Temptation's Kiss

Farrell laughed and took the seat closest to Patrice’s. He didn’t even glance in T.K.’s direction anymore, just looked at Patrice with a smile on his face.

“Farrell, I’d like you to meet—” T.K. said.

“Ms. Patrice Sutton,” Farrell said with a contented sigh. “I just saw you in She Fell. Wow, not only was the science-fiction story line kickin’, but you were awesome as Victoria.” He shook his head as if he were amazed that he was sitting across from the warrior-woman Victoria. “How long did it take you to get in shape for that role?”

“Six months of grueling aerobics and weight-lifting,” Patrice told him, happy to meet someone who had enjoyed She Fell. It was the film she was proudest of. A friend who was a writer had specifically written the character of Victoria for her. In the story, Victoria was sent through a man-made black hole to a warlike planet by her evil but brilliant physicist husband who got rid of all his enemies by sending them God-knows-where via the black hole. He had drugged and sent Victoria through because she was going to divorce him for infidelity. The film follows Victoria as she rises in power as a warrior. In the end, she returns to Earth and exacts revenge on her husband.

“Who’s your trainer?” Farrell asked.

“Jose Baltodano,” Patrice happily supplied. She was always willing to refer anyone who wanted to get into shape to her friend.

T.K. cleared his throat and playfully glared at Farrell. “Let me get this straight, you came over here to monopolize my date’s time?”

Farrell grinned at him. “Turnabout is fair play, my brother.”

Patrice smiled at that. T.K. had obviously flirted with Farrell’s dates in the past. Then it hit her: T.K. had referred to her as his date. She looked into his eyes. He winked at her.

“I have to protest, my brother,” he said to Farrell. “I just met Patrice myself. You could have at least given me a twenty-four-hour head start before you began poaching on my territory.”

Patrice laughed and rose. “I’ll let you fellas figure out the proper poaching etiquette while I visit the ladies’ room. Excuse me.”

She overheard Farrell say, “She’s too young for you, old man. She’ll give you a heart attack.”

“I’m willing to risk it,” said T.K.

Smiling, Patrice kept walking.

In the ladies’ room, a feminine room replete with a settee, she sat down and dialed Blanca’s number.

Blanca answered right away. “Well, how’d it go?” she asked breathlessly.

“It went very well,” Patrice said as she crossed her legs and got comfortable on the plush covered settee. “They want me.”

“I knew it!” cried Blanca, sounding happy and calculating all at once. “You didn’t accept, though?”

“No, I told them I would let them know tomorrow.”

“Why do you keep saying they and them?” asked Blanca curiously.

“Because T.K. sat in on the meeting, too,” said Patrice, calmly dropping the bomb and waiting for the explosion.

“What?” yelled Blanca. “Mark must have really liked you. This is fantastic. I don’t know if I’ll be able to wait until tomorrow for you to give them a yes.”

“Are you saying you’re going to break your cardinal rule?”

“Rules are made to be broken,” said Blanca. She laughed softly. “Patty, do you know what this means? Forget about working for two years on the sitcom and those really fine movies you’ve done that brought you a little bit of fame. They were dues you had to pay to get here. You’ve arrived!”

Patrice was laughing, too. “It feels good to be wanted.”

Blanca took a deep breath. “Where are you now? I promised a celebration, remember? Where do you want to go tonight? Anywhere you want to go, it’s my treat.”

“I hate to be a party pooper, but I’d prefer to spend a quiet evening at home. Thanks for the offer though. I’m having lunch with T.K. right now,” Patrice told her agent. She explained about having to phone a taxi and T.K.’s offer of a lift.

“His parents raised him right,” Blanca said of T.K.’s being a gentleman. “Okay, I’ll tell you what. Before you two part, assure him that you’ll be delighted to work with him, and I’ll give Mark a call about the contract.”

“Will do,” Patrice promised.

“Congratulations,” said Blanca sincerely. “I’m really proud of you.”

“Thanks, Blanca.”

After hanging up, Patrice rose to check her makeup in the wide mirror over the double sinks. A woman walked in and hurried to a stall.

Seeing nothing wrong with her face, she left the bathroom. When she got within sight of her table, she saw that Farrell had left.

T.K. got up and pulled her chair out. “Farrell remembered a previous engagement.”

Patrice met his eyes. His look was enigmatic. She wished she could have heard their conversation in her absence. “Too bad,” she said. “I’d never met him before. He seems like a nice guy.”

“He is,” T.K. assured her.

He looked up, spotted their waiter and gestured to him. “The waiter wanted to serve our meals while you were gone, but I told him to keep them warm until you got back.”

“That was considerate of you.”

“I’m a considerate guy.”

Patrice let her gaze roam over his face, admiring the strong, masculine shape of his jaw, the fullness of his lips. He smiled the whole while as though he were perfectly fine with her lusting after him with her eyes.

No harm in looking, Patrice thought. The harm comes in acting on your desires. She didn’t plan to do that. She did not become romantically involved with actors she worked with. Work was work, and play was play.

Rumor had it that T.K. didn’t share her opinion on the subject. He had been linked with a few women while they were working on a film together. He didn’t make it a habit like some actors she knew, but the fact that none of those relationships had worked out concerned her. At thirty-six, he had never been married. He could be gay. Nah, she immediately dismissed that. Back in the day it had been possible for Hollywood to hide the fact that some of its leading men—and women—were gay, but these days the tabloids uncovered anyone who was in the closet. She hated tabloid journalism, if you could call it journalism.

She realized they had been looking into each other’s eyes the past five minutes without saying a word. She laughed. “I often thought that you were mesmerizing on the big screen, but I never suspected you might be in person.”

T.K. smiled. “Does that mean you’ll be my Bella Donna?”

“I’ll be Bass Reeves’s Bella Donna,” Patrice corrected him with a wry smile.

T.K. took her hand in his and kissed her knuckles. The feel of his warm mouth on her skin made her sigh involuntarily. He raised his head and looked her in the eyes. “Same difference,” he said. “Lucky for me, it’ll be Bass Reeves kissing you but my lips doing the deed.”

“Just so you both know where not to put your hands,” joked Patrice. T.K. laughed.

The waiter arrived at that moment and served their meals.

Patrice wound up spending a quiet night at home. After phoning family and friends to tell them of her good fortune, she reread the script to Bass Reeves, Lawman. Blanca phoned to say she’d spoken with Mark Greenberg and that the lawyers were working on the contract. He promised that it would be in Blanca’s hands in a matter of days.

Patrice was curled up on the sofa in the living room of her modest bungalow. She was wearing shorts and a tank top because it was warm tonight. The house had air-conditioning but she rarely turned it on unless the temperature rose to the nineties. She liked to sleep with her windows open. It was something she might not do if she lived in greater Los Angeles, but the Beverly Hills police boasted that they could be at your door within a minute of being summoned. She had not had the opportunity to test that boast.

As she read, she found herself chuckling from time to time. The Western was an action/adventure, but it had funny moments, especially the exchanges between Bella and Bass who seemed to love arguing as much as they did making love.

When she got to the love scene, she let out a groan. It was hot. She and T.K. would have to be practically naked. Of course, key parts of their bodies would be concealed from the eyes of those present on the set during the filming of it. But she knew that to the audience it would appear that she and T.K. had been completely nude during the filming. She had never done a nude scene. She panicked. What would her parents think? What would the people at the church she’d gone to when she was growing up say? Her family still attended that church!

She got up, fanning herself with the script. How could she have missed that scene when she had read the script before? She blamed it on her habit of skimming over the directions in the script in favor of her character’s dialogue. There was no dialogue in the love scene. There was only direction: where T.K. would put his hands; where, when and how she was to moan as if in ecstasy.

She looked over at the clock on the mantel above the fireplace. It was 9:13 p.m. Blanca didn’t usually go to bed this early. Blanca had made a copy of the script for her personal use. She grabbed her cell phone from the coffee table and dialed her number.

As soon as Blanca answered, she cried, “Did you read the love scene?”

“Fabulous, isn’t it?” Blanca said sleepily. “I haven’t read anything that perfectly erotic in a long time. It’s a mature scene with two people who truly love each other. It’s tender because it’s goodbye for them, even though neither of them is aware of it. Bella gets killed the next day. It’s the kind of scene people are going to be talking about for a long time, especially women. Bella directs him. She shows him how to love her like she wants to be loved, and Bass is more than willing to oblige. I tell you, women are going to fast-forward to that scene when it comes out on DVD again and again and live vicariously through you.”

“I don’t know if I want them to live vicariously through me!”

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet,” said Blanca with an indulgent laugh. “Do you know how many actresses would kill you to replace you in that scene?”

“I’m sure there would be quite a few,” Patrice admitted. “I’m still leery about showing so much skin.”

“No, you’re nervous about portraying a black woman as a sexual being,” Blanca lightly accused, her tone still humorous. “Patty, I understand your reticence, but think of the portrayals of black women in Oscar-winning roles. You’ve got a maid, a psychic who was the comic relief and a tortured soul who has an affair with the white man who was one of the guards on duty when her husband was executed. There is no example of a black woman loving a black man the way he should be loved. Sleep on that, and call me tomorrow. I’m your friend as well as your agent. If you really don’t want to do the role, then I’ll start looking for something better for you.”

Patrice sat down hard on the couch. Blanca was right. There was so much negativity out there where black men and women were concerned. Moviegoers needed more positive examples of black men loving black women. Sex was a normal, healthy part of being in love with someone. The manner in which it was expressed in the script was not salacious or pornographic.

She took a deep breath. “I don’t have to sleep on it. I want to do it. I just panicked for a moment, there. Sorry to wake you.”

“I wasn’t asleep,” Blanca denied.

“Blanca, I’ve been calling you and waking you up for a few years now. I know how you sound when you first wake up.”

Blanca laughed. “All right, you got me. Good night, chica.”

“Good night,” Patrice said softly, feeling a lot better about the script. She hung up the phone, picked up the script, sat down and continued reading. Bella was killed the next day. Good death scene, Patrice thought. She died bravely. Later in the script, Bass avenged Bella’s murder.

Tears were in Patrice’s eyes when she finished reading. She wondered what T.K. was doing at that moment. Had his flirting been genuine? Or had he done it just because he knew women expected him to be charming and attentive when they were with him?

Chapter 4

That night, T.K. was running on the beach near his house in Malibu. He liked running at night when the world around him was quieter. He liked running on the beach because of the extra resistance the damp sand provided. He got a better workout. An added bonus was that the sound of the ocean soothed him.

He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, shorts and running shoes. Much of the heat of the day had dissipated, but it was still a temperate seventy-five degrees out. Sam, his golden retriever, sneezed next to him, and T.K. laughed. “What’s the matter, boy, am I kicking up too much sand for you?”

Sam, of course, didn’t answer but happily ran on beside his human. They were only a half mile from the house. T.K. would be sure to spoil him a little tonight—maybe give him one of those doggy ice-cream treats he loved so much.

Now that Malcolm was gone, Sam was his only housemate. When he was alive Malcolm had loved to care for Sam. Sometimes T.K. would walk into the living room and find man and dog sitting in front of the TV watching some inane comedy, Malcolm laughing uproariously and Sam smiling. Occasionally, when he would go into the living room now, he would expect to find Malcolm there. He supposed it would take his mind a while to accept that his brother was gone forever.

At the house, he and Sam jogged up the back steps of the house that led from the beach. He doffed his shoes on the balcony. He didn’t want to track sand into the house. Sam patiently stood while he wiped him off with an old towel he kept on the balcony for that purpose. They entered the house through the kitchen entrance.

He got a bottle of water from the fridge and poured some in Sam’s dish for him and drank the rest. Then he began the trek upstairs. Although the house was big at five thousand square feet, it wasn’t ostentatious. He preferred clean lines, and possessions weren’t that important to him. The furnishings were expensive only because he thought you got what you paid for. He was a big man, and the last thing he wanted to worry about was his bed collapsing under him because it was cheaply made. He was sensible in that way.

Sam followed him all the way to his bedroom. At the door, he turned to the dog and said, “I’ll be down in a few minutes. I want to shower, and then I’ll give you a good brushing and a treat for being such a trouper tonight.”

Sam peered up at him as though he understood him perfectly, whined, turned around and padded back downstairs.

T.K. walked over to the nightstand next to the side of the bed where he slept and pressed the message button on the answering machine. His mother had phoned while he was out. “Your father and I are going to New York for the weekend and will be leaving Aisha alone in the house. If you would call her to check on her once or twice while we’re gone, we would appreciate it.”

T.K. dreaded doing that. Aisha turned into a sultry vixen when she spoke with him over the phone. It was as if she lost the ability to speak normally. Why she thought he wanted to hear his brother’s girlfriend cooing in his ear, he could not imagine. Trying to sound sexy wasn’t going to make him warm up to her. He kept his distance because whenever she looked at him there was a hungry, predatory expression in her eyes.

He hated to put a pregnant woman in her place, but if it continued he was going to have to bluntly do so.

The next message was from Mark. “I just got off the phone with Blanca Mendes, Patrice’s agent. That’s one formidable lady. She’s sensible too, though. They didn’t ask for any outrageous perks, but she made sure to protect her client’s rights. Patrice will be able to start in late August when we begin filming. She has another film that begins rolling in March, though, so we need to be finished with her scenes before then. I don’t anticipate running over schedule, but you never can anticipate the elements, and you’re going to be in the Badlands. Have a good night.”

T.K. had been pulling off his clothes as he listened. Naked, he strode into the bathroom and turned on the water in the shower. Patrice Sutton. He tried not to think too much about her. She was so sweet. When he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, he imagined he could still smell the enticing scent of her.

It was too soon after his breakup with Edina to consider allowing another woman to get close to him. He knew most people expected the male in a relationship to have a roving eye, but in theirs it had been Edina who had cheated on him—repeatedly. Plus, she had had the gall to blame him. His schedule, she accused, didn’t allow them enough time to grow as a couple. What she meant was he wasn’t there every night to satisfy her sexual needs. Well, she hadn’t been with him every night to satisfy his needs either, but he hadn’t gone out and found some willing substitute for her. To be truthful with himself, he was more embarrassed than heartbroken because he had suspected for some time now that Edina, who was an actress, was with him only to further her career. He wasn’t conceited enough, even though he was admittedly a fine example of a black male, to believe that he could be the complete answer to a woman’s prayers. No man was that perfect. A woman had to be happy with her life without a man in it before she could find happiness with a man. She needed to know what she wanted out of life and be willing to sacrifice for it. That was Edina’s problem. She wanted instant gratification. She wasn’t willing to work for happiness and didn’t care who she hurt in her efforts to coast through life.

When he was feeling particularly depressed he would ask himself if he had been a better lover whether she would have cheated. Then he would remind himself that he was never a selfish lover. When they made love, he had given her his full attention. Now he knew how women felt when men cheated on them: dignity and self-worth take a beating. The truth was cheaters will stray no matter how well their significant others perform in bed. They’re selfish and greedy, always looking for the next thrill.

He wasn’t about the next thrill any longer. In this fake world in which he made a living, there were too many people who were looking for a thrill, ready to provide one or had enjoyed one too many and had ended up dead, broke or both.

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