Read Online Out of Mind by Stella Cameron - Free Book Online Page B

little older, perhaps in his early thirties. His concern showed.
    “Fine,” she said. “I was thinking about some things I have to get done.”
    He inclined his head. “It’s a party. What do you have to do except enjoy yourself?”
    Pretense didn’t sit well with her—it always seemed pointless. “I’m an employee,” she said pleasantly. “I’m helping out, overseeing things until Mrs. Brandt gets here.”
    He raised arched brows. “Val Brandt has good taste. Don’t hold your breath for Chloe to show up—poor girl hates parties. She may come when just about everyone else has left.” He took stock of the surrounding activities. “This isn’t her scene. She’s quiet—distinguished, I guess you’d say.”
    “So why have parties like this?” she asked before she could edit herself. “Forget I asked. It’s not my business.”
    “What’s your name?” he said. “I’m Preston Moriarty.”
    “Willow Millet.”
    “Well, Willow Millet, it is your business if you’re supposed to make sure a party is a success. Not that these parties are what you’d call theme affairs, or even guided revels.”
    “Is it always like this?” Willow asked.
    “Not always. The crowd varies.”
    “But you’re often here?”
    He dazzled her with a smile. “Uh-huh. I hope you’re going to be here often, too. I’d have more to look forward to.”
    “Why do you come if you don’t like it?”
    He looked away. “I didn’t say that. I’m part of the trappings, the expected hangers-on. Val and Chloe have been very good to me, and they like having me around. There are never enough single men—or so they insist.”
    “I see,” Willow said although she didn’t really.
    Willow’s eyelids slipped shut. Iciness enveloped her, encased her like armor. She felt so cold she wasn’t sure she could move, so cold her flesh seemed numb. And through the numbness she felt, very vaguely, a stroking pressure that passed all over her body—repeatedly—before resting heavily on her head. Her neck wobbled.
    Once again the exploration of her body began, so intimate she tingled, but she couldn’t say a word or try to evade these invisible hands.
    “Willow?”
    Her eyes wouldn’t open. Under her hair and around her neck passed firm pressing fingers. Surely she feltfingers. Her mind wouldn’t stay focused. Small, sharp pricks tapped on flesh that felt thick, as if it was anesthetized.
    Over her shoulders the fingers passed, down, beneath her arms, then over her breasts. She shuddered. Her nipples peaked and the stimulation speared down between her legs.
    The fingers tweaked her nipples and still she stood like a statue, unmoving, but quivering inside. Onward. Whatever this was mapped her body in an openly sexual way. It smoothed her buttocks through the dress, cupped her there, slid around to the front, cupped her mound and delved into the folds where the clitoris felt swollen and intensely aware—ready.
    Her legs began to buckle.
    “Willow, look at me.”
    Her eyelids shot open and she looked up at Preston Moriarty. His frown, the narrowing of his eyes made her wonder what he had seen.
    “You’re trembling all over,” he said. “Are you ill?”
    Even while she longed to drop to her knees and curl up on the ground, she searched for an excuse. It would have to be some excuse.
    He pulled her into his arms and stroked her back. “It’s okay. Tell me what you need me to do.”
    She wanted to pull away but hadn’t the strength. “An old illness,” she muttered. Not so far away from the truth. “There’s a residue and sometimes it hits me. That hasn’t happened in so long I can’t remember the last time.” Nothing like it had ever happened, but she could choose to lump it together with the inconvenient reminders of the powers she continually tried to ignore, like insightsinto the pasts of others with startling visions of terrible suffering they had endured.
    “Malaria?” he said. “Something like that?”
    “Similar,”