Her Leading Man (22 page)

But again, he couldn’t think of an appropriate
comment.
He
agreed with her, but it wasn’t right to say
so. It would be ungentlemanly to
admit to how much
he wanted to make love to her. Martin had always
prided himself on
being a gentleman, even in the face
of the new morality that seemed determined
to bulldoze
its way into the motion picture community. Telling
a woman to whom he
wasn’t married that he
wanted to ravish her was definitely not a
gentlemanly
thing to do.

“
I want
to make love with you, Martin.”

It was as if a bomb exploded in Martin’s brain.
He stared at
Christina in pure awe.

Merciful heavens, you’ve done it now Christina
Mayhew
.

She took note of Martin’s shocked face and
thought the rest of
him looked as if it had been
turned into a pillar of stone. She thought acidly
that
this
must be how Medusa felt after cementing her
victims to the earth, except there
were no snakes involved
in this instance.

W
as she wicked to have said such a
thing?

Of course she was. She sighed, wondering if she
should take it back.
Probably she should. After all,
respectable females didn’t say such things
aloud.
Heck,
they didn’t even think them, according to popular
dicta.

But no.
Darn
it, she was an honest person,
and
she
wasn’t going to take it back. All people, including
women, felt sexual
urges. Such impulses were built
into human physiology, and it was both
ridiculous
and prudish to deny that they existed, no matter
what
society
thought. Women were human. Women, therefore,
had just as many urges as did
men. Almost as
many. Christina had yet to meet a woman who behaved
like a rutting pig,
as the Pablo Orozcos of the
world did.

Because she was both surprised and uncomfortable
by her own
declaration, it didn’t take her long to resent
Martin’s stunned demeanor and
prolonged silence.
She said snappishly, “Don’t pretend to be
shocked, Martin.
Darn it, you feel the same way, and
I know it.”

He swallowed convulsively. “Er, yes. Yes, I do feel
the same way, but .
. .” His voice trailed off.

Christina thought bitterly that he probably wanted
to offer a
disclaimer
.
He wanted to say,
but I
shouldn’t
. Or maybe,
but you shouldn’t say
so
. If
he
said
anything about it being unladylike to admit to
harboring human passions, she
might just have to
thump him
.

Good heavens, she really was turning into her
grandmother. She
closed her eyes and tried to gather
her wits together. They preferred
remaining scattered,
blast them.

Fine. Christina could manage quite well without
her wits. The good
Lord
knew
that men did so all
the time. Lifting her chin, she
said, “We’re both
adults, Martin. There’s nothing—” She’d been going
to say “shameful,”
but nixed it. She guessed what
she’d said might be considered shameful by
some
narrow-minded individuals. “There’s nothing unusual
about experiencing
these feelings.”

There. That was
not only true, but immensely commonsensical.

He swallowed again. “I—I suppose you’re
ri
ght.
But—well, people don’t generally talk about
them,
right
out in the open.”

She felt her lips tighten. “No,” she said in a
rigidly
controlled voice. “They don’t, do they?”

He shook his head, as if he didn’t want to try to
talk anymore.
Christina, on the other hand, felt the
words building up behind her teeth.
What’s more,
since she’d already said the most shocking thing
she’d
been
thinking, she decided she might as well complete
her moral
destruction in Martin’s mind by spilling
the rest of the batch.

“
And,
quite frankly, I don’t know why they don’t.”

His mouth
dropped open before it snapped shut.

A pain had started hammering in Christina’s chest,
and it made her
angry. She
knew it was there because
she was afraid her shocking declaration
had turned
Martin against her.

She went on in a rush. “Because, while I know
it’s considered
impolite, I believe that people owe
each other honesty. I also know, because
I’ve studied
both human anatomy and human psychology, that all
human beings
experience carnal desires.”

Christina also believed, although it wasn’t well
documented, that
most human beings longed for more
than that. They wanted emotional
commitment. In
short, they craved love. She wouldn’t say so. While
she might be willing
to admit to perfectly natural
physical cravings, she’d die before she admitted
to
her
emotional needs.

“
I—I—”
Martin
swallowed yet again.
“I don’t think
I know what to say.”

She sat up straight and stared him directly in the
eye. She wasn’t
going to give an inch
,
mainly because
she felt she’d made
a blazing ass of herself.

“
You might tell the truth,” she said tartly. “If
you
desire me, and I desire you, there’s nothing
shameful
in
it.”

Well, unless—but Christina opted not to go into
society’s guidelines
and injunctions. She’d already defied
convention too much today.

“
Oh, I desire you.” He said it with a smile
that
made Christina want to crawl straight across the
table
and rip
his clothes off his back. “But I don’t necessarily
think it’s a good
thing to admit it aloud.”

She
blinked at him “Why not?

He heaved a sigh. “Because
. .
.
well, it
seems somehow
disrespectful to you, Christina.”

“
Disrespectful?” She stared at him,
dumbfounded.
“What’s disrespectful about telling a woman you find
her desirable? I
find it rather flattering, actually
.
”

Blast it, she was blushing. She’d bet anything that
her grandmother had
never blushed in her whole life,
but here she sat, Christina Mayhew,
modern, independent
feminist female and future physician, and she
was blushing because
a man desired her
.
Or maybe
that wasn’t the reason. Maybe it was
because he’d
said so to her face, which would disrupt her whole
line of
argument
.

Bothe
r.
She was getting all mixed up. If only
her
chest
would stop aching, she might be able to concentrate
bette
r.

“
Anyhow,” Martin continued, flinging out a
hand
in a gesture that conveyed confusion to his audience
of
one
,
“where would the world be if human beings
didn’t control their
emotions and desires, but acted
on all of them?”

The world would be in a bloody mess, she decided
instantly. She
couldn’t say so. She thought for a minute.
“Good question. But inappropriate to
this situation,
I think “

He cocked his head, and his smile heated up a
degree or two. If it
got very much hotter, Christina
would probably melt. “Do you? I think I’m
afraid
to ask
why.”

“
I’m not afraid to answer, even if you’re afraid
to
ask,” she retorted. “We’re two adult human beings,
Martin. We both know
enough about the world and
its pitfalls to have seen what happens when
people
allow
their emotions and actions to progress unbridled.
We each have goals
and ambitions, and are both
intelligent enough not to allow our passions—and
I
use that
word on purpose in this context—to get in
our respective ways toward achieving
them.”

Good heavens, how had she got into this? She
didn’t know but
decided she’d already sunk too
deeply to try to wriggle out now. Instead, she
lifted
her
chin another fraction of an inch, stiffened her
spine so hard she feared it
might crack in two, and
plowed forward.

“
That being the case, I don’t see any harm in
two
people who share those characteristics conducting a
discreet—um
. . .
” Blast it all, why did she have to go
and get tongue-tied
now?
Giving
herself a hard mental
shake, she blurted out, “That is to say there’s
no
law
barring two adults who desire each other from
conducting a circumspect
affair.”

There. She’d said it. And she wished she could
crawl under the
table and hide until one of God’s
lightning bolts struck her
dead.

A thick, heavy silence greeted her declaration. It
lasted so long,
Christina had to brace every muscle
in her body to keep from writhing in an
agony of
embarrassment.

She tried to console herself with the knowledge
that she’d told only
what she perceived to be the
truth. Human moral behavior was dependent
upon
such a
variety of conditions that there could be n
o
one
single standard for every human being on earth.
Cultural moral standards varied
wildly. She knew it
intellectually, but she was having a devil of a time
believing it
emotionally. She was positive Martin
would turn from
her in disgust any second
now
.

He didn’t. After staring at her, looking as if he
couldn’t actually
credit the scandalous pronouncements
that had just issued from her lips, he
cleared
his
throat. “Um, how old are you, Christina?”

She actually saw red for a couple of seconds.
Interesting
phenomenon, that. She figured there must
be a physiological
explanation for it, but she was in
no condition to ponder it now. She burst
out, “What
difference does my age make?”

When the bartender glanced at the two of them,
she realized she’d
shouted her question, so she leaned
forward and hissed, “My age doesn’t matter
a hill
of
beans, Martin Tafft. In case it’s escaped your attention,
I’m a very smart
woman. I’m a darned sight
smarter than most of the actors you’ve come
across
in
your career, and you know it as well as I do.”

He nodded. “Yes. I do know it. And I don’t
understand
what your intelligence has to do with anything.”
His smile
seemed
both spontaneous and
sincere.
“There. You see? We’re approaching
this
from
opposite ends of the spectrum. You don’t see
what age has to do with it, and
I don’t see what
intelligence has to do with it.”

Blast him! How could he sound so reasonable under
these
circumstances?.
She scowled at him, unable
to think of a suitable rejoinder. Her
emotions were
in a state the likes of which Christina had never
experienced.
She
was most uncomfortable.

“
Therefore,” Martin continued, his voice
conciliatory
and his expression soft and very gentle, “I
think we’d best
shelve this discussion until another
time. Some time when we’re both thinking
more
clearly.”

“
I see.” She felt as stiff as she sounded. “You
believe
this is a momentary aberration and will fade
away with
time.”