Gideon, Robin - Desire of the Phantom [Ecstasy in the Old West] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read Online Free

aloud was a habit of hers whenever she was deep in thought. Never before had it been something she was wor ried about, but never before had she slipped quietly into the mansion of her most hated and powerful enemy.
    She checked a larger desk in one corner of the room. Clearly this was where Jonathon worked when he wanted complete privacy. It contained plenty of papers and files, but nothing Pamela could use to destroy Jonathon Darwell. Fur thermore, there was nothing in or on it a hungry man could sell to feed his children.
    Frustrated and angry, Pamela looked around the room. When she had first planned to steal from Jonathon Darwell, she had believed getting inside his mansion, inside his sanctum sanctorum, would enable her to destroy him eas ily. In her mind’s eye, she had pictured money and gold piled up high in a closet, there for the taking. She realized now how naive she had been.
    “Damn you, Jonathon,” she murmured. At least it would infuriate him to have her, a commoner, call him by his first name. The thought brought a smile to her lips once more.
    She placed her hands on her hips and looked around the bedroom, imagining what it would be like to have Jonathon Darwell’s status. How did he think?
    The portrait of the “sainted” Mrs. Darwell seemed to be eyeing Pamela, keeping a careful watch on her, no matter where in the room she moved. Was it guarding the skele tons safely locked away in the Darwell closet?
    “So where’s the money?” Pamela asked the portrait. “Where does your husband keep…”
    Pausing, she approached the portrait slowly, as though the woman in the painting was alive and might call out to the guards. Kneeling on the bed to touch the ornately carved frame of the portrait, Pamela was shocked when she inadvertently tripped the hidden spring of a latch, causing the painting to swing out smoothly on well-oiled hinges, revealing a wall safe.
    As she was looking up at the safe, wondering how she could get past the thick steel door to the valuables nestled inside, a hand clamped tightly over her mouth! An instant later an arm, strong as steel, wrapped around her waist, squeezing her so tightly she could hardly breathe.
    She was hoisted off the bed, and though she kicked and flailed, her own grasping hands could not loosen the hand over her mouth or the one around her waist.
    As she was carried quickly across the room and through the curtained balcony doors, a thousand chaotic ideas raced through her brain. Once on the balcony, she was lowered enough so that her feet at last touched the marble floor.
    She felt the warmth of a man’s breath against her cheek and heard a flinty whisper, “Don’t make a sound. Don’t move.”
    A second later, Pamela heard conversation as the door to Jonathon Darwell’s bedroom opened. In walked Darwell, along with the man she recognized as Andy Fields, the busi nessman who had tried and failed to be elected territorial governor during the last election, and the well-known Judge Robert Dahlmann.
    The hand was still clamped tightly over Pamela’s mouth. She grabbed the stranger’s wrist with both of her hands, trying to free herself without moving too much. The strength of the man who had taken her from her mission was astonishing.
    “Stop fighting me, or we’ll both get caught,” the stranger whispered. “Just stop.”
    What could she do? She relaxed finally, and when she did, she began thinking more lucidly. This man couldn’t be one of Darwell’s bodyguards because, if he were, he wouldn’t be hiding on the balcony.
    Pamela released her hold on the stranger’s wrist and let her hands fall loosely to her sides. She was facing the bedroom, able to look inside through a slight parting of the balcony curtain. The stranger, directly behind her, kept his hand over her mouth, though not clamped as tightly as earlier. His left arm was around her middle, resting easily against her stomach just beneath her breasts, though still forcing the full length of