Loveplay. Diana Palmer

that how I sound? Like a snob?” he asked softly.

      She glanced at him while she filled the pot and set it on the stove to boil. She got down the cracked mugs. “You were never a snob, Cul.”

      “I hope not.” He pulled out one of the chairs and straddled it. He looked devastating, his blond hair gleaming in the overhead light, his eyes almost transparent in his dark, rugged face. “I was born to money, but I like to think I’ve never looked down on people without it. My circumstances were an accident. I could as easily have been born poor.”

      She’d forgotten until then about his background. One of his ancestors had been an English duke, and he had titled relatives. That straight, proud nose would have graced a family portrait, she thought, studying it.

      The man who sang off-key had just started his nightly accompaniment to an opera recording, and Cul sat up straighter.

      “Verdi?” he queried, frowning.

      “Amazing that you recognized it.” She laughed. “He has a lot of enthusiasm, for a man who can’t sing. I’ve gotten quite used to hearing him.”

      “He probably dreams at night about a career with the Met,” he murmured, not unkindly. “Not a lot of us get to fulfill our dreams,” he added, and his eyes were brooding.

      “What did you want to do that you haven’t?” she asked as she poured the coffee. “You’ve made a name for yourself as a writer and a director, you have a play being made into a movie…. You’ve done it all.”

      “Have I?” He took the cup from her and watched her drop into a chair. “Not quite, Bett. There was one thing I wanted desperately that I never had.”

      “What?” she murmured absently.

      “You, in bed with me,” he said softly. His eyes wandered slowly over her face and what he could see of her body. “I wanted you to the point of obsession.”

      She felt the old hurt come back, full force. “How interesting. Was that before or after you humiliated me in front of the entire cast?”

      He caught his breath at the ice in the calm little question. “Yes, I thought you were still bitter about it. I can hardly blame you. But at the time, it seemed the only way out.” His eyes held hers, and there was faint regret in their green depths. “You were in love with me. Too much in love. I had nothing to give you, except a few kisses in the moonlight or, at best, a brief affair. I had to break if off.”

      “You might have just told me,” she returned.

      “You’re a bulldog, Bett,” he replied with a faint smile. “It wouldn’t have worked. It had to be something drastic.” He shrugged. “Gloria was willing and handy. I knew your pride would save you.”

      She laughed curtly. “Oh, yes, it sent me running for New York. Or hadn’t you considered what the cast would do to me afterward?”

      The smile left his face. “What do you mean?”

      “Your `girlfriend’ made a huge joke about my hanging like an albatross around your neck. She made me the laughing stock of the entire company.” Her eyes darkened with remembered pain. “I finally left because of it.”

      He drew in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t consider that.”

      “No, why should you? I was handy, and you needed someone to amuse yourself with, wasn’t that it?”

      His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “No. Walking away from you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”

      “Were you so fond of juvenile adulation?” she asked with a laugh.

      “It was more.” He finished his coffee. “I’m a single, not a double, Bett. I’ll live alone all my life, except for the occasional diversion. But not you.” He watched her quietly. “Someday you’ll marry and have those kids you used to dream about having. Three, wasn’t it?”

      Something odd in his voice touched her and she frowned. But before she could question it, he checked his watch and rose. “We’d better get some rest. Rehearsals are grueling, aren’t they darling? Thanks for the coffee.”

      “Any time,” she said lightly, showing him to the door.

      He turned unexpectedly, and framed her face in his hands, watching it like some tawny cat. “You’re as beautiful now as you were then, Bett,” he said quietly, and his eyes were hungry. “Hair like wild honey… I used to dream of seeing it fanned out across my pillow.”

      Her lips parted under her roughened breath. It wasn’t fair that he could still affect her this way. She felt the warmth of his big body and wanted to feel it against hers, wanted to drag that hard mouth down over her own and taste him just once again.

      “That’s something you’ll never see,” she managed tautly.

      “Challenging me?” He drew her chin up and bent his head, opening his mouth just as it made brief, shocking contact with her own. “I don’t have any more noble sentiments to protect you, Elisabet,” he whispered. “Because you’re not a virgin anymore. And frankly, darling, you’d be a pushover.”

      Even as he spoke, he was folding her into the curve of his body. His mouth opened hers, biting at it in the old remembered way, his own wild prelude to the deep, hot kisses he liked. Her fingers went to his chest to push, but lingered on the soft silk of his shirt under the sweater he was wearing. He had a mat of hair just over his breastbone. That one time in the park when they’d almost gone all the way, she’d felt it tickling her breasts just before it had crushed her into the soft grass.

      “Cul,” she moaned, and all at once her hands went up to hold him, her body arching into his.

      He whispered something into her mouth, and his arms half lifted her against him while his tongue penetrated the soft dark recesses and made the teasing kiss into a declaration of possession.

      She clung, moaning, drowning in the sensations, totally yielding. She was eighteen again, and Cul was her man, and she loved him, loved him, loved him….

      He put her down abruptly, his eyes flashing. “No,” he said on a harsh laugh. “Oh, no, little redhead, not again. I’m not going through it twice. Practice your witchcraft on Hadison, but keep your spells off me.”

      He turned, slamming out the door. She stared at it for a long time before she went back to put the cups in the sink. She lifted his, studying it with eyes gone soft and sad with love. Impulsively she brought it to her lips and kissed the place where his had been. There were tears in her eyes as she washed it.

      If she’d hoped that Cul might soften, even a little, after that wild kiss, she was disappointed. He was as cold as winter stone with her the next day, tossing instructions around like bullets. Once she paused just a second too long before lines, and he went through the ceiling. It didn’t help that she started getting involuntary stares from the rest of the cast. She was being ridden deliberately, and they knew it.

      “What have you done to him now, darling?” David teased at the lunch break as she started out the door with her brown bag in hand.

      “Still breathing,” she told him with a smile. “Never mind, we’re old enemies.”

      “Are you really?” he asked, his eyes openly curious.

      She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’m off to the park for lunch. See you.”

      “Want some company?” he asked hopefully.

      She shook her head. “Thanks, but I need to be alone for a little while.”

      He stared after her quietly, his dark eyes wistful and sad. She felt that long gaze, and almost turned around to invite him along. But what David was looking for, she couldn’t offer. She had nothing to give him, not even half a heart. Everything she was belonged to Cul, whether he wanted her or not.

      She sat down on a