Once in a Blue Moon

by Kristin James

  He bent and pressed his lips to the soft curve of her breast, trailing down over the trembling globe until he found the small fleshy mound of her nipple. His lips teased the bud, brushing it, kissing it, nibbling at it with teeth sheathed by his lips, and all the while his hands moved over her hips and buttocks, stretching down to caress her thighs.

  Isabelle whimpered and pressed closer to him, the metal railing digging into the soft flesh of her stomach. Michael made a noise deep in his throat and hungrily took her nipple into his mouth. He suckled, caressing the hard button with his tongue, and his hand curved around her buttock and between her legs from behind. He groaned at the moisture he found there, evidence of Isabelle’s pulsing desire, and his fingers explored the wet, satiny flesh. Isabelle gasped, and her hands went to his shoulders, caressing him frantically. His hands and mouth were driving her wild, vaulting her long-suppressed desire to a fever pitch.

  “Michael,” she murmured, trailing kisses over his arm and shoulders, shoving aside the material of his tank top to reach more of his skin. “Oh, Michael, Michael, please...”

  Michael groaned at the sound of her plea and straightened. His hands went to either side of her head, plunging deep into her hair, and his mouth found hers. He kissed her deeply, his tongue filling her mouth. Her breasts pressed into his chest, but it wasn’t enough for him. He ached to feel Isabelle against the length of him, to move between her legs and feel her legs wrap around him. The metal bars of the railing frustrated him, and he swung his leg over the railing, blindly climbing over without breaking off their kiss.

  His foot struck the small table in the corner of Isabelle’s balcony, sending the room service tray with all its dishes crashing onto the cement floor. The clatter was horrendous. Michael froze, still astride the railing with one foot on Isabelle’s balcony floor. Belatedly he released her and looked down at the mess of broken crockery. Isabelle stepped back, bumping into her chair and knocking over the large vase behind it. It fell with a thump, breaking the lip, and rattled noisily across the balcony to the other side, where it banged against the opposite metal railing.

  “What the hell is going on over there?” Three balconies away, someone stood up, turning toward them. It was the day player who had come with them to portray the leader of the guerrillas chasing them. He had obviously been sitting on his balcony, enjoying the evening and the drink in his hand until the noise of the crashing tray had disrupted the quiet night air.

  Isabelle’s eyes widened in horror, and she hastily wrapped her robe around herself. At that moment, the sliding glass door on the other side of her room opened and Lyle stepped out, looking curiously over at them.

  All up and down the row of rooms, heads were popping out of the balcony doors to see what had occasioned the crash. Most of them were members of their crew.

  Isabelle blushed to the roots of her hair. It had to be obvious what she and Michael had been doing, especially with her clutching her robe together and him perched on the railing between their balconies, half on and half off.

  She let out a groan of embarrassment and fled back into her room, slamming the patio door shut and locking it behind her, leaving Michael alone on the balcony, cursing inventively.

  * * *

  Isabelle had never been so embarrassed in her life. Everyone on the crew was bound to know what she had been doing on the balcony with Michael, especially after those sizzling scenes they’d filmed by the lagoon that afternoon. And, of course, none of them would keep their mouths shut about it, which meant that as soon as they returned to L.A., everyone connected with the show would know that she had melted like wax in Michael’s arms.

  She lay on her bed for hours, grinding her teeth in anger and frustration. Her phone rang persistently for thirty minutes. She hadn’t answered it, sure that it was either Michael or one of the women on location with them, wanting to know all the details of what had happened. Finally, she took it off the hook and stuffed the receiver under a pillow.

  Isabelle stared at the ceiling, wondering how she could get through the next day of shooting when she couldn’t bear to see any of the others. She also wondered how she was going to get through this night. There wasn’t any place on her body, she thought, that didn’t ache or throb or tingle with desire. She knew it would be long, tormented hours before her body cooled down enough to let her go to sleep. And how in the world was she going to stay out of Michael’s bed?

  The next morning when she went down to join the others in the lobby, she was red-eyed and leaden-lidded from lack of sleep. She ignored the sly smile Debbie cast in her direction, as well as the curious glances from the rest of the crew, and marched up to Lyle, shoulders squared, to apologize for dumping water over him the day before.

  He smiled at her a little shamefacedly. “It’s all right. I deserved it. I shouldn’t have done that without warning you. Michael raked me over the coals yesterday for letting you get caught, too, when I was paying him back.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know that you two were...well, you know, that there was anything going on between you.”

  “There’s not,” Isabelle retorted flatly. She made herself smile to take the sting from her abrupt words. She liked Lyle, and she didn’t want to be at odds with the director. “I don’t know how we ever get any work done, the way you guys are about jokes.”

  “Livens up the day,” Lyle responded jovially, just as eager as she to get rid of the strain between him and one of the show’s stars.

  Isabelle turned and caught sight of Michael, just entering the lobby. He looked as if he’d gotten as little sleep as she had. Quickly she turned and hurried outside to the waiting vans. She climbed into the front passenger seat, knowing that there, at least, Michael would be unable to sit beside her, and settled down to wait for the others.

  When the rest of them came out, Michael got into the back of the van. Isabelle could feel him watching her, but she refused to even glance back at him. Once they arrived at the location, she went straight to Debbie and Callie for makeup and wardrobe. Then she moved away while Michael was getting his makeup done and sat down on a large rock, studying her script intently.

  After he was finished in Makeup, Michael started toward her. Isabelle pretended to be immersed in her script, hoping that he would take the hint and go away. She thought desperately of dodging into the women’s bathroom, but she knew how foolish that would look to everyone else. Why couldn’t the man just take the hint and leave her alone?

  Michael stopped in front of her, only inches away. Isabelle continued to pretend to read. He waited, folding his arms and assuming an air of great patience.

  “Oh, stop,” Isabelle snapped finally, looking up at him. “Why won’t you go away? I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  Isabelle sighed. “We have nothing to say.”

  “Really?” His voice was heavy with sarcasm. “I would have thought we had a great deal to say. You obviously have some very strong feelings.”

  “You’re right. I very strongly would like not to have to talk to you.”

  “Why? Isabelle...look, I’m sorry I created a disturbance last night. I’m not usually that clumsy. I know you were embarrassed that everyone saw we were out on the balcony.”

  “They saw a good bit more than that. It was obvious what we’d been doing. I was practically undressed, and you—”

  “I know, I know. I was crawling over the wall like a seventeen-year-old in heat.” Michael grimaced. “I’m sorry. Believe me, the last thing I intended was to embarrass you and bring everyone out on their balconies to see us.”

  “It wasn’t your fault any more than it was mine. It was...just a mistake.”

  “No,” he whispered, so fiercely that Isabelle looked up at him in surprise. “Don’t say that. It wasn’t a mistake. It was exactly right. And it was inevitable. We’ve been heading straight toward it ever since I joined the show.”

  Isabelle shook her head vehemently. “No.”

  “We
can’t ignore what we feel for each other,” he protested. “At least, I can’t. It was never finished between us. That was my fault. You were right when you told me that I left before you came back because I was a coward. I was. I was scared that if I told you face-to-face, you’d try to argue me out of it. And I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to follow through. I wanted you so much, loved you so much, I was scared I’d give in to whatever you wanted, even if I knew it was wrong. So I ran. I was wrong. All those years it’s still been there inside us, dormant. But never closed.”

  “Then let’s close it now. I’ll tell you that I no longer hate you for it. You did what you thought was best, and maybe it was. I don’t know. We certainly wouldn’t be where we are now if we had stayed together. But that was years ago. We’re different people now. I’m not eighteen anymore, and I’m not interested in a giddy teenage romance. I like my life the way it is. I don’t want any disturbances.”

  “What, you’re twenty-eight now and an old woman? Give me a break, Isabelle. What’s wrong with a little giddiness? What’s wrong with romance? Maybe we are different people now, and maybe it won’t be the same with us. But where’s the harm in seeing? What would be so wrong about taking a chance?”

  “You can’t see the harm?” Frantically, Isabelle scrambled to come up with some reason that did not involve Jenny. “For one thing, there’s the show. I never get involved with anyone I work with. I hate the gossip. A soap set is like a small town. You know that. Everyone in the whole cast and crew will be gossiping about us. We’ve already given them a week’s worth of gossip since yesterday. And what happens when the affair turns sour? We still have to work together.”

  “Oh, and it’s so easy working together now,” Michael mocked. “It’s such a breeze being in this state of sexual limbo with each other.”

  “It would be even worse if we hated each other or if one of us grew indifferent and the other was madly in love. It would be an impossible working situation.”

  “It seems pretty impossible to me right now.”

  “Michael, please....”

  “Come on, Iz. I don’t get it. I understand it’s difficult to have an affair with someone on the same show. It could be very awkward, worse than awkward. But there’s nothing we can do about it now. We are already involved. We can’t stop that.”

  “We can, and we will!” Isabelle insisted.

  “Why? And don’t give me this garbage about the show. Why are you so damn scared?”

  Isabelle sprang to her feet. “Can’t you leave it alone? Hasn’t anyone ever turned you down before? I don’t want to have an affair with you! Just stay away from me!”

  She realized belatedly that their voices had been growing louder and louder, until she had practically shouted her last words. Everyone on the set had stopped whatever they were doing and were watching them avidly. Isabelle groaned.

  “Well, that will certainly make all the gossip die down,” Michael commented dryly.

  Isabelle glared at him. He raised his hands, palms out, as if in surrender.

  “All right. I give up. Obviously you’re not willing to talk about whatever’s bothering you. I can’t make you give us a chance.” His lips tightened, and he dropped his hands to his side. “Let’s just get back to work.”

  He turned on his heel and walked away. Isabelle swallowed hard and followed him.

  * * *

  They finished shooting the following day. Michael and Isabelle avoided each other as much as possible. Isabelle could see that this was causing just as much gossip among the crew as the incident on the balcony had. It was a distinct relief when they flew back to L.A.

  Or course, the location crew and director told everyone what had happened in Cancún, so the gossip about the two of them spread like wildfire throughout the rest of the staff and cast. Everyone from Felice to Amanda, the head of Wardrobe, hinted to Isabelle that they were ready and willing to let Isabelle unburden her heart to them about the matter. Isabelle laughed and shrugged it off as best she could, saying with a lightness that even she could tell rang false, that nothing was “going on” between Michael and her.

  That was, of course, the literal truth. But there was another truth, as well, and that was that, no matter how much Isabelle avoided being around Michael, she could not stop thinking about him. Whether she was on the set, rehearsing or filming a scene with him, or at home alone with Jenny, her mind circled relentlessly around him. She remembered that evening on the balcony and the feel of his arms around her, his body hot and urgent against hers, his mouth consuming her.

  Over the years, she had held herself aloof from sexual entanglements. Listening to other women talk about their feelings for one man or another, she had congratulated herself a little smugly that her head always kept a firm rule over her senses and emotions. Her experience with Michael years ago had taught her not to get carried away, she thought. Now she wondered if it was simply that Michael was the only man who had ever really put her control to the test. Perhaps it hadn’t been intelligence or self-control that kept her life on an even keel, but simply the absence of the one man who really stirred her passions. It was a lowering thought.

  However, Isabelle was determined not to give in. She was not opening herself up again to the dangers of falling in love with Michael Traynor. Her heart was still whole and hers, and she was determined not to let him into it. She maintained her cool, remote attitude toward him on the set, staying in her dressing room as much as possible and leaving immediately after work so that she would have to be around him as little as possible.

  But after only a week, she was beginning to wonder how long she was going to be able to keep this up. It was getting harder and harder to stay away from Michael. Sometimes when she happened to glance over at him on the set, she caught a glimpse of something in his eyes that made her feel weak all over. She had the awful feeling that if he ever decided to actively pursue her, she was all too likely to topple from her pedestal of self-control.

  * * *

  Michael stared moodily into his almost-empty coffee cup. He didn’t know how much longer he could take this. Every day since they had returned from Mexico had been a hell of unremitting tension. The nights had been even worse. He wanted Isabelle, wanted to take her into his bed and make love to her for long, slow hours. He didn’t think anything else would stop the ache inside him, but he was also beginning to think that that would never happen.

  He had to see Isabelle every day on the set, had to hear her voice, had to watch as she talked and laughed with other people in a free-and-easy manner that she never displayed to him. Though they had shot no love scenes since they returned from Cancún, many of his scenes with Isabelle were building up to the climactic moment when they would make love. There was a gradual building of sexual tension both in their dialogue and in their actions. They accidentally touched; they looked at each other with longing; they moved close, then pulled away in the intricate mating ritual of a soap opera love affair.

  The stiffness between Michael and Isabelle, the underlying tension, charged their scenes with electricity. They could not speak or move without betraying a taut awareness of each other, lending an air of such realism to their scenes that the tapes fairly crackled.

  It was not hard for Michael to play the scenes; the far more difficult acting was to pretend after the scene was over that he and Isabelle were nothing but two professionals doing a job, that he was as indifferent to her as she appeared to be to him.

  On the set and off, it seemed as if he could think of nothing but Isabelle. He remembered the way it had felt to touch her skin, to feel her mouth yield under his. He thought about the way her breasts had fit into his palms, deliciously heavy and soft, the nipples prickling under his thumbs. Whenever he looked at her at the studio, he found himself mentally stripping her, his body turning hot and hard with desire. Yet it was no better when he was alone in his apartment at night, for then he thought of that night on her balcony and how beautiful she had been when he parted the
sides of her robe and looked at her naked body. Sometimes it was hours before he could manage to go to sleep, and then he would awaken the next morning bleary-eyed and still taut with unspent passion.

  Worst of all, they were working up to the big scene in the cave, where Curtis and Jessica would make love. That was something Michael wasn’t sure he could endure. The love scenes before had been bad enough, but these would be longer and more intense—and he was already so wired up that Michael thought he might explode if he so much as kissed her.

  He didn’t know how he was going to get through it. Yet there was no way that he could get out of it. The entire filming for the past two weeks had been moving toward this point. The sweeps had already started, and next week, the first of the Cancún episodes would air.

  Michael sighed and drained the dregs of his coffee, then crumpled up the cup and tossed it into the trash can. He opened the door of his dressing room and started out into the hall. He stopped short when he saw Isabelle standing at the other end of the hall, talking to Carol Nieman. For a moment he stood, watching Isabelle undetected. Isabelle’s hair was down, the sophisticated hairdo she wore on the set brushed out. Her face had been scrubbed clean of makeup, and she wore sandals, a cropped T-shirt and cutoffs. She looked as different from her character on the show as she could be—and she looked even sexier to Michael.

  His hands itched to glide over the soft skin of her cheeks. He wanted to shove his fingers into her thick dark hair, to lay his head against hers and breathe in her unique scent, to slide his hands over her firm, lithe body.

  Carol turned and caught sight of him and smiled hugely. “Michael!” She held out one hand to him. “You’re still here, too. I’m so glad. I was afraid everyone had left.”

  “Isabelle and I had the last scene today,” Michael said, going down the hall to join them.

  Isabelle turned to look at him, but without Carol’s joyous smile. It was the same indifferent, almost blank, look with which she always regarded him these days, a look that infuriated Michael even as it cut him, a look that made him long to grab her arms and shake her—or kiss her until she melted against him as she had last week in Cancún.