Fantasy Man Page 3

  Marc had offered her an honest affair, and she’d fled from her own demons of insecurity.

  Oh, it was all very well to say Ian’s suspicions had rubbed off on her. The truth was her first glimpse of Marc had sent her stomach into free-fall. She’d wanted him, but known she had no chance. She’d retreated like Sleeping Beauty behind castle-high briars.

  But just because she felt inadequate beside the models he’d been photographed with, didn’t mean he wasn’t mature enough to value her: her strengths, her healthy body, the chemistry between them.

  Could she say to him, “I’m scared. Ask me again. Kiss me.”?

  She looked at the intimidating dark figure of him in the center of the courtyard and shivered again.

  “I found a minotaur,” he said quietly.

  Her footsteps scuffed against the dusty mosaic. She glanced down at his feet, careful to keep a distance between them.

  He flicked the flashlight on and the minotaur stood out, floodlit.

  A man’s body, powerfully muscled, morphed fluidly into the shoulders and roaring head of a bull. The artist had captured a sense of frustrated rage. The bull’s open mouth screamed silently in agonized challenged. The very air seemed to vibrate up from the tiled floor.

  “I never noticed it before.” She crouched down and traced the outline of the minotaur’s torso with a finger. “It’s stunning. You’ll have to showcase this in the renovation.” She glanced up at Marc and her mouth fell open. She scrambled back inelegantly, falling on her butt.

  “What’s wrong?” He bent toward her, worried and intent.

  “Don’t touch me.” She slapped away his hand. She got her legs under her and backed away till the wall stopped her.

  “This isn’t funny. I would never hurt you.”

  She had to swallow hard to get the words out. “You have two shadows.”

  The click of the flashlight going off sounded violently loud. “Better?”

  “No.” The second shadow behind Marc thickened and loomed taller. The damn thing looked like a minotaur. “Tell me I’m imagining it.”

  “You are—whatever the hell it is.” He reached for her again.

  The hot brush of a monstrous animal engulfed her. She flung herself sideways.

  “Turn around, Marc. Look on the far wall.”

  The shadow stretched from his feet and up the wall, with the horns lost in the jumble of the roofline.

  “It’s a trick,” he said flatly. “Damn it. You did cook something up with Ian.”

  A brutal snort shuddered through the courtyard. Dust swirled.

  Marc moved quickly to one side. The shadow danced with him. “Clever.” He put his head back and shouted. “Ian. Get out here.”

  Claire screamed as the shadow broke free from Marc and advanced on her. It was a solid cloud now. No longer two dimensional. It had ominous form. She stared, hypnotized, as two glowing red eyes appeared in the darkness of the brutal face.

  The thing dropped to one knee in front of her, bringing itself level with her and filling her vision.

  “She’s mine.” Marc grabbed her arm and pulled her sideways. He ran for the main entrance.

  She stumbled clumsily along with him.

  The door slammed shut before they were halfway there. Thunder circled the courtyard. Claire remembered it from a cattle stampede she’d witnessed as a child. A cowboy had almost died, caught in the path of the cattle’s mad rush. The sound drummed relentlessly, circling her and Marc.

  Marc kept going.

  The demon in the courtyard bellowed as their feet left the mosaic and hit the pavement of the colonnaded walkway.

  Claire glanced back, but the ghost hadn’t vanished. It stood in the center of the mosaic and raised grotesquely muscled arms high in the air. Massive fists struck the night.

  “Shit.” Marc karate kicked the closed door.

  “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  “As long as we get the hell out of here.” He kicked the door again. Unavailingly. He cast a savage look at the barred windows.

  She pressed in against him. “It’s coming.” She looked around wildly. If they could scramble onto the roof of the walkway…

  Marc turned and straightened his shoulders. There was a sudden lethal focus about him.

  Her heart stuttered. “You can’t fight it.”

  He stepped off the walkway, onto the mosaic.

  The demon lowered its head, the way a bull prepared to charge.

  Claire ran down the walkway. If Marc was going to be heroically stupid, the least she could do was to distract the beast by approaching from a different angle.

  The demon leapt, but not for Marc. It landed in front of her. Brutal arms reached out to claim her. Hot eyes demanded her surrender.

  Marc ran into her. The force of him drove her back, staggering. He’d run through the shadow demon and its darkness wove around him like a living thing.

  She fought against unconsciousness as the power of it scorched her. It flamed over her body, but her agony was nothing to Marc’s.

  He held onto her arms, keeping her upright, even as the muscles of his body clenched and seemed to twist against his bones. The cords of his throat stood out. Then he shuddered and slumped against a column, holding her against him.

  “It’s gone.” She looked disbelievingly beyond his shoulder. “It vanished. It’s gone. We should leave.”

  He shook his head. The movement dragged his mouth along her throat.

  She shivered at the hot, wet brand.

  “Imagination,” he muttered.

  She didn’t believe it, not with the adrenaline coursing through her blood.

  “Or your stepbrother.”

  “Ian’s not clever enough.” She tilted her head, letting him kiss and bite the sensitive skin of her throat. Inviting him to. “We shouldn’t stay here.”

  The door to the hallway clicked open.

  “There you are. Free to leave.” But he had both hands under her sweater. One unhooked her bra. He filled his hands with her breasts, rubbing his palms over and over her tightening nipples. “Stay with me.”

  A low rumble echoed around the courtyard.

  Claire startled.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Meaningless words to soothe. He stripped off her sweater and bra. “Oh yes.” He walked her backward into the moonlight, their thighs tangling, pressing, retreating. “Aren’t you beautiful?”

  Moonlight kissed her breasts, making them living marble that pulsed faintly with her heartbeat.

  He groaned and pulled her down to sprawl over him as he sat on the ground. She braced herself with a hand on his shoulder and one knee either side of his hips. His arousal pressed against his jeans, hot and hard. She covered it a moment with her hand, awed by the promise of it.

  His head tipped back as his hips arched up, the muscles of his arms taking the strain.

  She forgot about the monster of moments ago and unbuttoned the snap of his jeans.

  “Too fast.” He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth.

  She struggled, wanting to tug down his zip.

  His tongue darted against her palm, flicked along a finger and sucked that finger into his mouth.

  “I want…” She moaned a protest that was equal surrender.

  “Lean forward,” he instructed.

  She obeyed and he released her finger to kiss her breast, to circle and tease and finally suck strongly. She found herself riding him to the rhythm of that suction. She cried out as he insinuated a hand between them and cupped her heat. He stroked her through the denim and she came, falling apart in a climax of pleasure.

  “I want you,” she sighed into his shoulder as he shifted beneath her.

  “You’ll have me. But not on this dusty ground.” He grasped her shoulders, sitting her up enough to look into her eyes.

  She felt boneless and supple, hungry and seductive. She licked her lower lip. “Now.”

  “If I was a teenager, you’d have me coming in my pants.”
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br />   “Come in me,” she whispered.

  His hands tightened to near pain and his hips jerked. “Witch. I want our first time in a bed. In softness and comfort. Up.” He pulled them both to their feet and grimaced. “Nobility is overrated.”

  She looked at the bulge in his jeans and ached. She found her sweater and shrugged it on, shoving her bra into a pocket. “Can you drive?”

  “I’ll manage.” His hand rode low on the curve of her spine as they walked through the house and out the front door.

  She paused a moment, looking back. “Did we imagine the minotaur?” Her imagination had never been that good.

  “Forget it. It’s for tomorrow. Tonight is for us.”

  Sunshine poured in the kitchen windows and glinted off the wooden floor and the sheen of Claire’s light brown hair. Marc remembered it mussed in the night, flowing in a caress over his body as she loved him. Satisfied as he was, his body tensed.

  He’d never known such a responsive lover. It had been torture, waiting till they were in her home, waiting till the bed was there and they could fall into it. He’d stripped her and then himself with shaking hands. His first thrust into her warm, welcoming body had brought her to orgasm.

  Now they ate toast and drank coffee as if they were established lovers. A different kind of intimacy.

  “I’ll collect my gear from the hotel.”

  She glanced up from spreading honey on a slice of whole-wheat.

  “Unless you object?” He raised an eyebrow. Yes, he was pushing. He waited for her resistance. A man ought to wait till he was invited.

  “Okay,” she smiled, a touch shy but genuine. “And then I’d like to go back to Labyrinth House.”

  The relief that flooded his body at her agreement, froze into remembered fury. “I do, too.”

  She grimaced as she chewed her toast, swallowed and objected. “It wasn’t Ian.”

  Who else would have known they’d be visiting Labyrinth House, even if he’d missed their first visit?

  “Ian really isn’t that clever,” she said urgently. “I know this is Hollywood and special effects artists can do anything…” Her voice trailed off.

  Presumably because she realized her stepbrother could have hired a special effects artist.

  He resented the tension stealing the happy glow from her. He’d felt quite proud of that happiness. “Perhaps it was one of the neighborhood artists perfecting an art installation?”

  “Yes.” She brightened at the idea. “Labyrinth House could inspire an artist.”

  “Still, I don’t want you investigating the set up there till I’m with you.”

  “All right.” She dusted toast crumbs off her fingers. “I was thinking of doing some research anyway. Aunt Jess left Rosa’s journals boxed up in the attic. They’re more like scrapbooks, actually. She wrote in them, but she also cut and pasted newspaper articles and poetry, anything that caught her eye. If I can find the journal for 1929, she might mention where the mosaic floor came from.”

  “The artist’s name, you mean?”

  “No. There’s something about the floor that makes me think it’s old. Really old.”

  “Claire, if you’re thinking the house is cursed, that would make me even less happy than a resident ghost.”

  She grinned over her coffee mug. “You’d just evict the curse as part of the renovations.”

  “Or exorcise it,” he muttered, caught by her belief in him. “I’ll carry the box of journals down from the attic for you.”

  “Thanks. I hate the spiders up there. Sometimes it’s handy to have a man around.”

  “If you’ve only just realized that, I was doing something wrong last night.”

  Chapter Five

  “Bless your magpie mind, Rosa.” Claire ran a finger along the scrawled journal entry. The mosaic floor had been sourced from an archaeologist-adventurer.

  Unfortunately, Rosa had been vague on where he found it. Some Greek island. Maybe from a Temple to Aphrodite. Her great-grandmother had been remarkably accepting of such vandalism, but thinking of the virile figure of the minotaur, Claire suspected the feminine mystique of Aphrodite had played no role in the mosaic’s original location.

  The doorbell rang.

  Claire looked up, surprised. Marc had the keys Ian had left behind. He could let himself in—and she wasn’t expecting anyone else. She put the journal aside reluctantly and dusted her jeans.

  Leo padded out to greet whoever waited.

  “Sit.” Not everyone appreciated a greeting from a big dog.

  His ears pricked forward, but his tail stayed stationary—so he didn’t recognize a friend.

  She opened the door. “Ian?”

  Her stepbrother smiled crookedly. “No keys. Are you going to let me in?”

  She put a hand on Leo’s head.

  Ian sidled in, past the dog. Then strode on into the casual living space.

  If Marc returned to find him lounging in her house…She decided it might be prudent to ease Ian out. Silently, she directed Leo to his sofa.

  “I saw Marc Gentil leave,” Ian said.

  She paused, and decided against her usual chair. She sat beside Leo, for the comfort. It was disconcerting. Despite the time they’d spent together in her dad’s house, her stepbrother and her weren’t close. Certainly not close enough for him to play the role of a protective big brother. So it unsettled her to think of him out there, observing her. “How do you know about Marc?”

  “I was watching. I need to talk to you, but not with him around. I waited to be sure he hadn’t gone to the corner store.”

  “He’s at his hotel. Ian, I know you blame Marc for—”

  “Forget Lost Horse. He screwed me, but that’s history. What I can’t forgive is that he’s screwing you, now. In every sense of the word.”

  She flushed. “I’ve known Marc two years. I trust him.”

  “Yeah, he’s good at conning people.”

  “Ian, if you’ve got something to say, say it.”

  “Do you remember when your dad sold his grandfather’s paintings to satisfy the vultures clamoring for my blood?”

  The dramatic expression was typical of Ian. The tense set of his face was not. He liked to portray himself as detached and in control. Superior. “Marc stirred up those vultures. There was even talk of fraud and sending me to jail.”

  She nodded warily, cautious whether he’d take offence. She remembered Yvette in tears. Before the accident there’d been talk of legal problems.

  Ian had a different version of reality. “Marc did it on purpose. He put the pressure on and your dad caved. Not that I blame him. Mom was upset.”

  And so were you. But Claire kept her silence. Whatever nastiness Ian had to spill, she wanted it done and him gone.

  “The result was that your dad dumped his grandfather’s paintings on the market and the price of Oliver Jade’s works dropped.”

  “Supply and demand.” It was the nature of the art market. For all the show and extravagance that surrounded it, investors in art were as pragmatic as those who traded corn futures. She’d grown up knowing the reality of it. “Dad was lucky to sell them all.”

  “He sold them all to Marc Gentil.”

  “No. There were a number of different buyers.”

  “All Marc’s agents.” Ian leaned forward. “I didn’t even think to investigate at first. But the last few months, I started to wonder. Where had the Oliver Jade paintings gone? I didn’t see one on display in a museum.”

  She frowned. Nor had she. But then, she hadn’t looked. She’d been focused on her dad’s rehabilitation.

  “I don’t know what Marc intends, but he forced the sale of all of Oliver Jade’s untraded paintings. He gutted their price. And now, he’s added Oliver Jade’s great-granddaughter to his collection.”

  “It didn’t happen like that.”

  “It did.” Ian struck a cushion with his fist. “Do you really think you’re worth the wage he’s been paying you?”

 
She jerked back. “I’m a good researcher.”

  “You have a PhD in art history.”

  “Research is research.”

  “Marc has been pulling your strings like a puppet-master. Why else would you suddenly think of proposing that old dump, Labyrinth House, as a hotel? He planted the idea.”

  “No.”

  “He planted the idea and he’s followed it up. You’ll be his mistress just as Rosa was to the producer, and then, to Oliver.”

  “Oliver married her!”

  “Only when she got pregnant.”

  Claire brushed aside the history as if it was a sticky cobweb. “It’s a crazy idea.” But her stomach plummeted as she remembered Marc’s question last night.

  Would you ever play the mistress role, Claire?

  The thought had been there, in his mind, shaping his behavior.

  Leo nudged her hand, breaking her frozen horror. She patted him absently, grappling with the nasty suspicions Ian had introduced. It was even possible that Marc had arranged the minotaur’s haunting. Anyone could hire a special effects artist—not just Ian. And it was Marc who’d insisted they return to the house at night.

  She’d thought he’d been suspicious of her motivations. Should she have questioned his?

  “Face it, sis. You’ve been used.”

  She shook her head. There’d been too much joy and fierce satisfaction between them last night. She couldn’t believe it was faked. “I’ll ask Marc. He’ll be back soon with his gear.”

  “And will you believe every word he says?”

  She stared at Ian, and the compassion in his face twisted her gut. If he’d gloated she could have dismissed his accusations.

  But he looked sad. Sad and determined. “Claire, I can prove you’ve been used.”

  “The paintings don’t prove anything,” she said quickly.

  “It’s more than the paintings. Come out to Labyrinth House and I’ll show you.”

  Marc fitted the key to the front door of Claire’s home with a rare sense of anticipation and homecoming. He braced himself for Leo’s greeting and the infinitely sweeter kiss he’d steal from Claire.

  The house was empty.

  He walked through it, silent after the first call. Her car stood in the driveway. He’d parked behind it. But Claire and her dog were gone.