The Shape of Night by Tess Gerritsen

Author:Tess Gerritsen
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

I jolt awake in the turret and blink against the sunshine that glares through the windows. My left hip is sore from lying on bare wood. My mouth feels like cotton and my head pounds from the hangover I fully deserve after the bottle of wine I drank last night. With a groan I cover my face with my arms, trying to block the light from my aching eyes. How did I end up sleeping here, on the floor? Why did I never make it back to bed?

Memories drift back. The climb up the staircase. The candles burning in the sconces.

And Captain Brodie.

With a start, I open my eyes again and wince as sunlight stabs my sockets. The fireplace is swept clean with no hint of ashes in the hearth. The alcove gapes empty, just bare walls and floor. No bed, no curtain, no manacles dangling from the ceiling. I am back in my time, in my world.

I look down at what I’m wearing. This is no dress of coppery silk, just the same thin nightgown that I wore to bed. I look at my wrists and see no scrapes or bruises from the manacles.

I stagger to my feet and grip the handrail as I slowly make my way down the turret staircase to my bedroom. There I pull off the nightgown and turn my back to the mirror. Last night, I’d writhed to the sting of his whip, had cried out as leather lashed my flesh, but in the glare of morning light, I see my back is unmarred by any bruises, any welts. I turn before the mirror, searching my naked body for any signs of the abuse I’d endured at his hands, but there are no telltale souvenirs of the punishment he meted out to me last night.

No, there is something.

I reach between my legs and feel the slick evidence of my arousal, so wet and copious that it might be his leavings that now trickle down the inside of my thigh. I stare at my glistening fingertips and wonder if this is the unholy mingling of our lust, the physical evidence that I have been violated by a man long dead. My cheeks flush in shame at the memory, but that shame also sets off a new tingle of desire.

My cellphone rings on the nightstand.

As I pick it up, my heart is still thudding, my hands unsteady. “Hello?”

“At last you pick up. I’ve left three voicemails for you.”

“Hello, Simon.” I sigh and sit down on the bed.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I didn’t want to get distracted. I’ve been in the zone.”

“What, the twilight zone?”

“Research. Writing.”

“Yes, I read the chapters you sent me.”

“What do you think?”

“They’re good.”

“Just good?”

“Okay, okay. They’re fucking great. What you wrote about oysters made me so hungry I went out and gorged on two dozen, washed down with a martini.”

“Then I did my job right.”

“When do I get to read the rest of it?”

I look at the pile of clothes, which are still lying on the floor where I dropped them last night.

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