But if that dollar landed tails side up—she lost every- thing. Mike Camarra had said he would find her another vehicle and continue to build her career, but the truth was, roles like Tigresse didn’t come along every day, and no matter what he said now, if there ever came a time when she starred in two flops in a row, Mike Camarra would drop her like a hot potato. Simon would stop being her agent, if that time ever came, for friendship went by the board in Hollywood when professional repu- tation, and more to the point—that great god, Money- were at stake.
As for Jared… she closed her eyes in horror at the thought of how quickly he could desert her once he found out she’d refused the role of Tigresse. After all, hadn’t he stayed away from her all this time? He could have approached her at any point in the last three years. Perhaps his only interest in her this time had been sexual power combined with a dynamite sure-fire winner at the box-office.
Again, that painful dilemma was revealed to her. Jared might not be the knight in shining armour she had pinned her hopes on. He might be a rotten, corrupt bastard. He might be Nessa’s casual lover. He might be seducing that nubile starlet on the quiet. He might be using Christie’s past relationship with him in order to manipu- late her on to the casting couch. He might, at the end of the day, be Mr Wrong.
The full impact of what she was facing suddenly hit her.
It was at that moment that there was a knock on the door.
Almost jumping out of her skin, she stood listening to her heart hammering violently for a split-second before calling out, ‘Come in!’
The door opened, and it was Jared, as she had known it would be, shouldering into the doorway in that black T-shirt, tanned arms bulging with muscles, narrow hips as lean and sexy as his long legs in those faded blue jeans.
‘I just spoke to Mike,’ he said expressionlessly, and closed the door.
Christie had never been so excited and afraid in her whole life. She was dry-mouthed, her stomach churning with butterflies, her legs weak beneath her.
‘And?’ she asked, summoning her last strength, lifting her blonde head, ready to take it on the jaw if she had to.
‘And…’ He gave a rough laugh, his eyes bitterly cynical. ‘Don’t think you’ve got me fooled for one second! I know this is all part of some long-term plan to get the role and bypass the casting couch. I haven’t figured out yet how you’re planning to do it, but give me a while, Christie, and I’ll get there!’
Her heart plummeted, seemed to slide right out of her stomach as she realised she had lost her gamble, lost it hands down, lost her love, her man, her unborn sons with dark hair and dark eyes and obsessive talent.
She swayed as though she was about to fall.
Jared moved towards her instantly, then stopped as she recovered her balance. His mouth twisted with anger. ‘I should have known you weren’t on the verge of fainting from shock!’
‘Jared,’ she said in a sickly voice, ‘I can’t believe you still think I’m a carbon copy of Lelie, ready to do any- thing just to get—’
‘Come on!’ he replied tightly. ‘You gambled and lost! Don’t try to drag the performance out for my benefit. You should know I’m not going to believe a word you say.’
‘Don’t be so blind, Jared. Don’t be so obstinate!’ Her voice was shaking with disbelief. ‘I’ve refused the role! What more can I do?’
‘Well, quite,’ he said sardonically. ‘I’ve been trying to guess precisely what more you can do, but even I have trouble keeping up with the convoluted way your mind works, so I’ve come here to ask you point-blank what the hell your next move is.’
‘My next move…’ She stared, shaking her head, bit- terly hurt and at a loss as to what to do. ‘Jared, I’ve always been ambitious, but I really do draw the line at the casting couch. That’s all there is to it. You want me to jump into bed and—and play Salome to your Herod, but I won’t do it. I just won’t do it and there’s no other reason behind my—’
‘No other reason!’ He laughed derisively.
‘What other reason could there be!’
‘A game strategy! Some new plot to—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, what kind of woman do you think I am!’
‘Dangerous!’ he said hoarsely, striding towards her suddenly, making her back with a gasp as she saw the extent of the rage in his dark eyes. ‘I’ve never recovered from trusting you, and I doubt if I ever will! I almost got suckered into it again last night, but I certainly don’t intend to make the same mistake twice!’
‘Jared, I refused the casting couch,’ she said breath- lessly as he cornered her against the dressing-table. ‘Please believe me, please—’
‘Liar!’ His strong hands gripped her shoulders. ‘You’re nothing but a lethal little black widow. I could tangle spiders in the webs you weave, and you’re not weaving another one around me! You’re getting on the casting couch and giving the performance of your life— with or without the role of Lelie as a reward!’
‘No!’ she cried, but he was too angry, passion blazing in his eyes as he dragged her towards the bed. ‘No! Jared, for God’s sake!’
‘For my sake, Christie!’ he said hoarsely, pulling her down on to the bed with him, his body rolling on top of hers, trapping her beneath him as he stared down with tortured eyes. ‘For my sake! I can’t take it any more! Fighting you, going through hell because I know I’ll never get what I really want—to have you, to truly possess you—any more than I did three years ago. The only thing I can take is power over you…’ His voice roughened. ‘But you just smashed even that from my grasp, didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t do it for that reason!’ she whispered, her heart banging hard with fear and excitement as she lay there on the bed beneath him, as vulnerable with love as she ever had been, suddenly not caring how or why they had ended up lying there together while he declared his ob- session with such dark, dangerous passion, caring only that they were there, that it felt good, and that no matter how much he raged against her he was still obsessed, even if it was with desire for her sexual surrender. At least it was obsession, just as she was obsessed, loving every inch of him, and of his fiery passion. ‘I did it because I can’t go on the casting couch. I never have for any director, Jared.’
‘Don’t tell me those articles were lies again!’ he said roughly, hands tightening on her body. ‘I don’t want to hear the sincerity in your voice because I believe it…’
‘Then why don’t you believe my reasons for turning Tigresse down?’
His mouth tightened. ‘Because I want revenge on you! I hate myself for it, I hate you for making me feel that way, but it is how I feel, and only one thing can ease it for me!’
Her heart beat with abrupt violence. ‘Jared…’ she whispered on an involuntary note of alarmed excitement.
‘I keep thinking of the powerful release it would bring me,’ he said thickly, and bent his dark head, his hot mouth burning over her throat, making her shiver with absurd, irrational pleasure. ‘Every muscle in my body wrenched free of tension… the release of pent-up emotion… and then the peace… oh, God, how I need to feel that peace, that freedom from obsession…’
‘Would it last, though?’ she whispered, her hands moving to his strong neck, caressing the locked muscles there and hearing him groan with extreme pleasure. ‘Or would you roll away from me, Jared, minutes later, and start to hate me again?’
His heart thudded wildly as he whispered, ‘I’ll always hate you, but I’ll never stop wanting you!’
She gave a little moan of breathless excitement. Her body shifted beneath his. Excitement was throbbing in her now, overwhelming her fears, her anger, her con- fused emotions. All that mattered was his hard body against hers, their joint obsession reaching explosion point—and there was so much more to fulfilment than a career.
He bent his head.
She arched to meet him.
They kissed fiercely, hungrily, their mouths almost eating each other. It was so swift, like fire flaring up f
rom petrol and flint, while her arms wrapped around his strong neck and his hands moved fast over her body, fast, very fast, stroking her breasts, moving down to her waist even as she gasped and arched in pleasure against him, then down to her hips, her jean-clad thighs splayed invitingly for him.
He was unbuttoning her lace top with determined fingers. She raked and ruffled his black hair. He tore the top open, his mouth burned over her upper breast, and, as she cried out in rising torment, his hand tugged the lacy bra down to bare her breast fully and he suckled her with his hot mouth.
‘I hate you!’ he said raggedly, and his teeth grazed her erect nipple. ‘I’d like to teach you a serious damned lesson in bed…’
‘Oh, darling…’ she heard her tortured voice say. ‘Oh, yes, teach me a lesson…’
He groaned hoarsely, his mouth closed over hers, and he started pulling her lace top from her body, throwing it to the floor as she let him strip her, his ragged breathing exciting her unbearably as he unclipped her bra, threw it across the room, eyes blazing as he stared briefly down at her, naked to the waist, then started pulling at his black T-shirt until he, too, was stripped to the waist.
Christie ran her hands over his magnificent chest, whispering, ‘I ought to torment you! That’s what you want me to do, isn’t it? So you can believe I’m like her, like Lelie…’
He breathed faster, his hands excitingly rough on her body. ‘You are like her…you are…’
‘I think of you at night…’ she whispered tauntingly. ‘I think of your body…’
‘And I think of your inventive little seductress mind!’ His mouth was burning over hers and his heart was pumping blood round his body at top speed. ‘I think of how you seduced me… dressing up for me… driving me completely crazy…’
‘Stockings and suspenders?’ she whispered, licking his tongue, playing with his dark hair. ‘A little French maid’s outfit?’
‘Oh, God!’ He groaned heavily, kissing her deeper, his hands fondling her breasts faster. ‘And you wonder why I find it easy to believe you’re an amoral little whore!’
Stung, she whispered fiercely, ‘They were love-games!’
‘Play them again, Chris!’ He raised his head and he was flushed dark red with desire. ‘We can still play all of them. Can’t we? One after the other, and at the end of it, you’ll get the role of Lelie, you’ll be a really big star, you’ll—’
‘You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said—have you?’ Her mouth was bruised from his kisses, and her body fiercely aroused, but he still hadn’t understood, he still couldn’t see that she was motivated in all this by love of him, real love not ambition. ‘I refused the role of Lelie! And I won’t play casting couch to get it back!’
‘Then why are you lying here with me like this?’
‘Because I couldn’t stop myself!’ she confessed bit- terly. ‘Any more than you could! Why is it right for you to leap on me uncontrollably and wrong for me to respond?’
‘You know why!’
‘Oh, yes!’ she cried fiercely. ‘Because I’m a woman and, therefore, I ought be be an innocent, quivering novice! I ought to be crying, No, Sir Jared! Don’t touch me!’
‘Shut up!’
‘When what I really want is to be kissed by you!’ Her eyes blazed fierce emotion. ‘I haven’t been made love to by any man, ever, except you, Jared, and the last time you made love to me was—’
‘Three years ago,’ he cut in thickly. ‘All right—but why should I believe you’re serious? When you’re doing this? Playing unbearably sexy games with me? Taunting me? Offering me exactly what you know I’ll do anything to get from you—when you know damned well you’re not going to give it to me!’
Her mouth trembled as she said bitterly, ‘I—I didn’t think about what I was doing. I was too excited.’
‘Don’t try to slide out of it now!’ he said with a harsh laugh. ‘It’s too late! You’re already on the casting couch, bargaining with me for that role!’
Her gasp of disbelief made him laugh even more harshly.
‘Didn’t you realise that, you little fool?’ His eyes glit- tered with savage possession down at her. ‘What did you think this was—a romantic kiss between old friends? This is the casting couch all right, and you’re going to fulfil your part of the bargain just as I’m going to fulfil mine! You give me what I want; I’ll give you what you want. And what better audition could there be for that role?’ His long hand stroked her bare breast provocatively. ‘A role you’re so perfectly suited for…’
CHAPTER EIGHT
HORROR flared in Christie’s eyes as she realised the enormity of her mistake. She had responded passion- ately to him out of love, pent-up tension, and a need to feel his body next to hers. But she had never for one moment suspected that he saw this as the casting couch.
Did he expect her to start bargaining with him? Yes, she could see in his dark eyes that he did. He was watching her, his hand on her bare breast and a cynical smile on his mouth, waiting for her to agree to his terms.
She knew what those terms would be. Hadn’t he already made it clear? He would want to play every love- game in the book with her, taking his revenge sexually, and she was horrified to realise the extent of his real hatred for her.
Jared truly believed she had used him three years ago, and that she had operated the whole time without con- science, morals or love. Now he wanted to do the same thing to her, to ease the pain of betrayal he so wrongly felt she had inflicted on him.
And the worst thing was that he was right; it would ease it. If he got what he was demanding, months of sex-play, any way he wanted it, all the rage and hatred he felt would be released systematically from his body with every nerve-shattering climax she gave him.
But it would leave him feeling empty, soulless and alone—to say nothing of what it would do to her. She didn’t even want to think about what it would do to her. It was too horrible to contemplate.
‘So?’ Jared was watching the slow dawning of awareness on her shocked face. ‘Are you ready to drop the act and start making terms? Or do you want to make it worse for yourself than it is already?’
‘How can it be worse?’ she asked bitterly. ‘I think we’ve already reached the nadir of hell you’re deter- mined to put us through!’
He gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Try not to be so melo- dramatic, sweetie. We both know the game is up. You gambled and lost. Why can’t you just admit it?’ His hand stroked her breast, his body pressed against her, and he was rigid with desire. ‘I’m going to get very impatient if I can’t have you soon. And then your career is going to be ruined.’
‘That’s what you think, Jared!’ Her eyes flared with angry pride. ‘You’ve made that mistake all the way along the line! Three years ago you told me I couldn’t make it in Hollywood—and I proved you wrong. Now you’re trying to tell me I can’t go on without you—and I’ll prove you wrong on that score, too!’
‘Go ahead and try!’ he drawled tightly. ‘I’ll send you a couple of dimes on skid row!’
‘I’ll never be on skid row!’ she said furiously. ‘Or didn’t Mike tell you? Oh, yes, that’s right, Jared! He’s not going to turn against me just because I refused Tigresse! He’s going to find another—what was it now? Oh, yes! Another star vehicle for me!’ Her blue eyes warred with his black gaze as she lay beneath him, semi- naked and boiling with anger. ‘So you know what you can do with your threats of doom and ruin—the same thing you can do with your demands that I play Lelie with you, here in this bed!’
Jared was silent for a long time, his body tensing with every word she spoke, and she could feel the anger emanating from him, feel it tightening his neck muscles, his back, all the way down his spine to the taut muscles of buttocks, thighs, and round to throb agonisingly in his rigid manhood.
‘Does that make you hate me more?’ she whispered, suddenly aroused again in spite of herself, unable to stop the frisson of terrible excitement burning through her body. ‘Does it, Jared? And does i
t make you want to have me even more?’
‘Shut up…’ he said thickly, but his body pressed deeply against hers, deep between her splayed, jean-clad thighs. ‘You little bitch…’
‘You have to learn,’ she said huskily, running her hands down his rigid, locked spine to the tight, hard buttocks below, squeezing them and shivering with ex- citement as she heard his fierce groan of agonised need, ‘that you want me even more when I defy you!’
‘Touch me!’ he said hoarsely, fumbling with the zip of his jeans. ‘I can’t take any more of this…’
‘You’ll have to take it, Jared!’ Her hand flew to his, stopping him from unzipping the jeans which were straining with the pressure of his desire. ‘Just as I’ve had to take your insults, your hatred, your mistrust and your threats!’
He started to kiss her throat fiercely, his body moving against her with insistent pressure.
‘That won’t work, either!’ she whispered. ‘You know as well as I do that I want you! But you have to accept that I’m your equal! You can’t take power over me, Jared. Not unless you want to wreck any hope of a re- lationship with me.’
‘I don’t want a relationship with you!’ he said thickly against her naked, hot throat. ‘I just want revenge!’
‘Then we’ll never reach a compromise.’ Tears were stinging her eyes, but she wasn’t going to give in, no matter how aroused he made her feel, no matter how much she yearned to feel the release of his body, kept imagining it, knowing how wildly he would buck and writhe in the agony of his release if she let him make love to her. It excited and moved her beyond words, but not beyond endurance. She was determined to fight for his respect, even if she had to relinquish his love.
‘You don’t want a relationship with me either, if you’re honest,’ he said, kissing her throat hungrily.
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