WHEN ZAC WOKE up his body felt uncharacteristically heavy, and yet lighter than it had ever felt. He frowned, his eyes still closed. It was such an unusual sensation. He was aware that his penis also felt heavy, yet sated. His whole body ached in a way he’d never experienced before.
A vague thought occurred to him: was he sick?
And then a very distinctive feminine scent caught at his nostrils and he was suddenly wide awake. He opened his eyes. He wasn’t sick. Rose. Sweet Rose...opening up to him with such abandon. And just like that his body was no longer heavy—it was waking up. Stirring.
A kaleidoscope of images crashed through his brain—firm breasts topped by small sharp nipples, pale slim thighs parting for him. His tongue tasting her sweet essence, feeling her muscles tighten around him, rose-gold hair, green eyes... Sliding into tight, slick heat...so tight he’d thought he might die.
Virgin. His.
He lifted his head and looked around his room, aware of the morning sun streaming in the windows. He never normally slept much beyond dawn, so this was disconcerting.
The bed beside him was empty, but the sheets were crumpled and her scent lingered. He hadn’t dreamed it. But then, disconcertingly, slivers of a dream came back to him: her bottom tucked into the cradle of his body, her turning, lifting her face, angling herself so that he slipped between her legs...
He’d notched himself inside her, hearing her gasp... There were snippets and fragments of hushed whispers... ‘Are you too sore?’
She’d shaken her head, eyes glittering green. ‘No, keep going...’
And so Zac had, thrusting harder and deeper, one hand clamped around her breast, his other hand finding the juncture between her legs, close to where he surged in and out, touching her there and coming apart as she’d milked him so powerfully he’d stopped breathing...
Zac frowned. He hadn’t used protection in the dream, and he would never not use protection, so it couldn’t have been real. Even so, the back of his neck prickled... It felt as if it had been real.
And where was she now? He got up and pulled on some old sweats and went through his apartment after checking the bathroom. There was no sign of the woman who had spent the night in his bed. Or any indication that she’d used the bathroom.
The thought of her somewhere...with his scent on her body and the markings of their lovemaking on her pale skin...was enough to make his body go hard in an instant. Zac scowled. Where the hell was she?
But the apartment was empty. Silent. She was gone. Again. He felt deflated. A novel sensation for a man who usually left women in his wake. That prickling sensation was back. His apartment looked untouched... Hell, was he so desperate for a connection that felt real that he’d dreamt it all up? Had some crazy erotic fantasy?
But his gut told him that it had been real. His body was too heavy with sensual satisfaction for it to have been a mere erotic dream. Still...he doubted himself. He padded back through to the bedroom, not even sure what he was looking for until he saw it: the unmistakable mark of her blood on his sheets.
So it had been real. She was real.
He turned to face his windows. He didn’t like it that she kept running away. It made him feel off-balance, exposed somehow...as if she knew something he didn’t. As if he’d been caught out.
Zac looked out over the city, glinting in the early-morning sunlight. She was out there somewhere. He would find her... He would be successful this time. And then he would see that she was not some ethereal, mysterious creature who’d scrambled his brain to pieces—twice. And he would get her out of his system, like every other woman he slept with.
Because women like Rose Murphy didn’t really exist. They just didn’t.
* * *
In spite of Zac’s best efforts he didn’t find her. Not a week after she’d left, or a month, nor two months. It had now been four months since he’d had her in his bed and his body still burned for her. Only her. All other women left him cold.
It was exposing, infuriating and it reminded him uncomfortably of the repercussions of the passion that had burnt between his parents, which had ultimately led to their destruction and a life of secrets and lies for him, growing up in a gilded prison with two severe and unloving caretakers.
A knock sounded on his office door, and he turned from where he was looking out over the downtown Manhattan view with a brooding glower. ‘Yes?’
His executive assistant came in, looking grim. ‘We’ve got her, Zac. But I don’t think you’re going to like it.’
The feelings jostling for space in Zac’s chest were nearly overpowered by the surge of heat in his blood. And then he frowned. ‘What do you mean, I’m not going to like it?’
The younger man put one of New York’s most popular newspapers down on Zac’s desk, face up. A screaming headline proclaimed: Real-life Maid in Manhattan scores the Lyndon-Holt jackpot with pregnancy!
And underneath the headline was a picture of Rose... O’Malley, not Murphy...looking wild-eyed and hunted. Hair scraped back.
He assessed the situation in an instant as an icy weight slammed into his gut. One word exploded in his head: Fool. Fool. Fool.
He was right to have believed women like her didn’t exist—because clearly they didn’t. He skim-read the article, taking in the fact that she’d worked for his grandmother as a maid in his family home. Something dark lodged in his gut. He should have recognised his grandmother’s handiwork. She had not been without the help of a willing accomplice, though...
The darkness spread like a seeping poison into the blood in his veins. He didn’t look up from the paper. He was afraid to move in case he exploded into pieces. He just said, with a quiet, controlled tone that belied his growing rage, ‘Find her and bring her to me. Now.’