The Things She Says (5 page)

“How many stages are there?” he asked, his voice involuntarily husky.

“Six,” she said and her voice had dipped a couple of notches, too, causing her answer to sound like
sex.
Or maybe that was due to his hormone-laced senses. “Romance isn’t simple.”

What was simple? Not this blazing stage one between them, which had to be leaving scorch marks on her, too, as perceptive as she was. Besides, she might have been serious enough with a guy to be talking marriage, but that didn’t make her experienced.

Then there was the engagement, which had to be real to the public in order to work. He wasn’t sure of Kyla’s angle yet, but if the engagement was designed to throw them back together like he suspected, she’d perceive VJ as competition. No one deserved to be in those crosshairs.

He sighed. The reasons for nipping this thing with VJ in the bud were legion.

Because this situation didn’t suck enough, he’d just transformed VJ into ripe, delicious, forbidden fruit. Cursing, he yanked on the wheel and swerved to avoid a dead armadillo.

Half-blind, he struggled to keep his attention on the road and off VJ.

Stop. Detach. Immediately.

He hated to step on any of her puppies, let alone her fanciful ideas about romance. Unfortunately, it might be the only solution capable of getting his mind out of the gutter.

“This is all fascinating. But I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

* * *

“Who said anything about fairy tales?” VJ countered and wiped damp palms on her jeans stealthily, so Kris remained unaware of how nerves were kicking her butt. “Romance instruction” had grown from a ploy to prove he wasn’t in love with Kyla, which he’d readily admitted, into a death match of wills over something far worse. He didn’t believe in romance. And she was going to change his mind.

“Romance novels are not fairy tales. I’m talking about real life.”

“Whose real life? Yours?”

“Sure. One day.” She shrugged. “That’s why I said no to the proposal. Walt Phillips and romance don’t even speak the same language. It might as well be Greek.”

She winced. Freudian slip. Or something. This conversation was going to kill her one way or another.

With a hint of a smile, Kris peeked over the rim of his sunglasses and said something foreign and sexy. “I’ll translate that for you some other time.”

Her breast still tingled where it had touched his arm and that voice did nothing but heighten it. What was she doing? Was this really about changing his views toward romance or a thinly veiled excuse to get close to him now that she knew his relationship with Kyla was not what it seemed?

The car passed the Van Horn city limit. “Okay, now I’m hungry,” she said, even though she wasn’t. She needed time to regroup. “We can stop here for breakfast.”

Kris pulled into a crowded fast-food place without comment.

He parked the Ferrari among rusted flatbeds, semis and beat-up four-doors, then sped around to her side to help her out of the low seat. Always a gentleman, and jumping jellybeans was that ever attractive. She took his hand, and the contact sparked. “Would you mind ordering? I want to freshen up.”

He nodded and followed her inside, where she fled to the filthy bathroom. The crust on the sink lost her attention when she caught sight of the dark welt under her eye. No wonder he’d freaked. She looked horrific.

Kris didn’t believe in fairy tales because his entire life already was one. She had to believe in them. Otherwise, how could she possibly hold out hope that life might be different than the tragedy she’d escaped?

They ate breakfast in silence, or rather, he ate and she picked at her sausage. The longer they didn’t talk, the tighter the tension stretched, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that watching him do anything with his hands set off a throb low in her belly.

“Can I borrow your phone?” she asked when he stood to collect trash from the table.

“Sure. It’s in the car.”

“Do you mind giving me some privacy?” She jerked her head in the direction of the Ferrari. “I have to let someone know I’m okay. I’ll just be a minute.”

Without a word, he slid his gorgeous body back into the molded chair with grace, which made
not
imagining those long, golden limbs wrapped around hers impossible.

“Let me know when it’s safe,” he said.

She bit back a snort. “You haven’t figured it out yet? You’ll never be safe from me.” Then she spun on a toe and flounced to the car, heart pounding in her throat as she elbowed through the throng of testosterone checking out Kris’s Ferrari.

She should be committed. Romance instruction. Where did she come up with these ideas? The best plan was to focus on getting to Dallas and then, the rest of her life. Kris had no place in the middle of that, even without the nebulous engagement. He was from Hollywood. She wasn’t.

His phone lay in the hollow between their seats.
The
seats.

Nothing in the car belonged to her except her bag. She had to remember that.

After three fumbles with the confusing little pictures crowding the screen of Kris’s phone, she figured out how to play a fishing game, use the timer and search for a restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard. Then she found the section that looked like numbers to dial an honest phone call. Rich people.

She shook her head as Pamela Sue said hello on her end.

“It’s me.”

“VJ. Thank God.” Pamela Sue heaved out a long sigh. “Your daddy’s been here twice, saying you’ve been gone since last night.”

The hot leather burned into her thighs as she shifted to find a more comfortable spot. “I’m okay. I’m on my way to Dallas.”

“Dallas? How’d you get to the bus station? No one’s been near Van Horn—”

“I’m with Kris.”

“
Kris?
Kristian Demetrious? That Kris? Wait. Are you with Kris, or
with
Kris? Hold on, let me sit down.” Bedsprings squeaked in the background. “In case it’s better than I’m imagining.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” VJ hissed and darted a glance through the tinted window to make sure that Kris wasn’t strolling across the concrete toward the car. “It’s not like that. He’s surrounded by beautiful women all the time. He doesn’t have to pick up waitresses along the road.”

“Hey, you were Miss Little Crooked Creek a couple of times. You’re every bit as beautiful as they are,” Pamela Sue insisted. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

She smiled a little at the blind loyalty. Pamela Sue hadn’t seen her face and therefore didn’t realize VJ resembled a raccoon. “I love you, even when you’re lying.”

“Well, I hate you. A lot. How dare you ride off into the sunset with a sexy guy in a sexy car? I’ll never forgive you unless you have a smoking hot affair and spill every last detail.”

“Deal.” She sobered. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? It’s a secret. The media, you know.”

She didn’t think Daddy would come after her all the way to Dallas, but it couldn’t hurt to take precautions.

“Oh, yeah. I do know. The media chases me around all the time.” Pamela Sue cleared her throat. “What happened, VJ? I know you didn’t hop on the first set of testicles to wheel through town. This isn’t like you.”

“Nothing happened. It was time.” She injected a note of levity. “I ran into Kris this morning, and he offered me a ride. How could I refuse? Long way to Dallas. Lots of opportunity to help him forget about those beautiful women he used to know.”

Pamela Sue laughed and a tear slipped down VJ’s cheek. They’d never lied to each other. Never. But neither would she let anyone think of her as a victim, besides Kris, but only because it was too late. Pamela Sue might run straight to Bobby Junior or Tackle, tattling about how VJ had been hit. There was a part of her that wondered if they’d let Daddy slide or take his side out of loyalty. If she lost that battle, what then? She’d rather take the real rescue from her knight in a shining Ferrari.

“You gonna stay with Jenny Porter’s cousin?” Pamela Sue asked.

“Yeah.” Beverly Porter wouldn’t mind if VJ asked to stay on her couch until the condo was finished. The worst thing that could happen is she’d have to pay rent early. Or at least that’s what she kept telling herself.

“Call me when you get to Dallas. Be careful.”

“Yes, ma’am. No talking to strangers.”

“I meant buy a box of condoms.”

A diluted laugh slipped out and was ragged enough to communicate to her best friend what she couldn’t say aloud. “Good bye, Pamela Sue.”

She hung up—or at least she thought she did after punching random pictures on the slick screen—and went to retrieve her Greek god.

When she rushed back into the main dining room, Kris was staring at the flaking wall, chiseled lips pursed and troubled, fingers drumming the table.

“Ready?” he said, and unfolded his frame from the chair-table combination bolted to the floor.

Something was off in his rigid stance. An invisible layer drenched with stress. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m ready to go. After you.” His granite expression didn’t waver, reminding her of inaccessible Kristian Demetrious from the diner when he’d faced down her brothers.

This time, that look was directed at her. Their interaction was a lot of things, most of it too difficult to pin down, but she couldn’t stand for
strained
to be on the list. The foreign engine in his mind had begun to reveal its secrets, and she wanted to take it apart to see what made it tick.

She let it drop until they’d both slid into their seats and he hit the button to start the engine. Over the hefty roar, she said, “If you want to talk, I’d be happy to listen.”

“I said there’s nothing wrong.”

“No,” she said. “You said you were ready to go, as if to imply you were impatiently waiting for me. You’re restless, not impatient.”

His expression relaxed. “I’ve got a lot of things on my mind.”

“Of course you do.” Impulsively, she threaded his golden fingers through hers. After a not-so-quick squeeze, she let go. “Being responsible for an entire movie must be a heavy burden.”

His forehead scrunched. “It is. Most people don’t get that. But I don’t think of it that way.”

“How do you think about it?”

As they sat in the parked car, the air conditioner blasted to life, jetting dark strands of hair off his cheekbones. “Blank canvas. I have this story in my head and a million frames to capture it. Until the final cut, it can turn into anything I choose. There’s a lot of power in committing my vision to permanency. And a lot of nail-biting because I’m opening it to be interpreted through someone else’s lens.”

The tension had almost totally drained away. “What’s the first step when you start a film? Wait.” Before her burst of daring fled, she reached over and slipped off his sunglasses. “Now talk. Your eyes do this thing when you’re passionate about the subject, and I want to see it.”

He swiveled his head to capture her gaze, and her diaphragm seized so hard, she went light-headed. A baptism of liquid fire washed over her skin as his hard brown eyes roamed across her face.

“What do they do?” he asked and she would have sworn he didn’t move, but suddenly, they were a breath apart. About to kiss.

“What does what do?” she whispered, afraid to shift, afraid to exhale, afraid to think.

“My eyes. When I’m talking about a film. What happens?”

“Oh. Um.” Simple language escaped her. All she could concentrate on was the fiery, clamping need twisting through her abdomen. She ached to lean into the space between them, to lose all sense of time in the raw pressure of his lips on hers.

That mystical connection beckoned, laden with promise.

A car horn startled her and she jerked. Backward, not forward, breaking her gaze. She scrambled to pick up the threads of conversation. “Um, they light up. Your skin holds everything inside but the passion builds and builds and the only place it can escape is through your eyes.”

He shifted smoothly, drove out of the parking lot and merged onto the freeway. Obviously unaffected. She’d overreacted to the almost kiss. That, or he spent his day fending off forward women and took it in stride.

His face implacable now, he said, “You have an active imagination. I approach film as an art, but it’s also critical to stay detached. Too much emotional investment leads to sloppy structure.”

“Nice try. But you can’t will it away, Lord Ravenwood.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Lord Ravenwood,” she said with an airy wave. “He’s the duke in
Embrace the Rogue,
the finest book about romance ever written. He hides from his emotions, too.”

“Really.” Sarcasm oozed from his clipped response. “That’s what you think I do? Hide?”

“Yeah. I bought your line about not believing in fairy tales, but I see now that it’s not true. That’s not your actual problem.” The angel on her shoulder screamed at her to shut up. This couldn’t lead to anything other than disappointment and grief when he went back to Hollywood. But he was lying to himself. She couldn’t sit idly by while he coasted through life, completely isolated, when it was obvious he yearned to cross that chasm with the gas pedal to the floorboard.

“Since you’ve got me all figured out, what’s my actual problem?”

This amazingly sensual man seemed content with a bloodless Hollywood-style engagement to someone he didn’t love, and, if she’d correctly interpreted his careful response, had no intention of marrying—all to secure the right backers for his film.

He needed to be shown what a mistake he was about to make. He needed VJ to set him free from his self-imposed prison. If he’d given any indication of having a real relationship with Kyla, she’d have backed off. But he’d done the exact opposite. Deliberately, she was convinced.

“You want desperately to believe. You’re just too afraid.”

The devil on her other shoulder whispered,
Time for stage three.

Five

P
erfect. Instead of carefully steering around VJ’s fanciful ideas, he’d driven her to psychoanalyze him. Incorrectly.

Kris laughed, but it sounded hollow. “I’m not afraid of fiction. That’s why I’m a filmmaker, to create fictional worlds. But fiction is not reality. Real life’s tough. You get knocked down a lot and each time, it’s harder to pick yourself up.”

The dark shadow across VJ’s cheek taunted him from his peripheral vision. Of course she knew the realities of life and didn’t need to be preached to about them.

VJ was a rare woman, determined to reach for her destiny instead of waiting around for it to find her. He admired that.

And, she’d easily pulled him out of his bout of brooding. Some of Kyla’s best off-screen performances included temper tantrums about his moods. VJ was a force to be reckoned with.

“You’re absolutely right,” she said. “Do you think we’ll reach Dallas by dinnertime?”

“Why? You got a hot date?”

She meticulously inspected the rocky terrain out the passenger window. “You asking?”

“No,” he said in a rush. He cleared his throat. “Maybe we’ll grab dinner.”

The truth was he liked her company. He liked the spike through the gut when her sizzling gaze caught him just right. She saw things, stuff no one else saw. Dangerous, all the way around, and he liked that, too.

It was a miracle he’d kept his hands off her this long, but he had to. And they still had a long, long way to go.

“Drive slower and we’ll be having dinner together by default,” she suggested, then threw in, “Maybe breakfast, too.” Since his blood pressure hadn’t climbed high enough already.

Visions of a cozy, roadside motel spun through his head, where a convenient convention had booked all the rooms but one and they had no choice but to take the room with the solitary bed. Then... He groaned. Well, he’d been accused of a lot of things, but lack of imagination wasn’t one of them. Lack of interest, yeah. Lack of attachment, definitely. Lack of emotion, without fail.

Before registering the impulse to do so, he’d backed off the accelerator. “I’m not in that big of a hurry.”

“At that rate, you’ll be driving backward before too long. I have a better idea. Take the next exit.” She nodded at the green sign for a town called Lively.

Curious now, he gunned the Ferrari down the ramp and followed her directions to the center of town. Such as it was. The rustic buildings, peeling paint and layer of dust were markedly similar to the rut in the desert VJ called home.

At the end of Main Street, she pointed left and he turned into the middle of a traveling carnival set up in the parking lot of the local grocery store. Flashing lights on the large Ferris wheel winked in the midmorning sun and music piped from hidden speakers. Cheerfully painted booths promising big prizes lined the parking lot.

A carnival. Really.

“It’ll be fun, I promise.” VJ grinned mischievously. “And, it’s the ideal place for you to learn about stage three.”

“Romance instruction at a carnival?” He slid out of the car and went around.

He’d been praying romance instruction had been forgotten because he had a sneaking suspicion about the direction it was headed, and stomping caution flat seemed like the opposite of a good idea.

“Yes, definitely,” she said as he took her hand to help her out of the car.

He followed her to the nearest blood-red ticket booth and fished out his wallet to hand over enough cash to last for hours. Or at least long enough to find out what stage three was. Whichever came first.

Kris ushered VJ into the den of iniquity she’d chosen as the means to educate him on the fine points of romance. Or was it love? With VJ, it seemed they were one and the same.

“We’ve beaten the crowd,” Kris commented as they strolled the deserted midway. VJ’s gaze flitted everywhere at once and he smiled, oddly charmed. The awe on her face was worth the price of admission. “Are you in the mood for rides or games?”

“The Scrambler.”

This obviously wasn’t her first carnival. “Which one is that?”

She pointed. At the other end of the midway, the ride spun drunkenly, a smudge of red, green and yellow against the backdrop of mountains and sky. Wonderful. One of those toss-your-cookies-at-the-end rides. She sauntered off and he hurried to catch up.

She was being unusually closemouthed. His curiosity was killing him. What was stage three?

In anticipation of her explanation, his senses honed in on the smallest detail. The swish of her jeans as she walked, thigh against thigh. The precise point at which the T-shirt dipped against the creamy hollow of her throat. He was getting a headache from sidelong glances at the riot of colors corkscrewing through her curls from crown to tip. Some auburn, thin blond streaks and that warm cinnamon. He wanted to slide a strand against his palm—to test the temperature.

His fingers clenched into a fist against his leg.

Her hand accidentally bumped his and the spot on his knuckle where they’d touched turned immediately sensitive. Her heat was blatant, easy to sort from the radiating concrete, but not easy to dismiss.

He was obsessing over the way VJ walked. What was wrong with him? He’d spent less time setting up a camera to shoot a Dutch angle.

An agonizingly silent eternity later, he followed her into the Scrambler’s empty queue. They threaded through the turns and at the bend of one, he misjudged her speed. The collision of his chest with her back triggered a shock. He got a whiff of coconut from her hair and blood shot straight to his groin.

Torture. That must be stage three. There was no other explanation.

A grizzled ride operator took the tickets from Kris’s hand and lifted the bar on the closest car. Kris climbed in. VJ wedged in next to him, ignoring the four feet of seat on her other side. The operator slammed the bar into place, and as they were the only thrill-seekers around, shuffled off to the control box.

“Put your arm around me,” VJ said, and nudged him when he didn’t immediately comply. “I mean it. The centrifugal force on this thing is going to hurt if you don’t.”

Physics. That was a new angle. He secured his sunglasses, slung an arm around her shoulders, and she snuggled up against him, curving into his body naturally. Of course, because it fit well with the torture theme playing out under the guise of teaching him about romance.

Gears ground, tinny, harpsichord music bleated through the air, and the ride started spinning. As it gained momentum, VJ pressed closer and closer until he couldn’t have shoved her away with both hands, mostly because one was occupied with hanging on and the other had snaked into place against VJ’s stomach, which filled his palm nicely. He thoroughly enjoyed it.

As he guessed was the intent.

Most of his blood kept his jeans uncomfortably tight, but some of it still circulated in his brain. Enough to be suspicious of the convenient ride choice.

Eventually, the ride slowed but his head kept going. The ride operator unlocked the safety bar, and Kris tried to stand, but his legs buckled. VJ was having trouble with watery legs, too, so he left his arm around her—to keep them both off the ground, no other reason. They staggered for the exit.

She led him to a couple of other rides in the same vein but he couldn’t have named them at gunpoint. He was too busy inventing ways to continue innocently touching her. Taking her hand to help her into a ride. Brushing hair off her shoulder so it wouldn’t get in her eyes when the speed increased. Buying a tub of buttery popcorn and reaching into it at the same moment she did.

It was challenging to keep rationalizing it as carnival fun, but she’d started it and he ached to finish it.

“Next up?” he asked. “Funnel cakes maybe?”

“Ferris wheel,” she said decisively.

Abandoning pretense, he laced his fingers with hers and they ambled toward the Ferris wheel. She pretended not to notice they were holding hands, as if they’d done this a thousand times, but there was no way she could ignore the sizzle of awareness melding with the sun’s heat. Thirst lashed the back of his throat, and the crevice between his shoulder blades beaded with sweat and frustration.

He was human and a guy. He needed water and VJ naked. Not necessarily in that order. Or separately. And he couldn’t have the one he really wanted. Which sucked.

The Ferris wheel car swung dizzily as they settled into it, or maybe his head was spinning with images of undressing VJ, slowly revealing those perfect breasts. Once the bar was secured, she turned and searched his face. Her eyes matched the summer sky, and it was the perfect shot. When was the last time he’d even thought about filming her? Forever ago, before the torture began. Before she’d dragged him under the hot spotlight of her gaze.

“So stage three.” Her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. “Touching.”

She trailed fingers along his arm, igniting landmines. The tips of her nails disappeared under his sleeve, just the tips, but it was so much sexier than if she’d gone straight for his zipper. The wheel turned, and he couldn’t tear his eyes from hers.

“Touching,” she repeated, her voice low. “Accidentally at first. Then you do it deliberately, because you can’t unring that bell. Once you’ve got the imprint of her on your fingertips, it’s like an addiction. You can’t stop. You’re thinking about the next hit before the current one’s even faded.”

Yeah, like imagining her forbidden fruit bared before him, his mouth open and all but salivating to taste her. He shut his eyes until the throb in his gut lessened enough to hopefully avoid an embarrassing accident.

“That’s stage three. How’m I doing?”

His lids flew open. “Not bad. I wasn’t expecting a demonstration along with the commentary.”

Not bad?
VJ was an evil genius.

“Demonstration?” she questioned primly. “I’m just having fun. Aren’t you?”

“Oh, yeah, loads. This is the most fun I’ve had in ages.” Actually, he was having fun in a perverse way. Nothing was going to happen with VJ—nothing he couldn’t handle anyway.

They stopped at the zenith of the Ferris wheel. The vista was stunning—mountains, heat shimmers, vast blue...and VJ. Without thinking, he said, “Here’s a romantic proposal spot.”

She glared at him. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Not at all.” Since their earlier conversation, the perfect proposal had been brewing in the back of his mind. He’d directed one in his third movie, and the scene had been flat. Faulty acting, he’d assumed. “But seriously. No guy spends more than five minutes on how to propose. She’s going to say yes or no regardless of how you ask, right?”

“Do you practice being that cynical or does it come naturally?”

“Both. Come on.” He nudged her with his elbow. “You know I’m right. If you were really, really in love with a guy and he got down on one knee in your living room after dinner, would you refuse because he asked without fanfare?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been really, really in love. Have you?” she asked, arms crossed and a defiant sparkle flushing her cheeks. God, she was beautiful.

“Hold on. You’ve never been in love but you’re presuming to teach me about it?”

“Wow. The master of deflection, that’s you. I’m not presuming to teach you anything. I
am
teaching you.” She nodded to his hand, which rested unobtrusively, comfortably, on her knee. “Wasn’t your last movie called
Twilight Murders?
”

“So?”

“How many murders have you committed, Mr. Big Shot Director?”

The grin cracked before he could check it. “You’re amazing. Will you have my children?”

Frozen, she stared at him. “Do you take any of this seriously or am I wasting my time?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged and set the car in motion. “What are you trying to accomplish? We blew past simple education a long time ago. What’s the real goal here?”

She inspected the chipped paint on the safety bar, flicking off a small bit before answering. “To prove you suppress your passionate side.”

He laughed. “You’re going to fail miserably at that before you even start. You’ve got me cast in your head as the real-world equivalent of your Duke Whoeverwood, but I’m just Kris. A guy who wants to make movies.”

The catch in his throat shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t have the urge to tell her she was right, or how so much of his soul ended up on the screen because it was the only place he could express himself without fear of turning into something monstrous. Like his father. “What you see is what you get. I’m not hiding or suppressing anything.”

“You’ve got so much pent-up, seething passion inside, you can barely sit still.”

“That’s the sway of gravity against this monstrous Ferris wheel, babe.” He crossed his arms to keep his hands where they belonged—off her.

Her teeth gleamed when she bared them. “And I disagree. Strongly.”

Man, she pushed his buttons. Every single one. What was he supposed to do with her? What
could
he do?

Nothing.

The film was too important to jeopardize over an alluring mirage, no matter how concrete she became.

Her eyelids drifted closed and then opened in a slow blink. Instantly, the atmosphere turned sensual. She studied him, an allover perusal loaded with hot appreciation. “This shirt is soaked.”

She bunched the cotton up between her breasts, baring her midriff, and with the other hand, fanned her face. That swatch of glistening skin below her shirt drew his eye magnetically. The tiniest sliver of the underside of her breast peeked out from the cotton.

He hardened in an instant. Did she have a clue what she was doing?

“Seems like we’ve been stuck here for an hour,” he said hoarsely in an attempt to dial down the heat. “Wonder why we’re not moving?”

“I paid the operator to take a break once we got to the top,” she said. “You didn’t notice. It’ll be a while till we’re on the ground. So here we are, me and you. And no prying eyes.”

“Why’d you do that?”

She pierced him again with her know-all, see-all gaze. “The view.”

“You’re not even looking at it.”

“Yeah, Kristian, I am.”

His name rolled off her tongue like molasses-coated barbed wire. Except for the media, nobody called him Kristian. And nobody ever would again, not like that. He yearned to sink into her and never come up for air.