A Dark and Dangerous Man

Hidden in the shadows of the night. Dark, dangerous, a lethal predator, his bright black eyes fixed on the woman who, unaware she was being stalked, moved around the bedroom covered only by a towel. She even smiled, unaware of the danger waiting for her on the other side of the window, in the darkness. Elizabeth felt a chill run down her spine and, lifting her head from her book, looked out the window, thinking she should have drawn the curtains before going to bed. But, like the woman in the novel, she had believed no one could see her through the second-floor window in that remote house on the craggy Cornish cliffs. The tide must have come in, covering the beach, he thought, hearing the sea crash against the rocks. And he had to hold back another shudder as he read the next paragraph from the book: Dark hair framed a face of hard, sensual magnetism. His intense black eyes focused on the woman's neck, where he could see the thump of her pulse, the blood coursing through her veins. She had high, defined cheekbones, a straight nose, chiseled lips that she now lifted to reveal pointed incisors as the woman dropped the towel, revealing the perfection of her nakedness… Boom! She was so focused on the description of the predator attacking the protagonist that the sound of glass breaking downstairs made Elizabeth scream, clutching at the book that already had her scared to death. What the hell had that been? There was something, or someone, downstairs. Someone, surely. Elizabeth didn't believe for a moment that the intruder was a vampire. The reason she liked novels like Shadows of Night was that the monsters in those stories were the stuff of fiction. But the intruder who had entered the house wasn't a monster or a demon, but rather a burglar. There had been several burglaries in the area recently, and no doubt every criminal within a 20-mile radius knew that Brad Sullivan, the American owner of the Sullivan House, had died of a heart attack a week earlier. What those burglars probably didn't know was that Dr. Elizabeth Brown had arrived there two weeks earlier, hired to catalog Mr. Sullivan's library for the summer. And since she didn't know what to do until one of Brad Sullivan's relatives contacted her, she remained at the house awaiting instructions. What should I do? What could I do? Mrs. Baines, the Sullivan household's housekeeper for the past twenty years, lived in an apartment above the old stables, where she had retired after serving him dinner, so she probably didn't know anyone had entered the house. But there was no phone in her room, and she had left it charging in the library... Elizabeth's heart began to race as she heard more noises downstairs. It sounded like a man's voice… with an impatient and aggressive tone.