to the stars, knowing it was the first time in months she'd fully relaxed on a date and not wanting to analyze why. Parks didn't find it necessary to break a comfortable silence with conversation, nor had he found it necessary to slip in those predictable hints about how he'd like to end the evening. She knew there wouldn't be a wrestling match on the side of the road or an embarrassing, infuriating argument when they reached the front door. He was safe, Brooke decided, and closed her eyes. It seemed things were going to work very well after all. Her thoughts began to drift toward her schedule for the next day. The motion of the car woke her, or rather the lack of motion. Brooke opened her eyes to find the MG parked in her drive, the engine quiet. Turning her head, she saw Parks sprawled in his seat, watching her.
'You drive very well,' she murmured. 'I don't usually trust anyone enough to fall asleep in a car.' He'd enjoyed the moments of quiet while he'd watched her sleep. Her skin looked ethereal in the moonlight, ghostly pale with a hint of flush in her cheeks. The wind had tossed her hair so that Parks knew how it would look spread on a pillow after a wild night of loving. Sooner or later he'd see it that way, he determined. After his hands had tangled it. 'This time you're staring,' Brooke pointed out.
And he smiled-not the quick grin she'd come to expect, but a slow, unsettling smile that left his eyes dark and dangerous. 'I guess we'll both have to get used to it.'
Leaning over, he opened her door. Brooke didn't stiffen or shift away from the brush of his body against hers; she simply watched. As if, Parks mused, she were considering his words very carefully. Good, he thought as he stepped from the car. This time she'd have something to think about.
'I like this place.' He didn't touch her as they walked up the path to her house, though Brooke had expected him to take her hand or her arm. 'I had a house in Malibu once.'
'Not anymore?'
'Got too crowded.' He shrugged as they walked up the porch steps. Their footsteps echoed into the night. 'If I'm going to live out of the city, I want a place where I'm not forever stumbling over my neighbor.' 'I don't have that problem here.' Around them the woods were dark and quiet. There was only the bubbling sound of the stream and the music of tireless crickets. 'There's a couple who live about a quarter mile that way.' Brooke gestured to the east. 'Newly weds who met on a television series that folded.' Leaning back against the door, she smiled. 'We don't have any trouble keeping out of each other's way.' She sighed, comfortably sleepy and relaxed. 'Thanks for dinner.' When she offered her hand, she wondered if he would take it or ignore it and kiss her.
Brooke expected the latter, even wondered with a drowsy curiosity what the pressure of his lips on hers would be like.
Parks knew what she expected, and her lips, as they had from the first, tempted him. But he thought it was time this woman had something unexpected. Taking her hand, Parks leaned toward her. He saw from her eyes that she would accept his kiss with her own sultry reserve. Instead, he touched his lips to her cheek.
At the brush of his open mouth on her skin, Brooke's fingers tightened in his. Usually she viewed a kiss or embrace distantly, as from behind a camera, wondering dispassionately how it would appear on film. Now she saw nothing, but felt. Low, turbulent waves of sensation swept through her, making her tense. Something seemed to ripple along her skin, though he never touched her-just his hand over hers, just his lips on her cheek.
Slowly, watching her stunned eyes, Parks journeyed to her other cheek, moving his lips with the same feather-lightness. Brooke felt the waves rise until there was an echoing in her head. She heard a soft moan, unaware that it was her own. As hunger swept over her, Brooke turned her mouth toward his, but he glided up her skin, whispering over her eyelids so that they fluttered down. Drugged, she allowed him to roam over her face, leaving her lips trembling with anticipation, and unfulfilled. She tasted his breath on them, felt the warm flutter as they passed close, but his mouth dropped to her chin to give her a teasing touch of his tongue.
Her fingers went limp in his. Surrender was unknown to her, so she didn't recognize it. Parks did as he caught the lobe of her ear between his teeth. His body was throbbing, aching to press against hers and feel the yielding softness that came only from woman.
Against his cheek, her hair was as silky as her skin, and as fragrant. It took every ounce of control to prevent his hands from diving into it, to keep himself from plundering the mouth that waited, warm and naked, for his. He traced her ear with his tongue and felt her shudder. Slowly, he brushed kisses up her temple and over her brow on his way to her other ear. He nibbled gently, letting his tongue slide over her skin until he heard her moan again.
Still he avoided her mouth, pressing his lips to the pulse in her throat, fighting the urge to move lower, to feel, to taste the subtle sweep of her breast beneath the black silk. Her pulse was jerky, like the sound of her breathing. High up in the mountains, a coyote called to the moon.
A dizzying excitement raced through him. He could have her now-feel that long, willowy body beneath his, tangle himself in that wild mane of hair. But he wouldn't have all of her. He needed more time for that.
'Parks.' His name came throatily through her lips, arousing him further. 'Kiss me.'
Gently, he pressed his lips to her shoulder. 'I am.' Her mouth felt as though it were on fire. She had thought she understood hunger, having felt it too often in the past. But she'd never known a hunger like this. 'Really kiss me.'
He drew away far enough to see her eyes. There was no light in them now; they were opaque with desire. Her lips were parted in invitation, her breath shuddering through them. He bent close, but kept his lips an aching whisper from hers. 'Next time,' he said softly.
Turning, he left her stunned and wanting.
Chapter 3
“Okay, Linda, try to look like you're enjoying this.' Brooke cast a look at her lighting director and got a nod. 'E.J., sweep up, starting at her toes-take your time on the legs.'
E.J. gave her a blinding white grin from his smooth mahogany face. 'My pleasure,' he said affably and focused his camera on the actress's pink painted toenails. 'It's so hot,' Linda complained, fussing with the strap of her tiny bikini. She was stretched out on a towel in the satKl-long, blond and beautiful, with a rich golden tan that would hawk a popular suntan lotion. All Linda had to do was to look lush and lazy and purr that she had an Eden tan. The bikini would do the rest.
'Don't sweat,' Brooke ordered. 'You're supposed to be glowing, not wet. When we roll, count to six, then bring up your right knee-slow. At twelve, take a deep breath, pass your right hand through your hair. Say your line looking straight at the camera and think sex.'
'The hell with sex, I'm roasting.'
'Then let's get it in one take. All right. Speed. Roll film, and…action.'
E.J. moved up from the manicured toenails, up the long, slender legs, over a rounded hip, golden midriff and barely confined bosom. He closed in on Linda's face-sulky mouth, pearly teeth and baby blues-then went back for a full shot.
'I've got an Eden tan,' Linda claimed.
'Cut.' Brooke swiped a hand over her brow.
Though it was still morning, the beach was baking. She thought she could feel the sand burning through the soles of her sneakers. 'Let's pump a little life into it,' she suggested. 'We've got to sell this stuff on one line and your body.'
'Why don't you try it?' Linda demanded, falling onto her back.
'Because you're getting paid to and I'm not,' Brooke snapped, then clicked her teeth together. She knew better than to lose her temper, especially with this one. The trouble was that since her evening with Parks, she'd been on a perpetual short fuse. Taking a deep breath, Brooke reminded herself that her personal life, if that's what Parks Jones was, couldn't interfere with her work. She walked over and crouched beside the pouting model. 'Linda, I know it's miserable out here today, but a job's a job. You're a pro or you wouldn't be here.'
'Do you know how hard I worked on this tan to get this lousy thirty-second spot?' Brooke patted her shoulder, conveying sympathy, understanding and authority all at once. 'Well then, let's make it a classic.'
It was past noon before they were able to load up their equipment. E.J. reached in the back of the station wagon he used and pulled two iced drinks out of a chest cooler. 'Here ya go, boss.'
