"Rhiannon, be patient, we've waited a long time for this moment."

And then with the words barely from his lips his mouth was on me. Hot and fierce and demanding. His tongue caressed my c.l.i.t while his mouth sucked. One finger, now two, pulsed in and out of my body. My hand found his head and I clutched him. My hips bucked wildly into his mouth. The light shattered around me, and his eyes met mine one final time. I crashed over the edge and cascaded into shattered bits of light from the pleasure of his mouth on me.

I clutched him and I went over the edge again and again and again. My body jerked and spasmed with his stroke. I shuddered one final time and Sterling pulled his mouth from me. He appeared satisfied. Pleased that he'd brought me so much pleasure. I was heavy-lidded and wet and sated and yet I wanted him. I wanted him inside me. My eyes roamed over the hugeness of his c.o.c.k. His lips pressed to mine and I tasted the earthy goodness of me on his lips. My hands grasped him and his breath became uneven. He pulled his lips from mine.

"Rhiannon, we don't have to, we can wait-"

"We've waited seven years," I said. "We've waited long enough."

Sadness colored his eyes and I knew it reflected what I felt in my heart. My leaving might have been necessary for me, but the loss had been painful to us both. The way I left-the unkindness and selfishness of the choices I'd made that surrounded my departure.

Sterling closed his eyes and pressed his lips to mine but the heat was not there. Desire yes, but something in his kiss was gone. He pulled away and looked at me. A look of loss weighted his features. I understood it. I could feel the pain that clutched his heart, how intertwined the loss of me that summer was to all the other losses of that time. Fear entered his eyes. I reached my hand to his face and my fingertips caressed his strong jaw.

"Nous ne devons pas mon amour."

His arm wrapped around me and while he was still hard he did not press into me. Instead he held me, clasped his arms tightly around me. Then he reached down and pulled the blanket up from the foot of the bed and covered us both. Sadness gripped me and it seemed that we both would need to wait some more.

Sterling.

Rhiannon's body was as I remembered. Her skin soft. She tasted of summer and promises. I wanted her with a desire I hadn't felt since I'd been with her. There had been so many woman, countless women, adventures pleasurable, hedonistic, full of hot s.e.x, the s.e.x of fantasy, and yet nothing as sweet as Rhiannon. The taste of her lingered on my lips. I pulled her close to me and while my c.o.c.k throbbed my heart ached. There was a pain deep in my chest and I did not want to enter Rhiannon, to be with Rhiannon when this pain was etched on my face. Being with her would be too precious of an experience to taint it with remorse and sadness. The desire was there, but the will was gone, at least for this night.

I pressed against her. For an instant the heat of her body rekindled my want and yes, I could have her, I could take her, but I held back as I'd never held back before. We would be together when it was right and tonight was not the night, at least not for me. I'd never experienced hesitancy before with a naked woman in my arms. I pulled her closer. Her breath was soft on the arm that I clasped around her. My eyes closed. This place was safe and it was where I would stay the night.

Chapter 6.

Rhiannon.

Kiley Kepner's fifteenth birthday party was on a Friday night, and her parents had tented the entire backyard and had managed to get Kelly Clarkson to play at the party. After the party I was staying overnight with Amanda instead of returning to Malibu. Staying at the Legend's home was easier than Mama or Papa coming all the way from the ranch to pick me up and then us driving back late at night. The roads were twisty and tight and while Mama was a good driver, it was a long way. I often stayed with the Legends during the week. Mama and Joanne were like sisters and I treated the Legend home as if it were mine.

The yelling began around five a.m., or that's when I woke in Amanda's room. Amanda lay in her bed, her blanket pulled up over her nose and her eyes scrunched closed. She was not asleep. How could she sleep with the angry sounds coming from the living room? I could not make out the exact words hurled between her parents, but the loud shouts, the slamming of doors, the pounding of fists were unmistakable. It went on and on and on.

"Are you okay?"

She turned her face toward me. Her cheeks were soaked with tears. "This is all my fault."

"My parents argue, too," I said. Not like this, though. Not with the screaming and the pounding. My words were a meager attempt to soothe my dear friend. "It's not your fault."

Amanda pressed her eyes closed again. "But it is. I told Mom about-"

Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Amanda?" The rough voice on the other side of the door became softer. "Amanda, come downstairs now."

Amanda shivered beside me. "Please come with me, I can't go downstairs alone." Fear gripped her.

I followed Amanda through the hall toward the staircase. The walls were decorated with pictures of Steve Legend beside a vast array of stars and directors. We padded down the steps and stopped just inside the living room. Joanne sat on the couch in a bright blue dressing gown. Her thick black hair tumbled about her shoulders. She was spectacular to look at with her fair skin and bright blue eyes. I'd known her forever and treated her as a second mother and still, her beauty could steal my breath. This morning her eyes were red-rimmed and blotches decorated her fair skin.

The bitter smell of liquor hung in the room. Amanda grabbed my hand and pressed her fingers tight in mine.

"Amanda, tell me what you told your mother," Steve said. His voice was thick and his limbs loose. He reached out and held onto the long dark mahogany wood bar to steady himself.

Amanda's bottom lip trembled. Her mouth dropped open in shock, and her eyes flicked from her mother to her father. "I ... I ... Mommy, why? I can't-"

"Tell him," Joanne said. Her chin jutted out and her eyes, red from crying, were filled with anger. She looked from Amanda to Steve.

Amanda looked down. She reached up and wiped the tears from under her eyes and her shoulders bounced with her quiet sobs.

"Tell me!" Steve yelled. He took two steps toward Amanda. I looked up and my gaze locked onto his. He halted and took a step back. What might he have done to Amanda had I not been standing beside her?

"I ... I ..." Amanda whispered. She pulled in a deep breath and looked up. "I saw you with Anita."

"Lies!" Steve waved his hand. "You lie to your mother and to me!"

"What cause does she have to lie?" Joanne asked. "Why? To see her family destroyed? To see her mother die a thousand deaths caused by the humiliation of her father? Why, Steve? Why would our girl ever make up such a horrible thing?" Joanne stood. She walked to Amanda's side and placed her arm around Amanda's shoulder. "Besides, it's not as if it's the first time."

"You b.i.t.c.h!" The gla.s.s full of bourbon crashed against the wall. Golden drips of liquor slid down the cream paint.

"What's going on?" I turned toward the voice. Sterling stood shirtless and in sweatpants. His black hair stuck out at wild angles. He rubbed his hand over his face. His gaze caught mine and then he turned his eyes toward his warring parents.

"Your father was just leaving," Joanne said.

"Not this again," Sterling said.

"Like h.e.l.l, I am," Steve said. His voice lower and thicker.

"Like h.e.l.l you are," Joanne said. "Get out or I call the police."

"You wouldn't dare," Steve said. "What, and ruin your perfect American family facade?" Steve reached for another gla.s.s and the bottle of bourbon. "You're such a b.i.t.c.h, Joanne, all you care about is the money and the image and you're raising two children to be just like you."

Joanne stiffened. She turned to me. "Rhiannon, go upstairs with Amanda. Lock the bedroom door and call your mother. Tell her that Sterling and Amanda are coming to your house for a while." Joanne's bright blue-eyed gaze left my face and she turned toward Steve. "Tell your mother that she was always right about Steve and now, finally, he is moving out."

Amanda's sobs broke through. The tears of a broken heart. A broken heart from a broken family of which she thought she had been the cause.

"Mom-" Sterling's voice held a plea.

"Go. All three of you." Joanne's gaze landed on me. "Go call your mother, now." I nodded my head and grasped my hand around Amanda's shoulder and steered her toward the stairs. My body felt the presence of Sterling behind us.

"Don't take one step toward them, Steven," Joanne said. Her voice was strong and firm. "They are going to Gayle and Tom's until you get your things and get out."

"You can't stop me from seeing my children," Steve said. His voice was low, but pitted with a threat.

"Watch me. If you want to bed every piece of trash with a p.u.s.s.y between their legs, then you won't be spending time with my children."

My eyes fluttered open. Bright sunlight and the scent of fresh coffee greeted me. The bed was cold from where Sterling had been. I sat up and pulled the sheet around my body. Across the open room of the guesthouse, Sterling stood shirtless and poured coffee into a cup. While he had Joanne's sharp blue eyes, sharp-cut features, and black hair, his skin color was more like his father's-a bit darker than his sister's. I drank in the splendor of his muscular body.

Sometime between that most horrible of summers and now, Sterling had developed a hard edge that now protected the gentle-hearted boy I'd fallen in love with. His gaze flicked up from the two coffee cups and met mine. Heat swirled through me with the touch of his eyes.

"I wondered when you'd wake up." He carried both cups of coffee to me. A smile, so similar to his father's, broke across Sterling's face.

I reached out for the steaming cup of coffee.

"Still drink it like a dessert?" he asked.

"You remembered?" I took a sip of the sweet coffee that was light brown with cream.

Sterling sat beside me on the bed. "I remember a lot of things." His voice was rougher and the smile dropped from his face.

I lowered my eyes and concentrated on my coffee. Last night, our desire for each other hadn't been unexpected, but the sudden end to things by Sterling surprised me. Understanding crept through my body. Our shared history was so deep and so thick, and fraught with heavy unresolved events and feelings. I knew so much about his life and yet ... and yet ... we'd spent the last seven years apart.

"The last words you said to me, before you left, were 'I love you.'"

My heart jolted. An ache plundered my chest. There was no escaping this moment.

"Yes."

"Did you?"

I nodded.

"Then how could you leave? Without a word? Without a note? Never looking back?" There was no anger in his tone. His face held no emotion aside from his eyes. The Legend facade flattened out the planes of his face, but his eyes held his emotion, those eyes, those Legend eyes. With two actors as parents it was no wonder Sterling had inherited their skills.

I dropped my chin to my chest. "Sterling, it was so long ago, there's been so much life, so many years between then and now-"

"And yet here we are," Sterling said. "Me in this bed. The guesthouse bed. A favorite location for us all those years ago."

I shivered with the memory. So consumed with the drama of Steve and Joanne's disintegrating relationship followed by Joanne's illness, our families had failed to see the love affair growing between us for a long time.

"We were barely more than children, Sterling." I sought his gaze. "I was frightened, weren't you?"

Sterling nodded and sipped his coffee. The muscle in his jaw twitched and I waited for his words. I wanted to hear about how he felt, how he recovered, what he wanted from his life now. How we could get around the obstacles from our past, and whether we even wanted to try.

"Are you staying in Los Angeles?" The question seemed to hold the weight of our future. I closed my eyes. In this moment I wanted to give Sterling an answer that would let us go forward, to be together, if only for a while, but I knew. I knew from last night that Sterling was unwilling to ever let me take his heart to foreign sh.o.r.es again. His question meant more than whether I would remain in Los Angeles; his question meant whether Sterling and I would be together. My answer would determine whether he would let the swift current of our love burst free uncontained and powerful.

"I know that I'll stay in Los Angeles until Mama is healed," I said. My words came with hesitancy. I gazed at Sterling's eyes and I saw the hope that he'd held slowly slip from him. "But after Mama is well, I do not know."

His eyes hardened even with the smile on his face. "I see." Sterling set his coffee cup onto the table beside my bed. He reached out and pressed a lock of hair behind my ear. Such a kind gesture, a gesture of love, of possession, of intimacy.

"I have to go," Sterling said. "I have a meeting with my director later today." He stood and reached for his shirt. He slid it over his head. Where there had been intimacy, I now felt the weed of distance begin to grow. "Let me know when you want to come to Venice." He turned his head and nodded toward the large white wall that contained all my photos. "If this is your next series you're welcome to come down, and even stay if you like. I have a guest room."

Those words thudded into my chest. His heart was not to be mine and I knew why.

"Thank you," I said. The coffee bittered in my mouth.

Sterling turned from me and grabbed his wallet and his keys. I stood from the bed. I could keep him here. I could convince him to stay. I was certain of the link between us. I could drop the sheet that I clutched to cover my nakedness and walk across the room. Press my body and my lips to him. Sterling would stay and be mine, but I couldn't. Those actions would be as selfish as the actions of a girl who had once run away without a word. No, I cared for Sterling too much to break his heart once more, to steal away, to lie about how long I would stay or discuss my commitment to this place or to him.

Sterling walked to me. "Good-bye, Rhiannon." His lips brushed mine.

I resisted the temptation to clasp the back of his neck and pull him to me. Instead I kissed him gently and with love and then let him go.

Chapter 7.

Sterling.

My heart exploded in my chest and my throat burned. My feet pounded into the hard-packed sand near the water's edge. I'd run farther up the coast than I'd planned. The sun reached higher and higher into the sky. I'd pa.s.sed the Santa Monica pier and Annenberg Beach House. Ragged breaths burst from my body. I needed to turn around soon.

Some bets weren't worth the risk. I learned that tidbit as a teenager. This long run was my pathetic attempt to erase last night from my memory. To erase the want and the desire and to pound away the knowledge that the one woman I'd ever really wanted was in Los Angeles and available to me. This run was to force me to remember that letting Rhiannon take my heart wasn't good for me. Succ.u.mbing to the desire that screamed through every cell in my body would end in heartbreak.

Once I was with Rhiannon, I couldn't repress the feelings that would surge through me and there was no guarantee that Rhiannon would remain here. I couldn't make that bet, take that risk, because the stakes were too high. Losing Rhiannon again might be the end of me. I wasn't sure. I didn't know. But fear, edged with cold truth, told me that Rhiannon had the power to destroy me. I wanted her body, I wanted her mind, I wanted her presence in my life but I was unwilling to connect with her, to be with her, unless she was willing to be with me.

This bet wasn't worth the risk.

My phone rang and I stopped. My heart pounded in my chest. The unending Pacific lay before me. I flipped my phone over. Cami Montgomery.

h.e.l.lo," I gasped out.

"Whoa," Cami said. "Did I catch you in the middle of something good?"

"Run," I panted out. "Ocean. Run."

"Got it. Well, you listen and I'll talk, then by the time I'm done maybe you'll have your breath."

"Yep."

"Okay," Cami said. "I just got the most bizarre call for a Sat.u.r.day morning."

Anxiety unfurled in my belly.

"From?"

"Mike Fox."

The panic thickened. "Uh-huh."

"He just watched a rough cut of my film and he wants me to direct The Legend Kills for Worldwide. You know anything about this?"

Did I know anything? I circled the sand with my hand on my hip sucking in air. f.u.c.ker. Of course, I knew exactly who would pull a stunt like this.