by Sandra Brown
She wasn’t participating. If he had expected her to collapse against him, tearing at his clothes, begging him to take her then and there on the sand and appease a primal urge, he knew he was in for a grave disappointment.
But she wasn’t resisting either. He drew small encouragement from that. Was it stark fear or arousal that had dilated her eyes and made her breath as choppy as the whitecaps out on the ocean?
His hands glided up her rib cage and paused for a heartbeat before sliding over her breasts. “They would have wanted to pump these full of silicone.” He pressed his hands over her, taking all of her within his palms. “And that would have been a damn shame. You’re perfect as you are.” His thumbs brushed the taut peaks. “Perfect.”
She stepped back quickly. “Don’t!”
Just as quickly, he reached for her again, because a split second before she stumbled away from him, he had felt her body’s response to his touch. That shrinking, that tightening of flesh was her undeniable giveaway. He spanned her waist with his hands and drew her against him. “Don’t what, Kirsten?”
“Don’t touch me like that.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like it. I didn’t like it last night and I don’t like it today.”
His eyes bore down into hers. His were predatory, hers wary. “You’re a liar. You like it a lot. That’s what’s bugging you.”
“That’s not true!”
She strained to get away from him, but his hold was unrelenting. “What aren’t you telling in your book?”
“Nothing important.”
“Uh-huh. How Rumm felt about you, how you felt about him, is vastly important.”
With a sudden burst of strength, she shoved him away from her. “Leave me alone. For the last time, I will not discuss my private life with you or anybody. If you continue to pester me and subject me to your mauling, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
As he watched her making fleet and surefooted progress up the steep steps, he expansively cursed his impatience and the erection that had precipitated it.
The road was endless. It was hot and dusty. In the rearview mirror of her car, she could see the cloud of dust she was leaving in her wake. It obscured everything behind her.
Her eyes scanned the horizon. She had to keep going forward. She had to get there before . . .
Before what?
She wasn’t sure. But she had a terrifying compulsion to press on the accelerator and drive very fast toward—
Oh, God! That was it! She had to get to the column of smoke. She could see it now, as black and oily as a water snake rising up out of the desert. It was so far away. She’d never make it in time.
“Charlie, Charlie!”
She opened her mouth and tried to call his name, tried to tell him that she was coming, but the clouds of dust behind her were catching up. They filled her throat and mouth with heat and grit. She couldn’t utter a sound beyond the grunting whimpers of a frightened animal who smells death. The swirling dust hampered her vision. She was able to see the black plume of smoke only occasionally now through the ocher cloud that was engulfing her.
Her sweating hands couldn’t hold onto the steering wheel. It kept slipping from her grasp. Sweat trickled down between her breasts, too, and made her thighs slippery as they moved against each other in an effort to work the accelerator and brake, both of which were spongy and seemed to be sinking into the floorboard of the car. She could barely reach them with the tips of her toes.
But she mustn’t stop. She must keep driving. She had to get to the black smoke, which was like a foreboding inkblot against the painfully blue sky.
She finally reached the source of the smoke, a silver aircraft, as sleek as a bullet. Fire and smoke were belching from it at regular intervals.
She got out of the car. Charlie, no, no!
But wait! Thank God! He was sitting in the cockpit. Weak with relief, she laughed. It was all part of the stunt. The smoke. The fire. Was it all part of the crowd-pleasing performance? Yes, of course it was. Charlie always believed in giving the people their money’s worth.
He looked at her and smiled. He winked and said something, but she couldn’t hear him over the explosions that kept erupting from the burning aircraft. He should get out now. He might yet get hurt. She ran forward, but instead of getting closer, a deep chasm yawned between her and the burning stunt plane.
Charlie, still smiling, raised his hand to wave to her. No, no! One of his fingers burst into flame. Then another. Another. Until he wore a glove of flames. And . . .
She screamed in sheer terror.
HIS FACE WAS MELTING BENEATH HIS HELMET.
She watched the handsome features melt and run together until she couldn’t distinguish them any longer. She tried to reach him, but her feet wouldn’t move. They were stuck in the sand. “Get out, get out, Charlie, there’s still time.” But he didn’t because the crowds—which had sprung up out of the desert—were wildly applauding his courage.
The flames consumed the cockpit until she couldn’t see him anymore. She couldn’t scream. Her own breath seared her lungs.
The hot sand scraped her knees when she collapsed into it. “No, no, no, no . . .”
Rylan wasn’t asleep. When he heard the faint, muffled cries coming from across the hall, he was out of bed like a shot. He stepped into his discarded cutoffs but didn’t even take the time to fasten them as he ran to her bedroom door and flung it open. The wedge of light allowed him to see his way clearly to the bed where Kirsten was thrashing in the throes of a nightmare.
He didn’t stop to think about it. He didn’t pause to consider his options. Calling for Alice never crossed his mind. There was no hesitation on his part as he dived across the bed and gathered Kirsten against him.
Her response was immediate. Her rigid body went limp. Her hands, which had been spasmodically clutching the sheets, reached around the back of his neck, where she groped for and held onto handfuls of his hair. He didn’t mind. He hugged her tight.
“Shh, shh. I’m here. It’s over.”
She held on tighter, burrowing her face in the hollow of his shoulder. He wasn’t certain that she was fully awake, though she had begun to cry. Her tears were warm and wet. They trickled down his skin. He hated them, loved them.
The nightmare must have been hideous to have produced the twisted expression of horror he’d seen on her face before she’d buried it in his shoulder. He wasn’t going to dismiss the nightmare with platitudes about it being only a bad dream. Bad dreams were hell for the dreamer. For as long as she needed him, he would stay with her, until the demons were banished.
His hands were gentle. He smoothed them over her head, securing it beneath his chin. His palms skimmed her bare arms and shoulders, at all times keeping her pressed close to his chest. Shudders rippled through her. The dream might have ended, but the terror lingered. She snuggled against him.
Her sobs finally subsided, but she made no effort to move away. “Poor baby,” he whispered against her ear. “You’re drenched.”
She didn’t stop him when he raised the hem of her nightgown and used it to dab at her perspiring neck and chest. He tried to do it in a detached manner. But when he realized that the nightgown was all she had on, it was difficult to keep his touch impersonal. His unhurried ministrations elicited a soft purr from Kirsten. Finally, regretfully, he let the nightgown fall back into place, draping her hips.
He slipped his arm around her middle, and only then realized that her entire torso was damp with sweat, tangible evidence of her nightmare. Using both hands, he pressed the fabric of her loose nightgown against her body to act as a blotter for the moisture that had collected on her skin.
She felt so frail beneath his hands, no larger than a child. He thought he could probably span her rib cage with his hands. But when his fingers brushed the underside of her breast, he felt a womanly fullness that made him ache. He couldn’t stop himself from exploring further.
He used his hands
to support her breasts. He felt the sudden cessation of her breathing and prepared himself to be shoved away. Instead, to his immense pleasure and surprise, Kirsten clenched her hands tighter around his shoulders.
His heart was slamming into his ribs and into the body he held against him. He pressed the small, full mounds of her breasts, kneaded them. She didn’t pull away, but actually leaned into his caress. He answered the hungry little sound she made with a groan of yearning. Her sweet lips moved against his neck, kissing it. The kisses grew more frantic.
“Kirsten,” he whispered hoarsely.
God, this was good. So damn good. Kirsten wasn’t trying to impress him with her stupefying physical dimensions. She wasn’t a starlet trying to edge into his spotlight for publicity purposes. She wasn’t bartering a screen test for sexual services rendered.
She needed him. Him, Rylan. Not him the movie star. This was honest. This was real. This was what all the man/woman stuff was about. And her quiet desperation was the biggest turn-on he’d felt in years.
He was so hard, he had to bare his teeth against the pleasurable pain of it. What if his erection frightened her and she ended it now?
The sheets were damp and twisted around their legs. That made things awkward. He wanted to ease her back onto the pillows, to cover and protect her with his own body. Then, when she didn’t feel threatened by him any longer, he wanted to kiss her mouth and stroke her finely made body until she was moist and open and as ready for him as he was for her.
But he didn’t urge her to recline. Not yet. He didn’t want to spoil it by rushing.
He ducked his head. Her eyes were still closed, but she responded by tilting her head up and back. Her lips were parted. He covered them with his own.
Her lips were cool, but her open mouth was hot. He kissed her lightly, several soft, pecking kisses, then rubbed his lips against hers. He licked salty tears from the corners of her mouth. Their tongues touched.
That ignited a powder keg of sensation. Heat suffused his chest and spilled down into his belly and thighs. Immediately a strong, primitive arousal seized him. Kirsten, too, must have felt it. She moved against him restlessly. Her arms made hand-over-hand climbing motions behind his neck.
He touched her nipples; she tore her mouth from beneath his to utter a strangled cry. He stroked them, tugged on them gently. More than he’d wanted anything in his life, he wanted to take them in his mouth, to caress them with his tongue for a very long time, to feel them get flushed and hard against his teeth.
But Kirsten became the aggressor. With an out-pouring of passion he wouldn’t have suspected her capable of, she covered his throat with random kisses. Then, inching her way down, she kissed his chest. He cupped her head between his hands and followed its aimless movements over his chest, loving the feel of her breath soughing through his chest hair.
“You’re beautiful, beautiful,” she whispered.
She sank her teeth into the meaty muscle of his chest and took a love bite. Moaning, he clasped her head tighter. When her busily questing lips discovered his nipple in the whorl of crinkly hair, they both froze for an instant. Rylan held his breath, waiting, waiting in agonizing expectancy.
At first she gently closed her lips around the nub of flesh, then daintily extended her tongue. His nipple beaded against the damp, flicking tip of it.
Incoherently, he called upon a deity. Murmuring endearments, he sifted his fingers through her hair. He tried to lift her head, but she resisted and moved lower to kiss his stomach.
His cutoffs were still unsnapped and unzipped. He knew that if she looked, she would see between the open flaps of fabric a shadowy delta of dark hair. He dared not think what else might be visible. Oh, no. Don’t spoil it now. She would think—
She slipped her hand into the opening and tentatively touched the springy thicket of hair.
“Kirsten!” he hissed.
Even through the red mist of a desire so potent it threatened to strangle him, he was amazed by her boldness. Granted, her touch was hesitant and inquisitive, almost bashful, but she was touching him. She had taken the initiative. He wanted to give himself over entirely to the pleasure of filling her hand with his flesh, but he was distracted by the sheer miracle of it happening.
Her caresses grew bolder and his body responded, until the merest glimmer of thought was extinguished and his attention was focused entirely on the milking motions of her hand.
“Kirsten, my God, Kirsten . . . beautiful Kirsten . . . not this way. . . . Let me . . .”
Suddenly she was no longer there.
Rylan opened his eyes.
Kirsten was sitting rigidly upright, holding her hands against her chest as though she had just snatched them out of the jaws of a man-eating beast. Her eyes were filled with horror and mortification. She looked at him as though he were the incarnation of the monster in her nightmare.
Softly saying her name, he reached for her. She shrank from his touch. She clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle a garbled scream. She continued to stare at him, her eyes glassy with fear and dismay.
Grimacing, he leaned forward, bracing himself on stiff arms. “I see. You didn’t know it was me.” The words were painful to say, almost as painful as the process of having to consciously squelch his desire. “Give me a minute,” he rasped out.
In twice that amount of time, he slowly sat up and levered himself off the bed. On his way to the connecting bathroom, he zipped his shorts, but not without having to make some uncomfortable adjustments. He switched the light on in the bathroom, turned the cold water tap on full blast in the quaint pedestal sink, and dunked his head beneath it. He splashed his face and chest, but knew that it wouldn’t arrest the fever that would rage through him for the remainder of the night.
He carried a wet washcloth back to the bed. Kirsten flinched when he sat down and extended it toward her. “You’re soaking wet and it can’t be comfortable. Bathe your face and neck.”
Unintentionally he sounded brusque. He had tried to curb his irritation, but hadn’t been very successful. He hadn’t rushed across the hall with the purpose of making love to her. Her cries had drawn him. The only thing he’d had in mind when he barged into her bedroom was to be for her whatever she needed him to be. And that’s what he’d done.
But now she was looking at him like he was Jack the Ripper. Hell, he hadn’t done anything she hadn’t begged him for. He’d hardly taken advantage. There wasn’t a male animal from aardvark to zebra that could have gotten those signals crossed. She’d instigated the foreplay. He had responded. It had been her hands and her mouth that had started crawling all over him, not the other way around.
But when she buried her face in the cool, damp cloth and he had a view of the crown of her head, he wanted to lay his hand over it, to ruffle her tousled hair and tell her that everything was going to be all right. Where this feeling of compassion originated, he couldn’t fathom. Given his present state of mind and body, it was ludicrous.
But it was there, a thousand times more potent than he’d first felt it that day in her lawyer’s office. Kirsten might not be willing to admit it, but she needed him. Sexually. Emotionally. Every way.
When she was done with it, she passed him the cloth. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He folded the washcloth and dropped it onto the nightstand. “You need a fresh nightgown. Where are they?”
“Third drawer,” she said, pointing toward the bureau.
He found one in the dark and carried it back to the bed. After handing it to her, he turned his back and stayed that way until another quiet “Thank you” notified him that she had changed.
“Try to get some sleep.”
Obediently, she lay down. He pulled the sheet over her, then bent down until his face was directly above hers. “What were you dreaming about, Kirsten?”
“Charlie.”
All his facial features reflected a negative reaction to the answer he had expected. However, there was nothing but steel
y conviction in his voice when he said, “But I was the man you reached for.”
Five
She liked men.
The theory of frigidity had thankfully been shot to hell last night. Sipping coffee as he watched Kirsten through the terrace door while she sunbathed on the deck, Rylan thought what a damned shame it would have been if that wonderful female body had been frigid.
But it wasn’t. Not even close. Her mind might be frozen to the thought of making love, but her body damned sure wasn’t.
Now the paramount question was, who was her body burning to make love to? He feared that he knew the answer and, aware of Alice working nearby at the kitchen sink, muttered a vile curse beneath his breath.
If he had met Kirsten when she was married to Charles Rumm, Rylan would have thought, “Damn that lucky bastard,” but he would never have pursued her. He’d had more than his share of casual affairs, but never, never, no matter how strong the temptation or willing the lady, with a married woman.
He had lived with only two women, and each for a brief period of time. The first had been a struggling young actress, who arrived in the lions’ den of Hollywood about the same time he had. They had found sympathy and security in each other’s bed. After several professional setbacks, she had swapped her aspirations of serious acting for the easy bucks of porno flicks. Rylan had ended their relationship immediately. It wasn’t so much the pornography that had turned him off, but her swift capitulation to failure and the ease with which she had sacrificed her goal. And then there had been their disagreement over the baby. Certainly that had entered into his decision.
His second live-in had been a real estate broker. Vibrant, energetic, ambitious. Her ambition had been one of her attractions until she had begun talking interest rates and percentages in bed. At that point he’d suggested an uncomfortable place for her to stick her For Sale sign. She hadn’t taken kindly to the suggestion and had left their bed and their apartment in a huff, disparaging him for being jealous of and threatened by her success.
