She read the book, was provoked and stimulated by it, and wrote back to tell him so.
He sent another. And another. And then a letter, with an accompanying open-ended air ticket, explaining that he was tied up with a film but that he would love to see her.
Triss did not know which of them was more surprised when she turned up unannounced one day at his Malibu home, and he opened the front door to her wearing ink-splattered white jeans—and nothing else.
There was a long pause.
Well, Triss supposed that someone ought to fill the growing silence. ‘H-hello,’ she said nervously.
He knew much more about her by then. He had asked his agent to come up with anything he happened to have on-a Triss Alexander and had been unprepared for the shock of realising that the sultry siren with the flaming mane of hair she had always kept tame in Paris was the fey, pale beauty who had captivated his imagination.
‘Hi,’ he said, very slowly. ‘So why didn’t you tell me you were a world-famous supermodel, Beatrice?’
Triss had done her homework too. ‘And why didn’t you tell me that you were the enfant terrible of the film world?’
He rubbed at his darkened chin thoughtfully, and Triss found herself simultaneously wondering whether he had shaved that morning and whether or not he intended inviting her in.
‘Does it make a difference, then?’ he quizzed.
Triss shook her head—today her hair was pleated into an elegant chignon with not a single strand out of place. ‘Not to me. And you?’
‘No.’ He stared at her, then suddenly, and without warning, lifted his hand to the back of her head, where he located the pin which held the elaborate hairstyle together and slowly pulled it out, so that the thick, abundant tresses tumbled down the side of her face like a Titian waterfall. She heard him suck in an appreciative breath, saw the way his eyes darkened in approbation.
Her mouth trembled, colour washing over her skin as she realised how much she had missed him. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ she asked, with a boldness which astonished her.
‘Only if you understand that if you set foot over this threshold you’re going to end up in my bed. Probably within the hour—that’s if I can hold out that long.’
If anyone else had said it she would have run a mile, but when Cormack said it...well, hadn’t he just put into words what she had been secretly thinking, secretly hoping for...?
But Triss wanted more than a one-night or one-afternoon stand with Cormack, and instinct told her that tumbling into his bed right now might not be the most sensible thing to do.
So she turned her enormous hazel eyes up at him and smiled, aware and glad for the first time in her life of the sexual power unleashed by that smile. ‘Well, in that case,’ she murmured smokily, ‘you’d better get dressed, hadn’t you? And when you’ve done that you can take me out for lunch. I’ll wait in the car.’ And she turned on her heel without another word.
Cormack was smitten.
He ached like a schoolboy during lunch at his favourite restaurant, where today the food tasted as uninspiring as school dinners. He wanted her so badly.
He had brought her here to try and impress her, but now he cursed himself for his stupidity, resenting the Hollywood big names who trooped over to their table to say hello, wanting above all else to be away from here, so that he could be alone with her again.
Except that he had probably blown it with his crass approach back at the house.
He couldn’t believe that a man of his age and with his experience could have come out with a line like that!
Finally they stood up to leave, bathed in golden sunlight, oblivious to the other diners who watched them so closely, completely unaware of the striking sight they made as a couple.
‘I’ll drop you off,’ he said heavily, trying to smile but failing dramatically. ‘Where are you staying?’
And Triss turned bemused eyes upon him, wanting him so much that she was past caring whether or not it was the right thing to say, because suddenly it was the only thing to say. ‘But I thought I was staying with you,’ she said. ‘Or at least—that was the impression I got earlier. Was I wrong?’
He smiled then, a heavenly smile, which gave Triss a hint of the pleasures to come. ‘Just come here,’ he murmured, and pulled her into his arms.
Triss came back to the present to find herself studying Cormack with apparent interest, her shorn head cocked to one side.
It must be the hairstyle which made her look even more delicate than usual, Cormack decided, emphasising as it did the small, neat features and making her eyes look so huge that you could imagine drowning in them.
‘You were miles away,’ he observed.
‘So were you,’ she said.
‘I was,’ he answered softly. ‘Literally and figuratively.’
‘Oh?’
‘Remembering how we met...’
‘In P-Paris?’ She stumbled stupidly over the words.
He gave an impatient kind of laugh and his blue eyes seared into her, as if something had made him very angry indeed. ‘Unless my memory is defective and we met somewhere else?’
Triss stood up. She hated it when he adopted that terse tone—it was making her feel at even more of a disadvantage than she already did. And just how was she going to tell him about Simon, for goodness’ sake?
She stared into the moon-like face of the grandfather clock as though she were looking at the gates of hell, but at least her face was hidden from him. And that gave her the courage to try and find out what had motivated him into coming to see her so readily.
‘Why did you agree to come here today, Cormack?’
‘I thought I’d already told you that, sweetheart,’ he returned softly. ‘I was intrigued.’
Triss sucked in her breath impatiently. ‘Then let me rephrase the question. What did you expect to happen when you got here? Another night of “spectacular sex”, as you so sweetly put it?’
‘You’re surely not complaining because I saw fit to praise your undeniable talents between the sheets?’ She could hear the mocking laughter in his reply. ‘Don’t twist my words—’
‘I’m not twisting anything,’ he retorted, his voice laden with an undertone of silky menace. ‘But I would be a liar if I denied that I still wanted you, Triss...’
She closed her eyes in despair as she recognised that despite everything which had happened between them she still wanted him too. So badly.
Cormack had risen noiselessly to his feet and had moved behind her, so close that all Triss could hear was the hushed sound of his breathing.
‘You’re all tense, Beatrice,’ he observed quietly, but there was a husky note which deepened his voice into pure allure. ‘Aren’t you?’
She knew that tone—knew what it meant. Cormack wanted her; she could tell from the barely contained edge of hunger shivering in his voice. But then, he always had been the kind of man who could go from normality to desire within seconds...
‘No,’ she answered firmly, aware that she should move away from him. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t. ‘I’m not tense at all’
‘Oh, yes, you are, sweetheart—you’re stretched as tightly as the string of a violin.’ Now he sounded cajoling, using the kind of voice she imagined people must use when they were gentling horses.
’N-no.’ Then, with a hint of desperation in her voice, she said, ‘Stop it, Cormack. Please stop it right now.’ But although her words sounded tough enough she still could not bear to turn round, to be confronted by the hot blue dazzle of lust in his eyes. For if she faced that—then would she not just give in and fall eagerly into his arms?
Cormack did not answer her immediately, just ran his finger very deliberately down the entire length of her long neck, and the effect of his touch on her skin was electric. ‘Just like a swan, that neck,’ he mused quietly. ‘With its pure, clean lines. A thoroughbred.’ He stroked sensually at the soft skin. ‘That’s what you are, Triss. A thoroughbred.’
&n
bsp; She shivered at that first contact and felt the memories flooding back—wonderful, unwanted memories that she had tried to erase from her mind for longer than she cared to remember.
Like the first time they had made love.
She remembered shyly telling him that he was the first man for her, thrilled beyond belief to see the look of dark pleasure on his face. In the back of her mind, however, she had been expecting some kind of pain or discomfort—the stuff they always warned you about in all the books she had ever read on the subject.
But Cormack had been so gentle in his passion, such a slow, sure tutor, that she had experienced nothing but the most perfect kind of fulfillment. She had wept in his arms afterwards, her head cradled on his chest. And he had stroked her dark red hair thoughtfully, but had been remarkably quiet for once.
And she remembered the time when he had given her a key to his Malibu beach home, recalling how she had burst out laughing at the tragi-comic expression on his face and how he had then started laughing too, telling her that he was mourning his lost freedom. And with that shared laughter nothing in the world had seemed to matter outside themselves.
Triss felt rooted to the spot now, in that cramped and overcrowded sitting room, with Cormack gently stroking the back of her neck, aware that every second which passed was weakening what little resolve she had left.
‘Come,’ he urged softly, and turned her round to face him. ‘Come here to me, Triss, sweetheart.’
And Triss felt her breath catch painfully at the back of her throat as she stared at him.
She had seen Cormack in many guises—in jeans and scruffy when he was working flatout on a script, in exquisitely cut chinos and shirts of softest lawn when he was taking her out to lunch, or reluctantly tuxedoed for an obligatory awards night. And yet she could never remember him looking more gorgeous or more desirable than he did right now.
But it was more than the striking vision he made, with his dark, tousled hair and the faintly sinister appeal of the black leather he wore. It was the realisation that Simon was going to grow up to be the spitting image of his father.
So tell him, she thought. Tell him! That’s why you brought him here today, isn’t it?
She stared into his blue eyes, appalled when she read the answering glint there.
“Don’t look so horrified,’ he murmured. ”There’s nothing wrong with wanting me to kiss you...’
‘I don’t—’ she started, but it was too late, because he had pulled her into his arms with an urgency she was not used to. Cormack had always taken great pleasure in his ability to control the pace of their lovemaking. He had always seen the delay of his own sexual gratification as something which gave him immense satisfaction. But this kiss was something else—she had never seen Cormack look so rapt and so absorbed and so hungry.
He brought his lips down hard and powerfully against hers, crushing her in his arms so that she could feel his heart beating against her breast—the rapid thundering seeming to symbolise life itself—and Triss found that she was shaking quite violently.
Cormack lifted his head and frowned. ‘Why, you’re trembling, Triss,’ he observed, his own voice sounding slightly unsteady.
‘I know. Silly, isn’t it?’ She rested her head against his shoulder and it felt as though all the troubled times which had passed between them had never occurred. And she was aware that once she told him about Simon she would not have the opportunity to do this again.
‘Why?’ he questioned softly. ‘Why are you trembling?’
Tricky, this one. If she told the truth would she not be revealing her vulnerability where he was concerned? And if she was vulnerable he would be able to hurt her even more than he already had done.
‘Triss?’ he prompted gently.
‘Because it’s been so long,’ she admitted reluctantly, closing her eyes quickly.
‘Since?’
‘Since I’ve...been intimate with anyone.’
‘How long?’ he questioned sharply.
‘Since—that night.’ The night when their son had been conceived.
There was a long, telling silence, and when he spoke his voice sounded unaccustomedly heavy. ‘Me too.’
It should have made her burst with joy, but it had the opposite effect—for it made what she had to do even harder.
He bent his mouth to hers once more, and even as she found her lips opening beneath the persistent coaxing of his she wondered when she might gather together enough courage to tell him about Simon.
CHAPTER THREE
TRISS came up for air, though it wasn’t easy when all she wanted was for Cormack to carry on kissing her like that. In that mad, passionate way—as though he had just discovered kissing for the very first time. ‘Cormack!’ she gasped.
‘Not now!’ he growled, and lowered his head again.
And oh, the sweet power of that kiss threatened to submerge her in its tantalisingly sensual waters. Triss struggled back to reality with difficulty. ‘Cormack, please—’
‘You don’t have to beg me, Triss, sweetheart,’ he murmured, with a trace of that hateful irony. ‘The pleasure is all mine, I can assure you.’
‘But...’ Oh, it was hopeless! Hopeless! Triss found her head tipping back, giving Cormack greater access to her neck, which he was now covering with tiny, tiny butterfly kisses so exquisitely delicate that they made her shudder with frustrated longing.
‘Triss,’ he groaned, and shaped the palms of his hands voluptuously down the sides of her body, as if he were a sculptor creating and forming her out of pliant clay. ‘Beautiful, beautiful Triss. God, but you feel good. So good that I want to eat you up.’
Triss fought feelings of intense desire and intense frustration, frantically sucking in air through her mouth as Cormack cupped one of her breasts through the linen dress she wore. She had forgotten just what a master he was at this. If men could take a course on how to drive a woman out of her head with wanting then Cormack Casey would graduate with honours!
Her hips began to move distractedly, as if of their own accord. Tiny, rhythmical little circles, just designed to bring her into contact with the unmistakable evidence of Cormack’s growing passion.
This had not been what she had planned. She was supposed to feel angry with Cormack, for heaven’s sake. He had let her down in every which way.
She had brought him here today solely with the intention of informing him that he was the father of her child. She had planned to tell him not coldly, or judgmentally, just matter-of-factly. As a teacher would explain something to a class.
But nothing more than that—certainly not this. She ran her tongue over her parched lips in despair as she felt her nipple peak beneath the kneading movements of his fingertips.
She tried one last time. ‘Cormack, this is wrong...’
He stopped then, lifting his dark head to stare at her accusingly, and she found herself dazzled by the brilliance of his blue gaze. ‘No!’ He halted her with a negation that was almost savage. ‘Whatever else may have happened between us this was never wrong...never could be wrong... You know that, Triss. In your heart you cannot deny it.’
She gave up. It was too much to ask—to deny herself what she wanted more than anything else in the world. And why not now? Why not this one, last, glorious time?
Because Triss knew with a certainty which sickened her that Cormack would not make love to her ever again—not once she told him about Simon.
For he was the father of her child. And she knew Cormack well enough to know in her heart that not only would he be livid with her for having concealed that fact, but that he would find it impossible to forgive her for having kept his baby a secret from him for so long.
But hadn’t that been her intention? To hurt him as he had hurt her? What some people might have called revenge, but what she had convinced herself was only right and fair.
‘Triss, let me make love to you,’ he coaxed. ‘What we have between us is too good to throw away. Sure, isn’t it a crime not t
o when we feel this way about each other?’ And all the while he spoke he was sliding those sensuous fingers over her breasts with such unerring accuracy.
Perhaps another woman with more backbone than Triss might have halted those delicious caresses... might have stopped him from inciting each exquisitely aroused nipple into honeyed life. Would a woman who had not fallen so completely under Cormack’s spell have pushed him away?
Well, Triss was certainly not pushing him away. Instead she was kissing him back. Frantically. Almost as frantically as she scrabbled to unzip his leather jacket, to reveal the muscle-packed chest which the grey cashmere sweater could not disguise.
Her hands burrowed right up beneath his sweater and she homed straight in on those tiny, flat nipples, stroking them in the teasing way he had always adored—and the familiar and intimate touch felt like coming home after a long, long journey.
‘Sweet Lord in heaven!’ He drew in a long, tortured breath. ‘Beatrice...Beatrice. My beautiful Beatrice. Don’t you know what you’re doing to me, sweetheart?’
His words came at her in a haze; he might have been speaking another languages for all the sense she made of them.
She could not speak or hear or think. All she could do was clutch onto him for support while he roughly unbuttoned her linen dress so that her aroused breasts were visible, straining madly against the champagne lace of her brassiere.
She was aware of a silence, and a stillness, and she opened her eyes in alarm, wondering why on earth he had stopped now. And she disturbed an odd kind of watchfulness on his face as he stared at her body.
‘Wh-what is it?’ she managed, from between lips which felt swollen to twice their normal size. ‘What’s the matter, Cormack?’
The rapt look of absorption had given way to one of narrow-eyed but unmistakable approval. ‘Nothing,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Then?’
‘Your breasts.’ He dipped his dark head to flick his tongue tantalisingly against the champagne lace which was stretched taut over one nipple. ‘They’ve changed.’
‘Have they?’ she questioned lazily as she allowed him to unclip the bra, so that her breasts sprang free into his waiting hands and he immediately began to caress them.
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