by Nora Roberts
The scene would end in the bedroom; that portion of the film would be shot at a different time. Now, the tension and the sexuality had to be heightened to a point where both Phil and the audience were completely seduced.
“Cut!”
Chuck ran a hand over the back of his neck and lapsed into silence. Both the actors and crew recognized the gesture from their director and remained silent and alert. The scene wasn’t pleasing him, and he was trying to work out why. Keyed up, Ariel didn’t allow the tension to drain out of her. She needed the nerves to maintain the image of Rae. The sight of the ginger ale and the scent of the food in front of her made her stomach roll uneasily. They were already on the fourth take. Objectively, she watched her glass being refilled, her plate replaced. When this was over, she thought, she’d never even look at a glass of ginger ale again.
“Disgusting, isn’t it?”
Glancing over, Ariel saw Jack Rohrer grimace at her. She locked Rae in a compartment of her brain before she grinned at him. “I’ve never wanted a cup of coffee and a bagel so much in my life.”
“Please.” He leaned back from the table. “Don’t mention real food.”
“More feline,” Chuck said abruptly and focused on Ariel. “That’s how I see Rae—a sleek black cat with manicured claws.”
Ariel smiled at the image. Yes, that was Rae.
“When you say the line, ‘One night won’t be enough, you make me greedy,’ you should practically purr it.”
Ariel nodded while she flexed her hands. Yes, Rae would purr that line, while she calculated every angle. Ariel had a mental image of a cat—glossy, seductive and just this side of evil.
Just before the clapper was struck for the next take, Ariel caught Booth’s eye. He was frowning at her while he stood off camera. Though his hands were casually in his pockets and his expression was still and calm, she sensed the wall of tension around him. Unable to break it down, she used it and the eye contact to pull herself back into character.
As the scene unfolded, she forgot the flat, warm taste of the ginger ale, forgot the intrusion of cameras and crew. Her attention was completely focused on the man across from her, who was no longer a fellow actor but an intended victim. She smiled at something he said, a smile Booth recognized too well. Seductive as black lace, cold as ice. There wasn’t a man alive who’d be immune to it.
When she reached the line Chuck had focused on, Ariel paused a beat, dipping her fingertip into Jack’s glass, then slowly touched the dampened skin to her mouth, then his. The seductive ad lib had the temperature on the set soaring. Even while he mentally approved the gesture and Ariel’s intuition, Booth felt his stomach muscles tighten.
Ariel knew her character, he mused, almost as well as he did himself. So well, it was always an effort to separate them in his mind. This attraction that plagued him—at whom was it directed? That surge of jealousy he felt unexpectedly when the woman on set melted into another man’s arms—for whom did he really feel it? He’d entwined reality and fiction so tightly in this script, then had chosen an actress skilled enough to blur those lines. Now, he found himself trapped between fiction and fact. Was the woman he wanted the shadow or the light?
“Cut! Cut and print! Fantastic.” Grinning from ear to ear, Chuck walked over and kissed both Ariel and Jack. “We’re lucky the camera didn’t overload on that scene.”
Jack flashed a white-toothed smile. “You’re lucky I didn’t. You’re damn good.” Jack laid a hand on Ariel’s shoulder. “So damn good I’m going to have a cup of coffee and call my wife.”
“Ten minutes,” Chuck announced. “Set up for reaction shots. Booth, what’d you think?”
“Excellent.” With his eyes on Ariel, Booth walked toward them. There was nothing of the cat about her now. If anything, she looked a bit weary. He found that while the knot in his stomach had loosened, he had to fight the urge to stroke her cheek. Booth was more accustomed to the first sensation. “You look like you could use some coffee yourself.”
“Yeah.” Again, Ariel forced herself to lock Rae’s personality away. She wanted nothing more than to relax completely, but knew she could only allow herself a few degrees. “You buying?”
Nodding, he led her off set where a catering table was already set up with coffee, doughnuts and Danishes. Ariel’s stomach revolted at the thought of food, but she took the steaming Styrofoam cup in both hands.
“This schedule’s difficult,” Booth commented.
“Mmm.” She shrugged that off and let the coffee wash away the aftertaste of ginger ale. “No, the schedule’s no tighter than the soap’s—lighter in some ways. The scene was difficult.”
He lifted a brow. “Why?”
The scent of the coffee was real and solid. Ariel could almost forget the spongy food she’d had to nibble on for the past two hours. “Because Phil’s smart and cautious—not an easy man to seduce or to fool. Rae has to do both, and she’s in a hurry.” She glanced over the rim of her cup. “But then, you know that.”
“Yes.” He took her wrist before she could drink again. “You look tired.”
“Only between takes.” She smiled, touched by the reluctant concern. “Don’t worry about me, Booth. Frantic’s my natural pace.”
“There’s something else.”
She thought of Scott. It’s not supposed to show, she reminded herself. The minute you walk into the studio, it’s not supposed to show. “You’re perceptive,” she murmured. “A writer’s first tool.”
“You’re stalling.”
Ariel shook her head. If she thought about it now, too deeply, her control would begin to slip. “It’s something I have to deal with. It won’t interfere with my work.”
He took her chin firmly into his hand. “Does anything?”
For the first time, Ariel felt a threat of pure anger run through her. “Don’t confuse me with a role, Booth—or another woman.” She pushed his hand away, then turning her back on him, walked back onto the set.
The temper pleased him, perhaps because it was easier to trust negative emotions. Leaning back against the wall, Booth made a decision. He was going to have her—tonight. It would ease a portion of the tension in him and alleviate the wondering. Then both of them, in their own way, would have to deal with the consequences.
Ariel found the anger was an advantage. Rae, she mused, was a woman who had anger simmering just below the surface at all times. It added to the discontent and ambition. Instead of trying to rid herself of it—something she wasn’t certain she could do in any case—Ariel used it to add more depth to an already complicated character. As long as she clung to Rae’s mercurial, demanding personality, she didn’t feel her own weariness or frustrations.
True, her senses were keen enough so that she knew exactly where Booth was and where his attention was focused even when she was in the middle of a scene. That was something to be dealt with later. The more he pushed at her—mentally, emotionally—the more she was determined to give a stellar performance.
By six and wrap time, Ariel discovered that Rae had drained her. Her body ached from the hours of standing under the lights. Her mind reeled from the repetition of lines, the drawing and releasing of emotions. It was only the first week of filming, and already she felt the strain of the marathon.
Nobody said it would be easy, Ariel reminded herself as she slipped into her dressing room to change into her street clothes. And it wouldn’t be nearly so important if it were. The trouble was she was beginning to equate her success in the part with her success in her relationship with Booth. If she could pull one off, she could do the same with the other.
Shaking her head, Ariel stripped out of her costume, shedding Rae as eagerly as she did the silk. An idea like that, she reminded herself, had a very large trapdoor. Rae was a part to be acted, no matter how entangled it was with reality. Booth was real life—her life. No matter how willing she was to take risks or accept a challenge, that was something she couldn’t afford to forget.
Ariel g
ently removed her stage makeup and let her skin breathe. She sat, propping her feet on her dressing table so that the short kimono she wore skimmed her thighs. Taking her time, letting herself come down, she undid the sleek knot the hairdresser had arranged and let her hair fall free. With a contented sigh, Ariel tipped her head back, shut her eyes and fell into a half doze.
That was how Booth found her.
The room was cluttered in her usual fashion so that she seemed to be a single island of calm. The air was assaulted with scents—powder, face cream, the same potpourri just hinting of lilacs that she kept at home. The lights around her mirror were glaring. Her breathing was soft and even.
As he shut the door behind him, Booth let his gaze run up the long slender length of her legs, exposed from toe to thigh. The kimono was loosely, almost carelessly knotted, so that it gaped intriguingly down the center of her body nearly to the waist. Her hair fell behind the chair, mussed from her own hands so that the curve of neck and shoulder made an elegant contrast.
Her face seemed a bit pale without the color needed for the camera. Fragile. Without it, the faintest of shadows could be seen under her eyes.
Booth wanted almost painfully to possess her, just as she was at that moment. With hardly a thought as to what he was doing, he turned the lock on the door. He sat on the arm of a chair, lit a cigarette and waited.
Ariel woke slowly. She tended to sleep quickly and wake gradually. Even before she’d drifted from that twilight world to consciousness, she knew she was refreshed. The nap had been no more than ten minutes. Any longer and she’d have been groggy; any shorter, tense. With a sigh, she started to stretch. Then she sensed she wasn’t alone. Curious, she turned her head and looked at Booth.
“Hello.”
He saw no remnants of the anger in her eyes, nor was there any coolness, that sign of resentment, in her voice. Even the weariness he’d sensed in her briefly had vanished. “You didn’t sleep long.” His cigarette had burned down nearly to the filter without his noticing. He crushed it out. “Though I don’t know anyone who could’ve slept at all in that position.”
“For a ten-minute session, I can sleep anywhere.” She pointed her toes, tensing all her muscles, then released them. “I had to recharge.”
“A decent meal would help.”
Ariel put a hand to her stomach. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
“You barely touched anything at lunch.”
It didn’t surprise her that he’d noticed, only that he’d commented on it. “Normally I’d have gorged myself. Eating lobster bisque at dawn threw my whole system out of whack. A bagel’s more my style. Or a bowl of Krispie Krinkies.”
“Of what?”
“Eight essential vitamins,” she said with a half grin. Reluctantly, she slid her feet to the floor. The gap in her robe shifted, and absently she tugged at the lapels. “We are wrapped for the day, aren’t we? There isn’t a problem?”
“We wrapped,” he agreed. “And there’s a problem.”
The brush she’d lifted paused halfway to her hair. “What kind?”
“Personal.” He rose and took the brush from her hand. “Every day this week I’ve watched you, listened to you, smelled you. And every day this week, I’ve wanted you.” He took the brush through her hair in one long smooth stroke while in the lighted mirror, his eyes met hers. When she didn’t move, he drew the brush down again, cupping the curve of her shoulder with his free hand. “You asked me to think of you. I have.”
Too close to the surface, Ariel warned herself. Her emotions were always too close to the surface. There was nothing she could do about it. “Every day this week,” she began in a voice that was already husky, “you’ve watched me and listened to me be someone else. You might want someone else.”
His eyes remained on hers as he lowered his mouth to her ear. “I’m not watching anyone else now.”
Her heart lurched. Ariel would have sworn she felt the jerk of movement inside her breast. “Tomorrow—”
“The hell with tomorrow.” Booth let the brush drop as he drew her to her feet. “And yesterday.” His gaze was intense, a hot, hot green that had her throat going dry. She’d wondered what it would be like if he allowed any emotional freedom. This was his passion, and it was going to sweep her away.
If she hadn’t loved him . . . But, of course, she did. All caution whipped away as her mouth met his. There was a time for thinking and a time for feeling. There was a time for withholding and a time for giving freely. There was a time for reason and a time for romance.
All that Ariel had, all that she felt, thought, wished, went into the touch of mouth to mouth. And as her body followed her heart, she wrapped herself around him and offered unconditionally. She felt the floor tilt and the air freeze before she became lost in her own longings. Her lips parted, inviting; her tongue touched, arousing. Her breath fluttered, answering.
She was as firm as he was, yet softer. Feeling the hard length of man against her, she became completely, utterly feminine. The pleasure was liquid, passing through her as warmed wine. As his grip tightened, she melted further until she was as pliant as any man’s fantasy. But she was very real.
He’d never known another woman like her, so utterly free with emotions that flowed and crested until he was drowning in them. Passion had been expected and was there, but . . . More, infinitely more, was a range of feeling so intense, so sweet, it was irresistible.
As he’d watched her on the set, he’d wanted her. When he’d come into the room to see her sleeping, desire had assaulted him. Now, with her yielding, vibrating with emotions he could hardly name, Booth needed her as he’d never needed anyone. And had never wanted to.
Too late. The thought ran through his mind that it was too late for her—too late for him. Then his hands were buried in her hair, his thoughts a kaleidoscope of sensations.
She smelled faintly of lemon from the cream she’d used on her face, while her hair carried the familiar fragrance of light sexuality. The silky material of her kimono swished as his hands parted it to find her. And she was softer than a dream, but so small he had a moment’s fear that he would hurt her. Then her body arched, pressing against his hand so that it was her strength that aroused him. With a sound that was more of surrender than triumph, he buried his face against her throat.
Even while her mind was floating, Ariel knew she had to feel the texture of his flesh against hers. Slowly, her hands ran up his sides, drawing up his sweater. She followed the movement, over his shoulders, until there was nothing barring her exploration—and nothing to stop her sensitized skin from meeting his.
When he drew her down she went willingly. As her back rested against the littered sofa, she cupped her hands behind his head and brought his mouth back to hers. The taste of his passion rippled through her and lit the next spark.
Not so passive now, not so pliant, she moved under him, sending off twinges of excitement to pulse through both of them. The sudden aggression of her lips was welcome. The kiss went on and on, deeper, moister, while two pairs of hands began to test and appreciate.
He could feel the frantic beat of her heart under his palm. When he pressed his lips against her breast, he felt her shudder. The outrageous desire to absorb her ran through him as he began to draw in her variety of tastes, now with his lips, now with the tip of his tongue. In some places, it was hot, others sweet, but it was always Ariel.
The lights glared into the room, reflecting from the mirror as he began a thorough, intense journey over her. The curve of her shoulder held fascinations he’d never known before. The skin at the inside of her wrist was so delicate he almost thought he could hear the blood run through the veins. Everywhere he touched, he felt her pulse. She was so giving. That alone was enough to make his head swim.
And as he touched, tasted, took, so did she. If he became more demanding, she responded in kind, keeping pace with him. Or perhaps it was he who kept pace with her. She stroked with those long elegant fingers so that he knew what it w
as to be on the verge of madness and within sight of heaven.
She wanted nothing more than what she could find in him. Touches of tenderness that moved her. Flares of fires that tormented her. His hair brushed over her skin and that alone excited her. Flesh grew damp with passion and the struggle to control—the struggle to prolong. Ariel learned that pleasure alone was a shallow thing; but pleasure, when combined with love, was all.
Together, they understood that there could be no more waiting. The final barriers of clothing were tugged impatiently away. She opened for him. Madness and heaven became one.
***
Ariel felt as though she could run for miles. Her body was alive with so many sensations. Her mind leaped with them. She lay beneath Booth, tingling with an awareness that radiated down to her toes and fingertips. With her eyes closed, her body still aligned with his, she counted his heartbeats as they thudded against her. In that private, liquid world they’d gone to, Booth hadn’t been calm, he hadn’t been detached. Letting her lashes flutter up, she smiled. His hand was laced with hers. She wondered if he was aware of it. He’d wanted her. Just her.
Contentment. Was that what he was feeling? Booth lay sated, drained, aware only of Ariel’s warm, slim form beneath him. As far as he could remember, he’d never experienced anything remotely like this. Total relaxation . . . a complete lack of tension. He didn’t even have the energy to dissect the feeling, and instead enjoyed it. With a sound of pure pleasure, he turned his face to her throat. He felt as well as heard her gurgle of laughter.
“Funny?” he murmured.
Ariel ran her hands up the length of his back, then down again to his waist. “I feel good. So good.” Her fingertips skimmed over his hips. “So do you.”
Shifting slightly, Booth raised himself on one elbow so that he could look at her. Her eyes were laughing. With a fingertip he traced the spot just below her jaw where he’d discovered delectable, sensitive skin. “I still don’t know what I’m doing with you.”
She brushed the hair from his forehead and watched it fall back again. “Do you always have to have an intellectual reason?”
He frowned, but his fingers spread over her face as if he were
