'I didn't expect you to be in bed yet. I thought we might talk.'
'What is there to say?' The sharp antagonism that had characterised her on Torrin's departure had been leavened by sleep. She could only stare hazily up at him, waiting to see what he would do next, her defences lowered but not entirely down. Recognising this, he took one of her hands in his. 'Perhaps you'd rather wait till morning? I'm a night person. I forget other people don't necessarily work by the same clock.'
'What is there to say?' she repeated, becoming frighteningly aware of what the steady pressure of his hand on her own was doing to her, and aware as he must be that she was totally naked under the protection of the single covering.
'I've brought you some things to wear,' he told her, sidetracking her question and indicating a bag standing in the doorway. Merril recognised it as one of her own.
'How did you --?' She frowned. Suddenly nothing made sense. 'Where did you get that from?' She leaned forward.
'Your friend Annie very willingly brought it round to the stage door during the performance.'
'Annie? She wouldn't --' Looking at him, she knew he was telling the truth. 'What did you tell her?' she demanded, flushing even before he spoke at what Annie would inevitably conclude from her absence.
'I told her you were spending the weekend with me—doing an in-depth interview,' Torrin said softly. 'Isn't that what you will be doing?'
'I will?'
'You don't imagine I brought you here for a holiday, do you?'
'I don't know why you brought me here, Torrin,' she muttered, turning her head to hide the surge of disappointment that inexplicably swept over her. It was humiliating to admit to a desire for him after all she had said, and she didn't want to analyse her emotions too closely, nor question why the image of Azur, so vivid that morning, had begun to fade so rapidly ever since her lips had been seized by Torrin Anthony. It was sometimes dangerous to ask too many questions.
He was leaning towards her and Merril felt his eyes probing every nuance of her expression. 'That's the second time you've called me Torrin,' he said eventually. 'It must be a good sign.' There was a kind of catch in his voice that sent her mind spinning with the wildness of its suppositions. But she knew he was a master in the art of seduction, and anger, fiercely controlled, welled in her throat. Why was he tormenting her like this? He received enough adulation, didn't he, without trying to ensnare her heart too?
Dumbly she watched his thumb caressing the back of her hand, then begin to inch its way inside her wrist and along her forearm. It lingered agonisingly inside the soft curve of her elbow and she became aware how innocently erotic such a place could be beneath the touch of an experienced lover. The thought made her shiver with the feeling of desire he was arousing inside her, and part of her wanted to yield to a more intimate touch, to the sweetness of surrender. But her mind sent out alarms, warning that he was simply using her, trying to add yet another conquest in his insatiable need for adulation.
With a tremendous effort of will she put out a hand to stay his own, conscious of the rough hair on the back of his arm and the bulk of muscle beneath the skin.
'I don't know what game you're playing, Torrin, but I don't want to join in.'
'No?' His voice was husky with emotion and she marvelled at the skill with which he could manipulate every inflection to imbue the simplest word with layers of meaning. As he spoke his gentle caresses continued, travelling to her shoulder, kneading out the tension built by resistance, sending prickles of desire all over her and making her long to yield.
'No!' she groaned, unable to hold back the yearning note signalling her arousal. 'I don't want you to do this. What does one more conquest matter to you?'
'I'm not counting, Merril. One is everything to me.' His voice thickened with emotion. 'I've already told you I'm an old-fashioned romantic when it comes to love --'
'You're so plausible,' her voice seemed to come from far away, 'but I can't believe a word you say.'
'The curse of my profession,' he murmured, concentrating now on the curve of her jaw with an assured touch that sent her desire spiralling.
'Why me?' She shuddered, clinging to the last vestiges of resistance. 'You could have stayed in town tonight with any one of those fans of yours. They wouldn't resist.'
'Shall I show you why?' Torrin lifted his head. 'Shall I?'
CHAPTER FIVE
Merril turned her head as he leaned towards her again, effectively pinning her against the pillows before she could move, his hard body weighing down on her, his face moving over her own, touching and not touching in a tantalising game of tag, lips circling, brushing, parting until she had to bite back the cry of desire blocking her throat, releasing it instead in a moan of fierce rage. 'It doesn't mean a thing!'
'No? You know you feel it. Come on, Merril, admit it. This is no dream. It's the real thing.'
She gave a shudder as she guessed that Torrin was making an oblique reference to what she had told him that afternoon about Azur. With a giant ego unable to bear the thought of any other competition, he was trying to make her forget her true love with all the seductive craft at his command.
'You'll never measure up to him,' she muttered feverishly, 'so don't waste time trying. You may have the same kind of physique—' a harsh laugh escaped her, for it was true, ragingly, painfully true, his body recalling such tender memories '—but in every other way you're much less of a man than he is.'
'Less in this way?' came the harsh rejoinder, his lips crushing down suddenly over hers, forcing her head back, prising her unwilling lips to open to him, hungrily, needily, gorging himself on her, his tongue searching fiercely for a response. Merril fought back, arching against him, aware that the duvet had slipped down and that she was pressing naked against the rough denim-clad body, but the force of his fingers raking through her hair, sliding with hot intensity down her silken skin, drawing her up into his arms, only slackened as he felt her yield. Then his kisses became less fierce, burning and pressing with a fine sensitivity, alive to each minute movement of desire. 'Less now?' he mocked, honey-brown eyes trailing hotly over her flushed cheeks.
Merril shuddered, knowing he could assess every quivering reaction to his touch.
Cold amusement seemed to line his face as he bent his head towards the satiny curve of her breasts. Her hands gripped compulsively at the powerful shoulders as his lips sought and found their goal, their touch whipping her to a peak of quivering joy. She wanted to cry out with longing, but despair at his calculated seduction swept her into a storm of confusion. Biting back her longing, she pushed at his shoulders and, lifting his head, he said softly, 'Don't compare me to anyone again unless you want me to show you otherwise.'
He released her only to drag the cover over her naked breasts, then he crumpled her hands between one of his, trapping them, soothing her strangely by this gesture, eventually resting his head on the duvet, cocooning her within it. Oddly comforted; Merril felt her eyes begin to close at once. In a minute he would tell her why he had brought her here. She lay still, waiting, until with a small shock her eyes opened and, looking round, she realised she had drifted off to sleep. Torrin was still lying against her, eyes closed, breathing evenly, his head on her breasts. She strained to glimpse the bedside clock without disturbing him. Three twenty-nine, she saw. Her own eyes were closing drowsily again already as he shifted a little, burrowing down more comfortably into the pillows, dragging her closer still into the crook of his arm.
*
Sunlight was streaming across her face, making her roll on to her stomach to bury her head in the pillow. Then her eyes opened fully, sending her gaze swinging round the unfamiliar room. As it came into focus, the events of the previous night came flooding back, pulling her upright to stare at the empty space beside her.
So it hadn't been a dream. The hollow made by Torrin's body in the duvet was clearly visible. Thinking twice about spending the night with her, he had obviously returned to his own bed after she fell asleep ...
>
Why had he failed to follow through with his obvious aim of adding yet one more conquest to his score? The answer was something she didn't want to know. It was frightening enough the way she had lost control. A past-master at seduction, he evidently knew just what to do to turn a woman on!
Showered and dried, she went back to her room to ready herself. A pink sweater and snug-fitting white jeans suited her slim figure. With blonde hair caught up in a casual topknot and a few escaping tendrils framing her face, she looked attractive. Yet she wasn't out to catch Torrin Anthony, unlike every other woman in London, so what did it matter what she looked like? All she wanted was material for an article and to escape as soon as possible.
The kitchen was empty when she went in, and she was settling down to her third cup of coffee when there was a sound and she looked up to see Torrin regarding her in amusement from the doorway.
'Feel rested now?' he asked, coming towards her as if he was about to give her a kiss on the cheek. Merril braced herself, but instead he went straight over to the fridge and took out a container of fruit juice.
'Come on, Merril, no slacking. I expected you to be up in the gym with me this morning, making notes,' he taunted.
'I would have been if I'd known where you were,' she replied, not really believing that was where he'd been. 'What's next on the agenda?'
'I have to look over some notes the director gave me last night. I'm afraid all this is going to be rather boring for you.'
'Never mind, it's all in the day's work,' she rejoined.
Torrin raised his eyebrows. 'Who knows, maybe we can provide a few surprises?' He laughed softly as she coloured at his suggestive tones.
'Don't bother,' she sparked back. 'You should know by now I'm not interested in any special performance you might be thinking of putting on.'
'No?' His yellow tiger's eyes slid lazily over her flushed face with a look of such indecent double meaning, she felt her cheeks burn an even brighter red. It was almost as if he could read what had flashed through her mind. She got up.
'This is what you want?' he asked, putting out a hand to touch her shoulder. 'I mean, for your article,' he added in a voice like dark velvet. His eyes lapped over her face, enjoying her confusion.
'"A day in the life of a star"—perfect!' she mocked, trying to keep a safe distance between them. 'It'll make interesting reading—the way I write it up!'
Without saying anything else, Torrin led the way into a small study off the living-room.
'Is this what you usually do on a Saturday?' she asked, striving to adopt a coolly professional manner as she sat down as far away from him as possible.
'No. I would probably stay in town and come out here on Sunday.'
'And what about any special routine --' She paused, another maverick thought popping into her head.
'I cut down on some of the more taxing pleasures,' he remarked, picking up on it, 'drinking, parties --'
'Yes, I noticed,' Merril said hurriedly, not wishing to hear more. 'Since we met at a party I'll omit that, shall I?'
'Not at all. That one was the first-night party, so I had to be there. I left early.'
'Not before I did.'
'No, straight afterwards.' He looked as if he was about to say something else, but thought better of it and instead picked up his script.
The room they were in was tiny compared to the others in the rest of the house, but it was crammed with books from floor to ceiling—not all books, though, she corrected, giving the spines a quick scrutiny. Some were videos, nearly all of plays or musicals, or famous theatrical productions by well-known actors from the past.
'Is this where your ambitions lie?' she asked, pleased to be able to get on to something neutral and picking out a recording of Hamlet.
She saw Torrin pause before he replied, and when he gave a fairly non-committal response she pursed her lips. She shouldn't have felt irked by the fact that he obviously didn't trust her any more than she trusted him, and she knew she herself would have delivered the same response to a personal question like that, especially suspecting the answer would be headlined in all the tabloids.
Going back to one of the armchairs crammed between the beechwood desk and the french windows, she gave an audible sigh.
'It's not going to work if you censor my questions,' she remarked.
'Who's censoring anything?' Torrin demurred.
'You were just then.'
'Merril, there are some things I don't know the answer to,' he disarmed her with an apologetic shrug, 'and some things I won't discuss because they involve other people. Apart from that my life's an open book.'
'Other people?' She raised her eyebrows. 'A woman?'
He hesitated. 'Yes—yes, that's true. A woman.'
'It would be.'
'What can you mean?'
'There seem to be vast numbers of women in your life, Torrin,' she pointed out, striving to keep £n unexpected snake of jealousy from surfacing.
He considered for a moment. 'Yes, I suppose that's true. Lots of 'em around, though. Even my karate teacher is a woman!'
'Karate?' she queried.
'Ex-world champion. Damn good teacher.'
Merril looked sceptical.
'She has a very tranquil quality,' he went on, after giving the matter some consideration. 'I appreciate that.'
'In a woman?'
'What is this? Yes, in a woman.' He thought a moment. 'And in a man, too. Useful to have • somebody cool beside you when you're in a tight corner.'
'Are you?' she asked.
'What?'
'Ever in a tight corner where you need somebody cool beside you?'
'Frequently.'
She gave a scathing laugh, her thoughts with Azur for a moment. That was what she would call a tight corner—bullets whizzing overhead, Azur, cool as a cucumber through it all. 'You don't know the meaning of tight corners,' she observed dismissively.
'Oh, I don't know,' he spoke slowly. 'It gets pretty hairy on stage sometimes.'
'Yes, of course.' She gave him a pitying smile but didn't bother to explain it.
Something seemed to pass through his mind and then he scowled, adopting an expression she had never seen before. 'Are you trying to get at me because you've had a stint as a war correspondent and imagine it makes you eligible for the red badge?'
'Sorry?' She leaned forward.
'Oh, forget it.' His voice seemed to' change, hardening somehow. 'You wouldn't understand the military allusion. Red badge of courage. Didn't you see the film? True Grit? Personally I like a woman to be all female—quiet, yielding, you know, submissive.' He turned his smile full on her, obviously unaware of her annoyance as he went on to expand this unexpected theme. 'A woman should be able to cook and look after her man, putting him first all the time. Nothing less will do for me. Career women?' He laughed. 'They leave me cold.'
This seemed so out of character, Merril could only gape. When he stopped she managed to say stiffly, 'Not all men agree with you these days.'
Torrin shook his head, looking sorrowfully out of the window. 'Pity. They'll rue it. When they look round for someone to sew a button on and there isn't a woman living who knows how to do it.'
'I don't believe I'm hearing this!'
'Take this rebel hero of yours, your comic strip Superman, what sort of woman do you imagine he'll want after a busy day at the front? He'll want a nice, soft kitten, Merril, not some hard-bitten career woman.'
Suddenly picking up a pen, he opened the script and began to read, shushing her when she tried to interrupt him, then suddenly getting up and leaving the room. Still seething, but assuming she was meant to follow him, Merril grabbed her notebook. He was already half-way up the stairs by the time she'd worked out where he'd gone. Tagging along after him, she saw him go into the gym, taking off his black track-suit to reveal a pair of red boxer shorts.
Despite her simmering fury she couldn't help but gape. He was even more impressive, physically, than she'd realised, wi
th powerful shoulders, muscular chest and perfectly proportioned limbs, his thigh muscles bulging but not over-developed. His light tan was attractive against the bright gold of his cropped hair.
He turned briefly to gaze at her as if he didn't quite know who she was or what she was doing as she came inside, his face made stern by concentration, giving him a formidable air that had the effect of sending a spiral of fear through her. He looked as if he would cut her down to size as soon as look at her.
Concealing her anger at being put down, she opened her notebook with a display of hard-bitten efficiency he could either like or lump.
Inside she felt confused, disadvantaged by his chameleon quality. This morning he wasn't the same for two minutes together, and she couldn't help feeling it was deliberate. But what was she to make of those preposterous ideas of his? It had come after she had taunted him about tight corners, implying he wasn't much of a man. And that had come after she had expressed her thoughts about the number of women in his life . . . Touché, she thought. Now it looked as if he was deliberately trying to make her change her mind about his macho quotient!
After a few warm-up exercises Torrin went to the leg press and worked it hard with an impressive load of weights on board. Merril sighed; it was all so predictable.
Why did men imagine brute strength was impressive? It wasn't that that attracted her to Azur or made her respect her own father. It was an inner courage she admired, a feeling that here was a man who would never let her down.
She sat on a bench and watched. It had been a good idea of his to bring her out here, but not for the reasons he expected. She was getting the best possible insight into what made Torrin Anthony tick simply by watching him in action. It was worth hours of straight interviews of the question-and-answer variety.
Stifling a yawn, she started to doodle on the side of her pad. With luck he would take her back to town with him tonight, especially if she flattered him by asking if she could see the performance again. He would love the idea of her sitting in the wings drooling over him. She should have thought of it before. A man like this lapped up flattery like a cat with a bowl of cream.
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