He stalked across the room and picked up the leather-bound book of sonnets. He'd already checked the pages once this evening for some kind of message—hadn't Hope said she'd seen what he'd written? But there was nothing. Although he hadn't completely ruled out writing her a message of warning, he'd rather give her such an alarming message in person.
He needed more than just to leave her a message. He needed to reach her.
Protect her.
When he approached the mirror again there was still no sign of her, but Ryan noticed that the band of fogginess at the edge of the glass was definitely narrower. He ran his hand along the filmy band. He'd wondered if it wasn't decreasing last night, but tonight it was evident that it was.
Did the clarifying mirror somehow relate to his connection to Hope?
"Hope, please" he entreated, feeling foolish.
Feeling helpless.
How the hell could he reach her?
As he stood there and talked to himself, wearing nothing but a pair of dark blue sweats, his skin roughening as he caught a chill in the drafty old house, Ryan started to wonder if he wasn't losing it.
Should he schedule an appointment with one of the police counselors? He and Ramiro had put in a lot of long hours on the Jim Donahue investigation. Maybe the stress was finally getting to him!
Maybe his visions of the delectable Hope Stillwater were all part and parcel of a stress-induced psychosis?
If that were the case, his libido must be playing a major part in his hallucinations. He recalled the way Hope had looked last night bared to the waist, her flawless skin dewed with moisture, her high, full breasts quivering slightly as she trembled. Or when he'd seen her in the mirror wearing that sinfully sheer gown, her large, pink nipples pressing against a fabric so translucent it did nothing to cover the triangle of dark hair between her shapely thighs.
Ryan groaned as his cock stiffened against his thigh. He shoved his hand down his sweatpants and fisted it, trying to alleviate the pain of lust that had sliced through him at the graphic memories of Hope. How was it that the daughter of a wealthy social reformist minister wore such a revealing garment?
And more important, why had Hope Stillwater been in those erotic photographs?
It had been a mistake to think of those photos, Ryan realized as he withdrew his cock and shoved the waistband of his sweats below his balls. He stroked the length of his penis as he stared into the mirror, but he wasn't really seeing himself masturbate. Instead he was imagining those erotic images of Hope: her thighs spread wide and her lips opened in a silent keen of pleasure as her pussy was being eaten; the crop frozen in the action of smacking against the voluptuous curve of a white, shapely breast crowned with a stiffened, distended nipple.
God, what he wouldn't give to tie down that gorgeous creature and make her scream with need and desire.
He groaned as his pistoning motions on his cock became more rapid. He briefly considered getting the photographs out of the bedside drawer where he'd placed them and bringing himself off several times just like he had the night he'd found them. But he found that his imagination was all too sufficient when it came to fantasizing about Hope.
So he remained in place, his right hand jacking his cock with more and more force. If only it were her small, elegant hand caressing the straining column of flesh. He squeezed just beneath the head and a stream of clear pre-cum oozed out of the slit. He imag-lined the liquid melting on Hope's pink tongue as she looked up at him with huge, velvety eyes that always seemed to convey a sense of her innocence and a profoundly carnal nature all at once.
The image was so real he groaned roughly. A light seemed to flash. He opened his eyelids, startled, only to find that it was no longer his own image staring back at him from the mirror.
Hope stood there, her cheeks flushed a bright, vivid pink. She once again wore the tiny, sheer gown.
And her hand was every bit as busy between her thighs as Ryan's was.
FIVE
Hope turned the last page in her book of sonnets and set it down dispiritedly on her bedside table. What had she really expected, after all? Ryan hadn't told her to try to communicate with him using the book. Instead he'd specifically mentioned the mirror.
Her gaze traveled to the opened wardrobe door. Despite the fact that she'd been quite busy today—taking up her post at Central Station and planning her father's birthday celebration with the housekeeper— she'd still managed to stare into the depths of the gilded mirror at least a hundred times today.
Never once, however, had she caught a glimpse of Ryan's handsome face.
The memory of how he'd looked standing in that tub, like a naked statue of some warrior god come to life, left her breathless yet again.
It surprised her a little that she believed wholeheartedly that he was a man from the future. Hope supposed the reason for the relative ease for her faith in the impossible was Ryan himself. There was something about him that she couldn't see with her eyes or put precisely into words, but she sensed it nonetheless.
Ryan Vincent Daire was different. He wasn't of her world.
There was something else she knew about him instinctively. She desired him. Hope supposed desire is what one called this overpowering need and hunger that overcame her in his presence, anyway.
And even in his absence.