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of his anguish locked behind his lips.
    Calling on every scrap of discipline he possessed, he ordered himself to calm down. A priest should always keep his cool. Like Old Joe.
    Once Raoul found his imperturbable center, he knew what was happening. Ibena was testing him—making him work for the sweet pleasure of joining his body and soul with the woman who should be his by rights. And he would show the deity he was worthy of that honor.
    With fingers that weren’t quite steady, he stroked the tattoo on his chest, tracing the familiar lines of Ibena’s face, willing himself back into the world he had created, struggling to make himself the master of the fantasy scene again and send the other man plunging into hellfire.

CHAPTER
FOUR
    ANNA HAD PUT herself into a light trance the way she always did before her performance.
    She let the familiar detached feeling flow over her, welcomed the little buzz in her head.
    And then from one instant to the next, everything changed. The shabby dressing room disappeared, and she was standing on a high, windswept plain, gasping in shock.
    She reached out to touch something familiar, to touch anything . But the world had gone away, and she was in another reality.
    She struggled to draw back as she fought to return to the safety of her dressing room. But it had vanished, and she knew that the only way she could go was forward. So she took a cautious step, then another, feeling the strange springy surface beneath her feet. Her bare feet, she realized suddenly.
    In the world, she had been dressed in black. Here in this new reality, she was wearing only a gauzy green dress. Green like a field in springtime.
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    ZACH stared at the woman walking toward him. A light wind blew, lifting her hair and swirling the insubstantial skirt around her shapely legs.
    He could see the curves of her body through the thin fabric. Her high breasts, her sweetly rounded hips. The shadows of her nipples and a triangle of dark hair at the juncture of her legs.
    This is it. The real thing. What you’ve been waiting for all your life.
    Even as the thought flitted through his mind, he wondered what it meant.
    The woman had stopped walking, her features tense as he closed the space between them, reaching his hand toward her.
    When her lips moved, he heard no sound. But he knew she had said, Who are you?
    Zach, he silently answered.
    He wanted her to know him. Want him. Trust him. Complete him.
    He grasped her shoulder and folded her close, drawing in a sharp breath as he felt her breasts flatten against his chest—his naked chest, because somehow he was wearing only a pair of faded jeans, unsnapped at the waist.
    A jolt of arousal shot through him, and he tightened his hold on her as a whirlwind of sensations swamped him. The brush of her raven hair against his cheek. Her slender body pressed to his. The buzz of sound in his brain as she spoke voiceless words he couldn’t quite catch.
    He wanted her to raise her head.
    As if she’d heard his thoughts, she lifted her face to his.
    He felt a shock of awareness go through him. Strange. This was strange. And at the same time so right that it made his insides ache.
    Though he longed to kiss her, he held himself still, because some part of him knew that if he did anything that intimate, nothing in his life would ever be the same. Yet the thought of her pulling away made his insides go cold.
    He held his breath, willing her to make the decision. She stayed where she was, her lips slightly parted, as though she were having the same thoughts as he. And she didn’t want to be the one to make the first move.
    Finally, because that was his only choice, he lowered his head to hers. The first contact of their mouths was like an explosion in his brain, in his body.
    He had never tasted anything so rich, so totally tempting as this woman’s mouth.
    She made a small needy sound that sizzled through him. Accepting her invitation, he tipped his head first