the skyline of a Far Eastern city in the background. The stage had been transformed into the balcony of a palace in old Baghdad. Someone in the audience must have rubbed Aladdin’s brass lamp. Stars twinkled in the distance while clouds moved across the night sky. Sunny opened her purse and flicked on the recorder and placed it on the table beside the fake candle. The melody would be good background sound for the interview. The music increased in intensity, as did the tension in the audience. Then came a crescendo of sound and a swirl of smoke and there he was.
Wearing the flowing purple and golden robes of an Arabian prince, Lord Sin sat astride a white stallion who held its head as proudly as the masked performer he was carrying. The horse stood motionless, until his master dismounted, administered an affectionate pat and let him go. A shake of his mane and the horse raced offstage and vanished into the wings. Then the smoke rose once more and Sin was alone on the balcony. Clouds seemed to surround him as he moved stealthily forward, his body swaying to the tinny sound of the flute and the heartbeat of the drums. An intense inner passion seemed to drive the dancer’s fluid movement.
From the cobbled floor, Lord Sin nimbly leaped onto a wall, his golden robe billowing out, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of flesh beneath. Somehow, the music and the man gave the illusion of distance. Then, swaying and dancing nimbly along the top of the wall, he moved closer to the front of the stage.
Sunny felt herself leaning forward, shook her head and sat up straight. She didn’t know what the other women were doing, but she knew that this man was a master of seduction. Finally, he reached the front of the stage that extended in the audience. The music died down and she realized that he was speaking. At first the voice was just lyrical, deep and throaty, not so much words as sounds. Finally, he looked down into the audience and, for just a moment, straight at her.
He wore a mask that covered his face and head. Only his eyes and mouth were exposed. From beneath that mask a mass of golden curls fell across his shoulders.
“Hello, my lady in green. Welcome to Sin’s house. You know about sin, don’t you?” He paused and waited, as if he expected her to answer.
She swallowed hard and let out a deep breath.
“No? Then I’ll consider it my pleasure to make you want to.”
Someone behind Sunny whispered, “Oh, Lordy, he’s looking at me. I’m going to faint right here in front of God and everybody.”
The woman was wrong. Lord Sin was looking at Sunny Clary and he was talking to her. She felt every word reach inside her and snatch her breath away. There was no air. The crowd all seemed to inhale at the same time. She stared up at him, trembling, shaking with a need that came out of nowhere. The fantasy setting. The hypnotic effect of the music. Lord Sin was a David Copperfield illusion, a dream lover. The voice, a melodic whisper, indistinguishable, yet compelling, saying the kinds of things women secretly wanted to hear. All combined to weave his magic and create desire.
Sunny Clary was caught up in the spell of a master craftsman, the mysterious, passionate Lord Sin. At that moment, her rational mind knew that the story, whatever it turned out to be, was more than she’d bargained for. The sensual woman within her knew she’d never give up until she’d experienced the truth—whatever it was.
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,
