Phantom Series Boxed Set (56 page)

She glanced around at the glaring lights streaming into the car.

“Not shy, are you?” she asked, rubbing him until his breath caught.

He peeled out and drove fast until they darted down a side street. The residential area wasn’t exactly perfect for an automotive interlude, but the hotter and harder he got beneath her touch, the more impatient Helen became. She’d give him the damned job—any damned job—if he’d just find a place to stop the car.

“Perfect,” he said finally, maneuvering the car into the driveway of a dark house with a FOR SALE sign prominent on the lawn and a computerized lockbox hanging off the front door.

She eyed the surroundings and figured this was good enough. If anyone was home, well, David would have to scoot them out of here in a hurry. But then, she wasn’t planning on taking all night.

One after the other, they dove into the backseat. He barely had the drawstring scrub pants loosened when she tossed aside her thong and climbed atop him. He was inside her in one swift stroke.

“No…condom?” he asked, shifting in a delicious rhythm that nearly struck her blind.

Oh, yeah. That
.

“You clean?” she asked, balancing on her knees so that when he moved, the tip of his head curved against her G-spot.

“Tested…last…year,” he answered. He tore her blouse, grabbed at the bra until the lace cups yielded and then plunged his face between her breasts, inhaling her hot skin before he surrounded her right nipple with his mouth.

She smiled and increased the tempo, loving the feel of his hardness inside her and adoring the little swirly thing he was doing with his tongue.

“Me…too,” she replied.

And then from that point on, all bets were off. Clothes disappeared. The windows fogged. After his first orgasm and her second, they toyed with the idea of getting dressed and leaving before anyone caught them, but when David pulled out a pack of cigarettes, they cracked the back window and lit up. Lounging against the backseat, David drew lazy circles around her areola as she lay against him, his soft but impressive cock nestled in the small of her back. She took a hard drag from the cigarette and enjoyed the buzz.

“So,” he said, tweaking her nipple and then soothing the shot of pain with the pads of his fingers. “What part are you going to create for me?”

She laughed, then, tossing her hair with clichéd flair, leaned to the side and held the cigarette to his lips. “What part do you want?”

“Don’t care,” he answered. “I’d prefer a line or two, but I’m not particular.”

He twisted to exhale out the window, and she noticed that the man had amazing lips. Not plush or plumped, but thin and straight. A man’s mouth. Nice jaw, too. In fact, just about all of him was perfect, so she couldn’t help but wonder why he was working so hard for a part that didn’t exist.

“Why do you want on this film so badly?”

He plucked the cigarette out of her hand and tossed it outside. “Why did you want me so badly you’d do it in the backseat of my car? Doesn’t feel like your typical venue. You seem more like the scented-oil-on-silk-sheets type to me.”

“I’m impulsive and you’re hot,” she answered simply.

“So’s Lauren Cole,” he replied.

Helen inhaled quickly, but then covered her shock. Because, really,
was
she surprised? “I don’t happen to swing that way, but I suppose you want to do her next?”

He shrugged. “I want to be in one of her films,” he admitted.

“Because you’re hot for her?”

“I was,” he said, “until about twenty minutes ago.” A jolt of pride arched through her. So she wasn’t his first choice. Did it matter?

“I can’t compare to her,” Helen said.

“Then don’t,” he replied, locking his fingers under her chin and forcing her to look into his dreamy, Pacific blue eyes. “You were straight up with me; now I’m being straight up with you. I pursued this role because of Lauren Cole. That hasn’t changed just because you took about ten minutes to rock my world.”

“I rocked your world?” She couldn’t help it. The guy not only knew how to fuck, he knew how to talk to a woman afterward, even when he was confessing that he was attracted to her best friend.

“Couldn’t you tell?” he asked.

“You’re an actor.”

“I don’t do porn flicks,” he countered.

“You should,” she answered, but she was kidding. He flipped her around, and she could tell by his quirk of a smile that he got the joke. His dick was hard, but she wasn’t in any hurry to do him again. The night was young, and so was he.

And so what if he was hot for Lauren? What man wasn’t? But she certainly wasn’t going to give in again so easily if he pined for someone else. Helen wasn’t a prude, but she had her pride.

“So what about Lauren Cole makes you want a part in her film, beyond the obvious?”

Suddenly his eyes turned very hard and had their bodies not been squashed together, Helen might have backed away. “She owes me.”

Swallowing deeply, Helen chased away a chill suddenly spreading across her skin.

“Everybody in this town owes somebody something,” she assessed. “Why are you any different?”

“Well, let’s just say that without me, Lauren Cole would not exist.”

Seventeen

“Ms. Cole, I hear you’re going home in the morning,” the nurse said brightly, fluffing the newly changed pillow.

“That’s the plan,” Lauren replied, not breaking her gaze away from the shades of gray playing on the tinted glass of the window beside her bed. Three days cooped up in the hospital had been more than enough. She still had bouts of dizziness and her muscles felt like jelly, but she was counting the hours until the doctors signed her release and the studio arranged her escape. In anticipation, she’d insisted the nurse transfer her to the bed by the window, just so she could watch as the day faded into night—when Aiden would return.

After taking the quickest bath in the history of handheld hospital showerheads, she’d bundled in the robe Helen had brought her from home and waited for the sunset. She’d slept almost continuously since the attack, waking in short intervals during the night to either see Aiden standing over her bed or curled up beside her, or in the daylight, to feel his presence so near she could touch him wherever she placed her hands.

During an earlier visit, Helen had been frantic when she’d found the sword missing from the bag where she’d hidden it. Luckily Lauren had been lucid enough to assure her friend that the weapon was safe. Helen had offered to move it to Lauren’s house, but of course, she’d refused.

She wanted Aiden close.

Hell, she just wanted Aiden.

Starting this afternoon she’d refused any more pain-killers. She wanted to remain alert. For days she’d dreamed about nothing but Aiden. Seeing him. Feeling him. Making love to him. But with a constant stream of doctors, nurses, studio executives, police and friends parading through her hospital room as if it were her suite during a press junket, she’d hardly had a chance to talk to him in the daytime, and the drugs had held her captive and quiet once night had fallen. She knew he was there, though. But for how long? What were the rules of this curse of his? What would happen if she didn’t find a way to free him soon?

The nurse finished fussing, said something about hoping Lauren had enjoyed her stay at their hospital, as if it were some five-star resort, then headed toward the door.

“Can you keep out any visitors tonight?” Lauren asked. “Even staff? I’m disconnected from all the monitors, and if I need anything I can give you a buzz.” She lifted the call button device and gave it a jaunty twirl.

The nurse stopped and turned, her eyebrows hitched up into her curly bangs. “Even that man?”

Lauren frowned. “What man? The one who attacked me?”

The police had made no progress in finding out who had sneaked into her room, and Lauren hadn’t told anyone that he’d wanted the sword. Afraid the police would confiscate the weapon as evidence—or, worse, return it to Ross—she’d allowed everyone to subscribe to the crazed-fan theory. Once she was strong and recovered, she’d delve deeper into who knew about Aiden’s sword, and who wanted it badly enough to attack a high-profile celebrity in a relatively public place, but in the meantime she just wanted one lucid night with Aiden.

“Oh, no,” the nurse reassured her. “The man I keep hearing you talk to at night.”

Lauren blushed. Exactly what had she been saying in her drug-induced sleep?

“I’m just running lines,” she lied.

The woman beamed. “Then that’s one movie I definitely want to see. From what I’ve heard you mumble, it’s going to be hot.”

Lauren rewarded the woman with her best red-carpet smile. “You have no idea.”

The woman left with a spring in her step, and Lauren turned back to the window. The sky had definitely darkened. A full and sensuous quiet descended on the room, broken only by the hum of recycled air pushing through the vents and the muffled chatter from the hallway outside. Lauren ran her hand through her damp hair, and then, after taking a deep breath, whispered Aiden’s name.

He did not reply or materialize.

How dark did it have to be before the sword released him?

Lauren settled into the mattress and closed her eyes. She was still tired, but, nestled in the brushed cotton of the robe, scrubbed clean and damp from her bath, she let her awareness of her body push to the forefront of her mind. No longer trapped in her dreams, memories of Aiden touching her in the shower just before the accident slipped into her consciousness. At the thought of his invisible tongue flicking inside her sex, a surge of desire swelled within her. She needed him to touch her, to make love to her, to fill her with the raw passion they’d exchanged just days ago—to remind her again that she was, indeed, alive.

“Aiden?” she whispered.

“You need not call me twice, my lady,” he said.

Her eyelids fluttered. Aiden emerged from behind the curtain that separated her from the now empty bed near the door, where the sword remained stored.

Her mouth watered. She tried to remember the last time that merely setting her eyes on a man had caused such a flutter in her chest. And lower. Yes, she was achy. Her muscles were unsteady and her joints protested against most movement, but she still couldn’t resist leaning toward him as he walked nearer.

Reaching out to him, she inhaled sharply when he took her hand in his and kissed her knuckles. The current that shot through her nerve endings had nothing to do with electricity, but with desire. His eyes, such a penetrating liquid silver, flashed at her from under thick, dark lashes.

“What have you been doing all this time? Just watching me sleep?” she asked.

She patted the bed, inhaling his rich, musky scent as he sat beside her. The essence of his maleness took her mind instantly off her pain. She couldn’t help but lean a bit closer. God, he was like living, breathing Percocet.

“I’ve been listening,” he replied. “Learning. This place offers much more information than the mantel in your husband’s study.”

“Pardon me?”

“Ex-husband. We’re divorced, remember?”

“I do not forget, my lady. But I fear he has. His visits have been brief, but frequent.”

Lauren shook her head, wholly unconcerned by the frequency of Ross’s appearance at her bedside. “I’m just an investment to him now. He doesn’t care about me.”

“So your friend Helen says every time he appears,” Aiden informed her. “She is one formidable woman.”

Lauren smiled. Ross was probably kicking himself now for hiring Helen all those years ago. She’d proved so damned good at her job, he’d had little choice but to keep her around. “It’s part of her charm.”

“You are also a formidable woman,” he claimed. “From what the doctors and nurses have said, the”— he struggled for the word—”voltage you received could have killed someone of lesser physical strength.”

She pulled her robe closer. She didn’t want to think about how close she’d come to dying. Again. She’d been down this road before. Near-death experiences led to all sorts of inconvenient thoughts about mortality and unfulfilled goals and regrets, which had, in the past, spurred her to make less than wise decisions. For now, she wanted to focus only on Aiden. On his mysterious appearance in her life. On his increasingly sensual presence, and how one glance from those silver eyes of his set her heart racing.

“What else did you learn?” she said, hoping to change the subject.

“I learned that electricity, while useful,” he said wryly, “is an extremely harmful substance.”

He ran his hand up the length of her leg, brushing over the thick terry cloth of the robe and skirting just inches from the opening that would reveal her naked flesh. The sensation stole the moisture from her mouth, and she had to wet her lips before she could find the means to speak.

“When it’s used incorrectly, yes,” she said, marveling at the tiny sparks shooting through her nerve endings at his simple, lazy touch. Boldly, she scooted back the hem of her robe, exposing her bare leg. “But if you know how to use it right, electricity can be incredibly…hot.”

His eyes met hers. His pupils dilated, and he licked his lips. She supposed sexual innuendo wasn’t bound by time or space.

“You need your rest,” he insisted.

The deep sensuality in his voice made her squirm.

“I’ve done nothing but rest for days.”

“The doctor says you should not exert yourself.”

“The doctor doesn’t have the world’s sexiest phantom haunting him.”

His chuckle spawned a trail of gooseflesh across her skin. The sensations running down the opening of her robe, past the sensitized dip between her breasts, captured her attention. When his fingers lingered just above her navel, the pounding between her thighs flared.

“I may be the world’s only phantom.”

She grabbed his hand and forced it lower, inches from where her flesh throbbed for his touch.

“Lucky me,” she replied.

He covered her mound with his palm, allowing his thumb to stray between the sensitive lips of flesh. She hissed as the sensations surged, then nearly buckled when he found her clit.

“If you cannot remain entirely still,” he warned, “I will have to stop.”