Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set

by Sandra Marton

  The insolent tone of his voice infuriated her as much as his words, and she wrenched herself free of his grasp.

  ‘Pretend? I didn’t have to pretend anything, Cade Morgan. You...’ The angry accusation caught in her throat as a triumphant grin spread slowly across his face. Shannon flushed and tilted her chin up. ‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No! Certainly not. I never—‘ She threw up her hands in exasperation. ‘Look, there’s no point to this. Just—just go away.’ She started past him, but he moved so rapidly that she was in his arms before there was time to react. ‘What... what are you doing?’

  He threaded one hand in her hair.

  ‘I’m giving you a chance to clarify things,’ he said softly. ‘All you have to do is kiss me.’

  ‘I certainly will not kiss you!’

  ‘Kiss me and then step back and smile politely and say, what was it you said that first time? That you hadn’t been missing much?’

  ‘This is ridiculous.’

  ‘If you can do that, Padgett, I’ll leave you alone from now on.’

  She stared at him in stony silence. ‘Why should I be­lieve you?’ she asked finally.

  Cade’s gaze fell to her lips, then rose to her eyes.

  ‘You don’t really have much choice. One way or another, you’re going to be kissed. Strictly to make a point, of course.’

  Look at him, she thought, look at that smug, self-assured expression! He was all the things she’d ever thought and more, and he could kiss her from now until next week and it wouldn’t mean a thing.

  For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why she'd ever thought it would..

  ‘I’m all yours,’ she said pleasantly, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. ‘Let’s just get it over with, OK?’

  His fingers moved lightly over her cheek.

  ‘Stop that,’ she said sharply. ‘You said a kiss.’

  ‘I’m entitled to preliminaries.’

  ‘This is—this is ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s a scientific experiment. Just relax and trust me.’

  ‘Trust you? Trust you? That’s what you always say...’

  Oh God. What was he doing? She closed her eyes as he drew her against him.

  His body was hard. Hard, and wonderful.

  No, she thought, no...

  A tremor ran through her as he kissed her throat.

  ‘Cade, stop. You said...’ Her voice broke as his nipped lightly at her ear lobe. ‘You said one kiss...’

  ‘I’ve got a confession to make,’ he whispered. ‘You’re not the only one who’s been holding back during our love scenes.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t been…’

  ‘If I’d really been making love to you, you couldn’t hold back,’ he murmured. ‘All the techniques in the world wouldn’t be enough to save you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she whis­pered desperately.

  ‘Do you always babble about laundry when a man is kissing you, Padgett?’

  Panic fluttered in her throat. ‘That’s nonsense!’

  ‘You were lying in my arms this afternoon and sud­denly you whispered something about pillowcases.’ He chuckled softly. ‘You should have known better. Wasn’t it laundry that got you in trouble the first time?’

  A blush spread across her cheeks, but she forced her eyes to meet his. ‘I am not going to legitimize this con­versation by answering that.’

  ‘Did you need laundry lists to keep from feeling what I was doing to you? That we weren’t alone? To tell the truth, I was having trouble re­membering that, myself.’

  ‘Cade, please, this is foolish.’

  ‘But you were right, you know. Hell, I didn’t want the world watching us make love.’

  She made a whim­pering sound deep in her throat as his hand slipped under her sweater and she felt the rough warmth of his fingers against her back. ‘And here we are. No lights, no cameras...’

  ‘Cade,’ she whispered. ‘Cade...’

  ‘Look at me,’ he said in a low voice.

  She lifted her eyes to his, saw the play of emotions in their indigo depths, and knew she was lost.

  ‘There’s just us,’ he murmured thickly. ‘Just Cade and Shannon and nobody else... ’

  Her eyes closed as he bent to her and gathered her close.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he whispered, ‘you know it feels right, love.’

  Love, he had called her, love, but he wasn’t a man who would love her forever, and she was a forever kind of woman.

  He was quicksilver. He was stardust. He was a man who would move on.

  His mouth touched her closed eyelids.

  Touched her lips.

  One kiss, he’d said, one kiss, and then he would stop. And after that she could say, See? There was nothing to that. You can leave now, Cade…

  His lips were warm. Firm. They teased hers, urged her to open to him, to withhold nothing.

  ‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘Cade, please…’

  ‘Please, what?’ he said, and all the weeks of denial were over.

  She gave a soft cry and her mouth softened under his, heating under the sweet fire of his tongue.

  Tentatively, her hands moved between them, to spread slowly on his shirt. The rapid thud of his heart was beneath her fingertips, telling her as well as any words ever could that she was not the only one who could no longer control their love scenes.

  She murmured his name against his lips again and again until it sounded like a litany.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his whisper a fierce song. ‘Yes, my love, my own...’

  His mouth, his hard, demanding mouth, was stealing her breath away. The earth was tilting under her feet, just as she’d always feared it would if she let him do this. Cade was everything; he was the day and the night and the universe and—oh God, his hand was moving under her sweater, hot against her flesh, his guitar- roughened fingers playing along her ribs.

  ‘Kiss me, ‘ he said, ‘kiss me, don’t hold back, not this time, not tonight, not with me, love, not with me...’ She fell back against the wall, her body seared by the heat of his passion. His lips were against her throat, his hands on her skin. ‘Let me love you, Shannon,’ he whis­pered. ‘Say it. Tell me it’s what you want, too.’

  She gasped as his hands closed over her breasts, the nipples hardening against his palms like the petals of moon flowers closing at the first burning touch of the sun.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘oh yes. Make love to me, Cade. I’ve wanted you for so long…’

  Together, in a confused tangle of hands and buttons, they pulled off her sweater and corduroy pants.

  ‘Beautiful love,’ Cade breathed, ‘Goddess of the sea, open your arms, give your love to me...’

  She thought of all the times she’d heard him sing those opening lines from Sea Lover,, yet never with such passion in his voice.

  ‘Beautiful love,’ he whispered again, and she lifted her arms to him, but he caught her wrists and brought her hands to her sides. ‘Beautiful Shannon, my love, my own... ’

  ‘Cade,’ she murmured, ‘Cade...’

  He freed her wrists and shrugged off his shirt. Her hands reached for him, investigating the soft hollows and hard planes of his torso. A feeling of triumph raced through her as he cried out at her touch; there was some­thing primal and exciting about knowing she could do that to him.

  But the triumph was short-lived; Cade cupped her breasts in his hands and bent to taste her flesh, and it was she who gasped and cried out now. His hands were hot and rough against her skin as he slid the panties from her hips, and then he knelt before her, trailing kisses along the soft inner skin of her thighs.

  ‘So lovely,’ he said thickly, ‘so lovely...’

  She cried out as his mouth branded her with his passion.

  ‘I love you, Cade,’ she sobbed, and even in the center of the whirlwind they rode she heard her words and knew
they were true, that they would be true even if his were not, but it was too late to talk, too late to think.

  He was naked against her, his hands cupping her buttocks, lifting her to him. Her legs folded around him and then he was in her and around her, each thrust driving her mind further from her straining body. And just when she thought she would die of a pleasure that transcended any she had ever imagined, she heard the hoarse whisper of her name as he drew her down to the floor and the world exploded around them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was like a child’s riddle, Shannon thought, trudging up the stairs to her apartment. What’s worse than Friday afternoon traffic in New York?

  Friday afternoon traffic in New York in the midst of a snowstorm, that’s what, although that was stretching things a little.

  The early December snow had quickly changed from fat, white flakes to a cold, driving rain that had slicked the streets with ice, and every taxi cab in Manhattan had done its usual vanishing act.

  By the time she’d finally caught a bus, she was wet, chilled and irritable. Only dreams of a hot bath and a hotter cup of tea had got her through the final slippery walk from the bus stop to her apartment.

  ‘Shannon? Good grief, sweetie, hurry up, will you? I am positively freezing my behind off out here!’

  Hand on the banister, Shannon paused on the fourth floor landing and stared upward. Her agent stood on the landing above her, wrapped in a fur coat, looking like a large, unkempt animal.

  What are you doing here, Claire?’ she asked wearily.

  ‘Waiting for you, obviously. Doesn’t this place get any heat?’

  ‘It died this morning…’ Shannon unlocked her apartment door and tossed her handbag on a chair. ‘The first really cold day and the pipes commit suicide.’ She shrugged free of her coat and tossed it after the bag. ‘Take that thing off, Claire. You look like a wet teddy bear.’

  Claire’s eyebrows rose dramatically. ‘My, but we’re in a good mood, aren’t we?’

  ‘1 am cold and wet and tired unto death of Alana Dunbar and Jerry Crawford and Rima the Prima. Do you want some tea?’

  ‘Only if you promise not to put poison in it,’ Claire said mildly, shaking out her wet fake fur and draping it across a chair.

  ‘Sorry. I’ve been on the go since early morning.’

  The agent ran her fingers through her damp hair.

  ‘Busy, busy, busy,’ she said. ‘That’s why I decided to wait for you here. I figured I wouldn’t give you another chance to put me off.’

  ‘I haven’t. I simply said...’

  ‘I know precisely what you said, Shannon. You said you were busy today and pressed for time yesterday and running late the day before and on your way to a class with Eli the day before that.’

  ‘It’s been that kind of week, okay?’

  ‘I decided you’d been avoiding me long enough.’

  ‘Look, I haven’t been avoiding you. I...’ Shannon took a deep breath and turned to face her agent. ‘Let’s not argue about it, Claire. Why don’t you tell me what’s so important that you braved five flights of stairs just to see me? Do you want milk or lemon for your tea?’

  ‘Lemon, sweetie. I’m on a diet. Although I wouldn’t mind a cookie or two. Thanks. Would you mind sitting down, please? I hate talking to somebody’s back.’

  Shannon sighed and slipped into a chair, ‘Claire, it’s been a long day. Rima was impossible—she had a scene with Cade that had to be finished before he left and she must have blown her lines a billion times. And Jerry snapped at everybody.’

  ‘Our hero left the set early again?’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Shannon asked carefully.

  Claire shrugged. ‘It’s just a question. It seems as if the man’s been away from the studio more than in it lately.’

  ‘The show’s been getting a lot of coverage, that’s all.’

  ‘Morgan has, you mean. So what was it today?’

  ‘He had a shoot with People. They’re doing a lead story on him next week.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Claire said pleasantly. ‘Let’s see, that’ll make two, no, three, covers he’ll be on all at once. I bet that’s some kind of record.’

  ‘I’d think you’d be pleased. It’s great publicity for the show.’

  ‘It’s good publicity for the show. It’s great pub­licity for Cade Morgan.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, what’s wrong with sharing some of the spotlight with you? Why doesn’t Morgan take you along with him to some of these interviews?’

  Shannon lifted her chin. ‘Come on, Claire, they’re interested in Cade, not me. He’s a star.’

  ‘Funny, but there was a time you used to turn that four-letter word into a real four-letter word when you said it.’

  The kettle shrieked and Shannon shut off the burner. ‘I’m too tired to play games. What are you getting at?’

  ‘Doesn’t it bother you that he’s getting all the pub­licity, sweetie? Especially since you’re the reason he’s America’s primo soap heart-throb.’

  ‘That’s not so. Cade turned out to be a good actor.’

  ‘Come on, Shannon. You made him look good, es­pecially at the beginning when he was all nerves.’

  ‘He’s not like that anymore. He’s been getting terrific reviews...’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Claire said sarcastically. 'Which reminds me—The ratings went through the roof again this week, did you hear?’

  ‘Yes, so Jerry said. That’s good news for all of us, isn’t it?’

  ‘Especially Morgan. He’s the one who’s getting the coverage. Seems to me he’d be willing to share a little of it with you.’

  Shannon wrapped her hands around her mugful of tea, letting the warmth seep through her. ‘I’m getting publicity. TV Guide interviewed me, didn’t they?’

  ‘They’ll give you a paragraph, if you’re lucky.’ Claire pursed her lips thoughtfully. ‘Now, if Morgan intro­duced you to people, you know, if he showed them that the chemistry on-screen carries over off-screen...’

  Dark patches of crimson rose to Shannon’s cheeks. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Well, that’s why Crawford matched you two up in the first place, remember? God, they’d eat it up! They’d...’

  ‘Stop it, Claire.’

  ‘Come on, Shannon, you can’t fool me. I’ve seen the way you look at him. Maybe you can pull the wool over everybody else’s eyes, but this is good old Claire, re­member? You don’t have to pretend with me.’

  ‘I know you mean well,’ Shannon said slowly, putting the mug down on the counter, ‘but...’

  ‘Look,, everybody knows you and Morgan have a thing going”

  ‘I’m not going to use my private life that way.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not asking you to invite anybody into your bedroom. I’m simply suggesting you make the most of an opportunity. I’m just suggesting what Morgan should have...’

  ‘Did you want to see me for anything else?’ Shannon asked coldly. ‘If not, I’ve things to do.’

  The agent sighed. ‘Okay, take it easy. What I really want to settle is what comes next. This stint won’t last forever.’

  ‘It’s only December. You said this would go for months.’

  ‘Well, sure, I hope it will. But you’ve got to make plans for later—you know, trade on what little name recognition you’ve gotten. I told you I’ve had feelers from Rob Michael about that revival he’s doing in LA in May. And then there’s Shakespeare in the Park this summer. I can’t put these guys off forever, kid. You’ve got to make some decisions while they still know who you are.’

  ‘I know, I know. I told you, I will.’

  ‘Yeah, but when? You know what this business is like. Today you’re hot, tomorrow you’re not. That’s why you’re nuts to be so stubborn about this Cade Morgan thing. Let them know who you are.’

  ‘Goodbye, Claire,’ Shannon said firmly, shoving her agent’s still damp coat at her and leading her to the door. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d
call before you drop by in the future.’

  ‘Go on, get as huffy as you like. I’m still gonna tell you what’s on my mind. You’ve got an opportunity, use it. Morgan sure is. The word around town is that his agent’s been out there shaking hands and slapping backs and doing everything but hiring a skywriter.’

  ‘Goodbye, Claire,’ Shannon repeated. ‘I’ll call you.’

  ‘At least decide what you want me to tell Michael. I have to tell him something.’

  The slam of the door cut off Claire’s complaints. Shannon let out her breath and leaned against the wall, waiting until she heard the sharp sound of her agent’s heels tapping down the hall.

  Lord, the woman was per­sistent! And she meant well—but not all the good in­tentions in the world would make her trade on what she and Cade felt for each other. It was intense, it was won­derful—and it was private.

  Perhaps it had something to do with the way they’d met or with the millions who watched their on-screen love scenes, but from the beginning, they had kept their love affair quiet.

  And becoming lovers had changed the way they approached their scenes together. Alana Dunbar and Johnny Wolff met before the cameras now, not Shannon and Cade. The love scenes still ‘sizzled’— they were both good actors. Besides, the sparks they struck would always be there, no matter how profes­sional they were.

  But the real Shannon and Cade em­braced only when they were alone—and they were alone as often as possible.

  Shannon kicked off her shoes and padded across the room. Her apartment felt like a refrigerator. She touched the living-room radiator and sighed. Still cold. The one in the bedroom was the same, although it gave a strangled gurgle when she banged it with her hand. The thing to do was get out of her damp clothing and into something warm, and then go back and finish her tea.

  She hit the playback button on her answering machine, then pulled her dress over her head. The machine whirred into life and Claire’s voice filled the bedroom.

  ‘Hi, there, sweetie. Do me a favor and call me when you get in, yes?’

  Shannon tossed the dress aside and pressed the button again.

  ‘Uh, this is Jose. The superintendent? Uh, I need to get into your apartment tomorrow. To work on the heat and I can’t ‘cause you got your own lock on the door. So maybe you could drop off your keys...’