Part 34 (2/2)

The gla.s.s doors opened. Finn was there. Naked, bronze, absurdly beautiful in the most masculine way, and as fully aroused as she was herself, but even more evidently so.

”I take it you wanted me to come in?” he queried.

She saw both the smile in his eyes and the tension in his features as he spoke. The steam from the water rose between them, not unlike the blue fog, and yet...

He reached for the sponge. She realized she had been scrubbing herself in a circular motion, low, very low, well below the belly.

He took it from her.

”Here, let me do that for you.”

He did. Nylon... slightly scratchy, erotically abrasive... bath gel, slick, oily, foamy... moved against her intimately. She clung to Finn's shoulders, pressed against him, his touch, the movement of his hands...

She stroked her fingers down the length of his spine, curved them over the muscles of his b.u.t.tocks, brushed around his hips, gliding the friction of her soapy fingers over the fullness of his erection. The touch of his fingers jerked against her, pressing against an erogenous zone so intently that she gasped out loud, suddenly certain that she was going to fall in the shower.

”s.h.!.+” he whispered, catching her lips in an open-mouthed, hungry kiss, then pulling her against him more tightly. ”We don't want to wake Martha!”

Dizzy, aching, barely able to stand, Megan returned, ”Hey, she left us the chocolate.”

”We don't want to give the old bird erotic dreams, eh?” Finn whispered against her earlobe.

”Maybe she'd like a few.””She's not sharing ours!” Finn said firmly, lifting her against him. It wasn't quite so easy to hold her, keeping her flush with his body, while turning off the shower spray and stepping from the shower stall. Megan had to keep from laughing as he made the stalwart attempt, somehow managing to accomplish what he had set out to do. He carried her from the bath, ready to drop her to the bed.

Megan laughed and told him, ”Wait!” She reached down to wrench up the bedcover and comforter while he groaned, straining to hold her in the awkward position. But then the covers were stripped and Megan was down and he fell on top of her, then rose slightly, drawing her hands over her head, kissing her again, deeply, with a slow and then frenzied pa.s.sion, then sliding the length of himself against her, his body creating an absurdly erotic friction, the brush of his lips intent and intimate, over her nipples, the delicate sides of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, sloping over her ribs, caressing her navel, falling below, bringing liquid fire to the flesh laid so vulnerable by his every stroke in the cascade of the shower. She surged up, drew him to her, wrapped herself around him, and lost all sense of anything but the depth of her hunger and pa.s.sion for him, ultimately him, Finn, the feel of the man, so unique, unique to her, with all the things she loved. The length of his fingers, the scent, so subtle, yet so there, underlying everything. She was aware, incredibly aware, of every movement, every stroke of friction, making her rise to a greater fever, a frenzy, desperate, yearning.

Aware... and not aware, because she had felt quite so much as if she flew, entered a realm not of the earth, soaring, wanting, hungering, reaching... a pa.s.sion so great... a love so strong...

She escalated to a climax so volatile that she thought the house, the ground, the granite of New England shook. She clung to him, soaked, hair glued to her face, limbs trembling, heart racing. He held her in return.

Her heart finally slowed. New England became granite once again.

He smoothed the damp hair from her forehead, cradling her against him. Comfort settled in. Security. The sense of being loved, and cherished.

And then...

The fear.

She was too blissful. Too glad to be where she was, far too ready to feel that she was his wife, that everything she had felt, fear...

no, terror... had been imagined. Power of suggestion. This was Finn, the man she had fallen head over heels in love with the moment she had met him, with whom she had lived, loved with a fever so many times, fought with, made up with... adored. Her husband. Her life.

And yet...

Those feelings could far too easily change. Had changed... there had been this morning, the feel of his fingers around her throat, holding her, the look in his eyes...

Don't fall asleep! she thought. Please, G.o.d, don't let him fall asleep, don't ruin this!

Finn rose. ”I've got to get back to Huntington House,” he said. He strode across the room, naked and lithe, shutting himself into the bathroom for a quick rinse-off shower.

Just as he had known to follow before, she knew not to follow now.

A moment later he was out and dressing quickly by the light of the fire, taut, bronzed, muscled flesh and lean sinew quickly covered.

He stopped back by the bed, smoothing her hair, kissing her forehead. ”I love you,” he said.

And then he was gone.

A moment later, Megan followed, hearing his car as he revved it, then sliding the bolt to make sure that the house was securely locked.

Andy Markharm woke in a cold sweat. One more night.

Then it would be All Hallow's Eve.

His small apartment was in a rooming house right in town. He seldom used the old Ford pickup that was so far gone was almost an antique, just like him. But in the last few days, he had begun to feel a greater fever than ever.

There was no traffic in the night. In a matter of minutes, he had come to the cemetery. He parked the old pickup. He'd brought a lantern, but that night, he didn't need it. The moon appeared almost as full as it would in two night's time. Despite the heavy green canopy of the trees, there was illumination.

The ground was more heavily trodden now than it had been just a few days before. He could see it, as he could see the remnants of candles, recently lit.

There were no cars where he had parked, yet as he pulled his pickax from the back of the old Ford, he felt a chill. There were sounds on the air, of course. Leaves rustling in the breeze that swept through such a copse. Just leaves, whispering...

He made his way through high gra.s.ses, over the broken stones set by the families of even those who had gone to unhallowed graves. The leaves seemed to be sighing, whispering, and then... it was as if there was music. Something that touched the air.

Like the blue fog.

Low, swirling, following him, there, wherever he walked, wherever he turned.

Andy, Andy... Andy!

The rustle of the trees seemed to call his name.

With greater determination, he moved on.

As he walked, he felt his sense of purpose become a sense of power. Yes, he knew, and by his knowledge, he would be the one to rise!

He fell to his knees before the broken marble statue.

The sound rose...

Andy, Andy, Andy!

He staggered to his feet, raising his ax, aware, suddenly, of the movement behind him.

He turned, roaring out. He looked into the sea of the night, and all that moved within it.

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