Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [92]
Tracks to Stanton House.
That was nothing in and of itself. The deputies were still on duty, and Reverend Lynch had promised that the staff would be more vigilant.
Still, with the feeling that someone had been in her room, she couldn’t help the shiver of fear that slid down her spine.
“Ninny,” she told herself even as she walked to the door of her apartment. She checked the lock and the dead bolt for the tenth time that night. Locked tight.
But the dream…
She pulled the robe tight around her and huddled on the sofa. Had it been a warning? Or just a trick of the mind?
She wondered if she’d ever know.
CHAPTER 24
As the harsh winds of February swirled around him, the Leader crossed the campus and thought of the new teacher who had been hired at the academy.
Julia Farentino.
She was beautiful.
Hauntingly so.
With eyes the color of a stormy northern sea and a tongue that was as sharp as a razor; he’d heard it a time or two and had been intrigued. Tempted.
He’d noticed the way she walked, purposeful, her strides long, her ass…Oh, God, he’d seen it tighten beneath her jeans as she’d taken a step, and in his mind’s eye, he envisioned her tight little cheeks, split perfectly, begging him to enter that warm, seductive valley.
Even now, in this frigid winter, his cock twitched as he thought of plunging into her sweet, slick warmth. Of reaching around her and feeling her breasts fill his hands, her nipples hard. Her neck would arch, a low moan of pleasure coming from her lips. He would pinch those nipples, make her gasp and buck and scream in pleasure and pain. And he would take her as she’d never been taken before, press his lips and teeth into the back of her neck, push harder and faster!
And then what?
When it’s over and you’re spent, after you’ve spilled yourself into her, what then? In the end, you know that she is little more than a whore, like Lauren and the others. A seductress sent here to test your faith.
Fists clenching, he tried to force the image of Julia’s naked body, one he had not yet seen, out of his mind. But the demons inside him, the insatiable sexual appetite that consumed him, could not be quieted.
Julia Farentino was not the only one who filled his mind and caused the sheets on his bed to be sweat-soaked and wrinkled.
And what about the Stillman girl? Shaylee? His mind was ruthless with its cruel reminders of his weakness. Wasn’t she the “one” you chose to join the others? Isn’t her thick, dark hair a turn-on? Don’t you see it splayed beneath you? And those eyes, greenish gray, don’t you imagine them rounding in surprise, her pupils dilating as you hold her down and drive into her? Don’t you imagine her tongue licking your body everywhere? Isn’t she, too, seductively tempting?
He frowned slightly, the two women melding in his mind, becoming one, arms and legs surrounding him. He fantasized about having them both at the same time, almost heard their combined wails of pleasure and pain in the song of the icy wind.
Don’t tread there.
Remember what they are, those two who look so much alike.
Distractions.
Tests of your will.
Nothing more.
Do not waver.
For they are dangerous, just as Lauren was.
He squeezed his eyes shut as he remembered her.
Lauren Conway.
A demon disguised as an angel.
God, he’d been a fool. A damned fool.
For a woman.
A classic mistake.
And stupid.
Hadn’t he too, been played for a fool by another man’s wife? And yet, he had let down his guard again.
Not that she had been any woman, Lauren Conway. Oh, no.
She’d been a beautiful girl just on the threshold of womanhood, or so he’d thought. But, of course, he’d been wrong. Her treachery had been so disguised in innocence he’d come to trust her.
Completely.
Madly.
Stupidly.
He’d allowed her into his inner circle.
For all the wrong reasons.
Mainly because of his ego.
And because he’d wanted to sleep with her.
He’d made that mistake and couldn’t risk another, not with Shaylee Stillman or Julia Farentino or any other temptress who might cross his path. He closed