Demon Rumm (13 page)

At first, when she rolled from beneath him, he thought she was going to undress. But when his cloudy eyes focused on her, she was huddled against the head-board, clutching her clothes together as though he were a raping vandal.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t?” he wheezed.

She shook her head adamantly. “No.”

No longer the compassionate friend and lover, Rylan reverted to the thwarted male. He realized he was making the chameleon transition, but his manhood was dictating this drastic mood swing, not his head and not his heart.

“What do you mean you can’t?” he roared.

“Exactly what I said,” she shouted back at him.

“Is it your period or something? Believe me, I’m not that fastidious.” He took a perverse pleasure in her ruby blush.

“It’s not that. I can’t—won’t—make love to you Not now. Not ever.”

His harsh breathing sounded like that of a domesticated beast about to turn back to its wild origins. “Damn you, then! It’s no wonder your husband committed suicide.”

Seven

One forgot until he sat and stared at it for hours on end just how vast the ocean was. Rylan had numerous hours that night to contemplate it. Sunrise finally crept up behind him and projected his silhouette on the sand. The shadow looked like an ill-formed hulk of a man, shoulders hunched forward, head sunk down between them, hair unruly. That shadow could have belonged to the sulky ogre in the most ferocious fable.

And that was exactly what he felt like.

Cursing himself, he lay down on the sand and stared up at the sky. It was rapidly losing its colorless, predawn pallor and taking on a pink glow, like a gravely ill patient who was showing visible signs of improvement. The stars that had held on for as long as possible winked a farewell and blinked out.

Rylan raised his hands and looked at them. He turned them this way and that. They hurt. The flesh was blistered and streaked with red. Maybe they were to blame. He’d been in pain, albeit subconsciously. His mother had always said he was the most ungracious patient. When he was sick, he was furious at the ailment for incapacitating him and had taken his anger out on everybody around him. No amount of tender loving care would appease his foul disposition. So blame last night’s behavior and vituperation on his injured hands. Misery loved company. He had wanted to inflict pain on someone else.

Well, he had. In spades.

He bent one arm and laid it across his eyes. That didn’t help to block out Kirsten’s face, the way it had looked after he’d said those hurtful words. Pale and stunned, she’d stared at him. Her eyes had looked too large for her face. Her lips, which had been rosy and full from their kisses, seemed to fade and become narrow with despair even as he watched. Before his eyes, she was transformed. Her entire being seemed to shrink, to collapse from within.

The atmosphere had been static with tension, as sulfurous as in the seconds immediately following a striking lightning bolt. They had both been rendered motionless and, for a moment, speechless.

At last Kirsten had said huskily, “It wasn’t a suicide. How could you say such a thing to me?”

Each word had risen a little higher in pitch and volume until the last ones had a hysterical ring to them. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so vehemently contradictory, he might have withdrawn his accusation, apologized, and taken her in his arms again, not to woo, but to console.

But something about her stubbornness to protect Demon Rumm had beckoned the dark side of Rylan’s nature. He had still been heavy with desire. That, too, had no doubt contributed to his meanness. For whatever reason, he’d flung back his head arrogantly and said, “That’s the rumor, baby.”

“Well, it’s wrong.” Kirsten slid off the bed and rounded on him. She hastily rebuttoned the front of her shirt and shoved down her wrinkled skirt. “It’s wrong! Do you hear me? Charlie did
not
commit suicide. Why would he? He had everything to live for.”

“Except a wife who liked to screw.”

“How dare you—”

“Oh, I dare all right. I’d dare to say or do anything to a woman who would pull the stunt you just did.”

She faced him with proud hauteur. “I didn’t want to make love to you.”

“Fine!”

“So what are you shouting about?”

“You waited a little too late to say no.”

“I didn’t mean for it to go so far.”

He got off the bed and assumed his sardonic stance. “Didn’t you? Is that why Rumm was so anxious to die? Did he work out his sexual frustration with aerobatics?”

She covered her ears. “Stop it! What happened between us just now has nothing to do with Charlie and me.”

He summed up his opinion of that in one terse expletive and headed for the door. But before he stamped from the room, he stepped directly in front of her and zipped up his pants with insulting emphasis. “I’ll save it for somebody who appreciates it.”

At the time he had thought it was a great exit line. Now, after hours of dwelling on it, it didn’t sound nearly as clever as he had originally believed.

I was horny,
he justified to himself.

No excuse. An adult male learned to deal with unfulfilled arousal. That’s what separated man from animals. Men didn’t live in caves any longer and they learned to take a lady’s “No” with dignity.

She shouldn’t have let it go that far.

No, she shouldn’t have. But the rational side of his brain argued that Kirsten hadn’t planned on taking it to the brink and then calling it off. She had been ready and wanting just as much as he had. It wasn’t her body that had said, “Uh-uh.” Something other than whimsy had caused her to change her mind at the last minute. Something in her head. Or her heart.

It wasn’t like that’s all I wanted—slam-bam, thank
you, ma’am. Not like that at all. I love her.

So maybe he should have exercised patience and understanding instead of storming out half-cocked.

Appropriate analogy, North.

He sat up again and stared out over the undulating waves as they rolled ashore. Even their restlessness had a pattern to it. There was a source for every form of turbulence. So Rylan could partially excuse his wretched behavior last night. Mark it up to being in love. It was a bitchin’ state to be in.

He’d read of men who had loved from afar, never consummating the eternal love they had for a woman. It was uplifting to think that some son of Adam had been that pure of spirit, that noble. But Rylan just didn’t believe it was possible.

His sexuality was a vital part of him. Like his thumbprint or the shape of his eyebrows or the brown speckles in his eyes or his walk or his semihoarse voice. His sexuality wasn’t something he could alter at will. He loved Kirsten Rumm with his entire being and that encompassed his sex glands.

“But, brother, does she ever have hang-ups where
that
is concerned.”

What was wrong with her? Nothing physically. Her body did everything right. Maybe it all boiled down to this: She was still in love with Charles Rumm. He’d been all-American handsome. He had had a dazzling smile and a magnetic personality. He had been rich and famous. No wonder Kirsten had been crazy in love with him.

But it was two years since his sui—his
death
. Kirsten was ready to love another man whether she knew it or not.

So Rylan’s choices were clear. He could either throw in the towel and lament forever what might have been. Or he could stay, flay her alive if necessary to uncover the nucleus of her aversion to sex, and, once found, to heal it or die trying.

He stood up and dusted off the seat of his shorts. As he jogged up the steps that led to the terrace, he felt much the way he had when his agent once advised him, “I wouldn’t even bother calling that producer, Rylan. The part in his picture is not for you. Even if he gave it to you, you’d be a flop. That role could ruin your career.” He’d been determined to get the part and to make the movie a hit.

He had accomplished both.

Kirsten was sitting in the corner of the navy leather sofa in Rumm’s study when Rylan, showered and changed, sat down close beside her.

Without preamble, not even a good morning, he said, “You should have slapped my face.”

She looked at him, unsmiling. “I thought about it.”

“Why don’t you do it now?”

“Not my style.”

“Go on. Lay one on me. It might make you feel better.”

Smiling sadly, she shook her head. “I doubt it.”

“Will you accept my apology?”

“For what?”

“For yelling at you like some street kid who’s been shortchanged by a hooker.”

Her smile widened. “I will if you’ll accept my apology.”

“For what?”

“For—for not going through with it.”

“I forgive you,” he said, then added softly, “I’m not sure I can forget.”

She looked away. “Yes. That’s the hard part, isn’t it? Forgetting.”

“I don’t want to forget it, Kirsten. I want to remember, to savor, how it feels to loveplay with you.” He could tell he was making her uncomfortable by talking about it, so he changed his tack. “We’ll swap apologies. Deal?”

“Deal.”

They shook hands solemnly.

“What are you working on?” he asked. “And why in here?” He indicated the legal tablet resting in her lap, on which she’d made several notations.

“The last chapter of my book,” she said. “I came in here because I thought a change of scenery might help.”

“Oh? Problems?”

She sighed as though resigning herself to talk about something she’d rather not. “I’ve had writer’s block where this chapter is concerned.”

“You’re too emotionally involved. You can’t be objective.”

“I guess so.”

She looked small and helpless. Her eyes were ringed with violet shadows that intensified their blue color, but emphasized her wanness. Her mental and physical fragility made him feel like a brute. More so because he was going to have to make her suffer again before they could start the healing process.

“What’s snagging you?” he asked.

“I can’t express how I felt after I heard about the accident,” she confessed.

“The controversy that surrounded it couldn’t have helped.”

She had taken off her glasses to rub her eyes wearily. Now she looked up at him threateningly, her vulnerability having vanished in a matter of seconds. Before she could launch into an invective, he sandwiched her hands between his and said, “Kirsten, I want to get to the truth as much—maybe more—than you do.”

“For the sake of the movie?”

“Yes, partly,” he admitted. “But that’s not the only reason. I think you know what the other is.” Beneath his steady gaze her flare of temper fizzled. She looked down at their clasped hands. “What happened last night?” he asked gently.

“You were there. You know what happened.”

“A beautiful, lovely and loving, sexy woman froze up. Why, Kirsten? And don’t tell me that you didn’t want me. I know better. No woman gets that wet for a man she doesn’t want.”

“Please, Rylan!” She moaned. Her head fell forward.

“Are you just incredibly shy? Did you have a strict upbringing? Were you taught that even talking about sex was taboo? Are you abnormally modest?”

“Of course not.” He caught the smile behind her denial.

“Then what? Tell me. Did I do something that turned you off?”

“No.”

He kissed her ear and left his lips there to whisper, “Did you like what I did?”

She nodded against his chest. “Everything.”

As emotion swept through him, he squeezed his eyes shut. He gave himself a moment to tamp down a rising desire, then said, “Then why did you act as though I’d violated you? I’ve got the thickest skin imaginable. I can talk about anything without a single flinch. I promise not to be shocked no matter what you tell me.” He tunneled all ten fingers through her hair and pulled her head up. “Tell me, Kirsten.”

His eyes searched the troubled depths of hers as they filled with tears. “I can’t, Rylan. Please don’t ask me anymore. Please. If you have any feelings for me at all, don’t pressure me about this.”

He felt like a cold, deadly dagger was digging into his gut. Protests filled his head. They clogged his throat in an attempt to be vocalized. But he watched one lone tear spill over her lower eyelid and trickle down her flawless cheek, and knew he would grant her any wish within his power to grant.

His lips sipped the tear from her cheek. “All right, Kirsten. I won’t ask anymore. But concede me two favors.”

“What?”

“Tell me the truth about this.” She waited, looking at him inquisitively. “Did you want me last night? Inside you? Loving you?”

Her gaze moved down to his mouth. “Do you really have to ask?”

He drew in a deep breath and held it. “So the reason you stopped it had nothing to do with us?”

“No, nothing.” He kissed her, and though it was a tender kiss, it was compelling. “What’s the second favor?” she asked huskily when he lifted his lips from hers.

“Recreate with me Demon Rumm’s last twenty-four hours.”

“
What?
Recreate his—”

“Because of these burns on my hands, I don’t have to return to the set for several days. Talk me through his last day. Let’s go through it hour by hour. I want to know the truth about what happened in that aircraft that morning.”

“The truth is that Charlie had an accident. He did
not
commit suicide.”

“All right. Then what is there to be afraid of?” He could see she was vacillating, so he pressed his point. “It will benefit both of us. You’ve come to a roadblock in your manuscript. Talking through those last twenty-four hours with me might help, might jostle something in your memory that will be useful to your book.”

He stroked her lips with his thumbs. They were such soft, kissable lips, capable of receiving and giving pleasure. It broke all the rules of logic that she withheld both.

“Besides the professional considerations,” he went on, “do this for us, Kirsten. We can’t have each other until we exorcise Demon Rumm. And we
will
have each other.”

He kissed her again, more firmly, using his tongue to convey the love he couldn’t speak aloud and treating her mouth like the sacred, chosen vessel to receive it. When they pulled apart, his eyes silently repeated his request. She nodded in answer.