Page 10 of From the Darkness

For a long time, their lips were the only point of contact. As he sensed her acceptance, his mouth opened, became more possessive. He was a skilled lover who knew what he was doing, knew how to surprise and tease, the kiss deepening, then becoming momentarily shallower. His tongue played with the sensitive tissue at the insides of her lips, then probed into the corners.

When he caught her lower lip between his teeth and gently nipped at her, she heard a small moan escape from her throat.

Her response seemed to please him. He touched her then, his fingers stroking her cheeks, her jawline, her neck, moving downward, sending tingles of sensation over her skin.

He slid his hands under the covers, his fingers skimming the warm skin of her shoulders, stopping to play with the straps of her gown—wringing another small moan from her.

She found her voice, enough voice for one word. “Troy?”

He didn’t answer. She didn’t even know if it was him. The only thing she knew was that this was neither of the other men she had met this evening. It couldn’t be.

His lips left hers to flutter soft kisses over her closed eyelids, her brows, the tender line where her hair met her cheek, and she felt his warm breath against her skin.

“Troy?” she asked again, her voice high and breathy as she responded to him.

Again, he remained silent, never stopping the kisses and touches. His skin must have heated in response to her because the wonderful scent of his body had intensified.

She was enveloped in the sensual spell he was weaving. She wanted more from him.

As if he knew her desires, his hands slipped lower, playing with the edge of her gown where it rested against the tops of her breasts.

The kiss had started like a whisper of sensation against her lips. His touch was like that now. Light and playful. Teasing, even.

Yet she responded with a flood of tingling warmth spreading downward through her body to the hollow place that had opened inside her.

Yet in some part of her mind, she knew that this was wrong. It had to be wrong. Whether this man was Troy or not, he had come to her in the night without announcing his name—or his intentions. Come to her bed like a phantom lover.

The dark image was powerful in its dampening effect. The fear that had momentarily receded into the background leaped to the front of her mind again.

All at once, she felt as if she’d been under an evil, sensual spell. And through her own will, she had been released. Her eyes flew open. It was still dark in the room, and she couldn’t see the man who hovered over her. But her hands moved swiftly and surely as they came up to push him away.

For a millisecond she thought she felt the resistance of his warm flesh, of muscle and bone. Then her hands pressed upward through chilled, empty air. He was gone. Vanished, as silently and as swiftly as he had come to her.

Chapter Three

For several heartbeats the room remained in the clutches of darkness. Then, perhaps in response to her urgent need, the clouds moved away from the moon, and once again a sliver of radiance seeped through the crack at the edge of the drapes. In the cold, dim light that streamed across the room, Bree saw she was alone.

Her midnight visitor had vanished—along with the mist that had rippled across the floor. Or had the mist just been the product of her overheated imagination?

Her heart was still pounding as she pushed herself up and pressed her back against the pillows as she looked around the chamber.

“Troy?” she questioned, her voice no more than a breathy whisper. Once more there was no answer.

And no proof that the man who had come to her bed was Troy London, she thought, goose bumps blooming on her skin. In the darkness, she hadn’t seen him, only felt his touch and his scorching kiss, as he’d woven his erotic spell around her.

Her skin heated at the memory. Her gaze flew to the door, but it was shut, the way she’d left it.

Now that she was alone, the whole experience seemed cloaked in unreality. The mist—the man—her reaction that was so totally unlike her normal response.

Her visitor had come to her in the dead of night and coaxed a totally sensual response from her. Then, when she’d regained her senses—the rational part of her mind had been terrified.

At the same time, there was no way that she could deny her sexual reaction. Raising her fingers, she touched them lightly to her lips, brushing them back and forth, feeling a small tingling afterburn of the sensations he’d generated.

Oh yes, she remembered his touch. But she remembered other sensations, too. She’d felt strange, drugged, compelled—as if she’d been under some kind of magic spell.

Even as thoughts of black magic formed, her mind rejected the explanation—and jumped to a more acceptable alternative. Maybe the whole experience had simply been a dream, a very vivid dream brought on by her exhaustion and her own sexual needs. She’d been thinking about Troy, remembering him just before she’d gone to bed. And she’d been hoping to encounter him. So, it made sense that she had conjured him up in the dark of night. And conjured up the sensuality, too, if she were honest.

Because she’d never given up her secret dream of getting back together with Troy, and she’d never stopped wanting him.

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