Midnight Fantasy. Ann Major

had quickly charmed her or him.

      Claire had worn lace dresses when Melody and the other girls wore jeans. Claire had read books, while Melody and her friends had made mud pies and climbed trees. Finally, Claire had invented an imaginary friend, Hal, who was just as lonely and shy as she was. Everybody had thought it was so cute the way she included him in every conversation, set a special place for him, even bought presents for him. Somehow over the years, Hal had grown up and gotten way too sexy for her to handle. She was a virgin…but only technically. In her imagination, Hal and she got up to wanton mischief in all sorts of dark and inappropriate locations, on kitchen tables and the hood of her car. Hal was tall with black hair…like North.

      And yet not like North at all.

      North didn’t have all that much time for her. He kept much of himself hidden from her. He was steady and predictable when it came to his work, too tied to the responsibilities of his ranching empire and his duties to his legendary family.

      Hal was wild and dangerous and free, insidiously attentive, and as faceless as an outlaw’s shadow.

      North could give her the kind of safe, secure life her upper-middle-class mother could brag about.

      Mostly her imaginary lover was a pirate on a ship who carried her off to sea. Sometimes he was a bandit or a highwayman who carried her to his hideout and robbed her of more than her gold.

      Strip, my lady. Slowly. And every time she took something off, he would toss a gold coin at her feet.

      Mostly she dreamed about him at night, but lately she’d been having the most lurid daydreams. The over-sexed phantom was becoming terribly distracting. One reason she was so anxious to get married was to send Loverboy packing. Once North made love to her, she would have a husband to dream about. What sane woman would chase a dream, when she had a man like North in her bed? Everybody, simply everybody told her North was the sexiest, hottest, richest cowboy prince in all of Texas.

      North could have chosen any woman. He had chosen her.

      “That’s not the way it was, Sugar-Baby,” purred Loverboy.

      She hated to be called that. “Shut up, Hal!”

      “I was there! And Melody was first!”

      “Go away and leave me alone!”

      “Never. I am not abandoning you till I find a more suitable companion for you.”

      “Stay out of my love life!”

      Suddenly a strange thing happened. The black sky turned pink, and she saw a lone black figure on a motorcycle off to her left silhouetted in a white cone of light. Pinkish-blue light pulsated around him. He was wearing a helmet, but the heat of his gaze was a visceral, physical connection. Even in that blurred, peripheral glimpse, she sensed that such a man in the flesh might prove wilder and more chaotically thrilling than any secret interior existence with Loverboy.

      She knew better than to look at the biker, but some dark and dangerous force compelled her.

      Curiosity kills more than cats.

      The forbidden—especially in the tame, pampered life of a woman like Claire, who lived her life by rules the way some people paint by numbers—was the most powerful temptation. Besides, Melody’s dance and North’s dark mood had opened a crack in her heart and self-esteem.

      She was on the brink of marriage to the most desirable of men. Never had she felt less sexually attractive, nor more afraid or vulnerable. What was the biker doing alone in a dark cemetery?

      Jauntily, she turned toward him. For the space of a heartbeat her long-lashed eyes fixed on the black helmet that hid his face with an avidity that should have shamed her. Then with a will all its own, her glossily tipped fingernail tooted her horn.

      He nodded. Her lips parted coquettishly. But when the biker skidded out onto the road after her, her heart jumped into her throat.

      The thunder of his big bike racing to catch up to her was a fuse that lit a primal heat in every nerve in her body.

      The biker left asphalt, caught up with her pursuers, spewing gravel on them before braking and then falling in behind them.

      She knew he was bad.

      Bad to the bone.

      Why did she suddenly feel she was on a collision course with destiny? She turned her three-carat engagement ring backwards.

      North was in Corpus, but the chase was on.

      Three

      “You’re driving too fast!” Claire’s voice sounded panicky as she raced past the entrance to her parents’ condo. Not that she had any intention of leading the pack straight to her door.

      She didn’t know what to do, how to get away from the hoods or the biker. Why weren’t there any other cars on the road? Fulton was deserted, the restaurants shut down, the warehouses locked up.

      Suddenly a black cat dashed out from under a pile of construction rubbish right in front of her.

      “Oh, my God!”

      She honked, slammed on the brakes, swerving off the pavement, careening toward two shadowy buildings surrounded by scaffolding.

      “Stupid!”

      Then she bounced over a pile of discarded roof shingles. Her front left tire blew on a nail and she bumped to a stop.

      The jerks rolled right up behind her and nudged her back bumper.

      “Oh, no!”

      They gunned their engine, then killed it.

      She was caught in the dark tunnel between two buildings with a fence at one end and them behind her. Scaffolding cast eerie bars of light and shadow.

      “Oh, dear.” Claire’s shaking hands fumbled in her overstuffed purse. A package of tissues, her change purse, and her keys fell out.

      Behind her, car doors banged open. Glowing cigarette butts were pitched onto the shell drive and ground into pulp beneath bootheels. Like a pair of raptors, they eyed her edgily, their hostile faces framed for a second or two in her rearview mirror.

      One glance had her heart beating like a jungle drum, her fingers shaking so hard their tips went numb.

      Where was it?

      Headlights rushed by.

      “Help me! Somebody help me!”

      The sedan’s red taillights vanished into the dark.

      Her trembling fingertips closed over her cell phone. Peering over her door, she got a glimpse of a dirty T-shirt and black tank top, slashed jeans before she began backing down the alley.

      “Well, looky, looky, Rusty.” The dark, skinny guy with the mean, narrow face lit a cigarette, took a drag.

      Rusty, a greasy blonde built like a tank, snatched the cigarette, inhaling deeply.

      Gripping her phone, she got out of her car, stumbling down the dark alley between the two whitewashed buildings. Rusty followed, laughing, his heavy heels crunching shell, his long shadow curling around her like a black snake.

      No! No!

      Before she could punch in in the numbers 9-1-1, they had her cornered against a springy, cyclone fence topped with razorwire. She clawed. Chain-link chimed.

      The greasy blonde’s thick fist snatched the phone and threw it on the ground. His face loomed. His blue irises blazed scarily brighter. “We wuz looking for somebody.”

      Throaty male laughter.

      “Looks like you’re our consolation prize.”

      She broke into an icy sweat. She made little low sounds deep in her throat.

      The large freckled hand reached for her diamond necklace. Paralyzed, she endured his touch. He stroked her lip, brushed her cheek,