Aspen Gold (45 page)

Bannon stood in the doorway to the living room, melting snow dripping off the brim of the hat he held in front of him. "When I got to the end of the lane, I discovered your billfold on the seat. It must have fallen out of your purse,"

he said, tossing it on the counter. "I knocked, but I guess you were making too much noise to hear me."

"I'm mad, hurt, confused." Suddenly it all seemed to drain out of her and she let out a long sigh, dragging a hand through her hair and sending him a wan smile. "I'm making some cocoa.

Take your coat off and have a cup with me." When he hesitated, she added, "There's nothing better to warm you on a snowy night."

Looking at her, Bannon remembered a few things that were better. It was almost enough to make him turn around and walk out. Almost.

"A cup of cocoa would taste good." He crossed the kitchen and hung his hat and coat on the hall tree by the back door, then pulled out one of the curved-back wooden chairs at the table and sat down.

A silence fell between them, an easy silence, as Kit measured ingredients into a pan and poured milk into another with none of her previous clang and clatter. He watched her moving about, stirring, mixing, tasting, all with the careless confidence of one accustomed to puttering about the kitchen. The simple, homey scene tugged at him again with the what-might-have-beens in his life.

"What brought you out on this wintry night, Bannon? Business or pleasure?"

Kit asked as she stirred the combined cocoa concoction to keep it from scorching.

"I guess you'd call it business. A friend got into trouble, busted up some stuff." He leaned his arms on the table and moved the sugar bowl from side to side between his hands. "I managed to talk the bar owner into letting him pay the damages and not press charges."

"I take it your friend had been drinking."

"Not this time. No, he was just frustrated and upset. He was just letting it out--the way you were doing earlier."

"I was making a bit of a racket, wasn't I?" She pulled a rueful smile as she took two cups down from a cupboard shelf.

"A bit."

She filled both cups with cocoa and brought them to the table. "You always stick by your friends, don't you, Bannon? Right or wrong?"

"I'm a lawyer."

"Lawyer or not, you still would." She pushed one of the cups to him, then sat down in the opposite chair. "That's the way you are."

"I guess." The wedding band glinted on his fingers, catching her eye as he raised the cup and lightly blew on the cocoa's steaming surface.

It suddenly didn't bother Kit to see it on his finger, at last seeing it as a symbol of his steadfast nature, standing by people whether they were around to know or not. After more than eight years in Hollywood, she recognized how very rare that was. But the thought reminded her of John and Maury and all the other things that were troubling her.

She took a testing sip of her cocoa. "It still doesn't taste as good as Mrs. Hatch's.

Maybe she used something other than vanilla for flavoring. Next time I think I'll try a little almond extract and see if that's it."

Bannon tasted his. "Personally I think all that banging and slamming added a little extra something to it." His smile had a familiar touch of recklessness to it that warmed and teased. "Next time you run out of gas, remind me to drive on by."

"Running out of gas was only the final disaster to my evening." She swirled the cocoa in her cup and watched the miniature eddy the motion made.

"John and I had a big fight tonight over the changes in the script."

"Oh."

Absorbed again by her thought, she missed the coolness in that sound. She glanced up when Bannon rose from his chair and wandered over to the window, looking out as if to see whether it was still snowing.

She regarded his back thoughtfully. "Now I'm not even sure why I got so angry over them.

I know it hurt to see the changes they'd made in my character. I was disappointed, upset. But actors never have any control over things like that. You can protest, but it rarely does any good. You're stuck with what they give you. Artistic control only comes when you're so big that they don't dare say no to you." She paused, considering that for a moment. "Maybe, deep down, that's what I was reacting to--the kind of person you have to become to get that big, the bargains and compromises you have to make along the way, the way people will treat you and the way you'll treat them."

"That doesn't say a lot for Travis,"

Bannon remarked a little harshly.

"No, it doesn't, I suppose," she admitted. "But when people are so quick to use you, so quick to criticize, to judge, and condemn--fairly or unfairly--you have to become hard and cynical. You have to become a little ruthless, too. I never wanted to see that. I never wanted to believe that was true." She stared at her cocoa. "Remember what you told me about money changing the way people think, that the money won't let them think any other way? It's the same with fame. Fame is power, money, and glory all rolled into one." In a surge of restlessness, Kit got up and wandered over to the window by Bannon. Sighing, she gazed at the white flicker of snowflakes beyond the darkened pane.

"I don't like the things that are happening to me now, Bannon. I don't like the kind of person I'll become if I keep going. And I have to change to survive." Otherwise it would break her. It would tear her apart--the way it was tearing her apart now.

"What about the bargains you've already made?"

Bannon's voice had a hard edge to it. "If you quit now, it means you've made them for nothing."

The events of these last few weeks made it incredibly easy for her to read between the lines of his remark. "Are you by any chance referring to John Travis and the dirty gossip that's been flying around that I slept with him to get this part?"

The lift of his head and stiffening of his jaw provided all the answer she needed. "Not you, too, Bannon," she hurled, her voice vibrating with anger and hurt. "Damn you." She saw his startled frown and spun away, walking stiffly to the counter and slamming the cup down, cocoa sloshing over the sides. "Don't you see that's just what I've been talking about? The way people judge me, assume things. People who should know me better!"

"Kit, I ... I was out of line--"

"You're damned right you were out of line," she declared, her chin quivering as she whirled back to face him, almost surprised by the confusion and regret she saw in his eyes. "For your information, I have gone to bed with him, but that's not what got me the part. I got it because I'm good. Because I'm damned good. It was only afterward that John and I--" She stopped and pressed a hand to her forehead. "God, why am I telling you this? It's none of your business." She lowered her hand to look at him, fighting tears and a whole host of old emotions. "I wish we could kill whatever romantic illusion there still is between us."

Too many hot bitter tears blurred her eyes. She didn't see him move. Suddenly he was in front of her, his hands gripping her upper arms.

"I've wished it, too, Kit. But you don't kill things like that," he said in a low voice, then almost angrily hauled her to him, his mouth coming down to cover hers with a pressure that was hard and wanting.

She found herself returning it without reservation, straining for a greater closeness, needing it.

John had kissed her with more finesse; he had made her feel more sexually alive. Yet the simple roughness of Bannon's kiss called up feelings much more basic, much more ageless--feelings that made a woman want a man for reasons that went beyond sex. It dazzled her and it made her want to cry, too.

Bannon drew back a little, his callused hands framing her face, his breathing more than a little ragged. His eyes moved over her, a dark and troubled light shining from them, the sight of it making her ache.

He kissed her again, this time like a man forcing himself to gently savor the taste of water after being starved for it. With the same restraint, he folded her to him, his mouth rummaging lightly through her hair.

"How can you taste better than I remember?"

he murmured thickly. "How can I want you more than I did before?"

She closed her eyes against his words, trembling inside, unable to breathe and hurting because of it, her hands rigid on his waist. "Don't, Bannon," she whispered tightly. "I can't go through it again. To be as close as we were--and to lose it. As much as I want you right now, I can't go through that again."

"I can't defend the past, Kit. I can't explain it, not even to myself," he admitted. "I know the man I was with you; I know the man I am now. But the man I was for those three months, I don't know him. When I looked at her, did I feel the lure of something forbidden? Was it because she was dark like the night with all its mysterious promises and you were bright and fresh like a summer day? Was it because she was there and you were gone? Or was she someone new and different? Maybe it was all those things. I don't know, Kit." The pain that rumbled through his voice was an echo of her own. "I can't change the past. It will always be with us."

A strange and wonderful peace came over her. Despite--or maybe because of--his inability to explain, she suddenly understood. She didn't know how or why, but--it was all right now.

"Bannon," she whispered and let her arms slide around him again.

It was true the past would always be with them, and there would be a part of him that would always belong to Diana.

She had been the mother of his daughter; she would always have that claim on him, and his daughter would always be there to remind him of it. Kit believed she could finally accept that.

He stiffened slightly. "I want you, Kit.

But you deserve more than I can give you."

"Just give me all you can. That will be enough." It had to be.

A gusty sigh broke from him as his weight pressed her back against the counter with a suddenness that had her hanging on for balance. His mouth closed onto hers, driving and tonguing in its need, without control, without patience, his hands tight around her.

His hips trapping her against it.

Kit responded with equal force. She'd stopped questioning the right or wrong of this minutes before; she'd stopped thinking about the chance she might be hurt again. There was a time for thinking and another for feeling, a time to be practical and a time to love. She'd convinced herself of all that and now she sought to show Bannon the truth of it.

He drew back an inch, his heated breath fanning her lips, his body heavy against her. His hands tunneled into her hair, caging her head.

"I want you, but not here--not like this, not like a couple teenagers making out in the kitchen. I want you in bed, your hair spread over a pillow, making a golden frame for your face."

"Yes," she whispered.

Without preliminaries, he scooped her up into the cradle of his arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck, then ran her fingers through his hair while she explored his ear, chewing at its lobe.

He carried her up the steps and into her bedroom, then kicked the door shut behind him. With the world shut out, Bannon lowered her legs to the floor, letting her slide down his muscled thigh, her loose-fitting sweater bunching up under his arms, his work-roughened hands gliding onto her bare skin.

His mouth came back to claim hers and he tasted of cocoa and heat and desire, an addictive combination. When he stripped off her sweater, she pushed at his shirt, forcing it off his wide shoulders. He shrugged out of it, then impatiently came back to run his hands over her skin. She felt the rasp of them, sensed the snag of callus on the lacy fabric of her bra when he sought its clasp.

In minutes they were twined together on the bed, their clothes stripped with a haste that would have staggered Kit if she'd taken the time to think about it. But she hadn't; the haste had been her doing as much as Bannon's. They had ten years to make up for, ten long years. It was part of the desperation that drove both of them, that made enough never enough.

Her hair spilled over the pillow the way he had dreamed about. Now the dream was coming to life.

She was here, with him. He gathered her hair in his hand, drawing her head back to expose the long pale line of her throat. The faintly blue vein pulsed wildly as he traced his tongue over it. Her hands glided over his chest, then lower, and his stomach muscles quivered under her touch.

When he slipped inside her, there was a low murmur. From him? From her? Kit didn't know.

All that mattered was this joining, this life-validating union. She moved beneath him, wanting more, always wanting more. Instantly his hands were at her hips, digging in to stop her.

"Don't," he warned. "Honey, if you so much as twitch a muscle this will be over before it's started. That's how bad I want you. That's how long I've wanted you."

She let her eyelids drift open so she could see him poised above her. She saw the pain of control in his face, a control exercised for her sake.

Reaching up, she smoothed a hand over his cheek.

"The night is young, Bannon. Especially if you spend all of it with me."

"All of it," he murmured the promise into her mouth, releasing her hips to let them rise and meet the plunge of his. The race began, the rhythm hot and reckless, sensation slamming into sensation. In this haze, she saw his face above her, saw it tense on the edge of release, tiny beads of sweat breaking out on his skin, his features twisting with the pain of pleasure. Because of her.

Then his full weight was on her. But only for an instant as he rolled onto his back, pulling her with him to lie on top. Her long hair fell forward and she combed it to one side with her fingers.

He caught her hand and carried it to his lips, rubbing it over them and lightly nibbling at the pad of her thumb, his eyes still clouded and dark from a need freshly satisfied.

"Now it's your turn," he said huskily, then lowered his gaze to the hanging weight of her breasts, their hardened tips barely brushing his chest. "Or is it mine again?"

He kissed her fingers, the front of them, the back of them, drawing each into his mouth. He moved to the palm of her hand, his tongue tracing a lazy circle in its center. His teeth raked over the hill of her hand and his lips discovered the fast-beating vein in her wrist. They followed it to the crook of her elbow and lingered there to nuzzle its hollow before continuing up her arm to her shoulder.