All Through the Night by Shannon McKenna, Lori Foster, Suzanne Forster, Thea Devine Page B

heck—
“Is this what you’re looking for?”
Kerry let out a scream that could have brought her grandparents out of their graves. There was a man standing in the shadows of the front hallway, and she had no weapon, nothing to protect herself. For a second, she thought it was Malcolm, but the intruder was so well-concealed she couldn’t tell.
Her voice quaked. “Who are you, and what are you doing in my house?”
“I was under the impression that you wanted me to be here. Was I wrong?”
No one talked that way, except— “ Jean ?”
“Kerry, I came back.”
The floor tilted and the lights danced, even though they weren’t on. Kerry took that as a sign that she was going to faint, and when she sat down, it was in the old rocking chair. The creaks and groans drowned out her soft exclamation as he walked into the room, and she saw his face.
“My God, Jean, why didn’t you say something? You scared me to death.”
“I did. Didn’t you just hear me? I said, ‘I came back.’”
And she wanted him back, but did it always have to be unannounced?
“Oh, never mind.” She was dealing with Starman. She had to remember that. “What is it you’re holding?” It looked like a gun in his hand.
“Your phone. It’s making funny noises.”
I would be too if you were holding onto me like that.
Forlorn little beeps echoed through the darkness. It was a sound that had always made Kerry acutely aware of her own loneliness, and she rose from the chair to put the phone out of its misery.
“I’ll do it,” he said. “I know where it goes.”
He knew where it went.
He seemed to know where everything went, including her. This was the man who picked her up and set her on the console last night, the man who sent wild delight tumbling through her. Was that magic or madness?
There was no time to stop and ask him if any of this was really happening. No time for that or any of the other nonsensical questions that were piling up in her mind, like what he’d done before he was cursed and why he’d ended up in a video game, of all places. That must have been symbolic.
There were other things that had to be taken care of first, before he disappeared again.
“Do you remember when you hypnotized me?” she asked him.
“You’re an excellent subject.”
“Well, let’s hope you are, too, because I think that’s the way to free you.”
He looked skeptical. “You’re going to hypnotize me?”
“Yes, with the help of a Web site that specializes in trances and hypnotic suggestion. Of course, the key suggestions will come from me.”
“And what will those key suggestions be?”
“Jean, when you hypnotized me you asked me to entrust myself to you. Now I’m going to ask the same of you. If I told you what I’m going to do, I might create conscious resistance, but I can promise that you will enjoy your journey as much as I did mine.”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely,” she said, hoping she appeared more confident than she must look in her pink chenille robe. “Do you have a better offer?”
“Okay, now that you put it that way.” He gave the room a questioning once-over. “Where do you want me?”
A short time later she had him stretched out in the rocker. She was grateful it could handle a man his size, although the chair was tilted so far back it could have been a recliner. She also arranged the computer monitor on the catalog tower so he could easily see the screen. The patterns oscillating on the screen were much like the ones that had mesmerized her.
“All I want you to do is breathe and relax,” she said softly. “Listen to my voice and relax. Feel yourself breathing, feel how deep it goes with every breath, and go with it, deeper… deeper…”
“One condition,” he said, his eyelids beginning to droop. “You can put me under but you have to wake me with a kiss.”
She tried not to smile. “You drive a hard bargain.”
Within moments his eyes were closed and his facial muscles had