Demon Rumm (8 page)

He stood against the buffeting wind, unmindful of it. Without his even trying, the emotion his face conveyed was captivating. It was no wonder cameras treated it kindly, cosseted it, made love to it.

Suddenly realizing the moody reflections he had fallen into, Rylan turned his head and caught Kirsten staring at him. He gave her one of those sardonic smiles he was famous for. “Such is Hollywood.”

He looked at her through speculative eyes, noting the way the wind was whipping her clothes around her slender body. Her blouse alternately billowed like a sail, then was plastered against her alluring form. “You’re pretty enough,” he said. “Ever thought about becoming a movie star?”

She laughed, but the wind snatched away the sound, leaving Rylan with only a delightful image of her smiling mouth. He ached to taste it again.

“Hardly. I don’t have the talent or the drive or the discipline.”

“No discipline? I wouldn’t say that. You sat in that chair this morning, poring over the same page of manuscript for hours.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“It’s personal. Just between the words on that page and me.”

“That’s important to you, isn’t it? Protecting your privacy?”

“Very.”

His gaze moved over her. He studied her clinically, as a movie mogul might a starlet while he weighed her box office potential. “It’s probably just as well you didn’t try Hollywood. They might have messed you up.”

He was hoping she would take the bait. She did. She asked him how she might be messed up.

“For instance,” he said, “they would probably have wanted you to let your hair grow long. And it’s so damn perfect for you this way.” He cupped her head in his hands and followed the curvature of her skull and its cap of dark hair. He playfully yanked on the straight, wispy fringe in front of her ears.

Framing her face between his hands, he said, “Terrific eyes. Wide, intelligent, expressive. You certainly wouldn’t need glue-on eyelashes. Not with these.” He ran the tip of his finger over the dark, feathery lashes.

“Good bone structure. High cheekbones.” He took her chin in one hand and with a swift motion, poked his thumb between her lips and slid the pad of it over her front teeth. “Straight teeth. Seductive smile. And I know for a fact that you’re a good kisser.”

The caress was over and done with before Kirsten could react to it. And while she was still docile with astonishment, he moved his hands down to her hips and sandwiched them between his palms. She gazed at him in silent shock, but he didn’t remove his hands. It was now or never. He had to know.

“You’re narrow enough through here.” His thumbs lazily rotated over her hipbones. The cloth of her shorts, made like men’s boxers, was so soft that it might not have been there. He wanted to press his open palm over the flat plane of her stomach and slide his fingers down into the
v
of her thighs, but decided that might be going too far. “You probably wouldn’t have to lose a single ounce.” His voice was so low, it was almost a growl.

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.