Aspen Gold (43 page)

"I'm glad you suggested this, John T.,"

she said in a sighing voice, then straightened her head to look at him. "The hot tub, the snow, the champagne--it's all deliciously decadent.

I love it."

"I hoped you would." Seeing the soft radiance in her face, John realized that he'd never derived this much pleasure out of pleasing someone else. It felt good. Just looking at her felt good.

"Do you know what this reminds me of?" she said softly, suddenly conscious of the exquisite silence that surrounded them, that blocked out all but the frothing tumble of water in the tub. "One of those globes of glass with a miniature winter scene inside that you shake to make the snow dance inside it. Right now, it's like you and I are in that enchanted world."

Her chin level once more, she met his gaze, the glow in her eyes more than he could resist. He pushed his champagne glass on the shelf and caught the hand floating idly on the water's roiling surface, simultaneously taking her glass and setting it aside, pulling her toward him.

"Then enchant me," he whispered against her mouth.

He nibbled at her lower lip and Kit returned his tiny, biting kisses as his arms encircled her under the water. When she caught his lower lip between hers and moistened its contours with the tip of her tongue, she felt the subtle change in his breathing.

"Enchanted yet?" Teasingly, she rubbed her parted lips over his mouth.

"Try harder." He rubbed them back and Kit smiled, fully aware she was playing with fire and not caring. Every playful kiss sent more languid waves of warmth licking through her, waves as warm as the heated water swirling around both of them.

His mouth covered hers with a questing urgency and the warmth began to center, deeply and explicitly.

He tasted of champagne and heat, the silk of his tongue sliding between her lips. She heard a faint, breath-caught moan and realized it was her own as his tongue sank deeply into the recesses of her mouth. It was a sensually powerful kiss that precisely underlined the reputation of the man behind it.

She kissed him back with the same urgency, relishing the physical sensations of his taste, his scent, his touch as his hand caressed her back, the flare of a hip, then up to cup her breast. He rubbed his palm lightly and rhythmically over the taut nipple. Suddenly she found it impossible to breathe, a familiar tingly heat settling between her thighs. He pressed his hand more firmly against her, increasing the friction of the bikini top's fabric against her highly sensitized flesh.

Aching all over, Kit arched closer, their legs briefly tangling in the water. Then his arm was curving, lifting, drawing her up to straddle his thigh, sitting high out of water. He started kissing her throat and shoulder, then ran his tongue along the swell of her breast flowing out of the swimsuit bra. Suddenly, he lowered his mouth and sucked at the taut nipple through the wet fabric. She arched her back, her fingers sliding into the firmness of his dark blond hair.

Then his lips made the climb back to her throat, his teeth grazing the side of it while his fingers tugged at the top's ribbon tie. She felt the material go slack. Another tug and the turbulent water swept it away.

"Have you ever felt the snow on your breasts, Kit?" he whispered against her ear, then nipped at the lobe with his teeth.

"Have you ever felt their icy touch, felt them melt?"

"No," she whispered back, her voice thick.

His arms tightened around her, pulling her with him when he pushed up, water sluicing from their bodies, the cold night air washing over their heated skin. John sank back against the rim of the tub, feet braced, his hands firm on the slick skin over her hipbones.

"Feel it?" He looked at her, his eyes heavy-lidded and hungry. "Feel the snow."

White flakes drifted between them and on them.

Crystalline drops glistened in his hair.

Locking her gaze with his, she arched her back slightly, feeling the snow's icy kisses on her skin.

The motion lifted her pale breasts, her nipples dark and pointy in the dim light. He brushed them with his fingertip, feeling her start slightly. Drawing her nearer, he traced a moist circle around a nipple with his tongue, then felt her convulsive shudder when he took it into his mouth.

He caressed her hip, then ran a hand down her thigh and back up, across her stomach, then down again to caress her with coaxing fingers. She stiffened and started to say something, but he silenced her with a deep kiss.

This wasn't the place. When they made love, he wanted plenty of comfort, plenty of room, and plenty of time. But he couldn't keep his hands off her. He wanted to stroke, caress, touch, and feel her writhe with need. He wanted to bury himself inside her, deep inside and make her a part of him. Lightly, he drew his fingers along the soft fold between her thighs, feeling the heat through the bikini's thin fabric.

She breathed in sharply and moved against his hand.

He knew from the way she strained, the way she trembled, that she'd be moist and hot, ready to take him in one long thrust of his body.

He resisted the urge to slide his fingers inside the bikini bottom and slip his fingers into her, finding that sensitive place and rubbing it until she was wild with need, then satisfying it, taking her over that last edge, hearing the love sounds torn from her throat, seeing the intense pleasure on her face, then entering her and finding that same release for himself.

"Not like this," he said huskily, rubbing the center of his mouth over her cheek and breathing into her ear.

"I want you naked in my bed, Kit. I want to be deep inside you with your long legs wrapped around me. I want to watch you while we make love. I want you to watch me. I want you to tell me what you want, how you want it.

Fast. Slow. Wild. Tender. I want you to scream if you feel like screaming. I want you, Kit. I want it all."

His words had her imagination vivid, the wildness, the sweetness, the hunger. She could feel herself trembling. When his mouth moved onto hers, she drove into it rashly, recklessly. Her skin hot. Her body hot. She was hot.

A discreet cough sounded, then came again, louder, more insistent. When John dragged his mouth away, Kit rested her forehead on his shoulder and laughed softly, shakily.

Nolan Walker stood between the tall hedges that screened the heated walk between the private terrace and the house, his back turned to the hot tub.

John glared just the same.

"What is it, Nolan?"

"Lassiter wants you. He's on the phone."

John swore softly, ripely, his hands unconsciously moving with longing over the bareness of her shoulder blades. "Kit--" he began, his voice low and oddly gruff.

She pressed the ends of her fingers onto his lips, silencing him. "It's okay," she murmured, a faint curve to her mouth, rather liking the idea that he was concerned that she wouldn't understand.

A gentleness, a warmth she'd never seen before, entered his eyes. A second later, he said to Nolan, "Tell Lassiter I'll be right there."

The hush of falling snow magnified the sound of Nolan's retreating footsteps, making Kit even more aware of how absorbed she had been in John's embrace. His hands shifted to her rib cage and set her back from him while he straightened to climb out of the tub.

His hand reached back for her. "This could take a while," he warned. "You'd better come in, too." He helped her out, then leaned back over the tub and scooped her top out of the tumbling water. "It seems you may have a need for this after all." His mouth curved in an amused line.

Kit took the top, but she didn't bother to put the sodden bit of cloth back on. Instead, she donned the plush terry robe of Egyptian cotton she'd worn from the house. John slipped into a shorter version, with a monogrammed pocket.

With arms hooked around each other's waist, they padded barefoot along the heated stone path to the house, entering through the lower level and passing through the fully equipped gym and sauna area, then climbing the white stairs to the second floor.

Kit walked with him as far as the study door.

He pressed a kiss to her temple. "Want me to have Carla bring you coffee? Cocoa?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine. G." She gave him a tiny push toward the study door.

When the door closed behind him, she turned indecisively. The game room was directly opposite the study, its doors open wide.

Accepting the invitation, Kit wandered in, her bare feet quickly sinking into the thick alpaca rug on the floor. One glance and it was obvious that Nolan, Chip, or Abe had taken over half of the room for an office area. The poker table was covered with a careless array of memos, schedules, and other important-looking paperwork.

More was stacked on the chairs around it.

Wisely, Kit aimed for the billiard table and the pair of plump chairs upholstered in creamy corduroy that faced the brown marble fireplace beyond it. As she started to give the cue ball a roll across the green slate top, she noticed a script lying on the mahogany edge near the middle pocket. A yellow Post-it was taped to the cover. The words "Revised draft approved by Olympic" were scrawled across it and dated four days ago.

The revised script for White Lies.

She hadn't received her copy yet.

"I wonder what changes Chip made."

Curious, she fanned through the first few pages, then shrugged and picked it up.

She curled up in one of the chairs by the fireplace and began to skim through the script.

Twenty pages in, she pressed her lips together. The more she read, the more tightly she pressed them, the pull of the corners growing grimmer and grimmer.

When she finished it, she swung out of the chair and crossed to the window. She stood stiffly in front of it, staring at the steady fall of white powder, her hands gripping the script. She was still there when John walked in.

He came up behind her, his hands moving onto the rounded points of her shoulders as he bent to nuzzle her neck. "Sorry."

She spun around to face him, holding out the script. "Is this the draft we'll be shooting from?" she asked in a tightly controlled voice.

John glanced at the cover note and nodded.

"The approval came in a few days ago--"

"How could you do it?" Kit exploded. "How could Chip do it? You've destroyed the story.

You've destroyed everything that made it unique and--"

"You're overreacting, Kit."

"Overreacting? You've turned Eden into a murderess. You have her killing her husband.

She's a clichè. This story is a clichè--a rehash of a dozen other films."

"It's a formula that works." He turned away, digging into the pocket of his robe for his pack of cigarettes, needing one.

"But this isn't the script you bought,"

she argued, pacing over to the billiard table. "This isn't the story that excited you enough to buy it."

"Maybe not, but it's the story Olympic wants." He snapped the lighter to his cigarette and drew a quick deep puff on it.

"They're paying for it, they're distributing it, and they're calling the shots. They decided the original script was too risky; they wanted a proven formula, and they got it."

"That's it. That's all you can say." Her hand made an angry sweep through the air. "The story goes to hell, but so what? Is that it?"

After a twenty-minute session with Lassiter, he had no more patience left. "Grow up, Kit," he snapped. "In this business, when it comes to a choice between the bottom line and the storyline, the storyline is always going to suffer."

She threw the script down. "Grow up?

Don't you mean "give up"? Just forget that I believed in the story and bow my head in acceptance the way you have."

"Damn it, Kit. I had no choice."

"No choice?" She stormed across the room.

"You could have told them to take their money, their distribution, their bottom line, and go to hell."

"You don't understand, Kit." He fought to get a grip on his temper. "I need this picture."

"Olympic isn't the only studio in town."

"What the hell makes you think any other studio would want that script?" he shouted back.

"Chip peddled it over half the town before I saw it. What the hell does that tell you?"

"That tells me you never tried."

"Damn it, my picture deal is with Olympic. Even if I could take the script somewhere else--" He stopped, dragging in a deep breath and forcing his voice down. "I'm in no position to dictate terms or conditions. John Travis may be a big star in the public's eye, but I'm on damned shaky ground in Hollywood. I need a hit. A big hit.

I get that and I'm back in control. I can tell Lassiter to go to hell and make him like it.

Until then, I have to play the game by his rules, just like you and everyone else."

She stood before him, her arms rigid at her sides and her hands clenched in tight fists, a definite snap to her eyes. "I don't think much of your game or the way it's played."

"Then leave the table," he shot back.

Her face went cool, her eyebrows arching.

"Now, there's a thought."

Turning on her heel, she walked out of the room. In the guest room, she changed back into her sweater and slacks, grabbed her purse and coat, and headed for the front door. John was there when she reached it. His narrowed gaze centered briefly on the coat she'd thrown over her arm.

"You're not leaving, Kit."

Temper was licking its way to the surface again.

She coated it with hot ice. "Wanta bet?"

He blocked her when she tried to move past him to the door. "Look." He tried to force some reason into his own angry voice. "I know you're disappointed with the change in Eden--"

"Disappointed doesn't begin to cover it. In fact, I'm in the mood to start throwing things and you would make a lovely target. So get out of the way."

This time, John didn't try to stop her.

The Jeep charged through the three inches of powder that covered the streets. Instinct guided the hands at the wheel to make all the right turns as Kit left Starwood, her eyes on the road and the steady fall of snow in the Jeep's headlight beams, her thoughts still on her argument with John.