Free Ritual Sins by Anne Stuart Page A

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 easyanswers, 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’tsmoke, 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