Ritual Sins (8 page)

She was shaking, he could see it, so furious she was almost beyond speech. She crossed the space that separated them, on her knees, catching his tunic in strong hands and yanking at him in blind rage. “How dare you pass judgment on me? You don’t know anything about me and my mother. You admit she never said anything about me. What makes you think it was my failing, and not hers? Did she strike you as the maternal type? The sweet, caring mother that every child deserves? Did she?” She yanked at him, and he let her, surveying her out of half-closed eyes, fascinated by her passion and sudden fearlessness.

He reached up and covered her hands with his. His were much larger, enveloping hers, and she released the soft cloth of his shirt in sudden
panic. But he wouldn’t release her, no matter how her fists squirmed in his enveloping hands.

“Let go of me,” she said fiercely.

“Let go of Stella. She’s gone. She can’t be your mother, and all the money in the world won’t make up for it.”

“It’s a start,” she shot back. Her bitter, angry mouth was very close, irresistibly so. Yes, he definitely liked her better this way. Furious with him. He wanted to taste her fury, swallow it.

He didn’t move, keeping her fists captive. She was leaning over him, balanced precariously on her knees, and he could watch the knowledge of her vulnerability dawn in her eyes.

“If you try to pull away,” he said in a deliberately lazy voice, “you’ll lose your balance.”

“Is this the way you treat all your followers?” she demanded.

“But you’re not one of my followers. Are you?” He decided he didn’t want to wait. He tugged, lightly, and she went sprawling across him in a tangle of arms and legs and soft, small breasts.

For a moment she lay absolutely still, straddling him. If she stopped to think about it she’d feel his erection, though how she’d react was a mystery.

She stared up at him, breathless, shocked, so close he could put his mouth against hers before she had time to realize what he was doing. He
could feel her heat and anger, vibrating around him. Feel her fear. He never thought a woman’s fear would be erotic. Rachel’s was.

He didn’t move, considering the notion, considering her. She was afraid of him. Afraid of having sex with him. It was small wonder he’d find that obsessive fear fascinating.

“Let go,” he whispered, his voice low and persuasive. “Stop fighting me. Stop fighting yourself.”

Uncertainty darkened her eyes. And then she scrambled away, and he released her, reluctantly. A prize worth having was a prize worth waiting for, he reminded himself. And he was beginning to think that Rachel Connery would be a prize indeed.

He could still smell the scent of her on his fingers, and he wanted to bite her. Instead he leaned back, deliberately, infuriatingly at ease.

“You won’t win, Rachel,” he said.

She was leaning against the wall, staring at him like a cornered animal. An apt comparison. But there was still fight in her.

“You think I should give up?” she said. “Forget about the twelve and a half million dollars, go back to New York, and get on with my life?”

“Is that the only reason you’re here?” he said softly. “The money? I thought you were looking for your mother.”

It didn’t quite finish her off, but it came close.
Her angry eyes grew bright with unshed tears, and for a moment her full mouth trembled.

And then it hardened again. “Bastard.” She spat the word out succinctly.

“Definitely. In spirit as well as fact.” He’d gotten enough out of her for one night, and he surged to his feet with his usual fluid grace, towering over her in the murky light She wasn’t a large woman, and in her current pose, huddled against the stucco wall, she looked deceptively frail.

He was usually kind and gentle with frail women. Nurturing with those who were suffering from emptiness and loss, filling them with serene, asexual comfort that soothed and healed.

With Rachel Connery all he wanted to do was prod the wound and make her bleed.

He looked at her, the fragile, well-defined bones of her face, her slim body. He knew just how little weight she carried, and it bothered him.

“You don’t eat enough,” he said abruptly.

He’d managed to startle her. “I don’t like the food here.”

“I bet you don’t eat enough at a four-star restaurant either.”

“I don’t see why that concerns you.”

He couldn’t quite see it either, but it did. He suddenly wanted her to be like the others, peaceful and undemanding.

But Rachel wasn’t the kind of woman for easy
answers, for blissed-out acceptance of the unacceptable. She couldn’t make peace with herself and her past, and he wasn’t about to help her. She needed to do it for herself.

And whether or not she came to terms with her mother was the least of his worries. He was more interested in whether she would come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t going to give up one penny of the twelve and a half million dollars Stella had left the Foundation. And whether she was going to let go of that shell of anger and protectiveness long enough to let him get her into a real bed, where she could react, respond, take him deep inside her and …

He shut off the erotic thought with ruthless efficiency. “You need to sleep,” he said, the taunting drawl out of his voice. He could already hear the others, beyond the door, stirring to life as they heard him. He’d grown used to this life, to having a half-dozen people waiting and eager for his slightest whim. He’d grown used to it, and he hated it. There were times when he wanted nothing more than to be back in a tumbledown house in the backwoods of Coffin’s Grove, Alabama, Jackson Bardell passed out on a cot, no food in the house except for a box of oatmeal. But there’d been no one to watch him, no one to worship him. He was getting so damned tired of being worshiped.

Maybe that was why he was so irrevocably drawn to the angry young woman staring up at him. Maybe he just really needed someone to hate him for a change. Maybe he needed the challenge. Or maybe it was a twisted nostalgia for a time when nobody loved him.

She rose too, and the door at the end of the large room opened, with three acolytes silhouetted in the broad entrance. She came up to him, knowing she was safe, knowing he wouldn’t touch her while there were witnesses. “You killed her, didn’t you, Luke?” she whispered, and the certainty was so strong in her voice that it shook him.

She didn’t give him time to answer. She knew that he wouldn’t. She simply walked toward the open door and the waiting helpers, her back straight, her neck oddly vulnerable beneath the close-cropped hair. He’d put his mouth there, on the soft nape of her neck, and then he’d bitten her. He wondered if he’d left teeth marks.

They took her back to her room, the three of them, all solicitude and murmured concern. Catherine was one of them, her face flushed, her silvery hair coming loose from its bun. Leaf was another, her serene face unmoved. The third was a man, a boy really, with a sweet face and the faint whiff of cigarettes about him. Rachel didn’t
smoke, but the scent of the forbidden made her warm to the angelic-looking boy.

They lit her oil lamp for her, covered her with a soft blanket, and left her, with that incessant murmur of “blessings” ringing in her ears.

Luke had almost admitted it. There was very little of the saint about him, even if everyone was blinded by his remarkable charisma. He was a user, a manipulator, and for some reason he didn’t mind showing Rachel his true nature. Probably because he knew it would be useless to try to convince her he was anything other than what he was.

Damn him, why did he have to touch her? She didn’t like being touched. She’d never developed the knack for it—there’d been no one to touch her during her childhood, no one to snuggle up with, to hug her and soothe her and tell her she was safe.

Touching meant pain. Shame. Blame and anger. She shivered in the warm room, suddenly chilled, as unwanted memories swamped back over her. Of her mother, screaming in her face, twisting her arm. Of her stepfather, pale, guilty, silent, as he watched the melodrama unfold.

Everything works out for the best
, she’d always told herself. They sent her away then, at thirteen, and she’d never come home again. She had no home. But even for the first thirteen years of her life it had been a battle zone, not a haven.

Her only haven was when she was alone. And even that had been defiled by Stella’s greed.

He’d touched her, and she hadn’t liked it, but she couldn’t get it out of her head. His hands closing over hers, enveloping them so that her own smaller ones had disappeared within his. The crown of thorns around each strong wrist. The feel of his body when she’d tumbled against him, bone and flesh and muscle, warmth and solid strength that was somehow terrifying. The closeness of his mouth.

She didn’t like to be touched.

She didn’t like the way he looked at her either. There was none of the saintly compassion he seemed to emit for the masses. His clear gray-blue eyes watched her with the intensity of a predator. He was very still, scarcely moving, and yet she had no doubt as to what kind of threat he could be. He’d taken her mother, he’d taken her money, he’d even taken from Rachel the illusion that Stella had an ounce of feeling for her. And he would take more, if he could. He would destroy her, and he would do so without a second thought. If she was weak enough to let him.

She lay in the lamplit darkness, tense, angry, confused. Her throat still hurt, though not with the fiery ache of earlier, when she could barely force air through the rawness. Her body felt
bruised and aching and the pain in her head had subsided to a dull throbbing.

But there was something else disturbing. Whatever they’d given her, whatever they’d done to her, besides going an astonishing way toward healing her, had also left her feeling strange and restless. Her skin tingled. Her breasts felt tight, sensitive. Her lips stung.

She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on the odd sensations, and hateful erotic images danced through her mind. Bodies entwined, hands touching, mouths tasting, hair flowing, strength and a slow, sensual burn that threatened to engulf her in flames.

She heard a muffled noise of protest, and she knew it had come from her own raw throat. Her memory was spotty, disturbing, edgy, and she tried to force something solid to materialize from the gray mist.

Nothing was clear. Just hints and wisps of sensation that made her entire body ache in fear and protest.

What in God’s name had he done to her?

Luke closed the door behind him, sealing the room away from prying eyes, and turned to look at the wall of security monitors. All was as it should be to the untrained eye. The current crop of followers were partway through their two-month
stay, and they were going about their appointed tasks with docile obedience.

Rachel Connery looked far from docile. She sat on her narrow bed, staring sightlessly into space, one hand brushing her mouth. Her nails were short, bitten to the quick. It didn’t surprise him.

She touched her mouth with an absent curiosity that immediately made him hard. She didn’t know what he’d done with her mouth. What he had every intention of doing again, next time with her cooperation … or at least her full awareness.

She stretched out on the narrow bed and he groaned. She was too damned distracting. He reached over and turned off the monitor, glancing at the others surrounding it.

A handful of the Grandfathers were gathered in one of the smaller meditation rooms. Bobby Ray was with them as well. Odd, Luke thought, peering closer. Wishing he’d had the sense to install listening devices as well.

They looked calm, peaceful, decisive as they made their plans for the future of the Foundation.

Surely he had nothing to worry about?

C
alvin Leigh was the very last person Rachel expected would show up at her room later that day. She would have slammed the door in his face without a word when she noticed what he was carrying. A thermos and two empty mugs.

“A peace offering,” he said in his soft voice. “Made with freshly ground Sumatran beans.”

For a moment she didn’t move. “It’s probably poisoned.”

“I brought two mugs. We’d die together.”

“This is a cult, isn’t it? I wouldn’t put it past you guys.”

“It’s not a cult, and it’s supposed to be poisoned Kool-Aid, not coffee. May I come in?”

“Coffee is one of the few things I’d consider risking my life for,” Rachel said, opening the door and allowing him into the shadowy room.

He didn’t say a word as he busied himself at the small table, pouring two cups of wonderful-smelling coffee and handing her one. He didn’t come equipped with milk and sugar, but then, she drank her coffee black. Luke and his minions probably knew that.

If there was poison in the coffee she couldn’t taste it, and wouldn’t have cared if she did. She took a seat on the narrow bed, crossing her legs underneath her, and surveyed the deceptively sweet little man.

He took his time, arranging the one straight-backed chair the room boasted, climbing up into it and sitting, perched like a naughty child ready for his punishment. He had small hands, with short, stubby fingers, and he pushed one through his curly black hair in a childlike gesture.

“I suppose you’re here to apologize for what happened yesterday?” she said when half her mug of coffee was gone and he had yet to say a word. “You want to tell me that it wasn’t your fault I was nearly killed, you warned me about Angel but I didn’t listen, and that perhaps you shouldn’t have started me out in such a demanding location.”

He raised his head and looked at her. His eyes were very dark and completely free of emotion. “No,” he said, quite calmly. “I set you up.”

She slopped some of the precious coffee onto
her jeans in shock. Not that he’d done it, but that he’d confess it so easily.

“You did what?”

“Luke has told me I must confess my sins to you and ask for forgiveness.”

“He told me he didn’t believe in sin,” Rachel drawled, blotting at the coffee stain.

“Oh, he believes in sin all right. How could he not, given his background and the life he’s lived?” Calvin said. “He just doesn’t choose to define it for the people who follow his teachings.”