Portrait of a Man

the long version

***The Portrait*** In a world where the wealthiest man had the price of a bride. Rourke of Calandor held no hope of knowing a wife's gentle touch, or having a helpmate of his own. A rebel against the established order, he would do anything to bring down the Patriarchy, even travel into the past to the place where it had all started. Only by painting the likeness of a very special woman could he open the doorway between Blackfell and Philadelphia; only by concentrating this entire being on her could he safely pass through. ***The Portal*** Alexis Conner had been fascinated by the macabre all her life. As a kid, she is loved stories and haunted houses as an adult, she'd mad a career of verifying the paranormal. But the image materializing before her in the charged dark is no ghost. This was a man, heart-stoppingly real, powerful, dangerous. And the first thing he did was crush her into his arms and blow all her scientific cool with a kiss.