Heather Graham Pozzessere - Never Sleep With Strangers

She was certain that she wasn’t alluring above all others; she was simply the one who had left him, and therefore she remained a challenge.

“Seriously, while we’re here, wouldn’t you like to share a room with me?” he asked now.

“No,” she said simply.

“Admit it, I’m fun to sleep with.”

“We have different ideas of fun.”

“Look around you. This is a scary place,” he urged.

“No, thanks, Brett.”

“I can behave.”

“That’s doubtful. Besides, you remind me of a warning my mother used to give me. Don’t play with toys when you don’t know where they’ve been.”

He grinned. “Ouch! But if you’d stayed with me, you would know exactly where I’d been.”

“Brett, I never knew where you were when we were married, and I really didn’t have all that much time in which to misplace you. I realize that it never occurred to you that marriage meant monogamy—”

“Do you think it means that to everyone?” he demanded.

“Brett, I can’t tell other people how to be married. I only know what I wanted myself.”

He sniffed. “If only you knew how many people slept around—people you would never imagine.”

“Brett, I don’t want to imagine.”

“Your own friends!” he persisted.

“Brett—”

“All right, fine. Later you’ll be begging me for gossip, and I won’t tell you a thing. When you need to know, you’ll be in the dark. Unless, of course, you want to forget the marriage thing for a while and just have fun? My intentions are honorable, though. I will remarry you.”

She groaned. “As I said, we have different ideas on fun—and marriage.”

“Fine. Play hard to get. But if things start getting spooky around here, you’re going to want to crawl into bed with me, and it may be too crowded by then.”

“That I don’t doubt.”

“Hey, I’m asking you first. And surely you wouldn’t want to sleep with a stranger.”

“Brett, I’ve slept with you, and I really can’t think of anyone much stranger.”

“Very funny. You’ll be sorry, my pet. You’ll see.” He shook his head sorrowfully, returning his gaze to the display before them. “Amazing, isn’t it?” he murmured, staring at the characters, his arm still around her.

“Yes, very real,” she agreed.

He shook his head. “So real that in this lighting, she could fool even me. And I was married to you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean, what am I talking about? You’ve been staring at this tableau.” He sighed with impatience. “Sabrina! Take a good look. That’s you.”

“What?”

“Sweetheart, have you gone blind since you’ve been away from me? Take a look. That woman—she’s you. To a T. The blue eyes, the blond hair, the gorgeous features. Nice body.” He lowered his voice even further. “Great butt, too.”

“You can’t even see her butt, Brett.”

“All right, all right, I’ll concede that. But she’s you. The spitting image.”

“Don’t be silly….” Sabrina protested, but her voice trailed away as she frowned.

Oh, Lord. Brett was right. The wax figure did bear an alarming resemblance to her. So much so that she felt chills begin to sweep up and down her spine again.

“Good!” Brett whispered huskily. “I can feel you trembling. You’re getting uneasy, unnerved, good and scared. You’re not going to want to be alone all night in this spooky old castle. You’re going to want to come to me. Night will fall, you’ll hear wolves howling, you’ll run screaming from your bedroom and into mine, so you won’t have to be afraid.”

It was just a caricature in wax, nothing more, Sabrina told herself. Yet she still felt tremors racing through her limbs. It was her. The artist had executed the figure so well that the muscles and veins in the victim’s arms fairly leaped into animation as she struggled to free herself from the ropes that tied her mercilessly to the rack.

The fear in the eyes was real.

The silent scream on the lips was far too eloquent. It could almost be heard in the air.

Brett whispered warningly in her ear, “You won’t want to be alone.”

From the darkness behind them, a deep, rich, masculine voice intervened. “Well, now, she’ll hardly be alone, will she?”

Sabrina knew that husky voice.

She spun around to meet their host.

His eyes were on her, studying her. He smiled pleasantly as he continued, “Seriously, Brett, she’ll hardly be alone, considering the fact that there are ten writers here—including ourselves, of course—along with an artist, my assistant and the castle staff, all in residence.”

He sounded amused. Slipping from beneath Brett’s arm, Sabrina stared at Jon Stuart. It had been a long time.

“Jon,” Brett murmured, an unmistakable edge in his voice. The two were supposedly friends; still, it seemed that Brett was less than pleased with Stuart’s timing.

“Brett, good to see you. Thank you for coming.”

“It’s always a pleasure. We were all damn glad you decided to do it again. Jon, you’ve met my wife, Sabrina Holloway, haven’t you?”

Sabrina gazed at the mesmerizing owner of Lochlyre Castle, but Jon Stuart had already arched a dark brow Brett’s way as he took Sabrina’s hand. She resisted the odd temptation to wrench it away.

“Sabrina, good to see you again. I hadn’t realized the two of you had remarried.”

“We haven’t,” Sabrina said.

“Ah.”

“Sorry. My ex-wife,” Brett murmured innocently, smiling intimately at Sabrina as if there were still a great deal going on between them. “It’s so easy to forget we ever divorced.”

“Anyway, I’m glad you’re both here. Thank you for coming,” Stuart said politely.

“I wouldn’t have missed it. You know that,” Brett said.

“It was nice to be invited,” Sabrina murmured.

“You’ve been invited before,” Jon said pointedly.

“I…I was on a deadline last time.” It was a lie, of course. An author’s stock excuse for not being somewhere he or she didn’t want to be.

“Well, it must have been worth it, then. Your last book was very good.”

“You read it?” she inquired—too quickly. Instantly she wanted to kick herself. She was blushing, unaccountably pleased that he had been interested enough to read her work. Then she felt her flush darken, wondering what he must have thought of the book’s graphic romantic encounters. And wondering how much her blush was giving away.

“I’ve loved all your recent work,” she said quickly, trying to cover herself.

He smiled a slow, skeptical smile that clearly indicated he had heard the words before but somehow doubted them in this case.

“It’s the truth,” she murmured, wishing she could gracefully end her awkward monologue. Brett was staring at her now with real interest, having picked up on the tension between her and Jon Stuart.

“Really?” Jon murmured, either unaware of her discomfort or amused by it. It was disturbing to realize that he maintained such an edge over her both in maturity and in simple confidence. He had been a success since his first novel, a thriller based in World War II Italy, had been published soon after he’d graduated from college.

She forced a cool smile to her lips. She was not going to be intimidated. “Okay, so I hated it when you killed the priest in your last book—he didn’t deserve it.”

Her words didn’t offend him; he laughed, apparently pleased with her honesty. “Good for you, telling me the truth.”

“The truth is always different through different eyes,” Brett interjected somewhat irritably.

Jon shook his head. “No, there’s only the truth, maybe just shaded a bit differently,” he said somewhat solemnly, gazing at Sabrina. Then he seemed to collect himself and said more lightly, “And the truth is, of course, that I’m delighted you were able to tear yourself away from your busy schedule to be here, Ms. Holloway.”