Letters to Kelly

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “You know, we can work out here this afternoon,” he said. “You’re not really ready to start rewriting. We have to talk about the scene first, and we can just as easily do that out here as inside.”

  Kelly closed her eyes. She was going to sit here and talk about rewriting the love scenes in her book with this man who clearly wanted to have a physical relationship with her. Add into the confusion the fact that she and T. had made love not so many weeks ago, and it had been the best sex she’d ever had in her life. To top it all off, her hormones wanted more, particularly when T. sat around half-naked the way he was, like some bronzed, blond sun god.

  Kelly sighed. “All right. Start by telling me what I did wrong.”

  “For one thing,” Jax said, “the scene’s too short. It’s over too soon. Essentially you’ve been building up to this scene, you’ve been building up to your characters making love since page one. Your readers are going to feel disappointed if you don’t give ’em their money’s worth.”

  Kelly put her salad bowl down on the deck and picked up T.’s soda can. Caffeine-free cola. Good, she didn’t think she could stand a jolt of caffeine right now. “Can I have a sip?”

  He nodded, still watching her.

  She took a long drink of the sweet liquid. It wasn’t as cool as she’d expected. The hot sun had already warmed the aluminum can.

  “So, okay.” She felt a trickle of perspiration drip between her breasts as she handed the soda can back to T. “How many more pages am I going to have to write?”

  “It’s not a matter of pages,” T. said. “I’ve read great love scenes that were only one page long. I’ve also read at least one that was twenty-two pages—”

  Kelly stared at him. “Twenty-two? Pages? Of sex?” She laughed. “I don’t think my thesaurus has that many synonyms for the word passionately.”

  “Relax. I’m not telling you to write twenty-two pages. Five or six should be fine—”

  “Five or six? I ran out of things to describe after two paragraphs.” The sun was beating down on her. She could feel herself starting to burn. “Can I use some of your lotion?”

  T. sat up, his muscles rippling. “Feelings, Kel.”

  She looked at him. “What?”

  He dragged his chair closer to hers, sitting on the edge of it, his elbows resting on his knees. “It’s not enough simply to describe who’s on top, and who’s kissing whom and where.”

  Kelly felt her cheeks getting warm.

  “You should use the actual physical descriptions of the sex to reveal more about your characters,” T. Jackson continued. “Do they take it slowly, take their time, or do they tear each other’s clothes off? How they do it, particularly the first time, can say a lot about them.”

  Kelly looked up at T., remembering how they had made love that first time in his hotel room. Oh, boy, that had been explosive.

  He looked at her for a moment over the top of his sunglasses, and she could tell from his eyes that he was thinking about that night, too. What did that night reveal about her own character? Kelly wondered. What did it say about the intensity of her feelings for him, that she was willing to make love to him so wildly, abandoning all conventions, ignoring all proprieties?

  Not feelings, she corrected herself quickly. What she had with T. had nothing to do with feelings. It was all attraction. All good old-fashioned lust.

  Are you sure? that voice in her head asked.

  “But that physical description shouldn’t be your main focus,” T. said as he handed her the bottle of suntan lotion. He took off his sunglasses and gently set them down on the deck next to his can of soda.

  Kelly put some lotion into her hand and carefully applied it to her face as he stood.

  “You’ve got to get inside your characters’ heads,” he said as he walked behind her deck chair.

  She turned, surprised, to look back at him as he pushed the big wooden chairback up slightly, releasing the frame from the bar that held it in place.

  He smiled at her as he lowered her chair into a more reclined position. “You’ve got to tell the reader exactly what the characters are feeling.”

  He leaned over the back of the chair and gently took the bottle of suntan lotion from Kelly’s hand. He squeezed some out onto his palm. “And I’m not just talking about physical sensations,” he added, looking down at her with a small smile, “although they’re good, too.”

  She pulled her gaze away from him and sat up with her arms tightly hugging her knees. She felt him sit down on the edge of her chair, slightly behind her, and she looked back at him, startled.

  He began rubbing the suntan lotion onto the top of her shoulders and her bare back, and she inhaled sharply. The lotion was cool against her hot skin, but it was the touch of his hands that sent chills down her spine.

  “It’s how your character feels about the person who’s touching her that’s important,” T. continued softly. She could feel his warm breath against her ear as he rubbed a generous amount of lotion down her arm. “Think about it. Your character could get touched exactly the same way by a friend and then by a lover. It could be a handshake, or an embrace, or maybe…maybe someone—a friend, or a lover—is putting suntan lotion on her back.”

  T. stopped to squeeze more lotion out onto his hand. Kelly turned toward him. “T.—”

  “Relax,” he said. “And pay attention. Maybe you’ll learn something.”

  He reached behind her and began rubbing the lotion onto her other shoulder. Right, thought Kelly. If she was going to learn anything from this, it was that she liked T. Jackson’s touch way too much. And she already knew that.

  “So what’s the difference?” T. said as if he hadn’t been interrupted, as cool and collected as if he were giving a lecture from behind a podium instead of working the lotion down her other arm. “It’s in the way your character feels for the person she’s being touched by. It’s her emotion that can make a simple, innocent caress—” he ran his fingers lightly back up her arm “—outrageously erotic.”

  Kelly closed her eyes, feeling her insides turn to jelly. No, she did not love this man, she told herself. It was just the sun, the heat, making her light-headed.

  “The same theory applies in a love scene when the hero, the man your character loves, undresses her.” With one deft pull, T. untied the top knot of her halter.

  “T.!” Kelly caught the fabric before it fell forward, modestly holding it up against her breasts.

  “I didn’t want to get any lotion on your top,” he explained as she felt his hands on the back of her neck. Wow, that felt good. She closed her eyes again, swallowing her words of protest.

  “Your character would have a very different reaction if a stranger walked up and started undressing her,” T. continued. “But there’s no embarrassment with a lover, only—” his voice lowered slightly “—anticipation.” His hand slipped around to her neck, her throat, as he rubbed lotion into her hot skin. He spread the cool, sweet-smelling cream down, lower, covering her collarbone and the tops of her breasts.

  Jackson could feel Kelly’s heartbeat underneath his hand. He could feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Even beneath the loose folds of the fabric that covered her full breasts, he could see the hard buds of her nipples. He was dying to touch all of her, to kiss her, suckle her. This was torture. He smiled wryly. But it was the best kind of torture he’d ever experienced.

  He stood, and her eyes opened as he gently pressed her shoulders back against the lounge chair. Nudging her hips over slightly, he now sat facing her. She watched, wide-eyed, as he spread suntan lotion onto her stomach, onto the wide strip of soft skin that was between her halter and the waistband of her shorts.

  Kelly stared up into T. Jackson’s eyes. How could he be so cool and calm when she was about to have a heart attack? She’d been long reduced to a puddle of desire, and he was sitting there smiling at her as if they were discussing the weather.

  She saw it then. One lone bead of perspiration traveling down
the side of T.’s face, next to his ear. He was rattled. He was just very, very good at hiding it.

  But it was as if somehow he knew he’d given himself away. His eyes flooded with heat as he slid the tips of his fingers down below the loose waistband of her shorts. Kelly stopped breathing as his gaze locked with hers. He leaned forward, as if he was going to kiss her, closer, closer, until his mouth was just a whisper away from her lips.

  “Foreplay,” he whispered, his breath warm and sweet against her face. “When you write a good love scene, you’ve got to have plenty of foreplay. It’s all part of the anticipation.”

  He straightened up without kissing her, but his eyes held hers as he said, “And if you do it right, most of the love scene can take place while your characters still have their clothes on.”

  He turned slightly then and squeezed a long, white line of suntan lotion first on one of her legs and then the other, from the tops of her thighs all the way down to her instep. Starting at her feet, he used both hands to rub the lotion into her skin.

  His hands moved up her leg at a leisurely, deliberate pace. It was shockingly sensuous, and unbelievably delicious. Kelly opened her mouth but couldn’t find the words to stop him. Truth was, she didn’t want to stop him.

  “If you do it right—” T.’s voice was low now, like a caress “—one look, or a simple touch between lovers, can be as intimate as making love. But you’ve got to reveal what your characters are feeling.”

  His eyes were smoky gray-green as he looked at her, and now there was no hiding the sheen of perspiration on his forehead and upper lip. Kelly could see his pulse beating hard in his neck. His face held undisguised hunger as his fingers lingered on the soft skin on the inside of her thigh. The lotion had been long since rubbed in, but still he didn’t pull his hands away.

  “Imagine,” he said, his voice husky, “if you loved me.”

  This was it. He was going to kiss her. And then they were going to make love, and she wasn’t going to protest. She wasn’t going to say one word. She couldn’t. Not even if her life had depended on it.

  But he didn’t kiss her.

  Instead, he reached for her hand, and taking it, he brushed her palm lightly with his thumb, drawing circles on the sensitive skin, round and round. “Imagine how you would feel,” he whispered. “Imagine the emotions you’d feel just from a simple touch.”

  Kelly stared up at Jax. Emotions. Imagine the emotions. She must have one heck of an imagination, because those imaginary emotions were damn near bowling her over.

  He put the bottle of suntan lotion into her hand. “That’s what it’s really about. Love and emotion. Try rewriting your scene, focusing on what your characters are feeling in their hearts. You’ll write a lot more than two paragraphs. I can guarantee it.”

  He stood, put his sunglasses on and walked calmly down the steps, heading for the cool water of the bay.

  Kelly watched him until he was out of sight.

  Imagine if you loved me.

  She didn’t have to imagine. She just had to remember.

  And that wasn’t very hard to do at all.

  Chapter 13

  The morning dawned hazy and humid.

  After spending the evening writing and rewriting the first love scene in her book, Kelly had had a restless sleep. The setting sun had lowered the record high temperatures by only a few degrees, and the night had been almost impossibly hot.

  Never mind the fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about the way T. Jackson’s hands had felt as he had spread suntan lotion on her legs.

  She’d skip her run this morning, take a nice, cool swim instead.

  It was a good plan, until she got onto the beach and found T. already sitting there.

  “Good morning,” he greeted her.

  “What are you doing up so early?” she asked suspiciously.

  T. shrugged. “Too hot to sleep.” He was wearing the same neon-green bathing suit he’d had on yesterday. His hair was wet, and water beaded on his muscular body. He’d already been in for a swim.

  It was a new day, Kelly realized, looking down at him. It was a new day, and sometime today he was going to kiss her. Her stomach knotted in anticipation.

  As Jax watched, Kelly put her towel down on the sand chair next to his and kicked off her sandals. With one big yank, she pulled her T-shirt over her head.

  She was wearing the black bikini. God, she looked fabulous. He grinned his appreciation, but she ignored him.

  Jax followed her down to the edge of the ocean, watching as she walked directly into the water until it covered all but her shoulders. He crash-dived in, surfacing near her. Shaking his wet hair out of his face, he moved closer.

  “Couldn’t you at least have picked out a bathing suit that had more suit to it?” she asked, backing away.

  “But you look so good in black,” T. said as innocently as possible as he moved toward her.

  “Where’s the black?” Kelly asked. She kept backing away, heading for the beach, exposing more and more of the bathing suit in question to the open air. “When I looked in the mirror, all I could see was skin.”

  “You look good naked, too. The combination is…very nice.”

  The water was only up to her waist now, and his eyes swept over her body. Here it comes. Kelly braced herself. He was surely going to kiss her now. But T. just smiled and dove back out into the deeper water.

  She had been so positive he was going to kiss her, so sure. She had actually started feeling relieved that today’s waiting was over. But then he went and didn’t do it, damn him. He was driving her crazy, and she couldn’t stand the uncertainty another minute longer. “Tyrone Jackson, get your butt back here.”

  “Uh-oh,” he said as he swam back toward her. “What’d I do now?”

  “Kiss me. Will you just kiss me, damn it, and get it over with?”

  He stood up then, and water fell off his body in a sheet. Two big steps brought him right to her side, close enough to put his arms around her, close enough for her to see that the swirl of color in his eyes matched the sunlit ocean almost exactly. She swallowed and looked away, unable to hold the intensity of his gaze.

  “Do you want me to?” he asked softly.

  “No!” T. started to turn away. If he didn’t kiss her now, she’d spend the entire day on edge—“Yes, okay? Yes!”

  He looked at her and it wasn’t the sizzling look of desire she had expected. Instead, he smiled rather wistfully. But he still didn’t kiss her.

  “Please, T.,” she whispered.

  He touched her then, one hand lightly brushing her hair back from her face, his eyes soft. “Aw, Kel,” he breathed. “I didn’t want to use up today’s kiss right now, but you know I can’t refuse you anything.”

  He leaned forward and his lips brushed against hers, gently at first, then with increasing pressure.

  Kelly felt his arms go around her, his hands on her bare back, pressing her against him. It was as if the sensation of their two wet, nearly naked bodies was too much for Jackson, because he didn’t end the kiss when she expected him to. He just kept kissing her, harder, deeper now. Of course, maybe it had something to do with the fact that her arms were up around his neck, and that she was kissing him as hungrily as he was kissing her.

  She wanted him. She couldn’t deny it any longer. She was ready to surrender, ready to stop pretending that she didn’t lie awake all night, wishing that she were in T.’s bed.

  “Kelly, I love you so much,” T. said, kissing her face. “I need you.”

  She could feel his heart pounding, hear the raggedness of each breath as his mouth found hers again.

  He pulled her out with him, deeper, and under the private cover of the water, he touched her, cupping the softness of her breasts, caressing, stroking. Kissing her hard, harder, he pressed against her. There was no mistaking what he wanted.

  And, quite clearly, Kelly knew that making love with T. Jackson was what she wanted, too.

  But suddenly he to
re himself away, backing off about five feet. He just stood there, breathing hard and looking at her. His eyes seemed luminous, and Kelly realized it was unshed tears that made them shine.

  Before she could say a word, he turned and dove into the water. He surfaced far down the beach and kept swimming, hard, away from her.

  “T., come back,” Kelly whispered, but there was no way on earth he could have heard.

  By dinnertime Kelly convinced herself that her moment of surrender when T. had kissed her in the water had been merely that. A moment.

  She had been temporarily insane, momentarily crazed. Hadn’t she?

  Of course, the fact that T. Jackson hadn’t returned from the beach until she was in the shower helped her regain her misplaced sanity. By the time she was done, he had vanished, taking his car with him. He hadn’t left a note saying where he’d gone and when he’d be back.

  It was definitely much easier to convince herself that she didn’t want him when he wasn’t around.

  She worked all day, pretending she wasn’t wondering where he was as she rewrote that damned love scene.

  It wasn’t until six o’clock, when the sun was sinking in the sky, that Jackson appeared.

  “How’s it going?” He set cartons of Chinese food on the big conference table, along with several plates he’d brought from the kitchen.

  He was still wearing his green bathing suit, though it had long since dried. His hair was a mess, but it only made him look even more charming than usual.

  As Kelly met his eyes, she knew immediately that everything she’d been trying to tell herself about T. Jackson all afternoon had been a load of hogwash. If he as much as said a word, she’d throw herself into his arms.

  “You getting that scene rewritten?” He opened a carton of steaming brown rice.

  “I’m trying.” Kelly had to clear her throat before the words came out.

  “Want me to read what you’ve got?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’ve got to let me read it sooner or later.” T. flashed her a low-watt smile.