Tender Deception (21 page)

“They won’t see a thing they don’t already know.”

Vickie squirmed from his arms hastily. She still carried an admonishing smile upon her lips, but she really didn’t care what others saw. She was dressed in a filmy white gown—Desdemona’s nightgown—and Brant’s touch through the light-as-gossamer fabric was more than she could stand at the moment. The heat and strength of his entire body seemed to sear through her, and it had been a long week, with Brant staying chastely away, especially after the reawakening of her yearning.

“Behave, Othello!” she commanded him impertinently.

“What?” he demanded in sardonic reply. “Are Desdemona’s eyes straying already?” He pointed to the bed; the scene of the tearjerking confrontation of the play. “See what happens to errant wives?”

“Ah, but she wasn’t errant. Othello made the mistake of listening to others.”

Laughing, they moved offstage together. Watching from the darkened house, Monte sighed. They were an extraordinary couple, above mere humanity as they stood together beneath the lights of the stage—he magnificent in the royal cloth of gold, she a creature of ageless beauty in the flowing white gown, her raven hair waving down her back in thick, lustrous swirls. They were magic. So intense, so vital. Their being was a tangible thing that radiated around them. They lived passionately; they loved passionately. They would quarrel passionately.

Monte sighed again as they moved into the wings. He hoped Vickie knew what she was doing.

There was a portent of disaster in the air. Portent. Monte shook his head. He had been doing Shakespeare too long. He was beginning to think with a medieval mind! It was foolish to think that anything could go wrong.

T
HEY WERE MARRIED ON
Sunday morning, with a high, brilliant sun above them and the gentle rolling of the surf behind them. Vickie was in yellow, challenging the radiance of the sun; Brant wore a deep blue that turned his smoldering eyes to a depthless indigo. Only Monte and Frankie and Mrs. Leonini—and the minister—stood witness, they and the swaying palms and bleached sands that Brant and Vickie both loved so dearly.

Edward was the only other person with an idea that a marriage was taking place and he was once more caring for his nephew in St. Petersburg. If he resented his role in the proceedings, he gave no sign. Vickie was the actress, not he. He knew he would not be able to conceal the secret he had stumbled upon.

Vickie had no thoughts for her own secrets that morning. She was entranced with the dazzling beauty of the day, and with the simple promises of the ceremony. To love, honor, and cherish. They were words she could easily avow to. She had loved him in her heart forever. The depth of her love was also to take on new meaning when Brant’s eyes met hers with the words “Till death do us part.” There was a message in his tender look, a message as old as the sky and sea that blessed their union. He believed in forever. For better or worse.

And when he kissed his new bride, it was with an aching tenderness, broken only as Frankie chuckled and cleared his throat. “When do I get to kiss the bride?” he complained.

“Now,” Brant declared dryly. “And then forever after, you can hold your peace!”

Even Monte seemed lighthearted as he kissed Vickie and wished them both the best. “I look at it this way,” he said with a grin. “I’m not losing an actress; I’m gaining an actor.”

“That’s right,” Vickie promised solemnly, throwing her arms around his neck to hold him closely. “You’ll have us both whenever you want.”

“Good,” Monte said gruffly, “because we may be taping
Othello
for the PBS stations. I’ll need you both.”

“So where’s the honeymoon?” Frankie demanded as he popped the cork off the neck of a champagne bottle and passed out crystal glasses.

“That is a deep, dark secret,” Brant advised, his eyes dancing devilishly. “But take my word for it—no one will be able to find us until Tuesday!”

Actually, they planned to honeymoon at Vickie’s house. Like laughing kids they parked both cars at a nearby garage, turned the phone down too low to be heard, and settled in for their short time of complete privacy. They didn’t have forty-eight hours before Vickie was due to pick up Mark. Then she and Brant would both be due for opening night.

Vickie was unaccountably assailed by a case of nerves as they entered the house. “Seems warm, doesn’t it?” she murmured, whisking quickly to the thermostat.

Brant was right behind her, his arms encircling her waist. “It is warm, Mrs. Wicker,” he said huskily, “but I don’t think you’re going to cool anything down that way!”

Vickie slowly turned in his arms. “Oh, Brant! I’m so happy, I can’t believe it’s real!”

“I’m real,” he retorted, “and I plan to start proving it. We have a lot of honeymooning to get in to a very few hours…”

His fingers tingled her spine as they danced from her shoulders to her waist, and she swayed dizzily against him. “Too much champagne,” she murmured apologetically.

“Thanks,” he chuckled. “Married an hour and you already consider my lovemaking skills to be an overindulgence in spirits!”

“Never!” she told him, meeting his eyes as his fingers worked on her zipper. The yellow dress fell to the floor and she was swept with pleasure at his response.

Brant had little control over his senses where she was concerned. Seeing her each time anew was a marvel for him; his pulse immediately quickened, his breathing grew rapid. But she was beguiling, an enticement of the blood. Clad only in delicately laced lingerie that seemed nothing more than a tempting froth of white, she was definitely a temptress. The French-cut bra enhanced rather than hid the high firmness of her breasts, scarcely veiling the roseate peaks that darkened swiftly, as if blushing at his surveillance. The silky slip gave further credence to the perfection of her hips, the willowy length of tanned, sleek legs.

He kissed the erratically beating pulse at the base of her neck, then swept her into his arms, laying her tenderly upon the bed in her room, the yellow gown forgotten in the hall. She watched him through half-closed, sultry cat eyes as he doffed his own jacket and twisted his tie from his neck, but then she lay still no more. With graceful fluidity of movement, she came to her knees on the bed, clasped his face between her hands, and kissed him, drawing away only as the embrace threatened to consume them. Her eyes fixed upon his shirt, as feather-light fingers deftly slipped buttons one by one through their buttonholes and she leisurely pulled the tails from his trousers, running her hands with fascination over the incredible flatness of his belly.

“God!” Brant groaned as her lips found his chest and her tongue lashed a delicious torment over his flesh. “Woman, you’re driving me crazy!”

He expelled a shattering breath and she was catapulted into his arms as his weight swept her back to the bed and his lips claimed hers. Then he trailed a path of desire grown fervent over her throat, the soft flesh of her arms, the mounds that rose majestically over the top of her bra. It was then time for all constraining fabric to go; without awkwardness Brant paused only long enough to remove sensuously her sheer slip and panties, and his own trousers and briefs. Neither was concerned with the haphazard strewing of their clothing.

“I love you,” Brant whispered hoarsely, lowering his weight as he kissed her lower lip, nibbling it erotically. “I love your face”—his kisses rained upon it—“I love your neck, your breasts, your legs…” His kisses followed his designations, gaining blazing heat with every assertion. Vickie tried to retaliate, but she was quivering like a blade of grass in his raging wind of desire, and as his kisses moved upward over the agonizingly sensitized soft flesh of her upper thighs, she cried out, begging him to take her. He was thirsting, ready to comply; her return of torment was an innate thing, making him wild. It was in her hips that naturally undulated for him, the legs that slid along his length, willing prisoners for his maleness, the breasts that pressed to his chest, arched, the nipples exotic bewitchment as they teased against the coarse hairs, giving…receiving…

“Brant…” Vickie moaned, her whisper a further taunt to whirling abandon as it whistled against his ear with moist fire. She was not hesitant to guide him, not averse to groaning her pleasure as he took her hips firmly to guide in return.

It was impossible, but being together in the total oneness of the senses was more exhilarating, more awesome, more all-consuming than ever before. Did a piece of paper promising commitment make it so? Vickie wondered briefly. No, not the paper. The hearts that joined together to make the commitment made it so. It didn’t matter. The primitive beauty that drove them wildly, insatiably, together needed no definition. Morning turned to afternoon, afternoon to evening, and after the first whirling vortex of tumultuous appeasement, the passage of time became meaningless. They were alone, an island, giving heed to nothing but the precious moments of each other, playing all the games of love, whispering, demanding, surrendering. He would seduce her; she would seduce him. At times they would madly join together, at times they would sweetly torment each other until one would capitulate and demand in return.

It might be swift, it might be simple, but Vickie knew she would cherish the memories of her “honeymoon” all of her life.

Finally they lay contentedly together, Vickie resting her head on Brant’s stomach, drawing idle circles with her thumb over his chest. Brant was strangely silent, and after a while she stretched to kiss him quizzically.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she murmured, then added playfully, “You look engrossed. I’ll even offer a quarter.”

The intensity of his brooding eyes quelled her initial curiosity. Too late she realized that his questions were going to come.

He stroked her hair, watching the tendrils as he would release them. “I want to know about the past, Vickie. Surely you trust me now. I want to know about everything in your life since I went away.”

Her lashes fluttered over her eyes and she moved her head back to his stomach, staring at the ceiling. “Brant,” she finally said, “please, not today.”

“Vickie.” His voice held a note of sternness. There had been something in the wedding ceremony about “obey,” and Vickie winced slightly. It seemed Brant was also taking that word to heart.

She closed her eyes tightly and repeated, “Oh, Brant, please! Not today. Today is ours; it’s special. Let’s keep it that way.” She hadn’t really intended to, but instinct had sent a quivering note of beseechment into her voice. It was a feminine ploy she wasn’t fond of using.

Brant’s touch on her hair hardened almost imperceptively, and then relaxed. “Do you trust me, Vickie?”

“You know I do,” she murmured, concealing the misery his question brought. She did trust him. Almost. But not enough to take the kind of chance he was asking of her on this particular day.

“And you do intend to really talk to me soon?” The slight tightening of his hand again warned her that any promise she made to him would be one she would be forced to keep.

“Yes,” she said, biting her lower lip. “Soon, Brant, I promise. But please…not today.”

His stroke became a light one. “All right, my love, not today. But you will talk to me soon. You’re still hiding something, and that bothers me. I don’t like you living with this fear—it makes me uneasy.”

Vickie twisted and talked into the rigid wall of his stomach. “Oh, Brant! I do love you, and I do trust you. Please, don’t worry…” She worried enough for both of them. She was afraid, and terribly uneasy herself. But there were magical moments when she could convince herself that everything was going to be all right. Today had been a euphoric combination of many such moments. “I’m not really hiding anything,” she fibbed. “There’s no reason to be uneasy.” If only she could believe that herself!

Brant sighed, and she felt his movement constrict his muscles even more tightly. “Vickie, you could ask me for the moon today, and I’d try to find a way to give it to you.” He sat up suddenly, and cradled her head in his lap. He grinned as he stared down into her eyes, and she knew that the subject had been closed—temporarily. “Since you’re not asking for the moon, and I don’t have to go running around in the buff trying to get it, how do you feel about a little physical fulfillment?”

Vickie’s eyes widened in reproachful amazement. “If you’re not fulfilled…”

“Oh, I am, I am!” he countered, ruffling her hair as he chuckled. “But I’m also ravenous. I’m so fulfilled that I’ve worked up a tremendous appetite—for food.”

“Nice,” Vickie teased, “married less than a day, and when you say you’re hungry, you’re already talking about food.”

“This time!” he warned, arching a brow questioningly. “But if you feel I’m disappointing you, I can promise that if you flick that wicked hair of yours over the section of my anatomy upon which it’s resting one more time, I’ll be more than ready to keep practicing another kind of appeasement!”

Laughing at the seductive threat in his eyes, Vickie bolted up, deeply content with the naturalness of their nakedness, but quick to heed his warning and slip into a concealing, downy-soft, floor-length robe. She was equally quick to toss Brant his slightly rumpled pants, aware as she watched him that his threat had not been an idle one.

“Come on, starving one!” she commanded, wrinkling her nose at him as she pelted for the bedroom door. “We’ll raid the refrigerator together.”

“What?” he grumbled with mock amazement. “I’ve got myself a wife and she doesn’t want to cook for her new husband?”

“Damn right!” Vickie called. “This is a partnership, even if you are rich and famous. This is my honeymoon too.”

“That’s all right,” Brant called, padding behind her to sweep her into his arms and spin her in a circle. He held her high in the air and gave her a self-satisfied smirk. “I’m probably a better cook anyway!”

“Ha!” Vickie grinned mischievously, loving the face she looked down into. “But I promise to give you plenty of chances to prove it.”

“The matter is actually irrelevant,” Brant said, setting her down and arrogantly slapping her rear. “It’s obvious we’re going to need a full-time housekeeper.”