Page 7 of The Unseen

T HE HOUSE WAS DARK AND SILENT. I T WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT, NO HINT of a moon. The doors and windows were all securely locked. Rachel had checked before she’d gone upstairs to bed.

It took a while to fall asleep. The wind was blowing, scraping branches against the windowpanes, howling against the chimneys.

Even after she drifted off, she stirred restlessly on the mattress.

Faint noises intruded. Unfamiliar sounds began to nudge her awake.

It took her a moment to realize something wasn’t quite right.

The darkness was too thick, the silence too intense.

Her heart rate increased. Someone was there, someone lurking in the silent, shadowy darkness. Someone was in her bedroom, someone Rachel couldn’t see.

Her pulse raced. Her heart fluttered as if it were a bird trying to escape her chest. A rush of air drifted over her skin as whoever was there moved closer. Rachel stifled a cry of fear.

“Who … are you? What—what are you doing in my bedroom?”

No reply, just the sound of heavy breathing. It was impossible. She had locked the bedroom door securely. No one could have entered the room.

And yet he was there. She could feel his presence like a whisper of wind in the darkness. Her heart thrummed harder. An icy chill swept down her spine.

She felt the covers moving, being lifted, sliding off her body, then suddenly jerked away.

Shock stunned her. Shock and abject fear.

She tried to scream, but no sound came out.

She tried to move, but her limbs were completely frozen.

Inside, she trembled, but her body remained immobile.

She couldn’t blink. Her eyes remained open and staring at the canopy as unseen hands slid her white nylon nightgown up her body.

It lifted over her head and disappeared in the darkness to land with a soft whoosh on the floor.

Fresh fear pooled in her belly. She lay on the mattress naked and exposed, unable to move or speak. Who are you? The question formed in her mind, but she couldn’t make her lips say the words: What do you want?

I want you …, the voice in her mind said softly, seductively.

She couldn’t have heard a reply; the silence was as dense as before, the only sound the ticking of the brass pendulum on the Ormolu clock on the mantel.

A hand slid up her leg, gliding from her ankle to her knee, going higher.

She tried to move, tried to escape. She tried to cry out, but her lips remained locked in a soundless plea, a cry for something she didn’t understand.

Leave me alone! she shouted in her mind. Get out of my room!

You’re mine! a man’s voice commanded inside her head, deep and compelling, irresistible. She felt his touch as his hands gripped her ankles and spread her legs. She felt like crying, but there were no tears.

Her mind filled with the sound of his deep voice. I hate you for what you did to me!

She tried to shake her head. No! You’re wrong.

It wasn’t me! Then she felt his hands on her breasts, rough, calloused, kneading them, rubbing her nipples, pinching them.

Silently, she cried out in her mind, and his rough touch softened, caressing now, kneading her gently.

She felt the wet brush of his mouth as he began to suckle the fullness.

Impossibly, her nipples tightened. Impossibly, she felt a stirring between her legs.

He touched her there, began to stroke her.

I’ll make you want me.

She didn’t understand what was happening.

Couldn’t remember ever feeling this way before.

He probed deeper, continued to touch her with exquisite care until her heart was no longer beating in fear, but pounding with desire.

She could barely recall what it felt like to want a man’s touch, it had happened so long ago.

Still, every time his long fingers stroked over her body, the feeling stirred through her, grew a little stronger.

He moved and she felt the weight of him on top of her, pressing her down in the mattress. She could feel his thick length against the inside of her thigh. Part of her wanted to struggle, to fight him, but another, secret, long-dead part desperately wanted him to continue.

She felt his heavy length sliding deep inside her, felt a rush of pleasure that came out of the darkness without warning. Heat burned through her. Pleasure so profound, she silently moaned.

He kept moving, thrusting in and out, until the heat and the pleasure mingled, became so intense she couldn’t stop the rush of ecstasy that struck like lightning straight to her core, a rush of pleasure unlike anything she had ever known.

He moved deeper, took her harder, and a second wave struck; the pleasure so intense she could taste it in her mouth.

She knew when he reached his peak a few seconds later, could feel the jerk of his body, hear the cry of his pleasure in her mind. At the end, she felt the brush of his lips over hers, a soft kiss that seemed to hold a well of longing.

Then it was over, and he was gone. Rachel’s control returned and her body sagged against the mattress. Her eyes welled with tears as she glanced around the room, trying to see into the darkness, though she knew the room was as empty as before.

The tears in her eyes rolled down her cheeks and she started weeping, deep, wracking sobs that shook her whole body.

Dear God, what had just happened?

It was impossible. And yet her body felt bruised and battered, her breasts achy and her nipples tingling. She was damp between her legs.

She had only been with one man, and as much as she had loved him, he had never given her the kind of pleasure she had known tonight.

Guilt wiped away the last of her fear. Whatever had happened, she had responded as she never had before.

She felt as if her body had betrayed her.

Climbing out of bed, she retrieved her long white nightgown, pulled it over her head, and got back into bed.

Every part of her felt strange, as if she were a different woman.

She was both exhausted and energized as faint ripples of pleasure continued to pulse through her.

As the minutes ticked past and she relaxed deeper into the mattress, her mind ran over what had happened.

She thought of how she hadn’t been able to fall asleep at first; then she had dropped into a deep, exhausted slumber.

It was a dream, she suddenly realized. Some dark fantasy buried deep inside her mind.

Just a dream, nothing more, nothing she had the power to control.

Relief, followed by a wave of exhaustion, finally claimed her, and she fell deeply asleep.

When she awakened in the morning, she lay quietly beneath the covers and stared up at the satin canopy.

In the back of her mind, she remembered the dream.

Both terrifying and exhilarating, like nothing she had ever felt before.

Only a dream, she repeated. Just a dream that felt too real.

Rachel wondered if tonight she would dream again.