Demon Rumm (9 page)

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 steely 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.

He held no grudge toward either woman, only felt extremely lucky that he’d escaped them when he had. So that brought him around to the question that he must ask himself: What did he want with Kirsten Rumm?

Was she to be just another casual affair, one in a series of such affairs that he always ended before either party, namely the woman, became too emotionally involved? Was Kirsten’s resistance a turn-on because it was so unusual for a woman to ignore him? Did it represent a challenge that he was damned and determined to overcome simply because the challenge was there?

In all honesty he could answer no to those three questions. His desire last night hadn’t been rooted in his groin, but in his heart. He didn’t just want this woman’s body; he wanted this woman.

But she was going to be damned difficult to have if she continued to cling to a memory. He couldn’t even begin to tear down their other obstacles—such as his stardom and her tenacious desire for privacy—until he convinced her that it was all right for her to love again.

He’d have to go slowly, be patient. It wasn’t going to be easy. Ghosts had a way of assuming only the good traits of the deceased and none of the bad. How could a mere mortal possibly compete? Especially when his body was impatient. Every time he thought of Kirsten’s mouth opening greedily beneath his, and how her breasts and their sweet crests responded to his touch, and how her hands had—

Crap! He couldn’t start thinking about that again or he’d embarrass himself in front of Alice, who was asking him now if he wanted a second cup of coffee.

“No thanks,” he said, setting his empty cup on the table. “I think I’ll join Kirsten outside.”

“Tell her that I’m going into the village for a while. I’ve got several errands to run.”

“Okay.”

He stepped through the terrace door. The sky was clear, the sun hot. Kirsten was lying on her back, unmoving, on a chaise longue, but he didn’t think she was sleeping. She was wearing an electric blue bikini and sunglasses as large as saucers over her eyes.

“I wondered where you were,” he lied. He’d been watching her for more than half an hour. He dropped down onto the chaise beside hers, sitting on the edge of it with his bare feet spaced wide apart, his clasped hands dangling between his opened knees. “Why aren’t you at your typewriter?”

“I didn’t feel like writing this morning.”

“How come?” Behind the sunglasses, she was keeping her eyes closed. And he could tell by the way she shifted her position that his company wasn’t welcome.

Too damn bad, Miss Kirsten. We’re gonna talk about
this whether you like it or not.

“The weather is nice today.” Was Hollywood’s leading man really uttering a line that banal?

“At this time of year in La Jolla, it usually is.”

Feeling like a pervert but unable to stop himself, he watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Her breasts swelled into half-moons above the stretchy material of her bikini top. An application of suntan gel had made her skin glossy. Her stomach was concave, the hipbones slightly protruding because of her position. Her body tapered toward the triangular mound that lay in the cradle of her thighs. She had a faint birthmark on the inside of her upper thigh. He longed to kiss it.

After a lengthy silence, he thought, “Damn the torpedoes,” and asked, “Are you upset about what happened last night?”

Kirsten sat up, swung her feet to the deck, and took off her sunglasses. Her face was as taut as the single word she said.
“Yes.”

“Why?”

Her features were working with agitation. Rylan thought she might very well burst into tears. “Wouldn’t you be if you were me?”

Standing, she yanked her oversized beach shirt off the back of the deck chair and pulled it on over her bikini. She struggled against the breeze and her own impatience to shove her arms into the uncooperative, flapping sleeves.

She entered the kitchen through the glass door; Rylan was only a few steps behind her. “We have to talk about it, Kirsten.”

“Where is Alice?” He gave her the housekeeper’s message. “Oh, yes,” she said, massaging her forehead, “she mentioned that yesterday. I’m going to make one of those whipped orange drinks. Have you ever had one? They’re delicious.”

Prattling about nothing, she clumsily assembled the ingredients to make the drink in the blender. She almost dropped the pitcher of fresh orange juice when she took it from the refrigerator. Ice cubes were juggled from one hand to the other; she dropped most of them and they went skittering over the tile floor. The foil packet of dry mix which she took from the pantry refused to open. On the brink of tears, she cursed it before using her teeth to tear it apart.

She finally got all the ingredients into the blender’s pitcher, but when she punched the button beneath the word “whip” nothing happened. She punched it repeatedly, making dry, sobbing sounds. “Damn. Damn! What’s wrong with this thing?”

“It isn’t plugged in.”

His calm statement acted like a match to the short fuse of her temper. “You think you’re so damn smart, don’t you? So superior. Would you please just get the hell out of my house!”

Without interfering, he’d given her enough space to throw her temper tantrum. He’d allowed her room to paint herself into a corner with her own frustration. But it had gone far enough. He now stepped forward and gently held her by her shoulders. “Kirsten, you’re not being rational.”

“I’m rational!” she shouted, throwing off his hands. “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”

“Because we’ve got to talk about what happened in your bed last night.”

She drew herself up ramrod straight and said coldly, “Nothing happened.”

Her refusal to acknowledge it sparked his own temper. Belligerently, he thrust his chin forward. “You had your face in my lap. I hardly call that nothing!”

All the color drained from her cheeks. Even her lips turned chalky. Her feet didn’t move, but she swayed like a weighted inflatable toy that had been viciously socked. The groan that came from her throat was so soul-rending that it hurt him.

Immediately he threw his arms around her and held her close. He pressed his lips against the top of her head. “I’m sorry, Kirsten. I’m sorry. That was crude. Uncalled for. Forgive me for saying it.”

She slumped against him, relying on his willingness to support her. “I can’t talk about it, Rylan. Please, please just forget it.”

“Don’t ask me to forget it. I can’t.”

“You must.”

“I can’t,” he repeated fervently. She gave him no further argument. Her head was bowed. He kissed her temple, wanting her mouth. “Are you embarrassed?”

Like a professional mourner, she rocked her head back and forth against his chest. “Embarrassed? Embarrassed? Of course I’m embarrassed.” Abruptly she pushed herself away from him and flung her head back defiantly. In the same motion, she wiped tattletale tears from her eyes. “What did you expect me to be? When I woke up last night I was holding you, kissing you, caressing . . .” She faltered. “Caressing you like a lover.”

“I remember.”

His voice was as smooth and sensuous and unblemished as cream. They were both reminded of that single droplet of moisture that her fingers had discovered at the tip of his sex. That individual pearl of liquid that had dissolved against her tongue the instant he cried her name and she became aware of the bizarre circumstances.

She turned her back to him and lowered her head. He wanted to press a kiss on the nape of her neck, which was flushed yet vulnerable-looking beneath her shaggy hair.

“Please forget it, Rylan.”

“I don’t think I can. I don’t think you can either.”

She spun around angrily. “Don’t flatter yourself. It wasn’t you I was loving. It was Charlie.”

Once, on the set of a Western movie, he’d been backlashed by barbed wire. Nothing had ever stung so badly. Until now. Her words affected him in the same way. He tried not to show it as he moved to one of the tall stools at the kitchen bar and sat down, hooking his heels behind the first rung.

“Finish making your drink,” he said. He gave himself credit for his remarkable composure when actually he felt like driving his fist through one of the glass walls of Demon Rumm’s house.

After Kirsten turned the blender off, she divided the thick, frosty drink into two tall soda glasses. She handed one to him.

“I’m going to take a show—”

He grabbed her wrist as she went sailing past him and pulled her to a halt. “Sit down. We’re not through talking yet.”

Her bottom landed solidly on the stool next to his, though he had exerted very little effort in getting her to sit down.

“We’re through talking if what you want to talk about is last night,” she said. “Just for clarification’s sake, I took a sleeping pill before I went to bed. The doctor had prescribed them for me after Charlie died, but I’d never taken one. They look innocent enough, but are obviously stronger than I thought.”

She exhaled a ragged sigh. “I had a terrible nightmare. You were only a—a presence. Something warm and strong. A bulwark. Given the circumstances, I can’t be blamed for”—she paused to moisten her lips—“for what happened.”

“If it’s any comfort to you,” he said quietly, “I did my part.” Inquiringly, she lifted her gaze to his. “I was aroused before you ever touched me.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Please don’t.”

“Why not tell you? You already know it anyway. I’ve made no secret of it. I want you.” He saw her swallow hard. “I heard you crying out and barely took the time to put on a pair of shorts before running to you. The moment I took you in my arms, touched you, kissed you, I was ready to make love to you.”

He leaned forward and said earnestly, “If we start slinging blame around—which in my opinion doesn’t even apply because blame is indicative of wrongdoing— then I have to take most of it upon myself.”

He caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Blame me for taking advantage of your highly emotional state after the nightmare. At first my intentions were honorable, but once I . . . Kirsten, I couldn’t have kept my hands off you any more than I could have flown to China.”

She pressed three fingers against her trembling lips. “I didn’t mean to touch you. I was frightened. You were there. You were real. Not the stuff of dreams. You were substantial. I responded to the contact with another human being, that’s all.”

“Not quite all, Kirsten. Not the way I remember it. Originally you were like a child seeking a place to hide, but before it was over, you were a woman wanting a man.”

“And you exploited that, didn’t you?”

He considered his answer for a moment. “I think it’s fair to say that we used each other. Okay?”

She hesitated, but then said, “Okay.”

“What was the nightmare about?” he asked after a brief silence.

His sudden shift in topics seemed to disconcert her. “Charlie,” she blurted out.

“You’ve said as much. What about him?”

“I . . . It—it’s a recurring nightmare. There are variations of it, but it always ends the same.”

“How does it end?”

Her vivid blue eyes, made bluer by the reflection of the sky outside the windows, met his. “I watch him burn.”