All Through the Night (6 page)

She found it impossible not to watch.

It was like a peek at infinity.

Her lids were already heavy when Jean’s voice entered the mix and he suggested she rest her head. She was gone before her eyes closed, but it had seemed as if he were right there, whispering strange, yet deliciously soothing things in her ear and putting her in a trance with his warm breath. His voice ebbed and flowed like a drug in her bloodstream, and even though she couldn’t recall exactly what he’d said or what she’d done, she was quite certain she’d followed his suggestions without question. That was what you did when you were hypnotized.

When she came to she was slumped in her chair like a rag doll and sighing out sounds of satisfaction. She was so mellow her sweater socks were down around her ankles and she didn’t even care. But what really fascinated her were the contradictions. Her body felt heavy and light at the same time, relaxed, yet deliciously aroused. Nerve endings twinkled like strings of Christmas lights, but her muscles were as fluid as the music coming from the speakers.

She’d heard about things like full-body orgasms, but she didn’t think they were possible, especially if you had yet to have one of the garden variety type. The one smart thing she’d done with the string of losers in her life was to
not
sleep with them. She may have been used, but not in that way. Some protective instinct had kept her from surrendering body and soul to these men, despite their bad boy charm—or maybe because of it.

Her first boyfriend in college was the closest thing she’d ever had to a grand passion. She’d loved him and wanted to give herself to him, perhaps too soon and for the wrong reason. She’d hoped it would bring them closer, but her own desperation should have warned her what would happen. Brad Styles repaid her trust by having sex with one of Kerry’s girlfriends the night after he’d taken Kerry’s virginity. It was devastating. Most nineteen-year-old coeds would have been able to put it behind them, but for her it was a life sentence because it validated her belief that no man would ever really love her.

Her father hadn’t. He’d deserted his family when Kerry was a toddler, and her mother’s bitterness had prepared Kerry to expect the worst from men. Even after Paula was gone, Kerry could hear her mother’s warnings, but she didn’t want to believe them. She’d had hope and her whole life ahead of her. Without realizing it, Kerry had desperately wanted Brad to prove her mother wrong—and to prove to Kerry that she was worth loving.

After that it was users and losers, men who confirmed what her mother had told her. She might not have consciously known it, but Kerry was afraid to take another risk on a good guy and have her heart broken again. It was easier to lock herself off, and when she did become involved, it was with men who acted exactly the way she expected— and believed she deserved.

With a romantic past like hers, Kerry hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about orgasmic experiences of any kind. But something had happened here today, something incredible. It felt like someone had switched bodies on her. She tried to bring back a detail or two of the experience, but the only thing she could remember were the feelings. Such wild-ness.

“
Zhhaa
—?” She was trying to say his name, but her voice cracked, and she couldn’t clear away the raspiness. Where was her tea? One eye blinked open, and she spotted the cup of Quiet Woman on her desk. Nope. Too far.

“Yes, Kerry?”

“Did anything unusual happen while I was under?”

“Other than the noises?”

Ah, yes, the noises. Kerry could feel one building in her throat now. She tried to stop it, but her eyelids fluttered, and she flushed even warmer, if that was possible.

“Mmmmmmmmmmmmrnm… oh, my… oh…”

“Kerry?” The noise
he
made was husky with disbelief. “Does that feel as good as it sounds?”

“Better,” she whispered, “oh, much better. It feels like I want to take my clothes off. I swear it does. Isn’t that amazing?”

She laughed and flopped her arms wide. “I’m the original abominable snow woman.”

“Original, maybe. Abominable, never.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhh, Jean, that is sooo sweet. You’re just an old sweetie pie, that’s what you are. And I’m just so warm and breathless. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

“Wouldn’t mind?”

“If I took something off?” He’d told her not to bluff, but she wasn’t bluffing now. She was glowing, alive, and not the tiniest bit afraid.

“I don’t think—”

“Oh, right, I’ll bet you’re not programmed to answer that, are you?” She sighed. “Oh, well, it’ll be okay. You can’t see me anyway… can you?”

He took too long to answer so she hiked up her heavy fleece dress and purposely flashed some leg as she peeled off one sweater sock. It was the blind man test. If she did something startling right in front of him and got no response, he probably couldn’t see her.
Or
he was a very smart man.

“Jean?”

Nothing. Maybe one sock wasn’t startling enough. She pulled off the other one and dangled the pair in front of the screen, wondering how he’d managed to turn her drafty old town house into a sauna—and her into an exhibitionist.

Not a twitch from the man. She had to bend forward to get a closer look at the screen, but she couldn’t detect any signs of life at all, even simulated ones. At the very least his eyes should be dilating. Maybe the computer
was
frozen.

“That didn’t bother you, did it?” she asked. “By any chance?”

“Bother me? What was it that should have bothered me?”

“Uh… nothing.” At least she knew he was there, but she still had no idea whether he could see her or not. He might have been probing for information. This was becoming a challenge.

“Excuse me, then,” she said, “while I finish with this activity that
isn’t
bothering you.”

His sexy mouth hinted at a smile. “Don’t mind me.”

A definite challenge. Her mind was generating enough watts of suspicion to light up the neighborhood, but she could not crack this guy’s code. Unfortunately, she was
really
glowing now. Some might have called it perspiring.

Off with the dress, Alice.

Years of use had made the crew neck of her dress loose enough to slip off her shoulder. From there she got her arm out—and realized she was dealing with a straitjacket, not a dress. Graceful it wasn’t, but she knew better than to stand up and pull the bulky thing over her head. It was ankle length, and she would be too wobbly. Not to mention
exposed
. She could just imagine getting stuck, her arms and head inside, the rest of her outside.

She liberated the other arm and inched the dress down to her behind. It took a near back flip to get it to her ankles. Kicking her feet free was another high point, but it brought more blood rushing to the surface. Her color had to be approaching magenta by now. As she wiped the dampness from her brow, she realized the thermal underwear had to go too, but, then, oops, she would have nothing left but a pair of high-cut bikinis and a tank top.

“Pretty damn sexy,” she murmured, when she was finally down to the essentials. She’d never thought of herself in those terms before, but then she’d never undressed for a man in quite this way before. Actually, she’d never undressed for a man in any way, but her guide didn’t need to know that.

She straightened her tank top and felt a
zing zing
of electricity run through her. There were a couple parts of her that were still humming—and quite urgently aroused. Her breasts were taut and budded. They didn’t seem to care whether the rest of her was glowing or not. They’d just come in from the cold.

“Would you look at that,” she whispered in disbelief.

“Look at what?”

“The twins. I look like Cindy Crawford without a bra.”

He made a throat-clearing sound, and she glanced up, startled. “Oh, sorry. It’s just that I’m so warm and they’re so… perky.”

He seemed to be staring at her, and there was a pensive quality to his expression.

“Jean? You’re awfully quiet. Is everything okay?”

“Yes, everything is fine.”

“You sound a little tense. Is it me? Am I doing things you’re not programmed to respond to?”

“I wouldn’t put it exactly that way, but there are times when someone like me… when someone like me… wishes…”

Oh, don’t stop now.

She was so caught up with the words she couldn’t breathe. But his sea-deep eyes were beautiful. They seemed to be imbued with the ocean’s hypnotic power.

Wishes what?

It sounded as if he’d cleared his throat again, and that possibility astounded her. Why would a computer simulation be hoarse?

“Jean? You were saying?”

“There are times when someone like me wishes he were real, Kerry. This is one of those times.”

“Oh, me too, Jean. I wish you were real. I really do.”

Her voice betrayed her, too. It was so raspy she could hardly get the words out. She grabbed for the tea to clear her throat, but she didn’t have a firm grip on the handle, and some of it slopped on the keyboard.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, staring at the poof of smoke. There was a hot sizzling sound, a shower of sparks, and the computer screen went dark.

Kerry jumped up from the chair and flipped the keyboard upside down to drain the spilled tea. She had a sinking feeling it was too late, the damage had been done, and she had no idea how to fix it. She’d never been into the nuts and bolts hardware. She was an idea person. Or she used to be.

“Jean? Are you there? Are you there? Oh, no, please tell me I didn’t short out the keyboard!”

Not only wasn’t he there, but the computer didn’t seem to be there, either. Kerry did everything she could think of to get it restarted, but it was like trying to resurrect the dead, and she wasn’t likely to get any help. It was late afternoon and one look outside told her she wouldn’t get a repairman today. It had been snowing again, heavily, and the road was heaped with white.

Distraught, she picked up the game box and was gripped with the crazy need to apologize to it. It almost felt as if she’d killed someone. Of course, that wasn’t true. It was a game, and he was the guide. He would be in every single copy that Genesis put out, wouldn’t he? All she had to do was get her computer fixed and ask them to E-mail her a new copy of “Discover the Secret, Sensual You!”

It would be Jean in there, wouldn’t it?

Somehow she didn’t think so.

Chapter Four

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“Kerry, come back and play. It’s lonely in here without you.”

Kerry heard the distant plea through a smothering veil of sleep. She was in deep slumber and might not have awakened at all if the hauntingly familiar voice hadn’t coaxed her repeatedly.

“Kerry, come back and play—”

“Play?” she breathed into her pillow.

“Kerry—it’s me.”

She rolled over heavily and laid there in the darkness, vaguely aware that someone was about, and that she was too groggy even to open her eyes. The pale glow permeating her eyelids made her wonder if she’d left the television on in the living room. But she never used the television. She was always on her computer.

“Kerry, it’s lonely—”

Her computer? She forced open her eyes to an aura of flickering blue light. It
was
her computer. The monitor was on. How could that be?

“Kerry—”

“Who’s there?” Suddenly the voice was perilously close, a male voice.

“It’s me,” he said. “I’m here with you.”

“With me?” Kerry could see nothing except the pulsing light, but her heart exploded with adrenaline. She dug her heels into the mattress and reared up, shoving herself back against the headboard.

“Who is it? Who’s there?” She clutched the comforter to her body like a shield, unable to do more than whisper. What was going on? Who was there? Her eyes strained to make sense of things, but all she could see was a dark form silhouetted in the doorway.

The voice wasn’t coming from the living room.

It wasn’t coming from her computer.

There was a man standing right there in her bedroom—a tall, silent man, haloed by spikes of blue light. If this was a bad dream, it was a very, very bad one.

“Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”

“I’m sorry if I frightened you,” he said.

His voice. She knew that voice.

“Tell me who you are.”

“You know who I am.”

“Tell me who you are!”

“I’m your guide, Kerry. It’s Jean.”

She couldn’t see him well enough to distinguish his features, but she did know that voice. She’d been mesmerized by it. Hypnotized.