Dark Desires

by JoAnn Ross

  Taking hold of her shoulders he gently turned her around to face him. A myriad of emotions were swirling in her eyes—confusion, apprehension, desire. Blake concentrated on the desire. "But patience has never been my long suit and I think I'll go mad if I have to wait for you any longer."

  She pressed her hand against his chest. His heartbeat was slow and steady. But strong. "We agreed to keep things strictly business."

  "That was your idea," Blake reminded her. "Right now, all I want to do is make love to you. And to sleep with you in my bed. All night long. Then, tomorrow morning we can get back to business."

  "What if I don't want that?" Savannah was appalled by the lack of conviction in her voice.

  "Is that a hypothetical question?" He drew her closer.

  As his jeans-clad thighs pressed against hers, as she felt the heat radiating from his body, sensations surrounded Savannah. Like morning fog they swirled around her, inside her—passion, desire, need—until they merged with the most powerful, the most dangerous of all emotions: love.

  "You're only responding to the moment," she managed thickly. She couldn't get her breath. The air in the room had turned hot and sultry—just as she'd imagined it had been in Blake's powerfully erotic scene. "To the movie."

  "Wrong." His hand moved slowly up her back, his fingers spreading to tangle in her hair. "I'm responding to you."

  She wanted to believe it. Lord, how she longed to believe that she could create that hot, dangerous passion in his eyes! But dual images flashed treacherously through her mind.

  The first was of her breathtakingly gorgeous mother, dressed in a cream silk kimono, seated at her dressing table, rubbing scented French cream into her face. "A woman's beauty is her most important asset," Melanie Raine was saying with unwavering conviction. "Never forget, Savannah, dear, without beauty, a woman is nothing."

  The second disturbing image that flashed in front of Savannah's mind's eye was of newlywed Pamela Winters, her wet white swimming suit made nearly transparent as she frolicked playfully in the impossibly blue waters of a hidden Maui lagoon. A second, more intimate shot had shown the honeymoon couple making love on the beach. From a discreet distance, of course. The photos, which had been taken on Pamela and Blake's honeymoon by an enterprising room-service waiter, had appeared on the covers of supermarket tabloids all over the country.

  "The actress in Unholy Matrimony looks just like your wife," Savannah said.

  "So?" He ran the back of his hand down the side of her face. Last night, when he'd taken clean towels into her bathroom, he couldn't help noticing that Savannah eschewed the lotions and creams that most women seemed addicted to. And rightly so. Her skin was as soft and delicate as the inside of a rose petal. He could spend the rest of his life just touching it. Tasting it.

  "So, that was an incredibly sensual scene," Savannah argued weakly. The light touch of his hand on her skin was making her dizzy. "It would be natural for you to react to lingering sexual feelings for Pamela—to the fantasy of the woman you thought you were marrying."

  If Savannah's expression hadn't been so serious, if he hadn't seen the unwilling vulnerability in her eyes, Blake would have laughed. Instead, he framed her face with his palms, stunned to find that his own hands were no longer steady.

  "Believe me, Savannah, I could never confuse you with my former wife. Despite all outward appearances to the contrary, Pamela was ice." He let his gaze wander over her still-exquisite face. "You, on the other hand, are fire. And the fantasy I'm responding to revolves around you."

  He traced her top lip with his thumbnail. "The way you feel in my arms when we're making love. The incredible, terrifying way you make me feel."

  He was looking at her as if she were the only woman he had ever seen—had ever wanted, or would ever want. Making her decision, Savannah ran her fingers over the firm bones of his face, over his dark skin roughened by a day's growth of beard.

  "Only with you," she whispered, the wonder of her admission shimmering in her soft tone. "It's only that way with you."

  Twining her arms around his neck, Savannah lifted her parted lips to his and surrendered to the fantasy.

  Savannah felt the light kiss on her shoulder and snuggled against Blake, murmuring soft, inarticulate sounds of pleasure. Outside his bedroom window, she could hear pigeons cooing, signaling the beginning of a new day. But she was in no hurry to get up. Indeed, she thought she could quite happily spend the rest of her life basking in this strange feeling of warmth, security and excitement.

  Last night had been like a dream. Or something out of a midnight fantasy. Something about Blake had her giving more than she'd ever given to any other man. Something about him had her wanting from him more than any man had ever given her. She sighed as his hand moved slowly down her side, settling on her hip. Definitely a fantasy, she decided.

  But now it was morning. And fantasies, like dreams, belonged to the night.

  She opened her eyes and looked into Blake's.

  "What time is it?"

  "Early." He combed a hand through her tangled hair and left it resting on her cheek.

  His gaze was warm, his touch unnervingly possessive. Savannah was not accustomed to waking up with any man, let alone one as sexually disheveled as Blake was in the morning. Feeling ridiculously self-conscious, she tightened her fingers around the sheet and tugged it higher.

  "I suppose we'd better get to work." She glanced around Blake's room for her clothes, finally remembering that she hadn't been wearing any when he'd finally carried her downstairs to his bed.

  Her fingers were moving restlessly on the sheet. Blake closed his hands over them. "We've plenty of time."

  "But if the film isn't scored on time, the studio will take it away from you."

  Blake was beginning to wish Savannah had never found out about his little battle of wills with the studio heads. Especially since he could think of far more appealing ways to spend this morning.

  "Don't worry. We're ahead of schedule." He brushed his lips up her cheek. "We still have more than a week, and all you have left to write is the title song."

  It was hard to think when he was causing such havoc to her senses. "Please, Blake—" When he tugged at the sheet, she clutched tighter.

  "It's a little late to be nervous around me, sweetheart."

  Color flooded into her cheeks. "I'm not nervous."

  Another lie. Savannah's soft, wide eyes and tender mouth were the kind that could encourage a man to forget that there was such a thing as feminine guile. If he were careless. Or foolish. But Blake was not a careless or foolish man. Nor was he a man to resist a challenge.

  "Yes, you are." His hand slipped beneath the sheet to cup her breast. "Of course," he said, trailing his hand down her rib cage, "I suppose I could take that as a compliment."

  Blake heard Savannah suck in her breath as his fingers trailed over her stomach. He felt her stiffen and ignored it. "I think I rather like knowing that you haven't begun to take me for granted."

  A thousand pulses were humming just beneath her skin. The need to make love with Blake warred with Savannah's fear of having him see her scarred body in the unforgiving light of day.

  "Blake—"

  Was it her nerves he was trying to soothe? Blake wondered. Or his? Unwilling to consider that little problem right now, he forestalled Savannah's planned argument by closing his mouth over hers.

  He kissed her—not with the heated passion of the night before, but with the slow, warm affection of a longtime lover. Savannah, who'd been braced for heat and flames found herself falling under the spell of the unbearably tender kiss.

  He murmured her name. Savannah answered with a soft, yielding sigh. There was sweetness. Slow, savoring, sensual sweetness. Savannah had never known anything like it. Music was playing inside her head; it flowed through her, impossibly happy, yet achingly sad.

  And then, suddenly, the music stopped.

  "Damn." Blake glared at the ringing telephone beside his bed. He wa
nted to ignore it. But he couldn't. Not when it could be the police calling with news of Larsen.

  He scooped up the receiver with a muffled curse. "Winters. Oh. Sorry, I was expecting someone else." He exchanged a glance with Savannah. "Sure. She's right here." He handed the receiver to her. "It's your father."

  He'd been on tour; she hadn't talked to him for months. Sitting up, Savannah pulled the sheet up to her chin. Blake arched a eyebrow at her modesty; Savannah ignored it.

  "Hello, Pop."

  "What in the bloody 'ell is a daughter of mine doin' shacked up with a crazy bloke like Blake Winters?" Reggie Starr demanded in the deep, gravelly voice that had made all the girls at Liverpool's Quarry Bank High School—the very same school that had given the world Paul McCartney and John Lennon—go weak in the knees. After thirty years, that inimitable voice could still make young girls scream and their mothers swoon.

  Trust her father to get right to the point. "Does this mean you've changed your views on free love?"

  "In case you haven't heard, luv, the sexual revolution is over."

  "Now that you mention it, I believe I did hear rumors of its demise," Savannah said easily. "But you don't have to worry about me. Somehow, when I wasn't looking, the sexual revolution passed me by."

  "Awright then. I'm glad to hear it."

  This from the man whose alleged sexual exploits had achieved legendary proportions, Savannah thought with a smile. In fact, if even half of what had been reported in Rolling Stone magazine was true, Reggie Starr was one of rock's busiest—and potentially exhausted—singers .

  "So what are you doin' hiding away in Mendocino with Hollywood's infamous lone wolf?" Reggie asked.

  "We're working together. I'm scoring Blake's new film." She exchanged a soft smile with Blake. "It's a wonderful opportunity."

  "That's the same thing Justin said when I rung him up this morning. In fact, 'e says that you're both probably goin' to get Oscars. I'm glad you're finally using some of the talents you inherited from your old man… So, you're really not sleepin' with Winters?"

  "I really don't think that's any of your business."

  There was a long thoughtful silence. "Well, I suppose it's only natural," he decided. "Working as close together as you are, and all."

  Before Savannah could respond to that, he dropped his bombshell. "The reason I'm calling, Savannah, luv, is to invite you to the wedding."

  "Wedding? You're getting married? Again?"

  "Ain't that a bleedin' stunner?" Reggie asked with a laugh. "I'm still pinchin' myself in case I'm dreamin'. I met Audrey backstage at a concert in Chicago last month, and fell head over arse in love. But I never thought I could convince her to say yes."

  Savannah was not all that surprised. His last marriage—to a groupie five years younger than Savannah—hadn't lasted long enough for the ink to dry on the marriage license. After four stormy weeks, the bride had walked, carrying with her the Louis Vuitton luggage Reggie had bought her for a wedding present, a check for a million pounds, and a lucrative contract with a Fleet Street publisher for an unauthorized biography of one of rock and roll's most colorful bad boys.

  "I'm happy for you, Dad."

  "Wait till you meet her, Savannah." He appeared not to hear the lack of enthusiasm in his daughter's tone. "She's a special lady." That's exactly what he'd said about the groupie, Savannah recalled.

  "When is the wedding?"

  "Five o'clock tomorrow afternoon."

  "Tomorrow? So soon?"

  "Sorry to spring it on you, luv, but I want to get my ring on her finger before she wises up and changes her mind. But we're just down the coast, at the San Francisco Fairmont. If you leave right now, we'll have lots of time for you and Audrey and Winters and I to get acquainted."

  The idea of Blake and her father in the same room was overwhelming. Although they were both remarkably talented, they couldn't have been more opposite. They were, Savannah considered, like two sides of a coin. Everything Reggie felt was on the surface, out in the open for the world to see. Whereas Blake kept everything tightly bottled up inside.

  "But I don't have anything with me that's even remotely suitable for a wedding."

  "Don't worry about it. You and Audrey can go shopping after your lunch tomorrow."

  Savannah wondered idly about Audrey's taste in clothes. The groupie had favored spandex and leather. "Our lunch?"

  "It was Audrey's idea," Reggie revealed. "She thought the two women in my life should get better acquainted. Meanwhile, I can check out Winters and make sure the bloke's good enough for you."

  Savannah turned away from Blake. "Please, Dad," she whispered into the receiver, "I have to work with Blake. Promise you won't do anything to embarrass' me."

  "Me? Embarrass my favorite girl?"

  Reggie sounded shocked that she'd even suggest such a thing. Savannah decided not to mention the time, a year after her parents' divorce, when he'd flown her to New York City for the holidays. They'd spent the morning skating on the Rockefeller Center ice rink. Then, after lunch at the Russian Tea Room, he'd taken her shopping at F. A .O. Schwarz, where he'd bought her more dolls and stuffed animals than any eight-year-old girl could ever play with.

  That evening, they'd attended the Radio City Music Hall Christmas show. Savannah wore the red velvet Christmas dress her mother had purchased for the occasion; Reggie—always the rebel—had been clad in black T-shirt, tight leather pants and silver-toed cowboy boots.

  Granted, she'd had a memorable day. But her father had had an even more memorable night when he and one of the long-legged Rockettes had decided to go skinny dipping in the Pulitzer fountain outside the Plaza Hotel.

  Savannah shook her head in mute frustration. "Promise me."

  "Awright," Reggie agreed with a huff. "I promise, on my word of honor, as a gent, not to embarrass my daughter with her fella. How's that?"

  Savannah decided that there was no point in insisting that Blake wasn't her fellow. "Thank you," she said instead. "And now, I'd better go pack. See you in a bit." Exchanging goodbyes, she hung up the phone.

  "You didn't sound exactly thrilled by your father's news," Blake observed.

  She shrugged. "Since it's his sixth marriage, I suppose I should be used to it by now. I want him to be happy. Really, I do, but…" Her voice drifted off. "There's something else."

  "What?"

  "He asked about you. Us."

  "So I gathered. I thought you handled it admirably."

  "It isn't going to be enough," Savannah warned. "He wants me to bring you to San Francisco for the wedding."

  "Terrific. I rather like the idea of making love to you in one of the most romantic cities in the world."

  "You don't understand what you're getting into." Savannah dragged her hand through her hair. "I know it sounds ridiculous, given his own outrageous lifestyle, but my father's always been unreasonably protective of me."

  "I'd say that's understandable," Blake said mildly.

  "But Reggie was that way even before Jerry. He was a terror when I was in high school and college. He never thought any of the boys I dated were good enough for me."

  "I suppose every man feels that way," Blake considered, "when he has to face the idea of giving away his daughter."

  "Perhaps." Savannah sounded unconvinced. "Whatever the reason, I just know that he's going to grill you while I'm off having lunch with my new stepmother."

  "Is that all that's bothering you?" Worry lines were etched into her forehead. Blake smoothed them away with his fingertip. "Don't worry about me. I can handle your father, Savannah."

  "It's obvious that you haven't met my father," Savannah muttered. "There's another thing. The hotel is undoubtedly teeming with his fans. And reporters."

  "So?"

  "So, how are we going to explain us being there together?"

  "Simple. We're working together. End of story."

  End of story. Savannah reminded herself Suit she'd entered into this affair with her eyes wide open.
Blake hadn't promised her any happily-ever-afters. Nor had she asked for any. But somehow, hearing it stated so coldly made her relationship with Blake seem so… tawdry. Rising from the bed, she wrapped the sheet toga-style around her naked body.

  "I'd better take a shower."

  The sensual mood had passed. Blake tried to console himself with the thought that there would be others. "Need any help with that hard-to-reach spot in the middle of your back?"

  "That sounds very nice," she said with a stiffly formal politeness that belied the lusty way they'd spent the night. "But we don't have much time."

  She wanted him. But she was afraid of him. Blake saw both things clearly. "Whatever you say."

  Something suddenly occurred to her. "What are we going to do with Cujo? And the cat?"

  Blake shrugged. "Sam's due back tomorrow. We can drop Cujo off at his place. As for the cat, in case you hadn't noticed, he comes and goes as he pleases."

  She had. But it hadn't registered. "But how does he get in and out of the house?"

  "This place was used for rum-running during Prohibition," Blake divulged. "There are a lot of secret passages. Obviously, the cat's located one of them."

  "Oh." Something else occurred to her. Something definitely unpalatable. All the color drained from her face. "If there are ways into the house—"

  His fingers tightened around her upper arms and he shook her gently. "Larsen's not going to hurt you, Savannah. He hasn't any way of knowing you're here."

  "But—"

  "I promise the bastard won't get anywhere near you."

  Something in his eyes made Savannah believe him— an unsettling possessiveness that she'd have to think about later. "I'd better get dressed," she said, anxious to escape his intense gaze.

  Blake let her go, but he stood where he was, beside the bed, thinking, long after he'd heard the door close down the hallway.

  Twenty minutes later, Savannah had showered and dressed and was in the process of packing.

  "Another stepmother," she muttered as she took a pair of white cotton briefs out of the bureau and tossed them into her suitcase. Her aversion to meeting the latest in her father's long line of women overrode her uneasiness concerning Blake.