Thirty Nights. JoAnn Ross

Mr. and Mrs. Adams had left right after Mildred had served dinner, Hunter had obviously left his precious laboratory long enough to lay it out for her.

      The idea of his prowling unseen through the sprawling house, entering her room, perhaps even going through her personal belongings, gave Gillian goose bumps.

      It also made her madder than hell.

      The gown was empire style, the top created from hand-tatted lace so gossamer it could have been spun by fairies from cobwebs. In spite of her pique and determination not to fall into the sensual trap he’d set, Gillian was unwillingly drawn to the delicate fabric.

      She lifted it off the bed and ran her fingertips over the lacy rosettes designed to cover her breasts. The center of the flowers had been left open, obviously designed to bare a woman’s nipples.

      “Yet more proof that subtlety isn’t the man’s strong suit,” she muttered. The material might be exquisite, but the style was Frederick’s of Hollywood. There was no way she was going to wear this, Gillian decided firmly. She glared up at the mirror over her head.

      “Not until we set a few ground rules, first.”

      HUNTER LAUGHED at her declaration. A rough, humorous bark that echoed in the cavernous confines of his laboratory. The room was dark, illuminated only by the faint icy sparkle of stars outside the wall of glass and the glow coming from the computer monitor and bank of television screens.

      “Brave talk, little one,” he murmured, lifting the balloon glass of cognac in a silent salute. “But words won’t help you. Not now.”

      He watched her scowl soften as her fingertips absently traced the lacy flowers. Women were so marvelously predictable, he thought with masculine satisfaction. He’d often wondered why men claimed to be mystified by the female mind.

      All you had to do was to experience enough of them to create a workable model, program in the data, and they’d behave exactly as expected, at least ninety-two percent of the time. The eight percent of their behavior that could admittedly prove unpredictable had never disturbed him. It was, Hunter had determined long ago, what kept them from becoming boring.

      “You’re tempted, Gillian,” he said to the screen. “Try the gown on. You know you want to.”

      He watched as she closed her eyes and smoothed her hand over the sensuous silk.

      “That’s it. Feel how smooth it is. Imagine it against your bare skin, sliding down your body like a cool waterfall.”

      As if in response to his crooned command, Gillian opened her eyes and slipped her hand between the layers of silk. Then, in a seemingly hypnotic gesture, she lifted the gown against her body and slowly turned toward the full-length mirror standing in the corner of the room.

      She was still clad in the somber charcoal-gray sweater and tweed slacks she’d worn on the flight to Maine. Yet it took no imagination for Hunter to imagine her nude. She was holding the gown with her right hand; her left began slowly trailing over the shimmering sea-foam silk.

      Hunter pressed the remote to zoom in on a closeup and watched as a breath slipped from between Gillian’s parted pink lips. It was little more than a whisper, but the microphone in the bedroom had no trouble picking it up. Hunger suddenly had claws.

      Needing to touch something—someone—Hunter thrust his hand beneath his sweater, splayed his right palm across his hot, burning chest and felt the increased beat of his heart beneath his fingertips.

      As he watched Gillian’s exploring hand move slowly downward, his body came fully to life, pressing painfully against the hard barrier of denim that was a poor substitute for a woman’s hand. Struck with an almost overwhelming urge to yank open his jeans and satisfy the woman hunger that was ripping away at him—as it had for too many nights lately—Hunter decided the time had come to personally welcome his alluring houseguest to Castle Mountain.

      THE NIGHTGOWN WAS COOL and seductively sensual to the touch. It was also nearly transparent. A woman wearing this gown would be revealing far more than merely her body, Gillian feared. She’d be putting her inner self on display, as well.

      Even as she fought against it, some compulsion she was unable to resist made her hold the gown against her body. She drew in a sharp breath at her reflection. Even though she was fully dressed beneath the silk, the transformation proved riveting.

      Her eyes seemed strangely wider and burned with the same edgy brilliance Gillian remembered seeing in her mother’s gaze whenever Irene Cassidy had been preparing to welcome Hunter to her husband’s house. There was an unfamiliar, almost painful tightening in her breasts. And between her legs.

      “It suits you.”

      Not having heard him approach, the deep voice made Gillian jump. She dropped the gown and pressed a palm against her pounding heart as she whirled around and viewed Hunter standing in the open doorway.