Dark Obsession by Amanda Stevens Page A

like that, and the next day he’d started to wonder why. Had she been thinking about him when they were making love, or had she been thinking of D’Angelo? Had she been dreaming about that dark stranger? Wanting him as Slade had held her in his arms?
    And then, a few days after they’d met D’Angelo, Slade’s worst fears came true. Simone told him she was in love with someone else.
    For days after she’d left him, the pain and jealousy festered inside Slade until he could stand it no longer. He knew he had to see Simone again, appeal to her one last time before he could turn loose the past.
    He got the address from the police department files, then drove to D’Angelo’s house on Riverside Drive. The mansion was dark and the air around it damp and rife with decay. The door was open, as if D’Angelo had somehow known he was coming. Letting his eyes adjust to the gloom, Slade walked cautiously down first one corridor, then the next.
    In a candlelit room that overlooked the river, he found the lovers together. Simone wore a filmy red dress that hid nothing of her lush figure, and her long dark hair cascaded down her back in thick, wanton curls. If anything, she looked even more beautiful than Slade remembered as she lay with her head tiltedback, her slim white neck exposed to D’Angelo’s kisses.
    “Simone!”
    She gasped and whirled, her hand automatically going to her mouth. Something red was smeared across her lips and two trickles of blood coursed down her neck. Slowly she stood and faced Slade. The gossamer gown she wore billowed around her legs and plunged low at her breasts. She looked beautiful, seductive, feral.
    And evil.
    There was a strange glow in her eyes, an eerie half smile on her red-stained lips. As Slade watched, she lifted a fingertip to her neck, wiped away the blood, then raised the finger to her lips. Slade’s stomach rolled sickeningly.
    Simone smiled. “Nicholas. How sweet of you to visit us,” she purred, and D’Angelo, reclining on the bed, laughed, a deep, dark, mirthless sound that chilled Slade to the bone.
    “Yes, come in, by all means. Simone, aren’t you going to welcome your old friend with a kiss?”
    Simone was still smiling at Slade in a way that made him shudder. Slowly she walked across the room toward him, the sheer fabric of her gown rippling in the breeze from the open terrace doorway. She lifted a hand and touched his face. Slade had to fight the urge to flinch from her. Her touch was cold, lifeless. No longer human.
    “Simone,” he whispered, forcing his hand to close around hers, “what has he done to you?”
    “Kiss me,” she pleaded. Slade fought to keep the contents of his stomach from rebelling. Something was not right here. Almost against his will, he took a step back, away from her.
    Simone pursed her red lips, pouting. “Oh, Nick, don’t. Don’t run away from me. Remember the way it used to be? The way you used to kiss me? It was so good. Do it again. Do it now. Kiss me, Nick. Just one last kiss…”
    Dear God, how he wanted to! Even as repulsed as he was by her, a part of him still yearned to take her in his arms, to pretend the last few days had only been a nightmare. Simone belonged to him. She was his first love, his only love. They could still be together, still have the life they had planned for so long. Without her, his life was meaningless, a wasteland.
    “We can still be together,” she whispered as if reading his mind.
    “Simone.” He murmured her name, brushed her cold, flawless cheek with his knuckles. “I still love you. I still want you.”
    “Then kiss me, my love.”
    How could he resist? He loved her so much. Wanted her so much. Slade bent toward her. Her eyes drifted closed as she waited for him, waited for his kiss. A tear coursed down her cheek, and Slade realizedthat it had fallen from his own eyes. “Simone,” he whispered. “Dear God…”
    Over Simone’s shoulder, Slade saw D’Angelo move in the shadows. His eyes