by Lucy Parker
So why was her own hand sliding around his ribs to splay against his belly? Why was she feeling him breathe, feeling his warmth? Why was he slowly reaching out, his thumb coming to rest under her chin, nudging up, just a fraction? Why was she arching up on her tiptoes, and why was that palm on her back helping her?
They breathed with their lips millimetres apart, staring into each other’s eyes. His, usually professional and distant, were hot and turbulent.
It was entirely her fault. She kissed him first. She pushed forward across a distance that was minuscule in reality and a minefield in the potential repercussions. His hand tightened almost painfully on her back, gripping her as he continued to stand still for an extended moment. Then his lips were parting, his other arm was sliding around her, lifting her, turning her, his tongue was rubbing against hers, nipping, licking, abrasive, soothing. She was down on the desk and his weight was heavy on top of her, hard between her legs.
This whole scenario was so much sexier without four cameras stuck in her face, and Ash blowing raspberries against her neck to ease the tension, and Steve barking commands about what to grab next. This was Luc, and it was private and intense and real, and in that instant, she wasn’t thinking about what he was; it was all about who he was.
His hand barely skimmed the curve of her waist, sneaking under her jumper for the slightest stroke of her tummy, a touch that made her jump. He soothed the reaction with a murmuring nuzzle below her ear. He didn’t go near her bra fastening or her buttons. His mouth returned to hers and she met it, kissing him back, stroke for stroke, little nibbles of kisses followed by deep, searching, engulfing ones.
They kept pulling back to look at one another; his hands were unsteady on her, and she saw the shock that she knew must be reflected in her eyes. She’d kissed a lot of men, onscreen and off, and she was now living the cliché of infatuation: she’d never felt like this before. She was so intensely aware of everything about him: his smell, his taste, his weight, the slightly rough texture of his skin where silvered black hair grew.
He bent to press his lips against hers again, and just stayed there for a moment. It was a full stop, a gesture that lingered, both comforting her and letting her store the memory. Then he tilted to touch his forehead to hers and stroked his thumbs down her cheeks, over the upper curves of her ears.
Lily ran her hands between them, over the planes of his chest, shaping his arms before she touched a single fingertip to the point of his chin.
There was a long silence, broken only by their ragged breathing.
“If Hud does take his money and run,” she murmured at last, shakily, “I suggest you set up a side business to raise the extra cash. Snogging lessons with Luc Savage. Every other bloke in London, take note. I’ve had Long Island Iced Teas in backstreet bars that packed less of a punch.”
The disturbed expression in his grey eyes was momentarily eclipsed by a reluctant laugh. “Christ, you’re trouble.”
“I don’t do this,” she said directly into his ear. “Never.”
“No. I know you don’t.” Luc levered up with an ease and grace she was never going to replicate. Fortunately, he took her hand and pulled her back to her feet with minimal floundering.
“Should I apologise?” Lily asked when she was vertical again. “Should you apologise? Or should we just call this the National Day for Wildly Inappropriate Behaviour and move on?”
Luc released her and ran his hand through his hair, managing to smooth it back into immaculate order with one sweep. It was a good thing he had those metaphorical “Not for you” stamps all over him, because in an actual romantic prospect it would be insufferable, that ability to emerge from any stressful situation without a hair out of place. Like those women in disaster flicks who survived tidal waves without smearing their lipstick.
“With the exception of a long-term relationship that had already begun by the time we worked together, I’ve never been sexually involved with anyone I’ve worked with,” he said emphatically. “There’s a lot of absolutely reprehensible, disgusting shit that goes on in casting offices in this industry, and most of it is borderline criminal. So I should apologise for what just happened.” He looked at her in silence. “I can’t,” he said at last. That look was back in his eyes, the one she couldn’t quite decipher. “I kissed you—”
“I kissed you. Technically.” Although he’d been a fairly active participant in the whole misguided, shivery shebang.
“It was—” He stopped, obviously intensely uncomfortable.
It was like coming home.
She couldn’t say that. She wasn’t this woman. She was not going to be, for the rest of her theatre career, the actress who got her first big stage break and slept with the director. Some of the less reputable papers had already implied as much, but there was made-up sex and scandal, and there was knowing and living the truth.
There was self-respect.
He was speaking stiffly now, back in his robotic comfort zone. “But I can assure you that it won’t happen again, and it will have no impact whatsoever on your role in this production or any other.”
“It’s okay,” she said quietly. “I know you wouldn’t punish or reward anyone professionally for anything that happened outside of work. You’re not that sort of man.”
That sent a flush of colour into his face. He tucked a stand of hair behind her ear. Apparently realising what he was doing, he swore and took a deliberate step back.
Lily lowered her hand from where she’d instinctively reached to hold on to his fingers. “Maybe we ought to keep some distance between us for a while.”
“Until Monday, you mean, when we go to Oxford together, and then the next four weeks of intensive, occasionally one-on-one rehearsals?”
Well, if he was going to be rational about it.
“You could try being pleasant and malleable,” she suggested. “I’d probably find it a complete turn-off. I didn’t realise I had this penchant for militant men. It’s giving me whole new insights into my personality.”
“Militant?”
“I thought it sounded more polite than ‘bossy.’ No?”
“I’m not bossy.”
He actually sounded like he believed that.
“Okay, Captain Von Trapp. Keep telling yourself that.”
She’d broken the stern director facade again. He was grinning. “Are you sure you weren’t fired from CTV? Because if you talk to Steve Warren like this, I’m surprised you didn’t find yourself falling down an empty lift shaft in the second episode.”
She would never dream of speaking to Steve, or any other director, like this. It was just hard to return to business as usual when she knew what his tongue felt like against the roof of her mouth.
“No, amazingly I left by choice.” Although her character was about to get a fairly grisly comeuppance. She’d received her final Knightsbridge script before they’d left London yesterday. Gloria’s death would set up a whodunit plot for the next season. She wasn’t really looking forward to filming the scene in which she was strangled to death with her own garter belt and left facedown in a puddle of absinthe, but her money was on the vicar’s wife as the murderer. Neil Forrester, their head writer, liked to be provocative. Homicidal ladies of the clergy were right up his street.
“When do you shoot your final scenes?” Luc seemed to be equally determined to get things back on a professional footing, and finding it as difficult. His eyes kept wandering over her lips and tousled hair.
“End of the week. Then I’m all yours.” She closed her eyes and groaned. “It’s like I’m reading from the script for The Cliché Film, the unresolved sexual tension scene, isn’t it? Do you want to kiss again? I think that was our cue.”
Luc covered his eyes with his hand, but a knock on the door prevented him from giving up on her in despair.
Amelia Lee and Maria Finch came in, looking pinched and stressed about the mouth.
Amelia did manage a smile for her, but Maria went straight to the
point. She strode over to the desk where Luc still stood. “Your nemesis strikes again.”
That sounded dramatic, and like none of her business. Lily edged towards the door. “I’ll just—”
Luc looked up from the laptop where Maria was already typing. They were lucky they hadn’t knocked the computer off the desk earlier, but their…moment had been more intense than the theatrical writhing she did for show. They’d been focused completely on one another. On camera, Ash usually threw around a few items of stationery just for fun.
“I suspect you might as well stay. I’m sure you could look it up for yourself in your room.”
He fell abruptly silent as Maria arrived at whatever she was looking for. Lily took a step forward, wanting to…do something. Help. Comfort. God—cuddle. He looked so stricken. And then seriously pissed off. But her movement caught his attention, and the sight of her seemed to make everything exponentially worse.
“What’s going on?” she asked Amelia, when Luc went into a furious, low-toned argument with Maria.
Amelia grimaced. “London Celebrity is now making allegations that Luc had a string of sexual affairs with women he cast in his productions during the time he was living with Margo. And they’re making it very difficult to issue any kind of denial or to sue for libel. They seem to have gained an edge of subtlety. It’s all just rumour and so-called blind items. It’s blatantly obvious they’re referring to Luc and Margo, but with no names mentioned outright, any kind of statement from our end just looks like confirmation.”
“Why the smear campaign? I know there’s been a lot of press about the breakup, but London Celebrity seems to be taking the poisonous commentary to an extreme.”
“Family connection,” Amelia said vaguely, explaining nothing at all.
A phone rang and they all automatically checked their screens. It was Luc’s, and he looked resigned when he saw the name of the caller. “Margo. Hi.”
This definitely seemed like the time for Lily to leave. She excused herself politely to Amelia and lifted a hand at Maria, who was still eyeing her with suspicion. As she left the room, she heard Luc say, “Thanks, I appreciate it…”
His eyes met Lily’s; the connection was only broken when she quietly closed the door.
Lily went back to her suite, bypassing the room full of gossiping women who seemed to exist a million years in the past. So much had happened in the space of a few minutes that she felt like she’d gone into the study as the person she’d been for twenty-six years and come out a different woman.
One who’s a lot more like your mother than you thought, said the destructive little she-devil in her head.
No. This was nothing and never would be anything like that.
The memory of Freddy’s voice was trailing her as well, looping around in circles. She’d said that Luc and Margo had seemed like bare acquaintances when they spoke in public. Lily had put that down to innate professionalism. Margo Roy had been one of her biggest acting icons for years. And Luc was about the last man on earth to indulge in workplace PDA. Or anyplace PDA.
Before he’d opened his mouth over hers, she hadn’t imagined him unbending enough to be affectionate with anyone.
Even just now, on the phone—that had been his very recent ex, who’d left their serious relationship to marry someone else within weeks. He could be forgiven for sounding a bit pissed off. Lily had made more emotive calls to order pizza.
But when his weight had been pressing her down into the desk, his forehead nuzzling hers, his body aroused between her legs, there had been acres and layers of feeling in his voice.
Letting herself into her room, she flopped backward onto the bed, shoved her hands through her already-destroyed hair, then pressed her palms over her eyes.
And refused to think anymore.
Chapter Five
The arches and spires of Oxford were blurring into the mist and rain when Luc tucked an impatient hand under Lily’s elbow and hurried her along at a faster pace. She kept stopping to gawk. He got it. He always felt it as well. There was a quality about places like Oxford that he rarely experienced elsewhere; it was similar to the feeling that washed over him when he stood backstage in the Queen Anne. As if he could hear the footsteps and the collective buzz of all the voices and personalities, the ordinary loves and triumphs and tragedies, that had crossed those paths throughout centuries of history. Individual lives, hands reaching out to touch stones, idlers sitting to think and stare from steps and knolls, were literally worn into the fabric of their surroundings. It was a fount of inspiration.
It also wasn’t going anywhere, unlike Jocasta Moore, who would wait about two seconds beyond their arranged meeting time before dismissing them from her mind and delving back into the annals of whatever obscure research project she was working on now. The morning had been harried enough at Aston Park, making sure that every hung-over member of the cast and crew was flung into a car, and that nobody was still passed out under an antique bench or buried under a snowdrift somewhere.
They passed under archways and alleys on their way to the Radcliffe Camera, a journey that always made Luc feel slightly like a condemned prisoner on his way to a block and an axe—it was the gloomy tunnels, spiked wrought iron and general atmosphere of intimidation. Even the statues seemed to look down their noses.
A kid nearby seemed to agree. He glanced up at the snootiest of the stone sneers and flipped it off. He’d probably end up going far. Luc’s private amusement vanished when the boy caught sight of Lily and did a head-to-toe leer that ended up skittering between her face and her chest. Without even thinking about it, Luc angled his body against hers—as if she needed shielding from the lechery of some zit-faced, hormone-driven teen she could handle without blinking an eye.
“I’m channelling the wrong character,” Lily said suddenly. She was still struggling to keep up with his unchivalrous pace, and wouldn’t be having an issue if she’d worn more sensible footwear. The heels on her boots looked sharp and thin enough to perform keyhole surgery. As usual, she was dressed like a Bond villain. On a positive note, his ears were adjusting to the tones of her voice. He no longer had to restrain a visible wince. She unconsciously echoed his own thought. “I feel like Jane Grey now, on my way to the chop.”
“Don’t be fanciful,” he said, just to irritate her.
“I saw you jump when that gate slammed shut.”
For the past two days, he’d been trying to ignore the most unprofessional moment of his career. It was proving to be almost impossible. She just made him want to smile.
He grimaced at her instead, which made her laugh, which in turn provoked a rush of warmth in his belly.
They made it into the Radcliffe Camera without incident and stood on the ground floor of the Baroque rotunda, dripping rainwater.
“Holy crap. I’ve come home to the mother ship. The books. The arches. The stonework. This is gorgeous.” Lily glanced around, unbuttoning her coat. “I’m intimidated.”
“What do you mean, you’re ‘intimidated’? It’s a reading room.”
“Yeah, but it’s Oxford.” Unsurprisingly, she was wearing more black under her black coat. He wondered whether the colour preference extended down to—Fuck. “I’ve never actually spent much time here and I’ve always wanted to. Although most of my ideas of the city are based on old episodes of Inspector Morse, so I’m expecting really snooty undergrads with perms, a few clinically insane professors, and at least one murder by teatime.”
“We’ve got forty-five seconds to meet Jocasta before she disappears into the depths of the most obscure archive on campus. If I have to spend the rest of the afternoon searching for her, stinking of wet wool and old books, I’ll happily provide you with the token homicide.”
As he marched her to the second level, he heard muttering behind him. She really was going to have to work on her vocal range. If she wanted to make an impact when she called someone a “bossy prat,” she needed to project.
They found the desk tha
t Jocasta haunted on a daily basis. It was a chaos zone of open books and messy sheaves of scrawled notes. There was no sign of the elderly woman, but the steaming cup of tea suggested that she’d been there recently. He was pretty sure it would get them banned for life if it was spotted by a member of staff.
After transferring the tea to an empty desk some distance away, he returned to Lily and pulled out a chair for her. “We might as well wait. Looks like she’s coming back.”
Lily picked up one of Jocasta’s abandoned books and glanced at the title. “The ID: A Personal Account of the Rise and Fall of a Dictator.” She flipped it open. “I had no idea you’d written an autobiography. That’s impressive, writing a whole book, with your work schedule.”
Luc plucked the book out of her hands. “I suppose you think you’re funny.”
“I think I’m hilarious.” Lily crossed one leg over the other, then immediately returned both feet to rest on the floor, with military precision. She folded her hands in her lap, gave a tight-lipped smile to a passing librarian, and pasted a strange look on her face.
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Luc said, “but what exactly are you doing?”
“I don’t know. I think this is my Oxford persona. I can’t seem to help myself. I’m physically trying to slouch here and my back just isn’t listening. It’s like they’re judging me.”
He glanced around. The librarian had departed with a furious exclamation over the cup of tea. There was no one around except one teenager, who appeared to be slowly decomposing into his book stack. Somebody needed a coffee break and a shower. “Who?”
“Oxford. It’s like it knows I don’t belong.”
“You do realise I’m not and never have been a student, faculty, porter, or in any way associated with Oxford either, and neither have any of the hordes of tourists thundering through the grounds?”
“Oh, well, you,” Lily said, and made it sound like a new twist on a swear word. “You’d fit in anywhere.”
