When I peered through the glass, I gasped. The couple we were watching pumped each other with wild abandon on a magnificent stairway, but they were high enough that I could see only their lower bodies. Lord knows that was enough! The man had dropped his trousers to enter the woman from behind, while she was hanging on to the bannister, baring a smooth, lush bottom and shapely legs beneath the glimmer of her crimson silk kimono.

But it was the cock that caught my interest--so much that when Lovejoy pulled me against him to fumble at my skirts, I could almost ignore him. Even the stallions I'd seen at stud fell short of this doctor's attributes! He drove it steadily into his partner's pussy, drawing out at least ten inches of dew-covered shaft and then ramming it back into her as she squealed her encouragement. In and out...again and again...he plowed into her with such force, her ass halves were shuddering and her breasts bobbed to the sound of their bodies slapping together.

My cunt clenched. My honey began to run before I realized the opportunist beside me had insinuated his fingers from the same angle we were watching. It wasn't nearly as glorious as what I saw, but at least it was scratching the itch Lovejoy had initiated by taking his own satisfaction in the carriage.

"Put your arm around me," he whispered. "Can't have you falling off this bench, attracting the wrong kind of attention."

I complied--but only because I didn't want to miss an instant of the spectacle before us. It occurred to me that I myself had been the object of leers and gaping observers, and that I'd despised every minute of it. But this was different. This was real sex, and the couple involved were obviously enjoying it immensely, unaware of their observers. Perhaps the term insatiable was an understatement about the illustrious Dr. Graves, for as I watched him drive himself deep into the willing, wet folds of his paramour, I found myself wishing she were me...imagining he'd have enough stamina and desire to send me soaring when he finished with his Oriental mistress.

I sighed, angling myself on tip-toe so Aaron's fingers could find the right spot. Despite my dislike of this man, our visual stimulation was proving far too effective not to accept his attentions. I bumped backwards against his hand, forcing my eyes to remain open so I could pretend I was receiving that instead. Lovejoy seemed engrossed enough not to care. Probing... circling...wiggling his fingers, and then spreading my wetness onto my throbbing little clit, he, too, remained glued to the scene playing out before us.

The woman's body tensed, her knuckles going white on the walnut bannister. Sensing her climax, Graves pulled her roughly against his abdomen and rutted with short, fast thrusts that had to be bumping all the way up into her stomach.

I screamed with my own orgasm--and noted with further dismay that Lovejoy chose that moment to bang loudly on the brass door knocker. Giggling, he then removed his hand and hustled me down from the bench, shoving it back against the side wall. With exaggerated gestures, he motioned for me to stand still and composed, as though we'd just arrived and had no idea we were interrupting anything.

A torrent of chatter in a foreign tongue rang out from inside the house. Lovejoy's childish prank mortified me, but I couldn't let on, because at any moment the housekeeper might open the door. My companion, impatient bastard that he was, muttered, "If they've gone upstairs to finish screwing, they're going to learn that Aaron Lovejoy refuses to be ignored!"

He was reaching for the massive brass knocker again when both wooden doors burst inward.

Subi stood taller than I'd imagined and wore a hastily-wrapped crimson kimono. She accosted us with her violet-eyed glare, made all the more menacing by the opaque white makeup of a Geisha. Her blue-black hair, knotted atop her head, was held in place by slender daggers of gold, which matched the wide band wound around her chest. With her arms outstretched to hold the doors, and the wind rippling the silken garment against her body, she looked like a scarlet angel bent on retribution. On her shoulders sat the biggest black cat I'd ever seen

Lovejoy cleared his throat ceremoniously. When he bowed in greeting, the animal arched, hissing. Suddenly it lunged, its teeth bared as though to drain every drop of blood from the actor's jugular. Aaron swung wildly with one arm while protecting his face with the other, swearing as its fangs found his wrist. I screamed, jumping away, while the woman in the doorway jabbered in a high-pitched sing-song. Not knowing a word of Japanese, I swore she was cheering the beast on.

The cat clawed for a foothold on Aaron's vest, still gripping the base of his fist. The singer bellowed, his trained voice echoing in the entryway as he tried to pry apart the cat's jaws. I was reaching out, hoping to help him, when footsteps and a stern voice came from inside the house.

"What the hell's going on here, Subi? Who is it?"

About that time, the cat let go and Aaron kicked it. The fiendish creature bounced from the stone wall back into the house as his mistress railed at Lovejoy in a torrent of Oriental wrath. I was too dumbfounded to notice much more, however: the man at the door stood tall and sturdy, brushing silver-streaked hair back from his brow as he glared at us. His blue-eyed gaze, cold and accusing, chilled me to the bone.

"Dammit, Ferral, this is inexcusable!" Lovejoy snapped. Blood was seeping beneath the hand he'd clamped around his wounded wrist. His vest and shirt sleeve hung in tatters. "You can at least bandage my wound, for chrissakes. Damn cat's probably rabid."

"Fu not the one who's unclean," the housekeeper muttered. With an indignant glare she pivoted, disappearing into the shadows of the house on silent, gliding feet.

"Serves you right," the master of Raven Crest spat. "I ordered you never to set foot in this house again, Lovejoy."

He was staring at me while he said this. His ominous expression--those piercing crystalline eyes--goaded me out of my suspended state. "Of all the despicable--"

"Don't say another word," he warned.

"--underhanded things to do to a--"

"Save it, Miss Caine, because I don't give a damn what you think of me!" Dr. Graves gripped my shoulder, his face growing ruddy. "Wasn't it enough to confess I killed my wife? I told you not to come here!"

"So that's why you let me stay the night?" I cried, swinging my valise at him. "That's why you pinned me to the floor and licked my--"

He caught my bag with one hand and then locked his other one around my windpipe. "Don't ever think you can hurt me, Caressa," he said in a sibilant whisper. "Physically, I can overpower you--as you surely know, from when you were writhing beneath me. And emotionally, you can't touch me because I'm a mean, deceitful bastard who never had a heart. Right, Lovejoy?"

The look of intense interest on the singer's face drove the doctor's point home: I'd been a fool to reveal anything that had happened between us while a third party--especially this one--listened. My pulse pounded weakly beneath Ferral's fingers as I considered how Lovejoy might use what he'd just learned. Meanwhile, the man cutting off my air had admitted to killing his wife, and was proving himself capable of my murder, as well

With a sneer, he released me. "Get in here. I'll see to that wound," he said without looking at Lovejoy.

Aaron, still gripping his wrist as drops of red stained his trousers, stepped into the house after him. I followed, into a vestibule where midnight blue walls stifled the light in an otherwise richly-appointed area. To the right we turned, entering a front parlor in shades of brick red with ebony furnishings. The room's only brilliance came from an extensive collection of glass--etched bowls and Bohemian bottles and glittering crystal pieces, arranged on etageres and along the mantel.

"Sit," Graves commanded, pointing to an upholstered chair. Lovejoy obeyed, watching warily as our host fetched a decanter from among several on the credenza, and then chose a lead crystal bowl.

Ferral stuck the bowl beneath Aaron's arm to catch its dripping. He then ripped the singer's sleeve off at the shoulder.

The blonde scowled. "You've got no call to ruin my--"

"Shirt you won't be wearing again anyway," Graves cut in. With quick efficiency, he poured whiskey over the wounds, grinning when his patient cried out from the sting. He then tore a section from the sleeve and wrapped it over the mangled flesh, holding Lovejoy as though he might twist his arm from its socket.

When Graves glanced at me, as I lingered near the doorway, his expression soured. "I suppose our illustrious performer has filled you in on my flaws and shortcomings, of which I warned you earlier--and some of his own invention, no doubt. Did he tell you I killed Ravenna in a rage, with my bare hands?"

"No, sir," I murmured, wondering more than ever how she actually died.

"Did he admit he was the crux of the whole conflict? That if he hadn't been bedding my wife, none of these tragic events--"

"That's a lie and you know it!" Aaron shouted. "If you hadn't left her alone in this--this crypt--for weeks at a time--"

Graves caught the slipping crystal bowl with his knee, shoving Lovejoy back into his seat with it. "She was never alone. She and Subi--"

"Subi the Samurai!" his patient jeered. "What young woman would want to be imprisoned here with her husband's jabbering Japanese whore?"

I gasped, and both men glared as though I'd insulted them by interrupting their argument. I clearly had no business staying in this lugubrious house, involving myself with Ravenna's death or the hostilities escalating between the two men who loved her. But I couldn't leave until Lovejoy did.

Dr. Graves returned to his work, wrapping remnants of the shirt sleeve around Aaron's wrist with a vengeance. "Damn shame the cat didn't latch onto your tongue," he muttered with his final knot. "Now get out of my house! Show your sorry face here again, and the sheriff hears how you stiff people by advertising mail-order tickets you never send them."

Aaron, whose purposeful gaze was making my neck prickle, stood up. The bowl on his lap bounced and then landed, inverted, on the Persian rug. Red rivulets trickled down its dome, like omens of bloodshed to come. "Nice try, but I'm coming to the seance, Graves."

"Like hell you will."

"I'm going to hear Ravenna call you a cold-blooded killer. Because you drove her over that railing, and you know it!"

"You can't prove a goddamn--"

"And if you refuse me, I'll have Caressa tell the sheriff the facts revealed in my absence--because I trust her to tell the truth, straight from Ravenna," the actor challenged. "And then I'll expose you for the charlatan you are. Much more fascinating than a plain old murder conviction, don't you think?"

The hatred on Ferral's face evolved into something so cruel his lip curled and the sideburns lining his narrow face quivered with his rage. "Perhaps you should attend, after all," he agreed in a malicious whisper. "Then we can hear my wife's side of your lurid little affair--how you panted after her, backing her into a corner, until she gave in simply to be rid of you. Show up at nine o'clock Saturday night. It could prove enlightening. Couldn't it, Aaron?"

"I'd bet my last dime on it." Lovejoy turned toward the door, holding his bare, bandaged arm against his blood-spattered side. Triumph lit his smile as he caught my eye. "Isn't Raven Crest--and its obnoxious owner--everything I told you they'd be? I trust you're returning to town with me, until we summon Ravenna on Saturday."

I'd picked up my luggage, but I didn't feel safe choosing either horn of this dilemma. If I rode back with Aaron, he'd fill my head with his version of events, thinking to color my perceptions and the outcome of the seance, in his favor.

Yet how could I stay in this house of shadows? Gloom shrouded these massive chandeliers and magnificent furnishings, draining the joy--the very air--from what could've been an opulent home. And it was not Ravenna's spirit that rendered the place intolerable, nor was it the Geisha who wore her face painted white and wove knives into her hair.

It was the beast with the feral blue eyes. He now watched my expression as though reading every thought before it occurred to me.

I summoned my courage, knowing my decision wouldn't sit well. "Yes, I'm returning to town," I stated, "but I won't be conducting any seances. I've heard too many conflicting stories. I feel so caught up in hostility--in the warring auras you two men emanate--that I can't possibly summon Ravenna's spirit now.

"And why would she want to come?" I challenged further, looking from Ferral to his nemesis. "She knows you'll twist her responses to your own devious means, or you'll demand I consult her again and again, until I say what you want to hear just to be done with it. No thank you. I'll have no part of this.

I stepped ahead of Aaron Lovejoy, who looked none too pleased. Passing through the ebony-enameled doorway, I glanced wistfully at as much of the house as I could see, imagining these spacious rooms revived with clean, sunny colors. The large portrait hanging at the landing, of a windswept, raven-haired beauty with large, soulful eyes, lit only by moonlight, tore at my soul. I longed to unlock her secrets, but sensed it was better for us both if I left this whole mess alone.

"Nice little speech, Caressa."

I glared up at the dark-haired brute, shrugging from the hand he'd clamped on my shoulder. He'd used physical contact to distract me before, and I wanted nothing more to do with him.

"If you and Aaron make me your pawn, Ravenna's spirit won't appear!" I warned him. "I'm only doing as you instructed last night, Dr. Graves. I'm getting on with my life and leaving you out of it!"

With a grace born of sheer animosity, he hooked his arm around me. He smelled of whiskey and starched linen and imported tobacco, a masculine mix intensified by the savage heat he radiated. An insolent finger ran along my temple, tickling the ridge of my jaw--until he caught my head to hold it for a searing, soul-altering kiss that knocked me off-balance. I struggled, whimpering beneath lips that devoured mine, but he swallowed my protests and crushed me against his taut body...the body of a predator intent on rutting. The ridge pressing against my midsection felt absolutely huge and ready to burst his seams.

When his tongue delved between my teeth, I recalled those other wicked things it had done to me last night, and I caved in. I kissed him back, ravenous for more than he was giving me. Desperate to revive the inner fire he'd started in that cabin.

He pulled away then, grinning wickedly--first at me and then at Aaron Lovejoy. "You were just leaving, I believe?" His arm tightened around me as he fixed a haughty sneer on our observer.

Then, as Lovejoy muttered and walked toward the door, Ferral gazed at me again. His features lit up with a fiendish glee that made my heart shrivel.

"You see, Miss Caine? You're not going anywhere," he said, his laughter slithering up like the hiss of a snake. "You've cooked your goose, so now you'll stay to eat it."

He turned then, raising his voice toward the interior of the house. "Run a bath, Subi. Miss Caine is filthy from fucking Lovejoy, and we'll have to scrub her until she squeaks. I won't stand for any dirty little girls who betray me."

With the sound of a carriage departing in the rain outside, I dropped my valise, scowling up at him. "I beg your pardon, but I have not--"

"I've told you never to lie to me, Caressa," he said coolly. "I saw your faces through the glass in the door--and smelled you, even above the scent of Subi's perfume. Gentleman that I am, I tried to ignore you so I could bring my partner to climax, but that jackass Lovejoy had to whack the brass knocker at just the wrong moment."

He was marching me up the stairs with an arm fastened around my shoulders, so there was no stopping for a closer look at Ravenna's eerie portrait. No distracting him from what I sensed would be the most harrowing bath I'd ever endured.

"So now Subi is extremely frustrated, Miss Caine, and that bodes ill for everyone in this household. You've never dealt with servants, so you might not realize that when the help is unhappy, they have their ways of taking it out on their owners."

I puzzled over this allusion to a paid-for relationship, but thought it a bad time to question my captor. We'd reached the second floor, and in the distance I heard water running into a tub. While it should've been a pleasure to walk against such a handsome man's body, matching strides with him, I only noticed how his utter confidence and control contrasted to my own frazzled state. "I should tell you that my clean clothes are back in the wagon, so--"

"No, I'd rather you told me why you came here, Caressa. Especially with him," Ferral growled, "and especially after you promised me you'd avoid Dr. Graves."

"It was Katy's idea! Katy DeShay's!"

"And what were you doing at her place?"

He steered me into a bathroom then, spacious by any standards, and filling with steam from the water his housekeeper was running into a deep, claw-footed bathtub. Ordinarily the chance for a bath in such a clean, private room would've been an invitation to heaven, but Subi's hostile glare went straight through me.

"I...my horse ran off this morning--spooked by something we couldn't see in the thick fog--and when she bolted, the old harnesses gave way," I mumbled, unable to take my eyes off the Oriental's bare body as she let the red kimono slip off her shoulders.

"And Katy's was the first place you came to?" Ferral prompted, his voice edgier now.

"Yes! And bless her heart, she got Mr. Lovejoy to give me a lift into town, and said she'd have my wagon fetched, and...."

I had an odd feeling that Dr. Graves already knew these details and was just testing my story. Something about him bespoke a power beyond what most of us possessed, far as discerning between reality and wishful thinking.

Still, it caught me off-guard when he simply ripped my threadbare dress down the center and then removed my shift the same way, before yanking the drawstring from my drawers. When they puddled around my ankles, he hooked a finger between my legs, scowling as he wiggled it in the stickiness there.

"The proof is in the pudding," he quipped tersely, and then his face narrowed as he focused those soulless blue eyes on mine. "Don't you ever let him near you again! Do you hear me?"

I nodded, nearly choking on a lump of fear.

"Do you understand now why I specified you come alone? And then why I was willing to let you keep my money, if you promised not to come at all?"

Before I could bob my head again, he shoved me toward the tub, which was filled with hot, lemon-scented water. "Subi, get the brush," he ordered. "Miss Caine must learn how it feels to come painfully clean, and I know you'll take the task to heart."

The Geisha's white face tightened with a grin as malicious as her master's. At Ferral's prodding, I was stepping into the hot water from the back end of the tub while Subi picked up a long-handled brush and a bar of soap. Bad enough that I could already imagine the rasp of those bristles against my skin and between my legs, but when the naked maid stepped into the tub with me, I howled in protest.

Scrambling backwards, I put my foot to the rim to escape, but Ferral caught me. He lifted me effortlessly, my legs flailing, and then sat me down in the high, hot water. His accomplice reached forward in a flash, shoving my head and shoulders toward my knees with the flat handle of the brush.

Thus submerged, struggling and choking, I again wondered if Ravenna Graves had been treated this horribly. Desperate scenes and disjointed thoughts raced through my mind as I grabbed the Oriental's arms to pull myself up. Subi possessed amazing strength for a woman, and she held that brush handle against the back of my shoulders with a vengeance--until, as I bent my legs to shove against her, she suddenly released me. Up I came like a flying fish, splashing madly as I gasped for air.

"Damn you to hell, you bitch! I'll--"

"Your mouth needs washing out, Miss Caine," came the unruffled male voice behind me. Ferral caught me by the shoulders, sitting me unceremoniously upon the lip of the tub. "My housekeeper shall be treated with respect. You've no call to aim such language at Subi, when she's done exactly as I asked of her."

With that, he rubbed the soap across my tongue until I gagged on its bitterness. Then he thrust my face into the water again. "Rinse," he said, "and be fully aware that I'll soap you again. Whenever, and wherever, I choose."

He pulled me up then, allowing me to cough and sputter until I could breathe again. My hair hung in waterlogged clumps, caught on hair pins and covering my face like a lumpy wet blanket. The man behind me pulled me against himself and plucked the pins then, letting them ping to the floor in an unhurried rhythm that suggested this ordeal might take the rest of the day.

When Ferral parted my hair so I could better see and breathe, I wished he hadn't: Subi stood before me, her bare, honey-colored body taut with hostile anticipation. Her pert breasts, tipped in sienna peaks, bounced with each smack of the brush's back against her palm as she studied me...plotting her nasty strategy.

"Missy Caine place feet on edge of tub," she purred like a predatory puma. "Sooner she obeys, sooner Subi finish. Yes?"

Why would I agree to that? Not only had I never seen another woman naked, but I had no intention of letting one bathe me! "I can wash myself, thank you," I began, but my captor responded by hugging me higher and placing my legs along the top of the tub himself.

"It's best to comply with her wishes," he whispered against my ear. "Subi's a veteran of the Geisha pleasure palaces and versed in the martial arts, as well. She could fling us both against the wall, if she chose to."

I swallowed hard, because the rock-solid body behind me gave no assistance, and the vicious nymph advancing between my outstretched legs had an agenda, too. She took the bar of soap Ferral had used on my mouth, rubbing the brush on it, kicking up the scent of lemon grass and verbena.

"Please, Ferral. I feel, well--rather queer, allowing a woman to touch me this way," I breathed, never taking my eyes from the statuesque figure with the daggers in her hair. Even nude, Subi exuded an undeniable presence, a molten sensuality evident in every graceful move of her body, even though she was still quite angry.

"It's time for a new experience then," Graves replied with a low chuckle. "Myself, I find the sight of two naked women approaching each other...stroking each other...sizing each other up...quite fetching indeed. If I didn't have to hold you captive, I'd be playing naked with the both of you."

The erection prodding the back of my neck had already hinted at the effect we had upon Dr. Graves, and I wished it were he lowering that brush to the sole of my foot. I squealed with the first touch of those soapy bristles, which made Subi chuckle and increase the pressure. The hot water had turned my body dark pink, and the foot clamped in her hand was now a frothy white, tingling with the stiff bristles and the foamy soap.

In horrified fascination I watched as the Geisha scrubbed her way up my ankle and calf. That she loved her work was apparent. That she intended to carry out her master's orders, above and beyond her call of duty, made me squirm as she came up my naked thigh toward the tangy target Ferral had found so offensive.

I drew a ragged breath, watching the creamy froth climb to the sensitive flesh between my extended legs. I retreated with backward squirms--which my captor encouraged by thrusting along with me, making his arousal all the more evident. The warm, tight bubbles were catching on my curls now, and I closed my eyes against the inevitable assault, the cleansing these two insisted upon.

A chuckle resonated in the steamy room, and a lapping of the bath water. Then the Oriental started back at my other ankle, vigorously scrubbing my skin until it tingled. For effect, she stopped to load her brush with soap again, eyeing my breasts and the muff that dripped with water and a hint of Lovejoy's jism. Her tongue darted across her lips. Then the brush was on me again, circling and rasping wetly as she stroked her way toward my cunt.

Again I sucked myself in, and again she stopped short of the attack, now humming a low, exotic tune. Next thing I knew, she'd lifted her left foot out of the water to rest it on my soapy thigh, opening herself not two feet in front of my eyes. Her fur was as black as Fu the cat, and curled thickly around a crimson, petaled rose of a pussy. She placed a finger along her slit and then slowly drew it up to titillate her clit with her fingernail.

Behind me Ferral grunted, rutting against my back. I gawked, in fear and awe, at the woman who'd stopped to fondle herself, for I'd never seen female privates so openly exposed...so daringly displayed. Nor had I ever dreamed I'd respond. I felt myself inching forward on the enameled rim of the tub, mesmerized by the sight of Subi's slit and amazed by the corresponding flex of my own wet petals.

With renewed purpose, the Oriental pressed the bristly brush against my chest, swirling in firm circles around one defenseless breast and then the other. I yelped, rendered powerless when Ferral pinned me back by hooking his hands under my armpits and pushing my bottom forward. Her violet eyes glinting, Subi kept lathering my tender skin until my nipples ached from her abrasion.

"Please--you're hurting me!"

"So sorry!" she mocked in a Japanese sing-song. "Subi scrub harder, and Missy Caine come clean from fucking Lovejoy!"

She worked the brush lower then, scraping against my stomach and abdomen until they tingled and turned painfully pink. I was writhing to get away from this assault, all the while dreading what she'd saved for her finale. Since Subi was standing between my knees, I couldn't clap my legs shut--and at the first swirl of the brush against my cunt, I let out a yowl that echoed like the cry of an enraged cat in a cave. I bucked, writhing away from those vicious bristles, but the Geisha only scrubbed more gleefully.

"Stop this! You got me clean with your first--"

"Oh, but now she's playing," Graves crooned against my ear. "You can't tell me you don't like it, Caressa. I can feel your muscles bunching, deep down inside you...making you want to come harder than you ever thought possible. Let loose, my sweet, and play along. Nothing I love more than the smile of a satisfied woman."

I closed my eyes, determined not to fall under the sway of his words, or the dizzying effects of Subi's stroking. She could see how my legs were inching farther apart despite my cries of protest, and she smugly continued to soap my cunt until I was quivering all over.

As if that weren't enough, she switched ends and pressed the brush handle against my aching slit, sliding it up and down in the soap.

"NO!" I cried, determined not to lose control to this nefarious pair. Fighting a red haze of desperation, I suddenly slipped one leg from the top of the tub and stuck it between Subi's legs. Upward I struck, making the Geisha howl with feline frustration--and press the handle even harder against my swollen clit.

"Oh, I love a good cat fight!" Ferral said with a chuckle, thrusting in time with my extended leg. "You pussies go at it, tooth and nail, until somebody comes out a winner...or just comes. Nothing like a mind-boggling climax to clear the air and make everyone more congenial, don't you agree?"

I was beyond his attempts at humor, concentrating on enraging Subi as much as she was irritating me. Water sloshed out onto the floor as we struggled against each other's cunts, our bodies sheened with steam. The housekeeper pushed, and I shoved harder, thrusting my foot against the pussy that was now oozing with her juice. My own slit was slick with soap and running with honey, pulsing against the wooden brush handle and poised to explode.

With my last rational thought, I slipped my other foot between Subi's legs and shoved upward. She cried out, falling forward, dropping the brush as she grabbed at the tub to keep from landing on me. No mistaking the reason for her convulsions, however: her kohled eyes became diagonal black slants in her white face as her climax kept her shuddering against my feet for several seconds. Her wetness squelched in a quick rhythm, dripping down my ankles and running off into the tub. The sight and feel of her release drove me over the edge, and my entire body clenched with a forbidden ecstasy.

With a final moan, Subi fell against my extended legs, gripping the lip of the tub. Ferral still clutched my shoulders, keeping both of us from drowning, most likely. He, too, finished with a frenzied grunt, and I felt the spasms of his shaft against my back. The three of us panted, stilled by our exertions, wet with sweat and steam and sex.

I lowered my quavering legs. Subi squatted in the bath water. With quick swishes, she rinsed her slit and then stepped out of the tub without looking at either Ferral or me. She wrapped a white towel around her butter-colored body, and stalked from the room. Down the hall, a door slammed.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," Ferral said. He sounded amused to the point of admiration as he released me to slip into that wonderfully soothing water. And when he came around to look at me, submerged beneath the bubbles with my hair hanging in wet waves around my shoulders, he actually smiled. That deep dimple came out to play.

My heart lurched in my chest. He was the handsomest man I'd ever seen, with his open shirt clinging damply to his chest and his trousers soaked through, showing how hard he still was. Suddenly all I wanted was to strip him naked and take him into this tub with me, for a real fucking.

Again he seemed to know my thoughts. His face hardened into those unforgiving planes fringed with dark sideburns, dominated by those relentless blue eyes.

"You've won the first round, Caressa, but don't think we're done with you," he said in a smoky voice. "Finish your bath while I find you something to wear. Now that you smell like yourself again, we have to talk."