Tender Deception

by Heather Graham

  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.”

  It seemed incredible to Vickie when she woke on Tuesday morning that she was going to leave Brant if only for a few hours. As he had once walked into the theater and begun to dominate her life, he had now walked into her life and was dominating her being in the most wonderful of ways. He was a demanding man, but he asked no more than he gave. As his wife she would always toe a tight line, but he made no secret of the fact that he was equally tied to the line. Theirs would never fall into the category of an open marriage.

  Rising carefully so as not to awaken Brant, she almost tripped over one of his valises. He still hadn’t finished unpacking, having decided he could do so when Vickie went for Mark. They had spent their time so engrossed in each other. She had been amazed when they talked to discover just how wealthy he had become, then humbled with a touch of special pride for him; he had several houses in the United States, and a few abroad, and yet he was content to call her small place home.

  She watched him as she dressed; she would never tire of watching him. Even in his sleep he exuded a magnetism. Then, before picking up her purse and leaving, she gave into temptation and kissed his lips. He shifted, settling deeper into the covers, but did not awaken.

  She tiptoed slowly, backing away from his sleeping form, suddenly poignantly remembering the last time, almost three years ago, when she had left him like that. It had been so pathetically different! She had left him with the sure, agonizing knowledge that she would never see him so again, her heart in shatters, her mind building a defensive wall.

  Today her heart was singing with happiness. She had all she could ever want. She would return and see him again, lay down beside him at night, rest her head on his strong shoulder when she grew weary.

  She left him with a tender smile of serenity.

  He was gone when she returned. A note tossed on the neatly made bed simply read Gone to the theater. Vickie wasn’t alarmed at first, merely disappointed and puzzled. Why had he gone in so early? Monte, Vickie thought, narrowing her eyes with anger for her director. Monte probably had some problem and called Brant in to help. Damn him! He knew they had so little time…

  She spent the afternoon playing with Mark. As dinnertime rolled around she set the table for three, hoping Brant would walk back in, but he made no appearance. She thought about calling the theater, but then decided she had waited too late. She would be there herself shortly.

  Rushing into the busy theater’s dining room forty-five minutes later, she looked feverishly about for Brant but saw no sign of him. She considered a trip to the men’s dressing room to pull him out, but Jim cornered her and nervously sent her dressing herself. A few minor adjustments still had to be made on a costume. She became immediately immersed in the excitement and bustle of opening night.

  She didn’t see Brant until they were onstage together, and consequently, she didn’t know anything was wrong until they walked into the wings. His touch upon her was like cold lead, and he released her the moment they reached the sheltered shadows of curtains and flies. Bewildered, slowly filling with dread, Vickie tried to study his face, but it wasn’t a face she knew.

  It was severe, rock-hard in the shadows, the prominence of his cheekbones, square line of jaw, and arrogant length of nose all made more chillingly visible by the mahogany stain of the makeup and the ink black of his hair. In the austerity of his dark, savage scowl, his lips were little more than a thin, ruthless line. His eyes raked over her like daggers of crystal. His voice was a whiplash as he dropped her arm, stared at her with those daggers, and ignored her tentative “Brant—”

  “Madam, I will talk to you at home.” With a slight inclination of his head he crossed his arms and strode away from her to hover near Jim’s podium.

  Alone in the curtained shadowland, Vickie fought the panic that engulfed her. She wanted to run after him and shake him and demand to know what was wrong. But she couldn’t. A few feet away the play was going on. She had to pull herself together. She had a quick costume change and then the next scene.

  The play had never gone better. The tensions that coiled on the inside of Brant and Vickie found the right channels in their Othello and Desdemona. Their timing was perfect, the pace fluid. And as the show neared its end, the murder scene was nothing short of brilliant. Laying silently as Brant rendered his soliloquy to her sleeping form, Vickie knew in a portion of her mind that the audience of critics was spellbound. Anyone who had ever loved, known heartache and betrayal, could empathize with the character. She could almost feel the audience, completely caught in the magic, held back merely by the barrier of footlights from telling Othello that he was making a grave mistake.

  His lips, as he kissed her in sleep, a gentle farewell before the deed, were cold as lead. His monologue continued. “One more, and that’s the last…” His lips touched hers again, infinitely soft, but so deathly cold. This the last…It took all her years of training to remember it was a play. She wanted to open her eyes, to demand to know what was wrong. The line rang so very truthfully. Was it her last kiss?

  “This sorrow’s heavenly, it strikes where it doth love. She wakes.”

  She could finally open her eyes, the actress in control, playing a scene passionately and brilliantly, mesmerizing the audience with ardor and vibrancy.

  But for Vickie it was a nightmare she lived, swearing a bewilderment and innocence that was ruthlessly ignored. Othello would kill his Desdemona rather than be betrayed. Love twisted to horror.

  “Kill me tomorrow; let me live tonight!”

  Her line was a passionate plea from the heart; his rejoinder equally adamant. As staged, she was swept into forceful arms and sent back to the bed with a poignant combination of lost tenderness and agonized resolution. His hands hovered over her threateningly, and for the briefest of seconds, she lost herself in the illusion. His eyes were so pained, so brilliantly condemning…

  But of course, it was all make-believe. He was perfectly controlled. The audience’s eyes cruelly affixed on her—her throat, her flesh, not feeling the slightest pain.

  Moments later she came
temporarily back to life to speak her final lines, then fell into the death pose she would hold for the completion of the play. The stage came alive with activity; Iago was proved the villain and wounded, Othello went into his suicide monologue and fell heavily across her to die. Lodovico delivered the closing lines.

  The applause was deafening; the players were rewarded with a standing ovation.

  Brant smiled as he jumped to his feet to lead Vickie and Bobby forward for the curtain call. But his eyes, when they rested upon her, were still blue ice. The smile was as much an act as the murderous passion.

  It was bedlam after the show. Reporters had come from all over the globe because of Brant, and it was hours later that the interviews and pictures ended. Monte was in his own seventh heaven. Catching Vickie for a moment in the confusion, he tapped her chin affectionately with elation. “Every director’s dream!” he exalted. “They’re saying this might be the finest production of the play since the Bard produced it himself!”

  Vickie smiled weakly. She was thrilled for Monte, for the play, for her fellow actors. But she felt that she had never left the shadows. Nothing had fervor or taste without Brant beside her, and the only time he came near her was to uphold the priorities of picture taking. And now he had disappeared. When she had changed back into her street clothes, she loitered around the men’s dressing room, only to learn from Bobby that he had already gone home.

  “I wouldn’t see him tonight if I were you anyway!” Bobby said cheerfully. “He’s in a hell of a mood.”

  Vickie blanched slightly. Bobby didn’t know that she had to see Brant. The home he had gone to was her own.

  “Did he say anything?” she asked quietly.

  Bobby shrugged. “You know Brant. He never says anything. Just clams up and gets away as fast as he can.”

  “Oh,” Vickie murmured, lowering her eyes as she realized that he was watching her suspiciously.

  “You look pale,” Bobby said, concerned. “Want me to take you for a drink?”

  “No, no, thanks, Bobby,” she said quickly, her voice faint. “I guess I’d better get home myself.”