Jade Star by Catherine Coulter Read Free Book Online

future protector.”
    â€œNo,” she said quite clearly. But Jameson Wilkes wasn’t very clear anymore, and she blinked to keep him in focus. “My family would know.” She realized vaguely that what she’d said didn’t make any sense.
    She saw he was smiling at her, and wondered at it. She also realized at that moment that she had to relieve herself. Always before, she’d been alone. “I must use the chamber pot,” she said.
    â€œGo right ahead, my dear.”
    Jules shook her head in confusion. “No,” she said. “I can’t, not while you’re in here. Please leave.”
    This was interesting, Jameson Wilkes thought, studying her face closely. A loss of inhibition, an excellent start. “Of course you can,” he said, his voice as soothing as smooth honey.
    But still she sat there looking confused, bewildered. He said very gently, “I won’t pay you any heed. Go ahead.”
    Jules eased off the bed and walked to the chamber pot, which was stored beneath a small cabinet. She didn’t realize that she was quite naked. Nor did she pay any more attention to Jameson Wilkes. When she was finished, she turned, straightened, and stared at him.
    To his complete and utter surprise, Jameson Wilkes felt a powerful surge of lust. He’d believed himself immune to her body—to any woman’s body, for that matter. It was a heady combination, her standing so confidently before him, but her eyes dazed and confused.
    â€œWhat do you feel, Juliana?” he asked, forcing himself not to move.
    She shook her head, not understanding what was happening to her. “I don’t know.”
    â€œWhy don’t you lie down? Surely what you’re feeling will pass quickly enough.”
    She did, stretching languidly, her eyes closing. Her body felt tingly, strangely alive in places she’d never paid much attention to. But she wasn’t frightened of the feelings.
    Jameson Wilkes sat down beside her and carefully laid his hand on her breast. He felt her quiver.
    He leaned down and caressed her nipple with his lips.
    Suddenly she lurched up, crying out in horror. She began striking him with her fists.
    I didn’t give her enough, he thought as he subdued her. But now I know. Probably, his thinking continued, it was only the opium that had relaxed her so much, sent her into that otherworldly, detached kind of dream state. He’d seen it before.
    â€œWhat did you do to me?” she yelled, struggling with all her might, even after he’d again bound her wrists.
    â€œWhy, nothing, my dear,” he said easily. “Perhaps you’re really a little whore at heart. Didn’t you enjoy my touching you?”
    She recoiled from him, from herself. She closed her eyes, not moving even when tears streamed down her cheeks.
    Jameson Wilkes walked slowly to the cabin door. He’d won. He ignored the stabbing pain in his belly.
San Francisco
    It was near to midnight. There was a quarter-moon, but the fog was so thick that the night looked an eerie gray. Saint had returned to his house thirty minutes before. He had an appointment with Hoot Moon, an unlikely criminal with a personality as unlikely as his name. As he settled down in his favorite armchair to wait for his visitor, he wondered what the man had to tell him. Hoot Moon owed him, as did many other of his friends, for Saint had, through sheer luck, saved the man’s life when he’d been shot in the head. He heard a furtive knock on the front door and rose to answer it.
    Hoot Moon quickly slipped into the small entrance hall. He was a small man, vicious to his victims but possessed of a strange sort of honor that made him as loyal as a tick to his friends. He counted Saint among his friends.
    Saint watched him slip off his thick cloak. “Why all the secrecy, Hoot?” he asked.
    â€œYou told me to let you know if any slavers came in,” Hoot said in his low, hoarse