But what else could she do? She wasn't trained for any other kind of work. She couldn't even type or take shorthand. There was no escape from acting, not in the immediate future. She thought about Pisa, and The First Day of Autumn. Whatever changes were going on inside her, they would have to wait. The prospect of getting out of London was all that mattered to her right now.
She got off at St John's Wood, and walked slowly back to the flat. It was noon as she rounded the corner of her street, and stopped dead.
Kyle's sleek black Jaguar XJS was parked outside the flat, and Sophie's heart lurched, then sank like a stone into her stomach. Jenny wasn't in; she had gone shopping that morning, and wouldn't be back till later in the afternoon.
Kyle himself was reclining in the driver's seat. His eyes were closed, and Sophie thought for a moment of hope that he was asleep. But as she tried to steal silently past the sports car, his deep voice reached out to her.
Ìn a hurry?'
Ì didn't want to wake you,' she sighed, turning slowly to face him.
Ì wasn't sleeping.' Kyle stepped lithely out of the car, more pantherine than ever in a black denim shirt and jeans that moulded the hard, muscled length of his thighs. A thick leather belt circled his taut waist, the heavy brass buckle glinting. He was smiling, the green eyes chips of emerald between thick black lashes.
`W here's your delectable cousin?'
`Shopping,' Sophie said shortly. 'Probably buying smart clothes so you can take her out to smart places, and turn her smart little head.'
`Good. That's what I like to hear.' The smile glinted into a grin, making Sophie's pulses race into turmoil. God, she thought, as she faced him with outward defiance, of all the idiotically emotional women in the world, she must be the most illogical. Why did his mere presence reduce her to trembling shock, when she knew what a bastard he really was? 'Are you going to keep me out here all day?' he enouired, tilting one eyebrow.
`You might offer me a glass of wine.'
In silence, Sophie led him into the flat.
Ànd what,' he asked, as she busied herself in the kitchen, 'have you been doing all morning, little actress?' Ì went to see my agent,' she said shortly.
`Has he got a job for you?'
Às a matter of fact, yes.' She twisted the cork out of the wine bottle with something like satisfaction. 'I'm going to do the Luciani film.'
His eyes narrowed. 'I heard that the man was hardly offering enough to keep body and soul together.'
She flashed him a dry glance from cool grey eyes. 'You seem to know a lot about my affairs.
Ì hear things,' he said. 'When do you start filming?'
`Next month.' Like him, she was wearing denims, together with a suede jacket over a cotton top. She gave Kyle his glass of red wine, pulled the jacket off, and pushed past him into the sitting-room to hang it on the
antique bentwood coat-rack. Kyle watched her movements with unsmiling attention.
`W hat do you mean, next month?'
`Next month. The month after this one. The middle of September, to be even more precise. I'll be flying to Pisa in a couple of weeks.' She caught the angry glitter that moved like summer lightning behind his eyes. `What's the matter?' she asked softly.
'Are you annoyed that your prey might be getting away? You've got a fortnight left to torment me in, don't worry.'
Ì don't want you escaping too soon.' He came towards her, his expression grim. 'How long will you be gone for?' he demanded roughly.
`Luciani's budgeting on being in Pisa around two months.'
He studied her face with grim attention. 'I'll be waiting for you when you get back,' he said in a threatening growl.
Sophie arched mocking eyebrows, instinctively knowing that she had suddenly gained the upper hand in this vindictive struggle for supremacy. 'Will you? But I may not come back. They say the male lead is quite a man.'
`Luigi Canotta?'
`Hmm.' She folded her arms over her neat breasts and tilted her chin up truculently.
'He's beautiful,' she said lightly. 'I'm looking forward to it very much.'
`Bully for you,' Kyle said, a note of harshness in his voice.
She sensed her advantage, and followed it home. 'Since you know so m uch about the film, you must know something about the script.' She smiled slightly as he shook his head. 'You don't? Oh, it's a very moving love-story. Very passionate in parts. It opens with me naked in bed with my lover. W e've just made love, you see, and he's kissing my breasts ... But let me get you the script, and I'll read you the relevant sections.'
She was walking over to get Franco's script when Kyle put his wine glass down and grasped her wrist, swinging her round to face him . 'You little Jezebel,' he rasped, eyes smoking at her like gun muzzles. 'I don't want to see the damned script.'
`Then you'll have to take my word about the passion,' she said, masking her intense triumph with a cool smile. `Luigi Canotta is exactly the right man to do scenes like that with. Why, I'll hardly have to act at all. I'll just let myself go.'
`You've never let yourself go in your life,' he grated. Ànd what would a man like Canotta want with a repressed virgin like you?'
She pulled her hand free. 'I thought I was a Jezebel?' she enquired with maddening poise. 'You're getting your metaphors mixed, Kyle.'
`No, I'm not. Because you're an unlikely mixture of both. Your cousin confirmed the truth for me.' Kyle's eyes gleamed. 'She told me you've never had a man in your life.
You are a virgin, after all!'
`W ell, perhaps that'll change in Italy,' Sophie shot back, her cheeks paling.
Òh, I see,' he taunted. 'You plan to sacrifice your 'virginity to Luigi Canotta, on the altar of cinematographic art? Well, Franco Luciani likes the outré effects. Perhaps you can persuade him to immortalise the magic moment on film?' -
Her free hand flew upwards of its own accord, cracking against his cheek. She'd finally been unable to just take it anymore, and the slap must have stung. Kyle caught her wrist swiftly, and pulled her hand to his mouth, twisting it so that he could kiss her open palm.
`That way,' he went on, his eyes as bright as a cat's with amusement, 'we can all share the immortal experience that turns you from a spoilt-rotten little girl into a spoilt-rotten little woman.'
`Stop it!' She tried furiously to slap him again, and almost succeeded. He had to pinion both her hands behind her back to stop her.
`You're quite dangerous,' he said softly, looking down into her face with glinting eyes.
'Do you know something? You may not be as pretty as your sexy cousin, but you're a damned sight more entertaining.'
`Let me go,' she panted.
Ìn fact,' he drawled, drawing her against his hard body, 'Jenny bores me stiff. But you're something else.'
`Yes! I'm fool enough to be hurt by you, and you enjoy that!' Sophie's eyes flared grey fire at him. 'You accuse me of vanity. You've got a nerve, Kyle. Only a man whose vanity was colossal could dream up the sort of sick game you're playing. Why should it matter a damn to me whether you make love to my cousin or not?'
`W hy indeed?' he purred. 'Why should I bother with Jenny, when it's you I really want to chastise?' He was holding her as close as a lover now, but the muscles of his arms were iron-hard as they immobilised her hands behind her back. 'So you really are a maiden,' he said with a husky laugh, studying her face with dark eyes. `That changes my outlook about you, my dear Sophie. I now know a far better way of getting back at you.'
`W hat do you mean?' Sophie demanded angrily.
`You do realise that at your age virginity is tantamount to an aberration?' he asked softly. He was pushing her inexorably backwards as he spoke, forcing her tow ards her bedroom. 'You're twenty-three, and beautiful enough to make any man desire you. You obviously prize that maidenhead of yours very highly, to have clung to it for so long.
What are you planning to trade it for? A wedding-ring?'
`Let me go!' she gasped, struggling vainly against Kyle's
superior strength. 'You're hurting me, you brute—'
`But people in glass houses should never throw stones,' he went on, ignoring her protests. 'You obviously don't play poker, my love. Nobody puts their prize asset on the table. Not ever.'
He pushed her into her bedroom, and kicked the door shut behind him, then released her stinging wrists to twist the key in the lock and push it into his pocket.
`Kyle, for God's sake,' she whispered, starting to be really afraid. 'What are you doing?'
`W hat I ought to have done a long time ago,' he replied. 'What you really want me to do, deep down inside.' He smiled mercilessly. 'I'm going to have that precious prize of yours, my dear Sophie. I'm going to make you a woman.'
`No!'
Ì think you mean yes.' His voice was a gentle purr to her sharp denial. 'Don't you want to know what all the fuss is about? Don't you sometimes wonder what it feels like, to be made love to by a man?' He walked over to her, his hands reaching to capture her slim waist. 'A man who knows exactly how to give a woman pleasure in bed?'
`Kyle, you've gone mad!' But she knew those flames that were now beginning to lick in his eyes, and she felt the response shudder through her own body.
`Have I? Then why can I feel you trembling with desire?'
Ì'm trembling because you frighten me,' she managed. `Please let me go, and get out of my bedroom—' `Not until I've made love to you.'
`You can't force me to submit!'
Ì won't have to,' he said with a smoky smile. 'By the time I've finished with you, you're going to be begging me to make love to you. Know that feeling? Like someone burning up with thirst, begging for water. That's the way I'm going to make you feel.'
He bent to kiss her mouth, his lips warm and possessive, the red wine on his breath.
She turned her face wildly away from him, struggling in fierce silence. But it was as though some veil in her mind were being torn open, forcing her to face the truth, that
she wanted him, that his mood of raw sexuality was exciting her, sending the hot blood coursing through her veins.
`Do you remember that last time, in Jamaica?' Ì don't want to remember!'
`But I do. I want to remember, because that's where we left off ...' Kyle's mouth was roaming across her throat, his lips almost devouring the scented skin. 'That's where we left off,' he growled breathily into her ear, 'and that's where my mind's been stuck for the past month, playing the same track over and over again, driving me crazy!'
She heard stitches rip as he pulled her cotton blouse open with contemptuous power, baring the feminine curves of her bra-less breasts, the dark nipples already thrusting eagerly outwards.
`Kyle, please,' she whispered, feeling sanity start to slip away. 'Don't do this to me!'
`W ould you rather I were doing this to your cousin?' He slid his hand into her ruined blouse, and cupped one silky-firm breast in his hungry palm. His thumb slid across the aroused peak, making her whimper with response. 'Would you rather Jenny were in your place right now?'
Sophie pulled the torn corners of her blouse defensively over herself, tormented by his caress. 'No,' she whimpered, her mind reeling.
`Nor would I,' he laughed unsteadily. 'To make love to Jenny would mean nothing to me. But to touch you like this makes me burn inside—just as it makes you burn. Isn't that true?'
`No! You disgust me, you always have done!'
Ìs that why you shudder when I touch you here?' He pushed her flimsy defence aside, and had only to caress her breasts to make her body arch with desire against
him. 'Is that why your heart is trembling, like a trapped bird? Because you feel disgust?'
She tried frantically to fight away from him, but he merely laughed, deep in his throat, and pushed her back on to the bed.
`You won't face reality, will you?' With smooth movements, he stripped off the black denim shirt, revealing the muscled, tanned body that had haunted her memory for so long. 'You're infatuated with me, Sophie. You always have been.' Kyle sat beside her on the bed, his palms smoothing sensuously across the mounds of her breasts. He smiled down at her, handsome as Lucifer. `You didn't object the last time I held you in my arms. In fact, you were melting like ice-cream in the sun. Or was that all part of the charade, too?'
`No,' she whispered, shrinking from the cruelty of that reminder. 'It was real.'
`Then why should you find my attentions so unwelcome now?' he mocked.
`Because in Jamaica you wanted me with passion in your heart. And now you only want to hurt me!'
Kyle's face darkened. 'Yes,' he said thickly, 'I had passion in my heart, then. What a fool I must have been, mooning over you like a love-struck boy. How did you keep yourself from laughing out loud?'
Ì didn't laugh because I felt the same way! Because it meant something to me, something wonderful!'
`Fabricator.' His voice was like tearing velvet, and Sophie felt his fingers bite into her arms. He stared down at the pale oval of her face, his eyes hot green slits. 'You played your part sublimely well. You're a talented actress. Your only trouble was that you didn't run far enough, or fast enough, to get away from me.'
`Kyle, no,' she begged, as he slowly bent to touch her breasts with his mouth.
`But then,' he murmured, his breath warm against her skin, 'you'd have had to run to the other side of the world to get away from me. And even then, I'd have
come looking for you. How did you ever think you could get away from me?'
The touch of his lips was ruthlessly seductive, making her moan brokenly, her eyes closing.
Ì've dreamed of these pale, sweet breasts,' he said raggedly, his lips trailing down the panting valley between them, savouring the taste of her skin. 'The only thing missing is that perfume, that intoxicating smell. Do you know what really hurt me in Jamaica?' He looked up at her, smouldering-eyed. 'You put some of your perfume on that letter. As soon as I opened it, you were there in the room with me. And I couldn't get the smell off my fingers for days ...'
Òh, Kyle,' she said unevenly, 'I'm so sorry.'
`W here is it?' He rose, and stalked over to her dressing-table, long brown fingers searching through the small collection of cosmetics. He found the Giorgio Armani bottle instinctively, and lifted it to his nose. 'Yes,' he said softly, 'this is it.'
He walked back over to where she lay defenceless on the bed. Holding her gaze, he sat beside her again, and took the little glass stopper from the bottle. She flinched as he touched the icy wet tip to her skin, drawing a delicate line of perfume slowly down between her breasts.
The mysteriously seductive smell touched her, flooding her mind with memories.
Stronger than wine, it brought the remembrance of that night back into her mind with intoxicating force, reminding her of her own loss, of the paradise she had once lost, and could now have again—at a price.
Kyle smiled, eyes dark as he assessed the effect he'd had on her. He put the bottle down on her bedside table. Then, without further words, he bent to kiss her mouth, hard, crushing her soft lips with ruthless passion. His tongue thrust like a flame between her teeth, plundering the sweet, moist depths of her inner mouth.
Sophie couldn't stop her arms from drawing him close, from clinging to him with trembling passion. She was
aching for his possession now, all the pain turning to need.
He was so good to hold, so strong and confident, his maleness filling her senses. She hardly realised that her own nails were biting into the muscles of his shoulders, rough spurs that answered his own igniting need.
She whispered his name, twice, her hands caressing languidly across his warm, naked skin. The third time, his name turned into a gasp that caught in her throat as he caressed the swollen curves of her breasts, then bent to kiss the taut pink tips, anointing them with his tongue, firming them to unbearable hardness in his mouth.
She cradled Kyle's head in her arms, pressing her mouth into the crisp, thick hair, inhaling the clean male scent of him. His hands mou
lded her hips, drawing her close as he kissed her flanks, the smooth skin of her ribs.
Ì've missed you so much,' she whispered. 'I thought I would die without you—' She broke off, arching as his teeth punished her nipples for the tender words.
`No lies,' he rasped. 'Just touch me.' He pulled his belt loose, unfastening the brass button at the waist of his denims. 'Touch me,' he commanded roughly. 'Touch me the way you did before.'
It was if she had no will of her own any longer. Her trembling fingers obeyed, moving timidly down the flat, muscled belly, down the opened front of his denims. The heavy zip slid open, as if eager to admit her.
The delicate touch of her fingers made Kyle arch against her, crying out her name.
`Sophie ... you drive me crazy.'
It didn't matter that she hardly knew what to do; she had merely to touch her fingertips against the hot, swollen manhood that stretched his briefs to make him shudder with pleasure. Her whole body was trembling now. She hated herself for the way she was responding to him, yet she could no longer stop herself. Kyle was too strong, his effect on her too potent for her to fight.
She lifted her hips unthinkingly as he unfastened her jeans and pulled them down, discarding them on the floor. She was wearing only plain cotton panties with a lace trim, her body tanned and slim against the coverlet.
Groaning her name again, Kyle bent to bury his face against her soft belly, his powerful arms embracing the delicate curve of her hips. He raised himself on his elbow, meeting Sophie's swimming eyes.
`Have you any idea how much I want you?' He caressed her thighs, his palms savouring the silky skin. 'I want you so much that it's a fever.' He lowered his head to kiss the smooth skin of her thighs, close to the lace border of her briefs.
Sophie tried to will her body not to respond, not to betray her, but his touch was so expert, so exquisitely erotic. She shuddered in despair as she felt his tongue trace teasing circles on her skin, his breath warm and quick against her inner thigh.
Duel of Passion Page 16