The words snapped the final thin thread of control that held him and he backed her up to press against the wall. When her fingers pulled him out, it tore a groan from him. He kissed her lips, her eyes, then twined his fingers in her hair and pulled her head back to feast on her neck. More, he thought, and he slid up her short skirt to find only skin, found only her, slick and swollen and ready.
"God, Sabrina," he breathed, and it took everything he had to keep himself from letting go. Because he couldn't let go—not until his fingers were on her, not until his cock was in her, not until he felt her come.
He took the condom she handed him and slid it on. And in a push that tore a cry from him, he slid into her.
On the screen, a man sent a woman writhing with every stroke of his tongue. On the dance floor, a woman pressed a vibrator again the thinly covered nipples of another woman.
And in the corner, Sabrina braced against the wall, wrapped around Stef, impaled on his cock. The moment was beyond anything she could have imagined, the accumulated tension and arousal of years. It was an urgency that they could only have found now, when they'd come back together.
She felt the surge of him, against her and in her, his mouth on hers, his fingers, his clever fingers against her breast. He drove her, drove himself as she felt him grow thicker, harder, felt him pounding deeper into her until she was caught in the helpless chills, the glory, the blazing rush of orgasm.
* * *
There was little of the postcoital return to sanity. It wasn't enough, she thought as she felt him slide out of her. It was only a start and she wanted more.
Her feet touched the ground and she moved in for a long, deep kiss. Let sanity wait for another time. This was a moment to savor. She sighed, leaning her chin on Stef's shoulder to stare out across the room.
Suddenly, Sabrina noticed Annika giving her the high sign, warning that either the cops or the union guys had come in. Alarm choked the glow of orgasm, leaving Sabrina shaken and focused. The four-hundred-dollar bribe she'd paid Annika hadn't been cheap, but it had been less expensive than what it would have cost to negotiate the permits and have the local unions descend on her. And if they discovered she was running a nonunion shoot, well, the price tag would rise even further.
Sabrina gave Stef a quick peck and shifted past him to hurry up the stairs, motioning Kev to cut. With this short of a shoot, and especially one inside on private property, she was willing to risk doing it bandit-style—get in and try to get out without anyone seeing, crossing her fingers that the bartenders wouldn't say anything.
Fortunately, the union man hadn't seen anything like Candy before, and it took only marginal effort—and a few Candy girls—for Annika to distract him utterly.
"Okay, get the equipment down and out of sight," Sabrina said tersely. "We're done here. Let's pack up and go."
Stef stepped in front of her. "What's the rush?"
"We have to go, Stef. Now." She waited until a Candy girl had pulled the union man into a clinch and led the crew down the stairs and swiftly to the door, blowing a kiss to Annika.
Outside, it took only a minute to load the equipment into the cargo van.
"Okay," Sabrina said to Laeticia, "You get yourself and the crew back to the hotel tonight. Make sure this stuff is crated and the alarm is on."
"I'll take my camera up to my room," Kev interrupted. "I feel better when I've got my eye on it."
"Fine," Sabrina snapped. "Then you're in charge of getting it crated and to the airport in time to ship tomorrow. Laeticia, you've got the rest of it. Low profile, everyone. You've all got your tickets for the flight home."
She listened to the doors slam and breathed a sigh of relief as the van drove off. "Now we just need to get out of here," she muttered. She glanced up to see Stef staring at her.
"What's going on, Sabrina?"
"What do you mean?"
"Where do I start? Well, hell, it's been an eventful night, but how about if we kick off with the way we just blasted out of there?"
She shrugged. "It was winding down and we've got an early flight back. Might as well head over to the hotel and relax now that all the work's done," she answered. And try to figure out just what the hell she'd thought she was doing in there.
Stef stared at her. "You didn't get a permit, did you?"
"Look, I'm really tired," she said, turning back to look for a cab.
"Answer me. If someone from the city had walked in while we were in there, you wouldn't have had a permit to show, would you?"
Sabrina let her breath out in a huff of frustration. "I already told you what it's like filming in this town, Stef. If we hadn't done it this way, we wouldn't have been able to do it at all. As it was, we had permission to be here, we ran a lean shoot and we got our footage. I don't see the problem."
"You don't see?" He whirled and walked away. "God damn it! You may not be running a union shoot here, but guess what? I do. You know what'll happen to my future projects if this gets out? You know how much grief Kev would have gotten, or the sound man, or the gaffer?" He broke off, stalked down the sidewalk in furious silence for a few paces and then rounded on her. "You want to take chances with your own career, go right ahead. But do not ever, ever do it with my crew. Understand me?"
"Fine," she bit off, flagging an empty taxi. They got in, not speaking until they reached their hotel. Not speaking even as they walked inside. Obstinate jerk, she railed to herself. He didn't understand the realities of filming and budgets and logistics. He was a classic director. All he knew was making artistic statements and leaving it to someone else to figure out how to make it work.
She slammed the key card in and out of the lock and stomped into her room, heading for the minibar. One of the small luxuries she'd allowed herself was the choice of a nice hotel in New York. With a one-night stay and a crew of six, she could afford to splurge a little.
None of those girlie drinks for her, she decided. Whiskey, straight up. She stripped off her clothes and put on a fluffy hotel robe, pacing the room, reliving the evening in her head. What she'd told Stef after the lap dance was still true—they'd always been amazing in bed. It was just outside that they ran into problems. She drank her whiskey and brooded, playing back the evening in her mind, not just the sex—she'd yet to decide whether that was cause for regret or celebration—but the discussion at the end.
And slowly, uncomfortably, she came to the inescapable conclusion that she'd been wrong. It was a valid risk—for her—but she'd had no right to put Kev and Stef and the rest of the crew in the position of taking that risk unknowingly.
It made her want to squirm. What had seemed so clear in the planning and the execution was now clearly out of line. She'd have to make a point of telling him she wouldn't do it again. That would probably pacify him. After all, what more could he expect?
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and knocked back the rest of her drink. It didn't matter what he expected; it mattered what was right. It was time for a walk down the hall.
* * *
Stef stood at the window, staring out into the night. He'd gotten as far as pulling off his shirt and unbuttoning his jeans before thoughts of Sabrina had him gazing at nothing. They might have ended the night shouting at each other, but it was those fevered moments inside Candy that kept playing over in his head. How could he be so furious at her and still want her so intensely?
And how, when he'd started this project to get her out of his head, had he wound up getting her so thoroughly twined into his system?
A knock echoed in the dark room, and he moved to the door.
It was Sabrina. She stood there, shoeless, in a wrinkled shirt and jeans. In the wash of light from the hallway, she looked soft, ill at ease and very, very young.
It got to him. "Hello."
She moistened her lips. "Can I talk with you for a minute?"
When he opened the door and flipped on the hall light, she stepped inside. Not far, just a step or two, to where she coul
d lean against the wall and look at him.
She took a deep breath. "You were right about the shoot. You were right to be angry. It was a risk I was willing to take, but it was completely unfair of me to pull you and everyone else into it without letting you know. I'm sorry. It absolutely won't happen again." Her last words were rushed and she turned for the door.
"Not so fast." He put his hand on her shoulder; Sabrina froze, then turned slowly to look at him. "I came down pretty hard on you outside of the club."
"You had a right to be angry."
"It still took guts to come here and apologize," he said softly. "The Sabrina I knew before wouldn't have done it."
"The Sabrina you knew before wouldn't have done a lot of things."
"I like her better now." He slid a hand over her hair, traced his fingers under her jaw.
"This isn't smart," she warned him as he drew near.
"Was it smart in the club?" He kissed his way along her jaw, to the incredibly soft skin just below her ear.
"Things … got carried away."
"They've been carried away ever since we saw each other again," he murmured. And then he plunged them into a kiss and it didn't matter any more.
* * *
Moonlight streamed in the window. The occasional hiss of traffic still sounded. Sabrina stood by the bed, staring into Stef's eyes, watching him as he unbuttoned her shirt. He pushed it back off her shoulders, tossed it aside and, for a moment, just looked at her. She hadn't bothered to put on a bra just to run down the hall, and now her breasts were bare to his eyes. He reached out and pressed his fingertips to her collarbone, then traced them down, over the slight swell across the tight button of her nipple.
Sabrina shivered and reached out to touch the curves and hollows of his chest, lingering on the ridges of his corrugated belly. His breath hissed in, but still they were silent.
Slowly, he sank down to his knees in front of her. His hands, feather-light, settled on her ribs and slid down, following the line of her waist until they reached her waistband. He unfastened her jeans and slipped them off. For a moment, Sabrina wished desperately that she'd worn something more exciting than the plain white panties she'd dragged on in her room, but she hadn't thought they'd wind up making love.
Or maybe she hadn't wanted to think about it. Maybe she hadn't because she'd been afraid of what it might mean. The flash and fire of Candy was one thing; this—this silent, almost reverent lovemaking—was something altogether different.
And then Stef was pressing his face against her, kissing the flat slope of her belly and holding her for a long time. She felt the brush and warmth of his hands on her back; without thinking about it, she pressed her hands to his head. In Candy, all had been speed and intensity; now, they could savor. Time stretched out as they remained there, not thinking, just absorbing feelings that were more than sensation.
Stef shifted and his mouth was warm against the scrap of cotton Sabrina wore. Even then, it was a gently rising tide of arousal, not a storm wave, and she sighed in pleasure. Then that last garment was gone and he was pressing her back on the bed until she felt the coverlet against her shoulder blades.
When Stef joined her, he was naked and she could feel the whole length of him against her. He was beautiful, she thought in wonder, sliding her hands down his arms, over his hard-muscled buttocks, along the corded lines of his thighs. The boy he'd been had only hinted at the man, in so many ways.
Touch, taste, texture. In dreamy silence, they relearned each other. Desire quickened, but was overlain with gentleness. The quiet of the room was broken only by mouth on mouth, by the brush of hand over warm skin, by the murmurs of lovers wrapped together. And when he slid into her, it felt like coming home, as though that were the point of the journey and the tumble over the edge of orgasm irrelevant.
And then they did tumble, together, and into deep, satisfying sleep.
* * *
11
« ^ »
Morning sun shone down through the oak and maple canopy over Central Park, dappling the paths with coin-sized spots of bright gold. Sabrina made it a game to step between the coins as she ran, the rhythmic thuds of her footfalls substituting for her fervent desire to be smacking herself upside the head.
A woman went by on Rollerblades and Sabrina stared at her enviously. If she'd been home, that would have been her, skating down the boardwalk, the sunrise on one side, the gilded waves on the other. The rush of the water and the sound of the gulls would have soothed her, the speed of her passage would have given her the illusion of escape.
Instead, she was left with just herself and the trails. Central Park was gorgeous and the pathways were beautiful, but the reality was, sooner or later, she was going to have to go back to the hotel and face Stef. Sooner or later, she was going to have to figure out just how in the hell they were supposed to go forward.
She'd been out of her mind. That was the only explanation. Some sort of a contact high at Candy, maybe. Bad enough what they'd done at the club, but compounding the error? Having a cordial relationship with him was one thing, but taking it any further was madness. Sort of like an out-of-body experience, except that her body had been involved. Very definitely and specifically involved.
She swabbed sweat off of her forehead. Maybe she should just write it off as research. She'd told herself often enough over the years that he hadn't been as good as she remembered. After all, when you had no serious basis for comparison, it was easy to put your first serious lover on a pedestal, even when it had ended badly.
And, of course, she'd wondered how it would be with him again. Any red-blooded woman would. It had been years, after all. Could he really have been as good as she remembered, and wouldn't it be worth it to find out?
Well, she'd found out, all right. She'd found out and it had been memorable. He'd polished his skills, added some control. Not that he'd ever lacked for staying power, but now he had a certain finesse, combined with some frankly fascinating new tricks. No, he hadn't been as good as he'd been in college.
He'd been much, much better.
She glanced around for cars and crossed the road to reach the sailboat pond. It would be a peaceful way to spend the day, she thought, navigating a sailboat around the water, living in a little universe she could control.
If only she didn't have to check out of the hotel to catch an early flight home.
Her mistake had been to let him sneak under her radar progressively over the past weeks. She could handle the sexy eyes and that gorgeous face, but that niceness—that fatal niceness—had been her undoing. It had been a mistake to forget their history for an instant. It was a mistake to be careless around a man like Stef.
Okay, so call it fact-finding. Call it sex in passing, nothing more. Sure, there had been something rather luscious about the feel of his arms around her as they dropped off to sleep, but there was no way she could let herself get confused. It would be positively masochistic to even think about any kind of real involvement with him. She didn't have to get flattened twice to learn that Stef Costas was bad news for the unwary. She'd learned the hard way; when it came to her emotions, he was off-limits.
Sabrina circled the sailboat pond and began heading back toward the hotel. Only women, she shook her head. Only women spent the morning after sex pondering what it all meant. Only women worried and pawed it over in their heads, trying to figure out how or if it had changed the shape of their world. Guys, they just got up, scratched their balls and headed for the bathroom.
Assuming they even got up. She guessed that Stef was probably still in bed where she'd left him when she'd sneaked out an hour before. He'd never been an early riser, even at the best of times, and he'd always slept like the dead.
She raked her hair back out of her eyes. So, fine, she'd neatly avoided facing him first thing in the morning, but she was going to have to deal with him sooner or later. Maybe she should go back, shower and go to his room—
She broke that thought off with a grim
ace. That was just how she'd gotten into trouble the night before. Okay, coffee first. Once she had some caffeine in her system, she could figure something out. Neutral territory, probably, away from the hotel. They could meet at some restaurant for lunch, somewhere the rest of the crew wasn't likely to see them. The last thing she needed was to have to explain it to anyone.
Oh, who was she kidding? Kelly would figure it out with one look, if she hadn't already. Sabrina felt the tickle that told her that her eye was twitching again.
But really, though, how much harm could come of sleeping with him, so long as she put an end to it? She and Stef were both professionals. They were almost done with the project. In a few more weeks, he'd be heading off to Greece and she'd be on to other things. Really, both of them would be better off for putting this part of their past to rest. No more dreams, no more what-ifs. They'd be done with each other, really and truly.
Sure.
* * *
Stef sat in the hotel restaurant, watching the waitress fill his mug, and shook his head at himself. Here he was, once again, sitting in a coffee shop watching a waitress pour him coffee while he thought about Sabrina. Of course, things were different than they'd been the last time he'd gone through this exercise. Back then, he'd wondered about the pull the new Sabrina had on him. Now, he'd let himself get sucked in way over his head. The hell of it was, he almost didn't mind.
"Idiot," he muttered. If it had just been the interlude at Candy, he could have chalked it up to curiosity, to pent-up desire. The fight outside the club should have reminded him of why they were bad for each other. But then she'd shown up at his door to apologize, looking so soft, chastened and pretty that he couldn't stop himself.
He couldn't chalk it up to temporary madness, because he'd had enough time to cool off. This was something that had been running through him for days, for weeks.
Maybe for years. That was what alarmed him just a bit. It was like a small temblor, that sense of something shifting just a bit under his feet, that sudden uncertainty. Alcoholics, he'd heard, could go for a dozen years without a drink, then take a sip and find themselves on a three-day bender. He knew how they felt.
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