2

      SUNNY GAVE HIM CREDIT, Lord Sin knew how to set a scene. There was a subtle scent of jasmine in the air, and the heated kind of stillness that would drive a passionate woman from her bed to walk on the balcony in the moonlight. The music softened to the lonely wail of a single flute. In the distance a drumbeat echoed across the night.

      The low whisper of his voice began once more. “Just use your imagination, darling. Close out everything. We’re alone together. Feel how I touch you.” She could have sworn she felt a faint feathery sensation skitter across her breasts, as though she’d been caressed.

      She gasped. How in the world could the man’s voice create such feelings? It had to be some kind of hypnotism. But how could that be? Though Lord Sin’s face was turned toward her, she could see neither his eyes nor his mouth. The deep fire of his voice was an illusion. Still, its very timbre fed the unmistakable arc between them. In spite of her best efforts, her breath quickened and she felt an answering throb inside her. “No,” she said. “You’re not getting to me.”

      “I want you,” he whispered, as if he’d heard the words she hadn’t known she’d spoken aloud. “You don’t have to speak. I see the blaze in your eyes. Let yourself go. Think of how we would be—our bodies joined, our lips together.”

      Sin waited for a moment. Then his expression registered surprise, as if some unseen spirit had touched him. He caught his robe, ruffled it and pulled it over his face so that he disappeared into the darkness. A collective moan rose from the audience. But not one woman moved. Other than the plaintive cry of the music, there was not a breath of sound in the theater.

      As mysteriously as he’d vanished, Lord Sin reappeared in midair, atop an onion dome at the corner of the balcony. A violin joined the flute and drum and Sin rippled his robe once more, giving the audience a tantalizing glimpse of his body beneath as he leaped to the floor. Then the robe was gone and the man stood, silhouetted by the illusion of moonlight, his body nude, yet not, shimmering in the light. She could see the muscles in his thighs and chest quiver as he breathed. Like some jungle creature poised to ravage its prey, he was truly magnificent.

      Sensually, slowly, his fingers began to move. He reached out, his palm touching the face of an unseen lover, lingering there, then moving down the column of a neck and lower, cupping the breasts of a woman who existed only in the mind of the watcher. He bent his head and there was no doubt that he was kissing her. With his other hand he reached down and seemed to pull her lower body to his. You could almost see her clasp his neck and arch her body upward. Like graceful, ghostly figures dancing through the silver smoke and golden clouds, he moved across the balcony with this imaginary woman. Like a man enchanted, he pulled her against him so that his lips could touch what no one but he could see.

      Sunny didn’t have to be told that every woman watching could feel his mouth on her own. His breathing, fast and shallow, grew louder. Then, just when he seemed to have reached the point of an explosion, Sin flung out one hand, sprinkling the audience with particles of fiery embers that flared, burned out, leaving only the shadow of their path in the darkness. The stage went black.

      Sin’s disembodied voice remained. “Oh, yes, my lady of fire. You want me, too. You feel my lips touching yours. Tonight, you’ll have erotic dreams of me and maybe I’ll come to you in secret. Not on a stage in a fantasy but to your bed, at the darkest hour of the night.”

      A moment later he was back at center stage, on one knee, his arms extended. Imploring. His imaginary lover was gone, leaving him bereft in the artificial moonlight. He lowered his head and, almost in anguish, flung one arm across his chest. He looked as if he was nude but he was not. Instead, he wore a flesh-toned fabric that fit him like a second skin, revealing every ripple of movement.

      The drumbeat grew louder. The man was on fire and so was his audience.

      Sunny shifted her weight, trying to erase the responding quiver of heat building inside of her. Lord Sin stood and reached out for her. A moan and a leap took him to the top of the wall and back to a spot directly in front of Sunny. The skintight costume was so transparent that she could see the hair on his chest, the clenching of muscles in his thighs, the fullness that hinted of arousal. He was caught up in desire. If he was faking, Lord Sin was a master at his craft. He moaned, his breath turning into a gasping pant in the sudden dead silence. In search of his imaginary lover, the dancer swept about the stage, each move more desperate. The tempo of the music began to build once more. A woman across the room let out a husky gasp. Sunny shook her head in a useless attempt to regain control of her own mind and body.

      Sin was moving toward her. Reaching the spot where she sat, the dancer stopped. “Don’t lie to yourself, darling. Your body is reaching out to mine even if your mind denies it. You and I were meant to be one. Together we’ll make a fire like you’ve never known. And when we love, the world will burn.”

      The music rose to a crescendo and the stage went dark for the final time.

      For a long minute, not one person in the audience moved. Sunny sat transformed, stunned. What had happened here? How had the man taken such overwhelming control of his audience? She felt her unused notepad slide from her lap but she hadn’t the strength to retrieve it. Her nerve endings were still tingling, protesting the abatement of the fire that had flamed them.

      “What? How?” she finally whispered. “How did he do that?”

      “I don’t know,” Walt’s booming voice said as he crouched in the darkness beside her table. “But I wish he’d bottle the stuff. I’d take it home and spoon some into my wife’s cereal.”

      Sunny looked at Walt. She shook her head, trying desperately to gather her senses. “Did we get him on tape?”

      “No, I didn’t videotape anything.”

      “Did they stop you?” Sunny’s voice might be in outer space, but the rest of her was still in a fiery pit. The theater lights came on, softly, maintaining the mood.

      “You bet. The minute I hoisted my camera onto my shoulder there was a man beside me, shaking his head. He didn’t say anything but I got the message. From then on, I was just a member of the audience. Never saw anything like it. I feel like I’ve been barbecued. From the inside out. Me—a guy. Don’t you ever tell my wife.”

      “He’s using some kind of mass hypnosis,” she said, her voice tight and low. She leaned over to retrieve her pad.

      Then she heard him. “Did you like my dancing, darling?”

      “What the hell?” she swore.

      “Not hell, darling, heaven,” Lord Sin whispered.

      “A microphone,” Sunny said. “You put a microphone in the candle holder.” She stared at the device on the table. “When my boss, Ted Fields, sent me over here, he said you spoke directly to the women in your audience. I didn’t believe him.”

      “Not to all of them. Tonight, I spoke only to you.”

      Walt groaned. “The boss was right. The man’s a hypnotist. He’s got you talking to a candle. And heaven help us all, the candle’s talking back.”

      “Shush!” Sunny said, her finger against her lips.

      “Not women,” Sin corrected. “Couldn’t you tell? Tonight my performance was just for you.”

      Sunny shook her head vigorously. Maybe she was kidding herself but she had the intoxicating impression that he was still as aroused as she. Was that the secret of his success, making every woman feel as if she were totally desirable? Pulling on every ounce of her professional control, she marshaled her thoughts and switched into reporter mode. “Thank you for the special attention, Lord Sin. But if you believe you were arousing me,” she added more bravely than she felt, “you’re out of your mind.”