by BETH KERY
“You mean sleep in tents and make campfires?” Gia asked doubtfully.
He lifted his head and peered at her closely. “Never mind,” he said, smirking, letting his head fall again. “City girl disdain is written all over your face right now.”
She laughed. “I’m not that bad. I’ve never been camping, so I don’t know if I’d like it or not. Maybe I would,” she said, touching his naked chest. “With you.”
Seth could make anything appealing, after all.
He smiled and pushed a tendril of hair behind her ear. “I’m thinking the best we could hope for in your case is glamping.”
“Glamping?”
“Yeah. Luxury camping. You get all the benefits of the beauty of the outdoors in addition to five-star restaurants and spas.”
“I don’t need a spa and restaurants,” Gia insisted. “I just want a clean bed and a lock on the door.”
Seth shrugged in a concessionary gesture. “Yeah. I can see how those things would be a necessity in your case.”
Whatever activity they undertook during those sweet, sensual days and nights, it usually never reached full completion because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other and ended up making love.
During that time, she found out that Seth possessed a shockingly accurate photographic memory, something that guaranteed she lost at poker every time they played. She discovered he ate his eggs over easy and liked English period dramas, even though he refused to admit it. He would admit to a penchant for sci-fi and horror movies, which she said she hated. Then she proceeded to grow enraptured with the genre while in the circle of Seth’s arms, listening to him explain the fascinating details of the special effects makeup on the screen. She learned his stamina for both exercise and making love was gargantuan.
They didn’t speak of their relationship beyond the days in the brilliant autumn woods, but instead did as Seth suggested, focusing on what worked between them instead of the obstacles.
And there was so much that did work.
Seth got up from bed one early afternoon, insisting she stay put while he made them a real lunch. They had subsisted almost entirely on easy meals thus far: Sherona’s delicious breads, fruit, eggs and some frozen chicken breasts and vegetables from the freezer that they would replace before they left. She hadn’t eaten all day and was both curious and starved by the time Seth entered the bedroom a half hour later, carrying a large tray.
“I didn’t know you could cook like this,” she said in amazed pleasure as she set aside her book, her gaze caught by the delicious-looking contents of the tray. She sat up against the pillows, drawing the sheet up to her chest, her appetite piqued.
“I’m a single man. If I don’t cook, I starve most nights. It’s nothing fancy,” he downplayed, handing her first a cloth napkin and then a plate.
She disagreed and told him so several times in the midst of wolfing down sesame-citrus halibut, wild rice, green beans and a warmed piece of Sherona’s delicious cinnamon-raisin-walnut bread. This bounty was accompanied by a lovely dry chardonnay.
After Seth had taken her empty plate and glass and set it down, along with his, on the tray, Gia fell back on the pillows in content, sensual lassitude.
“I’m going to make you dinner tonight for payback,” she sighed dreamily, thinking of what she’d stowed away in the locked compartment of her suitcase. She smiled to herself.
“What’s got you looking so smug?” Seth asked.
“Nothing,” she said, meeting his stare. “Thanks again. That was the best meal I’ve ever had.”
Seth gave her that amused, fond glance she was starting to recognize and cherish seeing. “Right. Never a better meal, even though you’ve lived in restaurant meccas like Manhattan and L.A.”
“None of those were made by you,” she said quietly, her cheek on the pillow as she studied him. He was reclining on his hip, elbow bent, his head resting on his hand. Unlike Gia, who was naked under the sheet, he was partially dressed in a pair of black cotton pajama pants that he’d donned before cooking for them. She languorously followed the beautiful upward slant from his narrow waist to his wide chest to his face. “I mean the whole experience, not just the food, although that was delicious. I’m not used to having someone cook for me.”
“Are you a cook yourself?”
“When I focus on it. Which is never,” she added under her breath, grimacing slightly. “I’ve been so busy lately, I live off catered food from a movie set or I order in. I try to eat fairly healthy, but still . . . there’s something less fulfilling about the experience of eating food like that, you know?”
He nodded. “Impersonal. The person preparing it doesn’t know you.”
“Yeah, exactly. The ingredients are first-rate, and the preparation is skilled, but there’s no love or caring, no acknowledgment of you as an individual.” She realized how wistful she sounded and blinked, darting an anxious glance at Seth. She’d probably freaked him out by suggesting he’d prepared her meal with love.
He didn’t look at all ruffled by what she’d said.
He did change the subject, however.
“Is this good?” he asked, picking up the book she’d been reading and had discarded on the mattress when he arrived with the food.
“Excellent. Do you know much about Eleanor Roosevelt?” she asked, drawing the sheet more firmly around her breasts and sitting up against the pillows.
“A little. I had to write a paper about her in a college history class.”
“Could you do me a favor?” she asked, taking the book from him and setting it down between them on the mattress, still facing Seth. She rifled through the pages to a series of photos. “These are of her in her late teens and twenties.” She said, leaning forward as they both studied the pages. “There’s a producer interested in adapting this book into a movie, and he’s asked me if I’d be interested in playing a young Eleanor. Cecilia doesn’t think my looks are at all suited for the part,” she said, referring to her agent. She frowned. “Actually, she also thinks it won’t have a wide-enough commercial appeal, but I don’t care about that. Eleanor has been an idol of mine for a long time. It’d be a dream to play her. But I am worried about if I could pull it off, from a physical-appearance standpoint. There’s no one better to ask than you. What do you think?” She tapped her finger on the page of a young, quite pretty Eleanor with dark blond hair styled in a poofy upsweep. She had a pensive face and intelligent, soft eyes. “Could I become her?”
She waited anxiously while Seth flipped through a couple pages, studying the images silently. She trusted his opinion completely. If he said it was impossible to transform her physically into Eleanor, it was. He finally glanced up at her, his stare moving slowly over her face. She experienced, not for the first time, his intense focus and that cool, penetrating . . . all-seeing gaze that defined his genius.
After a tense pause, he nodded once. Her heart leapt with excitement.
“It would be a subtle, but complicated, makeup. A mouth insert would have to be used to shape your lower face, and it would have to be a really good one, sculpted to not only Eleanor’s facial features, but yours as well. Your lips are usually a problem—not in everyday life, or for me,” he added dryly, “but to disguise.” Gia smiled. He nodded at the page. “Eleanor has a nice, full mouth, though, and it was much softer-looking when she was young. It would mostly be your acting that counted for embodying her, though. Roosevelt had very characteristic mannerisms and voice intonation.”
She nodded eagerly. “I think I could do it.”
He gave a small smile and glanced back at the page. “I’m sure you could. The face would be easier than her body though. Wasn’t Eleanor one of the tallest first ladies?”
“Five eleven. I’m barely five six,” Gia admitted.
“Well . . . the trick of film and costume could diminish that, and the way you move your b
ody, of course,” he said slowly. “I can make some sketches, and I brought my kit. Do you want to experiment a little with it while we’re here?”
“Yes,” she enthused. “That’d be amazing. But only if you want to. It’s supposed to be a vacation for you too.”
He didn’t speak for a moment, and she wondered if indeed he’d only offered to be polite. Then she noticed his quirked brow as he studied the book intently. She could almost hear his brain whirring.
“Seth?”
He glanced up distractedly.
“Oh . . . sorry. Yeah, I definitely want to do it,” he replied simply.
His phone buzzed on the bedside table. He twisted around and snagged it with his left hand. She saw a small smile shape his lips as he read the message once he faced her again.
“Apparently even the gossip grapevine is slower moving in the vicinity of Vulture’s Canyon than the rest of the world. Katie Pierce has just found out from Sherona that I’m up here.”
“Rill’s wife?” Gia asked.
“Yeah.” He glanced up at her. “She’s asking us to come to dinner tomorrow night. They just got back from Los Angeles. Do you want to go?”
“As Jessie Bauer?”
He nodded. “As my nephew.”
She bit her lip, considering. It would be interesting to meet Rill in person. He was one of the youngest, most respected directors in Hollywood. Seth seemed to notice her hesitancy.
“What are you thinking?” Seth asked her quietly.
“I’m not so sure I feel like sharing you with anyone else,” she said impulsively.
Something flickered into his amber eyes. He reached out and cupped her waist warmly in his hand. “I know what you mean. It’s nice alone up here on this hill with you. Should I tell Katie no?”
“Well . . . maybe we should wander out tomorrow?” she asked, her heart not in what she was saying. She realized that a dark, murky cloud of emotion was hanging at the edge of her consciousness. Maybe that unnamed emotion was fear, that if they left the little world they’d created between themselves, the magic would be broken. What if they could never return?
Gia mentally rolled her eyes. Her anxious, unrealistic thoughts weren’t at all in sync with her practical planning self. She reined in her disquietude.
“Yeah . . . we really should get some groceries, venture into the real world, I suppose. I wanted to thank Sherona for all the supplies, although I suppose it’d be more in character for you to want to go do that, since I don’t think it’d be typical for Jessie to return social calls. We could walk through one of the local towns, check out the sights, and then go to Katie and Rill’s for dinner?”
“Sounds like a date.”
“Except that you’ll be dating a boy,” she said drolly. “But would that be so bad? A date, I mean?”
That sexy smile tugged at his mouth. “Not in the slightest.”
“I mean, if I have to be in disguise, we might as well get it over with all at once, right?”
“Get what over with?”
“Halting cabin fever from ever setting in?” she suggested, shrugging.
“A preventive measure?”
“Exactly.”
“Fine with me either way. You’re the one who hates being confined.”
“That was before,” she admitted, touching the side of his ribs. She thrilled to feel his skin roughen beneath her stroking fingertips. He growled softly when she touched his stiffening nipple. He promptly dropped the phone behind him on the bed.
“Before what?” he asked, suddenly dead serious. He pulled the sheet down, exposing her bare breasts. Without pause, his head lowered. He pressed his mouth over her heart and softly cupped a breast.
“Before being confined with you,” she whispered, enthralled by the sensation of his light, brushing lips and the slight abrasion of his whiskers on her skin. He found her sensitive nipple, his warm mouth enfolding her.
Gia closed her eyes and forgot Rill and Katie Pierce. Nothing existed but Seth and the new, amazing world he was opening up to her.
* * *
Later, after they’d made love, Seth held a warm, supple, dozing Gia in his arms, her cheek against his chest. He thought she’d fallen asleep until she spoke.
“Do you know what would be amazing?” she asked, her voice dreamy and slurred with sleep.
“Hmmm?” he asked, running the soft coils of her hair idly between his fingertips.
“If you could work on the Eleanor film and do my makeup.”
The citrus fragrance from her hair and the unique scent that came off her skin after orgasm filled his nose in the silent seconds that followed. He couldn’t think of how to respond to her sweet words. He lifted his head to peer into her peaceful face.
By the time he quietly said her name, she’d fallen asleep, a small smile on her lips.
* * *
Later, Gia cuddled against the pillows and watched a local St. Louis television broadcast of the news while Seth sat in bed next to her, making sketches of her face. At first, she felt a little self-conscious knowing he was making such an intent study of her. Eventually, she sank into relaxation, however, lulled by the pressure of his gaze on her cheek and the subtle scratch of his pencil on the pad. After he set down his pencil and stretched, Gia roused herself from her lassitude.
“You should go and do your workout while I make you dinner.”
“You weren’t serious about that, were you? You don’t have to cook anything,” he said, scowling slightly as he landed one final kiss on her shoulder before he got out of bed.
“Of course, I was serious. I’m making you a special dinner, and you better shower after your workout and dress nice for it, or I’ll be insulted. Go along,” she teased, waving her hands in an “away with you” gesture. He gave her a slightly amused, speculative glance. He knew she was up to something, but couldn’t guess what. She watched him saunter over to the bathroom, as insouciant and comfortable as a god in his nakedness, and twice as gorgeous because of it. Gia leafed through her book, waiting impatiently for him to go downstairs so that she could set her plan into action.
She was sick of either appearing to Seth as a teenage boy or a frump in a robe with wild hair and not a smudge of makeup. The fact that she was going to go out with him tomorrow as Jessie Bauer only solidified her determination. Tonight, she was going to remind him—and herself—that she was one hundred percent female.
When she finally heard the door to the lower level close behind him, she sprang up from bed and extracted the skeleton key from a pocket in her purse. She hurried over to her small antique steamer trunk and opened it.
Seth’s secret had been exposed when she confronted him about the vibrator he’d brought on their trip. Part of him had wished something would happen between them, even if most of him had warned him it was unwise to hope. Gia hadn’t blamed him for that because she was similarly guilty.
She unlocked the secret compartment, withdrew the delicate, feminine items inside and smiled.
* * *
When Seth came upstairs after his workout, he heard the sound of pans rattling in the kitchen. He thought about going and stealing a kiss from Gia before he cleaned up, but he was really sweaty from his workout. Best just to get his shower out of the way before he joined her.
Or maybe it was the memory of what she said as she’d drifted off to sleep that kept him away. He remembered it, although Gia didn’t seem to after they’d awakened.
He probably shouldn’t dwell on it. Hadn’t he told her they should just focus on the moment instead of worry about the future?
But he had thought about it this afternoon and all during his workout.
A lot.
The bathroom smelled good, like Gia’s tangerine-scented shampoo and something else that appealed. He picked up a bottle of perfume that sat on the counter. He’d never seen it th
ere before. After taking an appreciative sniff, he set it down, smiling to himself. Seeing and smelling the uncustomary bottle of perfume had reminded him that Gia had teased him about dressing for her dinner. He noticed an unplugged flatiron on the counter that he’d never seen before either. She’d clearly made an effort with herself. It would be impolite of him not to reciprocate.
Several minutes later, he realized he was still grinning slightly as he showered. Gia had that effect on him. Thinking about her made him horny as hell and just plain hungry for the sight of her, for her taste, for the sound of her sighs and whimpers as she succumbed to pleasure. He was growing addicted to her honest, uninhibited reaction to his touch.
The thought of her also just made him smile though. Sex aside.
Despite his earlier misgivings about Gia’s dreamy statement about them working together in Hollywood, a pleasant sense of anticipation started to build in him, making his skin feel prickly and his cock to partially harden. Instead of ignoring his arousal at the idea of spending the evening with Gia and losing themselves once again in erotic pastimes, he encouraged the taut expectation, teasing himself, letting the suspense build. He soaped up his cock and balls and stroked himself idly, vividly picturing the way Gia had looked earlier this afternoon as he’d lapped and licked at her smooth, sweet pussy, bringing her to climax twice before he’d finally given in to his need and sunk his cock into the heaven of her. He imagined doing it all over again, except this time, her arms would be restrained to the bed. Yes, he thought as his fist moved faster on his now-stiff cock. That’s what he would do to her tonight. He’d already admitted he was addicted to that helpless expression that overcame her lovely face when he made love to her and her climax loomed.
He wanted to see her helplessness in the face of desire even more closely. He wanted to wrap himself in her total surrender.
The fact of the matter was, he wanted Gia to become as hopelessly addicted to him as he was becoming to her.
That jarring thought pierced his intense autoerotic fantasies about restraining Gia. He dropped the hand that had been cupping his balls as the other jacked his shaft.