The Talk of Hollywood

by Carole Mortimer

  His hands remained firmly on her waist and he moved back slightly to look down at her nakedness. The heat of his gaze on those uptilting breasts tipped by rosy pink and engorged nipples stayed for long, admiring seconds before he lowered his head to take one in his mouth.

  Stazy moved her arms so that her hands were flat on the desk behind her, supporting her as the pleasure of having Jaxon’s mouth and tongue on her coursed hotly from her breasts to between her thighs. She felt herself tingle there as he took her nipple fully into the heat of his mouth and began to suckle, gently at first, and then more greedily, as his hand cupped her other breast and began to caress her in that same sensuous rhythm.

  She was on fire, the ache between her thighs almost unbearable now, building higher and higher, until she knew Jaxon held her poised on the edge of release. ‘Please, Jaxon …!’ she groaned weakly.

  He ignored that plea and instead turned the attentions of his lips, tongue and teeth to her other breast. His lips clamped about the fullness of the nipple as his tongue and teeth licked and rasped against that sensitive bud, driving Stazy wild as she moved her thighs restlessly against his in an effort to ease her aching need for the release that was just a whisper of pleasure away.

  She trembled all over with that need, her breath a pained rasp in her throat as she looked down at Jaxon with hot and heavy eyes. Just the sight of his lips clamped about her, drawing her nipple deeper and deeper into his mouth with each greedy suck, caused another rush of heat between her restless and throbbing thighs.

  ‘Jaxon …!’ Instead of deepening that pleasure, as she so wanted him to do, it seemed as if Jaxon began to ease away from her, gently kissing her breasts now, his hands once again a soft caress against her back. ‘Stop playing with me, please, Jaxon!’ she pleaded throatily.

  ‘This isn’t a sensible idea, Stazy,’ he groaned achingly, even as his arms dropped from about her waist before he straightened away from her.

  Stazy looked at him searchingly for several long seconds, easily seeing the regret in his eyes before a shutter came down over those twin mirrors into his emotions. ‘Jaxon …?’ she breathed softly.

  He gave a shake of his head, his expression grim. ‘We both know that you’re going to end up hating me if I take this any further …’

  ‘You’re wrong, Jaxon.’ She gave a disbelieving shake of her head, continuing to stare up at him dazedly as she pulled her dress back up her arms to hold it in front of the bareness of her breasts with one hand while she pulled the material down over her naked thighs with the other.

  ‘I am?’ he prompted huskily.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Stazy breathed softly. ‘Because I couldn’t possibly hate you any more than I do at this moment!’ Her eyes glittered with humiliated anger now, rather than tears.

  Jaxon knew he fully deserved that anger—that he had allowed things to go much further between them just now than was wise when Stazy was already feeling so emotionally vulnerable. But he also knew that Stazy was wrong—she would definitely have hated him more if they had taken their lovemaking to its inevitable conclusion. And on the plus side—for Geoffrey and Little, that was!—Stazy was now far more angry with him than she had been earlier with either of them!

  That, in retrospect, was probably the best outcome. He was scheduled to leave here at the end of the week, whereas Geoffrey and Little would both be around for much longer than that.

  Jaxon kept his expression noncommittal as he stepped fully away from Stazy, his shaft throbbing in protest as he did so. No doubt another cold shower—a very long cold shower!—would be in order when he got back to his suite of rooms. ‘There’s the possibility you might even thank me for my restraint in the morning …’ he murmured ruefully.

  ‘I shouldn’t hold your breath on that happening, if I were you!’

  ‘Stazy—’

  ‘I think you should leave now, Jaxon.’ It was definitely anger that now sparkled in her eyes.

  ‘Fine,’ he accepted wearily. ‘But you know where I am if you can’t sleep and feel like—’

  ‘Like what?’ she cut in sharply. ‘I thought we had both just agreed that this was a very bad idea?’

  ‘I was going to say if you feel like company,’ Jaxon completed firmly. ‘And I don’t remembering saying it was a bad idea—just not a very sensible one, given the circumstances.’

  ‘Well, “given the circumstances”, I would now like you to leave.’ Her chin rose proudly as she held his gaze.

  Jaxon gave her one last regretful glance before doing exactly that, knowing that to stay would only make the situation worse.

  If that was actually possible.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘THAT really wasn’t very clever, now, was it?’ Jaxon looked at Stazy impatiently as he entered the drawing room almost two hours later, to see her pacing in front of the bay windows, now dressed in a thick green sweater and fitted black denims, with her red-gold hair neatly plaited down the length of her spine.

  She shot him only a cursory glance as she continued to pace restlessly. ‘Shouldn’t you be fast asleep?’

  He closed the door softly behind him. ‘Little came and knocked on my bedroom door. He seemed to think I might like to know that you had tried to take my Harley in an attempt to go and see your grandfather tonight.’

  ‘The traitor …’

  Jaxon gave a rueful shake of his shaggy head, having quickly pulled on faded denims and a black tee shirt before coming downstairs. ‘Exactly when did you take the keys to the Harley off my dressing table …?’

  ‘When I heard the shower running in your bathroom.’ She had the grace to look a little guilty. ‘I am sorry I took them without your permission, but at the time I didn’t feel I had any other choice.’

  ‘Is that your idea of an apology?’

  ‘No.’ She sighed. ‘It was very wrong of me, and I do apologise, Jaxon. My grandfather would be horrified if he knew!’

  ‘I’m horrified—but probably not for the same reason!’ Jaxon gave her an exasperated glance as he too easily imagined what might have happened if she had managed to ride the Harley. ‘How could you even have thought taking my motorbike was going to work, Stazy, when there are enough guards patrolling the grounds for them to hear a mouse squeak let alone the roar of an engine starting up?’

  ‘I didn’t even get the bike out of the garage,’ Stazy acknowledged self-disgustedly.

  There had been no excuse for what she had allowed to happen in her grandfather’s study earlier that evening, and just thinking about those intimacies once Stazy reached the privacy of her bedroom had been enough to make her want to get as far away from Bromley House—and Jaxon—as possible!

  Admittedly it had taken a little time on her part, but once it had occurred to her that she could ‘borrow’ the keys to Jaxon’s Harley and then take the less used and hopefully less guarded back road out of the estate to leave, she hadn’t been able to rid herself of the idea.

  Unfortunately, as Jaxon had already pointed out, just starting up the engine had brought three of her grandfather’s guards running to where the motorbike was parked at the back of the house. Quickly followed by the humiliation of having the keys to the motorbike taken from her before being escorted back inside.

  With the added embarrassment that Jaxon now knew exactly what she had planned on doing too. ‘Obviously I didn’t really think beyond the idea of going to London to see my grandfather,’ she accepted guiltily.

  ‘Obviously!’ Jaxon gave a disgusted shake of his head. ‘You could have been killed, damn it!’

  In retrospect Stazy accepted that her method of leaving Bromley House really hadn’t been a good plan at all. Not only had starting the engine sounded like the roar of an angry lion in the stillness of the night, but there had still been no guarantee that she would have found it any easier to leave by the back road. She would never know now.

  No, in retrospect, taking the Harley hadn’t been a good plan at all. And, if Stazy was being honest, she now admi
tted it had also been an extremely childish one.

  Why, oh, why did just being around Jaxon make her behave in this ridiculous way …?

  She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘I just feel so—so useless, having to sit here and wait for news from my grandfather.’

  Jaxon’s expression softened. ‘I’m sure Geoffrey is well aware of exactly how you feel, Stazy—’

  ‘Are you?’ she said warily.

  ‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘Look, it’s almost one o’clock in the morning, and no doubt the kitchen staff all went to bed hours ago. So why don’t the two of us go down to the kitchen and make a pot of tea or something?’

  She smiled ruefully. ‘Tea being the English panacea for whatever ails you?’

  He shrugged. ‘It would seem to work in most situations, yes.’

  It certainly couldn’t do any harm, and Stazy knew she was still too restless to be able to sleep even if she went up to bed now. ‘Why not?’ she said softly as she crossed the room to precede him out into the hallway.

  The house was quiet as Jaxon and Stazy crossed the cavernous entrance hall on their way to the more shadowy hallway that led down to the kitchen, with only the sound of the grandfather clock ticking to disturb that eerie silence.

  A stark reminder, if Jaxon had needed one, that it was very late at night and he and Stazy were completely alone.

  And if Stazy believed there had been no repercussions for him after having to walk away from her earlier this evening then she was completely mistaken!

  A fifteen-minute cold shower had done absolutely nothing to dampen Jaxon’s arousal. Nor had sitting at the desk in his bathrobe to read through the notes he had already accumulated for the screenplay. Or telephoning his agent in LA and chatting to him about it for ten minutes.

  None of those things had done a damned thing to stop Jaxon’s mind from wandering, time and time again, to thoughts of making love with Stazy in Geoffrey’s study.

  As he was thinking about it still.

  Self-denial wasn’t something Jaxon enjoyed. And walking away from Stazy—not once, but twice in the past two days!—was playing havoc with his self-control!

  The cosy intimacy of the warm kitchen and working together to make tea—Jaxon finding the cups while Stazy filled the kettle with water and switched it on—did nothing to lessen his awareness of her. Not when his gaze wandered to her constantly as the slender elegance of her hands prepared and warmed the teapot and he all too easily imagined the places those hands might touch and caress. The smooth roundness of her bottom in those black fitted denims wasn’t helping either!

  ‘Feeling any better?’ Jaxon prompted gruffly, once he was seated on the other side of the kitchen table from Stazy, two steaming cups of tea in front of them.

  ‘Less hysterical, you mean?’ She grimaced.

  He shook his head. ‘You weren’t hysterical, Stazy, just understandably concerned about your grandfather.’

  ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged with a sigh. ‘Still, I didn’t have to be quite so bitchy about it.’

  ‘You? Bitchy?’ Jaxon gave an exaggerated gasp of disbelief. ‘Never!’ He placed a dramatic hand on his heart.

  She smiled ruefully. ‘You aren’t going to win any awards with that performance!’

  ‘No,’ he acknowledged with a wry chuckle.

  Stazy sobered. ‘Do you think my grandfather is telling us the truth about this threat?’ She looked across at him worriedly. ‘It occurred to me earlier that he could be using it as a smokescreen,’ she continued as Jaxon raised one dark brow. ‘That maybe this screenplay and the making of the film might have brought on another heart attack …?’

  ‘Why am I not surprised!’ Jaxon grimaced ruefully. ‘Do you seriously believe your grandfather would lie to you in that way?’

  ‘If he thought I would worry less, yes,’ she confirmed unhesitantly.

  Unfortunately, so did Jaxon.

  Although he honestly hoped in this instance that wouldn’t turn out to be the case. ‘Then it’s one of those questions where I can’t win, however I choose to answer it. If I say no, I can’t see that happening, then you aren’t going to believe me. And if I say it’s a possibility, you’ll ask me to consider dropping the whole idea.’

  Stazy was rational enough now to be able to see the logic in Jaxon’s reply. ‘Maybe we should just change the subject …?’

  ‘That might be a good idea,’ he drawled ruefully.

  She nodded. ‘As you probably aren’t going to be able to speak to my grandfather about it for several days yet, perhaps you would like to tell me what it is you found earlier and wanted to talk to him about …?’

  Jaxon gave a wince. ‘Another lose/lose question as far as I’m concerned, I’m afraid. And it seems a pity to spoil things when we have reached something of a truce in the last few minutes …’

  ‘It’s probably an armed truce, Jaxon,’ Stazy said dryly. ‘And liable to erupt into shots being exchanged again at any moment!’

  ‘Okay.’ He grimaced. ‘Curiously, what I’ve found is something the reporter who wrote the biography seems to have missed altogether …’

  ‘Hmm …’

  Jaxon raised one dark brow at that sceptical murmur. ‘You don’t think he missed it?’

  ‘What I think,’ Stazy said slowly, ‘is that, whatever you found, my grandfather will have ensured the reporter didn’t find it.’

  ‘You believe Geoffrey has that much power …?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She smiled affectionately.

  Jaxon shook his head. ‘You don’t even know what this is about yet.’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t need to. If my grandfather left some incriminating papers in the library for you to look at then he meant for you to find them.’

  That made Jaxon feel a little better, at least. ‘There were two things, actually, but they’re related.’

  Stazy looked down at her fingertip, running it distractedly around the rim of her cup as she waited for him to continue.

  He sighed. ‘I found your grandparents’ marriage certificate for February 1946.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And your father’s birth certificate for October 1944.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Leaving a discrepancy of sixteen months.’

  ‘Two years or more if you take into account the nine months of pregnancy,’ she corrected ruefully.

  ‘Yes …’

  The tension eased out of Stazy’s shoulders as she smiled across at him. ‘I’m sure that there are always a lot of children born with questionable birth certificates during war years.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Jaxon was literally squirming with discomfort now. ‘But—’

  ‘But my father’s place of birth is listed as Berlin, Germany,’ she finished lightly.

  ‘Yes.’ Jaxon breathed his relief.

  ‘With no name listed under the “Father” column.’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Meaning there’s no way of knowing for certain that Geoffrey was actually his father.’

  ‘I didn’t say that—’

  ‘You didn’t have to.’ Stazy chuckled. ‘It would have looked a little odd, don’t you think, to have the name of an Englishman listed as the father of a baby boy born in Berlin in 1944?’

  ‘Well, yes … But—’

  ‘More tea, Jaxon?’ She stood up to put more hot water into the teapot before coming back to stand with the pot poised over his cup.

  ‘Thanks,’ he accepted distractedly. He had been dreading having to talk to any of the Bromley family about his discovery earlier today, and especially the unpredictable Stazy. Now, instead of being her usual defensive self, she actually seemed to find the whole thing amusing. To the point that he could see laughter gleaming in those expressive green eyes as she refilled his cup before sitting down again. ‘Like to share what’s so amusing …?’

  ‘You are.’ She gave a rueful shake of her head as she resumed her seat. ‘You’re aged in your mid-thirties, Jaxon, a Hollywood A-list act
or and director, and yet you seem scandalised that there might have been babies born out of wedlock seventy years ago!’ She grinned across at him.

  ‘I’m not in the least scandalised—’

  ‘Um … protesting too much, much?’ she teased, in the manner of one of her students.

  Jaxon eyed her frustatedly. ‘These are your grandparents we’re talking about. And your father.’

  ‘Geoffrey and Anastasia never tried to hide from me that my father was actually present and sixteen months old at the time of their wedding,’ she assured him gently. ‘We have the photographs to prove it. Which I can show you tomorrow—later today,’ she corrected, after a glance at the kitchen clock revealed it was now almost two o’clock in the morning. ‘If you would like to see them?’

  ‘I would, yes.’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll look them out in the morning.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Jaxon said slowly. ‘Why didn’t the two of them marry when Anastasia knew she was expecting Geoffrey’s child?’

  ‘They didn’t marry earlier because Anastasia didn’t know she was pregnant when she was dropped behind enemy lines in late February 1944. By the time she realised her condition she had already established her cover as a young Austrian woman, recently widowed and bitterly resentful of the English as a result, and it was too late for her to do anything but remain in Berlin and continue with the mission she had been sent there to complete. She always maintained her pregnancy actually helped to confirm that identity.’

  ‘My God …’ Jaxon fell back against his chair.

  ‘Yes.’ Stazy smiled affectionately. ‘Of course my grandfather, once informed of Anastasia’s condition, ensured that she was ordered out of Berlin immediately.’

  ‘And she refused to leave until she had finished what she went there to do?’ Jaxon guessed.

  Stazy met his gaze unblinkingly. ‘Yes, she did.’

  ‘She went through her pregnancy, gave birth to her son, cared for him, all the while behind enemy lines under a false identity that could have been blown apart at any moment?’

  Her chin tilted. ‘Yes.’