Night of the Phantom Read online

  The fingers on her shoulders tightened painfully for a moment, and then released her as he stepped back into the darkness. "You know nothing," he said, and it sounded as if each word was infinitely painful. "The game is over. Go back to your safe little world, your lovers, your father. Forget about this place. Forget about me."

  "I can't. Ethan, I love—"

  "No!" he said, drowning out her declaration. "It's over, Megan. I got what I wanted. And now I want you to go away."

  He meant it, she thought numbly. He meant every word of it. His voice was cold, harsh, and that painful yearning that was tearing her heart apart had to come from her alone.

  The wall was cold and solid at her back. She could hear the thunder rumbling overhead, an angry god muttering in the distance. And she knew her choice was simple. She could throw herself at his feet and beg him. Or she could run.

  But she'd already begged and it had done her no good. He could see in the dark quite clearly. He could see her white, stricken face, the pain and sorrow. Whereas she could see nothing at all.

  The silence was brief and endless. And then she broke it. She couldn't see him, but she knew where he was in the dark. She crossed the black space between them, reached up and pulled his marked face down to hers. "Damn you, Ethan," she said, her voice a strangled cry.

  And she kissed him, the tears flowing down her face, she kissed his cold, unresponsive mouth with hopeless desperation. And then as she felt him lift his hands toward her, she shoved him away, knocking him off balance, as she began to run.

  The sense of direction that had failed her chose then to reappear. Too soon she found herself back in the Victorian section of the house, the front parlor with its stuffy furniture, the front door and the porch. She hoped, she prayed the door would be locked, just as she'd hoped and prayed that Ethan would follow her through her headlong flight through the tunnels. But he hadn't; he'd let her run. And the door opened beneath her trembling fingertips, opened to the storm-tossed night.

  It was inky black, the full moon covered by the thick, ominous clouds. She could hear the soughing of the wind, the crack of thunder, the sound of trees bending and creaking. A streak of lightning split the sky, illuminating the car that sat directly in front of the entrance. The Blazer Sal had promised.

  She had no doubt it would be filled with her suitcases. The key would be in the ignition, the gas tank would be filled. Her sendoff would be complete.

  Another crack of thunder, following close upon the lightning, and she shut her eyes, feeling her body vibrate with pain. She could feel him calling her, but she ignored it. It had to be her own desperate wanting. He'd sent her away. She had no choice but to go.

  She didn't dare hesitate any longer. Running down the steps, she crossed the drive and jumped into the Blazer. It roared to life when she turned the key, and her last hope was gone. She would have to leave. Unless a beneficent God dropped a tree in front of the car and halted her reluctant escape.

  Lightning flashed, illuminating the stormy landscape, and she could see the trees bending in the wind. But they held fast, and she knew she had no choice but to ignore the cry that echoed in her heart, ignore her own despair, and leave.

  She shoved the Blazer into gear, tears pouring down her face. The rain started, fat, angry drops splattering the windshield, moments later obscuring everything beyond the headlights. Megan ignored it, blinded by her own tears, and shoved the car into Drive, stomping on the accelerator and taking off with a fishtailed swerve in the mud.

  Megan. It wasn't the sound of her name. It was a roar of anguish, like an animal in pain. It wasn't in her ears, it was in her heart, filling her, clawing at her, ripping her apart. Megan, he cried, if you leave me, I'll die. Megan, he cried.

  She slammed on the brakes, but the car kept going, sliding across the rain-slick drive and ending in a water-filled ditch by the side of the road. The headlights were glinting crazily through the heavy rain, but she ignored it, leaping from the car and running back. Back to Ethan.

  She didn't go back into the house. This time she listened to her instincts, to her heart, knowing where to find him. She went to the left, skirting the rambling structure, fighting her way through the gardens, brambles tearing at her hair, scratching her tear-streaked face. She slid once, falling in the mud, and she cursed the fact that it slowed her down. But she was on her feet, running, her heart bursting in her chest, running to him as she heard his roar of pain and grief vibrate through her soul.

  He was standing in the middle of a garden she'd never seen before. She stopped in the entrance, still in the darkness, knowing he was there before she could see him, and then the lightning flashed again, illuminating him. He was wearing dark pants, and the white shirt she'd ripped open was plastered against his strong body, wet with rain. His face was turned up to the angry sky, his long hair rippled down his back, and the perfect half of his face was stark with despair. And then he turned to her, and she could see both sides of his face, the darkness and the beauty, and she could see the grief, the longing. The need. And the love.

  "Megan," he cried, and this time she heard the word with her ears as well as her heart.

  She ran to him, across the rain-swept garden, and he caught her in his arms, in an embrace so fierce she thought she might be crushed. He kissed her, raining kisses across her face, across the tears and rain, and she kissed him back, clinging to him fiercely.

  "Don't listen to me,'' he said in her ear.' 'Don't leave me. If you leave me, I'll die."

  "I'll never leave you."

  "I tried to let you go. I tried to send you away, I know I should-"

  "Hush," she said, covering his mouth with hers, silencing him with hurried kisses. "You can't send me away. Wherever you are, I'll hear you, I'll come to you. You can't get rid of me, Ethan. I love you. Forever."

  And then there was no more need for words. She pushed his torn shirt off his shoulder, following his rain-slick skin with her mouth, tasting his flesh, cool with rain, letting her tongue dance off the soft tendrils of hair as she undid his belt, releasing him into her hands.

  He hadn't let her touch him last night. Now, in the rain, in the stormy garden, he held himself still, his hands threaded through her hair as she kissed him, held him, loved him, and words tumbled from his mouth as his fingers clenched against her scalp, part curse, part plea. She could feel the heat in his body, the swelling ebb and flow, and when he could stand it no more, he pulled her up against him and covered her mouth with his as he lifted her into his arms, wrapping her arms and legs around him as he carried her into the house.

  She had no sense of where they were, and she didn't care. Inside the door, he released her, ripping off her clothes with the same shaking passion that suffused her body. She was trembling so hard, she couldn't help him, didn't want to help him. All she wanted was to touch and kiss his body, to possess it, possess him, until there was nothing left between them, no secrets, nothing held back.

  And then she was naked, wet with rain and sweat, shaking with fear and desire, and he was naked, wet with rain and sweat, and he lifted her up in his arms, pushing her back against an unseen wall and entered her, driving deep with a fierce thrust that made her cry out in instant, shuddering satisfaction. He wrapped her legs around him, holding on to her hips as he drove in and out, in and out, like someone possessed, and his mouth against hers, the words that tumbled forth, love words, sex words, angry and despairing and tender, simply fanned the flame higher and hotter until she thought she might explode from the power of his thrusts, the power of his love.

  And then she did, again and again and again, as the madness closed around her, beating at her brain, at her heart, like the wings of angels. And she felt him burst within her, filling her with the hot wet tumult of his love.

  He was shaking too hard to hold her. She was too weak to support herself. Together, they slid to the floor, a tangle of arms and legs and racing hearts, a tangle of love-slick bodies and lovesick souls. He pulled her against him,
and his strong hands were tender, gentle, protective on her sensitized flesh. She rested her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep, shaky breath, too overwhelmed to speak. She had no experience with these feelings, these needs, these desires. And lying there in the cradle of his arms, still trembling with the aftermath of their explosive joining, she wanted him again. She wanted him in every way possible. She wanted to make love again, to experience that conflagration. She wanted to hold him, to give in to the unexpected tears that were burning at the back of her eyes. She wanted to tease him, to laugh with him, to have his babies and heal his soul.

  "Are we...going to sleep on the., .floor?" she managed to ask, her voice still shaky.

  There was a long silence, only his hand stroking her shoulder, deep, strong strokes that were as soothing as they were arousing. Finally he spoke. "Only until I get enough strength to get us over to the bed. You wear a man out, Megan."

  She laughed, a soft, gentle sound. "What are we going to do when we make it to the bed?"

  His hand moved up her neck to cup her face, and his lips danced across hers. "I imagine we'll make love again. Unless you feel like letting me sleep."

  "Do you want to sleep?"

  His own laugh was equally gentle. "Not in this lifetime." His muscles bunched beneath her hands, and he scooped her up in his arms, swinging her through the darkness so that she felt oddly weightless, disoriented, before he set her down on a bed. The room was pitch black, only the streaks of lightning penetrating into the darkness, and they were gone as soon as they started. She felt him sitting beside her supine body, leaning over her, and she opened her mouth to ask him, then shut it again, afraid to drive him away.

  But he could see in the dark, feel her response. "What?" he asked. "What do you want from me? If I can, I'll give it."

  The heat was already starting to build again, that burning, yearning ache that centered between her legs and spread up through her belly to her breasts, her mouth, her body and soul. She didn't want to lose him, but she had to ask.

  "Could we make love with the lights on?"

  The utter stillness in the room was deafening. Even the pouring rain, the fading thunder seemed to have vanished, and for a moment, she was afraid Ethan had vanished, too, gone back to his subterranean lair, never to surface again. He didn't say a word, and she could feel the torment she'd put him through, and she cursed herself, but she didn't withdraw the request.

  The bed creaked, shifted, and she thought he was leaving her. And then the room was flooded with a blinding light, a white-hot blaze of brilliance that hurt the eyes. She shut hers with a little gasp, unused to the brightness, but his hands were on her wrists, pulling them away.

  She blinked rapidly as her eyes grew accustomed to the brilliance. And then she looked up at him, at his utterly still body and expressionless face.

  The mark was as she remembered, bisecting his face, turning it into a thing of tragic beauty. What she hadn't known was that the mark spread down his body, his neck, one shoulder, and his torso, ending just above his hip. The mottled, liver-colored flesh contrasted to the lightly golden tone of the rest of him, once more emphasizing the contrast, and beneath that skin was a strong, leanly muscled body, And he was the most erotic thing she'd ever seen in her life.

  She sat up, still shaky with effort, and leaned forward, pressing her mouth against his. Then she kissed his neck, the marked side. She kissed his shoulder, using her tongue, she kissed the flat, tight male nipple, she kissed his stomach and his waist and his hip as he sat there, utterly still and unmoving.

  She looked up at him, wondering if he wanted her to go further, wondering if he was angry or disappointed with her request and her reaction. Belatedly, she realized that the brightness did more than expose him to her curious eyes. It exposed her, too, extra ten pounds, too-rounded hips, too-full thighs and all. And she started to retreat in sudden uncertainty, back against the sheets, and she knew her expression must have signaled some of her self-doubt.

  He smiled then, a faint, rueful upturning of his mouth. "You're right," he said in his soft, beguiling voice. "There's something to be said for being able to see. Especially when it's someone as beautiful as you are."

  "I'm not—" she began, prepared to point out all her deficiencies, but he stopped her mouth with his, stretching out beside her in the glaring midnight light. And then she realized those ten pounds didn't matter, not one bit. To him, she really was beautiful. And if he thought so, she did, too.

  They did sleep, at least for a while. They awoke to make love again, then slept, then awoke. The bright glare of the electric light was joined by the approaching lights of dawn, filling the room with a murky gray light. Megan cuddled in Ethan's arms, too content to sleep, and surveyed the room.

  It was one she hadn't seen, one that wasn't part of the game of musical rooms Ethan had been sending her on. The sheets beneath them were a pearly gray, the walls a similar muted color, and the rug that they'd tumbled onto earlier was a beautiful Oriental with shades of gray and rose. Candlesticks were mounted on the walls, on the dresser, and the pile of books beside the bed was a haphazard tower. She knew without question that this was Ethan's bedroom, Ethan's bed, not one more in a line of secret rooms. She looked up at the walls, squinting through the darkness to decipher the one shadowed painting that adorned the bare stucco. It was a chiaroscuro of light and shadows, and she squinted, then found herself sitting up, pulling herself carefully out of Ethan's sleeping arms to focus on the painting.

  It was a life-size nude. And it was unquestionably her. He'd painted her from memory in the act of doing her defiant striptease in front of the video camera. He'd captured her anger, her challenge, every ripe curve to perfection. But he'd also captured her vulnerability. An expression in the back of her eyes as she stared out at the world, daring him to come to her. Daring him to love her.

  He was awake, of course. "Do you like it?"

  "Did you paint it?"

  "Did you think I would have let anyone else see you?"

  "You had Sal lie to me. Why?" She knew the answer, but she had to hear it from him.

  "I wanted to make you angry. To drive you away. To somehow lessen the power you had over me."

  She looked down at him, lying back against the pearly gray pillow. "Did it work?"

  "What do you think?"

  She glanced back at the painting, at the woman who was here, and yet far more than she'd ever thought she could be. "I think you really do love me," she said. "I think-"

  Her words were interrupted by a thunderous pounding on the hall door. With a little shriek, she dived down in the bed, pulling the covers around her, huddling against him.

  "Why the hell's the door locked?" Sal's voice demanded from the other side, a rough urgency filling it.

  "Because I wanted to lock it," Ethan replied, his voice cool as his hand gently stroked Megan's huddled form. "What do you want?"

  "We got trouble. Plenty of it. For one thing, and that's the least of our worries, the girl didn't leave last night. She must be wandering around the place looking for trouble. The car was left in a ditch with the lights on. The battery's dead, and it's going to take hours to recharge it, and—"

  "You said that was the least of our worries," Ethan reminded him, his hand dipping beneath the sheet to stroke the smooth line of Meg's back.

  "Yeah. She'll turn up like a bad penny. It's Ruth."

  Ethan's hand stopped its slow, erotic motion. "What about Ruth?"

  "She's been taken to the hospital in Millers Fork. Burt says she's in stable condition, but he's staying over there."

  "What happened to her? Who took her to the hospital?"

  "Burt drove her. Doc was too drunk to help. And the others..." There was a strangled pause on the other side of the heavy door. "They stoned her, Ethan," Sal said in a broken voice. "Pastor Lincoln got everyone convinced she was the whore of Babylon, consorting with the Satan that lives on their doorstep, and they went after her with r
ocks."

  Ethan had pulled himself upright in the bed, a dark, unreadable expression on his face. "They hurt her because of me."

  "No, Ethan. They hurt her because they're crazy and wicked and stupid," Megan said urgently, putting her hand on his arm. He didn't yank it away, he just sat there.

  She'd forgotten Sal didn't know where she was until she'd spoken. "She's in there with you, isn't she?" he said finally, his voice heavy with disapproval and something else.

  "Yes," Ethan said.

  There was a pause.' 'Then you'd better keep her with you. There's no telling what that mob will do at this point. Once they've tasted blood, there may be no stopping them. Or maybe they're so frightened and ashamed of what they've done that they'll lie low for a while. Long enough for us to get away from this place. You'll go, won't you, Ethan?"

  Ethan looked at Megan's pale, questioning face. And then he put out his hand, pushing the tangled sheaf of hair away from her eyes. "Yes," he said. "I'll go."

  Megan, hearing the defeat and acceptance in his voice, wondered whether he'd be going alone. Or whether he'd take her with him.

  Chapter Fifteen

  * * *

  Ethan left her then. She hadn't expected him to stay with her. Without a word, he left the bed, moving with unselfconscious grace and disappearing into an adjoining room that she assumed was a bathroom.

  With a sigh, she rose, grabbing the pearl gray top sheet from its spot on the floor and wrapping it around her like a toga. She went to the hall door, unlocking it, bracing herself to meet Sal's disapproving eyes.

  In the light of day, he wasn't looking any too good himself. The livid bruises that had adorned his face had turned even brighter, and she could only assume they'd come from an encounter with the same crazed group of townspeople. He was right, they had to get out of there as fast as they could, before the whole thing exploded around them.