Never Sleep With Strangers (19 page)

Jon suddenly seemed to realize that they were still outside on the balcony, possibly within view of others, and he slipped his arms around her waist, drawing her back into the room. Once there, he turned her to face him and, gazing into her eyes, caught her hands, releasing her hold on her nightgown. Silk shimmied down the length of her, like a cool breath against her fevered skin. She seemed to ache, to long, to desire from every pore. He said nothing, surveying her, and it was as if she felt the very touch of his marbled gaze, and it felt like fire.

 

Cassandra's killer watched. From a distance, with binoculars.

They weren't paying enough attention to what was happening around them. Not that the killer was playing infantile tricks. No, the killer was serious.

The killer saw the balcony. Saw the woman beneath the stars, saw the man behind her. Watched the scene, riveted.

Saw both their faces.

Felt the eroticism.

The woman, tall, willowy, her nightgown flowing in the night air, her hair caught upon the breeze.

Jon Stuart. Enraptured. Touching. Tall, handsome, so masculine in his robe. His fingers, long, bronzed, moving seductively over the woman's flesh. Her breasts, nearly bared, him touching, touching, touching, and you knew there was a stroke of fingers between her legs, and you could almost feel the manly bulge against the cleft at her bottom.

Then…

He drew her inside. As if he were aware that there might be eyes on them. Watching. Torn. Wanting. Angry.

Still angry. Why the anger?

Why the longing?

The strange longing.

Wanting.

And wanting to…

Kill.

And kill again.

And actually…

It was nearly time to do so.

 

She felt herself trembling under his gaze. She was naked, cold, yet burning with infuriating, arousing anticipation. Oh, God.

Jon went down upon one knee, his muscled arms encircling Sabrina's buttocks, drawing her forward to him. His kisses glided over her abdomen, then slid to the very center of her sex.

His bold, aggressive intimacy was staggering. Electric currents seemed to rip through her, rendering her aware of nothing but sheer sensation. She cried out in protest and desire. Her fingers tore into his dark hair; her body shook, raced alarmingly toward a shattering climax and convulsed in a startling, swift pinnacle of saturating pleasure.

She was swiftly in his arms, tasting the sexy muskiness of his lips, feeling his nakedness beneath his loosened robe as he bore her down onto the bed. She was dazed, stunned, even embarrassed, yet ever more eager for his kiss, his touch.

Memory came to join the fever of passion he quickly awakened again. He had made love to her before, and she remembered every nuance of him—his touch, his lips, his scent. She had held them sacred in her heart, and the sheer joy of feeling him again was overwhelming. She should have been skeptical, aloof, angry, indignant. He'd had no right, master of the castle or no, to slip into her room unasked, to touch unasked. Yet logic and emotions didn't matter. Nothing mattered. He had come because he was done with waiting. He wanted her, and he had come for her, and he knew that she had no will to deny him. Perhaps he even knew that she had been dying for his touch, and dying to touch him in turn. Perhaps he had seen the hunger in her eyes.

She returned his kiss with equal passion, arms enveloping him, fingertips eager to reach his flesh. His mouth was hard, his cheeks slightly rough as his face moved against her flesh, tongue and mouth teasing her throat, the globes of her breasts, closing around her nipples, teasing, tasting, grazing, making them pebble under his assault. She dug her fingers into his hair, cradling his head to her, her body arching, small, desperate sounds escaping her lips. His weight was between her thighs; she felt the tip of his erection against her, slick, insistent, arousing, and then he was sheathed within her, and the shock of sensation was dizzying again.

He angled his hips, thrust and withdrew, slowly at first, filling her as deeply as she could be filled. Her fingers dug into him, holding him, clutching his back, his muscled buttocks. His hands were beneath her, lifting, guiding, bringing her ever closer with a heady, impossible intensity.

She buried her cries in his shoulder when climax seized her again. She shook, convulsed, held him, damp, seeking breath, feeling the thunderous pounding of her heart as if it were a kettle drum. His hands still cradling her hips, he arched his body hard against hers, into hers, and she felt his heat spill into her, permeate her depths. He didn't release her right away, nor did he withdraw from her, and their ragged breaths mingled, as did the drumming of their hearts.

 

People were out and about. Jon had instructed Camy to deliver the notes asking his guests to be careful and stay put. But the trickster had been at it again, writing new notes, and a number of guests had fallen for the second set of notes sent around, risking life and limb running around the darkened castle rather than remaining smart and safe.

Finding one of the notes that summoned guests to the ‘dungeon below,' Camy was perplexed. Was everyone writing his or her own directions, playing new games?

The upstairs hallway was quiet. Jon wasn't in his room. She hadn't been able to find Jon; he wasn't in his room. She wanted to tell him that something was up, but she didn't know just exactly where he was right now. And so, despite the fact that she was shivering and frightened, she knew that she had to go below herself.

Descending the first set of stairs, she was certain that she saw shadows moving ahead of her. Wraiths in the night. She told herself that she wasn't afraid of the castle, of the crypt. She lived here. There were no ghosts, no goblins. Joshua Valine was a talented artist who had sculpted figures from wax and wire, nothing more. There was nothing to be afraid of.

She knew the castle.

Still…

She started silently down the next flight of stairs, to the dungeon. She was convinced that she heard furtive sounds. People guarding their secrets and their fears.

Secrets and fears that could make them want to kill?

There was a sound, like the scurrying of rats running about, afraid of the light, glad of the darkness and the shadows of the castle. Strange, she could almost see all Jon's guests as rats in her mind's eye. Big rats, little rats, frightened, dangerous rats. Reggie Hampton, for instance, would be a plump rodent with a flowered dress. Susan Sharp would be a scrawny creature with big rat teeth. Thayer Newby would wear a cop badge on rat patrol, while Joe Johnston would be a scruffy gutter rat. And good old Tom Heart would wear a top hat and cane, a Fred Astaire scurrying gracefully among the rest of them.

Camy felt a strange chill. What was going on? It was so weird. She could feel the secretive movements in the castle. She didn't like it. She was uneasy.

Furtive and careful herself, she entered the chapel. A single lamp was burning there to protect visitors from stumbling in the dark. She saw no one. Yet it seemed even there that the dim light set menacing shadows to flickering in every corner.

Where was Jon? Was he down here somewhere, silently trying, as she was, to find out what his guests were up to?

She left the chapel, carefully looking out the doors before she did so, and slipped into the chamber of horrors. She wondered if Joshua himself could have known just how frightening this place could be even without his purplish lighting, with the eerie flicker of lanterns against the stones of the castle. She blinked, half expecting Jack the Ripper to lift his face to her and offer her an evil, taunting grin. She was convinced, for a moment, that Marie Antoinette turned to look at her. On the rack, Lady Ariana Stuart screamed in silent anguish, her eyes upon Camy, desperate, accusing….

She waited, barely breathing, thinking again that she heard the scurrying of rats. Was someone there, hiding among the wax figures? Or were the figures alive, moving each time she blinked, coming closer, closer, ready to strike?

Idiot! she accused herself. Chicken! How silly. She was a sensible adult. She knew better.

She eased back out of the chamber of horrors, leaning against the wall, breathing deeply. To her other side, barely illuminated, were the recreation areas. The pool, the bowling alley. Might she hear a splash? As her imagination soared, she pictured a murderer casting a victim into the pool, blood fanning out in rich waves. Or, rolling toward the ten pins, a phantom bowling ball that would prove to be a human head.

Ugh! She'd been hanging around those who dealt in death and the macabre for far too long, she told herself. There were no sounds coming from the pool or the bowling alley.

One more place…

She glided toward the crypt and tried to open the double doors there in silence.

Naturally, the doors creaked.

It probably wasn't that noisy, but it sounded loud enough to wake the dead.

She stepped into the crypt.

The light was so muted that she could see almost nothing in the shadows. She blinked, adjusting to the hazy glow cast by the single lantern hanging from an ancient wall fixture.

Then she froze, staring in absolute terror, chilled to the bone….

For there she was.

Cassandra Stuart.

Oh, Jesus Christ, Cassandra!

Beautiful in purple silk and gauze, the very gown in which she'd been buried, her pitch-black hair flowing around her shoulders. She lay atop her own tomb, hands folded over her breasts.

And then she began to move, sitting up, smoothing back her hair, staring at Camy with her haunting eyes….

 

They lay for a very long time, entwined, and at first Sabrina could do nothing but savor the delicious feel of him. His body still a part of her, his scent, heat, strength cloaking her nakedness.

Then, with a sudden, renewed burst of anger, she shoved him from her, rolling to pin him down on the bed. He stared at her with surprise.

“You're a complete ass. Jon Stuart! Giving me a hard time about Brett. Yes, I was married to him. And you know what? I still care about him. Oh, he's capable of being an ass, too—it seems to be something men, especially egotistical writers, are quite good at. In a way, I suppose you could even say that I love him. But our marriage is honestly over, and if you want to keep believing otherwise, then you can just crawl back under whatever rock in this big pile of stone you came out from!”

His left brow arched, and a smile tugged at his lips. “Does that mean you came for sex specifically with me?”

She started to swear, swiftly pummeling his chest. He grunted with surprise and suddenly, easily, seized her wrists. Then he rolled and, straddling her, pinned her beneath him.

“Fine,” he declared. “Let's be open as hell. You know what? Yeah, Cassandra was a royal pain in the ass, an incomparable bitch when she chose to be. But there was a time when she really loved me, when I loved her, and yes, in my way, I cared about her until the day she died, even if our marriage was over, and even if she was sleeping with half the castle, male and female. That's why I—” He broke off abruptly, his lips thinning.

Sabrina inhaled sharply, staring at him. “Oh, my God! That's it, isn't it? The entire reason you had this party. You did love her, and you're trying to catch her killer.”

He pushed away from her, sitting up on the side of the bed. He ran his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. “I don't know that she was murdered. I saw her fall, that's all. I was there, and all I saw was Cassie pitching over the balcony rail. It was as if she were flying, and that damn Poseidon is so close to the damned balcony that she landed right on his trident,” he finished wearily. “I was grilled by the courts, but I also hired every expert I could myself, trying to find out if she possibly could have fallen onto the trident or if she would have needed the impetus of a push.”

“And?”

He grimaced. “One scientist showed me mathematical angles that indicated she had to have been pushed. Another showed me a set of diagrams that showed why it was impossible to tell.” He shook his head again. “I wish I could have let it go, accepted it as an accident. I wish we all could have gotten on with our lives. But actually, it wasn't my choice alone, and in the end, the wondering, the not knowing, has been worse than anything in the world. Every day of my life since she died, the tragedy has haunted me. I just keep wondering…”

“But, Jon—”

She broke off, frozen, as a sound that seemed to shake the castle itself slashed through the night. It was a scream of terror so deep and unearthly, that it was almost like a banshee wail. It seemed not so much muffled by the thick castle walls as amplified by them.