A Treasure Worth Seeking Read Free Page A

entering her mouth.
    Never had she been kissed like this. It was disgusting.
    It was a heinous sin. Knowing their relationship, the way he explored her mouth was decadent and revolting.
    It was also thrilling.
    She struggled for control—not physical control. Her limbs had been rendered useless and, to her shame, she leaned into him for support. She was fighting a losing struggle of the will.
    She fought the sensations that danced up and down her spine. They were responsible for the trembling, melting warmth in the pit of her stomach that she strove to ignore.
    Her eyes, which had been opened wide with surprise and indignation, now closed of their own volition, disobeying her cerebral commands to remain open and scorn this odious man.
    The rattle of a key being inserted in the back door lock saved Erin from the absolute degradation of submission.
    She renewed her struggling until she managed to push away from him, when he raised his head and relaxed his arms. He faced the door, though he kept a firm grip on Erin's upper arm.
    The woman who came through the door was dainty,
    young, and blond. She was smiling in a childlike manner despite the sadness that clouded her brown eyes and at-tested to some deep worry.
    The two people standing in the middle of the room were frozen in a caricature of an embrace. The woman's expression was bleak and guilty, her features ravaged, her face pale.
    The man's mein was hard, cold, and fearsome. It was toward him that the blond woman turned quizzical eyes.
    "Hello, Mrs. Lyman."
    "Mr. Barrett," she answered shyly. "Wha—"
    "Mrs. Lyman, do you know this woman?" he interrupted her. "Have you ever seen her before?"
    The young woman addressed as Mrs. Lyman by a man who was supposed to be her husband looked at Erin and shook her head. "No, Mr, Barrett, I've never seen her before."
    Barrett! Barrett!
    Erin raised incredulous eyes to the man who still retained a steel-band grip on her arm. The blue eyes that met hers were frigid and implacable.
    "Who are you?" she demanded.

CHAPTER TWO
    "That's what I was about to ask you, lady," he snarled as he cruelly ushered her across the kitchen. He called to the stunned Melanie Lyman over his shoulder, "Mrs. Lyman, please call across the street and ask Mike to come over here and monitor the telephone. Tell him to run a check on the car outside. I'll be in the study, but I'd rather not be disturbed unless it's urgent. And please don't go out unless you take one of the boys with you."
    "No, I won't," Erin heard her say meekly. Apparently she was accustomed to taking orders from this brute, but Erin O'Shea was not. As soon as she could she was going to bring down such wrath on him that he wouldn't know what had hit him.
    He pushed her into a small paneled room and slammed the door behind them, latching it soundly. She whirled around to face him, ready to do battle. To her horror, he roughly pulled her jacket from her shoulders and down her arms. He tossed it across the room where it plopped onto a leather sofa. She was too astounded to protest when he yanked the bottom of her blouse out of the skirt's waistband. He shoved her against the nearest wall, turned her around to face it, and raised her hands wide over her head.
    She gasped in humiliation and repulsion when he clamped his hands under her arms and slid them down her sides. Inexorably, they moved around her rib cage, over her breasts, between them, and down to her waist. They insinuated themselves into the waistband of her skirt where they explored her abdomen and hips. When they had toured down the outside of her thighs, he swung her around to face him.
    She never remembered being as furious as she was at that moment. Her blood boiled in her veins, making the pulse in her head pound. Erin blinked to clear her vision, which was impaired by rage.
    "Aren't you going to strip search me?" she sneered.
    "Only if I think it's necessary. Which at the present, I don't. But don't press your luck."
    His smug answer