by Adrianne Lee
Olivia’s expression grew cautious as she absorbed the tension between her four guests. “Is everything all right?”
“It’s wonderful,” Lorah assured her, her bracelet clanging as though in protest to this lie.
Nikki glanced at the armload Olivia carried: a folded white cloth and two shoe boxes full of white candles of various sizes. Olivia’s dark eyes swept the group, coming to rest on Nikki. She smiled stiffly. “Dorothea asked that you come to the ballroom as soon as possible. For rehearsal.”
The thought of facing Chris whipped Nikki’s pulse like a top spinning at full speed. She hadn’t bothered reading the script yet. Would rather be reading the diary. But before she could recover it, she had to get rid of all these onlookers.
Thunder cracked again, and her gaze fell to the candles in Olivia’s arms. Nikki’s stomach hit the floor. She wanted to get back on-line. E-mail Zeus Theresa’s full name. But she wouldn’t be e-mailing anyone if the storm impaired the phone lines. “Are you expecting a power outage?”
Olivia blinked, then shook her head. “Goodness, no. At least, I hope not”
“The candles are for the séance.” Marti tapped a short fingernail against her journal.
“As is the cloth.” Lorah lifted her chin, her pale, eerie eyes sending a shiver through Nikki. “We’re holding the séance in the master suite this evening.”
Chapter Nine
A séance for a ghost that doesn’t exist. Nikki tamped down the urge to laugh at the foolishness of it all. Somehow she managed to hang on to her composure and make it to her room. She settled the laptop back on the desk, then returned to the door and tugged it open a crack. No one lingered near the library, but she couldn’t retrieve the diary without being seen by the three women in the master suite. It would have to wait until later.
“Patience, patience,” she whispered to herself, hating the anxious need for action that swirled through her stomach, her limbs. Hating the sense of being trapped.
Thunder banged overhead. Nikki jumped. Would the storm knock out the power? Her nerves tickled the underside of her skin like a million tingling electrodes. She glanced back at her laptop, biting down the urge to snatch it up and head to the TV room to e-mail Zeus. She couldn’t risk being waylaid by Dorothea. She had yet to read the skit script, and according to Olivia, Dorothea was itching to get the rehearsal underway. She was likely pacing in front of the ballroom at this very moment.
Nikki glanced out into the hall again.
Diego was coming up the stairs carrying a ladder-back chair. She stared in disbelief at Chris, who was right behind the architect...also hefting a chair. How had he gotten talked into helping set up the séance he so opposed? Was he doing this because of their pact last night?
He glanced toward her, confirmation of this in his dark eyes. Her heart skipped. But she refused to admit her reaction to his warm gaze held any other meaning than that they were coconspirators.
She tore her gaze from him and shut the door softly. Crossing the room, she flipped open the laptop, activated it and composed an e-mail to Zeus. She’d send it at the first opportunity. The room lit with a flash of lightning, and Nikki started, her nerves still at the surface. She turned off the computer, found the script for the skit, stretched out on the bed and began reading.
The script wasn’t half-bad, but the scenes Chris and she would be playing demanded more physical contact than she wanted to share with him. That, however, was easily remedied. They were stand-ins. No one expected their performances to be perfect. Or accurate. They were only feeding lines to the other actors, giving them a sense of how the scene would work.
She was not required to kiss Chris. Nor would she.
THE STORM SOUNDED WORSE than ever in the ballroom. Wind howled against the windows, stealing inside like invisible ice monsters. Dorothea., defying the dull day in her neon-orange jumpsuit, had positioned metal folding chairs in a circle in the center of the room. But as bright as her outfit was, she seemed subdued, as though the weather worried her, as though it would somehow ruin her skit.
Nikki squirmed in her metal chair, glancing surrep-titiously at the two actors across from her. The woman who was playing the cook, a stocky, gray-haired matron-type, alternated between staring at the open script on her lap and closing her eyes as though memorizing her lines. The other, a younger woman playing the role of maid to Theresa, seemed bored.
“Where is my Luis?” Dorothea implored of them between sips from her coffee mug.
As though on cue Chris strode into the room, his boot heels clicking across the bare planking. The set of his shoulders and cocky toss of his head proclaimed he had better things to do. He barely acknowledged Nikki, showed no response to her appearance. In an effort to look as little like Theresa as possible she’d slicked her unruly hair off her face in a style as severe as Olivia’s.
Nikki fingered the edge of her script, curling and uncurling it. It was obvious Chris didn’t want to be there. Well, neither did she. She’d rather be reading the diary. She cursed to herself, hating that her old ability to temper her patience seemed to be slipping from her more and more every hour. Every minute.
Chris snatched up the script and slumped onto one of the folding chairs, crossing his long legs at the ankles. He read silently, his expression intense, his eyes narrowing. “What is this?”
He lurched straighter in the chair and poked at the paper.
“Which page?” Dorothea tensed, her tiny voice two notches higher than normal.
“This one. Where Luis gets ‘physical’ with Theresa.”
Physical? Nikki’s mouth dried. Was he talking about the fight scene, or the kissing scene?
“The page number is on the bottom.” Dorothea swigged from her coffee mug.
“Page six,” Chris growled. “Where Luis shoves Theresa into the wall.”
“What about it?”
“It needs to be rewritten.”
“What?” Dorothea bristled.
“I won’t do it. I don’t manhandle women.”
“This isn’t you.” Her face glowed red, a shade lighter than her hair. “Dear boy, it’s a character. You’re ‘acting’ is all.”
“It says here that I shove her into the wall.”
“Well, yes, but not actually. The scene relies on Nikki. You just pretend to shove her, she merely falls backward as though you have.”
She looked to Nikki for confirmation, as though Nikki did this kind of thing all the time. Nikki shook her head. “I have no idea how to do this. I guess you’re going to have to show us.”
Chris’s eyebrows arched, and he looked as though he’d like to shoot Nikki for her suggestion. Her pulse tripped, and she glanced away.
“Then, come on, you two.” Dorothea motioned to Chris and Nikki. “Stand up.”
Chris made no effort to hide his reluctance. Nikki strove to cover her own. If Chris could be rude, she could be gracious. They rose and took a step toward each other. He wouldn’t look at her. She couldn’t look anywhere else. Her stomach twisted. Why did he have to be so obstinate, so ornery, so inordinately sexy? She stepped back, as though putting distance between them would sever the cord of attraction she felt.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Dorothea complained. She waved her hands like twin fans gesturing for them to move closer and closer together. When they were inches apart she finally seemed satisfied. “Okay. Now Chris, put your hands on Nikki’s shoulders.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. He hesitated, then gingerly placed his hands on her shoulders. His touch seemed to sear Nikki’s skin through her sweater. Stifling a moan, she glanced sharply at Chris, only to find him staring at her. His brown eyes grew darker, as dark as the clouds crowding the sky.
“When I say ‘action,’” Dorothea enthused, “then, Chris, you swear as though you’re furious and give a gentle push to Nikki’s shoulders. Nikki, at the first pressure of Chris’s hands, you scream and lurch backward, arms flailing, as though you’ve been shoved.”
A red hue climbed Chris’s neck, and Nikki read anger in his eyes. Why? The weight of his hands on her lessened, as though he could barely tolerate touching her, and even though she knew she shouldn’t, Nikki felt as though he’d stabbed her with a giant icicle.
A spear of lightning cracked though the sky, touching down somewhere on Protection Island. The sudden flash of light and the ensuing roll of thunder jolted Nikki, reminding her just how alone she really was. Just how unsafe. The protection, the love she longed for were not available to her through Chris Conrad. She could rely only on herself.
“Okay.” Dorothea frowned, clutching her mug in both hands. “Action.”
Chris mumbled his lines, but forgot or refused to deepen the pressure on her shoulders.
Dorothea yelled, “Now, now.”
To no avail. Chris wouldn’t push Nikki.
“I don’t like this,” he protested anew.
“Please, just try it” Dorothea plowed a hand through her hair. “This once?”
Chris nodded. Dorothea called “action” again. This time Chris gave Nikki a slight shove. Nikki overcom-pensated and lost her balance. Before she could hit the floor, Chris grabbed her.
Dorothea screamed, “No. No. Let her fall.”
He settled Nikki firmly on her feet, then rounded on Dorothea. “Like hell I will.”
With that, he released Nikki and stalked from the ballroom and clambered down the stairs. A second later the front door slammed. Heat raced through Nikki. fueled by outrage. How dare he run out on her? Leave her to face these gaping actors? Dorothea’s questions?
She mumbled an apology and stormed from the room, following Chris’s route. They were supposed to be working together. She slammed outside, then stood on the stoop for a moment, glaring out into the pouring rain. He knew damned well she didn’t want to act in this skit. His sister’s skit. The least he could do was cooperate. Where had he gone?
She started for the pool area, the rain soaking her clothing. It felt good against her hot cheeks. The gate to the pool hung open. She moved faster. She found Chris in the cabana. He was stacking boxes of fireworks into a corner, moving them from beneath the overhang outside.
“You coward,” she spat.
Chris jerked. Nikki stood not ten feet from him, her eyes flashing like the lightning, her glorious face slick with rain, her sweater wet. clinging to her like a second skin, tight at her small waist, her full breasts. Her erect nipples nudged the fabric. He tried not to notice. He couldn’t look away. His throat tightened, his control broke, and need rocked through him. He dare not acknowledge it, dare not give in to it. Or he’d be lost.
She narrowed her eyes. “What was that?”
He knew she referred to his behavior in the ballroom. “What was what?” he asked, being deliberately obtuse.
It seemed to enrage her more.
“Finally you start acting,” she ground between clenched teeth. “Acting dumb.”
“You ought to be grateful.” He shoved the box aside and started toward the door for another.
“Grateful?” She raced at him. As fast as she came forward, Chris scrambled backward. The wall stopped him. Nothing stopped Nikki. Her wet shoes slipped, and she slid into Chris. Even that didn’t slow her down. Her breath hot against his mouth, she railed, “Grateful that you find me so repulsive you can’t even touch me?”
Repulsive? Good God, how could he be repulsed by a woman like her? When her ripe curves pressed the very length of him? He resisted the urge to pull her closer, fought the awareness spiking his veins, but he couldn’t still his burgeoning erection. Didn’t she realize one smile from her drove him wild? That thoughts of her haunted his sleep? His waking hours? “Repulsed?”
“Yes.” She twisted against him, apparently unaware in her angry state of the effect she was having. “I saw the way you looked at me the last time you kissed me. Believe me, I know when a man doesn’t want me.”
Her provocative movements burned Chris’s restraint like so much dried straw. “Lady, you don’t know anything.”
He grasped her head in both hands and brought his mouth down on hers so savagely fire seemed to leap from her lips into his blood. For a full five seconds, he did all the work. But then he felt that hunger she’d shown the other times he’d kissed her, that response of need to need. He swept her into his arms, pulled her so close he could feel her heartbeat against his chest.
Her arms circled his neck, her fingers laced into his hair as if she was taking possession of him, laying claim to him. And with her ownership came a calmness he’d never known, a rightness, as though letting go would leave him, oddly, more in control.
For the first time in his life, he wasn’t afraid. Not of this woman. Not of this giving, this taking. Not in this moment. Every concern melted in the fire roused by their dancing tongues, in the searing sweet desire rippling through him. His hands feathered along her back, lower and lower, until he held her bottom cupped in both hands.
Nikki breathed in rapid-fire gasps. She couldn’t believe the heat licking through her veins, the need to be with Chris, a need that she’d denied from the first moment she’d seen him. His urgent touch was as gentle as a butterfly wing, as solid and true as his soul. He broke the kiss, and she braced for another rejection, but it didn’t come. The control usually visible in Chris’s eyes was gone; smoldering passion darkened those thicklashed orbs now. Passion for her.
She felt an odd sizzle in her chest, as though the eternal cold spot were shrinking. She didn’t care whether this was right or wrong, whether this would lead to commitment or complication, she only knew she needed confirmation that she was desirable, needed it from this man who’d reinforced her sense of being unloved and unlovable. Somehow the need seemed deeper, but she could no more examine it at this moment than she could fly.
Her fingers found the buttons on his shirt. Eagerness and anticipation made her clumsy; still, the forbidding garment was swiftly opened. She shoved her hands inside his shirt and wallowed in the feel of his warm, naked flesh, in the silken hair on his chest and stomach.
A honeyed sigh slipped from her as Chris lifted the hem of her sweater and moved his hands against her bare back. Then he was tugging the sweater up and off. The hook of her bra gave and he peeled the lacy undergarment down her arms. She watched as he gazed on her for the first time, and melted in the awe she saw reflected in his eyes, in his tender expression. No man had ever looked at her as though she were precious.
Chris felt like a man in a dream, with the woman of his dreams. She had the most glorious breasts he’d ever seen. Gingerly he reached to touch them, thumbed the taut nipples and then tasted them. She cried his name, a breathy whisper embraced by the aching need in his heart.
She undid the button on his jeans, then the zipper, and then she was pulling them down along with his shorts. He stood naked and vulnerable before her, but in that moment he wanted to believe Nikki would never hurt him. As he meant never to hurt her.
Nikki gasped at the size of him, at the sheer beauty of his whole body. Her throat constricted, and her words came out in a breathy whisper, “You’re so perfectly proportioned—like a statue created with loving, gifted hands.”
Matching her visual pleasure with tactile gratification, she swept her open hands over his shoulders, down his arms, up his arms, down his chest, to his flat stomach and lower, finally taking him in both hands and stroking gently up and down the taut, silken length of him.
Chris groaned. “Oh, Nikki.”
A moment later she was also naked. Chris kissed her neck, her breasts, her stomach, his devilish fingers dipping inside her, finding her moist and eager and ready for him. He knelt and pulled her to him, his head pressed to her belly, then he kissed her between her legs, found the bud of her femininity and tortured it erotically with his tongue, bringing her to the edge of rapture.
Nikki dropped to her knees, cupping his head, reaching her lips to his, encouraging his mind-boggling kisses, and then, somehow they were on the fl
oor, the brightly colored cushions beneath them. Outside the storm raged on. Neither noticed. The loud crescendos were a symphony, a backdrop to the sighs and moans of love they sang to each other.
She opened her legs and Chris thrust inside her, deep, then deeper and deeper until she was filled with him, expanding to take all of him. The candied friction of their joining aroused such bliss she immediately climaxed.
But before she could start down the mountain of ecstasy, she was carried up over the top again and again. Through this fog of euphoria, she felt Chris tense, heard him softly cry her name as liquid heat spilled into bet. Seconds later he slumped against her, but made no move to disengage himself.
Tears slipped from the comrnrs of Nikki’s eyes. Her heart felt full to bursting, the cold spot undetectable as though it had gone forever. She’d never experienced anything close to this, never knew it was possible.
But too soon, he rolled off her, taking with him the warm cocoon in which he’d wrapped her. The chill that brushed her flesh felt bone deep, heartbreakingly foreboding. He lifted himself on one elbow and studied her long and hard, and as he did, she saw fear. That haunted look crept back into his eyes.
Chris hated the dread he saw on Nikki’s face. She wouldn’t hurt him, not on purpose. But she didn’t understand that he might very well hurt her. The thought stole the afterglow of their lovemaking, sobering him as surely as an ice-cold bath. Dear God, he’d lost complete control. What was he capable of because of her? She’d made him forget himself. For both their sakes. It must never happen again.
“This was a mistake.”
He knew his words would hurt, he intended them to. It was best. She’d thank him one day.
A nasty heat seared through Nikki as though her whole body had been slammed by a semi-trailer. She hadn’t thought it possible to feel more vulnerable, more completely stripped of her dignity than she felt at this moment. Everything she’d gained from the lovemaking, she lost. She’d be damned if she’d ever let Chris Conrad close to her again. “Believe me, it won’t happen again.”
