The Winter King

by Amanda Carpenter

  ‘You think not?’ he replied quietly. ‘Don’t you recognise the element of truth in your own arguments, and in the nickname the Press gave me? The cold, distant Iceman. I’ve imitated life too much, I think. The celluloid representation of it has kept me totally absorbed for years, and now I find I’m ravenous to experience the real thing for myself. Do you know, one of the things that blew me away about you was such a stupid little thing. you said that first night.’

  ‘What?’ she asked, feeling his shoulder muscles move under her hand, a sinuous rippling contraction.

  He shifted, and turned around to her in a leisurely fashion, a great sultry beast come to bay. ‘You said “fair warning”.’ Adam smiled, and the look in his beautiful, silver-shot eyes was predatory. ‘You were so furious with what you thought I’d done to you, and you still gave me every chance to escape before you pounced. I found the idea-terribly enticing.’

  She didn’t understand him in this mood. Her eyes grew huge, and she did not know she backed away from him until the back of her knees hit the edge of the bed. ‘I only thought to scare you away,’ she whispered.

  ‘Oh, dear. I took the message wrong and didn’t run,’ he murmured mockingly, advancing upon her step by slow, deliberate, prowling step. ‘You see, I rather fancied the idea of you leaping on me. It’s dictated the course of my actions ever since.’

  She panted, her eyes wild and hunted. He hunted her, had hunted her forever, it seemed, unrelentingly, chasing through her thoughts and dreams and every waking moment. ‘I—I don’t think——’ she stammered.

  He overrode her ruthlessly. ‘Well, I want you to think. I want the knowledge to pound in your blood like a fever. Do you know the real reason why I’ve told you the truth tonight? You gave me fair warning, and turn-about is fair play. I don’t want you reacting any more to the shadows of your own imagination, or to some erroneous concept. Your eyes are going to be wide open to reality and the consequences, and you’re going to see me for who I am and know what I’ve really done to you, down to the very last human mistake.’

  ‘Adam, for God’s sake,’ she groaned, and his hands whipped out to capture her shoulders.

  He yanked her to his naked chest, his fiery head bent down to hers in heated ferocity. She didn’t know where to look, and her huge, awestruck eyes ran from his primeval gaze, his mouth, oh, God, his taut, sexy, elegant mouth.

  He took a languid fistful of her hair and deliberately positioned her reeling head as his lips parted and he breathed in deeply.

  Then his eyes blazed his eloquent intent just one instant before his head drove down on her.

  She twisted underneath his invasive kiss, a slow, molten writhe at his unbearable build-up of suspense and the subsequent eroticism of fulfilment. The silken power of his wide chest was a sensory trap for her splayed, weakened fingers.

  Perhaps she’d meant to push him away; she’d never know, could never consider the issue, for as her hands connected with his burning, naked skin her whole stunned body reacted. She arced, and her hands slipped all the way around his thudding torso, and her lips twisted under his almost as if she was anguished, as if she was starving, and the moan she gave up to his mouth was a heady liqueur he drank in with greed.

  Eyes closed, his throat muscles working, he plunged into her as deeply as he could, passionately, shakingly, in an attempt to assuage the sensual hunger he had endured for so many weeks. The power and force of his passionate need sent them toppling back on to the bed.

  Yvonne gasped at the impact but couldn’t seem to breathe. Her eyes were open all right, but they weren’t functioning. An empty, whirling cloud had taken possession of her body, and the ache of it was only heightened by the hard, pressing, weight of his body bearing her into the mattress.

  Then he brushed aside her light cotton robe and curled a long hand around the creamy fullness of one breast, running a callused, abrasive thumb over the distended nipple, and the cloud in her became ah howling tornado of need.

  Adam jerked away from her mouth, reared back his head. The withdrawal contorted his face, hunched his shoulders, distended the tendons at the sides of his neck. His pulse thudded into her, great heavy, clanging strokes of it.

  ‘Oh, God, this is torture,’ he groaned hoarsely as she lay spread beneath him, her massive eyes blank with the inexplicable turn of events and her own overwhelming desire. ‘I could do it. I could take you right now. I’m so obsessed with the thought of taking you because I won’t allow it.’

  She twisted underneath him in crazed surprise, and the movement of her body was almost enough to send him over the edge. He shot off her and stumbled back, and connected with the wall behind him, and collapsed into a sitting position on the floor.

  She jack-knifed upright and stared at him. He was an astounding sight, his face clenched and beaded with the sweat of his arousal, his wide chest and tight, flat stomach flushed, his long legs splayed, his hooded gaze slumberous with sexuality.

  Adam said, ‘Are your eyes wide open now‘? Do you see me? Are we beginning to understand each other at last?’

  He looked drunk; she felt punched. She shrieked at him, ‘What do you do to me?’

  ‘That’s the beauty of it,’ he said. His speech was drowsy and slurred. ‘I’ll do absolutely nothing to you. That’s the secret. If I take you, I will lose you, because you run from the taking every time. Pay attention, darling. If you want me, you’ll have to come to me. No victim and perpetrator, no hit-and-run, no trap and no escape. You’ll come to me, and you’ll touch me, and you’ll give of your own volition, or you’ll get nothing at all.’

  Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. She really did not know what to think; she couldn’t remember how to think at all.

  ‘You’re insane.’ It was meant as a scream, and came out as a whimper.

  He groaned an unsteady laugh and struggled to his feet. It looked like a mammoth effort. ‘I know,’ he whispered. ‘I’m going crazy with waiting, going out of my mind with holding myself in check. It’ll probably unman me, but that’s how we’re going to play it. Don’t take too long in making up your mind, will you? The suspense is killing me.’

  He was leaving her. He was walking to the door and leaving her aching. The sexual frustration nearly sent her out of her head; she watched his departure and felt as if he was ripping her heart out of her chest with every stride.

  ‘It’ll be a cold day in hell before I come to you,’ her demon pride snarled, without her approval.

  ‘A cold day in hell could very well be a relief. Beats the thought of a cold shower, at any rate,’ he threw over one shoulder with great feeling, then he paused to clench the edge of the door with one whitened hand. He looked back and smiled at her. ‘Welcome back to the human race, Yvonne.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE next day.

  Yvonne hadn’t slept. Adam appeared to be just fine.

  Fortunately the slight shadows under her eyes enhanced the ‘betrayal’ scene that was scheduled to be shot that day, where Hannah was to discover her husband in the arms of her sister. She worked like a plough-horse the entire long, hot day, and avoided speaking to anyone if she could help it, aside from saying her lines on cue. Most especially she was not speaking to her father. He didn’t, however, get the message very clearly, for he wasn’t in any of the scenes and hadd riven to Phoenix for most of the day.

  The day after that.

  She looked at food with revulsion. Jerry summoned up his courage and sought her out. He was only concerned about the depth of anger Adam had shown over their little escapade. She nearly bit his head off.

  Then she apologised very nicely indeed; after all, what had come after, what hadn’t come after—none of it had been his fault. She left the man somewhat puzzled but relieved, then stalked off to have a blazing row with Christopher.

  Her father was having none of it. He was patient, and reasonable, and reasonably contrite, and loving, and worried that she could ever forgive him for employing such a dece
ption with the best of intentions. When Yvonne finally left him, she was wild-eyed with frustration.

  The third day.

  Adam was everywhere she looked. Strolling past, on his way from here to there. Standing outside, hands on his lean hips, wide shoulders at a negligent angle as he squinted in the intense white sunshine and talked with other cast members, or the cameramen, hearing complaints, taking advice, soothing anybody’s ruffled feathers but hers.

  Come one, come all, was the winter king’s continuous message to the entire complex of people. Come to me, Yvonne, was the message in his eyes whenever he talked to her, ostensibly about mundane things. He was, the soul of generosity, he was.

  No, I won’t, said her haughty dark gaze in stubborn reply.

  It was insupportable, unthinkable. Men chased her; she didn’t chase them. Men chased and tried to catch he Come one, come all—she was generous with her rejection,.but the one man she most wanted to reject didn’t come back.

  Inevitably there was a fourth day, and eventually the passing days became a week.

  She couldn’t believe the fuss she was making, inside her head. Why, she didn’t even like sex that much, if her brief and unsuccessful experience years ago had been anything to go by. And why shouldn’t it have been? Both she and her only lover had been adults.

  The filming went on. Take, take, take. Any taking and she ran away, he had said. She tried to take her ease. She tried to take time off. She tried to take control of her temper, to take comfort in the solitude of her trailer, to take offence. She was sinking in a morass of so much taking that it was taking the heart out of her struggle.

  Adam snapped at her over some trifling matter, and she blew up in his face. He seemed unsurprised enough, but their witness, Rochelle, was thoroughly disapproving. She looked at Yvonne with pinched nostrils and walked away, and it was a perfectly ridiculous reaction, for she was the injured party—the—the uninjured party, the party that had had absolutely nothing done to her, aside from a little titillation.

  Yvonne knuckled her dry eyes, refused to groan, and then said from between her teeth, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Adam mildly, and he walked away. On to another trifling matter; there always seemed to be a crushing mountain of them awaiting his attention.

  How could she be jealous of that? But she was; she wanted all his attention on her. Just so that she could reject him? Just so that he was fully aware that she was not—taking—advantage of his invitation? She thought that he was probably well enough aware of that fact already.

  ‘You’ve gone around the bed, Yvonne,’ she whispered to herself, and then was overcome with mortification. Oh, my God, she’d meant to say around the bend. .

  There was something wrong with Adam’s logic. There had to be. She looked and looked for it. Some inadequacy, some human mistake, some unforgivable failing.

  She considered the issue obsessively, as she sat side by side with her father under the green-speckled shade of the copse of trees by the river. An array of picnic tables had been set in the area that three times a day was converted into a huge dining area. The catering crew were competent in dealing with the communal meals, and nearly everyone took advantage of their quality cooking. The only other option for most of the crew was to drive into town and pay good money for indifferent service; only the cast of five and Adam, of course, had trailers to themselves and the option of cooking in private whenever it suited them.

  The option was a moot point for her, as food continued to look like something she shouldn’t be putting in her mouth. That evening the meal had been an all-American cook-out: hot dogs, hamburgers, potato salad, garden salad, brownies, celery and carrot sticks. Ugh. The charcoal smell of the cooking meat in the lingering heat had turned her stomach.

  Her, gaze followed Adam wherever he went. At the moment he was talking to the catering staff, no doubt praising them for their consistent efficiency. He never stopped. While she slowly darkened under the stress of her solitary fight, he burned with incandescent brightness.

  ‘Dad,’ she said abruptly, for she only called him Christopher when she was very, very angry with him and she had abandoned that some days ago. ‘Would you say that males are inherently aggressive?’

  Her father followed the direction of her gaze and then he immediately looked somewhere else. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said, the perfect picture of idle contemplation; he was a talented man. ‘I’m no expert or scientist, but, Whether the issue is socialisation or hormones, it seems to me that the male half of the species tends to be more aggressive than the female. Evolution and our own inclinations seem to have cast the male into the role of the hunter, the provider. Not that the female doesn’t have her own aggressive tendencies, but perhaps hers centre more around defence. You know, in protection of home and children.

  ‘Hah!’ Yvonne exclaimed triumphantly, seizing with greed upon her father’s theorising for her own ends. ‘I knew it!’

  That explained everything very nicely, thank you. Adam’s professed obsession with taking her, as he .described it so pithily, and his own subsequent withdrawal. His own continued inaction. She was primed for defence but found nothing to defend herself from, and why was that? Because he didn’t really want her as badly as he had thought he did, that was why. He held back and went on to other things, and the realisation was a knife-thrust she guided into her hurting breast.

  Her father hadn’t finished speaking, however. He continued thoughtfully, ‘We’d be a sorry lot, though, if We were nothing more than a product of evolutionary instincts and hormones. No, what I believe is that we can overcome our basic origins, and choose our own identity. The individual act of will is the strongest, most transcendent part of us. To look upon something with our deepest overriding passions, whether it be rage, grief, hope or love, and yet recognise a greater need or goal, and to say, “I will do this” or “I will not do that”, no matter what the personal cost, is a triumph of the spirit. The exercise of the will is the art of humans in the state of being.”

  As he spoke, her clawed hands curled into the hair at her temples, and, by the time he had finished, all her frantic attempts at sweeping Adam out of her life by virtue of his own inadequacies crashed around her ears in a thunderous rubble. ‘Oh,you’re no help!’ she said bitterly to her much mystified parent. ‘You’re no help at all!’

  She thrust to her feet and stalked away, went to her trailer and to her bed, not to sleep; not, perchance, to dream.

  Act of will.

  ‘I’m obsessed with the thought of taking you.’ ‘I’m so obsessed with the thought of taking you because I won’t allow it.’ ‘You run from the taking every time.’ ‘You’ll give of your own volition, or you’ll get nothing at all.’

  ‘I could do it. I could take you right now.’

  ‘I want her naked.’

  Oh, God, was he going to haunt her for the rest of her waking days‘? The bond between them had thickened in strength. It pulled on her soul, an unceasing, unendurable call of a siren. She dug in her heels mulishly; she cut off her own nose to spite her face. She was snarled by her own idiotic pride and desire. Her sensitivity to him had heightened to such an extent that she probably could tell at any given moment where he was, and what he was doing. She contemplated that thought darkly in the cool pre-dawn hours as she cradled a cup of coffee in her hands and sat in a curl on her settee. In a few minutes she would have to leave her trailer and embark upon another long day.

  There was a quiet knock upon her door. She never heard it.

  She was drowning in the thought of Adam’s hair, how it fell upon the hard bone of his brow, how it layered on to his collar, how the sunshine lit the auburn colour with a deep red fire.

  Adam opened the door, stuck his head inside and said, ‘Yvonne?’

  She. jumped and squawked, and hot coffee spilled all over her hands and soaked into her dressing-gown. She glared at him and snapped, ‘What do you want?’

  Poor choice of words. H
e didn’t rise to it, however, and entered the trailer with a serious expression.” Absent-mindedly he went to the nearby counter that separated the kitchenette from the tiny living space and yanked off at few. paper towels from the roll propped by the sink, handing them to her.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said. He was coiled into a waiting posture, leaning against the counter as she mopped her sodden front in furious swipes. ‘There’s been a change in the schedule.’

  ‘What happens today?’ she grumbled, not looking at him.

  ‘I’ve moved up the death scene between Hannah and her father,’ he said.

  She froze.

  Then she moved, her face changing swiftly as her body twisted in protest, and she groaned, ‘No, you can’t do that—it wasn’t supposed to happen for days and days yet—’

  ‘We shoot it today,’ he told her very quietly. The expression in his grey eyes as he watched her was dark and troubled.’

  ‘But why?’ she cried. She looked at him pleadingly. ‘Adam, it’s too unexpected. I’m not ready for it.’

  He breathed deeply, harsh marks scoring twin lines from the flaring curve of nostrils to the tight discipline of his mouth. ‘You’re ready. You know the lines,’ he replied flatly. ‘I was looking at the rushes from the other day, and you appear to have lost a few pounds. While I’m concerned about the weight loss, it won’t matter in this scene, and then you won’t have it hanging over your head. We’ll get it over and done with; by the end of the day you won’t have to worry about it again.’

  He was concerned about weight loss? She looked down at her own body as if it were a stranger’s. Her eyes were blank; she hadn’t even noticed that she’d lost any weight.

  ‘I’ll eat,’ she said urgently. ‘I’ll gain it back. It’ll be all right; you don’t have to rearrange things.’

  His head bowed in weariness, and then he strode over, took her by the arms and lifted her to her feet. He said into her frightened face. with harsh ruthlessness, ‘Everybody knows the new plan, and you can’t change it back. We shoot the scene today. Now I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, and I want you to follow it step by step. Are you listening?’