No Return: A Contemporary Phantom Tale (34 page)

So at seven I appeared in the red dining room, appropriately attired in the beaded red gown I had pushed aside as too provocative the night before. The dress was so bare that all I could wear under it was a pair of bikini panties, and I had to admit it made me feel a little devilish. This time it was rubies that dripped from my throat and ears and flashed from two of my fingers. I found no need to deny myself the treasures of the jewelry chest any longer and delighted in choosing the correct pieces to go with my gown.

The room looked magnificent. It seemed as if every candelabra in the house had been forced into service to light the space, and they shimmered from the sideboards and down the center of the table. Erik rose from his place at the head of the table as I entered. He looked magnificent in a black double-breasted tuxedo, a red rose on his lapel. In the background I heard the delicate strains of a Mozart piano concerto.

“You’re stunning,” he said, moving to pull my chair out for me.

“So are you,” I replied, although I was a little disappointed to see that he still wore the mask. How much convincing would it take to make him understand that his scars didn’t matter to me?

At his left elbow was a gorgeous silver wine bucket, now filled with ice and a huge bottle of champagne. After seating me, he lifted it from the ice, holding a small towel to protect himself from the moisture.

“That is the biggest bottle of champagne I have ever seen,” I remarked.
 

“
That
, as you put it, is a magnum of ’90 Veuve Clicquot rosé. I thought you might enjoy it. Many experts say that a champagne can only reach its true potential when bottled in a magnum.” He nimbly worked the cork with both his thumbs, slowly loosening it, until it popped out almost quietly, only shooting a few feet before it dropped to the Persian rug.
 

I assumed that this was not the sort of champagne one would waste in a spray of foam. “Was it very expensive?”

He lifted his shoulders. “I suppose. A little over 600 euros.”

Six hundred—I didn’t know what the exchange rate was right now, but I knew that bottle of champagne could have paid for the rent on my little bungalow. Clearly, Erik and I moved in very different worlds.
 

I managed a smile and said, “I’ll try not to be too scared to drink it.”

He gave me an answering smile and poured some champagne into the cut-crystal flute in front of me. “Don’t ever be afraid. Open yourself to new experiences.”

I suddenly got the feeling that he was talking about much more than just champagne, but in answer I picked up the flute and took a sip. Up until that point my chief experience with champagne had been the cheap stuff you get included with champagne brunches, and this was about as far from that as my tiny bungalow was from Erik’s mansion. First of all, it was so light it almost felt as if the bubbles were just evaporating in my mouth without my even having to swallow. But with that was also a delicate fruitiness that I had not been expecting, a shimmer of black currant against my palate.

My expression must have been enough to inform Erik of my reaction, for then he said, “Impressive, isn’t it? I have to say that it’s one of my favorites.”

“It’s wonderful.”

With that Michel came out, pushing the dinner cart. I supposed that Erik had drafted him to handle some of the serving duties with Ennis still in the hospital. There was an expression dangerously close to a pout on his handsome features, but he dished up the lobster bisque without comment before disappearing back into the kitchen.
 

I looked at Erik, who lifted an eyebrow. I had an overwhelming urge to burst into laughter, but I thought perhaps that might ruin the mood, so instead I took another sip of champagne. “Michel doesn’t seem terribly happy about having to serve this evening.”

“As to that—” He waved a hand. “Michel considers himself an artist. Anyone who serves food is merely the help. No offense.”

“None taken.” Possibly being a waitress was a cliché—poor struggling college student has to wait tables to support herself—but the truth was that it could pay pretty well, if you worked at a good restaurant and were reasonably skilled at your job. It was certainly better than the minimum-wage retail gigs I had considered before going into waitressing.
 

The lobster bisque was excellent, however, as was the roast duck that followed. Throughout the meal we drank an alarming amount of champagne without seeming to really get anywhere; that was the downside (or possibly upside, depending on how one looked at it) of drinking a magnum. By the time we finished the strawberries for dessert—the only dessert one could reasonably consume while drinking champagne, according to Erik—I was feeling more than a little tipsy. It was different from the effect of the Bordeaux I had drunk in this room so many days ago, however. I felt light as the air itself, floating, the candles in the room shimmering around me with an unearthly glow.
   

 
Erik helped me to my feet, arms strong around me. We kissed then, my body crushed against his. The dress I wore was so thin it was almost as if nothing separated us, as if my bare breasts were pressed against his tuxedo jacket.

He paused then for a moment, looking down at me. I gazed back at him, flushed with desire and champagne, and it was if some flash of lightning passed between us. I could feel myself nod, and he took a deep breath. Then he lifted me into his arms and swept me out of the dining room.

I had felt his strength before, but nothing like this. It was seemingly without effort that he carried me up the stairs and down the corridor, past the entrance to my own room, all the way to the end of the hall. There we entered a chamber I had never seen before, but recognized immediately. Erik’s bedroom.

It had a somber, elegant quality very different from my own pretty blue and rose rooms. A fire burned low in the hearth, and again candelabras provided the illumination, showing darkly carved antique furniture and a huge four-poster bed with coverings that looked deep blood-red in the gloom.

Once there, he set me down next to the bed. We were silent for a moment, facing each other, and then he said, “If it’s too soon—”

 
“It’s not,” I said immediately. Then I reached up and lifted the mask from his face. Now, with the moment here at last, I wanted no barriers between us.

There was a long, awful second when I thought I had gone too far, when he just stared at me as if still expecting me to scream or faint or some such other Victorian nonsense. Then he pulled me against him, his mouth on mine with almost punishing force, as his hands moved up and down my body, seeking the curves of my form through the thin beaded silk.

Then his fingers found the zipper and yanked it down, the gown falling to the floor in a slither of jet and crimson. My own hands seemed to move with a life of their own as I unbuttoned his tuxedo jacket, then struggled with the tighter fastening of his dress shirt. All the while our mouths were locked together, his tongue meeting mine, the urgency building as we finally sank down onto the bed, free at last of the confines of our clothing.

His body was lean and well-muscled, pale in the flickering light of the fire. I could feel him struggle to pull the heavy bedclothes aside, even as his mouth left mine and traveled down my neck, his breath hot against my flesh until he closed on my breast.

I had never imagined such exquisite sensations. I arched against him, fingers knotting in his heavy dark hair as he brought me to the edge of ecstasy. And even then his other hand reached lower, lower...

From somewhere I could hear moaning, and then realized the sound was coming from me. I leaned back against the pillows, letting him touch me, letting him explore my body, exulting in the waves of pleasure that washed over me. And then I was boldly touching him, feeling him writhe against me, feeling the muscles of his body tense as I brought him closer and closer to release.

Finally he heaved himself on top of me. I looked up to see his face in the uncertain candlelight, a face that was half demon, half angel—I no longer knew or cared which.

“Yes,” I whispered, and then he was inside me, our bodies joined in a way I had never known was possible, until the waves of ecstasy crashed over us both and pulled us away into the darkness, all knowledge of the world lost, so that there was only Erik, only me. And then there was nothing left at all.
   

Chapter 25

The insistent shrilling of a telephone was the first thing to brought me back to consciousness. I opened my eyes and blinked several times at the unfamiliar ceiling above me, a gorgeous expanse of coffered mahogany, nothing like the softly draped rose silk of my own canopy bed that met my gaze every morning. Beside me, Erik stirred, the scarred side of his face turned toward the wall. All I could see was an immaculate profile of aquiline nose and well-defined chin, the latter now faintly covered with dark stubble.

Blood rushed to my cheeks as I recalled the events of the evening before. Some time in the middle of the night he had awakened me, seeking my body in a moment of renewed ardor, and I had willingly gone to him once again. Now I felt tired and more than a little sore—
that’s one thing the romance novels never tell you about
, I thought. But amidst the fatigue and the slight embarrassment over how easily I had fallen in bed with him, I was aware of a great contentment. I would not have wished to be anywhere else but here next to Erik, here in Erik’s bed.

“Phone,” I said to Erik, who seemed to be having a more difficult time waking than I had.

He groaned and rolled over toward me. “Machine’ll get it,” he murmured, his voice still fogged with sleep. Then his eyes opened, and he stared at me, as if registering for the first time that I was lying in bed next to him.
 

Sure enough, the phone stopped ringing.

I smiled at him. “Good morning.”

One hand went to his face, as if he couldn’t believe that he was casually facing me without the mask. Then I saw the beginnings of a wary smile in return, perhaps his first tentative realization that the mask really didn’t matter very much to me. “Good morning,” he replied at length. Then his gaze went to the heavily curtained windows across the room. “What time is it, anyway?”

“I have no idea.” I leaned down and kissed him softly on his scarred cheek, gratified to see that this time he did not flinch. “It feels pretty late.”

With that he sat up, the bedclothes slipping away from his torso. He was very pale, of course, but I found the effect pleasing nonetheless. The carefully sculptured musculature of his upper body reminded me an ancient Greek statue; apparently he spent at least some of his time working out in a home gym.

Still clutching the bedcovers about his waist, he leaned over and began reaching for something with his left hand. “Oh, Christ,” he said.

“What?”

“I appear to have lost my underwear. Would you mind—” and he broke off, a faint flush of color dusting his cheekbone.

“Averting my eyes?” I asked, unable to keep from grinning. How odd he was sometimes—here we had been as intimate as two people could be, yet he couldn’t bear for me to see his naked backside. I turned away, still smiling. “I promise I won’t peek.”

And I didn’t, even though the temptation was almost irresistible as I felt him get up off the bed and then drop to his knees on the floor.
 

Something soft hit my arm. “What the—”

“Found yours,” he said, and then, “Ah—got them.”

“Is it safe now?” I asked, and then opened my eyes to see him standing there in a pair of black boxer briefs. I had to admit that they clung to his well-muscled thighs very nicely.

I didn’t get to admire him for very long, however, for he went to his closet and drew on a lovely red silk dressing robe and then handed a second one to me.
 

“Unless you’d rather not?” he asked delicately, his gaze dropping to where my breasts were beginning to slip out from the sheet I had pulled around myself earlier.

It was my turn to blush. “Thank you,” I said, taking the dressing robe from him. It was obviously Japanese, dark green with silvery cranes and bamboo leaves woven into the liquid silk. I pulled it around me, then took advantage of the relative cover it afforded to wriggle into my own underwear.

The phone chose that moment to start shrilling again. Erik muttered something under his breath and then looked over to the opposite wall, where a handsome carved mahogany clock showed the time as being a little before one in the afternoon. I could almost see him weigh the consequences of not answering the phone again, then decide that whoever it was would probably just keep calling until they reached a live person.

He crossed the room and punched a button on the multiline phone that sat on a side table there. Even the scarred side of his face looked annoyed. “Yes?”
 

Of course I couldn’t hear who was on the other end of the phone, but it only took a few seconds for Erik’s expression to transform from annoyance to worry. “He’s not there? He didn’t call?”

A pause while Erik listened to the reply.

“I don’t have anyone here who can pick you up—yes, she’s here—yes, she’s fine—no, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Can you call a cab?”

Another long pause, during which Erik began to shake his head.

“No, I have no idea what could have happened. I just saw him yesterday, but I gave him the evening off. I’ll have to have Greenburg look into it.”

Frowning, Erik stood quite still as he listened to the speaker on the other end of the line.

“Yes, I know, but my hands are tied. Just get home, and then we’ll try to figure out what happened.”

With that he hung up the phone, his face drawn into lines of anxiety. Any afterglow from the night before had been completely erased.

Immediately I got up from the bed and went to him. “What’s the matter?”

“That was Ennis calling from the hospital. Jerome was supposed to pick him up at noon, but he never showed up. I told Ennis to take a cab.” He frowned. “Jerome would not forget an appointment like that.”