by Nora Roberts
“Well, I must find Brad before he forgets about me. David.” She gave him her patented smoldering look. Documentaries or not, he was a producer. And a very attractive one. “I hope we run into each other again. Ta, A.J.” She brushed cheeks. “Let’s do lunch.”
“Soon.”
David barely waited for her to walk out of earshot. “You deal with that all the time?”
“Ssh!”
“I mean all the time,” he continued, watching as Merinda’s tightly covered hips swished through the crowd. “Day after day. Why aren’t you crazy?”
“Merinda may be a bit overdramatic, but if you’ve seen any of her films, you’ll know just how talented she is.”
“The woman looked loaded with talent to me,” he began, but stopped to grin when A.J. scowled. “As an actress,” he continued. “I thought she was exceptional in Only One Day.”
A.J. couldn’t quite conquer the smile. She’d hustled for weeks to land Merinda that part. “So you have seen her films.”
“I don’t live in a cave. That film was the first one that didn’t—let’s say, focus on her anatomy.”
“It was the first one I represented her on.”
“She’s fortunate in her choice of agents.”
“Thank you, but it goes both ways. Merinda’s a very hot property.”
“If we’re going to make it through this evening, I’d better not touch that one.”
They were interrupted another half a dozen times before they could get into the theater. A.J. ran into clients, acquaintances and associates, greeted, kissed and complimented while turning down invitations to after-theater parties.
“You’re very good at this.” David took two seats on the aisle near the back of the theater.
“Part of the job.” A.J. settled back. There was nothing she enjoyed quite so much as a night at the movies.
“A bit jaded, A.J.?”
“Jaded?”
“Untouched by the glamour of it all, unaffected by the star system. You don’t get any particular thrill out of exchanging kisses and hugs with some of the biggest and most distinguished names in the business.”
“Business,” she repeated, as if that explained it all. “That’s not being jaded—it’s being sensible. And the only time I saw you awestruck was when you found yourself face-to-face with three inches of cleavage on a six-foot blonde. Ssh,” she muttered before he could comment. “It’s started and I hate to miss the opening credits.”
With the theater dark, the audience quiet, A.J. threw herself into the picture. Ever since childhood, she’d been able to transport herself with the big screen. She wouldn’t have called it “escape.” She didn’t like the word. A.J. called it “involvement.” The actor playing the lead was a client, a man she knew intimately and had comforted through two divorces. All three of his children’s birthdays were noted in her book. She’d listened to him rant; she’d heard his complaints, his doubts. That was all part of the job. But the moment she saw him on film, he was, to her, the part he played and nothing else.
Within five minutes, she was no longer in a crowded theater in Los Angeles, but in a rambling house in Connecticut. And there was murder afoot. When the lights went out and thunder boomed, she grabbed David’s arm and cringed in her seat. Not one to pass up an age-old opportunity, he slipped an arm around her.
When was the last time, he wondered, that he’d sat in a theater with his arm around his date? He decided it had been close to twenty years and he’d been missing a great deal. He turned his attention to the film, but was distracted by her scent. It was still light, barely discernible, but it filled his senses. He tried to concentrate on the action and drama racing across the screen. A.J. caught her breath and shifted an inch closer. The tension on the screen seemed very pedestrian compared to his own. When the lights came up he found himself regretting that there was no longer such a thing as the double feature.
“It was good, wasn’t it?” Eyes brilliant with pleasure, she turned to him. “It was really very good.”
“Very good,” he agreed, and lifted his hand to toy with her ear. “And if the applause is any indication, your client’s got himself a hit.”
“Thank God.” She breathed a sigh of relief before shifting away to break what was becoming a very unnerving contact. “I talked him into the part. If he’d flopped, it would have been my head.”
“And now that he can expect raves?”
“It’ll be because of his talent,” she said easily. “And that’s fair enough. Would you mind if we slipped out before it gets too crazy?”
“I’d prefer it.” He rose and steered her through the pockets of people that were already forming in the aisles. They hadn’t gone ten feet before A.J.’s name was called out three times.
“Where are you going? You running out?” Hastings Reed, six feet three inches of down-home sex and manhood, blocked the aisle. He was flushed with the victory of seeing himself triumph on the screen and nervous that he might have misjudged the audience reaction. “You didn’t like it?”
“It was wonderful.” Understanding his need for reassurance, A.J. stood on tiptoe to brush his cheek. “You were wonderful. Never better.”
He returned the compliment with a bone-crushing hug. “We have to wait for the reviews.”
“Prepare to accept praise humbly, and with good grace. Hastings, this is David Brady.”
“Brady?” As Hastings took David’s hand, his etched in bronze face creased into a frown. “Producer?”
“That’s right.”
“God, I love your work.” Already flying, Hastings pumped David’s hand six times before finally releasing it. “I’m an honorary chairman of Rights for Abused Children. Your documentary did an incredible job of bringing the issue home and making people aware. Actually, it’s what got me involved in the first place.”
“It’s good to hear that. We wanted to make people think.”
“Made me think. I’ve got kids of my own. Listen, keep me in mind if you ever do a follow-up. No fee.” He grinned down at A.J. “She didn’t hear that.”
“Hear what?”
He laughed and yanked her against him again. “This lady’s incredible. I don’t know what I’d have done without her. I wasn’t going to take this part, but she badgered me into it.”
“I never badger,” A.J. said mildly.
“Nags, badgers and browbeats. Thank God.” Grinning, he finally took a good look at her. “Damn if you don’t look like something a man could swallow right up. I’ve never seen you dressed like that.”
To cover a quick flush of embarrassment, she reached up to straighten his tie. “And as I recall, the last time I saw you, you were in jeans and smelled of horses.”
“Guess I did. You’re coming to Chasen’s?”
“Actually, I—”
“You’re coming. Look, I’ve got a couple of quick interviews, but I’ll see you there in a half hour.” He took two strides away and was swallowed up in the crowd.
“He’s got quite an…overwhelming personality,” David commented.
“To say the least.” A.J. glanced at her watch. It was still early. “I suppose I should at least put in an appearance, since he’ll count on it now. I can take a cab if you’d rather skip it.”
“Ever hear of the expression about leaving with the guy who brought you?”
“This isn’t a country dance,” A.J. pointed out as they wove through the lingering crowd.
“Same rules apply. I can handle Chasen’s.”
“Okay, but just for a little while.”
The “little while” lasted until after three.
Cases of champagne, mountains of caviar and piles of fascinating little canapés. Even someone as practical as A.J. found it difficult to resist a full-scale celebration. The music was loud, but it didn’t seem to matter. There were no quiet corners to escape to. Through her clientele and David’s contacts, they knew nearly everyone in the room between them. A few minutes of conversation here, another
moment there, ate up hours of time. Caught up in her client’s success, A.J. didn’t mind.
On the crowded dance floor, she allowed herself to relax in David’s arms. “Incredible, isn’t it?”
“Nothing tastes so sweet as success, especially when you mix it with champagne.”
She glanced around. It was hard not to be fascinated with the faces, the names, the bodies. She was part of it, a very intricate part. But through her own choice, she wasn’t an intimate part. “I usually avoid this sort of thing.”
He let his fingers skim lightly up her back. “Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Weariness, wine and pleasure combined. Her cheek rested against his. “I guess I’m more of a background sort of person. You fit in.”
“And you don’t?”
“Ummm.” She shook her head. Why was it men smelled so wonderful—so wonderfully different? And felt so good when you held and were held by one. “You’re part of the talent. I just work with clauses and figures.”
“And that’s the way you want it?”
“Absolutely. Still, this is nice.” When his hand ran down her back again, she stretched into it. “Very nice.”
“I’d rather be alone with you,” he murmured. Every time he held her like this he thought he would go crazy. “In some dim little room where the music was low.”
“This is safer.” But she didn’t object when his lips brushed her temple.
“Who needs safe?”
“I do. I need safe and ordered and sensible.”
“Anyone who chooses to be involved in this business tosses safe, ordered and sensible out the window.”
“Not me.” She drew back to smile at him. It felt so good to relax, to flow with the evening, to let her steps match his without any conscious thought. “I just make the deals and leave the chances up to others.”
“Take ten percent and run?”
“That’s right.”
“I might have believed that a few weeks ago. The problem is I’ve seen you with Clarissa.”
“That’s entirely different.”
“True enough. I also saw you with Hastings tonight. You get wrapped up with your clients, A.J. You might be able to convince yourself they’re just signatures, but I know better. You’re a marshmallow.”
Her brows drew together. “Ridiculous. Marshmallows get swallowed.”
“They’re also resilient. I admire that in you.” He touched his lips to hers before she could move. “I’m beginning to realize I admire quite a bit in you.”
She would have pulled away then, but he kept her close easily enough and continued to sway. “I don’t mix business and personal feelings.”
“You lie.”
“I might play with the truth,” she said, abruptly dignified, “but I don’t lie.”
“You were ready to turn handsprings tonight when that movie hit.”
A.J. tossed her hair out of her face. He saw too much too easily. A man wasn’t supposed to. “Have you any idea how I can use that as a lever? I’ll get Hastings a million-five for his next movie.”
“You’ll ‘get Hastings,’” David repeated. “Even your phrasing gives you away.”
“You’re picking up things that aren’t there.”
“No, I think I’m finding things you’ve squirreled away. Have you got a problem with the fact that I’ve decided I like you?”
Off-balance, she missed a step and found herself pressed even closer. “I think I’d handle it better if we still got on each other nerves.”
“Believe me, you get on my nerves.” Until his blood was on slow boil, his muscles knotting and stretching and the need racing. “There are a hundred people in this room and my mind keeps coming back to the fact that I could have you out of what there is of that dress in thirty seconds flat.”
The chill arrowed down her back. “You know that’s not what I meant. You’d be smarter to keep your mind on business.”
“Smarter, safer. We’re looking for different things, A.J.”
“We can agree on that, anyway.”
“We might agree on more if we gave ourselves the chance.”
She didn’t know exactly why she smiled. Perhaps it was because it sounded like a fantasy. She enjoyed watching them, listening to them, without really believing in them. “David.” She rested her arms on his shoulders. “You’re a very nice man, on some levels.”
“I think I can return that compliment.”
“Let me spell things out for you in the way I understand best. Number one, we’re business associates at the moment. This precludes any possibility that we could be seriously involved. Number two, while this documentary is being made my first concern is, and will continue to be, Clarissa’s welfare. Number three, I’m very busy and what free time I have I use to relax in my own way—which is alone. And number four, I’m not equipped for relationships. I’m selfish, critical and disinterested.”
“Very well put.” He kissed her forehead in a friendly fashion. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes.” A little nonplussed by his reaction, she walked off the dance floor to retrieve her jacket. They left the noise and crowd behind and stepped out into the cool early-morning air. “I forget sometimes that the glamour and glitz can be nice in small doses.”
He helped her into the waiting limo. “Moderation in all things.”
“Life’s more stable that way.” Cut off from the driver and the outside by thick smoked glass, A.J. settled back against the seat. Before she could let out the first contented sigh, David was close, his hand firm on her chin. “David—”
“Number one,” he began, “I’m the producer of this project, and you’re the agent for one, only one, of the talents. That means we’re business associates in the broadest sense and that doesn’t preclude an involvement. We’re already involved.”
There’d been no heat in his eyes on the dance floor, she thought quickly. Not like there was now. “David—”
“You had your say,” he reminded her. “Number two, while this documentary is being made, you can fuss over Clarissa all you want. That has nothing to do with us. Number three, we’re both busy, which means we don’t want to waste time with excuses and evasions that don’t hold water. And number four, whether you think you’re equipped for relationships or not, you’re in the middle of one right now. You’d better get used to it.”
Temper darkened her eyes and chilled her voice. “I don’t have to get used to anything.”
“The hell you don’t. Put a number on this.”
Frustrated desire, unrelieved passion, simmering anger. She felt them all as his mouth crushed down on hers. Her first reaction was pure self-preservation. She struggled against him, knowing if she didn’t free herself quickly, she’d be lost. But he seemed to know, somehow, that her struggle was against herself, not him.
He held her closer. His mouth demanded more, until, despite fears, despite doubts, despite everything, she gave.
With a muffled moan, her arms went around him. Her fingers slid up his back to lose themselves in his hair. Passion, still unrelieved, mounted until it threatened to consume. She could feel everything, the hard line of his body against hers, the soft give of the seat at her back. There was the heat of his lips as they pressed and rubbed on hers and the cool air blown in silently through the vents.
And she could taste—the lingering punch of champagne as their tongues tangled together. She could taste a darker flavor, a deeper flavor that was his flesh. Still wilder, less recognizable, was the taste of her own passion.
His mouth left hers only to search out other delights. Over the bare, vulnerable skin of her neck and shoulders he found them. His hands weren’t gentle as they moved over her. His mouth wasn’t tender. Her heart began to thud in a fast, chaotic rhythm at the thought of being taken with such hunger, such fury.
Driven by her own demons she let her hands move, explore and linger. When his breath was as uneven as hers their lips met again. The contact did nothing to soothe and eve
rything to arouse. Desperate for more, she brought her teeth down to nip, to torment. With an oath, he swung her around until they were sprawled on the long, wide seat.
Her lips parted as she looked up at him. She could see the intermittent flash of streetlights as they passed overhead. Shadow and light. Shadow and light. Hypnotic. Erotic. A.J. reached up to touch his face.
She was all cream and silk as she lay beneath him. Her hair was tousled around a face flushed with arousal. The touch of her fingers on his cheek was light as a whisper and caused the need to thunder through him.
