Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set (72 page)

Cade had come up soundlessly behind her; he was so close that she stumbled against him as she turned.

His wool shirt still carried the pleasant scent of the sea, even though the ferry ride was hours past. There was a dark stubble on his jaw; she wondered suddenly what the rasp of his beard would feel like against her skin.

Would it be like the touch of his guitar-roughened fingers that had almost driven her insane as they played over her skin during their love scene today?

‘On second thought,’ she said quickly, ‘maybe you’re right. I do eat too much. I had to lose weight before Jerry would sign me on.’

His eyes flickered over her. ‘You look just about perfect to me.’

Not to the camera,’ she said carefully, moving past him. ‘It makes everybody look heavier. Besides, I promised you coffee and
a rehearsal, and we’ve had both.’

‘I wasn’t the one who mentioned something to eat. What’s the matter? Are you afraid to try a Morgan Special?
‘Trust me, Padgett. In the old day, I smuggled my electric skillet into more hotel rooms than you can shake a stick at. I’ll whip the eggs while you grate that cheese. I could use some bacon, if you’ve got it.’

Trust him? She wasn’t even sure she trusted herself any more.

Well, at least he hadn’t been joking about his cooking ability. His movements were deft as he worked in her tiny kitchen, frying the bacon and whipping the eggs to a froth.

Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea at that. Cooking was hardly a romantic pastime; by the time they sat down to eat, surely the sudden tension she felt would have eased.

‘I don’t suppose you have any wine?’ Cade said as he crisped the bacon.

‘Just what’s left from that bottle you brought.’.

He nodded his approval and took the proffered bottle from her, splashing some  into two jelly glasses and then, with a disarming grin, pouring what remained into the beaten eggs.

It was impossible not to return his smile. ‘That smells good,’ she said,  after the eggs had set.

‘It is good,* he said, spooning up a bit and offering it to her. ‘Taste.’

Shannon opened her mouth and Cade slipped the spoon between her lips.

‘Delicious,’ she said.

‘Thank you, ma’am. Careful there—don’t waste any.’ She laughed as he reached out and touched his finger to her lip. ‘You missed a bit of bacon
…’

And sud
denly the space between them became charged with electricity.

She saw the sudden darkening of his eyes, heard her own uneven breath, felt the rapid thud of her heart. Move away from him, she told herself, but her legs wouldn’t obey

He touched his hand to her cheek. ‘Shannon...’

‘The toast,’ she said thickly.

‘Shannon, please...’

‘Don’t,’ she whispered.

‘I can read the truth in your eyes,’ he said, running his knuckles lightly along her jaw. ‘Why do you keep pretending?’

‘The toast is burning, Cade. Let me...’

She thought that he wasn’t going to let her past him. His eyes were dark slits and a muscle tensed in his cheek. Then he nodded and dropped his hand to his side.

She walked to the table and busied herself with buttering the toast and pouring the coffee, until at
last she heard him begin to move around the room again.

How was she going to get through this? The thought of food made her throat close. But she would eat, at least a little, just enough so Cade would ask her no questions, and they’d have a friendly cup of coffee and then he’d leave and she’d be safe.

‘The eggs look great,’ she said politely, sitting down opposite him.

His smile was equally polite. ‘The coffee’s terrific.’

Her hand trembled as she lifted a forkful of omelet. ‘This is... is very good,’ she said, amazed she’d been able to chew and swallow at all. ‘Would you like some toast?’.

She lifted the plate and held it out to him. As he reached for it, their fingers touched and the plate slipped free and fell to the table.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘That was clumsy of me.’

‘Shannon...’

‘I’ll wipe up those crumbs.’

‘Dam
mit,’ he said roughly. ‘You can’t keep running away—you’re going to have to deal with this sooner or later.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, shoving back her chair and getting quickly to her feet.

His hand shot out and caught hers as she tried to move past him.

‘Yes, you do,’ he growled. ‘You damned well do.’

‘Let go,’ she said stiffly.

‘You can’t keep pretending nothing’s happening,’ he said, his fingers wrapping tightly around her wrist. ‘You’ve got to face it som
etime.’

‘You’d better leave, Cade,’ she said in a breathy voice. ‘We had such a nice day together—don’t ruin it.’

‘Do you feel safer in the make-believe world where emotions are always under control? Is that it?’

‘Just listen to you! I hate to spoil your dime-store psy
chology, but I also refuse to let what we do at work spill into real life.’

His chair squealed in protest as he kicked it back. ‘What we feel for each other is real life,’ he said gruffly, pulling her towards him.

‘You’re confusing Johnny and Alana with us. I told you, it happens all the time—you just haven’t been around the theatre long enough to understand.’

‘Then kiss me,’ said Cade quickly. ‘Kiss me, and then tell me you feel nothing.’

‘That’s insane.’

‘What are you worried about, Padgett? You’ve been pretty smug about the way you’ve handled our love scenes.’

‘Cade, damn it...’

The fingers encircling her wrist tightened as she tried to pull away from him, and the shadow of a smile touched his lips.

‘You’re right. I’m an amateur when it comes to the theater. Maybe what happened between us the first time I took you in my arms was a fluke. Maybe you were acting, even then. Hell, you accused me of auditioning for this part by kissing you. Maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe you used me to get Crawford to notice you and give you a bigger role.’

‘That’s the craziest thing I ever heard!’

‘The more I think about it, the more sense it makes. You were afraid Jerry was going to hand you your walking papers because you weren’t carrying your weight with Tony, and then I came along...’

‘I didn’t even know you were going to be on
the show, ’ she sputtered. ‘Damn you, Cade, let go of me!’

Cade cocked his head to the side. ‘Come on, Padgett. I may be new to the theater, but I’m not new to show business. Sure, you knew. There must have been a million rumors floating around. Yeah,’ he said, ‘yeah, it makes sense. You goaded me into kissing you and then you pretended that sudden burst of passion.’

God, she thought, the audacity of the man! He was exactly what she’d thought he was the first time she’d laid eyes on him: six feet two inches of over-inflated celebrity.

‘Mr. Morgan,’ she said with icy precision,  ‘I did not goad you into anything.’

‘You can admit the truth now, Padgett. You baited me, and then you pretended you felt something when I kissed you.’

The insolent tone of his voice infuriated her as much as his words, and she wrenched herself free of his grasp.

‘Pretend? I didn’t have to pretend anything, Cade Morgan. You...’ The angry accusation caught in her throat as a triumphant grin spread slowly across his face. Shannon flushed and tilted her chin up. ‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.’

‘No?’

‘No! Certainly not. I never—‘ She threw up her hands in exasperation. ‘Look, there’s no point to this. Just—just go away.’  She started past him, but he moved so rapidly that she was in his arms before there was time to react. ‘What... what are you doing?’

He threaded one hand in her hair.

‘I’m giving you a chance to clarify things,’ he said softly. ‘All you have to do is kiss me.’

‘I certainly will not kiss you!’

‘Kiss me and then step back and smile politely and say, what was it you said that first time? That you hadn’t been missing much?’

‘This is ridiculous.’

‘If you can do that, Padgett, I’ll leave you alone from now on.’

She stared at him in stony silence. ‘Why should I be
lieve you?’ she asked finally.

Cade’s gaze fell to her lips, then rose to her eyes.

‘You don’t really have much choice.  One way or another, you’re going to be kissed. Strictly to make a point, of course.’

Look at him, she thought, look at that smug, self-assured expression! He was all the things she’d ever thought and more, and he could kiss her from now until next week and it wouldn’t mean a thing.

For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why she'd ever thought it would..

‘I’m all yours,’ she said pleasantly, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. ‘Let’s just get it over with, OK?’

His fingers moved lightly over her cheek.

‘
Stop that,’ she said sharply. ‘You said a kiss.’

‘I’m entitled to preliminaries.’

‘This is—this is ridiculous.’

‘It’s a scientific experiment.  Just relax and trust me.’

‘Trust you? Trust you? That’s what you always say...’

Oh God. What was he doing? She closed her eyes as he drew her against him.

His body was hard. Hard, and wonderful.

No, she thought, no...

A tremor ran through her as he kissed her throat.

‘Cade, stop. You said...’ Her voice broke as his nipped lightly at her ear lobe. ‘You said one kiss...’

‘I’ve got a confession to make,’ he whispered. ‘You’re not the only one who’s been holding back during our love scenes.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t been…’

‘If I’d really been making love to you, you couldn’t hold back,’ he murmured. ‘All the techniques in the world wouldn’t be enough to save you.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she whispered desperately.

‘
Do you always babble about laundry when a man is kissing you, Padgett?’

Panic fluttered in her throat. ‘That’s nonsense!’

‘You were lying in my arms this afternoon and suddenly you whispered something about pillowcases.’ He chuckled softly. ‘You should have known better. Wasn’t it laundry that got you in trouble the first time?’

A blush spread across her cheeks, but she forced her eyes to meet his. ‘I am not going to legitimize this con
versation by answering that.’

‘Did you need laundry lists to keep from feeling what I was doing to you?  That we weren’t alone? To tell  the truth, I was having trouble re
membering that, myself.’

‘Cade, please, this is foolish.’

‘But you were right, you know. Hell, I didn’t want the world watching us make love.’

S
he made a whimpering sound deep in her throat as his hand slipped under her sweater and she felt the rough warmth of his fingers against her back. ‘And here we are. No lights, no cameras...’

‘Cade,’ she whispered. ‘Cade...’

‘Look at me,’ he said in a low voice.

She lifted her eyes to his, saw the play of emotions in their indigo depths, and knew she was lost.

‘There’s just us,’ he murmured thickly. ‘Just Cade and Shannon and nobody else... ’

Her eyes closed as he bent to her and gathered her close.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ he whispered, ‘you know it feels right, love.’

Love, he had called her, love, but
he wasn’t a man who would love her forever, and she was a forever kind of woman.

He was quicksilver. He was stardust. He was a man who would move on.

His mouth touched her closed eyelids.

Touched her lips.

One kiss, he’d said, one kiss, and then he would stop. And after that she could say,
See? There was nothing to that. You can leave now, Cade…

His lips  were warm. Firm. They teased hers, urged her to open to him, to withhold nothing.

‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘Cade, please…’

‘Please, what?’ he said, and all the weeks of denial were over.

She gave a soft cry and her mouth softened under his, heating under the sweet fire of his tongue.

Tentatively, her hands moved between them, to spread slowly on his shirt. The rapid thud of his heart was beneath her fingertips, telling her as well as any words ever could that she was not the only one who could no longer control their love scenes.

She murmured his name against his lips again and again until it sounded like a litany.

‘Yes,’ he said, his whisper a fierce song. ‘Yes, my love, my own...’

His mouth, his hard, demanding mouth, was stealing her breath away. The earth was tilting under her feet, just as she’d always feared it would if she let him do this. Cade was everything; he was the day and the night and the universe and—oh God, his hand was moving under her sweater, hot against her flesh, his guitar- roughened fingers playing along her ribs.