Rand was back. She might even get to see him in the near future. But dare she ask him the questions that had been plaguing her the last weeks? She doubted she would have the nerve for that, and there was no guarantee he would put in an appearance; he had given them permission to film in the grounds, with the strict proviso that none of them was to go near the house.
And she wanted to see him. It had been so long, and she hungered just for the sight of him.
'Can I come in or would you rather be alone?' queried a cheerful voice.
Merlyn gave a guilty start as she turned to face Liza Benedict, the actress, only a year younger than herself, who was to play the part of Anne in the film. Small, and blonde, and a very good actress, she and Merlyn had worked together in the past; she was perfect for the role.
'Isn't this a super place?' Liza added before Merlyn could answer her earlier question. I've just got back from filming in Africa; this beats the dust and flies any time!' She made herself comfortable on Merlyn's sofa.
Merlyn liked the other woman, the two of them having kept in touch after they finished working together last time, pleased they were going to work together again. 'You'll have to lose some of that sun-tan before we start filming,' she teased, the other woman's tan very attractive against the blonde of her hair, but too deep a bronze for the English climate.
Liza grimaced. 'I'm sure make-up will take care of that.'
'Yes,' acknowledged Merlyn. 'Well, get your bikini and let's go,' she encouraged lightly. 'Christopher will be doing his realistic impression of a slave-driver soon enough!'
A speculative gleam entered the deep blue eyes. 'Talking of Christopher Drake—'
'Which we weren't,' Merlyn cut in firmly.
'We were.' Liza wasn't to be put off. 'I've heard several rumours about the two of you since I got back, and—'
' "We're just good friends",' Merlyn cut in decisively.
'From what I've heard of the dynamic Mr Drake, he doesn't have women friends!'
'I just told you he does,' Merlyn mocked. 'I'm the very first one!'
Liza gave a disappointed grimace and stood up. 'I hope you aren't going to be this close-mouthed about all the gossip circulating; I've been depending on you to tell me who's sleeping with whom!'
Merlyn smiled to herself as Liza went along the corridor to her room to collect her bathing costume. Maybe working on this film wasn't going to be so bad after all—Liza could certainly be a lot of fun to be around.
She didn't look up from slipping on the bottom half of her green bikini as Liza returned. 'Doesn't the fact that Christopher and I have separate rooms at different ends of the building tell you something?' she teased.
'What do you want it to tell me?'
Her fingers crushed the material of her bikini top into her palm as she straightened to look Rand Carmichael in the eye. Her first instinct was to put her hands over her bared breasts, but the idea was lost in a maelstrom of other emotions as she looked at a Rand she had never seen before. His hair was shorter, although still slightly over his ears, and the beard had gone completely, revealing a hard, uncompromising jaw and a mouth that still appeared sensual despite its mocking twist.
He didn't look younger, just different, and as Merlyn continued to look at him, she realised the man in her dream, that realistic dream that still haunted her, hadn't possessed that rasping beard she had known with Rand Carmichael! How long ago had the beard been removed?
His mouth quirked with hard amusement. 'This seems to be becoming a habit,' he drawled.
'What does?' she breathed softly.
'My walking in on you when you're half-undressed,' he mocked, his gaze raking over her contemptuously.
Whatever he was doing here, his opinion of her hadn't changed in the last two weeks. 'Maybe if you tried knocking for a change…?' she challenged, putting the bra to her bikini on with unhurried movements. After all, he had seen it all before.
He shrugged his broad shoulders, the navy-blue shirt taut across their breadth. 'The door was open, I took that as an invitation to walk in.'
She searched his face avidly, wondering if he had just 'walked in' once before; she could read nothing from his expression. 'I was expecting a friend—'
Male or female?' he taunted. 'Or do I really need to ask?' he scorned. 'After all, you were denying your affair with another man when I arrived!'
Her eyes flashed green sparks at him. 'I wasn't denying anything—'
'I don't see how you could when you got the starring role in this film despite all the odds—'
'Christopher likes to take unknowns and mould them into stars!' she defended hotly.
'You're the wrong height, the wrong colouring, the wrong age—'
'You could have stopped it if you wanted to,' she flared.
'I decided you'd earned it.' He moved closer, dangerously so for Merlyn's peace of mind, the heat of his body reaching out to her. 'And any time I want you to you'll earn it again,' he grated harshly.
'What do you mean?' Merlyn frantically searched the cold anger of his face for an explanation to his shattering statement.
'I want you,' he told her calmly, his hands warm on the bareness of her hips. 'And as you aren't averse to giving yourself to me, I intend taking you any time I feel like it. And that includes now! Especially now,' he groaned, his dark head bending towards her.
She wasn't just like the moth to the flame, although every time she touched this man she surely got burnt; but she was also like that creature the lemming she had once read about, who ran into the sea at migration and drowned itself. She was burning and drowning at the same time as Rand claimed her mouth with his own.
His jaw was smooth against her as his lips moved against hers with a mastery that demanded she respond, that she give him what he wanted.
'Rand, please!' She wrenched her mouth from his, pleading with him to release her.
'No.' His eyes were hard as ice. 'I hadn't touched a woman since Suzie until the day a fiery-haired witch with the unlikely name of Merlyn lay down on my carpeted floor and gave herself to me. And now I want her again.'
'Rand…' she gasped weakly at the memories he had just evoked.
'I'm a sensual man, Merlyn. I enjoy making love, and your magic is endless,' he grated. 'It's you I want and you I'm going to have. Merlyn's magic,' he mused hardly. 'Weave your spells for me again, Merlyn, I want to be inside you.'
'Me?' she scorned with her last shred of self-respect, the rhythm of his hips grinding against her filling her lower body with a warmth that was already his.
His mouth twisted, his eyes half-closed with the same desire as was in his hardened thighs as they moved against her. 'You,' he bit out harshly, his breathing ragged. 'Now!' he repeated forcefully, stripping her bikini briefs from her body in one deft movement. 'Next time you can undress me—slowly,' he told her huskily as he threw his clothes to the floor. 'Right now,' he drew her bikini top to one side, pushing her backwards on to the bed. 'I don't have the control to wait while you perform that pleasure.'
Merlyn gasped as his rigid shaft entered her, her flesh closing moistly about him as it accepted him, welcomed him. She lay still as she expected him to thrust into her savagely, sate himself, and then leave her.
Rand lay as still as she, although that hard shaft of pleasure throbbed and moved in her softness instinctively, the movements so slight as to be barely perceptible, although the rapid spiralling of their breathing said even that wasn't necessary, the aching need they shared building to a shattering climax for both of them.
It felt so strange, neither of them moving, apart from those inner quivers of flesh that were uncontrollable, and yet Merlyn knew she was about to attain that ultimate fulfilment. Just as she felt herself reach that pinnacle Rand moved savagely within her, this unexpected pleasure at the moment of her release making her groan and arch against him as she felt him spill his seed inside her time and time again.
His face was softened with sensual pleasure as Merlyn gazed do
wn at him as he lay against her breasts like a satiated child that had drunk its fill.
She had expected his lovemaking to be little more than rape, knowing that even though she wouldn't have fought him she couldn't have responded either. Instead, it had been nothing like that, Rand giving not taking.
'Again!' he suddenly groaned, pain in his eyes as he made the admission, his mouth closing hotly over one moist nipple.
If Merlyn had thought he was like a satiated child she soon found that Rand never had his fill, taking and taking until she shuddered her fulfilment beneath him, feeling as if she couldn't give any more as he moved against her in silent demand.
This time her thrusts matched the intensity of his in their feverish clamouring for release, and she knew a pleasure-pain unlike anything before as her body shook and quivered to shuddering satisfaction.
Her arms tightened about him as he tried to move away, his hands firm on her shoulders as he pushed her back down into the bed as he stood up. His body maintained its aura of power even though his passion had momentarily been satisfied.
He gave a hard smile as she watched him dress with eyes full of contentment. 'Don't worry, I'll come back tonight,' he derided the sensuous compliance of her expression. 'This afternoon has shown me that I can't stay away!'
Women were no longer subservient to men, didn't have to accept their physical demands because they were a possession and it was a man's right to take what he wanted when he wanted, as it had been in another era. And yet that was exactly what Rand was asking— commanding! And she wasn't saying no.
'You'll find me a demanding lover, Merlyn,' he told her calmly as he tucked his shirt into the waistband of his trousers. 'So demanding that I expect you to tell whatever man you were waiting for when I arrived that you're no longer available.' His tone was hard. 'I want to be the one who claims your body every night and any other time of the day I want you!'
The thought of being the recipient of this man's desire made her dizzy. 'And what do I get out of the relationship?' she challenged.
'Me.' His gaze was icy. 'And you do want me, don't you, little witch?'
She swallowed hard. 'No—'
'Oh yes,' he nodded, pulling the sheet from her naked body to kneel on the bed beside her. 'I saw it here the first time you looked at me.' His thumbtips moved lightly over her eyes. 'I taste it here every time I kiss you.' He touched her swollen lips in the same way. 'I see it here every time I caress you.' Those hands moved surely to her breasts. 'And I feel it here every time I enter you.' One hand cupped the moistness of her womanhood. 'You want me, Merlyn, and you're going to have me—because neither of us can say no!'
She did want him—he had already demonstrated how much!—but she also wanted love and affection, things he was incapable of giving. They had touched on the deepest level possible physically, but emotionally they hadn't even said hello.
'Rand, I can't cope with that sort of relationship.' Merlyn shook her head.
'It isn't a relationship, it's an arrangement,' he corrected grimly. 'Be honest with yourself—and me, Merlyn. I didn't force you to do anything just now, you wanted it all.'
Did she love this man? She had a feeling that she soon would if she didn't already—because she did want it all. But he was prepared to give so little.
'I can't handle this,' she shook. 'Not now.'
'Because of your work on the film,' he nodded. 'I'm not a monster,' he soothed. 'I understand the demands of your career, and I'll accept it when you're too tired to do more than collapse into bed at night.'
Of course he understood it, he had been the husband of an actress for eight years. But she couldn't be just a body in a bed to him, she wanted more than that. And he couldn't give it.
'No.' Somehow she found the strength to deny him, pushing his hands away to stand up, knowing he watched her as she once again put on her bikini. 'An afternoon—or night—in bed, when you decide you want me, is not something I want,' she told him firmly.
'But you do,' taunted Rand softly. 'You just did,' he reminded her.
Merlyn's mouth tightened at his arrogance. They had been to bed together for a mere hour, had made love twice in that time, and they had spoken little. 'Next you'll be telling me that we're both adults and that there's nothing wrong with taking what we want from each other,' she scorned.
'There isn't,' he rasped.
She gave him a pitying look. 'Find some other woman to satisfy your new-found interest in sex, Rand; I'm not the one for you.'
His mouth thinned, his nostrils flared, and his eyes turned coldly silver. 'I'll be back tonight,' he repeated harshly. 'And I want you to be here.'
'Waiting for you!'
'Yes.'
'I'm sorry,' she replied flatly.
'I won't chase after you like some damned boy!' he warned through gritted teeth.
'Good,' she sighed.
His hands clenched into fists. 'You can't make me burn the way I have for you and then expect to put out the fire by saying no! I won't let you,' he told her fiercely. 'I could live with that emptiness when no woman appealed to me, but I won't live with it when I know you want me as much as I want you!'
Merlyn stood shaking once he had left, not from the threat he had made not to accept her answer, but from the knowledge that he would only have to kiss her for that decision to be meaningless. She didn't understand him, she doubted he really understood himself or the physical demands he had that now tormented and controlled him.
'Wow, visions of Heathcliff, hm?' Liza said in an awestruck voice. 'No wonder you and Christopher are only friends!'
'Liza…' greeted Merlyn weakly, knowing her own tousled appearance and that of the bed behind her told their own story. 'I—er—I wondered what had happened to you.' She hadn't given the other woman another thought after Rand's arrival!
Her friend's eyes glowed mischievously as she gave Merlyn a chiding look for her lie. 'Admit it, you forgot my existence after Heathcliff arrived,' she derided. She was wearing a thigh-length robe over her bikini.
They both knew she had, until a few moments ago, a full hour after she was supposed to have gone to the pool with Liza. 'I think he's more of a Rochester than a Heathcliff,' Merlyn remarked lightly.
'Who is he?' Liza demanded with great interest.
She could be evasive and say his name was Rand, but as they were all going to be here for several weeks Liza was sure to be introduced to him some time. 'Brandon Carmichael,' she admitted abruptly.
Blue eyes widened with a shock Liza was too surprised to mask. 'Wow,' she finally breathed. 'I mean—well— Er—I didn't realise you knew him,' she said lamely, her gaze moving awkwardly over the rumpled bed. 'What I meant was—'
'Why, Liza, I think you're embarrassed,' she mocked. 'Either that or you have a terrible case of heat-rash. And as it's only about sixty-five degrees outside, I don't think—'
'Don't tease,' Liza groaned. 'It's just that I thought you were holding out for Mr Right?'
She hadn't been 'holding out' at all, she had just never found anyone she wanted to make love with before. 'What makes you so sure I haven't found it with Brandon Carmichael?'
Liza wrinkled her nose. 'Because everyone knows he's still in love with his wife— Oh dear,' she groaned her consternation. 'I've done it again, haven't I! I'm sorry, Merlyn—'
'Don't be,' she dismissed her friend's apologies with a calm she didn't feel, locking her door behind her as they belatedly made their way over to the pool. 'I'm well aware of Rand's feelings for his wife, and what he wants from me. They bear little resemblance to each other,' she grimaced.
'He's really attractive, though, isn't he?' Liza mused. 'I wish he had seen me first—I wouldn't care who he thought he was in love with as long as it was me he wanted.'
From what Rand had said, it wouldn't have made any difference whom he had seen first, it was Merlyn he wanted, Merlyn who had reawakened his sexual hunger. 'You're welcome to encourage him if you want to,' she invited flatly. 'I don't have ex
clusive rights on him.'
'Maybe we had better stop talking about him and worry about what Christopher is going to say to you,' Liza grimaced. 'He didn't seem too pleased when he asked where you were earlier and I told him you were lying down for a while.'
Merlyn blushed at the way her friend had avoided telling a lie, Liza having drawn her own conclusions about the reason for Rand's visit to her room—correct ones, as it happened. 'What did he say?' she frowned.
'I don't know, I beat a hasty retreat back to my room once I'd told him you would be over later,' Liza admitted ruefully. 'I decided there was safety in numbers!'
Christopher was in the oval-shaped pool when they arrived, indulging in a game of handball with some of the other crew members. Merlyn and Liza sat down unobtrusively behind a potted plant that almost managed to conceal them from view, ordering a couple of pinacoladas from the pool waiter.
Liza nibbled at some of the fruit arranged decorously around the glass rim. 'Maybe he will have cooled off by the time he gets out,' she said hopefully.
Merlyn's expression was sceptical. 'Maybe Mount St Helens is inactive,' she laughed hollowly.
'Hm,' her friend grimaced. 'I've heard they have similar temperaments!'
Merlyn smiled at her friend's attempt at a joke, although perhaps as that explosive temper of Christopher's was going to be directed at her maybe it wasn't so funny. 'As far as I know it was only a request that I join him by the pool, not an order.'
Liza broke off sipping her chilled drink through the brightly coloured straw. 'With him it's the same thing! I've worked with him before, remember?'
Merlyn vividly recalled the swearing and cursing that had gone on during that three-month period Liza had worked with Christopher just over a year ago; according to her friend, at the time he was a mixture of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan combined, with a little bit of the Devil thrown in. 'You seem to have come back for more.'
'Because he's brilliant!' Liza scoffed the need to explain her presence here. 'And he's just climbed out of the pool and is coming our way,' she added softly, shooting Merlyn a nervous glance.
Merlyn's Magic Page 8