Read Online Ritual Sins by Anne Stuart - Free Book Online

He wanted to fuck her, but having sex with a comatose woman wasn’t particularly appealing, even if it was the only way he could have her for now.
    “I’ll leave you,” Catherine said. “She’s already looking better—I think her color’s improved. Shall I make arrangements for her to be brought back to her room? Or do you want her in the infirmary?”
    “Later,” he said. “Take the healers with you. I want to concentrate on her without any distractions.”
    “You’re too good,” Catherine said in a husky voice, rising with surprising grace given her age. Within moments they were gone, all of them, and he was alone in the murky, cavernous room with Rachel Connery, so deep in sleep that she’d never remember a thing.
    No one would dare interrupt him. Only Calvin, and in his current disgrace he wouldn’t show his face until tomorrow at the very earliest. Luke had hours to himself, and a surprisingly sensual woman to play with.
    It was a good thing he was such an amoral bastard, he thought, propping himself up on one elbow and surveying her. Other men might have qualms, scruples, all those strange, crippling moral dilemmas that had never bothered Luke Bardell. Other men would be shocked at the very notion of taking advantage of a drugged woman who’d just gone through the kind of ordeal Rachel had.
    Fortunately Luke wasn’t other men. Never had been. He reached out and began to untie the knot that held the loose tunic top closed over her breasts.
    His hand shook slightly, which surprised him. He must be hornier than he thought. It hadn’t been that long, but there was something about the night, and the woman, that made him feel dangerous.
    Her skin was a pale white-gold in the darkness, and she seemed almost peaceful. He knew it was an illusion. She was driven, determined, Stella had told him, on one of the rare occasions she’d talked about anything but herself.
    He knew what was driving her now. Her determination to destroy him. The very thoughtamused him as he pushed the jacket off her shoulders. Narrow shoulders, oddly defenseless-looking. People had tried to destroy him since before he was born, starting with his grandparents’ attempt to make his mother abort him, his so-called father, on through the gangs in prison, the cadres of lawyers, the angry young woman who lay motionless, sleeping, beneath his impassive gaze.
    And no one could. He had a gift for survival, for escape when things threatened to get too bad.
    But there was no need for escape right now. For the next few hours he could enjoy himself with his new toy. And if she remembered anything the next day, it would all seem like an erotic dream, one she’d be ashamed to admit she’d had.
    He let his fingers skim down her flat stomach to the drawstring of her pants. Smooth skin, silky.
    And he leaned down to taste it.

5
     
    R achel dreamed again, a shifting mélange of blood and violence. Of an angel, screaming in her face as she wrapped strong fingers around her throat, closing off her breath, her life, and somewhere in the distance was the faint sound of the flute.
    Her eyes refused to open, no matter how hard she struggled against the heavy veils of sleep. And the murderous creature straddling her, strangling her, the long hair falling in Rachel’s face, was now a fallen angel, a creature of light and darkness. Even as she recognized the threat, the hands no longer punished, they caressed her throat, her neck. And everywhere they touched, healing followed.
    The fallen angel was a man, Lucifer, kicked out of heaven for wanting too much power. He would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven. But was she in hell now, or floating somewhere in between?
    He touched her with his mouth, and she shivered in the darkness, resistant, aching. Her hands were by her sides, held down by someone far stronger as he leaned over her, blotting out what little light there was. She was hot, burning up, and he was cool, and sweet, a calm bastion of healing