'You're getting a real fly-on-the-wall view,' he muttered as he reached over Merril for a jacket that she could quite easily have passed to him herself. There was still something unfriendly in his tone, but when he turned to field some comment of Tom's the old hundred-watt smile was in place again and she thought she must have imagined that brief lowering of the temperature as he addressed her.
'That new chap on the stage door has booked your hotel, love.' Tom, complete with fake fur, gave a last housewifely inspection of the room.
'Thanks.' Ready to leave himself, Torrin limped to the door. 'Ring me there in the morning. Early, Tom, don't forget. I want to get back to the millhouse as soon as I can.'
They didn't leave by the stage door because Tom went on ahead and warned them there was a crowd of about fifty standing outside under umbrellas waiting to catch a glimpse of Torrin. So instead they went out through the darkened front of house, red plush and gilt giving way to the cool green and gold of the foyer.
Torrin managed to limp the few yards down the Strand to their hotel, and when they reached reception he leaned on the desk, trying to disguise the fact that it had been an ordeal, Merril observed tenderly.
She waited by the lift as he suggested, but even from there she could see that something was wrong. Torrin said something to the receptionist and she was shrugging apologetically, but when he rejoined her he didn't explain. Only when he came to unlock the door of their suite did he admit there had been a mistake.
'They've given us a double room, but don't worry, you'll be safe. There's a day bed in it.' He switched on the lights and looked round.
It was a first-class suite—peach brocade, floor-length curtains, mirrors everywhere, reproduction antique furniture, huge vases of hothouse flowers—and a sumptuous double bed dominating the main room.
'You can put all this in your article,' he told Merril drily.
'Is there anything I can get you?' she asked, ignoring that gibe and hovering round him, not sure how best to make herself useful.
'Not a damn thing. And don't play Florence Nightingale. I'm not in the mood.'
'Sorry.'
'And don't be sorry.'
'Sorry, I mean --'
'Just go to bed. It's been a hell of a day.' He limped over to the day bed and began to rearrange the cushions.
'But, Torrin, I have to say I'm sorry. I mean --'
Merril broke off as he turned his head with an impatient jerk as if to cut her off. 'I mean, I'm sorry for what I said at the millhouse and for making you injure your ankle—'
'Don't feel you have to put on a show of feminine sympathy at this stage. It's quite out of character.'
'I'm not, I mean—it's not a show.'
'It's the real thing?' His voice was harsh.
She flinched. 'Yes,' she whispered, her throat going dry.
'Impressive, but ill-timed,' he observed coldly. 'Save it for somebody else.'
He was already stripping off his shirt and didn't notice her sharp intake of breath. It was becoming familiar to see him without many clothes but he never failed to dazzle her. She took a step forward, but he was ignoring her again, so she sank down on the side of the bed farthest away from him and began to take off her stockings. Everything was wrong. She was confused, didn't know what she wanted, but she knew it wasn't this. Torrin's rejection was unexpected, chilling her to the bone. And why was she always in these compromising situations with him? Why couldn't their relationship develop like any other? Words Tom had spoken came back to her: 'He's an original.' And she kicked her shoes under the bed with a little spurt of anger, wishing for something, but not sure what.
A voice from behind made her turn. 'I can't get these damned jeans back over the stuff Foster put on.' He gave a helpless look, dark eyes flicking over her face, noticing her blushes. He was sitting in nothing but his underpants, and her startled expression must have been plain. It seemed to amuse him.
'It's all right,' she muttered, embarrassed, 'I'll help.' As she pulled the offending garment away, Torrin started to chuckle softly.
'I've never taken your finer feelings into account, have I? In my job I get used to clothes coming off at the drop of a hat, it doesn't mean a thing—but you're actually blushing!' He caught her by the hand. That's so sweet.' He kissed her lightly on the forehead. 'But I thought you told me you never blushed?'
'I did?' Merril couldn't remember telling him that.
He put a finger under her chin and looked over her face, examining it as if preparing an inventory. 'I'm sorry I barked at you just now. Sorry, eyes,' he kissed them, 'sorry, nose, ears --' then he brought his lips down and placed them on her lips '—and sorry, lips. Thank you for being so sweet. You can go home if you want to, Merril. I haven't any right to inflict this on you. It just seemed a good idea at the time.'
'I thought you said you weren't going to let me leave with my prejudices intact?'
'I think I've succeeded. Rather more than I'd hoped . . .'
Merril felt herself blushing again when she understood what he was saying, remembering the look in her own eyes in the dressing-room mirror that evening. She should have guessed he would notice and understand what that look had meant, as she had wanted him to. Now it seemed to be having the wrong effect.
'I know I'm transparent,' she muttered. 'But you wanted me to respond, didn't you? You've succeeded.' She turned away, scarcely daring to look at him, as near to offering herself to any man as she had ever been in her entire life.
'I don't want to succeed, as you put it. I'm not out to score.' Torrin let his hand drop and sat very still, just looking at her. Then after a while he reached forward and took her face between both his hands, and began to lower his lips inch by inch towards hers, as if giving her plenty of time to move away, and all this without taking his honey-gold eyes from hers. When she lifted her face up to his he touched her lips lightly and experimentally, as if unsure of her reaction.
'Are you going to slap my face?' he asked hoarsely.
Merril felt herself pressing helplessly against him as he drew her down on to the couch beside him. 'No, I don't think so,' she whispered. 'Why should I?'
'Because I'm Torrin Anthony,' he murmured, 'infamous lecher, and I've abducted you for the express purpose of having my wicked way with you, after which I shall discard you like an old sweet-paper.'
He spoke lightly, but it was so close to what she had originally thought, she dropped her glance.
'I want you,' she said simply. 'I was wrong about you. I think you're—you're absolutely marvellous.'
Her words had the same effect as a slap on the face. Torrin's hands dropped and, leaning back, he moved his head so their faces were distanced, his, at first black as thunder, adopting a professionally deadpan expression designed to give nothing away. He said, 'It s infatuation. You'll get over it when you realise I'm not wonderful. I'm vain, arrogant, selfish. I let nobody and nothing stand in the way of my ambition. Don't have any illusions about me, Merril. When I first set eyes on you, I wanted you. I wanted to take you to bed. I hadn't planned for love—I don't want it. But what I felt for you seemed so different from anything I'd felt before, I thought it was love. It was a star that beckoned and I had to follow.'
'You mean you feel differently now? You've changed?' Her eyes widened in pain. She felt as if she were falling and there was nothing to grasp on to.
'We met in very special circumstances. It made me see you as someone special. And I believe this is what happened to you, too. But I'm experienced enough to know that feelings like that can fade like snows in summer. I would never let what I feel come between me and my work—I couldn't take that risk. Do you understand what I'm saying?'
'I don't understand a word of it.' Only one thing seemed clear. What he had felt had melted like summer snow. 'When did you see me as someone special? In your dressing-room on that first night? I was just another backstage visitor, wasn't I? What was so special about that? There were dozens of women drooling over you then.' Merril was confused.
<
br /> 'Not then.'
'That's when we met.'
'Is it?' Torrin lay back and closed his eyes. 'I'm exhausted. I can't think straight. Lines from the play keep running through my head. I feel like doing something violent.' He tried to get to his feet, having forgotten about his fractured ankle, and groaned as he put his weight on it. 'Damn!' His face twisted for a moment in a look Merril knew was genuine, then he hobbled a few paces before sitting down heavily on the day bed again. 'Violence is obviously out. I think I'll get some sleep instead.'
'Torrin, you can't say what you've just said to me and then simply turn over and go to sleep!' she exclaimed.
'You sound like an irate wife.'
'Oh, dear!' She looked down at him, his changeable face lined with pain and the stresses of the evening's performance, and she wanted to love him very much, only the frightening words he had spoken to her just now restraining her. Then she saw his yellow cat's eyes glitter with sudden mirth at the picture of her as an irate wife, and it made her, too, see the funny side and she began to giggle. Without thinking, she dropped on top of him and started to tickle him, and suddenly he was kissing her and she was wrapped tightly in his arms and he was crooning something in her hair, rocking her back and forth, Merril felt tears of relief spout from her eyes, making her bury her face in the broad shoulders against which he was tightly holding her.
'There, there,' he murmured, 'have a good cry—it's not the end of the world.' He rocked her back and forth, murmuring nothings and then saying, 'The opening of a show is always one damned crisis after another. Emotions run high. Moving into the West End doesn't happen every day, and I'm not so blasé it hasn't had its effect.' She felt him kiss the top of her head. 'None of us are thinking straight right now.'
'But, Torrin, I love you. I love you so much,' she whispered, afraid he was going to turn her away again.
He made her get up. 'Get into bed,' he ordered.
Merril slid between the silky sheets, having first made him turn away so she could finish undressing. When she gave the word, he turned back and came over to tuck her in. 'Now,' he kissed her lightly on the forehead, 'you're going to go straight to sleep; Pleasant dreams.'
'But --'
'Sleep, I said!'
'I'll only dream of you,' she warned.
'Please yourself,' he bantered, turning back to the day bed. 'Let's see how we feel about all this in the morning.'
Merril couldn't believe he was simply going to climb into a separate bed and go to sleep after he had given every impression until now that she would need an army for protection. What was going wrong? Didn't he understand that she no longer cared about the consequences? She had been wrong about her feelings to begin with, not understanding that her antagonism was a simple response to the confusion of meeting someone like him so soon after Azur.
Torrin was about to put out the light when she called over to him. He gave a non-committal grunt and the light snapped off. She heard the rustle of covers as he made himself comfortable, then there was silence.
Merril tried to snuggle down into the capacious double bed, but it seemed desolate to be lying in it without Torrin beside her. She tossed and turned for about twenty minutes, hoping to hear him call across to her, but there was a resolute silence from the other side of the room. Unable to stand it, she slid out, feeling the thick carpet tickle her bare feet as she padded over to the day bed.
Torrin was lying on his back, one arm flung out above his head. His eyes were wide open, watching her as she stood over him.
'Torrin?'
He didn't reply.
'Torrin, you are awake, aren't you?'
'With you writhing about like a boa constrictor in a salsa contest, what do you expect?' came the curt response.
'I'm sorry --' she began.
'Never apologise. That's the first rule of good salesmanship.'
'I'm not selling anything.'
'No?' She saw his eyebrows shoot up. 'No,' he agreed then, 'you've decided to give it away, haven't you?' His voice had dropped to an ironic growl, and she had to lean forward to catch his words.
When she understood what he meant, she started back. 'That's a hateful thing to say!'
'Hateful but true. But it's my own fault. I should never have taken you backstage with me. There's something about it that makes women leave their common sense behind. It's only a job, you know, nothing special about it. But it always has the same effect. If you'd seen me heaving coal sacks about you'd probably feel quite different.'
'I doubt that.'
'Look, Merril, be a good girl and go back to bed --'
She sat down firmly on the edge of his. 'We started off on the wrong foot and now you think I'm simply stage-struck! Well, I'm not, and I want to rectify things --' She gulped a little as a panic-stricken image of what she wanted to do flooded her mind. 'I'm not very good at this sort of thing,' she went on in a hurried whisper, 'not like the scalp-hunters Tom says strew your path daily ... I expect they're very good ... and would know exactly what to say…'
As she was talking she slid her hand underneath the cover and let it ripple over the muscles of his shoulders. He gave a small groan and shifted so that she could reach further. She half expected he would try to stop her, and was daunted to find this was anything but the case.
Feeling a little bit out of her depth and unsure quite what she wanted, she let her instincts take over, fingers finding their own way, exploring the shield-shaped chest, circling and teasing the hard nipples, rubbing the palms of her hands rapidly over his ribs and back again to tease once more among the hairs on his chest and knead the heavier muscles across his shoulders, gratified that he seemed to find the whole thing immensely pleasurable.
Torrin moved again, making room for her beside him. 'Don't stop yet, this is heaven,' he murmured. 'You could get a job down the road any time!'
'Down the road?' she muttered, concentrating on easing away his tension and scarcely listening to his murmured words.
'Soho,' he mumbled, turning on to his stomach so that she could massage the muscles on his back. She gave him a quick nip with her teeth at the back of his neck.
'That,' she said when he protested, 'is for saying naughty things, Torrin Anthony! You know full well I would do this for no other man on earth. Not at any price.'
'Don't, Merril.' For a moment she stopped, what she was doing, imagining she had hit on a painful patch, but then he went on, 'I can't let you say things like that. I'm not worth it.'
'I'll say what I like,' she murmured, adding the touch of her lips to that of her hands over the well-developed lateral muscles, kneeling over him so that her small hands could massage them equally on both sides.
'You'd better stop right now—I don't think you quite realise what you're doing to me ...' He tried to twist his head to look up at her, but she pushed him back and continued to run her hands over his back, using more force now as she remembered movements she had learned long ago on a visit to a health farm. The masseur there had been an eighteen-stone man with shoulders like an ox, and Merril had watched, fascinated, as he exerted a rhythmic pressure over the back muscles of one of the clients. She and another reporter had volunteered to have the treatment too, and she still remembered the exquisite sensation as all the unsuspected tension had been eased away under his professional touch.
She wanted Torrin to feel like that now, so she ignored what he was saying and bent over him, using all her weight and every ounce of the skill she could muster.
He was still mumbling into his pillow and she caught odd words now and then as she worked. 'There's no future . ..' he warned. 'Don't do this ... not think about any future ... I want you... oh, you witch, that's wonderful! But right, no substance . . . coward .. . don't want commitment... freedom — won't live up to what you want. . . nothing like your dream man . . .'
'Oh, shut up, Torrin! I'm over all that now. You were quite right—I was silly to waste time mooning over someone I'm never likely to meet again, wonderful t
hough he was. I shall always remember him, but I know it was just fantasy.' She bent to plant little kisses over his back before continuing. 'You're so beautiful,' she breathed almost to herself. 'The most beautiful man I've ever seen. Ever.'
'. . . first time like this, I hope . . . no, not fair . . . listen, I don't want responsibility for anyone else's happiness . . . enough problems . . . don't want commitment . . .' He half turned his head. 'Are you listening, Merril?'
'Of course I am, Torrin darling—or should I say Tory darling?' she whispered against his ear. 'Does your brunette friend do this sort of thing for you?' she went on, nibbling the lobe of his ear and feeling suddenly very sophisticated and grown-up about love.
'Merril, listen to me. You were right, I'm the sort who runs away . . . haven't the courage to stay . . . takes real courage to live up to that daily commitment to someone else. I don't have courage like that. . .'
'Never mind.' Merril wasn't really listening. 'Is that nice?' she murmured, sliding her hands down in smooth swooshing movements from shoulder to waist.
'Nearly nice.'
'What s wrong with it, my darling?'
'Stops too soon—' he mumbled again, turning back to bury his head in the pillow and groaning as she took him at his word and let her hands pressure further, moving down in a V from the apex of his shoulders to the narrow waist until, greatly daring, she could feel the hard muscles or his buttocks beneath her palms, then she was bringing her hands down again and again until she could scarcely tell the difference between his body and her own. Suddenly he gave a groan and twisted over in one abrupt movement, grasping hold of both her hands to rake them roughly down the length of his body, drawing her down on top of him at the same time in one powerful movement.
Merril gave a cry as she discovered why he had been trying to warn her to stop, and at the same time felt his hands slide round her hips, dragging her against him so that she was straddled helplessly across him, her automatic protests dying at once as she felt him lock her against his body. In the darkness she could only make out the pale blur of his face against the pillow, unable to see his expression, and she put out a hand to explore his face.
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