by JoAnn Ross
"I see. And what will you be doing while I'm scoring your picture?" Savannah asked. "Hunting woolly mammoths for our dinner?"
If the subject under discussion hadn't been so serious, Blake would have enjoyed her pointed accusation. All right, so he was old-fashioned enough to believe that a man's job was to protect the weaker sex whenever necessary. Was that honestly so terrible?
"First a vampire, then a Neanderthal. You really know how to flatter a guy, Savannah."
"If the animal skin fits—" The chime of the doorbell interrupted her.
"I'll get it," Blake said, moving toward the front door before Savannah had a chance to protest.
He was back in a minute with yet another white rose. Savannah noticed that the crystal vase looked particularly delicate in his dark hand. His scowl was as threatening as any she had witnessed.
"How long will it take you to pack?"
"I'm not going anywhere."
"The hell, you're not." He shoved the flower toward her. "Look at it carefully, Savannah. And then tell me that you want to hang around here, waiting for the guy to show."
At first glance the rose looked exactly like the other. "Pull back the petals," Blake instructed.
She did, gasping when she saw the pearly head of a long slender pin inserted into the snowy bud.
"Just because the guy didn't kill you the first time, is no reason to give him a second chance."
Savannah stood up very straight. "I hadn't realized that writing a television cop show made you an expert on the criminal mind."
Blake was momentarily thrown off track by her reference to his work. "Not many people remember that show."
"I loved Police Beat. In fact, I never missed it. Even when it cost me an A in calculus." At his puzzled look, Savannah elaborated. "Remember that two-parter you. did, about the wife who hid her daughter from her former husband because she couldn't get anyone to believe that he'd been sexually abusing the little girl during visitations?"
"I remember." Blake also remembered the blazing arguments he'd had with the network censors in order to get that particular show on the air.
"The second episode ran the night I was supposed to be cramming for a midterm my freshman year at USC," Savannah explained. "But since I had to know how the story ended, I decided to blow off the exam. I ended up getting my only C." She smiled. "But it was definitely worth it."
Blake wanted to return her smile. But he couldn't. Because of the damn rose. "If you never missed a show, you'll undoubtedly recall the episode where the guy killed his wife after she asked for a divorce."
"I remember it."
"Then you should also understand why we have to get you away from town," Blake said in a no-nonsense voice Savannah was beginning to recognize.
"I can't hide away in Mendocino forever."
"You don't have to. Only until the police can find Larsen and discover whether or not he's your secret admirer and tongue-shy midnight caller."
Although she hated to admit it, he had a point. "I have to warn you, I don't know how to handle being protected."
"Don't worry. You'll get used to it."
The was exactly what Savannah was afraid of. It hadn't been easy, living alone after what had happened to her. If she were to be perfectly honest, she'd still admit that sometimes, late at night, the sound of the wind against the windows or a car pulling into her driveway to turn around made her want to call 911. But she was becoming stronger—braver—with each passing day. And she was damned if she was going to allow Jerry Larsen to turn her into a cowering, terrified victim.
What Blake said made a great deal of sense, though. "All right," she said reluctantly. "But this time, things are going to be strictly business."
As he thought about Larsen lurking somewhere out there, prepared to hurt Savannah again, Blake knew that he'd do whatever it took to keep her safe. He considered assuring her that he had no intention of making love to her again, but knew that would be a lie.
"I promise not to do anything you don't want," he said instead.
"That's not good enough." Because the mere proximity of this man was enough to erode her distressingly crumbling willpower.
Conflict raged in him. He wanted her. He wanted to get away from her. What he was, dammit, Blake realized, was trapped.
"What do you want me to do? lie and tell you that I don't want you? That I haven't spent the last three nights thinking of you, remembering your taste, your scent, how good you felt in my arms? The way everything between us was such a close and perfect fit?"
Bridging the gap between them, he took a strand of her hair and wrapped it around his hand. "When you were staying at my house, I could think of nothing but you. Oh, I assured myself that once you returned to Malibu, I'd come to my senses and realize that I'd only exaggerated my feelings. But I was wrong. Because after you left, I found myself thinking of you when I should have been thinking of other things."
"Dammit, I want you, Savannah. I want you in my bed. I want to make love to you all night long. In front of the fire, until all the logs have burned down to embers. Until your body and your mind are filled with me."
Ignoring her quick, involuntary gasp, he tugged on her hair, drawing her even closer. "Only me."
Her stomach was knotted with tension, her heartbeat accelerated, but a strange excitement swam in her head. "What about what I want?" Savannah tossed back. "Don't my feelings count for anything?"
Blake couldn't recall the last time he'd been this frustrated. "Of course they do."
"Then you'll understand when I tell you that the only relationship I want to share with you is a professional one." That was a lie. She cared. And because she cared, she was too vulnerable for her own good.
"Fine. So, since you appear to be a very strong-willed lady and I'm not the kind of man to force a woman into my bed, there's no reason why you shouldn't come back to my place."
He had, Savannah realized, backed her into a very tidy little corner. Worse yet, hearing her own logic thrown back in her face forced her to admit that she'd done it to herself.
"Don't tell me you're afraid," Blake challenged with a knowing smile.
"Of you? Of course not." Another lie. Because there was something dangerously exciting about the way this man could take her over, make her ache with need-something that was every bit as frightening as it was compelling.
"Good." He struggled to keep his face expressionless. "So, why don't you pack your clothes while I call the police department and tell them where you're going to be. Who should I talk to?"
Annoyed by the way he was issuing orders like a drill sergeant, Savannah also wasn't all that eager to talk again with the detective who was handling Mike McAllister's cases. The man's tone, while polite enough, had been decidedly officious. As if Dragnets Sergeant Joe Friday had been his role model. From the way this latest rose had affected her nerves, she was afraid she'd come off sounding like a hysterical female victim. Something she never intended to be again.
"Lieutenant Peterson. The number's on a card by the phone. Oh, and Blake?"
He'd just begun to dial.
When he glanced up at her, Savannah said, "That scenario of yours, the one where we're making love in front of the fireplace?"
Just the thought was enough to cause his fingers to tighten on the receiver. "What about it?"
"I wouldn't hold your breath. Because it isn't going to happen."
"Of course it is." Unexpectedly, he flashed her a smile. "But I'm willing to wait until you admit that you want it, too."
His smile was quick and utterly charming. Savannah hated him for it. Anger, hot and fast, flared in her eyes. It flooded her cheeks.
"You're going to have a very long wait." She turned on her heel and marched out of the room.
Blake was a great deal more comfortable with Savannah's anger than he would have been with her surrender. Having struggled to the top the hard way, he'd learned to be suspicious of anything that came too easily.
"Oh, I am
going to have you, Savannah," he murmured as he resumed punching the Lucite buttons. "And it isn't going to be nearly as long a wait as you think."
Her first two days in Mendocino proved to Savannah that it was a mistake to try and second-guess Blake Winters. All during the flight and then the long drive up the coast, she'd been afraid that the moment they were alone in his isolated house, he'd pounce.
But instead of attempting to initiate a sexual relationship, he kept an emotional distance from her that was proving as vast and remote as the Sahara Desert. And while she told herself that she should be grateful for his apparent lack of sexual interest, working closely together on such an intimate project without exchanging so much as a single casual word began to get on Savannah's nerves.
Adding to the tension was the unpalatable fact that Jerry Larsen had apparently disappeared from the face of the earth. After telling her that he'd missed his weekly appointment with his parole officer, the Los Angeles police had assured her that they were doing everything they could to locate him. Remembering how inefficient they'd been the last time Jerry had harassed her, Savannah was not encouraged.
On the morning of the second day after she'd returned to Blake's house, the phone rang. Since Blake was out walking on the beach, Savannah answered it.
"Hello?"
There was nothing but dead air on the other end of the line.
Savannah's fingers tightened around the receiver. "Hello?" It could have been her imagination, but she thought she heard breathing. "Who is this?"
Instead of an answer, the line went dead. Frozen to the spot, Savannah was still holding the receiver in her hand, staring at it, when Blake returned.
"What's wrong?" She was as pale as a wraith.
"Nothing." She was definitely overreacting, Savannah told herself. By letting her nerves get the best of her like this she was behaving like some airhead heroine in a teenage slasher movie. "It was only a wrong number."
"You were afraid it was him. Larsen."
His voice was calm and unemotional, exactly the way she needed it to be. "No." Savannah shook her head. "No," she repeated more firmly.
"We can call the local cops, if it'll make you feel better."
"Over a wrong number? You know as well as I do that they'd write the whole thing off to me being a hysterical female."
"They might take it more seriously than you think." Blake hadn't been able to get the mental picture of Savannah flying through the shattered glass out of his mind.
"I'm not running to the police every time something unexplainable happens," Savannah insisted in a voice that wasn't as strong as it might have been. "Jerry's already caused me enough harm. I refuse to give him the power to frighten me."
When Blake looked inclined to argue, Savannah went back to work, refusing to allow herself to dwell on Jerry Larsen's whereabouts.
She was good, Blake decided. Very good. But as skilled an actress as Savannah Starr was, he knew that whoever had been on the other end of the phone had given her one hell of a scare.
He wanted to touch her, to soothe her ragged nerves. But sensing that it was important for her to appear strong, he said nothing, even as he planned to call the L.A. police and tell them about the phone call. Just in case.
"I'm almost tempted to go back into acting," she said to Blake late in the afternoon of their fourth day together.
Blake glanced up from the Moviola where he was tinkering with what was supposed to be the final cut of Unholy Matrimony. As his gaze slid over her profile, Blake experienced the familiar low, sexual pull that was growing more painful with each passing day. He ignored it. For now.
"Don't tell me that you're missing the adulation already, Ms. Starr?"
She spun around and glared at him. "Not at all," she said between clenched teeth, strangely grateful for his sarcasm.
It was a great deal easier to remember that she had absolutely no intention of getting personally involved with the man when he was being so cynical.
"It's simply that good parts for actresses are few and far between, and this is the juiciest part since Kathleen Turner's role in Body Heat."
"I don't know," he drawled, rubbing his chin and looking at her thoughtfully. "I thought you did an admirable job with your last role."
"Ah, yes. The black widow."
Relaxing for a moment, Savannah leaned back in her chair and ran her hands idly through her hair. She was wearing it loose today; it had taken every ounce of Blake's restraint not to bury his hands into the fragrant ebony waves that tumbled over her shoulders.
"But as much fun as that woman was to play," Savannah said, "she was still pretty one-dimensional. I mean, let's face it, how many men would really commit murder for sex?"
At this moment, Blake could think of one. fie hadn't had an easy moment since Savannah had first shown up, dripping wet, on his doorstep. The past few days, working in such close proximity with her, knowing that she was asleep just a few doors away at night, had played holy hell with his libido.
Once again, the image of Savannah as a siren came to mind. Savannah of the wide brown eyes and wet, tangled, gypsy hair; a smiling Savannah singing sweetly while she lured some hapless sailor toward a rocky coast. With a mighty effort, Blake steeled himself against her feminine charms, reminding himself of the dangers of being pulled in too deeply.
Not having expected an answer to what was a rhetorical question, Savannah continued her appraisal. "But your character is so wonderfully, frightfully fascinating. She's like a Venus flytrap. Beautiful, seductive, and deadly. Even when the hero realizes that she will be his downfall, he can't resist her fatal charms."
"Perhaps," Blake suggested, thinking back on the man he'd been when he'd first met Pamela, "he was too egotistical to see the danger."
Savannah considered that for a long, thoughtful minute. "Are you saying that he only saw what he wanted to see?"
"Doesn't everyone?"
They were no longer talking about the film. "Perhaps." The movement of her shoulders was noncommittal, but as her eyes met his, Savannah wondered what Blake saw when he looked at her.
When his gaze drifted to her mouth, the sudden revelation of desire she saw in those darkening eyes— after four days of agonizingly polite conversation-struck like a jagged bolt of lightning from a clear blue summer sky. Savannah lifted a hand to her throat in a flustered gesture.
"I'd better get to work." Willpower alone kept her voice steady.
Cujo, who'd taken to perching atop the television while Savannah worked, ruffled his dark wings. "Get thee to a nunnery."
Too late, Cujo, Savannah considered silently.
To her vast relief, Blake didn't comment on the bird's suggestive piece of advice. "You worked through lunch."
He'd put a sandwich and cinnamon-spiced tea on the table beside her but, lost in a private world of her own making, she'd ignored them. Finally, when the bread had hardened and the tea had turned cold, he'd taken them away. Savannah hadn't noticed.
"I'd say it's time you had a break." He stood. "Let's take a walk along the beach."
Her first impression of Blake Winters had been right on the mark. Oh, he might not be the black-caped Dracula of Hollywood horror movies, but in his own inimitable way, he was a very dangerous man.
He had a way of making her want things she'd convinced herself that she didn't want from a man. And he'd made her feel things she'd vowed never to feel again. Eager to escape the sudden intimacy drawing them together, Savannah quickly agreed.
The day had dawned cold and gray, and the pale late-afternoon sunshine filtering through the slate clouds added scant warmth. Whitecaps stormed against the rocks, their turbulence echoing the way Savannah had felt ever since meeting Blake.
"Cold?" When he saw her shiver, his hand closed over hers before she could object.
"Yes." Savannah looked up at him. "But I like it. It's stimulating."
"Talk about stimulating…" Blake ran his knuckles along the roses the brisk sea wind had caused
to bloom in her cheek.
His soft touch warmed her to the core. Her heart pounded in her throat. She saw it coming and did nothing to stop it. Later, Savannah would curse herself for such uncharacteristic passivity. But, for the moment, all she could think of was how much she wanted Blake to kiss her.
Blake felt her breath tremble out, he heard her soft sigh against his mouth. The impulse that had led him to kiss her flared dangerously as her lips yielded to his. He'd expected her to resist. Then, after that initial resistance, he'd hoped for a display of the passion she'd revealed that stormy night they'd made love. But instead, she was so soft, so sweet, so tender, that he was struck with an overwhelming need to protect her.
The more she gave, the more Blake wanted. He ached for her—body, mind and soul. He wanted to drag her to the damp, tide-packed sand underfoot; her vulnerability prevented him. His blood swimming, he managed to put his hands on her shoulders and ease her away.
Feeling as if the sand had shifted beneath her feet, Savannah dung to him. "We shouldn't have done that."
Her ragged voice was nearly inaudible over the roar of the surf and the pounding of his heart. "Give me one reason why not."
A thousand reasons tumbled wildly through her mind. Savannah latched on to the most obvious. "It isn't safe."
"So, who needs safe?"
When he went to touch her cheek again, she took a step backward. Physically and emotionally. "I do."
Blake couldn't remember when he'd met a woman who intrigued him more. Savannah was strong; the way she'd survived the horror Jerry Larsen had inflicted and gone on to pick up the threads of her life again was proof of that. But she was also fragile. The combination of strength and vulnerability would have been appealing enough. But mix into it the passion lurking beneath her controlled surface and Savannah Starr was irresistible.
So many layers, he mused. It could take a man a very long time to peel them each off, one by one. Even as he knew the dangers of becoming too involved, Blake found himself looking forward to the challenge.
"Yes." He spoke quietly, more to himself than to her. "You would." His gaze was steady, telling her that he was prepared to wait.