Erotica Fantastica Read Free Page B

delighted when she felt him harden again.
    "Nina Ashford, you will be mine," he stated
gruffly.
    He claimed her mouth, not waiting for her to
reply, but Nina didn't care, because this time she didn't want to
disagree with Dominic Bartleby. He'd built her machine to win her
back, but her heart was already his.
     

THE TENDER TRAP
     
    Tara couldn't recall how old she was when
the sleepwalking began. What she did remember was that her hands
didn't reach very high when she awoke and found herself holding the
iron railings of the graveyard fence. As time passed and the
sleepwalking continued, her growth was marked more by that measure
than any more normal record.
    When it happened, the sudden awakening was
akin to being slapped. Tara would inhale sharply, and the icy night
air stung her face and lungs. The scent of the undergrowth quickly
swamped and intoxicated her, creating a sensory memory that would
call to her over and again.
    Often she sensed a presence, as if she was
being watched, and she glanced about. Behind her, where the path
through the woods led home she saw nothing. She clutched tighter
still to the railings and peered into the graveyard. Life pulsated
somewhere deep and hidden in that place, and in the stillness of
the night she felt it call to her. But young Tara was afraid, and
she turned away and ran.
    During her childhood years, that was as
far as the nocturnal walk took her. She would leave her family's
cottage in a sleep trance, drawn by a powerful allure that carried
her body in its spell. That force drew her down the sloping garden
path and out into the lane. The graveyard was half a mile from the
cottage, yet her journeys went undiscovered by any neighbor, or
passer-by. When she awoke, she would once again find her thin arms
entwined in the cold metal trellis of the railings. Confused and
afraid, she would tear her hands down from the strange restraint
and flee, back to what was familiar.
    Only once did Tara's mother catch sight of
her from the upstairs window in the cottage. Tara was on her way
home. She looked up and saw her mother at the window, peering out
into the night, into the forest, with a wistful look about her.
When Tara approached the cottage her mother jolted, then turned
from the window and emerged from the cottage a few moments later.
Running to her, she arrested Tara in her wandering, held her
tightly in her arms, soothing her, then returned her to her
bed.
    Tara's father appeared and stood in the
doorway of the room where Tara slept on a narrow wooden cot. By the
candlelight Tara could see that there was a dark and brooding
expression in his eyes. "Where did she go?" he demanded.
    "I do not know," her mother replied,
fretfully. But she did not look over her shoulder to meet her
husband's querying glance.
    Even in her state of fear and surprise, Tara
could feel the tension between them.
    "If she goes there ," her father muttered, "she will be
lost to us."
    "Don't say that."
    "If it had not been for me, you might have
been lost."
    Tara's mother closed her eyes and pressed
her lips together. She shook her head. "It is a childish fancy,
that's all." Smiling down at Tara, her eyes glistened. "You went on
a fae night wander, that's all." she whispered.
    "Let us pray that she does not have fae
blood."
    Tara's mother frowned. "God willing, she
will outgrow it."
    She stroked Tara's forehead, soothing her,
and Tara drifted to sleep.
     
    * * *
     
    At all other times her family slept through
Tara's nocturnal journeys and remained unaware of them. Hence her
body would regularly drift out on the night's aura to follow that
unheard call, unhindered. No physical or mental effort was demanded
of her, the spell that had rooted itself inside her would
effortlessly take control. It lifted her unconscious body, and bore
her forth into its domain. Sometimes, in the morning, she would
only be aware that she had again been called by the weariness in
her bones and the dried mud on the soles of her feet,