LOVESCENES

by Sandra Marton

  ‘Damn it, Shannon,’ he said roughly. ‘You can’t keep running away—you’re going to have to deal with this sooner or later.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, shoving back her chair and getting quickly to her feet.

  His hand shot out and caught hers as she tried to move past him.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ he growled. ‘You damned well do.’

  ‘Let go,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘You can’t keep pretending nothing’s happening,’ he said, his fingers wrapping tightly around her wrist. ‘You’ve got to face it some time.’

  ‘You’d better leave, Cade,’ she said in a breathy voice. ‘We had such a nice day together—don’t ruin it.’

  ‘Do you feel safer in the make-believe world where emotions are always under control? Is that it?’

  ‘Just listen to you! I hate to spoil your dime-store psy­chology, but I also refuse to let what we do at work spill into real life.’

  His chair squealed in protest as he kicked it back. ‘What we feel for each other is real life,’ he said gruffly, pulling her towards him.

  ‘You’re confusing Johnny and Alana with us. I told you, it happens all the time—you just haven’t been around the theatre long enough to understand.’

  ‘Then kiss me,’ said Cade quickly. ‘Kiss me, and then tell me you feel nothing.’

  ‘That’s insane.’

  ‘What are you worried about, Padgett? You’ve been pretty smug about the way you’ve handled our love scenes.’

  ‘Cade, damn it...’ '

  The fingers encircling her wrist tightened as she tried to pull away from him, and the shadow of a smile touched his lips.

  ‘You’re right. I’m an amateur when it comes to the theater. Maybe what happened between us the first time I took you in my arms was a fluke. Maybe you were acting, even then. Hell, you accused me of auditioning for this part by kissing you. Maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe you used me to get Crawford to notice you and give you a bigger role.’

  ‘That’s the craziest thing I ever heard!’

  ‘The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. You were afraid Jerry was going to hand you your walking papers because you weren’t carrying your weight with Tony, and then I came along...’

  ‘I didn’t even know you were going to be on All Our Tomorrows, ’ she sputtered. ‘Damn you, Cade, let go of me!’

  Cade cocked his head to the side. ‘Come on, Padgett. I may be new to the theater, but I’m not new to show business. Sure, you knew. There must have been a million rumors floating around. Yeah,’ he said, ‘yeah, it makes sense. You goaded me into kissing you and then you pretended that sudden burst of passion.’

  God, she thought, the audacity of the man! He was exactly what she’d thought he was the first time she’d laid eyes on him: six feet two inches of over-inflated celebrity.

  ‘Mr. Morgan,’ she said with icy precision, ‘I did not goad you into anything.’

  ‘You can admit the truth now, Padgett. You baited me, and then you pretended you felt something when I kissed you.’

  The insolent tone of his voice infuriated her as much as his words, and she wrenched herself free of his grasp.

  ‘Pretend? I didn’t have to pretend anything, Cade Morgan. You...’ The angry accusation caught in her throat as a triumphant grin spread slowly across his face. Shannon flushed and tilted her chin up. ‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No! Certainly not. I never—‘ She threw up her hands in exasperation. ‘Look, there’s no point to this. Just—just go away.’ She started past him, but he moved so rapidly that she was in his arms before there was time to react. ‘What... what are you doing?’

  He threaded one hand in her hair.

  ‘I’m giving you a chance to clarify things,’ he said softly. ‘All you have to do is kiss me.’

  ‘I certainly will not kiss you!’

  ‘Kiss me and then step back and smile politely and say, what was it you said that first time? That you hadn’t been missing much?’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘If you can do that, Padgett, I’ll leave you alone from now on.’

  She stared at him in stony silence. ‘Why should I be­lieve you?’ she asked finally.

  Cade’s gaze fell to her lips, then rose to her eyes.

  ‘You don’t really have much choice. One way or another, you’re going to be kissed. Strictly to make a point, of course.’

  Look at him, she thought, look at that smug, self-assured expression! He was all the things she’d ever thought and more, and he could kiss her from now until next week and it wouldn’t mean a thing.

  For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why she'd ever thought it would..

  ‘I’m all yours,’ she said pleasantly, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. ‘Let’s just get it over with, OK?’

  His fingers moved lightly over her cheek.

  ‘ Stop that,’ she said sharply, as his fingers caressed her cheek. ‘You said a kiss.’

  ‘I’m entitled to preliminaries.’

  ‘This is—this is ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s a scientific experiment. Just relax and trust me.’

  ‘Trust you? Trust you? That’s what you always say...’

  Oh God. What was he doing? She closed her eyes as her drew her against him.

  His body was hard. Hard, and wonderful.

  No, she thought, no...

  A tremor ran through her as he kissed her throat.

  ‘Cade, stop. You said...’ Her voice broke as his nipped lightly at her ear lobe. ‘You said one kiss...’

  ‘I’ve got a confession to make,’ he whispered. ‘You’re not the only one who’s been holding back during our love scenes.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t been…’ Her breath caught. “Cade. Cade…’

  ‘If I’d really been making love to you, you couldn’t hold back,’ he murmured. ‘All the techniques in the world wouldn’t be enough to save you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she whis­pered desperately.

  ‘ Do you always babble about laundry when a man is kissing you, Padgett?’

  Panic fluttered in her throat. ‘That’s nonsense!’

  ‘You were lying in my arms this afternoon and sud­denly you whispered something about pillowcases.’ He chuckled softly. ‘You should have known better, Padgett. Wasn’t it laundry that got you in trouble the first time?’

  A blush spread across her cheeks, but she forced her eyes to meet his. ‘I am not going to legitimize this con­versation by answering that.’

  ‘Did you need laundry lists to keep from feeling what I was doing to you? That we weren’t alone? To tell the truth, I was having trouble re­membering that, myself.’

  ‘Cade, please, this is foolish.’

  ‘But you were right, you know. Hell, I didn’t want the world watching us make love.’ She made a whim­pering sound deep in her throat as his hand slipped under her sweater and she felt the rough warmth of his fingers against her back. ‘And here we are. No lights, no cameras...’

  ‘Cade,’ she whispered. ‘Cade...’

  ‘Look at me,’ he said in a low voice.

  She lifted her eyes to his, saw the play of emotions in their indigo depths, and knew she was lost.

  ‘There’s just us,’ he murmured thickly. ‘Just Cade and Shannon and nobody else... ’ Her eyes closed as he bent to her and gathered her close. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he whispered, ‘you know it feels right, love.’

  Love, he had called her, love, but there was no love between them. Love was something that grew slowly and lasted forever, not this quicksilver excitement that everyone had capitalized on.

  His mouth touched her closed eyelids.

  Touched her lips.

  One kiss, he’d said, one kiss, and then he would stop. And after that she could say, See? There was nothing to that. You can
leave now, Cade…

  His lips were warm. Firm. They teased hers, urged her to open to him, to withhold nothing.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said, trying to twist her face away from his. ‘Please...’

  ‘I love you, Shannon,’ he whispered against her mouth.

  ‘You don’t,’ she said, ‘please…’

  ‘Please, what?’ he said, and all the weeks of denial were over.

  She gave a soft cry and her mouth softened under his, heating under the sweet fire of his tongue.

  Tentatively, her hands moved between them, to spread slowly on his shirt. The rapid thud of his heart was beneath her fingertips, telling her as well as any words ever could that she was not the only one who could no longer control their love scenes.

  She murmured his name against his lips again and again until it sounded like a litany.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his whisper a fierce song. ‘Yes, my love, my own...’

  His mouth, his hard, demanding mouth, was stealing her breath away. The earth was tilting under her feet, just as she’d always feared it would if she let him do this. Cade was everything; he was the day and the night and the universe and—oh God, his hand was moving under her sweater, hot against her flesh, his guitar- roughened fingers playing along her ribs.

  ‘Kiss me, ‘ he said, ‘kiss me, don’t hold back, not this time, not tonight, not with me, love, not with me...’ She fell back against the wall, her body seared by the heat of his passion. His lips were against her throat, his hands on her skin. ‘Let me love you, Shannon,’ he whis­pered. ‘Say it. Tell me it’s what you want, too.’

  She gasped as his hands closed over her breasts, the nipples hardening against his palms like the petals of moon flowers closing at the first burning touch of the sun.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘oh yes. Make love to me, Cade. I’ve wanted you for so long…’

  The admission, so long denied, seemed to free her. Feverishly, she slid her hands under his shirt, her fingers travelling on his skin, through the rough, dark hair that curled upon his chest.

  Together, in a confused tangle of hands and buttons, they pulled off her sweater and corduroy pants.

  ‘Beautiful love,’ Cade breathed, ‘Goddess of the sea, open your arms, give your love to me...’ She thought of all the times she’d heard him sing those opening lines from Sea Lover,, yet never with such passion in his voice. ‘Beautiful love,’ he whispered again, and she lifted her arms to him, but he caught her wrists and brought her hands to her sides. ‘Beautiful Shannon, my love, my own... ’

  ‘Cade,’ she murmured, ‘Cade...’

  He freed her wrists and shrugged off his shirt. Her hands reached for him, investigating the soft hollows and hard planes of his torso. A feeling of triumph raced through her as he cried out at her touch; there was some­thing primal and exciting about knowing she could do that to him.

  But the triumph was short-lived; Cade cupped her breasts in his hands and bent to taste her flesh, and it was she who gasped and cried out now. His hands were hot and rough against her skin as he slid the panties from her hips, and then he knelt before her, trailing kisses along the soft inner skin of her thighs.

  ‘So lovely,’ he said thickly, ‘so lovely...’

  She cried out as his mouth branded her with his passion.

  ‘I love you, Cade,’ she sobbed, and even in the center of the whirlwind they rode she heard her words and knew they were true, that they would be true even if his were not, but it was too late to talk, too late to think.

  He was naked against her, his hands cupping her buttocks, lifting her to him. Her legs folded around him and then he was in her and around her, each thrust driving her mind further from her straining body. And just when she thought she would die of a pleasure that transcended any she had ever imagined, she heard the hoarse whisper of her name as he drew her down to the floor and the world exploded around them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was like a child’s riddle, Shannon thought, trudging up the stairs to her apartment. What’s worse than Friday afternoon traffic in New York?

  Friday afternoon traffic in New York in the midst of a snowstorm, that’s what, although that was stretching things a little.

  The early December snow had quickly changed from fat, white flakes to a cold, driving rain that had slicked the streets with ice, and every taxi cab in Manhattan had done its usual vanishing act.

  By the time she’d finally caught a bus, she was wet, chilled and irritable. Only dreams of a hot bath and a hotter cup of tea had got her through the final slippery walk from the bus stop to her apartment.

  ‘Shannon? Good grief, sweetie, hurry up, will you? I am positively freezing my behind off out here!’

  Hand on the banister, Shannon paused on the fourth floor landing and stared upward. Her agent stood on the landing above her, wrapped in a fur coat, looking like a large, unkempt animal.

  What are you doing here, Claire?’ she asked wearily.

  ‘Waiting for you, obviously. Doesn’t this palace get any heat?’

  ‘It died this morning…’ Shannon unlocked her apartment door and tossed her handbag on a chair. . ‘The first really cold day and the pipes commit suicide.’ She shrugged free of her coat and tossed it over the back of a kitchen chair. ‘Take that thing off, Claire. You look like a wet teddy bear.’

  Claire’s eyebrows rose dramatically. ‘My, but we’re in a good mood, aren’t we?’

  ‘1 am cold and wet and tired unto death of Alana Dunbar and Jerry Crawford and Rima the Prima. Do you want some tea?’

  ‘Only if you promise not to put poison in it,’ Claire said mildly, shaking out her wet fake fur and draping it across a chair.

  ‘Sorry. I’ve been on the go since early morning.’

  The agent ran her fingers through her damp hair.

  ‘Busy, busy, busy,’ she said. ‘That’s why I decided to wait for you here. I figured I wouldn’t give you another chance to put me off.’

  ‘I haven’t. I simply said...’

  ‘I know precisely what you said, Shannon. You said you were busy today and pressed for time yesterday and running late the day before and on your way to a class with Eli the day before that...’

  ‘It’s been that kind of week, okay’

  ‘I decided you’d been avoiding me long enough.’

  ‘Look, I haven’t been avoiding you. I...’ Shannon took a deep breath and turned to face her agent. ‘Let’s not argue about it, Claire. Why don’t you tell me what’s so important that you braved five flights of stairs just to see me? Do you want milk or lemon for your tea?’

  ‘Lemon, sweetie. I’m on a diet. Although I wouldn’t mind a cookie or two. Thanks. Would you mind sitting down, please? I hate talking to somebody’s back.’

  Shannon sighed and slipped into a chair, ‘Claire, it’s been a long day. Rima was impossible—she had a scene with Cade that had to be finished before he left and she must have blown her lines a billion times. And Jerry snapped at everybody.’

  ‘Our hero left the set early again?’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Shannon asked carefully.

  Claire shrugged. ‘It’s just a question. It seems as if the man’s been away from the studio more than in it lately.’

  ‘ Tomorrows has been getting a lot of coverage, that’s all.’

  The agent smiled. ‘Morgan has, you mean. So what was it today?’

  ‘He had a shoot with People. They’re doing a lead story on him next week.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Claire said pleasantly. ‘Let’s see, that’ll make two, no, three, covers he’ll be on all at once. I bet that’s some kind of record. TV Guide and Vanity Fair and now People. ’

  ‘I’d think you’d be pleased. It’s great publicity for Tomorrows.’

  ‘It’s good publicity for Tomorrows. It’s great pub­licity for Cade Morgan.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, what’s wrong with sharing some of the spotlight with you? Why doesn’t Morgan take you along with hi
m to some of these interviews?’

  Shannon lifted her chin. ‘Come on, Claire, they’re interested in Cade, not me. He’s a star.’

  ‘Funny, but there was a time you used to turn that four-letter word into a real four-letter word when you said it.’

  The kettle shrieked and Shannon shut off the burner. ‘I’m too tired to play games, Claire,’ she said, pouring the water for their tea. ‘What are you getting at?’