It Stings So Sweet (11 page)

CHAPTER

Five

When I miss my cue the third time, the director of
the sword-and-sandal epic calls the shoot for the day. As the handlers begin pulling the makeshift
chariots off-set, I escape to my dressing room and my costar Brooke Gordon follows me. “What’s gotten
into you, Clara?”

Not Leo Vanderberg, I think. Not yet. And it’s driving me to such distraction
I can’t concentrate on a thing. I shrug, yanking off the Roman sandals and rubbing my ankle where
the strap dug in. “Just tired, I guess.”

Brooke is playing the wife of an emperor, her blond
hair pile
d on top of h
er head into an impossible shape. She collapses into a seat to wipe the perspiration
from her face. “God, I hate Hollywood. It’s so unbearably hot. I’m still too young for hot
flashes, aren’t I? It was always cooler making films in New York.”

“Sure,” I murmur. I’m also
weary from the heat. The camera lights. And whatever fever it is that Leo Vanderberg has put into
my blood.

“So who is he?” Brooke asks, fanning herself. “I’ve heard a dozen different rumors.”

Remembering the hard-bodied aviator whose hands seem to have left burning traces all over my
skin, I bite my lower lip. I may be a movie star but Leo’s famous enough in his own right that it’ll
be all over town the moment I admit it. “I’d rather not say.”

“Given the look on your face,
he must be worth it.”

“Oh, I certainly
hope
so,” I whisper.

“Clara! Are you saying that
you haven’t had him yet?”

Brooke has made more movies than any actress I know, and taken almost
as many lovers, so I tell myself that it’s safe to confide in her. A slow smile spreads across
my face and I’m unable to keep the desire out of my voice. “Not yet, but there’s something about him.
Something so . . .”

“Rich?” Brooke asks, jiggling her wrist to show off the shiny jeweled bracelet
that I’d mistaken as part of her costume. “You can’t possibly let yourself sigh like that over
a man who can’t shower you in jewels.”

As always, my attention is caught by everything that
glitters. “He says he’s got a nickel or two to rub together, but I doubt it’s serious money.”

“And yet, you’re going to throw over Big Teddy Morgan for him? Be careful, Clara, or you’ll turn
into a sentimental little fool.”

No one has ever accused me of
that
before . . . “So where
did you get the bracelet?”

She slips the bracelet off her wrist so that I can try it on. “Isn’t
it pretty? I don’t want to tell you what I had to do for it, but I probably ought to get used to
swallowing my pride . . . among other things.”

I slide the gold over my forearm, adoring the
way it warms to my skin. “That bad?”

She gives a sigh. “This is my last film. My voice won’t
work in the talkies. It’s too low. And I’m too old to play the waifs and damsels in distress now.”

“I think your voice is smooth as velvet.”

Brooke turns to the mirror and starts taking
the pins out of her hair. “Which is better for the bedroom than the talkies. What else are girls like
us to do when our looks start fading? If you were smart, you’d be sweet to Big Teddy Morgan and consider
it an investment in your retirement. When rich men make offers to girls like us, we have to take
them or else we’ll end up staring at padded walls in our old age.”

I’m silent as the grave.

Brooke’s hands drop from her hair and she shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Clara. I shouldn’t have
said that.”

I give her a pretty smile without meeting her eyes. “Don’t be silly, Brooke. Everything’s
jake.”

“No it’s not. I’m sorry. I don’t know
why
I said it. I just forget that you’re not like
me. I don’t know the first thing about cameras or making movies. I’m not talented like you.”

“Sure you are.”

Brooke chuckles. “You’re a good little liar, kiddo. And listen, if you don’t
want Big Teddy Morgan anymore, I wouldn’t mind taking him off your hands.”

“It’s a free country,”
I reply.

“You’re a sweet kid, Clara. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different.”

I don’t feel sweet or like a kid that night at the supper club. Not
even when Leo presents me with another bouquet of fra
grant flowers and tells me that I look lovely.
I feel wild and reckless and I keep wondering if I’m making some horrible mistake, like those girls
in the movies who always end up tied to train tracks.

Like an oncoming engine car, Leo is interrogating
me before we’re even in our seats. “How’d Teddy Morgan take it?”

“He was surprisingly decent
about it,” I say, both relieved and a little saddened.

“Did you tell him about me?”

I
wait for the coat-check girl to take my fur wrap, then say, “No. I didn’t want to provoke him.”

Leo pulls out my seat for me. When I slide into it, I shiver at the feel of his knuckles as
they graze my spine. “He’s bound to find out. Someone’s likely to see us together in the next few weeks.”

“The next few weeks? My goodness, you’re optimistic, Leo. Do you really think our affair will
last that long?”

Leo smirks. “I think I can keep you stimulated and entertained at least that
long.”

“Truly? Because I’m beginning to think you’re all talk and no cider.”

He laughs
and orders a fine meal for us both, something French that I can’t pronounce, but it sounds rich and
decadent rolling off his tongue. I think he’s forgotten my taunt, but when the white-coated waiter
leaves, Leo says, “So you think I’m all talk . . .”

The dangerous way he curls his lips around
those words sends a flush down my neck. Nevertheless, I opt for bravado. “I haven’t seen much evidence
to the contrary.”

“Oh, haven’t you?” he asks, taking a sip of water. “If I’ve left you with
the impression that it’s safe to challenge me, then we’re starting the evening off on the wrong note
 . . . something that can be remedied easily enough. I’d like you to remove your knickers. Unless of
course, you’re not wearing any.”

I jerk my head up. “
What
?”

“You heard me. Go on . . .
this is a quiet corner of the restaurant. You have a white table linen to hide behind. Nobody’s going
to know about it but you. So wriggle out of your drawers and hand them to me.”

A thrill goes
through me at the thought of doing something so wanton. “Why would I?”

“Because if you don’t,
I’m going to come round to your side of the table and yank them off for you.”

My breath catches.
“You wouldn’t.”

“Do I look like the kind of man who would lie about such a thing?” Leo’s fiery
gaze is filled with daring. When I don’t answer, he begins to rise to his feet and I’m half-convinced
he’s going to reach across the table and pull my dress off if I don’t do as he says. Why that
should make me burn hotter with arousal, I can’t say.

“Alright, I’ll do it.” I say, wriggling,
adjusting my dress until the cool air hits my bare hips and thighs.

“Atta girl,” Leo says,
sitting back down again.

I pull my drawers down over my knees. As I settle back down in the
chair, feeling vulnerable and exposed, I have to make myself look at him. It’s not that I don’t want
to. I do. I want to see myself, all wanton and lustful, reflected in his eyes. But his attention is
so intense that it’s a little bit like staring into the sun.

He turns his palm up on the table,
expectantly.

Glancing about to be sure no one is looking, I slide the undergarment over the
table to him. Leo rubs the silky fabric between his thumb and forefinger before tucking it neatly into
his jacket. “Thank you, Clara.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

He leans back in
his chair. “I’m going to add them to my collection of things that once were yours and now belong to
me. After all, it’s not the only thing I’m going to take from you tonight.”

“Oh . . .” It’s
my eagerness that makes me blush.

“But first, we’re going to enjoy a meal together.”

He’s half right. He enjoys his dinner, cutting into squab with a hearty appetite, but I can’t seem to
eat more than a few morsels. I’m burning with a different kind of hunger. One that consumes all my
other appetites and leaves me picking at my plate like a dainty damsel.

“Try this,” Leo insists,
holding a forkful of something in a rich buttery sauce. He feeds it to me. My lips part for him,
then our eyes meet and I can think of nothing but teasing his shaft with my tongue. The same memory
seems to occur to him because he groans. “Good god, Clara . . . that heart-shaped mouth, those big
brown eyes. How does
anyone
resist you?”

“They don’t,” I say, then swallow the bite whole.

“Do you have the key to your rented studio with you?”

“Of course, but I can think of more
intimate places for us to go . . .”

“Tempting, but if sex was all I wanted, I’d take you to
the cloakroom and put you up against a wall.”

Oh, I wish he would. Instead, he pushes his plate
back, then draws his chair closer to mine so he can whisper into my ear. “Take the key from your
pocketbook and set it on the table.”

I’ve no idea what new game he’s devised, but I’ve enjoyed
all the other ones, so I do as he says.

Then the metal key rests heavily on the table between
us, like scintillating possibility.

He strokes my arm in approval. “However do you get your
skin to be so soft, Clara?”

“I soak in baths of donkey’s milk. Or didn’t you see that movie?”

Leo’s very close to me now and he doesn’t withdraw when the waiter comes to take our plates.
He’s so brazen that he takes a cube of ice from his water glass, and runs it slowly over the overheated
curve of my shoulder. I shiver at the chill and the waiter averts his eyes, quickly finishing his
work at the table until we are left alone. Me and Leo and the trail of kisses he now lays on top
of my chilled shoulder. “Mmmm,” he murmurs at the taste of my skin, and the whisper of his stubble against
my bare arm is nearly my undoing. “I’d like to bathe you.”

“I’d rather you did something else
to me,” I say, trying not to slide off my chair.

“All in good time. You see, I like to talk,
but I’m not
all
talk. It’s just that you’ve got me in a bind.”

“Oh?” I ask casually, as if
I weren’t thoroughly rattled. I’m grateful that our table is in the corner and that we might appear,
to the casual observer, to have turned our attention to the man playing at the piano.

The bill
cannot come quickly enough.

Leo’s hand drifts under the table, sliding beneath the beaded fringe
of my dress in an attempt to coax my thighs apart. “You see, I’m wondering who I should invite
to watch your stag film. I’ve a few candidates in mind. Maybe you’d like to help me choose.”

I gasp, nearly leaping from my chair. “No!”

Leo traps me between the table, the wall, and his
arm. He’s cut off my retreat as if he planned this assault in advance. “No, you don’t want to help
me choose?”

“No, I don’t want you to show it to anyone!”

“Sure you do,” he whispers into
my hair. “That’s why you wanted me to keep it.”

I didn’t know what I was saying. I was too
dizzy on drink and desire. “I didn’t mean any of it!”

He doesn’t waver. “You meant it, Clara.”

My stomach clenches. “Well, I’ve changed my mind. I want the film. I paid the price you asked—”

“That was a one-time offer. I told you that you could take it or leave it. You left it. And
with good reason. Just the idea I might show that film to someone else made your knees buckle. Now that
you know I’m actually going to do it, I bet you couldn’t even get up and walk out on me if you tried.”

I go weak all over—too weak to stop him from pushing his hand under my dress, and my traitorous
body coils tighter in arousal at his touch. “So wet,” he whispers, sliding one finger back and forth.
I grip the table’s edge, straining not to show my anxiety to onlookers. His voice lowers so that
he can’t be overheard. “So who should I show it to, Clara? Who is it that you want to see you like
that, writhing around on the floor at the center of a threesome, getting licked by another girl, letting
a man fuck you for the camera . . .”

I’m shaken. I’m so shaken by the question that I can’t
even slap him, like I should. Like any woman would. But I did this to myself. I walked right into the
devil’s open arms. Why should I be surprised that he wants to take me straight to hell?

Leo’s
still waiting, but I can’t make my throat work. My mouth is dry. My tongue seems swollen in my mouth.
It won’t move. I hear myself swallow, but that’s the only sound I make as he rubs in a slow circle.
“Here’s how it’s going to happen. You’re going to give me the key to your studio. Tomorrow night,
I’m going to invite a friend to meet me there to watch the film. When he leaves, I’ll drop by your
place and you can thank me properly.”

My nostrils flare. “You expect me to thank you?”

“I expect you to give me permission to take the key.”