Page 27 of Blood Stone

“I hear Clint Eastwood’s sets are a laugh a minute, but he’s a freak of nature.” She frowned. “Maybe I should rescind my invitation. I’m probably being selfish even asking you to come with me.”

For the first time, Adrian showed a reaction. He smiled. It was a full-bodied expression, reaching into his eyes and making them shine with a genuine warmth and depth of feeling that surprised her.

He rose to his feet in one of his smooth movements that always made her think he was much more powerful than even his extra degree of muscle definition hinted at, and stood close to her as she perched on the edge of the desk. His finger curled under her jaw and stroked and she felt the ridiculous urge to purr in reaction. Not like a cat, but like a woman in heat.

“You don’t get to take it back now, Kate,” he said. His voice was not just low, this time. There was a note in it that sounded like teasing. Or lust, maybe.

She swallowed and clamped her hand around the sharp edge of the desk to fight off the wave of sudden, heated arousal washing through her. She desperately wanted him right now. But that wasn’t how their relationship worked. It wasn’t how she wanted it to work. So she tightened her grip and stared up at him.

“But if I come with you on location, it’s going to cramp your natural style a bit, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I...How do you mean?” She was drowning in his eyes. Damn it, she was barely making sense. Kate blinked, trying to pull herself together. She frowned, replaying what he had said. “What style?”

“You like sex,” he said, one finger traveling along her jaw. “A lot.” He pressed the tip of his finger against her lips.

She let her lips part, hoping he would push his finger inside. But he pulled his hand away, instead, and just looked at her.

Kate realized he was waiting for an answer. She played back what he had said in her mind. “Sex? Doesn’t everyone like sex?”

“Not like you do. They don’t indulge themselves like you do.” He leaned forward, his head dipping down, until his lips hovered barely an inch away from hers. “They don’t use sex the way you do.”

The proximity of his lips to hers was so distracting that for a moment she could focus only on the expectation of his kiss, and what it would feel like. What he would taste like. What he might do to her next. Her mind swiftly painted a dozen different scenarios that would emerge from that single kiss, all of them explosively fast, erotic and mind-blowing.

She blinked, clearing away the fantasies. Her breath was shallow and quick, but she couldn’t slow it. Not with Adrian standing over her this way.

“How do you know about my sex life?” she breathed.

“This is the most gossipy industry in the world, Kate. I listen. And not to the tabloids. I listen to the people who know.” His breath fanned her cheek. “On location, you use sex as stress relief, just like any director does. Where do I fit into your shooting schedule? Would I be stress relief, too?”

Kate sat back, not sure if she was appalled or amused. “No!” she declared flatly. “Of course you wouldn’t.”

Adrian stepped back a half-pace. “You’re not going to have much time left over for anything else.”

She could feel her jaw unhinge. “Are you suggesting Iuseyou for...for...?”

“Stress relief,” he supplied. “And fun, relaxation, anger management, a sounding board and whatever else you use sex for. Sleeping aid is one of them, too, I suspect. It’s a long list.”

Kate stared at him, letting her mouth fall open. She was too astonished.

Adrian laughed softly at her expression. “Kate, I have eyes. I’m not stupid. The first night we met, I watched you seduce that award winner out in the car park. You pulled him into your limousine inside fifteen minutes, and you were back in the party thirty minutes later, with not a hair out of place. That night you went home with Brian...whatever his name is. The one from the cop show on TV that has someone naked every week. Every night we met after that, you had the good manners not to fuck someone on the premises, right there in front of me, but if it was clear I wasn’t going to take you home myself, you made sure you had some A list actor or potential following in your wake when you left. When I was in New York, you didn’t stay lonely, either.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t think I’d been that obvious about it. Sorry.”

“You weren’t. I’m not telling you now to make you feel guilty.”

“I don’t feel guilty.”

“Good.” He gave her another warm smile. “I imagine, when you first started making movies, it was a power thing, the sex. After decades of male producers and directors getting to screw the pretty actresses who wanted the roles, you finally got to bed all the desperate actors who wanted the part, instead.”

Kate pursed her lips, trying to hide her smile. Then she blew out her breath. “It was exactly that, at first. A power trip. A rush. I’d been in that place, as an actor. I’d even been made the offer, once.”

“What, ‘fuck me and the part is yours’?”

She nodded. “It felt really good to turn the tables. But that changed, a long time ago.”

Adrian nodded. “And now you just like it for what it is. Hot, good sex.”

“With hot, great looking men.” She bit her lip. “With no complications.” She looked Adrian in the eye.