LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

coiling her fingers slowly around his dick, one by one.

      Vio groaned. Then, with every last fibre of his willpower, he removed her hand, pulling it back up to his mouth and kissing it. ‘We can’t.’

      Sabrina looked at him, surprised. ‘What do you mean? Sure we can.’

      Vio sat up and ran a hand through his hair. He frowned, annoyed at himself. ‘No. We can’t. I can’t.’ He shook his head, like a dog drying itself off after a swim, as if he could somehow physically ‘shake off’ his desire for her.

      Sabrina pouted. ‘You don’t want me?’

      ‘Of course I do,’ said Vio truthfully. ‘You’re so fucking sexy it hurts.’

      Mollified slightly, Sabrina gave him a quizzical look. ‘So what’s the problem?’

      ‘You’re my co-star,’ said Vio. ‘I never get intimate with co-stars. Not till after we wrap, anyway. It’s a policy.’

      ‘You’re kidding?’ Sabrina looked astonished. She tried to think if she’d ever had a co-star she hadn’t fucked. No one came to mind. ‘Why on earth not?’

      Viorel shrugged. ‘It’s distracting. It affects the dynamic on camera.’

      ‘But we’re lovers on camera,’ said Sabrina. ‘Shouldn’t that help?’

      ‘Frustrated lovers,’ Vio corrected. ‘Unrequited lovers. Heathcliff sleeps with Isabella, remember? Not Cathy.’

      ‘Oh. So you’d rather fuck Lizzie, you mean?’

      Vio shuddered. ‘No. Good God no. Look, it’s not just the professional thing. You know as well as I do, on-set romances can get complicated. Someone always ends up wanting more.’

      ‘Not me,’ said Sabrina, truthfully.

      ‘I’m not good at monogamy, even in short bursts.’

      ‘Perfect. Me neither.’

      Vio hesitated. He didn’t doubt that sex with Sabrina would be fantastic. Certainly, there was no one else at Loxley he had the remotest interest in sleeping with, other than Tish Crewe, whom he wasn’t allowed near. None of the make-up or prop girls were even vaguely attractive; the one camera girl, Deborah, looked like a librarian and Lizzie Bayer was borderline retarded. But he knew that the instant they slept together, his relationship with Sabrina would change irrevocably. Whatever she said now, she would end up wanting more from him than he knew how to give. Women always wanted more. It was embedded in their DNA.

      ‘I should get back to bed.’

      Sabrina hesitated. She had zero experience of sexual rejection. What did one do in these situations? On the one hand it was agonizingly frustrating to have to sleep alone tonight. But on the other hand, the prospect of a challenge was novel and exciting. Viorel Hudson had thrown down the gauntlet. Policy, indeed! She would seduce him eventually, of that she had no doubt. And how satisfying it would be when she finally got to watch that vaunted willpower of his crumble.

      ‘Fine.’ She smiled sweetly, unhooking her bra and letting it fall into her lap, cupping her magnificent breasts admiringly, as if she’d never seen them before. ‘I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow then. Be a darling and turn the light off on your way out, would you?’

      It was all Vio could do not to whimper. He walked to the door and turned off the light.

      ‘Goodnight, Miss Leon.’

      ‘Goodnight, Mr Hudson,’ Sabrina whispered. ‘Sweet dreams.’

      CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      Chrissie Rasmirez stretched out her lithe legs on the sun-lounger and sighed contentedly, glancing around for the handsome waiter she’d seen earlier. She was at the rooftop pool of the chic SLS Hotel in downtown Beverly Hills. It was almost noon, the June sun was blazing down, scorching its way through Chrissie’s Lancaster factor-30 sun cream and, just as soon as she got her second vodka lime and soda, all would be right with the world.

      She’d flown out to LA two days ago to spend five gloriously childfree days in town, shopping, catching up with friends, and of course doing her bit for charity. Linda, a girlfriend from Rumors days, had invited Chrissie to the Starlight Ball, an impossibly ritzy fundraiser and the closest thing that Beverly Hills’ ladies-who-lunch got to the Oscars.

      ‘The economy’s so bad, our ticket sales are way down this year,’ Linda complained to Chrissie over the phone last week. ‘We need you, honey.’ At the time, Chrissie had been elbow-deep in playdough, helping Saskia make yet another princess castle for her collection of plastic dogs, and quietly losing the will to live. It was a hundred degrees in Bihor, with a hundred per cent humidity, but of course Chrissie wasn’t allowed to sell off any of their mountains of antique silverware to pay for air-conditioning.

      ‘It’s not ours to sell,’ Dorian repeated for the umpteenth time on one of his rare calls from his movie set in England. ‘And, even if it were, they wouldn’t let us install air-con, not in a historic building like ours.’

      What was the point of living like a queen when you spent your days cooped up in a stifling playroom, sweating like a pig? Especially when one’s friends on the other side of the world ‘needed’ one, and for such a worthy cause too.

      Linda had offered Chrissie a room in her ‘little guesthouse,’ actually a mini-Versailles at the southern end of her palatial estate off Benedict Canyon, but Chrissie preferred to stay at a hotel. It gave her more freedom, plus she didn’t want anyone to think she was in need of Linda’s charity. (After a few short years of acting, Linda Greaves had married well and divorced even better, retiring into alimony-funded luxury at the grand old age of thirty-four. She was generous with her money, in the manner of people who have never had to earn it, but she did enjoy lording it over her less fortunate friends; those scraping by on their last few million, like Chrissie.)

      A shadow fell across Chrissie’s sun-lounger. ‘Can I help you, ma’am? Is there anything you need?’ The exquisite specimen who’d waited on her earlier was back, biceps bulging through his dark blue linen shirt, perfectly straight teeth gleaming, blinding white against the mocha tan of his skin. Chrissie put him in his late twenties, and a classic ‘strug’. (Strug was short for ‘struggling actor’ and was the term used to describe all the film-star handsome staff in LA’s upscale hotels.)

      ‘I’d love another drink, please.’ She uncrossed then recrossed her legs in as inviting a manner as possible, sucking in her nonexistent stomach.

      ‘Of course,’ he smiled. ‘And is that all?’

      Chrissie looked him up and down, like a farmer considering a fattened calf for slaughter. ‘For now.’

      It was almost a month since Dorian had left for England, and longer than that since he and Chrissie had had sex. She had been so angry with him the last time he’d deigned to come home, she’d refused to share his bed. Under normal circumstances, she’d have distracted herself while he was away with one of the boys who worked in the grounds, or even a kid from the village. But ever since he’d caught her with Alexandru, Dorian had become crafty. She knew he had staff watching her, spying on her. Between the beady, resentful eyes of the servants following her everywhere, and Saskia’s ceaseless demands for attention – despite three full-time nannies, the little girl constantly moaned for her mommy – Chrissie had begun to feel more like a prisoner than ever. Linda’s phone call was like someone throwing a rope ladder into her tower. Chrissie had grabbed the chance to escape with both hands.

      Needless to say, Dorian had bitched about it.

      ‘The Starlight Ball? Isn’t that, like, ten thousand bucks a ticket?’

      ‘Fifteen,’ Chrissie deadpanned. ‘So what? It’s for a good cause.’

      Not as good a cause as our bank balance, thought Dorian. He also doubted very much whether Chrissie knew what cause the ball was raising money for. But he let it go.

      ‘If

Скачать книгу