She stared up, mesmerized, into his lean, tan face, feeling tears brighten her eyes and her throat constrict painfully. He was doing it again, she thought helplessly. She could fight against his blatant sex appeal, but what defense could she offer against this aching tenderness that left her conscious of an ephemeral something just out of reach.
“I think we'd better forget about the coffee tonight,” he said hoarsely, as he turned away abruptly. “I've had your things put in the second bedroom on the right, at the top of the stairs. You'll forgive me if I don't show you to your room.” The muscles in his back and shoulders were tense beneath the fine material of his evening jacket, as he walked over to the coffeemaker and pulled the plug from the socket.
He turned back when there was no movement from the breakfast bar, and found Brenna sitting quite still, staring at him with dazed, dreamy eyes. “Brenna, dammit!” he started in exasperation, then broke off as her expression changed not a whit. “Have a heart, love,” he said huskily. “I can't take much more.”
Brenna shook her head dazedly, as if just coming awake. She slipped from the stool, and with a breathless, “Good night” and a flurry of lemon chiffon, she was gone.
It was only as she was halfway up the stairs, her heart beating with a wild exhilaration and a singing happiness surging in her veins, that she realized what that ephemeral element was that was causing this breathtaking delight. She was in love with Michael Donovan.
Brenna stretched lazily, before adjusting the vinyl lounge chair to the recline position, not forgetting to remove her sunglasses, as she prepared to increase the already golden tan she had acquired in the past two weeks. Michael had teased her unmercifully when she had forgotten to take the glasses off, and it had resulted in her having owl-like rings about her eyes for two days before her tan had evened out again.
She smiled reminiscently, a glow of contentment warming her face as she thought about the last two weeks. It had been a lovely time. Each golden day had been added like charms on a bracelet that she hoped would encircle her for an eternity. She had grown to know Michael Donovan with an intimacy that she had never thought possible. Looking on him now with the eyes of love, she found him both more difficult and simple in nature than she had first imagined.
He had kept his promise about the ultimate intimacy, but she found him to be a compulsively physical person. He was constantly touching her, holding her hand and playing idly with her fingers as he talked, stroking the silky fall of her hair in the evenings while they sat on the couch in the living room and listened to music. There were light sweet kisses and casual embraces in abundance. All were carefully controlled and designed not to upset the delicate balance of their relationship. Even on the evenings they had guests, usually members of the cast or crew of various Donovan projects at the complex, he would absently knead her shoulders as she sat comfortably at his feet by his chair in the library, as they all engaged in one of the informal bull sessions that she soon discovered were a way of life at Donovan's home.
She loved it all. After a childhood deprived of cuddling and embraces, Donovan's casual fondling made her feel warmly treasured.
Donovan did the majority of his work at home, she found. He had both an editing and projection room at the house, and there was a constant flow of people from the complex in and out of the house at all hours of the day and evening. He sometimes spent a few hours in the morning at his executive office at the complex, but most of the time he worked at the house, and his workday seemed to span most of the hours of the day and evening. He was a workaholic, as Walters had told her, and he was passionately in love with the making of films.
To her delight, she discovered that this did not necessarily shut her out of his life. After the first few lonely days, he arbitrarily ordered her into the editing room, much to the amusement of the crew. While they worked and argued and generally ignored her presence, she curled up in a chair in the corner, watching in fascination or leafing idly through a book or script. On occasion, she would look up to find Donovan looking at her with an absent smile, that she met with a blissfully contented one of her own.
In the afternoons, she usually tried to spend time with Randy, or lazily sunbathed by the pool in a bikini, where Donovan joined her on occasion for a brief swim before he returned to work. These were the times she liked the best. When they would talk quietly, exchanging viewpoints and exploring each others minds and personalities, or just sitting in companionable silence, enjoying the warmth of the sun.
She was well aware that she owed a large measure of the mellow serenity of those days to the self-control that Donovan was exercising. Though the fact that Donovan was not used to restraining his sexual urges was painfully clear, and there were times she felt his patience was wearing dangerously thin, Donovan never made her consciously aware of the fires banked low beneath the surface.
The only cloud in this halcyon hiatus was Donovan's persistent rejection of Randy. Though not deliberately unkind to the child, the sight of him seemed to trigger a brooding moodiness in Donovan that almost invariably resulted in Brenna sending for Doris to remove the boy before the atmosphere became definitely strained. She had tentatively tried to broach the subject of his attitude once, only to be met with a steel-like hardness.
“Leave it, Brenna,” he had said curtly. “I know all the logical and reasonable arguments. I realize he's an individual, and should be accepted as such. If he belonged to someone else, I'd probably be crazy about him. Hell! I like kids.”
“Then why are you so unfair to Randy?” Brenna had asked huskily, her eyes bright with tears. “He's only a baby.”
He had given a smothered imprecation, and kissed her gently, his hand stroking her hair with exquisite tenderness. “Because I am not rational and reasonable when it comes to you,” he had said simply. “And it drives me crazy when I see him, and know that he's another man's baby and not mine. I'm trying, dammit, but it's just going to take time.”
She had been very close in that moment to revealing the truth about Randy and Janine. Now that she was aware of the deep love that she had for Donovan, it was agonizingly painful to let a barrier exist that could be toppled by a few words. Surely they had grown close enough that she could put her trust in Donovan. She did not know what made her hesitate, but in the next moment Donovan was called away to the phone, and the opportunity was lost.
When Brenna first realized she loved Donovan, she went through a period of depression and sheer unadulterated panic. How had it happened, she wondered bewilderedly. Why hadn't her distrust and cynicism toward men protected her against this calamity? And if she had to fall in love with someone, why did it have to be Michael Donovan, with his penchant for noninvolvement and his reputation for being a tomcat extraordinaire?
She gradually accepted the fact that it was too late for questioning. The fact existed. She did love Michael Donovan, and in the past two weeks she had become aware that he was eminently worth loving. Not only was he brilliant and possessed of an electric charisma, but he had an unswerving honesty and directness with his associates. If he was ruthless in his dealings with those who got in his way, he was generous to a fault with his friends.
She had come to terms with her love for him now. She knew without question that though she desperately wanted his love, if that wasn't to be, she would accept what he would give her, for however long it would last. Just the experience of loving him would enrich her as an individual, and make her stronger in spirit than when she had come to him. She would have gone to bed with him gladly. That she had not offered herself was only because each day that passed strengthened their knowledge of each other, and she felt she urgently needed his friendship first if she was ever going to win anything from him but passion.
Brenna rolled over on her stomach and put her head on her folded arm, after shifting the long swatch of hair over one shoulder to expose her back to the rays of the sun. She yawned drowsily and her lids were growing deliciously heavy, when she was rudely awakened b
y a sharp slap on her rounded bottom.
“You look entirely too comfortable, woman,” Donovan drawled. “Turn over and entertain me like a dutiful wife should.”
She opened her eyes to see Michael settling in the lounge next to her. Dressed in black trunks, his tan muscular body looked lean yet powerful, the springy dark red hair on his chest lending him a sensual virility that caused a heat to flow through her body that was not from the sun.
“How dare you look so vigorous?” she said sleepily. “You were up till four this morning working with that writer on the script changes for Wild Heritage. And then you had breakfast with me at nine. Don't you ever get tired?”
He arched an eyebrow wickedly. “I'm glad to see you're keeping an eye on my nocturnal habits,” he said teasingly. “It bodes well for the future.” He shook his head in answer to her question. “I don't need much sleep. Four or five hours is more than enough. I guess it's because of my childhood. When I was working all the hours there were to get out of the slums, I always thought sleeping was a waste of time, if not my actual enemy.”
She felt an urge to reach out and touch his arm, not in desire but in sympathy for the boy that was. She knew better than to give in to the impulse. Donovan was proud, and that boy had fought his battles and won them a long time ago.
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the lounge. She leaned lazily back, bracing her weight on her stiffened arms. “How is the preproduction work going on Wild Heritage?” she asked casually.
“Well enough,” Donovan answered. “We should be ready to start shooting next week.”
“You're not directing Heritage are you?” she asked. “Didn't I hear you tell Jake you were giving it to that TV director who had never done a theatrical film?”
“What big ears you have, grandma,” he said with a grin. “Tim Butler is a terrific director. He did fantastic things with that David and Bathsheba mini-series, and I have too many irons in the fire right now.”
“Speaking of Wild Heritage, I have a bone to pick with you,” she said severely. “I was talking to Jake about your views on method acting the other evening. When I told him what a fanatic you were on the subject, he nearly fell off the couch laughing. He said you must have been pulling my leg.”
Donovan looked down at the two delectable limbs in question and murmured, “What an intriguing idea.”
“Michael!” Brenna said warningly. “Why did you give me all that garbage about experience and method acting if you didn't mean it?” As she continued to think about it, her indignation grew. “Why didn't you give me Angie? I was damn good. I know I was!”
“Yes,” he said lazily. “You were better than any of the others who tested for it.” He leaned back, and tipped his head back like a cat arching lazily in the sun.
“Michael!” she said in exasperation.
He turned and smiled mockingly. “Jake has an exceedingly big mouth,” he said calmly. “Now I suppose I'll have to confess. I made up all that tripe about method acting on the spur of the moment to give me an excuse not to hire you for Angie. I knew from the minute I saw you that I couldn't let you have it.”
As she opened her mouth to protest, he quickly put his hand over her lips to silence her. “In case you hadn't noticed, there are two sexually explicit bedroom scenes, and in one Angie is nude. It's necessary for the story. There was no way I could tolerate you doing that… even then.” His tone was grim. “I would have felt like killing someone, before the damn picture was finished.”
When he removed his hand, she looked at him solemnly. “I didn't notice,” she said in a small voice, a flush pinking her cheeks.
“I didn't think you had,” Donovan said with a grin. “I was feeling a bit guilty about taking it away from you, when I realized Mary Durney was available. I could have my cake and eat it, too. It's going to be a hell of a good movie. I'm going to make a bundle on it.”
“Egad, what a shockingly commercial mind you have,” she exclaimed in mock horror, her eyes twinkling. “What about art for art's sake?”
“I'm just a bloody capitalist,” he admitted, with an underlying seriousness beneath the lightness of his tone. “I consider myself an artist, and a very good one. I make the very best films of which I am capable. I'm a storyteller par excellence. In our society, the most revered reward for achievement is money, not critical acclaim, and I'll be damned if I don't wrest the greatest reward possible for my work.”
She was silent for a long moment before she asked, “Have you ever not made money on one of your films?”
“Once I came pretty close,” he said thoughtfully, his blue eyes reminiscent. “I was just starting out, and it was only my second film. The critics panned it and the public stayed away in droves. Everyone said it was too simple, the imagery not exotic enough.”
“What did you do?” she asked curiously.
“I borrowed enough money to get me to Cannes, and entered it in the festival,” he said simply. “It won best picture. Then I brought it home, and sent the actors around to every talk show on the circuit. The picture didn't win the Academy Award that year, but it was nominated.” He grinned lightly. “And I made a small fortune on it.”
“Tribute,” Brenna said thoughtfully.
“Tribute,” he agreed quietly.
They were silent in a perfect accord that lasted for a few golden moments.
“Come on, lazybones,” Donovan said briskly, rising to his feet. “I'll race you to the end of the pool.”
She shook her head. “I've just been in. I'll wait for you here.”
She watched as he dived cleanly from the side and did three laps in the pool, his arms cleaving the water with power and precision. When he hoisted himself out of the water at the edge of the pool, he wasn't even breathing heavily, she noticed ruefully. She threw him a towel which he caught deftly and proceeded to dry the thick mahogany hair, then his body, before wrapping the towel around his middle, and sauntering back to the chair where she was sitting.
Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, as she watched him approach.
“You look like a gladiator at the Roman Games,” she commented, her lips quirking.
“And you would have been a scandalous vestal virgin,” he returned lightly, his eyes surveying her bikini-clad figure with frank enjoyment. “Did you know that the vestals were not released from their bonds of chastity until they had served for thirty years?” He sat down beside her on the lounge, his eyes suddenly intent and still. “I'm beginning to feel a definite kinship with them,” he said huskily.
She looked down, her eyes shy. The air about them was crackling with the the intensity of his feelings. Brenna was vividly conscious of her near nudity, the softness and curves and the satin smoothness of her skin that seemed erotically fashioned to be pleasing to the hard, muscular form of this man.
She didn't pretend to misunderstand him. “It's only been two weeks,” she said with forced lightness.
He reached out to stroke the silky curve of her shoulder. “It seemed like two years. Why do you think I've been working so hard? I'm not used to celibacy, Brenna.”
Her eyes flew to his face, and a blush dyed her cheeks at what she saw there.
“God knows, I've tried to be patient,” he went on roughly. “I wanted you to come to me. I didn't want to take you. Every night when I finally did get to bed, I'd lie there aching, knowing that you were just across the hall. I've been going through hell. I can't take it anymore.”
He lifted her effortlessly so that she was sitting on his knees. His mouth covered hers with an aching sweetness, and then with a groan, his lips parted hers and his tongue invaded her with a savage need. With a swift movement he rolled her over so that they were lying side by side on the recliner, his mouth open and working erotically on hers, demanding her responses. His leg urgently parted her thighs. His thighs felt rough and masculine, she thought feverishly, the fine hair caressing the smoothness of her limbs with a sensual abrasiveness.
“God, you feel so
good,” Donovan groaned breathlessly, burying his face in the curve of her shoulder. With shaking hands he worked at the back fastening of her bikini top, and in seconds the flimsy strip of material was removed from between their bodies. His hands reached around to curve over her swollen breasts, kneading the sensitive mounds with a rhythmic urgency that caused her to cry out with the sudden heat that shot through her body. She arched against him convulsively, her hips moving blindly in an attempt to fit herself to his loins.
He shuddered, and tore the towel from around his hips in a frantic attempt for a closer unity, and Brenna drew her breath in sharply, as she felt the taut flesh burning through the cool dampness of his trunks. His mouth was on one taut nipple, his tongue teasing it maddeningly while his thumb flicked its sensitive mate, until she was writhing, her breath coming in little gasps. “Please,” she begged. “Michael, please…”
One hand traveled from her breast to the tense muscles of her stomach, stroking and rubbing the silken skin caressingly, before slipping down beneath the bikini briefs, his other hand loosening the ties at her hips. He lifted and threw back his head, the cords standing out on his strong throat. “God! I want you! Now!” he said, tormented. He closed his eyes, his hands still moving compulsively on her body.
He drew a deep breath, and a convulsive shudder shook his body. Suddenly he rolled away from her, and was on his feet beside the recliner, his hands clenched into fists. He looked down at her, his chest heaving with the effort he was making for control.
She looked up at him, her bare breasts moving rapidly with the same emotion that was wracking him.
“Cover yourself!” he said thickly. “Or so help me, I'll take you right here and now, and I won't give a damn how public it is.”
She sat up slowly and looked around for something to cover herself. The bikini top seemed to have disappeared, and she was looking around for it vaguely, when Donovan gave a smothered imprecation and reached down for the towel he had discarded. He threw it to her impatiently.