her, and went to the customer. "Has this girl caused you a problem, sir?"
"No problem at all," he answered. He smiled at Lauren. "As a matter of fact, she was about to help me make some purchases, weren't you, mam'selle?" His voice was like a gentle touch as he scanned her face.
"Mrs. Montes is-" The man swung his concentration to the older woman, giving her the full impact of his gaze, turning his head so he faced her fully, and the manager's words came to an abrupt stop as she stared at him, her indrawn breath a quick sigh.
"I am already being helped," he said in a soft, quiet voice that brooked no further discussion and then he smiled, his gaze steady on the manager. "You have no objections to that, do you, Madame?"
To Lauren, his smile was intoxicating. His even, white teeth gleamed in the dark tan of has lean face and his glowing brown eyes seemed to undress the older woman as he looked at her, appraising her, flirting with her. For the first time in all the years Lauren had known Louvenia Yelverton, the usual look of disdain and arrogance did not twist the face of the older woman. Instead, a look of wistful girlishness infused the lined face.
"Of course not, sir," she heard Louvenia Yelverton whisper in a throaty tone. "Miss Fowler will be most happy to help you, I am sure."
"Thank you," he said and his gaze slid to Lauren. "I believe you were about to show me the historical section, Miss Fowler?"
Lauren's knees weakened at his smoldering gaze, at the gentle squeeze he gave her arm before he released it, his slim fingers running down the length of her arm before he did, and she had to look away from the heat in his devastating gaze. She found herself staring at Inez Montes instead and saw hate and envy glaring back at her. Even before Inez flounced away, her pert nose in the air, her skirts swishing behind her like the flamenco dancer she pretended to be, Lauren caught the unmistakable glint of revenge in the woman's Latin face.
"Pay no mind to her," he said, watching Inez flit away. "She's jealous."
"Of me?" Lauren gasped, so surprised by his words that she forgot herself. She looked away, ashamed of her outburst.
"Most certainly of you," he answered smoothly. "She wants what you have, Miss Fowler." His dark eyes lost their sheen, became less warm. "She craves something she will never experience."
Lauren looked at him. "What on Earth could I have that Inez would even want?" Once more her words shocked her as he looked down at her.
His dark look held her spellbound. That lazy, gentle smile returned to his lips and his soft voice lowered, whispering his words to her like a lover's sigh.
"Something even you do not yet know you possess." He looked away from her then, breaking the spell he had cast over her. He scanned the store, frowning when he saw the other shop girls staring at him. "I don't care for this place," he said in a low, throbbing voice. He looked back at Lauren. "You could do better."
The force of his gaze shook her to the very foundations of her being and she found herself helplessly staring at him, unable to look away, caught and held by the sheer strength of his personality. Her gaze moved over his face as she evaluated the utter male beauty of him.
There was unmistakable power and authority in the chiseled planes of his face. His nose was bold with a hint of arrogance to it. His jaw line was square, but not so pronounced as to make his face seem hard and unapproachable. The soft fullness of his lower lip was sensual in its unsmiling state, sultry when he smiled and his teeth were very white, just a touch crooked. Beneath the slash of his thick eyebrows, his dark eyes, a warm, mesmerizing shade of soft brown, were direct and gentle. There was a small scar just under his chin and she wondered how he had come by it. A mole on his right cheek caught and held her attention, making her want to touch it with her fingertips. In all, his face was so devastatingly handsome it made her ache to look at him.
From his face, her attention moved to the gleaming deep brown of his long hair that was tied back. She found herself wanting to reach out and touch the healthy sleekness of it, to remove the silver band that held it to let it fall down around his shoulders, to run her fingers through the thick wavy locks. She had to mentally shake herself to keep her hand from moving up to do just that.
Her gaze moved reluctantly from his face, paused as the glint of a small silver hoop in his left ear brought her gaze to it. Something moved in her lower belly and she took in his broad shoulders, powerful chest beneath the flowing white of his full-sleeved shirt. Before her vision could take her down the full length of him, down the black trousers, she forced herself to look away.
"Is something wrong, Miss Fowler?"
A tremble went through her and she shook her head, not daring to look at him. What must he think of her bold perusal of him? Embarrassment flamed in her cheeks, tears misting at her presumption. She shook her head, feeling humiliated to the very depths of her soul.
"The historical section is over here," she heard herself saying in a voice that was not hers. She didn't look at him as she walked away from him. "Did you say Soames?"
"Yes." He sighed, following her. "Lord Bertram Soames."
Inez Montes glared at her as she passed the woman. She heard a hiss of contempt from the Latin woman's pursed lips. The force of the other woman's anger followed Lauren to the historical section.
"If Miss Fowler isn't up to the task of helping you, I would be most happy to get you anything you need," she heard Inez coo. "All you need do is ask, Mister...?"
Lauren looked back, saw him stop, his unfathomable gaze aimed at Inez. She thought she saw a flicker of dislike cross his face before he smiled at the Spanish woman.
"Cree," he answered in an annoyed voice. "Syntian Cree."
Inez obviously did not notice the bored, knowing way she was being regarded as she stepped closer to him. Her gaze moved down him then locked on his handsome face. "And what do your friends call you?"
His lips twitched. "Mr. Cree."
The flirtatious smile on Inez's face wavered.
He turned and smiled warmly at Lauren. "But there are those whom I allow to call me Syn."
"Syn as in wicked?" Inez teased, her face glowing as he returned his attention to her. She unconsciously licked her upper lip as she watched him.
"Syn as in deadly." His smile turned cold.
Lauren felt the heat of him as he came to stand beside her. "If we have any of Lord Soames' books in stock, they would be on this shelf," she said as she put her hand on the wood. She snatched her hand back when she saw it was shaking and started to turn away.
"Would you help me look?" he asked, his voice low and rife with subtle command.
She would not look at him. "Yes, of course." She scanned the titles before her.
He was standing close to her, so close she smelled the tangy aroma of his cologne, so close she heard the gentle exhalation and intake of his breath. She watched as his hand reached out, looked down at the fine matting of hair on his wrist as the French cuff pulled back, admired the dark tint of his tan, the elegant tapering of his slim fingers, the manicure of his nails as he plucked a book from the shelf.
"Duke Giles du Mer." She heard him chuckle softly. "History of St. John Thorne." He thumbed through the pages. "Du Mer considered himself quite the intellectual, but he didn't quite grasp the complexity of a man like Thorne." He turned to her. "Are you familiar with the tale?"
She shook her head, glancing at the cover of the book he held in his hand. There was a picture of a scaffold, rope dangling from the crossbeam. In the background, angry black clouds swirled on the horizon.
"St. John, Lord Thorne, fifth Earl of Willingsham, was hanged at Derry Berne on the twenty-fourth of April in the year of our Lord 1653. His body was left on the scaffold as a warning to all those who would dare to defy the English government." He turned a page and stared down at a lithograph. He frowned. "Sometime between midnight and dawn of the following day, Lord Thorne's body was removed by a person, or persons, unknown and was never found." He turned his enigmatic gaze to Lauren. "Legend has it that he wasn't dead, that he had cursed his executioners before they carried out his sentence, and he swore to take his revenge on his accusers."
"What did he do?" she whispered, seeing anger building in his dark face.
"He skewered a revenue agent on the tip of his sword for trying to confiscate the Thorne lands."
"Was he in debt?"
"One did not have to do much of anything to lose one's land during that time." He shrugged. "An insult to a nobleman was often just cause to sue for satisfaction. The courts often awarded land as compensation." His gaze narrowed. "Nor was it uncommon to condemn a man to death on trumped up charges in order to take those lands if you had no other cause against him." He shut the book and slid it back on the shelf.
"Did Lord Thorne take his revenge?"
He didn't answer, but rather drew another book from the shelf. He scanned the contents page then turned to hand it to her. "I'll take this one." He moved further down the aisle, looking at other books.
Lauren glanced at the book in her hand. Her brows drew together. She couldn't ever remember seeing that particular book before. Even the title was not familiar to her. She opened it in the middle and was shocked to see an explicit picture of a man and woman engaged in sexual union. She shut the book with a snap, drawing his attention.
"Shocked, Miss Fowler?" he asked, one brow lifted in amusement.
"I didn't know we had this."
He took the book from her. "The Satyricon of Petronius was considered to be the most erotic book of its day." He leafed through the pages. "This version, complete with lithographs, was an underground version of the novel printed in the late seventeenth century." He handed the book back to her, drew three more from the shelf then faced her.
"Have you found what you wanted?" she asked, wanting desperately to escape from his intoxicating presence.
He smiled. "For today." His eyes moved over her face with a tender sweep as he handed her his purchases.
Lauren clutched the books to her chest. She felt him right behind her as she walked to the counter where Louvenia Yelverton stood waiting.
"I hope you found everything you were looking for," the older woman gushed.
"And more," he answered as he took out his wallet.
"Cash or charge?" Louvenia asked as she mentally calculated the total of the four books. She looked up at him, sporting a foolish smile.
"Cash," he said, handing her a hundred-dollar bill.
"Thank you, Mr. Cree," said Lauren.
"It was my pleasure, Lauren." His smooth voice made the hair on her arms stir. His gaze was hot and filled with an emotion she was shocked to realize was keen interest and sexual fascination.
"Run along now, Miss Fowler," Louvenia told her, her eyes stern, "or you'll be here all night."
"Yes, Mrs. Yelverton." She heard her manager murmuring an apology to Mr. Cree.
"Sometimes I'm afraid Miss Fowler has her head in the clouds when she's working."
"Better than her soul in torment, wouldn't you agree?" he asked, his voice tight with annoyance.
Lauren glanced back to see Mrs. Yelverton sputtering as she hastily placed Mr. Cree's purchases in a bag with the store's crest emblazoned on the front.
The bell over the door tinkled as he left the shop and Lauren glanced around the shelf of self-help books to see him staring back at her through the window. She ducked her head, hiding herself from his view.
"He's mouth-watering, isn't he?" she heard Beth Janacek sighing to Karla Cooper. "I bet he has women eating out of his hand everywhere he goes. He can put his slippers under my bed any time."
"He could come to my bed …," Inez began, but Louvenia's curt voice hushed her into propriety.
"The gentleman would not appreciate us talking about him in such a manner, Inez," the older woman snapped.
"I bet he's use to it." Karla giggled. "Any man who looks like that has to know what women think of him."
"Who is he, anyway?" Beth asked. "I've never seen him around town."
"And you would have remembered if you had!" Karla teased.
"I wonder if he's the man who bought the old Herndon place. Reed told me a stranger had bought the place through a lawyer up north." Louvenia nodded her head. "I bet that's who he is." Her avarice glowed. "Reed said he paid cash for the place."
"And did your husband get the commission?" Inez inquired.
"No, Reed's partner made the sale." Louvenia sighed. "It was a rather substantial commission, too. The asking price for the acreage alone was over a quarter million. Janet Herndon practically threw the house in for next to nothing in order to get rid of it."
"The place is haunted," Karla said, shivering.
"You don't believe those old tales, do you?" Inez scoffed.
"Can you explain why the house has been vacant all these years?" Karla shot back. "No one wants to the live in the house where Janet's granddaddy went berserk and killed his wife and oldest son. People have seen things in that house."
"Like what?" Inez challenged.
"I believe we have better things to do than discuss old ghost stories of the Florida Panhandle, ladies," Louvenia reminded them. She looked down at her watch. "We close in fifteen minutes and I, for one, have no intention of putting in any overtime."
The women moved away from the center aisle and headed back to what they had been doing before their last customer had entered the shop. Only Inez Montes did not resume her work, but instead, stared across the aisle from the inspirational books to where Lauren knelt, shelving books. As Lauren looked at her, Inez laughed disdainfully.
"You made a fool of yourself flirting with that man," the Spanish woman sneered. "It was obvious he wasn't interested."
"I wasn't flirting with him."
Inez smiled, her lips cruel and twisted with contempt. "You aren't his type, Lauren. Men like attractive women, women with fire." Her look ran scathingly down Lauren's body. "Not cold fish like you."
A shaft of anger went through Lauren. "I was not flirting with him," she said again, her teeth clenched.
Long after the others had left the store, Lauren was still shelving and logging in the crate of books that had come in that morning. Outside it was raining, the sky occasionally lit by white flares of light. Distant rumbling shook the plate glass front window, rattling it in its frame. The wind was picking up, moaning as it cornered the bookshop. Lauren knew it was going to be a miserable two-block walk to her home.
At last finished with the cataloging, she glanced at the clock behind the counter and winced. It was eight already and she'd had nothing to eat since eleven. A grumbling in her stomach told her it was well past time for her supper. Putting the book register under the counter, she headed to the break room for her raincoat. The phone rang and she jumped, startled by the sound. Not really sure whether to answer it or not, she wondered if it was her mother, calling to ask if she needed a ride home in the rain. She pushed that thought away as quickly as it came for she knew her mother would never venture out on a night such as this. As the phone rang again, she reached out for it.
"The Composition Book Store," she said.
There was a brief silence then the husky voice spoke. "Happy birthday, Lauren."
A tremor of surprise shook her for she didn't recognize the voice. "Who is this?"
There was another brief silence then the line went dead.
"Hello?" Lauren's brows drew together in confusion. "Hello?"
There was nothing but the hum of the open line.
Slowly replacing the receiver, Lauren stared at the phone. For a reason she could not explain, the mysterious phone call had made her heartbeat accelerate and her mouth go dry. She swallowed. Who could it have been? It had been a man's soft, resonant voice, sensuous and low. Almost as mesmerizing as....
A thrill ran through Lauren like a current of stray electricity and her head came up.
"No," she whispered. "It couldn't have been." She leaned against the counter. The man from that afternoon, what was his name? Cree. Yes, that was it. Syntian Cree. He couldn't possibly have known it was her birthday. There was no way he could have known.
She locked up the bookshop and started the rainy walk home. No, Mr. Cree couldn't have known it was her birthday. She stopped suddenly in the pouring rain as an eerie thought crossed her mind: No one had told him her first name, either, but he had known it.
Despite her rain coat and umbrella, Lauren was soaked by the time she reached her one-bedroom house on Canal Street. She hurried up the short flight of steps to the screened porch, shaking her umbrella as she reached the roof's overhang. She laid it on the porch floor and shrugged out of her wet coat, laying it on the back of one of the two tall porch rockers that stood on either side of the front door. She fished in her purse for her house key, stuck it in the lock, opened the door and reached in to flip on the porch light. She started to put the key back in her purse when her attention was diverted to the little wicker table beside one of the rockers. She stopped, key in hand and stared at what was on the table.
A single, scarlet red rose in a fragile-looking crystal bud vase stood in the center of the table. Propped beside it was a small white card.
"Who in the world?" she asked as she dropped her key into her purse. She walked to the table, lifted the rose and sniffed it, inhaling its delicate scent. With the rose still in her hand, she picked up the card and saw there was no florist shop name on the outside. Her curiosity pounding in her temples, she opened the card. Inside, there were only four words on the simple white card: From one who cares. No signature, no initials. Just those four simple, sweet words.
"From one who cares."
Lauren jumped as her phone began to ring. Closing the door behind her, she ran to the phone and snatched it up on the third ring. "Hello?"
"Did you like the rose?" he asked.
"Who is this?" Lauren's heart had leapt up to her throat.
"Did you like it?" he repeated, his voice soft and caressing.
"Yes, but-"
"That's all that matters."
He hung up.
Lauren's mouth dropped open and anger replaced her astonishment of only a moment before. "Damn it!" she spat as she slammed down the receiver. She glanced at the rose in her hand. It seemed to mock her as she stared at it and she put it down on the telephone table, backing away from it as though it had somehow become a deadly enemy. She had no idea what kind of cruel game he was playing, what kind of fool he took her for, but the thought of a man like him taunting her made tears slide unbidden down Lauren's cheeks. She ran to her bedroom and threw herself face down on the bed.
Her sobs were lost in the wild torrent gathering outside her window.
* * * *
His palm stretched out over the candle, his flesh turning warm from the kiss of the flame. Outside the storm was raging, the rain lashing against the windowpanes of his study. Now and again the wind howled as it played around the eaves of the old mansion. The electricity had gone out long ago, plunging the book-lined room into near-total darkness; but he preferred the candle light to the harsh glow of the electric lights to which he could never seem to become accustomed. The shadows hovering around him were comforting companions that whispered to him in words only he could hear.
A flare of lightning stepped down from the tempests above him and lit the room in a harsh blue-white glow that caught, and held, in his dark eyes, turning them a murky gold for a moment. He blinked, ridding himself of the lethargy into which the storm had cast him. Moving his palm from the candle, he put his hands on the arms of his chair and stared into the darkest corner of the room, his attention settling there. If he concentrated hard enough, he knew he could look past the plaster and wood and brick, peer out through a ragged hole in the span of time and look right into her bedroom. He tried to keep himself from doing just that, but his desire was building, the need in him so thick, he smelled his own body heat.
It wasn't time. He tried to force his thoughts away from her. He knew it wasn't time, but the ache was throbbing, the pain almost too intense to bear. Slowly he pushed himself from the chair and stepped toward the darker shadows. One moment he was standing in the candle-lit sanctuary of his study, the next he was beside her bed, peering down hungrily as she lay sleeping. His eyes glowed a feral red in the semi-darkness of her bedroom walls.
"Not yet," the taunting of his inner voice warned him. "It is not time."
But his hand moved, swept downward and he touched her.
Inez Montes moaned in her sleep. Juan's hands were on her body, stroking her, touching her, his hands rough and demanding, his fingers entering the hot moistness between her thighs. She squirmed against the invasion, clamping her thighs down on the hard heat of his hand. His thumb was on her clitoris, rubbing it roughly, and her body reacted to the intimacy of the touch.
"Open your legs to me," she thought she heard her husband say and she obeyed, her limbs stretching languidly upon the mattress and she felt his weight hovering above her. There was a solid, steel-like pressure against her womanhood and she groaned, aching to feel him inside her.
"Are you sure you want me, Inez?" came the silky purr and she nodded, licking her lips. "Then you must ask me to take you."
"Yes!" Inez mumbled. "Take me. Take me, now!" Her arms came up to hold him, but as she did, a thrust of such power, such heat and force and tearing pain, entered her that she screamed with the agony of it.
Her eyes flew open, her teeth drew back over lips snarling in pain, but there was nothing above her. Although there was a heavy weight atop her thrashing body, rocking her in sexual union, thrusting against her, there was no one there.
"Inez? What's the matter with you?"
Her head twisted to one side and she saw Juan, on his side, facing her, his expression horrified as he watched her moving back and forth on the bed.
As the ice cold burst of ghostly fluid shot deep within her, burning her, scalding her, Inez Montes threw back her head and howled in abject terror.
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