Demon Rumm (15 page)

Rylan set his beer aside and turned the kebabs. “What kind of book did you want to write?”

“A novel.”

“No kidding? Tell me about it.”

She ducked her head self-consciously, but he could tell his interest pleased her. She outlined her story idea to him and blushed with pleasure when he told her that it had best-seller and hit movie stamped all over it.

“Provided I can play the male lead.”

“You wouldn’t have any fun with it. He’s an embittered Vietnam vet.”

“If I don’t put my bid in now, Pacino will go after it. Who do you see as the leading lady?”

“Rylan,” she exclaimed, “you’re casting the movie and the book hasn’t even been written yet.”

He dismissed her pessimism with a shrug. “You’ll get around to it. As soon as you finish
Demon Rumm
.” They didn’t pick up the conversation again until they had filled their plates in the kitchen and carried them back to the terrace table to eat. Cutting into a piece of the succulent beef, Rylan asked, “Do you think Rumm felt threatened by your plans to write professionally?”

“I don’t see how he could have. I never was exclusively a housewife. I’d always traveled with him and had some project or another to keep me occupied while he was with the crew.”

“Which encompassed a considerable amount of time, I would imagine.”

“He and the boys were together constantly. They—” Catching his alert stare, Kirsten laid her fork on her plate. “I resent what you’re thinking.”

“Which is?”

“That there was something going on between him and one of his crew.”

“Was there?”

“Charlie wasn’t gay. There was no relationship except friendship,
close
friendship, between him and any of the men who worked for him.”

“I believe you.”

She picked up her fork and resumed eating, but he could tell she was annoyed. He redirected the conversation. “You say you traveled with him.”

“Yes. Those last few years it slowed down some. He had earned his popularity by then and could be more selective about where he performed. We bought this house and settled down somewhat.”

“Did you ever discuss having children?”

Rylan noted that her fork stopped midway between her plate and her mouth, and that when she completed taking the bite, her movements were halting, as though the fork met resistance in the air. “Yes.”

“And?”

“We discussed it. That’s all.”

“Which one of you resisted the idea?”

“Neither of us.” She set her fork down once again. “I said we discussed it. We didn’t argue about it.”

“You both favored the idea?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see any children running around, Kirsten,” he observed blandly.

“I never got pregnant.”

“Was one of you sterile?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You weren’t medically checked out?” He was thinking that maybe an argument over children, or the lack thereof, could have precipitated Rumm’s absentmindedness that morning, particularly if he had thought he might be to blame for Kirsten’s barrenness.

“Don’t jump to conclusions, Rylan. You sound like a soap opera. Charlie and I both wanted children. We—we just never got around to having them. Okay? Satisfied?”

He leaned back in his chair and studied her for a moment. “I fathered a child.” The unexpected statement stunned her. Her eyes rounded with astonishment and her lips parted with the breath she sucked in sharply.

“Where is it?”

“Its mother killed it.”

The wrath he had first felt when the young actress told him about the abortion thundered through him again. Unconsciously he clenched his hands into fists. That was the day he had learned that everybody was capable of violence. He’d wanted to kill the selfish bitch with his bare hands. The urge he had felt to destroy her frightened him even now. He thanked heaven that somehow he had kept himself from murdering her for aborting his child.

He blinked away his rage, and discovered that one of Kirsten’s hands was resting sympathetically on his forearm. He covered it with his and stroked his thumb across the smooth skin.

“An abortion?” she asked.

He curtly bobbed his head, detesting the word. “I realize that some terminations of pregnancy are necessary. I’d even go so far as to say feasible. But, dammit, not when it was
my
baby!”

“Who was the mother?”

He looked at her, loving the concern he read on her face. “She doesn’t matter. She never did.” He squeezed his eyes shut in a moment of anguish. “But my child did. The thought of my baby being denied life still makes me sick.”

“Was having a child that important to you?”

“If there hadn’t been one, no,” he confessed. “But when she told me about the baby, I wanted it very much. I guess because my own family is such a close one. What about you?” he asked suddenly. “Where are your parents?”

“My father divorced my mother when I was very small. I don’t remember him. He remarried and had another family. I don’t hear from him or see him. My mother died several months after I married Charlie.” She smiled gently. “She adored him, and he was fond of her. I’m glad they had a chance to know each other.”

For a long moment they were silent, each buried in his own thoughts as they gazed at the splendor of the sunset. Tall thunderheads on the horizon looked like purple blooms against a field of crimson and gold.

“Boy,” Rylan said, blowing out his breath, “we certainly sank into a maudlin mood, didn’t we?” He stood up and stacked their plates together. “Come on, let’s get this cleaned up.”

When the kitchen was in order, they migrated back to the terrace. The evening was particularly lovely. Kirsten turned on the underwater lights in the pool. Besides a moon, which was almost full, that was the only light they had.

“What did you do after dinner that night?” Rylan asked her.

“We swam.”

“Really? I was just about to suggest the same thing.” He linked his hands behind her waist and drew her close. Kissing her softly first, he whispered, “Thank you for not lecturing me about a woman’s right to choose, et cetera, when I told you about the abortion.”

“I regret the loss for you.”

“I’ve never told a single soul about that.”

“I’m glad you felt you could share it with me.”

“You are?”

“Yes. And this is as far as it goes.”

“I never doubted that.” He kissed her again, using his tongue to part her receptive lips. It penetrated the wet, silky heat beyond them. “Ready?” he asked huskily.

She pulled back quickly. He laughed. “I meant, are you ready to
swim
?”

“Oh.” There was a lovely, telltale color in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes, which were as deep an indigo as the darkening sky. “Yes . . . no . . . It’ll only take me a minute to slip into a suit.”

He tightened his hold when she would have walked out of his embrace. “You could do without. I do.”

“I know. I’ve seen.”

Smirking, he angled his head back. “Oh, yeah? You were watching that first day?”

“I didn’t have much choice,” she replied tartly.

“What did you think?”

“I thought you were quite a peacock to be strutting around buck naked like that.” She wiggled free and stalked toward the bungalow where she kept a selection of swimsuits and towels. His laughter followed her.

Without a smidgen of modesty, Rylan stripped to the skin and dove into the water. His state of undress couldn’t be concealed with the swimming pool lights on, so he was doubly pleased when Kirsten, knowing that he was naked, left the bungalow wearing a jade green bikini, walked straight to the diving board, and executed a graceful dive into the pool.

He swam to the shallow end and reclined on the steps, propping his elbows behind him. She swam several laps before joining him, winded. She turned onto her back too.

When she regained her breath and wiped the water from her face, she glanced over at him. “You aren’t at all self-conscious, are you?”

“Nope. In college I modeled for the advanced art classes.”

“Did your parents approve?”

His grin was unrepentantly mischievous. “We’re close, but I don’t tell them everything I do.” He rolled to his side and splayed his hand wide over her bare middle. “What an erotic picture.”

They stared down through the light-reflecting water at his hand, a shade darker than her skin, pressing against her stomach.

“Kirsten?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you make love with Rumm that night?”

Her hesitation was so slight, he might have imagined it. Staring directly into the dark pupils of his eyes, she nodded.

“Make love with me.”

She made a whimpering sound of surrender a heartbeat before she clasped his head between her hands and drew his face up for her kiss. He half rolled, half floated to position himself above her, bracing himself on stiff arms.

The gently lapping current in the pool caused his body to drift against hers. His body hair feathered over her smooth skin with every shimmering motion of the water. She locked her arms around his neck. Her legs floated apart. His moved between them. Their skin, cooled by the water, only made their mouths seem hotter as their tongues probed deeply, ravenously. The very tip of his aroused sex brushed her middle, drifted away, returned.

“No wonder the ocean is so heavily populated,” she murmured against his lips.

“How’s that?”

She sighed. “This is bliss.”

Lavishly swearing, he kissed her with diminishing control. “Damn,” he cursed, tearing their mouths free. “This is no good. You’re going to scrape your back on the edge of the step and I can’t hold you or we’ll both drown.”

That should have been funny. They should have laughed. But they were too involved in the next kiss. His tongue was wildly flicking over her lips.

“The sauna,” she suggested breathlessly.

“Good idea.” He pushed himself off the step and extended a hand down to her. There was no way he could hide his arousal from her. He didn’t try, but pulled her along behind him as he padded toward the enclosure that housed the sauna, slinging water across the terrace with each step.

“Wait,” she said, tugging on his hand. “Go on in. I’ll—I’ll follow. Give me thirty seconds,” she pleaded when she saw that he was about to object.

He let go of her hand and entered the redwood cubicle. The heat was fierce. Ironically, he glanced down at his body. There was no way he could feel cool. He was on fire. Sexually he was burning hotter than he’d ever burned before.

He picked up the water hose and sprayed the rocks. They hissed. A cloud of steam billowed up to fill the room. And out of it, Kirsten materialized wearing only a towel. If his eyes looked anything like hers, he knew their coupling was going to be passionate and insatiable. Her eyes were so deeply blue they appeared black in the dim sauna, where a single bulb burned weakly, casting a red glow over everything.

The swirling steam seemed to adore her. It wreathed her head and formed tendrils around her shoulders and legs like seaweed clinging to a cherished sea goddess.

Her breasts were rising and falling rapidly above where the end of the towel was tucked in. Suddenly shy, she sat down on the second level of the sauna, her knees primly pressed together and her hands chastely folded in her lap. She might have been a parochial schoolgirl awaiting an appointment with the mother superior.

Rylan smiled and shook the sweat out of his eyes. He walked toward her and sat down on the level below hers. “Is this how you came into the sauna that night?” Her eyes reflected the red of the lightbulb, but he preferred to think that that glow was from the flames of desire he’d ignited.

“No.”

“Well?”

It seemed to take forever for her hands to work free the knot in the damp terry cloth. When it was undone, she still held the towel against her for a moment that seemed like an eternity in hell for Rylan.

Then she let it go. The towel fell to the bench and pooled around her hips. She sat before him naked. Her breasts were high and round with pert nipples that, despite the heat, were partially erect. The gentle flare of her hips emphasized the narrowness of her waist. Cradled in her lap was a nest of dark, silky curls, glistening wetly. Her skin shone with a patina of sweat and melted body lotion. Her wet cap of hair, forming points around her face, made her appear very young, almost too young to touch.

Almost.

Rylan, his own body dripping perspiration, knelt on the bench in front of her. It placed him just a little below eye level with her. He inclined his lips up to hers. Hers descended to touch his. She kissed him with endearing bashfulness. He patiently kissed her hesitation away. When his tongue slid between her lips, she raised her hands to his shoulders. He felt her body relax but, conversely, felt the sexual tension mounting. It seemed that sparks of desire arced between them.

He settled his hands on both sides of her waist. As their kiss intensified, his hands shifted up and down her rib cage, until he conformed his thumbs to fit the under-curves of her breasts.

“You’re beautiful.” He leaned back to watch as his thumbs circled her nipples, then gently fanned them to hardness. She incoherently murmured something. “Feel good?”

Eyes closed, breathing rapidly through her mouth, she nodded. “Yes, yes. But—”

“What, love?”

“Kiss them.”

His ears were ringing with the pounding of his blood. He was only too glad to do as she asked. Lowering his head, he took one rosy bead into his mouth and sucked it. She pressed his temples between her hands and bent her head over his.

“Harder,” she groaned. “I want to feel it all over.”

His arms wrapped around her. He kneaded the supple muscles of her back as his mouth greedily tugged on her breast. But he never wanted to hurt her. When he got the merest indication he’d become too ardent and was causing her discomfort, he used his tongue to soothe her.

He licked the sweat from beneath her breasts. With the tip of his tongue he followed a drop on its trickling trek from her collarbone to her navel. He crested her nipple with his tongue as the bead of sweat did, and continued to trace its downward course until he sipped it up with his lips.