His eyebrows rise, his lips curve. ‘That rare?’
‘That rare.’
‘I better make my bid good then.’
‘Good idea, Mr. Barrington. Kill the competition in one fell swoop.’
‘As her agent, what do you suggest I offer?’
‘I believe she is hankering after a pink car.’
His eyes gleam. ‘Are you sure, Miss Bloom, that I am not better off approaching the market dealer directly.’
‘Of course you can… But it will not have the Lana Bloom scent,’ she says daringly.
His eyes widen and fill with delicious longing. ‘You never said a truer word, Miss Bloom.’
His long fingers very deliberately pop the button and pull down the zip. The sound is exciting in the silence.
She can hear her own breathing. He slides the shorts off.
‘Ah, these legs… So long… So silky… I swear I never met a girl with skin such as yours.’ The shorts slip over her ankles and end up clutched in his big hands. He crushes them, brings them to his nose and inhales deeply.
‘The Lana Bloom scent. I’ll miss it,’ he whispers, almost to himself.
And suddenly she tenses. Al this will end soon. This apartment, this bed, these clothes, this delicious banter, this man…will disappear into nothing. She will be left only with memories. She clutches his forearms and pulls his mouth down to hers and kisses him desperately, opening her mouth, begging him to be inside her. He has already left his mark on her. She must leave her mark on him. She lies naked but for her necklace, and realizes she doesn’t know how to.
When the desert wind blew it covered everything in sand.
Twenty six
emember when you said you wanted to be part of ‘Rmy world? Do you still want to?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is very ugly.’
‘I don’t care. I want to know.’
For a moment, he hesitates, there is doubt there, and then an indescribable expression flashes in his eyes. ‘All right. Let’s go.’ He leads her to a BMW parked in the street. She looks at him questioningly.
‘Hired,’ he says briefly.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere in the New Forest.’
They drive in silence, the atmosphere in the car taut and foreign, and stop outside what seems to be a lodge of some kind. Lana looks at her watch. 10.00pm. The building is small and unremarkable. There are other cars parked in the car park, but something feels different.
‘They are all hired, aren’t they?’
‘Yes,’ he says shortly. ‘Come.’
While she looks around her, he gets out of the car, opens the boot and takes out two boxes. They go into the low building and enter a large empty room with many doors. All the doors are open except one. Lana shivers.
Something about the place doesn’t feel right. They enter one of the rooms and Blake closes the door behind them.
There is nothing in that room except a table and a mirror.
Blake puts the two boxes on the table.
‘You wanted to come into my world. Here’s your chance. Are you sure?’
He looks different. His eyes are cold. He is hoping she will say no. But she wants to enter his world. So badly, she throws caution to the winds. She licks her lips, swallows, and then nods.#p#分页标题#e#
He holds out the box tied with a red ribbon.
She takes the box from him. It is not heavy. ‘What’s in it?’‘Open it and see.’
He watches her untie the ribbon and lift the lid. She pushes aside the tissue and finds a mask. White and pretty.
She raises her eyes to him. ‘Do I put it on?’
‘Not yet.’
She puts the mask aside and takes out the bulky red garment inside. It is a cloak with a hood. She looks at him.
Her expression begs, ‘What? What is this all about?’
He ignores her unspoken query. ‘Wear it.’
She slips into it and he steps forward and does the button at her throat. The coat is thick and voluminous. It covers her entirely. Then he pulls the hood up and puts the mask on her face. He stands her in front of the mirror.
‘Remember,’ he warns. ‘Do not take this mask off after we leave this room. No matter what happens the mask and the robes do not come off. Do you understand?’
She nods in the mirror.
He opens his box and dresses himself in the black robes that are inside. His mask is gold with a beaked nose.
Unlike hers his seems sinister and forbidding.
‘Ready?’
‘Yes.’
He puts his hand in the small of her back and guides her out of the room. They cross the large empty space and go through another door. It turns out to be the back door of the lodge. A man sitting on a horse-drawn coach is waiting. He does not turn to look at them but stares straight ahead. The bizarre and forbidding alchemy of the moment causes Lana to blankly note the white socks on the horse. They climb in and the coachman immediately sets the horse to a trot. They follow a path that snakes through woods until they suddenly come upon a grand mansion perched on high ground.